Any word from the HBO Game of Thrones TV series?

[saintjon]

Wow, these aren't my ideal picks but that doesn't stop them from being pretty damn strong. Sean Bean is a friggin rock star with crazy talent.

I will throw it out here, from my mouth to God's (or whoever is running the marketing on this deal) ears, if they want some huge exposure for this series they need to book Dinklage on Howard Stern before the show probably ends at the end of next year. Game of Thrones isn't the sort of thing they're usually interested in but Robin mentioned one time she had some sort of a crush/attraction for Peter Dinklage, so they would probably have him on just based on that. A half hour spot nets you promotion to about 15 million listeners, even with Howard's audience reduced on satellite that still blows just about any talk platform on any medium out of the water. Couldn't be a bad thing anyhow.

[jamieem]

Ha... can't see that happening.

Crackhead Bob for Hodor?

[NickeeCoco]

Yes, I was definitely interested in seeing Bean do the Odyssey.

How would they have done an Odyssey? Menelaus dies in the movie Troy, but appears in the Odyssey. As does his wife, Helen, who in the movie, runs off with Paris. I knew they weren't going to do a sequel the second I finished watching that travesty of a film. The only good thing about it was watching half naked men hack at each other with swords.

[nick1689]

What was so bad about Troy?

[KatG]

What was so bad about Troy?

They changed a lot of the myth. They dumped the fantasy aspects in a violent fit of "fantasy is bad." They had long pauses where people looked broodingly at each other and the film was slow. Pitt was the wrong actor to play Achilles, and was actually too old. (Not saying he didn't look pretty, as always, or that he can't act, as he can, but he didn't fit well, and they couldn't make up their mind if they wanted him to be a tragic figure of history or a martial arts action superhero.) They cut Odysseus' part down to almost nothing, so yeah, a sequel did not look in the offing. I don't think they were even considering it. I wouldn't call Troy a travesty, but it wasn't brilliant. One nice thing was getting to see Peter O'Toole. I actually found myself way more interested in the Trojans, which I don't think was the filmmakers intent. I thought Eric Bana and Brian Cox were excellent, and Bean was a great Odysseus. He was great in National Treasure.

I do hope they get the women and girls right. It would be cool to have one big female name for Catelyn or Cersei.

[Evil Agent]

They changed a lot of the myth. They dumped the fantasy aspects in a violent fit of "fantasy is bad." They had long pauses where people looked broodingly at each other and the film was slow. Pitt was the wrong actor to play Achilles, and was actually too old. (Not saying he didn't look pretty, as always, or that he can't act, as he can, but he didn't fit well, and they couldn't make up their mind if they wanted him to be a tragic figure of history or a martial arts action superhero.) They cut Odysseus' part down to almost nothing, so yeah, a sequel did not look in the offing. I don't think they were even considering it. I wouldn't call Troy a travesty, but it wasn't brilliant. One nice thing was getting to see Peter O'Toole. I actually found myself way more interested in the Trojans, which I don't think was the filmmakers intent. I thought Eric Bana and Brian Cox were excellent, and Bean was a great Odysseus. He was great in National Treasure.

I do hope they get the women and girls right. It would be cool to have one big female name for Catelyn or Cersei.

I guess we're getting a little off topic, but here's my two-cents regarding Troy: It has all the flaws that KatG mentions above (especially removing the Gods from the storyline!), and Brad Pitt was pretty terrible (but I think he's a pretty bad actor in general.... always feels too much like "Brad Pitt playing some character"... maybe entertaining, but never believable). However, Troy had some good things too: some cool battle scenes, some great duel scenes, and SOME good acting (from O'Toole, Bana, Cox, and Gleeson). I liked it enough to buy the DVD.

[NickeeCoco]

KatG pretty much summed it up. It wasn't as bad as Alexander, but I thought it was god awful.

[DailyRich]

I liked the fact that there were no gods in Troy. It played to the idea of how ordinary events, given enough time and re-telling, can attain mythic stature.

[Werthead]

In my estimation Troy is a decent movie. Some of the dialogue is a little dodgy (especially the number of times that O'Toole says "Gooooods," in a quavering voice) but there's lots of good performances from the likes of Cox, Bana and the legend that is Brendan Gleeson. Even Orlando Bloom is okay as his normal effect of inspiring rage at his insipidly gormless face is perfectly appropriate for the vain, preening, moronic Paris.

For my money, Troy is batting on the same level as the somewhat overrated Gladiator, and is only inferior by dint of not having Oliver Reed in it (due to his deceasedness, although his old drinking buddy O'Toole is a solid alternative choice).

Also, I get bored of people moaning that Troy doesn't have the gods in it. Doing a 'realistic' version of the story as it really might have happened (because in real life no city was going to be besieged for ten years) is perfectly viable, and Troy is only let down in this regard by having the literal Trojan Horse in it, which is stilly pretty stupid ("How about we build a giant wooden badger?").

David Gemmell's take on the whole thing was much better.

[NickeeCoco]

I disliked Troy, because I was a Classics major in university, and therefore, the Iliad is a special piece of literature for me. The Illiad is not just classic (pun intended), but an integral piece of western writing. That poem has inspired so many works of literature, it would be nigh on impossible to count. It has permeated our culture. The poem is priceless. The movie killed off characters that should have lived and then changed the ending of the story. Paris is supposed to die. Helen goes back to Menalaus. Not the other way around. To change an integral part of the Trojan cycle is a travesty.

As for the gods, I was grateful that they were not in it. When I first heard the movie was being made I cringed with thoughts of the Angelina Jolies of Hollywood popping in out of nowhere a la Hercules and Xena. Historicizing the tale is fine by me. We, the people of today, are not ancient Greeks, so we do not believe in those gods, nor do we believe that they ever existed. We are a people of science, not myth. I, personally, think that turning an old story into one that is more accessible to a modern audience is a positive. More people are made aware of a classic that way.

[KatG]

Wow, we're totally off topic. I think you could do the Troy story either way -- gods or no gods, and I wasn't against doing it without, though I get annoyed at the attitude that we have to dump the gods and all fantasy elements because it's too cheesy, too fantasy, too whatever. Apparently, we were supposed to pat them on the back for the "brave" move of removing the fantasy elements, which wasn't brave at all. It's also been done before, (see the film/play The Trojan Women.)

But the changes that they made to accommodate the removal of gods and fantasy elements often didn't work, I felt. But then, I think Gladiator is a really good movie overall, with terrific performances.

To get back to the topic, we aren't probably going to all agree on the casting, but there does seem to be a general positivity to what's been announced so far for Game of Thrones.

[Evil Agent]

I'm still excited about Sean Bean!

[NickeeCoco]

Sorry. My fault.

[PeterWilliam]

"How about we build a giant wooden badger?".

Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time.

[Werthead]

Jennifer Ehle - best known for playing Elizabeth Bennett in the BBC's definitive version of PRIDE & PREJUDICE (the Colin Firth one) - has been cast as Catelyn Stark in the adaptation.

Excellent choice. Ehle is one of our top-tier actresses with a very strong and varied career. I'm pretty sure she'll do brilliantly in the role.