The Wheel of Time

[Dreiko]

Yeah but it's hard to cast women like that, and the CGI is already dumb enough to try and make it work in a fake way. Honestly I don't really mind that and the strangely diverse casting choice is whatever.

You see the thing about the diverse casting, while it is cringey, so long as the characters are behaving the way they should I don't really mind that. Nowhere in the books did Jordan say his world is whtie as fuck and claim the brownish people are nothing but savages who want nothing but violence.....oh...yea he did..nevermind.

Anyway it's fine. There are far worse shows out there that obviously only exist to push how awesome gay diversity is (looking at you Batwoman) and while the Wheel of Time isn't great....it's not a bad show either and the source material it is trying to pull from is dry as fuck, so I don't really see how it can be done much better tbh.

I just don't think you are unable to cast a 20something with gravitas and wisdom, it's acting. The girl who they got playing Nynaeve has it in spades for one, despite looking more like a Seanchan than anything. She instantly fits in her role.


I think this is one of those things where they believed audiences are not willing to see wisdom in someone youthful so to communicate it better they made em all older.

See now you've said that I kind of see that as another diversity check point, "We have older women in our show they don't normally see representation"

I mean, there's roles for old aunties too in the story, it's just not the Aes Sedai specifically. If anything it's prolly more marketing-related cause a lot of the female audience who actually read the books back in the early 90s would be in that demographic themselves so they figured they'd appeal to them.




But yeah I say all that but I seriously enjoy the show and am just glad it exists so I can overlook some differences here and there. I do actually like Moiraine's actress a ton too, most of the issues are more superficial than central.


My main issue is they start with Liandrin and I pictured her like a young Angelina Jolie (prolly due to maleficent) and not her cranky aunt XD.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I think this is one of those things where they believed audiences are not willing to see wisdom in someone youthful so to communicate it better they made em all older.

I think you are putting more thought into that than the creator's of the show did. lol

 

[Dreiko]

I think you are putting more thought into that than the creator's of the show did. lol

I mean, it's one of those things where you have powerful people in post Brittish accents I think, they just have instant gravitas so it saves you the time of explaining why folks listen to em.


Not saying it's 100% the case, just trying to give it the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Dalisclock]

Watched the first episode last night. So far it's fine. I kinda wish they'd done a little more with the little worldbuilding dump at the very beginning then lady looking at some papers and packing up her luggage to go. I know it's a cliche but normally that's where you give the little mythology slideshow/movie to give people a sense for what's going on that led to this. Lord of the Rings, Dark Souls, the Alan Smithee Dune version, etc.

Otherwise, I paid attention off and on since a lot of it struck me as "Okay, this the starter town in the RPG that the characters will leave by the end of the episode so no point in getting too attached to most of these people" and that it was. Also had Doomed Hometown and Attack of the Town Festival to boot. Though I was kinda enjoying the festival bit when the HORDE showed up.

I mean, the whole "You're a woman now" ceremony at the beginning was kinda interesting but I would like to know more about what's going on other then "Hero has been reborn and s/he's 20 and only s/he can save us all!". I'd also like to know what the hell the Wheel of Time is supposed to be/supposed to work other then time is cyclical and apparently everyone reincarnates and knows this. I hope they cover this during the show(preferably this season).

 

[CriticalGaming]

Otherwise, I paid attention off and on since a lot of it struck me as "Okay, this the starter town in the RPG that the characters will leave by the end of the episode so no point in getting too attached to most of these people" and that it was. Also had Doomed Hometown and Attack of the Town Festival to boot. Though I was kinda enjoying the festival bit when the HORDE showed up.

I am sad they went so bombastic for that part honestly.

In the book, Rand drags his father through the woods all night to get back to town, and the whole time Trollics and the Fade are running through the woods looking for him. It's a very intense scene that they could have used to play up the suspense and terror of the creatures. Then finally reveal the town attack. But the whole episode felt rushed, like they didn't have any time to build anything up and needed to make sure they got a big action scene in place so that people wouldn't get bored on the first episode.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Well I watched episode 5 and I'd say leave off until episode 6 is out at least because it's 1 hour with the majority dealing with the fallout of Episode 4 with somewhat minor advancements of other plots and introducing a character who I assume will play a bigger role later but just seemed to exist mostly to facilitate plot events happening and moving forward. Lot of focus on character detail and hints at world building but mostly seemed to exist to set up things to come. Personally, I think things would have been better without the big 1 month time jump at the start. Do the episode as 1/2 of it being a series of smaller time Jumps so you could show things develop rather than sort of "Here we are 1 month on let us quite regularly have to tell you what happened in that 1 month jump". It really needed to show not merely tell because then it wouldn't have had to tell us and then kind of emphasise the results to show them. On the Plus side the set designers once again outdid themselves with lavish sets which I bet som of we won't see again at all this series because if you're going to pump most of the production budget into sets you might as well

Spoiler: Episode 4 ending & 5 spoilers

So yeh we spend a good deal of the episode with the warder whose Aes Sedai died last episode as he grieves and contemplates moving on before committing suicide so it felt like filler / tying up a loose end already in the series rather than advancing the plot that much. We get introduced to an Orge character who explain about the Aes Sedai returning and gets into the White tower (Off screen) to get Nynaeve al'Meara who talks about tending to Matt because Rand happened to mention her. Perrin and Egwene get captured by the White Cloaks and Perrin summons the wolf pack to help him while Egwene channels the one power to free Perrin who then frees her and they run off.

Spoiler: More specific thoughts

If I were doing this I'd have cut down on the Stepin content or had his story more going on in the background of the episode simply because he's been introduced to the audience for 1 episode he doesn't warrant being the main focus of 1 episode just to have him kill himself at the end, like ye Game of Thrones had shock character deaths when they made a character the focus but they built them up for a season or more in most cases 2 episodes isn't enough to give enough of a crap about a character to warrant them being the main focus of an episode in which they die. They should have had stuff with Stepin talking to Lan while camping out, have stuff with Nynaeve giving him to tea to help him sleep and him keep having to have it to set that up more. Have him turning in to the tent but showing it seeming cold and empty. Set up Alanna noticing him by the fire and paying some attention maybe a giving him a smile and or a wink. Have Nyanaeve talking with Lan a bit but neither saying much. Have the Red lady tempting Nyaneve to come into the red tent again.

Do the thing as a sandwich with the Aes Sedai camping with Stepin getting worse then do Perrin and Egwene settling in with the Leaf folk and getting more comfortable. Maybe Perrin uses some of his Blacksmithing knowledge to help them, have Egwene try to channel and now manage anything (would then add more tension to the White Cloak sequence the idea she can channel at least not to any major degree yet). Then switch to Rand and Matt sleeping in the wilderness and Matt slowly getting more ill then back to part of the Aei Sedai camp maybe with Nayaneve talking with Lan again by the fire.

Have Rand and Matt arrive at the town near the tower then do the Perrin and Egwene plot set up for the White Cloak Then Rand and Matt meet the Ogre and do that stuff, have the Aei Sedai arrive and then do a big sequence run following them through to the tower and the ring melting bit up until the night with Lan staying with Stepin. Then cut to the 1st White Cloak torture session etc, then to Nyaneve sneaking out to meet Matt and Rand then back to the torture sequence to finish that off then have it be the next morning and Lan finds Stepin has killed himself and do that funeral sequence.

We didn't need Stepin on about how Alana might be interested in a 3rd warder and how he'd never been with a man before. We really didn't need the Aes Sedai politics of the tower introduced this episode if it wasn't ready to be developed yet story wise either. We also didn't need the whole Lan telling Stepin to move on sequence really

 

[Piscian]

misanthropical review -

1. I immediately noticed that all the villagers had pristine clothing. Get your lazy costume team in order real farmers wouldn't dress like that. Their outfits would be normal wear & tear for people work in fields you dipshit.
2. why would the Aes Sedai make a big deal of her presence with her journeymen making a big display of her entrance and spending 5 minutes staring at everyone? Learn to write people you ass.
3. Everyone sucks and this show is stupid.
4. Dude just be honest and tell the farry men that his son is lost. clearly theres a thousand demon shits on the other shore. Fuck this show is dumb.

Fuck everyone involved this show is doomed to failure.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

misanthropical review -

1. I immediately noticed that all the villagers had pristine clothing. Get your lazy costume team in order real farmers wouldn't dress like that. Their outfits would be normal wear & tear for people work in fields you dipshit.
2. why would the Aes Sedai make a big deal of her presence with her journeymen making a big display of her entrance and spending 5 minutes staring at everyone? Learn to write people you ass.
3. Everyone sucks and this show is stupid.
4. Dude just be honest and tell the farry men that his son is lost. clearly theres a thousand demon shits on the other shore. Fuck this show is dumb.

Fuck everyone involved this show is doomed to failure.

Thank you, I've been feeling something was off with the costumes, they're too clean and pristine that's it, I can see it now.

 

[Baffle]

Just started watching this. Feel they haven't really addressed why Matt is wearing a dressing gown while everyone else gets a coat.

 

[meiam]

Watched the first episode last night. So far it's fine. I kinda wish they'd done a little more with the little worldbuilding dump at the very beginning then lady looking at some papers and packing up her luggage to go. I know it's a cliche but normally that's where you give the little mythology slideshow/movie to give people a sense for what's going on that led to this. Lord of the Rings, Dark Souls, the Alan Smithee Dune version, etc.

Otherwise, I paid attention off and on since a lot of it struck me as "Okay, this the starter town in the RPG that the characters will leave by the end of the episode so no point in getting too attached to most of these people" and that it was. Also had Doomed Hometown and Attack of the Town Festival to boot. Though I was kinda enjoying the festival bit when the HORDE showed up.

I mean, the whole "You're a woman now" ceremony at the beginning was kinda interesting but I would like to know more about what's going on other then "Hero has been reborn and s/he's 20 and only s/he can save us all!". I'd also like to know what the hell the Wheel of Time is supposed to be/supposed to work other then time is cyclical and apparently everyone reincarnates and knows this. I hope they cover this during the show(preferably this season).

The wheel of time isn't literal and there's not much more to it really. It just the concept that every X years all the event sorta happens again. So everyone know the hero will be reborn and will kill the bad one, but it's not quite clear how it'll happen and the last time around the world got majorly fucked (like back to the bronze age fucked), so they're trying to avoid that from happening (this is literally the first chapter of the first book so it's a bit weird they've cut that out).

It is a shame that the world building is suffering in this adaptation because that the only part that stand out from the books. Take that out and you're just left with very boring lead get harem and is awesome at everything.

 

[Dalisclock]

misanthropical review -

1. I immediately noticed that all the villagers had pristine clothing. Get your lazy costume team in order real farmers wouldn't dress like that. Their outfits would be normal wear & tear for people work in fields you dipshit.
2. why would the Aes Sedai make a big deal of her presence with her journeymen making a big display of her entrance and spending 5 minutes staring at everyone? Learn to write people you ass.
3. Everyone sucks and this show is stupid.
4. Dude just be honest and tell the farry men that his son is lost. clearly theres a thousand demon shits on the other shore. Fuck this show is dumb.

Fuck everyone involved this show is doomed to failure.

Yeah, the ferry scene felt dumb.
"My son is over there"
"Well, the other side of the river is now literally swarming with monsters so unless he's hidden himself really well, he's gone and there's no point going back for him now"

Finished episode 2. I was kinda taken aback by the dudes with the PRISTINE WHITE UNiFORMS who have somehow kept it that clean out in the wilds on the march. Like the Shattered city, which felt like a Dark Souls area. Of course, after being told "Don't touch anything" the one kid wanders off to touch a shiney OBVIOUS TRAP and unleashed the evil.

A minor nitpick: If the city is that pristine after god knows how long, how come the one Church-like building they were in was devoid of furnishing? Like a couple of chairs, pews, desks, etc. It's not like looters were stealing shit if the city was that devoid of life and apparently kills anyone who enters.

 

[Piscian]

Yeah, the ferry scene felt dumb.
"My son is over there"
"Well, the other side of the river is now literally swarming with monsters so unless he's hidden himself really well, he's gone and there's no point going back for him now"

Finished episode 2. I was kinda taken aback by the dudes with the PRISTINE WHITE UNiFORMS who have somehow kept it that clean out in the wilds on the march. Like the Shattered city, which felt like a Dark Souls area. Of course, after being told "Don't touch anything" the one kid wanders off to touch a shiney OBVIOUS TRAP and unleashed the evil.

A minor nitpick: If the city is that pristine after god knows how long, how come the one Church-like building they were in was devoid of furnishing? Like a couple of chairs, pews, desks, etc. It's not like looters were stealing shit if the city was that devoid of life and apparently kills anyone who enters.

It's funny I was watching The Last Duel yesterday and while I understand were talking magnitudes of difference in budget, this is costumes. In the last duel, everyone wealthy or not is wearing costumes representing the environments technology of the time and weather. Villagers look like villagers. Yeah the children of light or whatever looked ridiculous like they were on their way to a cosplayer con.

Idk I'm trying not to hate on the show it just feels cheap and amateurish. The only things I find compelling are the themes. The acting, dialog and design is barely above a cheap Syfy channel fantasy show.

 

[Dalisclock]

It's funny I was watching The Last Duel yesterday and while I understand were talking magnitudes of difference in budget, this is costumes. In the last duel, everyone wealthy or not is wearing costumes representing the environments technology of the time and weather. Villagers look like villagers. Yeah the children of light or whatever looked ridiculous like they were on their way to a cosplayer con.

Idk I'm trying not to hate on the show it just feels cheap and amateurish. The only things I find compelling are the themes. The acting, dialog and design is barely above a cheap Syfy channel fantasy show.

It's wierd because Amazon has more money then fucking god and yet you wouldn't know that considering how cheap some of this feels. I mean, if they can send Jeff Bezos on a joyride to space, you'd think they could throw some more money at this. I've heard the Lord of the Rings is the favored child here and they're getting a lot more dosh tossed their way(Half a billion dollars for season 1). Apparently Wheel of Time cost $10 million per episode but damn if I can tell where most of that went.

 

[Agema]

Finished episode 2. I was kinda taken aback by the dudes with the PRISTINE WHITE UNiFORMS who have somehow kept it that clean out in the wilds on the march. Like the Shattered city, which felt like a Dark Souls area. Of course, after being told "Don't touch anything" the one kid wanders off to touch a shiney OBVIOUS TRAP and unleashed the evil.

Honestly, that's a nice change.

We have uncovered plenty of Viking, Anglo-Saxon, Frankish finds. These cultures had fantastic craftsmen, and nobles of the era would be dressed to the nines in magnificent clothing / armour, dripping with gold and silver jewellery, not like they're usually pictured in media as guys who shove on whatever rags are lying around and spend their day splashing around in muddy puddles.

 

[Dalisclock]

Honestly, that's a nice change.

We have uncovered plenty of Viking, Anglo-Saxon, Frankish finds. These cultures had fantastic craftsmen, and nobles of the era would be dressed to the nines in magnificent clothing / armour, dripping with gold and silver jewellery, not like they're usually pictured in media as guys who shove on whatever rags are lying around and spend their day splashing around in muddy puddles.

I don't mind them wearing nice clothes, it's wearing PRISTINE WHITE in the wilderness and them staying that way. I used to have wear a white uniform in the Navy(not me in the picture, btw) and those get dirty if you even so much as look at them. I fucked hated it too because you get shit for any stain or dirt, so eating lunch in those are an exercise in utmost patience and care. White is formalwear. Even Kings and Popes, with their fancy dress, didn't wear the nice shit into the boonies. They'd wear clothes that were practical for travel and campaigning.

 

[Dreiko]

Yeah, the ferry scene felt dumb.
"My son is over there"
"Well, the other side of the river is now literally swarming with monsters so unless he's hidden himself really well, he's gone and there's no point going back for him now"

Finished episode 2. I was kinda taken aback by the dudes with the PRISTINE WHITE UNiFORMS who have somehow kept it that clean out in the wilds on the march. Like the Shattered city, which felt like a Dark Souls area. Of course, after being told "Don't touch anything" the one kid wanders off to touch a shiney OBVIOUS TRAP and unleashed the evil.

A minor nitpick: If the city is that pristine after god knows how long, how come the one Church-like building they were in was devoid of furnishing? Like a couple of chairs, pews, desks, etc. It's not like looters were stealing shit if the city was that devoid of life and apparently kills anyone who enters.

The furnishings would have been made out of wood and fabric whatnot, and wood is technically alive, so the creeping corrupting would have just consumed it presumably. Only the stone remained.


As for your previous question about the wheel of time (it's the thing you see in the intro of ep2), it's a lot of metaphysical stuff and hard to explain without spoilers. Basically the fabric of existence is a literal fabric that is being woven by the spinning of the wheel of time, the weave is called the Pattern, the thing that spins the wheel of time is the One Power (the thing the aes sedai tap into to cast magic, which lets them in a sense control the fabric of reality instead of the wheel, proportionally to how much power they tap into, you can see it as white streams of light that flow into them right before they cast magic).

The one power has a male and a female half, Saidin and Saidar. The male half was corrupted by the Evil One, which caused the rival of the Evil One, the Dragon, to go mad and cause the Breaking of the World, so from now on, every man born with magic will go insane due to the dark one's taint, so the female aes sedai catch male magical people and strip them of their powers to maintain order. In this mess there's the prophecy of the dragon reborn, who is gonna fix the broken world, or completely break the wheel of time and destroy it, so Moiraine is trying to find the dragon and be an advisor to ensure the world won't be destroyed completely.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

It is a shame that the world building is suffering in this adaptation because that the only part that stand out from the books. Take that out and you're just left with very boring lead get harem and is awesome at everything.

I mean I'll takes tits and violence the series, that can still work but for a series touted as an positioning itself seemingly as "The next Game of Thrones" I have to say we've had a distinct lack of tits so far. It seems to be holding back so much so that I think even The Shannara Chronicles showed more so we're not even getting that. It feels like we're not even going to get a decent harem thing going when or if the series even gets to that because modern sensibilities or some crap which if I had to guess was coming from Sony's side considering Amazon has had no issue with tits and sex scenes with Carnival Row and even to a lesser degree The Boys .

It's wierd because Amazon has more money then fucking god and yet you wouldn't know that considering how cheap some of this feels. I mean, if they can send Jeff Bezos on a joyride to space, you'd think they could throw some more money at this. I've heard the Lord of the Rings is the favored child here and they're getting a lot more dosh tossed their way(Half a billion dollars for season 1). Apparently Wheel of Time cost $10 million per episode but damn if I can tell where most of that went.

It's a Sony & Amazon Co production.
If you've seen Sony and Amazon's previous co-production Alex Rider you'll see some similarities.

As I said I wouldn't be surprised to learn Sony were pocketing a good $3 Million to $5 Million of the budget somehow.
Watching the show the only place the budget shows is in the sets.
Episode 1 the tavern has some really ornate like gold leaf design on the beams and tons of little environmental details. In one of the later episodes they're at another tavern and it's not just reusing the episode 1 set it's basically a fully different design with different beams etc. My guess is they're paying a lot out for single use sets rather than creating sets of assets they can arrange round slightly differently and modify slightly to make multiple variations of the same kind of location. Like for the 2nd tavern just remove the gold leaf design and add some kind of grimy looking effect to the beams and do that but no they seemingly used entirely different beams and set items for the whole set.

 

[meiam]

I mean I'll takes tits and violence the series, that can still work but for a series touted as an positioning itself seemingly as "The next Game of Thrones" I have to say we've had a distinct lack of tits so far. It seems to be holding back so much so that I think even The Shannara Chronicles showed more so we're not even getting that. It feels like we're not even going to get a decent harem thing going when or if the series even gets to that because modern sensibilities or some crap which if I had to guess was coming from Sony's side considering Amazon has had no issue with tits and sex scenes with Carnival Row and even to a lesser degree The Boys .

Won't be much tits in it, even ignoring modern sensibility wheel never had much T&A moment, you'll get maybe one scene per season, unless they really increase these. Violence, ehhhh sorta, there's not many large scale battle until book 4-5. I dunno how they plan to handle future book, no doubt they'll combine many of them, but there won't be a large scale battle until at least S3. It's also fairly tame on gore and torture and such.

 

[Hawki]

Won't be much tits in it,

Welp, there goes my reason to ever watch it.

 

[Satinavian]

Allegedly, Robert Jordan's plan for the "last" book was... very, very long. That Sanderson turned it into 3 books might be pretty much what Jordan would have ended up doing.

Although I wouldn't be surprised if Sanderson bulked it up. It must have been a nice earner for him, in reputation (he was not a big name back then) if nothing else.

I don't think so.

Jordans writing is heavily characterized by introducing new elements he finds interesting, making a subplot with overly detailed descriptions around them as long as they are shiny and then letting them linger to only occassionally be mentioned again. Sanderson didn't do that. That is why he actually managed to finish stuff. Overall his writing is far superior to Jordans.