How necessary is a ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel, really?
The seventh season of “Game of Thrones” is deep into production in Northern Ireland, and all expectations at present are that this is going to be the biggest, most epic season of the show to date — which is saying something impressive given that technically, the folks associated with the show are having to take more of a less-is-more attitude than ever before. There are only seven episodes to air this summer, and then a final season containing basically however many episodes executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss need in order to end the story. Maybe it’s seven, maybe it’s six, or maybe it is more than that and we all do cartwheels in the street.
No matter what, there is zero question at this point that a prequel / sequel will be discussed at length. It’s already happening, and not just among the media and in members of the fan community — while at the TCA Winter Press Tour, HBO programming head Casey Bloys said the following on the subject to Variety:
“All I can say is that we’re exploring it. We don’t have any scripts, we’re not even close to saying, ‘Oh, let’s do this.’ But it’s a big enough property that we would be foolish not to explore it,” he said. “It’s a really rich world. We’d be foolish not to look at it.”
There is absolutely nothing that is either or wrong or ridiculous about what Bloys is saying within this context. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of it makes a great degree of sense! Let’s compare this to Cadbury eggs, mostly because we’re writing this article while being hungry and that is probably a mistake. If they had just continued to make the same eggs forever, everyone would’ve been happy; yet, they saw an opportunity to try out a few other things, including the ones with the chocolate fondant and the caramel inside. They took a risk, and it worked! We’re sure that they’ve also done some terrible risks that have bombed out completely, and it’s hard to speak of those here because we haven’t heard of them before now.
It makes sense for “Game of Thrones” to have companions, and for HBO to examine potential ones closely — but the one thing that is different than this situation and a chocolate egg is rather simple. If the first one they put out there fails, it’s not so easy to simply chalk this one up to a bad experiment and go make another. With every major television product, you’re staking the future of your brand. Not everyone gets a “Star Wars” or something that you can get a do-over on when you throw out “Attack of the Clones.” If the show comes up with a great idea, go for it — there are some excellent stories like Robert’s Rebellion that could be explored, or something that is so far in the past for Westeros that the characters are barely mentioned. We’re also not so bent out of shape over the sequel idea, but we understand at the same time that at the end of the series proper, you probably do want to leave with the illusion of peace for a little while. It may not actually be the case, but that false sense of security for happy endings is what many of us who love TV use to get by.
Do you think that there should be any urgency for there to be a “Game of Thrones” prequel / sequel once the original show ends, or can we just sit back and relax for a while? Share below, and head over here to get some further news right now when it comes to the show. (Photo: HBO.)