The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die brought an end to five seasons of the historical drama series, The Last Kingdom, but there probably should have been two movies to close out the show. Based on Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Stories, The Last Kingdom first aired on BBC Two in October 2015 but by season 3, the series had moved to Netflix. Following the saga of the fictional Uhtred of Bebbanburg (Alexander Dreymon), The Last Kingdom includes real people from history and depicts the unification of England under Anglo-Saxon rule.
For five seasons, Uhtred fights Danes and Anglo-Saxons, hoping to regain his ancestral home of Bebbanburg, finally accomplishing his goal at the end of the show. However, England is still not united by the end of the series. Thankfully, Netflix released The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die on April 14, 2023, to close out the story and ensure King Alfred the Great’s (David Dawson) dream came to fruition. The movie was an acceptable ending to the series, but it could have been much better had it been split up into two movies.
There Was Not Enough Time In One Movie To Wrap Up Every The Last Kingdom TV Storyline
Too Many Characters Had Their Arcs Condensed
The major issue with having Seven Kings Must Die be one movie instead of a two-parter is that a lot of storylines from the TV show ended up being cut or shortened to fit everything into one feature-length movie that only runs 111 minutes. A character introduced in The Last Kingdom season 4 is Stiorra (Ruby Hartley), Uhtred’s daughter, and she’s barely in the movie. Her conflict with Edward (Timothy Innes) in season 5 was a major storyline and suggested she would continue being an important character in the storyline, yet she mostly sits on the sideline for the movie.
Aethelstan’s (Harry Gilby) arc is also condensed and restructured in order to fit within the confines of one movie. In The Last Kingdom season 5, Aethelstan grows from a meek kid to a capable king, worthy of being King Edward’s heir. However, his character is turned back into a weak, fallible tyrant in the movie because we need Uhtred to come to the rescue. A second movie would have allowed more time for Aethelstan to breathe and for it to be better explained why he had slightly lost his grip. It would have made his redemption more powerful.
Aldhelm (James Northcote), another significant character from seasons 2 through 5 of The Last Kingdom, had his death scene rushed. It feels like more respect should have and could have been paid to a character who has been with the story so long. Beyond specific storylines being cut short, the pace of Seven Kings Must Die is just too much for every character, and the movie is chock-full of characters, both ones from the show and new ones introduced for the film. There just isn’t enough time in 111 minutes to do them all justice.
The Last Kingdom Fans Deserved More Of The Story
Uhtred Needed A Definitive Send-Off
Fans of The Last Kingdom deserved a longer goodbye than what they got with Seven Kings Must Die. Those who began watching The Last Kingdom from the start spent seven years with the show, and while The Last Kingdom season 5 was a satisfying finale in its own right, the loyal fan base deserved more from a movie epilogue. There aren’t many shows with the scope, craftsmanship, and story of The Last Kingdom. Most historical epics don’t last very long, like Rome, and the ones that do survive are usually fantasy, like Game of Thrones and Outlander.
The Last Kingdom felt grounded in a way that few historical series are, and it lasted much longer than any other series with a similar scope.
The Last Kingdom felt grounded in a way that few historical series are, and it lasted much longer than any other series with a similar scope. That alone makes it deserving of more than one feature-length movie. Fans deserved a better ending for Uhtred as well. Though he did have a strong showing in the film, his fate is left too up in the air. He sees Valhalla, but it’s left unclear if he actually dies or not. This does seem to be what the creative team was going for, however. Dreymon said about the ending (via RadioTimes),
“I’m actually very happy with the way that it ends because there’s that ambiguity. You see everything that he’s fought for his whole life and he’s believed in… because the idea of Valhalla and heaven has been such a big character in the show in a way. And that he has the option of going to the feast hall – that he aches for so much – is beautiful to see… It’s such a big thing for him to have that choice. To be able to decide: ‘Do I stay with the people that I love here or do I stay with the people that I love there?’ And ultimately, it’s all going to be okay.”
It’s a fair argument, but if there was one more movie to give the audience more time with Uhtred, the ambiguous ending would have felt a bit less unfulfilling.
Seven Kings Mest Die Covers Too Big Of A Historical Period For One Movie
The Battle Of Brunanburh Was One Of The Most Significant Moments In English History
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die also covers an incredibly important piece of English history. The film is concerned with the unification of England under an Anglo-Saxon ruler, specifically, Aethelstan. The film begins with King Edward falling ill and ends with the Battle of Brunanburh, both true events. That is a significant portion of English history and there is so much more that isn’t covered by the film. The Battle of Brunanburh is sometimes considered the defining battle of English history, more than even the Battle of Hastings (via Historic-UK).
The whole film could easily have been a series about Athelstan, regarded as the first King of the English.
The Scottish, Irish, and Brittonic kings present in the film are intriguing enough to each have their own arcs in a season of The Last Kingdom. There is some fantastic history left out of the film with those kings being condensed. The whole film could easily have been a series about Athelstan, regarded as the first King of the English. So much happens in 10th Century England that could have happened within two movies, including Athelstan’s military and diplomatic efforts in Wales and Cornwall, which would have neatly brought in all the British Isles into the movie.
Netflix Would Have Benefited From A Two-Part The Last Kingdom Movie
Seven Kings Must Die Was A Huge Hit On The Service
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die earned an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes and remained number one on Netflix’s Global Top 10 list for the first two weeks after it premiered, accruing 61.2 million hours viewed (via Top10). It was a huge success for the streaming service and Netflix could have kept the good times rolling by splitting the movie into two parts. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense for a movie to be split into two films, but The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die would have benefited, and it would have buoyed Netflix in the same stroke.
