Game of Thrones Showrunners on the Premiere’s Most Epic Moment
Warning: this article contains spoilers for the Game of Thrones Season 8 premiere! Make sure to read our review.
One of several pivotal moments in the Game of Thrones Season 8 premiere involves Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen taking a break from the hustle, bustle, and backstabbing in Winterfell and taking Dany's dragons for a ride. Aside from being the most thrilling and CG-heavy sequence of the episode, the dragon riding also allowed the premiere to highlight the growing bond between Jon and Dany and tease Jon's imminent discovery about his family heritage.
Game of Thrones: What’s the Deal With THAT Weapon?
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Game of Thrones Season 8 premiere - check out our review.
Game of Thrones' Season 8 premiere featured a number of long-awaited character reunions, and one of the most memorable scenes came as Arya finally came face-to-face with her old pal Gendry. But as viewers soon learned, Arya had more than simple gesture of friendship in mind. Arya wants Gendry to forge her a new weapon of some sort. Apparently, even two badass blades aren't enough for this trained killer.
Game of Thrones Comparison: Season 8 to Season 1 Premiere
Spoilers for Game of Thrones' Season 8 premiere continue below! Be sure to check out IGN's review and watch our post-show breakdown, Dragons on the Wall.
Game of Thrones' final season premiere just aired, and it's fitting that the episode had so many parallels to the series premiere that aired way back in 2011.
HBO was open from the get-go that this episode was going to have a lot of callbacks and references to the Season 1 pilot, even teasing some of them in the trailer for the new season. But seeing all those moments play out on the small screen still made us emotional when it came time to think about how far the Starks have come in the past eight seasons.
Game of Thrones’ Opening Credits Sequence Got a Season 8 Update
This post contains spoilers for the Game of Thrones Season 8 premiere. For more, check out our review of Season 8, episode 1.
It's obviously no spoiler to note that Game of Thrones' opening credits change with every episode - that's been a staple of the show since it debuted - but the Season 8 premiere offers the most drastic update to the iconic title sequence to date, and it gives us a few clues as to what we can expect from the final season.
The sequence has always opened with a close-up of the spherical astrolabe that surrounds a "sun," its rings carved with pivotal moments from the history of Westeros - but the animation has been given an upgrade here with a darker, richer color palette than the bright golds and reds of the previous credits.
Star Wars: Darth Maul Returns in Clone Wars Finale
Star Wars Celebration closed out the weekend with one more major panel, as director Dave Filoni and numerous members of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars cast took the stage to tease the animated series' upcoming seventh and final season. Filoni revealed that Clone Wars will go out on one of its most ambitious story arcs yet, as Darth Maul and Ahsoka Tano return in a conflict known as the Siege of Mandalore.
It appears that Season 7's 12 episodes will be divided among three major storylines. The first will focus on an elite Clonetrooper squadron called "Bad Batch." These clones have genetic abnormalities that give them more distinct personalities and appearances, as ell as making them even more deadly on the field of battle.
Jon Favreau Confirms Exactly When The Mandalorian Takes Place
At Star Wars Celebration 2019, executive producers John Favreau and Dave Filoni took the stage and showed off some very cool new footage from their highly anticipated live-action bounty hunter series, The Mandalorian. Joining them were series regulars Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Gina Carano (Cara Dune), and Carl Weathers (Greef).
Favreau and Filoni showed gave us a detailed look at the world they've created - which seems every bit as cinematic as the Star Wars movies, judging by this first footage. Here are nine things we learned from the footage we saw at the panel, which has yet to be released officially online.
Who Is The Mandalorian?
Star Wars: How The Rise of Skywalker Trailer References The Phantom Menace
The new teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker contains more surprises than just the Emperor’s spine-chilling cackle. It also has a pair of references to Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and we don’t mean a Jar Jar Binks cameo.
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Legendary Callbacks
The first reference comes in the form of the on-screen text, “Every generation has a legend.”
The Mandalorian: First Official Photos!
Star Wars: Is The Rise of Skywalker Really a Retcon of The Last Jedi?
The first trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has already led to rampant speculation about how it will wrap up the sequel trilogy's storyline. Among the many topics under discussion is how the film will continue after the end of The Last Jedi, which left the galaxy in a turbulent state; The Resistance was almost completely crushed, the First Order has undergone a seismic power shift, and Luke became one with the Force. After so much change, some fans have seen the trailer as indication that JJ Abrams is reversing some of the plot elements of The Last Jedi. Even if Abrams hadn't explicitly stated on several occasions that he has no intention of doing so, a closer look at the previous film shows that The Last Jedi set the stage precisely for the story The Rise of Skywalker's trailer is telling.
How to Watch Clone Wars in Chronological Order on Disney+
The Clone Wars Chronological Episode Order
There is a bit of context, however, that might help you along your journey. Perhaps the biggest point of confusion is that if you watch the series from Season 1, Episode 1, all the way to Season 6, Episode 13, you are not watching the story in chronological order. In fact, there are some key jumps in the timeline throughout. For the most part, the episodes are fairly sequential, save a few gaps. But, why did Lucasfilm craft the narrative this way? Wouldn’t it make more sense to take things from beginning to end? Not necessarily. When Clone Wars was first conceived it was designed as more of an organic method of storytelling, more anthology based, as opposed to sequentially. The series was originally intended to focus on the overarching story, giving ancillary characters a chance to be showcased as well. In essence, it would world-build to an unprecedented extent in Star Wars canon. However, Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Ahsoka Tano were too compelling to take a back seat, so the stories ultimately ended up boomeranging back to them the most.
Furthermore, this is one of the biggest wars in the history of this fictional universe; a lot goes on in a three-year period. Ahsoka matures from a padawan calling her master “Skyguy” to a show-stopping tour de force in the Jedi Order. Anakin and Obi-Wan’s relationship continues to progress as the Master and Padawan grow beyond a mentor/mentee dynamic into one more akin to brothers. The Jedi Order slowly is undermined from within Coruscant, courtesy of the Machiavellian Palpatine, and we get to know more and more about why the Clones are so much more than the sum of their parts.
And, since this is a war, it is not wrapped up in a nice, neat package. Multiple storylines are running parallel to one another. For instance, while Anakin and Obi-Wan are on Mortis, the Republic has its own problems dispatching Jedi to other corners of the galaxy. The Clone Wars, as designed by Chancellor Palpatine, were created to thin the Jedi herd, so a lot of storylines of equal importance are going on at the same time.
But it’s fair to say that for the casual observer, you may not even be aware of time gaps. The order listed above is how you should watch them if you want to get the best overall idea of where things fit structurally (and it does give more context for later episodes), but, like the Clone Wars’ impact on the galaxy, there is no clear path. When you think about it that way, it’s a nice meta-commentary.
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Clone Wars Movie or Series First?
Here is the official order of things (as per StarWars.com), including where the movie fits in. If you want to watch in chronological order, use the first number. If you want to watch in the order the episodes originally aired, use the “air” number!- Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ Bundle - Sign Up for $12.99 per month
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