Much like the show, it’s a tremendous amount of work put into something so dark I can barely tell what’s going on.
I like GoT but this tweet made me think about the show if it wasn’t so obsessed with being gritty and let majestic, impactful moments actually look like majestic, impactful moments
Which parts of GoT or the books have majestic moments? The feel and tone of his books aren’t anything like LotR and I’ve always loved the gritty and grounded feel of things in the show so it never made the supernatural parts feel too “out there.”
Realism is one thing but Game of Thrones’ lighting is pretty flat across the board. There’s not a ton of dynamics to the cinematography, when it works it works well but when it doesn’t it’s just not as visually interesting as it should be. The last time I remember finding the lighting and colors really striking might have been when Jon and Ygritte were in the caverns. All the battles look and are lit the same.
This show could definitely use more lighting. It could be lit 150% more and still come across realistic and gritty. Maybe they needed the darkness to hide budget issues with make up and costumes in the early seasons, but definitely not now.
We forget we're dealing with a show that is lit by chimney fire and torches, with an occasional sunny sequence. The darkness of scenes fits the tone of the show, especially the last two seasons which have been noticeably, intentionally bleaker/darker. If we're talking specifically just the quality of the lighting and production itself, I have never seen that be an issue with this show or any show really produced by HBO. Rarely does CGI in the show look too telling or bad to me.
I hate how dark the show is honestly. Unless I’m in a pitch black room with absolutely no glare on the tv I can’t see what’s going on approximately 25% of the time. Edit: I should say it’s not just a problem with this show. It’s most current “prestige” tv. Every show learned the wrong lessons from breaking bad.
The darknesses is certainly a challenge when I’d be watching episodes during the day time the glare from my windows ... but I love the way it looks. The darkness is great for me. Another show which isn’t similar but has moments where it’s very dark and filmed intentionally that way which I LOVE is Bates Motel.
We definitely need more color and brightness in movies and shows these days. Thinking of the colors in Mad Men from the clothes and set decoration, it’s beautiful. Of course it has to be natural and not forced, so it makes sense Game of Thrones is darker than normal.
Also, sometimes changing your tv settings makes a whole world of difference. I never have issues watching dark movies/shows, but I also am one of those people who has different display settings on my TV depending on what i'm watching/doing/playing. Actually have had 3 different friends own 1080p or 4k smart TV's to where I took notice to that lack of quality in the screen when I was over. I casually offer to mess with the settings a bit and wind up showing them they've thought their TV quality sucks cause they had stupid things like "Eco" mode on, which dims your TV significantly from normal display standards. Finding a calibrated or vivid setting and tweaking the sharpness/black space definition so it isn't overbearing is key with GoT. I know this is a weird/awkward quirk to have, but I once saw on Strange Addiction a woman enjoyed going to her friend's houses, locking herself in their bathrooms and pulling the hair build-ups from their drains/bathtub out to play with. She loved the smell, texture, everything.... So I find mind acceptable.