Werthead Posted October 7, 2018 Share Posted October 7, 2018 3 hours ago, Calibandar said: Amazon and Netflix will be pushing their creators hard to get that regular output that they pay tremendous sums for. They haven't so far. We've gone just under 3 years between seasons of Daredevil on Netflix, Westworld and American Gods have gone almost 2 years between seasons, Stranger Things can't get it below 18 months between seasons and they've tried really hard. Apparently they had to work very hard to get The Expanse down to a mere 14-month gap between seasons. A big issue is the fact that in order to air later seasons after the previous one at around 12-16 month intervals, they need to greenlight and get work started on the following season before the current one has aired, which is a problem if it comes out and bombs. Game of Thrones got around that by "amberlighting" the following season before the current one aired, preparing scripts and production schedules ahead of time. Wheel of Time, at least, sounds like it's doing the same kind of thing. His Dark Materials went one step further and just greenlit the first two seasons one after the other (although they were helped by HBO coming on board). The big problem is effects fidelity. With shows like say Lost and BSG they were still operating on the idea that viewers were not expecting movie-level quality CGI and effects on a TV show, so they could get them on air pretty quickly, even with the big CG space battles in the latter. Today that doesn't fly, and people expect the dragons in GoT and the spaceships in The Expanse to look as good as the stuff on the big screen, in 4K if necessary, and that just takes a lot more work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spring Bass Posted October 8, 2018 Share Posted October 8, 2018 It's really unfortunate. I tend to believe that BSG-level CGI looks fine, as long as it's the only thing on the screen at the time. It's when you have to contrast it with actual people and places (i.e. the CGI and real actors are in the same shot) that it looks truly terrible, and you have to pay big for photorealism. 6 hours ago, Werthead said: A big issue is the fact that in order to air later seasons after the previous one at around 12-16 month intervals, they need to greenlight and get work started on the following season before the current one has aired, which is a problem if it comes out and bombs. If Wheel of Time turns out to be a big success, then they will likely start doing that for the CGI at least. It's what the Marvel Cinematic Universe does, getting the work rolling on the big CGI set-pieces early on. It could work really well with Wheel of Time because it's a completed book series, and they could decide in advance what they have to have once the series is successful enough that a seven-season run is likely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted October 8, 2018 Share Posted October 8, 2018 I would say one silver lining out of the extended production schedules is that you can get actors that are still heavily invested in film careers, thus maybe get big name actors, if you have the budget, which in turn could attract a bigger audience. For example, if there is a 15-18 month gap between seasons 1 and 2 of The Witcher, Henry Cavill may not have to sacrifice his film career (other than his Superman deal, apparently). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fionwe1987 Posted October 8, 2018 Share Posted October 8, 2018 I'm pretty sure we won't get WoT before 2020. If they keep to Rafe Judkin's plans for multiple filming locations, etc. I doubt they'd get done with everything for a 2019 release. On the other hand, nothing stops Amazon from splitting the season. Especially if season 1 will be doing book Eye of the World and Great Hunt, they could release the first part in 2019, and part 2 in spring of 2020. This lets them gauge response, and begin producing season 3 sooner, too. And if they do come out in 2019, they'd be well poised to strike right after Game of Thrones ends, and pitch this as the must watch replacement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted October 8, 2018 Share Posted October 8, 2018 3 hours ago, fionwe1987 said: I'm pretty sure we won't get WoT before 2020. If they keep to Rafe Judkin's plans for multiple filming locations, etc. I doubt they'd get done with everything for a 2019 release. On the other hand, nothing stops Amazon from splitting the season. Especially if season 1 will be doing book Eye of the World and Great Hunt, they could release the first part in 2019, and part 2 in spring of 2020. This lets them gauge response, and begin producing season 3 sooner, too. And if they do come out in 2019, they'd be well poised to strike right after Game of Thrones ends, and pitch this as the must watch replacement. I was thinking this. One possible solution, although the logistics would be insane, would be to make each book as its own thing, whether that's 6-8 episodes for the shorter books or 10-13 for the longer ones, and release them as they go along, with periodic breaks for the cast and crew, with a few to getting 2 books out per year. I have no idea how the hell you'd do that, but it's pretty much the only way to do it before the actors die of old age. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted October 8, 2018 Share Posted October 8, 2018 48 minutes ago, Werthead said: I was thinking this. One possible solution, although the logistics would be insane, would be to make each book as its own thing, whether that's 6-8 episodes for the shorter books or 10-13 for the longer ones Or one episode for Crossroads of Twilight (and even that's generous). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myrddin Posted October 9, 2018 Share Posted October 9, 2018 10 hours ago, williamjm said: Or one episode for Crossroads of Twilight (and even that's generous). One long montage scene should cover it. Music plays while everyone looks dramatically toward the direction all the male channelers are looking. Music swells. A few tears are seen. More looks of confusion. Until someone invents a watch to check the time. And Scene. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spring Bass Posted October 9, 2018 Share Posted October 9, 2018 Eye of the World is one season of 6-8 episodes, and a good intro to get people into it. I think maybe you could combine some of the storylines from Great Hunt and Dragon Reborn into a single 10-12 episode season, and the same for books four and five. It gets easier the longer the show runs, because the books cover less and less ground - most of Mat and Tuon's storyline together after Ebou Dar but before they temporarily separate again to do other stuff could happen in a single season, and the fact that they can't have Rand sulking off-screen for large chunks of time means they'll have to speed up other parts of it. It really helps that this is a setting where a number of the characters can essentially teleport over long distances if needed, making it easier to tie-together storylines without it feeling overly contrived. It's been ages since I've read Crossroads of Twilight, but from what I do remember it probably could be done as a creatively structured single episode (or pair of episodes).  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted October 9, 2018 Share Posted October 9, 2018 1 hour ago, All Souls Bass said: It's been ages since I've read Crossroads of Twilight, but from what I do remember it probably could be done as a creatively structured single episode (or pair of episodes). The scenes from it that don't get cut completely could probably get scattered among scenes from the surrounding books. From what I remember, the only really important plotline in it is Egwene's disastrous mission to Tar Valon, so that could be the main plotline of an episode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted October 9, 2018 Share Posted October 9, 2018 One of the odder decisions Jordan made was cutting away just before the humongous Sea Folk-Seanchan sea battle at the end of Winter's Heart and then rejoining the action in CoT after it's over and Mat's looking at the carnage he (inadvertently) caused. In the TV show I think there's an argument for showing that, especially as it's pretty much the one time we get to see the Sea Folk in military action (and winning). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted October 9, 2018 Share Posted October 9, 2018 Maybe Jordan wasn't quite so knowledgeable about sea battles compared to land battles, so he didn't want to make a fool of himself. When it comes to ships, he does a fair job at showing sea travel (or river travel), but he never goes into detail that much. There are no defined classes of ships, or anything like that. But it would be cool to see some of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fionwe1987 Posted October 10, 2018 Share Posted October 10, 2018 7 hours ago, Corvinus said: Maybe Jordan wasn't quite so knowledgeable about sea battles compared to land battles, so he didn't want to make a fool of himself. When it comes to ships, he does a fair job at showing sea travel (or river travel), but he never goes into detail that much. There are no defined classes of ships, or anything like that. But it would be cool to see some of that. Umm... there are definitely defined classes of ships among both the Seanchan and the Sea Folk. As for the events at Ebou Dar, it wasn't a sea battle. The Windfinders were captive in the Tarasin Palace. They escaped with Mat's help, freed others of their folk, and took whatever ships they could, including Seanchan ones, and got the hell out of there to Tear and Illian. But the show can certainly make it a sea battle if they want. The Sea Folk would thulp the Seanchan at sea, so it makes sense for them to win. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted October 10, 2018 Share Posted October 10, 2018 7 hours ago, fionwe1987 said: Umm... there are definitely defined classes of ships among both the Seanchan and the Sea Folk. As for the events at Ebou Dar, it wasn't a sea battle. The Windfinders were captive in the Tarasin Palace. They escaped with Mat's help, freed others of their folk, and took whatever ships they could, including Seanchan ones, and got the hell out of there to Tear and Illian. But the show can certainly make it a sea battle if they want. The Sea Folk would thulp the Seanchan at sea, so it makes sense for them to win. Well it's been awhile, but all I recall for the Seanchan ships is big ships with square sails. Not exactly a well defined class. For the Sea Folk, I vaguely recall maybe two types of ships, size variants of roughly the same design. And he never goes into detail about anyone else. Every ship traversing the big rivers is just a river trader. You don't hear about galleys, galleons, etc. For whatever reason, Jordan didn't want to use real world names for ships. On Ebou Dar, the Sea Folk escaping and taking every ship they can could easily be a land-sea battle. The Seanchan could have patrol ship that need to be taken out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Crows Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 I'm very excited about the possibility of this actually happening and equally as terrified of it being horrible. We sometimes bemoan the writing on GoT, especially once it outpaced the books, even though the source material is amazing. What will dialogue sound like in WoT with screenwriters working from less great (my opinion) original writing? Again, actually looking forward to seeing this, because I'm a fan of the series... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
felice Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 3 hours ago, Joey Crows said: We sometimes bemoan the writing on GoT, especially once it outpaced the books, even though the source material is amazing. What will dialogue sound like in WoT with screenwriters working from less great (my opinion) original writing? One way of looking at it is there's more potential for the adaptation to improve upon the books... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Which Tyler Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 16 minutes ago, felice said: One way of looking at it is there's more potential for the adaptation to improve upon the books... That's definitely nhowmim looking at it. For GoT there really weren't many opportunities for the writers to improve on the source material, so any changes were going to garner complaints. That's just not the case with WoT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted October 15, 2018 Share Posted October 15, 2018 20 hours ago, felice said: One way of looking at it is there's more potential for the adaptation to improve upon the books... Precisely why I'm hopeful as well. This applies to both the dialogue, which you can pretty much just write for scratch for the new medium, and the opportunity to cut all the fat from the plot and just tell a streamlined story. Does require having good writers doing the writing for the show, and we'll have to wait and see if we get that. Also worth noting that quality of writing aside, GRRM already writes in a style that is already quite amenable to being translated to the visual medium - his dialogue has the right tone, he writes scenes that clearly translate directly to TV, his 'almost every chapter ends on a cliffhanger' approach strings the audience along perfectly. He has worked extensively in television before and that shows in his writing. WoT does not have this, so there is more work to be done to make the adaptation work anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fionwe1987 Posted October 15, 2018 Share Posted October 15, 2018 Yeah. WoT has some great lines, but so long as they don't tinker too much with those, the rest is really open for improvement. Where I hope they'll stick to the books more is in the visual elements, but that will obviously depend a lot more on their SFX and other budget limitations. Its probably going to be impossible to make Tar Valon look anything like the books, but I hope they at least don't go with standard medieval city for their aesthetic. Same for Rhuidean, which needs to look thoroughly modern. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted October 16, 2018 Share Posted October 16, 2018 6 hours ago, fionwe1987 said: Same for Rhuidean, which needs to look thoroughly modern. The number of times I read those books and picked up all sorts of nods and still missed that Rhuidean was meant to be this is...disappointing lol. I blame my youth when I first read them since I don't tend to reassess that sort of thing when I read again later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted October 16, 2018 Share Posted October 16, 2018 Rhuidean is built after the designs of cities from the Age of Legends, but it was never finished, which is why it has a ruined aspect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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