Game Of Thrones’ Final Battle Is Bigger Than Helm’s Deep In Lord Of The Rings

All roads lead to this.

The eighth and final season of HBO’s Game of Thrones is almost here now and it promises to deliver a spectacle the likes of which we’ve never seen. Details are being kept tightly under lock and key but from what we’ve heard, bigger budgets have led to more epic set pieces and apparently, the final battle in particular is going to be something truly astonishing.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, director Miguel Sapochnik explained that it took 11 straight weeks to shoot and is set to be the “biggest action sequence ever seen on television.” Not only that, but it could also be the biggest battle in the history of entertainment as well, even topping what we saw during the Helm’s Deep sequence in The Lord of the Rings.

“When preparing for the shoot, Sapochnik tried to find a longer battle sequence in cinema history and couldn’t. The closest was the nearly 40-minute Helm’s Deep siege in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” writes EW.

When asked how he approached such a monumental undertaking, the director said that he kept one important question in the back of his mind throughout it all, explaining:

“It feels like the only way to really approach it properly is take every sequence and ask yourself: ‘Why would I care to keep watching?’” Sapchnick said. “One thing I found is the less action — the less fighting — you can have in a sequence, the better.”

“Also, the [GoT battles] I’ve done previously were generally from Jon’s perspective. Here I’ve got 20-some cast members and everyone would like it to be their scene. That’s complicated because I find the best battle sequences are when you have a strong point of view. I keep thinking: ‘Whose story am I telling right now?’”

Of course, with an expanded budget comes not only bigger battle sequences, but also longer episodes, which will no doubt give the showrunners the space to tell the story they want with the rhythms and pacing they need. All things considered, then, it appears as if Game of Thrones fans are in for a season unlike any other, and it all begins next month, on April 14th.