To address the original question, rights holders can give the rights to their properties to whomever they want, and derivative rights are all separate from each other - so a right holder can give film rights to one party and stage production rights to another, for example. The key is what the contract between the rights holder and the derivative author details. My guess is that Amazon bought the exclusive rights to any film adaptations, and that would bar another party from doing the same. That’s a very general overview but considering that this Amazon, I’m sure that a) a team a lawyers pored over the agreements and b) plenty of money was spent to make sure that all rights were exclusive and as broad as possible. There has been talk about some other project dealing with other Ages and that’s possible because it is outside the rights granted to Amazon but if you’re looking for a third party to step in to my would either be buying the rights from Amazon or it would be far in the future where Amazon’s rights terminated.

If you check enough boxes then the quality of the product doesn’t matter. The subjective value of art is secondary to the objective value of making sure you’ve got more checked boxes than the next guy.

Prime’s UI is one of the worst I have ever seen.

Some people can’t taste the subtleties between different glasses of wine and are happy with a mediocre house red. Some people don’t know the difference between a prime cut of beef and chuck and are happy with whatever steak they are served. Some people can’t differentiate the tone of a show with its basic plot map and are happy with whatever they’re served as long as point A and point B are the same. Others are more sensitive to subtle and non-tangible change and recognize how it alters the end product.

There’s also the old adage that sex sells. I fell like what we see far more often is a show luring an audience in with sex and nudity and then toning it down later in the series. Sometimes this might be because of renewed contracts with renewed language but I also think that some studios (HBO more than others) really try to use sex and nudity as a hook.

They changed the entire tone of the show and completely changed most of the characters just to try and make it “darker” and “more edgy.” Robbing the EF5 of their early innocence was unforgivable character assassination; what they did to Thom was laughable. There are many issues with the show and the shift in tone right out of the gates was a slap in the face to fans.

Since they cast Shiriam as a woman with grey hair maybe the can make Cad a redhead?😂

Agreed to all of the above! She’s been great so far.

They are absolutely blind to it. I've said the same exact things as you. If you want to see something very interesting, watch the review I post of S1E1. The reviewer is freelance editor and she is simply amazing. She understands writing and storytelling and breaks down the episodes very thoroughly. She is highly critical but in a very technically proficient way. She's also not a book "fan" and has only begun reading the series just enough to stay ahead in the books of where the show is. It is a very interesting perspective. I'm sure she'll be disregarded simply as a "hater" by some but her analysis is far better than any others I've seen or read. She has reviews of the entire first season up through S2E2 so far and they do get progressively longer, but they are worth listening to in the background, though her editing is excellent as well and worth a view.

Please expound. Is this in response to someone or are these the latest numbers? I’m not ratings savvy so what does the Nielsen rating mean?

You reference the rules of logic but in inductive argumentation, appeals to authority are not de facto fallacious and in fact can offer validity. I love logic. I won’t cite my experience because you seem to find that fallacious but if you want to talk logic and its rules in the framework of this show we could start a whole thread as this show has more logical inconsistency than most shows I’ve seen.

This is all interesting and certainly something that can happen in this day and age of streaming. It’s like patching a show 😀 I watched season 1 twice but it has probably been a year and I don’t know if I’d pick up on changes if they aren’t drastic. I’m interested to hear more.

Come off it with this garbage. Authority is not de facto fallacious and him offering his experience actually adds cogency to an argument. What an insufferable response from you. By your illogic, Brandon Sanderson couldn’t argue with you either because his bona fides would be, according you you, a fallacious appeal to authority.

Except Moiraine witnessed the scene. Liandrin couldn’t be lying in this scene or Moiriane would have identified her as black.

Simply put, more run time does not fix the writing problems. Could a story of this scope use more screen time? Probably. Is that the solution for this team? No.

People trash the writing and direction of this show because it is D-Tier amateurish and the source material deserves better. If the books were just “Twilight”-level schlock maybe more of us would be willing to roll over and praise whatever they are shoveling but many of us expect better for a higher-tier work of literature. We wanted Lord of the Rings and we were given Rings of Power. Nobody is here to change your mind or to say that you can’t enjoy the show but we have every right to be critical and to argue back against complacency.

Careful, they are going to tell you that a) that really changes nothing and b) that’s essential for an adaptation to visual media.

Logic. Logic is objective and is a crucial element of storytelling and world building. This show suffers so, so much from logical inconsistency and and internal inconsistency.

That simply isn’t how objectivity works. It is by its very nature not comparative. If my son comes home with a D on a math test it doesn’t matter if he got the highest grade in the class or of there is an example of a kid who did better. What matters is that he did not perform well with an objective standard. To answer your question directly, even though it truly has no bearing on objective analysis, I don’t have many recent comparisons. I thought Rings of Power was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen so Wheel of Time is certainly better, but that’s comparative; I still think Wheel of Time writing is generally poor. I haven’t seen many fantasies lately that I can think of so I go all the way back to the first couple of seasons of GoT for what I remember as good writing, but I am a long way removed from those.

In general I agree with this analysis. My assumption is that my ratio of bad to good writing is different than yours, but I can agree that there have been some moments of good writing and that there are obviously payoffs saved for the future.

Ok, sure, 100% objectivity is perhaps impossible, but it isn’t impossible to have general standards that help define good versus bad writing and fit a work into those standards. There is too much in this show that can be picked apart and questioned from a pure writing point of view to call it anything other than poorly written.

But why? Then it is no longer objective but comparative. Objectivity isn’t a bell curve. WoT might be the best fantasy in TV right now (because RoP sucks and I haven’t seen House of the Dragon) but that doesn’t change a more objective analysis.

There’s also a willingness in film to sacrifice better writing for more spectacle. The whole “it doesn’t make sense but it looks cool” plays better with some people than ohers.

Poor writing can be evaluated objectively and this show has objectively poor writing. If you enjoy it, that’s great for you. I enjoy some shows with bad writing. I for the life of me, though, do not understand the writing apologists. Why can’t we demand better? Why can’t we point out that every single episode is packed full of nonsense? I know we aren’t listened to around here because there are a dozen or so posters who live in their little echo chamber of sycophancy but there are plenty of sources out there that break down the show’s writing in analytic ways that can be rather enlightening if you’re ever open to listening. Shad over at the Knight’s Watch channel is a very acerbic reviewer and I understand if anyone is put off by his personality. That said, he’s an author (though I’m not a big fan of his book) and he spends hours per episode critiquing the writing from an objective point of view. If you want a less polarizing personality, the reviews on the Sword and the Pen Reflections are very insightful. The hostess is a professional editor and she spends hours per episode critiquing the writing from and objective point of view. The bottom line, though, is that writing/story/script can absolutely be analyzed objectively - and separately from subjective enjoyment- for things like logical consistency, lore consistency, character consistency, setup and payoff, etc. The writing in this show is objectively rough many of us wish for better. Trying to pretend that every aspect of the show is entirely subjective is disingenuous and close-minded.

He’s also complimentary of production, which is justified - issues with COVID aside, production has been good, though open to subjective criticism. I believe you also have to read in to BS’s words a bit. When he says things like that he is amazed a show like WoT can be made well, he’s clearly expressing his excitement where we live in a day and age that shows of the scope of WoT (or GoT, or, presumably RoP) can actually be made. We live in a day and age where no work is too big or too fantastical to be adapted and he appreciates that.