For the viewer who watched the Lord of the Rings movies and thought, "what this needs is a little -- no, a lot of -- softcore porn," HBO brings you... Game of Thrones! Apparently, if you put in enough T&A, the fantasy genre becomes acceptable to mainstream audiences.
We recently finished disc 5 from Netflix, and I have to say that the TV series may actually be better than the books. It helps that the casting is excellent (with the exception of Daenerys' hideously bad blonde wig) and that someone as extraordinarily talented as Peter Dinklage is available to play Tyrion, but the single most important difference might be the skill of the writers on the series. They've used everything that was best in the novels while also notably improving the characterizations of characters like Cersei, Joffrey, and Sansa.
I read the first three books back in 2000 (y'know, when the series was still cool, before Martin ruined it with a book devoted to largely to Sam's sailing expedition), so it's possible that I'm transferring my disappointment in the book series to a preference for the TV series. At any rate, I'm holding out hope that the TV series can correct some of the problems with the Jordanization** of the novels.
** when a fantasy series spirals out of control and becomes an unreadable mess; the phenomenon is named after Robert Jordan, whose Wheel of Time starts reasonably promisingly, but gets bloated around book 5.
The TV series was awesome and the books were amazing, but comparing them is like comparing apples and photocopiers. The books were fantastic source material, but they constructed something fundamentally new out of them.
ReplyDelete(Note: I stopped reading the books after book 2 or 3 because I realized Martin had a high probability of dying before producing the end of the series.)
There were a few moments where I noticed they didn't have the budget of LOTR and were missing some spanning views and giant battles, but I think that also helped them focus on the story and characters.
I can't tell if Dinklage was made for Tyrion, or Tyrion was made for Dinklage. Either way, it's a pleasure to watch.
Is it really comparing apples and photocopiers? The series is very faithful to my memory of the books, with the exception that the women are written somewhat less like a teenage boy's concept of what women are like.
DeleteI've just read up to book 3...eh not awful, but I was surprised when all the "normals" started getting all excited about the HBO thing, it didn't seem to warrant all that excitement.
ReplyDeleteThe first three books are significantly better than a lot of fantasy out there, and my complaining about a Feast for Crows is a bit like complaining about the Star Wars prequels. Okay, a *lot* like complaining about the Star Wars prequels. Likewise, the show is significantly better than most of what little fantasy movies/TV is available.
DeleteBut it's the naked flesh and spurting blood that's drawing the normals out to watch.
I decided I would rather have the books spoil the TV series than the TV series spoil the books, so I will take up the series once I make it to the end of A Dance With Dragons (currently 45% complete on my Kindle).
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