The King director admits to accidentally copying “Battle of the Bastards”

Debuting on Netflix last week, The King, starring  Timothée Chalamet as King Henry V, explores the early days of Henry’s reign, culminating in his historic victory over France at the Battle of  Agincourt in 1415. It is both the highlight of Henry’s reign as well as the climax of the film, but on screen, the battle reminded fans of another famous battle screen: the Battle of the Bastards from Game of Thrones.

As you may remember, there was a bit during that battle when Jon Snow, his forces trapped by Ramsay Bolton’s shield wall, was nearly trampled to death by his own men. Mercifully, he finally emerges from a crush of soldiers to breathe the air. The internet quickly drew parallels between that moment and an overhead shot of Sir John Falstaff (Joel Egerton) in The King:

It certainly reminded me of Battle of the Bastards. Speaking to The Radio Times, director David Michôd pled his case.

"No, that was an accident. Weirdly, the only Game of Thrones I’ve seen is the final episode. For some reason, I put myself through the abstract exercise of sitting and watching that. It didn’t make me want to go back and watch the rest. But I did watch the Battle of the Bastards, try and work out, just with regard to visual effects, how to put the thing together. So I can’t claim to have not seen that scene, but it was so completely unintentional."

Okay, so that’s a little Game of Thrones shade from Michôd. In any case, we can easily believe that he could watch the Battle of the Bastards and carry that moment with him, whether consciously or unconsciously. And the shot in The King does work for the Battle of Agincourt, where most of the French deaths are attributed to fully armored French soldiers drowning in mud or being crushed to death by the more lightly armored English forces.

Still, Michôd wonders why no one warned him about the similarity ahead of time. “It’s been in the cut for like a year, and not a single person has mentioned to me that it might look like a shot from Game of Thrones. Someone would have mentioned it, somewhere, surely.”

I can be that guy, Hollywood, just give me a call.

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I watched The King over the weekend. Similarities to Game of Thrones battles aside, it’s a middling film. Wonderfully acted and beautifully shot, the film is rather dull and dour. I’m not sure I saw a single character smile throughout the film, except perhaps Robert Pattinson’s deranged Dauphin. The movie manages to both rush through events — from Henry’s ascension to the climatic battle — while somehow making us feel like we’re just plodding along.

The acting is the highlight here, and even with a wonderful death at the film’s conclusion, it’s still less entertaining than The Outlaw King, a similar Netflix film. Hopefully next time Netflix goes medieval, it does something a little more inspired.

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