How did the show hold up for you?

[Maximillion]

1 minute ago, fra85uk said:

I can summarize my feelings of the show comparing it to saidin. 

You feel somewhat that there is the good RJ stuff that you love somewhere but the Amazon/Rafe taint causes madness and despair. And noone is going to cleanse it.

The only hope is Nynaeve.

 She can do anything.?

 

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, Maximillion said:

 like how confusing and fast paced the show has been.

 

yeah, about that...

we all agree the show is too fast paced. even the most enthusiastic of us agree that it's going too fast, with the caveat that they did what they could with the limited time they had.

I suggested the show to a guy i know over the internet. a few days later, he said it was too slow, people did nothing but talk and there wasn't enough action.?

 

I guess he must be used to the current fashion in superhero movies.

screenwriters are looking at the script

batman: "hi, superman"

superman: "hi, batman"

screenwriters: that's too long a dialogue, people will get bored. cut it in half by having them be assaulted by a ninja death squad sent by the villain. use this premise for a 20-minute combat scene

 

It just proves how you cannot please anyone, and you should not try.

Edited November 30, 2021 by king of nowhere

[fra85uk]

That's why if you believe in an IP you should try to stick as much as possible (of course with the limitations etc etc) to the source material, not trying to please everybody.

Instead, it is obvious that the showrunners do not trust RJ's WoT to be a good show since they are changing the core of many characters.

The best example is Thom: one of the most cool characters of the series transformed in a third hand folk singer. 

[DojoToad]

1 hour ago, fra85uk said:

 

"But mah son!!!!"

That scene was hilarious.

I get it.  I have a son I'd attempt to move mountains for - beg the Aes Sedai to help (or the warrior with her if he didn't know what she was).  Move upstream and attempt to cross where the trollocs weren't (or downstream if that is where his son was coming from).  Try and distract the trollocs with harsh language and lead them away before his son's arrival.

 

Anything but what actually happened.

[DojoToad]

1 hour ago, fra85uk said:

I can summarize my feelings of the show comparing it to saidin. 

You feel somewhat that there is the good RJ stuff that you love somewhere but the Amazon/Rafe taint causes madness and despair. And noone is going to cleanse it.

Don't forget, it is now the corruption, not the taint.  Gotta keep with the times, yo!

[DojoToad]

11 minutes ago, fra85uk said:

That's why if you believe in an IP you should try to stick as much as possible (of course with the limitations etc etc) to the source material, not trying to please everybody.

Instead, it is obvious that the showrunners do not trust RJ's WoT to be a good show since they are changing the core of many characters.

The best example is Thom: one of the most cool characters of the series transformed in a third hand folk singer. 

Third-hand folk singer with Fade Fighting Flair!!!

[AdamA]

In the spirit of charity here (both to the writers and to the character), I don't believe the ferryman was trying to cross the river. He was trying to get to and recover his ferry, so he could take it somewhere downriver where there were no trollocs and bring his family back across on it.

[CaddySedai]

3 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Don't forget, it is now the corruption, not the taint.  Gotta keep with the times, yo!

 

The show lore still says taint tho ?

 

I like to think of the lore as true knowledge and the show as being imperfect human knowledge lol. 

Edited November 30, 2021 by CaddySedai

[Treesong]

I set the bar low so now I am pleasantly surprised.

 

I think Rand is being a bit obnoxious, was hoping to see more of the innocent farmboy in the first few episodes.  I think all three boys are coming of as overly serious from the start, almost depressed. I guess my main angle while reading the books always has been these 3 boys and their interactions so I am biased to anything concerning that.  

 

Overall atmosphere of the series is great, definitely oozes the WoT world for me, mediocre cgi and liberties with the IP included.  ?  Looking forward to episode 5. 

Edited November 30, 2021 by Treesong

[Dew21]

....I can't get over Perrin.  Why was he married?  And why did he kill his wife and child (She was pregnant, right?)???  HIs relationship with Faile is such a great part of the book.  What purpose there?

And Matt's dad was Tam's partner.  Another great character destroyed for some domestic lesson?  Unnecessary changes....

[Yojimbo]

2 hours ago, Maximillion said:

 

 My wife watches the show with me but is not really that interested. The show hasn’t grabbed her to the extent she would ever watch it if I wasn’t.

 

Mine watches with me too.  She wanted to like it almost as much as I did because while she hasn't read the books she's been listening to me talk about it for almost 17 years.   The very first words I ever spoke to her when we were introduced by friends is "So I hear you have read LOTR".  It was a fait accompli from that point.  

 

She is a professional editor (who has edited my own books - as yet published) and an avid reader (her own new favorite is The Expanse, which we both love - both books and show).   The pacing of the show annoys her to no end.   I told her about the prologue and she said "well why didn't they show that?  That would have made all this make more sense from the start. "She hasn't found any character or characters in particular that she is rooting for.   She has intuited that Lan (see my avatar for who I think of when I think of Lan) is supposed to be this intimidating presence as well as a master swordsman and woodsman, and yet she laughed out loud when Nyn snuck up on him.  Big moments from the books come up and she understands they should be big moments because she understands story telling, and yet she has said on more than one occasion, "Why is this supposed to be significant? " because the moment seems to come and go without any exposition at all to tell us WHY it is significant.   Like the Manetheren speech.  It belonged in EF.  Not some random place of no importance.  It diluted that moment and felt cheapened. 

 

She asked me last night if I am going to keep watching and I told her I probably will.   She asked why and I said "Because I have waited more than 25 years to see this story on screen.   Reading these books was one of the things that kept me going until I met you, and inspired me to go back to trying to write and publish myself."   So we don't have high hopes, but I will probably finish the season.  

 

I despair though.   The writer in me thinks they are going to butcher Rand's story arc.   I worry that, instead of fighting against his fate, and not coming to accept it until The Stone of Tear and Callandor, that they will have him say "well, I guess that makes me TDR.  What now?"  right after TEotW.   They probably won't do that, but with this writing team I can't be sure they won't.   No Heron on the sword hilt.   How in heck is he supposed to be marked twice and twice?   

 

Sorry for the long rant.  Too much coffee.

[fra85uk]

@Yojimbo I feel your pain, except that my wife is also a big fan of the book and, after the first episode, said that she did not want to watch the series any longer, because she did not want to ruin the image of WoT that she has in her mind.

[fra85uk]

27 minutes ago, Dew21 said:

....I can't get over Perrin.  Why was he married?  And why did he kill his wife and child (She was pregnant, right?)???  HIs relationship with Faile is such a great part of the book.  What purpose there?

And Matt's dad was Tam's partner.  Another great character destroyed for some domestic lesson?  Unnecessary changes....

Well, I highly doubt that this series is going so far that we will see Perrin/Faile relationship.

[Agitel]

57 minutes ago, Dew21 said:

....I can't get over Perrin.  Why was he married?  And why did he kill his wife and child (She was pregnant, right?)???  HIs relationship with Faile is such a great part of the book.  What purpose there?

And Matt's dad was Tam's partner.  Another great character destroyed for some domestic lesson?  Unnecessary changes....

 

Without being able to hear Perrin's internal monologue, and while competing with an ensemble cast for limited time, it is a shortcut to bring to the forefront and provide show-justification/highlighting of his struggle with the necessity of violence, why he hates the axe, his fear of the line between man and beast, why he puts Faile off for so long, and why he becomes so ridiculously over-protective of her.

 

It's not clear at all whether she was or was ever pregnant.

Edited November 30, 2021 by Agitel

[Elder_Haman]

And it's going to give an added layer of depth to the Perrin/Faile relationship. It will help explain his early standoffishness and how it morphs into his later over-protectiveness as he strives to find his balance.

[Maximillion]

3 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

yeah, about that...

we all agree the show is too fast paced. even the most enthusiastic of us agree that it's going too fast, with the caveat that they did what they could with the limited time they had.

I suggested the show to a guy i know over the internet. a few days later, he said it was too slow, people did nothing but talk and there wasn't enough action.?

 

I guess he must be used to the current fashion in superhero movies.

screenwriters are looking at the script

batman: "hi, superman"

superman: "hi, batman"

screenwriters: that's too long a dialogue, people will get bored. cut it in half by having them be assaulted by a ninja death squad sent by the villain. use this premise for a 20-minute combat scene

 

It just proves how you cannot please anyone, and you should not try.

The thing is though, I have heard a lot about there not being enough time to tell the story, yet several chunks of the first 4 episodes have been devoted to stuff that is not even the books and those scenes don’t tie the story together in any demonstrable way. In fact they are badly written imo.

 Example, remove the interlude of Nynaeve killing a a Trolloc and you have time for a better ‘Leavetaking’ 

 

[fra85uk]

1 minute ago, Maximillion said:

The thing is though, I have heard a lot about there not being enough time to tell the story, yet several chunks of the first 4 episodes have been devoted to stuff that is not even the books and those scenes don’t tie the story together in any demonstrable way. In fact they are badly written imo.

 Example, remove the interlude of Nynaeve killing a a Trolloc and you have time for a better ‘Leavetaking’ 

 

But you need badass moments, not coherent character and world building

[Maximillion]

1 hour ago, Yojimbo said:

Mine watches with me too.  She wanted to like it almost as much as I did because while she hasn't read the books she's been listening to me talk about it for almost 17 years.   The very first words I ever spoke to her when we were introduced by friends is "So I hear you have read LOTR".  It was a fait accompli from that point.  

 

She is a professional editor (who has edited my own books - as yet published) and an avid reader (her own new favorite is The Expanse, which we both love - both books and show).   The pacing of the show annoys her to no end.   I told her about the prologue and she said "well why didn't they show that?  That would have made all this make more sense from the start. "She hasn't found any character or characters in particular that she is rooting for.   She has intuited that Lan (see my avatar for who I think of when I think of Lan) is supposed to be this intimidating presence as well as a master swordsman and woodsman, and yet she laughed out loud when Nyn snuck up on him.  Big moments from the books come up and she understands they should be big moments because she understands story telling, and yet she has said on more than one occasion, "Why is this supposed to be significant? " because the moment seems to come and go without any exposition at all to tell us WHY it is significant.   Like the Manetheren speech.  It belonged in EF.  Not some random place of no importance.  It diluted that moment and felt cheapened. 

 

She asked me last night if I am going to keep watching and I told her I probably will.   She asked why and I said "Because I have waited more than 25 years to see this story on screen.   Reading these books was one of the things that kept me going until I met you, and inspired me to go back to trying to write and publish myself."   So we don't have high hopes, but I will probably finish the season.  

 

I despair though.   The writer in me thinks they are going to butcher Rand's story arc.   I worry that, instead of fighting against his fate, and not coming to accept it until The Stone of Tear and Callandor, that they will have him say "well, I guess that makes me TDR.  What now?"  right after TEotW.   They probably won't do that, but with this writing team I can't be sure they won't.   No Heron on the sword hilt.   How in heck is he supposed to be marked twice and twice?   

 

Sorry for the long rant.  Too much coffee.

yeah it’s painful to watch when the expectations were so high. I remember when I first heard about it. My heart literally slipped a beat. I was like an excited kid. 
 

one thing, though. The sword is Heron marked… saw that in the first episode, though not sure it’sa very good representation 

[Maximillion]

2 minutes ago, fra85uk said:

But you need badass moments, not coherent character and world building

Well indeed.

 Looking through the Twitter feedback it’s clear that seeing badasses and particular female badasses is extremely important to a lot of people.

/shrugs 

 

[Yojimbo]

8 minutes ago, Maximillion said:

yeah it’s painful to watch when the expectations were so high. I remember when I first heard about it. My heart literally slipped a beat. I was like an excited kid. 
 

one thing, though. The sword is Heron marked… saw that in the first episode, though not sure it’sa very good representation 

My memory of it is that there was a heron at the base of the blade, but not on the hilt.  Supposed to be on both.

 

[Gothic Flame]

5 minutes ago, Maximillion said:

Well indeed.

 Looking through the Twitter feedback it’s clear that seeing badasses and particular female badasses is extremely important to a lot of people.

/shrugs 

 

Rafe set things up with all the stuff he's been saying, that he wasn't following how the books went, that this was a different turn of the Wheel...and 4-5 potential Dragons.

[Maximillion]

2 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

Rafe set things up with all the stuff he's been saying, that he wasn't following how the books went, that this was a different turn of the Wheel...and 4-5 potential Dragons.

Yes, unfortunately he’s a terrible story teller.

 

[fra85uk]

I think there is a misconception from showrunners recently that random badass and/or shocking moments are a must.

I think it stems from the success of GoT but here is the thing: when GoT started to over-use this trick, it became a parody of itself. 

WoT showrunner and writers do not only make massive amounts of this stuff with characters that they did not develop but they deliver it in a very poor way.

 

So far, in few episodes I have seen so many cringey moments that, when ep.4 dropped, i was watching it for its (unintentional) comical value.

 

[CaddySedai]

22 minutes ago, Yojimbo said:

My memory of it is that there was a heron at the base of the blade, but not on the hilt.  Supposed to be on both.

 

 

Changes to positioning of the heron and the gem in the dagger for example are for camera purposes.

 

Hard to get shots of a heron or a gem when its hidden by the hand(s) gripping said blade.

[AdamA]

I believe the pilot was intended to be two hours originally. They certainly wrote a lot more and may have even filmed more, but pressure from Amazon corporate forced them to heavily edit stuff down and favor action over more character development. Supposedly, that level of interference was mostly just the first episode and the executives have been more hands off otherwise. It was a little disappointing to see season two still only get an 8 episode order. I'm pretty sure the writers want more than that. Studios are taking the wrong lesson from the success of quicker bingey shows like Mandalorian and Witcher where the short season orders work because there isn't nearly as much character sprawl.

 

There's a balancing act with the talent, though. Especially if your show gets popular, actors start getting film offers and need offseason time to work on other projects. You can't have too long of a filming schedule because of that. Wheel of Time is going to struggle with long post-production times because of all the CGI, too. It was probably smart to use wolfdogs instead of trying to CGI the wolves for that reason, and would be smart to just give Loial some gigantic boots and make him big, but nowhere near ten feet tell, for similar reasons, or cut down his screen time. You'll have to put up with purists screaming he's supposed to be bigger, but there's plenty of precedent in things like Game of Thrones casting tall, but still normal human-sized, people for the Mountain and not trying to use CGI or trick angles to make him 8 feet tall.