Why I'm watching House of Dragons

[CharlesPhipps]

https://youtu.be/fSZwd2zfefw?list=FLfWm ... zySKDJidoA

I love Rawist's talk about George R.R. Martin's progress on WOW. Which is hilarious.

[CharlesPhipps]

There's a couple of books that are coming out and have come out which basically describe the "behind the scenes" of D&D being a lot more hostile and questionable in their decisions than we were led to believe because HBO really wanted to be the good guys and avert Executive Meddling.

* Basically, from everything I've read D&D wanted to get out of Game of Thrones as early as Season 4 and were hoping to wrap up the series in Season 5 before releasing theatrical movies. HBO reacted to this the way a cable companty WOULD react to the fact that they do not produce theatrical movies and would not make nearly as much money nor would it in any way benefit from them. D&D were nonplussed by this.

* D&D were apparently also suffering fatigue from the show because they wanted to start moving it from the more expansive three sets working simultaneously at all times down to one set. Which they found out wasn't happening (no shit, Sherlock). A lot of their efforts were trying to rapidly reduce their workload.

* D&D did have the fact that they were trying to stick with the main cast so they wanted to combine or cut characters whenever possible like Victarion Greyjoy, the Martells, Quentyn Martell, and so on. The Golden Company is literally an entire seasons more of material with Griff the Pretender (I don't know this for sure but it's pretty damn obvious) and so on they decided to dump on Jon instead. But again, they wanted to reduce their workload and bring the show to a close, not continue to expand on it.

* Apparently Lady Stoneheart was supposed to be a plot according to the actress but they cut it as well among other book plots.

* D&D started playing hardball with HBO and wanted to do "Confederacy" instead despite the fact every executive at HBO apparently HATED the idea. For, well, obvious reasons. They were promised it if they would continue making Game of Thrones, though, so it became a case of them doing it for the promise but at dramatically reduced episode sizes.

* D&D also found the cast increasingly hostile and didn't expect the level of resistance they got from Kit Harrington, Emilia Clarke, and others. They had expected most of them to be ready to move on but quite a few of them felt this was their gravy train and HBO had been quite good to them. Emilia Clarke was actually feeling like D&D were the bad guys in her much-publicized disputes about nudity and health concerns since HBO happily amended her contracts. Kit and Emilia had also been given ample time to work on other projects. The "rushing to the end" really got them in several fights.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1524746754/?c ... _lig_pi_dp

[Madner Kami]

Turns out, executive meddling might actually have a reason to exist. Not really surprising, to be honest, neither Benioff and Weiss being absolut dingleberries and exective meddling being necessary even on outwardly successful projects I mean.

What I'll never get though is, why Benioff and Weiss continued or were allowed to continue, when their fatigue and drive to do something else, was so obvious and present in basically everyone's mind relatively early on. Wouldn't surprise me if HBO just wasn't contractually able to get rid of these fucknuggets for some stupid lawyerist reason. But also: What the flying fuck were these twats thinking, when underwriting their contracts for something that was obviously going to go on for literal ages, if it had any success?!

[Thebestoftherest]

Did anything happen with Confederacy, because I haven't heard of anything about it since GOT ended

[Madner Kami]

Did anything happen with Confederacy, because I haven't heard of anything about it since GOT ended

It was dead when Benioff and Weiss signed their Netflix-deal in 2019 and was officially pronounced dead in 2020.

[Thebestoftherest]

Make sense, if all the executive hated the idea they probably were looking for a way to kill it.

[CharlesPhipps]

Turns out, executive meddling might actually have a reason to exist. Not really surprising, to be honest, neither Benioff and Weiss being absolut dingleberries and exective meddling being necessary even on outwardly successful projects I mean.

What I'll never get though is, why Benioff and Weiss continued or were allowed to continue, when their fatigue and drive to do something else, was so obvious and present in basically everyone's mind relatively early on. Wouldn't surprise me if HBO just wasn't contractually able to get rid of these fucknuggets for some stupid lawyerist reason. But also: What the flying fuck were these twats thinking, when underwriting their contracts for something that was obviously going to go on for literal ages, if it had any success?!

The book suggests HBO was actually trying to cultivate the idea they were allowing creative freedom on their projects in what was probably the least well-timed attempt at averting executive meddling in history. D&D probably WOULD have been happy to be replaced and there were plenty of people who directed their episodes who would have been happy to step in (including the people who are now doing house of the dragon).

They didn't want to fuck with what was working either in what had turned into a massive breadwinner too, I imagine.

But also: What the flying fuck were these twats thinking, when underwriting their contracts for something that was obviously going to go on for literal ages, if it had any success?!

Lots of people prepare for failure, not so much success.

Mind you, the thing about finishing on Season 5 and following up with two theatrical movies was something they'd apparently planned from the beginning but had NEVER BOTHERED TO TELL ANYONE about, which is apparently something they sprung on HBO in Season 4 and started talking about publicly as their plans--which sort of caused a bit of a car crash when HBO said there was no way in Hell that was happening.

Notably, of course, this seems to have been when the pair completely stopped caring.

[Thebestoftherest]

I do wonder if they are bad at planning or were more lucky than smart.

[stryke]

I'm willing to put a lot of it down to fatigue. Look up interviews of them doing season 1 and them doing season 8 and they look and sounds like they've aged two decades.

When it gets down to it, they did write one of the best scenes in season 1 (the Cersei and Robert conversation) which was entirely show original so they're clearly got at least something going for them. I also think they were pretty screwed in terms of what to do when the later books never materialized as there's not a lot of point adapting stuff like the Dorne plot or Lady Stoneheart if it's not actually going anywhere or they end up in the same mess of not wanting to do, and they now had to be the ones to connect the dots to get to the endpoints they were given with actual deadlines to get seasons out by.

But yes, while I'm willing to be a lot more sympathetic to them than most, HBO should have absolutely stepped in, and taken the show away from them when it was clear they were cracking under the pressure around season 5-6 to begin course correcting.

While i'm being all hot-takey I'm willing to say I think Confederacy could maybe have worked? If only if it was done once already when it was a film called C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America and that was worth a watch. Thought that did a nice job of being really effed up and shocking. Especially the reveals in the credits about some of the more unexpectedly disturbing stuff that was based on things that really happened. Obviously things had got even more hot button since when that came out in 2004 and it being done by two white guys is way harder sell than a film that was produced by Spike Lee.

[CharlesPhipps]

While i'm being all hot-takey I'm willing to say I think Confederacy could maybe have worked? If only if it was done once already when it was a film called C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America and that was worth a watch. Thought that did a nice job of being really effed up and shocking. Especially the reveals in the credits about some of the more unexpectedly disturbing stuff that was based on things that really happened. Obviously things had got even more hot button since when that came out in 2004 and it being done by two white guys is way harder sell than a film that was produced by Spike Lee.

Essentially, what I understand is they wanted to do THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE with the US on one end and the Confederacy on the other. It would have been a sleek spy drama with the Cold War invoked plus racism! I can understand what they were envisioning but tone deaf to a massive degree even before we remember what was going on in America at the time (and still is).

I can already imagine the articles of, "Is Confederacy hostile to white people?", "Why is CSA the bad guys?", and "Southern heritage reduced to baddies" versus "Glorifying monsters", "The Confederacy says the CSA could have won: they could not have", and "Disneyland for racists: Confederacy shows the world the South wanted."

Which is not the kind of press HBO wanted.

But yes, TMITHC shows you can do a show like that but they had Phillip K. Dick as the place to start and it was set 20 years later because the world was already questionably on the verge of doom. It also had the weird multiverse thing to justify it (because PKD). I'm not sure what they could have done that would have improved on TMITHC or even worked since that show was on the air at the time.

I do wonder if they are bad at planning or were more lucky than smart.

I believe in the much more cynical, "We don't actually care and just want this done to fulfill our contractual obligations."