The Gaming Den

I've been watching "Camelot." The show itself isn't that great. The characterization of Merlin is awesome though. Showing him as a tortured man who has no qualms but also reluctant to use all his abilities is brilliant.

Okay, for some reason, in GoT Payne looks like he is trying not to burst out laughing.

It kind of ruins the mood.

EDIT: Okay, these guys need WoW-style floating names or something. Apparently even professional reviewers can't keep them straight.

echoVanguard wrote:

Kaelik wrote:

echoVanguard wrote:I'd be interested in hearing what some of the TGD female posters thought of Game of Thrones.

echo

The show or the books?

PS: Why women specifically?

The show.

I saw an interesting article on io9 claiming that "HBO's Game of Thrones is a show for girls" based on the argument that it was all about interpersonal relationships and steamy unmentionables. Since a large percentage of tabletop gamers are GRRM readers in my experience, I was curious if any members of TGD's "girl squadron" had an opinion which I could compare with that of the article.

echo

I tried to watch the first episode and made it about 15 minutes in before I turned it off. It was not my thing. The scenes were gratuitously bloody, there was nothing about the plot that particularly interested me, and the world didn't set itself apart enough for me to notice.

If the show was made for women, it was made for women who would already be watching it.

Trying and failing to watch some of my childhood favourites . . space 2063 for example, or Space Precinct . . can't believe i loved bravestar and saber rider as a child ._.

So, apparently Ghost is not mute in the show. It's a shame, because being completely and utterly silent seriously upped his credentials as Jon's ominous enforcer, even if his only vocalizations to date are direwolf for "Nice throat you have there, shame if something happened to it."

name_here wrote: EDIT: Okay, these guys need WoW-style floating names or something. Apparently even professional reviewers can't keep them straight.

Yeah, that's my main issue with GoT, I really don't know what all the characters names are.

Swordslinger wrote:

name_here wrote: EDIT: Okay, these guys need WoW-style floating names or something. Apparently even professional reviewers can't keep them straight.

Yeah, that's my main issue with GoT, I really don't know what all the characters names are.

Yeah, I can remember precise dialogue for scenes in the book and I still can barely keep them straight in the show.

To be honest, I had the same issue in the books. Multiple main characters, with multiple view points, each with a cast of 20 or so sub-characters who all do shit, and you have to keep it all straight.

So, latest episode of A Game Of Thrones is called A Golden Crown. Readers of the books know what that means.

Also: That was painful-looking.

Oh, and Grey Wind missed his first major awesome moment, I am disappointed greatly.

Darn, reading that makes me dangerously close to getting HBO.

That said, things to be moving along fast, just how many episodes have there been already, 12, tops? Seems like that's not enough to get to that state in the book.

I'm pretty sure A Golden Crown is episode 6. And things have been moving along fairly quickly, but coverage has still been pretty thorough. I'm pretty sure the season will only have like 10-12 episodes overall.

Do note that each episode is 55 minutes and has no commerical breaks, so it's moving faster than you might expect. Also, they've trimmed down the dialogue and sliced out minor characters/given lines to different characters.

Okay, Grey Wind makes up for his earlier missed scene in a scene where the Greatjon decides to chew out Robb a second time, and Grey Wind makes a disappointed sound when the Greatjon backs off before losing more fingers to direwolf. Ghost, unfortunately, blows his "Spot the zombie!" check and gets literally shut out of the climax at the wall. Also, everyone gets on their "Oh Shit" faces when Sam points out the corpses are undecayed. It's nice to know that at least one plot thread contains no idiots. Oh, and some dude talks smack about Dany in front of Khal Drogo with predictable results.

Also, Syrio Foyel does not run in this episode.

EDIT: Added spoiler tags.

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Please put plot spoilers in spoiler-tags
[/TGFBS]

So I just finished watching the first season of "Sherlock."

Steve Moffat's is one of the best writers/showrunners ever.

From his very early career to now, he's put out outstanding stuff.

Coupling, 2002+ Dr. Who, Jekyll, Sherlock, and apparently he's gonna be penning the Tintin trillogy films.

--

Sherlock Holmes is like the quintessential bunny-ears lawyer in the new series. A mix of Alan Shore and Gregory House. THe show is set in modern-day London rather than Doyle's original setting.

John Watson is an Afghanistan vet and he keeps a blog.

Overall, the show is awesome. Also for people who've read Doyle's Holmes, there are a whole lot of subtle references.

Also Martin Cumberbatch (Sherlock) is a pretty awesome actor.

Also, it seems as though only the English could have a name that salacious and not have anyone joke about it.

Ess dropped that into our Netflix queue a couple of days ago. Your review will speed up my watching of it.

I just noticed that I used Also in three consecutive sentences...

Cynic wrote:Steve Moffat's is one of the best writers/showrunners ever.

Steve Moffat is... OK, certainly better than many, if not most TV writers.

...but

Everything he writes is Press Gang..

His new Sherlock Holmes? About a mildly sociopathic genius who saves the day.

His take on Doctor Who? A mildly sociopathic genius who saves the day.

Press Gang? A mildly sociopathic genius, well, who is the core of the story at least, saves the day when applicable.

It's like everything he writes is just Lynda traveling through time and space being brilliant solving crime and being socially oblivious.

I mean hell go look at http://www.stevenmoffat.net/ that's... an awful lot of Press Gang considering it's vintage...

And in summary. Steven Moffat IS Press Gang.

Edit: He apparently also did the Jeckyl mini series. A story about a sociopathic super man who saved the day.

Sherlock had a good start ... but it got progressively worse in part 2/3.

So, what's decent at the movies lately?

I've heard people joke Super 8 is just E.T with more lens flare, and a buddy at work said "Yeah, it's E.T. trying to be badass."

Has anyone watched the new Pirates? X-Men? Green Lantern?

I enjoy a good spectacle as much as anyone, but Dad wants to go see something for Father's Day and I'm trying to get some kind of idea of what's good and what's not.

Because I can't snark a movie with Dad as much as I can with, say, my sister.

Pirates: mostly crap.
X men: Pretty okay, mostly only three actors do a good job, but two of them are Magneto and Xavier, so you are good to go. Plus, I think they do a really good job showing how they got to this point, and they reject both Wolverine Origins, and Last Stand as non canonical. Though that only really matters to nerds.
Green Lantern: Utter Shit, do not see this movie. Ever.

I honestly thought Thor was excellent. I wasn't expecting all that much, but I really enjoyed it. The effects were good, and Natalie Portman was attractive. The best parts were probably
1) Kenneth Branagh really imbued the story with a Shakespearean gravitas. Which totally works.
2) For Asgard and the Rainbow Bridge thingy, they used actual pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope and such. It's really, really pretty.


X-men, on the other hand, just seemed to lack something to me and the people with which I saw it. Everything seemed in place to make for an enjoyable summer movie, but I just feel like the film never came together. I kept waiting to care about the characters, or to be excited by the plot, and then the film ended. And Beast looks like total shite. On the other hand, one of my friends is preparing to go see it for a third time. Although she might just be doing it because she finds McAvoy and Fassbender insanely attractive.

Wow, I actually thought Pirates and Green Lantern were pretty good.

x-men was pretty good. much lower budget than the previous films but definitely better than wolverine origins and x-3.

Green Lantern was actually really good.
Why do you say it was bad? It was actually the closest to how I actually remember Green Lantern's origin kinda being.

Sinestro, the Yellow rings, Hal's ring having a famous lineage.

I thought it beat the smack off of Xmen for continuity and holding to the story.