House of the Dragon director confirms How to Train Your Dragon served as inspiration for finale battle

Fans had already noticed that a scene mirrored one from the 2010 animated film

House of the Dragon director Greg Yaitanes confirmed that How to Train Your Dragon was one of the inspirations behind the final battle sequence in season one.

Fans had previously spotted parallels between the scene in which Aemond Targaryen chases Lucerys Velaryon on his much smaller dragon and a scene in the 2010 animated film about a Norse teenager named Hiccup.

“In preparation, I watched the first How to Train Your Dragon because [Oscar-winning cinematographer] Roger Deakins was the visual consultant on that. So that, cinematically, was going to be really appealing,” Yaitanes told Entertainment Weekly.

“And I went back to the original Jurassic Park because there was a sense of scale to the dinosaurs that I don’t think any of the subsequent films ever recaptured.”

He added: “[Director Steven Spielberg] knew he wanted to frame for height, and I took a lot of cues off what made the dinosaurs look so big and so interesting. So there’s a lot of Jurassic Park in Storm’s End and in the air.”

Fans noticed in particular that a moment when Aemond, riding the enormous Vhagar, flies up behind Lucerys mirrors almost exactly Hiccup riding Toothless in front of the Red Death.

The finale of House of the Dragon season one aired earlier this week, with fans spotting a disturbing detail in one stand-out scene.

The Independent’s critic Amanda Whiting has also gone through what showrunners got right (and very wrong) over the past 10 episodes.