Netflix's 10/10 Viking Show Makes Every Game of Thrones Battle Look Tame

During its run, The Last Kingdom was one of Netflix's most beloved series. The series ran for five seasons before wrapping up the story with the movie Seven Kings Must Die. Throughout the show, the war between the Saxons and the Danes remained the central premise, leading to some truly memorable battle scenes. The Last Kingdom isn't a fantasy series, and that distinction changed how it depicted warfare and combat.

When it comes to TV battles, HBO's Game of Thrones is typically mentioned as the gold standard. Episodes like "The Battle of the Bastards" pushed the boundaries of what could be accomplished on the small screen. There's no question that Game of Thrones excelled at scale, but The Last Kingdom takes a different route. The Last Kingdom takes a much more claustrophobic approach to war that fits its historical lens.

The Last Kingdom's Attention To Detail Was Unmatched

The Last Kingdom brought cinematic quality to the TV screen. From the first battle, the series focused more on the accuracy of the physical mechanics of Dark Age warfare than on fantasy scale and spectacle. The costumes, weapons, settlements and the way the soldiers moved together were all designed to make the period feel believable. The show's aesthetic is intended to separate it from fantasy.

To the best of the showrunners' abilities, the battles in The Last Kingdom are shot and executed to highlight the way armies would have fought. Even the camera work itself is meant to put the viewer on level with the actors. In fantasy, there are a lot of overhead, bird's-eye-view shots.

The shots in The Last Kingdom rarely rise above the level of the shields in certain battles, giving the scene a claustrophobic feel. Even the props in The Last Kingdom were designed to add to the realism of battle. Actors such as Alexander Dreymon have spoken at length about the physical toll the wood-and-iron replicas took on them after long days of shooting.

The cast themselves are truly exhausted, just like the characters on-screen. Actors and stunt workers underwent extensive training to learn how to properly lock shields. Much of the series was shot on location in Hungary. For the most part, The Last Kingdom follows a historical approach, but the Hungarian countryside provided the crew with the lack of civilization they needed to depict the times accurately.

When the script required cities, the crew built sets from scratch. The Winchester set was built in the village of Göböljárás. The crew shot scenes in the UK when the script required real oceans. The Last Kingdom made a deliberate effort to avoid fantasy battle trends. The focus of the fights centered around the primary players and the filmmakers wanted the audience to feel suffocated alongside them.

The attention to detail behind the scenes carries through to the screen and makes the series stand out among its contemporaries. The show has a sense of on-screen danger that many modern productions lack.

The Last Kingdom Leaves Behind an Unscathed Legacy

For fans of historical drama, The Last Kingdom is a perfect fit. Even the show's big-screen finale, Seven Kings Must Die, was well received despite trying to fit an enormous amount of content into a two-hour window.

It's become near-impossible for series to stick the landing in recent years, such as the much-maligned final season of Game of Thrones, but The Last Kingdom pulled it off. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of The Last Kingdom is its consistency.

The show changed networks, lost major characters and had to change formats to wrap up its story, yet it never lost sight of the finish line. Consistency was the key to its storyline and success, and ultimately carried over into the battle scenes.

Source: www.cbr.com/netflix-the-last-kingdom-outdoes-game-of-thrones...

Netflix's 10/10 Viking Show Makes Every Game of Thrones Battle Look Tame