Game of Thrones Conquest & Rebellion: An Animated History of the Seven Kingdoms

It's a strange one this : on one hand HBO went to the expense of asking the actors who play main characters to voice different chapters (such as conleth hill, Nikolai coster-waldau, Sophie turner, Aiden gillen) and that part is done really well. It gave a short but enlightening history of the rise of the targaeryan empire up until the events of the main show. On the other hand the animation is all over the place! Some scenes are quite pretty like a living watercolour, some are intentionally sparse but artistic (almost anime), some are like bad CGI and some literally ARE unfinished CGI! It's well worth a viewing though to all GOT fans, but for the audio and show history rather than the animation.

This animated feature, which came bundled with Season Seven of 'Game of Thrones' serves to tell the viewer of how House Targaryen came to conquer then lose the Seven Kingdom of Westeros. Starting in ancient Valyria, the greatest city this world has known, they leave for Dragonstone with their dragons. A cataclysm destroys Valyria and later Aegon Targaryen eyes the continent to the west: Westeros. With his dragons he defeats the various local kings; some houses disappear while others ally with him and prosper. Ultimately though House Targaryen is doomed as its decedents, prone to madness, cause the 'Mad King' to be assassinated and the last of their line to flee to the continent of Essos.

This should be of interest to fans of 'Game of Thrones' as it tells us the history that led up to the Seven Kingdoms we've come to know in the series. It is described as animated but most of the story is illustrated by a series of still images with only limited animation. That wasn't a problem for me though is it still effectively illustrated what was happening. Obviously it can't go into a great deal of depth but it touches on many things mentioned but not really explained in the main series. The story is mostly narrated Harry Lloyd as Viserys Targaryen but also features the voices of several major cast members as the story moves on to their houses. As the narration ends before the events of the main series there are no spoilers to speak of but I suspect it wouldn't be of much interest to anybody who isn't already invested in the series... if you have enjoyed the series so far I'd definitely say this is something to watch.

Takes up a whole special feature disk on the 4k box set for Game of Thrones. Seeming to indicate something special was forthcoming, but this is really bad. Back story worthy of its own full scale presentation, maybe, which Season 1 of House of Dragons has indicated, not Season 2 though, sadly. Maybe it further helps us understand some significant developments towards the end of GOT Season 8, some seemingly all of a sudden developments. Its low budget to an extent it closely represents the work of a youtube hobbyist, or something like that.

It has some aspects that indicate a restrained talent, it seems, perhaps some kind of horribly unreasonable production time limitation, giving us nothing but a slightly more giving story board presentation. Actually, reminds me of a PowerPoint presentation, more than a meaningful, storied animation.

The animation is horrible and the storyline reminds me of someone reading a dull book. I expected more fire from a movie about a hit hbo how. Maybe that's why I never heard of this....

Plot: interesting and very well narrated. It has a lot of information!

Animation: smooth but very poor. There are things that, for a 2017 production, are really unwatchable.

Soundtrack: not as great as the original show but is very enjoyable.

Conclusions: a perfect introduction for everyone, both if you already had watch the show or you are going to do it. But, probably, you'll have to cover your eyes...