I’m a big fan of the castings, I think they nailed most, especially Rand.
There are some things I ■■■■■■■ hate about the show though, the worst being the soap opera effect they have laid over the screen and the general cleanliness of everything. I know the WoT world isn’t medieval like GoT, but it looks like every scene is shot in a hospital.
a world on the verge of gunpowder would be a bit more clean than GoT
Heard recommendations to change the tv settings to film mode or whatever to get a better colour gradient.
Whereas I thought he was about the only one with any charisma and who might develop into someone worth caring about. His backstory and his sisters, that almost affected me. Before the show came out i read that the actor had already been replaced and it sounded like some trouble on location, he might’ve messed up. He probably asked when the real script was turning up. I’m guessing the wobbly orifice send off is the last you see of the poor chap.
Yep. Waygate is his last appearance. The last scene filmed before covid shut them down was Egwene and Nynaeve with the Amerlyn. Don’t know if the way gate scene was filmed before the shutdown or afterwards.
Most likely is the actor didn’t come back when they started up again or he came back for a few days and pulled the pin. Covid situation or other personal issues.
through the magic of Twitter, Shohreh Aghdashloo and Rafe are now in discussions for a part in the show.
for the love of everything let it be Cadsuane
That would be fantastic casting. Absolute powerhouse of an actress.
In other Twitter awesomeness, the stuntwoman who played Tigraine is rightfully feeling the love.
ahhh I didn’t see the name in the credits so I wonder if they do away with the Aiel name for her
Expansive
A much better episode, start was particularly great, and the end nearly was.
The natural rhythm of that sequence at the end should have seen all the weight and certainty fall on the line “It’s me”. With only suspicion building before. They didn’t quite manage that.
Though even with clumsy choices spoiling it, that was still a nice moment that hit well.
I agree that the actor who played Matt will be missed. The earliest scenes of Matt scrounging and looking after his sisters were some of the better moments in the season.
A fascinating read, the last few days posts.
I thought that episode was, overall, excellent.
I thought The Witcher was good in a “it’s so bad, it’s good” fashion. The writing , pacing, cgi and some of the acting was - in order - opaque, bumbling, cartoonish and laughably wooden. It had some humour, it was kinda engaging in its own way but high level TV it most certainly wasn’t. It was like a chintzy pantomime. I have WOT as the better told and more solid outing, some obvious problems notwithstanding. We’re all different, of course.
And as a Tolkien tragic (can I mention that episode 7 reeked of Moria, to the point I thought Lan or Moiraine were about to fall on the bridge, lol!!) I can only offer this advice : don’t confuse what you’re watching with what the books mean to you, and how they appear in your mind. They aren’t the same thing, they can’t be the same thing, and if one relies on the other for your enjoyment of the books, walk away. I’ve never lined up for 2nd viewings of The Hobbit for very very good reasons. At a personal level, that is. LOTR severely tested me too, but overall I wasn’t too upset. And I think I’d never be game to see someone else’s take on The Silmarillion should it ever appear.
I’m looking forward to episode 8. Though I’ve no idea how Jordan took this whole thing out to 14 books !? Wtf? If it becomes a story of political intrigue as much as a quest, I’m not convinced these writers can get it done. But of course, GOT ebbed and flowed in it’s quality too. Generally ebbed, as it turned out.
In terms of the Dragon, in a storytelling sense, I can still see room for all of them to be “the Dragon reborn” in totality, irrespective of the view of specific characters in the moment. No idea if that’s where Jordan took it. I’m happy for the show to tell me.
There’s a massive canvas with a lot that can be trimmed for the purpose of adapting this to a tv series. There’s a significant political intrigue section of the books that we won’t see til season 3 at least for mine but it is along the lines of dune instead of GOT.
Amazon are spending about a billion dollars adapting The Silmarillion, so you’re soon going to run into that dilemma.
I suspect that season 2 will compress books 2 & 3. Lead into the Dune vibes in season 3.
WoT showrunners have said they’re actually leaning heavily into the politics-drama aspect.
Which I guess makes sense, it gives people an extra level of depth in the story which drives a deeper engagement in the franchise. You really have to do a good job worldbuilding though for it to work properly
Watched episode 7…it was ok I suppose
I don’t really agree with this, especially when you compare it to LOTR.
There were some changes in LOTR but they followed the books pretty well imo. They certainly didn’t jump all over the place drastically changing the storyline.
I’ve never heard anyone complain about that when talking about LOTR (including avid readers of the books)
The WoT writers seem to think that their main reason for existing is to change the story into something almost unrecognisable.
A WoT writers meeting must go something like this:
“Let’s throw a few characters into bed together…that’ll get us some ratings…it worked for GoT so surely it will work here”
“Don’t worry about staying close to the story…we can write a much better storyline than that boring old author”
“Let’s give them a bit of background on a few random characters but not anyone important”
Farking morons, the lot of them.
You see, I happen to believe that the author wrote a truly magnificent story…it doesn’t need major changes unless the writers are inept (which they certainly seem to be)
I’m not going to try to convince you that this adaption is perfect, because it has it’s flaws. But having freshly read The Eye of The World with an eye to the TV adaption, I gotta say the book as written would make a pretty crap tv series. Most of the characters are barely developed, basically placeholders for future books. Most of the lore of the world is told through description, rather than dialogue. Characters will have a whole page of thought bubbles for a single sentence spoken aloud.
I’m on board with aging up the characters, so that the show doesn’t feel like a kids program. That change means the Rand / Egwene relationship makes sense to be more adult. I’m ok with the Moiraine / Siuan relationship too. The Perrin / Egwene thing just felt odd, it was a poor choice and not well executed.
The other big change was going to Tar Valon instead of Caemlyn and getting Moiraine tangled up in the mess with Logaine. I can’t think of how to show a fresh viewer what the Aes Sedai lore is without going to Tar Valon. I can’t see how to make clear the danger a man who can channel faces without showing Logaine. The book doesn’t have those foundation pieces, it just catches you up later with a few pages of description. Those choices mean viewers understand the danger Rand is in now that he can channel. They understand what will happen to Lan or Moiraine if the other dies. They understand the Ajahs.
Other than that, Baerlon and Whitebridge were filler. Caemlyn has been pushed to season 2, so that’s not a disaster.
Honestly the biggest problem in my eyes is the limited series order by Amazon. Instead of a 2 hr pilot into a 10 episode series, they had a 1 hr pilot and 8 episodes. That’s where things like Elyas were cut, which makes Perrin’s thing really confusing to new viewers. Explaining how Padan Fain can use the waygates. Time spent with Thom. You wouldn’t feel upset about spending time on fringe characters because the main cast were getting served.
By all means go to town on how they executed the changes they made, but I think the general structure of the season is pretty close to what the tv version of the story required. A bit more breathing room in the edit, some cinematography changes to make the world feel larger, I think it would be a less controversial end product. Most of the scenes that fell flat would probably have a longer version that worked better but was cut down for time.
I think we probably need to come round to the view that the show is made to appeal to the non-readers and get them interested in reading the books, rather than being a more faithful adaptation for the book fans.
I’m trying to enjoy the show for hitting the key events instead of getting the details right. Should make it more enjoyable.
Yeah, the Ways and Machin Shin were very disappointing on screen but that probably had to do with Covid affecting production.
In reality, it didn’t need to be 14 books. It could really have been compressed down to 8 or 9 books.
Yes, a lot of the books are about political intrigue between different factions (Aes Sedai, Whitecloaks, the forces of the Dark One, the Dragon Reborn, etc), but there is also a lot of world building done and a focus on people rediscovering lost knowledge and talents, which IMO is where the series really excels.
Your thinking is kinda correct. There is only one Dragon Reborn but they are all equally important for him to succeed and gain power/influence.
Without wanting to divert the thread, this is largely true, but there were changes in detail made simply for changes sake. It was pretty damn good overall, though.
In some ways, I’m probably in a good position - never read WoT so I’m ignorant of how outrageously they’ve changed things. In other ways, not so much, as I’ve no idea of some back stories or what / who certain things are.