Jump to content

SteVo

Elite Prime+
  • Content Count

    9,820
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    219

Posts posted by SteVo


  1. It's pretty close to a 1a/1b situation, but honestly the main reason is my feelings toward Belichick. I love Bill Walsh, but Belichick is light years ahead of him in an era where it's so much harder to gain an edge. Montana would have 10 rings with Belichick. (That's an exaggeration to drive home my point; forgive the logical fallacy.)


  2. Razor, thank you so much for this incredible endeavor. I know I haven't been commenting much, but you know I enjoy your mathematical studies of football no matter what angle you're playing. I have enjoyed this list immensely, and I know others have too.

    All of that said, the data in this study cements the top two on my personal all-time QB list:

    1. Joe Montana
    2. Tom Brady

    Don't fucking @ me.

    • Upvote 2

  3. On 5/30/2019 at 9:08 PM, Zack_of_Steel said:

    Did you watch The Sopranos when it aired? I vividly remember the vitriol and outrage at the finale and people said it had ruined one of the best shows of all time. The pacing for it seemed off at the end as well and at the time everyone kinda threw their hands up and went, "that's it? They didn't resolve shit and the end seemed rushed as hell after waiting forever for the final half of the season." Now how is it remembered? People went nuts and this was mostly before social media and pocket-internet and everyone having their viewpoint reinforced by the masses of people in rushed agreement. I think GOT will age better than a lot of the reactionary public would like to think.

    This is very true, but I want to point out a few things about The Sopranos, since I'm a Sopranos homer.

    1) Many fans of the show always misunderstood it. The so-called "hits and tits" crowd thought it was a pure mob show and raged at every episode that didn't have a mob war. So they were set up for disappointment. Was the ending to the final season anticlimactic? Yes. But the concept of anticlimax had been used so often it was firmly established.

    2) Sopranos had always been more thematically rich than Game of Thrones. Whereas Thrones is mostly plot-driven and doesn't go much deeper thematically than "power corrupts," Sopranos is much deeper. So of course the finale would be more challenging to viewers. Anyone who went in to that episode thinking its purpose would solely be to reveal the fate of Tony Soprano was, again, set up for disappointment.

    So basically what I'm saying is the final season of Sopranos was absolutely consistent with the pacing and structure of the show up to that point. I cannot say the same about the final two seasons of Thrones.

    • Upvote 1

  4. It also needs to be said (Than alluded to this, for the record) that part of the reason seasons 7 and 8 are disappointing is because of the insanely high standard we were held to. For six seasons, Thrones was the best show on TV, and as good as any TV drama has ever been, in my opinion. It's ridiculously difficult to keep that up for six seasons, let alone eight.


  5. There's no doubt this season has been lesser received than any so far. Maybe it's just a victim of astronomical expectations, but it seems like the consensus is Thrones is blowing its endgame.

    As you guys know, I have been a fan of this season's action episodes (first episode was average and fourth had big problems), but I have a terrible feeling the finale will be horrible. So we'll see.

    • Upvote 2

  6. I loved the end of Jamie's arc, I just felt it was a bit clumsy how he got there. Everything about his final conversation with Tyrion was great. Everything about him finding Cersei in King's Landing was great.

    Him deciding to stay in Winterfell with Brienne and then suddenly deciding to leave? Less than great.

    As I said, my main takeaway from seasons 7/8 is the showrunners had good ways to end character and story arcs, but didn't arrive there in the smoothest way.


  7. As usual, I'm late getting to this thread and most of y'all have already spelled out my thoughts. So I'll be brief except for one talking point.

    I loved the episode. I loved where all the characters ended up, even if I had minor quibbles with how they got there (that's basically my summation of seasons 7 and 8). Varys' death? Awesome. Clegeanebowl? Awesome. Jamie and Cersei's death? Awesome. Arya's realization? Awesome. Jon's horror at battle? Awesome.

    Now let's focus on Daenerys. I can certainly understand how someone could dislike her actions in this episode (one friend told me it ruined the show for him and he may not watch the finale), but it worked for me on two levels.

    First, as a viewer, I was floored when my excitement at watching Drogon obliterate the Golden Company turned to shock at Daenerys burning the entire city to the ground. It was probably the biggest, most effective shock of the series since...Cersei blowing the Sept of Baelor? Let's be real; this is the penultimate episode of the entire series, and it comes with astronomical expectations. Penultimate episodes of every season so far have included game-changing battles and betrayals. If this episode were just another battle ending with another ruler taking the Iron Throne, it would have been a little disappointing. But for us to watch all of King's Landing get absolutely destroyed? Fuck yeah, that works.

    Second, as a character, Daenery's descent makes sense to me. Has the show built up to it properly? I would say not quite, but the groundwork is there. (All her time as a liberator in Slaver's Bay seems a bit odd now, I concede.) Like Cersei, she is totally out of allies. She has come all this way to Westeros, and she knows there's no way for her to save the world and rule peacefully. Maybe there never was. So, is she about to just sail back to Essos? No way. Finally, she stops fighting what has been inside her all along. She embraces her inner Targaryen and takes what is hers--with fire and blood.

    • Upvote 2

  8. If anyone posts spoilers for episodes 5 and 6 before they air, please use spoiler tags kthx.

    Thanks for the insight on the novels, Thanatos. Adding a third player to this final season definitely would have helped, I think. Also I don't buy that A Dream of Spring is done, or even close. I get Winds of Winter, but there's no way Martin has written two massive novels in between all the other stuff he's been doing.

    • Like 1

  9. Something has been itching at me ever since season 7, and now that Razor and F4E have alluded to it, I want to try to spell it out...

    Moving past GRRM's source material has exposed Benioff and Weiss for their lack of ability to balance--if that's the right word--the storytelling. In the first six seasons, this wasn't so much a problem because there were always between five and eight plotlines going on throughout Westeros and Essos. So it was pretty easy to spread things out, make sure each episode had some sort of climactic moment, and methodically build each season up to its own climax.

    Now that all the plotlines have formed into our final conflict, everything feels very rushed. In the span of one episode we go from the mass funeral at Winterfell to the preparation of the big battle in King's Landing. Oh, and in between: Drogon  destroyed by Euron, Missandei beheaded, Jon's identity revealed to everyone, Varys plotting to turn against Daenerys.

    I'm not saying it's terrible or that the show has lost itself or anything like that. It's just a little jarring for a show that had a consistent feel and pace to it for six seasons to suddenly turn into this.

    I hope some of this makes sense.

    • Upvote 2
  • Chatbox

    TGP has moved to Discord (sorta) - https://discord.gg/JkWAfU3Phm

    Load More
    You don't have permission to chat.
×