Game of Thrones (2011)

Written by Filipe Manuel Neto on December 25, 2023

A series so massive and absorbing that it seems small on television.

What can we say about a television series that everyone has said everything about and that, over almost a decade, has collected almost every award it could win? Nothing special. Only that he fully deserved all the awards and public esteem he acquired. Each season deserved, in itself, its own review, but I feel that there is no point in adding more than this small text about the overall work done. Almost everyone has seen the series, and the praise is known to everyone.

The numbers behind this series are overwhelming. With each episode costing millions of dollars to make, a luxurious cast and a script so complex that it requires the public's full attention, we are faced with a work that seems worthy of the cinema and is better than many large-production films we have already seen. . The story told is based on the epic fantasy books written by George R. R. Martin, who actively collaborated on the series and is one of those most responsible for the script, heavily inspired by loose pieces of medieval European history. About this, it is necessary to understand one thing: despite the inspirations and violence and rivalries that were in fact common in medieval times, at no point does the series try to be a portrait of medieval Europe, it is absolutely fiction and should be seen that way : For example, the series pays some attention to heraldry and the genealogy of noble families, but very few heraldic shields were made according to the simpler rules of true heraldry.

The production and visual effects of the series are one of its strong points: the episodes are so good and impactful that it is difficult to imagine how anything better could be done. All the technology used is state of the art today, and no savings were made in the resources made available to creators. Filming took place across Europe, from Ireland to Spain, passing through Morocco, England and Croatia, taking advantage of the best of locations that, in themselves, are entirely worth a visit for any tourist. The sets could not have been designed with greater attention to detail, and the same can be said of the luxurious costumes for the main cast and thousands of extras. The photography, the filming, the editing, everything was thought out on a large scale. The soundtrack, based on the main song and some other magnificent melodies, is one of the best I've ever seen on a television program.

The actors are immense throughout the eight seasons, and we can hardly say anything negative about any of them. We may disagree with the choices in the script, with the way the characters were developed, but the actors were completely up to these challenges and managed them wonderfully. We can also criticize, with some fairness, the graphic brutality of certain scenes, the excessive nudity and the abuse of the sex scenes. This is the negative criticism with which I tend to agree most easily, not least because I don't see anything in these scenes that would be indispensable to the plot in most cases (I would highlight, as one of the exceptions, Cersei's nudity during her punishing walk through the streets of King's Landing).

On a positive note, I would highlight the impeccable effort of Peter Dinklage, Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster Waldau, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Alfie Allen, Isaac Hempstead Wright and Rory McCann. Not only did they play incredibly well, they gave their characters the dramatic and psychological evolution they needed. It is also fair to congratulate Sean Bean, Kit Harington, John Bradley, Conleth Hill, Aidan Gillen, Carice van Houten, Charles Dance, Natalie Dormer and Jack Gleeson, who had much more stable and fixed characters in their hands. Some were more cliché (the case of crazy King Joffrey), but each actor deserves praise.