MGoT update: Heard on the set

OT notice for folks –

Don’t know if it has been mentioned around these parts or not, but the reprint of Fantasy Flight’s “The Art of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire” is FINALLY here! Head over to Amazon or Fantasy Flight’s website to snag a copy for $25! Good news for those of us who missed out on the first printing and didn’t want to pay $90 for a used copy. For those of you that already have it, the reprint includes additional new art so you may want to consider double-dipping…

Also, they will be releasing Volume II of their ASoIaF art book series sometime next year. More art! Yay!

Hmm, my hunch with the mucusy-vs-icy thing is that we’re talking about beard crust. Gared’s beheading was already filmed, right?

Off-topic, MARTIN FREEMAN is BILBO BAGGINS!!!

This casting news came VERY quickly after the green light last week.

Meet your Hobbit cast…

Lex,

This is good news. Martin Freeman will make a good bilbo I’m sure and if you age him up he would probably look quite like Ian Holm!

Grimtuesday,

I think the fact they all have long beards makes you picture them as old, but Dwerrows live a long time so even ‘old’ for us would be young for them.

Based in their tweets I was SO sure they were going to show us some Dragon eggs! Oh well… Maybe next time – or maybe some more cast pics!

Lex,

Armitage is way too hot to play a Tolkien-dwarf.

I just realized that one year ago was the start of the pilot shooting.
We were all totally excited, desite the fact we did not know what was the future of the series.
Now, we are in the middle of the first season production…what a great GOT year we had behind us!

The Rabbit,

Indeed, I don’t think I’ve ever been so eager about something for such a long time :-)

I am a bit worried about how this forum will evolve though when the series will finally be airing. First of all it might get swamped by fans-of-the-tv-series-not-of-the-books. Then again, a lot of enthusiasm from a wider public is what we need of course to see the show continued for at least a few more seasons. What worries me more though is the fact that it will air first in the US, followed closely probably by countries where Sky is available. The latter is not the case in most W-European countries though, and even for people that can watch the episodes ‘only’ days later on Sky (or other HBO partners?), it will become impossible to participate in discussions here…

Looks like the only way to not have this problem will be to illegaly download and watch every episode right after it airs… (which is something I don’t like!) If only the movie/tv industry worked differently. I’m sure many of us non-US residents would love the possibility to (live)stream the show from their website at a fair price. And if they transfer part of the earnings to their partners in the respective countries we are from, it doesn’t have to be a loss for those. But yeah, the music/film/tv industry unfortunately missed out completely on this ‘new’ world called the web…

Adding my voice to those worried about having to download/stream in a less than legal fashion. I’m in the UK and can’t get sky (won’t be living in one place long enough for a contract to be worthwhile- I’m a student- and probably wouldn’t be allowed to put the dish up anyway), I want to participate in discussions when the series airs rather than waiting for the DVD.

If it were being shown only a few days or even weeks later on BBC HD or a similar HD quality channel I can get, I’d wait and watch it in all its glory on a big TV rather than a poor quality version on my computer. But since that won’t be the case, if I want to see the show and talk about it, there isn’t a legal option that doesn’t involve a long wait.

HBO, if you’re listening, we want to give you our money! Make the show available online and people will pay for it. It seems absurd to me that businesses are ignoring a potentially huge source of revenue. A good quality stream or legal download would definitely be worth paying for- if it’s good enough quality can hook the computer up to the TV and get the full experience- so make it available at a reasonable price and surely a lot of money can be made.

I imagine it might be problematic with traditional style licensing to broadcasters in other countries- so change the contracts. If they want the material they’ll still sign, and they’ll get the casual viewers and those who hadn’t heard of it before they started broadcasting, while us fans can pay for and legally watch online at or near the first broadcast time.

Being a fan, illegal downloading doesn’t make sense. We all want more than one series, with the best possible actors, costumes, sets etc- and we know that in order to get that the series needs to make money. But it’s very hard to pay to watch if a legal option isn’t available.

Come on people, we all know we are going to download it. Don’t worry HBO, I’ll buy your overpriced blurays when they become available. If there is a chance to download the highdef version in a legal way the next day I will pay for it though.

I know HBO is going to release the bluray months after showing the series because they’re afraid of losing subscribers, but in the Netherlands it’s custom that after a (dutch) series has aired it’s entire season the DVD is on the shelf the next week, so much more easy.

Back on topic for a sec… here’s my guesses for the context of the o/hs, above. Sounds like they re-filmed the beheading, or did a few close-up scenes of the beheading/head-kick – working with the special effects crew or whatnot. Theon (or his stand-in for the close-up kick) shouted “WE DO NOT SOW!” as his victory cry.

The head gets stuck on his foot momentarily. That would be the head-rock/shudder. Or it’s stuck to the grass, more icy and less ‘mucus-y’ effects for the head’s beard.

It’s the human compulsion to make connections… :)

Deidre K,

But that would mean that they are still shooting scenes from the pilot. I though that they were filming by episodes blocks and the pilot reshooting was already done.

What reminds me, we know they are/have reshooting a very big percentage of the pilot (prologue, Dany scenes, Catelyn scenes…) I wonder if now that Lena Heady is not longer pregnant, they’ll reshoot the infamous love scene that was originally shot with a body double. Mind you, it’s not that I want to see a naked Lena, it’s more like… err… well, I really want to see a naked Lena.

“WE DO NOT SOW!” is clearly the signature for the post. If they had Theon just shout “WE DO NOT SOW!” for no reason after that I’d turn off the show right there because it’d be proof that they were going to make all kinds of bizarre, baffling, unnecessary, nonsensical changes.

Just like to add my concerns about not being able to legally keep up to date on this forum when GOT airs. I live in the UK and can`t afford a Sky package. My only option at present is to drive to my sisters house every week, which is a 70 mile round trip. This will probably cost me more in petrol over the whole series than a Sky package though. Petrol is around £6.00 per gallon here,roughly $12.00 U.S. So whats an avid fan who is actually IN the show to do? For sure I will be buying the DVD`s when they eventually come out, but it will be sh*t login on here and reading all the lucky b******s comments and not knowing what the f**K everyone is talking about…………Sorry starting to hyperventilate….

“I ll stand for the dwarf!”

Thanks Two Feathers!
Nice bit of info.

Pablo Jainaga,

Hi Pablo, I know what your saying man,I am not much of a computer wizard though. If someone dosn`t put it on Youtube I don`t think I will be able to download it.

Pablo Jainaga,

Pablo.

Lo más seguro es que lo emitan en Canal+. Con un poco de suerte siguiendo la línea de Fringe, en V.O. dos días después. Crucemos los dedos.

Most likely it will be aired on Canal+ Spain. If we’re lucky it will be done the same way as Fringe, only two days after the premiere.

Off Topic, But you can pre-order “Ice” From Valyrian Steel. Sweet looking too.

(Oh for the days of patronage! Why can’t some billionaire oligarch just pay HBO to make the thing and then make it free for everybody?)

Folks, HBO is not gonna lose any money for overseas people watching “Game of thrones” by internet. They’re gonna sell the rigths to foreign TV channels (or have already sold them, case of UK and Ireland) and they’ll get the cash upfront. So stop feeling bad for causing any damage to HBO. It’s not like they’re gonna get some kind of bonus if the rates in those foreign TV channels skyrocket.

Things are different for American and Canadian viewers though, but for the comments so far, it seems that the “downloaders” will be people who cannot afford cable anyway, so I guess they’ are not the target of HBO strategy and don’t enter in their calculations in first place.

Now, if we start to get comments saying things like “I’m not gonna cancel my subscription of the awesome Showtime and get HBO instead in order to watch “Game of Thones”. I’ll watch it by Internet!”. Then, that’s a matter of concern for HBO, because that is the demographic group they’re targetting, but still in that case, if those people get the DVDs (legally, that is) HBO will see their efforts rewarded and more willing to keep producing new seasons.

Gorgous = Gorgeous.

Shinyteapot,

Kelsier,

To people in the UK without access to sky/cable TV. Sky do have an online live streaming service which you can subscribe to. Where I live my housemates dont watch much sport but I love to. As such I stream Sky sports using my Dad’s sky player login. So if you have family with Sky or can subscvribe online yourself you should be able to watch it live on Tv. That is assuming that the new HBO channel will be on the Sky player (has to be doesn’t it?)