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Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Every numbered Star Wars movie, ranked worst to best
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Monday, December 30, 2019
Sunday, December 29, 2019
WiC Weekly: December 21-27
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Saturday, December 28, 2019
Watchers on the Wall Awards: The Best Scenes of Season 8
After a long and thorough fandom process, we’ve reached the end of the road in the voting for the Watchers on the Wall Awards, with today’s categories: the Funniest Scene and Best Visual/Special Effects Scene of Season 8.
Additionally, we’re happy to announce that we’ll be revealing the winners of the Watchers on the Wall Awards on Friday, January 10 at 8PM ET. Join us for a live ceremony, streaming from YouTube and embedded here at Watchers for your enjoyment. As we share the winners, we’ll be looking back on the final season of Game of Thrones, reminiscing over the good, the bad and the ugly, and throwing in a few giveaways just for fun!
Now onto the voting! In the category of Funniest Scene of Season 8, the finalists are:
Tormund tells a tale of a giant and her milk
Tormund and Beric run into the Night’s Watch at Last Hearth
Drogon stares at Jon and Dany making out
Tormund is reunited with Jon enthusiastically
Tormund cries to the Hound about Jaime taking Brienne from him
The voting poll is found at the bottom of this post.
And in the category of Best Visual/Special Effects, the finalists are:
Jon and Daenerys take on the Night King by moonlight, with their dragons
Drogon destroys the Iron Throne and carries away Dany’s body
Daenerys and Drogon lay waste to King’s Landing with dragonfire
Daenerys make a speech to her legions, and spreads her wings
The Dothraki charge the army of the dead
Final round rules: To choose the winners, cast your vote in the polls below. Please make sure you vote in both polls and click VOTE on each poll! At the end of one week (Saturday 1/04/20 at 5PM ET), the scenes with the most votes will be the winners! The results of the polls will be revealed during the live Watchers on the Wall Awards ceremony on January 10th.
Funniest Scene of Season 8 – Final Round!
You can view results from the first round of voting HERE!
Best Visual & Special Effects Scene of Season 8 – Final Round!
You can view results from the first round of voting HERE!
A massive thank you to everyone who makes the Watchers on the Wall Awards happen, from the initial suggestions for nominations, to every voter along the way!
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Friday, December 27, 2019
WiC Watches: The Mandalorian
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Thursday, December 26, 2019
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
A Holiday Roundup: Game of Thrones makes it into even more ‘Best of’ lists!
Game of Thrones has made it into a fair few ‘Best of’ lists, whether they are celebrating season eight’s achievements in the context of 2019 TV or the entire show for lists encompassing the entire last decade. Now, truly at the end of the year, there’s been an explosion of such lists and of course Game of Thrones can be found in most of them!
We already covered TVLine’s best deaths and sexiest scenes of 2019, but since then this ‘tits and dragons’ show has made it into more: Jaime knighting Brienne as one of 2019’s “Best Quotes” (that’s one of our award nominees too! Go vote!); Brienne and Jaime’s embrace as “Best First Kiss”; the episode in which all of the aforementioned happens, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” as the “Best Bottle Episode”; the Battle of Winterfell as “TV Event That Lived Up to the Hype”; Daenerys celebrating the defeat of King’s Landing, with Drogon’s wings behind her turning her into a true dragon, as one of the “The Coolest TV Scenes of 2019”; Jon killing Daenerys as one of “Best Plot Twists”; and, in very much the same vein, Daenerys as one of the TV characters this year to have a “Horrible Year”… can’t argue with that! The series finale by itself, however, got a C.
Season eight is one of Gamesradar’s “25 Best TV Shows of 2019”. At the #21 spot, it’s pointed out that, though “a bit rushed,” it was still “spectacular stuff.”
In Variety’s “25 Best TV Shows of the Decade”, Game of Thrones takes the #16 spot, as “the ultimate and perhaps final example of a consensus TV hit in the era of the fragmented audience,” and “a show that stands in for its era.” It was also celebrated in their “Best Episodes of the Decade” list, with Blackwater, the show’s first battle episode and first location-contained episode as well, which makes it stand out even today.
As for their “Best TV Performances of the Decade”, it’s difficult to argue with Variety‘s choice, even though Thrones had such a fantastic (and gigantic) cast: Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister stands not only for the show but for herself, as she “ported in sharp, askew humor as well as real fear” to a character that could’ve just been the stereotypical evil queen. “This monster was, at every moment, human,” as they put it.
Thrones is also one of People’s “Best TV Shows of the Decade”, with its impact on the medium being highlighted in particular, as “entertainment writers have been vigilantly scouting for whatever new series could be billed as ‘the next Game of Thrones.'”
Tell-Tale TV admits it “struggles a bit in its final seasons” once there was no more source material “but it also set an impossibly high bar of success for future cable dramas to aspire to,” became “the last broadly appealing, culturally unifying water cooler show we see for a while”, and “brought fantasy television into the mainstream.”
Popsugar calls Game of Thrones one of their favorite TV dramas of the past decade, as “a worldwide phenomenon” that “solidified fantasy as a great TV genre.”
Game of Thrones is named one of the shows that shaped the decade at GQ, who highlight, as many others have, that the show was the last bastion of appointment TV: “With the rise of the binge-watch, this was the decade that we did away with appointment viewing—except when it came to dragons, dwarfs, and zombies.”
According to Vulture, it was “without question, the TV juggernaut of the 2010s and the show that captured the public’s imagination more than any other.” Despite an “uneven final season,” a fact remains: “While a lot of shows have tried to be the next Game of Thrones (and many more will try in the decade-to-come), there is only one true king.”
RollingStone places Thrones as the 15th best show of the decade and points out that its “sheer ambition, and its ability to most of the time keep all of its disparate threads feeling vital and tied to one another, remains a staggering achievement.”
Much broader than most, Refinery29′s listicle, “Top Pop Culture Moments of the Last Decade”, still manages name Game of Thrones as the “top pop culture” thing for four different years: 2011, for its premiere; 2013, for the Red Wedding; 2015, for Jon Snow’s death; and, in much less positive terms, 2019 for its controversial final season.
Dan Weiss and David Benioff’s show makes it to the TOP 5 in USA Today’s “Best TV Shows of the 2010s”, focusing on the “impeccable acting, gorgeous costuming and an expansion of our collective ideas about what TV can achieve.”
As the fifth best TV show this decade at Decider, Meghan O’Keefe claims that “though its final season left a sour taste in many viewers’ mouths, Game of Thrones redefined what television could be in the 2010s,” and that “there’s no way to talk about TV in the 2010s without bending the knee for the awesome power of Game of Thrones.”
At The Hollywood Reporter, it was less of an editorial affair and more of a poll: more than 3,500 members of the film and TV academies and other industry sources were asked to pick their favorite shows of the decade, and Game of Thrones got the top spot, winning over nineteen other worthy entries, including Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Downton Abbey, Stranger Things, Fleabag, The Americans, Black Mirror, Fargo, and many others.
Finally, at CNET, the HBO series was named their most influential TV show of the decade! Beating the likes of Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Walking Dead, Downton Abbey, Stranger Things, Modern Family, Westworld, True Detective, Rick and Morty, The Expanse and many others, Game of Thrones is justly described as “a televisual juggernaut, the absolutest of absolute units when it comes to television in the 2010s.”
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Monday, December 23, 2019
Watchers on the Wall Awards Season 8: The Best Quotes of Season 8
Welcome back for another round of Watchers on the Wall Awards finals round voting! In between your last-minute holiday shopping runs and family gatherings, spare a moment to celebrate the words of Game of Thrones. This week, we’re choosing our favorites of season 8, from the quotes that made you giggle, to the speeches that made you weep, to the serious bits that made you think. When it comes to our awards, we break it down into multiple categories: Funniest Quote, Best Speech, and All-Around Best Quote! There are three polls in this post, so make sure to vote in all three to make your final choice known in this year’s awards ceremony.
We narrowed down two of the categories in our prelims. You can see the results from the prelims here:
- Best All-Around Quotes of Season 8 Results from the Prelims round.
- Funniest Quote of Season 8 Results from the Prelims Round.
All three polls are found below, so debate, consider and vote!
Final round rules: To choose winners, cast your vote in each category in the polls below. In the finals, unlike the preliminaries, fans have one vote to cast in each category. At the end of one week (Friday 12/30/19 at 5PM ET), the quote/speech in each category with the most votes will be the winner! The results of the polls will be revealed during the live Watchers on the Wall Awards ceremony, specific date to be announced soon!
Best All-Around Quotes of Season 8
Funniest Quote of Season 8:
Best Speech of Season 8
Thank you for voting, and happy holidays!
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Sunday, December 22, 2019
WiC Weekly: December 15-21
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Saturday, December 21, 2019
Friday, December 20, 2019
WiC Watches: The Witcher
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Thursday, December 19, 2019
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Con Of Thrones 2020 Call for Programming is Now Open!
Rally the realm, Game of Thrones fans- the 2020 call for programming is open for Con of Thrones!
Watchers on the Wall is proud to be the official programming partner for Con of Thrones once again, creating panels and events in tandem with Mischief Management. As we head into the new year, we’re looking for a select number of knowledgeable attendees to present on their favorite subjects from the Seven Kingdoms and beyond at the convention. Do you have a presentation, paper, panel, or workshop on a subject related to Game of Thrones or A Song of Ice and Fire? Do you have a particular theory, a presentation on dragon lore, or an in-depth character study of Theon Greyjoy? All kinds of proposals, from informal discussions to formal academic presentations, are welcomed.
Visit ConofThrones.net for more details and to submit your idea. The submissions deadline is April 28, 2020.
Con of Thrones is the premier convention for fans of Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, and the epic worlds of fantasy author George R. R. Martin. Tickets are available for purchase now at conofthrones.net/register. This year’s convention will take place in Orlando, Florida, at the Orange County Convention Center from July 17–19, 2020. The Rosen Centre Hotel is the official partner hotel for Con of Thrones 2020. Book now for a reduced rate.
To learn more about the convention, sign up to receive ravens, and follow Con of Thrones for updates at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and of course the official Con of Thrones 2020 website!
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Tuesday, December 17, 2019
Monday, December 16, 2019
Michele Clapton explains Daenerys’ white coat; season 8 is nominated for 3 Golden Reel Awards!
“One costume can tell you as much about someone’s journey as another character having six costumes,” Emmy-winning costume designer Michele Clapton says in a new interview in which she breaks down her thought process behind the design for Daenerys’ white fur coat. Plus, the brilliant Game of Thrones sound editing team for season 8 has been nominated for three Golden Reel Awards.
Michele Clapton recently spoke to TV Guide about her work on Game of Thrones, offering us a sample of the fascinating insights available in her book, Game of Thrones: The Costumes, which hit bookstores last month.
In the video below, Clapton specifically discusses Daenerys’ much-loved white coat, which debuted in the season 7 episode, “Beyond the Wall” when Daenerys rescues Jon and company from the White Walkers. Clapton explains that the coat design was born out of practicality, that “if she’s riding a dragon to the North, she should be warm,” but that it evolved from there to reflect Daenerys’ self-perception at that time.
“It’s the first time she’s performed a completely selfless task, because it’s usually for her own gain — and on this occasion, it was actually for her love,” she says (which I must say is an interesting take on Daenerys’ modus operandi). “So, I loved this idea, as I developed this costume, that it’s almost [as if] she sees herself as this savior, this angel. And so when she arrives and descends on this dragon, she is this sort of angel of mercy. I think it just said so much about her mental state at the time, how she saw herself.”
In other news, the MPSE (Motion Picture Sound Editors) has nominated Game of Thrones for three Golden Reel Broadcast Media awards, which celebrate excellence in sound editing.
The sound team for the episode “The Bells” is nominated for Best Dialogue/ADR in an episodic long form program:
Supervising Sound Editor: Tim Kimmel
Supervising ADR Editor: Tim Hands, MPSE
Dialogue Editors: Paul Bercovitch, John Matter
The team for “The Bells” is also nominated for Sound Effects/Foley:
Supervising Sound Editor: Tim Kimmel
Sound Designer: Paula Fairfield, MPSE
Sound Effects Editors: Bradley Katona, MPSE Luke Gibleon
Foley Artists: Jeffrey Wilhoit, MPSE Dylan Tuomy-Wilhoit
Foley Editor: Brett Voss, MPSE
Lastly, music editor, David Klotz, is nominated for music editing in “The Long Night.”
If you want to remind yourself how beautifully music was utilized in that particular episode (or if you just need a nice cry), enjoy this clip from Game of Thrones Live:
You can read the full list of nominees at MPSE.org. Winners will be announced at the 67th Annual Golden Reel Awards on January 19, 2020.
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Young Hodor Actor Sam Coleman Joins the Con of Thrones Guest Line-up!
Con of Thrones announced today another addition to the special guest line-up for 2020: Games of Thrones actor Sam Coleman (Young Hodor)! Coleman will appear at Con of Thrones on Friday, July 17, and Saturday, July 18. This is a welcome return, as the actor was a favorite at past cons. Tickets for Con of Thrones, the premier convention for fans of Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, and the epic worlds of fantasy author George R. R. Martin, are available for purchase now at conofthrones.net/register.
Autograph and photograph experiences with Coleman are available for purchase now. Autographs are $10 and photographs are $20. Autograph and photograph experiences are also available with Game of Thrones actor Anton Lesser (Qyburn). Con of Thrones will take place in Orlando, Florida, at the Orange County Convention Center July 17–19, 2020.
As in past years, Con of Thrones 2020 will host in-depth discussions about both the television and book series, Special Guest Spotlight interviews, live recordings of fan-favorite podcasts, and much more. Con of Thrones is produced by Mischief Management; Watchers on the Wall serves as the programming partner for the convention, and we’re excited to help bring a fun variety of panels and events to fans. We’ll be opening up for panel submissions very soon!
Previous guests include Thrones stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister), Joe Dempsie (Gendry), Jerome Flynn (Bronn), Hannah Murray (Gilly), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton), Miltos Yerolemou (Syrio Forel), Sibel Kekilli (Shae), Kate Dickie (Lysa Arryn), Esmé Bianco (Ros), Kerry Ingram (Shireen Baratheon), Aimee Richardson (Myrcella Baratheon), and Emmy Award-winning Sound Designer Paula Fairfield.
Stay tuned for updates and we’ll see you in Orlando!
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WiC Watches: Watchmen
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Sunday, December 15, 2019
WiC Weekly: December 8-14
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Game of Thrones Season 8 Tops DVD/Blu-ray Sales Chart on First Week of Release!
The Game of Thrones Season 8 Blu-ray and DVD releases have been on the market for a few weeks now and they’re already breaking records. Despite streaming services obviating the need of physical media for many, season eight is officially a best-seller!
According to specialist website MediaPlayNews, on the week of its release on December 3, Game of Thrones: The Complete Eighth Season “topped the NPD VideoScan First Alert chart, which tracks combined DVD and Blu-ray Disc Unit sales,” as well as “the dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart.” The final season of Game of Thrones won over Angel Has Fallen, which even in its second place sold only “38% as many copies as Game of Thrones.”
The Blu-ray versions accounted for a slight majority of the sales over the older DVD format; for a ratio of 53%/47%, specifically. The 4K Blu-ray subset enjoyed a respectable 10% of overall sales, which is quite impressive for such a new, expensive format.
One would think the criticism season eight received would be reflected on its home media sales, but it seems loud online fan discourse doesn’t reflect the reality of potential buyers. As per MediaPlayNews, to find a TV show on top of the disc sales charts is “a rarity” in these days of streaming, when almost anyone can rewatch the season online.
Of course, getting the Blu-ray is the only way to get all the juicy extras, from commentary tracks and making-of docs to narrated “Histories & Lore” features; not to mention a consistent HD picture quality not dependant on the whims of your Internet Service Provider. Personally, I’m particularly eager to experience “The Long Night” as I originally did: with its untouched painterly quality and no crushed blacks!
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Saturday, December 14, 2019
Watchers reviews Game of Thrones: The Complete Collection Collector’s Set on Blu-ray!
The home release of Game of Thrones Season 8 landed this December, just in time for the holiday season! HBO was kind enough to send Watchers on the Wall a copy of Game of Thrones: The Complete Collection Limited Edition Collector’s Set for review, so we were able to get a close-up look at the ultra-premium Blu-ray set that includes every season and a host of special features. Does it live up to the hype? Let’s find out!
The Complete Collection exclusively features the Game of Thrones: Reunion Special, a two-part reunion show with cast members from the final season including Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke, Sophie Turner, Sean Bean and many more, and is hosted by Conan O’Brien. The set features additional bonus content including all-new deleted and extended scenes, animated histories and lore pieces, behind-the-scene featurettes, audio commentaries and the documentary Game of Thrones: The Last Watch.
My first impression of this Collector’s Set was the sheer size of it. The box is HUGE for a Blu-ray set, 13 x 13 x 5 inches. I wasn’t expecting that, just going off the photos of The Complete Collection. And hot on the heels of that was the impact of the beauty. It’s apparent a great deal of thought went into the concept of this Collector’s Set, and the work paid off. The overall packaging is beautifully conceived, with illustrations provided by Robert Ball, best known for his work on the well-loved Beautiful Death series for Game of Thrones. The collection is uniquely housed in a wooden shadow box, filled with Great House sigils, settings and the Iron Throne itself. A Hand of the King pin seals it closed as needed for a rich touch. The shadow box lends the feel of a story unfolding, rather than being just another pretty disc holder. This really is a collectible.
Game of Thrones: The Complete Collection Bonus Features Include:
• Game of Thrones: Reunion Special: A reunion show shot live in Belfast with the cast, both past and present, hosted by Conan O’Brien and available exclusively on these complete series collections. The reunion special is assembled in segments focused on Houses Lannister, Stark, & Targaryen and concludes with the key players all onstage for their final reflections on the years they shared in Westeros and Essos.
• Bonus content and retail exclusive videos from previously released individual season box sets, totaling more than 15 hours of extra materials for fans to explore when they’ve finished watching the series.
The Complete Series and Season 8 formats also exclusively feature:
• Game of Thrones: The Last Watch: A documentary featured on DVD in two parts by filmmaker Jeanie Finlay chronicling the making of the final season.
• When Winter Falls: Exclusive 30-minute featurette with showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, along with major stars and behind-the-scenes players, breaking down all that went into the colossal filming of the “Battle of Winterfell” in Season 8, Episode 3.
• Duty is the Death of Love: A compelling look at how the team behind Game of Thrones and its major stars, including Kit Harington, Peter Dinklage and Emilia Clarke, brought the show to its conclusion in the series finale, “The Iron Throne.”
• Audio Commentaries: Audio Commentaries with cast and crew, including the show’s creators, Benioff and Weiss, on the final season.
• Deleted and Extended Scenes: 5 never-before-seen deleted or extended scenes from season 8.
• Histories and Lore: New animated pieces giving the history and background of notable season 8 locations and storylines.
As you can see from the clip above, the Reunion Special is a breezy treat, with footage from the earliest years destined to tug at your heartstrings and have you reminiscing. The cast are clearly good friends, and family at this point, and have truly been on a journey together. I don’t know that it adds a lot of deep insight into the show at this point but it’s just nice to see them together once again, and Conan O’Brien has always been very good at working with the cast of GoT. An edgier moderator might’ve pushed them harder but that’s clearly not what they were going for in this loving look back on ten years together.
The six Histories and Lore in the final edition are all excellent in quality of production, as always, though somewhat lacking in variety, with Conleth Hill (Varys) narrating four out of the six. Swing by our post where we debuted “The Greyjoy Rebellion” for a sneak peek of that clip!
When it comes to the Histories narration and the audio commentaries choices, I understand that the choices often depend on practical availability/scheduling, so that may partially explain the odd choices. I think fans will agree we would have loved to see more people in the mix on the audio commentaries (line-up in this post). The technical commentary provided on “The Long Night” is fascinating and valuable, but a separate commentary from the actors also would’ve been amazing.
There’s a stack of bonus featurettes, fun deleted scenes, and interviews on the discs to shore up any minor weaknesses though, and Thrones Blu-rays have always operated on another level. Nothing else compares.
Rewatching The Complete Series on Blu-ray leaves no doubt that Game of Thrones is a monumental achievement. It doesn’t surprise me one bit that we’re all so passionate about it, from beginning to end.
Game of Thrones Season 8 on DVD/Blu-ray & 4K Ultra HD and Game of Thrones: The Complete Collection are available now in stores and online retailers everywhere.
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