Game of Thrones Still Can't Escape Its Disastrous Season 8 Finale

Two franchises, one shared hangover. Star Wars and Game of Thrones both flew too close to the sun, face-planted at the finish line, and have spent the years since trying to convince fans to come back. One of them is finally pulling off a proper turnaround. The other is still boxed in by its own ending.

The mess they made

Game of Thrones ran seven seasons that were practically appointment television, then torched the goodwill with Season 8. The show had blown past George R.R. Martin's published road map well before that, and by the time the final stretch arrived, the source material was exhausted and the author was no longer closely involved. The result was a finale so widely loathed it still sits near the top of TV horror stories.

Meanwhile, between Thrones' 2011 premiere and its 2019 finale, Star Wars staged a long-awaited movie comeback that went sideways just as fast. 2015's The Force Awakens hit big with critics and fans and cleared $2 billion. The two follow-ups also minted money, but the backlash was brutal. By the end of the sequel trilogy, the brand felt wobbly.

How Star Wars is actually climbing out

The fix started on TV. The Mandalorian and a wave of Disney+ shows kept the lights on and, very deliberately, gave the sequels a wide berth. The timeline focus shifted earlier. Any story that drifted near the sequel era slammed the brakes before catching up to The Force Awakens, let alone what came after. The sequels stayed canon, but the vibe was: let's not talk about it.

That created its own problem: the in-between years started feeling crowded. 2022's Obi-Wan Kenobi squeezed into the narrow space between the prequels and the original trilogy. The Acolyte swung even further back to the High Republic and tried to plant a new live-action flag there. It did not stick. These detours felt more like interesting side quests than a path forward, and the shadow of the sequel trilogy kept looming.

Now? The strategy is smarter: acknowledge that era and move beyond it at the same time. The Mandalorian & Grogu hits theaters this year, finally putting Star Wars back on the big screen for the first time since 2019's The Rise of Skywalker, while staying in the pre-sequel pocket. And the film slate ahead starts dealing with the post-sequel world head-on.

• 2026: The Mandalorian & Grogu brings the franchise back to theaters, still set before the sequels.
• 2027: Star Wars: Starfighter lands roughly five years after The Rise of Skywalker, following a new group living in the wake of the Resistance's win over the First Order.
• Down the line: Daisy Ridley returns as Rey in New Jedi Order, a spiritual sequel expected to pick up about 15 years after the trilogy that introduced her.

In other words: no more active avoidance. Fresh stories, new leads, and room to grow beyond the mess, without pretending it never happened. For a franchise built on original storytelling rather than rigid source material, that flexibility is a gift. And in 2026, the comeback finally looks real.

Why Thrones can’t play the same game

Star Wars can swerve because it is not chained to a book series. Game of Thrones always was. The final season proved how perilous it is to outpace the author. Martin still has not finished the core novels, which makes any proper sequel a gamble HBO is not eager to take again.

So Thrones has gone backward. House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms pull from Martin's other works and park themselves decades and even centuries before the main show. The lore is rich and the world-building is great, but the strategy also feels like a franchise keeping the brand alive while steering clear of the place it broke it.

Because the original series was so intensely character-driven, picking up after Season 8 is a tough sell. Fans know exactly where things land, and that destination is the problem. Going forward risks reopening wounds; going backward is safer, even if it limits how much can actually change the bigger picture.

Where this leaves both

Star Wars is finally doing the obvious: build new stories in the shadow of the sequels and then move past them with intent. Game of Thrones, boxed in by unfinished books and a finale that calcified the timeline in all the wrong ways, keeps mining the past. One day, if and when Martin finishes the saga, a clean-slate remake or a bold sequel could happen. Until then, expect more detours around the parts everyone would rather not revisit. Prequels are great at that. They are also finite. Eventually, the road circling the mountain needs an exit ramp.