House of the Dragon finally delivered on some dragon fighting in the season finale after promising it all season, though fans may wish that things had gone differently now that they've seen how brutal a dragon fight can actually be. Director Greg Yaitanes recently spoke about bringing the dragon fight to life, and also revealed some surprising influences for the sequence.
Throughout the first season of House of the Dragon, a schism had been widening ever deeper and growing ever more dangerous as King Viserys' (Paddy Considine) children all grew and became Dragonriders. In House of the Dragon's season finale, Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) and Prince Lucerys (Elliot Grihault) meet at Storm's End. Aemond is riding the titanic Vhagar, Lucerys the much smaller Arrax. Aemond appears to be trying to intimidate Lucerys, only to lose control of Vhagar, who makes quick work of Arrax, ending the life of young Lucerys and kicking off a civil war.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Yaitanes discussed bringing the scene to life. According to Yaitanes, he had only one directive from showrunner Ryan Condal: "Make this a Game of Thrones scene. Lean into everything the show has to offer." Yaitanes recalled understanding what Condal was asking of him, and said, "I had not done a medieval battle. I'd done dragon fights. So what was great was, he left me alone to really choreograph that dragon fight."
Yaitanes then revealed he had some surprising inspirations for the dragon fight, including How to Train Your Dragon. "In preparation, I watched the first How to Train Your Dragon because [Oscar-winning cinematographer] Roger Deakins was the visual consultant on that. So that, cinematically, was going to be really appealing. How to Train Your Dragon definitely covered a lot of action sequences that you didn't want to be in comparison to," Yaitanes said. "And I went back to the original Jurassic Park, because there was a sense of scale to the dinosaurs that I don't think any of the subsequent films ever recaptured. [Director Steven Spielberg] knew he wanted to frame for height, and I took a lot of cues off what made the dinosaurs look so big and so interesting. So there's a lot of Jurassic Park in Storm's End and in the air."
Yaitanes also acknowledged that the scene showed the power of dragons and how truly uncontrollable they are. Comparing their power to a nuke, he explained that giving something with that magnitude of power to children would never end well. With House of the Dragon's Aemond Targaryen, a very broken child, on one of the dragons, it was never going to end well.
The scene did come out beautifully in terms of cinematography, however. It leads perfectly into House of the Dragon's final scene of the season, where Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) is informed of Luke's demise.
House of the Dragon is available for streaming on HBO Max.
Source: Entertainment Weekly