I mentioned a couple of months ago that I was Re-watching Game of Thrones and I was reminded just how good that show was – especially those early seasons. By Binge-ing all the seasons back-to-back over a couple of weeks it was very easy for me to see where the show dropped off. Facebook has been feeding me GoT content now for many months with lots of pretty pictures of the actors, but they don’t quite get it. It’s not the actors that made the show great, it was the plot twists and most importantly – the clever dialogue.
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Re-watching GoT set me up nicely to watch the new spin-off series House of the Dragon and, to be brutally honest it’s about as good as the final seasons of GoT and that’s probably being generous. All the basic ingredients of a decent fantasy story are there, but it’s missing those special ingredients that made the original GoT so good. The dialogue is pretty weak and the characters are fairly one-dimensional. While I could watch GoT and relate to / enjoy many of the complex characters in that show, the characters of House of the Dragon are for the most part pretty ordinary and uninspiring.
It feels like it’s the same band of Hollywood writers hacks trying to churn out some more derivative content and ride the coat-tails of a previous winner. That seems to be the trend these days and we’re seeing it with all the Star Wars spin-offs, the glut of Marvel and DC comic remakes and it looks like Lord of the Rings is going down this road too. For Game of Thrones they doing another spin-off for Jon Snow and that looks like more of the same...
That said, I’ll still probably watch it just like I’m watching House of the Dragon because I am a sucker for the fantasy genre. However, I think there is a real dearth of quality, creative entertainment being created these days so the bar is pretty low. We used Covid and the Writers Strike as an excuse for weak content production in recent years, but I’m not seeing an improvement. Remakes and Spin-Offs seem to be everywhere these days as US show makers appear to be in decline. Will we see a Renaissance of creativity at some point? I hope so because I love a good story...
EDIT - Another GoT spin-off has just been announced A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
I actually enjoy HoD just as much as GoT but I do think that HBO needs to be very careful how many spinoffs they attempt because if they do too much they run the risk of pulling a Star Wars and turning off the fans to anything else that they do. For now though, I think they have a winning formula here that is just enough different to keep people engaged. It's a shame you don't like HoD though, I think it is epic!
I may have been a bit too harsh because I am still watching HoD. I'm just a bit disappointed that it's not as good as the early GoT. I agree that HBO needs to be careful. Too many spin-offs will ruin the saga.
I'm not sure if I dreamt this or if it was real but I want to say that a John Snow prequel is in the works as we speak.
Prequel or Sequel?
I was aware that there was plans for a sequel with Jon Snow.
WoW I did not know about this spin off of John Snow, I hope it premieres soon, is more of the same well maybe but the story attracts me because something I want to know is that territory in depth.
House of The Dragon is a success, today is the final chapter of the season and I'm waiting to see it like crazy, if snow fails it doesn't matter because we still have House of The Dragon, but I think it won't fail and I want to see it and review it 😀
The one original show that really got me hooked last year binging the 2 seasons in a couple of days was From, It's pretty much a combination of Lost and The Walking Dead. Highly looking forward to the 3rd season which comes in September. Aside from this I'm not really watching anything.
Thanks for the tip. I'll have a look for it.
I need to watch the House of the Dragon new season. I tend to agree that it is not near as good as GoT.
Remakes are instantly on my do not watch list anymore. All the ones I have watched are terrible.
I didn't finish watching game of thrones due to technical problems and I haven't looked for it by other means to finish watching this great series, now that this continuation came out I don't want to start watching it without finishing the other one.
The fantasy genre is not my favorite but good stories and well built characters are.
It's good to know what we are going to face if we decide to watch it, thanks for sharing your opinion. @buggedout
Still haven't watched the House of The dragon second season...
I find myself watching other series instead....
Sending you an Ecency curation vote