Well it did have 2 things against that. 3 major battles with special fx needed to be budgeted in, and the Showrunners were eager to be moving on to Star Wars, so weren't really keen on staying longer.

Did they say why there were only 6 episodes to Season 8?

Is there any talk or possibility for a Season 9?

@SoapWatch said:

Did they say why there were only 6 episodes to Season 8?

Is there any talk or possibility for a Season 9?

Season 8 was supposed to be part of season 7, but they ended up splitting the season. All we know is this was the choice of the showrunners. Though it's easy to guess it was probably due to budget concerns. They did have a number of fx battles with dragons including one with a ton of white walkers in season 7. As for why there were only 6 episodes in Season 8, well that was the choice of the showrunners as well (HBO gave them no stipulation), but since they announced that they'll be immediately taking on a new Star Wars trilogy, that probably had something to do with it (though budget concerns was likely the excuse).

Game of Thrones has ended. There will be no Season 9. There is a prequel series in the works though with a whole new creative team.

@mustard said:

The amount of story they were covering was too much for only 13 episodes. Imagine if the first 3 seasons of GoT were 13 episodes. Ned’s beheading episode 2, black water battle episode 7, Red wedding episode 13.

I wrote something similar in a recent post. If they wanted to go the "Mad Queen" route they totally needed at the very least season 7 and 8 to be complete seasons. I also heard that D&D were offered more episodes by HBO and they turned it down. I suspect it was because they wanted to use the budget money for a more spectacular ending but that is pure speculation on my part. However, I will agree that it felt too rushed and that skipping a year in between was moronic.

The Battles should have gone more along the route of the "Battle of Whispering Wood" than the "Battle of the Bastards"

https://www.vulture.com/article/game-of-thrones-battles-ranked.html

The strategy and tactics look mostly crap. Are they reminiscent of some online war-game?

@movie_nazi said:

@mustard said:

The amount of story they were covering was too much for only 13 episodes. Imagine if the first 3 seasons of GoT were 13 episodes. Ned’s beheading episode 2, black water battle episode 7, Red wedding episode 13.

I wrote something similar in a recent post. If they wanted to go the "Mad Queen" route they totally needed at the very least season 7 and 8 to be complete seasons. I also heard that D&D were offered more episodes by HBO and they turned it down. I suspect it was because they wanted to use the budget money for a more spectacular ending but that is pure speculation on my part. However, I will agree that it felt too rushed and that skipping a year in between was moronic.

Actually, all they needed to do to go the "Mad Queen" route was have Cersei kill Grey Worm during the battle at Kings Landing by having the guards set off the Wild Fire stash to blow up the city. The bells could have been the signal. All Cersei would have to say after being told all the scorpions were destroyed, was say "send the signal. Destroy the city". That would have been a great oh shit moment, and totally in character for Cersei, instead of her just staring out the window. Also that would have been the perfect last straw that would have caused Danny to go mad and destroy the castle and kill every citizen (men, women, and children) that was still in the courtyard. That would have still shocked Tyrion and Jon, and would have given Danny a real reason to be pissed. It wouldn't even have added more time to the episodes. Also, it would made killing Danny and the ending tie up cleaner (since Grey Worm would be out of the picture).

@Innovator said:

@movie_nazi said:

@mustard said:

The amount of story they were covering was too much for only 13 episodes. Imagine if the first 3 seasons of GoT were 13 episodes. Ned’s beheading episode 2, black water battle episode 7, Red wedding episode 13.

I wrote something similar in a recent post. If they wanted to go the "Mad Queen" route they totally needed at the very least season 7 and 8 to be complete seasons. I also heard that D&D were offered more episodes by HBO and they turned it down. I suspect it was because they wanted to use the budget money for a more spectacular ending but that is pure speculation on my part. However, I will agree that it felt too rushed and that skipping a year in between was moronic.

Actually, all they needed to do to go the "Mad Queen" route was have Cersei kill Grey Worm during the battle at Kings Landing by having the guards set off the Wild Fire stash to blow up the city. The bells could have been the signal. All Cersei would have to say after being told all the scorpions were destroyed, was say "send the signal. Destroy the city". That would have been a great oh shit moment, and totally in character for Cersei, instead of her just staring out the window. Also that would have been the perfect last straw that would have caused Danny to go mad and destroy the castle and kill every citizen (men, women, and children) that was still in the courtyard. That would have still shocked Tyrion and Jon, and would have given Danny a real reason to be pissed. It wouldn't even have added more time to the episodes. Also, it would made killing Danny and the ending tie up cleaner (since Grey Worm would be out of the picture).

So you are saying Grey Worm, a professional soldier's life is what would trigger Dany to go ballistic to murder children? No, I think we needed more scenes to show Dany's descent into madness. A soldier whose job is to die for the Queen would not set her off to go on a baby Bar-B-Q rampage. It's just not believable with so little transpiring between Dany feeling awful her dragon killed a Sheperd's child and the end of the story. There needs to be more paranoia developments and her doing really nasty things to build up to the mad crescendo.

@movie_nazi said:

@Innovator said:

@movie_nazi said:

@mustard said:

The amount of story they were covering was too much for only 13 episodes. Imagine if the first 3 seasons of GoT were 13 episodes. Ned’s beheading episode 2, black water battle episode 7, Red wedding episode 13.

I wrote something similar in a recent post. If they wanted to go the "Mad Queen" route they totally needed at the very least season 7 and 8 to be complete seasons. I also heard that D&D were offered more episodes by HBO and they turned it down. I suspect it was because they wanted to use the budget money for a more spectacular ending but that is pure speculation on my part. However, I will agree that it felt too rushed and that skipping a year in between was moronic.

Actually, all they needed to do to go the "Mad Queen" route was have Cersei kill Grey Worm during the battle at Kings Landing by having the guards set off the Wild Fire stash to blow up the city. The bells could have been the signal. All Cersei would have to say after being told all the scorpions were destroyed, was say "send the signal. Destroy the city". That would have been a great oh shit moment, and totally in character for Cersei, instead of her just staring out the window. Also that would have been the perfect last straw that would have caused Danny to go mad and destroy the castle and kill every citizen (men, women, and children) that was still in the courtyard. That would have still shocked Tyrion and Jon, and would have given Danny a real reason to be pissed. It wouldn't even have added more time to the episodes. Also, it would made killing Danny and the ending tie up cleaner (since Grey Worm would be out of the picture).

So you are saying Grey Worm, a professional soldier's life is what would trigger Dany to go ballistic to murder children? No, I think we needed more scenes to show Dany's descent into madness. A soldier whose job is to die for the Queen would not set her off to go on a baby Bar-B-Q rampage. It's just not believable with so little transpiring between Dany feeling awful her dragon killed a Sheperd's child and the end of the story. There needs to be more paranoia developments and her doing really nasty things to build up to the mad crescendo.

No, the death of Grey Worm the last of her closest friends, would trigger Dany to go ballistic. Dany would really have nobody left after Grey Worm dies.

@mustard said:

The amount of story they were covering was too much for only 13 episodes. Imagine if the first 3 seasons of GoT were 13 episodes. Ned’s beheading episode 2, black water battle episode 7, Red wedding episode 13.

That is exactly the problem. The story was too big to be wrapped up 13 episodes. It needed at least twice that. Breaking season 7 into 2 short seasons further diluted the impact.

Frankly the show was on 8 years and was 72 hours and 43 minutes long. If you can't come up with a good ending with that much time. You might as well give up. Most movies are only 2 to 3 hours long and they usually have better endings than most of serialized TV Shows do. Maybe its not a good idea to spend so much time on something that is probably not going to have a satisfying payoff. Just a suggestion.

I'd agree that maybe a bit more screen time would've helped develop some plots more successfully. However, people would probably be complaining that they had dragged things out for too long had they done so.

People love to complain.

@Moviedibert345 said:

Frankly the show was on 8 years and was 72 hours and 43 minutes long. If you can't come up with a good ending with that much time. You might as well give up. Most movies are only 2 to 3 hours long and they usually have better endings than most of serialized TV Shows do. Maybe its not a good idea to spend so much time on something that is probably not going to have a satisfying payoff. Just a suggestion.

You can't compare the complicated drama that is GOT to a movie. Way too many things going on at once to say that movies wrap it up in 3 hours at most. And the show only needed more time to conclude with the nonsensical way that it did. They totally could have wrapped the show up in the number of episodes they decided on if the did not go the mad queen route. And if they knew this from the beginning then they should as hell been a little more heavy handed with Dany's descent into drunken tyranny. They did a piss poor job of illustrating it in the previous 6 seasons.

@movie_nazi said:

@Moviedibert345 said:

Frankly the show was on 8 years and was 72 hours and 43 minutes long. If you can't come up with a good ending with that much time. You might as well give up. Most movies are only 2 to 3 hours long and they usually have better endings than most of serialized TV Shows do. Maybe its not a good idea to spend so much time on something that is probably not going to have a satisfying payoff. Just a suggestion.

You can't compare the complicated drama that is GOT to a movie. Way too many things going on at once to say that movies wrap it up in 3 hours at most. And the show only needed more time to conclude with the nonsensical way that it did. They totally could have wrapped the show up in the number of episodes they decided on if the did not go the mad queen route. And if they knew this from the beginning then they should as hell been a little more heavy handed with Dany's descent into drunken tyranny. They did a piss poor job of illustrating it in the previous 6 seasons.

Well maybe these shows should take a hint form Daytimes Soaps and just never end. Just kill off characters when someone wants to leave the show.

@Moviedibert345 said:

Well maybe these shows should take a hint form Daytimes Soaps and just never end. Just kill off characters when someone wants to leave the show.

Oh gods no. Its not hard to tell a story with a proper ending. But I do wish that HBO would revert to the old 13 episodes a season formula.

@movie_nazi said:

@Moviedibert345 said:

Well maybe these shows should take a hint form Daytimes Soaps and just never end. Just kill off characters when someone wants to leave the show.

Oh gods no. Its not hard to tell a story with a proper ending. But I do wish that HBO would revert to the old 13 episodes a season formula.

I thought that was the difference between British & American TV programing.