i would count the show successful if i like it. and it's not cancelled, because if i like it but they leave it unfinished it would suck.

17 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

In one scene. One. 

Jordan describes the cloaks as being difficult to look at (because of their shifting colors) even when the Warder isn't trying to conceal himself. What that would require is that every single time a Warder is on screen, you have to add some sort of digital effect that conveys that color-shiftingness. That's tough to pull off just from a degree of difficulty standpoint before you even get to the question of expense.

 

I agree.

I didn't pay attention to the detail there, but i do remember, those cloaks in the lord of the rings were kinda underwhelming.

I also agree that it can't be that hard to pull off that kind of effect, as people do it over internet calls all the time... except, that effect when made over internet call is far from flawless. people can put a picture behind them, but it will glitch. we accept it for internet calls, for twitch streams, because we know the people doing it are not professionals and they are working with what they have. i doubt we'd accept it for a movie. and maybe, just maybe because that's not my field of expertise, but maybe doing the effect well would be extremely expensive indeed.

or perhaps they tried, and they were unhappy with the result.

anyway, just like the agelessness, just like the harp becoming a guitar, this is a change made for the sake of practicity that i'm willing to tolerate.

actually, it's a much lesser change than the agelessness. the fact that you could recognize an aes sedai by looking at her face had always been a plot point. rand gets kidnapped because he looks at the servant's faces and he feels safe afterwards. aes sedai can't infiltrate because they can be recognized on sight. it entails changes to the plot. i would be definitely crying foul over this, if i did think there was some convincing way they'd have to pull it off.

the warder cloak? there's few scenes where it's even used for its intended purpose, and none that couldn't be justified with mundane hiding

2 hours ago, Elessar said:

There are 2 main reasons: one is that we are talking Canon by Robert Jordan, the other is that these two things were special, unique for the Wheel of Time and would set it apart from other fantasy shows.

for all that I can agree with the sentiment, there is another problem to consider for the ageless look: assume you have all the special budget you want. Even then, how the hell are you going to make it???

It's all fine to write in a book "they had the ageless look". What is established by canon is

- anyone who knows the look will ALWAYS recognize ANY aes sedai, excepting of course newly sworn ones.

- nobody who knows the look EVER mistook ANY regular woman for aes sedai

They are said to have the wisdom of old age in their eyes, but a smooth skin. Well, there are women who keep a smooth skin up to their fifties - or some who disguise it with makeup. And how exactly do you convey wisdom with the eyes?

The closest thing I ever saw which could fit was Pai Mei from Kill Bill. Which has the added bonus of being doable with just make-up. However, I don't think that would be adequate. Pai Mei ageless look was achieved by taking a joinger actor and giving the impression of age with long white hair and white beard. Shave him bardless, dye his hair black, I doubt he'd be ageless anymore. or, if he was, he'd be undistinguishable from people who have that look naturally. A clean-shaven, black-haired Pai Mei in plain clothes could easily pass for a farmer, something which no aes sedai could do.

So, besides budget, I don't think there's any way they could have actually achieved a convincing ageless look, at all. It's a bit like lovecraftian monsters, it's perfectly fine on a book to put something too horrible to describe, but then you have no way of showing it in a movie; your best bet is to not show it at all.

this problem also applies to other things described in the series, like the "something wrong in the eyes" of those that are turned.

pity for the cloaks, but frankly, after they told that they dropped the agelessness, i was expecting them to do the same for the cloaks, for the same reason.

also, if they have a teangreal that makes fancloth, i never understood why limiting themselves to cloaks and not make also regular clothes, and maybe even tents, with the thing.

Regarding the trailer, i can't tell if his answer is a yes or no

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

This kind of gate keeping is tiresome.
 

No one has called you a racist. No one has conflated your views with the people who complain about the skin color of the actors who have been chosen. 
 

actually, someone did

On 5/15/2021 at 6:33 AM, mistborn82 said:

 it's getting tiring ignoring the complaints from the same people that boil down to I can't stand that X,Y,Z are black, asian etc. However, I have to invent other reasons.

Why ruin it for everyone else here? Those 'fans' will never accept diversity so why do you stay?

 

36 minutes ago, Thrasymachus said:

I don't know if you noticed, Elder_Haman, but I haven't been insulting you. 

actually, you did

On 5/13/2021 at 2:08 AM, Thrasymachus said:

Don't worry about it too much, Elessar.  There's a certain contingent for whom Rafe can do no wrong

 

You've both been feeding with aggressivity that was mostly directed at others, or by others.

1 hour ago, TheMountain said:

I think that's fair, though in my personal opinion, the little (but specifically selected) content that the marketing team has decided to release so far hasn't exactly been indicating in the right direction. Everything I've seen so far, at least to me, has seemed rather generic YA fantasy. I don't think that the marketing team is really selling the show well at the moment (if it is indeed an illusion caused by what has been selected for release and not an indication of the overall product).

20 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

I’ll say that to the extent this has been designed marketing, it has been wanting. Then again, I see what they’ve been doing as just throwing crumbs to the rabid fans as opposed to a bonafide marketing campaign. 
 

I haven’t gotten any YA vibes from it. And I’ve quite liked the visuals- the concept art in particular was fantastic. And some of the leaked set photos also give me confidence in the overall quality. 

both true.

let's break it down...

i appreciated the concept art. though it does not say much on the finished product.

i liked the set of emond field.

that half second i've seen of lan was convincing.

can't speak for moiraine, that was too short for me to get an idea.

the sword, the dagger and the guitar had been underwhelming. very generic, nothing special about them.

I'm generally happy with the cast, with only a couple of distinctions:

- i think perrin should be thicker than that. i'm willing to get over it because finding an actor big enough to play the role would have been nigh impossible

- i think the two rivers should have had everyone of the same ethnicity. it's a small place with few outside contacts, they've been interbreeding for two millennia, they should be very uniform by now. I'm willing to get over it because it seems they want to keep the mystery on who's the dragon, so they don't want rand to stand out.

So, i'm overall happy with the released material. but there are bad circumstances. the material i'm not satisfied with is among the last to have been released, so it could overshadow the previous, better material. and the last few months have been especially hard for us fans, because we're under the general concept that we're getting a trailer, or at least solid news "any time now". Hell, I've been checking this site daily since last december, to see if they finally had a trailer or release date, under the belief that it's gonna be "any time now".

One can get frustrated with that. the lack of solid news coupled with a couple of underwhelming releases makes the problems with those releases look much bigger than they actually are.

9 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

 But the complaint that Rosamund Pike is too tall to play Moiraine is a valid one, because having a tall Moiraine completely changes the feel of that part of the Wheel of Time.

 

errr.... no?

i would have never thought anyone could fixate over something as insignificant as physical aspect. even now that i finally understand what you're getting so salty about, I still can't figure it out.

characters are defined by who they are, by what they do, not by how they look. if i did some plastic surgery to look completely different, i'd still be me. if you take my house and paint it a different color and planted something new in the garden, it would still be my home.

if moiraine is tall and blonde and with blue eyes, whether rand's sword is a katana or a claymore, whether perrin has a beard, or the white tower is square or round, it does not matter in the slightest. if they behave like the character, then they are the character.

especially because i realize some of those changes are simply for practical reasons, like the choice of available actors.

Now, there are some details that actually matter. perrin may be a short dude with long hair and no beard, but he must be credible as blacksmith, so they can't get skinny guy for him. rand may be half black and half asian for all i care about appearence, but only as long as the average aiel are also portraied the same way.

because perrin being a blacksmith, and therefore big and bulky, is a plot point. Because Rand looking like an Aiel is a plot point. If they say "plot twist! rand has been an aiel the whole time" and then they have rand played by a chinese and the aiel by native americans, well, it doesn't work.

Moiraine is always described as short, but when is that ever a plot point? is there anything in the story that would not work if thom is 15 years younger and has a different instrument, if the dagger is not recurve?

I'd be much more sensitive to changes to the plot. Again, I can take most changes that are motivated by practical reasons, and i can take other minor changes in stride, but there is a point where those plot and characterization changes become too much and i can't recognize the story as authentic. Where is the limit? I have no idea. I watch, and it feel right, or it doesn't.

But I would argue that the "core spirit" of the wheel of time is in the general worldbuilding points. The one power, how it works, the political powers, how they work, the whole "dragon" business, the different people, the expansive world. It most certainly does NOT lie in whether a certain character is tall or short, dark or blonde, or whether the tip of a blade is angled in the right way or the spires of a colums are clockwise or counterclockwise. No matter how insistent was the description in the books. That's not what the story is about. that's not what any story is about.

10 hours ago, Elgee said:

 Did they really have to cast a tall, blue eyed blonde to play the role? 

 

there was a light effect playing tricks with her hair, so i may be in error there, but in those two seconds of teaser, wasn't she dyed black?

a lot of actors are going to look different with the make-up from the scenes. personally i think "mat" is too white to be a believable farmer; farmers worked under the sun most of the time, and they would have tan skin, regardless of ethnicity, unless their normal color is already darker than that; i hope they do something to make it look like he got more sunlight. only a minor detail, though.

and of course i fully agree that preemptive accusations don't help anyone

it makes perfect sense. semirhage lived by her reputation. humiliating her was effective.

in just a couple of days, we'll know if those voices about a trailer on 12 may were founded or not. i'm not very optimistic, though, as too often in the past i've been deluded. i keep hoping, but now i'll belive we get a trailer after i've seen it

11 hours ago, Sean said:

So I'm quite new to this forum but I've been loving the small "trailers", and love the look of everything so far. Really excited for more, and hope we get a trailer, release date or even both at some point ?

This is actually a very interesting contrast to people like redgiant and thrasymchus. especially because it comes from someone new.

Makes me wonder, perhaps the people who are nitpicky and will complain about lack of quillons and such are only a small minority out of an already small minority of hardcore fans? Maybe most of the casual fans are actually taking it all well and are liking the teasers.

Perhaps the marketing people actually know what they are doing?

11 hours ago, redgiant said:

 I would never initially introduce Daniel as Lan without applying the the "stony face, all angles"-style portrayal in some manner, even in a few seconds clip.

 

 

the second half of the clip showed a sword move, but the first second had his face, and he was stone-faced enough, at least for me

2 hours ago, TheMountain said:

 While some people may think this is minor, I absolutely loved the way that Robert Jordan described the sword forms, and for me this would be a huge loss.

I didn't.

to me it felt clunky and completely irrealistic. it's like they are only locking themselves on a few specific ways of moving. that's not how people fight for real. I can only condone that because i see it as a way to describe swordfighting in words - it's not like i'd have any idea how you could give better descriptions.

anyway, i've looked at that video almost frame by frame, and i didn't see any of that "open-mouthed flailing hop". it's just a few fotograms, it could really be anything. i can barely see the sword. i can't even see the hand holding it. one can draw all kinds of conclusions from it.

so, one could also conclude that it's poorly coordinated and executed, but there's just not enough material to judge.

and regarding the open mouth, people tend to actually fight with their mouth open. because they need to breathe hard when exherting.

as for size, the actor is already fairly big. lan is described as big, but not superhumanly so. and he spent most of the time without an armor anyway. i don't see what's wrong with this lan and the descriptions, really. and good luck finding another good actor that would fit better. you have to be realistic there. i think "perrin" is not big enough for his role, but i also think the only actor with the look to pull it off would be bud spencer, and even before he died he was way too old to be a believable perrin. Lacking a young bud spencer, i am fully willing to accept a marcus rutherford playing the part.

now, what I can agree is that those tidbits they are releasing are bad. 6 seconds, of which 4 are dark, 2 seconds of the actor where you can't really see anything. no idea why they are releasing them like that, i have no competence on marketing

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.

1 hour ago, DojoToad said:

I think Daniel will be great as Lan. My complaint is not seeing anything...

i second that.

i check this page daily to see if there are any news or solid facts. so far, all i have is the assurance that they already invested enough money in it that they're not going to pull the plug

2 hours ago, DojoToad said:

I expect nothing at this point. All the anticipation has been drained out of me. I’ll continue to check in for news, but will reserve excitement for something other than a 5 second tease...

what i actually get excited about is not the 5 seconds of video (of which 2 are darkness anyway), but the Q&A afterwards. it's one of the few chances for some solid information, even though most of it is irrelevant (seriously, asking him what he had for lunch????)

In the last few months, we got a steady pace of one new release of material every month: 17 march, 19 february, 15 january, 23 december. Tomorrow it will be 4 weeks since last release, so I expect we should get something.

Also, according to what somebody else posted here, they hired people to translate the trailer for 22 april. So perhaps tomorrow we get the last teaser, and in one month we get the full trailer?

It could also be the scene where she first starts training egwene. in that scene there were flashes of light, and in the end moiraine tells egwene "the last one was yours". also in that scene egwene makes some questions about how are aes sedai, asking basically if they are monodimensional straw characters. and the "do not underestimate" could refer to that.

and of course, the audio could come from a completely different moment.

as i said, too little information to draw any conclusion.

i gotta give them, the sound effect is cool

so, we have 5 seconds of video, of which 2 seconds are darkness, then there is moiraine's face with small flashes of light for 1 second, and then a flash of light for 2 more seconds.

way too little to get anything meaningful out of it.

i am just excited that, one month after the latest release, they did release something else. one small teaser per month is not much, but it's still more promising than zero small teasers per month.

2 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

Dropping the series in June would be great, if they want it to underperform miserably.  Ain't nobody gonna be wanting to stream a CW-style drama when there's bars, baseball and bbqs to get back to.

on the other hand, if everyone thinks this, then june would be a great time to launch, because there's some people who don't care about all those outdoors activities, and there will be nothing else to watch because everyone else will not be launching shows in summer.

oooh, you know a demographic that is strongly correlated with "doesn't care for outdoor activities"? fantasy fans!

not saying it will happen, but i wouldn't discount it.

21 hours ago, DojoToad said:

It comes when it comes...

yeah, but if we just take that attitude, then we may as well stop checking the site at all.

that's great news, if confirmed.

i wonder if we're getting more teasers before that; it's been 3 weeks already since the latest release

17 hours ago, Harldin said:

warning spoiler.
 

Sorry but i was left in no doubt that the best Swordsman was Demandred, only Lan’s unorthodox move defeated him in the end. 

not exactly clear. it was made clear that Demandred was winning his duel with Lan, but Lan was tired for a full day fighting, while Demandred was drawing power through the circle and was still relatively fresh. It's not sure if he'd been the best had they both been fresh. In any case, if a tired Lan managed a protracted fight, it means the difference was hair-thin anyway.

So, Demandred ≥ Lan > Galad >> Gawyn >> Sleete, and Sleete was already extremely badass on his own.

It's also not clear how good would be Rand in all that. Nor how Tam would figure in the whole equation. Though, given that they are not primary swordsmen, it would make sense for them to be behind in pure sword skill.

Also, I wouldn't call it clear that the greatest melee fighter is Mat. He beat Galad and Gawyn, but they were both in training at the time, and they both weren't taking it seriously at first. I'd still put my money of Lan.

6 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

They're hiring people they think are great at their jobs. And then they're letting them do their jobs. You don't hire a top shelf art director and then tell him that he has to use someone else's designs. That's not going to get you the kind of people you want to do the very important job of art design.

huh. it makes sense.

and by that i mean, i am a STEM guy and to me the idea of remaking from scratch something that someone else already got right is absolutely bonkers, but it's the kind of weird stuff i've come to expect from art guys. i'm sure it must make sense to them ?