Ironically, the greatest battle scene of the last two years was not on the big screen with superheroes, but on HBO, with director Miguel Sapochnik’s ”Battle of the Bastards” episode of “Game of Thrones.” The action and effects were big, but that’s not what made it work so well. The underlying tension of the scene was John Snow not heeding his sister Sansa’s insight to her sadistic former captor Ramsay Bolton. The battle scene became a filmmaking masterclass in the use of space, as Sapochnik expertly lured Snow (and the audience) into a sense of victory — only to become enclosed by Ramsay’s trap. Just as space disappears and we lose our grounding in a speedily edited slaughter, Sansa shows up with reinforcements to open the trap. It’s an epic triumph: She has conquered her past, and is now seen as a leader to be taken seriously.
The action, the pace, the story, and the direction are all one unified force. Our involvement is not based on the effects and size of the scene, which were impressive for television, but by doing what Hollywood has always done best — storytelling through physical action.
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