Stop working and watch television for a change! Last night, HBO posted the first 14 minutes of the upcoming Game of Thrones series. Others! Creepy blue eyes! Princess Leia hair on Arya!
The snippet should be safe for work. There’s more than one beheading, but no swearing, nudity, or Targaryens.
You know a show is gonna be awesome when there are 2 beheadings in the first 15 minutes. It looked great and has increased my anticipation 10 fold.
Wow. Can’t wait! The acting looks superb.
I don’t have HBO and I’m not going to spend as much money as it would cost me to sign up with them for one show. I’m just going to have to (regretfully) wait until the DVDs or Blu-Rays are released. As a consequence I’ve stopped watching the teasers for the show and I’m not watching this snippet either. I want to be able to enjoy the show with fresh eyes when I finally can.
I just want to say, I love the imagine that was captured here. The green hills, the costumes…everything is simply beautiful.
The snippet should be safe for work. There’s more than one beheading, but no swearing, nudity
I think this tells you everything you need to know about how utterly screwed up this society is.
toryx @3 and anyone else who wants to chime in: This is the third time in an hour I’ve seen someone bemoan the cost of HBO. On my Time-Warner account here in Ohio, HBO — including the on-demand service — is $5 a month. I’m curious what it costs elsewhere?
NomadUK @@.-@: No kidding. Stubby, that was one back-assward disclaimer. The clip I saw was pretty grisly. Besides the beheadings, did you not see the collection of butchered body parts lying around? Where do you work? Hormel?
(Oh, also: Others? What are you talking about? None of those guys looked like Michael Emerson to me. #notreadGoTyet)
Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t see this video (in Canada); I was able to find it on HBO’s Canadian website:
http://www.hbocanada.com/gameofthrones/video.php
I wanna see this so badly, but haven’t had cable tv at all in ages. Maybe that’s the lamentation for costs? Not just the single channel, but the cost of cable/satellite tv altogether.
I have to find someone to record it for me, and let me come watch at their house.
HBO is $15.99 a month on my DirecTV. I don’t know if i can justify that rate when Game of Thrones is all i want to see. They bundle in 8 channels, but i don’t even want 1 full channel – i just want 1 show. In these days of digital distribution, if they can’t figure out a way to make that happen then they really need to reevaluate their business model.
They’ll probably spend way too much time and money trying (and failing) to fight the inevitable unauthorized copies that will appear when they could be making money from people like me who want to support the show but don’t want the rest of their crap.
At least on my cable system, HBO has a special intro deal for new viewers – may be $10/month. Not bad – a hair more than a single movie ticket.
Smaug’s Li’l Brother Puff@5, At least where I live you can’t just get HBO by itself, you have to get a bundle of all the premium channels and I don’t watch enough tv to justify that. I do have Netflix and I can wait.
NomadUK @@@@@ 4:
Truer words were never spoken.
Smaug’s Li’l Brother Puff @@@@@ 5:
I live in the country. There’s one cable provider (Comcast) and they already charge me (or more accurately my partner) $175 for internet and the standard digital package. HBO would be at least another $25 (for a limited time…then they’d jack it up to $50) on top of that. I’d cancel Comcast entirely except for the internet if I could, but my wife needs it for work.
When you’re out in the boonies, the cable companies stick it to you where it really, really hurts.
Edited to add the parenthetical up above.
Keep in mind that HBO must pay for these great mini-series that they do so well. Their quality has been excellent, and they are entitled to make money and be profitable.
That said, there should be some way in this digital age to buy just one show as well. Although my guess is that it would be prohibitively expensive and therefore cheaper just to subscribe. (Where I get ticked is when you have to buy some dumb bundle with a bunch of channels you will never watch, just to get the one you want.)
BTW, they do have a lot of good movies on there and with a DVR, you can record them.
Disclaimer: I do not work for HBO. ;-)
@Jaxicat I was under the impression I wouldn’t be getting HBO without a bunch of other channels, too – but I figured it was worth having a go, so I rang up my cable provider and told them I wanted HBO with the minimum of other channels possible, and if it wasn’t reasonable, I wasn’t buying. They offered me HBO + basic service (local channels), with no contract – which is definitely not an option listed on their website! Sometimes it pays to ask.
HBO has the best shows, bar none. It’s well worth it.
Everything on HBO is worth watching and has been for years. If you do end up subscribing for GoT you will probably get sucked into everything else and get your moneys worth at least. HBO does put stuff up on iTunes so if that is the case for GoT try to support them through that if subscribing is impossible. Any way to show monetary support for GoT won’t be wasted since HBO does quality stuff and treats fans well. Unlike other stations that rely on Nielsen ratings, HBO can get a clearer count on who is watching their stuff through subscriptions and downloads. Subscriptions, iTunes, DVD purchases … those are direct ways of making sure good shows keep getting made.
If there is ever a time to obtain a show through official means it is this one. We do not want this series to be cut short due to fans using “alternative” means. Sometimes you just have to fork out some money to get the show you want. Otherwise we’ll get stuck with 2.5 Men knockoffs and reality tv for eternity because that is what they think is popular.
@sixthlight
Good to know!
I’m hoping against hope that GoT gets posted to iTunes; I’m willing to pay an almost ridiculous amount of money for the privilege. The alternative is my monopolist cable company at $86/month plus the inconvenience of signing up, getting everything installed, and cancelling AGAIN.
Agamede @@@@@ 17:
That’s what I’m hoping for too, but I seriously doubt it’s going to happen. I’ve read that HBO doesn’t like putting their shows on iTunes. They have their own digital subscription source (which is fairly expensive) that they want people to use.
On top of that, I’m deaf and chances are there won’t be any captions available on either system.
I love the look and feel of this production. That said, there’s a part of me that does not want to watch it — I think the book is that good.
HBO is not worth it for Game of Thrones, since no film can come close to matching my initial experience with the book, but it is for everything else. I think the first season of the Sopranos, for example, is one of the great films of our time. Given how everything eventually comes out on DVD, renting is certainly more cost effective.
I’m glad this was only 15 minutes … I got totally sucked in, and don’t have that kind of time today!
Sheesh, do I re-read the books now, or wait till after I’ve seen the series?! Decisions, decisions…