Some thoughts on rewriting Season 1 of The Wheel of Time

[Skipp]

1 hour ago, SinisterDeath said:

100% this.
I've been rewatching S1 of the Expanse after reading the book for the first time.

Comparatively, a majority of the episodes in both shows had scenes (or entire episodes) that never happened in their respective books.
Yet, The Expanse is considered a faithful adaptation and WoT is not.

Both had plotlines that never happened in the first book.
Both added tension, and infighting that never happened in the book.
Both changed how a core mechanics
Both moved stories around.
Both Merged characters.
Both removed characters.

Hopefully for both of them, the first season is the weakest, and the future seasons just keep getting better.
 

 

The Expanse, book and show, just continue to get better.

[Nik]

5 hours ago, Humbugged2 said:

Nope .

 

She had lots of 1 episode parts and a part in Flack which Amazon bought from CBS after PoP folded - filmed in 2019/20 and released last year . And voice work on Dark Materials as Xaphania

Ah I think I'm thinking of Dark Materials.

[Elder_Haman]

7 hours ago, nsmallw said:

I would have made Egwene's father less of a pathetic hand wringer. In the books, he's the town mayor and respected a great deal. In the Tv show, he's the opposite. Maybe it was just the actor but I wasn't happy.

But then what's done is done..

 

Maybe when Perrin? goes back to kick some Trolloc butt, Master Al'Vere will be a stronger person. 

"Pathetic hand wringer" is a little strong, but I agree that there was something off-putting about the actor's portrayal of Bran. 

 

6 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

He barely had a single line in the show.

Which sort of compounded the problem for me. He had one line and it felt off.

 

What I'm curious about is whether the writers will choose to have Bran and Abell play a role similar to what they did in the books. And whether the choice to make the EF5 more ... worldly will hamper the larger storyline, for example, of Perrin learning to be a leader where his instinct is to defer to Tam and the other Two Rivers men. Or how Tam retains a degree of moral authority, even the Dragon's darkest hour.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Elder_Haman

[nsmallw]

23 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

How was he in any way a whiner?

Egwene enters the Inn to Applause.
She hugs her dad, he said "My girl, I was worried that..." and they hug. He then says "Come on then, we're losing a coin for every empty hand here."

Then another lady comes up and says "No, you drink with us tonight." and he has a look of half laughter and half confusion on his face.

That's it. No whining. Just a father who still sees his daughter as a girl that does what daddy says, even though she is literally a woman that night.
 

Yes but no one else seemed worried by Egwene's survival (or potential demise)  of her rite of passage. His reaction to her return struck me as odd. Marin wasn't certrainly wasn't concerned

 

I assume all girls joining the Women's Circle have to jump off that cliff, so why was Bran worried ? I mean if girls had died jumping off, wouldn't you think they'd find safer way to initiate  ?

 

 

[SinisterDeath]

28 minutes ago, nsmallw said:

Yes but no one else seemed worried by Egwene's survival (or potential demise)  of her rite of passage. His reaction to her return struck me as odd. Marin wasn't certrainly wasn't concerned

 

I assume all girls joining the Women's Circle have to jump off that cliff, so why was Bran worried ? I mean if girls had died jumping off, wouldn't you think they'd find safer way to initiate  ?

Chances are men don't know it involves jumping off of a cliff.

Either way, I still fail to see how the few lines he got was "whining".

[nsmallw]

9 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Chances are men don't know it involves jumping off of a cliff.

Either way, I still fail to see how the few lines he got was "whining".

As in most of life it's a matter of perspective.

[SinisterDeath]

32 minutes ago, nsmallw said:

As in most of life it's a matter of perspective.

Had Bran yelled at Egwene to ignore the old hag and put beers in empty hands, squash what you perceived as Bran's whininess?

 

  

18 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

Which sort of compounded the problem for me. He had one line and it felt off.

Honestly, what felt off about that scene for me, was the actor for Bran just wasn't very good.
It felt like they were reading lines in a room for the first time.
I also feel like there were some dialogue cuts in that scene. Some of the camera transitions were a bit too sharp which may at least imply the possibility of dialogue cuts.

Also, Michael Tuahine has had 19 actor credits since 1999. Not exactly emmy worthy amount of movies there.

 

  

18 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

What I'm curious about is whether the writers will choose to have Bran and Abell play a role similar to what they did in the books. And whether the choice to make the EF5 more ... worldly will hamper the larger storyline, for example, of Perrin learning to be a leader where his instinct is to defer to Tam and the other Two Rivers men. Or how Tam retains a degree of moral authority, even the Dragon's darkest hour.

With Abell, we have the possibility of a redemption arc. Honesty, it could be really good if they pull it off.

One thing of possible concern is the only family we met of the EF5 (Aside from Egwene's parents) is Mat's.
In the show, we never got Perrin's family who should have been in town.
If they kill off Perrin's Family as per the books, it's going to mean nothing to the viewer.
They kill of Mat's family? Oh boy. That's going to mean much more to the audience...

[mogi68]

I would have required the majority of the dialogue to be straight from the text, and the rest paraphrased lines from it.

[Skipp]

51 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Honestly, what felt off about that scene for me, was the actor for Bran just wasn't very good.
It felt like they were reading lines in a room for the first time.
I also feel like there were some dialogue cuts in that scene. Some of the camera transitions were a bit too sharp which may at least imply the possibility of dialogue cuts.

Also, Michael Tuahine has had 19 actor credits since 1999. Not exactly emmy worthy amount of movies there

 

Agreed, the only two performances in the show that didn't work for me were Bran and Raen.  Otherwise I thought the casting and performances were good to great.

 

1 hour ago, SinisterDeath said:

Chances are men don't know it involves jumping off of a cliff.

Either way, I still fail to see how the few lines he got was "whining".

 

And it is not if process is entirely safe either.  Egwene sends up with a fairly sizable wound on her forearm.  Lalia also has several large scars on her forearms which could be related to the ceremony.  Or they could just be occupational wounds from smithing.

[Elder_Haman]

2 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

Honestly, what felt off about that scene for me, was the actor for Bran just wasn't very good.
It felt like they were reading lines in a room for the first time.
I also feel like there were some dialogue cuts in that scene. Some of the camera transitions were a bit too sharp which may at least imply the possibility of dialogue cuts

This is fair.

 

2 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

One thing of possible concern is the only family we met of the EF5 (Aside from Egwene's parents) is Mat's.
In the show, we never got Perrin's family who should have been in town.
 

And Tam. But I agree. And I think the loss is going to make some of the later themes hard to pull off unless they (a) do a bunch of flashbacks or (b) make the parents into major characters in the "Return of Manetheren" arc.  

[Andra]

4 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

One thing of possible concern is the only family we met of the EF5 (Aside from Egwene's parents) is Mat's.
In the show, we never got Perrin's family who should have been in town.
If they kill off Perrin's Family as per the books, it's going to mean nothing to the viewer.
They kill of Mat's family? Oh boy. That's going to mean much more to the audience...

One possibility would be in keeping with the way villages got their blacksmiths in the real world.

In the books, Perrin was an apprentice.  Unless you're in a city or large town, there's generally only one blacksmith around.  When an apprentice is ready to advance, they leave to find their own place.

Unless an apprentice happened to reach that point conicidentally right when their master is ready to retire, which Master Luhhan clearly wasn't, they wouldn't take over the forge there.  

A smith almost never grew up in the village where they run the forge.

 

That would mean that, if Perrin is the blacksmith rather than Laila (the only one we ever see actually working in the forge) his family lives somewhere else.  Could be Taren Ferry, could be one of the other villages nearby in the books that haven't been mentioned in the show.

 

We don't see the Aybara farm or family because they were never there.

[WhiteVeils]

2 hours ago, Andra said:

One possibility would be in keeping with the way villages got their blacksmiths in the real world.

In the books, Perrin was an apprentice.  Unless you're in a city or large town, there's generally only one blacksmith around.  When an apprentice is ready to advance, they leave to find their own place.

Unless an apprentice happened to reach that point conicidentally right when their master is ready to retire, which Master Luhhan clearly wasn't, they wouldn't take over the forge there.  

A smith almost never grew up in the village where they run the forge.

 

That would mean that, if Perrin is the blacksmith rather than Laila (the only one we ever see actually working in the forge) his family lives somewhere else.  Could be Taren Ferry, could be one of the other villages nearby in the books that haven't been mentioned in the show.

 

We don't see the Aybara farm or family because they were never there.

Great point. They can, of course, both be blacksmiths:  It is common for a smithy to require several smiths.  Keeping the fires the right temperature and the physical labor is great enough that it works better with more than one skilled smith.

[Nik]

In episode 2, Perrin tells Mat his parents will be checking on Mat's sisters, so it seems likely they live in the village or nearby.

[Andra]

3 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

Great point. They can, of course, both be blacksmiths:  It is common for a smithy to require several smiths.  Keeping the fires the right temperature and the physical labor is great enough that it works better with more than one skilled smith.

While true, that's generally what apprentices and journeymen do.  Not master smiths.

Villages don't usually have enough work to keep two master smiths busy.

47 minutes ago, Nik said:

In episode 2, Perrin tells Mat his parents will be checking on Mat's sisters, so it seems likely they live in the village or nearby.

It would make sense if they lived in a neighboring village.  We don't see them, but they're close enough to do that.

[nsmallw]

On 7/29/2022 at 10:44 AM, SinisterDeath said:

On 7/29/2022 at 10:19 AM, nsmallw said:

As in most of life it's a matter of perspective.

Had Bran yelled at Egwene to ignore the old hag and put beers in empty hands, squash what you perceived as Bran's whininess?

WOW.!  SinisterDeath,  Are you okay ?  Seems to me your over-reacting and you should ask yourself why your so invested in attacking my view. This is my final reply to my original post. I've moved on and so should you.