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

[David Selig]

This seems to confirm that the opening scene of the trailer is a Women's Circle ceremony, not a White Tower one.

 

[fionwe1987]

8 minutes ago, David Selig said:

This seems to confirm that the opening scene of the trailer is a Women's Circle ceremony, not a White Tower one.

 

Yeah. I'm wondering what they're going for there.

[SpaceChampion]

That's an epic braid flip.  Thought we were watching Sonya in Mortal Kombat for a second there.

[Corvinus85]

Having recently re-watched the Matrix trilogy, the Whitecloaks remind me of Neo, but wearing white instead of black. I suppose you can do white armor. Take that GoT.  One of the guys look like he might be Omni-Man from Invincible.

Not sure if those lancers are supposed to be Shienarans. Their costumes are the typical Hollywood drab.

[Myrddin]

If any character in the history of cinema deserves to have the word epic applied to her braid flip, it's Nynaeve.

Is that our first look at Thom?

Probably not, but as I've already demonstrated in this thread, my memory is shoddy... 

[fionwe1987]

First look at Thom on set, yes. We've seen the actor before, just not as Thom.

[Werthead]

Alanna blowing the living crap out of that forest (with actual pyrotechnics rather than purely CGIing it) bodes well for when they eventually get to Dumai's Wells.

Quote

This seems to confirm that the opening scene of the trailer is a Women's Circle ceremony, not a White Tower one.

It appears that way.

Spoiler

One of the Amazon early screeners - apparently believing NDAs are optional - confirmed that the order of scenes in the first episode is Tam & Rand on the road and then a Women's Circle ceremony with Nynaeve & Egwene. So it looks like no Dreaming just yet.

 

[Lord Patrek]

Hmmm, if this tv show is as bad as it looks thus far, they're never going to reach Dumai's Wells.

Hopefully I'm proven wrong, but I see this show getting axed the way The Shnnara Chronicles and Legends of the Seeker were. . . :/

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Lord Patrek said:

Hmmm, if this tv show is as bad as it looks thus far, they're never going to reach Dumai's Wells.

Hopefully I'm proven wrong, but I see this show getting axed the way The Shnnara Chronicles and Legends of the Seeker were. . . :/

Yes, you have made this point several times already.

Given the show's only a month out (from today), we'll see soon enough.

[fionwe1987]

Seeing the practical effects and sets was actually encouraging. If things like the interior of the Tower were to be full CG, I'd have been way more skeptical the show would look decent. 

[Gertrude]

10 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

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

We've always seen her with multiple braids wrangled into one. She's mostly been more composed before this, however, and with no real movement. 

[Gertrude]

I think Thom looks really good and I don't miss his gleeman's cloak one bit. If they find a way to make it look good on screen and it's just hanging on a peg in this shot, fine, but if they include it just because the book says so even if it looks goofy, I'll be disappointed. Also not disappointed that he lacks a long mustache. His costuming in this shot really does him favors. I love the cut of his clothes. They look rich/well-off while also not being immaculate and he carries himself well. Silver Fox indeed!

Also a fan of the costuming for the White Cloaks. They look like priests, but the divided robe is practical for riding/fighting (well, maybe fighting - but better than robes). This is how I've always seen the divided riding skirts Jordan describes, so I hope we see some women take on this fashion as well.

[Linda]

Haven't looked through the whole thread, so I may be repeating something, but almost everything we've seen so far of clothing and outfits make me shake my head. Why do costume designers insist on ignoring existing descriptions when adapting a book? Especially when the author provided massive amounts of detail about costumes. We saw it with Game of Thrones and its clear Wheel of Time will be as bad. So frustrating and unnecessary. And don't even get me started on the casting.

I'll probably try to watch, because WoT was my big obsession before ASoIaF, but I am expecting to rant as much about that as GoT. Damn it, don't adapt books if you feel you have to change a bunch of things beyond what the constraints of a different medium demands. 

[Ran]

The "armor" on the Children of the Light is Legends of the Seeker level, but at least it's not the Nilfgaardian armor weirdness from the first season of The Witcher. As I think the guy in front is Abdul Salis, playing Eamon Valda (which is interesting, if that's correct, because Valda doesn't appear until TGH; I know they mentioned they pull in some TGH stuff in the first season), this isn't a group of Inquisitors so the lack of anything but arm harness is a bit disappointing. Especially as the Logain clip showed some sort of town or city guardsmen with substantially more armor (presumably Ghealdanin soldiers or guards?).

The Shienarans look only slightly better, as far as that goes, especially when compared to the full plate harness their mounted cavalry have..

There's a substantial industry out in Eastern Europe making medieval reenactment armor and HEMA gear, so I admit I'm confused as to why they pinched pennies on this aspect. They almost certainly could have just rented in stuff from past productions, even, there must be plenty of medieval to early Renaissance armor bits floating around in warehouses somewhere.

OTOH, they are being pretty good with sets and architecture. I like the fine stone carving we've now seen several times in the White Tower. I guess maybe we can see what the budget priorities were.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

The "armor" on the Children of the Light is Legends of the Seeker level, but at least it's not the Nilfgaardian armor weirdness from the first season of The Witcher. As I think the guy in front is Abdul Salis, playing Eamon Valda (which is interesting, if that's correct, because Valda doesn't appear until TGH; I know they mentioned they pull in some TGH stuff in the first season), this isn't a group of Inquisitors so the lack of anything but arm harness is a bit disappointing. Especially as the Logain clip showed some sort of town or city guardsmen with substantially more armor (presumably Ghealdanin soldiers or guards?).

The Shienarans look only slightly better, as far as that goes, especially when compared to the full plate harness their mounted cavalry have..

There's a substantial industry out in Eastern Europe making medieval reenactment armor and HEMA gear, so I admit I'm confused as to why they pinched pennies on this aspect. They almost certainly could have just rented in stuff from past productions, even, there must be plenty of medieval to early Renaissance armor bits floating around in warehouses somewhere.

OTOH, they are being pretty good with sets and architecture. I like the fine stone carving we've now seen several times in the White Tower. I guess maybe we can see what the budget priorities were.

One of them had a shield with the sigil of Ghealdan, so yep.

The Children of the Light can't even be nicknamed the Whitecloaks now, it should be the Whiterobes. 

[Ran]

3 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

One of them had a shield with the sigil of Ghealdan, so yep.

Nice catch, I forgot what their banner was.

3 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

The Children of the Light can't even be nicknamed the Whitecloaks now, it should be the Whiterobes. 

Indeed!

They ought to look more like Solaire from Dark Souls, minus the great helm and "Praise the Sun!" pose, and plus the cloak. Surcoats would have made them look completely different from GoT, where surcoats were nonexistent, for one thing.

[Poobah]

There's quite a lot I like in the previews but the general uh... the costuming on the Aes Sedai and Whitecloaks reminds me of my early attempts at using the dye system in GW2 where I'd equip all my armour and go "I want to look <colour>" and then click a dye of that colour on every single dye channel. It all feels way too lacking in detail, contrast, or highlighting - it's like, take the Men in Black and replace their white shirts with black shirts because their outfits need to be black so why not just make every single part of it a matt black? I mean most of the fanart I've seen of Moiraine has her wearing mostly blue, but her outfits will usually feature embroidery in silver or gold, as well as jewelry and some kinda belt in a different colour, or a white on a different layer of her clothing to provide the necessary contrasts and such, but looking at the previews it seems like you get promoted to Aes Sedai and then they strip you and toss every single possession you own in a massive vat of Ajah Colour dye.

[fionwe1987]

33 minutes ago, Poobah said:

There's quite a lot I like in the previews but the general uh... the costuming on the Aes Sedai and Whitecloaks reminds me of my early attempts at using the dye system in GW2 where I'd equip all my armour and go "I want to look <colour>" and then click a dye of that colour on every single dye channel. It all feels way too lacking in detail, contrast, or highlighting - it's like, take the Men in Black and replace their white shirts with black shirts because their outfits need to be black so why not just make every single part of it a matt black? I mean most of the fanart I've seen of Moiraine has her wearing mostly blue, but her outfits will usually feature embroidery in silver or gold, as well as jewelry and some kinda belt in a different colour, or a white on a different layer of her clothing to provide the necessary contrasts and such, but looking at the previews it seems like you get promoted to Aes Sedai and then they strip you and toss every single possession you own in a massive vat of Ajah Colour dye.

This is a good point. The colors are all very very uniform. I get the need to distinguish the different groups, but they don't have to be soooo one note on the coloring.

I can absolutely see Whitecloaks having everything be white, but the Blue Ajah doesn't disallow other colors, except red, and that's only on the first day of the month or something like that (or maybe within the walls of Tar Valon), a detail they can safely ignore. 

For the Whitecloaks, I hope this is their non-battle clothing. If they expect me to imagine people in that costume riding into battle...

And speaking of the White Tower, I noticed all the status are of men. This is bizarre, in a corridor leading up to the Hall of the Tower. I doubt Warders would be given that kind of prominence, and I don't see any other men meriting statues in the Tower. 

[Ran]

1 minute ago, fionwe1987 said:

This is a good point. The colors are all very very uniform.

Yes. It makes it feel very drab. Jordan put so much thought into describing the costly, extravagant gowns, even introducing details about a top tailor for Aes Sedai in Tar Valon... but then what we get are well-made, well-cut, boring one-note clothing on everyone. 

It's either a deliberate aesthetic choice, or it's a due to budgetary limitations making costlier textiles, brocades, etc. a lower priority.

3 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

I doubt Warders would be given that kind of prominence

Pretty sure that that's exactly what the statues represent: memorial statues of warders who presumably died in the service of the White Tower. It's not a book thing at all, but I'm okay with it. Maybe outside the Hall of the Tower is a weird place, though. Would have assumed it'd be nearer to where trainees were barracked and trained.

[Gertrude]

The sameness of the colors has been my main criticism of the costuming from what we've seen. Yes - color code the ajahs, but not like this. I'm hoping we're seeing the extreme and not the usual.

Honestly, I didn't even register that the white cloaks might be wearing armor in that shot, I just thought that was their traveling mode. The shoulder pieces seemed more ceremonial than an actual armor piece. Again, I guess we shall see on that whole thing. And they are wearing cloaks! At least one is for sure and another I think - it just gets lost behind the robes.

I noticed the statues of the men too, as well as the row of warders in the hall. I honestly don't know if this is pre or post Hall, but it could just be somewhere she is passing through and not right outside the Hall. I don't mind that they would have honored warders with statues, especially if this is a place that the warders are welcome and perhaps even comfortable? Like maybe a break room? (tongue in cheek, obviously - but that gets the idea across maybe?)