GoT Season 8 Discussion [Spoiler Warning]

[tp4tissue]

Just saw dat Ep1..

Overall, Willing to excuse the slower pace, as perhaps it is the calm Before the Storm.

But,  Given that there will only be 6 episodes..  What has transpired in the Ep1 is a bit distressing ?

Ur thoughts ?

[Leslieann]

One thing that constantly amazes me poorly it's paced from episode to episode, it's a good show otherwise.

Loved the dragon stare.
Anyone else lost their love for Sansa? Seriously, I'm ready to feed her to a dragon and be done with her.

[tp4tissue]

I think it's cuz Sansa has developed into that evil-step-mother look.

[Findecanor]

I'm not reading what you say. I just want to jump quickly into the thread and say what I do.
In seasons 1 through 5, each season has represented one book in A Song of Ice and Fire. Then the stories diverged in season 6 ... possibly: I believe that there could still be some cross-pollination between the book series and the TV series: It is not as if George R R Martin is still not involved in the series.
I had started by reading the books, back before the series had started, so that is the original for me. Therefore, I am holding off watching seasons 6 and later until the book series has concluded. Spoil me and die. Thank you.

[thearctican]

One thing that constantly amazes me poorly it's paced from episode to episode, it's a good show otherwise.

Loved the dragon stare.
Anyone else lost their love for Sansa? Seriously, I'm ready to feed her to a dragon and be done with her.

Lost it a long time ago. I'm mostly just annoyed by her now.

[Leslieann]

Spoil me and die. Thank you.

Or you know, you could stay out of threads that threaten to have spoilers right in the title.

[tp4tissue]

Very upset over the LACK of -things happening-..  only 4 more episodes....

[Kokaloo]

Very upset over the LACK of -things happening-..  only 4 more episodes....

Hey man it's 8 years of character development leading to the final season for some closure. Characters gotta show how they developed somehow. It could be written and spaced out a bit better, but I get HBO wants to save entire episodes for movie-budget epic battle sequences, so they're just dedicating entire episodes to dialogue. Next few episodes are gonna hurt, and they're setting them up to be as impactful as possible.

[noisyturtle]

Very upset over the LACK of -things happening-..  only 4 more episodes....

There's only 5 episodes for the final season? That doesn't sound right.

[Leslieann]

Very upset over the LACK of -things happening-..  only 4 more episodes....

There's only 5 episodes for the final season? That doesn't sound right.

6 for this season.

Personally, I thought ep.2 was good.

[Krytone]

i think both ep are good and just trying to end the secrets slowly. then after the 2 episodes, all out action is going to happen. Also, i kinda like the Sansa now as they are trying to introduce her as the more intelligent decision maker of the group. I actually tot she is to be made hand of the queen on ep 2.

[azhdar]

The last 4 episodes remaining will be 80 minutes long.
Next one was made by the same guy that did the episode "Battle of the bastards" we can hope for some action.

[tp4tissue]

The last 4 episodes remaining will be 80 minutes long.
Next one was made by the same guy that did the episode "Battle of the bastards" we can hope for some action.

I'm hoping it's -classy- action,  and not just throw money at it -action-

[CommonCurt]

The show creators should have never decided to make the last two seasons 5/6 episodes. Why did they feel the need to rush the ending to what will probably be the most popular work they'll ever do?

I mean they could have just made season 7 & 8 the full ten episodes a piece, and wouldn't have had to make the story line so much faster paced (especially season 7) than seasons 1-6.

I still like the show. It's just a little jarring.
It  doesn't make sense to me why they thought it would be a good idea.

[Kokaloo]

The last 4 episodes remaining will be 80 minutes long.
Next one was made by the same guy that did the episode "Battle of the bastards" we can hope for some action.

I'm hoping it's -classy- action,  and not just throw money at it -action-

If it's capable of holding a candle to The Battle of the Bastards then I would be satisfied!

[azhdar]

We just need to accept a lot of people are gonna die next week.

[tp4tissue]

It's only saturday..   Am already very Nervous... What if it's not good guys.. what if they drop the ball,  my emotions can't take it.

The previous 2 , so lame.. 

[tp4tissue]

ALSO,  what is up with the Crappy bitrate/ Compression.

Caught by surprise that such a high production show would be piped with severe banding artifacts/ bitstarve compression, macroblocking..

img/twitter.

[Leslieann]

The previous 2 , so lame.. 

I liked the second one.

ALSO,  what is up with the Crappy bitrate/ Compression.

Learn where to find better copies.

[tp4tissue]

The previous 2 , so lame.. 

I liked the second one.

ALSO,  what is up with the Crappy bitrate/ Compression.

Learn where to find better copies.

Have looked @ all the copies,  all show compression banding on dark scenes.

[Leslieann]

Have looked @ all the copies,  all show compression banding on dark scenes.

Apparently not all.

Anyhow, HBO was bought out recently and the new owners really want to ramp up profits (and are being quite aggressive about it), being their top show and the last season, I suspect they are cracking down on download sites harder than ever.

[tp4tissue]

A very exciting hour. Good CGI.. 

Dark scene video banding artifacts still rampant.   Overall , ep3 is much more satisfying than previous ep1/2.


Spoiler
The conclusion of the episode felt a bit rushed..

[xtrafrood]

Season 8: I've hated, known apathy, and rolled in the mudz

[romevi]

A very exciting hour. Good CGI.. 

Dark scene video banding artifacts still rampant.   Overall , ep3 is much more satisfying than previous ep1/2.


Spoiler
The conclusion of the episode felt a bit rushed..

(Attachment Link)

(Attachment Link)

My TV was fine. I had no issue seeing the dark scenes.

(I have a 55" Samsung UHD.)

[Leslieann]

I think Tp needs to find better pirate sites, how big was that file, 140MB?  )
It's supposed to be dark and hard to see but not THAT bad.

Some battle scenes were a bit long (PACING!) and that time could have been used to give us a bit more time at the end to better know ho lived and who died.

Awesome (if predictable) episode otherwise.

[tp4tissue]

I think Tp needs to find better pirate sites, how big was that file, 140MB?  )
It's supposed to be dark and hard to see but not THAT bad.

Some battle scenes were a bit long (PACING!) and that time could have been used to give us a bit more time at the end to better know ho lived and who died.

Awesome (if predictable) episode otherwise.

The file is VBR, but peaks ~10mbit, no less than most streams.

You guys must have TV post-processing turned on.  Which would give you some debanding

Tp4 watching in Rawh-mode.

[Leslieann]

Nope, disabled that just to check, not sure it made a difference one way or the other to be honest.

You seem intent on getting all this great quality using cheap methods but refuse to use the cheapest option available, software. If post processing fixed it and made it more enjoyable for you, why are you not using it rather than complaining about how bad your 'good" equipment seems to play it. I can understand wanting good quality if you are putting this in your library and plan to watch it a few times, but I highly doubt that.

[tp4tissue]

We typically do not want to deband streaming content, because it chews deeply into texture detail. blurring out high frequency information.

Turning on deband in this case, would be equivalent of watching an even-More reduced bitrate presentation.

Banding problems should really be handled on the Encoding end, before the release to consumer.



This may change in the future given more advanced AI upscaling. Currently only $2500 tvs have something like that, and it's not yet very good.

[azhdar]

Was hard to watch on my old projector, the black didn't look that good.
fire lady mvp. Made the show watchable.
other than that, OK episode, it was intense to watch but few things just felt wrong and the ending was downright stupid.
- sam should have died 13 times this episode already
- crypts was so obvious it wasn't even interesting, none of the main characters in their even got in danger,
- bran "me am so smart, the night is coming for me" => lmao ima play raven simulator while u protect my ass
- just throw your light horse mounted soldier right into an unseen army, great tactician strategy, it was for a great effect but still so freaking dumb
- rushed and cut out fighting scene + dark, almost impossible to watch
- where the **** did Arya came from ? She can fly now ? Felt stupid
- almost didn't see Pod or blacksmith guy

good parts :
- hound and arya scenes
- jorah epic ending
- theon epic ending
- tyrion + sansa
- lyanna mormont

[xtrafrood]

- sam should have died 13 times this episode already

^

[vegs]

Was hard to watch on my old projector, the black didn't look that good.
fire lady mvp. Made the show watchable.
other than that, OK episode, it was intense to watch but few things just felt wrong and the ending was downright stupid.
- sam should have died 13 times this episode already
- crypts was so obvious it wasn't even interesting, none of the main characters in their even got in danger,
- bran "me am so smart, the night is coming for me" => lmao ima play raven simulator while u protect my ass
- just throw your light horse mounted soldier right into an unseen army, great tactician strategy, it was for a great effect but still so freaking dumb
- rushed and cut out fighting scene + dark, almost impossible to watch
- where the **** did Arya came from ? She can fly now ? Felt stupid
- almost didn't see Pod or blacksmith guy

good parts :
- hound and arya scenes
- jorah epic ending
- theon epic ending
- tyrion + sansa
- lyanna mormont

yee the plot armor in this ep was crazy

Also pretty sure Arya was just being sneaky af. I think Jon saw her running when he tried screaming that dragon to death )

[tp4tissue]

It seems Best buy has the GOT season 8 on preorder.  Don't know if they used a 4K Digital Intermediate thoguh,  The first season 4K release was an upscale.

[CommonCurt]

Was hard to watch on my old projector, the black didn't look that good.
fire lady mvp. Made the show watchable.
other than that, OK episode, it was intense to watch but few things just felt wrong and the ending was downright stupid.
- sam should have died 13 times this episode already
- crypts was so obvious it wasn't even interesting, none of the main characters in their even got in danger,
- bran "me am so smart, the night is coming for me" => lmao ima play raven simulator while u protect my ass
- just throw your light horse mounted soldier right into an unseen army, great tactician strategy, it was for a great effect but still so freaking dumb
- rushed and cut out fighting scene + dark, almost impossible to watch
- where the **** did Arya came from ? She can fly now ? Felt stupid
- almost didn't see Pod or blacksmith guy

good parts :
- hound and arya scenes
- jorah epic ending
- theon epic ending
- tyrion + sansa
- lyanna mormont

I pretty much agree with everything you said.  Oh, and it wasn't just your projector.   

Most of the fight scenes were hard to see even on a tv.  I guess they assumed everyone has OLED tv's now?

[tp4tissue]

What I'm hoping is,  that wasn't the entirety of their CGI budget. !!

Hopefully LESS DARK.. LESS BANDING..  M()AR Dragons

[tp4tissue]

n000p , Still really bad banding..

[tp4tissue]

This show is Probably color graded on OLED reference monitors.. Which would explain the Insane Blk lvl requirement to display dark scenes correctly.

Most normal LCD tonemapping would blow up the dark and make the whole scene a grey patch.

It looks fine on my CRT,  which has 10,000+ : 1 contrast ratio on dark scenes.

[tp4tissue]

Hnnnng... Having trouble visualizing that they'd be able to wrap this up tidily in only 2 more episodes..

[noisyturtle]

I agree that episode was planned poorly. Yeah the battle is supposed to take place at night, but they should have adjusted it properly for the viewer in editing. After all, it is a show meant to be viewed, it's not a video game. They enjoyment comes from beholding the spectacle, not being part of it. They spent 55 days and a large portion of the budget shooting a scene at night, then didn't bother to properly edit it for viewing. It was an extremely poorly planned and stupid decision by a pompous director. I'm curious how much footage they had to scrap due to it not being usable because of visibility. Although the director talked big about everyone else being wrong, I would bet my left ball he had some regrets when he sat down to edit the footage and saw how dark it was. I think he just got caught up in an idea and moment, then didn't want to back down on it.

[Leslieann]

Hnnnng... Having trouble visualizing that they'd be able to wrap this up tidily in only 2 more episodes..

They have 3 hours left, most movies are half that, it's plenty of time to clear it up especially if you use lazy writing, which they would obviously never do.   

Really they just need one for the next battle and then one episode figure out who rules and tie up loose ends. Is it quick? Yes, but look at the buildup the fight with the Whites, they made it out that this was going to be massive and it lasted one episode. Plus, I have a sneaking suspicion Danys claim to the throne is going to be moot before they come to an all out war between her and John.

Or they could be really sneaky and save the last bit for a movie... Which would probably premier 2 years from now.

[tp4tissue]

They have 3 hours left, most movies are half that, it's plenty of time to clear it up especially if you use lazy writing, which they would obviously never do.   

Really they just need one for the next battle and then one episode figure out who rules and tie up loose ends. Is it quick? Yes, but look at the buildup the fight with the Whites, they made it out that this was going to be massive and it lasted one episode. Plus, I have a sneaking suspicion Danys claim to the throne is going to be moot before they come to an all out war between her and John.

Or they could be really sneaky and save the last bit for a movie... Which would probably premier 2 years from now.

I was hoping the ice king would just kill them all, Far more Realistic.. 

Then Aliens/Predator mashup, and Terminators Time travel back , Cyborg Dragons , Somehow Last-Action Hero plot + Robocop

But u know.. It's HBO, they're all about secs.

[azhdar]

This episode was OK, I liked a lot the buffet scene. Besides the Stackbucks cup. Like c'mon how do you miss that?

But the lazy writing gets annoying:
- me khaleesi me fly on dragons me can't see all the boat from a distance, duh
  one dragon get sniped by 3 arrows but the other one avoid 40 of them duh
  me khaleesi me front the boats, me can't attack from behind where the scorpions are useles, and where dragon could have burn down the boats duh
- Missandei's ending
- Lannisters's brother + Bronn scene. Why are  they in a godamn tavern ?

I still like the show a lot.

Ending seems quite obvious to me:
- Jaime Brienne ends Tragically
- Arya kills Cersei
- Fight between The Hound and his zombie brother
- Dany goes mad because afterall she's a Targaryen, she was fine and smart for 8 seasons but now she wants to burn down the plebs duh. Lazy writing smh. Jon won't let this go.
- Sansa dunno
- Tyrion dunno, maybe he ends up with Sansa ?
- Cersei, maybe Euron will realise Cersei is lying about the baby. I mean how could Tyrion know about her pregnancy ?
- Euron vs her sister ? That would be cool

[noisyturtle]

Did anyone else hear a weird noise at 44:45 of episode 2? Right after Tyrion says the words, "It's strange, isn't it?" there is a weird noise that sounds like echoing words faintly.

[Leslieann]

- Arya kills Cersei

This would be EXTREMELY lazy writing, they blew the chance to do that when they had Arya kill the White King. She can't be the go to problem solver for everything. I wouldn't put it past them, but it would be stupid to do so.

[noisyturtle]

I agree that episode was planned poorly. Yeah the battle is supposed to take place at night, but they should have adjusted it properly for the viewer in editing. After all, it is a show meant to be viewed, it's not a video game. They enjoyment comes from beholding the spectacle, not being part of it. They spent 55 days and a large portion of the budget shooting a scene at night, then didn't bother to properly edit it for viewing. It was an extremely poorly planned and stupid decision by a pompous director. I'm curious how much footage they had to scrap due to it not being usable because of visibility. Although the director talked big about everyone else being wrong, I would bet my left ball he had some regrets when he sat down to edit the footage and saw how dark it was. I think he just got caught up in an idea and moment, then didn't want to back down on it.

Yeah so I just actually watched the episode and thought it was fairly good. If anything the use of color and darkness were completely tonally appropriate for the episode, and I was completely wrong. That'll show me to base that entire opinion on the episode preview I watched )
Some bits were a bit obscured not completely by design, but I think ultimately people were complaining because it took a departure from the usual feel for something a bit more stylized.

[tp4tissue]

I agree that episode was planned poorly. Yeah the battle is supposed to take place at night, but they should have adjusted it properly for the viewer in editing. After all, it is a show meant to be viewed, it's not a video game. They enjoyment comes from beholding the spectacle, not being part of it. They spent 55 days and a large portion of the budget shooting a scene at night, then didn't bother to properly edit it for viewing. It was an extremely poorly planned and stupid decision by a pompous director. I'm curious how much footage they had to scrap due to it not being usable because of visibility. Although the director talked big about everyone else being wrong, I would bet my left ball he had some regrets when he sat down to edit the footage and saw how dark it was. I think he just got caught up in an idea and moment, then didn't want to back down on it.

Yeah so I just actually watched the episode and thought it was fairly good. If anything the use of color and darkness were completely tonally appropriate for the episode, and I was completely wrong. That'll show me to base that entire opinion on the episode preview I watched )
Some bits were a bit obscured not completely by design, but I think ultimately people were complaining because it took a departure from the usual feel for something a bit more stylized.

/Headscratch ,  did you see the last 7 seasons ?  They're all DARK

[p_blaze]

ep 4 was amazingly lazy writing

the show is now at a point where I hope there is eventually a reboot for this season

[noisyturtle]

ep 4 was amazingly lazy writing

the show is now at a point where I hope there is eventually a reboot for this season

so Danerys' army got washed up on shore, many of her men dead, killed her dragon, then they cut to her in a war room with a big wooden table in a stone castle? Like what? Then she's right back there in front of King's Landing. What?

[p_blaze]

ep 4 was amazingly lazy writing

the show is now at a point where I hope there is eventually a reboot for this season

so Danerys' army got washed up on shore, many of her men dead, killed her dragon, then they cut to her in a war room with a big wooden table in a stone castle? Like what? Then she's right back there in front of King's Landing. What?

pretty much

with any common sense cersei would have just used her 30 massive-ass bows to murder the bunch of morons who walked up to them...

[noisyturtle]

ep 4 was amazingly lazy writing

the show is now at a point where I hope there is eventually a reboot for this season

so Danerys' army got washed up on shore, many of her men dead, killed her dragon, then they cut to her in a war room with a big wooden table in a stone castle? Like what? Then she's right back there in front of King's Landing. What?

pretty much

with any common sense cersei would have just used her 30 massive-ass bows to murder the bunch of morons who walked up to them...

Or how they totally disregarded all of Jamie's character arc, even right up to that very episode. Then just said **** it, he loves Cersei more than everything we wrote previously. And how did Braun get to Winterfell DURING A GIANT BATTLE overnight? What? And why did Cersei say specifically "Leave the gates open so they have to slaughter innocents." then leave the gates shut like that scene/point meant nothing? What?

and then yeah, the Unsullied just stand there within range of the crossbows that just killed a friggin dragon? What?

Bad episode. The feast scene was good, but that's about it.

[tp4tissue]

pretty much

with any common sense cersei would have just used her 30 massive-ass bows to murder the bunch of morons who walked up to them...

Well, there's a mixed- reality situation here.

In the real world, You'd assume they'd just kill people at these truce-meetings because in the Fiction world, the Hero Unit is portrayed as pivotal to the army/nation's power.

But, actually, Real world Real world, it makes no difference if those people die, because their next in command, or someone else from the ruling family structure would just take their place, and the battle would be fought anyway.  This is why these truce meetings are able to take place at all.


So, while in the PLOT as laid out, it would make more sense to kill, it is actually more realistic that they don't bother to.