I'm loving this season of Game of Thrones. Really, I am. Each episode comes with a new revelation, a massive battle, or an anticipated reunion. That said, it hasn't all been perfect, and the severe compression of time with fewer episodes has jacked up some character motivations and made traveling between lands about as easy as stepping into a teleporter beam.
Last Sunday's episode, "Beyond The Wall", saw Alan Taylor (Terminator Genisys, Thor: The Dark World) return to Game of Thrones to direct the war between Jon Snow and his ragtag crew against the White Walkers. And while it was cool and had an amazing rescue sequence, that they were able to be rescued at all considering the distance they had traveled is pretty ridiculous. Taylor agrees, telling Variety that the timeline had to be messed with in order to work even as well as it did...
"We were aware that timing was getting a little hazy. We’ve got Gendry running back, ravens flying a certain distance, dragons having to fly back a certain distance…In terms of the emotional experience, [Jon and company] sort of spent one dark night on the island in terms of storytelling moments. We tried to hedge it a little bit with the eternal twilight up there north of The Wall. I think there was some effort to fudge the timeline a little bit by not declaring exactly how long we were there. I think that worked for some people, for other people it didn’t. They seemed to be very concerned about how fast a raven can fly but there’s a thing called plausible impossibilities, which is what you try to achieve, rather than impossible plausibilities. So I think we were straining plausibility a little bit, but I hope the story’s momentum carries over some of that stuff."
I'm glad Taylor is able to be honest about it, and it probably won't jack up the experience for every Game of Thrones viewer. But let's hope Benioff and Weiss can come up with a better way around this issue for the final season because I can't think of a lamer reason for it to suck. "They traveled too fast!"
