It was supposed to be a massive accomplishment for HBO and the Game of Thrones team, but season 8 was instead a huge disappointment. For the hundredth time, it wasn’t the final destination that bummed everyone out, but the road that got us there. Showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff were heavily criticized for the final six episodes, and the finale is the worst-rated episode in Thrones history.
The scripts were often rushed, forgoing logic and common sense, with D&D choosing to subvert expectations rather than deliver the final season fans wanted. Fans did not forgive them, and they were quick to Google bomb the showrunners — just search for bad writers and see what happens. Others started a petition asking for HBO to remake the final season with better writers, with more than 1,750,000 people having signed it since May.
Benioff and Weiss have avoided speaking publicly about season 8 since it aired. They even canceled their Comic-Con appearance, and haven’t really had anything to say since the Emmys. But the two just appeared at the Austin Film Festival, where they essentially confirmed that they are bad writers.
Twitter user @ForArya live-tweeted most of the panel that Benioff and Weiss attended, where they casually revealed details about how inexperienced they were when pitching and making Game of Thrones.
Pitching Game of Thrones was challenging:
They are describing their pitch and how nervous they were. They pitched to Carolyn Strauss who has a reputation of being a tough pitch. They were very nervous “because of how bad we wanted.”
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
David is describing the pre-meeting with GRRM who was questioning their bona fides and “we didn’t really have any.” We had never done TV and we didn’t have any. We don’t know why he trusted us with his life’s work.”
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
She ended up leaving the show to write that. Q re: how do you pitch a show this big and they said it was basically a con job to HBO and how big it would get bc they bet on the HBO execs not reading 5000 pages of ASOIAF.
The pitch was impossible to pitch the whole story.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
They decided to pitch the pilot, and not the series, in a way that was understandable to folks they were pitching. Then they did a vague overview of the series, with not a lot of details.
“There was no good way to summarize the story. So we didn’t.”
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
The pilot was terrible, and HBO had to fix it:
They talking about the pilot and their friends who they let watch their first attempt at a pilot. One of the people was Craig Mazin (wrote Chernobyl) Scott Frank and Ted Griffin. He acknowledged that the first pilot was basic writing mistakes.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
They acknowledge that they have no idea why after such a dismal pilot why they went forward. “Everything we could make a mistake in, we did.” Script, casting, costume.
They think HBO went forward bc they had a lot of foreign pre-sales on the series.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Two months before the pilot was to air, the episodes were averaging 39 minutes and HBO made then write and film 100 minutes of scenes to meet their contractual obligations. For example, they added a scene with Robert and Cersei – and realized that there was no scene with them.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
The moderator is asking them about their comments acknowledging they didn’t understand the characters, and the extra minutes helped them understand the characters better. 😳
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
“The two of us and Miguel spent a lot of time together.” They talked with him about the shots always being from someone’s POV, so it didn’t feel like a video game.
S1 we wanted to have a battle but we ran out of money. (The extra 100 minutes.) Thus the drinking game scene.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Game of Thrones was film school for them, but they weren’t great students:
Dan is saying that #GameofThrones was basically an expensive film school for he and Dave. For example, they had no idea how to work with costume designers, and it was a huge learning experience.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
The moderator asked why they chose to write all the episodes by themselves: “Because we didn’t know better.” David said HBO wanted them to hire other writers and they decided to have Bryan Cogman, their assistant, write four episodes.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
They used every season as a learning experience. The CGI of the dragons was particularly challenging. They said by season 4 that Miguel was doing night shoots they had decided no one would miss them if they backed away.
*battle of winterfell took 10 straight weeks
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Why did the battles get better? “We kept our core crew together.”
They had same stunt teams, same people who did the blood scenes in S02 did the ones in S07. They get better and better as we did.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
As for feedback from fans, they didn’t see any value in listening to them:
They are expressing regret about putting the baby on the block of ice and him screaming. The mother was not happy bc Dan just kept talking about a close-up of the baby’s penis.
*They are very granular in details of shots, admitting losing sight of the big picture.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
And they failed to grasp the scope of the books:
Did you really sit down and try to boil the elements of the books down? Did you really try to understand it’s major elements.
No. We didn’t. The scope was too big. It was about the scenes we were trying to depict and the show was about power.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Essentially, they kept telling the audience they’re bad writers:
The moderator is asking them about their comments acknowledging they didn’t understand the characters, and the extra minutes helped them understand the characters better. 😳
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Dan is saying that he let the actors redefined the roles, esp Maisie and they began writing for the actors, it is like the actor moved into the “house” and redecorated. He said he learned about the characters from the actors.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Dan wanted to remove as many fantasy elements as possible bc “we didn’t just want to appeal to that type of fan.” They wanted to expand the fan base to people beyond the fantasy fan base to “mothers, NFL players”…
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
She is asking about the violence. David: “TBH we went too far with some of those.”
He comments on the jousting scene with the Mountain and how when they killed Sir Hugh, that it was in the scene too long. He compares it to Ozark’s Jason Bateman’s toenail being ripped out.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
When we pitched HBO, we promised them that we would downplay the fantasy elements. (Paraphrase)
She is challenging the fact of how the Night King and the White Walkers and how it played out.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
They are expressing regret about putting the baby on the block of ice and him screaming. The mother was not happy bc Dan just kept talking about a close-up of the baby’s penis.
*They are very granular in details of shots, admitting losing sight of the big picture.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Dab is saying how much they loved the books, but they had to make it their own. They have stressed several times about giving up 10 years of their life.
They reference David Chase and the Sopranos and how he said this was all such a blur.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
And yet they refused to seek help:
What was your process?
We just started writing. But as things went on we had to outline. Divvied up scripts. They didn’t work together in the same room. One took first half, the other the last half, then they would swap. They gave episodes to Bryan Cogman and David Hill.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
They asked about not including women and POC in the writers room.
They didn’t have a writers room and there was one woman who wrote a few scenes. They decided up front it was going to be the two of them. David Hill is of Asian descent.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
He said that they wouldn’t hire writers unless they were willing to be part of the production team.
(Vanessa wrote the Shape of Water.)
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
She ended up leaving the show to write that. Q re: how do you pitch a show this big and they said it was basically a con job to HBO and how big it would get bc they bet on the HBO execs not reading 5000 pages of ASOIAF.
The pitch was impossible to pitch the whole story.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Making the show was either too energy- and time-consuming for them, or just a drunk party?
Dab is saying how much they loved the books, but they had to make it their own. They have stressed several times about giving up 10 years of their life.
They reference David Chase and the Sopranos and how he said this was all such a blur.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Dan: “it was like a ten year drunk party.”
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Q&A: how did you have a life – keep families going, etc.
We loved our Game of Thrines family. But it was very hard. Our kids and wives became best friends and it felt like a big family.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
“It’s hard to complain about how hard we were working when you see a set painter,” Dan.
— Needle & Pen – Yeah, *that* Game of Thrones Thread (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Going forward, Benioff and Weiss will continue to work on their Netflix shows and the Star Wars franchise, but fans will never forget the final season of Game of Thrones.
