Anyone else counting the days until it airs on November 19, 2021? As a fan of the books for almost 20 years this needs to be good to make them justice.
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The Wheel of Time TV series
- Thread starter Matias
- Start date
I must admit, I'm a bit worried that they'll make changes to the storyline/characters which does a disservice to the story. Lately, production companies have been trying to cram too much into the first episode and it ends up a jumbled mess (think The Witcher, Foundation etc) and takes a few episodes before you settle into a riveting story.
But overall, yes, I'm very much looking forward to seeing this wonderful anthology brought to the screen. Curious how they'll handle a lot of the visuals to do with Saidar/Saidin and also the vast amounts of story information that is typically an internal monologue by the various characters.
But overall, yes, I'm very much looking forward to seeing this wonderful anthology brought to the screen. Curious how they'll handle a lot of the visuals to do with Saidar/Saidin and also the vast amounts of story information that is typically an internal monologue by the various characters.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #4
It is going to be simplified, inclusive-fied and dumbed somewhat to reach a broader audience. Just like Game of Thrones is watered down version of A Song of Ice and Fire books. I don't care, I am a fan, I am looking forward to it. 
Never read the books, but I had a colleague back in 2000 who had and wrote three software deployment tools called Ter'Angreal, Sa'Angreal and Angreal. They were GUIs for Microsoft SMS - Ter'angreal allowed you to install a single package on a PC, Sa'Angreal let you group multiple packages into a build sequence and Angreal would deploy a build.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #6
They are just categorizations of objects that allow the user to draw more of the One Power: ter'angreal more common and less powerful, angreal a step above, and sa'angreal to more rare and super powerful items.
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Never read these books, but it looks potentially good. So I look forward to being able to view it. So many sci-fi or fantasy anthologies are better served as episodic series than movies. With the fracture in streaming services maybe well funded series will replace movies as the prime entertainment medium.
In musical terms, I guess movies are like 45 rpm singles and series are like full LP albums. The age of album oriented movies is upon us. Long may it live. Streaming has done just the reverse to music.
In musical terms, I guess movies are like 45 rpm singles and series are like full LP albums. The age of album oriented movies is upon us. Long may it live. Streaming has done just the reverse to music.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #8
Watched the 2 first episodes so far. So weird to see the story in a series, all the changes, the simplifications. I liked what I saw so far.
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Well, so far, after 3 episodes, it hasn't worked for me.
The acting isn't good, maybe not the actors' fault as the dialogue is either meaningless or a forced info dump. Hard to interact with a straight face.
On multiple occasions, in a situation when some obvious action has to be taken, character A goes "I won't do that/go there". Character B replies "you have no choice". Character A then promptly agrees.
The clothes and style... oh my! They are somewhere between an art school yearly dress party and a very low-budget production. On the plus side, characters who are on the run, have just fought, or have been abducted and plunged into a gory pool are as clean as Ken and Barbie asap. They do seem to travel with full luggage (as they reappear wearing different clothes) and a personal hairdresser. The real magic here is the stain repellant self ironing clothing. I want some! None of the grit of GoT.
Special effects: spells: decent. Trollocs and fade suck big time. It is as if someone had decided to come up with a cocktail of the scariest of the scary clichés and randomly assembled them. They just end up being ridiculous. Scenery CGI: would have been acceptable ten years ago, maybe twenty in a big-budget movie such as LOTR. The problem with UHD is that if you have a relatively tight budget, backgrounds end up being as painterly as those in 1970ies movies. You'd swear they hung painted landscape drapes behind some places.
Story-telling: obviously the biggest hurdle they had to face in the book to screen adaptation - I can accept all the changes.
The acting isn't good, maybe not the actors' fault as the dialogue is either meaningless or a forced info dump. Hard to interact with a straight face.
On multiple occasions, in a situation when some obvious action has to be taken, character A goes "I won't do that/go there". Character B replies "you have no choice". Character A then promptly agrees.
The clothes and style... oh my! They are somewhere between an art school yearly dress party and a very low-budget production. On the plus side, characters who are on the run, have just fought, or have been abducted and plunged into a gory pool are as clean as Ken and Barbie asap. They do seem to travel with full luggage (as they reappear wearing different clothes) and a personal hairdresser. The real magic here is the stain repellant self ironing clothing. I want some! None of the grit of GoT.
Special effects: spells: decent. Trollocs and fade suck big time. It is as if someone had decided to come up with a cocktail of the scariest of the scary clichés and randomly assembled them. They just end up being ridiculous. Scenery CGI: would have been acceptable ten years ago, maybe twenty in a big-budget movie such as LOTR. The problem with UHD is that if you have a relatively tight budget, backgrounds end up being as painterly as those in 1970ies movies. You'd swear they hung painted landscape drapes behind some places.
Story-telling: obviously the biggest hurdle they had to face in the book to screen adaptation - I can accept all the changes.
mkt
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My reaction to the first episode was these people are too clean. Disconcerting somehow.
MRC01
Major Contributor
I agree. I found it so bad I couldn't finish the first episode.
The books were cheesy too, as is a lot of the fantasy genre. But this show took the cheese to a whole 'nuther level.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #14
The first 3 introduced the world and the latest episode 4 was great! Looking forward to the next ones now.
Episode 7 was a little better, or it may be that I am getting used to most of the characters being entirely different from what I had imagined them while reading, actually listening to the (audio)books. That maiden was a badass.
Hope this continues to get better, the first episodes was a bit of a disappointment for me.
Hope this continues to get better, the first episodes was a bit of a disappointment for me.
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symphara
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I gave up on the show, it was pretty weak to begin with and it's unfaithful to the source material for no apparent reason.
I quickly got annoyed with its weak script and a few jarring things like the obviously modern clothing, the forced "diversity", the time spent crying over minor characters they never bothered to develop (and weren't in the books) but their death is super sad etc. Doesn't work and I imagine they're going to cancel it after one season.
I quickly got annoyed with its weak script and a few jarring things like the obviously modern clothing, the forced "diversity", the time spent crying over minor characters they never bothered to develop (and weren't in the books) but their death is super sad etc. Doesn't work and I imagine they're going to cancel it after one season.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #17
There are several changes that were unnecessary, and even among them, some things got prioritized screen time when other more important things they fly over. But it has been a good run so far. Not very good and not excellent, just good.
Hopefully next season they are more experienced and get things right more often.
Hopefully next season they are more experienced and get things right more often.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #19
There are moments, a few of them here and there, that are phenomenal. These alone are enough reason to watch. Acting in general has been consistently great imo.
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Still poor imho.
What is supposed to be the big revelation of the season is handled in the worst way possible.
"Seer" sees the team and can't tell. Dude suddenly starts shooting straight, has flashbacks. Visits "Seer" who suddenly can tell, although she doesn't really tell on screen because we skip to a flat "it's me!".
Narratively, "The Expanse" very much moves away from books, in a good way (I really have to force myself to creep through Leviathan Falls at the moment). WoT, is the exact opposite, and the starting material, if entertaining, was cheesy anyway.
In terms of show/CGI, the Witcher season 2 is also available now and, while it sticks to the slow main quest, silly side quests, RPG model, I felt it deployed as much CGI/worldbuilding resources in a single episode than WoT in its 7 first episodes combined.
What is supposed to be the big revelation of the season is handled in the worst way possible.
"Seer" sees the team and can't tell. Dude suddenly starts shooting straight, has flashbacks. Visits "Seer" who suddenly can tell, although she doesn't really tell on screen because we skip to a flat "it's me!".
Narratively, "The Expanse" very much moves away from books, in a good way (I really have to force myself to creep through Leviathan Falls at the moment). WoT, is the exact opposite, and the starting material, if entertaining, was cheesy anyway.
In terms of show/CGI, the Witcher season 2 is also available now and, while it sticks to the slow main quest, silly side quests, RPG model, I felt it deployed as much CGI/worldbuilding resources in a single episode than WoT in its 7 first episodes combined.
