I don't have HBO, so I've never seen Game of Thrones, which wraps its final season on Sunday night.
However, a disgruntled fan from Texas started a petition on change.org, demanding, get this, a do-over of the current season, alleging that the show's writers, without fresh source material from acclaimed author George R. R. Martin, the creator of the series, have created less than satisfactory product.
As someone who regularly watches most, but not all, superhero programming on the air today (i.e. The Flash, Supergirl, Arrow, Doom Patrol), and has taken issue with the creative direction of those programs, I cannot support this frivolous effort.
Before we go any further, here's a trailer for the current season of Game of Thrones:
Game of Thrones has been a source of inspiration for baseball promotions. The Mets, for example, had a bobblehead giveaway recently where the bobblehead of the player honored, pitcher Noah Syndergaard, had a GoT theme. However, the petition has, as of this writing, generated nearly a million signatures.
I get that genre fans are passionate. However, this petition isn't going to do a blessed thing to change what you're seeing on your television screens. It is, as noted, frivolous, and borne of frustration over the creative direction of the series this season. You won't see that sort of thing with, say for example, The Flash or The Walking Dead, as fans of those shows know that the writers are loosely adapting the source materials----very loosely, in many cases----in order to create the best possible story for a wider audience made up of casual viewers. Are those adaptations flawed? In many cases, yes.
That's because the fans don't readily understand that they're not the target audience. In all honesty, I think the same applies to Game of Thrones. With no fresh material from Martin, the writers have to use their own imaginations, and ask themselves, how would Martin write this?
If you believe the Texas twit that started this petition, Martin wouldn't have approved, but we don't know that, do we now?
2 comments:
I know HBO won't remake season 8 any more than Lucas Film will remake The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi. However it does prove that fans noticed how out of character the cast acted compared to previous seasons. If anything, they outed the current show runners as incompetent hacks. Since they're now on board to write new Star Wars films, this is going to be a dumpster fire to beat all dumpster fires!
Worse still, the show's writers/show runners/cinematographer blamed the viewers for "not getting it" and "not knowing how to set up their TVs" when the scenes were shot in darkness and was barely visible on screen. Blaming the victim... hmm, sounds like what abusers do to their targets doesn't it?
To be fair, I haven't watched the show, nor read the books so I can't say how it's supposed to have been, but I do understand what it's like to see a long running show you once enjoyed decline because of clueless writers, studio interference or indifferent show runners. Suddenly characters are not acting like they once did, saying and doing things they wouldn't, any character growth is reversed. The show you once enjoyed is a train wreck and you wonder why it went so wrong.
TPTB behind the show had 2 full years to get this right. Even though George R.R. Martin hadn't finished writing the series yet, he gave them an outline of what he intended to do so these people have no real excuse. Keep in mind that the initial pilot episode was shot twice, because the ones in charge then wanted to get it right! They cared about their product. These idiots don't.
Clueless writers? Check. I watch almost all of Greg Berlanti's shows.
Studio indifference? Check. WB also works with Berlanti.
And the two showrunners are in line to make Star Wars movies? Disney better check with WB.
Post a Comment