Just a thought for viewers who read the books first

[Elder_Haman]

17 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

@Elder_Haman in this case @Samt is 100% correct here.

Rafe Judkins is the Showrunner, and he wrote the script for Episodes 1 & 8.
As the showrunner, he is by and large the primary writer for the show.
What that entails, is writing the story boards & plot for the entire season.

One way to look at this is... He's the guy who puts together a rough plot. An Outline. Like a very rough draft of a comic book. 

He presents a rough draft of events, the major story beats for the other other writers (Like a project manager) to fill in the blanks... this is done in the Writers Room... which from the sound of it.. this show actually had. (And it's why they shot down the idea, and why I joke that Rafe probably had to restrain Sara from shanking one writers (or the other way around?) when someone suggested making Perrin a bear brother...)

I understand this. But at the end of the day, the nitty gritty of the individual episodes are mostly written by other people. Are they under Rafe's direction? Sure. But it is an entirely collaborative effort. Which makes things messy. 

 

It also makes it impossible to single him out for criticism. Overall, the writing for S1 was poor (in my opinion). That does not mean Rafe is a poor writer. It means that he needs to either hire better writers with whom to collaborate and/or exercise a greater degree of control over the final product. (I also am inclined to excuse everyone for the mess that was E8 on the grounds that the degree of difficulty involved in rewriting the climactic episode while cutting a major character and filming in a way that no one would be closer than 6' apart was just too high.)

 

I guess I just get irked at the people piling on Rafe as if he is somehow the sole arbiter of what is seen on screen.

 

[DojoToad]

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

I understand this. But at the end of the day, the nitty gritty of the individual episodes are mostly written by other people. Are they under Rafe's direction? Sure. But it is an entirely collaborative effort. Which makes things messy. 

 

It also makes it impossible to single him out for criticism. Overall, the writing for S1 was poor (in my opinion). That does not mean Rafe is a poor writer. It means that he needs to either hire better writers with whom to collaborate and/or exercise a greater degree of control over the final product. (I also am inclined to excuse everyone for the mess that was E8 on the grounds that the degree of difficulty involved in rewriting the climactic episode while cutting a major character and filming in a way that no one would be closer than 6' apart was just too high.)

 

I guess I just get irked at the people piling on Rafe as if he is somehow the sole arbiter of what is seen on screen.

 

The buck stops with Rafe.  If he couldn't manage the Writers Room for a successful collaborative effort, that is on him.  Hopefully he grew as a manager and S2 benefits greatly!

 

As stand-alone scenes, I thought Nynaeve's test in the tower was great.  Rand and Selene not so much.  But hard to judge from snippets.

[Scarloc99]

13 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

The buck stops with Rafe.  If he couldn't manage the Writers Room for a successful collaborative effort, that is on him.  Hopefully he grew as a manager and S2 benefits greatly!

 

As stand-alone scenes, I thought Nynaeve's test in the tower was great.  Rand and Selene not so much.  But hard to judge from snippets.

The issue with Rand and Selene is that from the looks of it she won’t be playing different men off against each other to make Rand jealous. So a lot of that look but don’t touch element is gone. Also remember in the books she didn’t want Rand, she wanted LTT and so flirted but didn’t make her move because she saw it was Rand still in control early on. Her goal was to push Rand to make LTT come to the fore. 

[Pukel-man]

coming in late, i haven't visited in some time.

 

For me, having read the book or not isn't the biggest issue. I'm less bothered about changes from the books, than I am about plain poor writing overall. Heck, TV Lan is my favorite character in the show, and he's one of the most different from the book. But the show is internally inconsistent, the story doesn't tie together well, it doesn't show compelling progress through episodes to keep the viewer engaged. IMO. And some of the writing errors just defy any suspense of disbelief. Much of what happens in the show doesn't follow logically from anything in the story, things just happen, seemingly at random. The acting is really inconsistent, the directing is too. Maybe those are weak because the writing is poor.

 

For comparison, I love the Shadow and Bone show, although that's hugely different from the books. The acting is solid, the story maintains a solid course of development and keeps viewers engaged.

 

I just feel like the Rafe of Time team forgot that a compelling series is about only one thing - the story.

[Jake Sykwalker]

On 9/16/2023 at 5:19 PM, Pukel-man said:

coming in late, i haven't visited in some time.

 

For me, having read the book or not isn't the biggest issue. I'm less bothered about changes from the books, than I am about plain poor writing overall. Heck, TV Lan is my favorite character in the show, and he's one of the most different from the book. But the show is internally inconsistent, the story doesn't tie together well, it doesn't show compelling progress through episodes to keep the viewer engaged. IMO. And some of the writing errors just defy any suspense of disbelief. Much of what happens in the show doesn't follow logically from anything in the story, things just happen, seemingly at random. The acting is really inconsistent, the directing is too. Maybe those are weak because the writing is poor.

 

For comparison, I love the Shadow and Bone show, although that's hugely different from the books. The acting is solid, the story maintains a solid course of development and keeps viewers engaged.

 

I just feel like the Rafe of Time team forgot that a compelling series is about only one thing - the story.

You nailed it spot on.  Many of the changes from the book could have been ok if they told a compelling story.  IMHO they did not.  Unfortunately it is a common problem in too many Movies and TV shows lately.  Its like modern writers have never watched the Godfather, or even something as straight forward as The Village from M. Night Shyamalan.  

 

Not trying to take away from other people's enjoyment of the series, but I find its plan and direction very poorly thought out.  Like they just grab random quotes and try to fashion a story from it without understanding what actually made the story great.  If you enjoyed it that is great.  

 

Lets look at One Piece.  They did a fairly decent job of staying close to the source material, but did cut and change things to fit into a TV show.  However they kept the spirit of the show and characters alive.  Luffy and Zoro (Nami looked almost exactly like I'd think) may look a bit different than their book and cartoon counterparts, but acted fairly close.  Well, at least from my read the manga a while ago memory.  

 

The reason they had success?  1) The author was involved.  2) The show producers got destroyed on their previous effort of adapting Cowboy Bebop and decided to take the feedback and course correct for their next show.  

 

 

[Scarloc99]

2 hours ago, Jake Sykwalker said:

You nailed it spot on.  Many of the changes from the book could have been ok if they told a compelling story.  IMHO they did not.  Unfortunately it is a common problem in too many Movies and TV shows lately.  Its like modern writers have never watched the Godfather, or even something as straight forward as The Village from M. Night Shyamalan.  

 

Not trying to take away from other people's enjoyment of the series, but I find its plan and direction very poorly thought out.  Like they just grab random quotes and try to fashion a story from it without understanding what actually made the story great.  If you enjoyed it that is great.  

 

Lets look at One Piece.  They did a fairly decent job of staying close to the source material, but did cut and change things to fit into a TV show.  However they kept the spirit of the show and characters alive.  Luffy and Zoro (Nami looked almost exactly like I'd think) may look a bit different than their book and cartoon counterparts, but acted fairly close.  Well, at least from my read the manga a while ago memory.  

 

The reason they had success?  1) The author was involved.  2) The show producers got destroyed on their previous effort of adapting Cowboy Bebop and decided to take the feedback and course correct for their next show.  

 

 

wait what, the village is an awful movie, I mean it is pretty much universally panned by people. 

And a TV show like WOT is never going to be like the godfather, for one thing the Godfather tells a fairly simple story. 

The biggest issue with transposing a fantasy IP as opposed to a sci fi IP is how much you have to explain to the viewer. Sci Fi is generally based in some level on things that a viewer can understand or does not need to be explained to them, in starwars we don't need to have lasers, or shields, or hyperspace or how a spaceship works or even how there is gravity explained. The only thing the viewer has to understand the rules of is the "magic" the force. 

In a fantasy IP the viewer needs to have the whole world broken down and described to them, there is so much more lore that needs to be parcelled up and told.

And then A film like the Godfather doesn't need to bother about any real lore, the viewer understands the world so they just have to be told about how the mafia world is different while not having to have the normal world spelled out to them. 

One piece also shows that it is far far easier to adapt managa or comic books to live action then any other written medium. By definition they are already storyboarded out, and the story has been cut down to it's simplest format and chunked up to bite size pieces so the reader can understand the world visually as well as through what is written down. The writers for one piece did do a fantastic job I loved it, but I also realise that it is far far easier to translate the product across. 

[SinisterDeath]

20 minutes ago, Scarloc99 said:

One piece also shows that it is far far easier to adapt managa or comic books to live action then any other written medium. By definition they are already storyboarded out, and the story has been cut down to it's simplest format and chunked up to bite size pieces so the reader can understand the world visually as well as through what is written down. The writers for one piece did do a fantastic job I loved it, but I also realise that it is far far easier to translate the product across

The thing I took away from One Piece, is it shows studios you can adapt an insanely weird IP relatively accurately (relatively), and audiences will still love it. 

 

 

[Chivalry]

On 8/13/2023 at 4:07 PM, Guire said:

An example is Stepin and Karenne arc.  I loved those 2 characters because they embodied lots of the things I loved about book characters.  At same time I was pissed because their arc felt overdone and took time away from character development of main characters. 

This was one of the best written segments of Season 1. It reminds me of a dilemma experienced when composing something one considers wonderful but nevertheless feels completely out of place or extraneous. Maybe the writers fell in love with that subplot, however indulgent it turned out to be, and couldn't bring themselves to delete.

 

On a side note, as a book reader, I can certainly think of at least one Shienaran character more deserving than Stepin of that kind of loving attention.

[Mirefox]

On 8/25/2023 at 11:12 AM, Elder_Haman said:

I understand this. But at the end of the day, the nitty gritty of the individual episodes are mostly written by other people. Are they under Rafe's direction? Sure. But it is an entirely collaborative effort. Which makes things messy. 

 

It also makes it impossible to single him out for criticism. Overall, the writing for S1 was poor (in my opinion). That does not mean Rafe is a poor writer. It means that he needs to either hire better writers with whom to collaborate and/or exercise a greater degree of control over the final product. (I also am inclined to excuse everyone for the mess that was E8 on the grounds that the degree of difficulty involved in rewriting the climactic episode while cutting a major character and filming in a way that no one would be closer than 6' apart was just too high.)

 

I guess I just get irked at the people piling on Rafe as if he is somehow the sole arbiter of what is seen on screen.

 

Rafe Judkins is on record saying that this is his vision of WoT.  He is on record saying that he is using WoT as a vehicle for preaching his worldviews.  He is on record for threading to arbitrarily make characters gay out of spite.

 

The writing in this entire series is amateurish but to suggest that the showrunner is above reproach because it is a collaborative effort is flat out wrong.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

5 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

Rafe Judkins is on record saying that this is his vision of WoT.  He is on record saying that he is using WoT as a vehicle for preaching his worldviews.  He is on record for threading to arbitrarily make characters gay out of spite.

 

The writing in this entire series is amateurish but to suggest that the showrunner is above reproach because it is a collaborative effort is flat out wrong.

Not beyond reproach does not equate to deserving of personal attacks. I find it worrisome as to how much criticism is directed at the showrunner personally and his supposed worldview, instead of discussing the show itself. It does this community no favours, and makes me hesitant about feeling as if I belong here. Whatever your views are, respect for your fellow human beings should not only apply if they agree with you. 

[Mirefox]

29 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Not beyond reproach does not equate to deserving of personal attacks. I find it worrisome as to how much criticism is directed at the showrunner personally and his supposed worldview, instead of discussing the show itself. It does this community no favours, and makes me hesitant about feeling as if I belong here. Whatever your views are, respect for your fellow human beings should not only apply if they agree with you. 

I agree that personal attacks are not warranted but criticizing someone’s job performance or someone’s handling of a task is not the same as a personal attack.  Likewise, criticizing someone for using an existing IP as a vehicle for preaching their worldview is not a personal attack nor is it an attack on that worldview.  Rafe isn’t the victim here and he brought much of the vitriol on himself by mishandling a very popular IP and making deliberate changes to support his personal philosophies in lieu of the original author’s.  He’s been completely forthright and outspoken about it, too, so much of the pushback is warranted.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Mirefox

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

5 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

I agree that personal attacks are not warranted but criticizing someone’s job performance or someone’s handling of a task is not the same as a personal attack.  Likewise, criticizing someone for using an existing IP as a vehicle for preaching their worldview is not a personal attack nor is it an attack on that worldview.  Rafe isn’t the victim here and he brought much of the vitriol on himself by mishandling a very popular IP and making deliberate changes to support his personal philosophies in lieu of the original author’s.  He’s been completely forthright and outspoken about it, too, so much of the pushback is warranted.

From what I have seen, there has been precious little respect from some segments of the community, none of which could called warranted.  And the show should be judged on its final form, not on the politics of the showrunner. And given that the original author's philosophies seem to revolve around boobs and spankings, and the books are great anyway, I think there is room in the show for other philosophies too.

 

But anyway, I digress, and sorry for derailing the discussion. 

[Mirefox]

1 minute ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

From what I have seen, there has been precious little respect from some segments of the community, none of which could called warranted.  And the show should be judged on its final form, not on the politics of the showrunner. And given that the original author's philosophies seem to revolve around boobs and spankings, and the books are great anyway, I think there is room in the show for other philosophies too.

 

But anyway, I digress, and sorry for derailing the discussion. 

A show should 100% be judged on the politics of the showrunner if the showrunner is intent on injecting said politics into an established story.  On top of that, many of the changes that have been made are directly tied to Rafe’s worldviews so and criticism of any changes is going to come back to that at some point.

 

Imagine someone wanting to adapt The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but make it more of a homosexual allegory because of their worldview; imagine someone adapting The Golden Compass but making it have a stronger Christian message because of their worldview.  Either of these would be beyond contempt.  Yet here we have a guy saying he wants to adapt Wheel of Time but inject his own worldview and people want to shield him and his politics from criticism.

 

All of this goes far, far beyond the simple logistics of adapting mediums; I will never argue that changes have to be made to turn a behemoth like this into a show.  I’d love if all I was nitpicking was which scenes were cut or arranged differently, but the injection of the showrunner’s personal worldview has given rise to countless discussions that should never have had occurred regarding this show.

[SinisterDeath]

11 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

A show should 100% be judged on the politics of the showrunner if the showrunner is intent on injecting said politics into an established story.  On top of that, many of the changes that have been made are directly tied to Rafe’s worldviews so and criticism of any changes is going to come back to that at some point.

Imagine someone wanting to adapt The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but make it more of a homosexual allegory because of their worldview; imagine someone adapting The Golden Compass but making it have a stronger Christian message because of their worldview.  Either of these would be beyond contempt.  Yet here we have a guy saying he wants to adapt Wheel of Time but inject his own worldview and people want to shield him and his politics from criticism.

It's a book series involving gender dynamics, where the women have "led the world" for a thousand years after "men" have destroyed it, and the guy (Rafe) wants to lean into that.

You're literally comparing apples to oranges.

 

A more apt comparison is making the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Christian Allegories by having it produced & directed by "Pure Flix Entertainment" with Aslan played by Kevin Sorbo, and Mr. Tumnus played by Donald James Parker.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

27 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

A show should 100% be judged on the politics of the showrunner if the showrunner is intent on injecting said politics into an established story.  On top of that, many of the changes that have been made are directly tied to Rafe’s worldviews so and criticism of any changes is going to come back to that at some point.

 

Imagine someone wanting to adapt The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but make it more of a homosexual allegory because of their worldview; imagine someone adapting The Golden Compass but making it have a stronger Christian message because of their worldview.  Either of these would be beyond contempt.  Yet here we have a guy saying he wants to adapt Wheel of Time but inject his own worldview and people want to shield him and his politics from criticism.

 

All of this goes far, far beyond the simple logistics of adapting mediums; I will never argue that changes have to be made to turn a behemoth like this into a show.  I’d love if all I was nitpicking was which scenes were cut or arranged differently, but the injection of the showrunner’s personal worldview has given rise to countless discussions that should never have had occurred regarding this show.

Absolutely false. A show with "injected politics" should be judged on the final product, not what you think about the politics. Trying to create something should mean that you are exposed to the vitriol that is being thrown about. Having political views, or a worldview is something that we all have, and this is not a bad thing, nor should we be attacked for it.

 

If one character is favoured over another, you don't need to analyze the reason why, you should be looking at how it works. Discussing the show should only touch on politics as they are shown in the show, not on what is going on around it. And with the source there are some issues with it, like the obsession with breasts and corporal punishment, the sapphic love nest that is the White Tower's novice quarters, and probably way more than I have even noticed, so wanting to change some of the book is not sacrilege, it is a choice. And we should be discussing what we think of the choices made, not attacking the reasons that we assume they are being made for or attacking the person that has made them. 

[Mirefox]

13 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

It's a book series involving gender dynamics, where the women have "led the world" for a thousand years after "men" have destroyed it, and the guy (Rafe) wants to lean into that.

You're literally comparing apples to oranges.

 

A more apt comparison is making the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Christian Allegories by having it produced & directed by "Pure Flix Entertainment" with Aslan played by Kevin Sorbo, and Mr. Tumnus played by Donald James Parker.

Of all the posters in these forums you are by far the most pedantic and have at times posted dictionary definitions of a word to argue over but then you act blind to the philosophical gulf between traditional feminism that embraced equality versus the modern feminist worldview that has been inserted into the show that demeans and limits the men as often as possible while elevating the capabilities of women as much as possible while simultaneously removing the idea of gender roles where possible.  I applaud Jordan’s feminist ideals and the show would have been stronger had it embraced them.  The show actively attacks men and traditional masculinity and that is 100% on Rafe, not Robert Jordan.  If anyone want to cheer that, fine, but that does not change that:

 

a) Themes and tones of the story and characters were changed from the book in a fundamental philosophical way that goes beyond adapting a  ok plot to fit into a visual medium, and,

 

b) these changes were intentional and based on the showrunner’s personal worldview, as explicitly stated by him.

 

I can understand the people that embrace the changed because they like it or who can look past the changes because they don’t care.  What I cannot understand are the people who are familiar with the books who continually argue that the books and the show are the same in theme, tone, and philosophy.

[Kaleb]

17 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

It's a book series involving gender dynamics, where the women have "led the world" for a thousand years after "men" have destroyed it, and the guy (Rafe) wants to lean into that.

In addition to the dynamics of the One Power, Jordan filled the pages of his series with detailed descriptions and comparisons of a pretty impressively diverse collection of cultural attitudes towards sex and gender roles. He presents an emphatically UNtraditional world through the POV of main characters who do have something similar to the US-based traditional view. From my perspective, as someone who grew up in a fundamentalist family and no longer shares those values, the show's scenes that highlight things like polyamorous relationships, homosexuality, and relatively casual premarital sex, can only be considered shocking or "political" in that they show the people who do NOT think those things are ok as the odd ones out. And that is straight from the books! It's just masked very well on the page because we are reading the embarrassed traditional POVs and have sympathy for them, rather than seeing them from other perspectives that consider their shame about sexual behavior funny or ridiculous.

[Mirefox]

1 minute ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Absolutely false. A show with "injected politics" should be judged on the final product, not what you think about the politics. Trying to create something should mean that you are exposed to the vitriol that is being thrown about. Having political views, or a worldview is something that we all have, and this is not a bad thing, nor should we be attacked for it.

 

If one character is favoured over another, you don't need to analyze the reason why, you should be looking at how it works. Discussing the show should only touch on politics as they are shown in the show, not on what is going on around it. And with the source there are some issues with it, like the obsession with breasts and corporal punishment, the sapphic love nest that is the White Tower's novice quarters, and probably way more than I have even noticed, so wanting to change some of the book is not sacrilege, it is a choice. And we should be discussing what we think of the choices made, not attacking the reasons that we assume they are being made for or attacking the person that has made them. 

You continually skip over the fact that I continually reference an “established story” or an “established IP.”  I don’t care what politics or worldview a show has if it is a creation of the showrunner.  I watch Yellowstone with my wife, for example, and try at show’s politics and worldviews are all over the place, so much so that there are essentially characatures of most modern political positions.  I don’t care in the least (except that some of the writing in the show is laughable).

 

Wheel of Time is a decades-old, well-established story with with a very strong and very consistent worldview and in-story philosophy.  Changes made to the underlying philosophies because of the showrunner’s politics are absolutely worth discussing and critiquing.

[SinisterDeath]

30 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

Of all the posters in these forums you are by far the most pedantic and have at times posted dictionary definitions of a word to argue over but then you act blind to the philosophical gulf between traditional feminism that embraced equality versus the modern feminist worldview that has been inserted into the show that demeans and limits the men as often as possible while elevating the capabilities of women as much as possible while simultaneously removing the idea of gender roles where possible.  I applaud Jordan’s feminist ideals and the show would have been stronger had it embraced them.  The show actively attacks men and traditional masculinity and that is 100% on Rafe, not Robert Jordan.  If anyone want to cheer that, fine, but that does not change that:

Sounds to me like you're the one pushing an agenda here, not Rafe.

 

 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

40 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

You continually skip over the fact that I continually reference an “established story” or an “established IP.”  I don’t care what politics or worldview a show has if it is a creation of the showrunner.  I watch Yellowstone with my wife, for example, and try at show’s politics and worldviews are all over the place, so much so that there are essentially characatures of most modern political positions.  I don’t care in the least (except that some of the writing in the show is laughable).

 

Wheel of Time is a decades-old, well-established story with with a very strong and very consistent worldview and in-story philosophy.  Changes made to the underlying philosophies because of the showrunner’s politics are absolutely worth discussing and critiquing.

But that is not what is happening, people are peddling hate. It is sad to see. I love these books, the characters have been my friends since before I was an adult. I personally find it tragic that WoT is used as vehicle to attack people based on their world views. None of your points in any way contradict my assertion that we should be able to discuss the books and the show with respect for each other and respect for the author and the showrunners, even when we disagree with them. 

 

This is not what I am seeing, not even on these forums, let alone something like Twitter (damn you WoT, I have never used Twitter until now, only lurking but still, everyone knows where that leads to). I am seeing hostility and hate towards sections of our community, and it deeply saddens me. Obviously, I am not making any inroads into your opinion so I'll stop, feel free to message me should you wish to discuss it further - doing so on these forums seems unhelpful. 

 

Edit: and I missed your rant against feminism. Which highlights exactly what I am saying. Your criticism has nothing to do with the show, it is all about your views on feminism that your own words show do not understand and you have demonized it. Through extension, the show is demonic, any changes are demonic, anyone who likes it are demon worshippers. There is no discussion, everything is black and white and of course people are hurling abuse and insults at such demonic people. But they are just people who think differently, and are people that you will not be respectful towards. But please feel free to message me if you want to discuss it further. 

Edited September 19, 2023 by HeavyHalfMoonBlade

[Elder_Haman]

2 hours ago, Mirefox said:

Rafe Judkins is on record saying that this is his vision of WoT.  He is on record saying that he is using WoT as a vehicle for preaching his worldviews.  He is on record for threading to arbitrarily make characters gay out of spite.

 

The writing in this entire series is amateurish but to suggest that the showrunner is above reproach because it is a collaborative effort is flat out wrong.

Did I say beyond reproach? I don’t think I did. And I’m getting really annoyed with all of the ad hominem such as “amateurish”. 
 

The writing was weak in S1. It has improved considerably in S2. If you think you can do better, let’s see your script. 

[notpropaganda73]

So an "established IP" has to be adapted with no changes to it's story because it's established? Works can't be changed or updated, seen through a new light to bring it to a different audience, or make the current audience re-examine the material in a different way? Somebody please tell the 1000s of productions of Hamlet with a female lead. 

 

[Mirefox]

59 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Did I say beyond reproach? I don’t think I did. And I’m getting really annoyed with all of the ad hominem such as “amateurish”. 
 

The writing was weak in S1. It has improved considerably in S2. If you think you can do better, let’s see your script. 

Ah yes, the old "you can't critique unless you've done it better argument."  I presume that's how you work with everything, right?  You can't critique a restaurant unless you've made the food yourself?  You can't critique a politician unless you've written legislation yourself?

 

Most of us are able to critique because our life experiences have given us a spectrum of any given medium from good to bad and we are able to compare that which we are critiquing against examples of how something is done either good or bad within that medium.

 

I can pick out dozens of logical inconsistencies in any given episode of this show; I can quote lines that show that the writers do not understand their own story.  Yet if I haven't written a script I can't say that they aren't very good at what they are doing?  Does the corollary work as well?  If I find a show exceptional am I not allowed to praise it since I have not had the experience of writing a show myself?

[Mirefox]

8 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

So an "established IP" has to be adapted with no changes to it's story because it's established? Works can't be changed or updated, seen through a new light to bring it to a different audience, or make the current audience re-examine the material in a different way? Somebody please tell the 1000s of productions of Hamlet with a female lead. 

 

I will go ahead and grant you that Shakespeare is, in general, a good counter argument.  That said, there is a difference in that you are talking about a couple-hundred year old play that has been adapted so many times that any initial changes are wearing off.  WoT is much more modern and this is the first official adaptation we've seen, which is changing things right off the bat.

 

Further, I'm fine with superficial changes as long as they make sense.  Hamlet with a female lead is fine if they stick to the same story and themes.  Heck, Hamlet with a lion lead is fine if they stick with the same story and themes.

 

You've got me a little outside my area of knowledge with Shakespeare, though, so I can't say too much about it.  For the record, though, I was fine with the overly-stylized Leonardo DiCaprio version and think (to my recollection at least) that is was an acceptable adaptation, being that it made plenty of changes but stuck with the overall characterization and plot.

[Mirefox]

1 hour ago, SinisterDeath said:

Sounds to me like you're the one pushing an agenda here, not Rafe.

 

 

A very expected and fallacious response.

 

Showrunner is on record saying that he is going to use Wheel of Time to present his wroldview.

 

I call out the showrunner for making changes.

 

You call me out as the one with the agenda.

 

The logic is astounding.