I just watched season 1 of Game of Thrones. It is one of the best works of art that I have EVER sensed! If you haven't seen this series yet, then I strongly recommend that you do! It is required viewing (or reading in the case of the A Song of Ice and Fire series of novels by George R. R. Martin) for any fantasy fan. The sets, costumes (including weapons and armour), acting, computer generated imagery, and photography are all breathtaking and incredibly immersive. Most of the cast of actors are British, so their accents make it feel like an authentic medieval world. The casting was PERFECT for all of the characters! The character development makes you care for the good guys and makes it so harrowing when they get into dangerous situations or meet grizzly demises, and makes you really hate the villains. There is so much deception and betrayal in the power struggle for rulership of the world that you won't know which characters to trust. The violence in this series is both shocking and brutally realistic, and does nothing to romanticize or glorify violence but rather show how uncivilized it is and how frail and mortal humans really are. The actress who plays the dragon queen (Daenerys Targaryen) is one of the most beautiful and desirable females that I have EVER seen! My favourite characters are the dwarf/midget (Tyrion Lannister) and the blademaster who teaches the Stark girl fencing/swordplay. Now I have an emptiness inside me and a deep craving as I impatiently wait to see the rest of the TV series.
Thanks gazra_1971, I think I'll check it out. I've been looking past it thinking it was just a soap opera set in the medieval times.
Er, I guess that it is "just a soap opera set in the medieval times." It does have some fantasy creatures in it though (so it's not "just medieval"). If you don't like listening to strong British accents, then don't watch this series. I don't know what your tastes are, sirchet, but I guess that I'd recommend that you try watching it. You might end up liking the series as much as I do. One thing to note in hindsight - I wish that I had only watched this series once it had been finished and once the complete series was available to buy on Blu-ray because I can't wait to watch the rest of the series, and waiting to see the rest of the series genuinely makes one dissatisfied.
A Song of Ice and fire is a brilliant series, and A Game of Thrones (which is also the name of the first book) is really well done. There are some characters which you can really hate, not because they're showing up on your screen - you love that they're on your screen because you get to hate them some more.
I have to jump in here as well and give strong endorsement to any of those folks who haven't checked it out yet. I hadn't read the GRRM books prior to the series coming on HBO last year. It has all the quality that gazra_1971 desccribed and then some. I've actually since started reading the books (just finished book 4) and can't wait for the new series to start. And the producers themselves described the series as "...like The Sopranos in Middle Earth.." Very much closer to Rome than Melrose Place.
I wouldn't say its needless, none of the main events would've happened without it. Its showing what that world is like, in all its detail. I don't think you could justify the graphic violence without the sex (the opening sceen of the series being a bunch of corpses). It's a raw and violent world and to skirt around the sex would just make it soapy. Also it's charactisation, it shows what these people are like and why they do what they do, as well as being a spur for important plot points - the sexual politics are as important as the political politics. Some sceens I would say could be "implied" what they're doing, but a lot need to be shown so you can understand what things are like, so if you're going to show some, then why not all. On a side note, the american vs the rest of the world's views on sex and violence seem to differ, where in american TV violence seems to be fine so long as no one uses coarse language or gets their tits out, where as in other places a little boobage and bad language is fine but violence is frowned on.
[Hopefully no spoilers ahead...] Having now read the first four books of the series, the only sex parts that I think really stand apart are the ones that involve Littlefinger. Unless I missed something, he did not own brothels in the book and there was one rather graphic girl-on-girl scene that did take some criticism. That said... The books are all told point-of-view style from about a 8 characters in the first book, so any scene in the TV show that involves a character that is not included with one of the PoV characters (I'm thinking now specifically of 3 scenes containing nudity: the Littlefinger brothel scene, the Scene of Renly with Knight of Flowers, and the scene with Grandmaster Pycelle with a post-coital washing courtesan) were included by the TV show guys to help define those characters more fully. I don't think any of the scenes seemed gratuitous the way that some of the Spartacus scenes in this most current season (Spartacus:Vengeance)
You must've missed something ... He's known as the Whoremaster, if you want to f*ck it, he'll arange it, no matter what it is, so long as you can pay. I did theater at school, so you learn to look at the subtexts. That sceen isn't really about the sex, its about what kind of man littlefinger is - a way to show his skills of manipulation and coercion, and how unscrupulous he is.
sirchet, season 2 of the series Game of Thrones will start airing on U.S. television (presumably on the HBO channel since they are producing the series) in April, so if you want to watch it, then you'll have to watch season 1 before it starts. The series does have spectacular scenes containing naked women with heavenly bodies but you'll probably be too absorbed with the plot that you'd rather find out what happens next to the main protagonists rather than perve at perfect naked female bodies.
I'M THERE! Uh...to find out what happens next to the main pr...that thing you said. My first exposure to the Game of Thrones was actually the rule book of a Role-Playing Game by that name. It was interesting, so I bought the first book in he series.
I'm guessing that the first season is available through HBO on demand, the other premier channels have it. So, gonna study up on my boo.... medieval life and times of the rich and powerful.
If you're an HBO subscriber, you can watch all the season 1 episodes on their HBO Go service. Season 2 starts in the US on April 1, 2012.