Monday 21 December 2015

The Dance of the Dragons Animated

Well, this is a surprise: one of the features on the Game of Thrones Season 5 Bluray will be a 20 minute animated feature on the Dance of the Dragons (or, as the show would have it, the Dance of Dragons), the brutal civil war two Targaryens over the Iron Throne following the death of Viserys I. Recounted in detail in our own The World of Ice and Fire, as well as in part in GRRM’s “The Princess and the Queen”, it’s an event full of murder, battles, betrayals, scheming, and (of course) dragons.

IGN has the exclusive first look at the feature, with a section narrated by Pedro Pascal (aka Oberyn Martell) describing the Battle Above the Gods Eye between Prince Daemon Targaryen and his nephew Prince Aemond. And beyond his participation, IGN notes a number of other departed actors pitch in:

“Also contributing their voice work are Kerry Ingram, who played Shireen Barathon; Harry Lloyd, who played Viserys Targaryen; Mark Addy, who plays Robert Baratheon; Michelle Fairley, who played Catelyn Stark; and Jack Gleeson, who played Joffrey Baratheon.”

That certainly sounds like something to look forward to. The bluray set hits shelves on March 15th.



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Tuesday 8 December 2015

LEGO for Adults: McFarlane Iron Throne set

While I’m still a fan of comics in general, I stopped collecting years ago. But back in the day, I remember some particular moments from those days (we’re talking—gulp—25 years ago now), as a kid in middle school trading comics with friends (we’d gather on a hillside besides the athletic field and swap comics around; got to the point that a teacher volunteered to run an after-school comics club), going to Adventure Comics in Monterey (right near the Monterey Bay Aquarium!) with my brother and father to get the weekly fix. One significant name in that time, among many significant creators who I admired, was Todd McFarlane. His fame initially came from his artwork, especially on Spider-Man. Then he was a founder of Image comics, championing creator-owned mainstream comics (and, eventually, non-mainstream stuff, giving a home to, most notably, The Walking Dead).

McFarlane would go on to diversify his interests, and one of those would be McFarlane Toys. When word came out earlier this year that McFarlane’s company had received a license to produce Game of Thrones products, it was not a surprise: McFarlane Toys has often been on the cutting edge of pop culture properties; the aforementioned The Walking Dead has been a big success for them, by all accounts. Dark Horse and Funko and threeZero hold licenses for various figures… but McFarlane Toys has had real success with its construction sets, basically thematic “LEGO for adults” that helps fans recreate in miniature places and scenes from their favorite shows.

This is all a long-winded way to saying that courtesy of McFarlane Toys, we received a copy of the Iron Throne Room Construction Set, and below we’ll be discussing some of its particulars!

 

read on >>>

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Thursday 3 December 2015

Season 6 Teaser

HBO’s now released a teaser for the next season, although it’s made up of material from previous seasons… except for a voice over right at the end, I believe:



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Wednesday 2 December 2015

Dark Horse’s Brienne and the Hound

Our friends at Dark Horse occasionally send us some of their Game of Thrones-licensed products for review, and we’ve had the pleasure of highlighting them over the last few years. The most recent arrival was particularly apropos, though, because in the package we had not one but two figures: 8 inch figures of Brienne of Tarth and the Hound. These are just two entries in what must be well over a dozen figures now in these series of high-quality sculpted figures, but I admit to being always particularly drawn to the armored figurines because… well, I’m fond of most of the show’s armoring!

After the grim, ugly duel between the characters in “The Children, it’s hard not to think about that scene when I placed these figures together. The detail of their armor and even their weapons—Oathkeeper’s hilt is particularly intricate—is excellent, and the Hound’s posture captures quite a lot about them. I’m particularly fond of the way that these figures use a sort of rubber for flexible details like the lower half of the Hound’s brigadine or Brienne’s gambeson.

Also quite impressed with the fact that the Hound’s visor can actually pivot up and down; it’s a very nice touch. If there’s any criticism to be made, I’ll admit that find Brienne’s face not terribly reminiscent of Gwendoline Christie. It’s a bit too lean—Christie’s she’s rounder-cheeked and the outfits she wears on the show deliberately pushes under her chin to give her a heavier appearance than she has in reality. The hair could have stood to be rather messier, as well, I think, to capture the often-unkempt appearance she has on the show. It’s unfortunate that it doesn’t quite match some of the other figures in facial representation, such as the remarkably good Hodor and Bran which is a great representation of Nairn and Hampstead-Wright as those characters.

The Brienne and Hound figures are already available, with a new wave of figures coming this month, including Jorah Mormont, another example of Dark Horse’s fantastic way with the armor on the series.



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Monday 23 November 2015

Game of Thrones Returns in April

Despite speculation that HBO’s schedule has pushed season 6 of Game of Thrones into early May, brand new billboards put out by HBO in Los Angeles and New York reveal that the show will air in “April”. Given that the new Martin Scorsese show, Vinyl, will run into April as well, it looks like the sixth season will begin airing on the final Sunday in April, April 24th.

See below for a couple of images of the billboard, along with the tweets from those who shared them on the social media website:

read on >>>

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Monday 16 November 2015

Osuna Hosts Game of Thrones Museum

The town of Osuna, Spain, which Linda and I had the pleasure of visiting earlier this year for the official release of the translation of The World of Ice and Fire, featured in last year’s filming when its bullring served as Daznak’s Pit.

While there’s no sign the show filmed there again this year, the town is quite proud of its involvement in the series and has decided to dedicate two rooms in the Museum of Osuna to a collection of Game of Thrones materials. This permanent exhibit will officially open on November 28th, and will contain a unique assemblage of materials. Of particular note is a collection of photographic and video footage related to the behind-the-scenes experience of filming at the bullring, providing a glimpse at the role of the town and its people in facilitating the production which lasted seventeen days.

Below, we’ve provided a translation of Osuna’s press release regarding the museum:

Following intense preparation and collection of material related to Game of Thrones, which filmed part of its fifth season just over a year ago in the bullring of Osuna, on November 28th the Museum of Osuna will inaugurate two permanent rooms dedicated to Game of Thrones and the “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series, encapsulating just what filming of such a production has meant for the Ducal town of Osuna and its international recognition.

 

read on >>>

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Friday 13 November 2015

The Ice Dragon Lands Next Week

The grand finale to Telltale Games’s first Game of Thrones game, an episode titled “The Ice Dragon”, is due to hit PC, leading consoles, and leading mobile devices simultaneously on November 17th. This simultaneous release is a first for Telltale, and as we noted previously they made the very first episode available for free on the iOs platform to mark the occasion.

 

At the same time, Telltale has now released a bevy of new images from the final episode—images which in some cases may be a bit spoilery. In fact, in their official post about the release, they indicate that the decisions in this final episode will be momentous enough that users are likely going to want to replay the finale to try out different decisions and see the ultimate results.  We’ll place the screenshots below, below the cut, to avoid spoilers!

read on >>>

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A Look at the Noble Houses of Westeros

Running Press, a publisher specializing in gift books and associated collectible “kits”, has turned its attention once again to the Seven Kingdoms with its latest book:Game of Thrones: The Noble Houses of Westeros.

A small but handsome, well-made volume using heavy paper stock, the 160 pages within it are devoted to a very brief overview of eleven significant noble families that have featured in the series since its inception, from the Starks and Lannisters and Targaryens all the way to more recent notable such as the Boltons and Freys. This is not really intended as a very informative book, of course: each house section gives a glimpse at the family’s seat, a brief family tree with some remarks on the fates of members living and dead, and photographs of the performers (most of them Helen Sloan’s fine work, but also stills from Macall Polay, Paul Schiraldi, and more.)

 

read on >>>

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Wednesday 4 November 2015

Reviewing the Game of Thrones Steelbook Set

Courtesy of HBO and HBO UK, we’ve received copies of the new Steelbook collections of Season 1 Season 2 of Game of Thrones.

Besides a lovely new packaging inspired by the famed opening credits of the series (the first two sets feature a Stark-themed Winterfell and a Lannister-themed King’s Landing, and the next two sets will feature the Twins and the Wall when they are released; it’s worth noting that the central sigils also double as refrigerator magnets!), the chief draw is that the set will feature a brand new audio mix utilizing Dolby’s Atmos techology. This is an evolution from things like Dolby TrueHD, taking the audio experience in some very interesting directions. Although Atmos is quite new, and it may take awhile for there to be wide use of Atmos-capable speakers (particularly upwards-firing speakers designed to bounce sound off a ceiling to help create verticality, which spare home theater enthusiasts the cost and difficulty of mounting speakers on the ceiling), it’s worth noting that the Bluray of course also works with TrueHD and will play just fine on non-Atmos 5.1 or 7.1 audio systems.

 

read on >>>

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Wednesday 21 October 2015

Telltale’s Game of Thrones Finale Due November 17th

Telltale Games has announced a November 17th release date for the final episode in their Game of Thrones adventure series, and to mark the occasion Telltales has made the first episode free on the iOs platform, as well as Android, XBox, and Playstation platforms. Telltale Games notes on their official blog that this final episode, titled “The Ice Dragon”, will be the first Telltale Games episodic installment recieving a same-day release on all available platforms; previous installments tended to role out over two or three days.

Finally, Telltale has put together a video featuring some of the Game of Thrones cast members—specifically Emilia Clarke, Natalie Dormer, and Iwan Rheon—who’ve lent their voices to the game:



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Saturday 10 October 2015

Game of Thrones at New York Comic Con

New York Comic Con is presently under way, and it has featured a bevy of notable Game of Thrones content—not least a panel with actors Natalie Dormer, Keisha Castle-Hughes, and Finn Jones where they dicussed their roles on their show and offered some hints of what was yet to come. Here’s a video of the proceedings, courtesy of Emergency Awesome:

The convention was also filled with Game of Thrones-licensed memorabilia, figures, and more. Our friends at Dark Horse Comics revealed a number of their upcoming releases, including a resin statue of the Night’s King, a Varys figure, and this extremely impressive limited edition depicting Daenerys and Drogon from season 4. We have a review sample of that particular piece, and the size of Drogon crouched on its base is quite remarkable!

Also featured at the convention were McFarlane Toys, who will be releasing their mini-figure sets next year. These will come in “Blind bags”, meaning that collectors will buy bags containing random figures (or, if they’re really dedicated, they can go for whole cases of figures)—not unlike the Funko blind bags of mini-Pop! figures. However, McFarlane Toys is going beyond this to also create suitabel dioramas where one can display these figures, as with the Iron Throne set, or special add-on sets like the Stark and Lannister banner construction kit. Or this upcoming “Attack on the Wall” diorama, featuring a giant:

 



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Monday 21 September 2015

Game of Thrones Popular at the Emmys

This Sunday, the Emmy Awards were handed out, and Game of Thrones (and HBO in general) proved very popular. The show tallied up a total of 12 wins this year at the Emmys, handily breaking the 9 win record set by The West Wing set in 2000. While eight of those awards were in the Creative Arts categories, the show carried four major awards at the Primetime Emmys: Outstanding Supporting Actor for a visibly-surprised Peter Dinklage,  Outstanding Director for David Nutter and “Mother’s Mercy”, Outstanding Writing for David Benioff & Dan Weiss for the same episode, and the big one, Outstanding Drama. Coincidentally, Sunday was also George R.R. Mart’s 67th birthday, so it was quite the present.

Critics and pundits would weigh in on the results, such as Alan Sepinwall for HitFix, James Poniewozik for the NY Times, and Andy Greenwald for Grantland.

read on >>>

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Tuesday 15 September 2015

Game of Thrones at the Creative Emmys

For those keeping track, Game of Thrones has added to its bevy of Creative Arts Emmys: nominated fo 16 awards, it took home 8 of them. Bear in mind, in some of those categories there were several Game of Thrones entries, most notably the Cinematography in a Single-Camera Series category which featured six nominees, four of which were from Game of Thrones (HBO sister show Boardwalk Empire‘s season 5 premiere actually won there, however).

This continues the show’s tremendous run in creative arts and production categories, which is understandable given both the expense, the complexity, and the terrific amount of talent involved behind-the-scenes in producing the visuals, effects, stunts, and more. With the 2015 Emmys, the show has been nominated for 88 awards so far, of which it has won 19 so far. More Emmys are pending for the Primetime Emmy awards airing on the 20th, while FXX will broadcast last week’s Creative Arts Emmys on the 19th.

For the full list of Emmy nominees, see here.



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Monday 3 August 2015

Max Von Sydow Joins the Cast

As Variety reports, the venerable Swedish actor Max von Sydow—the list of credits for the actor is very long indeed—is taking over the “three-eyed raven” role originated in the fourth season by Struan Rodger. As Variety notes, much like the Ian McShane casting, this role is relatively brief in screen time, but it will be important—in his case, Sydow’s role will be described as a “major” one.

Given that Isaac Hempstead Wright has admitted he’d be back for season 6 after a 1 season hiatus, it looks like we’ll be seeing how Bran has gotten along beneath the weirwood with his new mentor.



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Saturday 1 August 2015

EW Scoop: Ian McShane Joins Cast

Like the title says, EW has the exclusive revealing that Ian McShane—best known for his role as Al Swearengen in Deadwood (one of the finest TV shows ever made, by the by)—will be joining the cast for season 6 in a role described by EW as having a “relatively small amount of screen-time during the season” but that the ” character is of key importance.”

Let the speculation begin.



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Friday 31 July 2015

HBO Execs Expect More than 7 Seasons

The news ran wild last night with the report from the Television Critics’ Association summer session panel where HBO executive Michael Lombardo spoke about Game of Thrones and remarked the following:

“Seven-seasons-and-out has never been the [internal] conversation. The question is: How much beyond seven are we going to do? Obviously we’re shooting six now, hopefully discussing seven. [David & Dan] feel like there’s two more years after six. I would always love for them to change their minds, but that’s what we’re looking at right now.”

On top of that, when asked about potential prequels, Lombardo expressed strong willingness to further delve into the Game of Thrones story once the main series was done.

read on >>>

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Sunday 19 July 2015

Game of Thrones Game Returns This Week

The latest episode of the Game of Thrones game from Telltale Games is just around the corner, with a release date of July 21st on PC, Mac, and Playstation 3-4, XBox versions on the 22nd, and iOS/Android on the 23rd.

Titled “A Nest of Vipers”, the episode looks to feature pit-fighting action with Asher, young Lady Mira visiting Tyrion Lannister in his cell, and a significant amount of Ramsay Bolton’s nastiness. And speaking of Asher, an image released by Telltale Games serves as a bit of a spoiler regarding where his story takes him…

read on >>>

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Wednesday 17 June 2015

Reactions from London Screening

HBO UK teamed up to invite fans, media, and more to a special screening of the final episode of season 5, “”. Sounds like a deal of fun was had by those who attended. In the video below, you’ll see and hear some of the reactions as the episode rolled and its shocking turns came onto the screen:

The season is now available for download in Digital HD in the UK, which is part of the reason for the event. Fans can download individual episodes or the entire season through retailers such as iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Instant Video, blinkbox, Wauki.tv, and XBox Video. BT TV and Talk Talk TV can also buy and watch through their set-top boxes.



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Tuesday 16 June 2015

11 Reasons to Read the Books

With season 5 completed (see our episode guide on the final episode for some of our thoughts), there’s a lot of discussion about what the show did right or wrong this season, interviews with various members of cast and crew, and more. But Random House—publishers, through their subsidiary Bantam, of all things A Song of Ice and Fire—asked us to provide a list of 11 reasons why fans of the show might want to give the books a try if they haven’t already!

You can find the article here.

read on >>>

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Sunday 14 June 2015

Mother’s Mercy Episode Guide

An initial update on the finale to season 5 can be found at our episode guide for “Mother’s Mercy”. As usual, we’ve run through the book-to-screen adaptation, and have included the post-episode extra videos that HBO usually releases. However, we haven’t watched them and can’t vouch for whether there may be spoilers in those videos, so view them at your own risk.

We’ll have a video review up some time tomorrow, and perhaps the written review as well.



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Friday 12 June 2015

Game of Thrones Season 5 Sweepstakes

Our friends over at Dark Horse have launched a special sweepstakes ahead of the finale of Game of Thrones, and you can read about all the details here!

The new Game of Thrones RT to Win Sweepstakes has arrived! Join in the celebration of Sunday's Season 5 finale with a…

Posted by Dark Horse Comics on Friday, June 12, 2015

A bevy of terrific Game of Thrones items - including figurines, busts, Bluray sets, and more—can be unlocked if enough fans retweet this tweet. With each unlocked level, there’s an additional chance for participants to win one of the prize packages! At present count, the contest already has 425 retweets, so well on its way to unlocking the last level.

The sweepstakes are open only to residents of the U.S., and certain other strictures apply, so bear that in mind! Full details, including all applicable rules and limitations, can be found here.



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Sunday 7 June 2015

The Dance of Dragons Episode Guide

We’ve posted our episode guide for the latest episode, “The Dance of Dragons”, as quickly as we could. Lots of controversy over the depiction of Stannis Baratheon in this episode, to say the least! Our episode guide currently only contains our book-to-screen breakdown, and video extras from HBO. Suffice it to say, we’re going to try and get a review video out ASAP.

HBO has also provided its usual preview, this time for the season finale, “Mother’s Mercy”. You can see it below:



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Thursday 4 June 2015

Own the Game of Thrones Astrolabe

Over the five seasons of the show, the title sequence has surely become one of the most recognizable on TV, and not just because of the theme music. The visuals, too, have taken on a life of their own and several homages have been created over the years. A key feature of the visuals is the astrolabe and this summer a replica of that will be available from Insight Collectibles in the new collector’s edition of the popular pop-up book Game of Thrones: A Pop-Up Guide to Westeros. The astrolabe is described as follows :

“The astrolabe stands over 13 inches high and is fully articulated, with moving rings that dynamically replicate the oscillating movement of the astrolabe seen in the Game of Thrones intro sequence. The astrolabe is supported by a stand that features the sigils associated with the four Great Houses of Westeros, Stark, Lannister, Targaryen and Baratheon. Each sigil is highly detailed, from the coat of the Stark direwolf to the talons of the Targaryen dragon.”

Astrolabe

In addition to the astrolabe and the new edition of the pop-up book, Insight Collectibles is also releasing a set of Deluxe Stationery Sets for Houses Stark, Targaryen and Lannister and a set of Hardcover Journals for Houses Baratheon, Lannister, Stark and Targaryen.



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Wednesday 3 June 2015

Season 6 Filming Locations in Spain Confirmed

As brought to our attention by Spanish fansite Los Siete Reinos, at least two new locations in Spain are lining up for filming in season 6, which starts filming this summer but the Spanish segment appears set for September and October. According to Barcelonan paper La Vanguardia, HBO has apparently confirmed that the Catalonian city of Girona will be used in filming—its famous cathedral being cited as one location of particular interest—as well as the Valencian medieval town of Peñsicola which is known for retaining many medieval and Renaissance buildings and structures.

Both Los Siete Reinos and La Vanguardia speculate that Girona would serve very well for Oldtown and the Citadel, citing the narrow streets of the Jewish quarter, the edifice of the cathedral, and so on. Peñsicola is more of a mystery, although Spanish fans are tentatively suggesting it could serve for Casterly Rock. In support of this, note that the Wikipedia article notes that Peñsicola is sometimes known as the “Gibraltar of Valencia”, thanks to being a prominent fortified peninsula, and George R.R. Martin has often likened Casterly Rock to the actual Gibraltar, while at the same time he has noted that Casterly Rock will appear in future A Song of Ice and Fire novels.

It’s certainly as good a guess as any.



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Sunday 31 May 2015

Hardhome Episode Guide

We’ve gone and updated our episode guide for “Hardhome” with our book-to-screen breakdown—the analysis and video review, as well as the recap, will take a day or two more to get out. We’ve also added HBO’s videos (just two, this time around; usually it’s been four videos) for the episode in the Extras section.

Also, HBO’s released the trailer for episode 9, “The Dance of Dragons”. It’s worth watching, to say the least!



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Thursday 28 May 2015

Finale Title, Details Released

HBO has been sitting tight on releasing information on the finale of season 5, but it has now sent out a press release. See the details below, including the brief logline regarding the events of the episode:

Episode #50: “Mother’s Mercy” (season finale)

        Debut: SUNDAY, JUNE 14 (9:00-10:00 p.m.)

        Other HBO playdates: June 14 (11:30 p.m., 2:00 a.m.), 15 (10:30 p.m.), 16 (9:00 p.m., 1:50 a.m.), 17 (2:25 a.m.), 18 (10:00 p.m.), 19 (9:00 p.m.), 20 (10:30 p.m.) and 26 (8:00 p.m.)

        HBO2 playdates: June 15 (9:00 p.m.), 19 (2:30 a.m.), 20 (2:45 p.m.) and 21 (8:00 p.m.)

  Stannis marches. Dany is surrounded by strangers. Cersei (Lena Headey) seeks forgiveness. Jon is challenged.

        Written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss; directed by David Nutter.

 



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Wednesday 27 May 2015

Reviewing The Gift

Following the airing of “The Gift”, we managed to get up the book-to-screen breakdown in our episode guide.

Since then, we’ve released two other parts of the guide. First up is our video review, which you can see below:

Last night, we also provided our written analysis of the episode, which touches some points that we didn’t cover in the video. You can find that here. The primary thing left is now our complete recap, which we’ll definitely do, but that particular part of our regular episode guide raises a question.

read on >>>

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Tuesday 26 May 2015

Sons of Winter Released

Just a few days ago, we posted about the trailer being released for the fourth entry in Telltales Games’ Game of Thrones adventure, titled “Sons of Winter”. Now that episode’s available on Steam. We’ll be playing through it and giving it a review—as well as a brief look back at episode 3, which we weren’t able to review due to time constraints—in the coming days.



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Sunday 24 May 2015

The Gift Episode Guide

Another episode done, just three to go to wrap up the fifth season of Game of Thrones. We’ve now updated our episode guide for “The Gift” with our book-to-screen breakdown of the episode, as well as HBO’s post-episode videos which include an appearance from GRRM discussing the poisoner’s art as depicted by Oberyn Martell and his bastard daughter Tyene Sand.

Our video, written analysis, and detailed recap of the episode will follow in the next few days; we currently hope to get the video out first, this time around.

HBO has also released the preview for the next episode, “Hardhome”, which you can see below:

read on >>>

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Friday 22 May 2015

Red Nose Day Mockumentary Released

We posted about  the Coldplay/Game of Thrones Red Nose Day special “mockumentary” that aired last night, and now today Coldplay’s official Youtube channel as released the full piece. Filled with actors from the show and quite a bit of humor (some quite broad, some razor-sharp), it’s a fine way to spend slightly less than a quarter of an hour:

Highlights include Emilia Clarke going all out on a reggae piece, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau crooning the first romantic ballad concerning incest in Coldplay’s career, a creepy trio in Ewan Rheon, Charlotte Hope, and Alfie Allen, and of course Liam Neeson (yes, him) providing narration. Definitely a must-see!



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Thursday 21 May 2015

Sons of Winter Trailer

Telltale Games has released a teaser trailer for the fourth episode in their Game of Thrones

Looks like it’ll be fun!



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Coldplay and the Game of Thrones Musical Mockumentary

Today sees the airing of Red Nose Day, NBC’s charity event that will run from 8PM to 11PM eastern time. Packed with celebrities, the reason it has some special relevance to fans of Game of Thrones is the fact that a dozen members of the show’s cast will be on hand to take part in Game of Thrones: The Musical, a mockumentary-style spoof in collaboration with Coldplay. The internet near exploded with humor when Peter Dinklage first appeared in a teaser singing about all those who’ve died and the few who’ve survived, as seen below:

This was promptly followed by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau performing “Closer to Home”, Jaime’s ode to Cersei, which you can see below:

 

read on >>>

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Wednesday 20 May 2015

Debating Sansa

The closing event of “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” has stirred huge amounts of controversy among the viewership, as a lead character is subjected to a chilling, horrifying act of sexual violence.

For my part, this led to about 3 hours worth of discussion on Twitter with fellow fans of the novels who responded much more negatively than I did. It was AngryGOTFan who suggested we each do short videos discussing our respective views. And so Linda and I have a short video, not so much praising and defending the scene, because we had and still have issues with how it actually came about, but rather responding to some particular critiques which we took issue with.

Rather than linking the videos here, I’d recommend fans go visit AngryGOTFan’s website and watch both of the videos.

For those who want more in-depth, written discussions of the topic that share something of our view on the issue, see Amanda Marcotte’s piece at Raw Story, and Laura Bradley’s article at Slate.

And for those who missed it, we have posted our video review of the episode, which you’ll find in the episode guide, but we’ll embed it below at the point where we discuss the final segment of the episode:

read on >>>

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Sunday 17 May 2015

Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken Episode Guide

After much tiring work at a late hour, the book-to-screen breakdown—as well as HBO’s video extras for the episode—are now live on the “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” episode guide. The rest—the written analysis and the video review, will come out in the next day or two.

We’ve also included the short preview for episode 7, “The Gift”, courtesy of HBO.



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Sunday 10 May 2015

Kill the Boy Episode Guide

While we’re traveling in Spain, it doesn’t stop us from trying to start off our episode guide!

To begin with the “Kill the Boy” guide features our book-to-screen breakdown, going into detail of some of the differences between the show and the novels (differences which are, it goes without saying, increasingly major; this show features a few very significant deviations or compressions). We also have HBO’s post-episode videos included in the Extras section.

Hopefully we’ll have the episode review up some time Monday, and the recap some time after. The video review, alas, will have to wait until later in the week, but until then, enjoy!



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Episode 9 Title Revealed

While Linda and I have been touring Barcelona and now the town of Osuna courtesy of the Spanish publisher of The World of Ice and Fire, Gigamesh, news concerning the title of the 9th episode—the penultimate episode of the season, in fact—came out thanks to HBO’s online schedule.

According to that schedule, the episode will be titled “The Dance of Dragons”. A very portentous title, that, and especially after the equally ominous “Hardhome”.

As it happens, because of our current state of travel, we’re uncertain how much review material we’ll be able to publish following the episode. We may just manage the Book-to-Screen breakdown on Monday, with the written review having to wait until Wednesday, and the video review after that. Our apologies!



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Sunday 3 May 2015

Sons of the Harpy Episode Guide

One of the more divergent episodes of the season has concluded, and Westeros.org’s episode guide for “The Sons of the Harpy” is now live! Our usual detailed recap, book-to-screen breakdown, and analysis—plus extras from HBO —are all now available for your reading pleasure. We also just managed to get our review video up on Youtube, which means it’s still processing the higher definition options. For those who can’t wait, you’ll find the video below:



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Monday 27 April 2015

May Episode Details

HBO has released details on May’s upcoming episodes of Game of Thrones, and while these have largely leaked out earlier, their press release includes details on the 8th episode. The title itself might be considered a spoiler by some, so we’re putting full details below the cut:

read on >>>

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Sunday 26 April 2015

High Sparrow Episode Guide

And finally we’ve managed to actually complete all of our commentary, analysis, and the like before the episode aired! This means that the “High Sparrow” episode guide is ready to be looked at, with our usual examination of the episode, its place as an adaptation, and more. And as a bonus, here’s our Youtube review of the video, which you can find with the rest of our videos at our channel:



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Sunday 19 April 2015

House of Black and White Episode Guide

Due to the server issues last week (which—knock on wood—are now more or less sorted out thanks to our amazing host) , we were quite delayed with our “The Wars to Come” coverage, but we’ve more or less corrected that for “The House of Black and White”. The guide includes an exhaustive summary of the episode, our usual book-to-screen breakdown, and of course our review of the episode, plus a number of extras—namely HBO’s post-episode videos, including a nice look at the Water Gardens as represented by the Real Alcazár of Seville.


Our own video review will be along in a day or three, depending on our schedules. Until then, enjoy the episode guide!






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Tuesday 14 April 2015

The Wars to Come Hits Series High Despite Piracy

The premiere of “The Wars to Come”—our written review is still forthcoming, but we’ve posted our usual video review (some minor audio and editing glitches—new workflow, new camera!—but those are brief)—has not only become the highest rated premiere episode of Game of Thrones;, but the highest rated episode, period, with nearly 8 million viewers. As Variety notes, that’s about 800,000 more than its second highest rated episode, “Mockingbird”. And across the pond, Sky Atlantic in the UK reported that their airing on Monday was also their highest rated episode ever, with 1.6 million viewers in the overnight rating.


read on >>>



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Sunday 12 April 2015

More Pyrrha GoT Jewellery


Just in time for the start of the 5th season, Pyrrha has expanded their collection of officially licensed Game of Thrones jewellery. Matching rings have joined the previously existing talisman necklaces, two new styles of necklaces have been added, one featuring the heraldic devices on a rounder talisman and one featuring them on a proper shield. The latter matches well with the new shield cuffs, though if you want something slimmer (and a bit kinder to the wallet, admittedly!) for your arm the new ID bracelets with house words on might be just the thing. Most of the pieces are available in either sterling silver or bronze, though the shield cuffs seem to be available only in silver. Its just too bad that not all the houses that they’ve done so far get represented in each of the collections, though likely it comes down to what has been popular so far. Still, we would have loved to see some more Martell pieces.






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Friday 10 April 2015

Season 5 Impressions

For those who’ve been asking, various thing in real life have led to this coming out later than intended… but here it is at last, our early impressions of season 5. As noted at the start, we’ve already provided some views on the first episode, but this covers the three additional episodes that were included in the screener package. It’s a long piece, but in a lot of ways it barely scratches the surface, as there’s a lot of story packed into season 5.


You can find the feature here in our Features page.






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Thursday 9 April 2015

Two New Promos

People have been hoping for a third and final full length trailer ahead of the premiere of season 5 of Game of Thrones on April 12th, but it looks unlikely at this point. However, the powers that be at HBO have smiled down on eager fans and released not one but two new promo spots, shorter but with a handful of new glimpses of scenes that fans haven’t yet seen before. The first is called the Future Promo , featuring Littlefinger with some rather ironic words:



And the second is the Sinners Promo, featuring Jonathan Pryce’s zealous septon:







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Friday 27 March 2015

No GRRM Script for Season 6

At the San Francisco premiere of Game of Thrones, Access Hollywood asked George R.R. Martin a few questions. The first? Whether he’d write a script for the sixth season… and the answer is, “No”:











Note that this statement comes less than two weeks after GRRM commented on Livejournal that he was at that time “wrestling” with the same question. So it looks likely that he settled on an answer pretty much around the time that he decided to remove some appearances from his schedule.






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Supreme Tweeter Approaches

As we mentioned in our Stockholm exhibit report, Linda and I had the opportunity to meet Harry Lloyd, the actor who brought Prince Viserys to life during the first season of Game of Thrones. One of the topics of discussion was an exciting personal project that Harry and his partner Jayne Hong had been working on for the last while, a sort of mockumentary about what happens when the dictator of a certain notorious Asian country turned out to be your biggest fan….



The Supreme Tweeter web series is set to launch on April 1st. The day after, April 2nd, Harry will be at Reddit’s offices to take part in a Ask Me Anything which will start at 3PM Eastern time. Should be a great opportunity for fans to ask him about the project, as well as Game of Thrones (ask him about the cameos from GoT-connected people, and kill two birds with one stone!) and all the other things he’s been involved in over the years (such as The Theory of Everything, Wolf Hall, Manhattan, and Doctor Who).






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Sunday 22 March 2015

Impressions and Commentary on the Season 5 Premiere

After attending the world premiere of Game of Thrones season 5 at the Tower of London, Linda and I have written up some brief impressions. We also created a video discussing one particular aspect of the first episode, “The Wars to Come”, which we thought was pretty noteworthy. You can find it below:







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Thursday 12 March 2015

EW Features Game of Thrones

It’s that time of year again, when the intrepid James Hibberd provides us all the scoops that his deep access to the show (this time featuring some ten days worth of set visits and interviews in multiple locations) can provide. This week’s issue—available on newstands, and soon available for digital download—features an enormous thirty pages worth of coverage, and EW and Hibberd have been kind enough to give a few samples.



Of particular note is today’s release of ruminations on just when the show ends, in which it’s made clear that seven years may well be on the table… but so might eight years, or nine years, or even ten, if HBO could have its way. And Hibberd suggests the possibility that seems the likeliest, at this juncture the eight-seasons-in-all-but-name option:



“Perhaps the most likely outcome for the end of Thrones is having an extended, split-run seventh and final season — where more episodes are ordered than Thrones’ usual 10, but half air one year and half air the next. This would get HBO another “season” without having to renegotiate with the cast since all the episodes are technically part of the seventh round they’re already optioned for. AMC employed this strategy with the final seasons of Breaking Bad and Mad Men, but HBO used this technique first with the sixth and final season of The Sopranos, which consisted of 21 episodes instead of the usual 13. Additionally distributing the final two hours beyond HBO with some sort of theatrical run for fans who want to see it in the theater wouldn’t be surprising, either. “



That sounds about right. Read the rest, it’s worth it, and dig around for some of the other new, exclusive coverage, such as these video interview gems and some exclusive first looks






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Tuesday 10 March 2015

Game of Thrones to Simulcast Fifth Season

This is absolutely amazing, really—and unprecedented outside of, I don’t know, the Olympics: HBO and its sister networks and broadcast partners around the world will be simulcasting the fifth season of Game of Thrones. Not just the premiere episode (although that episode, it seems ,may air even more widely), but every single episode of the season. What does this mean? That means when it airs at 9PM Eastern on Sundays, it will air at the exact same time in all participating countries and territories. So for fellow HBO Nordic subscribers, for example, will have the pleasure of hitting bed early to then wake up at 3AM to watch it at the same time as fans in the U.S. Fans in Asia will be watching it in the morning. And more.


Full details in the press release below:


read on >>>



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Monday 9 March 2015

HBO Confirms Streaming Service in April

The rumors have been out there… and are now confirmed with HBO’s press release announcing it’s HBO Now service to launch in April (just in time for Game of Thrones season 5—coincidence? Don’t think so!)


Here’s the full details:


read on >>>



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Sunday 8 March 2015

Coster-Waldau Interviewed in Stockholm

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (aka Jaime Lannister) was in Stockholm on Friday to help HBO Nordic ring in the opening of the Game of Thrones exhibit, which meant a bevy of interviews by various Scandinavian media outlets. We ourselves arrived too late in the day for the panel interviews, but fortunately at least one English-language interview came out of it thanks to Sverige Radio PP3, a culture and music program on P3 radio. We’ve embedded the interview below—bear with it a few seconds, it opens up in Swedish and then the interview and Nikolaj agree that their respective grasps on one another’s language is poor enough that English will work better:







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Saturday 7 March 2015

Season 5 Titles Revealed

While Linda and I were out to Sweden’s beautiful capital of Stockholm for the Game of Thrones exhibit’s opening gala—more on that tomorrow, but there’ll be photos, possibly some video, and a few odds and ends—it looks like Spoiler TV scooped everyone (again—they often get ahold of these earlier than most) with the titles of the first four episodes of the highly-anticipated fifth season. We’ll put it below the cut, for those who want to avoid the possible spoilers inherent in the titles:


read on >>>



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Wednesday 4 March 2015

On the Sand Snakes

According to the Huffington Post, an uproar about the casting of the Sand Snakes, the daughters of Prince Oberyn Martell by various women. Tthe recent Weapons of Dorne video which gave many fans their first really clear look at the actors in costume made a few on Twitter realize that the characters did not really look very much like the characters described in the books… but the outrage isn’t about that, but rather by the fact that all the characters are “white”.


Unfortunately, this says more about reader myopia than it does the show’s casting. The outrage is based on the reading of the Dornish as being “another race” than the people you’ll find in the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, but in fact that divides in Westeros are not really racial but ethnic in nature, largely about culture and not skin color. According to George R.R. Martin, this is how he envisioned the Dornish when he created them:


read on >>>



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Monday 2 March 2015

The Weapons of Dorne

Not sure how we missed this one, but a few days ago HBO released a video on its Youtube channel concerning the weaponry we’ll see in Dorne. Narrated by weapon master Tommy Dunne, who points out a few very specific weapons, there’s at least one somewhat spoilery piece of information contained therein (well, besides the fact that we’ll see Dorne this season):



Despite Michelle Clapton’s protest, it certainly seems the “nipples” on that leather armor of Obara Sand’s will be pretty obvious on film. Doubtless, as she said, it’s an artifact of the moulding process, but the association’s pretty clear.


As to the spoiler?


read on >>>



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Friday 27 February 2015

Season 5 Poster and Sneak Peeks

Courtesy of HBO, we now have the official poster for season 5…. and it’s quite a sight to behold, to say the least.



Featuring Tyrion Lannister’s familiar figure at the bow of a ship or boat surrounded by mist, the familiar (and increasingly-large) figure of Drogon, Daenerys’s great black dragon, hovers into view. It’s very eerie, and a very tantalizing glimpse of what’s to come for Tyrion, a glimpse that confirms speculations following the release of the trailer for the upcoming season. Season 5 will premiere on April 12th in the US, April 13th in the UK.


Speaking of tantalizing glimpses, HBO’s “The Sight” campaign—somewhat controversial among fans, for its randomly distributed, extremely short, and mobile-only focus—has come to an end with two (randomly distributed) sneak peeks at brief scenes from the upcoming season. You’ll find them below the cut, as the official Game of Thrones channel very kindly had mercy and posted them online:


read on >>>



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Tuesday 17 February 2015

Blurays, Awards, and More

A good deal has been going on in the world of Game of Thrones, starting with the release of the Season 4 Bluray/DVD set in the U.S. and U.K. (Order: US Bluray, US DVD, UK Bluray, UK DVD), with a great deal of pomp and circumstance—especially in the UK, where the promotional push included an elaborate, pop-up restaurant installation created by The Wandering Chef for HBO UK:



At the same time, the Writer’s Guild of America awards saw Game of Thrones‘s writing staff nominated in two categories: best drama series, and best individual episode for George R.R. Martin’s “The Lion and the Rose”. While neither award went to Game of Thrones, it was an occasion for some interviews with George R.R. Martin. Access Hollywood learned from him that he’d recently met with the main writers of the show to discuss their plans for season 5, and teases the appearance of the Sand Snakes:


read on >>>



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Tuesday 10 February 2015

Discussing the Season 5 Trailer

Although we’ve a gallery of screencaps with comments up following the season 5 trailer released, we decided that we should also put together a video discussing what we see in the trailer with a bit more depth. You can find it below:


read on >>>



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Sunday 8 February 2015

Watch a Day In the Life

HBO’s half-hour special, Game of Thrones: A Day in the Life, highlighting the multi-national production, has just aired and HBO has gone ahead and placed it online. See it here:



Screencaps and commentary to follow in the coming days.






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Friday 30 January 2015

Season 5 Trailer Released

HBO has now released the season 5 trailer that appeared following the IMAX screenings, which gives us our first extended look at the upcoming season:









There’s a number of new stills of actors, as well, which we’ll have up soon.


Season 5 premieres April 12th in the US.






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Tuesday 20 January 2015

Day in the Life Details, Teaser

Last night, EW had an exclusive report on the contents of HBO’s Game of Thrones featurette set to air on February 8th, titled “A Day in the Life”. Later that evening HBO posted a new Youtube video teasing the featurette, and giving us our first official look at the much-anticipated 5th season. You can find the video below:


read on >>>



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Wednesday 14 January 2015

IMAX Screenings Expand

This just in from HBO: the unprecedented plan to display Game of Thrones on IMAX screens received such wide attention and consumer demand that the IMAX corporation and HBO have decided to delay the one-week run by one week… so that they can get even more IMAX theatres involved in the screenings. Pretty interesting, that! For those who missed the original news, the plan is that for one week, participating IMAX theatres will show the final two epsiodes of season 4, plus an exclusive season 5 trailer.


Tickets will go on-sale starting this Friday, the 16th of January, with the first screening set for Thursday, January 29th, at 10 PM.


See the full release below for additional information:


read on >>>



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Monday 12 January 2015

Season 4 Complete Set Reminder

HBO UK has sent out a reminder that February 16th (17th in the US) will see the release of Game of Thrones Season 4 on Bluray (Pre-order: US Bluray, US DVD, UK Bluray, UK DVD).


Once again, here’s the full release concerning the contents, and the differences between the DVD and Bluray editions:




The global cultural phenomenon Game of Thrones returns for its fourth season on Blu-ray and DVD from HBO Home Entertainment on 16th February 2015 and is loaded with exclusive bonus content, including extensive guides and illustrated histories.


This hit HBO series has broken ratings records and topped The Sopranos℠ to become the most popular show in the network’s history. Season four continues this winning streak with 19 Emmy® Awards nominations including Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Peter Dinklage) and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (Lena Headey).


Each year, Game of Thrones continues to be one of the best-selling TV programmes available on Blu-ray and DVD, and Game of Thrones: The Complete Fourth Season is packed with even more exclusive bonus content including roundtable discussions, on-set interviews, audio commentaries, and brand new animated histories giving fans hours of extensive, never-before-seen material.


In Season 4, while the Lannisters’ hold on the Iron Throne remains intact, new and ongoing threats from the south, north and east threaten to tip the scales. As Stannis Baratheon and Daenerys Targaryen continue to grow their respective armies, the arrival of the Lannister-loathing “Red Viper of Dorne” poses a more immediate danger. In the north, the depleted Night’s Watch seems overmatched against the advances of Mance Rayder’s army of wildlings, which in turn is being trailed by an even more formidable foe: the undead White Walker.



read on >>>



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Thursday 8 January 2015

April 12th Premiere for Game of Thrones

HBO has finally revealed the premiere date for Game of Thrones, season 5: April 12th, anchoring the back-to-back-to-back premieres of itself as well as comedies Silicon Valley and Veep.


The full press release is below:


read on >>>



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Wednesday 7 January 2015

Game of Thrones Exhibition Returns for April Premiere

We’ve just received a press release from HBO regarding the popular, Game of Thrones traveling exhibition which notes it will include “select never-before-seen pieces from Season 5 premiering in April 2015”. The exhibition—besides it’s usual U.S. appearance—will be appearing in the UK, Sweden, Israel, Spain, Holland, Germany, and France with more locations to be decided.


You’ll find the full press release below:


read on >>>



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