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

McPhee said:
Shame they dropped this rather than Rings of Power. While Wheel of Time isn't perfect, it's the better (and cheaper) show.

With the cancellation of this, I guess we can say goodbye to any possibility of other big-budget fantasy book adaptations any time soon. The conclusion will be that audiences aren't interested (which is probably half of the problem, with the other half being that they screwed it up).
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Rings of Power won't get past S3. It's a far far bigger disaster than WOT.

But you're right that's the end of the TV fantasy boom, and all because they didn't want to make the show the fans wanted, they knew better, they wanted to twist the source material to fit their world view, and their absolute narcisscism as talentless hacks, to beleive they could "correct" the authror and outdo them.

But, it all fell apart upon contact with reality and the audience, rather like how a trifle reacts when it goes head on with a cricket bat with breeze block nailed to it.
 
Not that surprised at the cancellation. Didn't get beyond Ep 3 or 4 of S3 as mentioned previously the adverts on Prime (which we've now cancelled, at least until Fallout comes back on) were becoming way too intrusive and damned if I'm paying extra on top to go ad free.

That aside, fresh from reading the books, I wasn't feeling much love for the casting (apart maybe from Rand) and the butchery of the source material along with the (hate to use the word, but only one that fits) woke changes.

However it's a shame they couldn't have just jumped the story forward and done a TV Movie or something of the Last Battle, to bring closure.
 
Wasn't sure about this in series one but during 2 and 3 it's definitely picked up, shame for it to get the axe. I'm in the helpful position of not having read the books so I'm not aware of any deviations.
 
Typical fantasy.

The book "ultra" fans complain its not 100% accurate. So they don't watch it.
Not realising that 100% conversion would be a total mess.

The key demographic is the general public, who are so hit and miss.
These people are the key and I would say "too much fantasy" will put them off.
It was IMO still too complicated for non book people to easily pick it up.

Compare GOT, the first couple of seasons did not have high viewing figures, the figures grew and grew as non fantasy and non book fans started watching it based on recommendations.

If fans turn away then those recommendations are lower. Some of us book fans watched it, but I didn't go out of my way to recommend it to people as it felt too fantasy to me.
But I did recommend GOT to people over years and many watched the whole thing.

The scifi area isn't that different but for many people unless its very strong scifi its more relatable than fantasy.

IMO GOT was the success it was not because it was fantasy but despite it. As it was mainly humans interacting with other humans it didn't put people off being fantasy as it was far more like a medieval drama than a fantasy one.
By the time you had full blown fantasy really you were seasons in and people were heavily invested.

I liked WOT, I prefer it to ROP.
 
Got was succesful becuase it pulled in the book fans and non book fans from the get go due to being well acted, looking great and most importantly followed the 1st book pretty closely as a result it was highly praised by both. WoT looked like ****, had terrible acting and went out of its way to **** off the book fans. It got exactly what it deserved (a little to late mind you, but thats what happens when you greenlight 3 seasons way to early). Make no mistake if got had been made around the same time it would have followed the likes of wot and rop with thevsame mistakes. Thankfully it was made a decade earlier.
 
C Kent said:
Got was succesful becuase it pulled in the book fans and non book fans from the get go due to being well acted, looking great and most importantly followed the 1st book pretty closely as a result it was highly praised by both. WoT looked like ****, had terrible acting and went out of its way to **** off the book fans. It got exactly what it deserved (a little to late mind you, but thats what happens when you greenlight 3 seasons way to early). Make no mistake if got had been made around the same time it would have followed the likes of wot and rop with thevsame mistakes. Thankfully it was made a decade earlier.
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Thats simply not true.
GOT took years to pull in all the non book fans.

"Game of Thrones" ended its run as one of the most popular TV shows ever, with viewership figures consistently increasing throughout its eight seasons."
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Thats simply not true.
GOT took years to pull in all the non book fans.

"Game of Thrones" ended its run as one of the most popular TV shows ever, with viewership figures consistently increasing throughout its eight seasons."
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You do know that succesful tv shows increase viewership season on season largely? S1 of got had both, non book and book, both sets of viewers praised it to the high heavens which in turn pulled in more.

Edit: also had tons of critical acclaim which helped
 
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C Kent said:
You do know that succesful tv shows increase viewership season on season largely? S1 of got had both, non book and book, both sets of viewers praised it to the high heavens which in turn pulled in more.

Edit: also had tons of critical acclaim which helped
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Of course I know, although its not always as marked as you make out. SG1 for example did pretty much the opposite but managed many series.

I still think GOT was actually benefitting from not being high fantasy but really being low fantasy, a mainly human series.

I remember book fans talking about it. It perked peoples interests, S1 had the Bram tower thing, but especially S3 when all the book fans got the red wedding that really hooked a lot of non book fans.

Funny thing is when ROP received praise, when WOT received praise some of the ultras did everything they could to talk it down.

There is another factor in that streaming continues to fragment where as with GOT it was on Sky and TBH at that point most people had sky so access was pretty high.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Of course I know, although its not always as marked as you make out. SG1 for example did pretty much the opposite but managed many series.

I still think GOT was actually benefitting from not being high fantasy but really being low fantasy, a mainly human series.

I remember book fans talking about it. It perked peoples interests, S1 had the Bram tower thing, but especially S3 when all the book fans got the red wedding that really hooked a lot of non book fans.
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You do realise got prior to the tv show had 'only' sold 12 million worldwide ( all 4 books at that time), and yet the tv show had 12 million in the US alone? Far more non book folks watched s1 of got compared to people that had read it.

Regardless, if a fantasy/scfi TV show is so dependant on 'book audiences' for its initial success maybe they should try catering to them instead of changing core aspects to 'own the chuds' as per the showrunners of this failed abomination?
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Funny thing is when ROP received praise, when WOT received praise some of the ultras did everything they could to talk it down.
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Never happened as neither have had any praise outside of a few weirdos that also praise the garbage churned out by disney in the mcu/star wars universes :cry:
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
There is another factor in that streaming continues to fragment where as with GOT it was on Sky and TBH at that point most people had sky so access was pretty high.
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More people had amazon prime when wot launched compared to sky in 2011
 
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Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Typical fantasy.

The book "ultra" fans complain its not 100% accurate. So they don't watch it.
Not realising that 100% conversion would be a total mess.
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I'm yet to see anyone complain that the story wasn't a 1:1 adaptation of the books.

Here's a post from Brandon Sanderson about his experience of adaptations:

I have a fun story here. Early in my career, someone optioned the rights to make one of my stories (the Emperor's Soul) into a film. I was ecstatic, as it's not a story that at the time had gotten a lot of attention from Hollywood. I met with the writer, who had a good pedigree, and who seemed extremely excited about the project; turned out, he'd been the one to persuade the production company to go for the option. All seemed really promising.

A year or so later, I read his script and it was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. The character names were, largely, the same, though nothing that happened to them was remotely similar to the story. Emperor's Soul is a small-scale character drama that takes place largely in one room, with discussions of the nature of art between two characters who approach the idea differently.

The screenplay detailed an expansive fantasy epic with a new love interest for the main character (a pirate captain.) They globe-trotted, they fought monsters, they explored a world largely unrelated to mine, save for a few words here and there. It was then that I realized what was going on.

Hollywood doesn't buy spec scripts (original ideas) from screenwriters very often, and they NEVER buy spec scripts that are epic fantasy. Those are too big, too expensive, and too daunting: they are the sorts of stories where the producers and executives need the proof of an established book series to justify the production.

So this writer never had a chance to tell his own epic fantasy story, though he wanted to. Instead, he found a popularish story that nobody had snatched up, and used it as a means to tell the story he'd always wanted to tell, because he'd never otherwise have a chance of getting it made.

I'm convinced this is part of the issue with some of these adaptations; screenwriters and directors are creative, and want to tell their own stories, but it's almost impossible to get those made in things like the fantasy genre unless you're a huge established name like Cameron. I'm not saying they all do this deliberately, as that screenwriter did for my work, but I think it's an unconscious influence. They want to tell their stories, and this is the allowed method, so when given the chance at freedom they go off the rails, and the execs don't know the genre or property well enough to understand why this can lead to disaster.
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The is the difference between a great adaptation & a terrible one. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter movies, Game of Thrones, Shadow & Bone (Season 1), etc. all had changes compared to the source material. But those changes were all measured and reasoned out. They were necessary. In the same vein, The Wheel of Time needed huge changes in order to be adapted for television.

However, there were also a lot of changes which weren't necessary and had more to do with Rafe Judkins and the writing team wanting to tell their own version of the story. These tend to be the changes which people have complained the most about.
 
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I think saying successful TV shows increase viewership season on season is wildly incorrect. Think it's pretty rare for shows to do that, they usually peak around season 2-4 then start to drop off.
 
McPhee said:
I'm yet to see anyone complain that the story wasn't a 1:1 adaptation of the books.
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While maybe not 1:1 adaption quite a few complaining that it isn't almost 1:1 adaption of the books.

It is a mixed bag though - there are quite a few characters in the books who don't really serve much purpose ultimately being separate characters and have been merged, which is kind of necessary for a TV series both for audience accessibility and logistics, in the show with the character only being one character from the books by name - which has upset some people especially where it has happened to someone's favourite supporting character, etc. and there are liberties taken with some story elements while other parts are true to the books or done better than the books.
 
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