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Old 18-10-22, 17:51   #21
Amunet
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I'm loving it so far. While it does make some changes from the source material, for the most part they have actually enriched the story and most importantly kept to the overall themes of Martin's books (unlike the Game of Thrones adaptation imo).

I also think the series is all around really well done. The writing, the acting, the production design, wardrobe, the dragons — just *chef's kiss* excellent!

I was very apprehensive going into the series. I quit watching GoT around season 4 or 5 because I really thought the series had gone downhill and had become a really poor adaptation of the books. When HBO announced a new series I was like "Nope! I won't go through that again" and had decided I wasn't going to watch it. But then I heard Dumb and Dumber (GoT's showrunners) had nothing to do with House of the Dragon and that gave me a little hope. When the series premiered I was still on the fence whether to watch it or not but some comments from other book fans that had a similar experience with GoT convinced me to give it a try. By episode two, I was hooked!

Sure, there are some changes/scenes that I could have done without but the overall story and character dynamics are really well written and engaging to watch. And when comparing it to another fantasy book adaption that recently ended, well, I'd say this one is near perfect.
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Old 18-10-22, 18:24   #22
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I love it and think it's well written, directed and acted.

I do think it's interesting in a different way to GOT, or is to me anyway.

For me, GOT was always about the spooky things - those creatures up in the north, the wall to keep them out and finding a way to overcome the existential threat. Red priestesses, wargs and strange men who live beneath trees and can tap into everything including the past.

HOTD is much more focused on the political elements which I was interested in in GOT but not as much as the other stuff.
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Old 20-10-22, 04:48   #23
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I'm only one episode in, so no spoilers please.

But I'm already enjoying it. I think any faults HOD might've had will be easily ignorable thanks to how badly received Amazon's ROP ended up being. HOD is a hard sell for many people since many still feel burned by how GOT ended, but it seems to be working in HOD's favor that ROP came out at exactly the same time and ended up being a total mess.

So far my first impression from one episode is simply this: Thank God for the music. Hearing the Targaryen dragon theme again right at the start of the episode was magical. I'm telling you, had ROP just done this with it's soundtrack to re-capture more of LOTR's magic it would have helped a lot. It wouldn't have fixed it, but it would've helped.

Looking forward to bingeing more of this.
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Old 22-10-22, 06:00   #24
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Just finished all 9 episodes. Last one this Sunday, correct?

God that was pretty good. It had moments of boredom and slowness but compared to ROP it was amazing and thank God for the good writing and acting. The eye-for-an-eye episode and the last episode so far with the dragon ending were both phenomenal.

Cinematography and lighting are both terrible at times - what is it with this series and GOT trying to hide cheap CGI with bad dark lighting like during that scene where Aemond steals the dragon? Also, the wigs on most of the cast look like a joke. I miss how in the early GOT seasons Daenarys and Viserys had hair that was more white-blonde, and then in the last seasons Daenarys' hair became more stark-white. It seems in this show they continued the white thing, so everyone looks more like an albino. I know this may be more in alignment with the books, but sometimes it's just so obvious that it's a wig.

Not going to go too much into the weird racial casting choices because eventually you can ignore it. Still, white Targaryen hair as dread locks on an entire family line just looks plain stupid. And everyone officially believing that those two white boys are the gay black guys' sons. Yeah, sure...

If they were going to give us forced diversity, then Rhaenyra could've at least had those illegitimate' children with black lovers so the children would've been mixed in order to make the facade more believable. It feels like we're all just meant to squint and buy it. Kinda like how in TR2 we're supposed to pretend those rolling ball bundles are an avalanche. *wink wink*

That idiocy aside, it's a great show and I'm so happy they did a good job with it. Alicent Hightower/Olivia Cooke steals the whole thing with her performance. I thought I would be drawn most to Rhaenyra, and she also did a great job (both the younger and older versions), but Olivia Cooke is truly remarkable and can express so much emotion with her face.

I also think the casting with regards to the time jumps was handled very well. What I personally would've preferred would be a simple "X years/months later" at the start of each episode where a time jump occurs (since there are more than just the main one 4 episodes in) because it was a little confusing at first and trying to figure out who is who when it comes to all the new children that just popped up.

But yeah, great show. I'm excited for the finale and the next season. At least this quenched my thirst for some good fantasy and interpersonal character relationships and intrigue where Rings of Power was just cheap eye candy. At least ROP has better lighting though.

Last edited by .snake.; 22-10-22 at 06:13.
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Old 22-10-22, 13:57   #25
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I like the "show, don't tell" story telling.
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