In place of the last 13 episodes of the final two seasons, imagine seeing Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen’s legendary song of ice and fire come to an explosive end while snacking on popcorn in front of a giant IMAX screen. If David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had gotten their way, that’s exactly how we would’ve experienced major events from “Game of Thrones” like the Army of the Dead smashing through the ice Wall or Dany massacring King’s Landing from atop her deadly dragon (or everyone’s favorite character Bran the Broken being crowned the new King).
It’s a fun glimpse into an alternate reality that, ultimately, may or may not have made the ultimate reception to “Game of Thrones” any better in the long run. The primary complaint, if you remember, had to do with the series suddenly shifting into overdrive and rushing through major developments that once might’ve taken several episodes (or even seasons) to unfold. Does anyone really think that splitting 13 episodes from seasons 7 and 8 into a trilogy of two- or three-hour movies each would’ve improved anything? Not to mention that, from a business point of view, HBO would’ve had to make the unprecedented move of distributing the movies in theaters and figuring out exactly how those box office receipts would be parceled out — not just to theaters and the network itself, but the contract renegotiations for the cast alone would’ve had agents and lawyers alike licking their lips over the profits to be made.
We’ll never know how an enterprise of that level of ambition might’ve played out, but that’s just one more log to add atop the “Game of Thrones” discourse fire.