George R.R. Martin vs. Damon Lindelof

[Starbreaker]

Original Article

Martin knows what it's like to be provoked by a serial entertainment. He experienced it himself as a faithful viewer of "Lost," the ABC adventure series about a group of castaways trapped on a mysterious island. "I kept watching it and I was fascinated," he recalls. "They'd introduce these things and I thought that I knew where it was going. Then they'd introduce and I'd rethink it." Like many "Lost" fans, Martin resented the series's mystical ending, which left dozens of narrative threads dangling. "We watched it every week trying to figure it out, and as it got deeper and deeper I kept saying, ‘They better have something good in mind for the end. This end better pay off here.' And then I felt so cheated when we got to the conclusion."

Martin says he's terrified that he'll "fuck it up" at the end of A Song of Ice and Fire and "do a Lost."

Well.. Lindelof shot back:

I know some of you are saying "who the hell cares". But I think it's funny and some of you might get a kick out of something that might get ugly by internet standards.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, the pinnacle of Martin's relationship with Hollywood was Nightflyers.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Game of Thrones: coming soon to a TV near you.

 

[Bishop76]

That is pretty amusing. While I was fine with the ending of Lost, I can understand at least why so many people were pissy about it.

Is Martin involved with any of the writing of the Game of Thrones TV series?

 

[Admiral_Young]

Think it stupid myself but oh well. Far as I know Martin has nothing to do with the writing of the series. David Benioff did the draft of the pilot script.

 

[Dream]

Wow, what a bunch of nonsense. Lindelof is acting like a 10 year old. He should have just ignored Martin.

If Lindelof had really wanted to fight back, he could have pointed out how Martin keeps writing about minor characters that no one cares about, kills off characters as a way to end their storylines, and taking five years to release each new book. I'm seriously starting to think he is never going to finish the thing.

 

[JD]

Martin is very very involved with the show, he's one of the executive producers and he wrote at least the 8th episode. I follow his Not A Blog sporadically, and he has talked alot about how very involved he has been with the show.

 

[DeafPoet]

Wow, what a bunch of nonsense. Lindelof is acting like a 10 year old. He should have just ignored Martin.

Knowing Damon, the whole thing is probably pretty tongue-in-cheek.

 

[Admiral_Young]

^ I dunno. He seemed pretty hostile towards Martin, while Martin was making a point, a point in which most fans of "Lost" have made themselves. If he was being tongue-in-cheek he didn't need to swear and insult Martin personally. It's not like Martin insulted Damon personally. He was critiquing the show' self.

 

[DeafPoet]

Yeah, that's why its over-the-top nature is funny. Damon's sort of made a running joke over his persona of a guy who takes criticisms of Lost way too seriously. I'm sure it probably bugs him, but I'd wager he's finding a way to laugh along with everybody else.

 

[Admiral_Young]

^ If he really wanted it to be tongue in cheek Damon could have made a quip like "At least my series got an ending and didn't take five years" or something like that. Taken a shot at the length in between books.

 

[DeafPoet]

Uh, he made almost that exact joke.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Yeah but I mean only used that joke, nothing else.

 

[Hunter X]

Yeah, after following Lindeloft on Twitter for a while I'm pretty sure he's being tongue-in-cheek. Maybe he's trying a bit hard this time, but he tends to post links to negative things people say about him and Lost (like being listed as one of the worst people in the world by some website whose name I've forgotten), and then makes jokes.

In fact, I think I posted one of his quips in the Terra Nova thread where the showrunners were trying to say a show about time travel and dinosaurs wasn't science fiction. He linked to the article and commented that he remembered when he used to say Lost wasn't science fiction either.

Guy has a pretty good sense of humour about himself all things considered, even if he did pull a Lost with Lost.

ETA: for example, I don't really want to put in the effort to a fancy picture like Starbreaker did, but two tweets from him recently:

Damaged people crash on damaged island. People fix each other, then island. All consumed in bright light. Yay! (or Boo!) #LOSTINONETWEET

and

Oh poo on your "Spoiler Alerts." You follow me, you get what you pay for. And that would be lots of self-involved-finale-related whining.

 

[Starbreaker]

He got in a "Twitter feud" with some random fan a couple of months ago. When asked how many plot threads were left dangling, he mentioned some outrageous number.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I follow him on twitter as well, that's why I'm curious as to why he chose to be hostile in his response to Martin's comment. I'm sure that he feels like he is having fun with this, but like I said that's not what comes out in his words. It's also stupid to start a "feud" over something like this.

 

[Skywalker]

Something tells me fans are more bothered by this than Lindelof and Martin are.

 

[Admiral_Young]

^ Yep.

 

[IndyJones]

Look at his hash tags. It's clearly a joke.

 

[Bishop76]

Yeah, it really seems to me like this is a very tongue-in-cheek "feud"