Mad Max Fury Road. They defeat the tyrant, and get the control of the water valves. Then they open the valves and seemingly keep them open. One problem, how long is the water reservoir gonna last now?
Logan’s Run. The city dwellers are freed from the computer’s iron-fisted rule, and Carrousel. But their city is in ruins, and thinks to the computer providing everything. They don’t know how to live without it. The city dwellers are going to start dying off real fast.
If you watch, binge, all seasons se08 becomes more logical. There are small markers all over the series predicting it all. I didn’t pickup those at first (weekly) watch.
I say more logical, not logical.
Se01-se06 are still TV magic. Se07 (dany’s attack on the lannister convoy comes to mind) still is good and se08 just speed runs everything.
I still think that was their only true mistake: speed running the season. It gave us everything we wanted. But in such a way nobody could enjoy it all. Jaime finally becoming true good only to return to his true love? (some very powerful acting there) Check. The long night? Check. End of the night king? Check. Ice dragon? Check. Arya voyage finally given meaning? Check. Jorahs redemption? Check. Cleganebowl? Check. Cersei dies? Check. Return of the mad
kingqueen? Check. Theon’s redemption? Check. Destruction of kings landing? Check. Etc etc etc. It ticks all the boxes and more you didn’t even know they existed. It’s just that it ticks them in such an insane speed which results in gaps in the storytelling. Gaps of which some are filled if you binge it all but most will not.Se08 had to be 2 seasons. Season 8, ending with the long night, se09, the fall of the red keep.
Yes, the 2nd dragon had to die for the sake of the story. Missandei had to die to cement Cersei being the baddest cruel bitch and complete dany’s arc to insanity. But like this? That was stuff for an entire episode. Not the final three minutes of one.
You listed a lot of things that were foreshadowed largely in the books. I felt that the dialogue just about immediately fell off as soon as they ran out of book. Everyone felt very much on their own “tracks” and did not veer past that starting immediately with how they dealt with Jon just…coming back at the start of the season. Characters started teleporting wherever they needed to be, and episodes started feeling a lot more like a poor combination of big budget action scenes and desperate attempts to connect those by having two characters talk at each other alone in a room.
I feel like Jaime’s failed redemption arc was missing something (maybe a couple books worth of further development and foreshadowing?) and the whole Bran debacle felt like it was really supposed to be something and they just “kind of forgot” to ever actually set it up.
I think there are some good reasons GRRM has had such trouble finishing the series and the show runners just never even noticed and steamrolled straight to the end.
It’s a beast to wrap up and hit all those notes and do it before the heat death of the universe. That’s why we haven’t gotten a book in a decade, and likely never will again.
The hubris to think you can do it in eight episodes of television? Unimaginable.