Encouraged or dissalusioned? Post trailer feelings

[DojoToad]

4 hours ago, TheMountain said:

I loved Jesus Rand though ?

I did too.  It was a very jolting transition, but it worked for me.

[DaddyFinn]

5 hours ago, TheMountain said:

I loved Jesus Rand though ?

Totally. After all he had been through he came to terms with himself. I lovedlovedloved that his presence made the earth and everything fertile and fresh again and it was suitable that his gaze revealed darkfriends.

[Tim]

To be clear, I greatly enjoyed Towers of Midnight (Jesus) Rand, on two grounds:

 

1. After having Rand put up with so much shit, there was something emotionally satisfying about him being put in a position both to know he is 100% right and to be seen to be (close to) 100% right (at least by a lot of people). Especially for those of us who had been reading most of the books in real time - that was nearly 2 decades of watching Rand's efforts to unite people being frustrated and undermined. Like, it was hard not to smile when he suggested Cadsuane address him as "Rand Sedai".

2. Similarly but on a slightly more nuanced level, one of the more irritating aspects of the books from about book 5 onwards was the obstinate refusal of so many of the main characters - Rand as much as anyone - to level with each other or even engage in some basic information sharing. At a fundamental level, this was a key theme of the series and a key part of Rand's own redemptive arc, and more believable than Mercedes Lackey-style fantasy where the characters have unbelievably high EQ and detailed insight into one another. But it was still frequently annoying in practice (especially by Crossroads of Twilight, which stretched the point to near-parody by having so many different characters draw erroneous conclusions as to the cause of the power surge at Shadar Logoth). In that context, Rand's newfound powers of perception and cut-through felt like a nice corrective.

But, notwithstanding the above (or indeed in part because of point 1), I think making Rand so all-seeing and all-knowing still verged on bad writing: the plotting equivalent of the imaginary arguments we have in our heads (often in the shower) where we win every point and eventually our opponent has no option but to concede our superior logic and understanding. Like those daydreams, it's emotionally satisfying but not very real-feeling. Having one character who is so far above and beyond everyone else saps narrative tension.

 

That doesn't mean I think the show should dispense with "Jesus Rand" (or whatever one wishes to call him) entirely - but if it were up to me I'd make him a little less omniscient and a little more human, gifted with full access to LTT's memories and the enhanced wisdom and knowledge that goes with it, but with a little less of the creator-made-flesh vibes. In Towers of Midnight, when Rand begs Tam for forgiveness, it actually felt slightly jarring, because by this stage Rand was evincing so little vulnerability or uncertainty - a slightly less full-on portrayal of his all-round-perfectness would allow the humanness, which I believe RJ and BS still wished to retain and convey, to shine through a little more clearly.

[Maximillion]

From the Epsiode 1 clip I am getting a Xena Warrior Princess or Hercules kind of feeling rather than GoT or LOTR.  Feels cheap and the acting not being very believable.

 

I hope I am wrong.  Does anyone know the budget for this?

[Borderlander]

The budget is in the 10$ million per episode range, I think. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) Sometimes hard to tell, once you factor in marketing costs (which are not counted in the 10$ million) and local tax rebates for filming in various locations (which somehow are figured into the 10$ million...?) 

 

Long story short, I think the odds that we get a Xena or Herculese or even (shudders) Shannara are about 10 million to one. One of the biggest reasons those shows 'feel' cheap (to me) is because they are cheap. They might have good writing (sometimes!) and fun stories, but it shows (especially on a big screen) when your Styrofoam sets are recycled for every episode, your costumes came right off the rack, and your monsters were CGI'd in Microsoft Paint. 

 

I think set design, costuming, practical effects, CGI, musical scoring, casting (not necessarily that you will like every casting choice, but I would be surprised if there is any objectively poor acting. What is poor acting? In a wiser man's words: I can't define it, but I know it when I see it) are likely to be excellent, possibly even raising the bar for modern TV (until LOTR comes out a year later ? ) In any event, they won't look cheap. (That said, I do have reservations about some of those Trolloc 'faces' in the poster... Anyone else getting Flying Monkeys from Wizard of Oz vibes...?)

 

If the show is a critical disappointment, I think it is reasonable to assume it will be because of the writing, directing, and overall decision-making in regards to adapting the source material—in other words, the intangible stuff, the stuff money can't buy. 

 

[AusLeviathan]

16 minutes ago, Borderlander said:

The budget is in the 10$ million per episode range, I think.

The budget is only part of the story. Take the Sand Snakes in GOT, despite the show having a massive budget they had cheap looking armor (later confirmed to be an error made when creating the costume that they didn't have time to fix) and one of the cheapest looking fight scenes ever put to screen (later confirmed to be a result of not booking enough time on the chosen set).

 

Plus the massive amount of CGI that needs to be used, makeup and props that need to be used, costumes that need to be designed, large cast and diverse filming areas and set pieces required mean that $10 million could get used up fast.

 

Basically it wouldn't be surprising if some less important parts of the show have to look at little cheap by comparison in order to make sure the important parts look really good.

 

Also with the large cast they have it would be surprising if there isn't at least one actor who is a little wooden, there's almost always at least one who manages to get cast in these big budget projects.

[TheMountain]

Because of all the fantastical elements, WoT would definitely use up it's money A LOT faster than GoT would while trying to maintain the same level of quality across the board.

[TheDreadReader]

2 hours ago, Borderlander said:

If the show is a critical disappointment, I think it is reasonable to assume it will be because of the writing, directing, and overall decision-making in regards to adapting the source material—in other words, the intangible stuff, the stuff money can't buy. 

 

 

What do you mean by "critical disappointment"?

 

Do you just mean fan criticism or disappointment from professional and/or influencer critics?  An influencer critic might be someone on Youtube with a fairly large following.  A professional critic would be your standard tv writers (who I don't think will have all that much familiarity with the source material).

 

 

  

[Borderlander]

1 hour ago, AusLeviathan said:

that $10 million could get used up fast.

 

30 minutes ago, TheMountain said:

Because of all the fantastical elements, WoT would definitely use up it's money A LOT faster than GoT would while trying to maintain the same level of quality across the board.

 

Too true. But I think we can all agree that when you're spending someone else's money, you always make really wise, prudent decisions. Oh, wait... ?

 

 

7 minutes ago, TheDreadReader said:

What do you mean by "critical disappointment"?

 

I used the word 'critical' pretty clunkily, more in terms of something achieving a critical mass, rather than referring to the show being a dud in some certain critics' eyes. (Which critics? How many of them? What constitutes a dud?)  The minute you writing something like "if the show is bad" you realize you need to emend it with a whole essay about what "bad" means. I was hoping to capture the idea that "if a large number of fans find it underwhelming..." but that too is vague. I probably should have just said, "if you find it disappointing..."

 

[TheDreadReader]

1 hour ago, Borderlander said:

 

I used the word 'critical' pretty clunkily, more in terms of something achieving a critical mass, rather than referring to the show being a dud in some certain critics' eyes. (Which critics? How many of them? What constitutes a dud?)  The minute you writing something like "if the show is bad" you realize you need to emend it with a whole essay about what "bad" means. I was hoping to capture the idea that "if a large number of fans find it underwhelming..." but that too is vague. I probably should have just said, "if you find it disappointing..."

 

 

Makes sense.  I was getting tripped up on the word "critical".

 

 

[DojoToad]

21 hours ago, Borderlander said:

Too true. But I think we can all agree that when you're spending someone else's money, you always make really wise, prudent decisions. Oh, wait... ?

 

Don't even bring in politics - LOL.

 

I have a hard time fathoming what $10MM even means.  Add that to my total ignorance of production costs and I don't know if the money is plenty or abysmally inadequate.

 

Guess we'll have a better idea in about 36 days...

[Maximillion]

On 10/14/2021 at 3:16 PM, DojoToad said:

 

Don't even bring in politics - LOL.

 

I have a hard time fathoming what $10MM even means.  Add that to my total ignorance of production costs and I don't know if the money is plenty or abysmally inadequate.

 

Guess we'll have a better idea in about 36 days...

 

It's a good point, but we can use some comparisons.

The season 1 GoT budget was about $6m per episode I believe - so a lot less.

By the time of the last season it was up to $10m an episode - same as reported for WoT season 1.

 

I guess from that, it could be deduced that $10m an episode is enough to make a good fist of things.

 

If WoT runs for 8-10 seasons (which I think is the minimum it needs) then we're probably talking close to a $1bn production.

 

[Katherine]

On 10/13/2021 at 8:28 AM, Maximillion said:

From the Epsiode 1 clip I am getting a Xena Warrior Princess or Hercules kind of feeling rather than GoT or LOTR.  Feels cheap and the acting not being very believable.

 

I hope I am wrong.  Does anyone know the budget for this?

My husband said the exact same thing. Want this to be GoT level.... not a SyFy mini-series....

 

[Agitel]

WoT S1 budget per episode is about the same as GOT S6 budget per episode. That is, ten million an episode. Early GOT was 6-7 million an episode, while GOT S8 was 15 million an episode.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Agitel

[DojoToad]

Budget matters, but does it really...?

 

1, 10, or 100 million.  It eventually comes down to the showrunner and director, right?  They could make it look GoT, Xena, YA, Spongebob, or whatever.  

[Agitel]

4 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Budget matters, but does it really...?

 

1, 10, or 100 million.  It eventually comes down to the showrunner and director, right?  They could make it look GoT, Xena, YA, Spongebob, or whatever.  

 

Spectacle aside, I think the "cheaper" early seasons of GOT are far better than the more expensive seasons. Budget matters to a point, but there are other important factors. But one thing seems clear, if WOT TV has big issues, it won't be with the budget.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Agitel

[DojoToad]

3 minutes ago, Agitel said:

But one thing seems clear, if WOT TV has big issues, it won't be with the budget.

Agreed

[Els]

Newbie here--hooked onto Wheel of Time from the trailer and started to read the books afterwards. Still haven't finished the series yet but quick thoughts on the trailer.

 

- Casting - Yeah, some of the characters don't seem to match up with what I would envision from the descriptions in the books but I trust that the casting directors went off the merit of the actors portraying the characters. Looking back now could you imagine if Emilia Clarke was never casted for Daenerys if she a foot taller? I never got into GOT but point being you can't help some of the physical attributes of the actors (i.e. height, skin colour/race, etc) but it seems like they do try where they can (hair colour/style, beard). 

 

- Moiraine/Lan's entrance - Totally different from the books but I get it for the context of TV. As someone who's seen the trailer/clip before reading the books you get the vibe that these strangers to EF are both important characters. To set up their character entrance like the books it would take several scenes which they wouldn't have the time for. 14 books translated to a TV show? Could imagine this running maybe 6-8 seasons. I hear the first season is 8 episodes, probably an hour per episode. Could you imagine taking 5-10 minutes of that episode just to set up them entering into town like the books? 

 

- Nynaeve tossing Egwene off the cliff - This caught my eye as someone who hadn't read the books before the trailer. For me, this scene really set the tone for the rest of the trailer starting off with a bang like that. 

- Egwene popping out of the pool with the colours - After finishing the first book initial thoughts were could this have been foreshadowing something farther along with the different Ajahs? You can see blue, red, white, yellow... missing green and brown. Reading some of the other comments could also be the Women's Circle. No clue. 

- Red Ajahs/Leanne - Wow they look fierce! 

- Myrddraal - This scared the crap out of me when I first saw it (granted watching the trailer at night in bed..)

- Also anyone else think the music in the trailer was spot on? I thought it was the perfect build up throughout, especially around 0:54 shot of Tar Valon. 

 

All in all, I was pretty stoked with the trailer and it had me hooked enough to delve into the books. Backwards sort of view from everyone here I guess (seeing the trailer before reading any of the books) but it does a good job of enticing the general public while trying to bring alive the story for the die hard fans. Just an outsider perspective here. Excited to see this story come alive. 

 

(Also .. Nynaeve's braid ?)

[DojoToad]

You're already rattling of WoT lingo like a pro.  No misspellings.  Impressive.

 

Glad the trailer attracted an uninitiated.

[AdamA]

My wife has never read these books and she thought the trailer looked great. She immediately said "wow, that looks epic" after I made her watch it. She's pretty down with the idea of all women magicians protecting the world. Whatever the heck you end up thinking of this show in terms of plot choices and writing, there is no chance whatsoever it will look cheap. The production quality will be as professional as it gets. Just watch the first few seasons of The Expanse on SyFy compared to The Expanse on Amazon. They don't cheap out. It's literally the richest man who has ever lived financing this.

 

Book purists will definitely hate this more than a general audience. That always happens. Likewise, the oldest ASOIAF web forums were pretty hostile to Game of Thrones in spite of it being held up as a standard here, even in the early seasons before it went off the rails. Heck, even some of those decisions irked me, too. Dumbing down the Dotkraki. Turning Stannis into way more of a jerk. Making Daenerys an over the top savior (at least at first). They did a lot of northern lords dirty compared to the loyalty their book characters showed, seemingly just to add drama making it seem harder for Jon and Sansa. Turning Cersei into a Michael Corleone level criminal mastermind was questionable given her book character. Replacing Jeyne Poole with Sansa would have been one of the more controversial and questionable things a book adaptation has ever done if not for them blowing themselves away with season 8.

 

But honestly, it worked fine if you took it at face value on its own merits and weren't just constantly comparing it for fidelity to the books. And if you took into consideration real-world things like Lena Headey giving an all-time great performance probably warranted improving and elevating Cersei relative to her book position. Likewise, you hate what they did with Sansa, but they can't just shelve Sophie Turner for a season when she's probably getting offers to star in blockbuster movies left and right before Dark Phoenix tanked. Georg didn't do them any favors with the alternating POV structure in Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons where half the cast disappears for each book. There are constraints television writers face that book writers don't. Those earlier season complaints seem quaint and stupid compared to making the numerically worst nosedive in television history in terms of both fan and critics ratings for as long as those things have been tracked in the final season.

 

If we can get something as good as Game of Thrones seasons 1-6, I will be ecstatic, but people here should remember that Game of Thrones seasons 1-6 were not perfectly in line with the books. They changed plenty and a lot of book fans did not like it.

[DaddyFinn]

 

In this video's comments:

 

 

Everyone has their right to express opinions but some of that is just blatantly false. Annoys the heck out of me.

[king of nowhere]

9 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

In this video's comments:

 

 

 

Everyone has their right to express opinions but some of that is just blatantly false. Annoys the heck out of me.

it is a well-known fact that people persuaded of an opinion will try to latch to proof of that opinion, and be more disregardful of other evidence.

I want to enjoy this show and i am focusing on the positive, but those who don't are focusing on the negative.

[DaddyFinn]

16 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

it is a well-known fact that people persuaded of an opinion will try to latch to proof of that opinion, and be more disregardful of other evidence.

I want to enjoy this show and i am focusing on the positive, but those who don't are focusing on the negative.

But why tell false information?

[DojoToad]

13 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

But why tell false information?

Because people pay attention to them.  Delicate egos need to be shored up.  They think it makes them relevant.

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, DaddyFinn said:

But why tell false information?

because people misremember. the human memory will often alter small details over time