Game Of Thrones: Season 8 (Digital HD)
TV Reviews | Jun 7th, 2019
Starring: Peter Dinklage, Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Liam Cunningham, Alfie Allen, John Bradley, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Gwendoline Christie, Iain Glen, Conleth Hill, Rory McCann, Kristofer Hivju, Jacob Anderson
Created By: George R. R. Martin, David Benioff, D. B. Weiss
Directed By: David Nutter, Miguel Sapochnik, David Benioff & D. B. Weiss
Studio: HBO
The final season of Game of Thrones is over and was the most divisive season ever, which I expected before the season started. While others downright hated Season 8, I didn’t expect a lot of things but was still happy with it. I do have a lot to say about this season though.
Obviously this review will have SPOILERS, so if you haven’t seen the show by now, why are you reading a review of Season 8? When we last left off, the army of the dead took down the wall with Dany’s dead dragon and are approaching Winterfell. The North is preparing for battle against them, Cersei never sent any troops to help out but Jaime Lannister goes anyway. Queen Daenerys learns the truth about Jon Snow and is immediately threatened by it, but has pressing matters to deal with as the Night King arrives. “The final war” begins after the events of Winterfell.
This season was the most bitched about season since the first season when Ned Stark got his head chopped off. It might have been a lot worse honestly, to the point insufferable fans were making dumb petitions about the show. I’ve always had some issues with the show and what they decided to leave out (Lady Stoneheart), or change up but it’s still one of my favorite shows of all-time. I think the ending of the show was satisfying, just not what I was expecting. I was expecting the Night King to have more importance. I was still waiting for Bran to lift up his sleeve to see his NK scar to turn blue to indict he has turn evil. SOMETHING like that at the very end. Or Arya going on the boat to the West of Westeros and finds an entire country filled with the Dead or other dragons. Of course, we didn’t get that. I’m sure George’s books will be somewhat similar but the way we get there will be a different path. Others will survive in the books, and others that survive the TV will be killed.
I think the biggest complaint I had this season was the last 2 seasons were really short. The episode length was great but still wasn’t enough. We should had another season or two, and more episodes too. The romance between Jon and Dany was rushed, and I would have liked to have seen more from Dany with her going mad. Granted, we’ve had snippets of her doing evil shit in each season. Even though Sam’s dad and brother were on the wrong side of the war, what she did with them was just downright cruel. Tyrion and others should have had red flags pop up in their heads then. I had a feeling she would do that to King’s Landing, was still surprised when it happened though. She was losing all these people around here, the North hated her even though she saved them from the Dead. She was screwing her nephew, and he had a better claim to the Throne. She was losing it. It was still a shock though.
I thought a good ending for the season should have been when Dany decides to go all pyro on King’s Landing. That is, if we had another season and continued the stuff after that. I just felt like things were rushed and could have been fleshed out more. I was still expecting to see Meera Reed and Daario show up (hey remember them?). What about Howland Reed and his importance of being Ned Stark’s best friend. The shit they did with the direwolves was sucky too because they play such a big part in the books and Ghost is just a background actor essentially. One minute Ghost is chasing down Wights with the Dothraki and then you don’t see him. Next episode he shows up. Just poor storyline for him. More complaints? While I love the Battle of Winterfell, there were times it was so hard to see it and it was pixelated on my TV. It was certainly intense and parts of it were so intense, I just kept breathing heavy and hoping for the best. I even cheered at the end with Arya, because how can you not? I did enjoy it better a second time viewing it because at times it felt like I was watching a horror movie.
I was expecting a different outcome for Jaime and Cersei, different outcome for Jon, wasn’t expecting Tyrion to make it out alive. Lots of different theories in my head, which is why I think people were so pissed off about the season. In this day and age with social media and the internet, everybody has their theories and discuss them with people at length. When that thing doesn’t happen, people lose their minds! We saw the same thing with The Last Jedi. Speaking of Star Wars, good luck David and D.B, going from one crazy fanbase to the next! I’ll say, even though I wasn’t expecting what happen, I was still happy with the season and how it ended. Would I have done things differently? Sure, but I’m not a filmmaker.
Game of Thrones is one of those once in a lifetime TV series and people don’t realize how good they had it. Such bitch bitch bitch. I bitch about some things but not to the point I felt after watching the last season of Lost. That just pissed me off. The quality of these battles, the acting, twists, the politics of it all was just fantastic! It was just so damn awesome! We got to see some badass stuff on TV, instead of just watching it on the big screen. It’s a show I will still re-watch over and over, and re-read the books over and over too. At this point, I don’t think George will finish the book series but at least he created it! I’ll be eagerly waiting to see how things differ and how things are the same. It will be funny if things were exact same, and then what are the whiners going to do? Burn their books? You can have your complaints, but sit back and enjoy what this show is. I don’t feel disappointed or angry with the way things turned up, maybe because I’ve never been a Team Dany to begin with. I’m satisfied with the way things ended up, the show just needed more time, episodes and seasons to flesh things out.
The digital HD download is available now and if you get that now, the awesome The Last Watch documentary is included with two featurettes. I’m curious to see when the Blu-Ray comes out if the Battle of Winterfell will look crispy and not pixelated because of the cable stream to your box? Guess we’ll find out sooner or later. Go re-watch the season and show in the future, I bet you like the show a lot better then.
And now this long, rambling review has ended.
Features:
The Last Watch documentary
In Production Featurette
Anatomy of a Scene Episode 3.
Bottom Line: Not the way I thought things would go but it was still a satisfying way to end the series
Rating: TV-MA
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating:
