The Wheel of Time Will Be Adapted as a TV Series

[SinisterDeath]

2 minutes ago, Songstress said:

I read the Q&A along with some follow up exchanges on Twitter, and I expect Rafe Judkins wants to be rather faithful to the books  (within the usual constraints of adapting to a different medium and having to work with time and budget limitations).

 

I can see this summary being a part tease to keep non-book fans from knowing which of the Emonds Fielders is the Dragon Reborn for a bit longer, and part emphasis on Moiraine's role in the first book.

 

Despite the fact that the vast majority of Book 1 is from Rand's perspective,  Moiraine's quest is pretty integral to the story, and focusing on her role in the first season/first book doesn't strike me as changing the story at all, really.

It's not just the summary in the article, but various terminologies and potential changes mentioned in Twitter that makes me worry. That Red Eagle is Involved, and that Shady guy from Jumanji also makes me worry.

[CUBAREY]

"That Red Eagle is Involved"

 

Where exactly is that from, from what  I saw Red Eagle while retaining an interest in the property basicly sold control of the property to Sony?

[SinisterDeath]

21 minutes ago, CUBAREY said:

"That Red Eagle is Involved"

 

Where exactly is that from, from what  I saw Red Eagle while retaining an interest in the property basicly sold control of the property to Sony?

Per deadline (the one that initially broke the story a while back) lists them among executive producers. 

Any involvement on Red Eagles part, is too much for me.

[CUBAREY]

35 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Per deadline (the one that initially broke the story a while back) lists them among executive producers. 

Any involvement on Red Eagles part, is too much for me.

Yia I read the same story I have also read other stories that in their agreement with Sony they gave up all control. The Execative Producer credit is common in the business where an entity has onwed a property sells control of it but keeps a financial interest. It's sort of a consolidation price to save face. It's the same for Harriot and Jordon's estate by the way. They get a credit and have a financial interest but no real say on how the tv series is shaped. Usually when an author or previous owner of a literary property retains real control over the shape and content of a production its promiently protrayed. From what I have seen neither Red Eagle or Harriot have even the limit influence on the production that RR Martin seems to have had on Game of Thrones.

[SinisterDeath]

12 minutes ago, CUBAREY said:

Harriot have even the limit influence on the production that RR Martin seems to have had on Game of Thrones.

That alone should worry most fans.

[CUBAREY]

7 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

That alone should worry most fans.

Now with that I would agree with you. 

[Ryrin]

On 10/3/2018 at 11:13 AM, SinisterDeath said:

Per deadline (the one that initially broke the story a while back) lists them among executive producers. 

Any involvement on Red Eagles part, is too much for me.

 

Hopefully they won't have much influence.

[dexterryu]

On 10/2/2018 at 3:30 PM, Songstress said:

 

I read the Q&A along with some follow up exchanges on Twitter, and I expect Rafe Judkins wants to be rather faithful to the books  (within the usual constraints of adapting to a different medium and having to work with time and budget limitations).

 

I can see this summary being a part tease to keep non-book fans from knowing which of the Emonds Fielders is the Dragon Reborn for a bit longer, and part emphasis on Moiraine's role in the first book.

 

Despite the fact that the vast majority of Book 1 is from Rand's perspective,  Moiraine's quest is pretty integral to the story, and focusing on her role in the first season/first book doesn't strike me as changing the story at all, really. 

 

If you're referring to the summary's put out by the press it may just be their simplified interpretations based on talking to Rafe and not being familiar with the books.

[Sajius]

The entire plot summary published onto the web I think is less actual information and more trying to publicize that they have a female heavy world. While they may focus more on Moiraine then in the books, the entire focused on Moiraine plotline, is in my opinion complete press stuff. The story probably will still revolve around the Main Three the most. 

[CUBAREY]

On 4/30/2016 at 8:55 AM, Beidomon said:

I could get behind most of those suggestions! Some I would cut completely - others I would cut way back. The only one I disagree with are the battles. I see major improvements here!

 

Re "dark" - not really. Not one. single. significant. character is killed until the end of the final book. The forsaken are generally worthless and ineffective. Results in a lack of suspense.

Seems to me that most of the things that are mentioned on the list simply can not be cut. actually the only things that might be reasonable are"

 

"

number of AS is limited to <10

number of Fs is limited to <3

number of WOs is limited to <3

 

I do not think that the numbers actual numbers are accurate but limiting then actual number of AS,Fs or WO's that actually get air time vs those that appear in the books is a likely neccessity. 

 

The suggestion that material covered in any book after LOC has to be cut is simply stupid. You have to have some ending to the story (cannot just leave it hanging) and you have to resolve the various subplots that make up the substance of all the books up to including LOC.  

 

Plus what will be cut or consoldidated including possibly conflating some characters is going to be decided by those involved in the series based on their best estimation as to what will work or make snese in regards to a a television series not what parts of the story the fandom thinks are unimportant and can be cut. 

 

What I am saying is that many of the cuts and changes will be based on what professionals believe are necessary to fit the story into a new Mediam and not what the fans think are minor characters or plot points that they would not mind being cut. For instance whether the exotic amimals and creatures featured in the books will make it into the series is largely going to be decided on how "realistic" such animals can be portrayed and the costs associated with making that happen. CIG is still a very expensive process and even when it is cinaqmaticly succusful it's simply too expensive. That is why for instance, in Game of Thrones the DIre Wolves are not often on screen. THe CIG of them is quite good but it's also tremendously expensive and even in well financed productions show runners have to make choices of how to best spend limited resources. Do you spend money to include short but frequent scenes featuring Dire Wolves or do you limit such scenes to the bare minimum and save the money to finance the costs of depicitng CIG Dragons or to finance the costs of a few large and intricate battles that also involve use of CIG elements?

 

One of the practical things that I myself am most concerned is how do you relay much of the lore and information found in the books in characters internal thoughts in a Visual medium in a way that both conveys the information and will keep the audiences interest. GOT did a lot of info dumping through the use of "Sexposition scenes where nude are barely dressed characters casually dumped a whole lot of necessary information and events that occured "offscreen".  Whether the WOT series will be succesful will in my opinion depend on how the TV showrunneres and writers  stage their info dumps.

[CUBAREY]

23 hours ago, Sajius said:

The entire plot summary published onto the web I think is less actual information and more trying to publicize that they have a female heavy world. While they may focus more on Moiraine then in the books, the entire focused on Moiraine plotline, is in my opinion complete press stuff. The story probably will still revolve around the Main Three the most. 

And to be honest a good portion of the first books focused on Moraine (and on Egewene and Nynaive)  and a large portion of the all the books centered on the doings of female characters. If you are going to be faithful to the story as written by Jordon (and finished by Sanderson on Jordon's notes) the series is going to have to focus on both the Three male Ta'varen male characters but also on the significant female characters that are the focus of many of the subplots in the books. Further, since the all the scripts and plot lines that have been written or discussed by the showrunners essentially involve the events in the first book it's not at all surprising that it's heavily Moraine centric or involves the two budding female channelers since it's stressed in the first bbok that channeling is presently the preserve of women. So at that point its rather obvious why any thing to do with channeling is going to focus on women with references to male channeling being limited to the fact that it's a mad thing.

[dexterryu]

18 hours ago, CUBAREY said:

Seems to me that most of the things that are mentioned on the list simply can not be cut. actually the only things that might be reasonable are"

 

"

number of AS is limited to <10

number of Fs is limited to <3

number of WOs is limited to <3

 

I do not think that the numbers actual numbers are accurate but limiting then actual number of AS,Fs or WO's that actually get air time vs those that appear in the books is a likely neccessity. 

 

 

 

So there are lots of ways to limit all 3 of these organically. In a book where you're not limited in any way in number of characters or screen time you have a ton of freedom. 

 

That said... let's take one example and look at the Wise Ones. Does Egwene need 4 Wise One dreamwalker mentors or could that be done with Amys alone? Doesn't mean that there aren't 4 and that the other 3 are cut completely just that the screen time is really only devoted to Amys.

 

The FS can definitely done in a similar fashion in that they could be condensed into fewer characters... as in some of them doing double duty. 

 

AS... the best way might be for their to be fewer Ajahs... Blue/Grey are fairly similar. So are Brown/White. Yellow/Green go together well too... Really the only outlier their is the Red.

[Werthead]

Red Eagle are Producers In Name Only. They'll have a production credit, in recognition for the work they did in setting up the original deal with Sony, but that will be it. Judkins was cracking jokes about Billy Zane, so his opinion of the Red Eagle infomercial appears to be fairly low.

Harriot have even the limit influence on the production that RR Martin seems to have had on Game of Thrones.

GRRM wrote multiple episodes of the TV show, had limited casting approval, acts as a creative and visual consultant, had (and still has) final say on any spin-offs that are made and got both a big chunk of cash up front and a slice of the revenue the series makes, not to mention benefiting in the form of 73 million (and counting) extra books sold as a result of the TV show being made. His deal was exceptional by TV standards and unusual (because he used to work in Hollywood so knew what kind of deal to make). I suspect Harriet's deal will be significantly less generous, mainly because of the legal mess the situation ended up in. However, they do say they will be using Harriet as a consultant (and not anyone at Red Eagle).

Edited October 8, 2018 by Werthead

[Tud]

    The worry I have is with the emphasis on Moiraine which would completely change the dynamic of th story. I say this because of what happened last year with another series I love. The Mitford series  by Jan Karon is a story about an Episcopal Priest in western N.C.  It's all about his experiences. So, last year Andie McDowell purchased the filming rights and made a movie of the first book. As you might expect, she cast herself as Fr. Murphy's love interest, Cynthia. Nothing inherently wrong with that except for the fact that she changed the pov of the series to her character and totally ruined the entire story. Fr. Murphy is described as a short, middle-aged, balding guy who wins Cynthia's heart by being kind (he adopts an abandoned 10 yr. old boy, etc. In the obscenity  she produced he is young, tall and handsome and competes with another tall, handsome  man for her affections. 

 

   In short, she ruined the series for her vanity.

 

    That is not what I want to happen here. Yeah, I know that the Mr. Jordan flipped the power structure giving us a world where women occupy the power position, but I don't want a film where the women take the center stage and shunt Rand, Mat and Perrin into support roles. 

 

Tud

Edited October 9, 2018 by Tud

[Ryrin]

Moiraine is central in EotW. We don’t know who is the Dragon, and we have no clue how important all of the Three Rivers folks will be in saving the world. There is so much foreshadowing as well. Moiraine steps back back and then fades out totally as the focus shifts to the characters from Three Rivers later in the books. Her “return” is a footnote. 

 

 

 

 

 

[SinisterDeath]

I'm not worried at all about Moiraine's plot line in the first season.

 

I'm more worried that the writers, in an attempt to make WoT more PC/SJW friendly, may overstep it to the point that it divides the community like what has happened with the Star Wars fan base..
That community has become so toxic these days, that anytime anything even appears to be SJW it just get's trashed and they ruin it for everyone.

Edited October 9, 2018 by SinisterDeath

[Occams whiskey bottle]

I don't understand all the hand wringing. Moiraine and Lan are by far the most mysterious people we are introduced to. We don't know who the Aes Sedai are or what the One Power is. Each character is introduced to the Power in their own time, and Rands is pretty subtle. I don't see why anyone would be annoyed by Moiraine taking center stage to begin with. After all she is the person who introduced each and one of us the the secret world of the Aes Sedai.

[Werthead]

EotW is very reminsicent of LotR in tone and structure, and it makes a lot of people bail out of reading the whole series because they think it's a Tolkien rip-off. It was one of the more challenging questions as to how they were going to address that in the TV show. They're not massively going to change the story or anything around, so it sounds like they'll address it through emphasis, shifting the early POV from Rand (which pretty much destroys any tension as to the identity of the Dragon Reborn) to Moiraine. To what degree they do that is unclear though, as apparently Episode 1, Scene 1 is still Rand and Tam on the road into Emond's Field. It might not very different at all to the books.

[Cillian]

On 10/10/2018 at 2:37 PM, Occams whiskey bottle said:

I don't understand all the hand wringing. Moiraine and Lan are by far the most mysterious people we are introduced to. We don't know who the Aes Sedai are or what the One Power is. Each character is introduced to the Power in their own time, and Rands is pretty subtle. I don't see why anyone would be annoyed by Moiraine taking center stage to begin with. After all she is the person who introduced each and one of us the the secret world of the Aes Sedai.

 

Moiraine (and Lan) are only mysterious from the POV of the Emond's Fielders. She can't remain that mysterious if she's the central character.

 

WoT is an ensemble series, sure, and Moraine can get plenty of screentime, but at the center of that ensemble is Rand, Perrin & Mat followed by Egwene & Nynaeve. The Emond's Field crew are the audience surrogate into this world, their community has been basically cut off from the outside world from the outside world for 2 thousand years. It is through those 5 that we really discover this world, not Moiraine. The 5 are the heroes going on a journey, Moiraine is the stranger come to town. Making her the central character would be a mistake, IMO.

 

 

Also, It's been about 6 and a half years since I've posted here...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Illian Tear]

September 2019 in Prague.

[dexterryu]

On 11/24/2018 at 8:30 PM, Cillian said:

 

Moiraine (and Lan) are only mysterious from the POV of the Emond's Fielders. She can't remain that mysterious if she's the central character.

 

WoT is an ensemble series, sure, and Moraine can get plenty of screentime, but at the center of that ensemble is Rand, Perrin & Mat followed by Egwene & Nynaeve. The Emond's Field crew are the audience surrogate into this world, their community has been basically cut off from the outside world from the outside world for 2 thousand years. It is through those 5 that we really discover this world, not Moiraine. The 5 are the heroes going on a journey, Moiraine is the stranger come to town. Making her the central character would be a mistake, IMO.

 

 

Also, It's been about 6 and a half years since I've posted here...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think it matters as much in an on screen format. Because of a distinct lack of a point of view vs a book it's possible for someone to be a central character AND mysterious. If they just follow the first several chapters Moiriane show's she can be both a "good guy" and morally grey. For instance, her and Lan are very real when talking to each other when Rand approaches to ask her help in healing Tam. The conversation they have with Rand while doing the healing is also down to earth. Then a few chapters later she destroys the ferry and pretty much says she'd kill all of them if it meant stopping the Shadow.

 

She's very much the leader of the group between Emond's field and Shadar Logoth. My only concern would be if they show too much of her motivations/intentions. Just like the books the possibility that one of the boys may be TDR isn't even brought up by anyone until the epilogue. Even then it doesn't initially occur to Rand that he isn't anything more than a man that can channel. 

[skoog]

I have always wanted this and plan to support as fully as possible. So long as they do a good job.

[Apple151]

Ok here's the thing... this could definitely rbing attention to the series which is good....

 

But there's no way it would honor the books which already don't even honor themselves....

 

So I think it should go ahead and basically introduce everything about it, make money, revive the series in a minor way...

 

And then that minor revival can ideally pave the way for really doing the series justice.

 

that's my 5 step or so plan.

[DemandredFO]

SinisterDeath, RJ kind of over describes everything so how people look are known. Also Moiraine is basically Gandalf, whatever RJ says, so she well be front and center and Egwene and Nyneave are major characters too. Also star wars is different because the prequels and the main story is white people, only black dude for comic relief and another behind a mask and certain people didn't like when that changed. Whereas WOT you have more of a mix from or close to the start.

[Elessar]

I am come late to this topic/discussion, mainly because I primarily RP-write at DM these days. Here are, however, some reflections (note: long post).

 

[I have not read through this thread so things I mention may have been discussed before and there might be more information regarding details around the tv-series etc, so these are my general thoughts and opinions]

 

I am tbh somewhat conflicted with regards to this tv-series. On the one hand, I am excited that the masterful ‘The Wheel of Time’-series seems to get a tv-series production and wonder what they will be able to make of it. If there is any fantasy-series (not filmed yet) that deserves a tv-series, it is this one. On the other hand, I fear whether they will be able to do it justice and not ‘just’ make a dumbed down, overly-simplified politically-correct version which perhaps works for a mainstream audience (who never read the books and perhaps never intend to) but which will be somewhat painful for us hardcore-WoT’ers to experience.

 

I had the same fears back in the day when I heard that ‘The Lord of the Rings’ was being made into movies, fearing that they would be inferior, unworthy simplified versions of what I considered a fantasy-masterpiece. Thankfully, and much to my relief, Peter Jackson made 3 films which (especially in the extended versions) imo were an excellent rendition of the books, keeping most of the story, changing little and with some additions (f.ex. including Arwen Evenstar and her relationship with Aragorn) that I think actually made it even better. Also with ‘Game of Thrones’ the production is excellent imo, based on George RR Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’-books, despite some changes (especially in later seasons) in the narrative. This is probably partly due to the huge budget spent on this mega-popular tv-series (money often, though not always, means quality) and a professional production.

 

I must admit that when ‘Game of Thrones’ began on HBO I thought to myself hypothetically filming ‘The Wheel of Time’ would be a different, more complicated, prospect. Part of this is because more of this huge fantasy-series takes place in the characters’ heads (internal) and also that it is a lot larger tapestry in detail and all ways than ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’, not the least in world building and close to twice the size book-wise. The danger is therefore even more so imo with ‘The Wheel of Time’ that it may end up a dumbed down, very simplified version of Robert Jordan’s huge fascinating universe unless the producers do this right. And that will probably mean high budgets (closer to ‘Game of Thrones’ than ‘Chronicles of Shannara’) and many seasons. I would be less concerned if the tv-series got say 10 seasons for the 14 books than if they condensed everything into say 6-7 seasons, so the question becomes how ambitious will the producers be, how much money is there to spend, and how high ratings will the series get.

 

Obviously there is even greater need in this tv-series than ‘Game of Thrones’ to leave out characters and lesser storylines since the amount of Aes Sedai, for instance, and lesser characters is far too large to include. I do, however, sincerely hope the producers will include the 40-50 most important characters in the books and will keep to the major storylines. I am not a ‘purist’ who expects everything in a book to be the same in a movie or tv-series - some things do work better on screen and similarly on the written page - but at the same time I am no fan of changing important/vital things in a tv-series. (I was for example fine with Starbuck becoming a woman character in the last ‘Battlestar Galactica’ tv-series though it surprised me at first, but would be far far less accepting if for example Mat suddenly was changed into Mandy in this tv-series (since ‘The Wheel of Time’ means much more to me)). The closer they stay to canon (the books) the happier I will be, though there is no need (or want) to include Robert Jordan’s huge descriptions in parts of his huge story of course.

 

I also hope they won’t change things to be politically correct (with a view to race/gender/sexual orientation etc), there is plenty diversity already in Robert Jordan’s world imo. Excess nudity (like in ‘Game of Thrones’) is not necessary either as I see it, though nudity and sex 'sells', as we know, so I would not be surprised if there was more of that in the tv-series than in the books. The same goes for excess brutality and blood (though HBO take that further perhaps). I read somewhere that they are considering a ‘feminist’ angle with so many female main characters (Egwene, Nynaeve, Elayne, Min etc), but I think these characters are strong in themselves in the books (as Robert Jordan deliberately wrote them) and I see no need to emphasize ‘girlpower’ in the tv-series (though I would not be surprised if it happens considering the times we are living in).

 

As for casting I have no thoughts on the matter as of yet. I cannot quite picture in my mind who I can imagine playing a good Rand, Egwene, Moiraine etc but they did a good job casting the ‘Game of Thrones’-characters so if these producers do a similar job I would be pleased. I do hope they will keep to the characteristics/looks from the books though, having a blond Nynaeve for example would not work so well with me.

 

I believe the reason for the enormous success of ‘Game of Thrones’ besides it being a big-budget production with quality script, actors, cinematography is that it appeals to several groups of viewers at the same time; those who love high fantasy, those who love Middle Ages-type Castles and Knight-stories, those who love historical drama, and those who love zombie-type stories. It is quite a feat to appeal to so many groups at the same time. It also was/is the first big-scale fantasy-type series on tv (smaller-scale tv-series in the genre have, of course, been aired before, including the aforementioned ‘Chronicles of Shannara’) and for that reason also it will probably be impossible for ‘The Wheel of Time’, I think, to compete rating- and popularity-wise.

 

What one can hope for, I think, is for a tv-series which gains ratings/popularity say half-way between ‘Chronicles of Shannara’ and ‘Game of Thrones’, sufficient enough to get many tv-seasons and to get a worthy, quality and reasonably popular high fantasy-series. The excellent and momentous ‘The Wheel of Time’-saga by the late Robert Jordan deserves no less.