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[Cosmic Smash]

HBO's hit series "Game of Thrones" came to an end in 2019 with two shortened seasons, which brought the total to eight seasons and 73 episodes. But the story's original creator, the author George R.R. Martin, pushed for up to 10 seasons and 100 total episodes, according to a new book.

New accounts of Martin's wishes can be found in a book titled "Tinderbox: HBO's Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers" by the journalist James Andrew Miller.

Miller, who conducted 757 interviews for the book, spoke with Martin, Martin's agent, Paul Haas, and Richard Plepler, HBO's former CEO.

"George would fly to New York to have lunch with Plepler, to beg him to do ten seasons of ten episodes because there was enough material for it and to tell him it would be a more satisfying and more entertaining experience," Haas told Miller.

"Dan and Dave were tired, rightfully so," Haas said in Miller's book. "They were done, and wanted to move on, so they cut it short and then negotiations became, how many seasons can we stretch this out? Because of course HBO wanted more."

Haas added: "George loves Dan and Dave, but after season five, he did start to worry about the path they were going because George knows where the story goes. He started saying, 'You're not following my template.'"

George R.R. Martin flew to New York to 'beg' an HBO executive to make 'Game of Thrones' 10 seasons long, according to his agent

In a new book about HBO titled "Tinderbox," the journalist James Andrew Miller uncovered details about how the "Game of Thrones" finale came to be.

www.insider.com

 

[NecrosaroIII]

Based off what material George? You gave them basically nothing to work with

 

[Javthusiast]

Based off what material George? You gave them basically nothing to work with

They still had plenty material to cover that they instead changed for the worse. And even without they could have written something better than what we got, just because they wanted out as quickly as possible. HBO should have just hired other showrunners, instead of respecting these two shmucks.

 

[TrueLegend]

Everybody is a culprit here but the books were overrated to begin with which should have ended as a trilogy and scriptwriters thinking they can do better than the original writer is just the most common Hollywood failing pothole. David S Goyer is fucking the Foundation royally as per the latest stuff.

 

[KrakenIPA]

Just gonna copy-paste how I said it on reddit, I'm lazy lol (not as lazy as GRRM)

Right around the time that the Sand Snakes turned into Xena and Gabrielle and the 'other one'? Right around the time that Jaime Lannister and Bronn turned into Lone Starr and Barf? Right around the time that he should have hefted his weight into HBO's 'production revolving door' and either influenced finalizing this story for television or just should have finished writing the damn thing?

Fuck D&D, the cunts.

 

[dr_octagon]

While D&D forgot about good storytelling, ability to write, driving the show off a cliff to rush to Disney. The fans certainly didn't forget about them.

 

[poppabk]

It should have been longer with or without his input. The pruning of plot points and rapid introduction of others in the final seasons was painful to watch.

 

[HeadsUp7Up]

I still get a little bit pissed off about the last two seasons and how it completely ruined any rewatches for me. I can't even enjoy for the first 6 seasons now knowing how they flushed it down the toilet in the end.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Based off what material George? You gave them basically nothing to work with

It doesn’t matter, he would still have gotten a percentage based of IP use. So he is not only lazy, but greedy fuck as well. What does he want more money for, food?

 

[jason10mm]

They still had plenty material to cover that they instead changed for the worse. And even without they could have written something better than what we got, just because they wanted out as quickly as possible. HBO should have just hired other showrunners, instead of respecting these two shmucks.

That is a bizarre decision since so many other shows cycled showrunners through their run. I can only guess that HBO was always convinced that NEXT SEASON would lead to a total collapse of GoT so they opted to wrap it up rather than risk stretching it out too far. How many HBO shows got that many seasons? The fans were just too intense I think, plus the struggle to produce the show with an annual release cycle had to have been tough.

Granted, the end result was trash but around season 5-6 that would have been hard to predict I think. Seeing how many other fantasy shows just look like low budget cheese there was definitely something in the water with GoT that may have been DnDs skills with production rather than scripting.

 

[Kenpachii]

I would assume that he wanted white walkers to be a entire season by itself, and then the ending fights with humans the end season.

However i think they called it and just simple fused them together because they knew once that ice king is dead its GG for the series. Guess they where right on that front.

Still i don't think a extra season would have added much, they had to much filler anyway where they could push any story they wanted in forwards.

 

[Corpsepyre]

Fuck him, fuck the show-runners and fuck the show.

 

[KrakenIPA]

In May 2019: "Martin is currently working on The Winds of Winter, the sixth book in the series, and has said it will be done by August 2020. In order to ensure he is properly motivated to meet that deadline, the 70-year-old author has come up with an extreme punishment if he’s not done in time: a prison sentence."

Lock! Him! Up!

 

[Javthusiast]

Ultimately it all comes down to writing these books. Come on Martin, move your ass.

Ah who cares at this point, the book series will never be finished.

 

[Fbh]

Man, D&D must have hated working on the show to just send it all down the drain because they were tired.
Normally you'd think that after spending 10 years working on something you'd try to end it on a high note and go out with bang

 

[SlimySnake]

HBO shouldve just let them walk. Who gives a shit. It's not even their show. it's George R.R Martin's story. Just find someone else. They are HBO, they cant find new showrunners to take on the biggest show on television?

What a fucking disaster. I consider GoT to be the best story ever told until they fucked it all up. It sucks that George R.R Martin had to beg people to make sure his vision wasnt being compromised.

 

[Pagusas]

Man, D&D must have hated working on the show to just send it all down the drain because they were tired.
Normally you'd think that after spending 10 years working on something you'd try to end it on a high note and go out with bang

I mean how often do we see actors/actresses/show directors leave after 5- 7 seasons citing "they were just over it/done with it". Hell even Big Bang Theory, a show that was lining the stars pockets, had its lead actor just say "enough". People get bored/tired, to the point where they just start phoning it in or even worse, resenting the thing that is now taking up their life 24/7. I cant blame them for wanting out, but I do blame HBO for letting the show suffer with a rushed ending instead of finding replacements.

I honestly think the only thing they wanted to actually make was the Red Wedding. Once that was done, you could tell something changed.

 

[Lunarorbit]

I fucking love dunking on grrm. Whiney, self satisfied yet has an amazing victim complex.

Fuck you bro. The world's passed your old ass by. The jets and giants both suck this year so I'm glad he's not enjoying football.

 

[DGrayson]

Show finished more than 2.5 years ago. next book still isnt out.

 

[Coolwhhip]

GoT could have been a timeless classic, now it will be forgotten. Hopefully sooner than later.

 

[Batiman]

Still the goat show. It needed 2 more seasons though easily

 

[Werewolf Jones]

Show finished more than 2.5 years ago. next book still isnt out.

Last book came out a decade ago... Bruh. People have died waiting for it no doubt.

 

[KrakenIPA]

Last book came out a decade ago... Bruh. People have died waiting for it no doubt.

Hopefully they passed with a good idea of where the story would have landed if it had been finalized. Not by two washed out greedy dorks, but by GRRM, who writes on a AppleIIGS.

We might all die before Winds of Winter. We might all die waiting for it.

 

[It's all in the wrist]

Wait for him to finish the book.

Hire back D&D after they get a year to do nothing but read that book.

Make them pickup the story from season 6, and make 4 more seasons from there.

Profit.

 

[Termite]

To be fair to D&D, GRRM's books after the third were shit as well. So were they wrong just to flush the turd down the toilet and get it over with? Maybe not.

That said those last two season clearly needed at least two extra episodes per season, but it's not like they used the time effectively anyway. Nothing would have saved the ending they wrote for the Night King or Dany, for example.

GRRM will never publish the rest of the series so to his fans there will always have been some magical ending he would have delivered that would have solved everything - if only he'd been given enough time. Because expecting someone to be able to write one book after a decade is unreasonable.

 

[GreenAlien]

However i think they called it and just simple fused them together because they knew once that ice king is dead its GG for the series. Guess they where right on that front.

They could have just killed the ice king after unifying westeros..

 

[RJMacready73]

The ice king shoulda pursued the army right to the gates of kings landing with cersie refusing to let them in and all hell breaking loose, Danys witnessing her army and everyone she loved getting killed by the white walkers and turns her dragons on kings landing and sacks the city would've been my preferred ending

 

[swaffles23]

It's a shame how GoT ended. Season 1-4 is arguably the greatest TV show ever made and then the rest happened.

 

[DragoonKain]

Biggest disgrace in the history of television. Still haven't gotten over it.

 

[bitbydeath]

They, themselves weren’t tired, they were creatively exhausted and it showed big-time!

 

[bitbydeath]

Biggest disgrace in the history of television. Still haven't gotten over it.

I can’t get over how Sansa fucked everyone at the end.

 

[Raven117]

I consider GoT to be the best story ever told until they fucked it all up.

I guess we are all entitled to opinions (even if they are woefully misguided).

 

[bender]

Fly to New York and beg them to redo the last two seasons, George.

 

[BennyBlanco]

"it really was a game of thrones, wasn't it?"

 

[MadAnon]

Last book came out a decade ago... Bruh. People have died waiting for it no doubt.

The guy probably doesn't know how to wrap it up. The plot and characters became too complicated for his own good.

 

[Rentahamster]

I can’t get over how Sansa fucked everyone at the end.

I'd watch that show

 

[DoomGyver]

What’s GoT? Never heard of it. Who’s GRRM?

 

[bitbydeath]

I'd watch that show

It wasn’t pretty.

 

[AlteredForms]

The Dans phoned in Game of Thrones to move onto Star Wars if I remember correctly. A franchise that has been going absolutely nowhere.

 

[Rentahamster]

It wasn’t pretty.

The real good fucking rarely is

 

[The Cockatrice]

I mean we got a new Dexter season after what 10+ years or w/e so if we do get a new GOT season that redeems itself, I'm all for it. Hell, they could potentially soft reboot it.

 

[j0hnnix]

 

[Yoboman]

Why would it have made a difference? We are two years since season 8 and have no idea when Winds of Winter will release

They'd probably be filming the last season already

 

[BadBurger]

Martin once joked about how he could cynically drag out a fantasy series forever until he died, never intending upon actually giving it closure, as he suggested other authors have done. Whenever one brought that discussion up back in the early to mid 2010's Martin fans would get piiiiiised at you for suggesting he was serious. Now the majority of his fans realize he wasn't joking. Hell, even authors like Neil Gaiman defended him at the time.

He's already promised not to write any scripts for House of the Dragon until Winds' is done. Yet..... he also once said he'd stop his perpetual convention circuit touring to finish Winds - only to go right back out on the convention circuit. He later claimed that the public's reaction to The Force Awakens inspired him to finish Winds, that he was getting back to work on it exclusively - only to then spend the next several years focusing on the editing of that horrific anthology series Wild Cards or whatever the fuck it's called. He did and said all of these things (and more) while basically telling his fans over and over, on his "not a blog" and during conventions, that he doesn't care about them insofar as their feeling of owning a shared investment in seeing the series conclude.

He's never finishing Winds. It seems obvious that he only wanted Game of Thrones to continue for the money and notoriety. I mean, the man was probably the most famous working writer of fiction across all media in the past decade. He is 1%'r tier rich. It takes a special kind of laziness and avarice to behave the way he has, honestly.

 

[triplestation]

i think D&D and the cast got tired of it

idk, i just get the sense that 8 seasons of makeup and roleplaying and green screen wore everyone the hell out

 

[Salz01]

The show went to shit the moment Sean Bean’s character died.

 

[Kenpachii]

men just checked out when his first book was released for this series. he was like in his 40's then, now he's in his 70's pretty insane.

 

[Nobody_Important]

I actually do not doubt that some kind of version of this event took place, but the problem is that when you have a story that spans such a large amount of time you cannot hold a cast together for 10 seasons like that very easily. Especially when you have a show with such a large number of important characters that will have their actors or actresses tied to the role for a number of years. A show like supernatural for example when you have a relatively small number of the core cast it's easier to make it last so long. But in a show like game of thrones where you have well over two dozen actors in recognizable roles that will need to be around for several seasons in a row it gets much much more difficult. You basically have to have the entire cast agree to it from the get-go in such a case.



That is why I have always thought that the Game of Thrones series should have either been an animation or a cgi-based show. You would have a much easier process, a much cheaper process, and a lot less burden on the cast and crew.

 

[IDKFA]

Haas added: "George loves Dan and Dave, but after season five, he did start to worry about the path they were going because George knows where the story goes. He started saying, 'You're not following my template.'"

This is good news for the book fans. It was clear anyway that the series had taken a completely different path to the books, but this confirmation means Winds and Dream will still hold many surprises and a I'm sure a better ending than "Bran the broken".

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

It's incredible to me how love for this show (including mine) dropped of a cliff and then some the moment it ended. They really fucked this up.