6 hours ago, Wolfbrother31 said:

You know what though. 

 

I think it's quite possible that many of the changes aren't Rafe's fault ... But the Executive Producer and non-fans fault. 

 

So. 

I will stop being hard on Rafe. 

I wouldn't want to be in his ?

that is also possible, indeed likely. all the thing about "diverse cast" and "inclusion" is practically mandatory nowadays, unless your target demographics is right-wings extremists.

no, a lot of people don't really care either way (as in, not really caring that a work of fiction also has to be a political statement), but if you lack those, you'll get harsh criticism.

though wot already supports an inclusive cast, with various cultures looking like many different ethnicities.

the  way they are portraying the threads of the power looks very interesting. i like it.

and that's pretty much the only new thing we have from that poster

Aes sedai come from all lands, but girls born in tar valon are the most likely to have the chance. those from faraway lands have to take the long voyage to the distant city to be tested on the off-chance of having the spark, while those born in tar valon just have to take a short hike. they may easily be discovered by a passing aes sedai on the street.

Compound on that tar valon being the most populous city, and having no prejudice against the tower, unlike most other lands, I'd expect a statistically large amount of aes sedai coming from the city and its surrounding.

Yet I can't recall a single one. is there a reason for this oddity?

to be noted that when they scripted season 1 they had no guarantee there would be a season 2, so making an unnecessary caemlyn set that could be easily cut out in season 1 because it would be relevant in season 2 may not have been their priority.

now that they have been confirmed for more, it's fairly sure they will have permanent sets for most main cities

yes, the characters are being very dumb. it's intentional; they are supposed to be flawed, and to have to overcome those flaws. they will, later.

by the way, i don't remember elayne doing anything stupid during the ascension. she handled things well in that regard.

iirc, they mentioned 4 locations for which they made big sets.

two of them are emond field and shadar logoth, for sure. we're not sure about the other two.

this does not preclude smaller location like "a random tavern" or "a random farm"

we can definitely expect some fairly big content drop. I wouldn't deem a full trailer to be too likely, but I would expect at least a teaser of decent lenght.

if they intend to release in september/october, then we may even get a full trailer. If they aim for november/december, it's probably early.

Either way, we probably won't get anything else before comic con

2 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

 

 

is mat the guy on the left? he looks much more like the other emond fielders now. they look homogeneous, except rand standing out. looks perfect to me.

"Lan" is not small. He's like 1.85, and well muscled. Still not as imposing as book!Lan, but acceptable. Just like "Perrin" is not as big as book!Perrin, but finding an actor to actually fit the description would have been overly difficult.

by the way, regarding numbers..

On 7/3/2021 at 10:09 PM, redgiant said:

1. TWoT books have sold 80 million copies and is #8 all-time. I find it super hard to imagine how crafting the TV adaptation "for the fans" is anything but a good idea.

this looks impressive. The number, used like this, looks like one fourth of the whole american population read wot.

that number, however, is misleading. the main thing to remember is that there are 14 wot books. every person who read the books bought 14 of them, not just one.

So, those 80 millions books translate actually to less than 6 millions readers. Perhaps they are underestimated; some families will buy a book and then everyone would read it. Perhaps they are overestimated; some people will buy a book, read it, dislike it, and move on. let's say that those factors cancel each other, and let's stick with 6 millions.

6 millions is still a big number, but a small minority of the total population. that's unavoidable; most of the general population doesn't even read books at all, most of those who read are not into fantasy, most of those won't commit to reading 14 big books.

so, we got those 6 millions. But those are not fans. those are just the people who read the books once. if they reached the end, they probably liked it enough, but they certainly don't qualify as fans. still, a lot of those 6 millions readers will be interested in the tv show. in a vague "i read those books 10 years ago and they were nice, let's see what they made of them". most of them will barely remember the story.

the actual fans who read the books multiple times (on an undertaking as big as reading 10000 pages, being willing to do it twice authomatically qualifies one as fan), who knows the story in depth, and who may get nitpicky about details, will be maybe 100000. And most of those won't be nitpicky.

the tv show must appeal to the general public. if it does, it will be successful, and even most of the fans will like it. and for that, it just have to be well-made. most fans will forgive any change if it is well made, and most viewers won't even know.

but crafting the adaptation "for the fans" at the expence of alientating the general public? terrible idea.

8 hours ago, johnnysd said:

 

I actually like Sanderson's books. His own books. I loved Elantris and Mistborn and have read the first three books of Way of Kings which is good and bad. I just do not like the Sanderson WoT books. I am not trying to sway anyone's opinion  What I was saying though if you watch any of the dusty wheel shows on the notes, even the books Jordan himself wrote from the notes were quite different, and most times better. Also I am not a purist, I think the changes I have seen in WoT make sense and should make a better story. They could change something that I have a big issue with but in general as long as the action is good and production values are good and they take the TV series seriously (like history, not fantasy-which is what LOTR and GOT did and made it successfull) all things that they do seem to be doing I think I will adore the show. 

fair enough. as i said, if it's just a matter of artistic preference, it can't be argued.

I'm merely saying that "it's different from the notes" doesn't mean anything, because the final draft of a book is always going to be quite different from the first sketched outline

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WoT will face this too. After 5 or six seasons  things will be just different enough that certain arcs and the ending as it is will not make sense. It will be interesting to see how they handle this.

oh, yeah. Another reason we need a director capable of making (sensible) changes where needed, rather than someone who will just stick to the books.

8 hours ago, johnnysd said:

 

Well I do realize they went off Jordan's notes but if you have seen any of the reviews of what the books actually are and what the notes are they are very very different. So in the end the last 3 or 4 books by Jordan would have been significantly maybe entirely different than what Sanderson wrote even with all that assistance.

first, I haven't read the notes, and so I have no idea of what you mean by "very very different". you could be a case like trymascus, where "they changed everything for the sake of getting their own stamp on it" means "the sword has no quillons".

but assuming there are indeed big differences, I'd be surprised if indeed there were not. because Jordan left notes.

writing a book the size of WoT is a lenghty process, involving multiple revisions. I don't know much about jordan, but i follow sanderson closely; and he first drafts an outline. then he writes a first draft. then he revises and writes a second, and maybe a third. then he gives it to the alpha readers, who give feedback, and on that he writes another draft, and that one goes to the beta readers, who give more feedback resulting in more drafts.

and each and every one of those drafts results in plot changes. because a lot of things don't work at first, or they could be improved, or they fail to deliver the right emotional impact that the author was aiming for.

So, even when it is the same author going from start to finish, the final book is still very different from the starting draft.

In the case of wot, jordan didn't even leave a outline. he left notes. which are bits and snippets of what would become the outline. which would have gone through multiple revisions anyway.

So yes, I don't doubt that sanderson books are much different than the notes. I am also sure, if jordan had been around to finish writing, his own final books would be very different from his own notes too.

Which is also the reason I contend with the purists, those who don't like changes and think the story should be followed as slavishly as possible. No, the story is not gospel; the author himself could have very easily written it another way. Indeed, the author himself may have actually liked a different version better. the author himself kept making changes. And then at some point he went and published, and this set a canon. But that canon could have very easily been different. if you could rewind the universe and have robert jordan write wot multiple times in multiple parallel realities, he would have written different stories every time.

and he would have been praised every time, because all those differences would not change a good story into a bad one.

now, you don't like his books, you don't like his style, that's fine. I like his style, I like his take on things, I like that characters are allowed to drop the idiot ball and get things done a bit more often, and I like his books more than the original ones.

regardless, those books being different from the notes is no problem whatsoever. because jordan's books themselves would have been very different from the notes too. because what ends up being "canon" and what ends up being revised in the many drafts of a book is largely coincidential.

On 7/1/2021 at 5:27 AM, Harldin said:

Sorry but I disagree with it doesn’t mean anything, a Logo is a major part of the marketing for the Show. Non Fans are going to start seeing it and many will become intrigued and one big factor WOT has going for it is a quite unique name. 
People are going to start asking what in blue blazes is a Wheel of Time? And will start searching.

i've been working in the detergent industry for a while. One of the first thing they told me is that what sells most about a detergent is the color and smell.

which, from a chemist perspective, is totally stupid. color and smell are caused by additives, they are only a few parts per million in the final product, and they have no impact whatsoever on how effectively the detergent will actually be at washing anything.

yet the average customer does not know chemistry, and they only can judge visual looks and smell.

well, i think the logo is the same thing. yes, it is a major part of marketing. yes, it has a large effect on getting people interested. especially people who don't know anyting about the show. yes, the people producing this show should put a lot of effort into it.

but as far as telling the quality of the show, the logo is meaningless.

as i am not the average viewer and i have already a deep knowledge of the wheel of time, the logo doesn't tell me anything new.

it's just a logo. it doesn't mean anything, either way.

we already were pretty sure that it would air in 2021, but it's good to have confirmation.

do keep in mind that wot is a big story, and making moiraine the protagonist of a season does not mean making her the protagonist of the whole story, usurping rand's place.

or giving logain an episode and having him "protagonist" of that episode, again, it means nothing for the whole story. just like in the books you have multiple pow characters, in the show you can have episodes focusing on a character.

If nothing else, Sanderson confirms what they've been telling all the time: that the plot was significantly reworked.

And we all knew it was inevitable: different mediums require different adaptation, even before we take into account WoT's sheer size.

The only question has ever been, are those changes good? are they functional to the adaptation while preserving the core of the story? And sanderson gave his blessing here.

personally, my target here is the witcher. That one was a good adaptation; they changed storylines, addeded stuff, cut stuff, moved stuff around. They made tissaia much harsher than she was, while making jennefer more symphatetic. and her whole backstory was expanded from what, in the books, amount to a few lines.

but all of that worked, the characters were true to their core, and the show was enjoyable.

If we get that, I'll be happy.

3 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

@SinisterDeath

@king of nowhere You want to know what I consider respect?  It's pretty simple, and I've laid it out multiple times before.  And it's less about what you do than what you don't do.  You don't elevate your taste over the source material, as they did with Tam's sword, Thom's guitar, and the Shadar Logoth dagger.  You don't use superficial elements of the source material to tell your own story, unless that story is a necessary addition to make sense of the story as told in the books, as they are doing with Logain's story and in making Moiraine the "protagonist" of the first season. 

yes, but what decides if a change is instrumental to the adaptation or if it is made "because the showrunner elevates his own tastes above the show"? It's not a clear line to draw. Keeping mystery on which of the three boys is the dragon reborn could be a boon. Showing Logain could be a great way to introduce worldbuilding - show don't tell, and we get basically told all about Logain from Padain Fain's voice.

Also, tastes have changed in the past 30 years. Someone said, there were things that when they were written were feminist, and now they are not. There were things that may be poorly recived by today's audiences. Hell, there were things that were poorly received by the fans themselves when robert jordan published the books.

And I fully expect that pretty much everyone will be made more nice. but especially egwene and rand. Because if they are portrayed as in the books, they may alienate viewers. Just look at how many egwene haters are there just among book fans. And I hope they can soften those characters a bit without losing their flawed nature. In fact, if they make them more likable without changing them to some kind of flawless mary/marty sue, i may even prefer that to the original.

Anyway, I get the firm impression that, perhaps subconsciously, your concept of "no respect for the fans" means "changes that I, personally, don't like".

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For the fans, you don't spark a casting controversy that you know is going to cause an uproar (because most fantasy and gaming communities host closeted communities of racist mouth breathers and anybody that is a fan of any fantasy or gaming community knows this) no matter how book-accurate your casting is, no matter how warranted and welcome it is to un-closet them and roust them out, and then spend all your next reveals showing how different your show is from everything the fan community has created over the last 20+ years in celebration of that material, let alone everything the source actually describes in great detail.  You don't hint that you're going to change aspects of the story that exist for important thematic reasons, namely as the relations of these characters to our own myths and legends, so that you can explore a faddish theme of your own choosing.

case in point. Maybe they had a reason for it. what else were they supposed to do? only show what sticks exactly to the books? when the show comes out and is different, you'd complain more loudly. Cast different actors because, since they changed stuff already, they may as well change that too?

I'm not saying the people in the show will get everything right. But whatever they do, someone is going to complain. You should give them more credit. It's not like "they've done that, and I can list reasons it's bad, because they have no respect". It's more like "whatever they do, someone can list reasons it's bad. May as well try".

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But what are you going to do if I'm right?  Who are you going to blame when mainstream audiences fail to be hooked and there's nothing for book fans to be excited about any longer, because any and all actual fan-service has been stripped out of the show?  When the story you get told is not Rand's,

wait here.

as i said, there's dozens of ways this project can go bad, and fail to hook mainstream audiences. Bad acting, bad plot, bad marketing, other popular shows gobbling up all the viewers. But faithfulness to the books will not be the reason for it. For the simple reason that the mainstream audiences - those that actually decide whether the show will be successful - did not read the books.

Yes, I acknowledge that the show can be unsuccessful. it can even be genuinely bad, despite top actors and top money, game of thrones proves that. But I certainly have no idea what will be to blame in such a case, as i can't see the future.

what I'm pretty sure of is, though, that the show can also fail for being too faithful to the books. For being faithful about the wrong things.

On this regard, be also aware that you have very specific, and definitely not mainstream, tastes. if rafe knows that changing something he'll piss you, but he'll please 10 other people, he'll definitely make the change. Yes, having niche tastes sucks. I've been there before. But just because the producers choose to not cater to your tastes, it does not mean they are dumb. In fact, if they want to have success with the masses, it's probably a good idea. It just means they have to recoup expences. 

Or, you know, you could find some way to earn $ 100million, so you could use them all to hire actors to make a wheel of time show how you really like, and you could watch it with all the other diehard fans. The whole dozen of them.

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Because that's what Rafe has said we're getting.

did he? I read all the interviews I could find - and i started lurking here basically just to find news - and I never read that. he said he wants to expand logain's role. he said he wants to tell the story through moiraine's perspective, at least at first.

That logain will be the protagonist and aes sedai really manipulated him to make him rise, i don't remember reading anything close to that.

You are right in getting worried. yes, there are reasons to worry. when trying to adapt a project as big as wot, there's plenty of things that can go bad, even when you have the best circumstances. but losing faith already? based mostly on stuff that nobody said? totally premature.

My position is always the same. I will watch the show, and then I'll decide if I like it.

27 minutes ago, Thrasymachus said:

  They could have made a show that respects the story and the fans, and there wouldn't be this level of division.   

you know, you keep throwing around that sentence. "respects the fans". "respects the story".

But does that actually mean?

They took a team of people close to Jordan as consultants. Including his wife, including the guy who wrote 25% of the total story. looks like respecting the fans enough.

They've been pouring in big money, they got top actors.

So i don't get exactly how they are "not respecting" stuff. I mean, unless we take "respect" as meaning "doing exactly what YOU want them to do".

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So far, I haven't seen a fan who's excited for this show who hasn't had to couch their expectations, to pre-forgive transgressions against the story and the characters, or ignore the disrespect inherent in making "creative" choices that can serve no plot or adaptive function, but merely elevate the taste of the showrunners over Jordan's own.

again, depends on how you define "fan". Well, brandon himself is a pretty big fan, it's what started him into fantasy, right? And he's excited about it.

I am a fan. You probably would not consider me as such, because i skim over most descriptions and i think sanderson did a great perrin and his mat, while not exact, was not bad either. But I did read the whole saga 5 times, which is more than most people would ever read in their whole lives. And I am excited.

Again, what's exactly a fan? I'm thinking you get your opinion because anyone who's not being contrary over minor nitpicks is not enough of a "fan" for you.

Your claim to represent the hardcore fandom is unteneble. Your position is a minority, even among the fandom. You are merely redefining the fandom to exclude anyone who's not in your camp. Which, frankly, I find disrespectful. I am a fan, and you have no right denying me my status because I'm not nitpicky enough.

And finally, whether they "respect" the original story (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean) will have very little bearing on how successful the show will be. as everyone said, fans are a minority of tv viewers, and people posting here are a minority of fans, and people sharing your opinion are a minority of people posting here. The show may tank if they did an awful job of it, but that's got nothing to do with how faithful they are to the original books.  And given how much money and energy they are putting towards making this show, it's very unlikely that it will end up utter crap. it may be passable, it may fail at being great, it may failt at recovering expences, but a total fiasco? I don't see how that could even be.

on the other hand, maybe they worry about creating hype too early, and it backfiring.

No idea. I know little of marketing strategies. But if, as we assume, we'll get the final product before the end of the year, then it would make sense to start marketing more or less now.

perhaps they wait until the end of the european football (soccer) championship, that would take the attention away from the news?

It's quite hard to make comparison, especially with lotr. When lotr came out, it was the only big fantasy project around, probably the only big one made in years. fans - not just fans of tolkien, but of the fantasy genre in general - wanted their chance at coming out of the ghetto. lotr launched fantasy as a mainstream genre.

on the other hand, nowadays there are a lot of competing streaming services, always releasing something big in the hope of driving away customers from their competitors. in this loud cacophony of movies, it is perhaps best to wait the last moment, to avoid your marketing campaign losing its momentum; just like in the silence that reigned 20 years ago, it was better to start marketing early.

Maybe. Just throwing random hypothesis.

speaking of news, it's been one month since the last news. i hope we'll be getting something soon

i am quite confident we'll get something of lord-of-the-rings quality.

the problem is that, while for me and most others this is a good thing, there were some diehard fabns who did not appreciate lotr for not being faithful enough to the books. so, i guess to them it's actually bad news, and it won't put them at ease.

i have to say, every single concern expressed here make sense taken individually, but when taken all together, the amount of negativity in this board is staggering.

so what we learned so far by reading posts

- wot will fail because the director is incompetent

- wot will fail because the director has no respect for the source

- wot will fail because the items don't fit the descriptions enough

- wot will fail because they will change the plot

- wot will fail because they will not change the plot

- wot will fail because of bad release date

- wot will fail because of bad advertising

- wot will fail because of insufficient budget

- wot will fail because competitors are stronger

- wot will fail because covid will end and then nobody will ever stay indoor anymore

- wot will fail because it was not popular enough

- wot will fail because amazon is not popular enough

considering there are only a handful of posts every day, it's surprising so many of those concerns have even managed to be expressed in so little space. wow.

since we're here we may as well add

- wot will fail because of the global financial recession: people won't be able to afford entertainment anymore

- wot will fail because of new wave of conservativism: they will forbid anything that's not the bible

- wot will fail because of the third world war

- wot will fail because of the second american civil war

- wot will fail because all the actors will die in filming accidents due to performing their own stunts

- wot will fail because aliens will kidnap the actors

I guess some people are getting very anxious and are venting their worry here.

if the "big change that fans won't like" is the removal of caemlyn, i'd say we get off light. there are so many things they could screw up, introducing the trakands in season 2 and skipping the meeting of rand and logain (incidentally no, that scene is not plot critical) is the least of it.

i mostly forgot the exact quote from sanderson, and having read it again, i am more optimistic. sure, sanderson would never directly speak ill of the show. but from everything i know of him, he would not blatantly lie either. and he had a good, strong, and - most important - unrequired praise for rafe that makes me optimistic. he had no need or duty whatsoever to put in a specific paragraph to praise the director, he did it because he was convinced.

also, wot has the potential for big money. and the managers know it. they know that, if they do it right and it gets successful, they can milk the cow for 7-8 seasons and make top $$$. If they screw it up, they earn much less. it is in their best interest to commit and try to make a good product.

sure, they can still screw up. GoT did, in the end. but GoT failed when they had no more original script. which is not going to happen here

16 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

The Whitecloaks armor design doesn't look good either, being too slim and also not how Jordan describes their armor.

wait, we got whitecloak armor? when? where?

by the way, one small bother about the books was how armor was never shown to be effective. I can't recall, before the final books written by sanderson, a single instance of a sword thrust being stopped by a breastplate, an arrow pinking off a plate.

oh, fighting people were shown with battered armor, so it was implied it happened, but it was never shown. i would not mind heavy armor being shown as doing its job.

9 hours ago, Elgee said:

I don't recall that either Elaida or Siuan were appointed with the premise that they would be figureheads. Siuan was appointed because of her competence, and Elaida was almost "self-appointed", as she led the coup against Siuan.

if i recall it better, siuan was appointed because the ajas were at an impasse, unable to pick any candidate, so they decided to get a young, easily manipulated aes sedai. of course, siuan outmanipulated them

as for elaida, many of her supporters figured they could gain power by helping her oust siuan and then becoming her inner circle of advisors. indeed, they did for a time, before elaida gradually reasserted control