Monsters University Review

Ever since the release of Cars 2, the first film in Pixar’s canon to get more negative than positive reviews, fans of the studio have been speculating the studio’s possible decline.  It’s easy to see why: for almost 20 years Pixar has been the standard of computer animation, cranking out films that not only were commercial juggernauts, but garnered the adoration of cinephiles of all ages too, but nothing lasts forever.  Last summer’s Brave was a step in the right direction, but may have disappointed fans by being just good.  Which brings us to Monsters University, a prequel to the 2001 hit Monsters Inc.  Prequels have had a difficult history with Hollywood despite their insistence on making them.  Just mention the phrase “the prequels” and you know what I’m talking about and the connotation isn’t good.  Luckily, Monsters University is a delight, overcoming the obstacles prequel films face and being a great movie in and of itself.

The film details how Mike (voiced by Billy Crystal) and Sulley (voiced by John Goodman) met, while attending the prestigious scaring program at the eponymous school.  Mike has the book smarts, but lacks the confidence in being scary on his own; Sulley has the talent, but lacks the craft because he’s coasting on his family name.  Through bad fortune they wind up pledging a fraternity of underachieving misfits in hopes of redeeming themselves.  Of course, the two opposites end up connecting and working together.  Like any good Pixar film, the high standard for the writing rises above the clichés we all know about college movies—besides the ones you can’t include in a G rated movie.  It also earns the sentiments about friendship, teamwork and accepting our shortcomings that are often so cheesy in films directed to kids, one of the reasons these films have appeal beyond young filmgoers.

Of course when talking Pixar, you have to mention the visuals and for good reason: Monsters University’s visuals are spectacular.  The level of detail in the art direction and the character design is superb (the design of Hardscrabble, a dragon/bat/centipede mix is especially impressive).  Just looking at all they can fit into the frame is a visual feast.  It gets all the details right like the fur of the various characters, which moves like the real thing.  It’s showing off in the best possible way.  Not to mention this film’s color palate is one of the most diverse and brightest I’ve seen in a while.

The voice cast is also top notch, with Crystal, Goodman and Steve Buscemi among others from the first one picking up as if a day hasn’t passed since the original wrapped.  There are a lot of new additions with big name talent like Helen Mirren, Alfred Molinar and Nathan Fillion.  While including more famous actors can be troublesome for many animated films, preferring name recognition over ability to do voice work, Pixar continues to have a good ear for the right voices.

Monsters University works so well as a prequel for a simple reason: it can be its own movie.  Although there are plenty of call backs to the original film for its fans, it’s not enough to hinder the enjoyment for those who haven’t seen it—or in my case, haven’t seen it in a while—and it could work watching them chronologically and treating the original as the sequel.  I’d put it at the level of a Ratatouille, which while not the level of a Wall-E, Up or Incredibles (still waiting on that sequel), is still pretty good.  It’s nice to know that after a little rockiness, the heart of Pixar is still strong.

Grade: B+

Miscellaneous:

Of course there is the opening short film, The Blue Umbrella.  Pixar’s ability to create photo realistic sets is on full display here.  The film itself was good, but the visuals were spectacular.  I’d probably give it about a B overall.  Still worth checking out, especially as Pixar is the best source of short filmmaking around these days.

This could apply to the original film, but I love how the monsters have mundane names.

SPOILERS

As much as I love how Mike and Sulley redeemed themselves scaring the adults at the campsite, I found it refreshing that it wasn’t the magic remedy for Sulley cheating in the Scare Games.  This film doesn’t back down on highlighting failure and the shortcomings of the characters, which helps earn their victories.

Before Midnight Review

We are often torn between our idealism and the reality of our lives.  We have high hopes, we dream big, but often life is some combination of good and bad.  For Celine and Jesse, the central couple of Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight, their ideal night spent in Vienna in 1995’s Before Sunrise and their reconnection in 2004’s Before Sunset has been shaken from the reality of actually being a couple.  It ultimately yields an installment different from the first two, but still fits into a story that could take this indie franchise and make it sustainable for the future.

We join them nine years after their reunion, married with twin girls on vacation in Greece.  They also have jobs, with Jesse being a successful writer and Celine contemplating her next career move.  During this trip we’re privy to many conversations about life and relationships as expected for a Before film, only this one has more conflict to it.  There’s some real stakes in this film.  The filmmakers don’t forget that Jesse has an ex-wife and son who live in America while Celine and Jesse live in Paris with their kids, a fact that causes a lot of tension.  Also, being together has all but confirmed in the eyes of Jesse’s readers that Celine is the woman he gained notoriety writing personal details about.  By the end of the first movie as far as they knew they’d never see each other again.  They had this perfect connection, but eventually that initial honeymoon phase would have to end.  It can be tough to see this with the lighter tones of the first two as they fell in love and reconnected, but it’s honest and extremely well done.

While there’s plenty of conversation that’s reminiscent of things you’d hear in Sunrise and Sunset, there are moments, particularly one in a hotel room, that resemble Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage.  Although I may have said more than I usually do in a review, I think this film is for the most part spoiler-proof.  Like the preceding two, this film is all about the dialogue.  There’s a lot more time dedicated to Celine and Jesse talking to other people than in the previous two films, which could symbolize the distance growing between them.  Watching these movies can be a little disorienting, especially in the summer with the big tent pole action franchises, but it’s also encouraging to have that reminder that you can have a film be compelling with simply two characters talking for most of it.

Another major theme in the Before films is a European locale.  This time it’s in Greece, a less metropolitan area than Vienna or Paris, but still a beautiful place to set a movie (this must’ve helped the film have some privacy during filming, as no news of this film was released until after it was finished).  Looking at the hillsides or the small café on a pier that is featured prominently, the travelogue element of the series is well represented here.

Though the series wasn’t intended to be a series, just something that stemmed from Linklater, Hawke and Delpy meeting up and wondering what these characters would be up to, it has become a narrative version of the Up documentary series.  With this great trilogy of films, as well as its narrow focus but honorable ambition, I’m fully on board with seeing them follow through on this and seeing Celine and Jesse at 50, 60 and beyond.  I can’t wait to see what they have in store for 2022.

Grade: A-

Man of Steel Review

Usually when I write a review, I try to avoid other reviews until mine is finished.  However, it seems impossible to do so with Zack Snyder’s latest, Man of Steel.  It’s gotten both its fans and its critics all fired up about interpretations of the character, the choices in tone and elements of the ending.  I’m somewhere in the middle.  It wasn’t a terrible movie, despite my issues I’ll get into, but it also wasn’t the tour de force some deem it to be.  Chalk it up to the extremes nerds can wind up in: passion in one direction can be fueled by the passion in the opposition.  Maybe it’s just being in the middle, but I find such an intense debate over a film I’m in no hurry to revisit ever again a little confusing.

The biggest problem this film has is its script.  Screenwriter David S. Goyer unfortunately has to cram in two movies worth of story into one film.  Although the film doesn’t drag, it doesn’t have time to develop the characters or storylines because they want to get to the action.  So when certain members of the Daily Planet are in peril later in the film, I’m not terribly invested in it because I haven’t gotten to know who they are.  The film also has a bad habit of introducing confusing elements and not explaining them until 10-15 minutes after the fact.  Why is Zod on a rampage at the beginning?  What’s the big deal with Superman’s birth?  How does Clark Kent find a key part of his past in the Arctic after being a waiter in the previous scene?  These things end up getting explained later, though why the film withholds these reasons makes it unnecessarily convoluted.  I wonder if this was supposed to be a much longer film but had to get cut down dramatically, hence all the shortcuts they take to get to the set pieces.

As much as I didn’t like the trailers—I felt the first trailer looked like Tree of Life if it were made by the guys who made the “It’s halftime in America” commercial—I feel like the material covered in the first trailer would’ve made a better first film.  Give an entire movie to the origin stuff; it’d give more time to develop the fall of Krypton and Superman’s upbringing in Smallville, then save the Superman’s first battle for the second movie.  I would’ve liked to have seen more from the Kents, played well by Diane Lane and Kevin Costner, and their story.  How do you deal with having an alien life form crash in your backyard and try to help him adjust to life on Earth?   That stuff is in Man of Steel, but more of it would’ve enriched the heart of the film and established the foundation for the character.  I often found myself perplexed about who this version of Clark Kent was, which shouldn’t be for a character as iconic as Superman.  Unfortunately I don’t think a studio would greenlight a superhero movie that’s largely a coming of age drama with much less action.  If you’re going to do an origin story, it should be natural to the story being told and not just something they feel they have to shoehorn in every time a superhero movie franchise is launched or rebooted.

As a reminder, I didn’t have this movie.  I thought the cast worked as well as they could against the material.  Henry Cavill, who I haven’t seen in anything prior, gives a solid performance that could be even better in future installments if he’s given a better developed character.  I also like Amy Adams as the ambitious Lois Lane, though the love story feels tacked on to a film with enough going on.  Of course, Michael Shannon probably has the most fun as Zod, but as I’ve said, I would’ve liked a more three dimensional character (or maybe some more “I WILL FIND HIM!” moments).  I also feel the supporting cast, with Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, Richard Schiff and Christopher Meloni, deserved some more.

Another problem that’s come up a lot among critics is the movie’s tone.  Being that the film is directed by Zack Snyder and produced by Christopher Nolan, two filmmakers not known for having much of a sense of humor in their films, Man of Steel is a darker film than you’d expect from Superman and that doesn’t feel like it was the right call.  “Dark” films have been fashionable in the past decade, especially since the Nolan Batman trilogy, but I don’t think it was the way to go for Superman, a character largely defined as a symbol of hope and light.  The Avengers is proof you don’t need constant brooding to be good (they could also stand to look specifically at how they’ve handled the character of Captain America).  Now that Superman is a viable franchise again, I’d like to see a lighter touch on future installments; less Zack Snyder, more Brad Bird.

Although the dark tone is common in Zack Snyder’s films, this is probably the least Zack Snyder looking film he’s made since Dawn of the Dead.  This may be because his last film, Sucker Punch, flopped and someone was trying to reign in his usual choices.  While I wouldn’t call Sucker Punch “good” in the traditional sense, I can’t help but feel like losing Snyder’s style is a bit of a shame.  Sucker Punch is a much more interesting movie, and the one I’d be more likely to revisit for sure.  Most of Man of Steel could’ve been made by almost any major director.  If you’re going to hire Zack Snyder, let Zack Snyder show up.  Also, for a guy known to constantly use slow motion in his films, that it’s not used during the hard to see fights between the Kryptonians feels like a wasted opportunity.  They could’ve slowed down the lightning fast moves to make it look like real time while the world around them went in slow motion.  I’m sure Snyder could’ve made that look cool.  Instead it often is just a lot of CG characters fighting, which is tough to stay invested in.

Now that Superman made a huge impact at the box office to the point where ideas of a sequel set for release next year have sprung up (something it seems like everyone thinks is a terrible idea) and them going ahead with rushing their Justice League movie, it seems unfortunate that this is the version we’re stuck with until the next relaunch.  By trying to make things dark, they undermined Superman as a character, a character meant to inspire hope and serve as an ideal that we can do better.  Instead they compromise that by trying to accommodate a desire for “dark” material, as well as not fully developing many of those ideas, leaving me hoping the filmmakers can do better next time around.

Grade: C+

Miscellaneous (SPOILERS):

-Yeah, the final battle is preposterous in the level of destruction and the lack of thought given to the human cost of it.  The alien invasion/duel between Zod and Superman was like 9/11 times 40, with several portions of Metropolis resembling an area after a nuclear bomb went off.  Certain people are even theorizing how much that would cost in both damage to buildings and loss of human life.  Yet in the epilogue Clark Kent heads to join the Daily Planet as if nothing happened (hopefully the sequel addresses the aftermath in more detail).  Certainly films I’ve liked more like The Avengers have involved a lot of major destruction, but they at least took some time to address the people on the ground.  Besides the people Zod threatens to blast with his heat ray vision, Superman doesn’t seem that concerned about protecting people who aren’t named characters.  Certainly the “it’s his first day on the job” explanation is valid; it’s just on the screen we don’t see him act concerned about the devastation he’s partially responsible for.

-Superman killing doesn’t work, as many have said.  Superman’s supposed to be better, find a way to solve this problem that doesn’t compromise his moral code.  This could possibly be the reason why he may not kill in future installments, like the reasons why The Doctor on Doctor Who tries to solve his problems without killing.

-This sets up the stage for Lex Luthor to garner a lot of support from the public.  Who would want to have this Superman anywhere near them?

-I think my issues with the destruction of Metropolis could be assuaged if some of this film was dedicated to showing Superman saving people from the destruction and assisting in the rebuilding; not issuing ultimatums to the government not to spy on him like Batman would.

-Between this and last summer’s Amazing Spider-Man, I’m over origin stories.  Can’t we just have established heroes already exist and not have to wait until the second movie for things to happen?

-For the love of all that is good in the world can Hollywood filmmakers get over tinting everything blue?

-Which is the bigger problem with the “I think he’s hot” line: the cheesiness or it being out of place in a movie not interested in humor?

-Lois must be capable of teleportation.  From getting to the ship early on, then to the train station, she seems to be able to get anywhere she needs rather easily.

-And Superman didn’t destroy the terraforming device in the crowded city before the one in the middle of nowhere because…?

-How exactly does Superman destroy the first device?  He flies around it, the defenses put up a fight and thoroughly beat him, then he stands under it for a minute and flies right through it.  Did I miss something?  This movie plays really loose with the rules, not a great sign for sci-fi/fantasy.

-I think it’s funny how some of Man of Steel’s fans have decried its critics for not being able to enjoy anything.  I don’t think a movie as anhedonic as Man of Steel is really where you can make that argument.

-I think the more appropriate product tie-in would be “What would Superman order at IHOP?”

-No post-credits scene?  Seriously?

RIP James Gandolfini 1961-2013

James Gandolfini helped change TV as we know it.  Of course, there was a lot to The Sopranos that broke new ground: its perfect ensemble, the bold writing and cinematic direction, but it was James Gandolfini’s performance as Tony Soprano that helped make that show.  It’s a great performance that takes a great character on the page and turns him into an icon.  Few characters in any medium are as fleshed out the way Tony is. That performance helped turned The Sopranos into a pop culture phenomenon and changed the television map.  It’d be hard to imagine the brand HBO has built in the past 14 years without the foundation of The Sopranos (yes, there were shows on before The Sopranos, but did any besides Sex and the City leave anywhere as big a cultural imprint?)  It wasn’t just HBO: The Sopranos was the beginning of this Golden Age of Television. It also spawned a growing interest in anti-heroes as protagonists on TV shows.  Who is Walter White but Tony Soprano if he lived a regular life until he was 50?  I can’t imagine The Sopranos having the impact it’s had, as amazing as every other piece was in that show, if someone other than Gandolfini were playing Tony.  He gave us a character who was charismatic, but completely terrifying.  Who knows what TV would look like without Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano, but I think that one wouldn’t have lead to nearly as many compelling hours of TV spawned with a brilliant performance in the center.  Of course it’s a huge loss for his friends and family, but also a tremendous loss to the world of acting.  We lost one of the greats.

Game of Thrones Season Three Review

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows set a precedent for modern book adaptations that I’m surprised wasn’t made earlier: instead of releasing one highly grossing entry in a franchise, why not split it up into two?  It’s proven financially successful with Harry Potter & Twilight and may likely do the same for the last film in The Hunger Games.  However, one of the complaints is that by splitting up the films the narrative flow isn’t as satisfying.  It’s no surprise that eventually it would happen to Game of Thrones, whose latest season only covered part of the third book in the series, A Storm of Swords.  Besides buying some time for George R.R. Martin to write the final two books so the show runners don’t have to worry about catching up yet, Swords is considered by readers the best in the series and taking some extra time would benefit the story.  Judging from what I’ve seen (I’ve only read the first book, preferring to watch the show as someone new to what will happen next), it seems like the right choice.

Considering the world of Game of Thrones only gets bigger each season, with new locales and characters added in practically every episode, two seasons for this book makes sense.  However, it is the event that happens in this season’s penultimate episode, one readers have been anticipating since the beginning, that really justifies that length.  I couldn’t imagine them streamlining the season to the point of having the Red Wedding, where several major characters are brutally executed, take place in episode four or five.  It’s a major event that needed the importance of being a penultimate episode of a season, one fans know is the episode where major things happen.

It’s also another game changing event like Ned Stark’s murder in season one’s penultimate episode.  Martin’s series has been praised for subverting expectations people have going in to fantasy stories.  Ned was the main character of the first book, but they took advantage of that assumption for a shocking twist.  Regardless, we still expected Robb to emerge victorious and get justice from all the military victories he had in the war and the story’s emphasis on the Stark clan, but Game of Thrones threw out books worth of audience expectations when he was brutally killed with his pregnant wife and mother.  Of course in some ways it feels like a definitive ending, but there are clearly more balls in the air to indicate this war is far from over.  That you can’t tell what’ll happen next is a valuable asset to this story.

Besides the Red Wedding, the other major subversion of season three is the redemption of Jaime Lannister.  It’s hard to believe that the guy who capped off the first episode of the series by having sex with his sister and paralyzing Ned’s son would become one of the most honorable characters in the series.  It took a long time, including a season of imprisonment and losing his sword fighting hand before we began to see there was a lot more to him.  His growing allegiance to Brienne, another highly honorable character and his caretaker to King’s Landing, showed a lot more layers to a character we thought he had figured out.  Their dynamic was one of the most enjoyable things from this season, from their butting heads to Jaime’s recount of how he earned the nickname Kingslayer.  This transformation is what it took to make him pulling a Ron Burgundy to save Brienne from the bear believable.  To paraphrase a character from that film: today, we spell redemption J-A-I-M-E.

The most improved subplot of the season was no doubt Daenerys.  The distance between her and the rest of the cast in Westeros can be a little frustrating as nothing either side has done has affected the other significantly, at least not until this point.  This season she got some really awesome moments as she grows into a position of someone vying for the throne and a legitimate threat to the others.  The razing of slave city Astapor was a highlight, and it seems like nothing’s going to stop her with her army of killing machines and growing dragons.  There is a hint of power corrupting, which considering this world, is something that will likely be dealt with.  I would’ve liked to have seen more with Ser Barristan, a knight who rebelled from his forced retirement under Joffrey by aligning with her, as it seemed to be building some tension between him and Daenerys’ longtime companion Ser Jorah, but maybe that’s another victim of it being only half the book.

Things are also getting more interesting by the wall, with the White Walker threat growing as the Night’s Watch falls apart at Craster’s Keep and the Wildlings begin to survey for a large scale invasion.  This was another storyline that suffered a little last season because of its distance to the rest of the action, but in this season it’s encroachment toward the lives of the rest of Westeros raises the stakes even further.  In the middle of it is Jon Snow, whose story this season takes him from defecting to the wildlings, falling in love and consummating those feelings with Ygritte to failing to deliver on his promises to the wildlings, betraying her and winding up back in Castle Black.  It’s an interesting position for him to be in because while he’s back in setting we haven’t seen since the first season, it’d be foolish to think it’s a reset (same goes for Jaime’s return to King’s Landing).

The saga in the north is also setting up the stage for Stannis to have something to do: his storyline has always been hit or miss for me.  This season he hasn’t done much besides lick his wounds following the Battle at Blackwater from last season.  Now he has some purpose, rally his troops to assist the war on the White Walkers.  It should be a nice change of pace from the usual Melisandre coming between Stannis and Davos we’ve seen the last two seasons—though to be fair bringing Gendry into the fold about his parentage adds another interesting layer.

There were weak points this season, the most noteworthy was Theon’s never ending torture session at the hands of the demented Ramsay.  I understand—no specific book spoilers—this subplot deviates from the books, but when all the subplots are chugging along, especially this season, Theon’s one man Salo stands out as particularly inert.  Every week felt like the same thing with few moments of character development, save for Theon’s comments when he thought he was rescued.  In the finale, they quickly explain away what happened.  Had they sprinkled bits of this throughout the season it would’ve been more satisfying.

Because the season is only half of the book, it lacks the closure previous seasons had, at least as much closure as you can expect from a story like this.  Several elements are left up in the air, or haven’t been seen in a few episodes.  Unlike my problems with the lack of closure for Arrested Development, I’m OK with some stuff not getting wrapped up because of the way this season was structured and the fact that the fourth season is guaranteed barring some disaster.  I wonder if those who watched this unaware of the behind the scenes stuff could tell.  Regardless, even if they didn’t and left this season unsatisfied, there’s no doubt fans will return because with a story told this well, you can’t stop halfway.

Grade: A-

Observations:

*Obviously there’s a lot I didn’t talk about in this review. Bran and Rickon’s trip up north with their companions, Tyrion marrying Sansa and the pressures of him to father a child with her, etc.  Of course something dense as this it’s hard to get it in less than 2,000 words, not to mention all the stuff that is left in the air.

*Speaking of not mentioned things: breakout character hands down Olenna Tyrell.  Diana Rigg put in some great work there.

*Would’ve liked to have seen more of the Tyrells in the last couple episodes, especially Margery.  It’s interesting to see how she appears genuinely concerned and sympathetic to others, but she’s playing the game just as much as everyone else.

*Wonder how many nerd weddings will feature “The Rains of Castamere”?

*Would’ve liked to have seen more fallout from the death of Ros.  She may have not been a huge player on the show, but she’s been around since the pilot.  At least we didn’t have to see her horrifying death.

*Mance Rayder also dropped off the radar pretty quick.  I’m expecting him to show up next year, but I expected to see more of him this year.

*Loved seeing the Hound and Arya together.  Similar to her fun back and forth with Tywin last year.  It’ll be interesting to see where this is going now that the Hound has no one to collect a large reward from.

*The followers of the Lord of Light may be legit, or at least they have magic that can bring back the dead.

*This may be the most difficult season for me as far as not caving and reading ahead.

Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and the Importance of Gut Punches in High Stakes Drama

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Game of Thrones through “The Rains of Castamere” (season three, episode nine) as well as through The Walking Dead’s third season.  Nonreader Game of Thrones fans, there won’t be any spoilers for things in the books as I have only read the first one.

Like many fans of the HBO series Game of Thrones who haven’t read the books (or in my case, haven’t read that far), I’m still processing the events of the episode “The Rains of Castamere”, which ended with the brutal murders of Robb Stark, his mother Catelyn, his pregnant wife Talisa and just about everyone else aligned with the Starks at The Twins except for poor Arya.  The Red Wedding is an iconic scene from the book series; this was the scene that motivated show runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to want to make the show in the first place.  It is a scene so brutal George RR Martin claims he wrote it last when he was writing the book.  This episode is certainly inspiring similar reactions to those who have been throwing the book at a wall since its original publication in 2000.  This game changing moment has me thinking about a lot of things, in particular another show based on a popular literary source completely botched their “Red Wedding” moment, The Walking Dead.

As much as Game of Thrones fans were looking forward to seeing how they would portray the Red Wedding, fans of The Walking Dead comic series were really looking forward to seeing how they were going to portray the arc Made to Suffer, the eighth volume trade paperback.  It is similar in its game changing brutality (I’ll try to avoid too many explicit details except for those that coincide with the TV show), with several long term characters getting brutally killed as The Governor raids the prison, destroying any sense of sanctuary it had.  For a series as brutal as The Walking Dead, few moments have come close to the ones in those issues and it’s a moment that has shaped the comic ever since.

Unfortunately for those just watching the show, The Walking Dead copped out of that big moment.  They teased that 27 characters would die, but really it was 25 randos, a recurring character who never made much of a blip on the radar and a character everyone hated.  All the other major characters, including The Governor himself, survived a very minor skirmish.  Had they done it right, people would have been posting reaction videos on YouTube and generating as many memes as possible rather than shaking their heads in disappointment.

To be fair, Walking Dead is much less faithful to its source material.  From what I’ve heard from friends who’ve read The Song of Ice and Fire series, though the show has altered things to accommodate the TV medium, the grand story is more or less the same.  You can’t say that with The Walking Dead TV show, which has central characters and major events that never existed in print.  Although some of these new elements don’t work, diverging significantly isn’t necessarily a bad thing: the medium of comics is no stranger to rebooting and altering their story to accommodate different mediums, new writers and changing times.  The key is staying true to the world of your story and making it compelling.

Like Westeros and Essos on Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead is set in a brutal, unforgiving world where a minor mistake can have deadly consequences.  The stakes need to be raised regularly, and that often means killing off major characters.  This comes into conflict with TV, especially really popular shows like The Walking Dead: not wanting to mess with a good thing and maintain a status quo.  Walking Dead has ratings network TV would love to have, so they may want to favor going not going as far as the comics, which cheapens the stakes of the show.

Regardless of people complaining about the Red Wedding to the point of even threatening to never watch the show again, it needed to happen.  The Red Wedding took much of what nonreaders thought was going to happen and threw it away.  Like Ned’s death in season one (and Jaime’s redemption this season), Game of Thrones is subverting our expectations for fantasy stories.  It reinforced the notion that no one is safe and the story can go anywhere.  While it’s horrifying, it’s also exhilarating for a viewer to have no idea where the story is going.  It’s not something that should be on every show, but for shows as high stakes as Walking Dead and Game of Thrones are, the occasional devastating gut punch is a necessary price of admission.