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March 28, 2024, 11:00:43 AM

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The Wheel of Time (Amazon Prime)

Started by king_tubby, November 20, 2021, 08:59:11 AM

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mothman

Quote from: Wentworth Smith on November 20, 2021, 09:42:16 PMNot likely, Eddings turned out to be a bit of a wrong un.

Yeah. Not that it stopped them adapting Asimov's Foundation - unfortunately.

mjwilson

Thought the first couple of episodes were fine, third one dropped off. Not really enough to persuade me to carry on.

VelourSpirit

Loving it so far as someone who hasn't read the books. I've discussed them a lot with a friend who has so I'm familiar with a lot of the names and concepts that I imagine a completely new viewer might struggle with a little.

Love the look of the show - it's bright, sooome parts of it maybe a little cheap looking with weird garish lighting, but at it's best I think it fares very well compared to Game of Thrones (an unavoidable comparison, however bored I am of reading about it...) All the dark scenes in episode two were just stunning. Compressed trailers on YouTube don't quite do it justice - 1080p on Prime highlights some kind of visual noise, they definitely wouldn't have shot it on film but there is something that has the appearance of grain which gives it this lovely texture. Bright fantasy that isn't stuck with a network TV budget is a nice thing to see.

Performances are all fantastic. Music is great too - Lorne Balfe released an album of music before the series started, lots of the tracks almost like pop songs with big choruses, which are supposedly meant to be from the previous age in-universe. Then the episode scores take motifs and things from those.
Loving Moiraine and Lan's relationship. So much is said about them just from that bath scene - how they're so comfortable with each other that they'll bathe together, yet it's not quite a romantic or sexual bond they have.

I think the broad concepts and characters are just so interesting in this series - I hope to read the books one day, I've always heard the female characters are written quite badly but I'll see for myself - and if they are, the series seems to be making good judgements about adapting things.

Not sure about the Perrin wife thing as I know that's a new addition to the show - my first impression is that it's a case of fridging but I've seen it said that it's quite a clever way of literalising Perrin's internal conflict in an effective way for television, getting viewers on board with it in an immediate visceral way. Not sure though. People tend to point out tropes when they're used - "oh, that's fridging, that's bad, you can't do that" or "this doesn't pass the Bechdel test", but there should be more engagement with media than just cataloguing tropes. They serve a good purpose for reflecting the wider problems with a piece of work or a particular writer, but I'd like to give the showrunner the benefit of a doubt as he seems like an intelligent, thoughtful guy who wants to bring out the best in these books and the female characters that have such great potential.

VelourSpirit

Quote from: mjwilson on November 20, 2021, 09:50:38 PMThought the first couple of episodes were fine, third one dropped off. Not really enough to persuade me to carry on.
For what it's worth I've heard that the next one is where the series really comes into its own, from someone who didn't think much of ep three. Episode six too, apparently. Mild spoilers for the first six eps here

MojoJojo

Quote from: Wentworth Smith on November 20, 2021, 09:42:16 PMNot likely, Eddings turned out to be a bit of a wrong un.

Wow. I'd not looked him up in a long time- didn't even know he was dead. Strange he was in prison before he became famous, but it never came out. Guess there was more of a feeling of he'd served his time.

I don't think the Belgariad would get adapted because its completely missing the sex and even the violence is a bit Saturday morning cartoon. It's also cliché to fuck. The Elenium could work, but the knights who do a bit of magic might look like Witcher clones.

Kankurette

Speaking of wrong 'uns in fantasy, Marion Zimmer Bradley was one as well, as was her second husband, Walter Breen. They were involved in some kind of paedophile ring.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Wentworth Smith on November 20, 2021, 09:42:16 PMNot likely, Eddings turned out to be a bit of a wrong un.
I read all them books as a lad, and I'd never heard a whisper of what the second paragraph of his Wikipedia profile mentions. Bloody hell!

Also, never read WoT because my friends, who were fans, mentioned how it meanders in later books, etc.

Kankurette

The last three books were also written by Brandon Sanderson after Jordan's death, using Jordan's notes. Certain plot points were clearly signposted in earlier books, like
Spoiler alert
Verin being a double agent, it's clear as far back as The Great Hunt that she's a bit sus.
[close]
Sanderson also added characters called Linda or Clive or whatever who were based on WoT fans,
Spoiler alert
gave one random Asha'man a talent that some fans have argued made no fucking sense and made him super overpowered,
[close]
and made a few people OOC - I've not read his books, this is all osmosis. There's also the argument that he glorified war a lot more and was very into Badass People Doing Badass Things, while Jordan (a Vietnam War veteran) didn't. There's a speech Nynaeve makes in one of the earlier books about the civilian cost, for instance. The thing that really puts me off the prospect of reading the Sanderson books is the way he writes Mat. Mat is my favourite character along with Nynaeve and Sanderson just does not get him right at all.

(Should we have a separate books thread?)

king_tubby


Kankurette


purlieu

Quote from: olliebean on November 20, 2021, 11:35:32 AMbut apparently the books are just some long-winded LoTR/GoT wannabe.
A bit unfair, given that the first seven Wheel of Time books were published before the first A Game of Thrones book came out.

Thread-wise, I started a thread for this when it was announced a few months ago. I'm happy to endorse this new one, though.

Haven't watched any yet, might come to it once the first season has ended, might wait for the whole thing to finish and do it all at once. I hope it does get recommissioned enough to complete the story as it'd be nice to watch it start to finish, the proposed length (is it five kr six seasons?) seems like a very sensible editing of the whole thing. It should have been six books, on Robert Jordan's original idea (after he swiftly abandoned the trilogy).

Kankurette

There was only supposed to be one end book but it ended up being three.

Inspector Norse

Watched the first three and... it's decent? A curate's egg so far: I like the scenery and the performances are (largely) good, though the actual characterisations are a bit wonky: Rand is a bit of a dope and Egwynne isn't showing much of the pluck or gumption you'd expect. Odd that the most charismatic and interesting of the young leads is the one who's been recast for the second series: can only imagine that it's down to something offscreen (as they have apparently refused to reveal why and the showrunners and cast have praised Harris in interviews, I guess it's not a me-too thing but some other personal problem that he didn't want publicised).
Too many silly fantasy terms flying around and not enough time given to really delving into the world or the characters, but there's been enough to make one want to know more about the world rather than it just being a structureless hodgepodge of genre cliches.
There's been a good deal of action so far but the series needs to find a more even pacing. Game of Thrones will forever be the yardstick for this kind of thing and they need to learn from how that show allowed characters and dialogue to drive it forward while filling out and colouring in the background, giving it wit and flair and detail without just lapsing into clunky exposition or slowing things down too much. As it is, it's been enjoyable for someone who's generally favourably disposed to this kind of thing, but hard to imagine the layman giving it more than a few minutes of their time.
"Trolloc" is a fucking stupid name for a baddie.

Head Gardener

gave up after 10 mins in, jeez it was just rubbish

Kankurette

My WOT post tag on Tumblr is 'never mind the Trollocs'.

VelourSpirit

New episode was fantastic. In MY opinion!!!!!!!!!!!

Kankurette

On Episode 2. The Whitecloaks appear, Eamon Valda (the black guy who has the foodgasm while setting a random Aes Sedai on fire) is suitably creepy (and Pedron Niall looks like I imagined he would), and Egwene calls Rand a bastard. I guess they're going to go with conventional swearing instead of 'blood and bloody ashes' and 'flaming woolhead' and 'mother's milk in a cup' and all that stuff. It'll be fun when
Spoiler alert
Uno shows up. I know he's in The Great Hunt but not sure if he's in The Eye of the World.
[close]

Spoiler alert
Was not expecting Nynaeve to pop up out of nowhere and threaten to cut a Warder either.
[close]

Marv Orange

Some of the performances remind me of the characters that the player would bump in to on Knightmare

Also a wheel do you see, a wheel its a round thing do you see, it's round like a wheel, like the name of the show its a wheel do you see.

Kankurette

I like the fact Loial looks like a cross between a Hobbit and a tree.

Poobum

Only read the first book, found it very bland and uninteresting, the series though I'm finding quite excellent, getting better as it goes along. Did a really good job of elucidating the relationship between Aes Sedai and warder with Stepin. I think it's the perfect series for adaption as you can edit in down to what's actually interesting.

Kankurette

The Great Hunt (book 2) is when it gits gud.

Dex Sawash


Burning through this 5/week which is an unusual rate for wife to watch anything. Neither of us are particularly interested in the genre, haven't/won't read the books. Performances are very good. Episodes do drag out a bit, have 2 left to watch.

The whitecloaks
Spoiler alert
washing Egwene
[close]
was one of the most uncomfortable things I have watched.