News The Wheel of Time Coming to Amazon Video
- Thread starter TheSeeker
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Yeah, I can't remember at what point I stopped reading WoT (maybe book 4 or 5?) but I do remember that it really, really...reeeeaaaalllyyy.....dragged. Big time. Put it this way, it was enough for me to stop caring about anything that was happening and subsequently forget like 98% of it (something about the reincarnation of a kwisatz haderach who was Sauron in a previous life?) And that's a shame since it was an interesting (if rather derivative) world.
It's a mixed bag. Women were portrayed as having, for the most part, equal power in politics, with the exception of the Jedi/Vatican analogue, who were all women, and mostly badass to boot.
In terms of actual displaying these women, there was all too much of skirt smoothing, flighty emotions...
I feel pretty confident in saying that the only reason Amazon greenlit this show is because of the popularity of the novels, but they're more than likely going to learn pretty quickly that popularity does not equal quality when this doesn't find an audience in the kinds of numbers needed to justify its production.
I have to wonder when they're going to have LOTR and Conan on Amazon Prime too, if Wheel of Time is really going to be able to compete. I find it doubtful that all three will be able to survive, when there's a pretty good chance they're all going to end up pretty similar, LotR and Wot especially.
I'd say Conan still has enough distinction as a more low-level and gritty Sword & Sorcery, as compared to the epic, multi-character high fantasy of either the Middle-Earth show or Wheel of Time. But, yeah, Wheel of Time really has to prove itself if it wants to compete with LotR.
Not if you want to do them justice, unless you're talking 22-episode season. Eye of the World you could probably do in 5-6 episodes, but there's no way you'll get it and The Great Hunt in one season unless you're massively cutting them to ribbons.
There was certainly too much of the latter, but in terms of actually displaying them...?
Just as a few examples, you have Moiraine one-shotting one of the dreaded Forsaken with the first appearance of balefire and then later going toe-to-toe with Lanfear, Nynaeve inventing an entirely new form of Healing and using the Choedan Kal to cleanse saidin with Rand, Semirhage who came closer than anyone to taking down Rand, Egwene's defense of the Tower and then becoming the Flame of Tar Valon.
If this fails it'll be a failure of adaptation, not of the source material.
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Yes.
And I gave up in the middle of the fourth or fifth one because I finally got sick of the slow pace and repetitive nature of the plot.
I think it is doomed to fail because general audiences will not be drawn into the story given the poor quality of the baseline source material (you can put a pig in a dress, but it's still a pig) and do not believe that, for as popular as the novels inexplicably are, those who are fans of them will generate the numbers needed to justify the TV series' continued production.
Same. Though that doesn't mean that the material can't be adapted into something worthwhile and entertaining.
It seems half the reason the book series dragged so much is that the author didn't want, or didn't know how to end it, so he just spent most of the time jogging on the spot. A TV and/or streaming show has the benefit of knowing it has to wrap things up at some point.
I'd say more than mildly, when pretty much every younger female character was portrayed as man hungry, a schemer, a man hungry schemer, or a stereotypical shrew, while all of the younger male characters were dupes to the women in one way or another or victims of their machinations, and the one who wasn't was turned into one by around book 5 or 6? I'm fuzzy on that detail, because I quit around there, fed up with the lack of plot movement and character development, clunky descriptions, and repetitiveness.
It does, actually.
Piss-poor source material is going to result in a piss-poor adaptation.
As I said earlier, you can put a pig in a dress, but it's still a pig.
I believe I stopped about book 4 or so as well... maybe read 5. Still, I'm looking forward to this, if for no reason than to see how it's handled.
There’s obviously a big push to cash in on existing sci-fi/fantasy series since they can turn into lengthy ‘expanded universe’ style shows or movie franchises. Feels like a bubble.
I remember disliking WoT, but who knows what might come out of a series? Honestly the Killing Eve books aren’t so great, but the show is fantastic. The Handmaids Tale is a great book, but if you’d asked me how it would work as a TV series I wouldn’t have been optimistic. If you’re looking at movies instead of shows, I’d say Fight Club was pretty ‘piss-poor’, but the movie adaptation was pretty great. I know these aren’t the same as WoT, but still.
It’ll probably be bad, but I wouldn’t say that’s a foregone conclusion. Honestly more excited about someone talking something that wasn’t particularly good and turning it into something else than seeing another stab at Dune or His Dark Materials, which are probably always going to be better as books.
I remember disliking WoT, but who knows what might come out of a series? Honestly the Killing Eve books aren’t so great, but the show is fantastic. The Handmaids Tale is a great book, but if you’d asked me how it would work as a TV series I wouldn’t have been optimistic. If you’re looking at movies instead of shows, I’d say Fight Club was pretty ‘piss-poor’, but the movie adaptation was pretty great. I know these aren’t the same as WoT, but still.
It’ll probably be bad, but I wouldn’t say that’s a foregone conclusion. Honestly more excited about someone talking something that wasn’t particularly good and turning it into something else than seeing another stab at Dune or His Dark Materials, which are probably always going to be better as books.
I have previously said that I had little interest in this show, but that might have changed because I just learned that the showrunner, Rafe Judkins, is both a former Survivor contestant, a fellow member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and a former resident of Salt Lake City; whether or not it does capture my interest is going to depend on the Pilot, but I'm now more willing to at least give it a chance to impress me than I previously had been.
Those are some very odd reasons to give a
show a shot.
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