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

No1newts said:
Amen, I used to get so frustrated with the portrayal of every man in the series as a good hearted but dim type. Got old fast.
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I can only think of Perrin that would come near that description. The others are all pretty selfish and/or self centred. Or are you talking about only the bit part characters?
 
CliffyG said:
I can't see any TV series doing this justice, arguably there are too many people and individual stories for a huge book series let alone trying to cram all of that into a TV series. Expecting loads of awful CGI too. Think the Belgaraid is more suited to a TV series.
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Agreed. Does seem like a weird choice as there are many other books that would better lend themselves to TV than WoT.
Perhaps they've got an incredibly cunning plan for it but I'm very skeptical.
The books we're at times barely readable after all..
 
Could be like the Sword of Truth show where the first episode is like the book (getting out of the village) and then make up the rest of the series with occasional nods to the book
 
Shamikebab said:
The books in general are rampantly sexist, but to both genders at different times. The way they are portrayed is so bad.
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I always took this to be intentional.

The backstory for the setting certainly paints a picture of men having ballsed up being in charge and women taking over

I found the sexism irritating but not unrealistic.

I'm excited to see where this goes, especially after the Red Eagle debacle (Billy Zane how could you!). I've been keeping an eye to see who would pick it up and I've got to say Amazon and Netflix were top of the list of platforms I wanted to see take it on. Hopefully it will get a decent budget so we can see some really high quality dresses being straightened in 4k. 3d braid tugging? We can only hope.

It's going to be an epic undertaking but with the right showrunner and possibly some rejigging in terms of what they focus on (you can cut the entire 10th book without any real effort, as well as multiple side stories which don't really have any massive payoff) I really think it could be awesome. I look forward to some casting information which I can then get irate about, if they ruin Mat I'm going on hunger strike.
 
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I would think their biggest issue to face isn't even going to be the sexism but also the race problem. Jordon squarely pegged people into races and racial stereotypes and the social justice warriors are going to be screaming if not handled delicately.

The problem is some major storylines are driven by this, so the writers are going to have a tough time.
 
JBod said:
I would think their biggest issue to face isn't even going to be the sexism but also the race problem. Jordon squarely pegged people into races and racial stereotypes and the social justice warriors are going to be screaming if not handled delicately.

The problem is some major storylines are driven by this, so the writers are going to have a tough time.
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Well he did and he didn't. He played on stereotypes but the races of the people those stereotypes applied to didn't correlate the way they normally would.

The Aiel for instance started as a kind of pacifist group who were Celtic in appearance and culture. By the first book they had morphed into a kind of warrior race with aspects of middle eastern and african cultural heritage, but physically they're a race of slightly tanned gingers. I'm sure the usual suspects will find some way to kick off about it but honestly it would be ridiculous, the back story provides a decent justification for the way people are at the start and as long as they don't ham it up too much i can't see the issue.
 
FortuitousFluke said:
The Aiel for instance started as a kind of pacifist group who were Celtic in appearance and culture. By the first book they had morphed into a kind of warrior race with aspects of middle eastern and african cultural heritage, but physically they're a race of slightly tanned gingers. I'm sure the usual suspects will find some way to kick off about it but honestly it would be ridiculous, the back story provides a decent justification for the way people are at the start and as long as they don't ham it up too much i can't see the issue.
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I was having the same thought today. Should go down a treat when you look at all the other recent outrages over film/TV casting.
 
JBod said:
Lets not forget about Rand having 3 girls on the go!
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I think the show-runner has already indicated that they'll be treating Rand's relationships differently... in that he'll only have one.

I reckon one of the key reasons why the series has been picked up is that it'll be able to show significant primary characters in both male and female roles - I understand the first season is very much seen from Moirane's POV, as opposed to other characters you might expect. Think it'll be written for as broad an audience as possible.

I'm looking forward to it - I'm currently listening to it on audiobook for the first time, having read it multiple times, and it being my favourite fantasy series - but I'm expecting it to either be quite poor, or it'll be pretty damn good but vary wildly from the core text. Which I'm totally fine about too. The books are much more of an adventure story than GoT, and so to keep an adventure angle interesting over multiple series can be very difficult. But there will be an almighty void to fill post-GoT, however I'm not sure WoT has that little bit of realism (violence, sex, other adult-themes, etc.) that will appeal to the masses.

I'd rather they started making cheesing feature length films of Abercrombie's work :D
 
toshj said:
I'd rather they started making cheesing feature length films of Abercrombie's work :D
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So much good fantasy out there. A good wot adaptation is a dream for me, i'd give my left nut for it to live up to expectations. I'd give my right nut for a gentleman ******** series and in short order i'd just end up being a variety of stumps attached to a torso. At least i'd have something to watch proppud up in my bed though. Unless Rothfuss finishes the Kingkiller Chronicles, then i wouldn't have eyes.
 
FortuitousFluke said:
So much good fantasy out there. A good wot adaptation is a dream for me, i'd give my left nut for it to live up to expectations. I'd give my right nut for a gentleman ******** series and in short order i'd just end up being a variety of stumps attached to a torso. At least i'd have something to watch proppud up in my bed though. Unless Rothfuss finishes the Kingkiller Chronicles, then i wouldn't have eyes.
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I'm pretty sure your eyes, at least, are safe.
 
Apparently they're taking more of a grimdark approach to it rather than the slightly sanitised nature of the first book. Looking forward to it. Cast looks good, particularly Mat - think they've nailed his casting.
 
There’s a lot of unnecessary flim flam in the books especially between 5 and 11(!) imho so once that’s all cut out, you’ll be left with a pretty decent TV series. Brandon Sanderson’s last three books were excellent and hauled all the plot lines together into a decent finale once again suitable for TV.
 
Now can I be bothered to blitz the books before the show? I've never read them before, but I have a thing where I like to read books of something before seeing the adaptation.
 
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