The Last Kingdom (5th Season Out)

**Denny Crane!** · July 20, 2014, 02:38 PM

You think GoT is terrible?! Kay then....

**Stívarðr Reynitré** · July 20, 2014, 02:54 PM

Originally Posted by Denny Crane!

You think GoT is terrible?! Kay then....

That's not what was said...

**Påsan** · July 20, 2014, 03:25 PM

Well Being a Cornwell book, its going to be a lot of millitary porn. Dark-Age style. So yay for me since I love that stuff.

On the other hand, I feel Vikings have set that bar pretty high by now, and the Saxon stories Battles are WAY bigger than what have been seen in Vikings so far, so they better bring the goods.

**Sir Walter** · July 20, 2014, 03:54 PM

Originally Posted by Denny Crane!

You think GoT is terrible?! Kay then....

Originally Posted by Wulfburk

(oh and ps, GoT and Vikings are real bad IMO

)

I don't think so, Wulfburk does. And your post was pretty ambiguous too

**Lord Oda Nobunaga** · July 20, 2014, 04:40 PM

What Pasan just said really peaked my interest. I expected at least some of that in Game of Thrones but this might be the place I should be looking. The thing about Game of Thrones if you really want to know was that it did not capture my interest. I found myself pretty bored to be honest.

**~~RubiconDecision~~** · July 20, 2014, 05:02 PM

From the overwhelmingly positive reviews, it sounds like The Last Kingdom is a fine book. How is this bad for television? How is this a rip off of GoT or Vikings?

It's only bad if they ruin it, which can certainly happen if not budgeted properly or scripted well, the two most common reasons for failure.

I'm going on to read it now. Thanks!

**Knight of Heaven** · July 20, 2014, 06:04 PM

Originally Posted by Påsan

Well Being a Cornwell book, its going to be a lot of millitary porn. Dark-Age style. So yay for me since I love that stuff.

On the other hand, I feel Vikings have set that bar pretty high by now, and the Saxon stories Battles are WAY bigger than what have been seen in Vikings so far, so they better bring the goods.

While i know Cornwell books, mostly because of the sharpe series ( wich i find them very fun to read, good stuff if you want to clear your mind, and be entertained for a bit, sharpe is like a "James Bond" set in the napoleonic era), and i was aware of this Viking book existence, seen it many times next to the Sharpe books in the store, i just never made my mind to pick it up, i prefer Sharpes era to be honest, besides the narrative action of sharpe stories is very familiar as to the place in question. I live in the Iberian peninsula after all.

**Påsan** · July 20, 2014, 06:22 PM

I did not actually like the Saxon Stories though

:

**Stívarðr Reynitré** · July 21, 2014, 02:13 AM

Originally Posted by Påsan

I did not actually like the Saxon Stories though

:

I've got them all and I really like them. There are various instances wherein I think, "I don't think that works" or "I can't see what the author is intending here" but this is usually infrequent and often fails to detract from my overall enjoyment. Uthred is a well crafted protagonist in my opinion, but his personal quest to return to Northumbria becomes a tad...tiring...at times. As such, some of the wider themes are left to dangle in the wind when they could have been further developed.

I think if the era is created with sufficient investment in set design and actor recruitment, we'll be looking at something special here. I'd also like to think that our region would be heavily used in the filming process...Northumbria is a truly rugged, unspoilt and rich region steeped in Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Celtic culture.

Plus, I'd like to visit the odd set and I think we'd certainly benefit from the investment...

**Påsan** · July 21, 2014, 06:46 AM

Well I liked the first few books, but I found Uthreds constant Saxon/Viking dilemma a bit tiring at length, as you say. That was my main gripe.

But I can see how it would interest you though, Being a Northumbrian and a Dane.

No doubt it could translate into an exiting series though, if they get the budget, the right people behind the cinematography and some charismatic actors.

Also Ragnar and his son are going to be fun to watch.

**Captain Jin** · July 21, 2014, 10:31 AM

Well it's not going to have big ass battles. I'm sure of that. Especially for the first season. Too much money. GoT already has a crap ton of money to play with and they struggle to fund big battles. That's why you get only Blackwater and the battle on the Wall. And then you still had everyone complaining later (I won't mention what cause spoilers) because it wasn't a grand, sweeping epic scale battle. And its like yo they don't have unlimited moneys to dump into battle scenes.

**Stívarðr Reynitré** · July 21, 2014, 10:43 AM

True, it's unlikely that the sweeping battles will see much light if the initial budget constraints are predictably small.

That's not too much of a problem though, seeing as the battles of that period were all about the brutal intimacy of war. Lots of close scrum type battles with hack, slash and smash warfare. Tight angles to reinforce the claustrophobic sense of the battlefield and a reliance upon a handful of warriors to emphasise the shield wall aspects.

Easily done for the first season.

**Påsan** · July 21, 2014, 10:45 AM

Spartacus series had some pretty big battles and epic events despite having less of a budget compared to GoT. It is possible.

GoT is about politics, battles were never the focus. Saxon Stories is about a warrior and general fighting a war. They have to have battles since they are an integral part if every book.

**Captain Jin** · July 21, 2014, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by Påsan

Spartacus series had some pretty big battles and epic events despite having less of a budget compared to GoT. It is possible.

GoT is about politics, battles were never the focus. Saxon Stories is about a warrior and general fighting a war. They have to have battles since they are an integral part if every book.

The books weren't strictly about battles no, but they were depicted in them. HBO completely skipped them in season one and received quite some backlash from the fanbase and so they essentially had to include them later in other seasons. Also Spartacus' battles were not big until the last season. Before that they were small. Especially season one.

True, it's unlikely that the sweeping battles will see much light if the initial budget constraints are predictably small.

That's not too much of a problem though, seeing as the battles of that period were all about the brutal intimacy of war. Lots of close scrum type battles with hack, slash and smash warfare. Tight angles to reinforce the claustrophobic sense of the battlefield and a reliance upon a handful of warriors to emphasise the shield wall aspects.

Easily done for the first season.

I agree. If it's done the right way it can still be interesting. I just will be completely underwhelmed if its one of those ones where it's like 30 vs 30. You can do sweeping shots at least to establish the scale of the battle then swap to tight shots for the majority of the duration. Sort of like Rome did with the Battle of Philippi. Of course even the first scene battle that introduces us to Pullo and Vorenus was done well though with only a few people. That was smartly done and left you wanting more.

**Bobz** · July 21, 2014, 11:19 AM

Originally Posted by Påsan

Spartacus series had some pretty big battles and epic events despite having less of a budget compared to GoT. It is possible.

GoT is about politics, battles were never the focus. Saxon Stories is about a warrior and general fighting a war. They have to have battles since they are an integral part if every book.

Spartacus cheated with the big battles to be honest. For most of the series the battles were only small-scale affairs, which worked well as one of Spartacus' selling points was the heavily stylised duels. When the time came for the final battle, they made the decision to alternate between medium range shots of primarily featuring the main cast fighting, and extreme long shots of the entire battlefield, where they could get away with using much cheaper CGI. It was a clever example of how a production can stretch it's budget, but if more series did it you'd realise the battles aren't actually very big.

Edit: Captain Jin beat me too it, but yeah that's another example of a series making a battle look bigger with some clever film-making. Rome probably did it even better, but then they had a much larger budget.

**TheDarkKnight** · July 31, 2015, 01:27 AM

http://www.bbcamerica.com/the-last-k...annel%20Module

The series premiers October 10th.

If good, it will be a good show to tide everyone over between seasons of Game of Thrones and Vikings.