Some spoilers from both the series and the books.
Problem 1: The story is not told from the eyes of a certain character like in the previous seasons (1-4 particularly). Instead they show also what the "baddies" are doing. They don't need to. Even whole movies are made from the point of view of a single character. This removes the shroud of mystery and the fear of not knowing. I'm not really spooked by the White Walkers anymore at all. Jon can smash them quite easily and more Valyrian steel and dragon glass is coming. Even the wights seem to fallen to the fighting level of their Walking Dead counterparts. They also now show them in bare daylight and in close- ups too. Boring... It started with showing the Night King for the first time when the Craster's babe was taken to their ring of ice shards. They were still scary though even after Sam killed one because it was shown from Sam's point of view.
Problem 2: Redshirts. They have stopped naming new characters that accompany even a smaller band of wight captors. They also don't have any dialogue and even their faces can barely be seen. This just screams "expendable". Why did they even have those few men with them? Did they have some particular skill that was needed? It's so much easier to prepare for the deaths of the few main characters because I can expect the writers to use their deaths "to a value". I don't really get the argument of "they don't want to introduce new characters this late in the story" as that would actually make it more continuous and we wouldn't be expecting the normal TV and movie tropes and clichés, hero's story etc.
I would love the show to still have so many characters and continuously new ones that I notice some more on second and third view times like with the first seasons. This all begins to smell like either the grand finale of the show will be a crazy huge spectacle that clearly ends things regarding the story, like in many movies. Or else the very last episode will be a kinda boring epilogue that is going to be annoying to wait for another week after the actual spectacular ending. I'd like the whole thing to feel like a continuum and the story basically only ends for a couple of characters we have followed.
Problem 3: Space and time. It seems as if the characters are more into having a dialogue than actually making a sound plan. They rarely show any consideration anymore for where and how far certain things are and how long it takes to get there. It seems lazy to not include even just a mention of consideration of those things. Robb still had a good map in season 3. And although they showed the map when Tyrion explained his plan to take Casterly Rock, it didn't really make sense why they would take the Rock. And how come Dany's and Euron's fleets didn't cross paths before that? They should have seen Euron's fleet going to King's Landing after they had settled to DragonStone. I would have wished a similar landing to Westeros as Jon Connington had in the books.
As it is I have to make the events work with my imagination eg. they actually spend multiple nights on that rock and that the White Walkers can bring the cold if they want or maybe they only "bring the storm" in the show. This episode particular was a bit of a challenge to make work and it still left me hoping I interpreted the scenes correctly. Unlike that one time when Jaime should have been captured after being pulled from the river. I was just disappointed even though the dialogue and acting worked.
Problem 1: The story is not told from the eyes of a certain character like in the previous seasons (1-4 particularly). Instead they show also what the "baddies" are doing. They don't need to. Even whole movies are made from the point of view of a single character. This removes the shroud of mystery and the fear of not knowing. I'm not really spooked by the White Walkers anymore at all. Jon can smash them quite easily and more Valyrian steel and dragon glass is coming. Even the wights seem to fallen to the fighting level of their Walking Dead counterparts. They also now show them in bare daylight and in close- ups too. Boring... It started with showing the Night King for the first time when the Craster's babe was taken to their ring of ice shards. They were still scary though even after Sam killed one because it was shown from Sam's point of view.
Problem 2: Redshirts. They have stopped naming new characters that accompany even a smaller band of wight captors. They also don't have any dialogue and even their faces can barely be seen. This just screams "expendable". Why did they even have those few men with them? Did they have some particular skill that was needed? It's so much easier to prepare for the deaths of the few main characters because I can expect the writers to use their deaths "to a value". I don't really get the argument of "they don't want to introduce new characters this late in the story" as that would actually make it more continuous and we wouldn't be expecting the normal TV and movie tropes and clichés, hero's story etc.
I would love the show to still have so many characters and continuously new ones that I notice some more on second and third view times like with the first seasons. This all begins to smell like either the grand finale of the show will be a crazy huge spectacle that clearly ends things regarding the story, like in many movies. Or else the very last episode will be a kinda boring epilogue that is going to be annoying to wait for another week after the actual spectacular ending. I'd like the whole thing to feel like a continuum and the story basically only ends for a couple of characters we have followed.
Problem 3: Space and time. It seems as if the characters are more into having a dialogue than actually making a sound plan. They rarely show any consideration anymore for where and how far certain things are and how long it takes to get there. It seems lazy to not include even just a mention of consideration of those things. Robb still had a good map in season 3. And although they showed the map when Tyrion explained his plan to take Casterly Rock, it didn't really make sense why they would take the Rock. And how come Dany's and Euron's fleets didn't cross paths before that? They should have seen Euron's fleet going to King's Landing after they had settled to DragonStone. I would have wished a similar landing to Westeros as Jon Connington had in the books.
As it is I have to make the events work with my imagination eg. they actually spend multiple nights on that rock and that the White Walkers can bring the cold if they want or maybe they only "bring the storm" in the show. This episode particular was a bit of a challenge to make work and it still left me hoping I interpreted the scenes correctly. Unlike that one time when Jaime should have been captured after being pulled from the river. I was just disappointed even though the dialogue and acting worked.