How different do you think the show would have been with 10 episodes, and if they had been given a full budget (like GOT season 1 funding) and if Mat hadn't been recast? (SPOILERS)

[DaddyFinn]

35 minutes ago, Elayas said:

I could do a 100x better job with no production experience than the current "professional" staff.

No you could not. That's a fact. Daydreams are of course allowed.

[Elayas]

40 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

No you could not. That's a fact. Daydreams are of course allowed.

I could.  The books provide the source material.  Follow the flow and character development, hire competent set, costume and music score directors and it will be vastly superior produce than what was produced.

 

The showrunner and many of his staff have little experience, They do not have decades of experience hence they are novices so yes unexperienced, competent fans can do better.

Edited May 8, 2022 by Elayas

[DojoToad]

1 hour ago, Elayas said:

I could.  The books provide the source material.  Follow the flow and character development, hire competent set, costume and music score directors and it will be vastly superior produce than what was produced.

 

The showrunner and many of his staff have little experience, They do not have decades of experience hence they are novices so yes unexperienced, competent fans can do better.

You admit you have no production experience; you also admit the Rafe and company have little experience.  Little is more than none.  They also have access to the source material and source experts.

 

Now I still think they screwed it up, but I fail to see how you could have done better with no industry experience.  It takes more than passion and knowing which way to point the camera.

 

I don't know about the rest of the team, but Rafe has several years in the industry - at least.  Hate the direction he took WoT, but he is hardly a novice.

Edited May 8, 2022 by DojoToad

[Elayas]

Yes this is not hard.

 

To your point about not having access to source material, Everyone has access to the source material they are The Wheel of Time books.  Industry experts can be hired just like the rest of the staff.  You hire in film personnel, once again it is not hard.  

 

Following the books you can easily make season 1 a success even stealing a page from GoT and use dialogue directly from the books word for word to convey key messages.  It is not hard, you are not inventing a new world, you are adapting a book for film keeping faithful to the books.

 

Episode 1 Starts out like LoTR with a narrative flashback with the Dragon breaking the world, tainting saidin (in my version like Jordan's there is a Saidin and Saidar) and how one day the Dragon will be reborn.  Then with the screen black the narrative says Chapter 1, paragraph from the book...ending with "but it was A beginning" and cut to the Edmond's field.  

- Introduce the 5 characters, backstory touching on Moiraine with Lan with how revered Aes Sedai are.  No BS with Perrin being married, etc, portray the characters how they are, Rand dutiful son of  a farmer, Matt the mischievous prankster, Perrin reserved and big while training to be a blacksmith, Nynaeve the headstrong wisdom and Egwene daughter of the mayor and inn keeper.

Episode 2 - Winternight and the 6 fleeing with Nynaeve deciding to go after them

Episode 3 - Shador Logoth and them all fleeing in different directions at the end

Episode 4 - Matt and Rand making their way to Caemlyn + introduce Thom.

- Perrin and Egwene's journey with Elyas.  Elyas guiding Perrin with the wolves.  *The wolves love this part btw, Hopper imaged me this*  Perrin killing 3 whitecloaks

- Nynaeve catches up to Moiraine and Lan

Episode 5 - Camelyn episode and introducing Loial.  Rand falls out of the tree meeting Elayne, Gawyn & Gallad then taken to meet Morgase with Elaida's fortelling.  Moiraine and the rest meet up and the inn and she discovers Matt condition from the dagger.  Loial tells Moiraine about the Eye of the World.  

Episode 6 - Traveling the Ways

Episode 7 - Fal Dara and meeting the Amyrlyn with at the end "the fate of the world as they go into the blight to save the Eye of the World"

Epidose 8 - Journey to the EoTW culminating with the battle against Aginor and Bathamel.  Cut at the end the dragon banner being discovered with the Horn of Valere and Cullender one of the seven seals being revealed.

 

That is the flow keeping to the source material for 8 episodes.  I am not getting distracted with making the TV series about the story of Moirane, the story of Aes Sedai, the BS going to White Tower and steppin with the rest of the non-cannon trash Rafe wrote in.  I am telling the story from Jordan's books keeping the spirit of the books alive on film.  Rafe lost focus of what make the books great, I would not.

 

You can hire in great set people (who did GoT, Harry Potter, The Kingdom sets for instance), good sound crew, make realistic costumes.   This is not rocket science, a lot of people can do it if they so chose to.  A lot of avid fans could come up with a script, costume design, etc.  There is a army of untapped collective book knowledge and passion to tap into, which Rafe did not utilize - another downfall of his.  For all the limited experience you quote he still sucks at his job, a novice could hardly do worse whither it is you, me or another avid fan.    

Edited May 8, 2022 by Elayas

[DojoToad]

18 minutes ago, Elayas said:

Yes this is not hard.

 

To your point about not having access to source material, Everyone has access to the source material they are The Wheel of Time books.  Industry experts can be hired just like the rest of the staff.  You hire in film personnel, once again it is not hard.  

 

Following the books you can easily make season 1 a success even stealing a page from GoT and use dialogue directly from the books word for word to convey key messages.  It is not hard, you are not inventing a new world, you are adapting a book for film keeping faithful to the books.

 

Episode 1 Starts out like LoTR with a narrative flashback with the Dragon breaking the world, tainting saidin (in my version like Jordan's there is a Saidin and Saidar) and how one day the Dragon will be reborn.  Then with the screen black the narrative says Chapter 1, paragraph from the book...ending with "but it was A beginning" and cut to the Edmond's field.  

- Introduce the 5 characters, backstory touching on Moiraine with Lan with how revered Aes Sedai are.  No BS with Perrin being married, etc, portray the characters how they are, Rand dutiful son of  a farmer, Matt the mischievous prankster, Perrin reserved and big while training to be a blacksmith, Nynaeve the headstrong wisdom and Egwene daughter of the mayor and inn keeper.

Episode 2 - Winternight and the 6 fleeing with Nynaeve deciding to go after them

Episode 3 - Shador Logoth and them all fleeing in different directions at the end

Episode 4 - Matt and Rand making their way to Caemlyn + introduce Thom.

- Perrin and Egwene's journey with Elyas.  Elyas guiding Perrin with the wolves.  *The wolves love this part btw, Hopper imaged me this*  Perrin killing 3 whitecloaks

- Nynaeve catches up to Moiraine and Lan

Episode 5 - Camelyn episode and introducing Loial.  Rand falls out of the tree meeting Elayne, Gawyn & Gallad then taken to meet Morgase with Elaida's fortelling.  Moiraine and the rest meet up and the inn and she discovers Matt condition from the dagger.  Loial tells Moiraine about the Eye of the World.  

Episode 6 - Traveling the Ways

Episode 7 - Fal Dara and meeting the Amyrlyn with at the end "the fate of the world as they go into the blight to save the Eye of the World"

Epidose 8 - Journey to the EoTW culminating with the battle against Aginor and Bathamel.  Cut at the end the dragon banner being discovered with the Horn of Valere and Cullender one of the seven seals being revealed.

 

That is the flow keeping to the source material for 8 episodes.  I am not getting distracted with making the TV series about the story of Moirane, the story of Aes Sedai, the BS going to White Tower and steppin with the rest of the non-cannon trash Rafe wrote in.  I am telling the story from Jordan's books keeping the spirit of the books alive on film.  Rafe lost focus of what make the books great, I would not.

 

You can hire in great set people (who did GoT, Harry Potter, The Kingdom sets for instance), good sound crew, make realistic costumes.   This is not rocket science, a lot of people can do it if they so chose to.  A lot of avid fans could come up with a script, costume design, etc.  There is a army of untapped collective book knowledge and passion to tap into, which Rafe did not utilize - another downfall of his.  For all the limited experience you quote he still sucks at his job, a novice could hardly do worse whither it is you, me or another avid fan.    

Really good stuff.  You make this version and we'll see how it turns out.  Looking forward to it!!

[WoTwasThat]

I don’t know the first thing about any aspect of producing a TV show or any sort of visual art, but count me among those who think they could have at least outlined a vastly better Season 1.

 

And for those who might scoff that an outline is easy, sure. It is easy, and they blew it. They blew the easy part - following the source material.

[Humbugged2]

4 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Really good stuff.  You make this version and we'll see how it turns out.  Looking forward to it!!

 

So pay the Camelyn cast a years retainer for 5 mins work so as to keep them that is what they would have to do, build a set that would have to take down for 3 years when they left, have magically un-aging actors for 14 seasons, ignore Covid restictions , write out the prequel , get the Czechs to fund and build a studio ( the Norns built Titanic Studios ) ,find $3 billion to make it

 

Sounds easy

[VooDooNut]

5 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Really good stuff.  You make this version and we'll see how it turns out.  Looking forward to it!!

I second this! I'll be waiting...

 

[Humbugged2]

7 hours ago, Elayas said:

I could.  The books provide the source material.  Follow the flow and character development, hire competent set, costume and music score directors and it will be vastly superior produce than what was produced.

 

The showrunner and many of his staff have little experience, They do not have decades of experience hence they are novices so yes unexperienced, competent fans can do better.

Yeah Lorne Balfe needs our help as he has no experience

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorne_Balfe

 

Rafe came up in the system -  writers assistant,writer,story editor,co-producer ,supervising producer,producer, showrunner

 

Musseden who did the costumes has been at it since 1997

 

The sets broke down for the last 2 episodes because of Covid restrictions and that was the same for the stunties  - everyone had to be 6 foot apart with a limited number of people and no acess to CGI for the same reasons

 

 

[Guire]

The problem with any speculation about show is that Rafe and co painted themselves into a box from the start.  The show was suppossed to be the answer to making a big splashy fantasy series in the era of Me Too.  No objextification of women, divererse cast and staff, lgbtqa friendly, equal story time for all sexes.  The problem they had is the core story of first couple of books does not work well with those objectives.  First 2 books are light horror chase down thats very derivitive of LoTR.  The boys have best story lines in first couple of books.  By hitting same beats of story but pushing womens perspective to front made the show muddled.  The dragon mystery was sillly and the secondary effects messed lots of potential good storytelling.  Changing Rands central conflict from leaving Tam/Emonds Field/comfort zone to primarily loosing Egwene made show feel like CW drama.  Each episode we rehash that Rand is good guy but confused and torn because Egwene has dreams.  Set pieces in new shiny studio were too cramped.  World felt small.  They did crap job using cgi and sound to tell story.  Sound mixing seemed off and beautiful music didnt seem to always match or accentuate scene.  Monsters were over stylized and cgi over used.  Should have been more flashes of monsters to build suspence.  

 

Not going to rant all day.  Rafe and co convinced studio they could do everything better and different.  The show is a lesson in why sometimes differerent is not always better.   But hey twitter activists and Slate love the show.  So success i guess.

[EduardoEnriqueGonzalez]

11 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Really good stuff.  You make this version and we'll see how it turns out.  Looking forward to it!!

I rather like his version. Because it's not his version. It's Jordan's.

 

 

[Andra]

14 minutes ago, EduardoEnriqueGonzalez said:

I rather like his version. Because it's not his version. It's Jordan's.

 

 

Almost Jordan's.

If it had introduced Thom in Emond's Field rather than after Shadar Logoth, it would be Jordan's.  And if Perrin killed two Whitecloaks rather than three.  And no Amyrlin until after the Eye.

 

Not quite Jordan's, but close.

[EduardoEnriqueGonzalez]

1 hour ago, Andra said:

Almost Jordan's.

If it had introduced Thom in Emond's Field rather than after Shadar Logoth, it would be Jordan's.  And if Perrin killed two Whitecloaks rather than three.  And no Amyrlin until after the Eye.

 

Not quite Jordan's, but close.

Agreed, not quite. Yet so much closer to the version many of us have dreamed of for 25 years. 

[DaddyFinn]

It's easy to say just film the books. Surprisingly few have actually done it in any shape or form.

[Guire]

6 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

It's easy to say just film the books. Surprisingly few have actually done it in any shape or form.

I think its a lot like US politics.  The people who want to be politicians and the people who would be good politicians are usually in subsets whose venn diagrams have no overlap. 

[DojoToad]

6 hours ago, EduardoEnriqueGonzalez said:

I rather like his version. Because it's not his version. It's Jordan's.

 

 

Once again a victim of my own sarcasm.  Sorry for not being clear.

 

IMHO - the show would have been better had it more closely followed the books.  But the over-the-top complaints about Rafe and his team not being experienced enough doesn't hold water.  For me, Rafe and team could have done a near scene-for-scene translation from book to screen and still screwed it up.  I don't care for his style, creative choices, editing, etc.

 

In other words - I hate what Rafe did with the show.  I also don't buy the excuses of COVID - six episodes were complete before production was shut down.  But I also don't claim that I could do a better job with no production experience as @Elayas claimed.

 

State your opinions and reasoning and let them stand on their own.  No need to wax hyperbolic.

[WoTwasThat]

11 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

It's easy to say just film the books. Surprisingly few have actually done it in any shape or form.

 

I don't think anyone is saying that. Somewhere in between (1) "here's the book, let's start filming page 1" and (2) "we don't really need Saidar/Saidin, why not make it so the Dragon can be a boy or a girl, and let's make all the women holy amazeballs and make all the men dundering idiots" there is a middle way of "let's make an adaptation that is true to the characters, the story, and the lore." Rafe & Amazon didn't do that. You know it, I know it, we all know it. Some are fine with the story R&A decided to tell, and that's ok, but to argue that it wasn't possible or workable to make a more faithful adaptation just kinda feels like gaslighting.

[WoTwasThat]

7 hours ago, DojoToad said:

In other words - I hate what Rafe did with the show.  I also don't buy the excuses of COVID - six episodes were complete before production was shut down.

 

Yeah, nobody on this board has ever proffered a convincing argument as to why (1) Covid, or (2) Barney leaving, or (3) only getting 8 hours to tell maybe 2/3rds of one book caused any of The Big Changes that Rafe & Amazon made to the story. I actually don't think anybody has even really tried to make that argument.

 

The argument, and correct me if I'm being unfair, seems to be that the show would have been better, despite or regardless of The Big Changes, had it not been for (1) (2) or (3). But that seems kind of unknowable.

[DaddyFinn]

9 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

(2) "we don't really need Saidar/Saidin, why not make it so the Dragon can be a boy or a girl, and let's make all the women holy amazeballs and make all the men dundering idiots"

Luckily that's not what Amazon did

[Guire]

6 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

Luckily that's not what Amazon did

No they took a really nice steak and somehow managed to make it bland, burned, and frozen in the middle all at the same time.  It was served with a healthy kale salad however by 2 talented attractive actresses whose soul and lips intertwined as they served the steak.  It was intoxicating.

[DojoToad]

7 minutes ago, Guire said:

No they took a really nice steak and somehow managed to make it bland, burned, and frozen in the middle all at the same time.  It was served with a healthy kale salad however by 2 talented attractive actresses whose soul and lips intertwined as they served the steak.  It was intoxicating.

But why did Rafe freeze the steak? ?

[Guire]

2 hours ago, DojoToad said:

But why did Rafe freeze the steak? ?

Because the whole steak grilling world lets it come to room temperature, pats it dry, then liberally salts it.  This uniform treatment is obviously the patriarchy supressing creative non toxic masculinity. The perfect egalitarian steak must be frozen solid then baked at a nurturing 350.  

 

Also the chef must have psycho parents and he accidently killed his partner with a cleaver before putting the frozen steak in to bake. Human pain is the best seasoning.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Guire
Added more snark

[WhiteVeils]

On 5/9/2022 at 1:48 PM, WoTwasThat said:

 

Yeah, nobody on this board has ever proffered a convincing argument as to why (1) Covid, or (2) Barney leaving, or (3) only getting 8 hours to tell maybe 2/3rds of one book caused any of The Big Changes that Rafe & Amazon made to the story. I actually don't think anybody has even really tried to make that argument.

 

The argument, and correct me if I'm being unfair, seems to be that the show would have been better, despite or regardless of The Big Changes, had it not been for (1) (2) or (3). But that seems kind of unknowable.

 

OK. I'm not a film producer or anything like, but I've been working at writing an adaptation of season 2 and I can probably come up with arguments regarding most Big Changes and any number of small ones, so hit me. 

I suspect that you will not, personally, find any of the reasons "Convincing" because I am not sure you want to be convinced...or at least have an extremely high bar to do so, but there are reasons that convinced Amazon and Rafe and Sarah Nakamura, and Brandon Sanderson, and Harriet, etc to accept the change as necessary for television, so I can try to let you know what they are. 

What specific changes do you want to see justified?

With the following caveats:  1) If it is only a change you /think/ they made, but not one they have specifically and clearly made, it's speculation and might be proved wrong next season, or a justification will be shown. I don't need to.  2) I won't argue about whether any of these are convincing or not, because, as stated, that bar is going to be up to the individual and their own opinions. I will only give it as a reason that may exist.

 

Let's go. 

[Nik]

Possibly unpopular opinion? I'm glad they didn't try to stick too close to the books. I enjoy seeing a new take on the same story and having room to speculate and be surprised. I also thought the parts that they built from scratch felt a lot smoother and organic than the ones where they tried to directly pull scenes and lines of dialogue from the books. Those often ended up feeling rushed, awkward, or out of place.

[DojoToad]

35 minutes ago, Nik said:

Possibly unpopular opinion? I'm glad they didn't try to stick too close to the books. I enjoy seeing a new take on the same story and having room to speculate and be surprised. I also thought the parts that they built from scratch felt a lot smoother and organic than the ones where they tried to directly pull scenes and lines of dialogue from the books. Those often ended up feeling rushed, awkward, or out of place.

Of course - when they make drastic changes, why would scenes from the books not feel rushed, awkward, out of place?  They just don't go together.  If they had leaned more toward the book or gone more heavily toward the show changes, it might have worked better either direction - but the amalgamation didn't work.  Splitting the difference might have felt like the safe play but just looked meh to me.