Game of Thrones, episode one:
Apr. 18th, 2011 12:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessSo tonight I sat down to watch HBO's Game of Thrones with SP, a fantasy fan who has never read the books, and N, who's seen a few fantasy movies. Much to my surprise, all three of us had the same, deep, almost visceral reaction:
BAD SOUND EDITING.
So terrible, in fact, that we decided to try to turn on the closed captioning, which, on Brighthouse HBO, turned out to be not as simple as, say, turning on the closed captioning. In fact, after you turn on the closed captioning, you must then perform a number of other steps, including contacting Brighthouse, spending some quality time with a Brighthouse representive, resetting the cable box, and then attempting to convince the TV that, really, yes, everyone watching speaks English, not Spanish. This in turn led to me spending some time translating the Spanish subtitles into English and then all of us rewatching bits of the show with the English closed captioning. At which point the viewing experience decidedly improved. However. These were not, as you can imagine, optimal viewing conditions, and I sincerely hope that HBO improves the sound quality on future episodes especially for those of us not viewing the show in surround sound conditions without multiple speakers.
On the bright side, kudos to HBO for providing what seems to be quite accurate and occasionally even poetic Spanish closed captioning! Moving on.
1. Things we loved: the opening credits. The guys thought they were cool. I thought they were somewhat more clockwork than the books, but wildly inventive. Apparently these change each episode, and I'm looking forward to more.
2. Things we didn't love: the music. At best, N was kinda eh about it, and SP didn't think it sounded very period, and I didn't think it was ominous/emotional enough, and now that it's been awhile, I can't even remember any of it. Not a positive sign.
3. Hands down, our favorite scenes were the first scene, with the Rangers seeking the wildings and encountering the Others instead, and the last scene, not merely because these scenes worked without dialogue. (Trust me on this.)
4. Hands down, our least favorite scene was the finding of the direwolf. Admittedly this was in part because of the sound/Spanish subtitle problem mentioned above. But, mostly, both the stag and the direwolf looked awful, and to put it mildly, the other two had no idea what was going on; they both thought it was just a pointless interruption to the story, while I thought it lost all of the dire foreboding from the book.
5. Hands down, our favorite character/actress: Arya. Perfect casting. This is a surprise since she is not one of my favorite characters in the book, but the actress is great and I can tell will be winning me over.
6. Oh, auugh, they've decided to make Sansa even more clueless than she was in the book. At this rate everyone will hate her. Sigh.
7. Not loving the very obvious wigs, although I guess that's part of the point of Cersei's character in the feast scene.
8. Loving the dynamics between Ned and Robert. Those bits were great.
9. One small problem with doing the first episode so quickly: the other two assumed, not without reason, that Theon was also one of Ned Stark's sons and/or had no idea who he was. A related problem was that although I had no problems telling Robb, Theon and Jon apart, they did.
10. Everyone, but everyone, gasped at the end. Even though – did I mention the sound problems? – two people in the room didn't realize that both incest AND treason were going on. But it was still quite a scene, and now, we're all ready for the next episode. With closed captioning.
I have more, less frivolous thoughts, but they'll wait.
Edit: Other disappointment? I didn't like the dragon eggs. Not shimmery enough, and too scaly, and no, Dany, much though I like you, I can't agree that -- in the show - they're beautiful.
BAD SOUND EDITING.
So terrible, in fact, that we decided to try to turn on the closed captioning, which, on Brighthouse HBO, turned out to be not as simple as, say, turning on the closed captioning. In fact, after you turn on the closed captioning, you must then perform a number of other steps, including contacting Brighthouse, spending some quality time with a Brighthouse representive, resetting the cable box, and then attempting to convince the TV that, really, yes, everyone watching speaks English, not Spanish. This in turn led to me spending some time translating the Spanish subtitles into English and then all of us rewatching bits of the show with the English closed captioning. At which point the viewing experience decidedly improved. However. These were not, as you can imagine, optimal viewing conditions, and I sincerely hope that HBO improves the sound quality on future episodes especially for those of us not viewing the show in surround sound conditions without multiple speakers.
On the bright side, kudos to HBO for providing what seems to be quite accurate and occasionally even poetic Spanish closed captioning! Moving on.
1. Things we loved: the opening credits. The guys thought they were cool. I thought they were somewhat more clockwork than the books, but wildly inventive. Apparently these change each episode, and I'm looking forward to more.
2. Things we didn't love: the music. At best, N was kinda eh about it, and SP didn't think it sounded very period, and I didn't think it was ominous/emotional enough, and now that it's been awhile, I can't even remember any of it. Not a positive sign.
3. Hands down, our favorite scenes were the first scene, with the Rangers seeking the wildings and encountering the Others instead, and the last scene, not merely because these scenes worked without dialogue. (Trust me on this.)
4. Hands down, our least favorite scene was the finding of the direwolf. Admittedly this was in part because of the sound/Spanish subtitle problem mentioned above. But, mostly, both the stag and the direwolf looked awful, and to put it mildly, the other two had no idea what was going on; they both thought it was just a pointless interruption to the story, while I thought it lost all of the dire foreboding from the book.
5. Hands down, our favorite character/actress: Arya. Perfect casting. This is a surprise since she is not one of my favorite characters in the book, but the actress is great and I can tell will be winning me over.
6. Oh, auugh, they've decided to make Sansa even more clueless than she was in the book. At this rate everyone will hate her. Sigh.
7. Not loving the very obvious wigs, although I guess that's part of the point of Cersei's character in the feast scene.
8. Loving the dynamics between Ned and Robert. Those bits were great.
9. One small problem with doing the first episode so quickly: the other two assumed, not without reason, that Theon was also one of Ned Stark's sons and/or had no idea who he was. A related problem was that although I had no problems telling Robb, Theon and Jon apart, they did.
10. Everyone, but everyone, gasped at the end. Even though – did I mention the sound problems? – two people in the room didn't realize that both incest AND treason were going on. But it was still quite a scene, and now, we're all ready for the next episode. With closed captioning.
I have more, less frivolous thoughts, but they'll wait.
Edit: Other disappointment? I didn't like the dragon eggs. Not shimmery enough, and too scaly, and no, Dany, much though I like you, I can't agree that -- in the show - they're beautiful.