Finding Out That HBO Offered The Game Of Thrones Creators A Chance To Have More Episodes In The Final Season But They Declined Makes Me Sad
(Source)- In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the showrunners revealed that HBO was prepared to give them the resources they needed financially to pull of the final season — and would have happily paid for more.
“Yes. To their credit, they put their money where their mouths are — literally stuffed their mouth full of million-dollar bills which don’t exist anymore,” Weiss said regarding previous comments that they had considered doing the final season as movies. “They said, ‘We’ll give you the resources to make this what it needs to be, and if what it needs to be is a summer tentpole-size spectacle in places, then that’s what it will be.'”
“HBO would have been happy for the show to keep going, to have more episodes in the final season,” Benioff said. “We always believed it was about 73 hours, and it will be roughly that. As much as they wanted more, they understood that this is where the story ends.”
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So this little fun fact has been making its way around the internet the last few days even though the quote was from about a month ago. But it doesn’t make me any less sad. Anybody who has a Twitter account knows just how divisive the final Game of Thrones season has been. People demanding deeper character development, timelines to make sense again, better payoffs to storylines that took years to develop, and things like coffee cups as well as hands that were severed years ago to not to be in frame. It’s become a civil war of sorts with the Thrones Stans saying everything is great, the people that miss the old Thrones saying everything sucks, and a horde of people in the middle yelling at both sides for leaning way too much in their respective direction as the Rotten Tomatoes arc for this season continues to look like M. Night Shlyamalan’s first 5 movies.
Sidenote: I’m not a big critics guy and don’t take review scores as the be all, end all. But there is no fucking way the last 2 episodes were the worst 2 episodes of the season
The one thing that kept me sane through all this was that there was really no way for the Thrones we knew and loved from the first seven seasons to wrap up neatly in only 6 episodes, regardless of how many supersized 80 minute episodes there were (You can make a case to include the 7 episodes from Season 7 if you felt that was rushed too). Maybe it’s the Mets fan in me trying to see the bright side of life instead of being bummed about the reality of life. But the Thrones we knew and loved is gone and it’s not coming back. Whether that’s because the books were never finished or because the showrunners didn’t want more time is irrelevant. I’ve lowered my expectations of a show that’s in my Mount Rushmore that is already being graded on a curve because of how awesome it has been and the result is I enjoyed last night’s episode despite some fair criticisms. Does that make me a bitch for settling for an inferior product instead of demanding the excellence of years past? Maybe. But anyone that knows me knows that I am a HUGE bitch and as a fan of shitty teams, I’ve become used to settling for an inferior product like a broken Reek. Hell, the only reason I am married is because my wife settled for an inferior product of a man. Shit, this got really personal really fast.
Anyway, last week I compared successfully landing the ending of a show with the size and depth of Thrones in 6 episodes after a 2 year wait was like trying to parallel park a monster truck into a spot reserved for compact cars as a bunch of angry New Yorkers honk at you and I still think that holds up. However the difference is now that the people in the spots you were looking to park offered to move their cars to make things easier for you and the driver just said “Nah, I’m good”. Benioff and Weiss may have waved off HBO because they truly thought only 6 episodes was enough to seamlessly wrap up the biggest and deepest show I have ever seen, they were ready to move on, 73 is their lucky number (kinda weird but those guys aren’t exactly normal) or they were just tired of doing the show. I would think/hope that if your company offers you all the time and money you will need to finish a first ballot Hall of Fame show beloved by millions, you would take it. But I am also a smut blogger and not a showrunner for a first ballot Hall of Fame TV show.
No matter the reason, it looks like they were wrong which means our favorite show and Twitter timelines are suffering for it. If you have a problem with any of the actual story, you can pin that on George R.R. Martin since I think he had to tell B&W how the books were all going to play out in order to get the giant check from HBO. But if you have a problem with the way the story has played out due to the time constraints place on the show, you can direct all your anger towards the guys that no longer have the rich source material of the books and didn’t want to take the time that probably was necessary to park that monster truck without any extra help. They may actually deserve the outrage. I’m just going to watch the series finale in my happy little idiot bubble and hope for the best while also watching last night’s incredible spectacle and not worry about all the intricacies that made this show the potential GOAT. And I’m also going to read listen to the books so I can get the full story if when George actually finishes them.
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For more Thrones talk, we were joined by KenJac on last night’s Game of Stools to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of last night’s episode. Subscribe on iTunes or listen on Spotify.