HBO has greenlighted A Game Of Thrones

[Caliburn24]

You could be right, but I think it is vague enough to pass for now. Particularly since the series will probably deviate from the books increasingly as time goes by.

To me, that'll be one of the most fascinating things about watching the series, seeing how they change things to fit the medium and budget.

I know for example that the Stark kids are all older in the TV show than the books, which changes things considerably.

 

[Venardhi]

Only marginally so, surprisingly. The biggest changes are the older kids, from 14-15ish in the beginning to 17ish. The younger kids have stayed about the same age, though the girls may need recasting for the full series so that we don't end up with -women- by the third season. As long as Sansa doesn't sprout c-cups within the first two seasons we should be okay.

 

[Shurik]

Dany is also older in the pilot than in the books and the actress playing her is in her early 20s' (the character is 13 when the first book starts), but that probably was necessary in order to show the stuff that happens to her over the series.

Almost every character was aged a few years in the pilot.

God willing in 3-4 years I'll be reading countless fan posts crying about how horrible season 3's "Red Wedding" episode is.

Spoiler: The plot of the books

While this is probably the most shocking thing that happened in the books so far, there are more scenes that will cause people who aren't familiar with the books to shake their heads in disbelief and utter "They didn't not just do that". Ned's death, Theon's betrayal, Sansa's marriage to Tyrion are few examples of those moments.

 

[Venardhi]

The adults were aged far more than the kids, all the 30-35 year old adults are now well into their 40s whereas only the older kids (Theon, Robb, Jon, Dany) were aged more than a year or two. We can assume this pushes the war back to being 17-18 years ago rather than 13-14 though who can say if the Producers have actually thought that out and how it might cause issues with the long-term plot (Jon's parentage, for one). Having a 50 year old Ned was one of the sorest pieces of Casting news for me, since that means Ned and Robert weren't 'boys' during the rebellion, forged by war into men; but rather well into their prime, or even past it. Not to mention the fact that they were unmarried into their 30s, which would be unheard of (especially for Robert, who was a major Lord by then) It also takes away a bit of Jaime's character to have been a grown man.

Hopefully I can forget these nagging details while watching the show, but if they actually use the 'Dip your wick' line or 'I don't want men to know what I can do' silliness rather than the far better dialogue from the book itself, I may end up drinking a lot to get through it.

 

[alicelouise]

The Song of Fire and Ice series is a great epic in its own right. I've known many people who wouldn't go near a fantasy/sci-fi book with a ten foot pole. They've ended up reading them all. There aren't only fantasy elements but historical elements as well. He seems to be inspired by The War of the Roses and the Hundred Years War. Inspiration for characters seem to come from Edward IV, Duke Richard of Gloucester(not the III)and Margaret of Anjou. In all it's lifted above the standard Sword& Sorcery, Historical bodice ripping fare to attract more readers.

I do hope GRRM is at least able to do 1 more book. I'm not optimistic about the whole series being finished.

 

[Venardhi]

I see no reason he shouldn't be able to put out the last two books in considerably less time than AFFC and ADWD, considering the events they portray were originally supposed to be skipped over with a 5-year time jump and thus he has had to deviate quite a bit from the original plan, compress those years and tie together plot threads with much more precision than his original outline required. He has had chapters written for the last two books for like 10 years now, though I imagine they'll change considerably to match the new timeline that he has established with the two additional books.

 

[FreezeC77]

Well his original plan was to skip what ultimately became book 4 & book 5 and instead jump forward in time with the plot. Then he decided to cover what happened in those years and so he was writing book 4 with that intent. Then it became too long so he edited out certain plotlines and set them aside for book 5.

So a good chunk of book 5 was already written while he was writing book 4 and book 5 has taken 5 years. So I wouldn't sit there and say "Well he already has plotlines and text written for the next book so it won't take too long." I thought that about book 5 and it's taking the longest out of all his books to come out.

I've said this before in threads about GRRM. I think he enjoys the book-touring/celebrity aspect of his writing and that cuts into his actual sit-down and write time. I don't see how if somehow this succeeds on HBO his appearances would decrease (I think they'd only increase) and thus make it even less likely the last two books come out very quickly.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Well, there's hope that Dance With Dragons is the cornerstone of the series, that's especially difficult to write for GRRM because it ties the numerous different story-paths and POVs together and that the following books will be more straight-forward to write. I do think GRRM is doing his best getting the book done, but you can't force something like that.

 

[Yoda]

I'll be watching this show, having not read any of the books.

To anyone who is thinking of doing the same, I suggest avoiding the show threads here. I figure it'll be just filled with book-reading, spoiler-posting asshats. Kind of like the True Blood threads...

 

[Venardhi]

Anyone who really loves these books is not going to want to spoil them. I've gotten so good at talking about them in non-spoiler ways with friends while around other friends who haven't read them yet that we're practically conversing in code.

 

[Roger Wilco]

I'll be watching this show, having not read any of the books.

To anyone who is thinking of doing the same, I suggest avoiding the show threads here. I figure it'll be just filled with book-reading, spoiler-posting asshats. Kind of like the True Blood threads...

Well, it feels kind of strange to use spoiler-tags for discussion of a book that was released a decade ago. But you're probably right that it could be a problem. Maybe we would need one thread for people who've read the books and another one that's spoiler-free?

 

[Colonel Midnight]

Hopefully this will spur Martin to at least finish Dance with Dragons...last I read, it is up over 1200 manuscript pages, longer than any other of the books...

ADwD is at 1311 manuscript pages, apparently, as of 02MAR10.

My question is (showing my ignorance here, sorry) -- just how does a "manuscript page" compare/relate to a "printed page"? It's not one-for-one, is it?

Cheers/Thanks ~
-CM-

 

[ATimson]

My question is (showing my ignorance here, sorry) -- just how does a "manuscript page" compare/relate to a "printed page"? It's not one-for-one, is it?

No, it's not one-for-one at all. But there's no direct correlation that can be drawn, given variances in typesetting. You could have as little as one manuscript page per printed page (or maybe even less, for YA titles), or as many as 5 or 6.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

My question is (showing my ignorance here, sorry) -- just how does a "manuscript page" compare/relate to a "printed page"? It's not one-for-one, is it?

Oh, good god, no.

It really depends on how GRRM is defining a manuscript page. If he's going by the standard "double-spaced Courier 10 point, one-inch margins" (which is what publishers like to see, and what they call "manuscript format"), that works out to roughly 250 words to a page. So he would be at about 325,000 words. Ballpark.

I pulled the hardcover of A Game of Thrones off my shelf. A quick look at the pages shows they hold about 400 words per page. So right now, we'd probably be looking at a 850 page hardcover. Roughly.

This all assumes, of course, that GRRM's manuscript pages are, y'know, in manuscript format. If his manuscript pages are single-spaced Arial, then these numbers are meaningless.

 

[Venardhi]

As I recall, he writes on an ancient machine from the land of yesteryear with a two-tone screen and a floppy drive. He says it is longer than ACoK which was about 750 pages of text IIRC, but still 300 (manuscript)pages short of ASoS. I think the ASoS hardcover was about 950 (not including the fluff on either side of the actual book), by his latest count ADWD should easily break 800 pages as it is, and quite a bit past it if he still has some chapters to add, but probably wont break 900 unless he adds another 150 manuscript pages or so.

A page for every page and a half of manuscript seems to be a pretty close approximation.

 

[Colonel Midnight]

Ok, thanks! Sorry, never heard or knew of "manuscript" pages before. As always, you guys & gals are the bomb.

Or magic-fire, in this case.

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[Hugo Rune]

HBO is back on the right track!

I know this is going to be a bit sacreligious for all the SOFAI fans but given their ages I could never really believe some of the children's actions/thoughts/stories. Like with many children in differing media, especially Jon and Robb with their politiking and heroic-strategy, all came across as too worldly and grown up at times. Pushing them a little older I think not only helps get around the sexualised issues (Dany, especially) but also brings them into a more believable age-bracket for their actions etc.

For me at least.

Either way, this is very exciting and thus far the casting has been fantastic in my opinion. The worry will be Jon, Dany, Jaime and Joffrey. Jon because he's the heroic young lead and needs some charisma as well as weight; Dany because she needs an actress with an astonishing range to pull off everything she goes through (the most significant character arc outside of Jaime in my opinion); Jaime because he's a vile piece of shit you love; and Joffrey because on the page he could so very easily be translated into another terrible Draco Malfoy style character (from the films) who has all of the sneer but none of the weight or real aloofness. Hard to find the right ground here I feel. The gent they've cast as Jaime is a pretty wonderful actor in my opinion and I look forward to his joyous arrogance on the screen. Most of the children, however, are unknowns to me so fingers crossed.

The only thing that is midly disappointing about the news is that they have outrght said in the press release that they will have most of the major "action" off screen. Now admittedly there actually isn't a massive amount of action in the books, it is of course mostly politics and intrigue. Yet... the finale of book/season 2 "A Clash of Kings" is so wonderfully epic and solidifies a non-hero as a true hero it'd be a great shame to simply hear about it. Similarly some of the antics north of The Wall...

Still, Rome didn't show a massive amount and it didn't stop that show being wonderful.

Bring on 2011!


Hugo - “First lesson: stick them with the pointy end”

 

[FreezeC77]

HBO is back on the right track! :thumbsup:

I know this is going to be a bit sacreligious for all the SOFAI fans but given their ages I could never really believe some of the children's actions/thoughts/stories. Like with many children in differing media, especially Jon and Robb with their politiking and heroic-strategy, all came across as too worldly and grown up at times. Pushing them a little older I think not only helps get around the sexualised issues (Dany, especially) but also brings them into a more believable age-bracket for their actions etc.

For me at least.

Either way, this is very exciting and thus far the casting has been fantastic in my opinion. The worry will be Jon, Dany, Jaime and Joffrey. Jon because he's the heroic young lead and needs some charisma as well as weight; Dany because she needs an actress with an astonishing range to pull off everything she goes through (the most significant character arc outside of Jaime in my opinion); Jaime because he's a vile piece of shit you love; and Joffrey because on the page he could so very easily be translated into another terrible Draco Malfoy style character (from the films) who has all of the sneer but none of the weight or real aloofness. Hard to find the right ground here I feel. The gent they've cast as Jaime is a pretty wonderful actor in my opinion and I look forward to his joyous arrogance on the screen. Most of the children, however, are unknowns to me so fingers crossed.

I think another aspect of the 'aging up' of some of the teenage characters is that it makes it easier to do a tv show in which the they're doing 1 book a year, but that the timeline in the book doesn't expand at the same time. I'm still not sure how they'll handle who's playing Bran and Arya if the show continues and you get to S3 or S4. You basically will have a "Walt-like" situation from Lost where the time on the Island had only been a couple months over the course of several seasons, but the actor obviously was now 3 or 4 years older and they couldn't use him.

On the issue of performance I don't think Jon and Jaime are that difficult. HBO has had a fair amount of 'anti-hero' or I guess more accurate "villain" type characters that have been charismatic and generated interest from the fans of the show. Like Ian McShane's Swearengen, or more recently Eric Northman on True Blood.

Jon is difficult in the sense of his age. To have found that young an actor to pull off the role of Jon would have been pretty hard. Since he's been aged up I would think it's easier to do.

Dany is somewhat similar. If they had kept her near the age of the books then it would have been pretty damned hard to find an actress to pull that off. I'm not really sure how good of an actress Tamzin Merchant is. I didn't catch the last season of the Tudors so I don't know how she was there. Dany's role evolves quite a bit.

But actually for me the key role has always been Tyrion. In so many movies and tv shows over the years the 'midget/dwarf' is used as comic relief. So you need to have a midget actor who can believably deliver on Tyrion who also is one of those "anti-hero" types and if they do show any of the fight scenes be able to pull that off and not have people laughing at the dwarf fighting.

 

[Roger Wilco]

I know this is going to be a bit sacreligious for all the SOFAI fans but given their ages I could never really believe some of the children's actions/thoughts/stories.

Not really. GRRM himself says it was a mistake to make them them so young in hindsight.

And of course on tv it's just impossible to use actors even nearly that young for the kind of actions their characters make. Nobody wants to see that.

 

[Venardhi]

^^ The time gap shouldn't be quite as bad as with LOST, since the first 5 books cover approx 3 years and there is nothing to say that those events couldn't be spread out over 5 years, other than the fact that a 16 year old Arya(for example) in the 4th season is going to be a somewhat different character than her 11 year old book counterpart and will be far more blatantly sociopathic

Edit: Oh, and Hugo, as far as the age/behavior in the books is concerned, I was convinced on my first read-through that their years must be longer than ours, making everyone about 15-20% older. Turns out, most of the casting fell right into that original unfounded theory. It seems like they didn't adjust all the ages at the same rate though, so Dany supposedly being 15/16 while the boys are all 17/18 doesn't make much sense unless the boys were born before the war which doesn't make any sense whatsoever.