Interviews and News Articles

[Deviations]

On 1/23/2022 at 11:20 AM, Cauthonfan4 said:

ergo i support the idea of changing the gender dynamics and focusing less on rand and making the women more equal to the men. I do not support what the show did with making the women the focal point in season 1 the way they did.

Let's do a tv series with Pride & Prejudice as the source material but focus on the more interesting men rather than the women.

 

 

These folks to a committee to art and made it near unrecognizable.    If they wanted to tell a different story, they should have written their own story.

[AdamA]

On 1/23/2022 at 9:34 AM, king of nowhere said:

Unfortunately, Rafe and his writing team are nowhere near as good narrators as RJ was. Furthermore, TV is not a good medium to show an expanded story in a large world with multiple characters and a lot of introspection. And Rafe&coworkers have fallen victims of the common pitfalls of movies, i.e. prioritize what looks good over what makes sense.

so, wottv ends up as a potentially better story than the books, but more poorly narrated.

I think this is a great comment and crystallizes quite well what bugs me about this season. I'm honestly not that mad about changes being made. I don't personally see any of the men being portrayed as incompetent, nor women in general (as opposed to specifically Nynaeve) being overpowered. I never quit the books, but I came close when it got to the point of Tylin raping Mat, which felt like the kind of thing that would be written by someone who thought a 14 year-old boy being seduced by his 30-year old teacher should feel lucky about it. There's plenty that can stand to be changed. The balance of power and showing well-developed, strong characters doing badass stuff equally distributed between the sexes was well done and ahead of its time for the 90s, but the gender dynamics in terms of how the sexes thought about and behaved toward each other was terrible, like literally centuries old people with the mindset of adolescent schoolchildren. As bad as people want to complain about Moiraine and Liandrin behaving like they're in Mean Girls, I thought it was a lot worse to see Lanfear go Leroy Jenkins on her own millennia-spanning masterplan because she's jealous her 20-year old crush that doesn't like her back had sex with another woman.

 

But I was worried when hearing about the plans they had before the season started, because I feared what you described, that the show was going to end up being a seasons 6-8 Game of Thrones thing where they prioritize spectacle over story (except in Wheel of Time's case, they didn't even do the spectacle well) and they don't take care to ensure that what they're showing actually makes sense. Robert Jordan devoted somewhere around half a lifetime to developing the story, keeping copious notes and cross-referencing to make sure nothing he wrote contradicted anything he wrote earlier, that it all made sense and was well-motivated by previous events, character motivations, power and skill levels, and world history and culture. It's probably the most intricate plot I've ever read that has no obvious plot holes I can think of.

 

It's the kind of thing you can't replicate on television, at least not easily. Arguably, Dark did a pretty good job, but that was also a long-time passion project where the writers had spent over a decade developing the idea before ever turning it into a television show. Trying to keep that level of internal consistency is difficult, it not impossible, when you've got 20 writers and 20 editors that need to stay in sync and they've got a few months every year to deliver a season's worth of writing on time before filming begins. They can't just take however long it takes to get it right the way an author can. I don't believe Rafe and company have any realistic chance to write something up to the task of being called Wheel of Time if they try to do it on their own following only the path of hitting every major event but freewheeling it on how we get there. Doing that is exactly what killed the last few Game of Thrones seasons, and those writers and show runners had a lot more on their resumes and proved they can do good work previously, which I don't see from the Wheel of Time TV team.

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, AdamA said:

It's the kind of thing you can't replicate on television, at least not easily. Arguably, Dark did a pretty good job, but that was also a long-time passion project where the writers had spent over a decade developing the idea before ever turning it into a television show. Trying to keep that level of internal consistency is difficult, it not impossible, when you've got 20 writers and 20 editors that need to stay in sync and they've got a few months every year to deliver a season's worth of writing on time before filming begins. They can't just take however long it takes to get it right the way an author can. I don't believe Rafe and company have any realistic chance to write something up to the task of being called Wheel of Time if they try to do it on their own following only the path of hitting every major event but freewheeling it on how we get there. Doing that is exactly what killed the last few Game of Thrones seasons, and those writers and show runners had a lot more on their resumes and proved they can do good work previously, which I don't see from the Wheel of Time TV team.

alas, you made the most compelling argument for the show never being able to live up to the books. the bookcloaks calling the show any kind of crap didn't faze my general enjoyment of it, but a clear analysis of why it's almost impossible for the writing team to do any better than what they did? ouch!

 

on the plus side, there are great scenes and plots and i will merge them with the book canon. when padan fain recounts of logain conquering ghealdan, i will envision his badass scene on the castle. when rand is born on the slopes of dragonmount, I'll see the blood snow fight. when ila defends the way of the leaf, i'll take her tv version - she did a much better job than the book version. the visual representation of the trollocs beats any description the books could make.

so, even if the show stays at the current level of mixed quality, i'll have something to be happy about

 

 

[ForsakenPotato]

4 hours ago, Deviations said:

Let's do a tv series with Pride & Prejudice as the source material but focus on the more interesting men rather than the women.

 

 

These folks to a committee to art and made it near unrecognizable.    If they wanted to tell a different story, they should have written their own story.

I know it's the opposite of the point you are trying to make...but I would watch that!

 

There's numerous loose adaptions of Shakespeare. Making a new version of one of his plays shows an effort to understand and engage with an old text in new and exciting ways. It's the ultimate sign of respect that people are still trying to learn new things from those stories. So I'm not convinced that retelling stories from different perspectives somehow makes those stories inherently worse.

 

Obviously RJ is not Shakespeare and this is the first big TV adaption in his universe, so I understand that many people would like it to be as close as possible to the books *before* anyone uses their creative license with his universe. I just think the argument is a lot more nuanced than "don't make different versions of the same story"...because people have been doing that forever with all major works of art, and not all of them suck just because they aren't the original.

[EmreY]

9 hours ago, Deviations said:

Let's do a tv series with Pride & Prejudice as the source material but focus on the more interesting men rather than the women.

 

Given that the "Darcy pond scene" on Youtube has been watched 10m times, I suspect that would an instant hit. ? 

[Cauthonfan4]

14 hours ago, ForsakenPotato said:

.because people have been doing that forever with all major works of art, and not all of them suck just because they aren't the original

But the trend lately has been that fantasy adaptations that stick to the source do extremely well, and those that deviate suffer.

 

[Ralph]

https://winteriscoming.net/2022/01/23/4-ways-the-wheel-of-time-improved-books-robert-jordan-failed/

 

https://winteriscoming.net/2022/01/21/the-wheel-of-time-sound-design-vfx-costumes/

[TheMountain]

12 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

But the trend lately has been that fantasy adaptations that stick to the source do extremely well, and those that deviate suffer.

 

...Dune being the prime example! Just look at the positively glowing praise Brandon Sanderson heaped on the movie in his review.

[Katherine]

1 hour ago, Ralph said:

https://winteriscoming.net/2022/01/23/4-ways-the-wheel-of-time-improved-books-robert-jordan-failed/

 

Thanks for sharing! I thought this was a very balanced review of the highs and lows. HOnestly it is hard to disagree with his assessment. 

 

He actually made a very compelling arguement in favor of Mat's change.... which makes me more sympathetic to changes I have hated throughout the season. 

 

The main difference between the author, who is excited to watch Season 2, and myself is that the negatives outweight the positives. 

 

 

[ArrylT]

Books & Bianca likes The Witcher S2 and gave it a grade of 8/10 despite being it being what she considered a loose adaptation (gave it a 6/10 for adaptation).   

 

I only mention this because as always it is going to be subjective.   There are 4 broad outcomes

 

1 - Poorly Adapted / Well executed

2 - Well Adapted / Well executed

3 - Poorly Adapted / Poorly executed

4 - Well Adapted / Poorly executed 

 

with a large range of sub-sections to work with depending on your opinion.

IE the WA/WE category could run the gammut all the way up to Perfectly Adapted / Perfectly Executed 

 

Put another way

 

1-5 grade / 6-10 grade

6-10 grade / 6-10 grade

1-5 grade / 1-5 grade

6-10 grade / 1-5 grade

 

For me that would be (examples)

 

1 -  Alice in Wonderland (2010)

2 - The Wheel of Time (so far)

3 - A Wrinkle In Time*

4 - Winter Dragon

 

However to each their own. 

 

Also for me, Dune is a lot more SF than fantasy - but that is for each to determine. 

 

* - I still enjoyed the film just as an adaptation of the book I felt the adaptation was weak and execution of the adaption flawed - but the movie itself was enjoyable regardless.

[notpropaganda73]

1 hour ago, Ralph said:

https://winteriscoming.net/2022/01/23/4-ways-the-wheel-of-time-improved-books-robert-jordan-failed/

 

https://winteriscoming.net/2022/01/21/the-wheel-of-time-sound-design-vfx-costumes/

 

Two great reads, thanks for sharing. The first I agree with practically everything in it, although I'm still not sure about keeping the Dragon a mystery. But definitely agreed with the Mat section and he is probably the character I'm most interested in for S2 in terms of what they do with him. 

 

The 2nd one is just a really great read. I love seeing the thought that goes in the background of what we're seeing on screen.

Edited January 25, 2022 by notpropaganda73

[ilovezam]

21 hours ago, AdamA said:

The balance of power and showing well-developed, strong characters doing badass stuff equally distributed between the sexes was well done and ahead of its time for the 90s, but the gender dynamics in terms of how the sexes thought about and behaved toward each other was terrible, like literally centuries old people with the mindset of adolescent schoolchildren. As bad as people want to complain about Moiraine and Liandrin behaving like they're in Mean Girls, I thought it was a lot worse to see Lanfear go Leroy Jenkins on her own millennia-spanning masterplan because she's jealous her 20-year old crush that doesn't like her back had sex with another woman.

It's such a shame because all they needed to do was to change some of the stuff you mentioned, streamline some of the meandering, make the action epic, and they would have gotten a really solid outline for a TV show that was inoffensive and guaranteed to print money. 

 

Instead they took a hatchet to the some of the characters and themes, seemingly in favour of inserting some of their personal politics, and did not have the writing chops to make that compelling. 

[Graendals favourite]

Great watch. Glad to hear interviews, though canon is canon.

[WhiteVeils]

Sound design video: Really good,

 

 

[WhiteVeils]

Wheel of Time Cinematography:

 

https://www.tvfanatic.com/2022/01/the-wheel-of-time-exclusive-cinematographer-david-moxness-talks/

 

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by WhiteVeils

[Truthteller]

On 1/25/2022 at 9:43 AM, notpropaganda73 said:

 

Two great reads, thanks for sharing. The first I agree with practically everything in it, although I'm still not sure about keeping the Dragon a mystery. But definitely agreed with the Mat section and he is probably the character I'm most interested in for S2 in terms of what they do with him. 

 

The 2nd one is just a really great read. I love seeing the thought that goes in the background of what we're seeing on screen.

That is a shockingly bad review, the things he identifies as positive changes are amongst the worst things about the series, while the things he thinks are bad are all relatively minor.  
 

The change to Loail could not be less significant, it isn’t in the top 100 worse things about the show.  
 

On the other hand the show absolutely destroyed Mat’s character and in trying to make Moiraine more human, completely undermined Moiraine’s competence, making her a different, and far less interesting, person.  
 

A weasel review that attempted to hide its agenda behind the false balance of equal number of reasons.  

[DaddyFinn]

The Dusty Wheel interviewed Kate Fleetwood. Interview starts @2:35

 

Quote

 

 

 

Edited January 27, 2022 by DaddyFinn

[VooDooNut]

44 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

The Dusty Wheel interviewed Kate Fleetwood. Interview starts @2:35

 

 

 

I think I just fell in love with Kate Fleetwood all over again. She's so passionate about playing Liandrin! We're lucky to have such dedicated actors playing these roles.

[DaddyFinn]

Kae Alexander (Min) answered to some questions on Instagram. I guess this thread is the best for stuff like this. Nothing major, but just nice to hear the actors talk of their roles and the show. I love book Min and really like her in the show so this makes me happy. ?

 

Edited January 27, 2022 by DaddyFinn

[ArrylT]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/book-of-boba-fett-cobra-kai-streaming-rankings-dec-27-jan-2-1235082838/

 

Neilsen streaming ratings - US only.

 

"Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time (630 million minutes) held steady the week after its finale debuted — a rarity among streaming shows with weekly releases. It lost only 1 percent of its total viewing time from the previous week. Disney+’s Hawkeye (539 million minutes) also remained in the top 10 the week after its final episode, but in contrast to The Wheel of Time, it was down 42 percent from the prior week."

[Cauthonfan4]

I think the real question is how far will viewer numbers fall for season 2 after how poorly season 1 ended.

[EmreY]

8 hours ago, ArrylT said:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/book-of-boba-fett-cobra-kai-streaming-rankings-dec-27-jan-2-1235082838/

 

Neilsen streaming ratings - US only.

 

"Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time (630 million minutes) held steady the week after its finale debuted — a rarity among streaming shows with weekly releases. It lost only 1 percent of its total viewing time from the previous week. Disney+’s Hawkeye (539 million minutes) also remained in the top 10 the week after its final episode, but in contrast to The Wheel of Time, it was down 42 percent from the prior week."

 

This is obviously bad news, proves that everyone hated it, interest and word of mouth were non-existent, etc and so forth. ? 

[EmreY]

3 hours ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

I think the real question is how far will viewer numbers fall for season 2 after how poorly season 1 ended.

 

You know you're going to be watching if only to say how much you hated it. ? 

 

[Cauthonfan4]

1 minute ago, EmreY said:

This is obviously bad news, proves that everyone hated it, interest and word of mouth were non-existent

Meanwhile episode 8 was almost universally panned as subpar, so again, how many will be back? 

[Skipp]

2 hours ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

Meanwhile episode 8 was almost universally panned as subpar, so again, how many will be back? 

Most if the show starts strong in season 2.