Could it have been better? ‘Game Of Thrones’ director defends controversial season 8

Who is “to blame” for why the eighth season of “Game Of Thrones” is so bad according to many fans? And could it have been better? These are questions that have been discussed time and time again since the fantasy hit ended – there are even repeated calls that Season 8 should simply be re-shot. Things may have calmed down a bit now, after all, the successful spin-off ‘House Of The Dragon’ has reconciled many fans with the franchise. But the questions remain…

…and are repeatedly asked of those involved in the series. The director does that too Matt Shakman, who directed two episodes of the seventh season of “Game Of Thrones”, “Spoils of War” and “Ostwacht”. He wasn’t in the director’s chair for Season 8, but he continued to follow the series and eventually became very familiar with the production processes – and was introduced to showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss.

“Brilliant” showrunners?

It is these two that many fans place the main blame for the series becoming increasingly worse, as it went beyond George RR Martin’s books and ultimately ended disastrously in the eyes of many – FILMSTARTS editor Stefan Geisler also mourns. To this day I still think about the messed up finale. But director Matt Shakman thinks the showrunners are ‘brilliant’.

Shakman met the magazine for the interview to talk about his new series “Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters” – but of course the topic of “Game Of Thrones” also came up in the conversation. When asked if he had an opinion on the controversial eighth season, he initially let out a long “Nooooo,” likely suggesting it wasn’t the first time he’d heard the question. Then he defended himself:

“I think these guys [Benioff und Weiss] are brilliant and I think they finished the story exactly as they intended. I know opinions are divided, but I would never want to say anything about how they could have done something better.”

Stream Matt Shakman’s new series “Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters” now.

By the way, ‘Game Of Thrones’ is not the only (largely) acclaimed cult series that Matt Shakman has worked on. He was also involved in the HBO prestige project ‘Succession’. He directed the entire MCU series “WandaVision” and went on to shoot episodes for “Welcome to Chippendales” and “The Consultant.” The Godzilla series “Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters” is the latest project he has worked on – You can currently stream the fantasy series on Apple TV+.