RUDIE:
https://www.polygon.com/...of-thrones/2019/5/7/18535222/game-of-thrones-starbucks-coffee-cup-removed
With all the well-intentioned ribbing, those involved with Thrones spent the 24-hour meme cycle apologizing, standing up for the craftspeople on the show, and poking fun at themselves.
“The latte that appeared in the episode was a mistake,” HBO said in a statement. “Daenerys had ordered an herbal tea.”
“Our on-set prop people and decorators are so on it, a thousand percent,” Thrones producer Bernie Caulfield told NPR’s All of It, adding, “Westeros was the first place to have Starbucks. It’s a little-known fact.”
Hauke Richter, an art director on Thrones season 8, had a pretty succinct explanation to address every reaction.
“Things can get forgotten on set,” Richter wrote to Variety after the incident, adding that the conversation was “so blown out of proportion [because] it has not happened with Thrones so far.”
If there’s any take away from CoffeeCupgate, it’s that Richter is right: Thrones is immaculate. As detailed in a breakdown of episode 4, the women and men who work on the show’s sets, props, costumes, and special effects dedicated weeks and weeks to fine-tuning every visual in the series. A non-action sequence like burning the dead is still the confluence of engineers who can put actors next to controlled flames, and VFX artists who can replicate the tangible set-pieces without missing a shred of detail. The coffee cup lands like a thud because, for 71 episodes, Game of Thrones has basically been a still, picturesque pond.