I don't know, this was by far the most gritty battle I've ever seen. There was no glory to be seen there, not even in Jon's godlike performance. They've failed to show the consequences of war for the smallfolk and the country as a whole, but I thought the battle itself was pretty good at showing the horrors of war.
I disagree, you guys are hyping your faces off. People are changing their avatars to Jon punching Ramsay in the face. Somebody made a youtube video where that moment is looped for a full hour. It was a very crowd-pleasing episode.
Let's take a moment to examine the big climaxes of each season.
1x09: Ned Stark, the hero of the story, dies, igniting a massive war across Westeros.
2x09: Stannis battles against the Lannisters in King's Landing. On one hand, we know Joffrey is not the rightful king, we hate him and Cersei, and we want to see Stannis remove them from power. On the other, we love Tyrion and we know that if Stannis won, he'd surely be executed.
3x09: Red Wedding, 'nuff said.
4x09: Battle on the Wall, we're rooting for Jon, but we know from his time with the Wildlings that they're not evil, just human beings born north of the Wall. Mance is a likable leader with depth, Tormund is funny, and in the battle Jon is pitted against Ygritte, the love of his life.
5x09: Daznak's Pit was pretty triumphant, but that feeling is undermined by Stannis burning his little girl alive in a moment of desperation. It's possibly the most gut-wrenching moment of the series, that left me stunned in silence.
6x09 has none of that complex sense of conflict that challenges the viewer with shades of grey. It's very black and white, which is the opposite of what attracted me to ASOIAF in the first place. They never even tried to add any depth to Ramsay. Even the White Walkers got some depth this year, with the reveal that they were once humans, corrupted into tools of war by the Children of the Forest. I'm not saying I want to see the bad guys win, but I do want the conflicts to continue to challenge the viewer as they have in the past.
You're not supposed to feel for Ramsay, but for the people under his and Jon's command. The scene with the wildlings trying to rout and causing a massive stampede shows the horrible truth of battle, with no glory to be seen, just pure desperation.
This channel has the full soundtrack with better quality, on-note and at the proper pitch. You just have to go through YouPak instead of YouTube to get around the stupid copyright blocks: www.youpak.com/channel?id=UCls_bxfr_xrPR5ytmpHidrQ
I wonder what this may be. It's very long and epic. The beginning could be people kneeling in front of Jon but since 1.15?
Sounds like the final scene of the Starks this season, as if they were preparing to do something big, like march to battle with a huge army or something. Maybe Jon convinces the Northern lords to march north to defend the Wall.
And I don't think the show is doing anything special by attempting to portray war as being terrible. It's not the concept, but the execution, and this was one of the most vanilla climaxes of the series, abandoning the grey nature of most conflicts for a pretty basic fight between black and white heroes and villains. The good guys won and the bad guy lost. There wasn't a major sense of sacrifice by the protagonists, and nobody cares about Rickon, in the books or the show. Nobody's talking about the tragedy of Rickon's death, but making punchlines about how he should have zig zagged.
I don't know, this was by far the most gritty battle I've ever seen. There was no glory to be seen there, not even in Jon's godlike performance. They've failed to show the consequences of war for the smallfolk and the country as a whole, but I thought the battle itself was pretty good at showing the horrors of war.
1. Vale Rohirrim (mostly because of the soundtrack) 2. Smalljon's speech
The soundtrack was half of both these scenes. Smalljon was pure raw epicness: epic speech delivered by epic looking guy, followed by epic sword raise and epic war cry, followed by epic kickass music. Fuck yeah
That shot with the banners and the spears moving forward is also epic as fuck. Shit, I must've watched this video like a hundred times already.
Is that a hint of snow at Jaime's right? Maybe it's finally snowing in the Riverlands, with the snowflakes being added as VFX. Or is more likely that it's just a random rock?
I did. He said he changed the pitch intentionally to protect his videos from being taken down by HBO
Is it only because the soundtrack's not officially released yet? Surely he can release the right ones after Friday? I don't recall HBO ever taking soundtrack videos down.
I don't know. All of his end credits themes in his channel are higher pitches as well.
The only shot that looked weird to me was when the horses clashed for the first time with Jon in the middle. Kit's body looked really weird there, but other than that the CGI was on point and the shots were perfect. Fair enough, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, or else we can go back and forth on this matter until S7 is out and still fail to convince each other
I enjoy discussing the show with fellow fans, and talking about it helps me suss out my feelings on why I might like or dislike a scene. You guys might change my mind by explaining things I might have missed, trust me, I want to like the episode.
I know, but those are fair points that I can't really dispute with objective arguments, all I can say is that I liked it for some subjective reasons. But it's mostly because it's 3 am now and I really need to go to bed
Btw, your complaints are very similar to my best friend's, who hated SNOWBOWL too
I guess this would be a bad time to ask if I can crash on your couch in Brazil for a couple of weeks..
Well, it's winter here now and it's been pretty chilly in my town, might even snow next week in some other towns nearby. You'll get better weather in Seattle, most likely. Not many thongs around in plain sight, by neither definition. Not the most "touristy" part of Brazil for outsiders, unless you have a specific interest in my couch
The majority of the horse stunts in the ep. were done for real. There was some crowd replication as there's always been but other than arrows and a few other elements, the battle was more for-real than Hardhome by miles. And Sapochnik purposefully eschewed too many overhead shots to make the viewer feel more in the experience and on the ground in the fight itself. Not only was this the best episode of the show and one of the best in TV but one of the best, most riveting action sequences I've seen hands down.
The only shot that looked weird to me was when the horses clashed for the first time with Jon in the middle. Kit's body looked really weird there, but other than that the CGI was on point and the shots were perfect.
Davey, the only thing I don't understand is how could you rate this episode so low after being so tolerant to episode 8, which had far bigger problems? The Arya vs. Waif chase scene looked far more "video gamey" to me.
The Arya vs. Waif chase didn't remind me of a video game, it was more reminiscent of the Terminator, or a classic slasher like Halloween where the killer silently stalks his victim. I think we place too much emphasis on the ratings numbers, Roger Ebert hated that his publisher required him to assign a star rating to movies. Watching a film, or show, doesn't work like that. It's all about how you feel while watching it. Every time I watch a movie I might get something different out of it, and like it a little more or less. Episode 8 might have had issues, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself while watching it, and probably wouldn't pick up on major issues until I watch it a few more times. The good outweighs the bad and I find myself writing a glowing review. The battle was the most important part of this episode and almost immediately I was confused as to what was happening. Since I didn't enjoy the 25 minute battle sequence, I'm more critical of the episode as a whole. I didn't know what to rate it, but 6 seemed reasonable to show that I enjoyed it, but was disappointed by major elements of it.
Fair enough, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, or else we can go back and forth on this matter until S7 is out and still fail to convince each other
Is it just me or are all the tracks from this channel slightly sped up and higher pitched? Compare these two:
You're right. The tracks are a bit messed off. I guess I''ll wait for some better version appears on youtube. There will be one soon enough.
Yeah, I just can't listen to any of the S6 tracks from that channel, which is really a shame because that guy is pretty good at uploading new stuff as quickly as possible. His S5 tracks were on point and had no problems, though, so I hope he fixes it.