How did the show hold up for you?

[Ralph]

10 minutes ago, EmreY said:

 

 

Indeed, as sport.  But if Muhammad Ali had taken up playing tennis, if he later felt his life was threatened by Björn Borg wouldn't he have just knocked him out?

Not if he was spending his life with an inferiority complex because people thought Borg was better than him ?

[Raal Gurniss]

4 minutes ago, EmreY said:

 

 

Indeed, as sport.  But if Muhammad Ali had taken up playing tennis, if he later felt his life was threatened by Björn Borg wouldn't he have just knocked him out?

….Not really comparable..

 

Have you seen any tv/movies where people start fencing? Usually it’s done out of a matter of honour or who is the more skilled rather than who is the more powerful…

 

Besides which Star Wars was popular whilst the books were being written so lightsabre duels between Force wielding opponents was in vogue……

 

 

[VooDooNut]

14 minutes ago, Raal Gurniss said:

….Not really comparable..

 

Have you seen any tv/movies where people start fencing? Usually it’s done out of a matter of honour or who is the more skilled rather than who is the more powerful…

 

Besides which Star Wars was popular whilst the books were being written so lightsabre duels between Force wielding opponents was in vogue……

 

 

Hamlet comes to mind here.

[EmreY]

32 minutes ago, Ralph said:

Not if he was spending his life with an inferiority complex because people thought Borg was better than him ?

 

Demandred, yes.  But I never understood why Rand would still indulge him.

 

32 minutes ago, Raal Gurniss said:

Besides which Star Wars was popular whilst the books were being written so lightsabre duels between Force wielding opponents was in vogue……

 

Very likely, lol. ?

 

[Lethira the second]

5 hours ago, ArrylT said:

Whether you like or dislike the show hopefully you'll find this thread helpful, at least if you have access to Twitter.  I think it directly speaks to a way that suggests you can dislike what the TV Show is while still respecting that the people involved with the show love Wheel of Time.  It is a 16 post thread fyi not just a 1 post (and I dont think I can post the entire thread).  

 

 

 

I read the entire thread, I'm not sure it really adds anything. 

 

Firstly, my understanding is Sarah is a consultant NOT a decision maker.  I realise that people have criticised her publicly and unfairly because they are not happy with the show.  Decision making is not part of her remit, she can argue until she is blue in the face (as can Brandon Sanderson) but what is done with her advice as soon as it is offered is entirely beyond her control.  People need to understand this and stop attacking her.

 

Secondly, Rafe Judkins is the showrunner.  He is the person ultimately in control.  He has chosen to taken on the role and has made a number of creative decisions that a lot of people are unhappy with.  Unfortunately, they are his decisions to make and he believes he is telling the best version of the story he can with the resources he has; something I vehemently disagree with.  Sink or swim the success of the show is on his shoulders, he will be judged by different metrics than my opinion.

 

I don't really want to see it cancelled just because I don't like it.  I would like them to take a long hard look at the reactions to what they produced and take on some of the feedback.  That said, I believe they were already well into filming season 2 when season 1 was released, so perhaps that is unlikely.

[Scarloc99]

19 hours ago, nsmallw said:

In the books it was Rand's training with Lan that made him a good swordsman. And Rand dueled Turak not Suroth but I get your points, I don't see them making Rand's sword work a part of the show sadly

Another serious point here is how much opportunity the Actors have had to learn to sword fight, not including those scenes might be down to them not coming across well, for all we know sword training scenes where filmed and looked awful because the actors didn't have the required skill set to make it look good and in editing there was no way to make it look presentable. 

[Scarloc99]

1 hour ago, Lethira the second said:

 

I read the entire thread, I'm not sure it really adds anything. 

 

Firstly, my understanding is Sarah is a consultant NOT a decision maker.  I realise that people have criticised her publicly and unfairly because they are not happy with the show.  Decision making is not part of her remit, she can argue until she is blue in the face (as can Brandon Sanderson) but what is done with her advice as soon as it is offered is entirely beyond her control.  People need to understand this and stop attacking her.

 

Secondly, Rafe Judkins is the showrunner.  He is the person ultimately in control.  He has chosen to taken on the role and has made a number of creative decisions that a lot of people are unhappy with.  Unfortunately, they are his decisions to make and he believes he is telling the best version of the story he can with the resources he has; something I vehemently disagree with.  Sink or swim the success of the show is on his shoulders, he will be judged by different metrics than my opinion.

 

I don't really want to see it cancelled just because I don't like it.  I would like them to take a long hard look at the reactions to what they produced and take on some of the feedback.  That said, I believe they were already well into filming season 2 when season 1 was released, so perhaps that is unlikely.

I will ask where you get the idea that "a lot of people are unhappy with the changes" can you define "a lot" as a % of readers, he has made changes you are not happy with and you have found an echo chamber of people who agree with you, but equally I have found an echo chamber of book readers who like me love the show despite not agreeing with some of the changes (although understanding them). This twitter post nails it perfectly, your ideas of what is important in the book wont match all book readers. So had the series been made sightly differently and made you more happy, you may have found yourself on my side of the fence looking at an equal number of people pissed off that there wheel of time was not made. Or worse a host of non books readers wondering why they should keep watching a LOTR rip off. Especially when Amazon is about to release a LOTR series. 

I would argue as a % the number of Book readers talking about it online (negative or positive) is tiny, and as a % of total viewers we are even smaller. but I would also argue that probably, more book readers are happier with the adaptation then are unhappy but you are less likely to jump online to a forum and "vent" about the things you love with a thing. By definition the bottom half of the Internet has largely become the place people come to complain rather than they come to praise. Personally I want Rafe to continue the way he has, I want more side stories that don't exist in the books, I want a spreading out of the power and storytelling. I hope he moves a little closer to the rules of magic, there is still room to do that, I also hope the quality of SFX improves, but I was happy with the acting, script and most of the changes made, and the ones I didn't like I understood, because as a first season goes it hit what for me where the important moments and more importantly what for me where the emotional high points. Just as this twitter thread states that may not be the case for you but it does not mean the adaptation is bad, it just means it didn't work for you, but your version might be "just as bad" in terms of upsetting an equal number of book readers. 

[Scarloc99]

14 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

Not sure what you're talking about here.

It's about maximizing profitability. One of the data points for calculating that is # of episodes. And they spend tons of time, money and effort determining the 'sweet spot' for that based on an overwhelming amount of audience data. 

 

Now, do they often get it wrong? Sure. Because humans are predictable in their unpredictability. But there's no doubt that the decisions are driven by actual data not just 'gut feelings' about the best season length.

Bit of a history lesson here from someone who recently worked in Addressable Advetising (on demand advertising). The main thing is the change in shift from Episodic TV and on demand Streaming TV, Episodic TV in the "old days" you wanted a long 20 odd season because you could sell advertising time as a 20 week block, an advertiser knew that at this timeslot for this Quarter of the year then this demo was watching in these numbers so we know this ad space is worth X and we can run a 20 week advertising campaign. So for instance Buffy, Small Ville etc all hit that core 18-35 advertising market which is where the big money is, so a network wanted that series to run 20 weeks because they only had to find 2-3 winning series a year.

However the Downside of those long 20 episode series, there is no stopping for the actors, if you consider Buffy and Smallville the cast did nothing else for the entirety of the show, from the stories you hear about the main cast they where working pretty much solidly for the entire of the run doing 15 hour days in filming. Tom Welling has said in interviews that for the first 2 seasons he was usually driving to and from set half asleep and didn't have any time to learn lines. Patrick Stewart did very little else other then Star trek during his run, in fact he has told the story that a selling point by his agent was not to worry about the schedule stoping him doing what he loved (theatre work) because it would not last past the first season. 

As time has progressed companies ran far shorter advertising campaigns, you need to "churn" adverts and promotions at a much higher rate to engage customers, you want to access your customers across broader channels. The internet revolutionised the advertising industry, suddenly you could target far smaller groups of people and even target individuals. The advent of Streaming services and the ability to record TV led to a reduction in TV viewing (the numbers of people watching "live" tv has reduced year on year for the past 10 years or so). 

This led to TV networks needing to change the game. The first shift came with shorter "half" seasons. a Mid Season Break offering a chance for audiences to experiance shorter storytelling across 10 episodes leading to a clifhanger moment and then a pause to make them want more, it also allowed a change to filming schedule meaning instead of churning out 20 episodes in one hit you could break the filming up. This also meant that you could sell 10 week advert slots to companies instead of making them commit to 20, and financially you can double the Season Premier and End episodes and maximise those profits. 

However the other issue was that the Streaming Sites now made Movies more accessible and started pumping more and more money into the industry. TV companies like HBO understood they had to find another way to compete and so started looking at ways of producing movie level TV shows with a cast to match. However a Sean Bean or Peter Dinklage was unlikely to sign on for 20 episodes so the decision was made to produce more limited TV series. Audiences where used now to 8 episode TV runs with a break in between for a 16 episode season, so the natural move was to just making a season 8-10 episodes long. With that shift Streaming Services now saw that simply providing cheap movies was not a differential and other streaming services where appearing so Netflix (which is really the industry leader being the first) decided to start making unique content, movies and TV shows to try and stand out from the other companies trying to enter it's space. As season length shrunk so T companies realised they where picking up more and more casual viewers, as season length shrunk so bigger "movie" names where willing to come and film, the schedule is not very different to filming a movie meaning they could have more then one project a year if they wanted. With big name stars being willing to do TV you can attract bigger advertisers and draw in more casual viewers wanting to see this or that actor. Breaking Bad showed what a great TV show can do to change an Actors perceptions and open up more roles to them. 

Commercial TV remember is made for one reason only, to sell the advertising space in between. Streaming Services however make TV for a different reason, to draw in subscribers and on that I have never understood Amazons profit model, I am only a Prime Subscriber because I order lots on Amazon and so save the money through Postage. I would not pay for Amazon Prime normally other then maybe once or twice a year to sign up for a month to catch up on TV I want to see. I have never understood how they can defend internally making TV shows for free while they charge people to offset the price of making Audio Books. 

So will we ever go back to 20 season straight TV shows, unlikely, there is space on certain TV channels for longer runs (the Arrowverse is an example of this) but even that is starting to head towards more limited runs. You can get better quality, keep viewing numbers higher for the entire season (traditionally even popular shows see a drop off of viewers between episodes 1 and 20) and never have to make another one of those "recap" filler episodes where the lead character dreams about stuff that has happened up till now :). 

 

[Lethira the second]

25 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I would argue as a % the number of Book readers talking about it online (negative or positive) is tiny, and as a % of total viewers we are even smaller. but I would also argue that probably, more book readers are happier with the adaptation then are unhappy but you are less likely to jump online to a forum and "vent" about the things you love with a thing. By definition the bottom half of the Internet has largely become the place people come to complain rather than they come to praise. Personally I want Rafe to continue the way he has, I want more side stories that don't exist in the books, I want a spreading out of the power and storytelling. I hope he moves a little closer to the rules of magic, there is still room to do that, I also hope the quality of SFX improves, but I was happy with the acting, script and most of the changes made, and the ones I didn't like I understood, because as a first season goes it hit what for me where the important moments and more importantly what for me where the emotional high points. Just as this twitter thread states that may not be the case for you but it does not mean the adaptation is bad, it just means it didn't work for you, but your version might be "just as bad" in terms of upsetting an equal number of book readers. 

Defining 'a lot' as a % is not really helpful to the argument I'm trying to make, so I'm going to disregard that question.

 

I've said in other posts, I believe the show falls down on a number of things, not just the changes made to the story itself.  What I was saying in the post you quoted is...

 

1. Sarah is NOT responsible for anything other than advising, she is not a decision maker.  People criticising her for changes they do not like are barking up the wrong tree.  -They might as well shout at the tea lady, because Sarah does not have creative control.

 

2. Rafe has made his decisions, whether or not I/we agree with them, they are his decisions to make and he will be judged on metrics other than opinion.

[Scarloc99]

16 hours ago, Gothic Flame said:

I'm a little bemused by that as well.

If I'm watching good stuff I want more. 

Come to think of it...sounds like an argument for less seasons as well. What is another season but a continuation of more of the story?

I'm kinda pissed that it seems anymore productions get smaller and smaller. 

There is always a large drop off of viewers on long 20 episode series between episode 1 and 20 on normal TV, it is part of the reason why mid season breaks are now incorporated. 

[Scarloc99]

2 minutes ago, Lethira the second said:

Defining 'a lot' as a % is not really helpful to the argument I'm trying to make, so I'm going to disregard that question.

 

I've said in other posts, I believe the show falls down on a number of things, not just the changes made to the story itself.  What I was saying in the post you quoted is...

 

1. Sarah is NOT responsible for anything other than advising, she is not a decision maker.  People criticising her for changes they do not like are barking up the wrong tree.  -They might as well shout at the tea lady, because Sarah does not have creative control.

 

2. Rafe has made his decisions, whether or not I/we agree with them, they are his decisions to make and he will be judged on metrics other than opinion.

sorry I may have misunderstood your point, I was trying to say that if only 5% of the people who have read the books are coming online and moaning about changes, but they make up 100% of people moaning about changes, it gives a perception that all book readers dislike the changes, but, in reality you can only state that 5% do and can make some extrapolations based on stats out. From what I have seen there is a split about 50/50 between those who state the series is awful, and those who like it. That would therefore suggest that "a lot" of people do't dislike the changes. 

[Scarloc99]

5 hours ago, EmreY said:

I must confess, I still find it difficult to understand why channellers should duel with swords.  Perhaps in extremis, but why else?

Why do Jedi insist on using laser swords when they could just sit back and force push/shoot most non force users ? 

[Scarloc99]

3 hours ago, Raal Gurniss said:

….Not really comparable..

 

Have you seen any tv/movies where people start fencing? Usually it’s done out of a matter of honour or who is the more skilled rather than who is the more powerful…

 

Besides which Star Wars was popular whilst the books were being written so lightsabre duels between Force wielding opponents was in vogue……

 

 

Or Starwars was just popular in the age of legends and everyone wanted to be Luke (or Vadar) 

[Raal Gurniss]

23 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Or Starwars was just popular in the age of legends and everyone wanted to be Luke (or Vadar) 

I suspect Starwars would have been permanently out of favour after a century of the Disney treatment…..

 

Truth is the WoT is a mess of several historical periods a bit of medieval a bit of Elizabethan, a bit English civil war/post war, a bit of Regency…A real mess, some of the technology gaps even indicated a middling Roman era.

 

I love the books, but when you start delving into the workings you see a lot of deep rooted flaws.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Raal Gurniss

[Raal Gurniss]

33 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

sorry I may have misunderstood your point, I was trying to say that if only 5% of the people who have read the books are coming online and moaning about changes, but they make up 100% of people moaning about changes, it gives a perception that all book readers dislike the changes, but, in reality you can only state that 5% do and can make some extrapolations based on stats out. From what I have seen there is a split about 50/50 between those who state the series is awful, and those who like it. That would therefore suggest that "a lot" of people do't dislike the changes. 

A lot of people don’t know there are any changes..

 

Unless a mandatory global poll is instituted it would be impossible to say one way or the other…

 

There is a poll above which reflects visitors to this site though, but it lacks any great detail about those that voted.

 

Truth is regardless of whether or not people like it, the show just isn’t very good…It’s nothing to do with opinion or taste…The story doesn’t wow, the scripts aren’t great, the acting could be better(actors are young/new to character/roles not saying they aren’t talented and they have time to grow into it) the special effects can be iffy etc..

 

I don’t like the show, that is my opinion, but I can stand back and look at things objectively and take personal feeling out of it! I get that people love it and are passionate about it but surely they can step back that yes, even though they think its great they can see that it’s not very good on a technical level.

 

Some of my favourite shows have had terrible special effects, hammy acting, cheesy scripts etc, but at least I could be passionate AND admit the deep flaws.

[Terry05]

43 minutes ago, Raal Gurniss said:

Truth is regardless of whether or not people like it, the show just isn’t very good…It’s nothing to do with opinion or taste…The story doesn’t wow, the scripts aren’t great, the acting could be better(actors are young/new to character/roles not saying they aren’t talented and they have time to grow into it) the special effects can be iffy etc..

 

What??? Lol this is 100% what an opinion is… I, along with many others disagree with it. That is our opinion. 

[DojoToad]

2 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I will ask where you get the idea that "a lot of people are unhappy with the changes" can you define "a lot" as a % of readers, he has made changes you are not happy with and you have found an echo chamber of people who agree with you, but equally I have found an echo chamber of book readers who like me love the show despite not agreeing with some of the changes (although understanding them). This twitter post nails it perfectly, your ideas of what is important in the book wont match all book readers. So had the series been made sightly differently and made you more happy, you may have found yourself on my side of the fence looking at an equal number of people pissed off that there wheel of time was not made. Or worse a host of non books readers wondering why they should keep watching a LOTR rip off. Especially when Amazon is about to release a LOTR series. 

I would argue as a % the number of Book readers talking about it online (negative or positive) is tiny, and as a % of total viewers we are even smaller. but I would also argue that probably, more book readers are happier with the adaptation then are unhappy but you are less likely to jump online to a forum and "vent" about the things you love with a thing. By definition the bottom half of the Internet has largely become the place people come to complain rather than they come to praise. Personally I want Rafe to continue the way he has, I want more side stories that don't exist in the books, I want a spreading out of the power and storytelling. I hope he moves a little closer to the rules of magic, there is still room to do that, I also hope the quality of SFX improves, but I was happy with the acting, script and most of the changes made, and the ones I didn't like I understood, because as a first season goes it hit what for me where the important moments and more importantly what for me where the emotional high points. Just as this twitter thread states that may not be the case for you but it does not mean the adaptation is bad, it just means it didn't work for you, but your version might be "just as bad" in terms of upsetting an equal number of book readers. 

Look at the poll in this very thread.  People invested enough in WoT to track down a forum have made their voices heard.  More people are unhappy with either changes or just overall quality of the show than are happy with it.

[Terry05]

3 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Look at the poll in this very thread.  People invested enough in WoT to track down a forum have made their voices heard.  More people are unhappy with either changes or just overall quality of the show than are happy with it.

I’d be interested in seeing the numbers on that poll. How many people voted and then haven’t been back? How many votes are made up of accounts created by people already on DM who wanted to skew the numbers? Applies to people for and against the show. 

[fra85uk]

54 minutes ago, Raal Gurniss said:

 

 

Some of my favourite shows have had terrible special effects, hammy acting, cheesy scripts etc, but at least I could be passionate AND admit the deep flaws.

 I Have never lost a Supernatural episode in my life but i know that is not a masterpiece.

At the same time, I know Titanic is objetively a great movie but i would never spend +2hours of my Life rewatching it.

[Raal Gurniss]

36 minutes ago, Terry05 said:

 

What??? Lol this is 100% what an opinion is… I, along with many others disagree with it. That is our opinion. 

Fair enough then, it is the best ever made series in history with absolutely nothing wrong with it….The highest possible quality throughout, the pinnacle of thousands of years of entertainment, flawless acting, flawless scripts, flawless special effects!

 

Is that really what you believe? Or is the series really not that good?

 

I can’t think of a single series that ever came close to perfection myself…

 

Are you sure your passion for the show isn’t impairing your judgement?

[Scarloc99]

27 minutes ago, Terry05 said:

I’d be interested in seeing the numbers on that poll. How many people voted and then haven’t been back? How many votes are made up of accounts created by people already on DM who wanted to skew the numbers? Applies to people for and against the show. 

Also there is truth to the argument that negative views are always more vocal than positive. The Silent Majority is a real thing when it comes to many polls. A poll on a site such as this is already skewed, first of all you need to be a book reader who takes an active role online, then you need to care enough about the series to comment and, regardless of what people think, forums generally magnify negative feelings and therefore anyone with anything positive to say tends to stay away/stay quiet because the way of the internet is that there is a genuine feeling you will get shouted down and lost in the noise. 

This forum, as with all places, is an echo chamber, to get a proper balanced poll you would need to step away and get an independant poll of book readers who have seen the series away from forums and the like. 

[Raal Gurniss]

29 minutes ago, fra85uk said:

 I Have never lost a Supernatural episode in my life but i know that is not a masterpiece.

At the same time, I know Titanic is objetively a great movie but i would never spend +2hours of my Life rewatching it.

Exactly! Passion and enjoyment for a show doesn’t need it to be perfect in every single way! I just wish that people could step back and tell the two apart.

[fra85uk]

Well on rotten tomatoes is at 65%, metacritic on 4.7. 

 

Just for comparison, the Witcher has 76% and 6.9.

[Scarloc99]

10 minutes ago, Raal Gurniss said:

Fair enough then, it is the best ever made series in history with absolutely nothing wrong with it….The highest possible quality throughout, the pinnacle of thousands of years of entertainment, flawless acting, flawless scripts, flawless special effects!

 

Is that really what you believe? Or is the series really not that good?

 

I can’t think of a single series that ever came close to perfection myself…

 

Are you sure your passion for the show isn’t impairing your judgement?

Lol this is the kind of bias that makes people stop ever taking part in forums and leads to echo chamber mentality. 

You claim that the show just isn't that good, and then insist that if someone can find a single flaw it defends your point it isn t that good, however your follow up argument that all shows have flaws means that in your opinion no show is ever that good, therefore any adaptation of WOT would ever be that good. 

Are there some issuers, yes, can you find issues with every TV show, of course, can a TV show still be really good fun and enjoyable and loved and the flaws ignored, always. 


 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Sir_Charrid

[Scarloc99]

4 minutes ago, fra85uk said:

Well on rotten tomatoes is at 65%, metacritic on 4.7. 

 

Just for comparison, the Witcher has 76% and 6.9.

Which goes to show that maybe a good TV adaptation should throw the book out the window and ignore the source material and therefore defends Rafes actions so far and says in future he should go much much further. 

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Sir_Charrid