The Wheel of Time TV Show 5: Eye of the Fandom [BOOK SPOILERS]

[karaddin]

23 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Most TV productions use external companies to handle the CG, so the whole idea about the delay giving them more time to make the effects look better (not just for WoT but for every TV production out there) is a nice one but not really likely unless they also poured a lot more money into the team to account for the extra time they're spending on the work. So I suspect the effects won't necessarily look better given they've had 18 months to work on finished episodes rather than 6, since they'd have the same money and thus would have spent the same amount of time on them. Also, it's probably not a great idea to spend more time and money making your Season 1 effects look amazing when Season 2 onwards is going to have less time and money (i.e. the normal amount) to spend.

LotR might be in a different boat, since they're simply pouring more than twice as much cash into it (and possibly four times, though I remain sceptical of those figures).

Yeah I wasn't thinking of it in terms of them spending more, rather than the CG has had 18 months to be done so is unlikely to be running right up against the air date for completion. That shouldn't happen in this case.

I also doubt that the little snatches we've seen are the best shots, even within the fights that are being shown those aren't the climaxes. With the possible exception of Moiraine calling lightning which I did think looked amazing.

[Werthead]

9 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Yeah I wasn't thinking of it in terms of them spending more, rather than the CG has had 18 months to be done so is unlikely to be running right up against the air date for completion. That shouldn't happen in this case.

I also doubt that the little snatches we've seen are the best shots, even within the fights that are being shown those aren't the climaxes. With the possible exception of Moiraine calling lightning which I did think looked amazing.

That's true. Episodes 7 and 8 were also only completed back in May, so they've only had six months to finish work on those (since they need the live-action plates to build the CGI around), and they might push up to the wire on those two, but the first six should have been done and dusted ages back.

[Gertrude]

On 10/16/2021 at 6:04 AM, fionwe1987 said:

I think it's precisely because the past references are so vague that they can safely reference current events without exactly making a political statement. Whatever you think of Trump, for example, he exists and he had a huge impact on the world. Just as the story of Mosk and Merk says nothing at all about Capitalism or Communism, you can refer to other political events through the filter of "stories becoming legend becoming myth" and just add the color that provides.

But Mosk and Merk got a tagline, as did Anla (the wise councilor). It's too much of a risk to get a reference to Trump wrong (and people are looking to take things wrong, even in the most generalized comment). The risk is higher than the reward. No reason not to stick with Mosk and Merk if you go this route.

I get that they would be easter eggs, I still don't know if it's worth screen time even so. That's just me though, and I don't care at all about that part of the story. It causes so many questions in my head that I can't resolve so my personal canon is that this is a different world that has cyclical ages and not ours at all. 

[Corvinus85]

I have to say that despite several reads of the books, I have never made the connection between stuff from our world and WoT. But I tend to dismiss authors' statement that the world they crafted is a future or past of our world. It applies to Tolkien and Robert E Howard, too. 

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Gertrude said:

But Mosk and Merk got a tagline, as did Anla (the wise councilor). It's too much of a risk to get a reference to Trump wrong (and people are looking to take things wrong, even in the most generalized comment). The risk is higher than the reward. No reason not to stick with Mosk and Merk if you go this route.

I get that they would be easter eggs, I still don't know if it's worth screen time even so. That's just me though, and I don't care at all about that part of the story. It causes so many questions in my head that I can't resolve so my personal canon is that this is a different world that has cyclical ages and not ours at all. 

In the original outline, the Cold War went hot and that's what led to the start of the Age of Legends (so the lances of fire around the world wasn't a threat, but what happened). Of course, the Cold War collapsed and ended just as RJ was putting the finishing touches to Eye of the World, so he possibly reduced or amended those references to account for contemporary events. But the Cold War references were (originally) germane to the backstory of the setting. The other things were just Easter Eggs.

Quote

I have to say that despite several reads of the books, I have never made the connection between stuff from our world and WoT. But I tend to dismiss authors' statement that the world they crafted is a future or past of our world. It applies to Tolkien and Robert E Howard, too. 

They're not continuous, but they are frequent enough that I think it's pretty clear even without the Word of God that it is the case. But it's not hugely in-your-face. I doubt they'll be showing the ruins of the Golden Gate Bridge and the other cheesy things they did in Shannara, given the time period in the books is probably on the order of 20,000 years (and possibly much more) in the future.

[Maltaran]

From what I remember, the only concrete objects we see from our time are in the museum in Tarabon in book 4 with the Mercedes logo and the giraffe skeleton 

[Gertrude]

And honestly, I think the Benz logo only works because the reader has to work at it and gets the description of the feeling associated with it. Just seeing a logo doesn't have the same impact.

[Myrddin]

Yeah, I hope they don't drop in such obvious visuals as corporate logos. The Yin Yang symbol works because it has meaning in this world. Especially how it was introduced first and Tear and Fang. I prefer references that are more of mythological echoes like Callendor/Excalibur or referenced extinct animals than direct modern call backs.

TBH, I never realized there was a Mercedes logo in the museum. Then again, I don't remember giraffes either. Am I misremembering an elephant skeleton? A large creature that looked like a cyclops, which an elephant skull looks like without knowledge of a trunk? 

The bridges and ruins in Shannara kind of destroyed the fantasy feel for me in the show. Felt more like a CW post-apocalyptic world show (yes, I know that's what the Shannara books were. It just wasn't obvious. I don't remember realizing it until the Scions series which I read when I was older.)

[Ran]

I mean, it's pretty obvious the logo they will have appear will be a smiling arrow, right?

 

 

[Maltaran]

1 hour ago, Myrddin said:

Yeah, I hope they don't drop in such obvious visuals as corporate logos. The Yin Yang symbol works because it has meaning in this world. Especially how it was introduced first and Tear and Fang. I prefer references that are more of mythological echoes like Callendor/Excalibur or referenced extinct animals than direct modern call backs.

TBH, I never realized there was a Mercedes logo in the museum. Then again, I don't remember giraffes either. Am I misremembering an elephant skeleton? A large creature that looked like a cyclops, which an elephant skull looks like without knowledge of a trunk? 

The bridges and ruins in Shannara kind of destroyed the fantasy feel for me in the show. Felt more like a CW post-apocalyptic world show (yes, I know that's what the Shannara books were. It just wasn't obvious. I don't remember realizing it until the Scions series which I read when I was older.)

Perhaps I’m the one misremembering what animal it was. I don’t think it was an elephant skeleton, because the Seanchan have live elephants 

 

Edit: just looked it up and it probably is an elephant - the skull is described as apparently having four eye sockets, so clearly something with tusks.

[Poobah]

1 hour ago, Myrddin said:

TBH, I never realized there was a Mercedes logo in the museum. 

"A silvery thing in another cabinet, like a three-pointed star inside a circle, was made of no substance she knew; it was softer than metal, scratched and gouged, yet even older than any of the ancient bones. From ten paces she could sense pride and vanity."

[Werthead]

4 hours ago, Maltaran said:

From what I remember, the only concrete objects we see from our time are in the museum in Tarabon in book 4 with the Mercedes logo and the giraffe skeleton 

There's what appears to be a ruined radio telescope in the Black Hills, but I think that's only reported by someone else, not seen by any of the heroes.

[Lord Patrek]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

There's what appears to be a ruined radio telescope in the Black Hills, but I think that's only reported by someone else, not seen by any of the heroes.

Wasn't that one of the ancient wonders that Domon talks about during the first voyage on his ship?

[Gertrude]

9 hours ago, Myrddin said:

TBH, I never realized there was a Mercedes logo in the museum. Then again, I don't remember giraffes either. Am I misremembering an elephant skeleton? A large creature that looked like a cyclops, which an elephant skull looks like without knowledge of a trunk? 

"... and opposite it on the other side were the bones of some slender four-footed beast with a neck so long the skull was half as high as the ceiling."

 

List of references.

 

[Maltaran]

10 hours ago, Werthead said:

There's what appears to be a ruined radio telescope in the Black Hills, but I think that's only reported by someone else, not seen by any of the heroes.

I always assumed that was an Age of Legends artefact like Whitebridge

[Werthead]

5 hours ago, Maltaran said:

I always assumed that was an Age of Legends artefact like Whitebridge

I assumed during the Age of Legends they wouldn't need them, they'd have giant telescopes on the far side of the Moon or way out in space (since Moghedien indicated space travel was a thing in the Age of Legends, which you'd expect if they were far more advanced than us), and the radio telescope they talk about might be left over from our age, like a well-preserved historical oddity.

[Myrddin]

15 hours ago, Poobah said:

"A silvery thing in another cabinet, like a three-pointed star inside a circle, was made of no substance she knew; it was softer than metal, scratched and gouged, yet even older than any of the ancient bones. From ten paces she could sense pride and vanity."

Yeah I see it now, but even when I reread this book last summer, I wasn't looking at the artifacts close enough, apparently...

 

And I guess I did misremember the elephant skull as it's not even in the link of references Gertrude posted (Thanks, G). Maybe it was in another fantasy novel. Or maybe historical fiction, for that matter.

[Myrddin]

16 hours ago, Ran said:

I mean, it's pretty obvious the logo they will have appear will be a smiling arrow, right?

 

 

Listen for the three notes to hit in the soundtrack as the camera passes over the logo.

[fionwe1987]

Quote

The inn, at the very top of the hill, was stone like every other building in the town, and plainly marked by a painted sign hanging over the wide doors. The Nine Rings. Rand swung down with a smile and tied Red to one of the hitching posts out front. “The Nine Rings” had been one of his favorite adventure stories when he was a boy; he supposed it still was.

I wonder if they'll keep this reference in. Especially since we'll probably get to see the forging of the Nine sometime soon on the same network. Funny how that worked out.

[fionwe1987]

Some behind the scenes footage from the filming of WoT:

The Whitecloaks look exactly as annoying as I pictured them.

The Shienarans look good, and looks like there’s a proper Hall of the Tower set. That’s good, cause rather a lot of scenes will be happening there, down the line. 

Nynaeve seems to have her hair in multiple braids, in one scene. Not sure what to make of that.