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

[Guire]

16 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.

 

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.

I am giving you #4.  At least until series comes out and disproves me.  I hope they got some weapon experts on crew.  Too much fighting in this series to have a video game aesthetic going on.

[JaimAybara]

Maybe I’m crazy, but my main concern so far is costume design, culture, and accents. (Not a lot from anyone other than Moiraine voice wise so far so I will go over the first two).
 

I’m not mad about more color and vibrancy, but the oversimplified monochromatic / highly similar style of clothing from what appears to be different parts of their journey irks me. I can see it within Emond’s Field and other parts of Andor, but where is the upscale shift after leaving The Two Rivers? The only significant change I saw was Siuan haha which is hilarious to me since she was vehemently against dressing fancy, but maybe someone has a sense of humor or they wanted to give a sense of majesty for newcomers. (It could just not be in the trailer, but what I did see has me apprehensive.)

 

Yes, one of the inside joke critiques in Wheel of Time fandom is the lengthy description of dresses and clothing…but it would be a great disservice to the different cultures and peoples he created in the books if they don’t pay close attention to detail regarding something painstakingly described in the series. I think this is one of the root causes of “generic fantasy” comments online. The red Ajah shot was horribly uninspired in my opinion. None of them have lingering styles from their past lives before being raised Aes Sedai? I never got the notion they were so similar, unless they were dressed for court maybe.

 

I hope we get a distinct culture of Caemlyn, a representation of the Daes  Dae’mar in Cairhien, and the knife necklaces and duels of Ebou Dar…the personality of Saldaeans, the Aiel, and Malkieri etc. but if everyone has cheap outfits or wardrobes that appear to be of similar origin, style, and make, it will severely diminish and take away from the overall experience. Not to mention, paying attention to cultural norms, accents, and dress is one of the best ways to make you feel like they have journeyed somewhere without relying only on landscape shots.  

Edited September 20, 2021 by JaimAybara

[AusLeviathan]

In regards to the age rating, my point is that the message has been confusing, if it's important that people know WoT isn't YA (in Rafe's own words) but at the same time Amazon is promoting it with a YA age rating then something somewhere has gone wrong.

 

I can guarantee though that if the books received the same sort of age rating scrutiny that Movies and Shows do then WoT would've been given the equivalent of an R rating.

 

14 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

Go watch "the 100" (a TV-14) show and tell me that the rating doesn't allow for enough room to explore adult themes.

Alright I will, it doesn't. This is kind of the reason for the age ratings, TV-14 is too limited for WoT, though admittedly GoT and some other shows have created the impression that the adult rating is just there so they can add in gratuitous sex scenes so I understand the mistake.

 

14 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

Really? This was one of the "most common responses"?

Yes it was, it was painful to see how common that response was though given the vague trailer with little plot detail I understand it. That and "well at least we know the LotR series is going to look really good now since that's where they're putting the real money".

 

Positive responses were largely skewed towards book fans (because if you knew what you were looking at it looked awesome), check the disparity on reddit between the post on r/wot and the post on r/television or r/videos to see how different non book fans felt.

 

Personally I won't be happy until we've reached season 8 and know they haven't had their budget cut. Even if the series is great, even if it's super successful, even if it's winning awards there's always a chance that Amazon will end the series early. Keep in mind at the moment basically nothing has managed to break past season 4 on Amazon and streaming services in general are starting to show a disinterest in long series because as time goes on they bring in less new viewers each year.

Edited September 20, 2021 by AusLeviathan

[Daenelia]

9 hours ago, DojoToad said:

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.

Well, let's look at The Witcher then. In my circle a lot of people have turned to the original books (not the game) to get their fix waiting for the next season. It is not unreasonable that might go double for WoT. That being originally English, where The Witcher is a translation for many (translations can be VERY good, but it does seem to be a hurdle for English native speakers. And that said the Dutch translation of WoT, originally, was horrendous. I think they re-did the translation).

 

Yes, the show can go in a direction some people don't like; it can be a hit with non-fans and not with fans; it can aim for the wrong audience, or it can be a surprise and be the hit I think we all expect and hope it to be.

 

I'm happy I have low expectations. I read the books at 14 ... funny enough around the same time I picked up Dune. The latest Dune film was right for me. So I know WoT can be done correctly in the right hands. And unless it is badly written, badly acted and looks cheap, I think I will enjoy watching WoT even if it is now my vision.

 

It's still subjective! Reading is very very subjective. The author communicates with you through your own frame. Nothing comes straight from their brain into yours. A TV series has a different way to communicate and it is there in the open. Our world view, our own frame, does impact it, but only where it deviates from the view of the writers, director, costume department, actors...

 

Still giving it the benefit of the doubt. And if Egwene and Rand having sex is the worst thing to come out of this, I say: that would be more realistic, now wouldn't it? I lived in a tiny community. I know what goes on.

[DaddyFinn]

18 minutes ago, Daenelia said:

And if Egwene and Rand having sex is the worst thing to come out of this, I say: that would be more realistic, now wouldn't it? I lived in a tiny community. I know what goes on.

Yeah, it doesn't automatically mean that Rand is a suave womanizer. He could still be insecure and clueless when the first serious relationship he ever had falls apart.

[SinisterDeath]

7 hours ago, AusLeviathan said:

Yes it was, it was painful to see how common that response was though given the vague trailer with little plot detail I understand it.

Didn't know you were a statistician, and have ran the numbers.

[king of nowhere]

21 hours ago, AusLeviathan said:

 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.

 

13 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

 there's nothing that would identify anything that's been shown as a Wheel of Time adapation

 

this is actually a valid point, but one that deserves some attention.

because yes, i agree that if i didn't knew it was wheel of time, i would not recognize much. and i agree that it mostly looks generic fantasy.

 

But then, what doesn't?

 

The teaser trailer is 100 seconds of fast images, we never see any scene for more than a few seconds, and there's very few dialogues. Show me one teaser trailer for anything fantasy that wouldn't look generic. Heck, show me a teaser trailer for anything that wouldn't look generic.

star wars? starships, people fighting with laser guns, exploring strange places, very generic.

star trek? starships, people figthing with slightly different laser guns, exploring exotic places, equally generic.

lotr? elves, dwarves, people fighting with swords, just another fantasy.

harry potter? kids doing magic. meh.

 

which, by the way, is why i never watch tv. trailers don't hook me. everything feels samey. Which is unavoidable, because you can't really get something's unique character in a couple of minutes. Have me talk for two minutes with a bloke, he'll look very generic too.

So yes, the trailer was kinda generic-fantasy looking, but i have no idea how it could have been anything else.

 

and the closely related argument about what would be recognizable as wot. Well, what would be recognizable?

I mean, i could see a specific scene from the books and recognize it. that would be recognizable wot. In the trailer we don't recognize scenes. The keenest viewer would realize, perhaps it's because we haven't seen any one scene in the trailer. Like, at all. just a few seconds of snippets. what is there to recognize? is there any pivotal scene from the books that would be recognizable in that format? I can't think of one.

Which leaves the props, the items, the scenery, which is where thrasymacus always ends up going.

but that's not wheel of time, under any definition.

I could make a perfect replica of tam's sword and mat dagger, copied with the greatest level of faithfulness, and then give them to luke skywalker to fight a sith lord, just because there is the item it does not mean anything. Heck, I could use those exact replicas as dildos to make a porn if i wanted. Just because i see a perfect rendition of the shadar logoth dagger, i do not recognize it as wheel of time, and it does not guarantee a quality adaptation.

 

so what's exactly recognizable as wot? what's the spirit and spine of the story? I'm sure everyone will answer differently. But I'm also sure you can't expect them in a couple minutes trailer.

It's like hearing a few randomized notes in a symphony, perhaps a few seconds of a few instrument's performances extrapolated out of its contest, and trying to judge the whole symphony from it.

Me, I'll have to watch a few episodes to decide if they did manage to get the spirit of the story.

whatever the hell that means.

[AusLeviathan]

1 hour ago, SinisterDeath said:

Didn't know you were a statistician, and have ran the numbers.

I can give you many stats. You know that Netflix series Cursed? The one based on a poorly reviewed graphic novel that at no point ever looked good and was adapted into an equally poorly reviewed series that was cancelled after one season. That series trailer has 50% more likes and a greater like to dislike ratio than the WoT trailer, in spite of having half the views.

 

The trailer view numbers are very good, comment engagement is top 3 for Amazon trailers and yet it has a very low amount of likes for a series like this. It's a sign of a trailer that left a lot of people apathetic.

 

22 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

so what's exactly recognizable as wot? what's the spirit and spine of the story?

The Dragon would be, being the basis of the whole plot and what drives it. Though for some reason despite Logain offering a great chance to sell the plot of the books without spoiling what they want to keep hidden they barely showed him.

 

Aes Sedai would've been a good second option but despite making up a large amount of the trailer they decided to keep them vague as well.

 

I feel like the trailer represents what you'd get if an AI was tasked with making a trailer. Show most of the cast with little context, a few shots of environments, no explanation of the plot, vague dialogue that tells people nothing, lots of quick shots so the average person who watches it once won't really know what they're looking at and end on a big moment but cut it a second too early so that it's not too exciting.

Edited September 20, 2021 by AusLeviathan

[king of nowhere]

10 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

The Dragon would be, being the basis of the whole plot and what drives it. Though for some reason despite Logain offering a great chance to sell the plot of the books without spoiling what they want to keep hidden they barely showed him.

 

Aes Sedai would've been a good second option but despite making up a large amount of the trailer they decided to keep them vague as well.

 

I feel like the trailer represents what you'd get if an AI was tasked with making a trailer. Show most of the cast with little context, a few shots of environments, no explanation of the plot, vague dialogue that tells people nothing, lots of quick shots so the average person who watches it once won't really know what they're looking at and end on a big moment but cut it a second too early so that it's not too exciting.

first thing, you are confusing a teaser trailer with a trailer.

second, how would you introduce "the dragon" in the two minutes teaser without confusing people and/or spoil major plot elements?  how about aes sedai, care to explain what's unique about them in what's left of the two minutes after you talked about the dragon? and don't forget you also have a plot to recap.

 

I'm not saying i disagree with you on the problems of the trailer. i feel them too. but the world and plot of wot is too large for a trailer to be able to sum them up decently.

which is why we never got an adaptation before; it's a daunting task. i don't see how a teaser trailer could do it justice.

 

Quote

 

The trailer view numbers are very good, comment engagement is top 3 for Amazon trailers and yet it has a very low amount of likes for a series like this. It's a sign of a trailer that left a lot of people apathetic.

 

that's worrying. maybe rafe will turn out to have done a good job, but if people aren't engaged, the show will be canceled.

 

Quote

I can give you many stats. You know that Netflix series Cursed? The one based on a poorly reviewed graphic novel that at no point ever looked good and was adapted into an equally poorly reviewed series that was cancelled after one season. That series trailer has 50% more likes and a greater like to dislike ratio than the WoT trailer, in spite of having half the views.

this, on the other hand, is not a good measure. i have no idea what cursed is, but its trailer has been sitting there for months, maybe years, gathering views. wot has been there for less than three weeks. of course it's got less likes. and a wot trailer would surely catch the attention of the fans first, if one in twenty of them is like thrymascus, then this explains the dislikes.

In fact, I'd say that the dislikes are a sign of that. people do not put dislikes on what leaves them apathetic. people put dislikes on stuff they disagree with, often ideologically. a diehard fan that dislikes an adaptation is surely going to put a dislike on anything related to it. a random bloke stumbling on the trailer? unlikely. Many dislikes is easily just a mark that wot has a large fandom that feels strongly about it. and it's still a like/dislike ratio of, like, 15-1.

it's also possible that other fandom sites have shared the trailers and thus split the likes?

 

numbers don't lie, but they aren't straightforward either.

 

[AusLeviathan]

47 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

how would you introduce "the dragon" in the two minutes teaser without confusing people and/or spoil major plot elements?

The leaked audition tapes involved a scene in which Logain declares himself a savior and refers to himself as the Dragon whilst someone warns him that they've sent for the Aes Sedai and calls Logain mad because Logain's debating killing everyone with someone who only Logain can see. That would've done it, cut that together and you can sell the main driving plot of the series in about 15-30 seconds.

 

47 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

this, on the other hand, is not a good measure. i have no idea what cursed is, but its trailer has been sitting there for months, maybe years, gathering views. wot has been there for less than three weeks. of course it's got less likes.

At the same time from trailer release Cursed had 10k more likes and about half the dislikes that the WoT trailer has and its likes were growing at a higher pace. This was for a series that was already known to have a questionable story that had failed as a graphic novel and had such little support it got cancelled after one season.

 

I used it as an example specifically because that shouldn't be possible, not with how big the WoT fanbase is built in already and yet we see the same results in comparison with trailers for other similar series such as Shadow and Bone, less views but much higher like numbers.

 

It was a really big miss in terms of trailer marketing and unfortunate too as the first trailer is usually the more viewed one. Still recoverable at the moment but please someone actually start showing the plot in marketing so that people can know why they're meant to watch the series.

Edited September 20, 2021 by AusLeviathan

[king of nowhere]

9 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

The leaked audition tapes involved a scene in which Logain declares himself a savior and refers to himself as the Dragon whilst someone warns him that they've sent for the Aes Sedai and calls Logain mad because Logain's debating killing everyone with someone who only Logain can see. That would've done it, cut that together and you can sell the main driving plot of the series in about 15-30 seconds.

 

 

hopefully, they'll do it for the actual trailer.

 

but regardless of the quality of the trailer, i think wot's success or failure won't depend much on it. there are millions of people who read the books and who are going to watch the show regardless of what they see in the trailer. if those people give good or bad reviews, if they recommend the show to other people... that's probably going to be more important.

[SinisterDeath]

1 hour ago, AusLeviathan said:

I can give you many stats. You know that Netflix series Cursed? The one based on a poorly reviewed graphic novel that at no point ever looked good and was adapted into an equally poorly reviewed series that was cancelled after one season. That series trailer has 50% more likes and a greater like to dislike ratio than the WoT trailer, in spite of having half the views.

 

The trailer view numbers are very good, comment engagement is top 3 for Amazon trailers and yet it has a very low amount of likes for a series like this. It's a sign of a trailer that left a lot of people apathetic.

I wasn't aware that you had access to both Amazon & Netflix's analytics to actually examine each trailers week to week views and like to dislike ratio.
Cause you know, comparing two trailers like/dislike ratio, and total views when one has only been out for ~3 weeks, and the other for over 52 isn't the same as comparing them when they were both out for ~3 weeks. (Nor other factors like Facebook and subReddits that are devoted to trolling this series)

 This trailer has been out for approximately ~2 weeks longer than the WoT Teaser. It has a whopping 2 more likes per dislike than the WoT Teaser.
 

This one has only 11 likes to 1 dislike. I haven't seen this one yet, but I've been hearing a bit of buzz. (It's apparently not faithful to whatever book it's based on)
 

This had 28 likes to 1 dislike, and hasn't been renewed for a second season yet. I don't think its viewership numbers were close successful.

Either way, the premise that the most common response = "looks generic" is proven because the Like to Dislike Ratio still isn't better then another show, is a nonsensical argument.

 

  

22 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

At the same time from trailer release Cursed had 10k more likes and about half the dislikes that the WoT trailer has and its likes were growing at a higher pace. This was for a series that was already known to have a questionable story that had failed as a graphic novel and had such little support it got cancelled after one season.

Interesting how we only have your "word" that this is true, right?

So, I took a look at the waybackmachine's snapshot for 18 days post trailer drop.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200718174848/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLTdy6PfotA

Cursed 25 to 1
WoT 16 to 1.

Not "exactly half the dislikes", is it?

[AusLeviathan]

19 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

I wasn't aware that you had access to both Amazon & Netflix's analytics to actually examine each trailers week to week views and like to dislike ratio.

It's called waybackmachine, a digital archive that saves webpages as they were at the time they were archived. For something like a Youtube video that received millions of views this will occur multiple times a day. As a result it's very easy to do comparisons of trailers at the same time of release and track how much their views/likes slowed over time.

 

19 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

This trailer has been out for approximately ~2 weeks longer than the WoT Teaser. It has a whopping 2 more likes per dislike than the WoT Teaser.

You really want to compare the WoT trailer to a trailer that Apple has so little faith in that they turned the video comments off? You don't win by showing yourself to be better than the bad, you win by showing you're the best.

 

19 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Either way, the premise that the most common response = "looks generic" is proven because the Like to Dislike Ratio still isn't better then another show, is a nonsensical argument.

It's simple logic.

 

The comment engagement is massive, 13k comments, as high as Amazon has ever seen and supporting that there was a big fanbase waiting for the series. Yet the likes which skew towards the casual viewers don't match up for a series like this.

 

Normally the sheer amount of discussion in the comments would lead to a like count of well over 100k at this point, yet it's under performing. If the casual viewers are watching a trailer and not even bothering to click like/dislike then you have a problem. It means that they didn't even form an opinion of how it looked and this is supported by the comments of how generic it looked from people more willing to engage in conversation.

Edited September 20, 2021 by AusLeviathan

[king of nowhere]

20 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

 

Interesting how we only have your "word" that this is true, right?

So, I took a look at the waybackmachine's snapshot for 18 days post trailer drop.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200718174848/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLTdy6PfotA

Cursed 25 to 1
WoT 16 to 1.

Not "exactly half the dislikes", is it?

well, was close enough to use it in colloqual language.

interesting that wot got roughly 4 times as many visualization, but a similar number of likes. it is indeed true that a greater percentage of those watching the trailer had upvoted cursed.

 

but whether any or all of those numbers are significant? that's anyone's guess.

[Thrasymachus]

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

 

this is actually a valid point, but one that deserves some attention.

because yes, i agree that if i didn't knew it was wheel of time, i would not recognize much. and i agree that it mostly looks generic fantasy.

 

But then, what doesn't?

 

The teaser trailer is 100 seconds of fast images, we never see any scene for more than a few seconds, and there's very few dialogues. Show me one teaser trailer for anything fantasy that wouldn't look generic. Heck, show me a teaser trailer for anything that wouldn't look generic.

star wars? starships, people fighting with laser guns, exploring strange places, very generic.

star trek? starships, people figthing with slightly different laser guns, exploring exotic places, equally generic.

lotr? elves, dwarves, people fighting with swords, just another fantasy.

harry potter? kids doing magic. meh.

 

which, by the way, is why i never watch tv. trailers don't hook me. everything feels samey. Which is unavoidable, because you can't really get something's unique character in a couple of minutes. Have me talk for two minutes with a bloke, he'll look very generic too.

So yes, the trailer was kinda generic-fantasy looking, but i have no idea how it could have been anything else.

 

and the closely related argument about what would be recognizable as wot. Well, what would be recognizable?

I mean, i could see a specific scene from the books and recognize it. that would be recognizable wot. In the trailer we don't recognize scenes. The keenest viewer would realize, perhaps it's because we haven't seen any one scene in the trailer. Like, at all. just a few seconds of snippets. what is there to recognize? is there any pivotal scene from the books that would be recognizable in that format? I can't think of one.

Which leaves the props, the items, the scenery, which is where thrasymacus always ends up going.

but that's not wheel of time, under any definition.

I could make a perfect replica of tam's sword and mat dagger, copied with the greatest level of faithfulness, and then give them to luke skywalker to fight a sith lord, just because there is the item it does not mean anything. Heck, I could use those exact replicas as dildos to make a porn if i wanted. Just because i see a perfect rendition of the shadar logoth dagger, i do not recognize it as wheel of time, and it does not guarantee a quality adaptation.

 

so what's exactly recognizable as wot? what's the spirit and spine of the story? I'm sure everyone will answer differently. But I'm also sure you can't expect them in a couple minutes trailer.

It's like hearing a few randomized notes in a symphony, perhaps a few seconds of a few instrument's performances extrapolated out of its contest, and trying to judge the whole symphony from it.

Me, I'll have to watch a few episodes to decide if they did manage to get the spirit of the story.

whatever the hell that means.

At no point in this screed did you make anything like a coherent or sound point.  That you can't tell the difference between a character from Star Trek versus a character Star Wars based on merely a few seconds of visual aesthetic alone means you're either completely unfamiliar with either of them, you have a cognitive disorder that prevents you from recognizing familiar features like those poor souls who can't recognize faces, or you're a liar.  You're also completely missing the point.  The complaint is not that the trailer or anything else looks like "generic fantasy."  It's that it doesn't look like the Wheel of Time.  Robert Jordan carefully, deliberately and with vivid descriptiveness, mashed up a variety of specific prior elements of story, history and legend from a variety of cultures to create a distinct, unique and clearly recognizable aesthetic. 

 

That aesthetic has been more than completely abandoned here, it has been supplanted by somebody else's "unique and distinct" aesthetic.  I don't care that it looks bad, or that it looks like a mashup of a kung fu movie with Bollywood fantasy.  I care that it's not the Wheel of Time.

 

Nor is my take on this show limited to what was shown in the trailer.  This show's production team has been teasing fans, and journalists and fan-followers have been leaking and speculating (with varying levels of reliability) for years now.  And I've been here for all of it.  I've defended casting, I've talked about changes to the plot, which characters could be cut, how to handle the World of Dreams, etc., etc.  My genuine "disillusionment" with this attempt at an adaptation is new enough to not yet have a birthday.  And it's about how very far they are from anything any of us prior fans would recognize as the Wheel of Time without being told it was, based on what we know that has been shown to us by the show runners and reliable sources thus far.

[SinisterDeath]

1 minute ago, AusLeviathan said:

It's simple logic.

No, it's logical leap.

 

2 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

The comment engagement is massive, 13k comments, as high as Amazon has ever seen and supporting that there was a big fanbase waiting for the series. Yet the likes which skew towards the casual viewers don't match up for a series like this.

WoT has a big fanbase. It also has a lot of trolls. 

Bigrading skews numbers.

3 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

Normally the sheer amount of discussion in the comments would lead to a like count of well over 100k at this point, yet it's under performing. If the casual viewers are watching a trailer and not even bothering to click like/dislike then you have a problem. It means that they didn't even form an opinion of how it looked and this is supported by the comments of how generic it looked from people more willing to engage in conversation.

The casual viewer almost never likes anything.

This video has Nine BILLION Views, and only 30 Million Likes. It also have 14 Million DISLIKES.
.3% of people liked that video.
.6% of people liked the WoT Trailer.
2.9% clicked like for Curse.
5.2% clicked like for Dusty Wheels TrailerGaidon.

The only thing Like/Dislike ratio means is that a number of people engaged enough to actually click like or dislike. 
It doesn't mean "everyone" or "most people" felt it looked generic.
 

[SinisterDeath]

7 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

well, was close enough to use it in colloqual language.

No, not really.
When the numbers for both cursed and wot 18 days after each trailer was released are 3.4(Cursed) to 4.4 (wot) dislikes,  "about half the dislikes" is not close enough even for colloquial use, it's just factually wrong.

3.4/4.4 = 77%

 

 

13 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

Interesting that wot got roughly 4 times as many visualization, but a similar number of likes. it is indeed true that a greater percentage of those watching the trailer had upvoted cursed.

 

but whether any or all of those numbers are significant? that's anyone's guess.

I'd say they don't mean anything.
If the dislikes were triple the number of Likes, I'd be concerned.

It is odd that the Cursed trailer had relatively more likes to views than WoT, but who knows, these days you can hardly trust any of these analytics because BoTs and Brigading skew numbers.

[AusLeviathan]

13 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

The only thing Like/Dislike ratio means is that a number of people engaged enough to actually click like or dislike. 

That's the point, they didn't feel engaged because there was nothing to engage them.

 

I don't know what else needs to be said. High interest in a trailer but low levels of actually clicking like/dislike means apathy from the trailer.

 

They could do anything else for the next trailer and as long as they make some mention of the plot, give some reason for people to differentiate this from the now incredibly saturated Fantasy series market it'll be better.

 

It's not like WoT's a hard sell, it has so many different selling points but they have to actually show them.

Edited September 20, 2021 by AusLeviathan

[king of nowhere]

1 minute ago, Thrasymachus said:

At no point in this screed did you make anything like a coherent or sound point.  That you can't tell the difference between a character from Star Trek versus a character Star Wars based on merely a few seconds of visual aesthetic alone means you're either completely unfamiliar with either of them,

 

YES! that's EXACTLY MY POINT! people who are unfamiliar with the stuff will not recognize it, will see it as something generic!

Which is exactly what people are complaining about here. people see wot, they do not recognize it, they think it's generic. if people did not recognize star wars, and they saw a trailer, they'd think it generic too. they only praise the unique style because they are familiar with it. which can't be the case here yet, because the show hasn't aired.

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You're also completely missing the point.  The complaint is not that the trailer or anything else looks like "generic fantasy."  It's that it doesn't look like the Wheel of Time.  Robert Jordan carefully, deliberately and with vivid descriptiveness, mashed up a variety of specific prior elements of story, history and legend from a variety of cultures to create a distinct, unique and clearly recognizable aesthetic. 

it's a bit hard to miss a point when it's the only one point you've been making in the past several months. yes, you always go back to this: the props don't look like their "book canon" version. Yes, we got it. And everything bad you have to say about the show always goes there, as your only argument. Every other criticism always comes from that. "they have no respect for the story", how can we tell, because they changed the props. "they don't understand wot", how can we tell, because they changed the props. "they will make logain the real dragon, and rand will be demoted to extra!", how can we tell, because if they could change the props they are capable of doing anything!

 

well, too bad with that. my point is that i don't recognize this as a good argument for "i don't recognize this as wot". as if it was the only thing that mattered, whether they got the props right.

i mean, as people what makes star wars memorable, i doubt the main answer would be "the protagonists are dressed as clowns". Or what makes star trek recognizable? the fact that the aliens are regular actors with some plastic glued to their head?

because that's what props are. they are not the soul or spine of a story. and just because you can or cannot recognize them from the descriptions, it doesn't mean anything.

 

[SinisterDeath]

1 minute ago, AusLeviathan said:

I don't know what else needs to be said. High interest in a trailer but low levels of actually clicking like/dislike means apathy from the trailer.

As I said before, liking or disliking anything on youtube is very uncommon. Even a video with a 9+ Billion views gets less engagement then the WoT Trailer. 
This video has less engagement (1.1%) then cursed. Does that mean it's generic and uninteresting?
Nope! (His other... video got double the engagement, and 8x more comments!.)

As I said Like/Dislike ratio = generic video. That's a leap of logic.
 

[king of nowhere]

2 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

That's the point, they didn't feel engaged because there was nothing to engage them.

 

I don't know what else needs to be said. High interest in a trailer but low levels of actually clicking like/dislike means apathy from the trailer.

 

 

no. numbers are aes sedai, they can't lie but they are so obfuscating they cannot be taken at face value. take the dusty wheel trailer gaidon, it's got 5% likes per view. that's twice more than cursed, ten times more than wot trailer.

what does it mean? it's selection of the sample. few people went to look trailer gaidon, and they were the people who are more likely to upvote it. the trailer itself was seen by more people, including a lot of casual watchers who are unlikely to leave a vote. the more casual viewers, the less the upvotes.

 

in general, there's thousands of brilliant mathematicians trying to figure out relevant marketing data out of those numbers; i'm not aware of any one of them having much success. i would be very careful to draw hard conclusions.

and beware of logic. the real world doesn't always have to conform to it.

[AusLeviathan]

2 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

This video has less engagement (1.1%) then cursed.

You are aware that songs/music videos have significantly less engagement due to massive repeat views, they aren't comparable with trailers.

 

Trailers have a short burst when released, maybe another short burst when a second trailer is released and a final notable increase in views when the movie/series debuts. Outside of this the increase in views is generally too small to really notice.

 

Songs/Music Videos that are popular will be repeatedly viewed by the same large groups people over and over again and can continue growing for years at a significant pace, hence why some like the one you've shown have the appearance of low engagement. When you get to hundreds of millions of views you start running out of unique people to add to the engagement.

 

6 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

take the dusty wheel trailer gaidon, it's got 5% likes per view.

Small channels have dedicated fans who keep their likes high compared to video views whilst dislikes remain low generally as they're not big enough to attract the attention of too many people who will dislike their videos.

 

As a channel increases in size this ratio begins to skew towards a lower percentage of likes and more new people discover the channel leading to an increase in dislikes.

[king of nowhere]

7 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

You are aware that songs/music videos have significantly less engagement due to massive repeat views, they aren't comparable with trailers.

 

Trailers have a short burst when released, maybe another short burst when a second trailer is released and a final notable increase in views when the movie/series debuts. Outside of this the increase in views is generally too small to really notice.

 

Songs/Music Videos that are popular will be repeatedly viewed by the same large groups people over and over again and can continue growing for years at a significant pace, hence why some like the one you've shown have the appearance of low engagement. When you get to hundreds of millions of views you start running out of unique people to add to the engagement.

 

Small channels have dedicated fans who keep their likes high compared to video views whilst dislikes remain low generally as they're not big enough to attract the attention of too many people who will dislike their videos.

 

As a channel increases in size this ratio begins to skew towards a lower percentage of likes and more new people discover the channel leading to an increase in dislikes.

yeah, we are all basically saying the same things.

 

but you also have similar troubles comparing in the same category. a small production with a little community of fan that's ignored by the mainstream could be more akin to a small channel, while a trailer for something with millions of fans behave in a different way.

so, indeed if there were more dislikes than likes it would be very worrying. but the numbers are not strong enough to draw ANY kind of conclusions. there are way too many confounding variables and statistical noise

[SinisterDeath]

57 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

You are aware that songs/music videos have significantly less engagement due to massive repeat views, they aren't comparable with trailers.

Yet... like/dislike engagement is low regardless of trailers or music videos.

 

  

57 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

Small channels have dedicated fans who keep their likes high compared to video views whilst dislikes remain low generally as they're not big enough to attract the attention of too many people who will dislike their videos.

Of course they have dedicated fans. The point of highlighting small accounts was to illustrate that likes & dislikes are almost always a low percentage of the overall views regardless of how engaged or popular a channel is. That likes and dislikes don't really tell you anything about how good the content in the video is. 

  

57 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

As a channel increases in size this ratio begins to skew towards a lower percentage of likes and more new people discover the channel leading to an increase in dislikes.

Maybe?
This guy's channel has 11337% more subs than the dusty wheel's, and this video has 12x the viewers. It also has 8% engagement to Dusty Wheels 5%.
Higher levels of "Engagement" is often more indictive of controversy & click bait then it is anything else.
 

This video for Daniel Greene has an unusually high like count. 7.5%.

Where as this one has a measly 3%.

Oddly, as a ratio of views/likes/dislikes, this second video was disliked more per view than his more controversial video.

[Thrasymachus]

16 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

 

YES! that's EXACTLY MY POINT! people who are unfamiliar with the stuff will not recognize it, will see it as something generic!

Which is exactly what people are complaining about here. people see wot, they do not recognize it, they think it's generic. if people did not recognize star wars, and they saw a trailer, they'd think it generic too. they only praise the unique style because they are familiar with it. which can't be the case here yet, because the show hasn't aired.

it's a bit hard to miss a point when it's the only one point you've been making in the past several months. yes, you always go back to this: the props don't look like their "book canon" version. Yes, we got it. And everything bad you have to say about the show always goes there, as your only argument. Every other criticism always comes from that. "they have no respect for the story", how can we tell, because they changed the props. "they don't understand wot", how can we tell, because they changed the props. "they will make logain the real dragon, and rand will be demoted to extra!", how can we tell, because if they could change the props they are capable of doing anything!

 

well, too bad with that. my point is that i don't recognize this as a good argument for "i don't recognize this as wot". as if it was the only thing that mattered, whether they got the props right.

i mean, as people what makes star wars memorable, i doubt the main answer would be "the protagonists are dressed as clowns". Or what makes star trek recognizable? the fact that the aliens are regular actors with some plastic glued to their head?

because that's what props are. they are not the soul or spine of a story. and just because you can or cannot recognize them from the descriptions, it doesn't mean anything.

 

Thank you very much for that elaborate straw man.  Let's break it down exactly where and how far you're wrong.

 

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Which is exactly what people are complaining about here. people see wot, they do not recognize it, they think it's generic. if people did not recognize star wars, and they saw a trailer, they'd think it generic too. they only praise the unique style because they are familiar with it. which can't be the case here yet, because the show hasn't aired.

Millions of people, perhaps tens of millions, have read through the entire epic 14 book series, from beginning to end.  They recognize the Wheel of Time.  But not in this.  This looks generic because the only thing it has in common with the actual Wheel of Time, which many of them would already be at least somewhat familiar with, are the most generic features of that story.

 

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if people did not recognize star wars, and they saw a trailer, they'd think it generic too. they only praise the unique style because they are familiar with it.

That's blatantly and historically false.  No one was familiar with it before 1977.  And it was aesthetically and iconically distinct from the moment it first hit the theaters.  It certainly didn't look like Star Trek from a decade before, nor did Star Trek look like Battlestar Galactica from that era.  You're looney toons if you think familiarity breeds the recognition of uniqueness.  In fact it's the other way around, familiarity breeds the recognition of what is generic.  What is generic is familiar.  It's what is novel that is always unique.

 

You seem to be under the impression that the Wheel of Time is this completely unknown little thing, that nobody has any expectations for it that could color their reactions, but that's very far from true.  There's not a major con anywhere that doesn't have Wheel of Time representation in the cosplayers.  It is consistently on lists of the top ten American fantasy series, up there with Steven King's Dark Tower series and Ann Rice's Vampire Chronicles, and it's also pretty consistently the highest rated series that has yet to have a TV or movie adaptation.  There's not a person in any English speaking market who saw that trailer that's more than two or three degrees of separation from someone who is familiar with the Wheel of Time, and that person will only be able to recognize the Wheel of Time in this because they're told to.  Hence, generic.

 

Nor is my assessment merely based on the fact that almost nothing looks like it should.  It's also based on the things they've said to justify some of these changes, and others.  Like not having color-changing cloaks for the Warders because it would cost too much, for a show already spending this much money, as if they don't have access to tech available to any twitch streamer or filter user.  Not being able to visit as many places, as if sets and redressing them weren't a thing.  Like telling book fans to "gird their loins," at the changes they're making.

 

And for other, more plot relevant changes we know about, and others that are reasonably speculated and entertained.  Like expanding Logain's story to include the fact that he's already going insane.  Like cutting out Caemlyn and the Trakands, and including Tar Valon instead.  Like Rand and Egwene's relationship clearly being more intimate, and less of a social and childhood expectation.  Like fades that look like walking worms with arms and legs instead of near throwbacks to the human stock that made the Trollocs.  For costumes that look ripped out of A Wrinkle in Time.  For a showrunner with no clear successes under his belt who thinks that somehow diversity and tolerance are core features of the Wheel of Time literary exploration, who has a special, personal relationship with his experience of this series that's not shared by most fellow readers.  For a writer's room of no-name mercenaries who have limited, if any, prior knowledge of the series. 

 

I have a diversity of reasons, that they've given me, to withhold any further benefit of the doubt.  It's up to them to show us how this is the Wheel of Time, and they are failing on every available front.  Indeed, they've already failed so hard there's almost no path for this series' success, in my view  The only path there is through the utter decimation of the prior art and culture of the fandom and a genuine transcendence of the story they're going to tell us over the story RJ told us.  They're already making a good go of the former, but there's not a chance of the latter.