Game of Thrones meets Vikings, vampires, Shakespeare
Game of Thrones isn’t back for at least another six months, but the show’s influence on pop culture has been enormous and can be felt elsewhere. (And if you’re missing Ramin Djawadi’s delectable musical compositions, you can always watch Person of Interest, which is now available to stream on Netflix.) Yesterday, we checked in with FX’s The Bastard Executioner, which looks like it owes more than a little of its modus operandi to Thrones. Let’s look at a few of the other movies and shows that are taking cues from HBO’s massive hit.
First up in this little roundup: “Life is but a walking shadow.” Well, Stannis and Melisandre kinda took those words literally, but this latest trailer for a new film adaptation of Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard bears more than a passing resmeblance to the elder Baratheon brother’s tragic tale:
Of course, this may be a case of the circle of influence coming back round, as Shakespearian tragedies, with their mad kings and bloody plots, had some fairly obvious influence on Game of Thrones. Still, you’ve got to ask why Hollywood has chosen to adapt Shakespeare’s tale of medieval ambition run amuck now, in the wake of Game of Thrones’ success. Plus, it’s hard not to see some of Thrones in the movie’s gritty photography. Considering the show’s popularity, future adaptations of the bard’s dramas and histories are bound to look to it for aesthetic inspiration. There’s even a proto-example in Ralph Fienne’s adaptation of Coriolanus, which was released the same year Game of Thrones started. (It’s kind of like Game of Thrones meets Homeland.)
Speaking of not-quite-English-history, BBC2 and BBC America have teamed up for another Thrones-like TV show, The Last Kingdom. Trailer time? Trailer time:
The Independent has a write-up on the series, which premieres here in the States on October 10th on BBC America (following Doctor Who, no doubt). The description of the protagonist, Uhtred, reeks of, well, Reek, or at least the man he used to be: “our hero is Uhtred, the son of a Saxon nobleman who is captured by Vikings after his father is slain during a massacre and is brought up with divided loyalties, in a Danish household.” What is dead may never die, right? Anyway, if historical fiction is your thing, this eight-part miniseries might be up your alley.
Lastly, Entertainment Weekly has a little chat with The Vampire Diaries showrunner Julie Plec ahead of the upcoming seventh season of the CW drama. (Spoilers ahead if you’re behind on TVD!) Asked about how the show could continue without its lead actress and character—Nina Dobrev, playing both Elena Gilbert and her historical lookalike Katherine Pierce—Plec says she looked to Game of Thrones for inspiration:
"“At first I said well, ‘How could there be a show without Ned Stark?’ And then by season 2 I was like, ‘Ned who?’ And then after the Red Wedding I was like, ‘How could there be a show without the Starks?’ And then by season 4 I was just as invested in other characters, so there’s a way there that if you can tell good stories, people can survive the loss of their favorite. And we may come to learn that that’s not true for our show, we’ll see, but it feels good.”"
Plec goes on to talk a little more about how the show will change with Dobrev gone and how her absence will be felt within the show, but it’s interesting to see the influence Thrones is having both aesthetically and creatively across all spectra of television and film. And Game of Thrones‘ audience just kept growing after Ned’s death; perhaps something similar could happen on The Vampire Diaries.