Poll: Winter Is Coming - HBO's A Game of Thrones [READ WARNING]

[McPhee]

I don't think it is budget or even time constraints, they have the entire episodes to themselves last night, that is an hour of screen time. In movie terms, that is half a movie dedicated to a single battle which is plenty.

The Two Towers had a budget of $94M, which in today's money is more like $120M. That's more than the budget for the entire season of GoT. Season 1 is estimated to have cost HBO $50-$60M, with a 15% rise each season, so the budget for S4 must have been something like $76-$91M.

The budget for Game of Thrones being tight isn't speculation; it's fact. The producers have discussed publicly their desire to use the Direwolves and Dragons more, to have more special effects and bigger scenes in the show. Unfortunately, they don't have the money to do it. Even without all of these things, Game of Thrones is an expensive show to shoot - they are on location in two to three different places every season. Thankfully, the budget is increasing each season, and it does show.

They certainly could have made the battle at The Wall epic. They could have followed the book to a tee. But the money would have needed to come from other episodes. Personally, I'm with the producers on this one. I'd rather have the budget spread across episodes than see the other nine suffer just to make this battle as epic as it is in the books. The battle had enough budget to make the point - the Wildlings can easily crush the Night's Watch. Taken in the context of the story, it was totally adequate.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Dressing the same dozen guys in a different outfit and put them with the giants doesn't cost another $50million !

Actually thinking about it, you don't need to use different outfit. They can just use the same 12 guys that store Castle Black. Film that first, then ask them to do the scene with the giants outside the tunnel.

How exactly does that inflate the budget by the millions? All you need to do is create an illusion that there are lots of men, not just a dozen.

 

[McPhee]

Dressing the same dozen guys in a different outfit and put them with the giants doesn't cost another $50million !

Actually thinking about it, you don't need to use different outfit. They can just use the same 12 guys that store Castle Black. Film that first, then ask them to do the scene with the giants outside the tunnel.

How exactly does that inflate the budget by the millions? All you need to do is create an illusion that there are lots of men, not just a dozen.

Why would you want more people outside the tunnel?...

More people in the treeline, sure. Lets see those 100,000. More Giants and Mammoths? Again, fine. Why not send more people to climb up The Wall? All of these things would make sense, but would have cost a lot of money. Sending more people with the Giants might have shown off a larger part of the Wildling forces, but strategically it would be dumb. The Wildlings that were with the Giants were there as assistants and cannon fodder. The plan was for the Giants (assisted by the Mammoth) to rip the outer gate off, at which point they could send men (in their thousands) through The Wall. Until the gate was off, more men would have meant more losses, nothing else.

 

[zootfloot]

So if you were commanding the wildlings you would have sent all 100k of them to stand around under the gate while getting rained on by arrows, burning oil and rocks?
The northern attack was largely a distraction from the real attack which was the attack from the south.

No, because i'm not commanding the wildlings.

I simply said that I expected the numbers being involved to be bigger and the assaults on castle black to be more substantial.

You clearly didn't, and were more than impressed....fair enough.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Why would you want more people outside the tunnel?...

More people in the treeline, sure. Lets see those 100,000. More Giants and Mammoths? Again, fine. Why not send more people to climb up The Wall? All of these things would make sense, but would have cost a lot of money. Sending more people with the Giants might have shown off a larger part of the Wildling forces, but strategically it would be dumb. The Wildlings that were with the Giants were there as assistants and cannon fodder. The plan was for the Giants (assisted by the Mammoth) to rip the outer gate off, at which point they could send men (in their thousands) through The Wall. Until the gate was off, more men would have meant more losses, nothing else.

Because these men would go through the wall.

They have 100,000 men, I think we saw like 100 at best attack Castle Black. They sent almost no one attacking the tunnels and may be only like 20 climbing the walls. Do you not think that is a bit stupid ?

You yourself said the giants were to rip the gate off and then storm in the tunnel…there should be a group of men waiting on the wing for that to happen, where were they ?

 

[McPhee]

Because these men would go through the wall.

They have 100,000 men, I think we saw like 100 at best attack Castle Black. They sent almost no one attacking the tunnels and may be only like 20 climbing the walls. Do you not think that is a bit stupid ?

You yourself said the giants were to rip the gate off and then storm in the tunnel…there should be a group of men waiting on the wing for that to happen, where were they ?

Only 20 climbing The Wall - definitely stupid. Having a few hundred climb The Wall a couple of miles away would have been a much better idea, but I believe the book has the exact same flaw to it?

The giants weren't there to attack the tunnels. They were there to rip the gate off. Once the gate was off, you could move thousands from the treeline to the tunnel at leisure. There would be nothing the Night's Watch could do to stop them getting through. That's the point - they didn't need to have thousands stood at the gate, ready to charge. In fact, it would have been counter-productive. Imagine how many would have died to exploding barrels of oil! Minimizing casualties will be a priority for the Wildlings - they are all too aware of the White Walker threat. They will need every able-bodied man and woman to defend The Wall against their army (which I assume is the endgame here?).

 

[dowie]

It will blow your mind when you realise The Hound was also the Scotts Porridge Oats man

that's brilliant

 

[dowie]

Was going to say, coming from not reading the books, they kept going on about 100,000 men this and 100,000 men that, and like 12 guys knocked on the door then ran off?

Its not unreasonable for Mance to want to breach the gate first... they started firing arrows at the 100,000 and if you notice they stayed right back outside the range of the arrows out of danger mostly aside from a few getting hit initially. Sending forward a small party initially wasn't unreasonable either - its more of a siege scenario and there isn't necessarily a mad rush on their part - the Mammoth could have feasibly destroyed the gate and then they'd be able to send forward a larger number - no point risking additional people when not required to.

In the end that plan fails, they didn't manage to breach the gate so much as a Giant managed to lift it and have it drop behind them - presumably the Giant's are not too bright and he didn't think to actually hold the thing open so his buddies could follow.

 

[dowie]

And then as regards the men climbing up the wall? Why not do that (safely) 200 yards to the left or right?

That bit does seem silly - like they've sent a party all the way over the wall to attack the Castle from the rear... surely a better option would be to send a party up the wall... away from Castle black and just attack from the top of the wall - much more of a surprise attack too and would cause them much more issues if the guys at the top then get tied up fighting hand to hand rather than being able to defend against the attackers down below.

 

[sigma]

I'm not as hooked on GoT these days. Hannibal and Fargo are so good that there isn't as much anticipation for GoT any more. I suppose it has been going for 4 seasons now, I tend to find that a lot of TV series peak around season 3ish.

 

[bledd]

That giant with the bow, he used a bloomin' tree as an arrow

 

[One]

That swinging anchor was a crock of ****. Other than that though it was a cool episode, lots of old fashioned sword fighting and spear chucking. It would have been nice to see what was happening with Bran too, it could have been an all North episode then, rather than just a wall episode. When Ygritte was squaring up to scarface, that was an obvious bit of filler that could have been replaced by plot.

 

[Sumanji]

I like how the wildlings tried to climb the wall directly below the guys on the top, inevitably getting themselves wiped out. Maybe walk a few minutes to the left, climb it safely and surprise them at the top?

Yeah that was my thought... the wall is so massive, they could have safely climbed up like Jon Snow and the others did last season.

Or - and this sort of blew my mind - why not get some small rowboats and just go *around* the wall on either side? Surely this is much simpler, and a better way to move hundreds, if not thousands of people?!

I'm assuming here that the Wildlings possess rudimentary boat technology

Two completely different mediums only reason I can think of. Not sure how they can be compared.

Nail. Hammer. Head.

It's easy to describe a battle with unlimited words and let the minds eye render it in infinite glory than it is to work within a limited budget and the constraints of the physical world

 

[ValiantUK91]

Watched a film last night called the crew(wished i hadn't) anyway there was a bloke in there who loves to fight moby i think his name was, I recognised him but couldnt put a name to the face then realised its the hound. Weird how you watch so many low key films with characters from game of thrones in watched abit of heartbeat this morning and lord ashfordly was in last weeks episode of GOT cant remember his name in it though he was there when sansa was explaining about her aunt.

 

[No1newts]

Anti climatic for me, great series but they have yet to handle a single battle well IMO.

As others has said create the illusion of a battle, more people running around, more noise etc. the attack on the gate felt like a vicious game of knocky door neighbour rather than a battle. The two dozen climbers was a waste and inside the castle at times you could have heard a mouse fart when, apparently, there wa a huge pitched battle going on.

I'm no director but I don't think it would take too much cash to add to the illusion ad make it look bigger.

 

[Tummy]

I do not think you can place too much blame on the battles, the show is limited by budget. This is not a spectacular battle in a $150,000,000 film, it's one episode in a series, on a much smaller budget.

 

[No1newts]

Oh I know their constraints don't get me wrong but I think they don't utilise what they have as well as they could, I just find they miss some obvious tricks which could improve it for relatively little extra cost.

 

[Tummy]

Oh I know their constraints don't get me wrong but I think they don't utilise what they have as well as they could, I just find they miss some obvious tricks which could improve it for relatively little extra cost.

You should go and offer to help produce the show.

 

[McPhee]

TBH I found it better than a lot of battles in $150M films. Hollywood has a habit of standing everyone in a line and saying 'CHAAAAARGE!'. Lord of the Rings, Kingdom of Heaven, Troy; they all fall foul of this to one extent or another. In terms of spectacle, it fell way short, but the foundations were there. If they could have populated the tree-line with the whole army, added a bunch more Giants and Mammoths and supplied a compelling reason why it was a bad idea for the Wildling army to simply flank the Night's Watch, it could have been something really spectacular.

 

[Sumanji]

How GoT makes me feel...

Spoiler