Ranking the Game of Thrones Trailers: Seasons 1-5
By Ani Bundel
Season 5: The “Heroes” Trailer
I think it says a lot about how the production felt about this trailer that it’s not found on the official Game of Thrones YouTube channel. That’s partly due to the fact that it wasn’t shown on TV. Instead, it was released in movie theaters, so for a good 24 hours the only footage we had was via iPhone recording, which is why I thought the shadow of the woman leaving the Great Sept of Baelor at the top of the trailer was a cosplayer taking her seat.
The second trailer for Season 5, “The Wheel,” was the first one released to TV, and in terms of focus for the coming season, it’s better put together. But it’s still the second trailer, and we’re ranking first trailers here.
Another factor was the music. Personally, I love TV on the Radio, but there were a lot of people who were not thrilled with an offbeat cover of a classic rock song that they were already overly familiar with, calling it distracting. I think the lack of direction for the trailer is more damning. There is, of course, Varys and Tyrion bookending the trailer with the idea that they are heading to Dany, but the rest is disjointed, more interested in showing us things like “Arya wears a dress now” than it is in explaining why that matters.
Next: Number 3: Feral Love