House of the Dragon' Episode 3 CGI Fail Leaves Fans Frustrated

One of the main characters, King Viserys, is missing two digits on his left hand due to a flesh-eating infection, but fans noted not only were all fingers visible, the ring and pinky finger were green. (Perhaps Viserys' infection had turned into gan-green?)

People are much savvier these days when it comes to SFX and VFX. Many people around the world produce their own videos for fun and profit. Most of us understand how green screens work and we can quickly put the puzzle pieces together when we notice something like Viserys' green phalanges. Postproduction editors dropped the ball by overlooking the editing needed in this scene, right?

That's what everyone, including major entertainment media sites such as variety.com, is saying, but we have a different take on the situation. The old adage goes, "any publicity is good publicity," and that is still true today. It's been over three years since the infamous Starbucks cup incident in Game of Thrones and the internet is still talking about it. Even more so: some fans are already building a somewhat grim prognosis based on this innocent enough mistake and their previous GoT experience.

"Grow up, it's a genuine mistake that is the creators being sloppy and lazy, this kind of thing and the poor cgi in the rest of the episode is a bad sign for the rest of the series, this sorta thing with the coffee cup was the early sign in GOT season 8 that it was gone be bad," a Twitter user chloe13579246 argued.

In our humble opinion, this type of "mistake" is next-level publicity and marketing. You literally can't buy this type of buzz and exposure. People who wouldn't have even considered watching this series will tune in just for the possibility of discovering more editing errors.

Is it a coincidence that both series are produced by HBO and both had these unintentional blunders? With regard to GoT, the Starbucks cup was hardly an isolated incident. Are we being trolled or are we being gifted with these editing Easter eggs to hunt down in each episode?

By season 8 on GoT, HBO was spending around $8,000,000 on advertising alone. Their net profit for season 8 was close to half a billion dollars. These numbers show the importance of marketing and publicity when it comes to return on investment. The green screen incident is like Mastercard—priceless.

So, to summarize things, intentional or not, HBO probably just struck a publicity goldmine. It will be interesting to see what the numbers are like for episode 4. And whether this incident draws in more viewers or not, it is safe to say people will enjoy it a whole lot more than The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.