2 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

In D&D terms, they're running under "Rule of Cool" over "realism".

I'm fine with the Rule of Cool if used judiciously. And in ways that don't call into doubt other choices made in different but similar situations. The first time I saw a Jedi throw his light saber around with the Force, have it take out every bad guy in the room, and then boomerang back to his hand, it was def cool... but you have to wonder why they don't all do that in every single situation. ?

56 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

but there are posters where we see what look like threads, and they have different colors. this give me hope that we will get to see the power in its full glory from the eyes of channelers, in a few scenes at least.

I'm hopeful we'll get something that looks a little more like 'weaving' at some point. As in, threads criss-crossing to form a coherent and emergent pattern. But maybe they want to start simple so they have something cool to build toward. If I recall, most of the Forsaken look down on modern-day Aes Sedai because their use of the Power is blunt and unsophisticated compared to the AoL. I gotta say, after watching the trailer, I can relate! ? 

Starting simple gives the show something satisfying and unique to build toward, and has the added bonus of being one less thing for the design team to tackle in Season 1, where EVERYTHING ELSE has to be created from scratch. I think there were changes made to the design of the White Walkers in GoT somewhere after Season 1, and there was not a mass outcry about changes to the visual continuity. I am willing to bite my tongue for a season and see how the rest of the production comes together; if 'weaving' still looks like my PS4 Homescreen after Seasons 2 or 3, I will be disappointed.

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

what's wrong with the frozen arrows?

the flying ax-man, I'm all for it, i already expressed criticism about it. but frozing the arrows mid-air? it's a perfectly established use of the power, and i saw nothing wrong with it. what am i missing?

Totally fair question. Whereas ax-man and Lan's entrance have been dissected thoroughly, I haven't seen anyone try to explain what exactly strikes them so wrongly about the arrow-freezing, but apparently its a somewhat common reaction. It's hard to put into words, and it's 100% completely subjective, but I'll try:

First off, though, yeah, freezing arrows with the One Power is totally understandable. I don't recall where it happens in the books, but it's been years since I reread them. Still, I have no problem with channelers stopping arrows mid-flight. The tough part is making it look good on screen... which begs the question, what would good look like? Should it look 'realistic,' even if 'realistic' doesn't look 'cinematic' ? Should it look 'cool', like bullet-time in the Matrix? Should the arrows become utterly motionless, or shiver and jitter in their magical confines? Every choice contributes to the final outcome, and the smallest detail might make or break the illusion. Not saying I have a better solution, but the final result in the trailer just looks kind of hokey to me, for a few reasons:

1) I think the first thing that strikes me is that being in Flying Arrow POV is so obviously unnatural that the human eye is immediately put on guard, and our (or my) Suspension of Disbelief enters Warning Mode.  There are a lot of camera tricks out there—like following a POV shot through a keyhole into a locked room—which are also obvious fakery, but they don't set off my cheese-alarm like the Arrow POV does. Part of it may be the speed we are zooming along at, only to come to an abrupt stop.

2) The fact that all the arrows are clustered so tightly together is... maybe not impossible, but kind of implausible. Half a dozen arrows, fired from a distance by half-a-dozen archers, arcing up high, and they all are more or less parallel with one another AND basically equidistant from their target (meaning the arrowheads are all lined up?) Like, not even one arrow is a foot or two behind the pack? Not even one had a slightly different trajectory? And all the arrows look to be converging on a single target, since they are all within a few feet of one another? Which means, what? All the archers were shooting at a single Aes Sedai? When there are multiple Aes Sedai and warders all clustered together? Again, it's possible, I suppose... I get that these are all experienced warriors, and lifelong archers perhaps, but that uniformity strikes my eye as bordering on the unbelievable. 

3) And the last thing that just tips the balance into cheesiness for me is the Power itself, floating around the arrows like traces of gossamer-smoke. Which is also how the healing weaves look. And the lightning-weaves. They all just look the same. To me, the Power-CGI looks incredibly generic, especially when there are so many possible braids and patters and types of stitching that could have been drawn on to illustrate 'weaving.' The books are so full of characters discovering new weaves as the series goes on; I recall scenes where women watched Nynaeve healing and could barely understand what they were looking at because her weaves were so complex. But all we have seen (so far) is floating gossamer-smoke. I guess it stops arrows AND heals AND calls down lightning. Maybe that's why they call it the ONE Power? ? 

Don't get me wrong—it's still a minor nitpick, and if you like the way it looks, more power to you. 

A few silly arrows aside, I remain optimistic and excited!

Edit: I would just point out, that like so many things, this scene might play out differently or have a different feel when we see it in the proper context. The same way the trailer had that circle-circle-circle cut with the dancing-graves-white tower sequence, a well-coordinated sequence of shots *might* make Arrow POV look downright cool. Will have to wait and see.

The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.

1 hour ago, AusLeviathan said:

that $10 million could get used up fast.

30 minutes ago, TheMountain said:

Because of all the fantastical elements, WoT would definitely use up it's money A LOT faster than GoT would while trying to maintain the same level of quality across the board.

Too true. But I think we can all agree that when you're spending someone else's money, you always make really wise, prudent decisions. Oh, wait... ?

7 minutes ago, TheDreadReader said:

What do you mean by "critical disappointment"?

I used the word 'critical' pretty clunkily, more in terms of something achieving a critical mass, rather than referring to the show being a dud in some certain critics' eyes. (Which critics? How many of them? What constitutes a dud?)  The minute you writing something like "if the show is bad" you realize you need to emend it with a whole essay about what "bad" means. I was hoping to capture the idea that "if a large number of fans find it underwhelming..." but that too is vague. I probably should have just said, "if you find it disappointing..."

Awesome, good luck getting in! ? 

The budget is in the 10$ million per episode range, I think. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) Sometimes hard to tell, once you factor in marketing costs (which are not counted in the 10$ million) and local tax rebates for filming in various locations (which somehow are figured into the 10$ million...?) 

Long story short, I think the odds that we get a Xena or Herculese or even (shudders) Shannara are about 10 million to one. One of the biggest reasons those shows 'feel' cheap (to me) is because they are cheap. They might have good writing (sometimes!) and fun stories, but it shows (especially on a big screen) when your Styrofoam sets are recycled for every episode, your costumes came right off the rack, and your monsters were CGI'd in Microsoft Paint. 

I think set design, costuming, practical effects, CGI, musical scoring, casting (not necessarily that you will like every casting choice, but I would be surprised if there is any objectively poor acting. What is poor acting? In a wiser man's words: I can't define it, but I know it when I see it) are likely to be excellent, possibly even raising the bar for modern TV (until LOTR comes out a year later ? ) In any event, they won't look cheap. (That said, I do have reservations about some of those Trolloc 'faces' in the poster... Anyone else getting Flying Monkeys from Wizard of Oz vibes...?)

If the show is a critical disappointment, I think it is reasonable to assume it will be because of the writing, directing, and overall decision-making in regards to adapting the source material—in other words, the intangible stuff, the stuff money can't buy. 

Possible Explanation: the show opens with Moiraine and Lan on the road, as previously reported, but we don't really get a formal 'introduction' to them, per se. Maybe we only see them from above, bird's eye view, as they travel through the countryside and the opening music plays, and we only see Emond's Field in the distance, and as viewers are left to wonder who these mysterious travelers are and what business they have in such a remote village. (And hopefully they can weave into that the iconic opening narrative—It was not the beginning, but it was a beginning—somehow.)

If it is just the two of them, we may not hear their names; after all, if you're travelling with a close friend, you don't tend to use their name out loud very often. ("Excuse me, Lan, could you pass the water bottle?" "Sure thing, Moiraine—here it is.") More likely, they travel in silence much of the time. 

Then we cut to Emond's Field and spend 10-`15 minutes with the E5 before the tavern scene, where Lan and Moiraine finally arrive in town and we learn more about them.

(Not sure where in all of this they are going to squeeze the Logain stuff... I have written this elsewhere, but I think a cold-open 5-minute scene where Logain is thrashing a small army of Aes Sedai with lightning and brimstone and CGI out the wazoo (think Suaron in Fellowship) before he gets captured would make a stellar beginning and hook a lot of first-time viewers. After he is defeated and captured, a pair of Aes Sedai share a whispered conversation that despite their heavy losses in battle, Logain may not actually be the Dragon Reborn, and that *some* unorthodox sisters believe the Dragon will be found elsewhere. Whoever could that be? CUT TO: Lan and Moiraine on the road as the opening music finally kicks in full gear, zoom out to show a leaf in the wind blowing away up the road toward Emond's Field off in the distance, play the credits, splash the Logo, and then start the actual episode somewhere in quiet, rustic Emond's Field, possibly with Egwene and Nyneave preparing for Egwene's ceremony.)

1 hour ago, Wolfbrother31 said:

I don't know. Help guys. Im trying to come up with something to praise - but honestly got nothing.

?

Keep your head up until the premier!

My list of grievances is as long as my list of things I like—but it's almost all speculation until we see the full show.

Besides, you're supposed to be our Resident Optimist! Now buck up and tell us something you do like about the clip!

For me, it's not even so much the long pause, it's the fact that Lan's hood is so gosh-darn low I don't think he could see out! It reminds of kids who come in from playing in the snow and their hats and scarves and puffy jacket are done up so tight they can't even move, so they just stand there inside the door waiting for an adult to unwrap them. Or having your socks hanging an inch off your feet. For a warder to stand there with his hood halfway over his face... I mean, is he using his Spidey-sense to survey the room? If his hood was even 1 inch higher, I would have zero problem with his combative stance or his pause (or the fact Moiraine is waiting outside in the rain for Lan to introduce her...?) 

That said, this one is a pretty minor nitpick for me. I just hope they don't have too many forehead-smackers  (i.e. flying ax-man; frozen arrows.) But I think that is the sort of clumsiness that gets hammered out as more episodes and seasons are shot and the showrunner and his gang of mercenary directors develop a better sense for the visual language of their particular show. So maybe we get a meme or two out of it, but it's not a big deal.

11 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

What if a similar visual effect to the one that accompanied the Fade on the quarry road happens here? And the cut back to Rand, he "snaps out of it". If you add a bit of an effect, the entrance would seem more natural - the "too long" feel being explained by the visuals.

Good idea! Of course, if they change the scene, it would change my opinion—how could it not? I could get on board with some kind of Nazgul-on-the-road camera trickery, or a quick flashback/overlay to the Quarry Road, or something else if done subtly and well. It would pay off, too, to remind the viewers that Rand remains unsettled by the dark rider he saw; the audience will breathe easy for a few minutes after this hooded stranger is revealed to be Lan... but Rand's fears will be fully realized during the attack later that night. 

And I know there is some metadata that suggests we did not see the clip in its entirety, but I would be pretty surprised if the missing portion contained CGI (or similar cinematic mischief.) I can see them having possibly cutting out a couple of reaction shots for the Comic Con footage—maybe a wary look from Tam, or a fading grin from Mat, or maybe even some bug-eyes from Rand as he recalls the dark rider—but it seems unlikely to me that they would show us a seemingly near-finished shot a month before release, and then give us the same shot + CGI a month later. 

18 minutes ago, TheMountain said:

That part was massive cringe lol

Between the Lan pose and the Warder jumping with axes like he's in a Marvel movie... can we maybe just get like a Pose Coach on set to tamp some of these things down? Like Zach Snyder, but the opposite? 

Seriously though, this was great. My overall enthusiasm was kind of waning, didn't especially love the trailer, but this brought me right back to where I was when I first heard Amazon bought the rights.

20 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Got vacation put in for the premiere - I'm ready to go.  Bring it!!!

That is hilarious I love it! This might be the right time to finally get some surround-sound going in my basement... ?

Just gotta wonder... how long was Lan planning on standing there with his hood pulled down to his nose?

Loved hearing Lan and Perrin speak! Rand too! 

panel footage = awesome!!!!!!!

24 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

So do you propose that we, as the audience, should be unable to see the Aes Sedai weave things? When should the weaves be portrayed on screen and when shouldn't they be?

I know you're asking someone else, but I thought I'd jump in.

The more I think about it, the less options I see for the showrunners as to how to depict the One Power, and the more I think they probably chose the best option, after all. (Even though I have been fairly critical of the actual spidery white threads in other posts. I admit, though, I'm kinda comin' around.)

Let's break it down! Start with Option A, which is keeping non-channelers blind to the One Power, as per the books.

A) If they stay true to the books and only have channelers able to see the One Power, then you have two subsequent choices:

   a1) Have the TV audience unable to see the weaves, as well, and do it like the Force, entirely invisible except when we enter Channeler-Mode. But how would that work realistically, logistically, and visually? The camera swings behind the channeler's shoulder like a First-Person video game, and suddenly there are CGI weaves every which way? Could get pretty clunky, especially if you had to do it several times. And it puts the onus on the casual viewer to then keep track of which on-screen characters can see the weaves and which cannot. No doubt there are creative ways it could be approached to add some variety to the camera-trickery, but it would require 7 seasons worth of cinematographic gymnastics. It's certainly not a terrible option, but it requires a lot of planning and deft execution (make me think of all the mind-boggling work LOTR did to make the hobbits look small) and a lot of trust placed in the viewers to keep track of it all.

   a2) Allow the TV audience to see all the weaves, but maintain an in-show, true-to-the-book environment where non-channelers can't see them. In which case we (and that 'we' will include millions of woolheaded non-book-readers) will be watching CGI-weaves shooting all over the place, but having to constantly remind ourselves that some of the characters onscreen can see them and some can't, or that maybe some can but are just pretending they can't... That starts to get pretty unwieldy pretty quickly, and might get a bit gimmicky, like watching an actor pretend they can't see a ghost in a show that the audience can see.

Or, there is Option B, which is to just let everyone see the One Power. How would that work?

  b1) Everyone can see the One Power. Rewrite some book scenes to make it work. Not my favorite, as a book purist, but it might be the least-bad option around. Yes, it is a huge change... <sigh>  I think it's one I can get over, though, especially when I go back and think about the other two options. 

I'll leave it there. 

It is an Inescapable Law of the Universe, written in the very stars:

Quality of Show = (How much new material the Writers decide to invent or inject into the story) / (The writing skill of the Writers involved.)

In this case (and this is my biggest worry) they are rewriting or reinventing what seems like 20% to 40% of Book 1. And the Writer's Room, as #TheMoutain mentioned, is a ragtag team of mercenary paratroopers assembling Avengers-style to bang out Season 1 of the Wheel of Time... except they're not the Avengers. They're a half-dozen fairly young TV writers whom 99% of people have never heard of. That doesn't mean they're unskilled, unprepared, or not up to the task, it just means they have to Earn it. Obviously, when I say 20% to 40% is being retooled, that is a vague guess; could be more, could be less. I just hope they don't bite off more than they can chew. (Maybe I should send Rafe that formula?)

To me, it's like stripping away 30% of the Sistine chapel, then hiring a half-dozen different artists to come in and fill in the gaps. I'm not saying they can't or won't do a good job—sometimes younger writers are hungrier for the opportunity to show their stuff—it just makes me a bit nervous. Good writing does not grow on trees—sometimes it takes years to get right. (cough-GOT season8-cough)

Plans =

~Get surround sound before Nov. 19

~Turn off phone. Disable doorbell. 

~Watch without my wife so I don't have to pause and explain anything ?

~Have a chunk of bread, a chunk of cheese, a chunk of meat, and a glass of beer, and get all medieval with it!

~Repeat

I really hope Perrin doesn't kill his wife. Even by accident, that is just too heavy a note to start the show on. Realistically, that would drive any man insane/depressed for years and years. Either watching Perrin would become a huge bummer every time he is onscreen, or, if he 'gets over it' too quickly, it will make him seem inhuman. And if they just write it so that the tragedy 'fuels' his anger at the Dark One... seems like a cheap way out for a writing team. Would also make it feel kind of gross when he eventually hooks with Faile, since that can't be more than a season or two away.

I'm not sure where this theory even started. My gut says it is extremely unlikely. 

Having the trollocs or the fade kill her, I can live with that.

Do we even know for sure it is his wife? Could it be a sister? Or a portal stone wife?

~Julian Sandar makes a mid-life career change and becomes a thief-taker. (Actually, no, that's a little too crazy.)

~Birgitte meets Galad. He smiles. Her heart starts thumping. She looks backs at Gaidal Cain, frowns, and thinks to herself What on earth was I thinking...? Ugly men—?!

~Instead of an old, white-mustached bard playing the harp in a multi-colored cloak, Thom is a 50-something hunk of hot man-meat rocking a guitar in a dusty, gritty travelling cloak. (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

~When Rand, Mat, and Perrin learn about the 'dress-code' in the Aiel sweat tents, they never leave the desert. Ever.

~When the Creator says I WILL NOT INTERFERE, Rand asks, "Why not?" The Creator pauses, thinks it over, and says, "THAT'S A GOOD QUESTION. MAYBE I COULD INTERFERE JUST THIS ONCE." And the series ends in one book, happily ever after, without tens of thousands of innocent people being killed.

Honestly, how expensive could this really be to pull off?

However they have Lews speaking internally to Rand (voice, visions, Old Tongue, whatever), it's just so great to think how first-time viewers will struggle to figure out who the real Dragon... (unless they just, ya know, google it in 4 seconds.) What with Rand hearing voices, Perrin's eyes turning yellow and talking to wolves, and Mat falling under the grip of the knife... so asymmetric, but so balanced in its own way...

When you read the books, it is pretty obvious Rand is the DR from, what, like chapter 3? Which always made Perrin and Mat's newfound abilities feel to me like elaborate B-plots. Big, epic, plot-pivotal, kingdom-spanning arcs, but B-plots all the same.

But if the show subtly signals to clever viewers that Logain may not actually be the Dragon (even if they—the show-makers and the Aes Sedai both—ostensibly hype him up as the main villain for all or part of Season 1) then first-time viewers are going to be puzzling out whether the real DR is schizophrenic Rand, yellow-eyed Perrin, or curse-infected Mat...

Just a beautiful opportunity to play with viewers' minds and expectations.

I think we will see some version of the Green Man for a few reasons:

1) The Tinkers are in the show, and I don't think they will just use them as 'stereotypical gypsies' who just drift around in colored wagons. Once they start talking about The Way of the Leaf, it is only about 10 additional seconds of dialogue to get to the Tinkers' search for the Song. Searching for the Song is the primary reason they roam around, after all! And you can't start talking about some mystical, long-lost Song in Season 1 unless you are going to pay it off in a satisfying way at the end of the series.

2) They could have cut Loial and said it was too expensive to have a big, CGI-heavy (?) travelling companion lumbering around with Rand & Co. No one (except the millions of book fans) would ever know anything was missing! They could have glossed over the Stedding and the Ogier altogether... Heck, in some ways, they did (the design of the Waygate, for example, doesn't exactly scream Unparalleled Ogier Craftsmanship.) But we are getting Ogier, and with Ogier come Steddings, and Steddings obviously tie into the endgame with the Tinker's Song.

So we have Tinkers (and their Song) and Ogier (and their Steddings)... but does that automatically mean we are getting the Green Man? Yes! Yes, it does! Here's why...

You can't have Tinkers without their Song. And you can't have Ogier without their Stedding. And you can't have a climactic, epic, AmazonBezosBillionDollarRocketMoney payoff in the end without tying the Song and the Ogier together, somehow... and that tying-together is going to be incredibly half-baked without a scene (AoL Flashback????) of the Nym and the Tuatha'an and the  Ogier all holding hands singing Kumbaya. And THAT sort of scene (be it flashback or flash-forward at the end of the show) is going to be pretty confusing and underwhelming if we have never seen a Nym before.

Which is why they will undoubtedly (yep, you heard it here first!) include a brief scene with Someshta in Season 1. Even if it takes a big bite out of the budget, they will never have to show him again. It will set up the ultimate payoff in the last season like few other early elements can, and if they ever want to show more Nym (again, in an AoL flashback?) they can wait several years until they are ready to spend that GoT-Dragon-style money.

9 hours ago, CaddySedai said:

though I gotta say Im stoked about the "Big Power" scene they showed. Its less "colorful" than the weaving I always pictured in my minds eye...but the flows and meshing is spot on. And I'm wondering if they plan to show that for all big power ...and maybe this is what a non-channeler sees...and maybe from a channelers view we might see more in depth weaving? 

I think this is a great call for a couple reasons:

1) The teaser shows Healing, Stopping Arrows in Mid-Air, and Calling Down Lightning, and, on the male side, Busting Out Of A Cage (am I missing anything?) and they all use the same generic-looking CGI for the One Power. No real differentiation whatsoever between what 'elements' are being used. Seems a little suspect. Very possible this is just a simplistic visual representation for the TV viewer... though what the other non-channeling characters 'see' remains to be seen. (I mean, they're not supposed to see anything, right? Let alone a bunch of silky strands of white magic floating through the air.)

Possible Counterpoint: The producers just decided all the in-depth stuff about 'weaving' is too much for normal viewers to make sense of, so they abandoned the five elements and the idea that separate 'thread's would be 'woven' together like a tapestry altogether. Some people have also suggested this might be the case so that casual viewers don't assume only the Red Ajah channels fire and the Blue Ajah channels water, etc. If that is the case.... ?

2) At some point, Rafe said the design team did an awesome job on what channeling looks like. (I forget what interview this was, but I definitely remember him saying they worked at it, came up with a great style/concept, and he was excited to share it.) What we saw in this teaser—generic air-bending that looks like the home screen on my Playstation—hardly seems like an artistic accomplishment worthy of that sort of hype/praise. 

Possible Counterpoint: Rafe says everybody is doing an amazing job, because he's a nice guy.

All that said... I sort of hate to admit it, but maybe this is what channeling looks like—and maybe it's supposed to! SinisterDeath posted a snippet from Robert Jordan in another forum that basically describes channeling almost exactly like what we saw in the teaser. No colors. No tapestry-like patterns. So... 

Maybe, just maybe, when Moiraine is teaching Egwene for the first time, or in other rare instances where the channeler is really focusing, the camera can 'zoom in' or go into 'channeler mode' and we can see them like almost at an atomic level 'weaving' fire and air and water and so forth into complex threads and patterns, but that would be CGI-heavy and probably not practical to do for more than a few shots. And then when they 'zoom out' again, it's just the nebulous silvery magic again.

Total guess—1 episode a week; no extra episodes on the first week. 

I hope the writer's tackle it head on: Have Tylin use her authority to coerce Mat. Have her flash the knives and nod to the armed guards. And, have Mat complain about it... but also have him occasionally crack a dry joke and play along with the role even though he would prefer to escape, just like it was in the books. When I first read it, I was about Mat's age, and my honest line of thought was That doesn't seem so bad. He gets to stay in the palace, and he's getting some action, but something's not quite right... And it was a challenge to think through, and that challenge was valuable. Probably millions of young male readers over the years thought the exact same thing I did... so to write it off (for the TV show) as either 100% evil rape or sidestep the controversy altogether by rewriting it as a consensual seduction, for me that would be a missed opportunity to explore a really murky but worthwhile moral conundrum.

If you play up the use of force and/or authority and make Mat a 100% completely and consistently unwilling victim, we can all watch that, call it what it is (100% evil rape) and move on, tidily affirmed of our own unswerving moral compass. That's the easy way out.

Make Tylin seduce him, no threat of force involved, and it's just another steamy, sordid sex affair. We've all seen that a million times. You could basically get up and go refill your drink during those scenes.

Which is why I hope they play it just like in the books, because life is full of complex, weird, horrifying, uncertain and unsettling ethical gray areas, and we learn a lot more about ourselves, those around us, and our own values when we have to wade through those sticky philosophical swamps without a nice, neat path to the other side and a group of like-minded sycophants to hold our hand the whole way.

And then exercise some creative restraint and don't tell the audience what we ought to think about the whole messy affair. No trigger warnings before the episode. No after-show apologies for presenting something unpleasant. I mean, heck, if their really going to have nudity and bloody gore, then everyone watching ought to be an adult—we can handle some intellectual challenges and psychological turmoil. 

Stick to what Jordan wrote, in all its disconcerting complexity, and let the viewer suss out what we think.

However, my guess would be, after the blowback from Ramsey Bolton raping Sansa, they'll take the easy way out. (Not sure where the same outrage mob was when Ramsey sliced off Theon's little Greyjoy, but that's another story I suppose.)