Of course I understand the disappointment when a wonderful book is made into a film but things go askew. Maybe the actors are not talented enough to bring the characters to life. Brad Pitt comes to mind, ruining the character of Louie in Anne Rice's "Interview with the Vampire". I read Pitt changed his mind about acting in the film but it would have cost a fortune to back out of his contract. He sullenly honored the commitment and subsequently ruined that character. Tom Cruise was cast as Le Stat, the main character, an ancient, beautiful, elegant, soulless vampire who decided to walk the world again in modern times. Tom Cruise looked nothing like the way Anne Rice described Le Stat in the book, and the fans of the books were so disappointed - including me.
As for Game of Thrones (GOT), I watched the first two seasons piece-meal because I was traveling, spending four nights a week in a hotel where HBO was available. After the traveling came to an end, I did not want to spend the money for cable at home. Lo and behold, streaming technology has evolved since then! Via my internet connection, and a much less expensive monthly fee for HBO, I recently decided to catch up on the entire GOT series in anticipation for the final season. I am very glad I did this. It is a remarkably well done story with excellent actors and top-of-the line CGI and other digital effects, superb costumes, sets and authentic locations. And most thankfully, because it is HBO, it is free to tell this enormous story in adult terms - adult language, violence, nudity and other adult themes. The universal themes and the wonderfully developed characters struck chords with people around the world.
I was thinking about the enormous effort required to create such a sprawling, fantastical world as the one brought to life in GOT. I went looking for statistics.
According to the article, "Game of Thrones: By the Numbers", Dona Feldman, published in Forbes magazine, April 11, 2019: there are some astounding GOT numbers.
Broadcast in 207 countries and simulcast in 194 countries and territories
Season 7 had 32.8 million viewers
It was filmed in 10 countries, with 105,846 days for extras across all 8 seasons and countries where it was filmed. (This boggled my mind until I realized it was similar to "manhours")
68,143 hotel rooms were booked during the filming of GOT
There are more mind boggling statistics in the article, found here:Forbes Article
The enormous creative endeavor of GOT spread work and money across the world, and required all manner of expertise. Imagine what is involved in support of filming this series - the countless crews and the support needed for all those crews. The food and lodging and transportation of hundreds of people and tons of equipment. Imagine all the trades and skills needed to create buildings, sets, props, special effects, stunt people for all of the battles and fights and thousands of movie "extras" to bring the world of Westeros alive. There were scores of horses the various characters and armies needed, especially the Dothraki - a warrior race, like a cross between Genghis Khan and Native American Plains horse tribes. All those horses required food and shelter, transport, veterinarian attention, farrier services, grooming, handlers, costumes of their own, and of course, consummate riders! The raw materials needed for costumes and sets - such things as fabrics, lumber, plaster and energy to power everything - required money be spent in every location, and surely there were suppliers and specialists located around the world.
There is a high tech aspect of a fantasy series like GOT. The three dragons that hatched from ancient eggs, grew from cute baby dragons into enormous fire breathing monsters of legend, were CGI and they were almost flawless. They were so real that they were the stuff of nightmares! The technical expertise to meld CGI with special effects, real actors, real scenery into seamless motion pictures is truly remarkable. The technical advances developed for movies absolutely finds it way to dozens of other commercial (and likely government and military) applications. The creative efforts of modern film making moves the entire species forward.
Game of Thrones is routinely referred to as a "cultural phenomenon" but I heartily disagree with that. From the first human being until the last, we are storytellers. Before we ever scratched our art and stories into rocks or painted cave walls, there were people in every tribe who memorized their history using knots on a counting rope, beaded leather strips, shells on strings, reed tapestries, pottery, or animal hides. Written language evolved, then we recorded our stories on baked mud, parchment, animal skins, papers and in stone. Now we record our stories using art and theater and technology. It is not a phenomenon that something as innately human as the stories and characters in Game of Thrones appeals to people all over the world, speaking dozens of languages. It is the story of being human.
The basic premise of GOT is that humans must put aside their tribal differences and unite to fight the White Walkers, a race of undead creatures that only exist to feed on the living. If the living do not destroy the dead, the human race will be utterly destroyed. Of course, most of the humans recognize the need to cooperate, but some humans only see a chance to enrich themselves, isolate in their rich cities so to be left to plunder the world when the other humans have all been killed or sufficiently decimated. It puts you strongly in mind of a certain American President and his greedy, short-sighted, compatriots absolutely rigging the odds in their favor to plunder whatever is left of our natural world for their own monetary gain.
George R. R. Martin, the author of the books that Game of Thrones is based on, was writing a different book when the first chapter came to him. He had to stop his other project in order to write the entire series. Stephenie Meyer, the author of the young adult books that became the "cultural phenomenon" of the Twilight movies dreamed of a young girl and a beautiful vampire sitting in a meadow discussing the challenges caused by falling in love. When Meyer woke up, she wanted to know where that story led so she began writing what became the Twilight series.
Twilight is a story about tolerance between whites and Native Americans, vampires and the Native American shape-shifting wolf warriors. First they must learn to respect each other to protect the half human/half vampire child born to Bella the girl and Edward the vampire, the two characters Stephenie Meyer dreamed. Vampires from across the world and the wolves had to unite to battle the ancient evil, all-powerful vampire rulers that tolerated neither the wolves, nor the inter-species child, nor vampires who wished to live in a different manner than the old vampires dictated. The message was very clearly transmitted to a generation of young people all across the world that tolerance and cooperation is clearly desirable.
I am not a big Harry Potter fan but I am certain that "cultural phenomenon" story came to J.K. Rowling, the author of all those wonderfully magical books, in some sort of an imperative-to-write manner as well. The Harry Potter books have been translated into 74 different languages to date. I think there are similar messages in that work, what little I know of it.
While I can understand the investment the 16,000-and-counting fans have in seeing Game of Thrones end in a satisfying way, there is not a single ending that will satisfy everyone! Instead of whining, I wish they would be still and contemplate the truly amazing evolution of human story telling, and be thankful for it.
Here's to our long human history of superb storytelling. Here's to Sunday night and the end of something amazing.
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