Star Wars: Darth Maul Returns in Clone Wars Finale

Star Wars Celebration closed out the weekend with one more major panel, as director Dave Filoni and numerous members of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars cast took the stage to tease the animated series’ upcoming seventh and final season. Filoni revealed that Clone Wars will go out on one of its most ambitious story arcs yet, as Darth Maul and Ahsoka Tano return in a conflict known as the Siege of Mandalore.

It appears that Season 7’s 12 episodes will be divided among three major storylines. The first will focus on an elite Clonetrooper squadron called “Bad Batch.” These clones have genetic abnormalities that give them more distinct personalities and appearances, as ell as making them even more deadly on the field of battle.

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Game Of Thrones Season 8 Episode 1 Explained By Series Creators

Game of Thrones is finally back. Episode 1 aired tonight on HBO, and it served as a setup of sorts to dramatic events to come in the show’s eighth and final season. Now that the episode has ended, HBO has released a nice behind-the-scenes video where showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss break down the episode’s biggest moments and key scenes.

Obviously this video is stuffed with spoilers, so be sure to watch the episode first before checking out this breakdown. With that out of the way, here you go:

For lots more on Episode 1, you can check out GameSpot’s review of the episode here. You can also read the stories below to learn more about Game of Thrones and the first episode; we’ve put spoiler tags on two of them because even the titles might be spoiler-y:

Game of Thrones: What’s the Deal With THAT Weapon?

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Game of Thrones Season 8 premiere – check out our review.

Game of Thrones’ Season 8 premiere featured a number of long-awaited character reunions, and one of the most memorable scenes came as Arya finally came face-to-face with her old pal Gendry. But as viewers soon learned, Arya had more than simple gesture of friendship in mind. She wants Gendry to forge her a new weapon of some sort. Apparently, even two badass weapons aren’t enough for this trained killer.

What exactly Gendry is being asked to forge is still a mystery. Here’s a closer look at the blueprint Arya brought him:

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Game Of Thrones Season 8 Premiere: Our Favorite Lines From The Beginning Of The End

Game Of Thrones: Jon Riding A Dragon Is Huge–Here’s Why

Game of Thrones is approaching its end in Season 8, and some of the elements that have been in play since the beginning are finally starting to wrap up. Among those are Jon Snow’s parentage, the prophecy that Daenerys heard in her travels across the Narrow Sea, and other mystical things that look to be important to the final battle of the Night King.

One giant hanging thread is the question of the Prince That Was Promised, a longstanding prophecy about the hero who will appear to kill the Night King with the help of the Lord of Light. Also known as Azor Ahai, the question of who will fill the role of the Prince That Was Promised has been teased since Season 2 and the introduction of the Red Witch Melisandre and Stannis Baratheon. The premiere of Season 8 might have given a new hint as to who Azor Ahai is, and could be answering a question fans of both the show and the books on which they’re based have had for years.

It starts in Season 7, when Jon had a bonding moment with Drogon, touching the dragon and seemingly gaining his trust. In the Season 8 premiere, Jon actually rides Rhaegal, Daenerys’ other surviving dragon. It’s an extension of that moment Season 7, solidifying Jon’s bond with both Daenerys and the dragons. We saw in Season 7 what might be the reason for Drogon trusting Jon: he’s actually the son of Daenerys’ brother, Prince Rhaegar. He’s member of the royal family of dragon riders who consider themselves to be “blood of the dragon.” (It’s also worth noting that Rhaegal is named for Rhaegar, Jon’s father–a fact Jon will likely find very meaningful.)

Jon riding a dragon seemingly answers a question fans have been wondering about for years, thanks to a prophecy that doesn’t appear in the show, but is in George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” books on which Game of Thrones is based. In that book, Daenerys had a vision of Rhaegar when she was in the House of the Undying in Qarth, in which Rhaegar said his son Aegon was the Prince That Was Promised. He also told Daenerys “the dragon has three heads.” (In the show, Daenerys sees the Red Keep in ruins and the Iron Throne frozen, and is visited briefly by the ghosts of her husband Drogo and their baby, Rhaego.)

First off, we now know that Jon is, in fact, Rhaegar’s son Aegon. That might mean that he’s the returned Azor Ahai–the hero the red priests of the Lord of Light have been expecting to show up and defeat the Night King, using a flaming sword called Lightbringer.

The second part of the vision is still an open question, though, if the show is going to address it. Fans have interpreted “the dragon has three heads” to suggest there will be three key people who will ride Daenerys’ dragons–and maybe even three Targaryens. That tracks with the revelation that Jon is a Targaryen, and now seeing him riding a dragon.

The question is whether “the dragon has three heads” will actually be born out by the show now that the Night King has turned Daenerys’ third dragon, Viserion, into an undead wight. Fans have been expecting a third dragon rider, but now the third dragon rider is the Night King himself.

But there’s still room for another hidden Targaryen to appear. As fans have theorized who might be the third of the dragon’s three heads, a lot of speculation has fallen to Tyrion Lannister. There’s a rumor in Westeros that Tyrion isn’t really the son of Tywin Lannister, but that the Mad King Aerys Targaryen raped Tyrion’s mother, Joanna Lannister. That might be part of the reason why Tywin was so awful to Tyrion his whole life, and fulfill Daenerys’ vision. Tyrion also had his moment with the dragons under the pyramid of Meereen, which makes him one of the few people they seem cool with.

In any event, it seems the dragon has two heads, at least. And if Game of Thrones doesn’t address Rhaegar’s words through the rest of Season 8, it seems there might still be a few tidbits for fans of the novels to look forward to–if Martin ever finishes the series.

Game of Thrones Comparison: Season 8 to Season 1 Premiere

Spoilers for Game of Thrones’ Season 8 premiere continue below! Be sure to check out IGN’s review and watch our post-show breakdown, Dragons on the Wall.

Game of Thrones’ final season premiere just aired, and it’s fitting that the episode had so many parallels to the series premiere that aired way back in 2011.

HBO was open from the get-go that this episode was going to have a lot of callbacks and references to the Season 1 pilot, even teasing some of them in the trailer for the new season. But seeing all those moments play out on the small screen still made us emotional when it came time to think about how far the Starks have come in the past eight seasons.

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Game Of Thrones: Here’s Why That Crossbow Qyburn Gave To Bronn Matters

Things are looking pretty rough for House Lannister in Season 8 of Game of Thrones. Cersei might hold the Iron Throne, but it has cost her a great deal–all three of her children are dead, and she’s been at war for pretty much her entire reign. Through it all, though, she had her twin brother Jaime at her side.

That changed at the end of Season 7. After Jaime and Cersei met with Daenerys Targaryen and Tyrion, the Lannisters pledged to help with the war against the White Walkers. But once everyone had left King’s Landing, Cersei revealed that she planned to double-cross everybody else and leave them to get wiped out by the White Walkers. Jaime wasn’t happy about Cersei forcing him to break his promise, so at the end of the season, he struck off north alone, leaving his sister behind.

Cersei had already threatened Jaime about betraying her, and it’s well known that she hates her other brother, Tyrion. In the premiere of Season 8, we see how Cersei plans to deal with Jaime and Tyrion–she’s sending Bronn to kill both of them with a crossbow. Cersei likes to make a statement with her murders, though–which is why the weapon Qyburn gave to Bronn to use on the traitorous Lannisters is a significant one.

It’s the same crossbow Tyrion wielded way back in Season 4, and used to kill his father, Tywin Lannister. That was after Tyrion was tried and convicted of poisoning King Joffrey, and Tywin sentenced Tyrion to death, even though he was innocent. Jaime helped Tyrion escape, but before he did, Tyrion went to Tywin’s room. There, Tyrion found Shae, his former lover who testified against him, and killed her. After that, Tyrion found Tywin on the toilet, and finished him off with a crossbow decorated with gold.

Cersei sending Bronn with that same crossbow is a reminder of Tyrion’s betrayal of the Lannister family. She blames Tyrion for the deaths of her children–since Joffrey’s death, she’s maintained that Tyrion was responsible, but even learning from Jaime that Lady Olenna Tyrell (Diana Rigg) poisoned her son hasn’t changed her mind. She also blames him for the deaths of Myrcella (Nell Tiger Free) and Tommen–as Cersei said in Season 7, when Tyrion killed Tywin, it left the Lannisters exposed.

“Do you have any idea what you did when you fired that crossbow?” Cersei asks Tyrion. “You left us open. You laid us bare for the vultures and the vultures came and tore us apart. You may not have killed Joffrey, but you killed Myrcella, you killed Tommen. No one would have touched them if Father was here–no one would have dared.”

Making sure that the same crossbow Tyrion used to kill Tywin is used against him is exactly the kind of poetic message-sending Cersei loves. Like playing “The Rains of Castamere,” it’s a power move that builds her reputation, shows her spite for her enemies, and strikes fear in others. The question now is whether Bronn will actually try to kill his two former employers.

Game of Thrones’ Opening Credits Sequence Got a Season 8 Update

This post contains spoilers for the Game of Thrones Season 8 premiere. For more, check out our review of Season 8, episode 1.

It’s obviously no spoiler to note that Game of Thrones’ opening credits change with every episode – that’s been a staple of the show since it debuted –  but the Season 8 premiere offers the most drastic update to the iconic title sequence to date, and it gives us a few clues as to what we can expect from the final season.

The sequence has always opened with a close-up of the spherical astrolabe that surrounds a “sun,” its rings carved with pivotal moments from the history of Westeros – but the animation has been given an upgrade here with a darker, richer color palette than the bright golds and reds of the previous credits.

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Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 1 Review

This review contains spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 8, episode 1, titled “Winterfell.” To recap where we left off, check out our review of the Season 7 finale, and for more on the Season 8 premiere, watch our Dragons on the Wall video above, or download the podcast version of our premiere breakdown here

It’s been 20 months since a new episode of Game of Thrones graced our screens – the longest wait for a new season fans have had to endure since the show debuted. Maybe you’ve spent that time scouring the internet for intel on what might happen in the final six episodes, or perhaps you’ve been dodging every teaser and promotional photo to go into the last season completely Unsullied; either way, if you’re anything like us, you’ve probably been anticipating this episode for a long time – which might explain why it feels a little anticlimactic.

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