Game of Thrones - Season 1 (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Creators: David Benioff, D.B. Weiss
	Actors: Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey (300, Dredd), Maisie Williams, Sean Bean (The Lord of the Rings 1-3, Cleanskin), James Cosmo (Sons of Anarchy TV-series), Jason Momoa (Conan)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: June 2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: The power struggles around the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, while the long Winter is coming.
Review: So many people are talking about this series, I had to start watching it before being too many seasons late. The universe created by the book writer George Martin is indeed very rich, a movie adaptation would have had to cut many characters and storlines but the main one. It is fortunate that the american TV network HBO decided to allocate a lot of money to make it a high quality TV-series. As counterpart, there are only ten episodes of 52 minutes per season, but especially in that case quality prevails over quantity. The TV-series format allows taking the time to introduce all characters and let us know each one of them, and their relationship with one another. On the other hand, the comfortable budget is particulary visible in the sets and in the special effects, both of same quality as a feature film. Shooting in exterior or in large sets is a luxury, but makes you feel like you are in a real world and not in a small room like you often feel when watching TV-series. About the story, I liked the mixture of middle-ages and Fantasy and it is well done so I guess it attracted viewers with both preferences. We get to understand the motivation of each character. The stoy takes place in different locations in this imaginary world and alternates between dialogs, fight scenes, struggle for power, background history... The actors are playing very well. Lena Headey plays an intelligent queen like in 300, but a pervert one this time, thirsty for power. I was not looking forward to see Sean Bean play again the tormented knight (like in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Black Death) but here he does it again, even better than usual, and we feel that he is trapped in his sense of honor that makes him unfit in the higher society he is living in at some point. Peter Dinklage (a small person) is great and brings humour to the series although he is not a buffon at all. Jason Momoa plays the perfect barbarian and I understand why he was casted for the remake of Conan, unfortunately his act was completely wrong in that movie. The children of Sean Bean's character are also well played, as do other young characters in the series. As mentionned above, special effects are of high quality. I noticed it especially during episode 8, at the crossing of a magnificent bridge, and during the episodes when The Red Keep in the town of King's Landing is shown, but in every episode the already good-looking sets are extended with CGIs to show larger buildings and areas. I found it a good idea to show in the opening credits a map of the world and focussing on the area where action will occur during this episode. This reminds a lot of any Fantasy novel that always starts with a map. I watched a few of the bonuses present in the Blu-ray set. The 30-minutes making-of is pretty interesting and deals with all espects of the series from adaptation from the book to casting, special effects, costumes... The short documentary about the book is redundant with the making-of. The episode 6 (sold as the turning point in the first season) is presented in a mode called "Anatomy of an episode", which is better than a commentary because not only the director, cast and crew speak while you watch the episode, but it is also interrupted by pieces of interview, behind-the-scenes footage, and other making-of elements. Very interesting. The main thing that bothered me (little spoiler, highlight to read) is that the battles in episode 10 are not shown. They found a clever trick to avoid showing the first (The Imp gets knocked out and we awake at the same time as him) but the second is simply skipped. I know it costs a lot to show this kind of battle, but it would have ended the first season in an even greater way.
Rating: 7 /10