George R.R. Martin vs. Damon Lindelof
- Thread starter Starbreaker
- Start date
^ Particularly if Martin chooses not to retort. Which is kind of my point. You need the other person to react in order for it to be a full fledged feud. I don't really see the point for Martin to continue this. He made his point pretty clear.
S
Stone_Cold_Sisko
Guest
I feel like he's doing the same thing with ASOIAF. That should have been a trilogy. There's no reason for it to be so dragged out. I've already forgotten most of what happened, but there's enough of an imprint that rereading it won't be fun since I'll see everything coming.
If this is a "feud", it is a very one-sided one. Martin hasn't bothered to respond, and might not even know what twitter is. 
No matter how tongue-in-cheek Lindelof is, he does come across as rather desperate for attention. Someone being disappointed by the LOST ending is not exactly a newsflash.
No matter how tongue-in-cheek Lindelof is, he does come across as rather desperate for attention. Someone being disappointed by the LOST ending is not exactly a newsflash.
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.
If Lindelof had really wanted to fight back, he could have given a rationale for his bullshit, mumbo-jumbo ending instead of making cracks about it. Martin (and I've not read his work, so can't comment on his writing) is spot on in his criticism. And I second "pulling a Lost" as "fucking up the ending," particularly via cop-out.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
I agree. He probably should have done a trilogy and then done new stories in the same world.
The biggest problem is that he is starting to take 5-6 years to release every new book. I'm afraid he is going to pull a Robert Jordan and die before he finishes the series. The guy isn't exactly in the best of shape.
I haven't read any of Martin's own work as yet, but it does seem that he had legitimate criticism of Lost's alleged narrative decline and that Lindelof responded in a petty and reactionary manner that only served to demean him (Lindelof).
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A Song of Ice and Fire originally was meant to be a trilogy, but as he was writing, the story kept getting larger than Martin had originally envisioned. A Game of Thrones was originally supposed to be about the entire War of the Five Kings, which ended up taking up all of A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords, and Martin was still dealing with the aftereffects in A Feast for Crows and part of A Dance with Dragons.
The reason ADWD has taken so long is because Martin had originally planned on jumping the timeline ahead a few years after the end of the war, but he couldn't make it work, so he had to scrap everything he'd written thus far and start over almost from scratch. He then ran into a huge snag in the plot (which he referred to as a "knot") and it took him a while to figure out how to get everything lined up the way he wanted it and finally "untie" the knot, so to speak.
I suspect that once ADWD has been completed and published, the last three books will come much faster to Martin, since he'll finally be back on track with the story he'd planned on writing from the beginning.
The reason ADWD has taken so long is because Martin had originally planned on jumping the timeline ahead a few years after the end of the war, but he couldn't make it work, so he had to scrap everything he'd written thus far and start over almost from scratch. He then ran into a huge snag in the plot (which he referred to as a "knot") and it took him a while to figure out how to get everything lined up the way he wanted it and finally "untie" the knot, so to speak.
I suspect that once ADWD has been completed and published, the last three books will come much faster to Martin, since he'll finally be back on track with the story he'd planned on writing from the beginning.
Why? Shouldn't he be trying to finish the books first?
I for one is hoping that the HBO production will give him an extra incentive to accelerate the writing of the 6th and 7th book.
He only has 4 years until HBO has caught up!
(presuming the show lasts as long)
He only has 4 years until HBO has caught up!
(presuming the show lasts as long)
As Neil Gaiman has stated so eloquently, George RR Martin is not your bitch
Also, it's really funny and a bit surprising that so many people give more than half a shit about this "feud". Maybe it's tongue-in-cheek, maybe it's not - who cares?
Also, it's really funny and a bit surprising that so many people give more than half a shit about this "feud". Maybe it's tongue-in-cheek, maybe it's not - who cares?
that is one of my favorite blog posts EVER. It should be posted at every comic book/science fiction convention when fans start whining.
Amen.
Writing a TV series has got to be a very different experience than writing a novel series. TV needs to be done on the fly, on a schedule that cannot be changed (even tweaking it requires a lot of clout) and there are far more people involved that might muck things up.
When Martin produces a financially and creatively successful TV series that runs six years, then I might be inclined to care about what he has to say on the topic. What the Lost writers accomplished was unprecedented in TV, especially network TV, which has gone back to being a total sea of crap. If Martin is such a TV genius, let's see him produce a series, not just let other people produce his novels.
When Martin produces a financially and creatively successful TV series that runs six years, then I might be inclined to care about what he has to say on the topic. What the Lost writers accomplished was unprecedented in TV, especially network TV, which has gone back to being a total sea of crap. If Martin is such a TV genius, let's see him produce a series, not just let other people produce his novels.
Yet he thinks it's a snap to produce a good TV episde every week. Unbelievable.
I see you use the good 'old "If you don't paint, you can't critique a painting" fallacy. By that logic we should all not complain about shows we see here on this forum. (you certainly have expressed plenty of opinions on shows)
And you also seem to have missed the point that he didn't diss "Lost" as a whole (in fact he must have liked it since he watched it) just that they f^&*$%ed up the ending. Not exactly a stunning statement to make, since about half the Lost viewers seems to agree with him.
Martin's no stranger to television. Before he went back to being a full-time prose writer in the '90s (when he began work on A Song of Ice and Fire) he spent much of the '80s writing multiple episodes for both The Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast, which were both fairly successful. Next time you want to bash a person's qualifications, you should probably do a little research first.
Martin's criticism of Lost's ending has nothing to do with the rigors of producing a television series. His criticism was regarding the finale's narrative flaws, and seeing as he's been working professionally as a writer in both the literary and television circles for almost forty years, I'd say he's more than qualified to comment.
And, what, because Lindelof is involved in the film and television industry, does that somehow make him better or more successful than Martin? Get out of here with that elitist nonsense.
He is a producer for Game of Thrones, which is pretty much guaranteed, which, if the buzz is any indicator, is pretty much guaranteed to be a hit.Writing a TV series has got to be a very different experience than writing a novel series. TV needs to be done on the fly, on a schedule that cannot be changed (even tweaking it requires a lot of clout) and there are far more people involved that might muck things up.
When Martin produces a financially and creatively successful TV series that runs six years, then I might be inclined to care about what he has to say on the topic. What the Lost writers accomplished was unprecedented in TV, especially network TV, which has gone back to being a total sea of crap. If Martin is such a TV genius, let's see him produce a series, not just let other people produce his novels.
Yet he thinks it's a snap to produce a good TV episde every week. Unbelievable.
