Where will S2 take the WoT

[DojoToad]

We don't know when, But S2 is coming.  Based on what you have been reading/watching, where do you think Rafe and team will be taking the show compared to S1 and why?  Your choice in the poll doesn't necessarily mean you think the option is good or bad, given the limiting nature of the responses - but please extrapolate in the thread.  Should be some interesting comments as we don't all get our information from the same places.

[SinisterDeath]

@DojoToad

I unticked the "poll only content", so people besides the mods and I can reply to this thread.

I voted the first option, I'm optimistically hoping that season 2 onwards course corrects on track. 

I believe a lot of the poor choices that were made, were due to Amazon interference and writers having to placate their bosses.

I hope Rafe can use some of the negative feedback the show has gotten, as a bargaining chip with Amazon as to why he needs to correct the shows course. Depending on what happens with the Witcher, he could point at it, as what what happens if you veer too far off course.

I will mention, that the Nostalgia market is big right now. The worse things get in reality, the bigger that market's going to get. Veering too far from nostalgia is going to result in a LOT of negative feedback, unless you have extremely talented writers/directors/etc. 
 

^{Ironically, the Witcher TV Series was often used as evidence as why the WoT Adaptation was a bad one. It had claims of being more "true to the source material" than WoT", even though it's arguable that the Witcher has veered far more off course with each season than WoT currently has.}

[DojoToad]

Thanks for the correction. Think the options changed since I last set up a poll. Or I just messed it up. 

[Guire]

I would say Witxher benefitted from 2 things to me.  It felt more like an episodic monster of the week with a vague story line pulling it forward.  The biggest advatage was having a few charismatic actors playing some fun characters.  The writers did not have to work nearly as hard to give a watchable show.

 

WoT is like a really long movie broken up.  Also the mystery box formula, recalibration of characters, and female forwatd story line made WoT a big challenge.  It was like squezzing plot points into a different story. It would have been muxh easier telling a story closer to the book.  I guess we will eventually see if amazon can pull it off.  And I say amazon specifically.  Until they drop a really well made big budget fantasy I am just blaming them.  

Edited January 4, 2023 by Guire
Spelling

[DojoToad]

I'm leaning toward it stays the same as S1 - with both minor and significant changes.  Some very necessary for the adaptation and others not - depending on your point of view...

 

Rafe has a vision and will run with it.  If WoT is cut to five seasons vs. eight, what do you think gets cut - source material or Rafe's story?  I think we get more non-canon, but only time will tell.

Edited January 4, 2023 by DojoToad

[king of nowhere]

I think it will stay the same because the level of fidelity is more or less a product of the compression for tv. in order to fit 14 books of material in 8 seasons, the writers have to cut a lot of storylines. this then requires them to alter the other storylines so that the story still make sense - because all those smaller side plots still impacted the main story, and you can't just cut them and pretend nothing else changed.

it also has nothing to do with quality. I do certainly hope they improve on show quality, taking some of the negative feedback they got into account. But I don't think they could make wot more faithful to the source material if they wanted, not unless they got more screen time. they could certainly make the show less faithful, but I don't see why they would. unlike some detractors, I don't think rafe is secretly trying to sabotage the show to insert into the wot canon his own poorly-written fanfiction; rafe clearly loves wot, and he's trying his best to bring the story adapted for the small screen.

 

if the show lenght is reduced to 5 seasons, then it will have to get less faithful, as more plots will have to be eliminated entirely, and the remaining plots will need to be changed even more to remain coherent. Hopefully it won't be the case. Practical limitation, mostly on filming and the actors, means the show can run 10 years or so if successful. if we keep the current 2 years per season then this will force 5 seasons, but if some of the delay caused by covid can be avoided, then we may be able to get one season per year. maybe. even having 6 seasons instead of 5 would be something.

[SinisterDeath]

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

if the show lenght is reduced to 5 seasons, then it will have to get less faithful, as more plots will have to be eliminated entirely, and the remaining plots will need to be changed even more to remain coherent. Hopefully it won't be the case. Practical limitation, mostly on filming and the actors, means the show can run 10 years or so if successful. if we keep the current 2 years per season then this will force 5 seasons, but if some of the delay caused by covid can be avoided, then we may be able to get one season per year. maybe. even having 6 seasons instead of 5 would be something.

5 Seasons would be devastating to the over-all plot of the books.

On the bright side, that could involve removing all of Elayne's, Perrins, Mat's, and Egwenes plots to condense this down to the Rand & Nynaeve show.

[DojoToad]

10 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

5 Seasons would be devastating to the over-all plot of the books.

On the bright side, that could involve removing all of Elayne's, Perrins, Mat's, and Egwenes plots to condense this down to the Rand & Nynaeve show.

There is a lot of fat to cut from the books - but I enjoy a lot of that fat.  😥

[Pandemonium]

6 hours ago, DojoToad said:

I'm leaning toward it stays the same as S1 - with both minor and significant changes.  Some very necessary for the adaptation and others not - depending on your point of view...

 

Rafe has a vision and will run with it.  If WoT is cut to five seasons vs. eight, what do you think gets cut - source material or Rafe's story?  I think we get more non-canon, but only time will tell.

If Rafe reduces WOT to 5 seasons, I wonder how they would even conclude the series.  Season 3 is book 4 and the Aiel Waste.  they would have to do snippets of all the other books, maybe make the cleansing of the male taint the last Battle.  Hopefully they wouldn't cut Dumais Wells along the way.  

 

It seems like 5 seasons may be more and more likely under the cost cutting streaming world that exists now.  Plus WOT had shown it takes them 1.5 to 2 years to put out each season.  

[DojoToad]

1 minute ago, Pandemonium said:

If Rafe reduces WOT to 5 seasons, I wonder how they would even conclude the series.  Season 3 is book 4 and the Aiel Waste.  they would have to do snippets of all the other books, maybe make the cleansing of the male taint the last Battle.  Hopefully they wouldn't cut Dumais Wells along the way.  

 

It seems like 5 seasons may be more and more likely under the cost cutting streaming world that exists now.  Plus WOT had shown it takes them 1.5 to 2 years to put out each season.  

Amazon would reduce it, not Rafe.

[SinisterDeath]

30 minutes ago, Pandemonium said:

It seems like 5 seasons may be more and more likely under the cost cutting streaming world that exists now.  Plus WOT had shown it takes them 1.5 to 2 years to put out each season.

My only hope, is that they keep shooting each and every year, and it's just the post production that delays the end result.
I don't relish the idea of this show going for 16 years... I don't like the idea of my 5 year old being in college before this show's finished.

[Pandemonium]

14 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

My only hope, is that they keep shooting each and every year, and it's just the post production that delays the end result.
I don't relish the idea of this show going for 16 years... I don't like the idea of my 5 year old being in college before this show's finished.

It seems 5 years may be the new benchmark for fantasy series.  5 years for Rings of Power, etc. It really is very difficult to exceed that given the post about production timetable and expense.  Nobody can match GOT 8 seasons in 9 years anymore.  Even the GOT prequel can't match that timetable.

 

  I'd imagine future epic fantasy series will be more limited in scope and to series with less books... aka Mystborn by Sanderson.  Still waiting for him to announce the Hollywood project as well.

 

[SinisterDeath]

14 minutes ago, Pandemonium said:

It seems 5 years may be the new benchmark for fantasy series.  5 years for Rings of Power, etc. It really is very difficult to exceed that given the post about production timetable and expense.  Nobody can match GOT 8 seasons in 9 years anymore.  Even the GOT prequel can't match that timetable.

Post Production timetable is.. a huge can of worms right now. 
One bit of info that came out last season, was that they had to build their own Studio in Europe, because everything was booked. Same's true for Post Production.

If Amazon isn't creating their own Post Production company, and sinking billions into it, they're going to lose the streaming wars to Netflix, Disney, HBO, and Paramount. (Paramount put out 3 seasons of New Star Trek content in one year. Picard, Discovery, Strange New Worlds. That's not counting Lower Decks & Prodigy.)

If, they can build up all their 3d post production assets by season 3 or 4, they should be able to fly through the rest of the seasons without having to rebuild their assets each year...  this will speed up the process tremendously.

Take Marvel for example. Probably took them 3 years to get all of Doctor Strange' & Scarlet Witch's effects built up. Now that it's all created, they can pump out a movie or tv series in no time at all.

By the time we get to Dumai's Wells, they should have the majority of theweaves and other special effects they need created, so that by the time new stuff is introduced, it's only one new effect being created, and not 600.

[Pandemonium]

33 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Post Production timetable is.. a huge can of worms right now. 
One bit of info that came out last season, was that they had to build their own Studio in Europe, because everything was booked. Same's true for Post Production.

If Amazon isn't creating their own Post Production company, and sinking billions into it, they're going to lose the streaming wars to Netflix, Disney, HBO, and Paramount. (Paramount put out 3 seasons of New Star Trek content in one year. Picard, Discovery, Strange New Worlds. That's not counting Lower Decks & Prodigy.)

If, they can build up all their 3d post production assets by season 3 or 4, they should be able to fly through the rest of the seasons without having to rebuild their assets each year...  this will speed up the process tremendously.

Take Marvel for example. Probably took them 3 years to get all of Doctor Strange' & Scarlet Witch's effects built up. Now that it's all created, they can pump out a movie or tv series in no time at all.

By the time we get to Dumai's Wells, they should have the majority of theweaves and other special effects they need created, so that by the time new stuff is introduced, it's only one new effect being created, and not 600.

Good points, Paramounts output has been pretty amazing.  Those Star Trek shows and the Halo show were actually pretty good too.  We shall see about WOT, hopefully we see some of thes improvements manifest in season 2.  

[king of nowhere]

incidentally, is there going to be enough money in the market going forward? right now, economy is still suffering from the war in ukraine, which won't end soon. people have less money, and entertainment is one of the first things people can skip.

 

on the other hand, in the face of economic crysis people can skip going outside and buying stuff to get a cheap subscription to nearly unlimited digital entertainment...

anyway, there's also increased competition, so less money for each individual platform.

I'm not sure how long this business can keep growing and affording to make more and bigger stuff

[Scarloc99]

2 hours ago, Pandemonium said:

Good points, Paramounts output has been pretty amazing.  Those Star Trek shows and the Halo show were actually pretty good too.  We shall see about WOT, hopefully we see some of thes improvements manifest in season 2.  

Sorry but no Halo was just atrocious, possibly the worst video game adaptation ever if not one of the worst ever Sci Fi shows. Much like Witcher it appears the writers and show runner had never played the game and knew nothing about what the fan base wanted. 

[Scarloc99]

16 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

incidentally, is there going to be enough money in the market going forward? right now, economy is still suffering from the war in ukraine, which won't end soon. people have less money, and entertainment is one of the first things people can skip.

 

on the other hand, in the face of economic crysis people can skip going outside and buying stuff to get a cheap subscription to nearly unlimited digital entertainment...

anyway, there's also increased competition, so less money for each individual platform.

I'm not sure how long this business can keep growing and affording to make more and bigger stuff

My very real fear is that Jeff B has focused on ROP and doesn’t care about WOT, 

[DojoToad]

25 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

My very real fear is that Jeff B has focused on ROP and doesn’t care about WOT, 

Considering the money he has spent, you'd think he'd care about both.  🤷‍♂️

[DojoToad]

43 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

incidentally, is there going to be enough money in the market going forward? right now, economy is still suffering from the war in ukraine, which won't end soon. people have less money, and entertainment is one of the first things people can skip.

 

on the other hand, in the face of economic crysis people can skip going outside and buying stuff to get a cheap subscription to nearly unlimited digital entertainment...

anyway, there's also increased competition, so less money for each individual platform.

I'm not sure how long this business can keep growing and affording to make more and bigger stuff

Especially when so much of it is meh...

[SinisterDeath]

3 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Considering the money he has spent, you'd think he'd care about both.  🤷‍♂️

I feel like I need to post this. So here you go.
(Warning, the following video contains a couple of F-bombs)

 

[DojoToad]

It is kind of hard to relate to the amount of money he has...

[SinisterDeath]

6 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

It is kind of hard to relate to the amount of money he has...

Federal Minimum Wage = $7.25/hr x 40 hours a week x 52 weeks = $15,080
It would take you 7,115,384 years to have earned, what he is currently worth. ($107.3B)

If you earned $1M a year.
It would take 107,300 years to earn $107.3B.

If you earned $1B a year, it would take 107.3 Years to earn his $107.3B.

If you were to lay a $1 end to end from the Earth to the Moon, you would use up $2,455,974,360.

You could go from the Earth to the Moon and back 21.8 times before you used up $107.3B.

[Scarloc99]

3 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Considering the money he has spent, you'd think he'd care about both.  🤷‍♂️

I mean the minds of the rich, Elon went and wasted his money on Twitter remember, what’s a few million on a TV show. 

[Pandemonium]

4 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Sorry but no Halo was just atrocious, possibly the worst video game adaptation ever if not one of the worst ever Sci Fi shows. Much like Witcher it appears the writers and show runner had never played the game and knew nothing about what the fan base wanted. 

I don't know much about halo and thought it was an ok watch. I thought the visuals on that show were pretty good, definitely not as great in the story department, but it was a decent watch for me.  I think it had enough interest that they are renewing season 2

[Mailman]

I opted for the 3rd option.

Really does not feel like Rafe and the writers from the small comments I have seen are taking any of the negative feedback as serious. Also feel we are going to get an incredibly increased amount of Moiraine content that is not in the books (it could be good content but it won't be book content).

 

Rafe also does not inspire confidence he appears completely out of his depth IMO. Incredibly skinny resume to be showrunner of a series of this size.

Edited January 6, 2023 by Mailman