Has Rings of Power proven that Fantasy Adaptations are really hard?

[Elder_Haman]

5 minutes ago, Samt said:

Within a few hours the message is that this conversation is already over and I shouldn't be beating a dead horse.  

To which I'll repeat: I didn't bring it up.  If you don't want to have the conversation, don't have it. But if you only don't want to have it after I weigh in, that seems a little prejudiced.

I wasn't responding to you. I was responding to @swollymammoth's claim that 

 

2 hours ago, swollymammoth said:

this is not a debate where reason prevails

because people who don't enjoy the debate 

 

2 hours ago, swollymammoth said:

just buy the showrunners' excuse[s]

about the depictions of race and ethnicity in the show. My point being that some people are just annoyed by this debate entirely at this point.

 

I didn't call you out directly, until you over-generalized and misconstrued my point into:

1 hour ago, Samt said:

 It's not the weird creative decisions that are dividing the community.  It's only divisive when people recognize them as weird.

which is neither what I said, nor a fair characterization of what I said.

 

Nevertheless, my apologies for stepping on your commentary. As @DojoToad pointed out, you are new to the forum and are welcome to add your $.02.

 

[DojoToad]

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

Fair enough. But then again, you didn't have to moderate the last iteration of these discussions. 

Correct, that is not a responsibility I volunteered for.

[CaddySedai]

Let's steer this ship back on topic y'all. 

 

As long as it remains respectful (as it has been) and not overtly crude (as it has not been)  then I see no issue with the current thread aside from a tangent forming now 🙂

[SinisterDeath]

1 hour ago, CaddySedai said:

Let's steer this ship back on topic y'all. 

 

As long as it remains respectful (as it has been) and not overtly crude (as it has not been)  then I see no issue with the current thread aside from a tangent forming now 🙂

Speaking of crude, want to take a rusty cleaver to this thread and chop it up like a squealing pig?

[DojoToad]

1 hour ago, SinisterDeath said:

Speaking of crude, want to take a rusty cleaver to this thread and chop it up like a squealing pig?

That sounds like a sinister death...

 

🤣

[CaddySedai]

1 hour ago, SinisterDeath said:

Speaking of crude, want to take a rusty cleaver to this thread and chop it up like a squealing pig?

 

You are better at it than I, I delete threads. lmao

[SinisterDeath]

28 minutes ago, CaddySedai said:

 

You are better at it than I, I delete threads. lmao

[Skipp]

Just wanted to share an observation I have noticed this past week while perusing the Critical Role subreddit.  I wanted to check out how the fandom is enjoying The Legend of Vox Machina show since I really enjoy it.  I am a super casual fan of Critical role, have watched maybe 30 episodes between all 3 campaigns but can never really stick with it due to the format. There are two things I have noticed in their conversations that relate to the WoT show discourse. 

 

The first is you will see a complaint that the show is moving to fast and while the big fans can input the missing events they are worried that non fans are going to be so confused.  In these threads it is often countered that the non fans watching the show don't feel it is a fast pace at all and are only confused with the typical Fantasy world lore/terminology that they are not familiar with.

 

The 2nd type of complaint you see is that the show is cutting way to much material or that it is changing around events or giving one character another characters big moment and the responses to this type of post is super chill and understanding.  Most of the posts talk about how the show is a "retelling" of Critical Role and how you shouldn't expect a beat by beat telling.  Or how these events are changed for pacing or better story arcs etc.

 

Every fandom seems to have the same complaints, the only difference being how chill the fandom reacts to it I suppose.

[Scarloc99]

30 minutes ago, Skipp said:

Just wanted to share an observation I have noticed this past week while perusing the Critical Role subreddit.  I wanted to check out how the fandom is enjoying The Legend of Vox Machina show since I really enjoy it.  I am a super casual fan of Critical role, have watched maybe 30 episodes between all 3 campaigns but can never really stick with it due to the format. There are two things I have noticed in their conversations that relate to the WoT show discourse. 

 

The first is you will see a complaint that the show is moving to fast and while the big fans can input the missing events they are worried that non fans are going to be so confused.  In these threads it is often countered that the non fans watching the show don't feel it is a fast pace at all and are only confused with the typical Fantasy world lore/terminology that they are not familiar with.

 

The 2nd type of complaint you see is that the show is cutting way to much material or that it is changing around events or giving one character another characters big moment and the responses to this type of post is super chill and understanding.  Most of the posts talk about how the show is a "retelling" of Critical Role and how you shouldn't expect a beat by beat telling.  Or how these events are changed for pacing or better story arcs etc.

 

Every fandom seems to have the same complaints, the only difference being how chill the fandom reacts to it I suppose.

The critical roll fandom does tend to be very chill, unless it is defending the cast from being attacked. 

As someone who has watched every minute they have produced so far on youtube I am really impressed with how they have managed to condense hundreds of hours of life DnD play into 12 30 min episodes a season, in terms of pacing I think a lot of people who think it all moves quickly are not used to Animated shows. The pacing is very much similar to a lot of Anime

[phanooglestixs]

Depends on the fantasy world itself in my opinion.  Game of Thrones was much easier to do than Wheel of Time for two reasons, the primary being the amount of "fantasy" in the world itself.  Outside of the dragons and some random mysticism that either involved strange looking people or bringing people back to life.  There was Bran's powers, but they hardly delved into it and it was honestly easy to come up with a way to translate that to film.  The Wheel of Time has a bunch of magic, cataclysmic power struggles, interdimensional travel, a bunch of mystical relics and monstrous creatures.  Much more difficult and expensive to do all that well.  

 

The second difference comes from my own personal interpretation of the worldsmithing/storytelling of the two.  A Song of Fire and Ice is a character driven story, the Wheel of Time is a world driven story.  The difference between the two is the amount of interpersonal drama/conflict.  Humans love drama, that is why all the highest rated shows, most award winning movies and bestselling books are heavily dependent on drama.  The Wheel of Time did not do that, it is one of the reasons critics always call the characters too two dimensional.  They even had to invent a wife for Perrin to kill just so he could have some sort of justification for why he constantly struggled to think things through rather than allowing the wolf to take over, instead of the justification in the books where it was just because he was always the larger boy growing up.

[DojoToad]

10 hours ago, phanooglestixs said:

Depends on the fantasy world itself in my opinion.  Game of Thrones was much easier to do than Wheel of Time for two reasons, the primary being the amount of "fantasy" in the world itself.  Outside of the dragons and some random mysticism that either involved strange looking people or bringing people back to life.  There was Bran's powers, but they hardly delved into it and it was honestly easy to come up with a way to translate that to film.  The Wheel of Time has a bunch of magic, cataclysmic power struggles, interdimensional travel, a bunch of mystical relics and monstrous creatures.  Much more difficult and expensive to do all that well.  

Yes, much more difficult.  Limited resources split several ways for WoT.  Almost wish they would have left the trollocs out instead of the 'Dark Crystal' muppets we got.

 

10 hours ago, phanooglestixs said:

The second difference comes from my own personal interpretation of the worldsmithing/storytelling of the two.  A Song of Fire and Ice is a character driven story, the Wheel of Time is a world driven story.  The difference between the two is the amount of interpersonal drama/conflict.  Humans love drama, that is why all the highest rated shows, most award winning movies and bestselling books are heavily dependent on drama.  The Wheel of Time did not do that, it is one of the reasons critics always call the characters too two dimensional.  They even had to invent a wife for Perrin to kill just so he could have some sort of justification for why he constantly struggled to think things through rather than allowing the wolf to take over, instead of the justification in the books where it was just because he was always the larger boy growing up.

And inventing the wife was poorly done.  He could have killed Master Luhhan who he had apprenticed under for many years.  Or Mat's mom who he had known since childhood.  Or even a random Coplin who he'd known his whole life.  Any of these would have been a powerful motivation to control himself as the wolf started to manifest.

[Skipp]

9 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Yes, much more difficult.  Limited resources split several ways for WoT.  Almost wish they would have left the trollocs out instead of the 'Dark Crystal' muppets we got.

 

Are you actually criticizing the way the Trollocs looked in Episode one?  I thought that was one of the few things people universally loved.

[Mailman]

6 hours ago, Skipp said:

 

Are you actually criticizing the way the Trollocs looked in Episode one?  I thought that was one of the few things people universally loved.

The look was better the movement around the fight sequence around Moiraine was very ordinary.

[DojoToad]

10 hours ago, Skipp said:

 

Are you actually criticizing the way the Trollocs looked in Episode one?  I thought that was one of the few things people universally loved.

Yes.

 

Nothing is universal.

[Scarloc99]

13 hours ago, Skipp said:

 

Are you actually criticizing the way the Trollocs looked in Episode one?  I thought that was one of the few things people universally loved.

I mean I felt they looked a little, if not cheap then not as polished. Especially compared to ROP and how the Orcs where done. 

[swollymammoth]

On 1/28/2023 at 7:28 PM, phanooglestixs said:

The second difference comes from my own personal interpretation of the worldsmithing/storytelling of the two.  A Song of Fire and Ice is a character driven story, the Wheel of Time is a world driven story.  The difference between the two is the amount of interpersonal drama/conflict.

This is an interesting point, but I would push back on the statement that WoT is a world driven story rather than a character driven story. I think I get what you're getting at which is that GoT derives its drama from the interpersonal relationships between characters who have differing motivations and goals. However, I don't think that means WoT is not a character driven story as well. It's just that WoT is about the characters' internal struggles with the roles that circumstances/destiny have thrust upon them. That doesn't make it any less a character driven story than GoT. It just makes the character conflict more internal, more difficult to depict without the stream-of-consciousness characterization that isn't really possible in TV. 

 

That being said, it isn't like TV doesn't have any way to depict this sort of character-driven story. Strong direction and writing can do a lot to show us a character's internal struggle. Personally, I think the showrunners just tried to make WoT into GoT, so they shoehorned in certain things to make its conflict more interpersonal rather than focusing on what they could do to make the characters' internal conflict shine in a visual medium. 

[swollymammoth]

On 1/28/2023 at 10:15 AM, Skipp said:

Every fandom seems to have the same complaints, the only difference being how chill the fandom reacts to it I suppose.

Well, there's also the degree to which these complaints are justified. This is definitely a spectrum, and the fact that these complaints exist in all communities doesn't make these complaints equally valid. There's a world of difference between the people (both in number and intelligence) who complain about the LotR movies cutting Tom Bombadil etc. compared to the ones who complain about Dragonball Evolution being an affront to god. It's more than just "how chill the fandom reacts" because there's another factor to consider which is, like it or not, the adaptation's treatment of the source material. 

[Scarloc99]

16 hours ago, swollymammoth said:

Well, there's also the degree to which these complaints are justified. This is definitely a spectrum, and the fact that these complaints exist in all communities doesn't make these complaints equally valid. There's a world of difference between the people (both in number and intelligence) who complain about the LotR movies cutting Tom Bombadil etc. compared to the ones who complain about Dragonball Evolution being an affront to god. It's more than just "how chill the fandom reacts" because there's another factor to consider which is, like it or not, the adaptation's treatment of the source material. 

I mean at the time the feeling against Peter Jacksons LOTR on certain forums became very very intense, there was palpable hate from people about what he did to Aragon, to Elrond, changes to the story, Narsil not being reforged in the first movie, Arwen saving Frodo from the Nazgul. 

I think people need to remember that over time yes those feelings have largely gone away but, had LOTR been made now I would say given the level of feeling back then vs how big the "internet" community was, then you would be seeing all the same arguments, articles and youtube videos being made hating on the movies. 

[Elder_Haman]

On 1/28/2023 at 6:28 PM, phanooglestixs said:

A Song of Fire and Ice is a character driven story, the Wheel of Time is a world driven story. 

I get what you're saying, but quibble with this little bit of it. Wheel of Time is also character driven. The significant difference is Jordan's descriptive style, which leads him to spend lots of time inside the narrator's thoughts. GRRM, on the other hand, is very dialogue driven which leads more naturally to the tv format (probably because GRRM wrote for tv). 

 

But you are correct that WoT's political struggles are more intricate and the fantasy elements are much heavier. All of which makes it far more difficult to adapt.

[WhiteVeils]

On 1/30/2023 at 6:51 AM, Sir_Charrid said:

I mean I felt they looked a little, if not cheap then not as polished. Especially compared to ROP and how the Orcs where done. 

 

I thought they not only looked better than the Orcs in ROP, but it was extremely clear that they were much, much harder to do with prosthetics than the orcs were, but WOT took the time to do them just like the books even if they were harder to do.  The Trollocs walk on hooves rather than plain feet and boots. They have truly animalistic faces rather than human like faces with human expressions, and yet the wolf-face or other inhumanlike features still show plenty of expression. The trollocs are larger than human and orc, in height and in girth.  Overall a hugely more difficult task of prosthetics than trollocs.

[WhiteVeils]

3 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I mean at the time the feeling against Peter Jacksons LOTR on certain forums became very very intense, there was palpable hate from people about what he did to Aragon, to Elrond, changes to the story, Narsil not being reforged in the first movie, Arwen saving Frodo from the Nazgul. 

I think people need to remember that over time yes those feelings have largely gone away but, had LOTR been made now I would say given the level of feeling back then vs how big the "internet" community was, then you would be seeing all the same arguments, articles and youtube videos being made hating on the movies. 

 

This! The outcry about Arwen was palpable, especially. I remember that really well.  

[phanooglestixs]

The sole metric I am using when saying that WoT is more of a world driven story is the sheer volume of interpersonal drama.  Yes, it exist in WoT, but more as a tool to make the story feel more real rather than as a core factor pushing the story forward.  Learning that next little juicy tidbit about the world, the Age of Legends, the Prophecies of the Dragon, those were far more useful than say, the love triangle between Perrin, his wife and the First of (Mayne? Can't remember exactly and don't feel like looking it up), or how envious Elaida was for not getting the Seat.  I don't even think RJ gave Elaida any other motivation than her half-assed foretelling ability.

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

7 hours ago, phanooglestixs said:

I don't even think RJ gave Elaida any other motivation than her half-assed foretelling ability.

Her more bizare actions after being raised Amyrlin can be explained with reference to her being infected by Paidan Fain - after that she was suffering from deep paranoia, unable to trust anyone and certain her own judgement was always correct.

[DojoToad]

1 hour ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

Her more bizare actions after being raised Amyrlin can be explained with reference to her being infected by Paidan Fain - after that she was suffering from deep paranoia, unable to trust anyone and certain her own judgement was always correct.

I’m forgetting, what was her exposure to Fain?

[Scarloc99]

8 hours ago, phanooglestixs said:

The sole metric I am using when saying that WoT is more of a world driven story is the sheer volume of interpersonal drama.  Yes, it exist in WoT, but more as a tool to make the story feel more real rather than as a core factor pushing the story forward.  Learning that next little juicy tidbit about the world, the Age of Legends, the Prophecies of the Dragon, those were far more useful than say, the love triangle between Perrin, his wife and the First of (Mayne? Can't remember exactly and don't feel like looking it up), or how envious Elaida was for not getting the Seat.  I don't even think RJ gave Elaida any other motivation than her half-assed foretelling ability.

Have to agree here, part of the issue is that despite the sheer size of the book you actually spend very little time with a lot of the characters mainly because there are so many, and far too much of that time is spent watching characters continue to make the same mistakes, or complain about the same things. I wouldn’t say that RJ gets me invested in caring about the individual relationships, I read it because I love the world and the lore. On first read through I wasn’t rooting for Rand to get with any of the 3, in general any love story in the series is a bit one dimensional and very similar, men and women don’t understand each other, shenanigans follow. 
 

There are moments that I get a reaction to, the battle of Eomonds Field when the women come forward, the moment Egwene takes control of the tower. But I wouldn’t say there are many of those moments through the book.