Skip to main content

Dragonfire, explosions fill new ‘Game of Thrones’ special effects feature

Inside Game of Thrones: A Story in Special Effects (HBO)
The seventh — and penultimate — season of HBO’s Game of Thrones premieres in July, but the network is doing a good job of keeping anticipation high for the return of the hit series based on George R.R. Martin’s fantasy novels.

The latest buzz-generating video is a featurette that puts the spotlight on the special effects that helped keep the series exciting for the last six seasons — and will likely continue to do so in its final two story arcs.

Titled “Inside Game of Thrones: A Story in Special Effects,” the 100-minute video goes behind the scenes for an insider’s look at how some of the key special-effects sequences were created. The show’s special effects supervisor, Sam Conway, also offers some commentary on his own inspirations for the show’s special effects and how those effects — whether they involve fire, ice, blood, or countless other elements — contribute to the tapestry that is Game of Thrones.

The sequences involving dragons get particular attention in the video, which seems appropriate given how active of a role they’re likely to play in the show’s final seasons.

The upcoming seventh season finds war looming ever closer as competing factions vie for control of the Iron Throne. The army of Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) and her dragons are en route to Westeros, while Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) assumes control of the Seven Kingdoms. Meanwhile, an even greater threat masses in the north, in the form of the terrifying Night King and his White Walkers.

Game of Thrones is based on Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels, and has received 110 Primetime Emmy Award nominations over the course of its first six seasons, and taken home an Emmy 38 times. Of the six times the series has been nominated in the “Outstanding Special Visual Effects” category, it’s won the award five times.

The seventh season of Game of Thrones premieres July 16 on HBO.

Editors' Recommendations

Rick Marshall
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
Star Wars’ distant past has potential for Game of Thrones-like drama
A collage of characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic promo art.

While pondering yet another big IP Disney+ series can seem like an exhaustive thought considering its current breakneck output, Andor's critical success for both the streaming platform and the Star Wars franchise as a whole gives a taste of the potential that the Old Republic could provide to a TV series. That's in addition to the benefit of being heavily separated from the Skywalker Saga legacy.

No series needs to be darker and more serious to be inherently better, but the level of tension and drama found in Cassian Andor's gritty origin story should be a seamless fit somewhere within the literal thousands of years worth of history in Star Wars' distant past. In the Old Republic, there's no shortage of Jedi, Sith, intergalactic factions, political intrigue, and more that could give Disney+ and Lucasfilm a major and long-running Game of Thrones-level drama to keep audiences reeled in season in and season out.
The Old Republic provides an embarrassment of riches

Read more
This new AMD feature can boost your games with one click
A man playing games on the computer, wearing a headset.

It's not just AMD RDNA 3 that's new and coming soon courtesy of Team Red. AMD has also announced other new tech, including Hypr-RX, a quick solution that could boost your PC's gaming performance without a hassle.

AMD is also bringing its Advantage program to desktops, meaning that buying a top-notch prebuilt PC with AMD hardware is going to be easier than it was before.

Read more
How House of the Dragon saved Game of Thrones’ tarnished legacy
Alicent and Rhaenyra clutch each other in House of the Dragon.

May 19, 2019, is a date branded on the pop culture lexicon. The finale to Game of Thrones, the television phenomenon that single-handedly revitalized the fantasy genre and redefined what "event television" meant, aired to the collective disappointment of millions of fans. The show's decline in quality had begun in season 7, with some questionable choices happening as far back as season 5, but the train wreck that was season 8 was beyond words. Consistency went out the window in favor of spectacle, resulting in a rushed season that reduced the world's greatest TV show into a sad shadow of its former self.

The controversial finale put a seemingly permanent stain on Game of Thrones. In the years leading up to its conclusion, HBO expressed interest in creating a franchise based around George R. R. Martin's World of Ice and Fire. However, the episode's terrible reception put the network's plan in doubt, with many wondering if the Game of Thrones brand was in a healthy enough place to support a franchise. Things got worse when the first spinoff, starring Naomi Watts, got unceremoniously axed -- even after shooting a $30 million pilot -- spelling doom for the would-be franchise. Alas, not all was lost; GoT still had an ace up its sleeve, and it was called House Targaryen.
Mother of Dragons

Read more