FULL OF SPOILERS: As I was thinking, nobody died, no one major. No Tyrion, no Jaime, no Samwell, no Brienne. If they survived this far and against monsters, I highly doubt it they are going to die against mere mortals. I think the producers are going to play it real nice and all the major characters are going to live. Probably only Cersei is going to die.
I'm rating this episode a little lower than usual and think that the last 2 were better. I think they did not handle the Night King death very well. This was a very important moment and the deus ex machina solution at the last minute to resolve all this, did not work very well. We all knew that killing the Night King will resolve everything but they should have played it better. Arya jumping out of nowhere at the last minute was not elegant or satisfying. All the other White Walkers or the undead were carrots standing there? Allowing Arya to come close?
The best death was Lyanna Mormont. It was purposeful and believable. You say why she is going close, why she is willing to die crushed in the hands of the giant zombie, then you realize why she did that.
Something similar or more thoughtful should have been done for the Night King's death. Maybe it was Bran's job to resolve all this for such an important story-line or even if it was Arya alone, it should have been done in a better way.
I enjoyed it a lot more than what I was expecting but it's still not a good movie. There is one huge advantage to have the real people and that was for the end. Not sure if it was worth it to sacrifice the whole movie just for that very last part. Maybe we should have 2 versions. Maybe we should have this and another movie made by real actors and directed by Paul Greengrass.
Acting is a real thing. It's a real profession. It's no joke. You don't give a job to someone who doesn't know how to do it. This movie just shows how bad acting could be disastrous and how it's a real thing. All the sitcom actors in this play like they deserve an Oscar compared to the non-actors.
I also give fault to Clint Eastwood. I have no longer faith in his new movies. His approach is "Less Is More" but in a bad way. In a flat doll way. No dramatization no development, no nothing. Imagine this, you are supposed to endure the first hour of the movie to get to the "exciting" part. That act ended so fast and so under dramatized that the first hour was more exciting.
It's interesting that with the third movie where they finally had full control, so many things went wrong and it was also an unpleasant experience for ILM people.
Also amazing how much they disliked Richard Marquand and didn't think he was fit for the project.
"George was on the set every day for Return of the Jedi. George was back and now stuck doing exactly what he tried
so hard to avoid. Then George chose to do the second unit himself so it was a good backup. For this movie, George was leaving nothing to chance. He had no idea what to do and you saw this on a daily basis. And, so, with nobody in charge...
Or one-and-a-half people in charge, there was a lack of focus. There was no sense of the right person being in the right job. George Lucas' hand-picked director had lost the confidence of his cast. Daniels felt very much like, he was dismissed
and ignored by Marquand. It's like this man is a complete fake and the more his "fakerism"... New word, came to the fore, the more pathetically bullying he became. He tried to pick on people. He tried to pick on me. I didn't like that. This was a problem. He was dealing with a director who couldn't direct frankly.
Loved it. First I wasn't sure, I was going to give this an 8/10 because I had issues with the second part of the movie. I still have issues. It lost momentum. It's fascinating to think how you can tell this story. Is the second part of the movie really necessary? I feel it was too long and it could have been shorter. Instead of showing the aftermath that much (especially giving the terrorist a platform), show the beforemath. Show the victims in their normal lives doing things for 20-30 mins. Then show those people that we followed and got attached to, perish. It shows the inhumanity. To show that it's not only the background characters that die. This is how you feel in these movies, the protagonist always survives and overcomes the tragedy but it's not always the case. Other people died, they are not background characters.
At the very end something happened that it completely won me over and I forgot all these questions. The lawyer did not shake the terrorist's hand and when he said I would have done this (terrorist act) again, the lawyer said, I'm paraphrasing "Then we will fight you, we will beat you. My children and their children.". Such an important line, especially because that the lawyer who defended him says it. It summarizes well the essence and the core of the movie.
