yeah. all the plots they are trying to wrap up needed at least a couple more seasons. Rushing everything at the end is making it so nothing makes sense and none of the motivations are believable anymore.

HBO wanted to extend the show. At the very least, they wanted one more episode in the final season. However, the showrunners (David Benioff & D.B. Weiss) pushed hard for the current schedule. Obviously, the showrunners won.

When these negotiations occurred, I assumed it was because the showrunners knew exactly what story they wanted to tell. But now, having seen seasons 7 & 8 (sans the final episode), I'm not sure why the showrunners wanted the rushed ending. Maybe they were thoroughly sick of the show? If so, why not hand it off to somebody else to finish?

Maybe they were eager to jump ship to Disney and start making that sweet Star Wars money.

Oh boy, I can't wait to see their Star Wars movie now. I assume it involves Rey randomly slaughtering a planet full of toddlers because she got her period or something.

The probable reason is the longer you hold out for an ending, the more money the actors hold out for. Extending it would have needed new contracts for all and that would be expensive. So yeah, money probably ruined this one.

I thought by now every network would just point to the massively successful careers the stargate SG-1 actors ended up having after quitting the show over money.

No.. the people with the money (i.e. HBO) were the ones that wanted more episodes. It was the showrunners that wanted to wrap it up. That's what's so bizarre. It wasn't even their money, but they wanted to rush the ending anyways.

*shrug* I have no idea.

And no one at HBO had the brains to just fire them and bring on better writers?

Just a case of success blindness? No one else on the planet could possibly do as good or better job than the current people?

Maybe they didn't want to be locked in Walking-Dead style to a show that just goes on forever. Or the showrunners want out because right now is when they're in demand. I dunno really; I don't watch the show, but I'm watching the explosions and fallout from the ending via friends.

Maybe the showrunners figure with the reorganization of WarnerMedia, there's a good chance at an executive shuffle at HBO, as it's already happened to distribution and home entertainment. Better to let the show end on peak hype as the main short-term goal is to sell HBO subscriptions, and WarnerMedia's streaming service is going to ride the fumes of that hype for at least a year.

At this point seems like the showrunners wanted to cash in on their fame and instead of quitting just decided to half-ass the remainder of their contracts while working on the story for their star wars payday.

and I feel bad for the actors, whose careers may be damaged if the ending of the show flops badly.

It's just shitty storytelling, because the two showrunners wanted to cash out from HBO and take on the next Star Wars projects.

They can't even make the show's gimmick of doing the opposite of the expected resolution work in the short six episode finale season. They took the intelligent race of mysterious ice warriors commanding an army of snow zombies who had been planning their assault over thousands of years and made them NPCs - there was no exploration of why these intelligent beings are doing what they're doing and what motivates them (the main characters who see them as an existential threat don't even speculate among themselves about this and form interesting theories about it). Do they need something on the other side of the wall? Do they have an ideology? Is this revenge for some past transgression? Can they be satisfied with some agreement, reparation or tribute? Nobody knows and the characters don't seem to care. Zip, the badass 90lb girl ninja stabbed the final boss with a magic knife and eight years of teasing the buildup is all over. On to the next forced plot twist. We have a deadline here, people.

My surmise is that Martin won't ever finish the books. Not solely because he's fat and old, but because the show itself and the actors playing his characters have usurped his own creative vision. There's no way that the filmed depiction of his books match what was in his mind's eye, so now he's presented with the prospect of writing fan fiction for someone else's creative vision.

I didn't have a problem with Arya killing the Night King. She's got to be a 17th level rogue at least.

What I want to know is, why didn't the Night King drop any loot? Like not even a pouch of gold? A magic ring maybe? Nothing...? I would be so mad if that was my DM.

?

They've revealed the White Walkers' motivation. They were created by the Children of the Forest in a very traumatic procedure, and they're kinda pissed off about it. The Children lost control of them, and now they're out for revenge.

It might have been interesting to get deeper into their heads and/or to find out more about them. (Is their condition inherently painful? Wouldn't recently created White Walkers be angry at the Night King rather than the Children? etc.) But letting them remain largely mysterious makes a lot of sense too, from a narrative standpoint.

I’m finding it more akin to what an emo teenager would write... the night before the assignment is due.

BSG's final season was ass. The football dude ended up in an embarassing zen bathtub, Brother Cavill became a less nuanced villain than the Robot Santa from Futurama, and Starbuck turned out to be a vision of an echo of an angel or some shit. The only great thing about it was Apollo's hair. How does he do it?

I thought that BSG had the most beautiful ending of all time.

Deal with it.

I'll deal with it by being happy for you. BSG was a special show, and I'm glad that stuff I mentioned didn't get in the way of its sticking the landing.

Starbuck pulling a Poochie was unnecessary.

I agree. This show sucks and isn't worth the hype. Game of Thrones was never my scene and I don't like Avengers.

But do you have HBO?

Of course not.

It's a show, not a timeshare or multilevel marketing.

if you don't like it at worst you lose a couple hours of time.


being smug over not trying new things that carry no risk is the stupidest smugness.

I WILL FEEL SMUG WHENEVER AND HOWEVER I PLEASE

I hear he's on pace to finish an entire page this year.

Remind me again what this retirement-aged man owes you.

It's cool if he wants to retire, but he should probably just tell people instead of pretending to write a book that doesn't exist.

That was to show they had found a way to travel to Farbuck's Coffee
in the Kingdom of Far Far Away.

I'm just glad Starbucks didn't try and make any Dany themed drinks off of the gaffe. Because when Episode 5 dropped that would have been hella awkward.

"Try our new Hitler frappacino!"