Winter Dragon: Secret, unauthorized Wheel of Time short on FXX

Winter Dragon: Secret, unauthorized(?) Wheel of Time short on FXX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvNYIEN1vIg

So, last night at 1:30 FXX bizarrely aired a half-hour thing featuring Lews Therin losing his shit. No one knew they were going to do this and reaction from Jordan's widow indicates they apparently had no right to make it.

And it had Billy Zane.

And no one knows what's going on.

 

The folks who made it claim that they have the rights and needed to get something on TV to retain them...

Io9: The Real Story About That Wheel Of Time Pilot That Aired Last Night

 

This whole situation is just so random. You would think Jordan's widow would know what was going on. Even if she wasn't involved you'd think somebody could have contacted her and just said "Hey we just put together a pilot for a WoT TV series".
I hope if they do actually make a series, that they get her or Brandon Sanderson involved in some capacity.

 

The backstory here is that Red Eagle, the company that produced this "pilot," once held a lot of rights to make Wheel of Time adaptations (movies, games, comics), and have not managed to deliver much of anything. There was also some kind of conflict between them and Jordan, who mentioned in one of his last blog posts that he was looking forward to their being out of the picture entirely. That being the case, it's not much of a surprise they weren't in touch with his widow about this production, which exists to extend their control of rights the estate almost certainly wants them not to have.

 

I wasn't aware of that. That is a little disappointing then. I definitely prefer it when they can get the creators involved in these kinds of adaptations.

 

Pretty fly-by-night way of operating to air a pilot in the wee hours of the morning simply to retain the rights. Was the thing at least any good? I can't watch it with sound where I am.

EDIT: More on that backstory Brendan alluded to. Red Eagle sound fairly incompetent and on the whole I have to wonder if this whole gambit is going to work for them. Hopefully not, anyway, it would be nice to see the rights go to someone who can really make a large-scale production work.

 

Most people seem to think it's terrible; I can't bring myself to watch it yet.

This isn't an unheard-of practice-- there was a low-budget Fantastic Four film produced in the 90s for similar reasons-- but I do wonder if in this specific instance Red Eagle would have been better off accepting that it's not going to have the success it's hoping for with this property, and giving someone else a shot.

 

It seems incredibly cheap and is superboring.

 

According to the article on Io9 they basically rented the time from the network. The article compared it to the way infomercials work.

 

They might relise that, but with Game Of Thrones being a huge hit, if they keep the rights they might be able to do a deal with a big production house to do it properly. They'd get a cut for little or nothing...

Anyhow, advice needed. I'm a big fan of Tolkien, have read Game of Thrones so far, but haven't really delved into other fantasy novel series. Is Wheel of Time any good ? What about Robin Hobb's Farseer stuff or any other suggestions ?

 

If you're up for something funny, then the Discworld books are a blast.

 

I should've mentioned I've read one or two of them !

Should I try Jordan's stuff ?

 

^ Not a big fan of the Wheel of Time series personally -- I gave up around book five (and IMO, George R.R. Martin runs rings around Jordan in terms of tense, well-structured stories). But a lot of people love it.

 

Those who enjoy Wheel of Time, really seem to enjoy it, but, it's difficult to get into. It's very involved with a rather large number of characters and plots. When my brother passed away in 1995, I inherited the 4th book from him, and I tried starting cold with it, but, 100 pages in, I had to give up, because it was such a wide, rich world, that I was totally lost, and even checking the Glossary several times per page, I was still lost. So, I can't really speak from personal experience, as I didn't give it a fair shake starting with the first, but, again, those who enjoy it, really enjoy the complexity.

I've been listening to the Pern Series on my work commute for the last year and a half, and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. 20 some odd books, most of them not very long.

Stephen R. Donaldson Covenant Series is very good, but grim if you're not into grim (Very dramatic). It's got a rape scene in the first book, that isn't really graphic, but, can be hard for some readers to get past (The leper Hero {Anti-Hero} gets feeling back in his extremities, and loses control of himself in the scene). 2 Trilogies and Quadrilogy in all. Donaldosn's Mirror of Her Dreams/A Man Rides Through Duology is really good, and not as grim as The Covenant Series.

Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber is also a really good Series, IMHO, and not overly grim, nor is it undramatic.

I also enjoyed Harry Potter (First couple of books are pretty Juvenile, but starts getting more mature with each book, starting from the third as the characters age and the 7 Book Arc progresses).

Eragon isn't really popular amongst hardcore Fantasy Fans, but, I think it's a wonderful 4 Book Series if you enjoy Dragons

 

I'm slightly fond of Pratchett's books, have read the Potters and the first Eragon book, which was enough. My only experience with Zelazny was the wonderfully odd Creatures of Light and Darkness many years ago. I read the first six or seven Pern books but lost interest.

I'm really after another LotR/GoT experience.

 

Thomas Covenant may be more to your liking, then. Try starting with Lord Foul's Bane (Book 1 of First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant)

 

I haven't read them yet, but a lot of people seem to like The Kingkiller Chronicle series by Patrick Rothfuss.

 

That would be a little difficult, in Jordan's case.

Anyway, the situation here is that Red Eagle got a script written in a day, and had this shot in about a week for basically no money, then paid FXX to air it, all so they could retain the various licensing/adaptation rights for which they want ungodly amounts of money for anyone to use.

Seems like something that will end up in court between Jordan's estate and Red Eagle.

I watched a couple minutes of the pilot. Wow. The F2P fantasy game commercial that aired early on was better.

 

Two words: Brandon Sanderson.

Look up his stuff, it is worth it. He is working on ten-book monster story opus, and the first two are frickin' amazing.

Virtually everything he has written is top-shelf.

 

Yeah, I hear he brought the WoT series to a good conclusion, which Jordan probably wouldn't have.