Season 1 Discussion (Full Book Spoilers) v2.1

[Yojimbo]

18 minutes ago, dwn said:

A lot of book dialogue reads well, but doesn't flow properly when spoken in a TV or movie setting. You can get away with it occasionally, depending on the context and actor (typically if he/she has theatre experience), but it often sounds stilted at best. It's like how plays and musicals tend to fall apart when put to film.

Plays and musicals can absolutely work on film, as long as they make the attempt to immerse you in that world.  You just have to be committed to it, and trust your audience to come along with you to that world.   

[bombadillio]

Personally, 

 

I've been reading the books since Eye of the World came out. I've read them over 18 times. 

 

I re-read, Eye of the World just for this season. To say I'm underwhelmed is an understatement. Meanwhile my friends who never read the books enjoyed this finale. Key point  they NEVER  read the books

 

Yet we all have the same issues, 

 1.Poor CGI

2  Production dollars don't show. 

3. Editing, cutting and flow feel like a college student at times put it together. 

4. Writing could use serious work. 

5. In the books each city, nation had its own culture, accent, dress. They weren't a melting pot. I get we want to show a diaspora of nations living everywhere but only the tinkers seems to follow this thread. 

 

Story line, I think we are very far past it being aligned. I read enough viewpoints and agree now it had to be done for TV. Yet, did it have to be brutalized so harshly? 

 

I think the writers wanted to take key points and out them all into this finale likr a bullet point list. 

 

It does not flow nor make sense. I.e. Horn ? of Valere is under the throne? Lime seriously.... 

 

Nyn being cute from what looks like death? 

Seal of the Dark one being that big? 

 

If this what's 100m looks like we're screwed and I really hope they step up as I'm not impressed. 

 

For $100m it should be art and stand the test of time lime LOTR does 20 years later. The dragon there looks better from 20 years ago than any of the CGI we saw here. 

Edited December 25, 2021 by bombadillio

[DaddyFinn]

1 hour ago, bombadillio said:

If this what's 100m looks like we're screwed and I really hope they step up as I'm not impressed. 

 

For $100m it should be art and stand the test of time lime LOTR does 20 years later. The dragon there looks better from 20 years ago than any of the CGI we saw here. 

I'll copy my post here from the episode 8 thread.

 

To be fair, the LotR trilogy had a combined budget of 281 million USD according to Google.

 

https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/2001?amount=93000000

 

Fellowship of the Ring came in 2001. It's budget was 93 million USD. That's $145,958,012.42 today according to that website. It's pretty much the same for each of the movies so combined total is ~$434 million today. Over $400 million for sure. Another website gives about the same so I take it as accurate enough.

 

Now, WoT season 1 has around 8 hours(I'm too lazy to check, close enough) of runtime and the budget was 80-100 million USD for the whole season, right? That would be 10-12,5 million per hour.

 

LotR trilogy is in total (3 films): 9 hours 18 minutes (theatrical) and 11 hours 16 minutes (extended) according to Google. That would be roughly and rounded up 46,7 million per hour for theatrical and 38,6 million per hour for the extended.

 

That's just the rough difference between budgets. They are not exactly comparable.

 

Disclaimer: I may have either messed up my calculations or don't understand how inflation should be taken into account. Feel free to correct me.

 

Edit. The Hobbit trilogy was even more expensive.

 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/hobbit-trilogy-reportedly-cost-745m-742817/

 

Sorry about the offtopic, mods. ?

[Arie]

Yeah, no more off topic. I'll leave be because you recognize it, but please... no. ?

[futurehermit]

Wow, the finale was a massive letdown.  I don't accept whatsoever that the changes to the end of the book had to be made to adapt to TV.  Really, Mat has to be inherently evil for TV?  Loial has to be killed (maybe) for TV?  Aginor, Balthamel, and the Green Man have to be cut for TV?  The Eye of the World, the book's namesake, has to be cut for TV?  And then to be replaced with stuff that isn't in the books.  The horn of valere has to be under the throne for TV?  Agelmar's sister, a minor character, has to kill a gagillion trollocs/fades and die for TV?  Moiraine has to confront the dark one/Ishamael and be shielded/stilled for TV?  

 

The reason the changes were made isn't because of TV.  It's hubris plain and simple.  Maybe they can convince enough non-book readers to watch it so they can continue, but it is pretty heart-breaking to see a treasured story made worse with an adaptation that doesn't treasure the source material.  Yes there were minor changes in LotR but the major aspects of characters and plot were recognizable from the books, which is why it is viewed as a faithful adaptation.  Having Mat figuratively butchered and Loial and the plot literally butchered is just flat out heartbreaking.

[Stewart]

The show isnt wheel of time.  It might be okay as something else, but i cant accept the theft of a great epic by amazonwood and then telling whatever they want with stolen names and places.

 

I dont think i have ever seen a worse violation of a story.  I really cant believe the family or publisher allowed those right, after all they went through to finish the epic true to Jordan's original plan

 

Its 0 of 5 stars for me.

Edited December 25, 2021 by Stewart

[Variant]

On 12/23/2021 at 9:51 PM, Hobo said:

I feel this so much. I honestly believe they should have thrown 10 million at a reputable writer and got a completely original story written instead of destroying one that was already established and loved. 

 

They want the baked in fan base that guarantees them at least a temporary hit.

 

The idea that they would show a completely original story is the kind of experimental/risky thinking that corporations rarely undertake.  More rarely as time goes on As well.  Most entertainment companies have been recycling IP for decades now.

[Mailman]

A quick breakdown 

 

• Moiraine: 0/10 Character destroyed. The subtlety , intelligence and drive just thrown away. Highlighted by being a injured passenger for a couple of episodes followed by ignoring the DR for over a month to engage in some high school  politics at the Tower.
• Lan: 1/10 Character diminished. One fight scene which was average at best. Then he is laughed at as a poor horsemen, shown incapable of being a competent tracker allows a village wisdom to get a blade to his throat and a trolloc to attack the group in the ways without his knowledge. Followed up at the end again by being unable to track Moiraine to what on the TV is a stationary location as we are given no indication otherwise.
• Both characters spend minimal time with the group. No bonding with the Emond Fielders no weapons training, nothing.
• Rand 2/10 Character sidelined to a supporting role to a overpowering degree in order to build the meaningless suspense of the Dragon reveal.
• Mat 2/10 One point simply because of the difficulty or the actor being replaced. Mat goes from being a prankster with good parents to being shown as a thief with a highly dysfunctional family. Abandons his friends and risks the fate of the world by not joining the group. (yes the actor left but we have to go with what we where shown onscreeen)
• Perrin 0/10 Destroyed. Married kills his wife spends episodes looking miserable then it revealed he actually got together with his wife simply because he could not have Egwene. Actual contribution to anything is non existent. Wolf storyline almost entirely bypassed,. Wolves that are onscreen look very small not even as big as large dogs.
• Nynaeve 1/10 In serious danger of going full Mary Sue. Just too OP. Outshines Moiraine and Lan in areas they are supposedly far more experienced in. Relationship with Lan felt entirely too rushed and unearned.
• Egwene 2/10 Hard to put a finger on her just really a meh. Had a part in the end of season OP gap battle and healing of Nynave.
• Basically zero chemistry among the cast as they spend so little time as a whole group.
• Loial 1/10  a little more subjective I find the look and CGI very hard to go past and once someone pointed out that he looked like the Burger King it was impossible to get out of my head. Very little involvement in the show. Way to small.

 

• World building is just terrible.
• One power use and rules is completely unregulated. A strong  and experienced channeler in Moiraine is hard pressed to deal with around 50 trollocs and yet 5 untrained or too weak to complete tower training users is able to completely destroy an army of at least 10,000 in the finale.

Story completely changed from the original book. This is not a adaption its simply theft of the names. I cannot imagine how they could have made more disastrous changes without actually that being there goal.

[DaddyFinn]

3 minutes ago, Mailman said:

One power use and rules is completely unregulated. A strong  and experienced channeler in Moiraine is hard pressed to deal with around 50 trollocs and yet 5 untrained or too weak to complete tower training users is able to completely destroy an army of at least 10,000 in the finale.

I don't think this is too far from the books. Channelers(especially Rand, Nyn, Egwene, Elayne) came up with new stuff all the time and they were strong and made regular Aes Sedai look incompetent regularly. Early books were just testing and experimenting with the OP IMO. I remember vaguely something about Moiraine saying she was at her limits in book 1 when fighting the shadowspawn. I might be totally wrong.

[Hobo]

12 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

I don't think this is too far from the books. Channelers(especially Rand, Nyn, Egwene, Elayne) came up with new stuff all the time and they were strong and made regular Aes Sedai look incompetent regularly. Early books were just testing and experimenting with the OP IMO. I remember vaguely something about Moiraine saying she was at her limits in book 1 when fighting the shadowspawn. I might be totally wrong.

One thing(among a vast many things) that has annoyed me about this show is its portrayal of the power. From memory men didn't "glow" with the power but women glowed and the OP came from within, so the strange white power strands reaching off behind channelers into nowhere is wierd, the only time those types of things are mentioned is when involving Rand, specifically at the Eye of the World and iirc the Final Battle. 

 

That was just my interpretation anyway.

 

Also the fact that the OP just looks.. the same.. they removed any difference between men and women bar some black swirls. Saidin had to be fought and controlled(described as a raging torrent of molten fire and ice iirc) and Saidar had to be surrendered too. Not to mention the different elements. 

 

Edited December 25, 2021 by Hobo

[fra85uk]

7 hours ago, Yojimbo said:

Plays and musicals can absolutely work on film, as long as they make the attempt to immerse you in that world.  You just have to be committed to it, and trust your audience to come along with you to that world.   

You can use book dialogue as Long as you are consistent with the language...if your characters talk and swear like a New-yorker, it is very weird when then you insert book dialogue.

[dwn]

11 hours ago, fra85uk said:

You can use book dialogue as Long as you are consistent with the language...if your characters talk and swear like a New-yorker, it is very weird when then you insert book dialogue.

It works sometimes--The Lion in Winter comes to mind--yet stage phrasing, cadence and theatrics often just look weird when filmed. Book dialogue is similar.

 

I think it's that in TV/Movies the dialogue and acting have to be coupled much more tightly lest you end up with a kind of uncanny valley situation. We accept stilted/poetic language on stage without breaking immersion because it's expected of the medium. Likewise, when reading, our minds are flexible enough to make it all fit together. In a film, it gets unnatural pretty fast.

[MasterAblar]

9 minutes ago, dwn said:

It works sometimes--The Lion in Winter comes to mind--yet stage phrasing, cadence and theatrics often just look weird when filmed. Book dialogue is similar.

 

I think it's that in TV/Movies the dialogue and acting have to be coupled much more tightly lest you end up with a kind of uncanny valley situation. We accept stilted/poetic language on stage without breaking immersion because it's expected of the medium. Likewise, when reading, our minds are flexible enough to make it all fit together. In a film, it gets unnatural pretty fast.

 

See I've always felt that way as well. Dialogue from books can come off quite awful on screen. So why is it Lord of the Rings never felt like that to me? It's an honest question, because the dialogue there can be very grandiose and all but for some reason it just works. Maybe not for everyone I suppose, but to me it just fit the setting.

[EasingTheBadger]

On 12/24/2021 at 10:38 AM, DigificWriter said:

@orbops Amazon is very happy with the show, so 8 seasons is entirely doable.

Other than greenlighting a second season, is there any additional documentation in the public realm to validate this statement?

 

I hope additional seasons will lead to a better product, but a franchise losing momentum when it should be building it, makes for a less than promising long-term prognosis.

Edited December 26, 2021 by EasingTheBadger
Fat fingers

[dwn]

2 hours ago, MasterAblar said:

 

See I've always felt that way as well. Dialogue from books can come off quite awful on screen. So why is it Lord of the Rings never felt like that to me? It's an honest question, because the dialogue there can be very grandiose and all but for some reason it just works. Maybe not for everyone I suppose, but to me it just fit the setting.

Consistency is certainly part of it, as fr85uk pointed out above, but LotR also works because they did modify parts to fit better. There's a segment in one of the commentaries/documentaries where they mention Aragorn's line is something like "by morning these hills will fair teaming with orcs", which they changed to "by morning these hills will be swarming with orcs", to modernise the language and give it more impact for film.

 

Now, the LoTR writers did a great job of adapting the language of the books, and it certainly benefited having Ian McKellan, Christopher Lee and Hugo Weaving around to deliver some of the more poetic lines. Yet, although there's room for improvement in WoT, I don't think the writers are doing such a terrible job with it.

[Mailman]

10 minutes ago, EasingTheBadger said:

Other then greenlighting a second season, is there any additional documentation in the public realm to validate this statement?

 

I hope additional seasons will lead to a better product, but a franchise losing momentum when it should be building it, makes for a less than promising long-term prognosis.

Greenlighting a second season is also a marketing ploy it is designed to give the impression of quality and to reassure that there is more material being made to stop watchers worrying the show will be axed.

 

If the quality remains as is I can easily see season 3 being the last with a hasty wrap up.

[bryce0110]

That finale was a bit weak, my least favorite episode of the season so far, but I didn't hate it and I definitely didn't hate the show either.

 

Overall, the season is about a 7 or 8 out of 10 for me. Quite enjoyable, with many issues that I think they can improve on or were COVID related. The direction the show seems to be heading in is promising and watching the show gave me a similar feeling to reading Wheel of Time for the first time. Though it was quite different I felt it held the themes of the books pretty well, but the tone is definitely shifted from book 1 to more around book 6 levels from the very beginning. Not sure how that will pan out. I enjoyed many aspects of the show, episode 4 and 7 were really good in my opinion. Many of the characters have some differences, but they still feel like the characters I read in the books. Even if Lan is more emotional and Moiraine doesn't feel as mystical as she does in the first book, I still loved it.

 

I have issues with VFX, some can be excused due to COVID but man they really needed to make that Trolloc army in episode 8 look a lot better. Some of the writing was a bit odd, the pacing especially was all over the place at times. I wish they didn't have so many fake out deaths in the finale. I get wanting to make that final battle seem dangerous, but making it seem like many main characters (and even some secondary ones!) died and then come back is really cheap and actually lowers the stakes instead of raising them. The whole Nynaeve looking dead and then being healed was so bad. I'm pretty sure the intention there was to make Nynaeve barely alive instead of dead, but please make that clear through gasping for air or fluttering her eyes or something.

 

Most of my issues come from episode 8, to be honest. Otherwise I really enjoyed the season and am excited for season 2. I can only hope they get some much needed character development and give them all a chance to breathe then, especially now that most of the foundational lore is out of the way. The show has promise, and is just on the cusp of being really great or even amazing. Looking forward to season 2!

 

Overall - 7 or 8/10

Finale - 5 or 6/10

[SingleMort]

1 hour ago, bryce0110 said:

 

 

I have issues with VFX, some can be excused due to COVID but man they really needed to make that Trolloc army in episode 8 look a lot better. Some of the writing was a bit odd, the pacing especially was all over the place at times. I wish they didn't have so many fake out deaths in the finale. I get wanting to make that final battle seem dangerous, but making it seem like many main characters (and even some secondary ones!) died and then come back is really cheap and actually lowers the stakes instead of raising them. The whole Nynaeve looking dead and then being healed was so bad. I'm pretty sure the intention there was to make Nynaeve barely alive instead of dead, but please make that clear through gasping for air or fluttering her eyes or something.

 

 

What I don't get with the VFX is that they were able to make the battle with Logain and his followers look pretty decent in epsiode 4 even the trolloc attack in episode 1 (aside from the other issues I have with that episode) looked way better than the action in episode 8. Maybe the drop in quality is due to covid but then I can't see any reason why they couldn't just delay the release a little longer to finish the effects. Amazon could have released the show any time they liked. That being said I could move past the thing with the horn, the VFX and the stilling but the healing from death is a real pain point for me. Even the most powerful character in the books couldn't do it and it's supposed to be a really really bad thing to do yet Egwene can do it with no training at all? Egwene and Nyneave spent far longer in the books to learn less significant abilities (eg: dreaming and healing stilling). At this point it almost seems a waste of time to train them as Aes Sedai seeing as they are already more powerful than any Aes Sedai. 

[Guire]

I tried to quit watching season and commenting here.  I planned on just waiting a few years and doing a massive catch up watch.  Wife asked me about Blood Snow scene that she saw online and got sucked back in.  For the totality of the season I give it about 5/10.  Outside issues makes it much harder to evaluate compared to other fantasy shows.  In general I think the show executives were experimenting to see if female driven fantasy show would succeed.  Some things worked nicely. Others didn't.  

 

A few odd things I noticed that I haven't seen discussed.  Not sure if this is a current thing or new to WoT.  Very little protection of children in a story about heroic sacrifice.  We have gotten Cauthon children living in an abusive situation.  Grinwell kids murdered by Fade after giving us cute scenes with them.  Little clam digger girl being smashed by tidal wave.  And oddest to me.  Lady Amalisa saying all Shienaran children will be kept in Fal Dara to die for the honor of our city.  Just feels weird.  Not sure reason writers would keep using kids this way?

 

A second point is the military aspect of series.  Wheel of time book series is a run up to war that includes lots of battles and many martial cultures.  In the first season it seems like show and writes don't even want to engage in anything militaristic.  What we have seen feels very video gamey.  If that trend continues will all the big battles just be scenes of Moraine and Lan conferring with  political leaders and an occasional one power explosion?  The tactics and presentation for Fal Darra were bad.  Many shows have set battles up then panned away as a means to save all the expensive filming.  Instead we got really silly tactics, weapons, strategy.  And for no apparent reason.  A more interesting battle could have been done cheaper. Also the Seanchan armada had more of a World of Warcraft feel than a conquering armada.  All the tusks and ornamentation for no practical reason is cool looking but ridiculous for a real naval ship. 

[bryce0110]

21 minutes ago, SingleMort said:

What I don't get with the VFX is that they were able to make the battle with Logain and his followers look pretty decent in epsiode 4 even the trolloc attack in episode 1 (aside from the other issues I have with that episode) looked way better than the action in episode 8. Maybe the drop in quality is due to covid but then I can't see any reason why they couldn't just delay the release a little longer to finish the effects. Amazon could have released the show any time they liked. That being said I could move past the thing with the horn, the VFX and the stilling but the healing from death is a real pain point for me. Even the most powerful character in the books couldn't do it and it's supposed to be a really really bad thing to do yet Egwene can do it with no training at all? Egwene and Nyneave spent far longer in the books to learn less significant abilities (eg: dreaming and healing stilling). At this point it almost seems a waste of time to train them as Aes Sedai seeing as they are already more powerful than any Aes Sedai. 

I do think a lot of the VFX issues were COVID related. They likely had a time limit on release that was strictly pushed by Amazon which led to some half baked visuals in episode 8. The Trollocs in episode 1 and 2 looked amazing, but I guess they couldn't shove a hundred people in some suits and throw them so close to each other during covid so they had to CGI the entire army. At least the initial lightning explosion from Amalisa looked sick as hell.

 

I don't think it was meant to be healing from death, but it certainly looked that way. I believe one of the BTS videos described burning out on a scale of 1 to 10, where 5 is being burnt out. Amalisa and the other girls hit a 10, Nynaeve hit a 5. Nynaeve was meant to be hanging on barely, but they did not make that clear at all.

[SingleMort]

13 minutes ago, bryce0110 said:

I don't think it was meant to be healing from death, but it certainly looked that way. I believe one of the BTS videos described burning out on a scale of 1 to 10, where 5 is being burnt out. Amalisa and the other girls hit a 10, Nynaeve hit a 5. Nynaeve was meant to be hanging on barely, but they did not make that clear at all.

Well it appeared to me like her eyes were burnt out of their sockets which implies even worse internal injuries I just don't see how that wouldn't be fatal. If it had been me I would have maybe suggested having Amalisa take her own life to break the connection or have one of the women kill her (which is probably not very keeping with either of their characters). In any case I think Nyneave and Ewgene are very OP for where they are right now in the story. 

Edited December 26, 2021 by SingleMort

[bryce0110]

8 minutes ago, SingleMort said:

Well it appeared to me like her eyes were burnt out of their sockets which implies even worse internal injuries I just don't see how that wouldn't be fatal. If it had been me I would have maybe suggested having Amalisa take her own life to break the connection or have one of the women kill her (which is probably not very keeping with either of their characters). In any case I think Nyneave and Ewgene are very OP for where they are right now in the story. 

Yeah the visual should have been far turned down as well. The whole Nynaeve death fake out is just a mess. It's my only major complaint of the episode and my least favorite part of it.

 

I was fully expecting Nynaeve to grab a rock and chuck it at Amalisa ?

 

I think the power levels for Nynaeve and Egwene is fine. The only slight nitpick would be Egwene healing Nynaeve there, but that entire part of the scene is a mess. I would absolutely agree with them being OP if they were the ones channeling, but they were linked to a tower trained accepted so I think it lines up pretty well with book power levels.

[SingleMort]

17 minutes ago, bryce0110 said:

 

I was fully expecting Nynaeve to grab a rock and chuck it at Amalisa ?

 

 

OMG if she had knocked her out with a rock I'd happily rate the scene a 10 out of 10 and it would be such a Nyneave thing to do

[Guire]

6 minutes ago, SingleMort said:

 

OMG if she had knocked her out with a rock I'd happily rate the scene a 10 out of 10 and it would be such a Nyneave thing to do

Nyn hitting her with rock and Amalisa, Nyn, and Eg all collapsing as small group of women from city rush out and clean up remaining Trollocs with archery barrage would have been better ending to me.  If women in this turning are soldiers then they need to start showing them as soldiers.

[Weird_Old_Lady]

On 12/24/2021 at 12:21 AM, Dead Warder said:

<<< I still have no idea what this reaction means. 

I don't either. But do you know what the Bela one means?