14 hours ago, Morrip00 said:

I do like the idea of doing this in animation.  It could really open up possibilities and continuity as you don't have to worry about aging cast members, keeping extras costs down or having to keep sets up to re-visit years later.  Unfortunately doing so would likely reduce the potential viewership due to people seeing animation as "for children" so switching off.  

100% agree and it should follow the books exactly.

 Judkins decimated the story and more than bad writing he ruined characters.

They neither look like or act like the characters in the books.

On 5/20/2024 at 10:39 AM, Highcommander said:

I speculate they will scrap the show at some point. Likely sooner than later, its costing them money and viewership is tanking as more and more fans of the books become discouraged. 

I agree

Looks like Season 3 is now in 2025.

 Season 4 not even announced.

They’ll lose even more viewers who will just forget the show.

i didn’t mind Season 2 but the show runner and team putting this together are inept.

On 3/26/2024 at 7:08 PM, king of nowhere said:

so, you clearly are a serious fan; let's assume that you are given a big bunch of money to adapt wot.

oh, but you have to fit everything in no more than 8 seasons of 8 episodes of 50 minutes each - meaning you've got three hours for each book. 100 millions for the first season seems a lot, but once you start hiring all the actors and the troupe and work on the set, most of it has already vanished. and you've got to replace all the info dumps and internal monologues with something that works on screen.

 

rafe's job was far from perfect, but all the changes were caused by immense external constraints.

I would start with NOT dedicating a huge chunk of an episode to a ridiculous story about Steppin ending with Lan crying his eyes out.

The 8 seasons of 8 episodes point is a cop out.

The story can be told, it just takes a good showrunner, which Rafe is not.

He is making WoT for himself and his very strange interpretation of the books.

Just now, Elder_Haman said:

No, season 4 hasn’t been announced yet. But there is no reason to think Season 3 won’t be completed. 
 

But as I said before, Sanderson has been calling it bluntly from the beginning. You’re grasping at straws. 

I don't think Sanderson has had a dig at Bezos before.

On 5/6/2024 at 7:01 PM, Elder_Haman said:

What leads you to that conclusion? Sanderson has been calling it like he saw it from day one. These statements don't particularly stand out as ominous in any way.

Genuinely don't think he'd be calling out Bezos if he didn't think/know that the show was getting binned.

Has Season 4 been announced yet?  Are they even going to finish Season 3 in post-production and get it on air?  My guess is Season 3 will make it to the screens but there will be late changes to try and wrap it up as a story within the longer story.  That will be it.  Of course, I could be wrong.  Just my feeling.

Whilst I think Rafe Judkins should never be forgiven for the mess he made of the show, it's not entirely his fault.

Sanderson recently said this after he also publicly apologised for what the show did to Perrin's character:

Quote

 

“They took it all the way to the higher-ups and fought for my version of it, and they said no.” Sanderson told the convention.

 

“There are certain things,” said the Stormlight Archive writer. “Certain forces moving. You know that Jeff Bezos, at one point, said, ‘I want Game of Thrones, buy it for me.’ And they were like, ‘You can’t have Game of Thrones,’ and he was like, ‘Buy me something that is my Game of Thrones’ And there are certain forces at work.”

“There’s just lots of forces at play,” he said, “I’ll just say that."

 

This very much plays to the OPs point.

By the way - the fact that Sanderson is talking like that suggests that this show is cooked and we've seen the last of it after season 3.

I saw today that Rosamund Pike has taken a film role.

Surprised she has time if they were going to shoot a Season 4.

Could be that Season 3 is the last.

On 3/2/2024 at 9:50 PM, king of nowhere said:

have you seen that now a new AI can build a short video from a prompt?

have faith, in 20-30 years probably you can copy-paste the books as prompt and the AI will build the adaptation. without any issue on budget, meddling executives, covid pauses, or any of that stuff

Yes, I did see that AI was now creating video from text prompts.  At the pace the tech is accelerating it's exciting to think that idiots like the WoT showrunner and Amazon will no longer be required to bring WoT and other great stories to life on screen.

On 10/20/2023 at 12:49 AM, Rhaze said:

 I was always concerned about how it could be adapted to tv and while animation is a way, it was never the way I preferred. The one thing I can definitely give the amazon show credit for, they proved it can be done on tv.

I would love the book series to be brough to life properly in animation - ironically in the style Amazon actually used for the add on information to the series.

Would MUCH prefer that to the show we got.

Season 3 looks like it will be in 2025.

I don't see how this show can survive 8 episodes every 2 years.

There does seem to be a trend now that shows' seasons are released with bigger gaps than ever before, but with just 8 episodes and a long wait between, even a well-made show would struggle, never mind WOT.

Ominous that season 4 has not been green lit.

Won't be at all surprised if season 3 is the last.

I look forward to the coming years where AI can create shows and movies and fans can do it themselves - then we won't need people like Rafe Judkins to destroy cherished works or literature.

On 11/26/2023 at 4:53 AM, TheMadTatter said:

They are ruining the entire show. A season for a show such as this needed to be like shows of old and over 20 episodes long. This is a 14 book series and they have tried to shorten in so much to do them in 8 episodes that it has lost most of what makes the story good. I remember years ago wishing someone would turn these books into a TV series, and I remember how excited I was to learn that Amazon had finally decided to. Now they give it a shit show, using the excuse that they are working on other shows like the lord of the rings. From what I have seen so fat I wish they would have never taken on this mantle. This series could have destroyed game of thrones if done right. Now it's just a pathetic joke. Fire everyone that's working on the production of this show. Writes, directors, everyone. You are not fit to work with greatness. Go write and produce for amature porn or something. 

Thats the only hope IMO - firing the show runner and his team and bringing in a new crew.

The problem is not really that it is 8 episodes, rather what they did with the time and the fact that it's effectively 8 episodes every 2 years. People lose patience and interest wanes.

I think they could tell this story well in 8 seasons of 8 episodes of 1hr15mins.  That's an 80hr story. if they got 8 seasons.  

Unfortunately the show runner feels the need to pack time with irrelevant nonsense like the Steppin episode in Season 1.

Right now I am skeptical that the show will get a season 4, let alone make 8.

I actually thought season 2 was better than the awful season 1, but it looks like too many people got turned away.

On 10/8/2023 at 4:40 PM, Vartija said:

I hope they take a critical look at the pacing for future seasons. I think both seasons suffered from a rush to the finish line type of approach. They take their time building some storylines early in the season like it was a 10+ episode season and then end up cramming too much into episodes 7 & 8. The internal logic suffers when they have to force a conclusion to every storyline in 60 minutes.  

 

Also they should do a better job landing the storylines they've developed during the season. We spent a fair bit of time with Elayne & Nyn coming up with a plan to save Egwene only to have her save herself from the a'dam. Ingtar was hinted at as a DF but then we didn't get the reveal which made much of the (admittedly) little buildup with him useless. Likewise we spend precious time with Rand finding wine for Logain but in the end he didn't learn anything from him, yet was still able to do two intricate weaves in the final episodes when the plot needed it.

The example you gave of Elyane and Nynaeve coming up with their plan to save Egwene is a good one. It was given significant time including getting the collar, a dead Aes Sedai and her warder and placing the collar on a sul’dam.

 Then it just hits a dead end.

 Story arcs that end up meaning nothing are common in this show. Maybe that’s by design, who knows.

 But it doesn’t make sense to me at least given they have so little time to tell a vastly expensive story.

4 hours ago, Godoggo said:

I've tried to look at the TV show without comparing it to the books.  To that end, I hated the first year as being incoherent while the second year (until the last episode), was exponentially better.  The problem overall is my impression that Rafe doesn't believe that Egwene and Nynaeve are strong characters in the book.  And he has an issue with the primary character.  Rand is the weakest character in the TV show, not the strongest channeller that has trouble coming to terms with his future role.  But in the TV show, they show us that Logain is so strong that he can't be held by no less than 3 women at a time.  Rand has already been shielded so much, that they should do a shield of the episode meme (I believe he has shielded 6 times all by an individual).  He has no training or proficiency in the sword.  It's frustrating that he has no arc.  At the same time, Egwene was not just a strong woman in the book, I suggest that she is the strongest woman in the book.  She faces everything and moves forward and becomes a supreme leader.  I'm not sure Rafe believes she or Nynaeve were sufficiently strong, so they intentionally gave them things that Rand did in the book.  

Very good post.

Disappointed overall with the way the writers have brought Rand to the screen.  Same with Lan.

 That said, i think they realised they had gone overboard with Mary Sue moments for Nynaeve in the first series and made her less of an all conquering galactus in series 2. 
 

Second series was so much better than the first overall otherwise, except for the last episode - assuming you can just come to terms with and let the inconsistencies slide.

Season 2 started pretty well, middle was quite good, ended really badly.

It felt rushed again - just like last season.

The 'battle' with the Sanchean was truly awful and the way they delivered the heroes of the horn was so feeble. 

Rand killing Ishmael the way he did, what was that about? Just strolls up to him and kills him? 

I am not sure they will get a season 4. Season 2 had to be better IMO.

Judkins himself still seems to be waiting to see if Amazon will take up S4 - or maybe I missed any announcement.

The way Egwene escaped the collar was also really badly done.

...and what happened to the head of the blue Ajah??  Did I miss something?

I am not sure what was wrong with source material and why it was done that way and why have they totally disregarded Rand's sword training to the extent they couldn't even give us the damn sword fight that was a seminal moment in the books ?? I don't get.  

19 hours ago, DigificWriter said:

 

So many people who are hardcore fans of the books have so thoroughly disproven and debunked this claim that it's starting to become the literary equivalent of the "Big Lie".

The TV series and the books are very different.

I don't mind that as long the story telling is good and season 2 is actually decent.

I don't care if another 'hardcore' fan of the books tells me they are the same.

I have read the series more than once and I know for a fact they are different without checking in with an 'expert'

I think it is pretty clear that the books are only a guide and Jordan's story is not being told here, but having said that, Season 2 is many times better than Season 1 in my opinion.

The acting, effects, sense of scale and character development is in a different league.

I watched the 4 episodes over the last couple of days and unlike last season I felt like I could get into the story being told.  Yes, it's not Jordans story, but there is a link to the characters and places nonetheless.

I'd love one day for the Wheel ofTime to be put on screen as Jordans story, but what this is will do as a view into the WoT world.

Of course, the last 4 episodes in the series still have to be good.

There were some very odd elements though, for example all the characters who looked dead at the end of season 1 (like Loial) just appearing in episode 1 with no explanation (unless I missed it) and Morraine taking on Fades and even Lanfear with no ability to channel.  The end of episode 4 was a bit weird to say the least.

Lan remains a sorry excuse for a man and it's clear his character is going to be stripped of what he was in the books and turned into a bit of a weakling.  

Nyneave  is being portrayed much better in this season - as opposed to the all powerful Mary Sue she was in Season 1. 

Elyas' character is well done, even with the changes and Ishmael really is the star of the show.  Extremely well acted and portrayed.

Overall, little relation to the story in the books, but good nonetheless.  For the first time I can see how this could develop into the kind of show that grabs the attention and imagination of a large audience as GoT did.

I think Season 3 will be the last.

For the genre to work , the acting and the character development has to be top notch and with WoT it just isn't.  For me ,  don't think any of the characters were developed sufficiently to really care about what happened to them.  

I think back to the deaths of Kerene and Steppin. Did anyone care? Serious question.  Was anyone drawn to emotion by watching it?  I was glad when he killed himself so I don't have to see him anymore - I suppose that is emotion but not really the kind they were going for.  The whole cast crying and beating their chests at the end of it.. weird, forced and didn't work based on the thin characters they had built up beforehand.  WoT is like that overall, IMO.

This genre won't attract the kind of interest of more mainstream shows unless it includes the character arcs and human stories that GoT did so well.  They don't have the talent on hand to achieve that.

LOTR series has started very well. It’s so well done. I didn’t think Amazon had it in them. It remains to be seen whether they have the budget/interest to continue with WoT. 

14 hours ago, VooDooNut said:

I disagree.

 

What was the best part of HOTD? Was it the

  Hide contents

useless 10 minute orgy scene?

Or maybe

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the mutilation and full-frame castration of peasants

?
Mayhaps the ridiculous

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birthing process and cesarean section

appealed to you?

I'd rather watch WOT going a little over the top with a feminist focus than watch, imo, the worst parts of Game of Thrones rehashed in a prequel. Yes, the set and costume design was well done for HOTD, but it feels like a bouquet of roses trying to cover up the stench of overdone sexual and violent themes.

You worry too much about 'offensive' content.

HOTD actually has many themes playing to  social agendas too, but the point is that they are not a problem. It's absolutely fine as long as the story is well written and moves along well and the set / effects / scale draws you into that story.  That is what HOTD has done very well.  Something Amazon should be paying attention to and learning from. 

HOTD has been out for a week and already has a much better audience rating -  and has in that 1 week got 50k reviews on IMDB.  WoT still only has 99k reviews.

Watching House of the Dragon this week brought into sharp focus just how bad WoT was written and paced - as well as showing up the lack of scale in WoT.

HOTD has many modern day social elements included that some people complain about in TV shows (especially WoT), but it was excellent anyway.  The story is brought screen really well and the scale just seems so much bigger and better done.  Just shows what good writing, directing, editing and effects can do.  Hopefully they raid the team from top to bottom on HOTD and put them to work trying to salvage WoT!

On 3/16/2022 at 7:19 PM, William Seahill said:

So you want a show that follows the books word for word, sentence for sentence?  I’m getting the feeling that you didn’t like the show as it exists.  That’s fine, but any given adaptation that follows its source material one hundred percent, will likely be boring for most people save longtime fans of the material being adapted.  I think tv adaptions should try to get as many people interested in the story as possible. 

Would be interesting to hear what you thought was more interesting in the adaption of the story for TV vs the book.

Following the book does not mean word for word.

I think the show would have been great if they just followed the book.

Dust has settled on Season 1.

I tried watching it again to see if the expectation of what it should be coloured my opinion of what it was.

Can say it didn't.  The show is just bad.

Terrible directing and story telling.

Poor special effects and most of all, really poor character development.

I read somewhere that season 2 may not air until 2023.   It may be that Amazon has decided to let a significant time pass so people somewhat forget Season 1 and can start with some renewed optimism.  I hope someone has reined in Rafe Judkins because if Season 2 is his story (as Season 1 was), it's going to be the same rubbish.

13 hours ago, Rhavin said:

The show had a good buzz before it aired, the first episode was OK but i already thought "what the hell did they loose the money on?" and then it went straight downhill. of course i'm gonna watch season 2 because I want to see how they will dig themselves out of the hole they buried their continuity and character-arcs in. Pretty shure its either getting chancelled right after season 2 or they'll do some face saving season 3. Apart from all the astroturfed ratings, google trends shows the real picture. Blue is GoT, red is WoT:


But this show simply isn't WoT for me, so… thats way to different. 

I have my doubts that there will be a season 3.  I am struggling to think of even 1 thing that was done well in the show.  There will be those that really buy into the formula - which, imo,  is essentially a girl power series, with lots of Mary Sue moments and a heavy dose of 'men are idiots and weak, whilst women are super smart and strong'.   Some do like that, but I think the reason for the drop in interest (and ratings) is because more people are sick of entertainment being relegated to a form social engineering pushed by the ideologues.

They had a real chance with WoT because the source material was already there to tell a great story that appealed to all viewers, but the showrunner, producers and directors just couldn't resist injecting their own ideology into the story. 

To answer the OPs question on 'how different is too different?'... season 1 is your answer.

It was pretty silly to make that video and give oxygen to a few stupid idiots that would wish death upon another person over a TV show. 

Some of Sarah's comments were out of order in that 'rebuke', by the way, and it's not a surprise that she thinks it's a gender issue.    

12 minutes ago, Ralph said:

 

No army in the world can defeat 8 full Aes Sedai

 

You've turned back armies 

So then - the Dark One poses no real threat.

Why the drama?  

Actually no need for a Dragon at all.  

There is no battle scene in the entire series now that can even mean anything or be even slightly interesting. Huge army masses and is ready to attack - the build up?  Who cares, just send out 5 women who can channel a bit and swat the enemy away... everyone carry on shopping and drinking and turn up the music so you can't hear Trollocs and Fades being obliterated.