Comparing Wheel of Time to other fantasy adaptations

[Guire]

34 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

Here's one we may never see: Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephan R. Donaldson.

 

These are a very dark, interesting trilogy of trilogies, with the last trilogy containing 4 books. The total of 13 books, all reasonably tome-ish beats RJ, but loses to the RJ/BS collaboration.

 

The "hero" is the face you see, when you look up anti-hero in the dictionary. The worlds are amazing, with incredibly inventive rules and inhabitants. WoT proves that it's possible to start (let's see the finish) such an ambitious task with the CGI advances and the billionaire money available now. But the tone of Thomas Covenant, may put off the money people, until all hope is lost.

Yea way to dark.  No way that gets made in modern climate.   Another series that might be a better animation.  I still think my perfect WoT version would probably be an animation.  I love the prophecies and minutia and large battles.  I need to reread the Thomas Covenant series.  

[Harad the White]

3 minutes ago, Guire said:

Yea way to dark. 

Right. It's a shame because it actually resonates with the "real world" more than most. Hope you like it, again!

[Jaysen Gore]

I think splitting this out and giving it its own thread was a great idea ?. What follows is strictly my opinion, and may contain spoilers for all involved:

 

The Jackson LoTR trilogy is probably the Gold Standard, but it was a movie, and had more budget, more production time, and a longer run time to make than the entire first WoT season. And while I do think it was great, the fact that they did to Aragorn what they're doing to Lan (no supermen allowed, thank you, here are your feet of clay), turned Gimli into comic relief, and added the whole thing with Faramir managed to severely damage it in my eyes. I understood the changes, but I despised them. Far more than what's been done to WoT so far (except Laila; it will take a miracle to redeem that)

 

Game of Thrones is the comparison everyone's making, but thankfully, WoT won't have GoT's big problem. GRRM lost the damn plot, never got it back, and abandoned the property. This left it in the hands of Hollywood, and boy did it suffer as a result. If WoT makes it to season 4, they can eliminate WoT's biggest issues (the slog, 3 books of Camelyn politics) while still ending up exactly where they need to be, and make a great story incredible.

 

The Witcher - I haven't seen the Witcher , so I can't comment. But it's a much easier to adapt property, since it's much more episodic in nature. From what I've seen, it's closer to Conan than WoT. So it's easier to produce good TV, but harder to produce great TV.

 

The Shannara Chronicles - read them pretty much from the get go, and they were doomed by the derivative source material. The TV show felt like Saved By The Bell, the Magic Years. Not even grown up enough to be 90210

 

Earthsea - I did try, really I did. The books were good, and the TV show tried, but it really suffered from what I think of as the SyFy treatment; too small an FX budget, and no actors with gravitas.

 

I tried most of the YA movies, but never read the source material. I'm really not the target market, but didn't find enough depth in them to really be enjoyable, and when consumed too quickly, they smack of Hollywood / Publishing houses burning through the genre of the moment for a quick buck. (cough, post-Potter, cough)

 

So, IMO, all the WoT team needs to do is survive until they introduce the Aiel, where WoT stops being a LoTR pastiche, keep the cast together, and execute the major story beats that are on the page. Because if they succeed until that point, then Amazon will let them finish it, and they'll blow GoT out of the water. Simply by being a story that ends as it should have, in a way that makes sense, and where a line from the very first episode is what causes our hero to win in the end.

[Jaysen Gore]

42 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

I'd love a live-action show or animation of these. They were one of the first fantasy series I ever read

While I appreciate the sentiment, Eddings' history with the criminal justice system will preclude anyone from ever touching these properties. And it's a shame, since I think the Elenium would be great.

[JaimAybara]

S tier: LotR / GoT (except for the last season) 

 

A tier: The Witcher / WoT (will be by end of season I think) 

 

B tier: Shadow and Bone / Carnival Row 

 

C tier: Shannara Chronicles / Xena 

 

D tier: Legend of the Seeker / Dungeons and Dragons 
 

F tier: The Winter Dragon 

 

[Harad the White]

Ok, at the risk of social suicide, Harry Potter. I thought the movies (and books) were great. There is something which started as YA and morphed into something different. Not to mention, how the books single-handly turned a generation into readers. The comment by ArrylT above applies to the first two movies, where literal adaption of the books resulted in a YA classification. Later movies starting with and especially "Prisoner of Azkaban" directed by Alphonso Cuaron, really took off into adult territory. As the books and movies got darker that started to match the real world and leave YA.  That was about 20 hours of programming, as we are counting.

[CaddySedai]

2 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

Ok, at the risk of social suicide, Harry Potter. I thought the movies (and books) were great. There is something which started as YA and morphed into something different. Not to mention, how the books single-handly turned a generation into readers. The comment by ArrylT above applies to the first two movies, where literal adaption of the books resulted in a YA classification. Later movies starting with and especially "Prisoner of Azkaban" directed by Alphonso Cuaron, really took off into adult territory. As the books and movies got darker that started to match the real world and leave YA.  That was about 20 hours of programming, as we are counting.

 

I considered the books to be literary trash.

 

The movies were enjoyable.

 

On reread its no Tolkien or Jordan but I appreciate them now - BECAUSE of the quality of the films.

[DaddyFinn]

12 minutes ago, Jaysen Gore said:

While I appreciate the sentiment, Eddings' history with the criminal justice system will preclude anyone from ever touching these properties. And it's a shame, since I think the Elenium would be great.

Oh, I didn't know about that. Althalus could also make a great movie or two

[Harad the White]

1 minute ago, CaddySedai said:

I considered the books to be literary trash.

Harsh.

JKR has also gone off track as person, but say lavie.

[CaddySedai]

10 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

Harsh.

JKR has also gone off track as person, but say lavie.

 

Lavie.

[Harad the White]

Gormenghast

 

This was a trilogy by Mervyn Peake, adapted into a pretty good TV series with Christopher Lee, Stephen Fry, (veterans of LoTR/Hobbit), Celia Imre, Fiona Shaw (Harry Potter) among others in a great cast. The interesting thing about the books is that the first two books (covered in the TV series) were straightforward but Gothic fantasy. The last book veered off into psychedelia and never saw the light of TV day.

[Jaysen Gore]

I expect Harry Potter will be the 21st Centuries Chronicles of Narnia; every child will read them at a certain point to decide if they like fantasy; or reading at all. And the critical drubbing the first two movies took were because they were too faithful an adaptation. But I'd have to think long and hard about a material change in any of them of the scale of Aragorn's Worg ride, let alone Laila.

 

ALSO.... bear this in mind; Rowling had much stricter creative control than Harriet does, and the 8 Potter movies (20 hours run time) had a collective production budget that was almost twice as much as Amazon will spend to get an entire 8 year WoT series (1.35 Billion versus 12.5M x 64 one hour episodes). Or. think of it this way - Harry Potter had 6 times the budget of WoT PER MINUTE . So I don't expect the production quality to compare. And if you do, you're going to be very disappointed with WoT.

 

Harry Potter Franchise Box Office History - The Numbers (the-numbers.com)

Edited November 28, 2021 by Jaysen Gore

[JaimAybara]

I know people are torn on this series, but I would love to see Kingkiller Chronicles become a movie trilogy or show when it’s completed. 

[Harad the White]

1 minute ago, Jaysen Gore said:

Or. think of it this way - Harry Potter had 6 times the budget PER MINUTE than WoT does. So I don't expect the production quality to compare. And if you do, you're going to be very disappointed with WoT.

Not sure that's the right metric. CGI probably went down in cost/wows a factor of 10 since HP. As long as they get the actors right, and who knew three 10 year olds would be great, WoT can aspire to the same quality.

[CaddySedai]

2 minutes ago, Jaysen Gore said:

Chronicles of Narnia

 

Speaking of. As far as adaptations go these were...horrid.

 

I loved the books - recently having reread them. I have no idea how they got so deep into them film wise with how just...terrible they got lol.

 

Then again Home Alone did have serveral movies - a TV series with none of the original cast and...French Stewart. And a reboot. So...perhaps I should not be surprised ?

[JaimAybara]

2 minutes ago, CaddySedai said:

 

Speaking of. As far as adaptations go these were...horrid.

 

I loved the books - recently having reread them. I have no idea how they got so deep into them film wise with how just...terrible they got lol.

 

Then again Home Alone did have serveral movies - a TV series with none of the original cast and...French Stewart. And a reboot. So...perhaps I should not be surprised ?

I totally forgot about those movies. 

[Jaysen Gore]

On Chronicles - I didn't mention them because I didn't like the source material enough to bother watching the adaptations ( heh - I despise allegory in all its forms); I think they got 3 movies (LWW, Caspian, Dawn Treader), one of which may have been straight to video

Edited November 28, 2021 by Jaysen Gore

[CaddySedai]

5 minutes ago, Jaysen Gore said:

On Chronicles - I didn't mention them because I didn't like the source material enough to bother watching the adaptations ( heh - I despise allegory in all its forms); I think they got 3 movies (LWW, Caspian, Dawn Treader), one of which may have been straight to video

 

That is my point. LWW should have been the end of them. hehe. The fact 2 more got made is treading on "Aladdin 3" territory. lol

[Jaysen Gore]

10 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

Not sure that's the right metric. CGI probably went down in cost/wows a factor of 10 since HP. As long as they get the actors right, and who knew three 10 year olds would be great, WoT can aspire to the same quality.

I think the biggest cost problems is still completely CGI characters. Cost issues are probably going to set people's hair on fire when they see Loial. Or some of the creatures later on. And I think cost has led to the biggest FX issue so far - the nebulous white / black mists of the weaves, and not, you know, actual weaves, with the different elements brought into it somehow. Just too damned expensive. 

 

It's also a major factor in the scale of armies, like Logain's this week. Compare it to the Battle of Hogwarts in terms of real people, and those didn't even need period wardrobes like WoT would...

[Jaysen Gore]

3 minutes ago, CaddySedai said:

 

That is my point. LWW should have been the end of them. hehe. The fact 2 more got made is treading on "Aladdin 3" territory. lol

Yeah, but the studio paid for seven; that had to hurt.

[ArrylT]

49 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

Oh, I didn't know about that. Althalus could also make a great movie or two

Yeah I literally only found out because he mentioned it.    

[Harad the White]

12 minutes ago, Jaysen Gore said:

I think the biggest cost problems is still completely CGI characters.

We shall see (literally).

[ArrylT]

23 minutes ago, Jaysen Gore said:

On Chronicles - I didn't mention them because I didn't like the source material enough to bother watching the adaptations ( heh - I despise allegory in all its forms); I think they got 3 movies (LWW, Caspian, Dawn Treader), one of which may have been straight to video

 

I believe a 4th (Silver Chair) is in development hell.  Every couple of years it changes production companies.

 

My favorite book of them all 

Spoiler

A Horse and his boy

 

[JaimAybara]

27 minutes ago, Jaysen Gore said:

I think the biggest cost problems is still completely CGI characters. Cost issues are probably going to set people's hair on fire when they see Loial. Or some of the creatures later on. And I think cost has led to the biggest FX issue so far - the nebulous white / black mists of the weaves, and not, you know, actual weaves, with the different elements brought into it somehow. Just too damned expensive. 

 

It's also a major factor in the scale of armies, like Logain's this week. Compare it to the Battle of Hogwarts in terms of real people, and those didn't even need period wardrobes like WoT would...

Honestly, I would donate to a go-fund me to make the show better if more money is really needed to clean it up. Millions of fans donating ten bucks each, specifically to WoT. But I bet Amazon would then go, “cool give them a smaller budget their fans are paying for it.” Their budgetary restrictions feel like they are only thinking short-term. Okay, pay some extra to do it right and have the long-term gain of people rewatching decades later. It just feels like throwing money down a well otherwise. Particularly when they are so close. 

 

*Isn’t that how Critical Role got their show green-lit?*

Edited November 28, 2021 by JaimAybara

[ManetherenTaveren]

1 hour ago, Harad the White said:

These are a very dark, interesting trilogy of trilogies, with the last trilogy containing 4 books. The total of 13 books,

I'm gazing at my bookshelf and I only see 10 Covenant titles. If you can find another trilogy, let me and Donaldson know! ? 

 

Yeah, dark stuff. I don't know if I should have read the first two trilogies as a teen/young adult. They exacerbated many insecurities I didn't know I had. Anti-hero indeed! Is it wrong that I spent most of the series forgiving our leprosy-afflicted, half-handed, ring-bearing protagonist? Poor Lena! Poor Elena!  Plus, Lord Foul and his minions triggered me.

 

In the never-happening adaptation of Covenant, they would have the same problem depicting Foamfollower as the WoT showrunner will have depicting Loial. Fingers-crossed for Loial!