How did the show hold up for you?

[WoTwasThat]

3 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Dark Tower was so bad.

 

Yeah. So sick of screenwriters thinking they have to make massive changes to the source material because "that just won't work on screen" or "that won't appeal to a broad audience." And then the movie bombs.

 

Harry Potter, LOTR, GOT... these worked because they stayed pretty close. Yes there were some cuts and changes, but mostly for the better.

 

Rafe and WOT, man for a guy who loved the books... well I'm just repeating myself now.

[DaddyFinn]

13 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

One other thing that excited me about WOTTV is I thought it might actually be an opportunity to improve on the books by tightening up the story and fixing a lot of flaws from Book 7 onward. That’s never going to happen now, which is disappointing. 

What makes you think it won't happen?

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

20 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Funny how different people are.  I have never been one to crave more content for the sake of content.

 

For example - I loved the first book of the Dune series.  But didn't like the 2nd and 3rd - much less beyond.  But I was content to read the 1st book over and over even though I wanted more.  Same with the screen adaptations.  The 1984 movie stunk (for me).  I watched it twice over the years but never again.  Same with the Sci-Fi series, watched it a few times but it was just not good enough to enjoy.

 

My rationale - why waste my time on something I don't enjoy and am critical of just for the sake of more content?  I know I love the book, I'll just read it again.  Same with the Avenger movies.  I really love some and dislike others.  Seen them all but only re-watch the ones I enjoy.

 

I get more out of less.  Others get more out of more.

Thank you for your perspective. I agree in terms of enjoyment, if I don’t enjoy something I wouldn’t invest my time in it. I can’t even count how many times I’ve abandoned books or shows that I stopped getting any enjoyment from. Which brings me to the realization that as much as I am capable of appreciating and understanding other people’s perspectives and respecting their personal reasons, especially if they are clearly  the popular socially accepted view, apparently I genuinely enjoy some content that the mainstream rejects. To each their own! And let me just say, I truly appreciate the opportunity to hear other perspectives and opinions. Everyone is right in my opinion, and has the right to their opinion, even if they have what seems like opposing perspectives. 

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

10 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

 

Yeah. So sick of screenwriters thinking they have to make massive changes to the source material because "that just won't work on screen" or "that won't appeal to a broad audience." And then the movie bombs.

 

Harry Potter, LOTR, GOT... these worked because they stayed pretty close. Yes there were some cuts and changes, but mostly for the better.

 

Rafe and WOT, man for a guy who loved the books... well I'm just repeating myself now.

I can definitely relate to the issue of the massive changes in the show that don’t seem to have a purpose. Despite my overall enjoyment of the show that depended on accepting it as separate from the books, I was definitely confused by why the need to condense in order to adapt resulted in a story that was in so many ways fundamentally different from the source material.

[WoTwasThat]

16 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

What makes you think it won't happen?

Well, two reasons...

 

First, given that I think Rafe’s Season 1 depiction of EOTW was significantly, massively, stupendously worse than the book, that doesn’t give me a lot of hope he is actually going to improve on the books later on. 

 

Second, given that I think Rafe’s Season 1 depiction of EOTW was significantly, massively, stupendously worse than the book, that doesn’t give me a lot of hope there is going to be a “later” beyond Seasons 3 or 4.

[Cipher]

21 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

Well, two reasons...

 

First, given that I think Rafe’s Season 1 depiction of EOTW was significantly, massively, stupendously worse than the book, that doesn’t give me a lot of hope he is actually going to improve on the books later on. 

 

Second, given that I think Rafe’s Season 1 depiction of EOTW was significantly, massively, stupendously worse than the book, that doesn’t give me a lot of hope there is going to be a “later” beyond Seasons 3 or 4.

If S2 is a move to make the world more like Jordan's then I believe viewership will go up.

 

If Rafe continues to pander to modern zeitgeist then viewership will dwindle as the season goes on.

 

It is weird how we are getting no promotion of S2.  They should be hyping it right now if it were to come out in June....but crickets.

 

My take is that they are reviewing the episodes and it is not playing well.  They are trying to figure out how to fix it.

 

If it gets Batgirl'd we will know it just wasn't good enough.

 

 

[SinisterDeath]

33 minutes ago, Cipher said:

My take is that they are reviewing the episodes and it is not playing well.  They are trying to figure out how to fix it.

 

If it gets Batgirl'd we will know it just wasn't good enough.

Before you speculate too much about why the gap, consider some of Amazon's more popular original tv series, and their release dates.

The Boys
S1 premiered July 26th, 2019.
S2 premiered September 4th, 2020
S3 premiered June 3rd, 2022

Carnival Row 
S1 Premiered August 30th, 2019
S2 Premiered February 17th, 2023

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
S1 Premiered March 17th, 2017
S2 Premiered December 5th 2018
S3 Premiered December 6th 2019
S4 Premiered February 18th, 2022

The Man in the High Castle 
S1 Premiered January 15th, 2015
S2 Premiered December 16th 2016
S3 Premiered October 5th 2018
S4 Premiered November 15th, 2019

Notice the bolded text.
The Boys had a 13 month gap between S1 and S2, and then a 21 month gap between S2 and S3.
Carnival Row had a 38 month gap between S1 and S2.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel had a 21 month gap between S1 and S2.

The Man in the High Castle had a 23 month gap between S1 and S2.

TLDR: this is par the course for Amazon, they are atrocious at giving us yearly releases.

[Pandemonium]

April is now here.  Odds for a June release getting less & less likely.  We did have the deleted scene, but the PR team sure has been quiet.  Better to make a more polished show though, than to release a mess.  That said, the extra time with the covid delay didn't seem to make seaon 1 much better.

 

[DojoToad]

19 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

Before you speculate too much about why the gap, consider some of Amazon's more popular original tv series, and their release dates.

The Boys
S1 premiered July 26th, 2019.
S2 premiered September 4th, 2020
S3 premiered June 3rd, 2022

Carnival Row 
S1 Premiered August 30th, 2019
S2 Premiered February 17th, 2023

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
S1 Premiered March 17th, 2017
S2 Premiered December 5th 2018
S3 Premiered December 6th 2019
S4 Premiered February 18th, 2022

The Man in the High Castle 
S1 Premiered January 15th, 2015
S2 Premiered December 16th 2016
S3 Premiered October 5th 2018
S4 Premiered November 15th, 2019

Notice the bolded text.
The Boys had a 13 month gap between S1 and S2, and then a 21 month gap between S2 and S3.
Carnival Row had a 38 month gap between S1 and S2.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel had a 21 month gap between S1 and S2.

The Man in the High Castle had a 23 month gap between S1 and S2.

TLDR: this is par the course for Amazon, they are atrocious at giving us yearly releases.

They do seem very slapdash with their releases. Streaming world is different than network. Be interested to see which model wins or if they can coexist. 

Edited April 1, 2023 by DojoToad

[wotfan4472]

On 3/26/2023 at 4:07 AM, WheelofJuke said:

FWIW, I always pictured Julian's hat as a fez as well. 

OMG, I haven't seen any Doctor Who since the very early days of the fifth doctor...don't even know what to think! :eek:

That fez stuff is nothing by this point. That is a quirk these days.

 

Weird moments, like sarah jane's debut story with 3 and Link the Sontarran, where she was in medieval times, and she thought it was an amusement park.

 

No different than 3 teaching sarah jane how to swim, in a separate story, then the 4th Doctor in a story flapping around in a pond like goof panicking that he was drowning, so sarah had to teach him how to swim.

 

Meaning, he forgot between regenerations.

 

Then there is an earlier story with Omega's reaction to seeing 2 and 3 together, and his disbelief they the same Time Lord, because he thought 2 was clearly a joke, and 1 thought no different when he called 2 and 3 a dandy and a clown respectively. Or Bridagier having a panic attack with having to work with two different versions at the same time.

 

All of this in the same story.

 

You are talking about a show with fans (like myself), that think the Rowan Atkinson fund raiser special called The Curse Of Fatal Death, is par for adventures, and thus totally doable. I laughed to the point of passing out when I saw that.

Edited April 1, 2023 by wotfan4472

[mogi68]

Can we get a betting pool going? I bet a Tar Valon mark that S2 will come out in September!

[DojoToad]

50 minutes ago, mogi68 said:

Can we get a betting pool going? I bet a Tar Valon mark that S2 will come out in September!

You can keep your tainted coin, but I'm sticking with November.

[HeronMarkedBlade]

On 1/12/2022 at 11:25 AM, DaddyFinn said:

I wouldn't take this too far. Even GoT took a few seasons(Red Wedding) before it became huge.

No, GoT was huge from the first season. There was massive excitement for it by the end of the first season, and the beheading was HUGE in the entertainment industry and was massive on social media. This show is neither of these things, and the only thing the final episodes of S1 WoT are known for is being awful. 

 

On 4/11/2023 at 1:16 PM, DojoToad said:

You can keep your tainted coin, but I'm sticking with November.

This is when I expect it, to end just before christmas. 

 

On 1/12/2022 at 2:47 PM, Katherine said:

 

 

I think that the sword training and his journey to becoming a sword master were a part of his arc and his growth. It was a visible symbol that illustrated how different he became from the kid who had no idea what to do with his daddy's sword. RJ used his sword training to symbolize his journey from boy to man. IMO that metaphor would work well on the TV medium as well... so I do think that seeing him train in the sword would serve his character on the show really well. 

Very well stated. It's weird how people can't see the symbolism behind the action in these books. That includes Rafe Judkins. 

 

On 1/13/2022 at 3:14 PM, Elder_Haman said:

Uhtred, Son of Uthred is the ultimate badass.

That show is so damn good. That kind of adaption (the books are incredible) is special, and what Judkins should have been trying to make. Yes they had to shorten and condense everything, glossing over some less important characters, amalgamating some minor ones, but never changing the history or details of the original story. 

 

When they made the one source a single power, they fundamentally changed what the series is. I'ts not just Rands journey, but an exploration of sex and gender roles. A very deep one. This neuters so much. This is something Jordan spoke about multiple times, and I'm honestly shocked Harriet allowed the change. 

 

Then theres the fact they made Moiraine the main character and have put the actual cast in the background. 

Edited April 16, 2023 by HeronMarkedBlade

[SinisterDeath]

1 hour ago, HeronMarkedBlade said:

When they made the one source a single power, they fundamentally changed what the series is.

This talking point keeps coming up and it's simply not true. The tv show didn't merge the one power into a single power, they just didn't explain the intricacies of the one power in the first season of the live action show.

 

The two halves of the one power are briefly talked about in the animated shorts that come with the TV series on Amazon. They are cannon to the tv show.

 

 

 

[HeronMarkedBlade]

1 hour ago, SinisterDeath said:

This talking point keeps coming up and it's simply not true. The tv show didn't merge the one power into a single power, they just didn't explain the intricacies of the one power in the first season of the live action show.

 

The two halves of the one power are briefly talked about in the animated shorts that come with the TV series on Amazon. They are cannon to the tv show.

 

 

 

"When men touch it, they make it filthy"

 

I'm not sure that's word for word, but it's close. They very clearly made it into a single power that works completely differently. 

[SinisterDeath]

2 minutes ago, HeronMarkedBlade said:

"When men touch it, they make it filthy"

 

I'm not sure that's word for word, but it's close. They very clearly made it into a single power that works completely differently. 

Ever heard of an unreliable narrator?

Again, they talk about the two halves in the animated shorts.
 

[Mailman]

11 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

This talking point keeps coming up and it's simply not true. The tv show didn't merge the one power into a single power, they just didn't explain the intricacies of the one power in the first season of the live action show.

 

The two halves of the one power are briefly talked about in the animated shorts that come with the TV series on Amazon. They are cannon to the tv show.

 

 

 

It was one of the major problems with the show the distinct lack of information about the magic system. In fact the world building was just terrible overall.

 

Making another show so that you can understand your show is shit writing.

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

10 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

Again, they talk about the two halves in the animated shorts.

Also Moiraine remarks about how she finds it odd to know Logain is pushing against the shield but to be unable to sense his ability (when she would do this with a woman trying to channel).  

The show did confuse things by showing the weaves of both genders to the viewers rather than varying which weaves are seen by POV character.

[SinisterDeath]

1 hour ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

Also Moiraine remarks about how she finds it odd to know Logain is pushing against the shield but to be unable to sense his ability (when she would do this with a woman trying to channel).  

The show did confuse things by showing the weaves of both genders to the viewers rather than varying which weaves are seen by POV character.

Episode 7? When we see Rand's POV from the waygate, we see his weaves, but no one, not even Moiraine saw them.

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

5 hours ago, Mailman said:

It was one of the major problems with the show the distinct lack of information about the magic system. In fact the world building was just terrible overall.

 

Making another show so that you can understand your show is shit writing.

I can appreciate your take on it. I wonder if the gradual build up to learning and understanding the intricacies of the world and story which is a ride we readers all love going on in the books…could it be that translating that mystery and intrigue into the show might have been the intent but was executed less expertly in the adaptation? Maybe the show runners are trying to dole out information slowly hoping to keep people engaged and to give viewers the satisfaction of picking up enough but not too much because that’s what makes the books so compelling, and maybe they either missed the mark entirely or maybe it will still come together over time if viewers can hang in there long enough to see the payoff. Who knows, just a thought. I guess it remains to be seen. I’m still enjoying the show in any case, even though that viewpoint is blasphemous to many readers. 

[zacz1987]

1 hour ago, Lightfriendsocialmistress said:

I can appreciate your take on it. I wonder if the gradual build up to learning and understanding the intricacies of the world and story which is a ride we readers all love going on in the books…

This is not going to be popular opinion but I feel that they downplayed the differences between the male and female source and powers was because they thought having a rigid gender divide would not be seen positively from a certain side of the LGBT community. 

 

Unfortunately the differences between Male and Female channelling are a major part of the series and the reason behind most of the plot. The fact that the male half is tainted is the background of the worldbuilding for the entire world in the series. By downplaying this they make things less clear, more confusing and ruin the motivations of most of the characters.

Edited April 17, 2023 by zacz1987

[SinisterDeath]

5 hours ago, zacz1987 said:

This is not going to be popular opinion but I feel that they downplayed the differences between the male and female source and powers was because they thought having a rigid gender divide would not be seen positively from a certain side of the LGBT community. 

 

Unfortunately the differences between Male and Female channelling are a major part of the series and the reason behind most of the plot. The fact that the male half is tainted is the background of the worldbuilding for the entire world in the series. By downplaying this they make things less clear, more confusing and ruin the motivations of most of the characters.

 

12 hours ago, Mailman said:

It was one of the major problems with the show the distinct lack of information about the magic system. In fact the world building was just terrible overall.

Or, and bear with me on this for a moment; The first season was a character driven story that was more about character building, then world building.

 

Throughout the first season. We met with Characters, that are going to be the driving force of the series for the foreseeable future.

Those characters, are going to be the vehicle with which they go about building the world with in the following season(s).

We know, that next season, we're going to get some of the girls in the Tower, learning the OP. That sounds exactly like the kind of place they're going to teach the viewers how the magic system works. It's akin to how we learn more about how magic works, every time Harry Potter started a new year at Hogwarts.

 

Similarly, we're going to learn more about the various cultures, as the characters split up, and go to different parts of the world. 

Or, I guess we could just wallow in self flagellation that the IP is going to be ruined by an overly woke lgbt gay agenda, and gawk as the show slowly devolves into a trans musical opera about the hardships of transwomen reading in southern libraries.

Whatever floats everyone's boats. 

[DojoToad]

2 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

 

Or, and bear with me on this for a moment; The first season was a character driven story that was more about character building, then world building.

 

Throughout the first season. We met with Characters, that are going to be the driving force of the series for the foreseeable future.

Those characters, are going to be the vehicle with which they go about building the world with in the following season(s).

We know, that next season, we're going to get some of the girls in the Tower, learning the OP. That sounds exactly like the kind of place they're going to teach the viewers how the magic system works. It's akin to how we learn more about how magic works, every time Harry Potter started a new year at Hogwarts.

 

Similarly, we're going to learn more about the various cultures, as the characters split up, and go to different parts of the world. 

Or, I guess we could just wallow in self flagellation that the IP is going to be ruined by an overly woke lgbt gay agenda, and gawk as the show slowly devolves into a trans musical opera about the hardships of transwomen reading in southern libraries.

Whatever floats everyone's boats. 

You had a decent argument going until the sarcasm at the end (my bold).

 

That aside - can't they character and world build at the same time?  Or does that go back to the Amazon didn't provide the budget and episodes needed?  If that is the case, maybe Rafe should have walked: 'I can't make a good show under these strictures.'  If enough folks told them that, maybe...

Edited April 17, 2023 by DojoToad

[WhiteVeils]

Or....he made a good show despite the strictures.  The audience knows exactly as much about the magic system as it needs to know to understand the story as it has been presented on screen so far. They certainly know more than we readers did when we finished EOTW. That's all they need to know at this point.  They learn more later.

[SinisterDeath]

1 hour ago, DojoToad said:

You had a decent argument going until the sarcasm at the end (my bold).

Everything before that still stands.
The sarcasm is because some of ya'll really want to die on that anti-lgbtq hill, and blame everything you don't like on it. So I may as well throw out an argumentum ad absurdum, to highlight how ridiculous it sounds to everyone else.

 

1 hour ago, DojoToad said:

That aside - can't they character and world build at the same time? 

You can, but then how do you make room for the dragon mystery? /s

 

1 hour ago, DojoToad said:

Or does that go back to the Amazon didn't provide the budget and episodes needed?  If that is the case, maybe Rafe should have walked: 'I can't make a good show under these strictures.'  If enough folks told them that, maybe...

Perhaps he did say that to Amazon, by highlighting a lot of the legitimate negative feedback the show has received? And that's why Season 2 is getting more run time? Maybe that's why S2 is taking so damn long?

Either way, the world building we got, wasn't about the magic system.
The World Building we got, (aside from the characters), was a handful of important locations. (Shadar Logoth, Tar Valon, The Ways), the factions. (White Tower, Warders, White Cloaks, Two Rivers), The power conflicts within and between those factions. We also got world building in the form of foreshadowing (Moiraine/Lan, book 4, Rand and his ability to alter Reality, etc), we got it in the form of themes. Trauma, Grief, PTSD, Duty, Trust/Truth/Lies, Friendship & Betrayal, Good & Evil, and most importantly, unreliable Narrator, and imperfect knowledge from a faction that believes they know everything, with facts being manipulated by the shadow and their agents of chaos.