Why not follow the books more closely?

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

9 hours ago, Skipp said:

The unfortunate thing about that implication is that the only negative things the person in question says can be truthful.  Anything positive or neutral becomes contractually obligated.

It is a long way from being obligated not to say anything negative to being required to endorse something one does not support.

[Jaccsen]

13 hours ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

It is a long way from being obligated not to say anything negative to being required to endorse something one does not support.

The contracts I have been part too all include non-disparagement clauses.

 

I think Sanderson has been very political in how he criticized the show. He also has more resources than Harriet. 

 

I am not saying that any positive statements she has made have been forced. I am not making that argument; however, Harriet has not really made a lot of comments either. 

 

She may love the show but she is not a routine supporter that regularly defends it.

 

I do think that this discussion detracts on the core theme of why they do not follow the books more closely.

 

For instance, Moraine losing her powers did nothing for the show. It was weak and took away from screen time that could have been used for storylines that were actually used in the books.

[Elder_Haman]

49 minutes ago, Jaccsen said:

Moraine losing her powers did nothing for the show.

I think it was a pretty powerful depiction of what losing the power feels like. Setting up as a point of comparison for actual stilling, which we’ve yet to see. It also gave the viewers a true sense of the level of Moiraine’s dedication. 
 

I can understand why people feel like it was underwhelming or boring, but I do think it contributed to the show. 

[SinisterDeath]

On 4/11/2024 at 5:43 PM, henrywho said:

Yes I know his wife was his editor. None of us know anything about the motivations of Harriet or Brandon, nothing at all

Going to stop you right there.

If your going act like you knew RJ enough to know that he would hate this adaptation... Then you really need to stop and think about what he'd say to you about what you're implying about his wife.

As Haman said, we don't do that here.

 

On 4/11/2024 at 7:07 PM, zacz1987 said:

To be fair I don't think Harriet had much choice as the rights were still with Red Eagle Entertainment (now called iWOT) and they have already successfully sued her once for saying negative things about them. 

 

On 4/11/2024 at 8:04 PM, Elder_Haman said:

Red Eagle does not have the rights to the show. Amazon does. And she’s had nothing but positive things to say about the show. 

Zacz is right here Elder. 

iWOT doesn't directly have anything to do with the show, but they ultimately "sold" the show to Amazon. Harriet/Brandon don't have any creative power behind the show. They're only writing consultants.

 

Writers ultimately answer to Producers, and Executive Producers, which probably answer to Amazon.
  

On 4/18/2024 at 8:07 PM, Elder_Haman said:

You are claiming that there is a written agreement that she not say anything bad about the series. I am asking you to prove that. Obviously there is a written agreement between Harriet (or whatever corporate entity represents her) and Amazon. That is a far different thing from a contract that restricts her ability to offer her opinion.

This might well be an impossible task. That would be like asking to prove the agreement between Harriet and Amazon. A lot of these contracts are private. We don't even know the details of the contract she and RJ had between REE are. It's very likely that she signed some contract before she set foot on set as a consultant, and that included an NDA... and possibly a non-disparage clause... and since REE is still attached as producers of the show.... and they've established that she cannot disparage anything REE is involved with...

That said, it's a leap to claim to know that Harriet hates the show because she's not saying enough about it online. Anyone that's been around for any length of time knows that Harriet doesn't make a lot of public statements.

[Dedicated]

To preface, I had absolutely no faith in this television adaptation and I never gave it a chance. I saw it as a cash grab and nothing more. I even made a post or two on this forum warning people. I didn't want people to get excited for this and support it because I was afraid it was going to be a complete disappointment. This story deserved better and I got the strong feeling that the people behind it just wanted something like A Game of Thrones and didn't give a crap about the series. 

 

I can't speak to specific examples, but I'm fairly confident that the television series isn't following the books because the television series is only using the books as a framework to develop a money making television show. They are trying to shape the television show to the things they think will grab more viewership instead of making a faithful adaption of the story we all love. The only alteration I would have liked to see is the Aiel being black because, let's face it, red-haired, fair-skinned people would have died off via skin cancer in the the Three-Fold Land or they would have turned black. Also they could have casted Jaden Smith as Rand, but I digress. 

 

I use amazon prime quite a bit and I keep seeing trailers for the show and I cringe every time.

[Samt]

26 minutes ago, Dedicated said:

To preface, I had absolutely no faith in this television adaptation and I never gave it a chance. I saw it as a cash grab and nothing more. I even made a post or two on this forum warning people. I didn't want people to get excited for this and support it because I was afraid it was going to be a complete disappointment. This story deserved better and I got the strong feeling that the people behind it just wanted something like A Game of Thrones and didn't give a crap about the series. 

 

I can't speak to specific examples, but I'm fairly confident that the television series isn't following the books because the television series is only using the books as a framework to develop a money making television show. They are trying to shape the television show to the things they think will grab more viewership instead of making a faithful adaption of the story we all love. The only alteration I would have liked to see is the Aiel being black because, let's face it, red-haired, fair-skinned people would have died off via skin cancer in the the Three-Fold Land or they would have turned black. Also they could have casted Jaden Smith as Rand, but I digress. 

 

I use amazon prime quite a bit and I keep seeing trailers for the show and I cringe every time.

Good satire is indistinguishable from earnest opinion.

[Dedicated]

3 minutes ago, Samt said:

Good satire is indistinguishable from earnest opinion.

 

Yea, well, Scooby Doo can doo doo, but Jimmy Carter is Smarter.

[DigificWriter]

There's not a lot that I think I can say about many of the most recent posts in this thread without getting myself in trouble, so all I will say is that said posts demonstrate a severe lack of knowledge about how television writing works and the intricacies, difficulties, subtleties, and complexities involved in it.

[Jaccsen]

On 4/30/2024 at 9:48 PM, DigificWriter said:

There's not a lot that I think I can say about many of the most recent posts in this thread without getting myself in trouble, so all I will say is that said posts demonstrate a severe lack of knowledge about how television writing works and the intricacies, difficulties, subtleties, and complexities involved in it.

I se this argument used in excess to defend this show. 

 

The showrunner has come out to say that this is his version of the turning of the Wheel. It is not complicated to hew closer to the books. The writers have written entire episodes that have no connection to the events in the books. The writers have not even tried to be internally consistent either.

 

It has nothing to do with how television writing works. The showrunner and writers have made purposeful decisions to change things and not to suit the needs for television but rather to suit their own vision of the story.

 

The argument that people are either not smart enough or not "educated" to the realities of TV writing is a bit insulting.

[Elder_Haman]

28 minutes ago, Jaccsen said:

The argument that people are either not smart enough or not "educated" to the realities of TV writing is a bit insulting.

Is it more or less insulting than the argument that the showrunner and writers hate Robert Jordan and are intentionally trying to ruin the story to push a political agenda?

[Elder_Haman]

On 4/28/2024 at 8:19 AM, SinisterDeath said:

That said, it's a leap to claim to know that Harriet hates the show because she's not saying enough about it online. Anyone that's been around for any length of time knows that Harriet doesn't make a lot of public statements.

This is my point. The burden is on people who are claiming that Harriet secretly hates the show to prove those claims. Just saying, “she’s got an NDA” isn’t proof of anything. 

[Jaccsen]

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

Is it more or less insulting than the argument that the showrunner and writers hate Robert Jordan and are intentionally trying to ruin the story to push a political agenda?

I have never made the argument that the showrunner hates Jordan. Rafe did change his narrative over time. I do not think he hates Jordan but he definitely has moved the goalposts over time.

 

As for ideological agendas, yes, Amazon does have them and so does a huge swath of the television industry. I think it is fair to comment on them if you see it as having a serious impact on the quality of the show. 

 

I do have a real issue when people argue that you're dislike of content is due to ignorance or bigotry as if you should just accept it and be glad for what you received. 

 

I have never argued that anyone is wrong or stupid because they like the show. 

[Jaccsen]

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

This is my point. The burden is on people who are claiming that Harriet secretly hates the show to prove those claims. Just saying, “she’s got an NDA” isn’t proof of anything. 

I agree, which is why I said that those arguments detract from the point of the thread. 

[DigificWriter]

2 hours ago, Jaccsen said:

I se this argument used in excess to defend this show. 

 

The showrunner has come out to say that this is his version of the turning of the Wheel. It is not complicated to hew closer to the books. The writers have written entire episodes that have no connection to the events in the books. The writers have not even tried to be internally consistent either.

 

It has nothing to do with how television writing works. The showrunner and writers have made purposeful decisions to change things and not to suit the needs for television but rather to suit their own vision of the story.

 

The argument that people are either not smart enough or not "educated" to the realities of TV writing is a bit insulting.

 

Not trying to brag here, but I have actually directly collaborated with a former television writer who taught me (and our other mutual collaborators, of which there were several) about the general established functions of a television writing room and about the hours and hours of work that individual writers put in to bring a television series to life.

 

Through my collaboration with the above individual and our other collaborators, I also learned firsthand about the difficulties, complexities, and subtleties involved in specifically adapting something from one medium to another.

 

Other people might trot out the "complainers don't understand" argument, but when I do it, I do so based on my own personal knowledge and experiences.

[Samt]

1 hour ago, DigificWriter said:

 

Not trying to brag here, but I have actually directly collaborated with a former television writer who taught me (and our other mutual collaborators, of which there were several) about the general established functions of a television writing room and about the hours and hours of work that individual writers put in to bring a television series to life.

 

Through my collaboration with the above individual and our other collaborators, I also learned firsthand about the difficulties, complexities, and subtleties involved in specifically adapting something from one medium to another.

 

Other people might trot out the "complainers don't understand" argument, but when I do it, I do so based on my own personal knowledge and experiences.

Are you saying that the machine is so cumbersome and restrictive that the show creators and writers effectively don't have creative control of the products they are producing?  They just turn the crank and something comes out?  

 

That's like saying that we have this sausage machine and because of the way we clean it, the sausage always comes out with a strong taste of soap.  It's not our fault.  That's just how the machine was made.  

 

Even if that is true, it just means that someone needs to get the power and imagination to break the machine.  At some level, someone is responsible.  And I'm suspicious that guy likes the taste of soap.  

 

[DigificWriter]

41 minutes ago, Samt said:

Are you saying that the machine is so cumbersome and restrictive that the show creators and writers effectively don't have creative control of the products they are producing?  They just turn the crank and something comes out?  

 

That's like saying that we have this sausage machine and because of the way we clean it, the sausage always comes out with a strong taste of soap.  It's not our fault.  That's just how the machine was made.  

 

Even if that is true, it just means that someone needs to get the power and imagination to break the machine.  At some level, someone is responsible.  And I'm suspicious that guy likes the taste of soap.  

 

 

No.

 

I'm unequivocally stating - based on the personal knowledge and experiences that I detailed earlier - that I believe that comments questioning the competency and commitment of these writers ignorantly - and unfairly - ignore or dismiss the intricate realities of television writing and of the adaptation process itself.

Edited Thursday at 06:31 PM by DigificWriter

[Samt]

37 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

 

No.

 

I'm unequivocally stating - based on the personal knowledge and experiences that I detailed earlier - that I believe that comments questioning the competency and commitment of these writers ignorantly - and unfairly - ignore or dismiss the intricate realities of television writing and of the adaptation process itself.

So you are arguing that it would be literally impossible for a more faithful adaptation to be made?

 

Frankly, you just seem to be saying that it's impossible and that only the smart people can even understand why.  Without elaboration, I just take that to mean that you lack the imagination to solve the problems.  

[Elder_Haman]

1 minute ago, Samt said:

44 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

So you are arguing that it would be literally impossible for a more faithful adaptation to be made?

Come on, man! That’s not at all what’s being said. The claim here is that it’s more complicated than the masses think it is. 
 

Is it possible to write a more faithful adaptation? Of course. But these are scripts by committee. There are myriad different tensions and agendas at work. And there are power dynamics that make it impossible to say no to bad ideas. 
 

So ultimately, the idea that you can just “put the book on film” is just naive. Is this a good way to create great art? No. It’s awful. But it’s what we’ve got. 

[DigificWriter]

14 minutes ago, Samt said:

So you are arguing that it would be literally impossible for a more faithful adaptation to be made?

 

Frankly, you just seem to be saying that it's impossible and that only the smart people can even understand why.  Without elaboration, I just take that to mean that you lack the imagination to solve the problems.  

 

The question of fidelity is irrelevant to this conversation because it is entirely subjective.

 

Not everyone is going to be happy with - or agree with - the choices that these writers have made. However, there is a stark difference between critiquing/criticizing those choices and using those choices to question these writers' commitment to the source material and their competency as storytellers.

Edited Thursday at 07:24 PM by DigificWriter

[Samt]

59 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Come on, man! That’s not at all what’s being said. The claim here is that it’s more complicated than the masses think it is. 
 

Is it possible to write a more faithful adaptation? Of course. But these are scripts by committee. There are myriad different tensions and agendas at work. And there are power dynamics that make it impossible to say no to bad ideas. 
 

So ultimately, the idea that you can just “put the book on film” is just naive. Is this a good way to create great art? No. It’s awful. But it’s what we’ve got. 

Everything of any complexity is more complicated than the masses think.  True mastery is making difficult things look effortless.  If you have to start explaining why it was so hard, you know you failed.  

 

52 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

 

The question of fidelity is irrelevant to this conversation because it is entirely subjective.

 

Not everyone is going to be happy with - or agree with - the choices that these writers have made. However, there is a stark difference between critiquing/criticizing those choices and using those choices to question these writers' commitment to the source material and their competency as storytellers.

I think it's fair to point out that perhaps the writers were put in a no-win situation and maybe the failure is at a level well above their paygrades.  

 

In regards to fidelity being entirely subjective, that's a rather silly attempt to deny the failure by trying to break the measuring stick.  Your continued assertion that this is a reasonable position frankly undercuts my ability to take your judgment on any related issue seriously.  Even @Elder_Haman above acknowledged that of course it was possible to make a more faithful adaptation.  

[Elder_Haman]

4 minutes ago, Samt said:

Everything of any complexity is more complicated than the masses think.  True mastery is making difficult things look effortless.  If you have to start explaining why it was so hard, you know you failed.

I don’t know what you’re trying to say here. I’m not speaking in generalities. People are arguing that the writers are bad and that it’s easy to write a story that hews closer to the original. Those people vastly underestimate the complexity of the task. 
 

That’s not some sort of cop out. It’s the truth. 

[Kaleb]

7 minutes ago, Samt said:

I think it's fair to point out that perhaps the writers were put in a no-win situation and maybe the failure is at a level well above their paygrades.  

It's not just relative to their paygrades, it's that WoT has always been widely judged to be unadaptable to film/tv by virtually anybody who has any expertise in that field. We're getting a valiant effort at it from Rafe and company, and you can see where they succeed and where they fail. A different team would have faced different pitfalls, assuming there's even another team that would have put in the effort to make this show happen. Red Eagle hasn't been very successful in courting projects that get beyond the "we had a great meeting!" phase.

 

1 hour ago, DigificWriter said:

However, there is a stark difference between critiquing/criticizing those choices and using those choices to question these writers' commitment to the source material and their competency as storytellers.

This is the bit I wanted to highlight, it's the focus that matters. Yeah, these writers and producers have made choices that I question, but I love how they've always made an obvious effort to ground those divergences in the story and world shown in the books.

[Samt]

31 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

I don’t know what you’re trying to say here. I’m not speaking in generalities. People are arguing that the writers are bad and that it’s easy to write a story that hews closer to the original. Those people vastly underestimate the complexity of the task. 
 

That’s not some sort of cop out. It’s the truth. 

It's sort of like a racecar driver who crashes backing out of his driveway.  Maybe he's driving a high performance car and it really is kind of complicated and it's harder than backing my minivan out.  Maybe he tried to drift out of the garage instead of just driving normally.  But I'm still inclined to question if he's really a good racecar driver. 

 

That's what this feels like.  I'm willing to accept that writing a story of this complexity gets complicated and down the line things might get difficult.  You might roll a car while taking a corner at 200 miles an hour.  But the changes made early in season 1 feel like totaling the car backing out of the driveway. And I'm not really interested in the explanation.  When an expert fails, excuses feel hollow.

 

For instance, there just wasn't a strong need to make Abel a philanderer and Natti a drunk.  I understand some like that this change brings more edge to Emond's field.  But it lets us know right out of the gate that someone (the writers or someone above them) wants to make changes because he or she can.  As I said above, maybe it's not fair to pin that on the writers. We don't really know what constraints they were working under.  But someone is responsible for that change.  It wasn't just the path of least resistance. 

 

And it certainly doesn't feel like someone was respecting the fact that the story is complicated and changes are going to have ripple effects.  And that's really the contradiction that I think is really rubbing a lot of book fans the wrong way.  Don't tell me it's difficult because of the complexity and lack of run time while also adding complexity that eats up runtime.  

[DigificWriter]

2 hours ago, Samt said:

In regards to fidelity being entirely subjective, that's a rather silly attempt to deny the failure by trying to break the measuring stick.  Your continued assertion that this is a reasonable position frankly undercuts my ability to take your judgment on any related issue seriously.  Even @Elder_Haman above acknowledged that of course it was possible to make a more faithful adaptation.  

 

I'm not under any obligation to agree with or endorse any other posters' assertions, especially when I fundamentally believe those assertions to be based on a false premise according to my own personal experiences and knowledge.

 

In my opinion, the entire premise of this thread is an example of subjective opinions driving people to ask the wrong questions and pass the wrong kinds of judgments based on ignorance and naivete.

Edited Thursday at 10:27 PM by DigificWriter

[Samt]

8 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

 

I'm not @Elder_Haman and am under no obligation to endorse or agree with an assertion that I fundamentally believe to be a false premise based on my own personal experiences and knowledge.

 

In my opinion, the entire premise of this thread is an example of subjective opinions driving people to ask the wrong questions and pass the wrong kinds of judgments based on ignorance and naivete.

Which is a more faithful adaptation of the WoT book series:  Amazon Wheel of Time or Star Wars Episode VII?