I'll try to be short and clear here.
First, I haven't read any of "...Ice and Fire" books, so I can't really say does this one meet expectations set by original story in "War of the Five Kings". But I was told by a few friends that this act, the Blackwater battle, is supposed to be "huge" and "epic" in every way. So, based on standards set by Hollywood in terms of super-high-budget production, I really expected from this episode to be jaw dropping, and full of "wow" shots. And in my opinion, it failed hardly, and was no epic by any means. Regarding the effects, and the size of battleground itself. From my perspective, of someone who haven't read the books, it looks like few dozens of ships, and few hundreds of men fighting for some small village castle on a sea shore. We are constantly informed by show itself, and characters, that it's about hundreds of ships fleet, and thousands of men fighting, while on screen it doesn't look even close to that proportions. The only thing "spectacular" is that one explosion in wildfire, and that's about everything. Everything after that, most notably the battle in front of walls, is ridiculously small. It's like there's few dozens of soldiers fighting on a 400 square feet ground, with no "epic" feel at all. It's all sized down to few characters, and simply, there's no feel it's an giant thousands-of-men-armies battle going on out there. Somebody compared this to a well known "Lord of the Rings" battle, and I can only say - blah... Not even close to that one, unfortunately. Not to be misunderstood, I shell add that I love this show, and that it's an 9/10 grade show overall, but this concrete episode does not live up to expectations, set by show itself.
First, I haven't read any of "...Ice and Fire" books, so I can't really say does this one meet expectations set by original story in "War of the Five Kings". But I was told by a few friends that this act, the Blackwater battle, is supposed to be "huge" and "epic" in every way. So, based on standards set by Hollywood in terms of super-high-budget production, I really expected from this episode to be jaw dropping, and full of "wow" shots. And in my opinion, it failed hardly, and was no epic by any means. Regarding the effects, and the size of battleground itself. From my perspective, of someone who haven't read the books, it looks like few dozens of ships, and few hundreds of men fighting for some small village castle on a sea shore. We are constantly informed by show itself, and characters, that it's about hundreds of ships fleet, and thousands of men fighting, while on screen it doesn't look even close to that proportions. The only thing "spectacular" is that one explosion in wildfire, and that's about everything. Everything after that, most notably the battle in front of walls, is ridiculously small. It's like there's few dozens of soldiers fighting on a 400 square feet ground, with no "epic" feel at all. It's all sized down to few characters, and simply, there's no feel it's an giant thousands-of-men-armies battle going on out there. Somebody compared this to a well known "Lord of the Rings" battle, and I can only say - blah... Not even close to that one, unfortunately. Not to be misunderstood, I shell add that I love this show, and that it's an 9/10 grade show overall, but this concrete episode does not live up to expectations, set by show itself.