The Wheel of Time - starts in November

[purlieu]

Robert Jordan's ludicrously long 14 book epic fantasy series that took him so long to write that he died before he finished it and the final book got completed by Brandon Sanderson as three books The Wheel of Time is finally coming to our screens in November.

Den of Geek reports:

Amazon Prime's Lord of the Rings adaptation has gotten a lot of press as the biggest budget TV series, but let us not forget the other TV adaptation based on an epic fantasy book series the streamer also has in the works. I'm talking, of course, about Amazon's upcoming adaptation of Robert Jordan's beloved Wheel of Time series, which is set to star Gone Girl's Rosamund Pike. Even though Amazon has already begun production on the second season of this fantasy epic, we've yet to get much insight into what the first season might look like or be. That changed (slightly) today, when Amazon debuted a first look poster and announced a premiere date for Wheel of Time as part of its SDCC@Home panel.

Wheel of Time Release Date
We may not have a trailer yet, but we do have a release date for Season 1 of the Wheel of Time series! According to the new poster, the first season will drop in November 2021.

Wheel of Time TV Series First Look
The Wheel of Time portion of Amazon's SDCC@Home panel consisted of showrunner Rafe Judkins (Agents of SHIELD) giving some general insight into his enthusiasm for the series, and why others might like it. The segment culminated with Judkins premiering a Wheel of Time poster, that is suitably intriguing while also not giving us that much to go on. But, hey, it's a poster, what more do you want?


Judkins had this to say about the poster: "I think fans of the book will recognize this as a very iconic moment in The Eye of the World. And I think what I like about is, for people that don't know anything about the books, this is a moment when you see our lead, Rosamund Pike (Moiraine) looking back over her shoulder and saying, 'We don't know what's through here, but come along for the ride.' And I think that's what's so fun about these books and why people love them. It's not necessarily that you need to know every specific of what's in them, but you know that 90 million people have read and loved this thing, and if you walk through that door, you're coming into something really exciting and special."

In addition to Pike, Wheel of Time also stars Daniel Henney as fan-favorite character al'Lan Mandragoran, as well as Josha Stradowski as Rand al'Thor, Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybare, Zoë Robins as Nynaeve al'Meara, Barney Harris as Mat Cauthon, Madeleine Madden as Egwene al'Vere, Michael McElhatton as Tam al'Thor, and Álvaro Morte as Logain Ablar, as well as Maria Doyle Kennedy, Priyanka Bose, Daryl McCormack, Sophie Okonedo, Clare Perkins, and Kae Alexander.

My guess is that the writers will have two plans at the minute: one that will roughly cover all 14 books, on the off chance that it's a huge hit, and one that condenses about six books in the middle into one series because, frankly, fuck all happens in some of them.

I genuinely don't know whether it'll get enough of an audience. Obviously Game of Thrones was helped by the sex, swearing, surprise deaths, and soap opera storylines that made it really stand out from your average fantasy fare; LotR and The Hobbit were already hugely famous and family-oriented. The Wheel of Time is somewhere between the two: it's definitely adult themed, but is really very po-faced in its seriousness. There's no equivalent of Tyrion Lannister. And it's just really, really nerdy, huge swathes of it dedicated to learning about how the magic system works, and lots of politics - without any of GoT's backstabbing and intrigue - and, despite its length, there are long passages of it that feel very small-scale, with few epic battles. I'm not sure if there's anything for a mainstream audience to really grab onto.

Despite its flaws, I mostly like the book series and would love to see it get a strong adaptation, but I'm worried it'll get cancelled after season 2 regardless.

[mothman]

I think I tried to read the Wikipedia article, and gave up really quickly. Mind you I don't think I knew much about GoT or The Witcher going in, so maybe ignorance is bliss when it comes to me and televisual "classic" (i.e. swords & sorcery & dragons etc. - is there a proper name for that?) fantasy...

[Famous Mortimer]

Anyone see the Billy Zane starring, shown once at 3am, copyright-keeping, Wheel Of Time show from a few years back?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

al'Lan Mandragoran's Scissored Isle

[purlieu]

I think I tried to read the Wikipedia article, and gave up really quickly. Mind you I don't think I knew much about GoT or The Witcher going in, so maybe ignorance is bliss when it comes to me and televisual "classic" (i.e. swords & sorcery & dragons etc. - is there a proper name for that?) fantasy...

I think reading about it like that would only make it more confusing, it's got a very complex mythos which isn't always entirely obvious from the books themselves, let alone a summary.

I suppose this kind of medieval fantasy is normally split into two camps, "high" or "epic" fantasy, usually based around some evil power trying to end the world, and "swords & sorcery" / "heroic fantasy" which are based around smaller-scale, personal disputes and quests. WoT is very much in the former camp, even though the middle books do tend to get bogged down in fairly inconsequential stuff.

[mothman]

Thanks P!

[olliebean]

Knowing nothing about this other than the title, I thought it was going to be a fun time travel romp. Having now skimmed the Wikipedia entry, no thanks.

[Kankurette]

I really hope they don't ruin it. Although at least the WOT got an ending, unlike ASOIAF.

Of course people are wanking because Egwene, Nynaeve and Perrin are played by BAME actors. Perrin's actor looks like a hot Troy Deeney. The guy playing Mat looks perfect. I can't wait to see who's going to be cast as the Forsaken when they start showing up.

It is going to need a hell of a lot of editing though, the books have so much worldbuilding and Jordan got bogged down in it at times. And there are pages and pages where fuck all happens (see: the Ebou Dar arc). He's also got a fetish for humiliating women, although it's less rapey than ASOIAF.

[purlieu]

Of course people are wanking because Egwene, Nynaeve and Perrin are played by BAME actors.

It's difficult, because it's made clear in the books that people from different parts of the Westlands (and Seanchan) look different, in the way we have different ethnicities, so to have such different looking people coming from the same village definitely goes against the way it was written. It doesn't really bother me personally, and latent racism will clearly behind some people's issues with it, but I can also understand the really hardcore obsessive fans being annoyed that the concept of the world having different ethnicities is being ignored. But then there's no way that those fans would ever be happy with a series that doesn't follow the books as close to the letter as possible, and that's never going to happen, especially with a series like this.
It's just a shame that Claudia Black is too old to play Faile, as she is exactly how I imagine the character to be.

Another Den of Geek quote from showrunner Rafe Judkins:

"I sat down and broke out what I thought eight seasons of the show might look like before I started writing the pilot because I felt like you have to build in this knowledge of where you're going and how you're getting there from the very beginning in order to tell the stories the best you can."

I think eight seasons of 10 episodes could cover the most important parts of the story, albeit at the expense of a lot of the worldbuilding. But Amazon are going to go for narrative thrust and character drama, so it could definitely work.

[Kankurette]

I'm looking forward to The Great Hunt. They've got an actress for Liandrin, so I assume they will get there at some point. I've not read The Eye of the World yet though.

Has Elayne been cast yet?

[Catalogue Trousers]

'Come, Arseache my Elf, Nurofen Owlbag, the Filler of the Bowl. Our quest is the Sacred Lambada in the Forest of Splod, for I am Jordan the Windbag.'

[Kankurette]

Arseache sniffed, smoothed her skirts and crossed her arms beneath her breasts.

[mothman]