Just finished Season 3. So good. GOT has better big moments and a greater number of good characters, but on an episode to episode basis, Last Kingdom is superior. I wouldn't have said that about the first few seasons of GOT, but last few seasons of GOT felt a lot weaker to me with a lot less logic.
Loved this season of The Last Kingdom, we finally get to see Uhtred being the lord he is in the books. More please.
No where close to Game of Thrones in regards to actors and storyline. Season 7 was terrible but the first 6 seasons are legendary. An enjoyable poor man's version but very predictable and passable acting with too many inaudible moments. Then again, most of the cast is German/Scandinavian so plus marks for authenticity, but it lacks the epic and great factor as a result.
This show isn't trying to compete against GOT. It's more low-key and personal. The closet thing that it could be compared to would be Vikings.
Taking that into consideration, based on the question asked previously. GOT still has stronger, more penetrative low key and personal moments. Writing and acting is not comparable.
Binged all three seasons over the week. I gotta say it had me glued to the TV. I really enjoyed it, and I was happy that there was significant fighting in every episode. You never have to experience the "lead up" lull that you get in many of the GOT episodes.
I believe I finished season 1 of this and stopped watching Vikings like mid season of Season 4 after the defeat on the river. These two stories follow similar events, but told from different perspectives?
AWESOME!!! That reminds me...I need to start reading the series. I have the first book...just haven't had time to crack it open.
To answer your question, nope, they are very different. The main character of Last Kingdom is a Saxon raised as a Dane after he was captured by them around the age of ten. The Danish lord was impressed by a ten year old trying to fight his large group of Vikings (not actually called that at the time) and essentially adopted him, raising him to believe the old gods, which Uhtred never lost. It makes his life very complicated as he gets pulled into the orbit of Alfred the Great.
I got Last Kingdom’s Alfred the Great mixed up with Vikings King Egbert. I’ll need to read up my history.
Oh boy! I have every novel in hardcover. The reason this is so good is that Bernard Cornwell, the author, is not only a brilliant writer of historical fiction, focused on the history of his island, he's also very involved in this series. It's just getting better.
I love Bernard Cornwell though The Saxon Tales aren’t my favorite. I still enjoy them and have read/listened to them all but I don’t find the show particularly compelling. The Sharpe series is magnificent and the Sharpe films are horrible though idk if I’ve ever seen a literary character so perfectly cast in film as Sean Bean as Sharpe. (Even though he doesn’t really match the books description). Fun trivia fact, even though the Sharpe films were low budget pieces of crap Elizabeth Hurley, one of the hottest women ever, is an actress who appears in one of the films.