OT: Wheel of Time coming to Prime
- Thread starter preacher_dawg
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Anybody have any reviews. Tried first show and it didn’t seem very good. Does it just take them a while to setup all the characters and backstories? Or is it just a disappointment?
I've been going back and forth on how I feel about it. The 20+ year fan in me is outraged that they've taken this story and turned it on its ear. The first episode is super awkward, but supposedly they were orignally shooting a 2 hour pilot and had to cut it to 1 hour. Beyond the awkwardness and weird plot changes it has had some pretty awesome moments and I can understand that they've gotta cut a TON of corners and re-write a bunch of stuff to make this series work as a show. I'm hoping that they are able to pull this off as I'll never see another adaptation of it in my lifetime. They've got one more season to make it happen and as long as it continues to improve I'll support it.
A shame that the actor playing Mat dropped out because he has been one of the best parts of the show.
I’ve enjoyed it. Decided to try it after seeing this thread when it was originally posted. It was a bit confusing at first, but it settles in after a couple episodes.
It's a fine show, but a dogshit adaptation. The show runners apparently just used the character names and some of the events of the books, set the rest on fire, pissed on said fire, then threw the remains in the garbage.
So far as a non-book reader of WoT, I was very confused on some of the basics of the show through the first 3 episodes. The magic system of the "One Power", the purpose of the White Cloaks & Aes Sedai, WT17 is a Fade & why it is chasing the main group of characters, etc.. During my usual sleepless nights, I started watching introductory videos to the WoT world & series and everything makes more sense now. The video below is probably the best "everything you need to know" video before watching the series. It has pretty basic graphics & monotone audio, but a lot of helpful information.
I have no idea how that made things make sense for you. It may as well have been in a different language
Alright, so this type of fantasy/adventure has been my wheelhouse for 40 years. Dark Crystal, Hobbit, LotR, Dark is Rising, Witcher… I’ve seen, read, and played them all.
So far, Wheel of Time is skating right down the middle of the lane for me, and I’m going to watch as many episodes as they put out, but I’m not going to call it great. My biggest gripes
1. Characters aren’t at all likable. No charm, no wit, and even downright irritating at times. I’m not sure if it’s too early in the series or if the writers are trying too hard to force complexity into their character development, but at the end of the day, they’re ending up with a lot of blandness.
2. A story like this simply has to have a captivating antagonist, and they’re missing the mark here so far. This dark rider is clearly a bad dude, but what’s the story here? Who the 17 is he? Also, these tales always seem to excel when there’s some dastardly middleman with a lot of personality, and maybe the white cloak guy is supposed to be that person, but he’s just annoying as hell to me so far
3. I absolutely hate “Oh dang, xyz just died! J/k, no they didn’t. Lol” writing, and they’ve already overplayed this. These types of returns should be aces in the hole that truly shock the crowd at the right time, but I’ve already gotten to the point where I don’t believe anyone is dead.
Like I said, it’s not bad and Prime is clearly pumping some serious $ and effort to it, so I’ll watch every episode. I wouldn’t even put it in the same breath as some of the classics, though. At least not yet
So far, Wheel of Time is skating right down the middle of the lane for me, and I’m going to watch as many episodes as they put out, but I’m not going to call it great. My biggest gripes
1. Characters aren’t at all likable. No charm, no wit, and even downright irritating at times. I’m not sure if it’s too early in the series or if the writers are trying too hard to force complexity into their character development, but at the end of the day, they’re ending up with a lot of blandness.
2. A story like this simply has to have a captivating antagonist, and they’re missing the mark here so far. This dark rider is clearly a bad dude, but what’s the story here? Who the 17 is he? Also, these tales always seem to excel when there’s some dastardly middleman with a lot of personality, and maybe the white cloak guy is supposed to be that person, but he’s just annoying as hell to me so far
3. I absolutely hate “Oh dang, xyz just died! J/k, no they didn’t. Lol” writing, and they’ve already overplayed this. These types of returns should be aces in the hole that truly shock the crowd at the right time, but I’ve already gotten to the point where I don’t believe anyone is dead.
Like I said, it’s not bad and Prime is clearly pumping some serious $ and effort to it, so I’ll watch every episode. I wouldn’t even put it in the same breath as some of the classics, though. At least not yet
The first episode was pretty confusing, had bad CGI, and really gory. Subsequent episodes have had more character development and story, so they have been much better.
I didnt even know this series existed before Prime picked it up so I have no background and therefore am not pissed off that the show isnt identical to books. That may help in my enjoyment, not sure.
Great review. I’ve read the series a couple times. It excellent. It this series feels rushed. I know they want to get to the action but they are sacrificing character development. The first three books are the best of the lot but I feel this show is missing the mark. It’s an average fantasy show.
Two more episodes in and this is a big deal. Rand is supposed to be the centerpiece of the series, and that's who you cast? Moraine seems to be cast ok. Egwene and Matt are ok (although I'm tired of the sinus infection routine, although I guess that sort of matches the book). And Perrin is bad. I don't know what you do with that character. In the books it's clear he thinks he's a slow idiot but that other people think he's thoughtful and steady. Not sure how you tease that out on screen, but so far they've just made him seem slow. Maybe it's more writing than who they've cast, but it's a miss so far.
It's not low production value, but so far it seems like they've been trapped in no man's land between deciding how loosely they are going to base the series on the books. With all the stuff they are apparently throwing in the trash, they picked some places to try to be true that seem like hard to adapt to screen that they should have dropped.
And that's the biggest problem with the TV series. Someone watching this show shouldn't be wondering what the Hell is going on, especially with regard to how the world, countries, politics, etc. are built out. A lot of the first book did just that - introduced the reader to the world and its history through Moraine, Thom, etc.
I was excited for this, although I've never read the series I was familiar with it. The first 2-3 episodes almost turned me off mainly because it was just people "doing stuff" and never any explanation as to what or why. I still don't know who the hell the White Cloaks are, I think I have an idea but not really.
Just a really poor job of building the foundation of the world. I'll continue to watch this season hoping they improve on this.
Just a really poor job of building the foundation of the world. I'll continue to watch this season hoping they improve on this.
Completely agree. I think a lot of fantasy/Sci-fi TV shows that were adapted from books are guilty of that. I am about to start the first book, & have been told it's a bit wordy on some topics, but is very through on those topics you mentioned.
The show is still just building characters...still book 1 of 13. It takes a few episodes to build the world to establish what all the players are, and some key players have yet to be revealed. Give it a bit of time and it the action will take off as the main characters are established and the plot develops.
I read most of the books 20 years ago and havent completed that series so struggling to remember parts of the story lines.
As some have said, you do need to watch the back story shorts to fill in the gaps.
The white cloaks are the religous zealots who are juxtaposed against the Aes Sedai.
I don't remember the LGBTQ undertones in the books so much. So far they are trying to be the LoTR and Games of Throne mixed in.
The bath scene in the first episode was completely gratuitous and unecessary. Land was a larger person in the books. And teaches Rand how to use the sword. They havent touch on how his dad got that sword yet either.
Lots to still learn. Will be interesting when the Senchan and Aiel come into the picture more.
As some have said, you do need to watch the back story shorts to fill in the gaps.
The white cloaks are the religous zealots who are juxtaposed against the Aes Sedai.
I don't remember the LGBTQ undertones in the books so much. So far they are trying to be the LoTR and Games of Throne mixed in.
The bath scene in the first episode was completely gratuitous and unecessary. Land was a larger person in the books. And teaches Rand how to use the sword. They havent touch on how his dad got that sword yet either.
Lots to still learn. Will be interesting when the Senchan and Aiel come into the picture more.
They weren't there at all really unless they showed up 8 or ten books in. Finally made time to finish up the first season this weekend since I don't care about the NFL. Throwing in all the LGBTQ stuff is a pretty good indication of what kind of creative minds are behind it. Have great source material and the only challenge is deciding what translates to screen and what doesn't, and what should be cut to make it a reasonable length (which is a lot unless they're anticipating a ten season run). So they decide that they are edgy and creative and make a LGBTQ relationships central to the story and also put in some gratuitous stuff about warders being bisexual. Really would be fine if they had done a good job of adaptation otherwise, but annoying as **** that they worry about that rather than trying to get the story right. Of course, by the end of season one, they've just about abandoned the source material. Not optimistic that they are going to be able to put together a good story line based on what they've done so far.
They made some weird changes to the story, like Perrin previously being married. I'm usually good with shows changing things to make them fit better (I mean, it's a really long series that is going to need to be truncated), but that one seems odd.
I'll continue to do give the show a watch, as long as they make them. They will probably just need to remove the entirety of the middle books as they are quite long and boring.
I will also content that Nynaeve is the worst character that has ever been created in fiction writing.
I'll continue to do give the show a watch, as long as they make them. They will probably just need to remove the entirety of the middle books as they are quite long and boring.
I will also content that Nynaeve is the worst character that has ever been created in fiction writing.
I think the writers wanted to feel like they were contributing to the story rather than just adapting it, so they made pointless changes. I can kind of see how it would rankle for a creative type to be asked to just retell somebody else's story in a way that fits television, but I would be livid if I were Amazon execs and paid for the rights to this story and some peon writers thought they were too good to just adapt a good story to the screen. They needed a writers room that wanted to get paid. With how few good new movies are made, I would think that being known as a writer who could take established IP and adapt it to the screen in a way that captures the established audience would be very lucrative. These writers obviously wanted to try and be known for their own story rather than just doing a good adaptation.
I think Jordan got engrossed with his own story and didn't want it to end. Maybe also got engrossed with cashing huge paychecks for each book, but I suspect it was more about not wanting it to end.
Really needed to cast a hot person to be Nynaeve. That's the only way the character makes sense. She woudn't be able to get away with being so terrible without being young and pretty. And, of course, that's the way she was written in the book, so it made at least some sense. Of course, Morraine and Egwyne were also supposed to be very pretty, but that wasn't really necessary for their characters they way it is for Nynaeve.
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I'm currently starting book 3 now (after watching season 1) & have to say, the showrunners are setting the TV Adaptation up to be complete garbage compared to the books, unless they really do a 180 in season 2. Eight episodes is no where near enough to properly introduce the WoT World/Landscape & the screen writing feels really lazy.
This show was good. I went into it 100% blind, but found a really good podcast to listen to after the episode and it did a good job of filling in the blanks. Thanks for the recommendation.
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