Game of Thrones was a well-liked shown for most of its run, with the backlash kicking in only towards the end of the show. Most of this criticism went towards the showrunners and creators of the show, David Benioff and Dan Weiss. The quality of writing declined, and while some thought the criticism was unfair, David and Dan might have just proved otherwise. Read on!
They recently did a panel at the Austin Film Festival revealing a lot of details about the show’s making that paints them as really incompetent showrunners, and the fans are shocked. Before we get into it, shoutout to Twitter user Needle & Pen (@ForArya) who attended the panel and tweeted out the details for the rest of us. Let’s take a look.
First off, they admitted to referring to online resources to aid their work, for the maps, because they were “geographically challenged”. That’s fair, but apparently that’s not all they referred to. The pair admitted to discovering Jason Momoa (Khal Drogo) in a fan casting:
David is also saying that he went to fan casting pages and that is how they found Jason Mamoa.
— Needle & Pen (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
They then discussed their early days with the concept, first off with their pitch to HBO, and then their meeting with George R. R. Martin:
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 (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Honestly, at this point, we don’t know either. They talked more about what a disaster the pilot was:
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 (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Dan went on to give us a metaphor about how bad they were at their job, and that HBO apparently had to push them into writing more scenes:
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 (@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 (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
They also revealed that they let the actors’ personalities shape the characters, and compromised on faithfulness to the source by removing fantasy elements, even more, to try and expand the appeal to beyond the typical fantasy fans. Then there was a revelation that makes no sense:
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 (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Dan also admitted that he did not care for fan feedback, while David was upset by it. Their writing process also seemed to have been very unorganised:
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 (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Dan: “it was like a ten year drunk party.”
— Needle & Pen (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
There was a bit of highlight on the diversity problem in there, too, which has been highlighted before.
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 (@ForArya) October 26, 2019
Now looking at this context, their whole run seems like a joke. A lot of the fans are really angry at this. They tweeted out their furious responses to the very baffling reveals that we got from David and Dan:
They wanted to remove as many fantasy elements as possible from fantasy books ?? Are they trolling ? I can’t believe this is real and not from an Onion article. jfc https://t.co/UYftSqfpl3
— Jak ❄️❄️ (@SoBanked) October 27, 2019
but that messes up the entire series … you can’t take away the fantasy elements from asoiaf and have it still make sense! it fucks up the entire plot https://t.co/Fg93oPTmeY
— lord snow (@wintersdracarys) October 26, 2019
Benioff & Weiss had no idea what they were doing. But they were still given a budget of $6 million per episode. Their pilot was terrible, they made constant mistakes *and they talk about it openly*. Tell me which woman writers in Hollywood have ever had this kind of privilege. https://t.co/5e8hyKfqi5
— Strix literally means witch 🦇🎃🧙🏼♀️ (@the_strix) October 27, 2019
This QandA is a masterclass in conning your way into making a fantasy tv and not bothering to know anything about it and removing the fantasy parts. Mediocre men failing upwards https://t.co/AYLkwbRpO6
— Caramel Dimples (@reubenzj) October 27, 2019
THIS whole thread on #GameOfThrones should piss everybody off. Unproven white guys got to play filmmaker. While proven POC and women artist continually gets ignored by HBO. https://t.co/wRZcM3L9jH
— K.D Williams🤦🏾♂️ (@kdwilliams) October 27, 2019
Didn’t. Have. A. WRITERS ROOM https://t.co/fms098mlSZ
— southernblackthot 🇵🇸 (@fkaLuna_) October 26, 2019
“it never occurred to us to let other people do things on our show, so we did everything ourselves, which meant we had no time to actually figure out what our show was about and where we were even going”
— fightme tuscadero (@entoncesallora) October 27, 2019
“You don’t have any black writers weighing in on how you write Grey Worm and Missandei” “well, we have one Asian writer we promoted up who wrote 3 episodes in the past 3 years”
— The Dragon Demands (@ADragonDemands) October 26, 2019
Welp. There’s no doubt that this Q&A is going to bring more hate to David and Dan than the show’s decline ever did. You might remember that David and Dan were supposed to appear at the San Diego Comic-Con 2019 panel for Thrones, but pulled out at the last moment. Makes sense now, doesn’t it?
What do you guys think? Talk to us in the comments, down below, and make sure you check out Needle & Pen (@ForArya) on Twitter for bringing this priceless content to the rest of the Game of Thrones fanbase!
