gadd

People need to savor this year and the amount of juggernauts that have and will arrive, because next year is looking like a wasteland. Fast and Furious 9 is my pick for the top grosser worldwide at this moment in time. I can't see more than 3 movies crossing a billion.

Okay, so how did Jaquen H'Ghar pull off all of those sneak attacks in Harrenhal and grant the wishes Arya had in Season 2? How did she infiltrate the brothel in the season 5 finale and steal someone's face in order to kill Meryn Trant? We didn't see how exactly Arya killed the Waif, but it was implied that she used her superior knowledge of fighting in the dark due to her blindness. The 'how' has never been important with Arya in those big moments, only when she's been trained. Also, if they'd had an establishing shot of her about to jump, it goes against the tone of the last 20 minutes, which was to convey the feeling of dread and hopelessness. It's something that has been done so much in movies and television: hint towards a solution to the problem but keep it in the background while other stuff is occurring, then pull the rug from under us. Again, if it was another character, I'd totally understand the complaints, but it's consistent with her character and her portayal on-screen. Also, showing her jump from a tree is at odds with a shot that wisely ensured that her appearance didn't come out of nowhere: the White Walker noticing the dust of wind, implying that she ran past them and jumped towards the Night King. The Night King even anticipated this move, just like he anticipated other characters' key moves. She had one more trick up her sleeve though, unlike the others, because of what she's learned over the years.

If it weren't for the White Walkers, many of the characters we've seen over the past 8 seasons would never have come together, mended their differences, and fought to save humanity. Now that these alliances have been formed, there is an opportunity overthrow Cersei and build a better future for Westeros. Their presence also indirectly instigated some key narrative developments e.g. Jon becoming King in the North and learning about his real parents.

This comparison between The Night King and Snoke is utterly ridiculous: Snoke - showed up as a hologram for two scenes in TFA, showed up for two scenes in TLJ, allusions were made to his power but we only saw it when he got a hold of Rey and force-choked her. However, we never saw him display his true capabilities or understood his motivation before he met his end. The Night King - teased for seasons before showing up in full capacity in 'Hardhome' where, for the first time, we witnessed his terrifying abilities and delivered one of the show's most iconic moments. In Season 6, we got to learn more about his origin and the connection he had to Bran. In Season 7, he takes out a dragon, which had proved a formidable threat since Season 3, with one javelin throw. He then uses the dragon to destroy the Wall that has lasted for centuries. In his penultimate episode, we learn more about his motivation and why Bran and previous Three-Eyed Ravens were his targets. Then, in his final appearance, his army decimates two of the fearsome armies in Westeros and Essos with ease. Daenerys pulls a move that has earned her many victories in the past ("Dracarys!"), only for that to prove useless and even amusing to the Night King (the smirk, which was awesome by the way). Jon thinks he can handle him in one-on-one combat, but the Night King wisely makes use of his ability to resurrect the dead so that Jon can't do so. He pretty much counters every power move the main characters have, except for the one character whose entire skill-set revolves around lurking in the shadows and being obscure. In fact, he almost got the better of her too, except she was clever and pulled off a sneaky move to deliver the ultimate blow. Disposable? Give me a break.

I'll reiterate what I said before: I wanted to see Jon take on The Night King as much as every other fan. 'Hardhome' is one of my top 5 favourite episodes and the hints that Jon would face off against the Night King got me incredibly hyped. It was a moment than would've been crowdpleasing, COULD have been narratively satisfying, but would've been.,,predictable. Contrary to how it may be coming across, Arya is not my favourite character. Top 5? Probably. However, I haven't been as invested in her storyline since Season 5 because I didn't see where it was leading to. If you'd told me before the season began that she would take out the Night King, I wouldn't have been too impressed unless there was a valid reason for doing so...which there was. The training scenes and interactions with Jaquen and the Waif felt rather tedious because a) she was so far away from the other action that these moments came across as a distraction from the really interesting stuff and b) it got rather repetitive. The reason why I'm thrilled with this outcome is that it makes all of those scenes feel earned in retrospect. It's ironic that the character who felt the most distant from the Army of the Dead storyline was the one to end it all. The signs ended up pointing to a moment that was crowdpleasing, WAS narratively satisfying and was...unpredictable. But your main issue is obviously the execution, which I disagree with for a few reasons. Firstly, it is entirely consistent with the way the show has handled Arya's assassinations over the years. I didn't hear these complaints when she murdered Walder Frey. We never witnessed her steal the servant's face, because that's Arya: she's mysterious. In fact, we've never seen her steal someone's face, as it's part of the intrigue regarding the Faceless men. Therefore, not showing her get into position or sneak around right before the attack is in keeping with the show's treatment of her. Secondly, you seem to think it was telegraphed too much. Well, given that fans seem to be upset that Jon didn't kill The Night King, there would have to be a certain level of set-up required to justify her assassination. We needed to see that moment with Melisandre because not only did it give her the kick to do the deed, but it explained Melisandre and Beric's roles in the story. However, they cleverly didn't emphasise the setting or her dagger too much, otherwise the parallels to the Night King's creation would've clicked and made the development way too obvious. The whole point of not showing Arya in those final 20 minutes was for the surprise, and the cross-cutting between Jon and The Night King wisely played upon fan's expectations. We see Jon running to the Godswood and are in suspense because we expect him to have a showdown with the main villain, but it looks unlikely given that the wight dragon is in his way. If we saw Arya sneaking around, it would not only negate the show's handling of Arya's big moments, but would've rendered a deliberately surprising moment totally predictable.

He was a human turned into a "weapon" by the Children of the Forest in order to counter the threat posed by humans. This went awry, big time. He became the Night King, and wanted to wipe out all of humanity, both the actual humans and the Children of the Forest, in retaliation for the treatment he endured by the COTF. Due to having memories of various events involving mankind, he set his sights on the Three-Eyed Ravens, because wiping their memory symbolised the 'death' of humanity. Since Bran became the new Three-Eyed Raven, he became the Night King's target. This stuff was established in Season 6 Episode 5 and even the last episode, and not in a subtle way either. It was pretty much spelled out for the audience.

It was totally set up well, it had been subtly foreshadowed for years, it's just that fans got too caught up in the seemingly more obvious foreshadowing with Jon and the Night King which turned out to be a red herring. Again, if Arya hadn't had that pay-off, what the hell were all of those training montages and visits to Braavos for? What was that meeting with Melisandre all about? Why was Beric brought back all of those times? Why did Bran give her the dagger? It was a surprise that made sense retrospectively, and was quite poetic too: the biggest army Westeros has ever seen got taken out by someone who had hid in the shadows for most of her life. Also, this idea that GOT used to kill off characters for shock value and has stopped doing that is the biggest myth about the show. Yes, characters like Ned, Catelyn, Robb and Oberyn dying were shocking, but their deaths also had a freaking purpose. They led to a series of important events further down the line. Arya killing the Night King has a similar level of surprise these deaths had: ones that seemed abrupt and out-of-the-blue but made total sense in hindsight. If The Hound was killed off in this episode, why is the Mountain even back? It's because the Hound has business to settle, the confrontation with his brother is a critical part of his character development that has yet to be resolved. If a main character dies in GOT, it usually triggers something. The Hound dying wouldn't have triggered anything accept justifiable fan outrage as opposed to the short-sighted fan rage Arya killing the Night King has generated.

Quite the exaggeration lol. The library she was in is very close to the Godswood, so there was plenty of time for her to get into the right position to execute the move, which we know Arya is more capable of doing because that's what she's done since season 1. When I say 'viable solution', I mean that if a Marvel character had demonstrated a habit or skill in stealth attacks across multiple films and used these traits to inflict the killer blow, and had also built up these skills in the context of confronting the ultimate enemy (as Arya did with 'Death'), then I would've been cool with it.

If a plot line and character arc had been developing in an MCU series over the past 10 years which offered a viable solution to getting rid of Thanos, as was the case here, I wouldn't have minded it. If it had come out of nowhere and been a character with no motivation or skills to carry out a stealth attack, then it would've sucked.

People would've lost their minds if the Hound had died before Cleganebowl. There was no chance he was going out in this episode, and to a random wight nonetheless.

Understandable complaint but, apart from what I've stated earlier about the intelligence of not sending your most trusted force to fight against characters with the combat skills and weapons to counter them, I also think it made sense to have all of the White Walkers by the Night King's side, as it makes Arya's achievement even more surprising and impressive. Imagine if the Night King had one or two WW protecting him, or worse yet, going to Bran on his own, we'd be saying how dumb that was. He's always had at least 3 or 4 WW by his side ('Hardhome', 'The Door', 'Beyond the Wall'). I can see the counter-argument that in 'The Door', a few WW went into the cave before the Night King confronted the Three-Eyed Raven, but he's built his army up since then so there's more disposable soldiers to confront Theon and the Ironborn in the Godswood. I completely get people's issues by the way, I'm not trying to suggest that they're not paying attention or anything. I'm just making counter-arguments to show that there's more than meets the eye in regards to some of these things, and also highlight the fact that if the narrative had progressed differently, we'd probably still have a similar amount of complaints. I wanted to see a Jon vs. Night King showdown as much as the next person, but for me it made sense as to why it didn't occur given how the episode played out.

Arya's stealth skills had been established not just over the past few seasons, not just in the opening episode of THIS season (Jon: "How did you sneak up on me?"), but earlier in the episode when she's in the library. They make a point of demonstrating how the sound of a drop of blood hitting the floor was louder than her movements. Plus, the Night King obviously has control over the White Walkers, and their entire focus at that moment was on Bran. He's also seen his own soldiers get killed by Valyrian steel weapons ('Hardhome') so sending them out to confront the others who in all likelihood have weapons made from the same material would've been ridiculous. He also saw Jon fight before and took notice of him, so engaging in combat with a guy who has a similar, if not superior, level of fighting ability for the sake of it was also pointless, apart from delivering some fan-service. When you have the ability to raise the dead to stop a guy in his tracks when your main priority is someone else, why not do it?

I totally get that, and admittedly when there were suggestions months ago that S08E03 would be the final battle against the Army of the Dead, I wasn't that pleased either. In fact, when Season 6 ended I wanted 7 to be centered around Dany vs. Cersei and 8 to be Jon and Dany vs. The Night King. However, if we'd gotten that, people would've complained about it being too predictable, and the conflict with the White Walkers would've been too drawn out in my view. Ultimately, the bulk of season 7 revolved around convincing the characters who were unbeknownst to the threat of the Army of the Dead to fight against them. The first two episodes of this season built up the battle, especially S08E02 which felt like the penultimate episode of the show. The battle itself gave the series its longest episode ever, and was also its 70th. To be honest if, after all of that build up, the Army of the Dead just ravaged Winterfell and marched to King's Landing, I think there would've been complaints about this episode being anti-climactic, just in a different way. It reminds me how 'Ozymandias', the third-to-last episode of Breaking Bad, seemed like the proper series finale, while the next two served as more of an epilogue. That's how I see GOT playing out: we had our grand finale (The Great War), now we have the epilogue (The Last War).

If they'd sent Bran further south, they may have had to confront the Army of the Dead anyway as they were ploughing through everything in their path. Also, given that the whole thematic motivation for the fight at Winterfell was key characters putting their differences aside and coming together to face a common enemy, diverting the Night King away only for him and his army to potentially kill innocent people and add to their army if things went wrong would've lied in opposition to that rationale. We also saw what happened last season when a group of characters in this battle tried a sneak attack on the Army of the Dead...it didn't go too well, gifting the Night King a dragon. The assassination didn't dawn on Arya until the mid-way point when Melisandre reminded her of the vision she had. If I remember correctly, S08E02 established that Jon and Daenerys would try to take out the Night King in the Godswood. Daenerys ended up getting her opportunity much earlier than expected, took it, only to realise it was futile. Jon was clearly oblivious to the significance of Arya because he was running at the end to try to get to Bran. The issue in all of this is Bran himself, which is why I'm starting to buy into the suggestion that when he was warging, he revisited his reunion with Arya and instigated the exchange of the dagger. Why else would they establish his ability to move through time, and why else would he give her that dagger? His final expression of gratitude to Theon ties into this, as he seemed to demonstrate an awareness of the latter's fate. He's basically taken on the Dr. Strange role, conveniently not being able to tell people of the plan because it if he did, it might affect the outcome. All of the deaths in the episode had a purpose too. Edd died saving Sam, Lyanna died taking out a Giant who would have ended the battle much earlier, Beric saved Arya which had an obvious significance, Jorah died protecting Daenerys which made narrative and thematic sense, Theon brought Bran and inadvertedly Arya a few more minutes and got a fitting conclusion to his character arc, and Melisandre already told us last season that she would return to Westeros and die, but implied that she would do something important in the process (which she totally did). Hence, I don't agree with the idea that they elevated Arya and gave everyone else the short shrift. And while those who survived didn't get many notable moments, well, that's why they're alive, because they probably will in the next 3 episodes. It's a totally valid point to suggest that there needed to be more deaths to showcase the horror of the situation, but, at least for me, watching characters like Brienne and Sam for 8 seasons only to see them get devoured by wights would've been underwhelming.

I loved that, in the midst of the chaos that was unfolding, this episode managed to convey how survival instincts affected certain characters in different ways. Jon saw Sam being attacked and had to leave him because his focus was entirely on Bran. Grey Worm also left his fellow Unsullied soldiers to get ripped to shreds due to the realisation of how much he wanted to see the fight out. These more morally ambiguous traits of the characters had been lacking a little in the last few seasons so the fact they were able to include these moments in their biggest episode was pretty impressive.

I think it's less to do with plot mechanics and more the emotional toll of finally defeating this long-established bad guy. People might think it's a bit cheap to kill the Night King without repercussions, except that there were MASSIVE repercussions. Our surviving heroes lost 90% of their force and are vastly outnumbered against Cersei and her allies.

But Arya's not some minor character who hasn't warranted this moment, the reason that scene has a massive effect is that, up until 20 minutes from the end, most of the audience think it's got to be Jon, Daenerys, or even Jaime that kills the Night King. However, that moment is what Arya's whole life had been leading up to, the pieces just didn't fit until this episode. Her entire arc had been discovering ways to confront Death.

I wonder if Arya killing the Night King was the last of those 3 "Holy shit" moments D&D have mentioned before in regards to crazy developments revealed to them by George that take place after A Dance with Dragons. The first was Shireen's death, the second was the Hodor reveal. People saying the Night King got 'Snoke'd' are talking nonsense. He proved too powerful to be defeated by fire, one-on-one combat, etc. The Army of the Dead decimated the Dothraki and Unsullied, two forces that we've seen cause havoc many times over the past 7 years. The moment at the beginning when the flames went out in the distance was chilling. I can understand the reservations regarding the hive-mind plot device where killing the Night King destroys the rest of the dead, but that pay-off with Arya rendered it satisfying for me. We witnessed a narrative develop from the moment Arya left King's Landing at the end of Season 1 that culminated in this epic moment, yet very few of us realised the significance of it until now. I can't believe how rewarding it's going to be re-watching all of those scenes with Jaqen H'Ghar in Seasons 2, 5 and 6 which I found slightly tedious initially. I wonder if those who thought the sneak-attack was convenient felt the same with Jaqen's exploits in Harrenhal in S2. It also made characters who I was previously ambivalent towards like Melisandre and Beric feel worthwhile, as they served a pivotal function. I also understand why we didn't get any one-on-one fight scenes between the Night King's "lieutenants" and other characters, and also why there wasn't a confrontation between the Night King and Jon. The NK witnessed Jon kill a White Walker with his sword, why would he engage in combat with a guy whose sword could shatter him when clearly Bran was the priority, and furthermore, why would he let his fellow White Walkers do something similar when he's seen them get defeated by these weapons before? Ultimately, he, and the audience, got snuck up on by the new Kingslayer.

Endgame is like Usain Bolt at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, breaking world records left right and center.

439 for Jurassic World's opening weekend.

When I woke up to see these numbers being reported on social media and various outlets, I realised I would have to go through about 80 pages of this thread just to witness the reactions to this astonishing performance. And I did so with pleasure. It's fitting really, just as the movie itself surpassed my wildest dreams, Endgame is destroying the expectations I had for it financially.

I don't get what's going on with Cineworld's IMAX screenings but it's obvious they are actually sold out. If you try to buy one ticket and pick a seat it says that there are no seats of this quantity available.

Apart from the more obvious reasons to get excited about next week, it's also worth mentioning that it'll be the first GOT episode in 3 years directed by Miguel Sapochnik (Hardhome, Battle of the Bastards, The Winds of Winter). Let's hope he brought his A game.

My level of hype for next week is what I imagined my excitement for the series finale would be, yet it's only the third episode of the season. It's as if we're getting two series finales.

That was exactly the kind of episode I wanted from this season, it almost felt like the penultimate one rather than 5th to last. So many "secondary" characters got incredibly satisfying moments.