Tons of characters, years of plot, all leading to a few hours of climactic moments - that could describe either Game of Thrones season 8 or Avengers: Endgame. Though George R.R. Martin leaves that comparison for readers to make, an official blog post from the Thrones author heaps praise on the creators of Endgame for bringing their huge story to a close in a satisfying way.
Here's what Martin had to say about Avengers: Endgame earlier this month. Draw your own conclusions about whether he's a bit jealous that they finally got to conclude their pop-culture-dominating story arc and he's still sitting over here with at least two massive books left to go.
"Saw the new Avengers movie last night. Endgame is amazing. Kudos to the writers and director. I cannot believe they got all those characters into one film, and still managed to do them all justice. The final battle was epic, exciting, thrilling, full of twists and turns… and strangely beautiful. But the character scenes earlier in the film really made it for me. The opening with Hawkeye, the Ant-Man scenes, Tony Stark’s moments communing with his helm… so many more. There’s plenty of action here, but this is not just A Big Dumb Action movie, of which there are far too many these days. Stan Lee would have been proud. Could he ever have dreamed that all those characters he and Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and the rest of the Marvel team created in the early 60s would one day come to dominate global culture? There’s an amazing story for you.
Oh… and yay for the rat. The unsung hero. They should make him an honorary Avenger."
Side note: did you know that one of Martin's first published pieces of writing was a sarcastic letter in the back of a 1963 issue of The Fantastic Four?
Martin's blog post changes topics from there to discuss the Starport graphic novel, which is based on a TV pilot Martin wrote back in 1994 (and which he teases could still make its way to the small screen someday), though he does talk a little bit more about Game of Thrones. He confirms that five different Game of Thrones successor shows have been in the works at HBO and three are still moving forward, with one starting filming later this year.
It sounds like at least one of those three is the Game of Thrones prequel series since he says you could pick up a copy of his Thrones prequel novel Fire & Blood and "come up with your own theories" about what they're about.
For more big (but not dumb) action, read about how Game of Thrones season 8 filmed a fake scene in a fortress to cover up a big death.
