Unpopular Geek Media Opinions

[Autumnal]

A lot of things makes when you see the individual steps leading up to them, yeah.

 

[Muso]

To the best of my knowledge, he has always wanted to finish the series. But he quite accidentally steered himself into a dead end.

Thanks for your precious contribution. I was thinking something similar and you confirmed my idea. The story is now so big and complex that the connections are a sort of labyrinth. Still hoping for a happy end.

 

[Staffan]

My sense of A Dance with Dragons was that it was very much a "transport" book. At the end of A Feast for Crows, the characters were here, but for the plot to go on they needed to be there. So it was all about the movement from here to there, without moving the actual plot forward.

 

[Mannahnin]

“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.”​

― George R.R. Martin

I think I remember reading a longer blog post from him expanding on this concept, and talking about the consequences it has for his productivity or lack thereof as a writer. Since his process is so organic, rather than organized, it makes it harder for him to fix stuff. Most of the time he's kind of "following along" with his characters and seeing where they go based on where his imaginings wander. But this is of little help in addressing major structural issues.

 

[Reynard]

“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.”​

― George R.R. Martin

I think I remember reading a longer blog post from him expanding on this concept, and talking about the consequences it has for his productivity or lack thereof as a writer. Since his process is so organic, rather than organized, it makes it harder for him to fix stuff. Most of the time he's kind of "following along" with his characters and seeing where they go based on where his imaginings wander. But this is of little help in addressing major structural issues.

This is a brilliant conversation between King and Martin, in which we learn a lot not just about Martin's writing process, but his (apparent) deep insecurities about his writing.

 

[Willie the Duck]

“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.”

This also speaks to what I'd heard as the likely reason for the gap (with no attribution to Martin, this was someone's interpretation, so thanks Bruce for Martin's take on it). The argument was that Martin is the gardener type, so he has to have his characters react realistically (given their personalities and knowledge) to the situations in which they find themselves. However, Martin did have an idea of where he wanted the story to end up. Problem is, he can't write the story to go in that direction. At least not without massive amounts of adding a situation, seeing how characters would react, cascading the consequences down the line, and seeing if it ends up with the end-state he'd hoped for (and having to scrap massive amounts of work when it doesn't).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Actually my favorite since Empire.

I also liked it, in spite of some storytelling issues I have with it and the complete abandonment of any interesting romantic interest subplots for one of the worst “OTPs” I’ve ever seen.

My UO:

A New Hope is the best Stars, followed close my Return of the Jedi. Empire is fine.

Rogue One is a bad movie and a worse Star Wars story.

 

[payn]

I also liked it, in spite of some storytelling issues I have with it and the complete abandonment of any interesting romantic interest subplots for one of the worst “OTPs” I’ve ever seen.

My UO:

A New Hope is the best Stars, followed close my Return of the Jedi. Empire is fine.

Rogue One is a bad movie and a worse Star Wars story.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I have have lengthy conversations many times about why I dislike Rogue One, and why Empire is good but not even close to the same tier of good as the other two OT movies.

A New Hope is the best movie from an outside view, just want to watch a movie, perspective, IMO. Jedi is both the most important movie the entire franchise, but it’s also far and away the best Star Wars story in the franchise.

Empire is a fun watch that doesn’t hit my top 10 movies list, while the other two do.

 

[payn]

I have have lengthy conversations many times about why I dislike Rogue One, and why Empire is good but not even close to the same tier of good as the other two OT movies.

I only liked Rogue One because it looked and felt like an original SW movie. Something that was very jarring to me in the prequels. I didnt like The Last Jedi because it felt like a lot of rebel noble suicides in RO style that was very off for a saga film.

A New Hope is the best movie from an outside view, just want to watch a movie, perspective, IMO. Jedi is both the most important movie the entire franchise, but it’s also far and away the best Star Wars story in the franchise.

I do think ROJ was an excellent crown to the trilogy, despite the ewoks.

Empire is a fun watch that doesn’t hit my top 10 movies list, while the other two do.

Sequels are hard to pull of and Empire is the gold standard. Maybe that gets it some extra points for folks, I just think its a great movie.