Game of Thrones

I finally got around to the fourth season of Breaking Bad. It's awesome. Unbelievable. And that's all I have to say. I just started Game of Thrones, the HBO fantasy series based on a series of novels by George R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. Martin (which I haven't read). This is what I think so far...

The production values for this show are amazing. I don't think I've ever seen anything that looks as much like a film as this. It's truly cinematic. One of the reasons I'm hooked is how beautiful it looks. Even the music is cinematic. To see what I mean you need not look any further than the intro sequence with its catchy score and its sweeping shots across a map of the world, parts of which rise up like cogs in a machine, forming castles and kingdoms and trees etc.

The characters, though not that interesting, are cast well. They seem to have specifically cast people who have played the same kinds of characters in other shows. Lena Headey was a queen in 300 so she's a queen in this. I swear Iain Glen always plays a knight, or someone on horseback. I'm pretty sure he was the English king in Kingdom of Heaven. Here he is also someone on horseback. Sean Bean, too, plays the kind of character you'd expect Sean Bean to play. Like I said, the characters aren't all that interesting. But there are so many of them that statistically speaking there must at least be a couple of interesting people. This is true. There's Sean Bean, his young daughter who has a talent for all things warriorish and manly, that dwarf from Death at a Funeral.  There's also the blonde chick whose brother marries her out to a Klingon and who gets naked in pretty much every scene. But that's not the only reason I find her interesting. She's interesting because her arc is interesting.

This brings me to the next point, the story-lines. I've only seen the first two episodes and already there are some great conflicts being explored. The relationships, problems and dramas are so many and so intricate that praise must go to the writers and to George. A. B. C... X. Y. Z. Martin for being able to hold all of this together without it getting top heavy and crumbling apart.

This being a HBO show, it more or less has free reign to have as much swearing and sex as it wants. People drop "fuck" and "cunt" into sentences as casually as "hello" and "goodbye", and have sex like there's no tomorrow. I'm two episodes in and I've seen more tits than the entirety of most other shows. I find this interesting, to say the least. Like I said, I've never read the books, so I don't know how sexual they are. But the show seems to think it needs to be part-porn to stay on the air. But then again, maybe it does. I'm not that familiar with the demographic.

I came into Game of Thrones with no prior knowledge of the series. I'm surprised at how interesting it is. I've never been a fan of fantasy, but this is actually pretty good.