User Reviews

Readers who come to this review later in the series must note that, at the time of this writing, I have only seen the inaugural episode.

It's probably safe to say, when dealing with a series of novels as beloved as The Song of Ice and Fire, the most scrutinized aspect of the T.V. adaptation will be how well it holds to the source material. I am here to confirm, as a fierce devotee to the books, that we have nothing to fear.

While certain scenes play out differently in execution, the plot remains perfectly intact (so far). The characters have been transplanted well from page to screen, and the actors (most notably Peter Dinklage) nailed their personalities quite well. However; it is only fair to point out some of the acting seemed a little wooden at times.

Special effects were well done, though nothing mind-blowing, but the scenery and props perfectly captured the feel of the novels (in my mind at least). It also must be noted that there was just the right amount of nudity, violence and vulgarity to let the audience know they were watching a tale woven for mature viewers without using said nudity, violence and vulgarity as a crutch.

All and all, I am very, very pleased with this adaptation, and I went into it expecting to be disappointed. If I were to gripe about anything, it would be that newcomers who have not read the books might not know what to think of this fantasy story for adults. Some may shrug it off as fodder for geeks, while others might take offence to what they may see as a defiling of a genre usually meant for children.

UPDATE

After watching the entire first season, I can safely say this is perhaps the BEST adaptation of book into film/TV. While many moments in the show do not match the moments in the book action for action and word for word, the plot is never sacrificed when doing this, and the alterations simply make the story a better fit for a one-hour television time slot.

In addition, new scenes (by which I mean scenes which never happened in the book at all) fit seamlessly into the greater plot, and help the audience with information they would only otherwise get via the narrative of the novel (EG: asides which explain character/world history).

Top form, HBO. Top form.

Season 1 to 4 = 10/10.

TVW = TV writers.

Since the TV show left the books behind (around S5 on), the show's writing has gotten worse and worse. I think the first poor episode is probably the one where Arya is being pursued by the T- 1000. It is utterly absurd. But this season (s7) has been by far the worst.

Aside from the odd decent moment, and the awesome spectacle of the dragons, it has been average at best. Melodrama has replaced a proper narrative. Contrivances have replaced logic. Let me give you some examples:

1. Daenerys has spent her entire time planning to invade Westeros. And when it was finally time to do so, the dumb TVW threw a spoke in the wheel. Out of nowhere, she suddenly can't hurt any bystanders, so holds off the attack on King's Landing (Yeah, 'cause she hasn't had to hurt any innocent people in order to get to the position she is in now, has she!?) This silly little contrivance is designed to prolong Cersei on the throne (itself a really dumb idea) as long as possible in the most artificial way possible. The TVW are completely shitting on logic in order to force this demented Mexican standoff. The latest episode goes even further... A proposed alliance between Cersei and Daenerys and Jon - to defeat the Army of the Dead. Jon and co have to prove to Cersei that the army is real by capturing one of the living dead. Just think about how DUMB that sounds. As if Tyrion, or Daenerys, would be entertaining anything of the sort, especially at this moment in time. Tyrion would never even advise it, because he isn't stupid enough to trust his sister for ANY REASON.

2. The long awaited reunion of characters was handled in a really clumsy way. It was dreadful. Where was the real emotion with Sansa- Arya or Bran-Sansa? It was non existent. It was like these people were just ordinary buddies who chanced upon a meeting. I was really looking forward to seeing the reunions, because we have been waiting since SEASON 1 for it. What a complete let down that was.

3. Characters are everywhere at any time, as if they have a teleportation device. Daenerys hears that the Lannisters have taken Highgarden - and the next minute, her army is right there with Jaime in the thick of it. The continuity has gone out of the window. Whatever the writers want to happen happens. Magic wand, LAZY writing.

4. Melodrama / soap opera nonsense. In the last episode (S7E4), I had to suffer watching jaime being saved by Bron in the most ridiculous way there is. The cliché and brainless 'last second save'. And then, as I fully expected, we open episode 5 to discover they haven't been captured and have miraculously managed to escape unscathed, floating in deep water while WEARING ARMOUR and A SWORD! Holy crap. That's what happens when you run out of actual genius (Martin's work) and have to work on your own crappy, limited brain (TVW).

5. Characters aren't behaving like they should be. I've already mentioned Daenerys in regards to this, but it extends across the board. Bran "OOooo I am suddenly not Bran anymore... but I can feel who he was" or some slop. He still hasn't explained ANYTHING to anyone, even though the world is about to do battle with a mortal threat that he understands better than any other person on the planet. Sansa's turned into some awful caricature, totally alien to who she is as a person. And don't give me the Ramsay bullshit, since that was a dumb TV move in the first place and never happens in the books. Cersei is somehow queen and ultimate ruler, and making logical tactical decisions. But, here's the thing, it's already been established long before now that she is a useless tactician, and a naive, childish brat, who has no leadership qualities. But that's all out now, because they need her to be a main antagonist on the show. Speaking of Cersei, her one remaining child died and her emotion to it was zero. That's after it being well established that her only reason for carrying on with life was her children. Oh, but let's just switch off our brains again. The TVW said it's all OK! Whoopi-doo.

6. Contrivances. For example, Jorah Mormont needs a cure. Suddenly, he's managed to trek to some sort of hostel hundreds and hundreds of miles away, seemingly to just die - where he meets up with Sam - who not only finds a cure in a random book, but manages to pull off the delicate procedure, explained within, at the first time of asking. Then Jorah is back with Daenerys super-quick time. It's just so damn lazy and transparent.

7. Dialogue. This has taken a big hit as well. It's always been the case that the writers think swearing is uber-cool and shoehorned it into as many places as possible - but now they are out of Martin's material, a lot of the meat is gone. Tyrion stands out the most. The TVW are in over their heads. They are out of their depth.

Does anyone think Martin will be remotely THIS incompetent? The TVW have always made a mess when changing things (very often for no sane reason) from the books. For example, army numbers and population numbers being exaggerated to absurd levels; ridiculous and unrealistic events, like Sansa marrying Ramsay; over the top swearing, sex, nudity - for no other reason than to appeal to the mindless, lowest common denominator. But this is worse.

It's still entertaining, but the quality slide after S1-4 is larger than people are admitting. Some cool scenes with dragons isn't making me blind and dumb to all these issues.

edit. At least E7S7 was very good.

To start with, I read the books once only, got into it thanks to my friend(bless him) and when I learned that TV show is being made by HBO we all cheered, since we always said it is impossible to convert this epic story into a 2 and a half hour movie.

To start the review now.

The Hand of the King Jon Arryn mysteriously died at the Capitol of the Seven Kingdoms, making King Robert Baratheon travel to the most northern region of the Seven Kingdoms to its capitol Winterfell to ask his loyal friend Eddard ''Ned'' Stark to become his next Hand of the King.

The Prologue, although not faithful enough to the book(yes i personally thought Prologue was the best part of first book) is done good enough for audience to hook it up thinking who the hell are those things.

The introduction of all the characters is done great, establishing some of relations quite well and subtle.

The Music is average, but it will not interfere with the whole show if it will be done the same as in first episode, The visual is stunning enough to suck you into show.

The characters are well acted and nailed most of the book characters and their core. There are some minor relationship changes but its very close to the book.

The newcomers will have to be patient and not give up to soon since the amount of characters and story lines might feel overwhelming but don't give up stay and a magical world of Westeros will come to life infront of your own eyes Conclusion: A Dark Fantasy world, full of realistic stories, at its best. A book in motion almost. The spirit of the story is mainly captured.

Overall Score: 9

Heard a lot about this show with everyone saying how great it was so I decided to watch it to see if it was as good as I was told. I found the first episode a little boring and slow but figured it was setting up the characters, etc.

Well from there it went downhill. I watched all of Season 1 and half of Season 2 and I couldn't stomach it any longer. In my opinion, none of the characters are all that likable and the few I did like get killed off very quickly, usually with much gore.

Then there are the numerous and pretty graphic sex scenes which seem to be thrown into the show for the purpose of titillating (pun intended) the audience who I assume to be in the 18-35 bracket. I'm not a prude, but I never saw any tender love scenes, just gay sex, incest and rape. It's pretty much soft porn with a story.

By the last episode I watched I couldn't care less about who regained control of "The mythical land of Westeros". I hope parents aren't letting their children watch this debauchery.

Everyone has their own opinion of what is a good show and this, in my own opinion is utter garbage.

This show started out incredibly strong. It was at the forefront of glamorous TV. Never before had Hollywood level acting and visuals been applied to a long running TV series. This show broke the mold, and continued to do so for 5 seasons. Until the show surpassed the literature it was based on. Game of Thrones held no punches, it didn't care what the viewers opinion on a character was, the lines between good and evil were blurred, and because of this it was unique. This started to derail in season 6, when the show began to develop its on takes on story arcs of the books. It was instantly obvious the writing staff were toddlers compared to the father of the story. But it still held things together. Until season 7. The first scene that greets us was completely unnecessary and can only be labelled as fan service. Something the show had never done before, Frey was killed off solely to promote a positive response from fans. Within moments we are then introduced to Ed Sheeran, with a scene that could only have been placed to humanize the "enemy" however the family in question had never been classed as the enemy prior, before they were simply another side in the conflict. That scene destroyed the dynamic of the show and changed its message completely. Further enforced by the fact that suddenly everyone's picked a side. The show has changed from a power struggle to clichéd good vs evil. Dripping with the political beliefs of the shows writers, every second word that seems to be coming out of characters mouths screams "girl power" which is fine, but at least find an intelligent way to implement it, rather than slapping everyone in the face with it every time a strong female lead is shown. The pace of the show has also been lost, with it a lot of power the story held, everything seems rushed with season 7, each scene is being done as quickly as it can, detracting from the impact it would have had. The show has lost everything that made it unique.

It always felt like this show was sitting just below excellence. Feeling the need to take a cheeky giggle at a nipple or dick every so often to make the viewer pay attention.

D+D The producers of the show clearly think you're not very clever if you watch this program. You need a pair of boobs every so often to keep you going through a story far too difficult to follow for a TV simpleton. That's nonsense, and yet they do it every episode. No one in Game of Thrones is looking to fight for what they believe in, or for honour, or for freedom. They're too busy wandering from North to South and East to West finding their next companion for ludicrous out of the blue sex scenes.

If it's not sex, then the character will probably die at any moment too. Killing characters makes a show deep and clever, no one is safe...that's what you're supposed to believe. The boobs are classy, the deaths are clever. Shut up and eat some popcorn and stop thinking about the world or questioning the dubious quality of this show. If you wanted clever you'd read a book, but lalalalalala there isn't a book like this anywhere on the planet and you should definitely not look for one!

The way this story has proceeded is pathetic. Shallow. Half baked and weak throughout. Characters have no depth what so ever. TV can be excellent and characters can be complex, just check out Breaking Bad for a quick and easy example. Shows do not need constant death or constant sex to sell. We don't need silly one liners throughout every scene. The story to Game of Thrones was supposed to be epic, and yet it's now just one big story about how a pretty girl with nice boobs and 3 dragons is going to fly across the world and become queen.

This is not good enough and the shark has officially jumped.

After seeing today in Game of Trones how father let her kid/daughter being burned alive, I realized that author of this serial, as well as HBO may need professional (medical) assistance. Actually, since the beginning, it is hard to find anything that would make anyone feeling good. Seems normal people are in this series only and exclusively heading to miserable ends (being brutally killed, beheaded, burned, skulls being crushed by bare hands to name a few - and any similarity with world around us is pure coincidence) while negative characters are in full swing!

So what is the message of your work Mr Martin? Enlighten me, please.

As far as I am concerned, G of T is for me finished.

Mr Martin your G of T stories may make a lot of money but are in the essence sick, barbarian and ethically worthless works. No one learned anything from you, neither become a better person by watching your work. Wonder if your kids watch your masterpieces and how do you feel about the moment that motivated me to write all this.

Tom/Malta

It has begun! The much touted HBO miniseries A GAME OF THRONES arrived with Episode 1, and though the entire series cannot be judged on one episode, this initial hour has all the promise of an involving and visually stunning adaptation of the 1996 George R.R. Martin series of books of adult fantasy fiction titled 'A Song of Ice and Fire'. The 'game' is played by seven families - Stark, Lannister, Baratheon, Greyjoy, Tully, Arryn, and Tyrell - and what we find in the initial episode is a taste of the intrigue to come.

In this first episode Lord Eddard Stark (Sean Bean) is the patriarch of House Stark, one of the major noble houses of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and ancestral rulers of the North. Near the castle of Winterfell, Eddard's children discover a dead direwolf and five of its pups still alive. As the direwolf is the symbol of the Starks, Eddard allows each of his five children to keep one of the pups as pet. A sixth pup is discovered a short distance away from the others. It is a mute albino, and this one is given to Jon Snow (Kit Harington), the bastard son of Lord Eddard Stark. King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) , Eddard's childhood friend, journeys to Winterfell with his family to ask Eddard to become Hand of the King, the top adviser and military commander in the realm, due to the death of the previous Hand, Lord Jon Arryn. Eddard's wife, Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley), receives a letter from her sister Lysa Arryn, stating that Jon Arryn's death was a murder plotted by Queen Cersei (Lena Headey) and her powerful family, the Lannisters. Though reluctant to leave his duties and family, Eddard is convinced by his wife to accept the position in order to investigate Jon Arryn's death. Eddard's middle son Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) is engaging in climbing Winterfell castle's walls and towers accidentally sees Queen Cersei and her twin brother Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau) having incestuous relations. To protect their secret affair, Jaime throws the boy out of a tower window. Where the story goes form here will follow throughout the remaining episodes.

Though some would criticize an early report on a series merely at its inception, it seems only fitting that offering a word on encouragement to pay attention to this new series is warranted. We can only hope that the series continues to build as it progresses. The cast is filled with excellent actors, both seasoned and refreshingly new.

Grady Harp

I must say that the realization of this series is astonishing. Acting is great, image is great, music is great. The story on the other hand is worst trash. Nobody knows how it will end, but I can tell you, ...unfortunately. It will have no particular meaningful end. Everybody will be killed or die in some disturbing way, and at the end you will not remember how and why it all started, which is actually true for the last few seasons even now. The whole world desperately awaits for a meaning but there will never be one. Whenever the story will end, it could have ended equally well after the 1st season. Even in Chinese movies the tragedy has some deepness, there is honor, sacrifice, values, and death has purpose, in this one if something resembles to anything, one can be certain it is just a vessel for surprising the viewer with another unexpected random death. A pattern emerged and after 5 seasons any hope for a decent story is long dead. The worst part is millions of people are disturbed by the story but they keep looking for the hope it will get better. It never will. When people wait starts to obviously become annoying the author just kills the main character, does not matter how, and this way makes the story unexpected, again. It is so dumb when you actually think of it, that no one put that before on paper, with success at least. You will probably continue to watch, and only the end will show you what an incredible waste of time this TV series was.