I'm a little more forgiving about Season 7 than 8, if only because for all the hype and build up, it completely underwhelmed.
The more I think about it the more it pisses me off that D&D didn't just walk away. The network, the fans, the cast, GRRM, literally everyone else was on board for another 4-5 seasons. D&D were the only ones who wanted a quick end. You want to go do other things? Fine, then go fucking do it. The way they chose to rush to an ending, and in such a breathtakingly nonsensical way was really shitty and selfish. Fuck them. I hope they fail hard in their future projects. That's all but guaranteed if the studios make the mistake of letting them write the screenplays. Looking back, it occurs to me that they fucked up almost every single time they went off the books. Seriously, think about it. There was the Robb/Talisa story that was competently done, but that's it. Everything else they wrote themselves fucking sucked. This was well before seasons 7 and 8. The Dorne plot, Arya in Braavos, Sansa/Ramsay, Littlefinger after the Vale, Varys after King's landing, Bran after the books - it was all fucking shit. Downright terrible. They really are some of the worst fucking writers I've ever seen. HBO is already filming a spin-off. I don't know what to think about it at the moment. The setting looks to be the long night, which to me feels like one of the worst choices they could have made. It will be a totally new cast, new directors, new writers, etc so I guess I'll give it a chance when it comes out.
Setting the show thousands of years ago is retarded. They should either set in during the Conquest (year one) or Robert’s Rebellion. I’m also on board with saying I hope Dumb & Dumber fail in future projects. I’m just shocked they are getting an overwhelming tirade of scorn towards their laziness. There are still legions of people who think seasons seven and eight weren’t super-abrupt and that it ended strongly. Who ARE these fucking people? The final two episodes of the show were the two worst reviewed episodes of the entire series. The eight season actually got a “Rotten” rating and it still gets the Emmy nod? Exactly how irrelevant has that award become these days?
Pretty much anything else would have been better. This will basically be a bronze age era as well, but I'm guessing they decide to ignore that when they make the show. The worst part though is all the incessant rambling about "strong female characters." I'm all for that if it's a natural part of the narrative, but writing a bunch of that in solely for itself is going to make for some lame as fuck storytelling. When has some SJW driven crap ever been good? Never, and bringing in that whiny shit to the most detached setting imaginable is a recipe for absurdity and laugh out loud ridiculousness. I just hope it's not actually being persued in the way I've seen it framed.
A four-foot tall female character killed the Night King and the final two battling each other in the series were Queens. Jesus Christ if that doesn’t satisfy people go back to your “Hope & Faith” reunion online petition.
If you really want to see the difference in the quality of writing, go back and watch Season 1. My friend, who's never seen the show, decided to start watching it recently. I've been around a few times to watch some of the early episodes with her. It's like a different fucking show. Huge, huge difference.
I watched the show based on what people said in this message board about it’s source material, and how they described the potential it had as a big-budget show. So I watched it from the start and that opening massacre scene with the Ranges and the Walkers... there’s nothing like it. It was the best opening scene a TV show ever had. I was completely hooked after five minutes. It was such an unexpected and terrifying horror scene. By the end of that same episode, pretentious twins were fucking on camera and they closed with them shoving a little kid out a high window. I thought I was going to be watching some sword & sorcery epic. Instead, it was the anti-That. The character exchanges on this show back then are the pinnacle of their kind and unique from any other series. They took stories from nothing and made them magnetic. Good times.