Robert Jordan’s fantasy epic The Wheel of Time coming to TV
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Soldato
Genuinely really enjoying season 2, has been excellent so far.
14 books in the series, for a total of 4.4m words. The audiobook series runs for roughly 18 days and 18 hours (without New Spring). It needs to be condensed into eight seasons of roughly 8 hours in length. In spite of this, people seem surprised that the story has had to undergo significant rewrites 
Personally, I didn't think much of the first season. I was fighting against the book changes. And even in spite of those, the show had huge issues. But the second season is just so much better. S2E5 is comfortably the best episode yet for me. It moves a bunch of plot lines forward, and moves everyone a bit closer to where they are meant to be (except Mat, who continues to be strangely absent in the TV series).
Personally, I didn't think much of the first season. I was fighting against the book changes. And even in spite of those, the show had huge issues. But the second season is just so much better. S2E5 is comfortably the best episode yet for me. It moves a bunch of plot lines forward, and moves everyone a bit closer to where they are meant to be (except Mat, who continues to be strangely absent in the TV series).
Caporegime
Ooh yes episode 5 was a good one although Liandrin is making me froth at the mouth. I hope she gets her comeuppance.
The source purists will never, ever be happy.14 books in the series, for a total of 4.4m words. The audiobook series runs for roughly 18 days and 18 hours (without New Spring). It needs to be condensed into eight seasons of roughly 8 hours in length. In spite of this, people seem surprised that the story has had to undergo significant rewrites
Personally, I didn't think much of the first season. I was fighting against the book changes. And even in spite of those, the show had huge issues. But the second season is just so much better. S2E5 is comfortably the best episode yet for me. It moves a bunch of plot lines forward, and moves everyone a bit closer to where they are meant to be (except Mat, who continues to be strangely absent in the TV series).
Soldato
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I would be surprised if it wasn't universally recognised amongst the book readers that the books need cutting back. Add to which TV/Movies always needs to be trimmed versus their source material. I can only speak for myself but don't imagine myself an outlier. I'm happy for books to be cut, and in particular this series, to meet the needs to the TV show, but some of the decisions made are seemingly utterly at odds with the general direction of the plot and characters. We're not talking missing Peeves from Harry Potter several of the main characters are developing in directions nothing like their book characters. That's not being overly purist. Rosmaund Pike and Daniel Henney are not playing charatcers at all like thier book counterparts. I accept whole swathes of the books need to be cut and would welcome it, but the story is getting lost and at which point why did you buy the IP in the first place?
Also if non-book readers are enjoying it, good for them. My problem is I have better story that occupies the same space in my head.
Also if non-book readers are enjoying it, good for them. My problem is I have better story that occupies the same space in my head.
14 books in the series, for a total of 4.4m words. The audiobook series runs for roughly 18 days and 18 hours (without New Spring). It needs to be condensed into eight seasons of roughly 8 hours in length. In spite of this, people seem surprised that the story has had to undergo significant rewrites
Personally, I didn't think much of the first season. I was fighting against the book changes. And even in spite of those, the show had huge issues. But the second season is just so much better. S2E5 is comfortably the best episode yet for me. It moves a bunch of plot lines forward, and moves everyone a bit closer to where they are meant to be (except Mat, who continues to be strangely absent in the TV series).
Spot on. I expect Mat to feature heavily in the next few episodes as the horn is in Falme. That must be where Min is taking him to get the plot back on track following the original actor leaving.
Tbh I didn't think it was a great episode but I'm enjoying the season more than not.
For me it's the sets - I realise that's a consequence of the budget, but everything looks so cheap, as well as being so sparsely populated. It looks like a TV set, whereas GoT looked like a world with density, etc. The set when they exited the waygate near Falme was laugh out loud terrible.
Personally, with such significant source material I think the show runners have one major decision to make - change or cut. Do they make a show with very different characters but try to stick to the plot, or do they stay true to the characters but cut large chunks.
Looks to me like they've gone for the former - and they seem to be really rushing through things. Not really their fault if they've only got 8 episodes a season, but I do wonder what non-book readers make of it.
I would have preferred they made a show that strongly resembled the book cast but simply cut large bits of the plot in order to fit the episodes together. The problem with that is that the obvious parts to cut are much more frequent post-LoC rather than in the first 6 books.
For me it's the sets - I realise that's a consequence of the budget, but everything looks so cheap, as well as being so sparsely populated. It looks like a TV set, whereas GoT looked like a world with density, etc. The set when they exited the waygate near Falme was laugh out loud terrible.
Personally, with such significant source material I think the show runners have one major decision to make - change or cut. Do they make a show with very different characters but try to stick to the plot, or do they stay true to the characters but cut large chunks.
Looks to me like they've gone for the former - and they seem to be really rushing through things. Not really their fault if they've only got 8 episodes a season, but I do wonder what non-book readers make of it.
I would have preferred they made a show that strongly resembled the book cast but simply cut large bits of the plot in order to fit the episodes together. The problem with that is that the obvious parts to cut are much more frequent post-LoC rather than in the first 6 books.
The budget for this is in excess of 10 million per episode? It was the same with RoP, cheap and nasty looking set design/costumes etc. I would say its amazon, but they've done some great looking shows.
Its incredibly easy to follow the source material and produce a faithful adaptation instead of whats been churned out:
episode 1:
Introduce the characters - Rand, Mat, Perrin, Nyneave, Eqwene, Morainie, Lan and Fain. Focus is on emmonds field, show conversation about the a dark robed man has been watching the 3 men, episode ends with trolloc attack on Rand and Tam's farmhouse.
Episode 2:
start with the attack on emonds field, show aftermath, introduce Thom. Journey to Baerlon being persued by Trollocs, Myrddraal, and Draghkar. Introduce darkfriends when they get to baerlon, Rand, Mat, Perrin have dreams of the 'dark one'
Episode 3:
Journey to Shadar Logath - talk about the dragon reborn - show lews therins backstory, how saidin is tainted etc. shenannigans in shadar logath, end with group being split.
Episode 4:
Rand/Mat/Thoms journey to whitebridge and subsequent 'death' of Thom. Perrin/Egwene met Elyas
Episode 5
Rand/Mat Journey to caemlyn - darkfriends aplenty, effect of dagger on Mat. Perrin/Egwene capture/escape from whitecloaks with Moraine/Lan
Episode 6:
Rand sees Logain, learn about him from Elayne - see effect of Rand's appearance, introduce Oiger and the eye of the world. Group reunites.
Episode 7:
Journey through the ways to fal dara, Paden Fain capture, backstory shows how he is a darkfriend, orchestrated attack on emonds field etc.
Episode 8:
Search for the eye, battle with forsaken, Rand wields Saidin, end with Moraine confirming Rand is dragon reborn.
Introduce the characters - Rand, Mat, Perrin, Nyneave, Eqwene, Morainie, Lan and Fain. Focus is on emmonds field, show conversation about the a dark robed man has been watching the 3 men, episode ends with trolloc attack on Rand and Tam's farmhouse.
Episode 2:
start with the attack on emonds field, show aftermath, introduce Thom. Journey to Baerlon being persued by Trollocs, Myrddraal, and Draghkar. Introduce darkfriends when they get to baerlon, Rand, Mat, Perrin have dreams of the 'dark one'
Episode 3:
Journey to Shadar Logath - talk about the dragon reborn - show lews therins backstory, how saidin is tainted etc. shenannigans in shadar logath, end with group being split.
Episode 4:
Rand/Mat/Thoms journey to whitebridge and subsequent 'death' of Thom. Perrin/Egwene met Elyas
Episode 5
Rand/Mat Journey to caemlyn - darkfriends aplenty, effect of dagger on Mat. Perrin/Egwene capture/escape from whitecloaks with Moraine/Lan
Episode 6:
Rand sees Logain, learn about him from Elayne - see effect of Rand's appearance, introduce Oiger and the eye of the world. Group reunites.
Episode 7:
Journey through the ways to fal dara, Paden Fain capture, backstory shows how he is a darkfriend, orchestrated attack on emonds field etc.
Episode 8:
Search for the eye, battle with forsaken, Rand wields Saidin, end with Moraine confirming Rand is dragon reborn.
Ep1:
Open with Lan training Rand, Siuan and entourage arrive in fal dara. Tells him she knows hes the dragon reborn (insert a quick s1 recap here if required). Fain breaks free taking dagger and horn.
Ep2:
One party goes off after fain, other goes to tar valon. nynaeve passes test and is raised to accepted. Rand/Loiel/Hurin separated from others, standing stones shown
Ep3:
Rands party meet Selene, fight with Balzamon, escape the alternate world. Spend some time with perrin and mat etc, perrin starts tracking fain. Rand goes to cairhein and meets thom again
Ep4:
Rand/Loial and fight with trollocs etc, lose dagger/horn after getting it briefly. Perrin/Mat's group catches up with rands group. Some white tower shenanigans involving the girls and laindrin
Ep5:
Rand tries to use a standing stone to get to falme quickly (it doesnt they are much slower) Seanchan are introduced, whitecloaks shown in the area aswell. Girls go to falme and Egwene/nyneave are captured.
Ep6:
from memory a fair bit of times passes whilst egwene and nyneave are captured - which is why egwene has a hatred of being collared (plays into later arcs) Egwene/Nyneave rescued by Min/Elayne. Rand and gang show up.
Ep7:
Ingatar shown to be a darkfriend and it was him who set fain free, he dies. Whitecloaks and seanchan fight. Mat blows horn summoning the dead heroes from beyond the grave.
Ep8:
Rand/Balzamon fight, balzamon dies, folks see it = tick off another one of the karathon prophecies.
Open with Lan training Rand, Siuan and entourage arrive in fal dara. Tells him she knows hes the dragon reborn (insert a quick s1 recap here if required). Fain breaks free taking dagger and horn.
Ep2:
One party goes off after fain, other goes to tar valon. nynaeve passes test and is raised to accepted. Rand/Loiel/Hurin separated from others, standing stones shown
Ep3:
Rands party meet Selene, fight with Balzamon, escape the alternate world. Spend some time with perrin and mat etc, perrin starts tracking fain. Rand goes to cairhein and meets thom again
Ep4:
Rand/Loial and fight with trollocs etc, lose dagger/horn after getting it briefly. Perrin/Mat's group catches up with rands group. Some white tower shenanigans involving the girls and laindrin
Ep5:
Rand tries to use a standing stone to get to falme quickly (it doesnt they are much slower) Seanchan are introduced, whitecloaks shown in the area aswell. Girls go to falme and Egwene/nyneave are captured.
Ep6:
from memory a fair bit of times passes whilst egwene and nyneave are captured - which is why egwene has a hatred of being collared (plays into later arcs) Egwene/Nyneave rescued by Min/Elayne. Rand and gang show up.
Ep7:
Ingatar shown to be a darkfriend and it was him who set fain free, he dies. Whitecloaks and seanchan fight. Mat blows horn summoning the dead heroes from beyond the grave.
Ep8:
Rand/Balzamon fight, balzamon dies, folks see it = tick off another one of the karathon prophecies.
Associate
They have either lied about the budget for this show to the consumers, or the production design is inept. House of the Dragon, looks far better with it's set design.
I note that filming is mainly in Eastern Europe, to save costs, notably the Czech Republic (and Spain the exception). Eastern Europe has many beautiful places, but is this a further indicator on the budget of the show?
The Falme set was terrible and looked nothing like the small town well described in book 2. Jordan made a lot of effort describing the small houses and state of the town that was occupied by the Seanchan. Yet again Rafe Judkin's knows best...
Yes, and the cast barely resemble the books. Apart from the Rand and Elayne actors. I agree.
Episode five seemed about the best so far (season 2), there seemed to be more urgency in the episode and some accuracy to the books. But they could have done this in the earlier four episodes.
Yeah great. What you've done is outlined something that would have satisfied the book readers but would/could have been mind-numbingly boring for the rest of the audience, which significantly outweighs the readers.
I'd have loved for them to produce something as close to the books as possible, but it just wouldn't have been interesting or exciting enough to maintain a large enough following to keep the show renewed... otherwise they would have done it. They've not made these changes just to **** you off, you do realise that right? They've changed things because they weren't able to transfer the books word-by-word/page-by-page on to screen.
I fully agree they've gone OTT on certain of the changes and have possibly over-estimated the "we need to make it for a modern audience" aspects.
I'm sure I read that their budgets are simply going nowhere near as far as previous shows have stretched. There was something that the sheer appetite for CGI across film and TV at the moment has meant that WoT's budget won't even allow them to afford tier two effects houses and they're really having to scrape the barrel on all fronts.l, such as re-using sets, etc. The wouldn't have the budget to create half the locations in your 'easy to adapt" episode list.
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It was renewed for 3 seasons before it had even aired
no they've made changes because they are talentless hacks.
yes because they are talentless hacks
My bad the 10 million per episode was the approx cost for s1, the budget for season 2 was even bigger!! Not sure where you are getting the info that they are working on some sort of shoestring. I know it looks cheap as ****, but unfortunately thats not quite true. You may be thinking of the cost comparisons to the ******** that was rop and their $500 million plus for the 1st series though.
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Probably 5 of those books can be scrapped right from the off without changing much in the whole story so approx one book per season.14 books in the series, for a total of 4.4m words. The audiobook series runs for roughly 18 days and 18 hours (without New Spring). It needs to be condensed into eight seasons of roughly 8 hours in length. In spite of this, people seem surprised that the story has had to undergo significant rewrites
Personally, I didn't think much of the first season. I was fighting against the book changes. And even in spite of those, the show had huge issues. But the second season is just so much better. S2E5 is comfortably the best episode yet for me. It moves a bunch of plot lines forward, and moves everyone a bit closer to where they are meant to be (except Mat, who continues to be strangely absent in the TV series).
Perfect! When is it being shown?
Far from it. There is plenty of action and intrigue in the episodes he detailed. You could have said the same about book 1 of the LOTR. Yet that was a soaring success.
That's the point it was just a quick overview of how to follow what was laid out in the books. For s2, off the top of my head, you've got the void and flame with rand, selene stuff where she's pushing him to embrace saidan, Perrin and the wolves, mat and the dagger, seanchan and their use of saidar as a weapon, forsaken, tavernen explainations, white tower politics. He'll there's probably plenty of other story beats I've missed.
Soldato
I was pretty into the first season, didn't seem too bad.
Always figured it was going to struggle with pacing.
Parts of S2 are great, but I am now struggling with the changes.
They seem to have shuffled and jumbled so much now I am thinking constantly why did you move that to that person etc
I mean maybe it will make sense come the end assuming it survives that long.
Will have to fall back to my default position, any fantasy is better than no fantasy, but this is tweaking me hard that with so much change i may have been happier with
A fantasy epic based on and set in the world of Robert Jordans wheel of time.
I don't think I agree with the comments in regards favouring the females, would be intersting if screen time backed this up, but it feels almost like its we need to share the good bits out or something.
Apart from Matt of course but then maybe part of the lower profile is based on the actor changing?
Anyway pizza almost ready time for the next
Always figured it was going to struggle with pacing.
Parts of S2 are great, but I am now struggling with the changes.
They seem to have shuffled and jumbled so much now I am thinking constantly why did you move that to that person etc
I mean maybe it will make sense come the end assuming it survives that long.
Will have to fall back to my default position, any fantasy is better than no fantasy, but this is tweaking me hard that with so much change i may have been happier with
A fantasy epic based on and set in the world of Robert Jordans wheel of time.
I don't think I agree with the comments in regards favouring the females, would be intersting if screen time backed this up, but it feels almost like its we need to share the good bits out or something.
Apart from Matt of course but then maybe part of the lower profile is based on the actor changing?
Anyway pizza almost ready time for the next