The Wheel of Time TV Show 4: The Budget Rising [BOOK SPOILERS]

[john]

Is that Mat speaking? Is he being played as a London geezer?

[The Anti-Targ]

6 minutes ago, john said:

Is that Mat speaking? Is he being played as a London geezer?

Padan Fain? That is the cursed knife right? Though it is Mat who finds it, which is what that clip looks like is happening, the finding of the One Knife.

[Werthead]

 

[Corvinus85]

Ooo, they gave her black hair, well that's one good adaptation. And are those Rosamund's natural eyes, or are they doing something weird there?

Unfortunately, I feel like I can tell her age. 

[Poobah]

The hype machine is slowly spinning up - I know they had to stop filming before they were done with the full season but do we know any more about that? It seems like they're beginning to move ahead with publicity so they must have some sort of release window target for their campaign, but it seems unlikely that they're gonna be able to get back to shooting on location in the Czech Republic with the Covid situation there.

[Werthead]

Quote

Unfortunately, I feel like I can tell her age.

From what I can tell (Rafe's been answering questions about the show on IG this afternoon), they did try a variety of approaches for the "ageless" look before concluding that there was no way they could expend the budget required by CGing every single scene an Aes Sedai appears in for the entire series. It would cost a fortunate and there's always the risk someone misses a shot in post (especially if a character is in the background of a shot) and then you have people whining about it.

There's also physical makeup options, but those are hard to keep consistent from a continuity point of view and you also have the issue that if you go too far in that direction, you start inhibiting the actor's performances.

Basically it's the purple eyes problem from GoT all over again: a great idea until you try implementing it and get poor results back, and then you have to ask the question, "Is this worth it or shall we spend the money elsewhere, like making the One Power more impressive or on Draghkar CGI?" 

4 hours ago, Poobah said:

The hype machine is slowly spinning up - I know they had to stop filming before they were done with the full season but do we know any more about that? It seems like they're beginning to move ahead with publicity so they must have some sort of release window target for their campaign, but it seems unlikely that they're gonna be able to get back to shooting on location in the Czech Republic with the Covid situation there.

Episodes 1-6 are 100% complete and done and in post right now. Episodes 7-8 are mostly done, but there's a few scenes they weren't able to pick up. I believe the hope is that they can get back to Prague to film those scenes in a couple of months and then can get the ball rolling towards an autumn premiere. There may be some other options to get around that if the Czech Republic can't get their latest outbreak under control (including the nuclear option of greenscreening the needed material and then moving production for Season 2 to another country).

[fionwe1987]

I'm finally believing it'll be out this year.

That said, did anyone think both the dialog and the visual were very campy? I'm beginning to wonder if I should think more Witcher than His Dark Materials in terms of visual style. 

I always saw WOT as more philosophical and modernish world. It'll be sad if it doesn't look it visually. 

[fionwe1987]

I do remember I'd thought of a way to overcome the Agelessness issues but keep the spirit of it.

What the Agelessness does is single out Aes Sedai visually. This has some positive, but mostly negative, effects on their political machinations. And it's all revealed to be part of a multi-millenial ploy of Ishamael's to cut their lifespans in half, make them completely mistrusted by common people and riddled with his agents. 

They're unable to let go of it completely even in the end, when the know it's reducing their lifespans. So I think some version of it should be kept. 

I always thought the simplest way was to have them all have pure white hair. No matter their age presentation in other ways, their hair soon enough after taking the Oaths turns white.

This has the benefit of even kinda being canon. RJ has Egwene and others remark multiple times that Amys's prematurely white hair made them confuse her for an Aes Sedai. They thought she looked ageless.

Or is that all going to look too dorky?

[felice]

2 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

I always thought the simplest way was to have them all have pure white hair. No matter their age presentation in other ways, their hair soon enough after taking the Oaths turns white.

It's a huge cast of characters to keep track of, so I think giving all the Aes Sedai the same hair colour would be a problem for a lot of viewers.

[karaddin]

She looks quite a bit different from she does in I Care A Lot so they're at the very least doing something different with the make up than standard, maybe just lighter and more natural?

[Corvinus85]

11 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

I'm beginning to wonder if I should think more Witcher than His Dark Materials in terms of visual style. 

Well, as long as they're not Shannara Chronicles level.

[Jace, Extat]

I'm already on record, but let me get back on the record. This shit is gonna be like the fucking Eragon movie. 

There's a reason they refuse to show you an actual trailer with footage that actually gives you a look at it.

[Poobah]

1 hour ago, Comrade Jace, Leftist said:

I'm already on record, but let me get back on the record. This shit is gonna be like the fucking Eragon movie. 

There's a reason they refuse to show you an actual trailer with footage that actually gives you a look at it.

I really hope that you're wrong, but there's a good reason I'm not letting myself get too excited about this either. That said I don't think it's unusual that they haven't shown a real trailer when they don't have a solid release date and haven't finished filming either.

[Jace, Extat]

4 minutes ago, Poobah said:

 That said I don't think it's unusual that they haven't shown a real trailer when they don't have a solid release date and haven't finished filming either.

Wert says they finished the first half of shooting. If they can't scrape together a trailer from 4+ hours of supposedly finished material then you should be very concerned. They can put anything they want for a release date. 

Coming... "When it's safe."   "When our battle ends, theirs begins."    "Soon."

 

[A True Kaniggit]

18 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

 And it's all revealed to be part of a multi-millenial ploy of Ishamael's to cut their lifespans in half, make them completely mistrusted by common people and riddled with his agents. 

When was that revealed?

I completely missed it.

[Werthead]

4 hours ago, Comrade Jace, Leftist said:

Wert says they finished the first half of shooting. If they can't scrape together a trailer from 4+ hours of supposedly finished material then you should be very concerned. They can put anything they want for a release date. 

Coming... "When it's safe."   "When our battle ends, theirs begins."    "Soon."

Amazon have got this approach down where they're marketing to established fans (i.e. book readers) first and will then throw open the marketing to the general world no earlier than 3-4 months out from transmission, and they can't do that until they know the release date, which they can't set until they've finished filming. Absolute worst case scenario - because the Czech Republic (where all the locations and sets they need are) is monumentally fucking up their COVID response at the moment - is that they might not be able to get back to film the require scenes at all and they have to figure out another way of doing them, and the whole thing might slide back to next year.

[Slurktan]

5 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

When was that revealed?

I completely missed it.

Same, I had thought the use of the oath rod was a sort of self punishment for the Aes Sedai at the start.

[A True Kaniggit]

12 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

Same, I had thought the use of the oath rod was a sort of self punishment for the Aes Sedai at the start.

Or an attempt to gain the public’s trust. 

[Lord of Rhinos]

7 hours ago, Comrade Jace, Leftist said:

Wert says they finished the first half of shooting. If they can't scrape together a trailer from 4+ hours of supposedly finished material then you should be very concerned. They can put anything they want for a release date. 

Coming... "When it's safe."   "When our battle ends, theirs begins."    "Soon."

 

Your conspiracy theory makes no sense.  They are going to drop a trailer at some point, and if it looks bad it looks bad.

Streaming services, for whatever reason, seem to feel that you don't start the marketing campaign until your close to the drop date.   Star Trek Discovery season 3 dropped its trailer 5 weeks before the show aired. Amazon's Tell Me Your Secrets dropped its trailer three weeks before it premiered. Amazon's Invincible premiers on 3/26 and they debuted its trailer on 2/19.  Not dropping a trailer this early is evidence of nothing.

[fionwe1987]

On 3/17/2021 at 11:37 PM, felice said:

It's a huge cast of characters to keep track of, so I think giving all the Aes Sedai the same hair colour would be a problem for a lot of viewers.

Hmm never thought it would be an issue, but I guess if you didn't grow up with everyone having pretty much the same hair color, hair color becomes a way you distinguish people. 

On 3/18/2021 at 8:38 AM, Corvinus85 said:

Well, as long as they're not Shannara Chronicles level.

I never saw that show but the trailers looked awful. 

18 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

When was that revealed?

I completely missed it.

In one of Ishamael's rants early on. That said, the Second Oath, at least, was by the Aes Sedai themselves, and they came up with it on their own during the Compact. But the First and the Third are a result of Ishamael's manipulation, and it's having the cumulative three that so drastically reduces their lifespans and gives them the ageless look.

13 hours ago, Slurktan said:

Same, I had thought the use of the oath rod was a sort of self punishment for the Aes Sedai at the start.

Nope. The Second Oath came about as a result of the Aes Sedai feeling horror at the damage weapons made with the One Power did in the war and the Breaking. 

The First and Third were ostensibly to get people to trust them, as they thought of it, at least.