POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD FOR GAME OF THRONES SEASON 8 EPISODE 3!
YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!
So the Battle of Winterfell on the latest episode of Game of Thrones was something, ay?
While Arya delivering the final blow on the Night King was the big highlight in “The Long Night”, it wasn’t enough to distract from the main episode’s main problem: everything was just too damn dark.
I watched it twice and could barely make out a single frigging thing. In fact, the only things I could properly see with some clarity was Bran doing his Bran thing and when Melisandre worked her crazy fire magic as it gave my eyes some blessed relief to all the darkness.
In response to the many, many gripes about the episode’s lack of lighting, the cinematographer has spoken up about it and boy did he give us all a piss poor explanation.
Gonna need a lot more wine to get through this.
In a chat with TMZ, GoT cinematographer Fabian Wagner says the reason y’all thought the episode was too dark is because everyone was watching on mobile devices and TVs while in a room that’s too bright instead of in a dark cinema as he intended.
In other words, if you thought “The Long Night” was too dark, you’re watching it wrong and its your fault you’re watching it on your plebby devices and TVs instead of your own private movie cinema.
Now Fabian doesn’t heap all the blame on the viewer’s shoulders as he also gives some to HBO for compressing the episode before airing, which resulted in lower quality than intended.
Okay, maybe the quality was impacted with HBO’s compression of the episode but surely there were talks behind the scenes on bringing having more light? Well actually no.
The cinematographer explains that “The Long Night” came out exactly as planned as the battle scenes were intended to be “intense, claustrophobic, and disorientating” before proudly claiming that he knows the episode wasn’t “too dark” because he “shot it”.
Your explanation disappoints your Khaleesi.
Bold strategy there from Fabian to pin the problem on the paying customers and his bosses rather than admit fault on his or the colourist’s behalf. Gotta also give him credit for the balls he had when he blew smoke up his own ass afterwards as well. Let’s see if this pays off for him.
With an explanation like that, it’s probably no coincidence that Fabian and his work wasn’t featured in the behind-the-scenes feature that was released shortly after “The Long Night” aired. They probably didn’t have a cinema-sized room big or dark enough for his ego to fit or they’re saving it as a DVD special once all this blows over.
