The Wheel of Time TV Show 6: A Few Turns to A Beginning

[Myrddin]

Seeing as who's joined this thread, we know who to blame for all these changes.

 

 

(Good to see you, dude)

[Lord Patrek]

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Many of these changes may work, if the acting follows.

Yes, of course.

But the Winespring Inn clip is the only thing we have to go by and it's pretty awful in terms of actor performances.

Two trailers and one scene, and we haven't seen the leads other than Moiraine say more than a few words each. That's a major concern for me at this point.

[Gigei]

An adaptation doesn't have to be faithful to be good. The Magicians TV series was quite different from the source material but the fans still liked it since it had some great chemistry.

I'll just consider this an unfaithful adaptation and roll with it.

 It honestly doesn't matter to me if it's true that 

Spoiler

Perrin was married in the TV show

It's not the books, it's a TV show. What matters is if the show is entertaining. After all, there are many worlds in WoT. This could be one of those iterations.

 

[Gertrude]

Honestly, the Perrin one is the one that bothers me the most because I don't know how the Faile situation will work out in coming seasons, and the only scenes where I really liked the Perrin/Faile dynamic was in the two Rivers. That's the thing I am sad to see changed because I think it really worked and was powerful. It can't play out the same way with the same feelings and I won't know if this works or not until the next few seasons, so I guess I just roll with it until then. I am reserving judgement until I see it all play out - female dragon and all.

[Poobah]

My dream is basically The Expanse (particularly the first three seasons) where some moderate but all positive changes were made what with introducing and making Avasarala a core character and her plot giving a hugely important window into the bigger picture of the setting and streamlining some plots, keeping Bobbie after she was introduced, merging some characters and adjusting things a little here and there (Abbadon's Gate was improved a lot IMO and I love TV Ashford and Drummer) but at the same time they kept very true to the core of the story, to the main characters and who they are, and to the setting and its themes.

My nightmare is... well there are plenty of shitty fantasy series adaptations out there, take your pick.

When I see a change I ask what purpose does this serve in bringing The Wheel of Time to television? And some of the changes make a lot of sense in that vein while others... not so much. Focusing on Moiraine, writing more material for Logain, bringing/establishing some relevant Aes Sedai early, cutting a bunch of the locations in the travelogue section - all of this makes a lot of sense to me, it seems like it'd make a stronger, tighter, more focused show. The changes in the spoiler for the first episode to Mat and Perrin's backstories on the other hand just... reek of meddling and bad/cliched writing rather than any higher objective.

[fionwe1987]

Yes the Expanse is the gold standard for adaptation. The show is a separate story, but one that internally consistent and can stand on its own.

I hope WoT can reach that.

The one good thing with the Perrin and Mat backstory changes... They aren't going to matter much beyond episode 1, except perhaps for Perrin.

Unless they change even more to make this crap relevant, I guess. 

[Corvinus85]

I've not read the spoilers. I intend to go in with just the knowledge of the books and hopefully be able to judge the show on its merits. I do hope character motivations make sense, and as mentioned above, if the spirit and core of the books are preserved, I'll be happy. 

I certainly had a hard time judging GoT on its own merits, but then again the merits kept diminishing, and even going back to the good seasons you can tell how many of the book changes turned out to be because of poor judgement. 

[Lord Patrek]

Regarding The Expanse, you guys are aware that both authors are part of the writing team. Which is why the show follows their vision more than any other SFF series out there.

GoT is proof that having the author as an executive producer means very little if the showrunners decide to go their own way.

WoT has none of that.

[Rhom]

17 minutes ago, Lord Patrek said:

Regarding The Expanse, you guys are aware that both authors are part of the writing team. Which is why the show follows their vision more than any other SFF series out there.

GoT is proof that having the author as an executive producer means very little if the showrunners decide to go their own way.

WoT has none of that.

Maybe they could bring in Brandon Sanderson...

[fionwe1987]

47 minutes ago, Lord Patrek said:

Regarding The Expanse, you guys are aware that both authors are part of the writing team. Which is why the show follows their vision more than any other SFF series out there.

GoT is proof that having the author as an executive producer means very little if the showrunners decide to go their own way.

WoT has none of that.

Yes, but that's one way to achieve the result, not the only. It's not impossible for an adaptation minus the author to work well, though it's not like many examples are around. Lord of the Rings succeeded fairly well, despite some questionable changes. The trilogy on the whole worked, though I still can't forgive what they did to poor Denethor.

What about His Dark Materials? Was Pullman involved? It's a pretty good adaptation too, I feel, though criminally underappreciated. 

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell was good too, and I'm doubtful Clark was involved much, though I might be totally wrong.

 

[Werthead]

It looks like I'll be going to the London premiere, which is nice. The last premiere I went to, Jason Momoa challenged me to an arm wrestle (a competition even less one-sided than Gregor Clegane engaging post-accident, pre-magic Bran Stark in single combat), so hopefully it won't be that random.

The premiere before that was GoT's where I sat directly behind Sean Bean for the whole thing and watched the whole first two episodes with the back of his head in my eyeline, which remains fairly surreal.

1 hour ago, Lord Patrek said:

Regarding The Expanse, you guys are aware that both authors are part of the writing team. Which is why the show follows their vision more than any other SFF series out there.

GoT is proof that having the author as an executive producer means very little if the showrunners decide to go their own way.

WoT has none of that.

There is one rather obvious and massive reason why this might not be possible for WoT.

Also, for GoT, George chose himself to step away after Season 4 and not really be involved any more.

Quote

Maybe they could bring in Brandon Sanderson... 

They did. Sanderson read the scripts and advised on changes, and visited the set during the filming of the Taren Ferry sequence. His position was that there were some changes he'd have suggested himself out of practicality/pacing/worldbuilding concerns (and to overcome WoT's fair share of Early Instalment Weirdness), some changes which he could see the argument for but wouldn't have made himself, and a few he found challenging to accept.

Quote

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell was good too, and I'm doubtful Clark was involved much, though I might be totally wrong.

I'm not sure she even visited the set, due to health reasons. The TV show made some pretty big changes, though to be fair mostly in the second half of the book where the novel pretty much broke down completely for long stretches of the going. The pacing in the second half of the novel was terrible and the TV show tightened up and eliminated the problem altogether.

The BBC's version of The City and The City was pretty good as well, and they made some hefty changes to that as well, most of which worked well (apart from the decision to eliminate the classic final line of the novel, which was a mistake).

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

It looks like I'll be going to the London premiere, which is nice. The last premiere I went to, Jason Momoa challenged me to an arm wrestle (a competition even less one-sided than Gregor Clegane engaging post-accident, pre-magic Bran Stark in single combat), so hopefully it won't be that random.

This is a story for which I would like more details. 

[Werthead]

21 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

This is a story for which I would like more details. 

It was for Conan the Barbarian, Jason went around the premiere party challenging everyone to an arm wrestle, no matter how ludicrous the mismatch was.

Technically that was the last-but-one premiere, as I think the last one was the GoT Season 5 premiere, but that wasn't a premiere premiere (though, taking place at the Tower of London, it was very plush).

[Jussi]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

The pacing in the second half of the novel was terrible and the TV show tightened up and eliminated the problem altogether.

It's funny that Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell won Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, Mythopoeic Fantasy Award and Locus Award despite having a "terrible" pacing in the second half... I haven't watched the TV adaption, but I don't think Clarke's novel needs any tightening.

[fionwe1987]

14 minutes ago, Jussi said:

It's funny that Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell won Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, Mythopoeic Fantasy Award and Locus Award despite having a "terrible" pacing in the second half... I haven't watched the TV adaption, but I don't think Clarke's novel needs any tightening.

It did for the screen, certainly.

[Werthead]

11 minutes ago, Jussi said:

It's funny that Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell won Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, Mythopoeic Fantasy Award and Locus Award despite having a "terrible" pacing in the second half... I haven't watched the TV adaption, but I don't think Clarke's novel needs any tightening.

The Hugos also gave Best Novel Awards to Foundation's Edge, Blackout/All Clear and Redshirts. They are not an infallible guide to quality. JS&MN also didn't have much competition, it was really a two-horse race with River of Gods (Stross, Banks and Mieville are all fine authors, but none of their nominees that year was remotely close to their best work).

JS&MN's first half certainly ranks as one of the most brilliant sustained periods of any SFF novel in the last twenty years, but the second half, yeesh.

[Ran]

Bit disingenuous to ignore the fact that it was the winner of multiple, diverse awards and just pick out one of them to make a point. Jussi's actual point is that Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell had wide-spread critical and popular praise, winning both popular and juried awards. It also had a number of nominations, and even made the Booker longlist.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell's pacing is pretty perfect, in my mind. If you didn't get along with the second half, that's okay, different strokes for different folks, but I think the way that Clarke's story manages to homage and pastiche multiple genres of 19th century literature has more to do with the way it's paced than any lack of control on her part. 

Funnily, decided to Google for people commenting on pacing... and found a bunch of people encouraging people to get through the first half because it really picks up in the second half. 

[Maia]

On 11/4/2021 at 5:53 PM, IFR said:

Someone from reddit who claims to have watched the first three episodes gave a summary.

Do you have a link? That sounds mostly alright.

Spoiler

Do they not interefere in the Yellow's burning, or is she already dead by the time the gang shows up? I guess this replaces escape from Baerlon. Not sure about Perrin's dead wife or Nynaeve being dragged away by Trollocs, somehow escaping off-screen (channeling?) and then abandoning  the hurt villagers to fend for themselves to hunt Moiraine and Co. In the books Emon's Field was practically untouched, so Nyn was free to leave for what she thought was going to be a short time.

 

[Werthead]

Almost as disingenuous to ignore the part where I said the novel has one of the most sustained periods of brilliance of the last twenty novels. I did not say it was a piece of shit, nor did I say it was undeserving of its praise.

The point being made, which seems to have been obfuscated here, is that there were major and sweeping changes to the structure of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell because adapting the novel word-for-word would not have worked (nor would it for any adaptation), and those changes helped make the TV series a reasonable - if not certainly flawless - success as an adaptation.

The City and the City had a point of similarity to WoT in that it gave the main protagonist a wife when he did not have one, nor need one, in the novel. This was seen as a dubious change but it actually worked very well in the TV show in that it gave the character a reason to think and talk about the situation between the two cities (she was from Ul Qoma, whilst Borlu is from Beszel), whereas in the book that could just be explained by an inner monologue.

Spoiler

Perrin spending all the time thinking about his great strength and having to be gentle is one thing, but showing it is more effective in the visual medium. Whether showing it in that reported way is a good idea is another matter, as it might change Perrin's character development too much and make his relationship with Faile more dubious later on (since in the show it will presumably begin in Season 3 or 4, which given the low number of episodes per season might still make it feel unhealthily quickly after his wife's death).

There is an issue in the book with the three male protagonists' similarities to one another. In EotW they are distinguished by Mat being a bit cheekier and trying to be funnier than the other two, Rand being a bit more stoic and Perrin leaning into the gentle giant thing, but all three are, generally, good-hearted and kind kids (with stubborn streaks) who want to do the right thing and what's for the best (Mat might be a bit keener on making a side-coin along the way). Because we have access to Rand's interior monologue and later Perrin's, we can differentiate between them easily. From an omniscient viewpoint the three characters can be seen as somewhat similar. This is a recurring Jordan problem in the early going when he introduces new characters, where characters are sometimes defined more by what happens to them and surface traits rather than deeper-seated characterisation (an area where Martin rather easily improved on him). Deeper characterisation in WoT really only emerges over the long haul.

For the TV show it looks like they decided to make the three male leads much more immediately different characters to one another by giving them a different backstory "thing" to differentiate them from one another. It sounds like what they've given them are fairly broad tropes - not that Jordan was above that sort of thing either - which could work well or could be hideous cliches. We will see.

The soundtrack so far has been pretty exceptional, I have to say, so there's always that if the rest of it is underwhelming.

 

[Darryk]

I'm disappointed they've changed the opening from the book; the death of Lewis Theron was a pretty powerful opening and set the stage well for the prophecy, and the appearance of Ishamael.

Come to think of it, is Ishamael even in the adaptation? I can't find anything on an actor having been cast in the role.