Game of Thrones seasons 6 to 8 have received the Honest Trailers treatment. The HBO juggernaut came to an end this year, but the final run of episodes were far from well-received and earned the show some of its worst reviews ever. While most people agreed that the show's production values and spectacle had never been more impressive (when they were visible, anyway), the consensus was that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss got sloppy with their writing as they brought the series' many storylines to a close. And while others felt that the backlash went too far, they didn't necessarily disagree with the overarching criticisms either.
Of course, this all made Game of Thrones final season(s) a ripe target for humorous satire, and the Internet has been more than happy to oblige. In addition to the various memes inspired by season 8, there has been all manner of video and printed essays published that use comedy to point out the show's issues and problems in its final six episodes specifically. Now, Screen Junkies is joining in the fun.
After releasing a pair of videos to cover seasons 1 to 5, Screen Junkies has released a final Game of Thrones Honest Trailer that takes on the last three seasons at once. You can check it out in the space below.
As the Honest Trailer points out, Game of Thrones' storytelling changed significantly once the show eclipsed George R.R. Martin's published A Song of Ice and Fire books at the beginning of season 6. Where the first five seasons were meticulous (sometimes too much so) in the way they drew from Martin's novels to develop character arcs and plot threads, the last three seasons had little more than a outline to work from and began to increasingly rush the story along. By the time that season 8 was over, the show had abandoned many of the big concepts that it introduced along the way (like the true extent of Bran's powers) and failed to do anything of substance with other key plot points (like the Night King's backstory and Jon Snow's true heritage). Meanwhile, the TV series' characters went from being three-dimensional people to devices whose actions increasingly made less sense and came across more like a means to get the overarching narrative to a specific place.
Part of the reason Game of Thrones' final seasons were so frustrating is because, on paper, a lot of the broader narrative strokes arguably sound fine. However, because the show didn't take enough time to really flesh its ideas out (again, see the lack of finished books to draw from) and kept hurrying to reach the finish line faster instead, its storytelling came off feeling half-baked at best. It's a shame too; the series' direction and performances were stronger than ever, and a good deal of work went into making season 8 look especially epic, but the whole thing rang hollow in the end. Hopefully, the currently-filming prequel show will learn from its predecessor's mistakes.
Source: Screen Junkies