Falconer wrote:The current season of GoT is a soap opera. Too many things are getting costlessly put back together again that in previous seasons had so painstakingly broken apart.
Had that exact reaction after watching last-night's episode. Dany's storyline in particular. I was thinking to myself, "She already did this. What exactly was the point of the last four seasons, if this is how it's going to go?"
In other news - watching The Night Manager. Excellent spy thriller mini series.
I'm having trouble getting into Fear the Walking Dead. They're not doing enough to make it different from the original series, but with less interesting characters.
"I woke up in a Soho doorway
A policeman knew my name
He said you can go sleep at home tonight
If you can get up and walk away"
Agreed on all counts: the fanfic writers on GoT seem insistent on resting everything to the status quo at the end of A Storm of Swords, as well as eliminating as many side-characters as possible. For the first couple episodes it was kind of refreshing compared to GRRM's two thousand pages and 20 years of delayed gratification, but as the agenda becomes clearer it's getting less interesting quickly.
Also, The Night Manager is very good, and Fear the Walking Dead was boring enough that we gave up on it a few weeks ago.
The Mystical Trash Heap - blog about D&D and other 80s pop-culture The Heroic Legendarium - my book of 1E-compatible rules expansions and modifications, now available for sale at DriveThruRPG
Finally got current on GoT last night. Is any of the material on the current season of Game of Thrones based off of unpublished material by the author? And is he a consultant on the current season?
- Wheggi
The Twisting Stair
An old school role-playing game periodical with a focus on adventure design
Stephen Colbert: “What would you do, when coming up with your character you roll six rolls of three six-sided dice to come up with your character”
Joe Magliano: “There’s a new way now where you roll 4d6 and you take away the lowest.”
Wheggi wrote:Finally got current on GoT last night. Is any of the material on the current season of Game of Thrones based off of unpublished material by the author? And is he a consultant on the current season?
- Wheggi
He supposedly had a meeting with the show-runners a year or so back in which he told them how things were ultimately supposed to work out, but beyond that (and, of course, continuing to cash big checks) AFAIK he has zero involvement in the writing of the current season and, if anything, his still-in-progress next book seems to be deliberately distancing itself from thew world of the show (every few months he posts a new "preview" chapter on his website which are invariably about characters that either don't exist or are being handled completely differently in the show).
The Mystical Trash Heap - blog about D&D and other 80s pop-culture The Heroic Legendarium - my book of 1E-compatible rules expansions and modifications, now available for sale at DriveThruRPG
The DUNGEON MASTERS GUIDE City of Brass cover is good and bad at the same time. While its very representational of a high level adventure, it sends a clear message to the dumb: Satan is going to cornhole Miss USA with a big red member and theres nothing science or the military can do about it. - Gene Weigel
Philotomy Jurament wrote:
TRP wrote:I miss the old ways and worshiping the old gods.
I seldom bother; they don't listen, they just sit there, strong and dumb, on their mountain.
Gygax Games Gail Gary JRT
>>>>>>>
I made some tables for record-keeping and other things. You can find them here
I've been on a jungle/safari/Africa kick lately: Safari, with Victor Mature, a mediocre Africa-based pic. Janet Leigh was quite the doll BitD!
Just finished the series of Tarzan flicks with Johnny Weissmuller. The first two were probably the best.
Soon I'll rewatch Trader Horn for the 2nd time. I've been toying with getting the very popular book that was the inspiration for the movie, but copies are scarce. (FWICT, it looks like the two most popular works in the 1920s were Beau Geste and Trader Horn, based on the number of printings each went through. I guess the fascination for the Dark Continent was at an all-time high.)
Can anyone recommend others in that vein?
I think this season does seem to pushing a story along more than previous seasons. But, as someone who hasn't read the GoT books, I like it and find this season refreshing. I am happy the cast herd is being culled, and that there's at least an indication that this story goes somewhere. And, I find this season much less of a soap opera than all the previous. Soap operas go nowhere with lots of hand-wringing.
If George had gotten off his ample bum and actually done ..you know .. some writing, then the TV writers wouldn't have to be doing what they're now doing.
"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." - Joseph Campbell
Went to see Captain America: Civil War, yesterday. I thought it was damn good, and it made me like the Captain America character more. Also thought the movie's Peter Parker was well cast, and was glad to see Ant Man in there.
bobjester wrote:"I got beat up by this guy named Steve. He's from Brooklyn. Man, his friend was HUGE!"
Just a straight up awesome line in a throwaway tag at the end of the movie. It gives a pretty good indication of the quality of the whole thing.
The scene with Falcon and Winter Soldier stuffed into the vintage VW Bug was pretty awesome, too. Past and present sidekicks not even trying to hide their jealousy of one another, but then backing up their main man.
"I woke up in a Soho doorway
A policeman knew my name
He said you can go sleep at home tonight
If you can get up and walk away"
I think over again my small adventures. My fears, those small ones that seemed so big, for all the vital things I had to get and to reach, and yet, there is only one great thing, the only thing, to live to see the great day that dawns, and the light that fills the world. - Old Inuit Song
“Superstitions are religious forms surviving the loss of ideas. Some truth no longer known or a truth which has changed its aspect is the origin and explanation of all. The name from the Latin, superstes, signfies that which survives, they are the dead remnants of old knowledge or opinion” - Eliphas Levi (138 The History of Magic).
“Let no one wake a man brusquely for it is a matter difficult of cure if the soul find not its way back to him”, the Upanishads of ancient India ( 58 Our Oriental Heritage, Durant).
"Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that's what makes it so boring" – Edward Gorey.
"The bright day is done and we are for the dark" - Shakespeare
"No lamp burns till morning" - Persian proverb.
“The living close the eyes of the dead, but it is the dead that open the eyes of the living”— Old Slavic saying.
'The best place to hide a light is in the sun' – old Arab proverb.
'To thee, thou wedding-guest!
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best,
All things both great and small:
For the dear God, who loveth us,
He made and loveth all' - Samuel Taylor Coleridge (VII Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner).
I am enjoying Game of Thrones for what it is, and I rather suspect it might end up truer to Martin's original vision than the books eventually will be. Yes, it is all coming rather in a rush now, but it is television.
[i]It is a joyful thing indeed to hold intimate converse with a man after one’s own heart, chatting without reserve about things of interest or the fleeting topics of the world; but such, alas, are few and far between.[/i]
– Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350), [i]Tsurezure-Gusa[/i] (1340)
bobjester wrote:"I got beat up by this guy named Steve. He's from Brooklyn. Man, his friend was HUGE!"
Just a straight up awesome line in a throwaway tag at the end of the movie. It gives a pretty good indication of the quality of the whole thing.
The scene with Falcon and Winter Soldier stuffed into the vintage VW Bug was pretty awesome, too. Past and present sidekicks not even trying to hide their jealousy of one another, but then backing up their main man.
Yeah, the Bug scene was good. I'd forgotten that one.
I've recently dived back into the Marvel Comics worlds after 30+ years out, and there's a lot of history to catch up on, some good, some bad. Not to mention the combined chagrin and joy at finally seeing these characters in good movies, wherever this series is taking us, its at least different enough to tell a slightly different story, and I'm alright with that.
I mean, "canon" in the MCU is not like "canon" in Middle Earth, or Song of Ice and Fire! WHEN a character dies is not as important as when will that character come back to life in this series.
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!” -Vroomfondle
"We're the outliers - but we've always stubbornly given the rest of the hobby the finger!" -EOTB
