HBO promoted their new series Game of Thrones last night by airing the first 14 minutes of the first episode. Today, they released it on the Internet for non HBO subscribers to see.
Of course, the attempt here is to garner more HBO subscribers by way of the new series, and getting non-subscribers hooked on the show before it begins may be a good way to do that.
Strangely, these 14 minutes could really only be understood by viewers who are already fans of the series. The scenes shows are vague, and while they do display an obvious budget, and much talent, they do not make obvious what the story is about, nor include anything to really capture those who have never read the books.
The clip contains scenes from the prologue and first chapter of the novel, and depicts them well, with everything looking much like it had in my head, when I read them for the first time, years ago.
I was interested to see that they chose to include the first novel’s prologue. I’d been wondering about that since I heard about the development of the television show.
It’s interesting because the events of the prologue do not become truly relevant to the plot until quite a ways in, and after a while it may leave some viewers wondering what happened to those monsters that appeared in the first episode.
The pacing seems about right, but I was surprised that the characters were not better introduced.
I know that there is plenty of time to do so, but a lot of important characters get seen here in these first few scenes, but only very few get named for the audience. It’s easy for us as the audience to see Lord Edard’s daughters, and their rivalry, and to pick out the bastard Jon Snow from among the men present, but the audience does not get this at all yet.
I’m eager to see the first episode, and I don’t doubt that I’ll have a lot more to say after it finally airs.
