The Game of Thrones Thread (With Spoilers)

I'll toss in a few thoughts.

The first 2 episodes were pretty meh. The fact they took so long to film the last season and apparently blew the budget doing so did not show, but episode 3 was more like what I expected. Hope there is more of that to come. Yes, the production was pretty dark, but we still found it quite watchable.

Surprised the White Walkers went down so fast - in a single episode - after all those seasons of building. Not surprised it was Arya who finished it though.

Less main characters died than I expected, but I'm sure there is lots of death yet to come. The Mormont girl and the Giant was a worthy scene. The Dothraki lights going out was a brilliant high impact use of a very simple effect. I didn't remember there being any dire wolves left, could have used that better. The dragons were kind of boring too actually.

The Walkers piling on on another to scale the walls reminded me of a scene from World War Z.

Also reminded me I would like to build a trebuchet. Not a full size one of course.....

 

Another cool Easter egg.

Season one, ep. 2: Catelyn, Robb, Ser Rodrik, Maester Luwin, and Theon meet secretly in the Winterfell Godswood to discuss the catspaw dagger, which Catelyn handed to Ser Rodrik. Theon wants to go to war and Luwin says, “Are we to have a war in the Godswood?”

Season 8, ep 3, 69 episodes later, in that exact same spot beneath the weirwood tree, Arya stabs the Knight King with the dagger.

The answer to Maester Luwin’s question: yes.

 

I know they weren't hugely important episodes plot wise, but extended CG scenes like Dany and Jon flying on the dragons are hugely expensive to do at this quality

 

Most flagship smartphones utilize OLED, try rewatching the episode on your phone and you will see a world of difference. If you know someone with an OLED TV, even better. The difference the true blacks make cannot be understated.


What made GoT great was the focus on the nuances, details, character development, and risky plot shifts. This was all based on GRRM writing and there's been a clear shift to just moving the story along since they ran out of source material. It's still entertaining since we do have a lot of context and background from the earlier seasons. The only reason I'm emotionally invested is because of how great it was before, but if this season was my first time watching GoT, I'd have a much different opinion of it.

 

Just watched the final scene on my phone (note 9) to see what the f**k happened with Danny after Jorah died, and I could clearly see the dragon curling around her. On my TV in the living room, watching at 6pm so it's still pretty bright outside, I couldn't see jack shit during that scene. I assumed it was the dragon because I could just make it it's horns, but I didn't know for sure. I'd say the quality of your TV, how dark your room was, etc make a huge difference to the enjoyment of that episode. I found myself constantly annoyed by how dark it was. TV is a 6 year old LG 1080p LED. Need to upgrade to a better TV soon.

 

Even on my LG oled, because it is streaming 1080p on a 4k screen, there was shit tons of banding everywhere. This episode will never look right until it's on 4k with hdr or Dolby vision to do it justice.

 

Any plasma owners here? I thought the HBO cable stream looked fine, but higher end plasmas do have better blacks than any LCD/LED. One of the best things I bought for my rooms are blackout vinyl roller shades for windows. I can't stand watching in a natural lit room, especially if its an LCD (even once dark you gotta deal with shit backlight bleed). I wish I never got rid of my Sony CRTs...

 

I have a Panasonic plasma in the basement, and there was a shitload of banding. Figured it was the shit streaming from Crave HBO...but no. Looking forward to BluRay.

 

Yeah quality was crap. Had to turn backlight/brightness up on my end to the point where any bright (fire) scenes was almost blinding.

 

Make Plasmas Great Again

 

Had a customer in the store yesterday, looking for a new 4k TV. Said he and his family were watching Game of Thrones and had a 3 way betting pooling between his wife and daughter on who was going to die this last episode. They couldn't verify who won so they called it off.

He wants a new TV since he was most likely the winner.

 

Watched it live Sunday evening via FiOS on a Panasonic plasma. Some scenes were indecipherable. Watched the live broadcast again last night, and it was much better, so the sheer number of people that have to be served makes a difference. Still noticed banding in some especially murky scenes, like the dragons flying through the smoke/snow.

 

I thought it was just my rear projection tv that made this episode hard to see, but I guess everyone had issues. Maybe I'll have to give it a rewatch with not everyone streaming and on my plasma tv.

 

What's wrong with OLED?

 

I'm pretty sure he meant plasma should die with OLED being a thing that exists

 

Ah, thanks. Punctuation is important.

Let's eat, grandfather.
-vs-
Let's eat grandfather.