[imagesource: HBO]

Game of Thrones was one of the biggest series of the 2010s before they went and ruined it forever.

I will never forgive them for that ending.

I would have rewatched the series during the lockdown, but knowing what was coming, couldn’t bring myself to relive the disappointment.

The first episode, which had everyone hooked right from the start, wasn’t the episode originally intended for release. Instead, the studio had dropped $10 million on a pilot that was…not great.

It had to be completely redesigned, reshot, and in some cases, recast.

Here’s NewsAU with five ways that the original pilot could have completely bombed the series.

Daenerys’s wedding night with Khal Drogo was different in the pilot

In the first episode of Game of Thrones Dany is forced to marry Khal Drogo. The sex that follows isn’t exactly consensual.

According to Martin: “In the Emilia Clarke version, it’s rape. It’s not rape in my book, and it’s not rape in the scene as we filmed it with Tamzin Merchant (original actress cast as Daenerys). It’s a seduction.

In the original pilot, the sex scene took its cue from the book. Dany was into it.

Then there’s the horse:

Martin also shared that the silver filly that Khal Drogo gifts Dany had a bigger part to, er, play in the original pilot. However, the horse struggled to leap over a bonfire and during the sex scene, the “meant to be female” horse got an erection.

Awkward.

Yep, Dany wasn’t supposed to be played by Emilia Clarke

Tamzin Merchant (below) was supposed to take on the role of the Mother of Dragons, but a few things led to a recasting.

HBO execs weren’t too keen on her after the pilot.

Then HBO president Michael Lombardo told Hibberd: “There was a piece of casting we had to rethink, (a role) that was compromised. We all knew Daenerys’s journey was critical. Her scenes with Jason (Momoa) just didn’t work.”

Momoa said everything was fine, but that things really clicked into place when Clarke stepped in.

Rickon Stark was almost removed entirely

I can’t remember who Rickon Stark is, but one of the changes that the show’s creators wanted to make was eliminating him.

“The biggest thing was Dan and David called me up and had the idea of eliminating Rickon, the youngest of the Stark children, because he didn’t do much in the first book. I said I had important plans for him, so they kept him,” Martin said.

Whatever those big plans were, they clearly passed me by.

Everyone in the pilot needed a makeover

Hair, costumes, everything was changed when the second pilot was filmed. Apparently the original felt like cosplay.

“I looked like a Vegas showgirl in the (original) pilot – furs and massive hair, like a medieval Dolly Parton,” Lena Headey said of her character, Cersei Lannister. “Not that I’m complaining, I loved it. My hair devolved.”

Yeah, that’s not the Cersei we know and hate.

Joffrey Baratheon, played by Jack Gleeson, originally had a bowl cut. And Viserys’ wig was completely different. Actor Harry Lloyd, who played Viserys in the first season, said, “I had a different wig. It was titanium and silver, and it was shorter and a bob. Looking back, it was a mistake. There were consultations: ‘I’m not like Draco Malfoy, I’m not like Legolas … How do we do this?”

They lost me at ‘bowl cut’.

The pilot is so bad that George R.R. Martin is under penalty of death if he ever shows it to anyone.

I’ll let the man himself explain why he didn’t think that the first pilot was a bad idea.

“I liked the pilot,” Martin said. “I realised later that I was a poor person to judge because I was too close to it. Some didn’t know Jaime and Cersei were brother and sister. Well that wasn’t a problem for me!

“My great familiarity with the material made it hard for me to objectively judge. I liked that they kept a considerable level of complexity.”

After that appalling ending, who would have guessed that it could have been so much worse?

[source:newsau]