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

[Guire]

8 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

Perhaps animated version could have been more "faithful". Hard to say.

I genuinely think high quality animation was way to go for WoT and RoP.  Myth works best in our imagination.  The closer it gets to reality the more the cracks show.

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

15 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

It isn't about trying to "convince" some people seem to have forgotten that about human communication. It is about an expression of ideas and accepting that we won't disagree, and that maybe there might be aspects we both agree on.

It appears that what we need is an "agree to disagree" response - perhaps a dragons fang next to a flame of tar valon?

[Scarloc99]

1 hour ago, Guire said:

I genuinely think high quality animation was way to go for WoT and RoP.  Myth works best in our imagination.  The closer it gets to reality the more the cracks show.

The other benefits, the cast are more likely to be willing to sign up for a longer series, you don't need to worry about the actors aging in real life and you can do a quick stop tour to a major city without worrying about finding a location, moving the cast etc. 

[ForsakenPotato]

I agree than animation could be more faithful to the source material (although I'm personally still enjoying the current adaption). The thing is, old Jeffy B wanted "the next GoT" and I doubt that Game of Thrones would have been the cultural force it was had it been animated. It's not fair but a lot of casual viewers don't take animated content seriously. The bad news/good news is that if the current series gets killed we won't get another live action one for a long time, but I feel like an animated series could still be on the table as a cheaper way to engage more hardcore book fans.

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

22 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

The other benefits, the cast are more likely to be willing to sign up for a longer series

More to the point you can change a voice actor easily so they can't get stroppy over pay - the main commercial reason for winding up GOT quickly was that the wage bill was eating up too much of the profit.

[Scarloc99]

3 hours ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

More to the point you can change a voice actor easily so they can't get stroppy over pay - the main commercial reason for winding up GOT quickly was that the wage bill was eating up too much of the profit.

Where did you get that info? Everything I have read is that GOT ended so quickly because the show runners didn't want to continue, HBO had offered them more money and time to finish the series but they stated they didn't want it )possibly because Disney where offering them so much money to make Starwars content). 

[Scarloc99]

14 hours ago, ForsakenPotato said:

I agree than animation could be more faithful to the source material (although I'm personally still enjoying the current adaption). The thing is, old Jeffy B wanted "the next GoT" and I doubt that Game of Thrones would have been the cultural force it was had it been animated. It's not fair but a lot of casual viewers don't take animated content seriously. The bad news/good news is that if the current series gets killed we won't get another live action one for a long time, but I feel like an animated series could still be on the table as a cheaper way to engage more hardcore book fans.

I mean Critical Roll would argue that point, I know loads of people not into animation, or DnD who have asked me about that series having fallen in love with it (and knowing, in the words of 1, I play that game with dice and stuff lol) 

But I think the fact that Amazon poured so much more money into Rings of Power shows Jeff B maybe had his head turned once they got the rights to that and went, oooo more shiny. I really hope that season 2 starts to show some of the same production value as Rings of Power, but I think just because of cash it will look like the poorer version on screen. Just comparing the Trolloc and Orc make up and costumes, or the CGI effects. 

[Pukel-man]

I think this is a simpler question than maybe it's getting credit for. People are drawn to well-told stories. It doesn't have to be 100% faithful to the source material, that's a notion just pushed by a group of book fans. If it's a well-told story, criticism will be lost in the swell of applause. GoT is a good example. Book fans were pouting about the changes, but the story HBO presented was very well told and the praise for the series reflected that, drowning out book fans who became a small minority of GoT fans. My criticism of WoT TV is that the story is disjointed, the characters are poorly written, and I'm far from alone in that. It doesn't have to be just like the books, it just have to have great writing. Amazon's WoT and RoP are missing the key ingredient; they don't stand up on their own merits.

[WhiteVeils]

You're far from alone on thinking that it's poorly written. On the other hand, fans who enjoyed it are also 'far from alone' and seem to currently outnumber the ones who don't like it...especially among non-book readers.  It's hard for any of us to get a true perception of how it was received overall, because of the way our media universes are divided we tend to see only those opinions that mirror our own.  Review bombing and those who disliked the show solely because it didn't follow the books muddy the water for anything else.  I do think Amazon's edits cut too deeply for WOT, and not deeply enough for ROP.  Game of Thrones is a very very different beast, and we didn't have anything else of the type to compare with anyway at the time.  Even then, even having read the books, there was plenty there that was unexplained and confusing. It wasn't perfect.  It's just audiences were more friendly, and were not looking for wokeness (either to complain about it or to request more awareness of diversity).

[AdamA]

Arguably, another data point out there now that The Last of Us has premiered, to extreme acclaim. Definitely not fantasy, but adjacent as sci-fi with some arguably fantastical elements. I'm not familiar with the game, but it is apparently pretty faithful as an adaptation. Things in favor of this thread's thesis are that the more fantastical elements are still somewhat plausible, not over-explained, and at least through one episode, don't seem central to the story. It's more backdrop and the important things are the characters and their quest.

 

Also, The Legend of Vox Machina is back this week, much more pure high fantasy. At least so far, it's sitting for the second straight season at 100% on the Tomatometer (with granted, not much attention and not a whole lot of total reviews). Another one pointing in the direction that animation is a better medium for high fantasy. It is, of course, adapted by the creators of the original, so they're staying pretty faithful, too.

[SinisterDeath]

4 minutes ago, AdamA said:

Arguably, another data point out there now that The Last of Us has premiered, to extreme acclaim. Definitely not fantasy, but adjacent as sci-fi with some arguably fantastical elements. I'm not familiar with the game, but it is apparently pretty faithful as an adaptation. Things in favor of this thread's thesis are that the more fantastical elements are still somewhat plausible, not over-explained, and at least through one episode, don't seem central to the story. It's more backdrop and the important things are the characters and their quest.

 

Also, The Legend of Vox Machina is back this week, much more pure high fantasy. At least so far, it's sitting for the second straight season at 100% on the Tomatometer (with granted, not much attention and not a whole lot of total reviews). Another one pointing in the direction that animation is a better medium for high fantasy. It is, of course, adapted by the creators of the original, so they're staying pretty faithful, too.

It's worth noting that the video game "The Last of Us", is basically a movie with game elements. In pure adaptation terms, it's not difficult to copy a majority of the dialogue and scenes 1:1. (Unlike a Resident Evil game which is just too damn wild to try to do a 1:1)

The Biggest changes are going to be for time and continuity. 

Plus, HBO is just damn good at what they do.

 

[DigificWriter]

Vox Machina isn't actually an adaptation of anything, being that it's a retelling of an online TTRPG campaign.

 

Re: The Last of Us, it's far too early to tell what changes are going to be made in tbringing the game's story and characters to television.

Edited January 17, 2023 by DigificWriter

[SinisterDeath]

1 hour ago, DigificWriter said:

Vox Machina isn't actually an adaptation of anything, being that it's a retelling of an online TTRPG campaign.

Yeah... That's still an adaptation. The Source material just isn't from a book, video game, or movie.

It's similar to adapting an improv skit to a movie.. (E.g. Wayne's World, Good Burger, The Master of Disguise)

[Samt]

I think the common thread among good fantasy adaptations (and fantasy sci-fi story telling in general) is the creator has a vision of the whole story and is given the authority and bandwidth to maintain that vision throughout the storytelling process.  Having good source material and being faithful to it is one way to do this, but there are certainly other routes that can be taken.  ROP and WOT series both struggle because they didn't seem to have that consistency of vision, even throughout a single season.  Game of Thrones did deviate from the source material, but still kept a lot of the main points and characters.  It seemed to be the worst when they ran out of source material and were mostly just making things up, episode to episode.  

A common defense of WOT is that there wasn't enough time to tell the story.  But that seems to ignore that the 3 middle episodes were mostly dedicated to exploring characters and story arcs that aren't in the original source material and didn't really develop towards the season conclusion.  Over eight episodes, there were 4 different directors and over half a dozen credited writers.  The ultimate failure was a lack of vision.  There were just too many cooks in the kitchen and they clearly didn't know where they were going (or didn't all want to go to the same place).  

The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy is a generally well received fantasy adaptation.  Although there are deviations from the source material, Peter Jackson had ultimate authority over the entire production.  He even shot all 3 movies simultaneously and knew the end from the beginning.  An interesting consideration is that the LOTR trilogy and WOT season 1 have pretty much the same combined runtime.  Which did a better job developing characters, setting stakes, and telling a consistent story?  It wasn't for a lack of time that WOT failed to deliver a satisfying product.  

[SinisterDeath]

38 minutes ago, Samt said:

A common defense of WOT is that there wasn't enough time to tell the story.  But that seems to ignore that the 3 middle episodes were mostly dedicated to exploring characters and story arcs that aren't in the original source material and didn't really develop towards the season conclusion.  Over eight episodes, there were 4 different directors and over half a dozen credited writers.  The ultimate failure was a lack of vision.  There were just too many cooks in the kitchen and they clearly didn't know where they were going (or didn't all want to go to the same place).  

The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy is a generally well received fantasy adaptation.  Although there are deviations from the source material, Peter Jackson had ultimate authority over the entire production.  He even shot all 3 movies simultaneously and knew the end from the beginning.  An interesting consideration is that the LOTR trilogy and WOT season 1 have pretty much the same combined runtime.  Which did a better job developing characters, setting stakes, and telling a consistent story?  It wasn't for a lack of time that WOT failed to deliver a satisfying product.  

Two things.
1. LotR Trilogy had a combined budget of $281M in 99/00, which is around $471M in 2022 dollars. 
WoT Season 1 only had an $80m Budget for the entirety of the first season.

Now you might say "But the Fellowship of the ring only had a $91M budget! That's damn close!", except that's a $163M budget in 2022 dollars.

Fellowship of the Ring was 423 pages, 80% of which were fluffy extravagant language that would routinely spend 6 pages describing a tree.

The Eye of the World was 782 pages, with around 50% of the book describing bosoms and pulling braids.

2. No one's ignoring that they "added" new story content to the TV series.
Any adaptation of the eye of the world is going to require cuts from the source material to possibly fit into 8 episodes, and obviously any kind of cut requires adjustments to the story, moving things around, etc.

Cutting Caemlyn, White Bridge, and Baerlon, saved production from having to build 3 massive set pieces, two of which will never be seen on screen again.

This had ramifications and opportunities. One of those opportunities is to tell a story that happens off screen, use that story to show concepts without telling, and to foreshadow future events, using the sets available to them. 

Personally, I don't believe the Lan episode was as bad as the nay-sayers think it is.
I personally, wasn't a fan of the Moraine centric episode, and felt that they could have spent more of that episode traveling through the waygate, and more of episode 7 learning about Shienar.

[DojoToad]

1 hour ago, Samt said:

A common defense of WOT is that there wasn't enough time to tell the story.  But that seems to ignore that the 3 middle episodes were mostly dedicated to exploring characters and story arcs that aren't in the original source material and didn't really develop towards the season conclusion.  Over eight episodes, there were 4 different directors and over half a dozen credited writers.  The ultimate failure was a lack of vision.  There were just too many cooks in the kitchen and they clearly didn't know where they were going (or didn't all want to go to the same place).  

Don't forget the 19 producers...

[Scarloc99]

18 hours ago, AdamA said:

Arguably, another data point out there now that The Last of Us has premiered, to extreme acclaim. Definitely not fantasy, but adjacent as sci-fi with some arguably fantastical elements. I'm not familiar with the game, but it is apparently pretty faithful as an adaptation. Things in favor of this thread's thesis are that the more fantastical elements are still somewhat plausible, not over-explained, and at least through one episode, don't seem central to the story. It's more backdrop and the important things are the characters and their quest.

 

Also, The Legend of Vox Machina is back this week, much more pure high fantasy. At least so far, it's sitting for the second straight season at 100% on the Tomatometer (with granted, not much attention and not a whole lot of total reviews). Another one pointing in the direction that animation is a better medium for high fantasy. It is, of course, adapted by the creators of the original, so they're staying pretty faithful, too.

If the last of us was a book I think it would not be a particularly long one, do't get me wrong the game and the story are fantastic and I loved them, but to do a good job I imagine the writers haven't had to adapt it much, it plays like a great movie or TV show and from all I have read there are scenes in it that are word for word taken from the game. 

Legend of Vox Machina, having watched the entire DnD stream season 1 was very much been abridged, adapted and changed, but as you say this has been done with the input of the creators, who are themselves all very experienced in the world of making animated shows and have worked with the writers they hired. It was also very much necessary as transposing the hundreds of hours of DnD game play to a series of 30 min animated episodes needs those changes to be made, and the fandom seems far less precious about the moments being changed. 

[Samt]

16 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

Two things.
1. LotR Trilogy had a combined budget of $281M in 99/00, which is around $471M in 2022 dollars. 
WoT Season 1 only had an $80m Budget for the entirety of the first season.

Now you might say "But the Fellowship of the ring only had a $91M budget! That's damn close!", except that's a $163M budget in 2022 dollars.

Fellowship of the Ring was 423 pages, 80% of which were fluffy extravagant language that would routinely spend 6 pages describing a tree.

The Eye of the World was 782 pages, with around 50% of the book describing bosoms and pulling braids.

2. No one's ignoring that they "added" new story content to the TV series.
Any adaptation of the eye of the world is going to require cuts from the source material to possibly fit into 8 episodes, and obviously any kind of cut requires adjustments to the story, moving things around, etc.

Cutting Caemlyn, White Bridge, and Baerlon, saved production from having to build 3 massive set pieces, two of which will never be seen on screen again.

This had ramifications and opportunities. One of those opportunities is to tell a story that happens off screen, use that story to show concepts without telling, and to foreshadow future events, using the sets available to them. 

Personally, I don't believe the Lan episode was as bad as the nay-sayers think it is.
I personally, wasn't a fan of the Moraine centric episode, and felt that they could have spent more of that episode traveling through the waygate, and more of episode 7 learning about Shienar.

1.  In regards to the LoTR comparison, I was talking about runtime more than budget.  I think budget is a reasonable explanation as we talk about the fact that WoT often had sets that lacked scale and depth, that the battle scenes lacked extras and the associated props and prosthetics, or the fact that the CGI was, generously speaking, inconsistent.  However, all of those things could have been overlooked if the storytelling was on point.  You don't need tons of money to tell a good story or develop interesting characters.  

A larger budget might also have allowed for a larger selection of a-list actors.  While I think the decision to cast relative unknowns as the Emond's fielders is sound, it might have been interesting to see some better know actors as some of the supporting Aes Sedai.  They might have also found A-listers to do cameos as Balthamel and Aginor, but I think that was probably unnecessary.  In short, I don't think and I definitely didn't mean to imply that the first season failed due to poor quality acting.  
 

Unless you are suggesting that WoT didn't have the budget to hire talented writers, producers, directors, and showrunners (and perhaps this is true, although money can't buy everything), I don't think that a larger budget would have addressed the shortcoming that I am pointing out.  They simply failed to use the screentime to develop the main characters and build to the conclusion of the season and story.  And this failure is structural both in the composition of the story and probably in the structure of the organization that created the show.  It can fairly be attributed to a lack of vision and direction from the top.  No amount of money would have fixed it.  

2. Aragorn pulling a brace of hobbit sized swords out of thin air is adding something in so that the story connects.  It's getting from A to D without passing through B or C.  But if you instead pass through E, F, G, H, I, and J, I am inclined to believe you didn't avoid B and C because of time.  

Cutting Baerlon and Whitebridge in terms of set pieces is fair and unremarkable.  Cutting Caemlyn to add Tar Valon is a choice that was made explicitly.  The stuff that was added wasn't shorter or cheaper than a lot of the stuff that was cut.  I think those decisions need to be justified on their own and for the most part they just can't.

 

As an aside, the notion that things were added to tell a story that happens offscreen or off page is fairly flat.  Many of the events added in season 1 logistically and logically did not happen off page in TEOTW.  It's not an exploration of what might have happened without us knowing. It's just changing the story.  And in my opinion, it stinks of a bad combination of sloth and hubris.  Writers are too lazy to really understand and appreciate the source material while also assuming they can make it better off the tops of their heads.  

[SinisterDeath]

28 minutes ago, Samt said:

Unless you are suggesting that WoT didn't have the budget to hire talented writers, producers, directors, and showrunners (and perhaps this is true, although money can't buy everything), I don't think that a larger budget would have addressed the shortcoming that I am pointing out.  They simply failed to use the screentime to develop the main characters and build to the conclusion of the season and story.  And this failure is structural both in the composition of the story and probably in the structure of the organization that created the show.  It can fairly be attributed to a lack of vision and direction from the top.  No amount of money would have fixed it.  

I'm suggesting that a large chunk of their budget, primarily went to building an entirely new Film Studio in Europe, Building large city sets and CGI assets that are intended to be reused thru-out the series, (Tar Valon), which didn't leave them much room for adding in additional complex details (sets) like we got in the books. (e.g. Caemlyn, White Bridge, etc)

If they had a budget closer to Ring of Powers, we might have seen those other areas make an appearance, but with their budget that wasn't going to happen.
Then we had the whole Covid situation & Barney dropping from the show, which required them to rewrite the last two episodes. (They could have had the bath scenes, but... Covid restrictions)

 

 

28 minutes ago, Samt said:

Cutting Baerlon and Whitebridge in terms of set pieces is fair and unremarkable.  Cutting Caemlyn to add Tar Valon is a choice that was made explicitly.  The stuff that was added wasn't shorter or cheaper than a lot of the stuff that was cut.  I think those decisions need to be justified on their own and for the most part they just can't.

As much as cutting Caemlyn sucks, it makes sense. We don't really see it again until what.. book 5? 6? And even then we don't really start to see it until Rand takes out Rhavin, and Elayen's war for the crown.

Tar Valon? As much as it doesn't jive with the original story, it makes sense. How much of the books takes place in Tar Valon? A good portion of Book 2 & 3, and once we start getting out of the wastes and Egwene returns to the tower, we're going to be spending a LOT of time there.

 

 

28 minutes ago, Samt said:

As an aside, the notion that things were added to tell a story that happens offscreen or off page is fairly flat.  Many of the events added in season 1 logistically and logically did not happen off page in TEOTW.  It's not an exploration of what might have happened without us knowing. It's just changing the story.  And in my opinion, it stinks of a bad combination of sloth and hubris.  Writers are too lazy to really understand and appreciate the source material while also assuming they can make it better off the tops of their heads.  

In the books, Kerene Nagashi died off screen, just after Rand was born. 

In the show, they used her character's death to show not tell us what happens to a warden when their Aes Sedai dies. They also used it to show us how deadly and mad Male Channelers are. They may have even gave us a glimpse into the Black Ajah.

The Warder situation, is a relevant plot point that'll take place in 3-4 books worth of content, that will only confuse TV show audiences had they told us, instead of showing us what happens.

[WhiteVeils]

 

42 minutes ago, Samt said:

As an aside, the notion that things were added to tell a story that happens offscreen or off page is fairly flat.  Many of the events added in season 1 logistically and logically did not happen off page in TEOTW.  It's not an exploration of what might have happened without us knowing. It's just changing the story.  And in my opinion, it stinks of a bad combination of sloth and hubris.  Writers are too lazy to really understand and appreciate the source material while also assuming they can make it better off the tops of their heads.  

 

Is it not a bad combination of sloth and hubris to assume that a non-writer not in the television industry knows more about what is required to create an adaptation than those inside it?  It seems such critics are too lazy to really understand and appreciate the requirements of the business while also assuming they can make it better off the tops of their heads. 

[Samt]

8 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

 

 

Is it not a bad combination of sloth and hubris to assume that a non-writer not in the television industry knows more about what is required to create an adaptation than those inside it?  It seems such critics are too lazy to really understand and appreciate the requirements of the business while also assuming they can make it better off the tops of their heads. 

Sloth, no.  I'm doing this for fun and not getting paid.  Absolutely no expectation that I should put any amount of work into this.  

Hubris, perhaps.  But I consider what I am doing to be more or less equivalent to criticizing a professional athlete for playing badly.  I don't have to be an expert to say that it was done poorly, nor am I inherently suggesting I could have been done better.  I have some ideas of how it might have been done better, but I am fully aware that those are probably also bad ideas in the end.  

 

It takes great skill to make something good and considerably less skill to recognize that something has been done badly.  When something is made for the masses, the unskilled masses are perfectly justified in saying that it was done badly.  

It would be hubris on my part to suggest that I could make the WoT series better when I have no experience in making or writing TV shows.  But recognizing that great fantasy adaptations exist and that WoT is clearly not among them (which is the fundamental question asked in this thread) is something that I contend to be well within my skill to evaluate.  

[Elder_Haman]

31 minutes ago, Samt said:

But recognizing that great fantasy adaptations exist and that WoT is clearly not among them

Probably more apt to say that S1 of WoT does not measure up to the top echelon of fantasy shows. We've had only a single season (which, though disappointing in many respects, was enjoyable and above-average as a series) thus far. To suggest that WoT is "clearly not among" the best adaptations implies that we know it will not improve. I don't think that's fair.

 

To use your "criticism of athletes" analogy, one bad loss doesn't mean the team is bad. A single bad game doesn't mean a player is bad at the game. Season 1 was a mixed bag, but there was lots of good stuff to build from and several external factors that made the bad stuff worse than it otherwise might have been.

[Samt]

1 hour ago, SinisterDeath said:

I'm suggesting that a large chunk of their budget, primarily went to building an entirely new Film Studio in Europe, Building large city sets and CGI assets that are intended to be reused thru-out the series, (Tar Valon), which didn't leave them much room for adding in additional complex details (sets) like we got in the books. (e.g. Caemlyn, White Bridge, etc)

If they had a budget closer to Ring of Powers, we might have seen those other areas make an appearance, but with their budget that wasn't going to happen.
Then we had the whole Covid situation & Barney dropping from the show, which required them to rewrite the last two episodes. (They could have had the bath scenes, but... Covid restrictions)

 

 

As much as cutting Caemlyn sucks, it makes sense. We don't really see it again until what.. book 5? 6? And even then we don't really start to see it until Rand takes out Rhavin, and Elayen's war for the crown.

Tar Valon? As much as it doesn't jive with the original story, it makes sense. How much of the books takes place in Tar Valon? A good portion of Book 2 & 3, and once we start getting out of the wastes and Egwene returns to the tower, we're going to be spending a LOT of time there.

 

 

In the books, Kerene Nagashi died off screen, just after Rand was born. 

In the show, they used her character's death to show not tell us what happens to a warden when their Aes Sedai dies. They also used it to show us how deadly and mad Male Channelers are. They may have even gave us a glimpse into the Black Ajah.

The Warder situation, is a relevant plot point that'll take place in 3-4 books worth of content, that will only confuse TV show audiences had they told us, instead of showing us what happens.

I get where the budget went.  I'm just saying that I don't think budget was the only thing they were short of.  

 

Matt goes to Caemlyn in Book 3, if I remember correctly.  But it seems Matt is getting significantly changed and Rahvin probably isn't appearing, so it's not important.  

Kerene Nagashi of the books died 2 decades ago in a completely different set of circumstances.  The only real similarities are that she has the same name and is now also dead.  Oh, and they both have a Warder named Stepin.  That's pretty thin.  

 

I'm not really sure why the Warder bond is the world-building element that 25% of the season runtime needed to be spent on.  

[SinisterDeath]

2 minutes ago, Samt said:

I'm not really sure why the Warder bond is the world-building element that 25% of the season runtime needed to be spent on.  

Because we're going to be spending about 50% of season 3+ dealing with Lan, and all the shit that happens to Rand regarding Bonding.

[BookMattBetterThanShow]

2 hours ago, Samt said:

1.  In regards to the LoTR comparison, I was talking about runtime more than budget.  I think budget is a reasonable explanation as we talk about the fact that WoT often had sets that lacked scale and depth, that the battle scenes lacked extras and the associated props and prosthetics, or the fact that the CGI was, generously speaking, inconsistent.  However, all of those things could have been overlooked if the storytelling was on point.  You don't need tons of money to tell a good story or develop interesting characters.  

A larger budget might also have allowed for a larger selection of a-list actors.  While I think the decision to cast relative unknowns as the Emond's fielders is sound, it might have been interesting to see some better know actors as some of the supporting Aes Sedai.  They might have also found A-listers to do cameos as Balthamel and Aginor, but I think that was probably unnecessary.  In short, I don't think and I definitely didn't mean to imply that the first season failed due to poor quality acting.  
 

Unless you are suggesting that WoT didn't have the budget to hire talented writers, producers, directors, and showrunners (and perhaps this is true, although money can't buy everything), I don't think that a larger budget would have addressed the shortcoming that I am pointing out.  They simply failed to use the screentime to develop the main characters and build to the conclusion of the season and story.  And this failure is structural both in the composition of the story and probably in the structure of the organization that created the show.  It can fairly be attributed to a lack of vision and direction from the top.  No amount of money would have fixed it.  

2. Aragorn pulling a brace of hobbit sized swords out of thin air is adding something in so that the story connects.  It's getting from A to D without passing through B or C.  But if you instead pass through E, F, G, H, I, and J, I am inclined to believe you didn't avoid B and C because of time.  

Cutting Baerlon and Whitebridge in terms of set pieces is fair and unremarkable.  Cutting Caemlyn to add Tar Valon is a choice that was made explicitly.  The stuff that was added wasn't shorter or cheaper than a lot of the stuff that was cut.  I think those decisions need to be justified on their own and for the most part they just can't.

 

As an aside, the notion that things were added to tell a story that happens offscreen or off page is fairly flat.  Many of the events added in season 1 logistically and logically did not happen off page in TEOTW.  It's not an exploration of what might have happened without us knowing. It's just changing the story.  And in my opinion, it stinks of a bad combination of sloth and hubris.  Writers are too lazy to really understand and appreciate the source material while also assuming they can make it better off the tops of their heads.  

agree