I definitely was not a die-hard fan of Game of Thrones. I enjoyed it and found it interesting, with its strong suspense that promoted this idea of a constant threat, numerous locations with harsh environmental dangers, and its elements of fantasy that really covered a bit of everything. It seemed incredibly promising, and a refreshing idea that was not really touched for the longest time by anyone else. Strong fantasy shows and films were certainly few and far between. And to this day still are to some degree. Though, I am one of many that believes that the last few seasons of Game of Thrones heavily declined in quality. To much so that I would consider it a colossal mistake, a nosedive in potential. I was highly disappointed in how Game of Thrones turned out in the end, and completely forgot it existed shortly after that final episode.
It came as a surprise that there would be a spin-off series to follow it. Set prior to the events of Game of Thrones. I found it strange that the network was willing to accept the risk of another series given the reception Game of Thrones received when it ended. Though, I must admit that the show prior to its final seasons were highly praised, and receiving a crazy amount of viewership that definitely justified the budget and continuation. Back then, there was also significantly less competition. The show had free reign over this market of a more darker fantasy show, giving audiences something that they desperately wanted, escpaing the safe and family-friendly areas of high fantasy.
I know, however, for many, that they are excited for this show. I will refrain from covering the story so far and mentioning any potential spoilers that I saw within the first episode. I'll make this piece a bit more of a negative one; one that looks into what really failed with it when it came to my viewing. And thus far: it really has been a bit lacking for me.
From the first few minutes of the first episode, something felt very off. Something seemed completely different and very distracting. It did not take me long to realise that the show was relying heavily on some very cheap and frequent use of special effects. These special effects completely pulled me out of any immersion as my eyes roamed across the screen looking at how bad everything looked. Like a video game from the prior decade, where environments are clearly not really there, and buildings have this strange gloss to them as if they have been smothered in grease. Colours appear flattened and quality just is not present. Nothing seems sharp. Though there are moments of interior scenes where this is not the case, and things are presented with sharpness and depth. But this pulls me into the next main issue I have: hair. The male characters with long hair are just terrible. I can't accept it. I keep looking at how blatant they are as wigs. The material of this hair looking far from realistic, often very straight, and almost with some shine to it as if it is plastic. There are a few male characters with this issue, and instead of paying attention to their dialogue, I found myself searching for areas in which these wigs were highly evident.
I found myself even looking deep into the costumes and their designs, where they seemed cheap and plastic. With little weight and shine to them that made them stand out. In the screenshot above you can see the helmet of a particular character; it does not look authentic at all. It appears brittle and with attempts to seem well-worn. This is not how I see it at all. It just looks like a costume budget was crippled and the result is something you would easily find as merchandise in a kid's toy store.
Though interior set design is not as bad. The art direction and lighting in interior scenes seems quite solid. Though there are some lighting methods that are necessary as to account for certain character's ethnicities. A lot of people won't really notice this, but with my background in lighting and working with casts of varying skin tones, you have to make changes in lighting to account for different tones of skin. In the case of House of the Dragon, it means much of the interior scenes are quite bright, where shadows don't have as much intensity as they usually would. I find it hard to say this is a major fault, ultimately not a lot can be done about this and many won't even notice. Though in terms of the aforementioned wigs, it's quite noticeable that it isn't genuine hair length.
I also want to add that many, prior to its release and much like the pre-production phase of the new The Lord of the Rings show, were not all that welcoming regarding the more present varying ethnicities in its main cast. Truthfully I think this is the least of the issues, and the casting itself is the biggest problem of the show for me. Not a single character looks as if they belong to this world. They look far too clean, modern, and lack a lot of charisma in their performances. The result is soft-spoken English accents with very little substance in the rest. Even as I write this, I can't even remember most of their names. The show tried to go direct into political discussions and with very little actual introduction to its characters that once it ended, I just did not care to see more. I was not interested.
Of course there is plenty of time for character development to unfold and be given the length it needs to really showcase them and give us reasons to care, but from a first episode this almost felt like a regular mid-season episode; though with some very blatant fan-service moments that pointed at Game of Thrones and shouted to us: "Hey! Remember that?!"
As well as these fanservice moments, I also could not help but feel that Game of Thrones' attempts at shock value have been exhausted on me. Where the show frequently promoted vulgarity of any sort whenever it could: action and gore scenes, nudity, and swearing. I don't mind all of this, but I have this feeling that Game of Thrones became known for that and pretty much only because of that, and now House of the Dragon is attempting to carry on that torch. It isn't enough for me. Nudity and blood and guts just does not capture my interest. Strong characters and performances, however, certainly do. And I just don't see any of that yet.
A first episode can mean everything to an audience, and I certainly do not think this first episode has managed to grasp my interest nor my attention. I found myself often pausing the first episode to get up and obtain more water out of boredom. Returning with this feeling as if finishing the episode was a chore I felt nothing more than hatred for. Part of me is also aware that a first episode doesn't always reflect the quality of what is to come. I am aware that I might be just struggling to care and perhaps that the show isn't for me, or that I may be being too harsh on it. But the other side of me saw this episode and remembered the many family-friendly fantasy shows and films that came before, with cheap effects and casting decisions; though in this case with plenty of gore and breasts around to wake you up when things get a bit too slow.
I think to ensure I am not just being too judgemental I will give the show a chance to progress, to see if it does have something better to offer me. But I also know that if the following episodes contain such weaknesses that I am likely to just move on. Thus far, without interesting characters and a strange cast, I feel that I might just end up putting the show on for its background noise while I do other things.
I like this series, I liked GoT and I think I am one of the few people who do not have problems with how that series ended; with House of the Dragon, I have few expectations and the surprise does not exist in this series because everything is already written in the novel created by R.R. Martin, but perhaps for nostalgia, to discover other characters of that world makes me a faithful follower and I think I like how the story develops because maybe this is not a very long series, I think it will have few seasons and that's fine with me.
I won't say it's the best series of the moment, but it's entertaining, good characters and I hope GoT fans (although it's very difficult) stop comparing it with the famous HBO series.
I just can't seem to see the production quality in it. I'm also really not a fan of Matt Smith as an actor. And in general seeing faces that I have seen many times before in such roles, especially now with a wig on. It just seems so off. It reminds me more of theatre than it does a television series, in fact. Perhaps I have some high standards for fantasy and the attention to detail it gets.
I think I will give the other episodes a chance, but I truthfully don't have much faith in it appealing to me. I think I've just moved on from that world and its stories.
I understand you perfectly about the ending of this film, I particularly felt like it lacked something to make the end of the series epic, but only Snow killed the khaleesi and that's it, the dragon gets angry, spits fire, melts the throne and that's it, there was something missing, it was a very strange ending and I did not like it much, and that is my favorite series, but I did not like the ending at all.
Under your point of view and with the experience that you have working in the cinema, now I will see this series from a different perspective, I do not know what to think since I have not yet seen the house of the dragon, I hope to see it soon but when I have more chapters so I do not have anxiety waiting for the next chapter, so I will be pending with this that you mention about the wigs and lighting scenes.
There was definitely such a long build-up over the years which was just completely ignored and ultimately had no purpose in the end.
This show does look and feel a bit different, but I don't think it is in the best way it can. It still really relies on certain elements of GoT rather than just being its own thing.
Let me know if you write about either of the shows. :)
Of course it is, my friend, for now how many chapters does it have? I haven't even wanted to see the cover hahahahaha
I think it has three episodes out in total for now.
Yo también sentí esa incomodidad desde el primer episodio, pareciera que ahorraron en el arte de la serie (vestuario y decorados) para invertir en los efectos de recrear a los dragones, no tomaron en cuenta que el mayor éxito de la serie (GoT) se basó más en los personajes y el nivel de realismo al retratar la época, aunque se utilizaran alfombras de IKEA para realizar el vestuario de Jon Snow, por ejemplo. A mi me encantó GoT y por eso juzgamos tan duramente esta precuela. Pero la Casa del Dragón tiene que competir con una de las series más vistas y tratar de superarla va a ser difícil, ya que el guion no ha logrado superar a su antecesora (se que solo hemos visto tres episodios), pero los giros inesperados ocurrieron en GoT desde el primer día.
PD: yo también me entretengo mirando la unión entre la peluca y la cara, es muy desagradable, pero le daré una oportunidad.
Yeah I don't think it's off to a great start so far. I think it has failed to really meet expectations, and I think many expectations were also quite low after the GoT ending.
There's a plethora of flaws for me so far, and I'm not sure if I can stick around and ignore them throughout multiple seasons. I expect it to be different to GoT in many ways, but I think the only real difference thus far has just been a massive reduction in production quality in most areas.
Si, quizás sea demasiado para aguantar durante años, como disfrutamos de otras, que tienen un tipo diferente de presentarse ante nosotros, que gran compromiso que tiene, por mi parte no se si logre superar el salto en el tiempo y si pueda seguir viendo como cambian a Raenyra, y a Alicent, por actrices mayores, no estoy segura de poder con eso, solo nos queda aguardar
I guess we shouldn't be surprised if the jump in time results in the total opposite of wigs: baldness. :^)
Game Of Thrones was a memorable series until its fourth season, at least for me. After that moment everything went downhill until that rushed and error-filled ending. GOT quite disappointed me in its final point, this was perhaps the result of the gap between the books and the television series... although everything seemed predestined to get out of control.
I liked the first episode of The House of the Dragon, although honestly in the last episodes I have noticed a lot of what you say, including the special effects... there is a lot of fanservice to nod to the original story, perhaps to repair wounds, although in general it has been quite entertaining for me. When you mentioned the wigs I couldn't contain my laughter, hahaha, the truth is that the hair of the Targaryens does look somewhat strange, very smooth and perfect for a medieval era... your analysis is very technical and that fascinates me. I love these types of reviews!
I hope you can continue watching House of the Dragon, you may like it halfway ;-).
Yeah I'll give it a few more chances. I do feel like I shouldn't judge an entire series by one single episode, but it'll be hard to really pull me in for good now.
I think some fanservice was definitely to be expected, and it wasn't too bad, but I think it just lacked ability to find its own footing and instead felt more like it was jumping and waving and shouting: "Hey, I'm GoT too! Look, there's a breast and someone's face being cut off!"
It just wasn't for me.
I haven't seen it yet and thanks to you I'm filled with curiosity about how my first impression will be when I see this series since I honestly love Game Of Thrones (obviously, every series has its negative side)
Thanks for sharing your opinion, I should definitely check it out😊
Yeah make sure you ignore my opinions! Haha. Check it out for yourself, I think others will definitely like it still, especially if you are already quite a big fan of GoT. Hopefully the show can find its footing and can stand out and be different to it. I hope it doesn't rely too much on the prior show to hook in an audience.
hahaha I liked this post.
I'm a fan of GOT and maybe that makes me forgive any flaws. The last season of GOT felt rushed, I can't deny that, as it no longer relied on written material and in a documentary I watched afterwards, everyone involved seemed exhausted after ten years working on the series.
You who work in cinematography notice more details that many viewers may overlook, although in truth they are obvious. The CGI when the dragon throws fire at the corpse of a certain character seemed very fake to me. But since I'm a fan of the story, it doesn't bother me too much hahaha.
You're right about some scenes with panoramas in supposed exteriors, they're all CGI, it's a bit fake, when you look more into it.
About the wigs, just today I commented on discord, that it makes me funny to see some characters with those yellow wigs. But my fan side of the story is stronger and I forgive those details.
The other point , seeing familiar faces, the best known actors for me are Paddy Considine and Matt Smith, but a lesser known actor would have looked better in those characters, although Matt Smith is fine as Daemon Targaryen. I liked Considine as a director in the movie Tyrannosaur.
I would tell you to give him a chance until the middle of the season, there will be an important time jump ( between episode 5 and 6 ) and the actresses playing Rhaenyra and Alicent will be replaced by more adult ones.
I'm not a big fan of Matt Smith, but I can admit his performance in The Crown was pretty good. I think he does have the face for someone with malicious intent. Tall, thin, relatively skeletal. He has that deep look around the eyes. Maybe I can warm up to his performance here.
I think for now there's definitely a big issue with the special effects. I don't think these perspectives were all that necessary, and they should know by now that darkness helps hide the special effects, and big open bright spaces makes them incredibly obvious and distracting.
The wigs though... Those stupid wigs... Watching the episode felt like watching a court session.
I thought the handful of episodes I saw of GoT were pretty well done. Meanwhile I’m still waiting for the rest of the books (I don’t know if any more are or as I haven’t checked recently). I donno I just like the books more.
I giggled my way through all of the criticisms especially about the wigs, not entirely certain why that in particular was so hilarious today but it was 😆
The wigs are so, so bad. Also good luck with the books, haha. Maybe one day.
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I'm a little late, so I'll just say that I died laughing with the wigs and half broken helmet thing hahahaha definitely if I watch that series it would be something that I would notice and ultimately not let me concentrate on absolutely nothing else, an absurd that they invest so much money in a series and let overlook those details, not to mention all the rest of what you say, but I especially notice a lot in those things that maybe many do not notice and just stay admiring the series for what it reminds them of the previous one.
Excelent post @namiks 😅😅😅 i'm still laughing 🤣🤣🤣