For those who haven't been keeping up with news regarding Thor: The Dark World and hope to get another installment of a 'fish out of water' story based on a quirky romance, we've got some bad news. The Dark World is taking things purely medieval, with Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor at the helm to guarantee the warfare and culture is done justice.

At Disney's D23 Expo, Taylor explained just how much the two series share, and how those similarities ultimately helped land him the job.

Speaking with IGN at the D23 Expo this week, Taylor explained that the similarities between Thor and Thrones go much deeper than just sword combat and mystical enemies. At the heart of each is a story fans can relate to, and that's mainly thanks to the previous film's director:

"Well in both cases, it's using the conceit of a fantastical, alien world to make fresh what is really a domestic drama. In Game of Thrones, seeing Tyrion battle with his sister Cirsei, seeing the relationship between children and their fathers, it's all stuff that we can relate to. You know, the oldest stories we tell, it's all about that stuff. It's all the stuff we're interested in at a psychological level because we're living it all the time. But it takes place in this otherwise fantastical, foreign realm.

"I think the same thing is true in Thor. The brilliant thing that Ken Branagh did in launching it was to make it very much a story about two brothers, a story about brother competing for the love of their father. So it's small, and confined, and human, at the same time as it's this blown-out, intergalactic world."

The relationship between Thor and Loki has been a major topic of conversation in regards to The Dark World; not only because of Tom Hiddleston's popularity among fans, but the drama between the two that seems to be mingled with the film's plot from start to finish. And that's without even broaching the ongoing turmoil between Thor and Odin (Anthony Hopkins).

Given that those two plot lines seem ripe for exploration - along with the love triangle between Thor, Jane and Lady Sif (Natalie Portman and Jaimie Alexander, respectively) - it would be hard to find another director so acclimatized to the intricacies of familial strife - or one who had garnered as much attention from Marvel for that very reason.

Thor 2 Chris Hemsworth and Alan Taylor

With the lines between feature films and premium television production blurring more and more each year, Taylor's experience with Thrones wasn't just a major reason he felt capable of taking on the Herculean task of helming a Marvel movie, but what revealed to him that both he and Marvel were in agreement on where the franchise needed to head:

"I think that's why I wasn't that intimidated by the prospect of actually making it. It's also clearly the only reason why I got the job, because it turns out that Kevin Feige was a big fan of Game of Thrones. So I could come in with a kind of mandate to bring some of that to this world. It was what I wanted to do, and they sort of, just by bringing me in, they kind of signed off on that idea.

"I had to miss Season 3 entirely. I had to miss 'the Red Wedding,' which I was so looking forward to. It looks like I'm going to miss Season 4 because of this phase, bringing [The Dark World] out to the world is going to take up some time. But I hope to get back there before they kill off all of my favorite people."

That's certainly bad news for Thrones fans who feel Taylor's direction was a high point for the series, but even more reason to believe that gritty, grounded Viking combat will be an integral part of The Dark World - assuming the most recent trailer didn't convince you.

Which part of The Dark World are you most looking forward to? Seeing some Thrones-level action, or drama? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

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Thor: The Dark World releases November 8, 2013.

Follow Andrew on Twitter @andrew_dyce.

Source: IGN