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Westerosworld! Westworld creators explain that Game of Thrones 'crossover' moment
Westworld and Shogunworld were only the beginning, folks. Last night's episode of Westworld Season 3 introduced us to two more Delos theme parks: Warworld (the World War II recreation Maeve traverses) and the unnamed "Park 4," which, as it turns out, is literally the Game of Thrones universe.
As Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) and Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) creep around the back end of the parks, they come across a pair of Delos technicians played by (surprise! surprise!) Thrones' television creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Weiss tells Benioff's that he's found a buyer, some startup business in Costa Rica, for something. Benioff inquires how he's gonna get "that" to Costa Rica. "In pieces," replies Weiss as he fires up a buzzsaw, the wide shot cut revealing a sleeping Drogon robot.
Sure, we knew the cameos were coming, but that didn't making them any less awesome. And yet no one is mentioning the other meta nod that comes just minutes later, when Stubbs sees a Park 4 android playing Ramin Djawadi's Westworld theme song on a mandolin.
Moreover, the crossover moment doesn't just play into a long-standing fan theory that Westeros is simply a Westworld-style park created by Delos — it also tips its hat to Jurassic Park. How? Well two things. The first is that Jurassic Park was written by Michael Crichton, who wrote and directed the 1973 Westworld movie upon which the HBO series is based. And two, InGen (John Hammond's company) built its dino park on Isla Nublar, which was located off the coast of Costa Rica.
"Especially the Jurassic Park part of it, which we couldn't resist," Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan told IGN. "The argument there was all between whether or not one of the parks should be Westeros World, which George R.R. Martin has been pitching for years, and Dan and David, who are friends of ours and who we have joked about over the years [about] Jurassic Park, of course Crichton’s other theme park gone-wrong classic. And so, we found a way to bring both of those great flavors together. We pitched to our friends Dan and Dave, whose show we dearly loved and really sort of blazed the trail for ambitious filmmaking on television. We pitched them this dumb idea, and they were kind enough to show up and play with us for a night. We bought them a beer afterwards, and it was an absolute pleasure having them on our set."
When asked if Drogon was created by the same effects house that brought him to life for GoT, Nolan responded with “I’m not sure what you mean. They brought Drogon with them.”
"With a very large leash and a muzzle that’s fire-resistant," added Lisa Joy, Nolan's wife and fellow co-creator on the show.
Chatting with The Hollywood Reporter, Nolan made a similar joke, saying, "He ate a couple of PAs, but that's it."
He confirmed to Variety that Drogon was brought to life by Game of Thrones' dragon VFX vendor, Pixamundo. The decision to give a hat tip to Westeros also came with a unique debate.
"There was some back and forth about whether Season 4 or Season 5 Drogon, and some debate about how big the room was and what position the dragon could be in," Nolan said.
The behind-the-scenes featurette for Episode 2 also offered some insight into the crossover.
"People have often joked about Westworld-Game of Thrones crossovers. George R.R. Martin likes to joke about that," Joy says in the video. "And so, we thought we'd kind of indulge in that for a moment and who better to bring to the park than Dan and Dave. They let us borrow their dragon, so they were really good sports for the scene."
