Andy Whitfield, John Hannah, Peter Mensah, Manu Bennett and surprisingly Lucy Lawless all do a great job in the series. It's no Game of Thrones but it's a completely different genre IMO. You don't get nominated for a Golden Nymph and Saturn award for nothing. lol
If you are looking for something like Game of Thrones you won't find it, but give Spartacus another shot. After the first episode I was unimpressed to say the least (especially with the cheap CG) but by the end of the season I was hooked. The cheap CG was far less pervasive and it ended up being a great show. The last episode of Spartacus season 1 was fantastic, I still have it on my DVR. If Spartacus was an HBO show, it would have been absolutely epic. The writing and acting was second to none. What held it back some was the limited budget of Starz.
I second this, the show got better after each episode, and John Hannah is incredible as Batiatus. By episode 4 or 5 I was completely hooked. The Pilot was crap in comparison to episode 4 and beyond.
Just got the books in the mail a couple days ago, and I'm wondering how important it is I read the first book. I've watched the whole first season (most episodes 2 or 3 times showing the show to different friends) and I'm pretty burnt out on that particular story... having to read the whole thing again sounds painful if it's going to basically be the same exact thing. I read the first couple chapters and it's pretty damn near identical so far, so I'm having a lot of trouble making myself push through it so I can get to book 2. My plan was to maybe wait a couple weeks or months and jump back into it when the first book's story isn't so fresh in my mind, but I'm pretty anxious to pick up the story where the show left off. Thoughts from people who have read the books and watched the show?
I would always read the books over the movies... you always get more from the book and it is not all 100% exact as the movie as some have pointed out. Plus, if you are too lazy to read book 1 because you watched the movie, then why bother with any of the books. Just wait for the season to come out. lol I wish I had the time to spin through the books again now, especially before the loooooooooooooooooooooooong awaited 5th book magically appears.
Read the first book man...It will fly by. There are so many little things that you will get confused over. The show did not cover every little thing you know...You'll need to cover all the specifics if you plan on reading the series all the way through till book 5 speaking of book 5, be careful everyone...spoilers have hit the internet so watch out for what you are reading online.
While I haven't seen the show, I don't see how they could have packed more than a quarter of the amount of information in the book to the screen, no matter how faithful the series is to the books. While you may have a decent understanding of the story from the HBO series, you'll be lost on a lot of references that AGOT in book form expounded on and which continue into the second book. If that kind of thing doesn't bother you, to each his own, but with a story this complex you're doing yourself a disservice by skipping the first book just to get to the next big thing. Likely the next big thing will mean more to you if you know the characters better from book one.
SPOILER ALERT for people who haven't read the books (my bad) Yeah, the ASOIAF sites have been building a collection of spoiler passages leaked by Martin for a while now. I have been mostly successful in avoiding the urge to look at them, but did I see one that gave a vague idea of the direction Tyrion's character is headed.
