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

[Agitel]

Is it getting hot in here? *fans self*

 

I'm optimistic for the show. I thought the teaser trailer was kind of generic. I'm twiddling my thumbs waiting for a longer story trailer. I think we're overanalyzing likes/dislikes.

 

 

[SinisterDeath]

7 minutes ago, Thrasymachus said:

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.

Speaking of logical fallacies, how are you able to speak for every fan of the book series who watched the trailer?
 

9 minutes ago, Thrasymachus said:

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.

Not everyone was born before 1977.
There exists at least ~3 generations born after the advent of Star Wars. We are now flooded with sci-fi depictions of spaceships.

 

11 minutes ago, Thrasymachus said:

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. 

It isn't a household name like Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter.
It's sold just over half (53%) of LOTR, and less than a quarter what HP sold. (16%)

 

14 minutes ago, Thrasymachus said:

There's not a major con anywhere that doesn't have Wheel of Time representation in the cosplayers.

Sure, but that's also a demographic that's swimming in many of the same circles.

Go to a Tattoo Convention, CES, or Sports & Fishing conventions and ask around "Hey which of these 3 books have you heard about?".
 

 

16 minutes ago, Thrasymachus said:

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,

See above. Similar circles. 
Plus, a lot of those lists are based on polling, and WoT has had a decently active fanbase compared to lesser known fantasy series.
 

18 minutes ago, Thrasymachus said:

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.

Degrees of separation mean nothing. Kevin Bacon alone proves that.
Again, gotta love that voice of authority that you know what everyone who saw the trailer is thinking. ? 

You know what I'm confident most people think about when it comes to the fantasy genre?
Dragons, Elves, Orcs, Swords, Sorcery, & Wizards.
*Watches Trailer*
Didn't see any Orcs, Elves, or Dragons.
Saw some monstrously large humanoid creatures. Saw a pale humanoid with no eyes, and I saw some magic effects, with dialogue that says it's skewed heavily in favor of women.

Yep. That's totally as generic as it can possibly be. 100% looks like lord of the rings. /s
 

 

[king of nowhere]

5 minutes ago, Thrasymachus said:

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

 

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.

 

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.

perhaps. i already stated multiple times that i am rather "tone deaf" when it comes to visual looks. probably i am underestimating stuff here because I don't feel it.

You, on the other hand, look like you are very sensitive to the topic, so perhaps you also are overestimating stuff because you feel it stronger than most.

 

Quote

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.

again, maybe, maybe not. I could not recognize stuff at first glance, but  mostly because of how quick they were cycling between scenes. i watched the trailer more slowly, stopping the image at every scene change, and it was much more clear.

aside from that, i wouldn't recognize much, but - as i stated - it's because there weren't enough complete scenes there. it's not like i would ever recognize anything from a teaser trailer anyway, unless it was some visual i was already familiar with. Again, it could be because i am less sensitive to this than most people. But again, you are also probably overstating your case, for the opposite reason.
 

Quote

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.

 

all speculation.

the vx effects used by twich streamers are nowhere near as good as those required for a movie; unless you are a specialist in the field and you know very well how much it would cost to edit the warder's cloaks for hours of footage, i suggest you leave some room for doubt here.

same for making a good set.

and telling fans to "gird their loins" may very well be aimed at those who expected a scene-by-scene transposition, or close enough.

 

All your solid data on "why the show is gonna suck" is that they screwed up the props. And I can agree with you on that, they could have stayed more faithful to those little details.

But everything else you have is speculation, heavily tinted by the fact that you already lost faith in the production. You authomatically assume the worst about everything else. You authomatically assume that making color-shifting cloaks would have been dirt cheap, that making up multiple cities in detail (without copy-pasting everything) would also have been dirt cheap, that shifting around some plots and stories (like logain, or putting in elements of new spring while delaying the trakands) was not made for good reasons.

none of that is definite. it may well be that the plot changes will be lauded as being better than the original story. it happened with some elements of the lotr. or it may suck.

 

What I know for certain is that I cannot tell with certainty if wottv captures "the soul and spine of the story", based on 100 seconds of mostly unrelated snippets. And I don't expect anyone else to be able to either.

 

But I thank you for trying to explain yourself so soundly to someone disagreeing with you. I got a better appreciation of your point, even though i still disagree and i still think you are letting your prejudices for the visuals color your judgment on everything else.

 

 

[king of nowhere]

11 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

You know what I'm confident most people think about when it comes to the fantasy genre?
Dragons, Elves, Orcs, Swords, Sorcery, & Wizards.
*Watches Trailer*
Didn't see any Orcs, Elves, or Dragons.
Saw some monstrously large humanoid creatures. Saw a pale humanoid with no eyes, and I saw some magic effects, with dialogue that says it's skewed heavily in favor of women.

Yep. That's totally as generic as it can possibly be. 100% looks like lord of the rings. /s
 

 

while i love that rendition, i believe it was more accurate 10 years ago. it's still accurate among those that do not watch/read fantasy, but i don't expect those people to watch wot trailers, if they do i don't expect them to comment.

actual fantasy fan, nowadays, are a bit more learned

[SinisterDeath]

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

while i love that rendition, i believe it was more accurate 10 years ago. it's still accurate among those that do not watch/read fantasy, but i don't expect those people to watch wot trailers, if they do i don't expect them to comment.

actual fantasy fan, nowadays, are a bit more learned

Note how when I said "You know what I'm confident most people think about when it comes to the fantasy genre?", that includes Everyone, and not just fans of Fantasy... Unfortunately, there are more people who don't read Fantasy than read it. (Unless you include fans of the Bible as fans of the Fantasy genre)

[DaddyFinn]

Yet another wall of nonsense thrasymachus. Why do you even bother? Don't watch it.

 

The teaser is absolutely recognisable as WoT. Locations, characters, monsters, magic.. And that's just a teaser. Fade looks awesome.

 

Edited September 20, 2021 by DaddyFinn

[DojoToad]

17 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

 (Unless you include fans of the Bible as fans of the Fantasy genre)
 

 

Now why would you even say that?  Had nothing to do with the conversation - unless I missed something and is deliberately hurtful.

[Zyxthior]

Is some of the concern just because we've been disappointed by other adaptations in the past?  I know that's how I've feel...I've hyped myself up a number of times only to be majorly dissappointed when the show actually airs (GOT and LOTR being the pleasant surprises).  For me it's easy to give the 'side eye' to the showrunner and assume it's going to be a 'poopshow' from the start because that's what happened to most other adaptations I've seen...(bad 'adaptation PTSD')

 

On the flip side, we also have to remember that the show isn't just for "us" (i.e. fans of the series that know the show).  It's also someone's introduction to the series.  The concern that Rand isn't in the trailer a lot is good....  As someone who hasn't been 'spoiled' by reading the books he's just an 'every man' character that isn't that important (until the big reveal at the Eye...or if you were really paying attention).  Perrin is talking to wolves and Mat is speaking old tongue, but Rand's not doing much of anything other trying to steer clear from Bal'zamon.  The more they misdirect away from Rand being 'special' the bigger the impact of the reveal...  (Focus on Egwene in my right hand until I fling my left hand out).  Even though Rand is the 'focus' character in the first book....there's a whole lot of people doing stuff around him.  Let him stay in the background for a bit...he's a nice boy, good manners (not like that rogue Mat) and then when the reveal happens as far as the new audience is concerned they'll be sympathy because he'll soon descend into madness like Logain and there's nothing anyone can do about....

I'm not getting worked up about anything I saw or didn't see in the trailer.  It look 'adequate' for what I think they're trying to do.  The real meat will be when the show finally drops and we can all come back here and go "THAT WAS SO AWESOME" or "THAT WAS HORRIBLE!".....  I don't think the response will be anything else but those two extremes.... ?

[SinisterDeath]

11 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Now why would you even say that?  Had nothing to do with the conversation - unless I missed something and is deliberately hurtful.

If you forgot, my comment was in reply, to a reply about what I think "most" people think fantasy is about, and how "most people" includes non-fantasy readers/viewers.

The comment was made in jest, as even those of us who consider religious texts to be works of fiction, I'd be confident most of us wouldn't group them in the Fantasy Genre... And that leads us to why I said, what I did. That would be about the only way you could make Fantasy the largest read genre. ? 
 

 

[Elder_Haman]

I'm going to have to go back and dive into the last two dozen or so posts in greater detail when I have more time to engage with the specifics.

 

But let me just point something out here - the TEASER trailer had a lot of generic fantasy elements because it was designed and intended to have a lot of generic fantasy elements. Why? Well, simple.

 

The TEASER trailer is designed to pique interest. Most people have clear genre preferences about the kinds of things they like to watch. People who like one fantasy show (or action/adventure show if you want to cast the net wider) are, by definition, open to liking another one in the same genre. 

 

Thus, the TEASER trailer will show people imagery that they are familiar with. They expressly want people to identify this as a fantasy show because they want fantasy fans to be intrigued by what they see. They're not trying to tell anyone a story yet. They're just trying to get people to say, "that new fantasy show looks interesting, maybe I'll check that out." That's it. That's the sole purpose of the TEASER trailer. To TEASE people.

 

The purpose of the next trailer - the THEATRICAL trailer - is to explain what the show is about, to give people a sense of the plot and the characters, and to take a viewer from "maybe I'll watch" to "I'll definitely check out the first episode." 

 

They also prominently mention that it is a book series, thus people who may have read and liked the books will know that an adaptation of something they enjoyed is coming. And people who have never heard of the books might do some Googling to find out what it's all about.  

[JJLXL]

Do we know when to expect a theatrical trailer?  ...or an approximation of when to expect one? 

[Elder_Haman]

3 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

There's not a major con anywhere that doesn't have Wheel of Time representation in the cosplayers.

I get the feeling that this is the basis of most of your antipathy toward the show. You're pissed that the aesthetic and imagery that you've poured so much effort and energy into has been changed. And you're angry that the new aesthetic, created by a corporate behemoth, is about to render all of the love and dedication you put into faithfully recreating RJ's designs completely irrelevant.

 

I'm sorry, truly. That's got to feel awful.

 

But can you please make an effort to stop pretending that your view is the only legitimate one? I am a giant fan of the series. I've been with it since the beginning. I love everything about it. And I am beyond excited for the show. I would prefer to wait and judge it for what it is than to waste time griping from the sidelines about what it isn't.

Edited September 20, 2021 by Elder_Haman

[Elder_Haman]

2 minutes ago, JJLXL said:

Do we know when to expect a theatrical trailer?  ...or an approximation of when to expect one? 

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on it premiering at the NYCC panel on 10/8.

[JJLXL]

1 minute ago, Elder_Haman said:

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on it premiering at the NYCC panel on 10/8.

Let's say the trailer is shown at NYCC.  How long before that trailer is released online?

[Elder_Haman]

23 minutes ago, JJLXL said:

Let's say the trailer is shown at NYCC.  How long before that trailer is released online?

I mean, I'm just guessing with all of this. But ... microseconds? 

[Beidomon]

47 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

I'm going to have to go back and dive into the last two dozen or so posts in greater detail when I have more time to engage with the specifics.

You don’t have to do that. Really. It’s a few folks getting oddly bent out of shape over something that none of them is really in a good position to speak to authoritatively. In other words, the Internet.

 

100 of us could each read a description of… anything, even RJ’s most painfully detailed descriptions, and envision 100 different things. Nobody knows exactly what WOT is supposed to look like. I think some folks probably have the book art in their heads. Well the book art is by and large pretty awful, to be honest.

 

I couldn’t care less about a few goofy props of that outdoor living space waygate. It’s the story that matters. Get the story right, and all will be well.

[Elder_Haman]

Just now, Beidomon said:

Get the story right, and all will be well.

So let it be written. So let it be done.

[king of nowhere]

9 minutes ago, Beidomon said:

I couldn’t care less about a few goofy props of that outdoor living space waygate. It’s the story that matters. Get the story right, and all will be well.

this condenses my major points in the handful of walls of text i dropped in this thread...

[Elder_Haman]

4 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

Like expanding Logain's story to include the fact that he's already going insane.

We know Logain's story is being expanded. Why are you assuming he's already going insane (other than the fact that users of saidin are 'going insane' by definition)?

 

4 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

Like cutting out Caemlyn and the Trakands, and including Tar Valon instead.

Must moving the introduction to Caemlyn and the Trakands back to season 2 be a bad change? Are there any ways in which you feel that could work? And how will you know whether the actual change works before you see it executed?

 

4 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

Like Rand and Egwene's relationship clearly being more intimate, and less of a social and childhood expectation.

Again, why is this necessarily bad? Is there any way that this change could work to explain something about Rand's character - perhaps from a slightly different angle? And how will you know if the change works until you see it executed?

 

4 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

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.

I thought we weren't talking about aesthetics. But the Fade looks amazing to me. [And it bothers me that people complain that the Aes Sedai clothing looks "too clean" or "not lived in". They can literally magic the dirt off of themselves. And they have an army of novices and seamstresses at their command. Of course the clothes look bloody new!!]

 

4 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

For a showrunner with no clear successes under his belt...

I mean, he's been involved with some reasonably successful shows. What constitutes a "clear success" is debatable. But it's a lazy criticism and doesn't really add much.

 

4 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

who thinks that somehow diversity and tolerance are core features of the Wheel of Time literary exploration

I don't know what this means. How are diversity and tolerance not core features of the Wheel of Time? The story is quite literally about a man forging new alliances out of diverse, warring cultures. He brings together the Aiel, Tairens, Carheinian, Andoran, Seanchan, Borderlanders, etc. while smashing apart old cultures and customs. 

 

If you don't see tolerance of cultural differences based on our common humanity as one of the core concepts of the Wheel of Time, I'm not sure what series you even read.

 

4 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

who has a special, personal relationship with his experience of this series that's not shared by most fellow readers.

I don't know (a) what this means, and (b) how you claim to speak for "most fellow readers".

 

4 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

For a writer's room of no-name mercenaries who have limited, if any, prior knowledge of the series. 

That's pretty disrespectful given you haven't seen any of their product. And again, how do you claim to know what the writers do and don't know about the series? Have you ever been a professional screen writer?

 

4 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

I have a diversity of reasons

No you don't. You're mad about the way the show looks and the fact that it doesn't match your vision. That's fine. It's valid. Just recognize that all the rest is you spinning your own negativity out onto things you haven't had the chance to experience.

 

Maybe the show will be bad. I doubt it. 

[JJLXL]

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

I mean, I'm just guessing with all of this. But ... microseconds? 

Well that's good. I didn't realize they made that stuff public right away.  Figured the con stuff would take a few more weeks to release online.  And I mean, like a legit release, not a cellphone video. 

[Elder_Haman]

31 minutes ago, JJLXL said:

Well that's good. I didn't realize they made that stuff public right away.  Figured the con stuff would take a few more weeks to release online.  And I mean, like a legit release, not a cellphone video. 

We're too close to release for that. The con people might get some exclusive footage, but more likely it's just an opportunity to see the Q&A with the cast is what they'll pay for.

[AusLeviathan]

The con is going to be interesting if the news of Mat being recast is true.

 

Would be funny if they have the new guy there talking about playing Mat before we've even seen Barney play Mat.

[JJLXL]

4 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

if the news of Mat being recast is true

It's been confirmed by Amazon.

[Elder_Haman]

5 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

The con is going to be interesting if the news of Mat being recast is true.

 

Would be funny if they have the new guy there talking about playing Mat before we've even seen Barney play Mat.

If you're looking for bad news about the show - I think this is the first legitimate sign of trouble. Might not matter, they recast LotR also. But replacing a main character this early will be jarring no matter what.

[AusLeviathan]

47 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

But replacing a main character this early will be jarring no matter what.

Probably better earlier than later and Mat's storyline early on is such that a change in actor could work.

 

I just want to know how they managed it, how do you recast a major role without it leaking quickly, or did they only recast recently in which case it would suggest Mat may sit out a large part of season 2. So many questions.

Edited September 21, 2021 by AusLeviathan