Last week, Amazon MGM Studios, Sony Pictures Television, and PlayStation Productions announced the start of production on their God of War TV series. They did so by releasing the first image of Kratos and his son, Atreus. For those who have never played the video games, it was their introduction to the characters. Was it a successful first impression? The man who created them doesn’t think so. God of War creator David Jaffe called the photo “dumb” and “terrible.” He released a long video sharing why he was not a fan of the first-look image from the Prime Video God of War live-action series… (Which seems like too harsh a move and a bit rude). But the good news is he doesn’t think one bad photo is a bad omen for the show.
In a video just shy of seven minutes (that we first heard about at Deadline), God of War creator David Jaffe offered his analysis of Prime Video’s first production still. He didn’t exactly hold back. “It’s so dumb,” “What the f*** is this shit?” and, “It’s just a dumb f***king image,” aren’t exactly hard to parse. Neither were his comments about how much “product” they used in the young actor playing Atreus. Jaffe also thinks Kratos looks like he’s “s***ing in the woods.”
Negative, sure, but specific. Jaffe made clear his issues are with the choice to use this specific image as the show’s first. (Or at all.) This is not George R.R. Martin burning down House of the Dragon. The God of War creator said he’s not worried about the show, overall. He said showrunner Ron Moore is “awesome.” That’s why he has “absolutely no doubt it is going to be a good show.” He’s also confident in the series’ stars. If that’s the case, though, we feel like instead of this public video, Jaffe might have been better served by bringing his issues up to someone who could do something about them. But who knows what the thinking was here.
Jaffe did try to understand why those in charge opted to use this picture, though. He thinks they might want to focus on the father-son relationship rather than “Spartan rage.” And it certainly does feel like that may be the direction the story is going. Honestly, it’s a direction we support. After all, just recently, we learned that Gen Z wants more examples of soft masculinity on their screens and… less Spartan rage. And so do we. If that is where God of War is heading, we can’t wait to see what comes next from the show.
If anything, the more damning part of Jaffe’s commentary was his thoughts on the current state of the God of War video games, whose story doesn’t interest him. Perhaps the God of War creator isn’t really set up to enjoy the Prime Video series if that’s his perspective, since it will borrow directly from the most recent games.
In any case, this image clearly interested him. Just not in the way he wanted.
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