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How do?

So yeah, Season 8 happened, and then stopped happening. But that's not the end of Westeros. Indeed, it seems filming has already begun on the prequel series. Source is unsure on the title. It could be The Long Night, it could be Bloodmoon.

GRRM said it was The Long Night, but seemingly recanted that. Bloodmoon is apparently how it's being referred to by those involved. But hey, Return of the Jedi was referred to as Blue Harvest, so who knows!

Seems it's set 5,000 years before events in Game of Thrones. Which is a flipping long time ago, no? But one character, and their actor, is returning. That's Vladimir Furdik, wot played The Night King.

HBO claim the tale 'chronicles the descent from the Golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. From the horrifying secrets of Westeros' history to the true origin of the white walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend, only one thing is for sure; it's not the story we think we know'. Which...well, could be ominous in terms of prequel? Here's hoping for no rug pulling for the sake of rug pulling, eh?

GRRM says no Dragons though. Booo. I liked the burny flapflaps myself.

Casting? Naomi Watts. Leading role as a 'charismatic socialite hiding a dark secret'. No word on who's she's playing, but there is speculation it's Nissa Nissa. Which to me sounds like a small car, probably advertised to Students.

Miranda 'Queenie' Richardson is also confirmed to appear. Me, I'd kill for a Westerosi Queenie.

Others include Jamie Campbell Bower, John 'rubbish Master, but I think it was the writer's fault' Simm. And Georgie Henley, who previously appeared in the forgettable Chronicles of Narnia. But that was some time ago, and I don't remember the actors being particularly awful, just the film.

Expected this time next year at the earliest, but filming has already begun in Belfast.

Right. Have it, folks!

I know absolutely nothing about the setting beyond being an avid viewer of the TV show, so I have no idea what the prequel could be about. I am very intrigued by it, but I can’t help wondering how the time scale works. If it’s set 5000 years earlier is it during something like Westeros’ Bronze Age, or do people think they’ll do that (I think terrible) fantasy trope of thousands of years pass but technology, fashion and culture is basically unchanged?

Presumably terrible people will murder each other and have sex, and if it has a bigger focus on the night king, possibly in that order... GoT doesn't exactly have a deep premise.

I fully expect culture and tech to be completely unchanged. Its that kind of setting.

Interested to see what they do - personally I would have prefered a grand sweeping soap opera of war, sex, dragons, violence and politics in the Valerian Empire - but that might e just me.

So not interested in yet more of "Da Nofth"

Agreed on Miranda Richardson

My biggest concern is this isn’t a set story.

For me, it needs to be a set number of seasons, with the plot spun out across them. Like Babylon 5 pioneered.

If it’s ‘run it until we’re bored’ I think it’ll suffer.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
My biggest concern is this isn’t a set story.

For me, it needs to be a set number of seasons, with the plot spun out across them. Like Babylon 5 pioneered.

If it’s ‘run it until we’re bored’ I think it’ll suffer.

Difficult - B5 was good but stalled badly in places,

Sometimes its awesome to have a dediated and specfic vision of what you show should be and sometimes it gets in the way.

You also run the risk of not getting to season 2 if your show does not gain enough traction. I imagine its hard to sell something that ha 5 seasons rather than trying to build on the initial one you can get finance for.

Also is this being written from scratch? Or is GRM doing this instead of the books

I was hoping for a series based on Robert rebellion.

No idea on the level of GRRM’s involvement I’m afraid.

Oh, no doubt he's rolled up his sleeves and oiled up his typewriter.

 Nurglitch wrote:
Oh, no doubt he's rolled up his sleeves and oiled up his typewriter.

His agents wish he'd use a typewriter. It'd be easier to deal with.

Instead he uses an outdated version of WordPerfect (or something similar from the early 90s) with no spell checker, because he can't figure out how to turn autocorrect off in modern systems. So they have to deal with keeping an outdated system and outdated software around, just so they can deal with his manuscripts (on the rare year he sends one in).

The joys of success, I guess, you can be disruptive and inconvenience others as much as you like.

It’s also so his computer is 100% offline, and he knows it.

Bit paranoid about hackers, it would seem.

5000 years does seem a bit of a stretch as assuming current Thrones is early-middle ages that would plonk it somewhere in the Bronze age, then again its always been implied that Westerosi history is is a hodge podge of rather unreliable conflicting narratives

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
5000 years does seem a bit of a stretch as assuming current Thrones is early-middle ages that would plonk it somewhere in the Bronze age, then again its always been implied that Westerosi history is is a hodge podge of rather unreliable conflicting narratives

Alot of fantasy worlds never get beyond the medeival age

Well, other than the advent of Steel, socially there’s not a huge difference between Bronze Age and Dark Ages?

Honestly, I'd be much much more interested and excited by a 2-3 season series focused on Robert's Rebellion.

One season to introduce us to the younger, presumably less fethed up, characters we know from the series and the rest who didn't make it, concluding with the burning to death of Stark Senior and Ned's brothers (as a throwback to Ned's own death at the end of GoT S1... or is that a throw forward?). Most importantly, show us the romance/kidnapping of Lyanna Stark and maybe give us glimpses of baby Danny.

Season 2 could be about Robert building alliances and forming his army, and the Rebellion itself. Season 3 could then show us the aftermath of the Rebellion, the search of Lyanna, the rebellion of the Iron Islands, and so other neat bits and bobs.

I think they could pull it off too, since many of the characters who could be at the center of the series would be very different from who they were in GoT or be mostly unexplored since they died so early in GoT. We could meet John Aryn, and I'd enjoy seeing Varys in this period and how Petyr Balish became such a conniving dick. They could even go full tragedy on it, presenting the characters as striving for a better tomorrow when we, the audience, know full well how forlorn their efforts are.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, other than the advent of Steel, socially there’s not a huge difference between Bronze Age and Dark Ages?

Yeah, many people thinks "Omg this fantasy words that don't advance in 5.000 years are so silly" and they forgot most of human advance (In the sense we are speaking here, weapons, technology, etc... at a significant level) has been made in the past, what, 400-500 years?

If you compare bronce age 3000 BC Egypt with 900 AC Egypt, things aren't THAT different to our modern eye. And thats basically nearly 4.000 years of difference.
Don't even compare primitive humans where 10.000 or 20.000 years of difference didn't saw that much advancement.

Fair point but in England / Europe 5000 years is more or less the difference between Stonehenge and Notre Dame

Just saying I'd like it to be distinctly different from recent Thrones

The world of ASOIAF is a very odd place, from their stagnant technology to the bizarre seasonal patterns to mysterious events like the Doom of Valyria. It's suggested that places on the edge of the map or off the map are even stranger.

Although the world seems grounded in certain respects, IMO it's like a low fantasy wrapper concealing a high fantasy world. It's probably best to worry about realism too much.

It seems to me like there are a lot of obvious differences between pharaonic Egypt and an Egypt that had been hellenized, Islamicised, ethnically reorganized with much more advanced tools and agriculture and little or no slavery. Their entire spiritual life was different, with different morality laws and social norms, and I doubt they were still spending years making huge stone monuments.

Maybe we'll hear about the Night King receiving a prophecy about being killed by a flying goblin.

By now, even though Season 8 was generally a disappointment (at least to the dozen or so people I've talked to - we're all in agreement it was poor) any GoT product will gain "enough" views and succeed "enough".

However, for it to really take off it'll have to land a handful of quality actors/characters. GoT for me was carried by a handful of characters - without whom, I'd have faded after a season or two. Most of the main characters were generally a bit bland and not strong enough to carry the show. But Tyrion, the Onion Knight, etc. were strong enough and interesting enough characters to keep me watching, etc.

So they need to write/cast a couple of strong pillar characters or it'll be a slow "meh" until they can it 4-5 seasons in.

I think the show to make would be about the Conquest, personally. I'm not sure how that would work budgetwise, since there would be a huge step up in dragon screen time.

It would be cool to see Balerion and the conquering of the kingdoms. They could probably do it in one solid miniseries too.

 Ouze wrote:
I think the show to make would be about the Conquest, personally. I'm not sure how that would work budgetwise, since there would be a huge step up in dragon screen time.

Well, they've got the CGI models, so would that mitigate the cost?

I doubt it. They kept coming up with excuses not to show Ghost the past couple seasons.