Former Game of Thrones Director Agrees With Fan Backlash That Final Season Felt “Really Rushed”

The final season of Game of Thrones resulted in a passionate and conflicted response from fans, in both its narrative reveals and in its filmmaking craft, with Neil Marshall, who has directed some of the most memorable episodes of the series, siding with the fans who were disappointed with the series’ ending. The filmmaker noted that co-creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have both proven themselves to be master storytellers, but, had he the opportunity to take his own creative liberties with some of the more controversial episodes, he would have utilized all the knowledge he had earned while crafting action-packed installments of the show.

“It’s very difficult to second guess those guys because they are geniuses and they have done such an amazing job,” Marshall shared with Metro. “Inevitably, I would’ve taken a different approach to directing. One of the greatest experiences I had with working on both those episodes was that they were so open to bringing my ideas, particularly about battle scenes and how battles worked.”

He added, “I would’ve definitely added my strategy and knowledge to that.”

Marshall directed Season Two’s “Blackwater” and Season Four’s “The Watchers on the Wall,” two episodes known for their epic and exciting action. While Marshall might not have taken issue with the technical elements of the final season, he was disappointed in how the final pieces of the puzzle came together.

“I kind of agree with a lot of the criticism that it was really rushed,” Marshall pointed out. “Everyone ended up where they were meant to end up but they got there in a little bit of a rush in the end.”

On the technical end, fans complained that some of the biggest battles of the final season were poorly lit, making it difficult to discern the chaos unfolding, though one of the series’ visual effects supervisors previously detailed his experience of the final season was a lot different.

“I actually was fortunate enough to go to a cast and crew screening in L.A. at the Mann’s Chinese Theater for episode three,” Martin Hill previously revealed to ComicBook.com. “And when we saw it there, it didn’t look too dark at all, and it looked really great. And the reaction from the cast and crew when the Dothraki light up in that big wave, the shot we did, people just started screaming, and it was just this terrific feeling. So yeah, I don’t know, maybe there was something not quite right with the compression settings on the streaming services or something. I had a look at it again. It did seem a little darker on the TV.”

There are currently multiple Game of Thrones spinoffs being developed.

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