Game of Thrones 1.01

[bedlamsbard]

A very short reaction to Game of Thrones 1.01: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is PERFECT. I am pretty sure I am not supposed to say that I love Jaime right after he throws a young child off a building, but, um, Jaime Lannister is my favorite character in ASoIaF and Coster-Waldau does him just right. (And as ever, I heart Lena Headey.)

Sundays are for incest, apparently. On a scale of one to creepy on the incest scale, ranking Cesare and Lucrezia, Dany and Viserys, and Jaime and Cersei...well, Viserys wins for creepy, and Cesare and Lucrezia win for affectionate, and Jaime and Cersei for...

Wait. Is the message I'm getting on Sundays supposed to be that only blonds are incestuous? You must have at least one blond character to ride this ride? (And Peter is blond too! If we are going the Narnia route, though of course there is no actual incest and/or pre-eminent subtext in Narnia.)

There have been too many creepy sex scenes with teenage girls on my computer screen in the past twenty-four hours.

They aged all the Stark kids up three years, I heard? Since isn't Bran seven, originally? Was that for casting or are they going to do something terrifying with Sansa?

I am not one hundred percent sold on the choices made for costuming, but, eh, whatever.

I am also going to be very meekly in the minority here and say that I'm not in love with the opening credits -- they're way too mechanical for my taste. I love the burning flamy-thing that's going on at the very beginning and the end, but the main bulk of it does nothing for me. Which, I mean, it's the credits, whatever, but I heard a lot of raving about the credits and I expected something more, so I'm a little disappointed.

I don't have much of an opinion on anyone else right now. I wish we'd seen more of the direwolves, since we only saw Summer; I'm surprised they didn't put Ghost into the Jon and Tyrion scene. Wait, I do have an opinion -- I was surprisingly pleased by Jorah Mormont, I'd forgotten he showed up that early. So there's that. (And Benjen and Viserys, while I'm here! Since they're not important outside the first book. So it's cool that they get fleshed out; Viserys is hugely important in GOT, but since there's that unfortunate incident at the end and there are, like, ten million pages of more book where he's gone, he's easy to forget.)

I kind of wish they'd made the pilot an hour and a half instead of just an hour. I've read the books (several times over, in fact), so I have no idea how well the pilot worked for people who haven't read the books, but I am very glad we didn't get a ton of exposition dumped on us in the pilot.

Oh, I liked the little detail at the beginning, with the eyes painted on stones over Jon Arryn's eyes. (I like little details. Sue me. It's one of the reasons I love ASoIaF.)

In conclusion: JAIME LANNISTER.

Comments

[sporky_rat]

I heard they aged the kids up due to child labor laws?

[bedlamsbard]

I think that's one of the reasons, yeah. (At some point I heard they were going to do something creepy with Sansa, but that might just be a rumor, or also I could have made it up. Also a possibility. Eh, I still think it works.)

[scy]

Since I love the dire wolves, I wanted to see more of them too. GHOST. And Summer.

And yes, what is it about blondes being incestuous on television lately?

JAIME LANNISTER.

[bedlamsbard]

Yeah, I'm really surprised that they didn't at least show Ghost with Jon! Like, I liked the pilot, they did pretty well, I wish it had been half an hour later.

FUCK YEAH JAIME LANNISTER. I hope this doesn't come off as me approving of throwing children off buildings, because that is obviously not something I approve of, but I love him in the later books. So much. Even in GoT, aside from the Bran-throwing.

[scy]

Yeah, it could have been longer.

It doesn't come off as you approving of it - he has an great arc.

[bedlamsbard]

*nods* I really wish they'd made it fifteen to thirty minutes longer, especially since they're going out on a limb and creating a whole fantasy world that probably a lot of the viewerbase isn't familiar with. I mean, not necessarily to add more exposition! But just a couple more little character moments would have been really nice.

I have to admit, I love Jaime in AFFC a really ridiculous amount.

[scy]

I think the extra time couldn't have hurt - detail is important esp. with a new fantasy world that may be new to many viewers.

:) Yes. Jaime is awesome.

[bedlamsbard]

And I think a touch more characterization might have helped with the end scene -- I mean, on the one hand it's shocking because it's a small child! And there are siblings having sex! But I'm not sure how much emotional attachment there is this early. (On the other hand, it falls pretty early in the books, too.)

And it wasn't until the second viewing that I noticed Tommen and Myrcella were there, too, as we only see them for all of a split-second. So it might have been nice if we'd gotten the mention that Cersei and Robert (or not) had three children instead of one. Eh. *hands* There's a ton of detail in the books, though, maybe more than in any other fantasy novel to film adaptation I've ever seen, so I have no idea how easy it actually is to convey that much in such a limited span of time. So on the other hand, if they had tried to pack more detail in there (the other Baratheon children, the Kingsguard) it might have been too much. But...like, I've read the books, I know how significant it is that a stag killed a direwolf, but the fact that the stag is the Baratheon sigil never showed up, so instead Sean Bean and his companions are all just trading dire looks because there's a dead direwolf south of the Wall. (And then DIREWOLF PUPPIES OMG SO CUTE.)

I think I have a copy of AGOT here, perhaps I should reread over the dead week!

[scy]

Yes, on the one hand more mentions of things would have been nice, but on the other, part of why that scene is so horrible and works so well is you don't KNOW these people, not really. Then, after more pages, you realize just who the Lannisters are - and things get complicated.

Oh, yes, that too. I was mostly enjoying the moment of DIREWOLF PUPPIES. OMG, I WANT ONE..but yes, other things going on with the looks and the plot there.

[bedlamsbard]

Eh, that's true. I just don't have enough distance to be able to tell!

The puppies! So cute!