maybe this is my memory failing me, but when I read the books as a young boy I thought of Gimli as a bad ass, and was a little disappointed by how much he was the comic relief in the movies. (Still LOVED the movies). But that memory -real or not- serves to further the point that even LOTR, which is near universally admired did make some significant changes. 

+1 on the moderator seeming a little off by threatening to lock the thread

It honestly seems believable to me. So either the poster is good at palm reading type believable platitudes, or it’s true.  There are weirdly specific things that almost makes it more believable, but I guess could be just his tactic to make it feel more authentic. 

5 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Too subtle for me, not seeing a difference.

It looks like less pink, which seems like an improvement to me.  The original poster seems too pink. 

28 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

How do you feel it compares to “The Witcher” or “Shadow and Bone” or “His Dark Materials “ or “Carnival Row”?

I have not seen “His Dark”, but production values feel equal or greater compared to Carnival Row and a little better than Shadow and Bone.  It will be interesting to compare tone, mature content, acting, overall quality, sets, etc after we see season one, but I suspect it will equal or surpass those others in sets, and overall quality. Not too sure about the world feeling real and lived in, but hoping for the best. You keep favorably mentioning Last Kingdom (which I love) and that world feels very lived in.  
 

I guess I have some questions about director, but his hearts in the right place, he has the budget, the love for the source material, great actors and dedicated consultants, so that’s all I can ask for as of now. The Winespring scene raised the bar for me. 

17 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Still doesn’t make sense to me. Every shot in a television show is “posed”.  And I don’t understand the term “clean” either. Is it in reference to their clothing? Or to the shot not being cluttered? 

I think mainly when directors are “posing” every shot they want it to look natural and believable. (To not appear POSED by someone else or directed, but to be instinctual/natural.
 

To say something LOOKS posed, means they didn’t quite pull that off. Again, it very well could be fine in the full show, but that scene just doesn’t do it for me in the trailer. 

I agree with the general sentiment that maybe things will look better in the flow of the show/action, and that over analysis can start to cause problems.  
 

The scene with the arrows is one that looked poor to me too, and I think it was mainly the posing of the good guys. Maybe in the thick of it, it could be fine? We’ll see. Looked sanitized or contrived and yes YA;)

The axes do not look good. I guess the person who power wrought them or the smithy who made them had bad taste.  And then Stepin didn’t want to refuse the valuable gift and insult the person bestowing him with something as rare as a power wrought axe (let alone TWO).  Clearly he otherwise has good taste, but was just being polite. Haha!  
 

I agree with other posters here, that in general more real feeling violence tends to ground the work and make it seem more authentic. (Game of thrones violence vs Marvel). Many will say Game of Thrones overdid it on the sex/nudity, and I guess that’s mainly a matter of opinion, but I really agree with the posts that say: don’t shy away from it and don’t overdo it. 

I want the world to feel real and believable (which is a bigger challenge for WOT than GOT and LOTR because of the ubiquity of magic in WOT). So hopefully most/all other elements feel very authentic.  I think that helps widen the appeal. Rafe has said we can watch it with teenagers, which to me means a different kind of show than I was expecting, but teenagers watch a lot of mature content these days… I guess we’ll see. I am VERY excited to see how it goes!

It is a pretty big blow to the show to have a main character have to be recast. What a bummer. A fairly big obstacle to overcome and usually does take a little away from it even if it’s a great product. It can be overcome, it’s just difficult. I guess earlier is better than later, it just makes me hope no other roles have to be recast. ?

On 9/13/2021 at 8:35 AM, Elder_Haman said:

 

What about combining Galad and Gawyn? Sticks with the warders until Dumai's Wells, then - horrified by the carnage - wanders aimlessly for a bit before deciding he's going to the Whitecloaks. From there, Galad's arc. 

 

You keep all the good Morgase stuff, but get rid of the wanting to kill Rand for no real reason part and the chasing Egwene around like a little puppy part.

Excellent idea! Or have him there and have him die much earlier to @up the stakes” of major character deaths. In that case probably make him more likeable?

48 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Again, different media require different approaches. If the series is going to make it to the end, it has to keep viewers which means it has to be interesting and a little unpredictable. 

 

You can't talk about what "Jordan intended" when looking at an adaptation, because he wrote a book, not a screenplay. And those are two very different things.

 

The screenplay can still tell Rand's story, it just gets to tell it from the perspective of someone who doesn't have access to all of Rand's thoughts and feelings. We're going to see it from the perspective of someone watching the events unfold. 

 

When you think about it from that perspective, we don't know anything about Rand. Why would we assume it's his story? Why isn't it Egwene's story? Or Perrin's? Or Moiraine's? (Rosamund Pike being the most recognizable actor.)  Of course, TV isn't limited to a single perspective either. After giving us a few episodes where we follow Moiraine, we will inevitably shift to multiple POVs and get to watch each of the characters grow.

 

But again, we won't be privy to every thought - we have to watch how they behave with one another. Those are the limitations of the medium. And it's why we will see lots of things that weren't in the books and lose some things that were because in order to show us who these characters are without access to their thoughts, they have to find a way to visualize those thoughts in a coherent way on screen.

I’m actually pretty excited to see this awesome story through some different eyes and perspectives. (I already have the awesome story in the books, so a fresh telling/perspective is just MORE).  
 

One person in particular I think may be a substantial improvement (for me) could be Egwene. Something about how she was written grated a little on me (as a teenage boy reader). It looks like she will be a very compelling character to me this time around. Perrin also started as a favorite, but fell down the list of chapters I was excited for, hopefully that story can be improved. (I’m also nervous about a scarring fridging in the first episode-but I guess we’ll soon see how it comes off). 
 

I love Elder Haman’s sentiment that this could be a LOT of people’s story (as opposed to just Rands). It  just reinforces that there are some EXCELLENT characters with some fascinating arcs.  This could be a very rich series in terms of character development and interaction and world building.  It will be fun to see it all play out with old and new fans reactions. 

41 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

To be fair, on the first several watches I thought the guy in the cage was black. I had to pause and look carefully to see it before I noticed the red hair. 

And if he’s been dead a while there could be varying levels of decay. 

15 minutes ago, Agitel said:

I'm thinking we may not see Whitecloaks this season, and they'll be introduced in a later season

There have been some leaked set photos from like a year ago with white cloaks in funny looking armor. 

19 minutes ago, Taishar Hawaii said:

@Elder haman Thank You! On point as usual. 
 

A great choice! I loved her work on Justfied. Here’s hoping someone is listening.

Yes! On Justified and on The Americans!

13 minutes ago, Wolfbrother31 said:

 

But even that, you're going to lose a lot of audience. I know you like the Last Kingdom - but in terms of popularity and being a cultural phenomenon [that I want WoT to be] - it comes nowhere close to LoTR or last Harry Potter movies [which I would argue - ARE the sweet spot of adult content and appealing to the masses/families and young adults]. 

 

So, I'm suuuuper pleased with the TV-14 rating. Tells me it'll probably be closer to LoTR than GoT. 

It’s a valid question as to which rating will bring the most fans. I read that in all the other countries it is listed as 16+, which is definitely more than TV14. So I think the jury is still out on what the final rating will be. 

I agree that the trailer is very well done. I hope the world feels real and lived in, but no real reason to think otherwise from the trailer. I did nitpick the colors, but it might be great and a welcome change, who knows?  We’ll need to see more to get the full feel. In the end it’s just opinion and taste. I’m very excited. 

11 minutes ago, BlackTower1 said:

I'll be disappointed if they series doesn't start with the confrontation between Balzamon and Lews Therin at the beginning of EotW.  To me that scene sets the tone for the first book.  

It seems unlikely that they plan to start there based on what we (think we) know so far. I guess start setting your expectations now. 

18 minutes ago, Beidomon said:

So in the opening shot, Egwene either has a massive mole on her nose or a third nostril. Then Nynaeve says “be strong” in an accent that’s gonna take a lot of getting used to for a TR native, and shoves Eg off a cliff. Huh.

 

Then there’s some dude crying over a ring and Eg coming up from a pool of paint. Huh. Not real excited so far. 
 

White Tower is super small. Maybe Rafe didn’t want it to be too phallic?

 

Moraine says there’s a “power inside you.” She didn’t say that in the books did she? I mean, it’s not a “power inside” anybody. 
 

Eg and Rand are definitely having sex. That’s a new development. 
 

Maybe my biggest concern is that all the characters look a little too clean. A little too YA. A little too Twilighty. No? It doesn’t look gritty enough. My first thought when I saw the Aes Sedai was “this kinda looks like that shitty Wrinkle in Time movie.” We’re a long way away from GOT, that’s for sure. 

 

Everything else looks pretty good. The fade kicks ass. The trollocs look good. The weaving is just regular old “magic wavy lines” special effects but that’s fine, I guess. We’re gonna see plenty of it in Winternight.

 

 

If you look more closely at the white tower in relation to the outer wall and other buildings and trees, the structure is massive.  Quite wide though. Not tall and skinny.  But still like 20 or more stories high. 

I was having a hard time putting my finger on what gave me a little pause about the trailer (which overall I liked) and I think you described it well: a little too clean and YA. Not gritty or real feeling. Maybe the bright colors contributed.  Maybe the whole show will have a grittier/realer feel, but I agree GOT did that well, and I am a little nervous for that aspect here. 

I LOVE the last kingdom! I agree on the importance of character focus! Fingers crossed!

I agree the ways will be a major challenge. Everyone sees it differently in their heads. I hope they pull it off. I think it’s a major challenge to fantasy in general. (There is so much in terms of fantasy elements that are described and imagined by all the individual readers.)

LOTR and GOT are both very successful examples, but both had a main focus on things other than magic. WOT will probably have more focus on magic and I hope it comes off well. I agree with what others have said: it seems super important for the world to feel real, the characters to feel real, and be interesting and compelling. 

I’m not wowed. I am relieved. It looks fine. I don’t see anything too cringe-worthy and context and tone etc will have a big impact on how it feels. 

I agree with many of the balefire comments above. I also want the name of the world or land or area to NOT be referred to as Randland. It needs a cool, or normal, not spoilery name. 

38 minutes ago, redgiant said:

A normal adaptation that is faithful tries to slightly bend the book narrative to accommodate certain extra-story goals they have, such as LOTR did like

• "include a deeper role for women (or in WOT, diversity) than Tolkien did" like Arwen
• "surgically axe superfluous characters out of necessity" like Tom Bombadil or Glorfindel
• "give the character a journey the books don't seem to give them but end up in the same place with them" like making Faramir at first different than he eventually becomes to give him on-screen growth rather than be just statically the same all through the movies
• "make it fit the budget" like - well LOTR didn't really skimp on anything for that reason - hell,. ,they even went on location for months filming an Edoras look-alike in the mountains for realism.

The problem I see is that certain changes thus far seem to only fit the last category of budget constraints, since removing Camelyn is like removing Bree or Lothlorien or Edoras, changing the number of Forsaken is like having less than 9 Nazgul, amongst other things.

 

Even the Nazgul in LOTR were the right number, and most of them other than the witch king himself had nothing to do at all in the story except be seen together a few times. So if you wanted to justify cutting some of them, that would be the story to justify it - but thy didn't. Contrast that with Forsaken where every single one has a well-known name, behavior and such ... and supposedly still might have some of them cut or combined.

 

And by not having remotely the spy output, teasers officially sanctioned nd released to fans, or the sheer volume of knowledge about what is being filmed and the tone, etc that LOTR had - we are only left to guess and the critical experiences we have seen before in other properties tends to bubble up. If Amazon wanted to, they could and would and should release more info to (in)directly counter all these theories and fears. But they don't and haven't. That in itself speaks volumes since generally if a property could avoid negative press they would. I know I would.

 

So instead of merely bending the story road, they seem to be going about wholesale detours and building entirely new highways. Until they put out more meaty info, we just won't know (I mean c'mon, just look back to 1999-2000 at all the advanced buzz and info surrounding LOTR we all knew and saw happening. This project it about as mouse-quiet as I have ever seen for the kind of budget they are supposed to have on it.). Basically, there are 20-30 people posting on a handful of sites ... still. And it is being released ... this year??

 

Sorry, this is nothing like LOTR was, in any way.

I’d say many of your concerns may be allayed when you finally get to watch it. (I hope they are). I agree with your assessment of good/acceptable LOTR changes.  Your example of forsaken cutting I think is just total conjecture, there has been nothing confirming this. Wait and see.
 

I don’t think Amazon should care too much about calming concerns that either will or won’t be resolved when the thing comes out. Don’t waste too much effort on that, just get the finished product right and people will be won over - even if it is causing a lot of worry and hand wringing in the meantime. But let’s get a release date already!

Finally I’ll say that Brandon Sandersons approval is a very good sign, but not the end all, be all (that will be the final product). Still, a very encouraging thing overall I think. 

On 6/10/2021 at 6:29 PM, Wolfbrother31 said:

@king of nowhere that's funny! but there's also some voices for success too.

 

So ... let's try to make and add to a list of why we might think that WoT will succeed (I hope!)

 

- Amazon has a PILE of $$$ and is looking to make the next GoT.

-Brandon Sanderson praised Rafe and didn't have to do that. Plus he's a good guy who wouldn't lie. 

-A bunch of people do have Amazon Prime because they want that free shipping = big potential audience (I know I'm in that boat- otherwise I would have to agree with @Beidomon that I would keep pretty much all of the other services over Prime Video). But since people have Prime, if word gets out, the show could be HUUUGE.

 

And some new ones:

- The show had a pretty decent budget and has some star-quality actors.

- Let's face it, we live in the streaming era and if something is good - people are gonna binge it - and word will spread. 

-WoT has a pretty decent size fan-base because of the popularity of the books.

- Out of the hands that WoT could have been in (Sci-Fy channel, CW, what else??), Amazon isn't so bad.

- It's been greenlit for a second season (that's a good sign right?!).

 

Anybody have some other + reasons?

(as much as you are poking fun of us @king of nowhere)  - the fans of the fantasy genre are batting well below 50% for good tv adaptations of their beloved novels - but hey, in baseball that's the Major league!

It seems a lot of a shows success can come down to some luck. (Timing and what the public is hungry for at the time.)  I think the things that can be done other than luck ARE being done to give it a good chance of success:

-using a real fan with good experience as the show runner. 
-using Brandon Sanderson as a consultant

-employing a book series super fan Sarah N. as a consultant

-going all out with sets and props and costuming

-having the whole of the source material to adapt and foreshadow and streamline, rather than being left to invent their own a la Game of Thrones. 
-having a very generous budget

-having high quality actors

-being not TOO late to the genre (I would feel more nervous about a new superhero property (like Jupiter’s Legacy), it seems there may be some superhero fatigue

-going big out of the gate. I feel that going low budget could have hamstrung this property before it got going, but with the big effort and big budget are certain expectations. 

Although none of the above guarantee success obviously, they are all giving it a good chance to succeed (or as good a chance as it can have). My questions are: how real and organic will it feel? How well will they get the character arcs and nuances and motivations? I hope it is all about the characters and I think it will be. Will the things beyond their control line up? (Pandemic, other releases, etc). 
 

such a huge undertaking has a lot of places to go wrong, and a lot has to come together for a mega hit. But so far it certainly looks like it has a reasonable chance!

On 5/1/2021 at 7:23 AM, king of nowhere said:

incidentally, as lan is likely fighting a trolloc, it makes me wonder how they did trollocs.

I mean, in the books they are described as 2.5 meters tall. that sounds very complicated to render in movies. sure, you can do a lot of things to make a 2.5 meters creature. but to have that creature swordfighting? that removes any chance for costumes (the actor could not move well enough to fight in it). as for virtual graphics, having lan move naturally while fighting against the air and then putting a big virtual monster on top of it doesn't seem very viable.

I don't know what they could do to have a big creature swordfight with a normal actor, though i'm sure they could manage it.

they also could shrink the trollocs to human size.

Good question. I bet the shrink them somewhat, and use camera tricks so humans can wear costumes. 

2 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

I fully expect there to be big changes for the adaptation.  But the point is to remain true to the spirit of these works.  All these little changes which don't make one whit of difference to the plot indicate a desire to imprint a distinctive style, distinct not just from other entries in the fantasy tv drama genre, but distinct from the already distinctive style of the source material.  This speaks to either a lack of faith in the source, or great deal of hubris in the showrunner.

 

When Peter Jackson adapted the Lord of the Rings, he wasn't trying to give us Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, he was trying to, and succeeded in, giving us Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, adapted for the big screen.  The more of these little teasers that come out, with completely unnecessary differences from the source material, the more it looks like we're not getting Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, adapted for tv viewing.  Instead, we're getting Rafe Judkins' Wheel of Time.  Whether the show still ends up being good or not, as a fan of the books, that's not what I wanted in a TV adaptation.  They've claimed they were being very intentional in their deviations from the books.  So what's the intention behind these pointless, minor aesthetic changes, if not to make it different from the source merely for the sake of being different from the source?

 

Look, I'm not opposed to changes that have to be made to adapt the story into something watchable on TV.  I'm not opposed to changing Thom's harp into a guitar.  Nor adding elements of New Spring, putting more focus on Moiraine or ginning up Logain's story to bring Aes Sedai politicking into viewer's awareness earlier than it becomes a problem in the books.  I fully accept that subplots will have to be dropped, events and characters will have to be consolidated, their development accelerated, or even that brand new events and characters will have to be added in to be able to convey ideas that were conveyed via internal monologue in the books.  But it's the "pointless" little changes that bug me.  Because they don't have to happen.  And because it signals that they aren't being true to the core of the books.  They're taking their interpretation, and putting their own "artistic" stamp on it, rather than trying to be the careful curators of Jordan's legacy that they claim they are being.

Let’s not forget that Harriet McDougal and Superfan Sarah Nakamura are consulting on the show, as is Brandon Sanderson.  Rafe seems to be a superfan as well. Will it please everyone? No. Are they trying to be true to the soul of the story? Yes. Am I thrilled with Rafes previous works? They don’t really fit the tone I’m hoping for from an epic, but they’ve been different genres so we’ll see. 
 

I see where you’re coming from, but I just do not care where the ruby is on the hilt. It does seem almost certain they change how Mat gets the dagger, so that will be interesting to see if that change is effective and worthwhile...

now can we get a release date already!? (I know, we likely won’t get a date until summer or fall).