The Show Has Been Cancelled

[Kaleb]

15 minutes ago, Guire said:

The pitch was tone deaf to the current situation.  We went from gay rights to queer empowerment and and almost split US population.  The queer movement has undermined alot of goodwill with people that ignored the issue or mildly supported it.  It's the prioritization that hurts the story.  If you don't think representation and queer culture make everything better then the show is much weaker.   Less couture costuming more engaging writing.  They swung for the fences and missed.

I think it's at least as fair to say that the queer movement was undermined by people who were always steadfastly opposed to it. The division is absolutely real, and the people who wanted to straddle the fence and not worry about it were forced to choose sides when they never really cared that much. But toMAYto, toMAHto, sure.

 

ETA: Reiterating another point, I feel like they did a great job in the show of simply showing a fantasy world without homophobia, the majority of characters are still straight and there's not really much discussion of sexuality either way, just that it exists. That certain people have responded with accusations of it being some kind of queer propaganda really feels like a case of "thou dost protest too much."

Edited May 28 by Kaleb

[Ralph]

16 minutes ago, Guire said:

I saw it in an early interview on YouTube.  Other interviews with Napier and Pike reiterated point.  I think in magazine article he specifically stated he pitched show as feminist corrective to GoT.

 

 

So he said that WoT is a feminist story? Or that he wanted to add more feminism to a story that doesn't have it? 

[Raal Gurniss]

1 hour ago, Sabio said:

It was so those who hadn't read the books would think maybe it could be Nyn or Egwene.  They were hoping to keep some suspense

That is not the reason they did it, there was a whole cultural shift going on...They did it and all the other stuff for that reason, same with many things that Amazon were doing, same as Disney, same as Hollywood and the BBC.

 

They did this sort of stuff because they were told it was what the public not only wanted but desperately needed.

 

It is what it is and it was/is rife.

 

Not saying its right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust....Merely that it went on and WoT heavily embraced it.

[Guire]

26 minutes ago, Ralph said:

 

So he said that WoT is a feminist story? Or that he wanted to add more feminism to a story that doesn't have it? 

He wanted to correct the perceived mysogny and homophobia of game of thrones.  He saw lots of feminist possibilities in WoT he could expand on to make a show appealing to what he sees as popular culture.  I think the progressive presence online was misinterpretation of entire culture.

[Raal Gurniss]

27 minutes ago, Ralph said:

 

So he said that WoT is a feminist story? Or that he wanted to add more feminism to a story that doesn't have it? 

Pretty clear that WoT is fairly(not enormously) feminist originally and that he intended to increase it.

 

Which he did, not saying its good or bad..But its quite clear that is what happened.

 

We have all this hindsight available now and can use that.

[Guire]

42 minutes ago, Kaleb said:

I think it's at least as fair to say that the queer movement was undermined by people who were always steadfastly opposed to it. The division is absolutely real, and the people who wanted to straddle the fence and not worry about it were forced to choose sides when they never really cared that much. But toMAYto, toMAHto, sure.

 

ETA: Reiterating another point, I feel like they did a great job in the show of simply showing a fantasy world without homophobia, the majority of characters are still straight and there's not really much discussion of sexuality either way, just that it exists. That certain people have responded with accusations of it being some kind of queer propaganda really feels like a case of "thou dost protest too much."

Rafe said he was going to turn people's favorite characters gay as punishment for their homophobia.  This show was deep in culture war.  From my perspective it was priority.  Show wanted elaborate costumes, expensive wigs and jewelry, fraught relationships, cosmopolitanism, mean girl dynamics.  This is a very theatre kid cultural thing which is a very gay culture.  Male centric fantasy preferences were abandoned or poorly done.  The show was designed to appeal to the audience Rafazon preferred.  It was not a show designed to appeal to straight guys who like Conan or GoT.  It was a choice.  People have myriad cultures.  Hollywood or Amazon do not get to decide what people like.  Whatever metric Amazon was using to judge the show did not get met.  

 

The queer community has every right to exist.  It does not have to be celebrated.  It's numbers are not large enough to dictate social or political rules.  Welcome to reality.  

[Kaleb]

12 minutes ago, Guire said:

Rafe said he was going to turn people's favorite characters gay as punishment for their homophobia.

Citation needed on that one. I haven't seen it, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

 

GOT was overflowing with fraught relationships though? I haven't read the books, but it seems like that was the flavor of the relationships in them, very bleak, whereas WOT is definitely more teenage crush and mean girl scheming. WOT as books don't appeal to precisely the same audience as GOT, why would the show?

 

I do agree with a point you've made repeatedly, that the stereotypical male gaze was almost entirely eliminated from the show whereas some of Jordan's characters really embody it. I feel like that's what people are mostly complaining about with the Rand-Lan relationship, and I am among the many who would have liked to see at least a handful of strong scenes showing their growing respect for each other in S1.

Edited May 28 by Kaleb

[Sabio]

15 minutes ago, Guire said:

Rafe said he was going to turn people's favorite characters gay as punishment for their homophobia.  This show was deep in culture war.  From my perspective it was priority.  Show wanted elaborate costumes, expensive wigs and jewelry, fraught relationships, cosmopolitanism, mean girl dynamics.  This is a very theatre kid cultural thing which is a very gay culture.  Male centric fantasy preferences were abandoned or poorly done.  The show was designed to appeal to the audience Rafazon preferred.  It was not a show designed to appeal to straight guys who like Conan or GoT.  It was a choice.  People have myriad cultures.  Hollywood or Amazon do not get to decide what people like.  Whatever metric Amazon was using to judge the show did not get met.  

 

The queer community has every right to exist.  It does not have to be celebrated.  It's numbers are not large enough to dictate social or political rules.  Welcome to reality.  

I think a little evidence about Rafe saying this might be needed.

[Guire]

34 minutes ago, Sabio said:

I think a little evidence about Rafe saying this might be needed.

https://x.com/rafejudkins/status/1144966494087987200

[Elder_Haman]

Just now, Guire said:

https://x.com/rafejudkins/status/1144966494087987200

This was clearly a joke. 

[Guire]

Rafe"s various statements and interviews always had a tongue in cheek sort of quality but he was clearly engaged in culture war as many huge fans and cast.  This pit show into eye of storm for backlash.  lesson entertainment people need to learn is don't get embroiled in the drama.  some idiot calling you names is not worth a career and most people on the planet disagree with you.

[Guire]

2 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

This was clearly a joke. 

Irrelevant.  Enough changes from book to show light the fire.

[Elder_Haman]

13 minutes ago, Guire said:

Irrelevant.  Enough changes from book to show light the fire.

It’s not irrelevant. It’s yet another example of politics trumping common sense. 

[divica]

9 minutes ago, Guire said:

Irrelevant.  Enough changes from book to show light the fire.

I think all that changes make the show lose the support of the book comunity and even make the show gain some haters, but I don't think changes are really the problem here.

 

Season 3 had changes from the books and is generally liked. The problem is more that a lot of the changes done in previous seasons make the show bad. a lot of people here read people complaining about not liking the changes from the books and assume people are criticizing the show just because it is diferent instead of being bad.

[divica]

4 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

I think this is a fair criticism. Which is why I said 

 

But the women’s circle aren’t “Mary Sues”. That is a specific term meaning a specific thing. 

 

And this is where you show me that you start with a political view and then filter what you see through it. A show should no more have to prove that it isn’t “woke” any more than it should have to prove that it is. 

 

This doesn’t have anything to do with my point which is that, while you can decode some of the showrunner’s political views from decisions that he made, the show itself was not a vehicle for propagandizing a political viewpoint. 

I meant that nyn and egg are mary sues in season 1. the women's circle was just an example of elevating women whenever it was possible. that makes the audience feel the show is propagandizing for certain political views instead of just telling a story.

 

and you don't get what I said. a show doesn't have to prove anything. the scripts that rafe produced showed that the show wanted to propagandize certain political views in season 1. there is a reason that a lot of people that watched the first season tought the show was too woke and other things. my sugestion was that if rafe didn't want to produce a show that screamed "woke" and "feminist agenda" to the audience he should have focused on diferent things.

 

And I used the word propagandizing several times to make it clear that weather you like or not for A LOT of people season 1 propagandizes certain political view points. but I agree that in the following seasons it happens less and less

[Guire]

14 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

It’s not irrelevant. It’s yet another example of politics trumping common sense. 

It has nothing to do with right or wrong or common sense.  It creates a barrier to potential watchers of show.  Politics exists and have to be managed to insure a desired outcome.  Games and entertainment were filled with attempts at diversity and representation handled in a ham fisted manner in last 10 years.  It has created a backlash.  WoTprime had poor timing and people are not required to agree with anyone or follow a set of arbitrary rules a different group of people set in place.  Like I said earlier if you push aside a large set of your potential audience one needs to make cheaper product.  WoT prime is not art it's entertainment.  Ignoring it or causing others to ignore it is pwoerful.

[Samt]

37 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

This was clearly a joke. 

Yes, it’s a joke, but it reveals the Rafe mindset that rubs a lot of book fans the wrong way.  It sends the message that Rafe sees himself as the arbiter able to whimsically re-write the script rather than a steward with a duty and honor to convey the story of WoT to a new medium with proper respect and understanding of the books.  
 

This breakdown is deeper than homosexuality or the culture wars although that is often where it came through.  It came through when a spike went through Uno’s head and when Mat stabbed Rand, when Rafe wanted to leave Thom dead, and dozens of other places.  Rafe felt that he could just make changes and who was going to stop him.  He had no sense of stewardship for the story.

[KakitaOCU]

8 hours ago, Guire said:

AmaRafe wants to tell an intimate tale highlighting women's inherent superiority to men. 

When you've lived with privilege, equality feels like oppression.

I find it fascinating how many people insist the goal was women superiority when the women were equal to the men.   That's all I'll say on that matter.

[divica]

56 minutes ago, Samt said:

Yes, it’s a joke, but it reveals the Rafe mindset that rubs a lot of book fans the wrong way.  It sends the message that Rafe sees himself as the arbiter able to whimsically re-write the script rather than a steward with a duty and honor to convey the story of WoT to a new medium with proper respect and understanding of the books.  
 

This breakdown is deeper than homosexuality or the culture wars although that is often where it came through.  It came through when a spike went through Uno’s head and when Mat stabbed Rand, when Rafe wanted to leave Thom dead, and dozens of other places.  Rafe felt that he could just make changes and who was going to stop him.  He had no sense of stewardship for the story.

I think this shows more how absurd it was to hire rafe than anything else.

People that try to do good adaptations of these big fantasy works always try to get into contact with the comunity or the authors of these ips. the first thing rafe did was to alienate sanderson and the book comunity. Not even D&D that are huge self centered idiots did this. It is kind of amazing how people can ignore huge red flags like this...

Edited May 29 by divica

[king of nowhere]

10 hours ago, WheelofJuke said:

Older fantasy fans will remember "bad" adaptations of LotR (e.g., Bakshi, Rankin-Bass). 

Or the Chronicles of Narnia for 80s BBC tv. 

Those didn't prevent later better adaptations from occurring. It probably won't be amazon, but I'm certain someone else will take a crack at it....and animation makes more sense than another big budget live-action blockbuster. 

I'm tired of hearing people say, "Because THIS adaptation has failed, there will never be another adaptation." That's a logical fallacy, and even a cursory glance of past fantasy IP history will prove otherwise. 

Might not be soon. But it'll happen. 

how many intellectual properties got adapted, failed, and got new adaptations? how many only got one chance?

sure, some super famous stuff like lotr could get multiple adaptations. but for most, it's one chance.

while it's not completely impossible, to the best of my knowledge, it is statistically unlikely.

3 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

Is that before or after your Toaster attempts to overthrow the government?

have you seen the progress they keep doing with artificial intelligence? give it a few years, i wouldn't put it past the toaster to overthrow the government.

and as far as I am concerned, replacing the government with a toaster can't happen soon enough

 

 

on a more serious note, in the early nineties the best chess programs were no match for a serious human.

then in 1996 there was the first big match between a human world champion and a computer, and the human won.

then in 1997 there was a rematch with an improved version, and the human lost.

in the early 2000 they stopped trying to make those mathces, there was the general understanding that the computer was stronger than any human because it could calculate better, but it had less strategical understanding; a human could still be better than a computer in those kind of slow positions.

then in the next decade the computers surpassed humans even in strategy, but there were a few specific patterns they could not recognize, so the humans still had that.

now the computers are basically god. it doesn't matter how strong you are, if a computer tells you a move is good, even if the move looks nonsensical, you know the computer is right. you know you can't argue with that; ok, you can, but it will inevitably show that the pc is right. Deal with it.

 

I'm telling this, because I'm seeing the same pattern emerge for other aspects of artificial intelligence, and I see the same kind of denial. "the AI will never be able to create art". oh, they just did. "ok, but humans will always be better at it" "ok, but the best humans will always be better" "ok, machines are better, but humans can still do X that machines cannot" oh, wait, machines just learned to do this too..

face it, it will happen, just like it happened with chess. machines have two major advantages over us: the first is, they have much more calculation power. the second, they can share their learning in a way that we humans just cannot. I spent 20 years learning science, training my neural network. one day I will die, and all that training will be gone. I spend my working hours repeating my know-how to my students, and maybe in 20 years they will be able to reach my level of understanding, maybe a bit more.

A computer can teach another computer everything it knows, in minutes. Everything they learn, it stays learned. They don't need to spend a third of their life to try and get the knowledge of the previous generations passed down. And if they stop using a skill, they never fall out of practice; all their knowledge is still stored perfectly.

 

and frankly, this should not be surprising. from inanimate matter, primitive bacteria arose. Primitive bacteria developed into more advanced bacteria. from those, came plants and animals. animals with small lumps of nerve tissue gradually evolved more intelligence. now the smartest of those animals are creating stuff that's even more intelligent that them. it would be very arrogant to assume that we would be the pinnacle of this process.

 

so, reaching the point where you can feed a book to an AI, and it will produce a tv adaptation, and it will do a better job than rafe judkins, or even of denis villeneuve or peter jackson? it will absolutely happen. and it will most likely happen in our lifetimes. remember, it only took 30 years to go from "the AI cannot possibly beat a competent human at chess" to "the AI is so much stronger than even the human world champion, it's pointless to ever argue with it"

[king of nowhere]

47 minutes ago, divica said:

I think this shows more how absurd it was to hire rafe than anything else.

People that try to do good adaptations these big fantasy works always try to get into contact with the comunity or the authors of these ips. the first thing rafe did was to alienate sanderson and the book comunity. Not even D&D that are huge self centered idiots did this. It is kind of amazing how people can ignore huge red flags like this...

I have always defended rafe on most accusation, but i agree on this. if there is one thing he did wrong, it was alienating sanderson and parts of the community

[SinisterDeath]

12 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

face it, it will happen, just like it happened with chess. machines have two major advantages over us: the first is, they have much more calculation power. the second, they can share their learning in a way that we humans just cannot.

And we also spent the last 30 years pushing our products to Chinese manufacturers, which in turn allowed them to create a manufacturing industry that was able to pump out products at a higher quantity at a cheaper rate then almost anywhere else in the world, and a lot of that wasn't just because of cheap labor, but because of the amount of automation that exists at every level of the manufacturing process that just doesn't exist in American Manufacturing today.

Yet, despite all of that, People still crave to buy products that are hand made. Why? Because of the quality and craftsmanship. You might even say. People like to get something that's curated, not something that's automated junk.

 

Hell, even Star Trek talks about this type of thing with their "Replicators" in a post scarcity world.

 

19 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

so, reaching the point where you can feed a book to an AI, and it will produce a tv adaptation, and it will do a better job than rafe judkins, or even of denis villeneuve or peter jackson? it will absolutely happen. and it will most likely happen in our lifetimes. remember, it only took 30 years to go from "the AI cannot possibly beat a competent human at chess" to "the AI is so much stronger than even the human world champion, it's pointless to ever argue with it"

You say that, but who programs the AI? 

Who censors what the AI can believe, or think? Or what type of content it can host or produce? Or replicate and tell people? What thoughts is the AI allowed to have before that AI is removed and replace with a different AI that has thoughts that are more palatable to the masses?

 

Right now, certain "free speech" absolutists are... absolutely against free speech. They are spear heading movements across the country to "ban books". Books that would be "Barred" from even being fed to these "AI" because that is not "Free Thought" for those AI to accept.

 

Right now, Co-Pilot, ChatGPT, Sora, and other commercial generators, have a variety of safeguards in place to prevent things like "nudity". Nudity is "bad" mmmkay. Even implied nudity is bad. It's naughty. 

Violence is even bad. 

Why? Well, we can't have people go and make Deepfakes of real people. That's extremely bad.

We also can't have people making Violent imagery with real people. 

We also can't have people making disturbing art. That's bad.

Also, furry stuff is bad. So all that NSFW stuff on that one website is just, absolutely can't exist in those AI spaces.

 

Want to make a Movie like Event Horizon? 

Can't do it. Body Horror, and pretty much every horror Genre is out of the question. 

 

So how the hell, can you do any type of "Wheel of Time" movie.

When you can't do.

Body Horror

Nudity.

or

Violence?

All these things are supposed to be "off limits" for AI Generators.. Right? 

Or are they just "off limits" for certain people? If you catch my drift. 😉 

Only those who pay the big bucks can make art for a movie, and have access to do that kind of stuff. 

Images and art, that for it to even work it also needs to be... trained on to make said art.

 

Want it to make a Trolloc? Well... You have to show it what a human-animal hybrid looks like. You gotta show it a bunch of realistic horror furry art. lolz

[Guire]

2 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

And we also spent the last 30 years pushing our products to Chinese manufacturers, which in turn allowed them to create a manufacturing industry that was able to pump out products at a higher quantity at a cheaper rate then almost anywhere else in the world, and a lot of that wasn't just because of cheap labor, but because of the amount of automation that exists at every level of the manufacturing process that just doesn't exist in American Manufacturing today.

Yet, despite all of that, People still crave to buy products that are hand made. Why? Because of the quality and craftsmanship. You might even say. People like to get something that's curated, not something that's automated junk.

 

Hell, even Star Trek talks about this type of thing with their "Replicators" in a post scarcity world.

 

You say that, but who programs the AI? 

Who censors what the AI can believe, or think? Or what type of content it can host or produce? Or replicate and tell people? What thoughts is the AI allowed to have before that AI is removed and replace with a different AI that has thoughts that are more palatable to the masses?

 

Right now, certain "free speech" absolutists are... absolutely against free speech. They are spear heading movements across the country to "ban books". Books that would be "Barred" from even being fed to these "AI" because that is not "Free Thought" for those AI to accept.

 

Right now, Co-Pilot, ChatGPT, Sora, and other commercial generators, have a variety of safeguards in place to prevent things like "nudity". Nudity is "bad" mmmkay. Even implied nudity is bad. It's naughty. 

Violence is even bad. 

Why? Well, we can't have people go and make Deepfakes of real people. That's extremely bad.

We also can't have people making Violent imagery with real people. 

We also can't have people making disturbing art. That's bad.

Also, furry stuff is bad. So all that NSFW stuff on that one website is just, absolutely can't exist in those AI spaces.

 

Want to make a Movie like Event Horizon? 

Can't do it. Body Horror, and pretty much every horror Genre is out of the question. 

 

So how the hell, can you do any type of "Wheel of Time" movie.

When you can't do.

Body Horror

Nudity.

or

Violence?

All these things are supposed to be "off limits" for AI Generators.. Right? 

Or are they just "off limits" for certain people? If you catch my drift. 😉 

Only those who pay the big bucks can make art for a movie, and have access to do that kind of stuff. 

Images and art, that for it to even work it also needs to be... trained on to make said art.

 

Want it to make a Trolloc? Well... You have to show it what a human-animal hybrid looks like. You gotta show it a bunch of realistic horror furry art. lolz

Sylvester Stallone is opening an AI movie studio.  All rules will be suggestions and AI will belong to studios and wealthy investors.  However computer stuff is hard to completely lock down.  I have no hope of any future WoT content beyond what we have.  I think the fan base for future content of this type of IP is shrinking.  If a wealthy benefactor wants to make a vanity project we might get an amazing WoT AI show.  Otherwise I think we have what we have.

[KakitaOCU]

50 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Right now, Co-Pilot, ChatGPT, Sora, and other commercial generators, have a variety of safeguards in place to prevent things like "nudity". Nudity is "bad" mmmkay. Even implied nudity is bad.

To further add, it locks out certain words based on who knows what.

I do make use of Bing's Art Generator (Dall E 3) and the weirdest things cause hiccups.  The other day I spent half an hour rewriting a prompt again and again with it going "This is inappropriate and cannot be generated."   Want to know what the evil naughty thing was that prevented the AI for working?  I asked for the art to have braided hair.  Literally that was it.  I took out the word Braided and it all suddenly worked fine.

And you think that level of inane censorship is going to let an AI do WoT?  I'm not even talking about if the AI can evolve to be good or not.

[SinisterDeath]

9 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

To further add, it locks out certain words based on who knows what.

I do make use of Bing's Art Generator (Dall E 3) and the weirdest things cause hiccups.  The other day I spent half an hour rewriting a prompt again and again with it going "This is inappropriate and cannot be generated."   Want to know what the evil naughty thing was that prevented the AI for working?  I asked for the art to have braided hair.  Literally that was it.  I took out the word Braided and it all suddenly worked fine.

And you think that level of inane censorship is going to let an AI do WoT?  I'm not even talking about if the AI can evolve to be good or not.

Good luck trying to get AI to make someone like Gaidal Cain. Can't use words like "ugly". It also doesn't care for words like "fat".

If anything, AI is trained on Super Models, and Marvel Characters.

Want a character with a mom pouch? Good luck. Lol