3481

Oddly, my wife likes the series mostly because of Peter Dinklage and his astonishingly good performance. She finds the plot and characters’ relationships to be badly spelled out–“wait, why is the blonde woman relevant again?”–which I have to agree is complex for TV and is a weak spot compared to the books. On the other hand, she does tie up the TV with Real Housewives of Everywhere, so I get to choose once in a while.

3482

Fittingly enough, Dinklage moves to first-in-the-credits in Season 2! No more “with Peter Dinklage” at the end of the cast. Partly because there’s no more Sean Bean, and partly because the dude does have an Emmy and Golden Globe for this role.

Does this mean he gets Best Actor consideration now, rather than Supporting?

3483

The Season 1 set just shattered HBO’s records for sales. 350K units moved in the US/Canada alone in week 1. The Blu-Rays are about 60-percent of sales.

GRRM linked to a YouTube video from Spain of a midnight launch. It was a craaaaaazy long line.

According to the EW cover story, HBO boosted the budget 15-percent in Season 2, which brings them to about $69 million for the season, or almost $7 million an episode. The show keeps selling like this, they’ll be willing to boost it more next year.

3484

Now that is good news, production is going to need more money as the show continues. Hopefully that 15% for this next season was enough to give us a decent Blackwater scene.

3485

Rumor is that there’s a good 20 minute block devoted to the Battle on the Blackwater in episode 9, and that’s the episode GRRM is writing himself.

3486

I hope so. I’ll be very disappointed if Blackwater is reduced to another off-camera bit.

3487

See, I’m not upset that the battle in season 1 was off-camera, because that’s exactly how it was portrayed in the book. I felt a bit robbed (pun intended?) when reading the book, so it was totally expected when I watched the episode. The Blackwater, however, was well described in the book, and I’m hoping that we’ll get an epic battle in season 2. Looks like they’re on the right track!

3488

There were two main battles in the 1st book and season, and if I recall correctly, one of those battles (the one featuring Tyrion) was fully described in the book.

3489

Here’s a little bit of encouraging Blackwater info:

HBO mocked up a section of King’s Landing wall for the Blackwater. The wall is 20 metres away from a stretch of water, allowing skiffs full of soldiers to disembark under heavy arrow, ballistae and boiling oil fire from the walls.

The Blackwater battle will feature a very clever aquatic battering ram. Basically it’s on a boat with rib-like supports sticking out the top. When the boat beaches, the soldiers unpack the battering ram, spin the boat upside down, reconnect the ram and then run it up to the gates with the hull of the boat acting as cover from missile fire. It’s basically a medieval version of the landing craft from D-Day (my take, not the magazine’s).

Season 2 is the ‘season of battles, especially episode nine’. The crew built another ship at the Linen Mill Studio in Bainbridge. This ship is 140 feet long, 35 feet tall and has a 3oo-foot greenscreen surrounding it. The ship has a modular deck, which they can use as the cargo scow that takes Theon home but they they can lift on a whole new top deck to turn it into Stannis’s flagship, including the addition of a 12-foot-tall stag’s head with antlers as a figurehead.

3490

Tyrion’s battle is described through his limited perspective, and the battle where Robb captures Jaime was relayed afterwards.
book 2 stuff

Same as most of the land portion for Blackwater. I just hope to see Davos’ fleet coming in on King’s Landing and the chain rising up.

3491

You missed the best bit!

WiC UPDATE: This is probably a good place to note that we have received clarification about Vince Gerardis’ “Battle of Blackwater will be 16 minutes” comment, from both Vince and the interviewer himself. Apparently what Vince said was 60 minutes, not 16. This makes sense, as 16 and 60 sound a lot alike, especially to a non-native English speaker.

Here is his exact quote: “The Battle at Blackwater Rush, which is an episode in season two, I think it’s episode nine, it’s the script that George wrote, it’s going to be fantastic, but at the same time, only disappointing, because it’s only sixty minutes long.“

3492

Yeah, it’s because of piracy destroying the market!

…wait, what?

3493

Oxcross is a battle mentioned heavily (but not described first-hand) in the second book, and it seems by the previews that at least you’ll see the immediate aftermath. To have Blackwater be an entire episode would be amazing, even from a limited perspective at times.

— Alan

3494

Hopefully Tyrion manages to remain conscious this time.

3495

Part 3 has George reading a section of a Victarion chapter from Winds, starts around the 32-minute mark.

3496

The amount of spoilers in this thread is staggering… I’m thankful I’ve read the books.

I thought this was the “I have only seen the tv show” thread and we were kinda low on spoilers?

3497

No, that’s this thread.

The one with “No Spoilers” in the title.

3498

thanks - I would have thought that was the one to be bumped by show news.

3499

Yeah, the Game of Thrones spoiler situation is a confusing mess.

3500

Heh, I didn’t even know there was the other thread. I knew there was a reason I didn’t want to look in here until we finished watching Season 1.

My wife and I purchased the Blu Ray set on release and just finished the first season last night. I must admit I never did read the books, but my wife and I really enjoyed the series. I don’t think I can wait another year so will most likely sign up for HBO this week for the first time ever. Glad to hear the 2nd season is starting in a couple weeks. The only thing I wished was that the episodes were easier to make and had more like 20-25 episodes a year. After 10 it seemed like things were just warming up!