The Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime

[Jedman67]

Hopefully I'm not the only on excited.
One of my favorite book series, The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, is being developed as a TV series by Amazon Prime.
It debuts tonight!
https://www.newsweek.com/wheel-time-book-series-amazon-prime-rosamund-pike-1650671

 

[LaxScrutiny]

Hopefully I'm not the only on excited.
One of my favorite book series, The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, is being developed as a TV series by Amazon Prime.
It debuts tonight!
https://www.newsweek.com/wheel-time-book-series-amazon-prime-rosamund-pike-1650671

You're not the only one, I've been looking forward to it. WoT actually sparked my first foray into BBS back around '98 or '99. (I can't remember the exact name of the board, but if you recall "The beer's in the fridge, the nuts are on the board" you're probably an old acquaintance.)

I'm sure it won't be exactly what I imagined for all those years, but it will be great to see on screen at all.

 

[JD]

Looking forward to it, and I'm also reading the book along with it for the first time. I just got to the part where Moriraine, Lan, Mat, Rand, and Perrin are just getting ready to leave Two Rivers. I'm hoping to try to stay at least a little bit ahead of where the show is.
What's our spoiler policy going to be for the thread?

 

[eschaton]

Watching the premier right now.

So far so good, but this is one of the most extreme cases of "diversity casting in fantasy" I have ever seen.

Like, I don't need to have everyone white - far from it. But when you have a single rustic medieval village which has a pretty even mix of white people, black people, South Asian-looking people, and a few East Asians for good measure it just breaks immersion.

Just have everyone be ambiguously brown and be done with it.

 

[Tirius]

Spoiler free comments:

I've just binged the first 3 episodes. Change is inevitable with an adaptation of source material this size, but I'm cautiously optimistic even with a few frowns here and there. The characters largely feel like I wanted, at least in personality even if some changes were made, even large ones. I can easily overlook differences in appearance with the books, so long as they get the personalities right, and I do see how some of the changes will likely be used as alternate launching points for story threads from the books, where the original had to be trimmed for time. Beyond that I liked the overall look and feel so far.

Having said that, re-reading The Eye of the World prior to going into the series might have been a mistake. I have a head for minor details and notice far more "out of place" now that I might have. But there we are.

I'm hoping to try to stay at least a little bit ahead of where the show is.

I hope for your sake you are a VERY fast reader, but if you want to keep pace you'll have to give up on following the show as it releases. The pace is, out of neccessity with the length of story as it is, very fast and I've already noticed a few things that were pulled forward quite a bit. I envy you your first time reading experience though. Hope you enjoy it.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

I hope for your sake you are a VERY fast reader, but if you want to keep pace you'll have to give up on following the show as it releases. The pace is, out of neccessity with the length of story as it is, very fast and I've already noticed a few things that were pulled forward quite a bit. I envy you your first time reading experience though. Hope you enjoy it.

At least he won't have to wait as long for each episode as we did for the books.

 

[JD]

I haven't watched it yet, but from the descriptions of the episodes, it looks like they'll already pass me up before the end of the first episode, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up.

 

[StCoop]

I'm sure I'll have more to say later but the first question that comes to mind is where did all the money they spent go? It doesn't look vastly superior to shows like The Magicians or The Outpost that had a tiny fraction of the budget.

 

[FreezeC77]

I'm sure I'll have more to say later but the first question that comes to mind is where did all the money they spent go? It doesn't look vastly superior to shows like The Magicians or The Outpost that had a tiny fraction of the budget.

The New Zealand landscape looks amazing, but some of the sets do look less so. I thought the 'magic' effects shown so far have been ok. but some of the practical effects have been less so

Spoiler

Shadar Logoth (the 'dead city' they took refuge in) my God. Some of those sets looked like watching a 2D cardboard backdrop on a play stage. Some of the trolloc designs look good, but some look really poor. The fade looks better the darker the actual lighting is as well.

 

[eschaton]

IMHO the Trolloc designs tend to vary based upon CGI or practical effects. A lot of the scenes from the side/back are obviously just guys in gorilla suits (more or less) which gives it a very B-movie vibe.

 

[Skywalker]

So far I'm pretty pleased with it. It does look surprisingly cheap at times but not enough to distract me.

 

[StCoop]

Everything's too clean and the clothes are all new but that seems to be a problem that effects 99% of all live-action fantasy.

 

[JD]

I watched the first episode, and I enjoyed it. Yeah, they did change a lot, but the changes worked in context for the show.
I do agree that it does look surprisingly cheap for such an expensive show. The Expanse and Carnival Row look better, and probably don't have the budget this does.

 

[Skywalker]

Everything's too clean and the clothes are all new but that seems to be a problem that effects 99% of all live-action fantasy.

I do have to say the "everything's too clean" complaint never made much sense to me. Maybe in a world like Game of Thrones where magic is barely present and subtler in nature, but not in ones like Wheel of Time where magic exists and is both well-known and more potent. And it's not like everyone in medieval societies IRL were constantly walking around in ratty clothes covered in mud and filth.

Besides, I thought there was plenty of grime and grit, in Emond's Field and especially in Breen's Spring.

 

[Nerys Myk]

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[thribs]

The first episode was okay. I imagine the Dragon will be different from the book.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Watching the premier right now.

So far so good, but this is one of the most extreme cases of "diversity casting in fantasy" I have ever seen.

Like, I don't need to have everyone white - far from it. But when you have a single rustic medieval village which has a pretty even mix of white people, black people, South Asian-looking people, and a few East Asians for good measure it just breaks immersion.

Just have everyone be ambiguously brown and be done with it.

You missed one. Madeleine Madden is an Aboriginal Australian.
It's a fantasy world, it doesn't have to look like medieval Europe or Asia or any other Earth location.

 

[eschaton]

It's a fantasy world, it doesn't have to look like medieval Europe or Asia or any other Earth location.

Obviously it doesn't. But unless fantasy genetics work very differently than real world genetics, if you have a small village with people of widely diverse ethnic backgrounds, and then you leave them to sit for a few hundred years...everyone is gonna be mixed. You won't have definable "black" or "white" people - that's for sure. Not unless you have recent immigrants to the area. Or for that matter some sort of racialized caste system, but this obviously does not exist in the setting, considering every one of the young protagonists was involved in an "interracial" relationship.

I'm all for diversity in casting in general, but backwater villages are one of those places where you'd least expect to see it. It would have been better f they decided to make the whole village some non-European ethnicity, and then they could showcase more diversity as they further explored the world.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Obviously it doesn't. But unless fantasy genetics work very differently than real world genetics, if you have a small village with people of widely diverse ethnic backgrounds, and then you leave them to sit for a few hundred years...everyone is gonna be mixed. You won't have definable "black" or "white" people - that's for sure. Not unless you have recent immigrants to the area. Or for that matter some sort of racialized caste system, but this obviously does not exist in the setting, considering every one of the young protagonists was involved in an "interracial" relationship.

I'm all for diversity in casting in general, but backwater villages are one of those places where you'd least expect to see it. It would have been better f they decided to make the whole village some non-European ethnicity, and then they could showcase more diversity as they further explored the world.

Don't over think it.

 

[Greg Cox]

Pleased to see that Harriet McDougal, the editor of the original books, and Jim Rigney's widow, is credited as a "Consulting Producer" on the WHEEL OF TIME tv series.

Yay, Harriet!