Am I the only one who thinks the show looks bad?

[thehumantrashcan]

Indeed.  I think the only conclusion we can come to from the trailer is that it doesn't fit any of our head cannon.  

 

Depending on how important that is to us i see why some of us might not like the trailer but it should never mean the show isn't good.

Edited September 19, 2021 by thehumantrashcan

[CaddySedai]

1 hour ago, thehumantrashcan said:

Indeed.  I think the only conclusion we can come to from the trailer is that it doesn't fit any of our head cannon.  

 

Depending on how important that is to us i see why some of us might not like the trailer but it should never mean the show isn't good.

 

He's a witch. Burn him. Burn him.

[thehumantrashcan]

1 hour ago, CaddySedai said:

He's a witch. Burn him. Burn him.

That's what a witch who is hiding something would say!

[CaddySedai]

23 minutes ago, thehumantrashcan said:

That's what a witch who is hiding something would say!

 I hide nothing ?

 

That you know of. 

[AusLeviathan]

There's definitely a few red flags that I can think of.

 

1. The lack of a clear target audience, Rafe has claimed it's both aimed at a mature audience but also accessible to all, that changes were made so make it clear that it's not YA but that he expects teens to be able to watch it with their parents. The marketing also has been heavily skewed towards book readers yet the amount of changes made suggests they're after a broader audience.

 

2. Perrin almost becoming a Bearbrother, that there was significant support for this in the writing room is baffling. It suggests that a lot of the writing team are not necessarily thinking long term because that change would've required a number of other changes, not to mention it would've been significantly more expensive and difficult to portray.

 

3. The LotR series being made at the same time. It creates questions of why Amazon has gone ahead with the WoT series when they already have a significantly more well known property that they had to invest far more in to produce.

 

4. Some of the props are rather underwhelming given the budget they had. Rand's sword has gone from an instantly recognizable sword to one where I can't imagine how anyone would even notice the Heron. The double headed Axe we see on one of the warders (which might be the same type of Axe Perrin uses) stands out by looking like a toy, it clearly would have very limited real use in a battle.

 

5. Sanderson's insistence that you think of it as another turning of the wheel. So far there's nothing we've seen that would support this, some extra stuff that we didn't see is present, some events have been moved around and characters appear to be following slightly different paths but we're yet to see anything that massively changes things and the season does appear to follow EotW. So what does he know that's making him say that?

 

I think it looks mostly like a very well funded adaption of the books but there are things like the above that do make me wonder.

Edited September 19, 2021 by AusLeviathan

[DaddyFinn]

10 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

There's definitely a few red flags that I can think of.

 

1. The lack of a clear target audience, Rafe has claimed it's both aimed at a mature audience but also accessible to all, that changes were made so make it clear that it's not YA but that he expects teens to be able to watch it with their parents. The marketing also has been heavily skewed towards book readers yet the amount of changes made suggests they're after a broader audience.

 

2. Perrin almost becoming a Bearbrother, that there was significant support for this in the writing room is baffling. It suggests that a lot of the writing team are not necessarily thinking long term because that change would've required a number of other changes, not to mention it would've been significantly more expensive and difficult to portray.

 

3. The LotR series being made at the same time. It creates questions of why Amazon has gone ahead with the WoT series when they already have a significantly more well known property that they had to invest far more in to produce.

 

4. Some of the props are rather underwhelming given the budget they had. Rand's sword has gone from an instantly recognizable sword to one where I can't imagine how anyone would even notice the Heron. The double headed Axe we see on one of the warders (which might be the same type of Axe Perrin uses) stands out by looking like a toy, it clearly would have very limited real use in a battle.

 

5. Sanderson's insistence that you think of it as another turning of the wheel. So far there's nothing we've seen that would support this, some extra stuff that we didn't see is present, some events have been moved around and characters appear to be following slightly different paths but we're yet to see anything that massively changes things and the season does appear to follow EotW. So what does he know that's making him say that?

 

I think it looks mostly like a very well funded adaption of the books but there are things like the above that do make me wonder.

1. The series is 16+ on Amazon Prime at the moment. Don't know if it will change later.

 

2. I think it's fine to make suggestions. The fact that they didn't follow through with it suggests they know what they are doing.

 

3. Amazon has money. Why not create two huge series simultaneously? GoT left a massive need for more epic fantasy.

 

4. I agree on this.

 

5. Don't you think that these small changes are essentially what the phrase "a different turning of the Wheel" means? 

[AusLeviathan]

1 hour ago, DaddyFinn said:

1. The series is 16+ on Amazon Prime at the moment. Don't know if it will change later.

 

2. I think it's fine to make suggestions. The fact that they didn't follow through with it suggests they know what they are doing.

 

3. Amazon has money. Why not create two huge series simultaneously? GoT left a massive need for more epic fantasy.

 

4. I agree on this.

 

5. Don't you think that these small changes are essentially what the phrase "a different turning of the Wheel" means? 

1.  That's part of the confusion really, 16+ is YA and Amazon use 16+ as it's example of a YA age rating. I'll give Rafe some slack there as I suspect his view of YA is probably teens as heroes but it does lead to questions of what we'll see.

 

We know that there are Trollocs on screen eating humans, possibly just in the background but still there, there's also definitely blood on screen. If I had to guess based on the trailer I'd think it was pushing TV-MA but it's possible that this stuff is kept out of focus enough to justify 16+, or maybe they really will just rate the episodes individually. Either way a clearer answer would be good, there's no reason for them to be vague as they have been.

 

2. The context was that a single person had managed to convince an exited writing room that there brilliant idea was stupid quite a few times, from Rafe's account everyone else though Perrin talking to bears was a brilliant change. We've had hints from leaks of other major changes that did make it through though (e.g. Perrin starting the series with a wife) and some of it is questionable. Not necessarily bad but if you're starting a series with that many changes things can snowball quickly.

 

3. It's because they're both for a streaming service, they likely aren't making that much money themselves, rather they're there to entice people to buy/keep their subscriptions. There's very little point in making two big budget Fantasy series that will likely have some common elements. Keep in mind streaming services have become notorious recently for ending series early to free up money and for not giving many series the time to grow and gain fans.

 

5. What we've seen in marketing material in terms of changes isn't that different from your average adaption. Some of the possible leaks have definitely hinted at bigger changes though. His comments do make me more inclined to believe those leaks.

Edited September 19, 2021 by AusLeviathan

[Beidomon]

4 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

5. Don't you think that these small changes are essentially what the phrase "a different turning of the Wheel" means? 

No. I don’t think you bother saying anything of the sort for small changes. Small changes - even a few big changes - are unavoidable for screen adaptations of a series of this magnitude.

 

When people start talking “different turning” stuff, it sounds like just one thing and that starts with a Dar and ends with an Ower. It’s concerning to be sure. 

[DojoToad]

I've never thought of the adaptation as a different turning - don't know why Brandon thought it was a good idea to mouth that little gem. As @Beidomon said, big and small changes are to be expected but in the end same story and characters (allowing for aforementioned changes).

[Agitel]

As some have been stressing in other topics, "watchable for young adults" is not the same as the young adult genre. Keep in mind the books are definitely readable for young adults. But the young adult genre doesn't just mean watchable by teens, but includes certain themes. To use HP as an example, the early books are "mid-grade" where adults are often blind to problems or incompetent, whereas the later books are "young adult" and adults are the problem. That's a common YA motif. Another common motif in YA is an overfocus on a love triangle (usually FMM), and semi-soap opera dynamics. These aren't in WoT, and we've seen no indication it'll be in the show. It's current rating still allows nudity, swearing, violence, sex, to all happen on camera, if that floats your boat. You can have a show that has a broad audience which is not "YA" as a genre.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Agitel

[Agitel]

My main concern with changes are not new scenes that flesh out dynamics or expand on the lore or characters we'll meet later. It is those that broadly misunderstand characters and their arcs, and those which are just bad/laughable writing in themselves.

 

I will say back in 2011 with GOT I was far stricter, and same with LotR ten year before that. I don't know if it was my experience with those that prepared me for something different here, or just understanding the WoT is probably far harder to adapt given it is 15 books of content with many dozens of characters and its depth of interior character exposition. Maybe both. But I'm definitely coming at WoT at this point in my life not expecting a strict scene for scene adaptation. Things will be condensed and reordered for the show. I just hope it keeps the main thrust and heart of the books.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Agitel

[Elder_Haman]

6 hours ago, AusLeviathan said:

There's definitely a few red flags that I can think of.

1. The lack of a clear target audience, Rafe has claimed it's both aimed at a mature audience but also accessible to all, that changes were made so make it clear that it's not YA but that he expects teens to be able to watch it with their parents. The marketing also has been heavily skewed towards book readers yet the amount of changes made suggests they're after a broader audience.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this. When I hear "teens will be able to watch", it suggests two things: (1) you won't see full frontal nudity; (2) you won't see extreme gore - say a Trolloc pulling out entrails and eating them. 

 

And while the marketing has been thus far skewed toward book readers, it's hard to make much of that. Marketing has been generally in-line with Amazon's other original series. The actual marketing push just started with the release of the teaser and has pretty standard so far - nice writeups in well established print and online media. And there's an upcoming panel at NYCC. 

 

I mean it seems clear that they want the biggest possible audience and are not going to make it an exclusively for adults product like "The Boys", but then again the books were written for a fairly broad audience so I don't see this as a red flag at all.

 

Quote

 

2. Perrin almost becoming a Bearbrother, that there was significant support for this in the writing room is baffling. It suggests that a lot of the writing team are not necessarily thinking long term because that change would've required a number of other changes, not to mention it would've been significantly more expensive and difficult to portray.

 

 

I don't think it's fair to complain about a brainstorming idea that didn't make it. For all you know, it didn't make it for exactly the reasons you discussed. It's an anecdote without context.

 

Quote

3. The LotR series being made at the same time. It creates questions of why Amazon has gone ahead with the WoT series when they already have a significantly more well known property that they had to invest far more in to produce.

Yes. Why would a multi-billion dollar media giant want to produce two high quality shows in an underdeveloped genre? It's a mystery... 

 

Quote

4. Some of the props are rather underwhelming given the budget they had. Rand's sword has gone from an instantly recognizable sword to one where I can't imagine how anyone would even notice the Heron. The double headed Axe we see on one of the warders (which might be the same type of Axe Perrin uses) stands out by looking like a toy, it clearly would have very limited real use in a battle.

Valid. I want to see them on screen for a bit to see if I get used to them and how they feel in context. But I see where you're coming from. (The sword doesn't bother me, but the axes do look silly.)

 

Quote

5. Sanderson's insistence that you think of it as another turning of the wheel. So far there's nothing we've seen that would support this, some extra stuff that we didn't see is present, some events have been moved around and characters appear to be following slightly different paths but we're yet to see anything that massively changes things and the season does appear to follow EotW. So what does he know that's making him say that?

You're reading way too far into what he said. He acknowledged that there are many differences between the show and the books and says that it helps him to think of the show as another turning.

 

You write off putting Logain's story on screen as "some extra stuff", and you acknowledge that events are moved and character arcs change. Isn't that enough to call it a different turning? If not, why not? 

[CaddySedai]

@Elder_Haman Cuz that wouldn't fit the narrative my dear.  ?

[AusLeviathan]

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

I mean it seems clear that they want the biggest possible audience and are not going to make it an exclusively for adults product like "The Boys", but then again the books were written for a fairly broad audience so I don't see this as a red flag at all.

For who else are the books if not adults?

 

To start with the violence in the series is intense, people are exploded, burnt, decapitated, limbs cut/burned off, drowned, stabbed in the eyes, have their eye ripped out, hung, eaten and skinned alive. There are a number of instances of presentations of dead bodies including one notable instance where people are dancing and celebrating around a severed head.

 

Then you have the sexual violence. Multiple people who are raped and it is not hidden that this is happening, we even have multiple instances of people in series making jokes to the victims about their assaults.  The entirety of Faile's group among the Shaido being forced to find protectors because of the rampant sexual assaults going on in the camp. Plus Galina ending up stuck in her new life as Therava's sex slave and Suroth being sent to "service" the Deathwatch Guard.

 

The overall themes in the story, that balance is necessary and that sometimes unity is needed with those that you find abhorrent. The heroes allow hundreds of women to be kept as slaves in order to get an agreement on peace. Domestic violence is presented as common and accepted in many cultures. The Chosen One is slowly going mad and is willing to slaughter thousands in order to send a message.

 

If this isn't adult then what is?

 

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

Yes. Why would a multi-billion dollar media giant want to produce two high quality shows in an underdeveloped genre?

It was an underdeveloped genre 10 years ago, it is now a saturated genre so full of similar shows that one of the most common responses from non book readers when the trailer was released was how generic it looked, because they have seen much of the imagery shown in a dozen shows over the past few years.

 

If the shows were cheaper it would make more sense, throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks but the start up costs for LotR were so high that they can't really allow it to fail which puts WoT in the position as the easy Fantasy show to cut short if they need to free up money for a new project, an unfortunately rather common occurrence with streaming services recently.

 

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

You write off putting Logain's story on screen as "some extra stuff", and you acknowledge that events are moved and character arcs change. Isn't that enough to call it a different turning? If not, why not? 

None of the stuff shown in the trailer would cause changes down the line, is it very standard adaption expansion/combing of events. Showing Logain killing an Aes Sedai doesn't change his plot, he was already a dangerous False Dragon responsible for killing people. The characters taking different paths to get to Fal Dara doesn't change how things would go at Fal Dara.

 

There are definitely larger changes that we haven't been shown in the trailer and that's almost certainly what Sanderson is referring to.

Edited September 19, 2021 by AusLeviathan

[Agitel]

1 hour ago, AusLeviathan said:

For who else are the books if not adults?

 

To start with the violence in the series is intense, people are exploded, burnt, decapitated, limbs cut/burned off, drowned, stabbed in the eyes, have their eye ripped out, hung, eaten and skinned alive. There are a number of instances of presentations of dead bodies including one notable instance where people are dancing and celebrating around a severed head.

 

Then you have the sexual violence. Multiple people who are raped and it is not hidden that this is happening, we even have multiple instances of people in series making jokes to the victims about their assaults.  The entirety of Faile's group among the Shaido being forced to find protectors because of the rampant sexual assaults going on in the camp. Plus Galina ending up stuck in her new life as Therava's sex slave and Suroth being sent to "service" the Deathwatch Guard.

 

The overall themes in the story, that balance is necessary and that sometimes unity is needed with those that you find abhorrent. The heroes allow hundreds of women to be kept as slaves in order to get an agreement on peace. Domestic violence is presented as common and accepted in many cultures. The Chosen One is slowly going mad and is willing to slaughter thousands in order to send a message.

 

If this isn't adult then what is?

 

It was an underdeveloped genre 10 years ago, it is now a saturated genre so full of similar shows that one of the most common responses from non book readers when the trailer was released was how generic it looked, because they have seen much of the imagery shown in a dozen shows over the past few years.

 

If the shows were cheaper it would make more sense, throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks but the start up costs for LotR were so high that they can't really allow it to fail which puts WoT in the position as the easy Fantasy show to cut short if they need to free up money for a new project, an unfortunately rather common occurrence with streaming services recently.

 

None of the stuff shown in the trailer would cause changes down the line, is it very standard adaption expansion/combing of events. Showing Logain killing an Aes Sedai doesn't change his plot, he was already a dangerous False Dragon responsible for killing people. The characters taking different paths to get to Fal Dara doesn't change how things would go at Fal Dara.

 

There are definitely larger changes that we haven't been shown in the trailer and that's almost certainly what Sanderson is referring to.

 

I read the first nine books at 13 and 14. Much of the sex and more grotesque violence is implicit, not explicit. For all his descriptiveness, Jordan was very not descriptive about some things. Compare to Game of Thrones with Martin's very matter of fact descriptions of sex and sexual assault and body parts, or Outlander's multi-page erotica scenes. Jordan really does none of this. And I'm not saying that is a bad thing at all.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Agitel

[Elder_Haman]

25 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

For who else are the books if not adults?

The books were marketed to both adults and young adults. I started reading it when I was in high school. 

 

25 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

To start with the violence in the series is intense, people are exploded, burnt, decapitated, limbs cut/burned off, drowned, stabbed in the eyes, have their eye ripped out, hung, eaten and skinned alive. There are a number of instances of presentations of dead bodies including one notable instance where people are dancing and celebrating around a severed head.

Okay. But Jordan notably stayed away from lurid descriptions of sex and violence. The carnage of the asha'man attack at Dumai's Wells lasts all of two paragraphs. Jordan never lingered on the grisly. He did not describe lurid sex.

 

The show is being marketed to adults and older teens, which pretty much tracks who the books were marketed to. And the TV-16 rating gives plenty of room to depict the more disturbing aspects. Go watch "the 100" (a TV-14) show and tell me that the rating doesn't allow for enough room to explore adult themes.

 

28 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

one of the most common responses from non book readers when the trailer was released was how generic it looked

Really? This was one of the "most common responses"? Or, this was a negative response that you latched on to because it tracks with how you feel about it? Most of the responses I saw were overwhelmingly positive. 

 

30 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

If the shows were cheaper it would make more sense, throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks but the start up costs for LotR were so high that they can't really allow it to fail which puts WoT in the position as the easy Fantasy show to cut short if they need to free up money for a new project, an unfortunately rather common occurrence with streaming services recently.

Wheel of Time may be a less well known IP than LotR. It also has the benefit of having 14 volumes worth of story available for adapting and it has an ending. LotR has name recognition and little else. Many people who love the Hobbits and LotR have never read any of Tolkien's other work. They have no idea what to expect from the new LotR, which is great.

 

But it also means that the show has to be good and captivating immediately. If I were to place bets on which will be a bigger success, I'll put my money on WoT. But we will see. At any rate, if you're going to spend huge money to make a fantasy series, you choose one where the books have sold 90 million copies and where the ending is nearly universally agreed to be fantastic.

[CaddySedai]

10 minutes ago, Agitel said:

 

I read the first nine books at 13 and 14. Much of the sex and more grotesque violence is implicit, not explicit. For all his descriptiveness, Jordan was very not descriptive about some things. Compare to Game of Thrones with Martin's very attractive of fact descriptions of sex and sexual assault and body parts, or Outlander's multi-page erotica scenes. Jordan really does none of this. And I'm not saying that is a bad thing at all.

 

Good for a minute it sounded you were an advocate to know the size shape and angle of Demandred's junk.

 

Again, things I can live without ?

 

*Mesaana shudders*

[king of nowhere]

8 hours ago, AusLeviathan said:

 

2. Perrin almost becoming a Bearbrother,

 

this is a perfect show of how true facts get expanded and embellished until fake news are born.

 

perrin was never going to be a bearbrother. that's not at all what that q&a was saying. it said that they considered having perrin talk to a bear.

which is completely different than making him bearbrother and removing the wolves. probably they just considered, among his various powers as wolfbrother, adding "talks to animals other than wolves too".

and yes, it was probably a bad idea. but still nothing close to a bearbrother.

adding a similar power is a thing that could be asked in a brainstorming

 

also, speaking of fake news. there's a problem with search algorithms. they record your preference, and show you stuff you liked.

in this case, it means if you see a zany speculation, and you search for it, you get results from sites also containing zany speculations. and if you go read those, your browser will take notice, and the next time it will show greater preference for them. the whole system is built in a way that will tell you what you want to hear. in this case, confirmation of your fears.

at the most extreme, if you got ahold of a flatearther's laptop, and googled on it "is earth flat?", it would answer

1) yes!

2) hell yes!!!

3) there's no doubt about it.

Because those would be the results that the guy was looking, and his browser would keep showing him those results.

so "you keep seeing rampant speculation that they did X Y and Z" does not prove anything. it's most likely this effect at work

 

Edited September 19, 2021 by king of nowhere

[Agitel]

43 minutes ago, CaddySedai said:

 

Good for a minute it sounded you were an advocate to know the size shape and angle of Demandred's junk.

 Omigosh my autocorrect today I swear.

[CaddySedai]

4 minutes ago, Agitel said:

 Omigosh my autocorrect today I swear.

Tehehe

[SinisterDeath]

4 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

Yes. Why would a multi-billion dollar media giant want to produce two high quality shows in an underdeveloped genre? It's a mystery... 

 

And if rumors are true, the C.E.O of said company is a WoT Fan.

[CaddySedai]

1 hour ago, SinisterDeath said:

And if rumors are true, the C.E.O of said company is a WoT Fan.

And the other thing is they want their own GoT. As good a property (legendary even) and as well known - no matter what they do. No matter how hard they try. Their LOTR will always be measured against the Jackson movies. Fair or as unfair as one may feel about that - it is a fact. 

 

WoT to them is clean… carries less total expectations. And like GoT might be able to increase sales of the books through their platform as well. I know most of GoT viewers who never read it before watching went back in later to read. 

[TheDreadReader]

12 hours ago, AusLeviathan said:

3. The LotR series being made at the same time. It creates questions of why Amazon has gone ahead with the WoT series when they already have a significantly more well known property that they had to invest far more in to produce.

 

 

I take the fact that Amazon is producing both the LOTR series and the WOT series as a good thing especially from a purely business perspective.

 

Disney+ has both Star Wars and the MCU.  Two rather big properties to work with.  Netflix has The Witcher and (who knows what series now given the way they cancel things).  HBO still has GOT and whatever they plan on doing with it.   Investing big into content is a strategy for these platforms to stay relevant and keep subscribers.

 

Personally, I'm not a LOTR fan (Five minutes of hobbits and I'm rooting for the Ringwraiths).  It is possible that the appetite for LOTR content may not be what it once was (for now).  Hedging their bets with two shows would make good business sense on their part.  But, they could easily make two great series with the two different properties.

 

As for Sanderson's comment about "another turning of the wheel".   I have a feeling that produced a rather lengthy phone call from Amazon considering the potential impact of that comment.  His most recent comments seem far more positive.  Take from that what you will.

 

 

[Thrasymachus]

"A different turning" is, and has always been, a cop-out.  Just like "keeping to the core" or the "spirit" or "main thrust," are vague and ultimately meaningless phrases.  Marketing typically abounds with such, but its deployment here is egregious, an attempt to mollify some of us by using a throwaway world-building device from the books, in order to justify the series' complete abandonment of anything distinctly Wheel of Time.  Strip out the voice-over and the identifying logos, and there's nothing that would identify anything that's been shown as a Wheel of Time adapation to even the most knowledgeable and discerning fan of the prior art.

 

Prior art, and the culture of fandom that's grown up around that prior art, matters.  Particularly of art that's already so broadly popular that it almost counts as mainstream all on its own, prior to any successful adaptation into TV or movies or a successful game.  It doesn't even matter if the writing and acting are Academy-award worthy, and I can guarantee they won't be with the writing team they have.  This blatant a deviation from the prior art (of a series that is so popular that if they even captured half the book readers it would rank among the most popular small-screen shows since the era of Cheers and MASH) can only possibly be met with anger, division and backlash, and deservedly so. 

 

And what is often as galling as it is frequently amusing is that so many of us have forgotten that we don't owe Rafe Judkins or Amazon Studios anything.  Not even a "chance," or a "benefit of the doubt."  He, and they, owe us and the IP they are adapting the proof that they are really "keeping to the core" of the story, that they understand its "heart and spine," and the explanations and justifications for their changes that respect the story, the prior art, and the prior fans, before they should expect the kind of support that so many here are willing to not just give away to them, but will contort themselves and their hopes and expectations into pretzels to provide.  They say those words, but words are cheap and often false, and should never be trusted without the actions and receipts to back them up.  They don't have any of that here.  There is nothing of the Wheel of Time in what's been shown thus far, except for some names.  And quite a bit that's distinctly not the Wheel of Time.  

[DojoToad]

2 hours ago, CaddySedai said:

WoT to them is clean… carries less total expectations. And like GoT might be able to increase sales of the books through their platform as well. I know most of GoT viewers who never read it before watching went back in later to read. 

How could you possibly know that most GoT viewers went back to read the books?  In my limited circle of friends, acquaintances, coworkers, etc. I find that people who watch a lot of TV and/or movies usually read very little - not always, but usually.  And the few people I know that watched GoT have not and have no plans to read the books - they're looking for the next show.