Game of Thrones director discusses speedy timeline

The director of the latest episode of Game of Thrones commented on the accelerated timeline of events in the show. Events have been moving at breakneck speed in the last season or so of Game of Thrones, as the epic saga hurtles towards its conclusion. This may have caused the writing and character development, something the show has been known for, to suffer in quality, sacrificed for the sake of speedier storytelling.

Case in point was the last episode, where Jon Snow and company trudge into the snowy north, encounter an army of undead, send a raven to Daenerys in Dragonstone, and she arrives in time to rescue them from their icy predicament.

Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World, Terminator: Genisys) who directed last Sunday’s penultimate episode of season seven, “Beyond the Wall”, spoke to Variety about this issue, saying:

“We were aware that timing was getting a little hazy. We’ve got Gendry running back, ravens flying a certain distance, dragons having to fly back a certain distance…In terms of the emotional experience, [Jon and company] sort of spent one dark night on the island in terms of storytelling moments. We tried to hedge it a little bit with the eternal twilight up there north of The Wall. I think there was some effort to fudge the timeline a little bit by not declaring exactly how long we were there. I think that worked for some people, for other people it didn’t. They seemed to be very concerned about how fast a raven can fly but there’s a thing called plausible impossibilities, which is what you try to achieve, rather than impossible plausibilities. So I think we were straining plausibility a little bit, but I hope the story’s momentum carries over some of that stuff.”

Many fans do feel like things have been moving a little too fast and I said as much in my review of the last episode. But with only a few more episodes left to wrap everything up (along with limited budgets), the pressure to compress everything is understandable. Nevertheless, the show never fails to deliver some truly impressive spectacles and imagery.

Don’t miss the Game of Thrones season seven finale on Sunday on HBO.