New GQ article about the show.

[Wassup]

Hello everyone.  I am excited about the upcoming show and wanted to share this new GQ article to see the discussion that will come from it.  It has some new images and interesting information.

 

https://www.gq.com/story/inside-amazons-wheel-of-time

 

Here is one of the pictures of the Whitecloaks.

 

[TheDreadReader]

A fun article.  I love all the breadcrumbs that we keep getting.

 

This image from the article (plus the door 'scene' that we've seen a couple of times now) makes me think that we get a (modified) version of the farmhouse scene.

 

[DaddyFinn]

This bit was really interesting:

 

Quote

..Nick Dudman, the legendary creature designer and veteran of both the Harry Potter and Star Wars franchises, was building monsters.

 

In an early episode of The Wheel of Time, beasts called Trollocs show up—but what, for the purposes of this show, was a Trolloc?

First, Dudman had to figure out what they were not. “You're sort of saying, ‘Okay, you can't have any influences or imagery tying into orcs and Lord of the Rings,’ ” he said. Then he had to figure out how to make something that a stuntman could sprint around in a forest in. Trollocs are supposed to be tall. “But I didn't want to put them on stilts because of the fact that we're running through woodland, and running downhill on stilts is just really not a good idea.” In the end, Dudman's team decided to use the same Kevlar prosthetics they give to people who have lost limbs. “And the stunt guys were up on them and off, straight away. It's actually been a very good call.”

 

Quote

But Dudman also needed a lot of Trollocs. “If you're making, say 20, how do you make it look as though you've created 40 or 50?” he asked. “And the answer is: They've all got horns. One of the things we decided early on is, they all have a variety of horn shapes. So if all those horns attach magnetically, and every single horn can swap with another horn on a different head, and they can also have two or three ways of putting them on, then you actually end up with 30 different silhouettes of creature for no extra money.”

 

In the end, Mike Weber told me, the Trollocs looked so good on camera that a whole tranche of their budget that had been slated for VFX, to make the monsters look real, was saved for something else. And this is how you make a show like The Wheel of Time.

 

Edited October 19, 2021 by DaddyFinn

[Skipp]

I just finished the GQ article and it was a wonderful read.  highly suggest it for anyone who wants a broad behind the scenes look into how a show of this size comes together.

[king of nowhere]

the new image of the whitecloacks has the sunburn on the shoulder visible. i also like that the hem of their cloth is dirty, there's no way you can keep that pristine white on the field. in the other shot we get of them, they were clean; perhaps they just rested in a city and they had a chance to do laundry, while here they've been on the move for a while.

 

we also get the scene of rand arriving to emond field with his wounded father, and this pairs with one scene on the bts showing a door bursting which is most likely the attack of winternight. this time rand put his father on bela instead of making a litter and carrying it himself, but it's not an important change; i assume they've done it because it's faster to show this way.

 

all in all, the size of the show and the attention to details is very reassuring. the only fear i have is that game of thrones was equally well funded and staffed, and it still turned bad in the later seasons.

[Rose]

I just finished reading the article, it's very good. Really conveys how freakin hard it all is, too.

[Wassup]

30 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

...all in all, the size of the show and the attention to details is very reassuring. the only fear i have is that game of thrones was equally well funded and staffed, and it still turned bad in the later seasons.

GoT had problems with how it turned out in the end due to running out of source material.  Martin has not finished the books and the show outpaced him drastically.  WoT has all of the source material.  They should be able to maintain the story till the end.

[Maximillion]

I am a bit worried about how the pitch was described, TBH.

Quote

When he pitched the series, Rafe Judkins said he planned to emphasize the prominent and progressive way the Wheel of Time novels had depicted women. 

 

I just hope they don't overdo that and make it overtly modern day issue driven.

 

Also Amazons motivation - Bezos's pet GoT project.

With the LoTR series also coming to Amazon, this might be a case of which one gets cancelled - two bets to bring one man his prize.

 

 

Edited October 19, 2021 by Maximillion

[Katherine]

On 10/19/2021 at 1:56 PM, Maximillion said:

I am a bit worried about how the pitch was described, TBH.

 

I just hope they don't overdo that and make it overtly modern day issue driven.

 

Also Amazons motivation - Bezos's pet GoT project.

With the LoTR series also coming to Amazon, this might be a case of which one gets cancelled - two bets to bring one man his prize.

 

 

I completely agree. I just wanna watch my favorite book series come to life. I have zero interest in it being injected with modern day politics. The show really shouldn’t need any right? It’s already matriarchal and turns gender norms on their head……Which is its brilliance.

[Beidomon]

@Katherine and @Maximillion beat me to it. Overall I really like the article. But I continue to be concerned that Rafe’s driving motivation and even the dang show pitch itself is Wheel of Woke. If Rafe thinks strong female characters are the best thing about WOT, we’re in trouble.

 

WOT has plenty of strong female characters. And they sometimes did really cool and interesting stuff. They also consumed most of the principal “plotlines” - if you can even call them that - as this series went off the rails in the latter half of Jordan’s books.

 

I love WOT for the story of the Dragon, and I never would have picked a showrunner who pitched it like that. Good grief. 

[Elder_Haman]

Keep in mind, the pitch is designed to sell the show to corporate execs. In today's world, there's good sense in leading with things that will appeal to them. It is undeniable that WoT is full of strong, compelling female characters. There's nothing wrong with highlighting that fact - especially when marketing the show to people who are actively seeking that kind of content.

 

I understand the trepidation about heavy handed modern day politics, but let's wait for the final product before getting worked up about it. I think you'll find that those fears are overblown.

[Skipp]

24 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Keep in mind, the pitch is designed to sell the show to corporate execs. In today's world, there's good sense in leading with things that will appeal to them. It is undeniable that WoT is full of strong, compelling female characters. There's nothing wrong with highlighting that fact - especially when marketing the show to people who are actively seeking that kind of content.

 

I understand the trepidation about heavy handed modern day politics, but let's wait for the final product before getting worked up about it. I think you'll find that those fears are overblown.

 

Agreed,  GoT was almost certainly pitched with the concept of Shocking Sex and Violence.  GRRM writing certainly contains these elements but the show dialed them up to 11.

[Beidomon]

32 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Keep in mind, the pitch is designed to sell the show to corporate execs. In today's world, there's good sense in leading with things that will appeal to them. It is undeniable that WoT is full of strong, compelling female characters. There's nothing wrong with highlighting that fact - especially when marketing the show to people who are actively seeking that kind of content.

 

I understand the trepidation about heavy handed modern day politics, but let's wait for the final product before getting worked up about it. I think you'll find that those fears are overblown.

I continue to appreciate your optimism. And I really want you to be right!

[Rose]

8 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

Keep in mind, the pitch is designed to sell the show to corporate execs. In today's world, there's good sense in leading with things that will appeal to them. It is undeniable that WoT is full of strong, compelling female characters. There's nothing wrong with highlighting that fact - especially when marketing the show to people who are actively seeking that kind of content.

 

I understand the trepidation about heavy handed modern day politics, but let's wait for the final product before getting worked up about it. I think you'll find that those fears are overblown.

 

As someone who writes pitches and helps other people write pitches (albeit in a different industry) I can confirm this. You want your pitch to have a clear hook that will make it stand out from everything else because the people you're pitching to have seen hundreds of pitches just like yours. The pitch's job is to grab their attention while simultaneously convincing them that funding your idea will make them a lot of money. So it has to stand out, but it also had to be similar enough to things that have already been proven to be lucrative that they're willing to take a chance on it. So you often end up with pitches that say "it's like this other thing that was really successful, but different in this key way."

 

It totally makes sense why Rafe pitched WoT as "like LotR/GoT but with progressive depictions of women." The first part is there to entice them with how much money this will potentially make. The second part is there to show what's different about it, and why that key element is likely to appeal. Ideally, they want the audience of LotR/GoT and then some, and this pitch shows them how they can get it. They're hoping to attract everyone who loved those adaptations and is hungry for more, AND everyone who didn't like them because of how they depicted women, but might like WoT because it's different. It's a brilliant way to pitch it.

[Maximillion]

36 minutes ago, Rose said:

 

As someone who writes pitches and helps other people write pitches (albeit in a different industry) I can confirm this. You want your pitch to have a clear hook that will make it stand out from everything else because the people you're pitching to have seen hundreds of pitches just like yours. The pitch's job is to grab their attention while simultaneously convincing them that funding your idea will make them a lot of money. So it has to stand out, but it also had to be similar enough to things that have already been proven to be lucrative that they're willing to take a chance on it. So you often end up with pitches that say "it's like this other thing that was really successful, but different in this key way."

 

It totally makes sense why Rafe pitched WoT as "like LotR/GoT but with progressive depictions of women." The first part is there to entice them with how much money this will potentially make. The second part is there to show what's different about it, and why that key element is likely to appeal. Ideally, they want the audience of LotR/GoT and then some, and this pitch shows them how they can get it. They're hoping to attract everyone who loved those adaptations and is hungry for more, AND everyone who didn't like them because of how they depicted women, but might like WoT because it's different. It's a brilliant way to pitch it.

 

I can buy that.  Makes sense.

However, if it is overdone in the actual story it will turn off a lot of people.

I don't want WoT to be a weekly lecture.

If it is, it will lose audience IMO.

So it's about how they fulfil the promise of that pitch.

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by Maximillion

[SinisterDeath]

1 hour ago, Maximillion said:

 

I can buy that.  Makes sense.

However, if it is overdone in the actual story it will turn off a lot of people.

I don't want WoT to be a weekly lecture.

If it is, it will lose audience IMO.

So it's about how they fulfil the promise of that pitch.

 

Nothing we've seen so far implies it's going to be a " Weekly Lecture".
It's more like, "This is how this world operates", and now here's the the story in that setting.

[Maximillion]

30 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Nothing we've seen so far implies it's going to be a " Weekly Lecture".
It's more like, "This is how this world operates", and now here's the the story in that setting.

 

Which world?  Our RL world?

I look for my entertainment to help me escape from that.

I'd prefer they stuck to RJ's world.

 

[nsmallw]

12 hours ago, Beidomon said:

@Katherine and @Maximillion beat me to it. Overall I really like the article. But I continue to be concerned that Rafe’s driving motivation and even the dang show pitch itself is Wheel of Woke. If Rafe thinks strong female characters are the best thing about WOT, we’re in trouble.

 

WOT has plenty of strong female characters. And they sometimes did really cool and interesting stuff. They also consumed most of the principal “plotlines” - if you can even call them that - as this series went off the rails in the latter half of Jordan’s books.

 

I love WOT for the story of the Dragon, and I never would have picked a showrunner who pitched it like that. Good grief. 

Beidomon , I enjoy reading your thoughts. There will be some who will just think your just a neanderthal man and discount your words based on that fact alone. But, I feel it's important to hear an "opposing" viewpoint. So, thank you. 

[SinisterDeath]

1 hour ago, Maximillion said:

 

Which world?  Our RL world?

I look for my entertainment to help me escape from that.

I'd prefer they stuck to RJ's world.

It wasn't really that hard to grasp I was talking about RJ's world, when I said:

2 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

It's more like, "This is how this world operates", and now here's the the story in that setting.

In RJ's world, women are often the ones in power. This story, is set in that world.

There's plenty of escapism to be had.
It's even easier to achieve that, if you don't look at everything that doesn't conform to your sociopolitical ideology, as lecturing you on political commentary and social justice.

[Maximillion]

36 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

It wasn't really that hard to grasp I was talking about RJ's world, when I said:

In RJ's world, women are often the ones in power. This story, is set in that world.

There's plenty of escapism to be had.
It's even easier to achieve that, if you don't look at everything that doesn't conform to your sociopolitical ideology, as lecturing you on political commentary and social justice.

 

That's changed wording to what you said - the change makes more sense.

 

Like I said before, though, things can very much be overdone in terms of fitting in with the current sociopolitical landscape and when that happens it can ruin things for a lot of people.

 

It will be interesting to see how it unfolds.

 

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by Maximillion

[Rose]

I'm confused. Why would a world where women are in positions of power not be escapism? To me it's pretty much the definition of escapism, because it sure isn't the case in the real world.

[TheDreadReader]

4 hours ago, Rose said:

It totally makes sense why Rafe pitched WoT as "like LotR/GoT but with progressive depictions of women." The first part is there to entice them with how much money this will potentially make. The second part is there to show what's different about it, and why that key element is likely to appeal. Ideally, they want the audience of LotR/GoT and then some, and this pitch shows them how they can get it. They're hoping to attract everyone who loved those adaptations and is hungry for more, AND everyone who didn't like them because of how they depicted women, but might like WoT because it's different. It's a brilliant way to pitch it.

 

One of the things that amuses me about this conversation is that you can take Rafe's pitch, transport it back to the mid-nighties, clean up the corporate speak, and the substance of it would be sound a lot like things fans would say to describe the premise of the series.

 

The books were "progressive" in the way RJ already deconstructed gender roles, norms, etc in his worldbuilding.   There are ways that he did it well, ways that he didn't do it so well, but the basic deconstructions were already baked into the cake.

 

One benefit that WOT has over GOT is they are not going to run into the Daenerys problem where the popularity of the character in the minds of a lot of fans made the showrunners afraid to lay the plot foundations for Martin's planned end to her story.  (I can see this creating some risks for Egwene's storyline if they chase a similar level of popularity for her.)

 

 

 

 

 

[SinisterDeath]

11 minutes ago, Maximillion said:

Like I said before, though, things can very much be overdone in terms of fitting in with the current sociopolitical landscape and when that happens it can ruin things for a lot of people.

The series has desert dwelling gingers that incorporate Native American & Zulu culture.

An imperialistic Chinese esque empire, they talk with a Texas drawl, and their empress is as Black as Obsidian, and they actively endorse slavery.

It has various nations with cultures that don't match our real world cultures and the races/ethnicities we often tie to them. 

"Fitting in" like you put it, is very unlikely.

[Beidomon]

2 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

Nothing we've seen so far implies it's going to be a " Weekly Lecture".
It's more like, "This is how this world operates", and now here's the the story in that setting.

Of course Randland is much more matriarchal, the Aes Sedai in particular, by necessity. Saidar is clean, but channeling Saidin drives men to madness. THIS is the fantastically interesting dichotomy that really set WOT apart. It is an essential part of the story. BUT - and this is important - this dichotomy is not the main story, but merely the context for what makes the story of the Dragon Reborn so gripping.

 

The danger of going too Woke is that the showrunners forget that this matriarchal system isn’t the context for the main story, and instead the “girl power” becomes the primary thrust of the story itself. And it ain’t. At least not the books I read. Maybe other people took something different away from WOT - sounds like maybe Rafe did! - but if they did, that’s not the story I want to watch.

 

Now to the point of “Woke sells, so of course that was the pitch.” Ok. Maybe. But if Woke sells, then what’s to say that Woke doesn’t end up being the product?

Edited October 21, 2021 by Beidomon

[SinisterDeath]

9 minutes ago, Beidomon said:

The danger of going too Woke is that the showrunners forget that this matriarchal system isn’t the context for the main story, and instead the “girl power” becomes the primary thrust of the story itself. And it ain’t. At least not the books I read. Maybe other people took something different away from WOT, but if they did, that’s not the story I want to watch.

Somehow, you missed the whole "3 wonder girls" taking on the Black Ajah in the first 6? Books?, That a significant portion of the first half of this series, followed them around while putting Mat, Perrin, or Rand's stories on the backburner?

"Going Woke", doesn't mean what you think it means. It's been twisted into this meaningless catch phrase by political pundits to say: "I don't like this content, because it has concepts or peoples I don't agree with, and I feel like I can't tell people why I don't like it without being called things that make me look bad".

  

10 minutes ago, Beidomon said:

Now to the point of “Woke sells, so of course that was the pitch.” Ok. Maybe. But if Woke sells, then what’s to say that Woke doesn’t end up being the product?

You're selling a product to two people.
One's wearing a red hat, the other's wearing a blue. Are you going to use the same sales pitch to convince them to buy the same product? Or will you be like an Aes Sedai, and change the wording into something they find palatable?