Robert Jordan’s fantasy epic The Wheel of Time coming to TV

Kyo said:
The episode was all over the place. Also no emphasis on the Two Rivers archers who were meant to be the finest archers in the land, capable of firing twice the range of ordinary archers. Where was Tam throughout all that as well?
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Michael McElhatton had a scheduling conflict which they couldn't overcome.

They could have used Abel Cauthorn in a similar role (if they adapted his backstory). But they made the dumb decision to turn him into an abusive drunk for the show... :rolleyes:
 
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McPhee said:
Michael McElhatton had a scheduling conflict which they couldn't overcome.

They could have used Abel Cauthorn in a similar role (if they adapted his backstory). But they made the dumb decision to turn him into an abusive drunk for the show... :rolleyes:
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The whole Loial thing doesnt make sense at all? Do u think they did it just so they didnt need to show more Ogier?
 
McPhee said:
If the only way to the village is via the pass, who shot the Aes Sedai? And how did the Whitecloaks arrive?
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The Whitecloaks arrived via the mountain pass after the Trollocs made a "tactical" retreat, the pass wasn't the only way to the village just supposedly the only way feasible for a large force to advance on the village.
 
Happy enough with the final episode and how the series has progressed in general. I really was on the fence following series 1, but it has improved a lot.
 
Agreed that the final episode was decent, as a season it was far from perfect but vastly improved on over the first two.

That said, I'm wondering if we'll actually see a continuation of this? Apparently Amazon have yet to renew it, and whenever I logged into Prime Video I never saw it ranked higher than 7th most popular. I suppose that would be UK specific however, and I'm not sure if the ranking fluctuated at all and I just didn't see it. I actually feel it would be a shame if it were to be canned at this point, which surprises me a little as I really wouldn't have cared in the slightest were that to have happened after S1/2.
 
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Phew. I nearly died inside a few times when I thought Moiraine was going to die. I really hope Amazon does renew it for a couple more seasons at least. It's going to be at least two years away though. Plenty of time to listen to all the audiobooks available.
 
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Gray2233 said:
Agreed that the final episode was decent, as a season it was far from perfect but vastly improved on over the first two.

That said, I'm wondering if we'll actually see a continuation of this? Apparently Amazon have yet to renew it, and whenever I logged into Prime Video I never saw it ranked higher than 7th most popular. I suppose that would be UK specific however, and I'm not sure if the ranking fluctuated at all and I just didn't see it. I actually feel it would be a shame if it were to be canned at this point, which surprises me a little as I really wouldn't have cared in the slightest were that to have happened after S1/2.
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I do get a bad feeling it won't get renewed :( which is a shame because despite some issues overall I enjoy it.
 
Excellent season overall, only stand out not so good episode for me was the Perrin war episode. Finale was good, lots of stuff going on and dealt with in a satisfying manner.

Just a quick question who / what is the blue furry genie thing? Looked cool
 
Over the last couple of weeks, I've churned through the 3 series. I've never read the books, and didn't have any fore-knowledge of the series and its premise / lore, so went in with an open mind.

For me, as a TV series, it just didn't quite work well enough overall to be something really great.

I think early on, I was finding myself thinking that the story was mentioning / referencing things which if I were to have read the books, I would have understood better. Almost like tokenism mentions to stuff from the books to keep people happy. I just felt I was missing out on understanding, and just had to move on.

The characters and their portrayal by the actors ... in many places really didn't click and for a lot of the time were slooooooooooow and overly-brooding. I often thought to myself, are they dragging out the dialogue and pauses just to fill episode time here? get on with it. Rand was so lifeless and dull as a character, even from his first few lines, and so was Ngwene - they just didn't seem to remotely click on screen, for which I think the actors (or choice of them) are to blame. In comparison, the Mat <> Elmindreda pair really seemed to work well. Despite all her emotions spoken, Moiraine was facially expressionless compared to the likes of Liandrin. Trollocs ... big ugly mean, vicious creatures ... but here little girl, pat it like a cat ... eh? Overall, hard to get hooked / invested into many of the characters.

The world as a whole ... and travelling through it ... was portrayed in a way which was hard to buy into too. Oh, we need to get to place A it'll be a long journey. Next shot... thats us here, smashing! let go find our person.

The light / dark / one power / threads ... I quite like the premise / notion of all that, but with soo many different ways/methods of its use, it kind of diluted it to me. The one power appears similar to something like the 'force' in star wars, wwhich also has a light and dark side. I'd argue that star wars does a far better job of portraying such a thing to the viewer.

So yeah, OK to watch, but I certainly wouldn't say I felt hooked or invested in the characters or world they were in.
 
Just got through S3 Ep2. Having finished reading the books a few months ago, kind of ambiguous about the show. It is certainly a struggle to dramatize such a complex story and not lose the audience in the process. To that end, this season does seem to be using more in the way of captions and the occasional aside from a character to explain things that can't be conveyed by straight dialogue alone.

Ironically, even though they have jumbled his character a bit, I think the best casting is Mat. Just as in the books, started off as the buffoon but gradually turning into the somewhat unwilling hero and leader. Egwene and Nynaeve casting still seems a bit off, not just the racial change but they don't embody my visualisation from the books.

Verdict out on Avasarala from The Expanse as Elaida. As my wife remarked, "Isn't she the Earth President..." Also, all the Aes Sedai - despite their age - are supposed to look young due to use of the One Power effectively halting the aging process. And Siuan Suche the Amyrlin in the books conveyed a huge air of authority and the novices would pretty much have bowed before her, not engaged in an almost equal conversation.
 
Craterloads said:
Excellent season overall, only stand out not so good episode for me was the Perrin war episode. Finale was good, lots of stuff going on and dealt with in a satisfying manner.
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Same thoughts here.

I enjoyed this season. It was far, far better than the previous two. But they handled Perrin's story badly. I enjoyed the other 7 episodes.
 
Gray2233 said:
Agreed that the final episode was decent, as a season it was far from perfect but vastly improved on over the first two.

That said, I'm wondering if we'll actually see a continuation of this? Apparently Amazon have yet to renew it, and whenever I logged into Prime Video I never saw it ranked higher than 7th most popular. I suppose that would be UK specific however, and I'm not sure if the ranking fluctuated at all and I just didn't see it. I actually feel it would be a shame if it were to be canned at this point, which surprises me a little as I really wouldn't have cared in the slightest were that to have happened after S1/2.
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Supposedly various contracts now need to be renegotiated, which is the reason for the delay.

But the gap between the renewal for S2 & release was almost two and a half years. And the gap between renewal & release for S3 was over two & a half years. So IMO this doesn't bode well for the show. Season 4 in 2027? Maybe even early 2028? If they're still planning 8 seasons, that could easily stretch to 12+ years at this rate, which is too long.

What I'd really like to see is a commitment to see the show through to completion, even if that means cutting the number of seasons. Maybe a five year plan to take us through to a sixth & final season by the end of 2030? It would mean leaving a lot on the cutting room floor, but I think six seasons could deliver a meaningful retelling & satisfying finale.
 
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McPhee said:
What I'd really like to see is a commitment to see the show through to completion, even if that means cutting the number of seasons. Maybe a five year plan to take us through to a sixth & final season by the end of 2030? It would mean leaving a lot on the cutting room floor, but I think six seasons could deliver a meaningful retelling & satisfying finale.
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The show is never, ever going to be able to encompass the entire work, and it shouldn't even try. I do feel that it should attempt to make the main storylines as accurate as possible, but there's a lot of offshoots, characters, and all sorts of other things that Jordan meandered with for almost half of the entire series that were unnecessary and often never even went anywhere. I understand the man had vision and I respect his drive, perhaps if his health hadn't declined he'd have expanded on things in some areas (hopefully with spin off series, rather than mainline WoT, as it had already become ott).

I feel that a 5-6 season show focusing on the main plotlines is perfectly viable if done right and I'd like to see it happen.
 
Gray2233 said:
The show is never, ever going to be able to encompass the entire work, and it shouldn't even try. I do feel that it should attempt to make the main storylines as accurate as possible, but there's a lot of offshoots, characters, and all sorts of other things that Jordan meandered with for almost half of the entire series that were unnecessary and often never even went anywhere. I understand the man had vision and I respect his drive, perhaps if his health hadn't declined he'd have expanded on things in some areas (hopefully with spin off series, rather than mainline WoT, as it had already become ott).

I feel that a 5-6 season show focusing on the main plotlines is perfectly viable if done right and I'd like to see it happen.
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I think this has been part of the problem for the show, they've made some characters a composite of more than one character and/or split some characters in two and tacked each half onto another character, etc. which at times has meant they've written themselves into a corner or have had to avoid doing so in ways which aren't ideal.
 
Rroff said:
I think this has been part of the problem for the show, they've made some characters a composite of more than one character and/or split some characters in two and tacked each half onto another character, etc. which at times has meant they've written themselves into a corner or have had to avoid doing so in ways which aren't ideal.
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I feel they'd have been better off cutting them out entirely rather than the odd combination elements, as a fan of fantasy literature I will always argue that WoT is a seminal piece that should be on the bucket list of anyone who really enjoys the genre.

That said, it's messy with a million intermixing characters you're never going to be able to fully realise. When I heard that Amazon were making a WoT show I struggled to see how it would be plausible. Honestly, for such an epic and extensive series I feel Malazan might have been a better choice as you can far more easily compartmentalise the series. Hell, I'd argue going for Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy would have been a much easier entry to the genre for similar reasons, it's stand alone with a great story and fantastic cast of characters over the span of three books while having room for more. That said, I imagine it would be a bit on the nose for the GoT crowd unfortunately despite being a (in my opinion) superior story, and when you examine the other works in the world better in that respect too.

I'm going off a little here, but my point is that of all the incredible fantasy series' out there to translate to a show Amazon went with what was arguably the most difficult one I can think of. It's the only reason I gave them enough of a pass with S1/S2 to give S3 a shot, and ultimately I'm happy that I did and legitimately do hope we see a S4-5 that is more focused and less desperate to crush (often) vague narratives from the books together.
 
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Finally caught up with S3.
Excellent, there will always be characters people like and dislike, cant get away from it.
Actors and actresses are just that, there isn't always the perfect one for a role.

I totally agree with those that talk about the changes needing to happen. As much as WOT is classic and absolute quality fantasy there are parts that are simply a hot mess, just like LOTR.
Fans that start to head into cultist levels of obsession will never, ever, be happy.
The simple words "based on" that every film and series I can think of should tell you its not a "re-telling" which is what some people seem to think it should be.
I cannot think of a single film or series that is 100% faithful to a works, let alone one that is so massive in its source.

As always, if you don't like it, don't watch it.
If you think you could do better, then make it happen, we will all be grateful if you do so.
 
S3 Ep 3 seemed to go a bit OTT with the Aiel history as seen through Rand's eyes in Rhuadian. My missus kept asking, "What's all this about?" as she hasn't read the books and I did feel without knowing that part of the story it was an over convoluted way of trying to convey the warrior Aiel stemmed from an originally pacifist folk. They could have covered that with a couple of lines of dialogue and moved onto something more key. And IIRC wasn't it Mat who accompanied Rand into Rhuadian, not Moraine? As that's where he was given his spear which becomes key later on in the story.
 
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