A Game of Thrones, series pilot greenlighted by HBO

Television, Movies Games and Books Game of Thrones
#21

I know it was mentioned in the book club discussion thread but I thought I’d bump this thread as well. The first series has been given a go. Filming to start in June in Belfast. It should be awesome, and just a few miles from me. Hopefully it will be successful and all the books will be made. It would mean GRRM will have to up the pace

Without breaks each television season with be like this

2011 - A Game of Thrones
2012 - A Clash of Kings
2013 - A Storm of Swords
2014 - A Feast for Crows
2015 - A Dance With Dragons
2016 - The Winds of Winter
2017 - A Dream of Spring

A Dance with Dragons should be out this year (now I’ve jinxed it). So he would really need to get The Winds of Winter out in about 3 years, and that would leave another 3 years for A Dream of Spring. Of course this is all subject to change, the book series started as trilogy for gods’ sake.

#22

I will be interested to see how Crows and Dragons gets broken down into season form, because the way the plot breaks apart in those books will require some major reworking.
Dragons is over 1300 manuscript pages, per GRRM, but I think we will see it this fall. I thought that last year, but he really does seem determined to get this moving, and I’m sure the TV series has really given him more energy to pound it out.

Whoever said he’d write the scripts is mistaken. I believe he said he might write one or two per season, but he is not going to write a season’s worth of scripts.

Also, DB Weiss is part of the creative forces moving the series onto the screen, and he also wrote a great metaphysical video game book called Lucky Wander Boy. Worth checking out. By turns insightful, funny, and wacked-out.

The first promotional image from the series is out there, and I have to say it gives me chills. I cannot wait for this show to get going, and I hope it leads the charge alongside The Hobbit to keep fantasy relevant on both small and large screens.

Also, a little tidbit from a fairly reliable source who posts at the big fan blog, Winter is Coming, has indicated HBO was not as pleased as they had expected they’d be with the first draft of the pilot, and that some changes were asked for. I’m sure they expect the quality will out, but I really hope this series shows up The Tudors the way it should.

First season will only be 10 episodes as opposed to the 12 originally rumored, too. As the pilot covers roughly 1/8 of the first book in pages, though, I don’t anticipate that being a problem. I want as much content there as possible, but it’s a different medium, and I would expect that a tight season is better than a bloated one.

Also, knowing how much True Blood has veered from the somewhat simple stories it draws from, I’m reasonably hopeful that changes from the books will be minor, since you can’t mess with it all too much.

Can’t wait to see the standards bearing dire wolves, krakens, crowned stags, lions (botha sleep and roaring), bees, red and green apples, flayed men, and so much more.

#23

there goes my hope of TSCC making a return…

#24

I’m sorry sweety, but that ended when the tore down the sets. :frowning:

#25

actually, as for the set goes, by the end of season 2, there is no need to keep any old sets.

Since they move all the time, they switch the the Connor house all the time anyway. Zeira Corp headquarters was destroyed by the HK drone, there is no need to keep that set.

Catherine Weaver and John Conner and John Henry’s body are all in the future. All they really need is the set for the tunnels, and frankly, all the tunnels looks alike.

I know what you mean tho, that was over when FOX pulled the plug, but now there’s a new helmsmen at the Terminator franchise, i was kind of hoping TSCC would revive somehow. I can dream… until I found out Sarah Connor traveled back to the middle ages to assume the name Cersei.

#26

EW has a slideshow of pics. Looks promising.

#27

The new issue has a big spread with a few more pictures, too.

HBO has been slowly but continually adding new videos and pics to their makingof site.

Looking like April for the debut. So far away…

PS - I was dead wrong about the book. At least he’s got some downtime at home after trips to the sets and Minnesota.

#28

I’m increasing jazzed that they may get this right. I’m not sure about Jon Snow and Tyrion, but good actors can overcome physical problems. And everyone else looks awesome. With sauce.

I’m already starting to worry how they’re going to maintain the tight timeline while the real actors (e.g., Arya and Sansa) age. That’s a good problem to have.

#29

I think about that with pretty much all shows that act like time isn’t passing in the real world. Sons of Anarchy tells a tight story where an entire season in this case can’t have lasted more than a month. Maybe. And yet it came out ages after the last season.

I definitely saw Jon Snow as less beardy, myself. I can’t go into WHY I think that without dropping spoilers, but while I understand he has northern color, I didn’t think of him as being as shaggy. Then again, they aged up just about every role in the series, and GRRM himself has admitted the kids should’ve started off older.

And I am happy to see SOMEONE agree with me about Dinklage, Pike. He’s a good actor and I’m sure he’ll be great at handling Tyrion’s personality, but Tyrion is supposed to be a pretty ugly and misshapen little gargoyle, something Dinklage is not. More like Quasimodo. But I understand how that may work less in context. He looks more like a Lannister this way.

The new EW photo of Daenaerys makes her look SO YOUNG. This is a good thing, as her character has to start in a very innocent place. But it was also shocking to see compared to the initial photo of her HBO out out there.

#30

Meh. I think the ages work in the books. But apparently everyone has been up-aged for the series, so it makes sense.

And I am happy to see SOMEONE agree with me about Dinklage, Pike. He’s a good actor and I’m sure he’ll be great at handling Tyrion’s personality, but Tyrion is supposed to be a pretty ugly and misshapen little gargoyle, something Dinklage is not. More like Quasimodo. But I understand how that may work less in context. He looks more like a Lannister this way.

I’m just thinking that the later seasons (nudge, nudge) will work better for all that.

The new EW photo of Daenaerys makes her look SO YOUNG. This is a good thing, as her character has to start in a very innocent place. But it was also shocking to see compared to the initial photo of her HBO out out there.

Dany is young. She maybe should be more willowy, but I’m cool with this choice.

Really, Snow is the one that made me nuts.

#31

It’s funny how when you read a series of books, you create a mental picture of what the characters look like. The actor they picked for Jamie looks just like I pictured him! Not sure about Cersei though. I like that actress, so I am sure she will do a good job. And I love Sean Bean- he is perfect to play Eddard.

I cannot wait for this series to air. I may have to subscribe to HBO just to watch it when it airs…

#32

I can’t wait for this show and I’m totally getting HBO to watch it. I pay for Showtime just to watch Dexter and I’d pay even more to Time Warner in order to watch A Game of Thrones every week. However I’m still up in the air about the casting of Cersei. I adore Lena Heady but I don’t know if she can pull off the right mixture for the character, plus I had my heart set on Tricia Helfer playing the part because she would be perfect as Cersei.

#33

Filming of A Game of Thrones “obliterated” the ecosystem on a protected beach

In George R.R. Martin’s A Game Of Thrones, nobles wreak unimaginable destruction in their power-lust. But one environmentalist is calling HBO real-life Lannisters: They covered a protected beach in Malta with fake sand, resulting in “total elimination” of the ecosystem.

#34

WTF is fake sand? Isn’t sand just powdered stone? Didn’t they just put sand on a beach?

Why would you put sand on a beach?

Why would you let film crews use a delicate area in the first place?

The shore isn’t important in Thrones. Why would you go through this kind of effort to begin with?

#35

It sounds to me like if you have a single location that houses a unique species that is endemic to that location, you shouldn’t let someone shoot a show there. It’s unfoubtedly a loss, and it’s certainly regrettable that it happened that way. But there’s a lot of blame to spread around.

And I don’t think the shore matters until the third book.

#36

Bumped for you guys have to read Game of Thrones before the series comes out already.

Even if Snow has peach fuzz for no reason.

#37

he’s got the north coloring. not a strange move, even if the original artist made him smooth as jarathen jr’s butt on the cover of the first book.

another trailer is up at the HBO making of site I linked to before, and there will be a 15-minute preview of the series before sunday’s boardwalk empire season finale, by far the show’s biggest coverage yet.

#38

It’s not just the artist. There’s no mention of facial hair anywhere in the extant volumes.

Still, if that’s all I’m bitching about they’re in good shape.

#39

it’s one of those myriad minor changes, and i can’t tell if they add up to enough to matter. part of me wonders who cares, and part of me wonders how similar it will be in the end if so much is changed. from eye color to specific banner construction to tyrion’s appearance and introduction and the overall size/age of myriad characters.

it’s been a good reminder for me that even though HBO is being more faithful to the source material than most production companies are to the original source work, it will never BE the books. and i just have to live with it.

#40

I know absolute nothing about Game of Thrones except that I know there’s an actuall Game of Thrones game. And a really great article on the upcomming HBO Game of Thrones in a recent Entertainment Weekly. And just coolenss of the pictures in the article make me want to see it.

Great comment in the article: 'It has just as much in common with The Sopranos and True Blood as it does Middle Earth “We loved Lord of the Rings, but you don’t really get the sense that any of those characters get horny ever.” ’