On 9/22/2021 at 4:04 PM, mogi68 said:

HERID
FREAKIN
FEL

I was just watching the Dusty Wheel episode where they talked about expanding characters and this was my pick but I couldn't remember his name.   

Sullin is also someone I'm looking forward to seeing. 

I think and I hope ..... yes.

I think the position of Taim and Logain gets switched.  Logain starts the tower.   Taimandred joins the tower as Taim and subverts it from within.  Shara gets ditched.  That speculation seems to fit best with the whole expand Logain's storyline approach to me.

1 hour ago, Beidomon said:

All this talk of "you know, they could probably just cut the Eye altogether" is pretty unsettling. There are basically four things that made EOTW a great read: Winternight, Shadar Logoth, The Ways, and the journey into the Blight, past the broken towers of Malkier, to find the Eye. 

I don't think that they are going to cut the Eye of The World from the show.  It is maps too nicely onto that Hero of a Thousand Faces structure.  It is a destination.  It opens up the story in some important ways.  I think it stays (with some changes).

The Green Man comes down to budget, I think.  It shouldn't be all that expensive to do him but showing him may take away from the budget in other areas. 

 On a related thought, does anyone else think that the dead (possible) aiel in the cage is the aiel that tells the tale that sends the party to the Eye of the World?  

3 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

2. Both of those shows were in an entirely different era of TV show/serialization.
Both of these came out before GoT pretty much showed everyone what "Fantasy" as a TV series could be.

They both came out before big name Movie actors started appearing in TV Shows, bucking the idea that TV show actors were less than Movie Actors and beneath them. ($$$ Talks. Blame Seinfeld and Charlie Scheen for that)
They also came out before Streaming like Netflix really got big, and TV Shows had bigger budgets then movies.

I totally agree.   

In some ways the relative successes of some of those 90's shows are what created the opportunity for GOT to happen (along with GRRM's background as a TV writer) which feeds into the Hollywood/Entertainment Industry's tendency to try to recreate the magic by doing something similar.  Examples abound from my youth in the 80's like Willow, Labyrinth, Neverending Story, etc. 

My big point was more along the lines that there are considerations outside the 'story' that factor into how that story gets told.   I don't think those come into play so much with WOT since Team Jordan and Sanderson are involved (in some degree) with the production. 

I saw elsewhere that someone mentioned the original Battlestar Galactica (which I still love and enjoy far more than the reboot) and that was pretty much ripped as a Star Wars clone by the critics when it came out but it is at least a cult classic to some of us.  But, Star Wars' success definitely had something to do with the decision to greenlight it.

I may have been unintentionally misleading with my first response...

From the Sept. 2018 Q&A

@RSQuackenbush: Hey, Rafe! SO pumped to see this happening- do you plan on matching any specific accent to a region? Ex: English accent to Andor
Rafe Judkins: Yes and no. It’ll be somewhat actor dependent but I’d like to find at least as much consistency as GoT has

I think Rafe was asked this during a q&a and he responded that where it was possible they'd let the actors speak with their natural accents.   I am not exactly sure how that might work for people from the same place with different accents.

2 hours ago, swollymammoth said:

This stuff worried me too, but I forgot to mention it in the post. It kinda reminds me of that show The Seeker which was based off Wizard's First Rule. That's not a good thing haha As many people have pointed out, most of my concerns could certainly amount to nothing. The show could be great! But it's difficult to look at poor aesthetic choices in the trailer and believe that the entire show won't be like that. I WANT TO BELIEVE!!!! haha

A good thing to keep in mind when people mention the Legend of the Seeker adaptation is that we, as fans, don't know all the details in what was purchased when the production company obtained the rights to the book or series.   They may have only obtained the rights to the first book, the first book and some specific characters, etc.  That is the situation that Sony found itself in with Spiderman once Marvel decided to do the MCU.  Sony had the rights to Spiderman and some of Spiderman's associated villains but they did not have the rights to other Marvel characters.   Things got messy for Sony when Marvel decided to do the MCU.

Another example to look at might be the Dresden Files adaptation that the author described as "The show is not the books. It is not meant to follow the same story. It is meant as an alternate world, where the overall background and story-world is similar, but not all the same things happen. The show is not attempting to recreate the books on a chapter-by-chapter or even story-by-story basis".   It is possible that Butcher didn't give them the rights to major storylines in the overall series.  There are good reasons for the author to do that and they are good reasons for the production company to not want to follow the books all that closely.

I think the show is trying to be faithful to the books because of Sanderson's and Harriet's involvement but not all fantasy tvs based may have had the same idea (or the legal ability to do so).

Maybe they are planning on making the CGI appear between the pillars and they will use the same CGI effects (without the pillars) for skimming and travelling later. 

12 hours ago, AusLeviathan said:

3. The LotR series being made at the same time. It creates questions of why Amazon has gone ahead with the WoT series when they already have a significantly more well known property that they had to invest far more in to produce.

 

I take the fact that Amazon is producing both the LOTR series and the WOT series as a good thing especially from a purely business perspective.

Disney+ has both Star Wars and the MCU.  Two rather big properties to work with.  Netflix has The Witcher and (who knows what series now given the way they cancel things).  HBO still has GOT and whatever they plan on doing with it.   Investing big into content is a strategy for these platforms to stay relevant and keep subscribers.

Personally, I'm not a LOTR fan (Five minutes of hobbits and I'm rooting for the Ringwraiths).  It is possible that the appetite for LOTR content may not be what it once was (for now).  Hedging their bets with two shows would make good business sense on their part.  But, they could easily make two great series with the two different properties.

As for Sanderson's comment about "another turning of the wheel".   I have a feeling that produced a rather lengthy phone call from Amazon considering the potential impact of that comment.  His most recent comments seem far more positive.  Take from that what you will.

I don't mind the change to the Waygates that much overall.  They definitely don't match the picture that I had in my head but I can see how they might also point to how they do the portal stones also.  Creating a semi-consistent look and feel might be one of the reasons for the change.  Getting rid of the portal stones and combining them with the Waygates might be another.  That is pure speculation on my part.

In terms of the CGI effect, I keep thinking that they might try to make it look Stargate-y which I think could be pretty cool but also may be a little weird to our head canons. 

On the Gawyn question...  Would your answer change if they cut a lot of the Shaido plotlines around the time of Dumei Wells and expand his character arc as the leader of the Tower forces?

I'm am just speculating there.  But, it does seem to be the kind of change that they might make for dramatic effect.

57 minutes ago, CaddySedai said:

@TheDreadReader Lol, now you made me think of WoT as written by Martin. 

 

And that makes me sad. I may be the Chosen Mesaana, and I choose not to imagine a world where we have to have scenes featuring Ishmael’s “”Oath Rod” in them. lol

Shudder... The "Hand" of the Dark...  

17 hours ago, swollymammoth said:

I'm not someone who needs everything to happen in an adaptation like it does in the book. This is why I prefer the Kiera Knightly Pride and Prejudice to the Colin Firth miniseries (Heresy, I know). However, I do ask my adaptations to understand the vision of the original and transmit that into the new medium. A few things about the WoT TV Series have me worried. 

 

I'm a big fan of the movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice over the TV mini-series too.  Within the Austen community that can be a controversial opinion but when you break it down... in many ways (from sets, costumes, etc) the movie version is in many ways a more faithful adaptation than the mini-series.  The TV series is faithful to a certain tweedy anachronistic bourgeois bbc aesthetic more so than the movies.  But, that is certainly something that can be argued a lot.

A few points on some of your other points.

-- Rand in the trailer & the featuring of the Aes Sedai (1 & 3)

As others have pointed out, the trailer that we got is a teaser meant to wet the appetite in the audience for more.   The full trailer has yet to be seen.  

In terms of Rand & the Aes Sedai (Points 1 and 3).   The Aes Sedai are all over the first few books.  Pretty much every character thinks and talks about the Aes Sedai.   Several of the major characters in the books become Aes Sedai.   You have to introduce them somehow.

One the common threads of how Jordan introduced them is by showing people's fear and mistrust of them because the reader's focus is tied in the early books to the three boys.  That fear and mistrust helps build up the significance of being the dragon reborn in the reader's heads. 

The challenge for this approach is that the reader is told about the fear and mistrust and not really shown it.  Characters tell each other stuff about the Aes Sedai.  Characters think about stuff about the Aes Sedai.  Characters (and by extension) us don't see it for ourselves.

One of the ways that you can overcome that problem is casting the Aes Sedai as the dominant power structure in the land.  Presenting the Aes Sedai as they themselves would see themselves and then slowly chipping away at that façade to reveal the problems that the Aes Sedai have created for themselves.  The message, if you will, remains the same even if it is shown to us a little differently.

For example of the expansion of the Logain storyline is a sign that the writers may have a good grasp of the setting.  If they do that addition well then the following things may be true... We the audience are going to see clearly what the Aes Sedai reaction to a dragon is even as Rand also begins to display aspects of being a dragon.  We will see the reaction to Logain channeling even as we see Rand begin to channel.  We will see the general reaction of Randland society and government to a dragon.  From those things we will potentially have a very clear sense of what the stakes are for Rand because we will have just seen the how well all that worked out for Logain.

So, given that it was just a teaser, I'm probably far more positive as we await the actual trailer.

On your points 4 & 5 (Sorry, am having some problems figuring out the whole quoting thing... I'm old) ...

Just curious, how many fan reaction videos/youtube shows did you watch after the teaser ?  

I watched a lot of them and my general impression was that a lot seemed to be getting ahead of themselves about that particular image.   I'm of the opinion that it is more likely related to a ritualistic test ala one for becoming a woman, a wisdom, or an aes sedai and not something real-time to the story.  Some, of the reactions almost seemed to be rooting for piling more trouble upon Rand's head which I find strange 'cause brother Rand got enough on his plate.

I also heard a lot of the whole Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones, and more Game of Thrones.  Carving a niche as the network that broadcasts "edgy" and "sexy" content has been a core HBO strategy going all the way back to its start on cable when their big value proposition was that they could show R rated movies on television.  The sexy stuff in the GOT show is pretty much in line with that history.  But, I don't really think that you can equate HBO's general strategy and Amazon's strategy.   I think Amazon is probably aiming more at Disney Plus's Star Wars and MCU stuff (which is generally unsexy) with both the WOT and LOTR shows.  So, I don't know if the HBO/GOT comparison really tracks well.

As a matter of plot / characterization, I think that making Rand and Egwene have a physical relationship creates some problems (at least for me, maybe not others).  As another poster pointed out, their relationship always had a "default" feel to it.  I agree with that.   In my memory you don't see a lot of deep emotional attachment between them beyond a quasi-slightly-more-than-friendsy level in line with other people's expectations for them.  Given how focused Rand is later on doing what people don't expect, I think keeping things at that level in the show is more in line with his general characterization across the books and you would be losing something if you changed it.

I think changing Rand's three wives has less of an impact than that since that always felt more symbolic of the modernistic interpretation of the three-aspects of the goddess found in some pagan myth cycles than of any real character/plot significance to me.

Enough from me...  ?

Between socks and boots over at the Dusty Wheel, a full wardrobe, we will have soon.

I know a lot of the fandom seems convinced that they're going to cut the farm but I'm not.   Conceptually, a few of the shots from the teaser map pretty well to moments in that sequence of events.  

From a screen time perspective, the attack doesn't have to take a lot of shots to set up and establish.  For example, Inside the farmhouse, Trollocs knocking at the door, getting the sword, fighting/running, Rand carrying Tam back to the village.   That can be done with only a few minutes of actual screen time that can be interspersed with scenes from fighting in the village.

Rafe's answer about knowing the impact of your changes from a q&a seems important here.  After the battle, when Moiraine is convincing the boys to leave, she highlights that each of their homes were specifically targeted.  Our having seen the farmhouse scenes help us the reader/viewer accept the rationale for them leaving.

(Adding)

That's different from say changing the location where Rand and Min meet for the first time.  The importance of them meeting is really just that they meet.  It can happen at Fal Dara, Tar Valon, or any random inn along the way.   The important information in that encounter is really just that Min has gifts and that she's excited and nervous about meeting him while trying to figure out the best way to get into his pants.

17 hours ago, Guire said:

I don't want to rehash it but never got all the Faile hate. She will be a good character if they keep her.  Saldean culture is cool.  Cutting her might deprive us of that also. 

I never really got the Faile hate either.   If the character is written and performed well there is a lot of potential comic relief with her character.   

My theory is that they cast Faile fairly early and they are going to introduce her (and by extension the horn and the hunt for the horn) earlier.   Jordan had the tendency to introduce an element into the story and then explain it later.  That may not work as well with a lot of modern readers/mass market viewers.  So, introducing her as a hunter early may make more sense to the show writers.

I figure there are three places they could do it.  First, she's in the two rivers already.  Second, she meets up with Perrin/Egwene along the way.  Third, She and Loial are together when Rand/Mat meet up with Loial.

I could be very wrong, of course...

Two things that I hope they don't do with the music...

Try and recreate the "viral" Toss a coin to your witcher moment.

Incorporate too much irish/celtic music as a stand in for "fantasy world" 

Along the lines of the HU there are some pretty folk-metal/rock bands from around the world that could add some interesting musical feels.  Bands like... the Maori metal of Alien Weaponry, the Fijian metal band Shepard's Reign, the Japanese folk/rock band Wagikki Band, Heilung from Germany/Denmark, or even the incorporation of soccer goal celebration songs like Eskimo Callboy does in their breakdowns.  I doubt that Rafe & team would go that direction but it could be pretty cool.

Now that I think of it.... using Mongolian style throat singing with a haka hype call and responses would be a really fun mash up of musics for the Aiel.

3 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

Alison Pill - With darker hair could play a good Moggy.
 

She could.  She can act with a good neurotic edge that would bring something to moggy's webs of plotting.

I think Amy Acker would be great for Moghedian. 

John De Lancie would do  a great Asmodean.

Ian McShane, Giancarlo Esposito,  or James Purefoy for Ishy.

Since we didn't hear any rumors/leaks about LTT until now alongside Tam speaking in the teaser, I think season one may use the Ravens prologue more than the LTT one.   That's a bit of shame, for me, because the questions raised by the LTT prologue are what hooked me on the series originally.

I figure they reveal LTT slowly as Rand becomes more and more dragon reborny.

On 9/12/2021 at 5:51 AM, Guire said:

For example will Egwene complete arc only having limited romance with Rand if Gawyn is cut.

I think that some of the reactions to the Rand/Egwene sexy time shots may have gotten a little ahead of themselves.   In the books both Rand and Egwene have 'virtual' experiences of a relationship without it happening in the main timeline.  I always thought that R/Egwene felt a little too forced.

That said...  I'd be happy if they cut the whole Galad/Gawyn question.  I'd be happy if they cut Rand and his three ladies.  

Bela and Mandarb definitely needs to be a thing though.