Lannister’s lament

Jaime Lannister’s portrayal in the sequence resembled Tom Hanks’s character in Saving Private Ryan. Amid the carnage on Omaha Beach, the sound faded away to focus on Captain Miller’s shock. “That’s very much what Jaime was like in the middle of the battle as he sees these people carbonized and turned to ash,” Shakman said.

American Westerns

Shakman drew from John Ford’s 1939 Western, Stagecoach, for the advancing Dothraki hordes, who were partly inspired by Native American tribes themselves. That mass of Dothrakis, by the way—not CGI. Cinematographer Robert McLachlan told The Verge that the production filmed 50 to 60 people on horseback, and then duplicated and replicated the crowd to make it look like thousands, a trick the show used in other battles like season six’s Battle of the Bastards.

The lighting in the Loot Train Battle also harkened back to films like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which were darker than other American Westerns, McLachlan said.

Referencing Game of Thrones

Shakman said he referenced Game of Thrones battles that came before his, as well. That long handheld shot of Bronn’s death-defying move across the battlefield drew from the Battle of the Bastards, directed by Miguel Sapochnik in season six. Shakman said he and another series director Neil Marshall were inspirations for the sequences.

Outside of the films Shakman and McLachlan cited specifically, the influences of movies like 300, Troy, The Hobbit films, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, The Revenant, and Gladiator can clearly be seen throughout, The Nerdwriter noted in a video breakdown.

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