WOT Movie: What can be cut?

[GoatFace]

I agree that the WOT movie can't be done in 1 film without significant cuts.

 

I would like to present an analysis of The Eye of the World dialogue that was prompted by 2 things.

 

1.  Red Eagle's announcement of a deal with Universal Pictures for The Eye of The World.

2.  Endless posts saying that Jordan's books are only page after page of descriptions.

 

The analysis of TEOTW was undertaken with a study of the text and then a study of the spoken word.

 

Conclusion:  ~98,000 words of dialogue taking 10 hours to deliver lines.

 

For reference, the total word count of TEOTW is ~298,000.  Therefore, approximately one-third of TEOTW is dialogue.  Maybe as a follow up I'll post the word count of description only minus all the he said, she said, she sniffed, etc. stuff.  Probably won't make more than a 50k dent or so.

 

ANALYSIS

 

Text Transcript:

Here's what I did.  I took an e-book (Dragonmount prologue and 53 chapters, no Ravens) dumped it into a text file and went through line by line wherever I could find a set of " ".  I'd put the characters name followed by a dash and then deleted all descriptive text.  The end result is just a series of character lines.  I then split it into a spreadsheet to run a quick study on number of words per character(WORDS*) and number of times somebody speaks without interruption(LINES*).

 

Example

Chapter 1

Tam- "Are you all right, lad?"

Rand- "A rider,  A stranger, following us. "

Tam-  "Where?"

Rand- "There, down the ...He was there. A man in a black cloak, on a black horse."

 

According to the word count there are ~98,000 give or take 1,000 words of dialogue in TEOTW. [Due to typos and the tedious nature of the work I can't vouch for 100% accuracy.  Character names and dashes were deleted before word count.]

 

Spoken Word:

The next step was to figure out how much screen time it would take to speak all of this dialogue.  Now there are plenty of guestimate systems but I decided to use an actual reading of the book for timing.  Using a Record What You Hear function I converted all of the Chapters into MP3 format and then proceeded to weed out all the descriptive text of the reading to match the transcript I had.

 

The result is that the dialog of TEOTW takes ~10 hours to read out loud. [same as above, I'm sure some lines were accidently clipped and some unnatural pauses, although I did try to trim most of the long pauses.]

 

Which leads to the conclusion that there will have to be massive cuts to character lines and story to squeeze everything into 1 movie.

 

So what can be cut, trimmed down, changed, etc.?  You can't have everybody talking non-stop through the whole movie.  There has to be either another way to tell the back story history of Randland and Randland characters(Montage Flashbacks%) or the story will have to be altered and/or simplified.  Or is all of the back story stuff enough just for the actors to get a feel for the characters and unneccesary for a new audience?  I'm intereseted in what the community would tag as essential so it can still maintain its core?  For example, do they have to represent the dialogue from Rand and Mat's every encounter with all the Joe Farmers on their way to Camelyn?  But even blitzing minor characters there still has to be a reduction in major character interactions and/or plot points.

 

%- One idea for at least the opening title credits after the Dragonmount prologue instead of a CG maze:

 

Voice over from The Breaking of the World, quick images showing key timeline points and Ishy's involvement:

Breaking of the world, male Aes Sedai in stedding, building the Ways, building of Tar Valon, Trolloc wars, Manetheran(Banners fallen army betrayal), Shadar Logoth, rise of Artur Hawkwing, founding of Whitecloaks, Aiel gift, fall of Malkier, Laman's Pride, Aiel battle, Rand's snow birth on Dragonmount, Title: Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, The Eye of the World.  Show WOT symbol zoom in on wheel, fade to al'Thor's cart wheel, zoom out to Rand, Tam, Bela, wind blowing his cloak.

 

Sample Reference Data:

[table][tr][td]CHARACTER LINES* WORDS*

Rand al'Thor 676 10,479

Moiraine Sedai 386 18,112

Mat Cauthon 351 6,359

Perrin Aybarra 220 3,951

Lan al'Mandagoran214 5,705

Egwene al'Vere 205 3,626

Nynaeve al'Meara138 3,423

Thom Merrilin 134 4,974

Loial 95 4,736

Elyas Machera 84 3,990

Tam al'Thor 72 2,968

Lord Agelmar 53 2,900

Gill 52 2,470

Bran al'Vere 43 1,688

Ba'alzamon 33 1,666

Elayne 33 954

Bayle Domon 27 1,433

Gawyn 24 658

Raen 22 1,210

Min 20 837

Cenn Buie 19 599

Ewin Finngar 19 452

Alman Bunt 18 1,193

Padan Fain 18 1,019

Queen Morgase 18 842

Cpt. G. Bornhald17 936

Bartim 15 962[/table]

>>>Rest of characters omitted to save space all less than 900 words.<<

 

Spoken Word Breakdown by Chapter:

Chapter Minutes Seconds

[table][tr][td]Pro/1 17 39

2 8 55

3 13 12

4 19 33

5 5 29

6/7 13 16

8 18 35

9 16 49

10 8 4

11 2 25

12 9 30

13 15 30

14 12 36

15 21 48

16 12 18

17 13 0

18 7 25

19 17 20

20 9 7

21 14 36

22 3 30

23 14 1

24 7 21

25 14 57

26 21 33

27 6 7

28 3 55

29 10 0

30 12 58

31 3 38

32 8 10

33 13 28

34 9 58

35 11 33

36 18 55

37 2 32

38 9 2

39 2 50

40 20 35

41 15 34

42 16 16

43 16 25

44 5 7

45 11 23

46 20 11

47 22 41

48 6 52

49 4 57

50 7 1

51 5 21

52 9 34

53 7 4[/table]

 

 

 

[Blightmaster]

im gonna go with no movie they couldnt do the scope of what wheel of times fans want i just say make it into a show 1st season is eotw, leave nothing out not 1 bloody footstep, could include great hunt too in season one if the dialogue doesnt count for enough episodes, do this for whole series. season 2 the dragon reborn, season 3 shadow rising, and prob season 4 too, long book. 20 episodes a season should do for most of the books and that way they would have to come up with the 50 trillion dollars it would take to do graphics and costume all in one movie they can span it out make money while u spend money, they could do a deal with ahrriet for more money, publicity or w/e share of profits( thats rj wife name right?) it would certanly boots book sales and add merchandise.  though even the wheel fo time show would have to be extremely thought out.

 

this could also span into a whole new fan crazy, im freakin tired of reality shows and sope operah's and crime shows, its all too much reality siting in front of tv i want to escape the whiny 15 yr old who didnt get her birth day right that lives 3 doors down as well as the police sirens that blare threw out city.

 

that could do this with other series as well long book series and all, its all in my head the numbers the comercials the propoganda, its quite possible and could easily profit in the billions just the first 2 seasons

 

ps they'd have to find really dedicated actors(unknowns for the main rolls, rand mat perrin egwene nynaeve elayn) and in contracts if the actors decide to quit mid season every wheel of time fan is aloud to run them over with a car when they see em, and tar and feather them