Reactions to the new promo material

Reactions to the new Game of Thrones promo material released Sunday night are slowly starting to pop up around the web. Here is a collection of some of the more noteworthy impressions:

Cannot. Wait. I won’t bother parsing the bits of footage frame-by-frame (Winter Is Coming is one fan blog that does a good job of that; also westeros.org), but overall I’m very encouraged by the visuals, which have the dirty look that Geroge R. R. Martin’s books convey.
James Poniewozik – Time Magazine

I don’t know about you but the glimpses I saw Sunday got me even more excited about the show, which I wrote about extensively in my previous job. … So far I’m in agreement with Martin himself, who said in the behind-the-scenes video that the people producing the show “got it right.”
Maureen Ryan – AOL TV Squad

Cast and crew are hard at work on the 2011 HBO series Game of Thrones, based on the George R. R. Martin fantasy saga A Song of Ice and Fire. I have not read this addictive series yet, and frankly, the synopsis on the back cover of the first book is mildly overwhelming. But I’m intrigued.
Mandi Bierly – Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch

If you watched the True Blood finale last night on HBO then you know that the best part about it was definitely…the new behind-the-scenes footage of the upcoming Game of Thrones series.
Matt Fowler – IGN TV

Winter Is Coming: It’s great to see the press continuing to remain optimistic about the series. It not only makes for some fun reading (be sure to click through and read the full articles on these, some of them talk quite a bit about the show), but it helps increase the awareness of the series to potential new viewers.

Also I wanted to take the chance to add my own thoughts on all the new material, as things have been so hectic I haven’t had the chance to really do so yet.

My first feeling was of an information overload. We had waited so long to see even a glimpse of a character (other than Ned) in costume that getting bombarded with dozens of them at once was hard to process. As it started to sink in though, I began to feel… underwhelmed by what I was seeing. I liked the gritty look, yeah, but I thought the show would mix that with a little more visual flair. A little more pop.

That was my feeling… until I saw the shots of Ned with Ice in HBO’s Fall/Winter preview. Those few seconds were enough for me to be completely sold on how awesome this show is going to be. The behind-the-scenes stuff is just that behind-the-scenes. Once we get the full brunt of HBO’s tech wizards doing their thing on the footage, it will be a sight to behold. I can’t wait!

• Published on 09/14/2010 at 4:30 PM CDT
• Last updated on 09/14/2010 at 4:30 PM CDT