Game of Thrones‘ seventh season was loaded with visually stunning moments and enormous battles, and none were bigger than Daenerys’ daring dragon rescue of the Westerosi Snow-icide Squad from a frozen lake surrounded by one hundred thousand dead soldiers. It was one of–if not the–most impressive looking sequences in television history, and thanks to a new VFX reel we can see all the work that went into bringing it to life.
This VFX Reel from the Spanish visual effects company El Ranchito, which we first came across at io9, shows the incredible amount of work that went into making that memorable showdown beyond the wall. From throngs of wights to individual (and very decomposed) attackers, to flaming swords and a shattering frozen lake, there are more elements and layers to this than you might even guess.
And that’s before the dragons show up and things get really complicated.
If you were wondering where in the world the Night King might have found those giant chains, we now have an answer–he didn’t. Even the White Walkers needed the help of CGI to get their dead hands on them.
Capturing a wight might have been a ludicrous plan, and getting dragons there in the nick of time might have required a supersonic raven, but man it did look really cool. And that’s true even now that we’ve seen how they made it.
Which VFX sequence from the show is your favorite? Bring your thoughts to life in our comments below.
Images: HBO/El Ranchito
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