Most of the trailer turned me off; looks like a young adult series

[Pembie]

It looked very much like legend of the seeker style too me saying that I liked that show  I liked that story better than I am of wheel of time at the moment don’t hate me lol
But it doesn’t look like a game of thrones rival but in saying that I didn’t like game of thrones 

 

I will watch it probably when I finish the books 

[JaimAybara]

2 hours ago, Pembie said:

It looked very much like legend of the seeker style too me saying that I liked that show  I liked that story better than I am of wheel of time at the moment don’t hate me lol
But it doesn’t look like a game of thrones rival but in saying that I didn’t like game of thrones 

 

I will watch it probably when I finish the books 

Haha no hate my friend. I think many of us are just crossing our fingers hoping it’s more like Game of Thrones and less Legend of the Seeker or Xena etc. in production value. I like looking at costumes and thinking their outfits, if I feel like they look like costumes I personally think something has gone awry. 

[Guest redgiant]

A real problem with having limits wrt the rating, is merely the fact that there *are* boundaries and censor avoidance and guard rails to constantly tiptoe around.

 

Yet another excuse (like we need to give Rafe more) to deviate in very big ways from the story and tone RJ wove. There are 100s if not 1000s of plot points that have to artificially be sanitized "for our protection".

 

Btw, all 3 LOTR movies were PG-13, but what you may have forgotten is that one reason orc blood was shown as black was to keep a few scenes intact that would have been R (TV-MA), otherwise if the blood had been the color of human blood they would have meant an R rating. And nothing in LOTR comes close to the graphic goings on in WoT; there is a lot of human blood and guts involved in a lot of scenes. So clearly they will not show it or they would squarely be TV-MA.

 

You know how you see some TV scene of a couple in bed, and the woman always magically has a sheet covering her breasts as if she is embarrassed to be seen by the man who just slid all over her naked body? That is the kind of non-organic watering down I hope we don't see but fear we will. There is a discernible fakeness when the sexuality, violence or language obviously and logically called for in a scene is purposely detoured for the sake of shoehorning into a target rating. The audience can tell, and it most assuredly can and will take you out of the immersion that the show desperately is trying to establish.

 

Unnaturally coercing the story and depiction to be non-gratuitous is just as bad as coercing it to be gratuitous.

 

Can you imagine Daenerys' dragons not chewing up and burning people like in the arena scene? Or Hardhome not having all the terror and brutality of an undead legion killing and adding the once-living to their ranks? Or the Battle of the Bastards not having, well, every awesome frame it had (or have its name changed to the Battle of the Illegitimate Children)? Now apply that to the myriad scenes that would be of like kind in WoT. Ashaman Kill! ... yeah right.

 

This has no chance to be the "next GoT" if they go the overly conservative route. None.

 

 

[DaddyFinn]

I don't like the trend of showing extreme violence with no actual blood and gore. It gives the younger audience wrong picture of the results of violence and it is boring for me. MCU superhero films come to mind.. I think we saw trolloc blood in the teaser so hopefully there will be some gore. Ideal would be Dumai's Well style of a  meatgrinder but we will see. 

[Elder_Haman]

7 hours ago, redgiant said:

There are 100s if not 1000s of plot points that have to artificially be sanitized "for our protection".

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

Jordan did not write lurid depictions of sex and violence. He just didn't. You can absolutely tell this story without scenes of intestines leaking, blood spurting everywhere, and full frontal sex scenes that are indistinguishable from soft-core pornography.

 

I really hope they don't take your advice and make Wheel of Time into a gratuitous boob and gore fest. That's not what the books are and it's not what the show needs to be.

[DaddyFinn]

7 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

Jordan did not write lurid depictions of sex and violence. He just didn't. You can absolutely tell this story without scenes of intestines leaking, blood spurting everywhere, and full frontal sex scenes that are indistinguishable from soft-core pornography.

 

I really hope they don't take your advice and make Wheel of Time into a gratuitous boob and gore fest. That's not what the books are and it's not what the show needs to be.

Agree on the sex stuff. I want to see the gory side of channeling against someone. Jordan described those pretty vaguely but told enough so readers could imagine the rest.

 

Edit. I kinda wish they keep the casual nudity with aiel 

Edited October 4, 2021 by DaddyFinn

[Elder_Haman]

4 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

Agree on the sex stuff. I want to see the gory side of channeling against someone. Jordan described those pretty vaguely but told enough so readers could imagine the rest.

 

Edit. I kinda wish they keep the casual nudity with aiel 

There's room for some gore and for some nudity. I don't have an issue at all with that. But in my opinion, the gore and nudity should be used sparingly in order to drive home a plot point or expand on a story theme.

 

It's different from making gratuitous sex and violence into a centerpiece of the show like, for example, "The Boys" does.

[king of nowhere]

gore and nudity work when they make sense in the story. When the story goes out of its way to show them, then it becomes gratuitous fanservice, and it's bad.

[JaimAybara]

9 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

Jordan did not write lurid depictions of sex and violence. He just didn't. You can absolutely tell this story without scenes of intestines leaking, blood spurting everywhere, and full frontal sex scenes that are indistinguishable from soft-core pornography.

 

I really hope they don't take your advice and make Wheel of Time into a gratuitous boob and gore fest. That's not what the books are and it's not what the show needs to be.

The Nudity:

 

A lot of it has to do with norms. There are instances with plenty of nudity, sweat tents, Sea Folk sailing etc. which is totally normal for their society and not sexualized at all, but rather the main characters own social norms being projected onto the others which create the embarrassment and social struggle within those scenes, and that is a really interesting thing to deal with as a cultural clash in the world, however brief. They could still do so tastefully and without constantly being nude as you mentioned and I agree strongly on this point. (GoT had so many unnecessary scenes) They could even be like, “alright crew put your tops on, the folks from Andor are having their sensibilities offended,” and kinda make a joke on the Emond’s Field folks expense. I think the bath houses in the Shienar are similar, not to mention the serving maids coming in and out to take clothes while they were in their small clothes etc. and the boys freaking out. All of these things though should be handled tastefully and should be subtle notes. Not main focal points that really serve no purpose other than adding it just because. Also, Graendal has so much pride with her own body and her pets and how they wear flimsy nightgowns which are virtually see through etc. There are indeed quite a few more than suggestive moments in the series. He uses the power of euphemism very well and he is so suggestive with his language. Even Faile talks about the Saldaen dance the Sa’sara and it was so indecent some queens in Saldaea outlawed it, but it is still performed in private. So, for those who say there is a lot of nudity I would agree, I just wouldn’t go full GoT. It will be interesting how they balance it. 
 

The Violence: 

 

I hope to the Creator they don’t pull a Lion Witch and the Wardrobe where blood is virtually non-existent. I think I’ve seen some blood, but to what extent we don’t know yet. To be put simply there are some scenes which are for lack of a better word bloodbaths in the books. Whether or not Robert Jordan explicitly says so or not on the page or allows the mind to fill in the blanks. Now, should this be Tarantino level all the time? Probably not, but I think they should have a handful of scenes through out the series that are most certainly flirting with the gratuitous side of violence or dance on the line. Falme, Dumai’s Wells, and then later at the manor house where a certain someone uses a certain weave on the Trollocs. It would be underwhelming if there was near zero blood in these scenes. 

Edited October 5, 2021 by JaimAybara

[Beidomon]

I’m not sure if you all are going off on a tangent or if you’re missing the point, but gore and nudity have nothing to do with a show “looking YA.” I can’t tell you exactly why some of the trailer looks YA, but it just does. Kind of like how the late Justice Potter Stewart once defined obscenity: you know it when you see it. 

[DaddyFinn]

22 minutes ago, Beidomon said:

I’m not sure if you all are going off on a tangent or if you’re missing the point

Yes.

[JaimAybara]

3 minutes ago, Beidomon said:

I’m not sure if you all are going off on a tangent or if you’re missing the point, but gore and nudity have nothing to do with a show “looking YA.” I can’t tell you exactly why some of the trailer looks YA, but it just does. Kind of like how the late Justice Potter Stewart once defined obscenity: you know it when you see it. 

I think the complete lack of blood creates an atmosphere of inauthenticity and level of censorship reserved for children’s movies such as Narnia. It might not be the largest aspect which lends to the YA feel, but I think it is one of the many referenced by your quote.

[JaimAybara]

This isn’t to say it needs to be Kill Bill or Saving private Ryan, but I would also argue those are both extremely gratuitous and well done at the same time. Gratuitous isn’t indicative of bad, just as using it sparingly doesn’t mean it will be bad either. However, once it is too sparse, it does become YA feeling to me. 

[Frodo Baggins]

Squid Game currently rated 15!

[Guest redgiant]

4 hours ago, JaimAybara said:

This isn’t to say it needs to be Kill Bill or Saving private Ryan, but I would also argue those are both extremely gratuitous and well done at the same time. Gratuitous isn’t indicative of bad, just as using it sparingly doesn’t mean it will be bad either. However, once it is too sparse, it does become YA feeling to me. 

 

And SPR is acclaimed as a realistic, visceral war movie, with atrocities and combat and inhumanities depicted as extreme as they really are. Same with Band of Brothers. Same with Schindler's List; I still shed tears every time I see that movie. War is ugly, not convenient.

 

You want to see what Ashaman Kill! should look like on-screen? Like when those guys in SPR trying to get into that German tank get ripped apart by saidin ... I mean the bullets. Only much worse.

 

My point above was: if a scene calls for commensurate violence to give it the impact it deserves and to stand out, then not doing so (being non-gratuitous) reduces it to a caricature of emotional masterpieces that do run with it and make it sting.

Edited October 5, 2021 by redgiant

[Skipp]

I believe Amazon rates each episode of a season individually so it stands to reason we may see Blood/Gore, Sex/Nudity as the story dictates.

[DaddyFinn]

50 minutes ago, Skipp said:

I believe Amazon rates each episode of a season individually so it stands to reason we may see Blood/Gore, Sex/Nudity as the story dictates.

That would be nice and odd. 

 

I never cared about age ratings as a child. I played Gears of War at 10 years old and watched horror etc. and never got any issues with them because I knew the difference between them and real life. Of course that's totally individual. Some can't ever watch or play gory and scary stuff and that's fine. The real world can be harsh and scary enough.

[Daenelia]

There were two moments in the trailer that I think point to the fear of this being 'Legend of Monkey' (Not Xena; Xena had excellent stories and characters that made it a very watchable show. Monkey just misses that spot. And I do not talk about seeker.)

 

But arguably, Farscape had moments in the first series that were ... not quite getting there. FFS, it was basically Muppets in Space but  they quickly got over that in storytelling and acting. Farscape is one of my most beloved series ever. And until I see WoT, I won't say if it can or can't hit that point where it becomes awesome.

 

But I understand that people are worried. But for me it was 2 moments in an entire teaser trailer, with scenes that for all we know might not even end up in the final product!

[Pembie]

Why don’t you talk about Seeker lol 

[king of nowhere]

9 hours ago, JaimAybara said:

I think the complete lack of blood creates an atmosphere of inauthenticity and level of censorship reserved for children’s movies such as Narnia. It might not be the largest aspect which lends to the YA feel, but I think it is one of the many referenced by your quote.

there is no complete lack of blood.

1:43 in the trailer, lan is skewering a trolloc and there's blood aplenty. Much more than i'd expect in real life for that kind of wound, actually

[DaddyFinn]

1 hour ago, Daenelia said:

There were two moments

What are those moments?

[JaimAybara]

29 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

there is no complete lack of blood.

1:43 in the trailer, lan is skewering a trolloc and there's blood aplenty. Much more than i'd expect in real life for that kind of wound, actually

Yeah, I saw that. In the last comment I was speaking generally for movies that do not use any, connecting it to YA feel. Personally, I think they will strike a balance. Hope it’s good! 

[JaimAybara]

I do however think it will remain to be seen if there is enough and how well done. That image gives me a lot of hope, but I just mean to say I think Jordan’s depiction of battles and such can be quite graphic, or at least more graphic than people are admitting.

-New Spring-

pg. 132

 

“Where her fireball struck, they exploded, decapitating a creature with a ram’s snout and horns, blowing a goat-horned trolloc in two, ripping off legs. She felt no pity. Trollocs took human prisoners only for food.” 
 

I think this isn’t overly described, nevertheless you have creatures getting exploded, decapitated, and bifurcated, with the ripping off of limbs. It’s hard to adapt stuff like this without being graphic. This implies a great deal of blood and is in of itself quite gratuitous. Not to mention the reference of trollocs eating people, and other examples of them finding heads and limbs in cook pots later in the series.

[king of nowhere]

7 hours ago, JaimAybara said:

-New Spring-

pg. 132

 

“Where her fireball struck, they exploded, decapitating a creature with a ram’s snout and horns, blowing a goat-horned trolloc in two, ripping off legs. She felt no pity. Trollocs took human prisoners only for food.” 
 

I think this isn’t overly described, nevertheless you have creatures getting exploded, decapitated, and bifurcated, with the ripping off of limbs. It’s hard to adapt stuff like this without being graphic. This implies a great deal of blood and is in of itself quite gratuitous. Not to mention the reference of trollocs eating people, and other examples of them finding heads and limbs in cook pots later in the series.

you still have ways to avoid getting too graphic. Use blood and other explosive effects to cover or blur the more grisly details. Don't show the explosion from too close. Show the ripped off legs from the intact part, not the cut out part. A bloody stump is much less graphic than a stump with a broken bone jutting from it and torn strips of muscles and tendons splayed around.

[Beidomon]

12 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

What are those moments?

Alright, let’s guess the two moments. 
 

One’s def gotta be the scene in the clearing with the arrows, right? Best I can describe the YA-ness: It looks way too “pretty” for an action scene.

 

Ok the second one. Let’s see. I’m guessing something White Tower-related. Maybe the scene of Mo with her back to us in the super pretty dress looking elegantly out the window? Def has the “pretty factor.”

 

Those are my guesses.