Wheel of Time TV Show 7: And There Shall Be Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

[Corvinus85]

While Trollocs do come in various shapes and sizes, I thought it was suspicious and funny that most of the Trollocs killed by Lan were average human size, and the ones other characters had to deal with were more to the book size. 

[Jaxom 1974]

7 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

That's not the taxi driver from Total Recall. He was the peddler.

Seriously though...no idea if it's the same actor (I certainly don't think it is), but when he came on screen driving that wagon and the way he acted, I immediately brought the taxi driver from Total Recall to mind...it was mildly distracting... 

[Gertrude]

8 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

While Trollocs do come in various shapes and sizes, I thought it was suspicious and funny that most of the Trollocs killed by Lan were average human size, and the ones other characters had to deal with were more to the book size. 

I swear when I was watching the trollocs at the ferry, the ones up front were mini-trollocs - like literally less than half the size of the normal ones. I had to stop and rewatch it but it was the torchlight playing tricks on me.

[Lord Patrek]

Just watched the first episode this morning before going to work and I'm underwhelmed. It's a good thing that they released 3 episodes at once, for I doubt that many viewers who aren't already fans would watch episode 2 the following week.

More later when I've watched all three. But hell, the Trollocs look like B-movie monsters. 10M per episode and they couldn't do better?

[IFR]

Currently at an 8.0 on imdb. Though with only 2k votes, which is a small sample size. Still, not a good trend for wider popularity. It likely will level off in the 6's at this rate, possibly low 7's.

The Witcher was in the low 9's for a while, until a wider audience with better taste prevailed and it hit the low 8's.

Also WoT is now at a 54 on metacritic. On rottentomatoes it has a 65% critic approval rating and a 83% audience approval.

So basically network procedural drama kind of rating. Those shows can still hit big with the senior citizen demographic, but WoT isn't aiming for that.

This show has a very steep hill to climb if it wants to become a major success.

I didn't like The Witcher very much. The source material is great; however, the adaptation was pretty clumsy. But I think I enjoyed it more than WoT.

I think both cases demonstrate yet again how hard it is to do fantasy on screen.

I feel bad for Judkin and the cast and crew. Despite my cool reception of the show, they seem like fellow fans. This must be a terrible moment for them, after all that hard work is met with a resounding thud of indifference.

[Corvinus85]

How are fans reacting to it on the Dragonmount forum and on reddit? 

[Ran]

4 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Yeah. There was a scene which was ripe for Egwene to call Rand a woolhead

I literally told Linda that. "Bastard?! She should have called him a woolhead!"

Another thing... the Manetheren speech. I'd rather they dropped it than have it in, because the thing that for me gave it power -- I still get goosebumps when I reread it, all these years later -- was the specific circumstances of when Moiraine gives it: the Trolloc attack leads to outrage and people blaming her... and she just tells them they sound like a bunch of punks rather than the old blood of Manetheren she had thought she'd find. And then she tells them what she means, and leaves an indelible mark on their memories when Perrin returns to the Two Rivers and people end up flying the Red Eagle again.

That speech had a rhetorical purpose, whereas on the show it's basically fan service.

 

 

[Lord Patrek]

7 minutes ago, IFR said:

I think both cases demonstrate yet again how hard it is to do fantasy on screen.

I feel bad for Judkin and the cast and crew. Despite my cool reception of the show, they seem like fellow fans. This must be a terrible moment for them, after all that hard work is met with a resounding thud of indifference.

Well, it shows yet again that when you disregard the author's vision and willfully ignore the source material, things have a tendency to go down the crapper. . .

[Rhom]

10 minutes ago, IFR said:

I feel bad for Judkin and the cast and crew. Despite my cool reception of the show, they seem like fellow fans. This must be a terrible moment for them, after all that hard work is met with a resounding thud of indifference.

Wonder how many watched it last night and through this first weekend and what the retention rate will be for ep 4 next week?

[Corvinus85]

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

Another thing... the Manetheren speech. I'd rather they dropped it than have it in, because the thing that for me gave it power -- I still get goosebumps when I reread it, all these years later -- was the specific circumstances of when Moiraine gives it: the Trolloc attack leads to outrage and people blaming her... and she just tells them they sound like a bunch of punks rather than the old blood of Manetheren she had thought she'd find. And then she tells them what she means, and leaves an indelible mark on their memories when Perrin returns to the Two Rivers and people end up flying the Red Eagle again.

That speech had a rhetorical purpose, whereas on the show it's basically fan service.

I always found it a bit awkward in the book, more exposition than anything else. I thought it worked here. It started with a song, but the characters didn't know what they were singing about, Moraine explains, and then finishes with her saying the old blood runs in you as a way to encourage them, to keep them going.

[fionwe1987]

13 minutes ago, IFR said:

I feel bad for Judkin and the cast and crew. Despite my cool reception of the show, they seem like fellow fans. This must be a terrible moment for them, after all that hard work is met with a resounding thud of indifference.

Yeah, they do seem to be genuine fans.

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

I literally told Linda that. "Bastard?! She should have called him a woolhead!"

Another thing... the Manetheren speech. I'd rather they dropped it than have it in, because the thing that for me gave it power -- I still get goosebumps when I reread it, all these years later -- was the specific circumstances of when Moiraine gives it: the Trolloc attack leads to outrage and people blaming her... and she just tells them they sound like a bunch of punks rather than the old blood of Manetheren she had thought she'd find. And then she tells them what she means, and leaves an indelible mark on their memories when Perrin returns to the Two Rivers and people end up flying the Red Eagle again.

That speech had a rhetorical purpose, whereas on the show it's basically fan service.

Agreed. That context gives the tale a lot of power. Moiraine is able to give them a sense of history and purpose, and that gave it power, despite the somewhat cheesy writing. While it was fine in the show as a monologue, it failed to feel relevant and powerful.

Once again, I feel this is a result of the post-Winternight time being completely removed. Having a fresh army come downhill right after was a dumbass call. There should have been time for the aftermath. Rand should have struggled with asking Moiraine to help his dad. The villagers should have been suspicious of Moiraine and tried to run her off. We should have seen Bran defend her, which then sets the stage for Egwene's greater trust of Moiraine. 

And then have Moiraine tell them they have to leave, because they're the targets. That would have worked a whole lot better than the rushed exit from Emond's Field. 

[Ran]

It is very long in the book, it's true. I didn't need a one-to-one translation. The version she did was fine (though I admit the bit about their learning about the Trolloc army when they had just won a battle far away at the Field of Bekkar, and their winged speed as they force marched, would have been nice).

 

It was really just the moment and the stakes. It didn't feel like encouraging them to get going -- we had just seen them already choose to keep following her, and had some montages of their traveling -- but just... I don't know, to pass the time, basically. Like I said, it felt like fan service than something that had actual impact. Hell, Rand's actor even looks distracted by his horse or Perrin's and keeps looking down and to the side, so he's not paying all that much attention. Heh. 

[Corvinus85]

At the same time, though, recall that no one actually died in the Winternight attack in the book. Here it looked like half the village got wiped out. These people were in complete shock, cradling their dead loved ones. I don't think anyone had the energy to try to run off the woman responsible for saving the rest of them. But maybe they could have blamed her for the inn's destruction. 

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

recall that no one actually died in the Winternight attack in the book.

Not true. Thom tells Rand that "some died last night" but that it could have been a lot worse.

[fionwe1987]

2 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

At the same time, though, recall that no one actually died in the Winternight attack in the book. Here it looked like half the village got wiped out. These people were in complete shock, cradling their dead loved ones. I don't think anyone had the energy to try to run off the woman responsible for saving the rest of them. But maybe they could have blamed her for the inn's destruction. 

Well, that was a choice, right, to up the death count? 

That said, I could totally see all the families laying down their dead and mobbing her in anger, wondering why they were attacked, and blaming the most convenient person around they can find. 

[BigFatCoward]

Sounds like it's exactly as bad as the trailer made it look it was going to be.

I'm not going to bother unless you all say it massively improves. 

[polishgenius]

2 hours ago, Centrist Simon Steele said:

(And Terry Brooks' angry, angry reaction when he heard fans hated it, well, that's a story for another day)

Okay now I'm curious, got a link or anything?

[David Selig]

So far it's been mostly what I expected, which wasn't all that much. It's reasonably entertaining and I never felt bored, which is much more than I can say about than many other attempts at being the new fantasy megahit on TV. But it has its fair share of problems and never really rises above a "good work" level. Way too much Hollywoodization. I don't mind changes, even huge ones, if they make internal sense and aren't totally against the spirit of the books, but too many of the ones here are just cliched and don't work out. Despite what Hollywood screenwriters seem to think, a character doesn't need a tragic backstory to be interesting.

My main problem is how little of the books dialogue has been in the show so far. A lot of it is largely inevitable with the plot changes, but quite a few times they could have used lines from the books and chose not to. Which wouldn't have been a problem if the new lines were good, but with few exceptions they really aren't. They are mostly generic Hollywood clumsy explanations, "witty" quips and overdramatic lines. There has been some decent moments in the new dialogue, but most of the it has ranged from mediocre to laughably bad. Which is what expected, really, good dialogue in the fantasy genre is pretty much non-existent on TV.

Visually it looked quite good at times, not so good at others. Actors have been fine mostly, especially given that the material they have had to work with has been largely mediocre.

[fionwe1987]

Controversial take:

 

RJ wrote Eye of the World as an LotR-ish story to ease in readers to his world. In 2021, that easing in is absolutely unnecessary.

 

Could the writers have made a better story by either off-screening a substantial portion of the book? It would definitely be a controversial call, and I don't even know if I have a good sense of the shape of how they'd do this, except as a kind of "recap" that leans into the fact that the beginning of this story is like many tales? 

 

Maybe start with Rand telling the tale to Loial, Egwene and Perrin to Elyas, and take it from there, or something. I'm sure there's a million problems with this, and fans would have absolutely howled in outrage, but in 2021, starting in media res when what came before is a story with very familiar beats, kiiinda makes sense. 

[Ran]

6 minutes ago, David Selig said:

My main problem is how little of the books dialogue has been in the show so far.

Oh, that was a point I was going to make as well. I was genuinely shocked about how little book dialog appeared in the 1st episode, in particular.