Game of Thrones: Redeemed

thank you so much for this edit! i still can't wrap my head around how you achieved this with the actual source material.
the subtitles where a great aid for me, because my english and hearing are not that good so, thank you for adding them!

i had a great time binge watching the whole thing and i'm back to be excited about rewatching the whole series from the beginning.
so i bend my knee before almightycutie for this absolute masterpiece!

Any viewing of Game of Thrones should have this version, despite it's flaws it's miles better than the actual ending.
Fixing Daenerys is the thing that worked the best for me, this is essential for any Dany fan.
The thing I hated the most was having to watch scenes from seasons 7 and 8 lol, some things you just can't fix unfortunately.
The ADR made me laugh and some of the visual edits were awkward.
However this edit deserves all the respect for it's ambition and it's many improvements.

Huge thank you to almightycutie for trying to salvage something watchable out of this crime against humanity.

Wow… SO much to unpack here. First of all, I just want to say that this edit is sort of a dream come true. Like half the world, I was a loyal HBO GoT fan from the very first episode, and would be absolutely giddy for each subsequent season to release. Yes, I read all of the great GRRM books, but the series was different because we knew that each year it was going to continue our journey with this very large cast of amazing characters. The first six seasons rarely failed to impress. Sure, there were some uninspiring subplots and a few characters that didn’t lend much, but for the most part, those first six seasons really did their job well of bringing this ridiculously epic saga to life. Then came the final two seasons. S7, upon first watch, was certainly serviceable. Like its predecessors, it had some huge moments and, despite all the timeless jumping around and rushed plot devices, served to setup the highly anticipated final season. And that, my friends, is where the Titanic hit the iceberg. S8 was a disaster on just about every front. The showrunners, I believe, truly thought they had it all figured out, and some amazing footage was shot and some big set pieces were realized. But in this case, the sum ended up being far worse that the parts. Suddenly, the Night King and his army of the dead--the “Winter is Coming” doomsday promise that the entire series had been slowly building up to--took backseat and second fiddle to Iron Throne politics and the Cersei problem. What was supposed to be the culminating epic battle of the entire series ended up being a one-episode descent into very literal darkness that didn’t change the course of anything. Because, obviously, Queen Cersei and her glowering sneers of lustful revenge from the Red Keep’s balcony window was what everything for seven seasons really came down to, right? I mean, obviously, Daenerys Targaryen would drop everything that made her the freedom fighting, benevolent conqueror that she was and turn (on a dime) into Attila the Hun, right? And, obviously, Tyrion would turn into a clownish idiot, Jaime would throw away six years of hard-earned wisdom about what it means to have real honor, a much wiser Jon Snow would shrivel into a love-struck man puppet, etc., etc. Right? Wrong. So with S8 what we received was a broken narrative, shattered character arcs and a series payoff that was anything but.

Enter Game of Thrones: Redeemed. Almightycutie decided to meticulously “re-craft” the narrative that S8 so decisively destroyed, first and foremost by reordering the timeline of events. The biggest no-brainer of S8 that made it so terrible was that it placed the Battle of Winterfell, which would decide the fate of the entire GoT world and everyone in it, BEFORE the conflict with Cersei and the taking of King’s Landing. Redeemed immediately sets out to correct that by having Jon and Dany come to an early understanding that the Night King’s menace is the ultimate battle, but whereby Jon will focus his efforts on preemptive preparation for that coming nightmare while Dany quickly moves to take care of the Cersei problem. And that’s exactly how things progress. After forming a pact with Dany, Jon goes back North to rally his forces and to prepare an unassuming expedition north of the wall to scout ahead and potentially preemptively take out the Night King before his army can even get to the wall. Dany, meanwhile, focuses on her speedy strategy to take Casterly Rock before marching on King’s Landing without needing to use the devastation of her dragons. That, of course, fails (Cersei and Jaime for once outwit their smarter little brother) and Dany is then forced to expedite her incursion with the full force of her dragons (all three of them, mind you, as Euron never gets his lucky shot). With the “Wagon Train Battle” and all of the footage of the attack on King’s Landing, this reordering works beautifully, and Cersei Lannister even gets the justice she deserved to begin with (I won’t spoil it here… but it totally works). All of this happens within the first seven episodes of almightycutie’s Redeemed cut, which condenses the entirety of seasons 7 and 8 to a total of 11 episodes. The final four episodes are then dedicated to the final preparations leading up to the TRUE battle for Westeros, the Battle of Winterfell, which plays wonderfully over two episodes instead of just one. Amazingly, it all works, with a few minor exceptions, especially as we get to the final four episodes (I’ve bulleted some of those below).

Almightycutie even goes as far as to incorporate some of their own effects and voiceover. A couple of these were nearly seamless, while a few others not so much. Either way, they’re only used when absolutely needed (personally, I didn’t think Bran’s warging voiceover was necessary during Jon’s expedition north of the wall, but it didn’t detract, either). These “additional effects” moments are few and far between. However, I would say that if almightycutie ever decides to revisit their Redeemed cut, they could always improve some of these effects as the edit is almost six years old as I write this review. Newer AI post production software could really enhance and/or fix a few less-than-optimal effects shots.

With all of that said, the technical quality of Redeemed is a very strong 1080p presentation with a solid audio track for the most part. The only time I had difficulty with dialogue being mixed too low was during the expedition north of the wall (for some reason the dialogue between the Hound, Tormund, Dondarrion, et al, was mixed super low… probably to accentuate the added voiceover work for Bran’s character, which was also sort of mixed low and even garbled). Otherwise, top-notch Blu-ray quality presentation to go right along with HBO’s official S1-6 Blu-rays (I owned seasons 1-7 on Blu-ray… never bothered to purchase S8… and S7 went right to the Goodwill now that I have Redeemed). So re-watching the series with Redeemed serving as the final “season” is a seamless watch.

Many more good things can be said about this massive undertaking of an edit, but not everything is completely perfect. Nor would it be, considering what is available to work with. Some nitpicks, minor for the most part, include the following:

- For some reason, almightycutie decided to not include the demise of Littlefinger. I can sort of see the justification for this omission by questioning whether or not he actually deserved it (certainly, it felt like he did at the time). Either way, I’m fine with the decision to allow the Court Conniver to keep his throat intact. However, it does create a continuity error going forward as suddenly Peter Balish isn’t present for anything taking place at Winterfell after the fourth or fifth episode, prior to which he’s practically shadowing Sansa at every turn. Simply keeping to his original fate would have solved that problem.
- Cersei’s early destruction, though definitely the right choice and thoroughly satisfying, does leave a bit of a vacuum for Jaime’s continuing character arc from a dramatic perspective only if for the fact he now has no coda or reaction in regards to her death. This isn’t a huge deal (especially in light of Armageddon approaching), but it is something noticeably lacking. Of course, blame it on the GoT showrunners who should have had this option explored to begin with and should have given us a proper continued arc for Jaime Lannister, who should have never in a million years returned to his sister after she openly admitted to not caring about anything or anybody and letting the Seven Kingdoms fall to the forces of darkness if that’s what it would come down to (she’s just a more attractive version of the Mad King). At one point, Cersei even considers briefly having the Mountain take care of her brother for his disloyalty. Hers was as wretched, festering evil to the bitter end, and Redeemed goes a long way to correct how such a miserable state of affairs would have ultimately played out between the sibling lovers with at least one of them wanting to be a better person.
- With the entire subplot of the “kidnapped zombie” being omitted (in this version, the expedition north of the wall is NOT to find a zombie to bring it back to show Queen Cersei in order to garner her non-existent support), it now doesn’t give Jon Snow a concrete reason to actually go on the expedition. Now, with that said, it did sort of make sense that perhaps Jon was hoping to pull off a “Frodo and Sam unassumingly sneaking the one ring to Mordor” approach to a preemptive strike on the Night King, and so that’s how my own mind justified it. But it does leave a little to be desired as far as true character motivation. To their credit, almightycutie does attempt to pad the narrative further through a series of voiceovers by Bran as the Three-Eyed Raven. But even that sort of fell flat for me.
- And, of course, there are some visual continuity errors peppered throughout, especially in regards to Dany riding her dragon(s) during the siege on King’s Landing (mainly costume continuity and/or dragon continuity). There are a couple with Cersei, too. But, again, not a big deal in the grand scheme of the massive narrative correction.
- As an aside, some unintended reactions from characters due to certain recuts actually work better. For example, what was originally Dany’s insane, psychotic, tears-of-rage breakdown after razing all of King’s Landing along with its inhabitants, now works even better as her reaction for being forced to use her dragons on King’s Landing and to finally roast the Red Keep for good. They always say that editors can be directors after the fact, and this proves it.

I could go on an on about how momentous and important is this fan edit. Correcting the narrative of the final season of Game of Thrones was something I thought would be next to impossible, but almightycutie pulled it off. Having this edit on Blu-ray basically "fixes" the entire series for me, and allows me to revisit one of the greatest productions ever to grace the small screen. That's no small feat. Absolutely stellar work.

I am so impressed with this Game of Thrones edit. It took me a long time but House of the Dragon got me interested in Game of Thrones again and I had to set my mind that season 7 & 8 didn't exist for me to enjoy a rewatch. Then I found out about Game of Thrones Redeemed, I had to check it out, I didn't know how it could be redeemed but I was willing to give it a go.

Almightycutie has done an amazing job. Things I liked best.....Jon Snow is a strong character again and Tyrion isn't dumbed down, That the focus is more on the night king and the whitewalkers threat, swapping those battles around made it sooooo much better. Not wanting to spoil but I loved what happened in Kings Landing with Cersei, it felt kind of like poetic justice for us fans who were stuck seeing her stare out windows for 2 seasons.

The two outstanding things that bugged me in season 7 & 8 which pretty much made those seasons un rewatchable for me were the suicide squad going north to catch a wraith for Cersei (made no sense at all) and Euron killing a dragon. All fixed with this edit....YAY!

Pretty much all the stupid decisions and cringe moments are gone....YAY!

The end was maybe a little disjointed but I don't care....I loved it and with the material that was available Almightycutie did a darn fine job. This will make rewatching Game of Thrones a pleasure again, I couldn't rewatch for years because of those last 2 seasons and it was such a shame because the earlier seasons were so good. Thanks Almightycutie

I’m not going to repeat all the comments below, it’s been years since AC released this Fanedit so there’s no point going over old ground. I will agree though, the audio was a little wonky in places, so much so I went for Stereo instead of Dolby Digital.

So, AC’s work is faultless – It must have been a real slog to cut everything up and try to stitch it together. AC just had the given content so the change of clothes here and there must have been painful to use, but what choice did AC have? There are some scenes that chop really quickly, if it were me I’d have slowed the footage down a touch just to get that extras 2-3secs. **SPOILER ALERT** Dani in flying off in E11, slowing that down could have helped.

One thing I’d have changed, breakfast at Winterfell after party night ! Great use of Stay A Thousand Years, but there was no atmosphere. Personally I’d have added some wind, crackling fire sounds, people crying etc. It was an emotional scene but very flat with just the audio track. But I’d imagine by the time AC got to E11, there was no real creative energy left.

My biggest gripe, AC went too hard on brightening up Battle for Winterfell. For years people have moaned about that episode – I don’t get why. On my setup at home I can see it all perfectly without bumping up the brightness or contrast – AC tried SO hard that some of the winterfell buildings turned green. The original episode had me hanging off the end of my seat, I remember it perfectly – I made food and a hot drink at the beginning and by the end, the drink was cold and the food untouched. I really don’t get the ho-ha about that episode, it was the best thing I’ve ever seen on TV and probably ever will. It was perfect television.

AC went to a lot of effort with this edit, not just the chopping up but some imagery they made and special effects. The slight changes in Ramin’s music was great too, it was impressively executed.

Finally, the best part of S09 ? It’s made me fall in love with GOT again – I’ve not done a rewatch for 2-3yrs now, I just couldn’t.. but now I can and I have to thank AC for that