Game of Thrones: Season 1 [Blu-ray] [2011] [2012] [Region Free]

For the uninitiated:This is an adaptation of a fantasy novel A Game of Thrones (Reissue) (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1) which is the first in a long series of books about the struggle for power in a fantasy kingdom called Westeros. The book series hasn't been finished yet. But let's not get started on that.Westeros is a land of medieval style technology and living. Different regions have their own lifestyles. The king of Westeros went mad fifteen years before and was killed after a rebellion led by two lords. One of whom then became king. But two of the dead king's children escaped to lands in the east and have been trying to build an army to win the throne back ever since.The north of the kingdom is dominated by a huge wall built a long time before to keep out creatures that lurk in the snow covered lands beyond. The wall is manned by a group of warriors called the nightwatch.As our story starts, Lord Eddeard Stark - the one of the two aforementioned warriors who didn't become king - gets a visit to his castle in the north. The king has lost his right hand man, known as the hand of the king, and needs Eddeard [known as Ned] to take on the role.He does. And finds himself in the middle of intrigue and a struggle for power.Meantime, the two exiled royals in the east are getting into a potentially dangerous alliance.And things are stirring in lands beyond the wall.Westeros is about to erupt into conflict. And things will never be the same again for all concerned.This series condenses a very long book down into ten tv episodes that run from fifty to fifty five minutes each [approx] and if you haven't read the books then you will quickly be confronted with a large cast of characters who talk about a lot of the above mentioned backstory. And more that I haven't mentioned.It has a huge cast of characters. Lots of storylines. And lots of settings. There are episodes when certain characters and storylines don't figure.The fantasy elements are rather kept to a minimum in this season of the show, so it's more intrigue and swordplay in a medieval style setting.So you may have to concentrate if you want to get into this. But it is worth the effort. A big and involving story. Intriguing settings. And a fine cast of characters. All of which makes for epic television.As those who have read the books will know, they are very gory and don't skimp on language and adult relationships and the like. Thus this is an eighteen certificate product. And the tv show doesn't skimp on that either. Watch out for beheadings, the bloody consequences of swordplay. And lots of naked people doing things that naked people often do. Body parts are often on display. From ladies and gentlemen.Those who have read the book will find this does an excellent job of condensing a very long narrative down into a tv version. There are some minor changes to the timeline of the books, with things happening a little differently. But all key scenes and elements from the book are here. And there are also some scenes involving characters who weren't viewpoint characters in the book, which make them viewpoint characters in the scene. This does have the effect of adding depth to some of those. Which is quite pleasing.All in all it is a commendable effort at getting a seemingly unfilmable book onto the screen. And it's well worth a watch.There are five discs in the box set, with two episodes to each.It has the following language and subtitle options:Languages:English, French, Castilian, Hungarian, Polish.Subtitles:English, French, Castilian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Dutch, Croatian, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Norwegian, Portugese [Iberian], Romanian, Serbian, Slovenian, Swedish, Turkish.Extras are as follows:Seven of the ten episodes have commentaries from various members of cast and crew.Disc one has character profiles. Fifteen short features lasting no longer than a minute or two with the actors talking about their characters. Supported by lots of clips. These can be watched individually or all in a row, and if you do the latter the whole thing lasts thirty minutes. But most of the clips come from later episodes so you may want to leave it till you've watched them all.Each of the five discs contains complete guide to Westeros. An interactive map/diagram that will tell you all you need to know about all the main characters, and many others. And the various settings of the story.And disc five has some featurettes.A pretty good thirty minute long making of documentary.From the book to the screen: a five minute feature about how the book was adapted [most of this one is in the main making of documntary anyhow].A five minute feature about the title sequence of the show was created [it has a full animated title sequence. An increasinly rare thing in tv these days].Creating the Dothraki language: Another short feature, this one about how the language spoken by some of the characters [with subtitles] was created.And the Night's watch: a nine minute long feature all about the aforementioned guardians of the wall.The season ends on a cliffhanger of sorts. Season two will be along on dvd in due course. I look forward to it.

I read the first volume in George R R Martin's epic fantasy saga not long after it came out in 1991 and thought it was terrific. For some reason -it seemed too much of a good thing- I gave up halfway through the second book and never went back to it. Twenty years later when HBO put out their ten episode version of the book, I couldn't remember a damn thing about it except that it was good. I didn't watch the TV series when it was shown on Sky's Empire channel. It wasn't out of lack of interest rather because I have Virgin Media, Empire wasn't one of the channels they paid Sky for.When the DVD set of this first season came out I still didn't rush to buy it despite all the praise heaped on it. Then I thought, what the hell, if I didn't like it I can always recoup most of my losses by selling it, so I bought it and watched two episodes a night for successive nights, and most of the extras.And, well, it's as good in its own way as Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. Not in special effects, I should add. While the show clearly had a healthy budget there is little in the fantasy element where sfx are used mainly because there is very little fantasy involved at all. Sometimes it's quite obvious when a matte painting has been used for a castle or background scenery but that's the worst criticism I can make of a genuinely outstanding piece of television drama.The script is a superb distillation of Martin's novel. I'm sure there'll have been some filleting but it never feels watered down. Martin, who appears frequently in the making of extras, appears delighted as well he may be.The cast is outstanding featuring many of the best of British and Irish (location shooting was filmed in Northern Ireland and Malta) character actors from both tv and film. The standard of acting is, needless to say, exceptional with the youngest included. It's an ensemble piece, though it's anchored by the key figure of Lord Eddard Stark played by Sean Bean with immense dignity. It's also true what they say about how good (his Emmy was well-earned) Peter Dinklage is as Tyrion Lannister who, lacking stature, has to rely on his wits to survive.The story is basically all about scheming and fighting for the throne of the Seven Kingdoms. But the reasons why it's so good are many. The world (in terms of environment and societies) in which it is set is well worked out. Despite the existence of magic and monsters, they play very little (albeit highly significant) part which makes them all the more effective. The characters are very well rounded human beings. Good people do bad things and bad people do good things. Clearly some characters you'll identify as good or bad but (with one repulsive psychotic exception) none are what you call evil. All do things because they believe what they are doing in right. There are constant surprising developments. You can never tell when a character might die and it could well be your favourite. Also characters grow and change with Daenerys Targaryen being a prime example from quiet vulnerable girl to...well, I won't spoil it but it's quite special. I don't know the full chronological span of the series of novels but I suspect it will be a decade at least if not decades. One pre-teenager is clearly (well I think so) being set up to be a warrior woman when she gets older (though she could just as easily get killed in the next season). No character is safe.The soundtrack is good with an interesting piece about included in the extras of which there are several with the making of being the most interesting.Amazingly I've forgotten to mention that the language can be very crude, the violence is really violent with blood and body parts and heads all over the place, and the sex sometimes verges on soft-core porn. This is not a criticism, the reverse if anything. Violence particularly, I believe, should be realistic to show the horror and brutality of it.So basically this is just a brilliant piece of television which I hope will continue until the very end of Martin's story.