News The Wheel of Time Coming to Amazon Video

Even if some of the comments on my other thread dampened my enthusiasm a bit, I'm still curious about this.
The description of the series talks about Moiraine being the lead, so it sounds like they'll be shifting the focus to her, rather than Rand.

 

The Wheel of Time is set in a sprawling, epic world where magic exists, but only women can use it. Meaning that in this series — women hold the keys to power. The story follows Moiraine, a member of the shadowy and influential all-female organization called the ‘Aes Sedai’ as she embarks on a dangerous, world-spanning journey with five young men and women. Moiraine’s interested in these five because she believes one of them might be the reincarnation of an incredibly powerful individual, whom prophecies say will either save humanity or destroy it. The series draws on numerous elements of European and Asian culture and philosophy, most notably the cyclical nature of time found in Buddhism and Hinduism.

That sounds like a pretty big SPIN on what the actual books were about. There were strong female characters, but this blurb paints it like the entire series is some kind of groundbreaking fantasy series about female empowerment. That's going to take a pretty BIG rewrite from the original to achieve that.

Also based on the first book (which apparently is what the first season will mainly be) I can see Moiraine being billed as the main character.

 

Rosamund Pike to star In ‘The Wheel Of Time’

 

I have apparently seen her in at least a couple things, but I honestly have no memory of her.
I find it a bit crazy we are getting both this and an LOTR series on Amazon Prime, it feels a bit like the same network showing a Star Trek and Star Wars show.

 

Most famously, she was GONE GIRL.

 

And before that, she was best known as a Bond Girl (in Die Another Day, one of the few good things about that film).

 

Also, she was in the third part of the Cornetto trilogy "The World's End", appearing alongside Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, and reuniting with Pierce Brosnan.

And, apparently, she voices Lady Penelope in the current "Thunderbirds Are Go!" series.

 

They're also doing shows for The Dark Tower and they've also got the rights to do Conan the Barbarian, but I haven't seen any movement on that one, at least compared to WoT, LOTR, and DT. Combine those with their saving The Expanse from cancellation, it looks like Amazon is going all-in on SF/F content.

 

Oh, I didn't realize The Dark Tower was theirs too, they really are going all out on the SFF.

I've never seen Gone Girl, but I know it's supposed to be really good.

I've seen Die Another Day and World's End, but I don't really remember them clearly enough to know what I thought of her.
Is Moiraine brunette in the books? Most of the artwork I've seen shows a brunette, but I've never actually read the books to know for sure.

 

In DIE ANOTHER DAY, she was the Bond Girl who wasn't Halle Berry: the cool, aristocratic blonde.

 

Interested in trying the show. I kept trying to get into the books and just couldn't get there. Too many similar names, SLOW passages, description to the point where you forget why he's describing things, and travelogue sections that stretched it too far. Kept trying, but found myself putting it down and taking longer and longer to pick it up again (despite it sounding like it should be right up my alley, and a popular series).

Hoping the tv version resolves a lot of those issues and can help me try again.

 

There was comics adaptation too, that might be a good way to get a faster paced version of the story.

 

The show will definitely speed up a lot of the slower passages and travelogue simply by virtue of telling the story visually. Based on what I've seen from hints here and there provided by Rafe Judkins, season one will cover both The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt, the first two books in the series.

 

According to the page counts on Goodreads, that's going to be over 1500 pages, is there so little story in them that they can cover all of that in 1 season?

 

I never read the books, but I've read Robert Jordan's Conan novels, and those are pretty packed with plot and characters, and came out at less than 200 pages per novel. The way his slow pace on The Wheel of Time is describe is kind of bewildering to me.

 

The Wheel of Time series might be popular, but it isn't particularly good, so this show has a massive task in front of it.

 

Madeleine Madden, Marcus Rutherford, Barney Harris, Zoë Robins and Josha Stradowski cast

 

Nice to get some more news on this.

 

Pretty much