A Look at HBO's 15-Minute Game of Thrones Preview
Sunday, April 3, 2011 at 11:03PM
Ok, tonight was the night that HBO dropped a 15 minutes preview of The Game of Thrones. After years of anticipation, we are finally on the brink of the series premier, and I am not sure that the preview helped my eagerness. First off, here is a link, watch it for yourself, then we will discuss it rather briefly.
First and foremost let’s get the obvious out of the way, it was 14 minutes, HBO lied. More importantly, though, it seems they nailed the essence of the series at least from what small amount we were privy to. The Haunted Forest seemed vast and certainly spooky. I really liked the way the prologue was handled; Royce came off just as unlikeable as he did in the book, and the scene was well done overall. The chase through the woods was intense, and it all ended in violence.
The scene at Winterfell had almost all made it into previoius previews to a certain extent, but one thing is clear to me, they will not be afraid to add new scenes to the story. In this little clip though you get a lot of the story's setup out of the way: Cat does not love Jon, Arya and Sansa are very different, and all of the sons are very respectful of their honorable father. Everything though was not all doom and gloom as there was a nice bit with Arya outshooting Bran at the end of the scene.
Then, finally, the execution of Will. This scene is from the book, unlike the previous, but it was altered to a degree. Will was much more vocal for his televised execution than he was in the book, which took away one of the more eerie elements in that particular scene. The fact that he was speechless added to the horror he had witnessed previously. Theon also didn’t punt the head but there will be plenty of time to show his annoying attributes throughout the series.
All in all, I give it an A plus. It was a total success in that they certainly gave the potential subscribers a peak in on what the show is going to be like. They gave the fans that have been waiting just enough to wet their appetite and, most importantly, HBO displayed their respect for the source material, something all the fans can take heart in.
Reader Comments (3)
What struck me is that they aren't going to shy away from on-screen gore. The dead wildlings in the book appear to Will as if they have frozen to death. Here, they are chopped into little pieces and arranged in the snow. We also "see" more of the Others here than we did in the book prologue, which makes me wonder if they are going to play up the fantasy elements a bit. Regardless, I really enjoyed the preview.
Yes, it was almost ritualistic the way the bodies were laid out about camp. That makes me wonder too, will GRRM change story elements to fit the tv show? There is already at least one example i believe that they are changing Robert Arryns son's name from Robert to Robyn in order to do away with confusion. I believe if I am not mistaken they are doing this for the show and for future printing of the books if I am not mistaken.
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