If you thought the most recent episode of Game of Thrones, “The Long Night,†was just too damn dark, then maybe you just didn’t watch it correctly. Because even if Thrones is very much a television series that will never play in theaters, the people running the show would like to remind you that it is cinematic, so they’re going to film it like it’s “a 73-hour movie.†And if you couldn’t see a lot of what took place during one of the most pivotal episodes of Thrones to date, then they’re going to need you to adjust your lifestyle. “A lot of the problem is that a lot of people don’t know how to tune their TVs properly,†cinematographer Fabian Wagner, who shot the episode, told Wired UK. “A lot of people also unfortunately watch it on small iPads, which in no way can do justice to a show like that anyway.â€
Wagner added that because Thrones has staged so many epic battles over the years, the showrunners wanted to set final war between the living and the dead apart from previous confrontations. Apparently that meant setting in near total darkness. But don’t stress, if you didn’t see something, that means you weren’t supposed to see it anyway. “Another look would have been wrong,†Wagner said. “Everything we wanted people to see is there.†But really, if he watched it through extremely expensive cameras and feedback monitors, how does Wagner really know if “The Long Night†wasn’t too dark for home viewers? “I know it wasn’t too dark because I shot it,†he told TMZ. And that’s that on that!