Spoilers are coming.
Like the Lannisters, it’s time for “Game of Thrones” to pay its debts.
Most fans know actual historical events like the War of the Roses, the Black Dinner and the Glencoe Massacre inspired “GoT” events like the Red Wedding. (Gee, thanks, history.) But the fantasy series was also influenced from many other works, including some of the biggest movies today. The show may have been shut out at the Emmys, but perhaps it’ll win an Oscar for some of these cinematic rip offs “homages.”
Here are 5 classic movies “Game of Thrones” blatantly ripped off.
5. “The Princess Bride”
Arguably the most memorable scene from “The Princess Bride” is when Inigo Montoya confronts the six-fingered man and repeats his classic mantra, “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
Many viewers saw parallels between that scene and the fight between the Mountain and the Viper, specifically when Oberyn repeats the phrase, “You raped her. You murdered her. You killed her children.” And the reason for those similarities is because it was a direct rip off. Oberyn himself, Pedro Pascal, explained to TV Guide:
George R.R. Martin wrote that after [watching] ‘The Princess Bride.’ This character’s entire life is shaped for his lust for revenge because of the tragic rape and murder of his sister and the death of his niece and nephew.
Hat Tip: “The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly”
In addition to drawing from “The Princess Bride,” Reddit users have also pointed out that one particular moment in the fight between Oberyn and Ser Gregor had an eerily similar resemblance to the Tuco’s torture scene from “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” but you can be the judge:
WARNING! THIS IMAGE IS GRAPHIC. CLICK TO REVEAL.
4. “Jason and the Argonauts”
Ray Harryhausen was a pioneer in visual effects and known for making classic movie monsters come to life. Perhaps his most famous creation was the skeleton fight in the 1963 movie, “Jason and the Argonauts.” The iconic scene took three months to create and is regarded by many as one of the best fight scenes in cinema history.
The scene also has the honor of being ripped off by “Game of Thrones,” which many fans took note of after the skeleton scene in the “GoT” Season 4 finale.
3. “Rob Roy”
During the recent “Game of Thrones” Comic Con panel, Natalie Dormer said she was a big fan of the fight between the Hound and Brienne from last season’s finale, especially the moment when the Hound grabs Brienne’s sword, which she thought the fight coordinator stole from the Liam Neeson classic “Rob Roy.”
Though the moments seem similar, Dormer was actually incorrect about one thing. The fight coordinator didn’t steal it. Executive producers D. B. Weiss and David Benioff did. The pair admitted they took the moment from “Roy” and said Dormer “wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.”
2. “Star Wars”
One is known for taking place in a galaxy far, far away, and the other is known for having a lot of naked people, but you might be surprised to learn “Game of Thrones” seems to have borrowed a lot of elements from the “Star Wars” franchise. Tumblr jumped on the trend right away when a user posted:
On a scale of luke skywalker to jaime lannister how well would you deal with losing your right hand.
After that, things took off. Besides having characters with missing limbs, certain betrayals and even evil fathers were cited as being more than just coincidence. Reddit sums up some of the main similarities here:
1. “The Lord of the Rings”
George R. R. Martin has gone on record saying he was greatly influenced by the works of J. R. R. Tolkien (even their middle names are similar), and this is evident throughout the “Song of Ice and Fire” novels in countless examples.
The lines between homage and rip off tend to become more blurred in some scenes though. For example, one moment in the “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” has Eowyn saying, “I am no man,” and stabbing the witch king after it’s said that no man can kill him, and then there’s a scene in “GoT” where Daenerys tells Missandei that, even though “all men must die,” they’re okay because they’re not men.
And you can’t talk about similarities between the “LOTR” franchise and “GoT” without mentioning that big Boromir/Ned Stark connection:
In the end, whether you call them homages or rip offs, there is one “Game of Thrones” similarity to “Batman Begins” that we can all be grateful for:
