Jump to content

The Wheel of Time: The Wheel Weaves as Jeff Bezos Wills (Book Spoilers)


Ran

Recommended Posts

2 minutes ago, El Kabong said:

I was going to respond to the who is the DR talk from last thread then uh, my internet went out for like 3 days.

I do find it funny Rand seems to be the least popular choice despite as others have pointed out the show kind of pointing towards him, I'd argue the show isn't doing so well a job there.

I mean, this is all anecdotal, just my view from friends/people I know who are non book readers, but no one I know has "the boring one with the anakin haircut" as their top guess. :P

Guy I know said "oh, Matt's friend?" When we were discussing the topic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Ran said:

My main reaction was that Min's viewing effect when we glimpse it on Perrin is disappointingly cheap-looking. At least, I assume that's what it's supposed to be.

We saw it briefly and I don't know how I would have depicted it. I will reserve judgement for now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I still wouldn't be surprised if they mix in colours for the weaves over time. I was sure there was a red/orange hue to the weave Egwene used for the fireball at Valda. I'm half expecting the increasing complexity to line up with Egwene and Rand's ability with the power as the justification, but also for introducing the concepts to the audience at a gradual pace.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There were promotional posters with the characters and it had hidden layers. Nyneave's had a halo of power coming from her and I could have sworn there were faint colors in some of the threads. I will have to try and find it.

 

edit: yeah, this thread has it. (click the spoiler area, then click through the photos, it's the third I believe. Obviously it could be artistic license, but there is color.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Babblebauble said:

Guy I know said "oh, Matt's friend?" When we were discussing the topic.

Hahaha see, that's exactly what I mean. Some people I know don't even consider him a candidate. Going to be interesting on the social media when the last ep drops. :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was discussing the somewhat poor production value of WoT with other people the other day and many of us were wondering where the money is going? On another thread on this board, some of us who post here were wowed by the visual effects of the Foundation TV series. Too bad the writing and the acting were atrocious, but visually it was absolutely stunning. Sadly, we can't find official figures regarding its budget.

With a budget of about 10M$ per episode, this first season of WoT has the same budget that the 6th season of GoT had to work with. I spent yesterday afternoon watching various GoT scenes from that season and the production value is way over that of WoT. It had dragons, giants, white walkers, etc. And it looked great.

So how can WoT often look so half-assed as far as visual effects go? The CGI range from piss-poor to so-so and Loial looks like something out of a cheap musical. Acting and writing aside, technically speaking at least, visually WoT should look as good as season 6 of GoT. So why does it look as though GoT had double the budget?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe the shock reveal that it is Rand will work, I dunno. That's the best I can hope for for this plot line. 

If they're clever, I guess they could do mysteries for each season, but try pick better ones, like maybe make a mystery out of who Lanfear is, using the prophesy, and then you have all these new characters like Elayne, Selene, Elaida, Verin ,etc show up, and no one would know who is secretly a Forsaken.

That was a big mystery of the books, but with Mesaana,and much later in the series. And with Lanfear herself, you get it in a watered down fashion in book 4. Bringing that forward, and doing it better than the crappy mess of this season, would be nice.

For isntance, they shouldn't hesitate to eliminate candidates early. Character development shouldn't be the cost of keeping the mystery alive. 

But if that's what they do, this can be a terrible idea. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Maybe the shock reveal that it is Rand will work, I dunno. That's the best I can hope for for this plot line. 

If they're clever, I guess they could do mysteries for each season, but try pick better ones, like maybe make a mystery out of who Lanfear is, using the prophesy, and then you have all these new characters like Elayne, Selene, Elaida, Verin ,etc show up, and no one would know who is secretly a Forsaken.

That was a big mystery of the books, but with Mesaana,and much later in the series. And with Lanfear herself, you get it in a watered down fashion in book 4. Bringing that forward, and doing it better than the crappy mess of this season, would be nice.

For isntance, they shouldn't hesitate to eliminate candidates early. Character development shouldn't be the cost of keeping the mystery alive. 

But if that's what they do, this can be a terrible idea. 

Hopefully the general mystery of who may be a DF will start hanging over the show more profusely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My non-book reader coworker has been really enjoying the show, helped by some vague explanations to help him along without revealing anything. I've refused to talk about the main characters, only history/locations/politics and the like. He is absolutely convinced that leaving Mat guarantees it's indeed Rand. Although he perhaps he has a point when he has said from the get-go that "Of course it's one of you white guys and they just ditched the poor one." and I can't really deny it. Alas I can't tell him that the tall pale with red hair thing is super specific in the books quite yet, and his being half Aiel is vital to the plot. 

I also had casually explained that more Darkfriends would pop up as surprises in later seasons, and he's assumed (correctly) that we have already met a few. He misinterpreted my deferring body language, and now is convinced that Lan is a DF upon figuring out that Moiraine was hiding her emotions. He's quite satisfied with himself that he figured out that Lan is disguising his own right back, and will double cross her and turn heel any day now. It's a pretty delightful theory, and I've managed to refuse to confirm or deny anything else he talks about until the season is over.

He's an older fella and not really an internet person at all, so unless he seeks out spoilers himself, I think he'll continue to merrily come up with his own theories, and I'm here for it. I honestly was pretty much quitting the show myself, but his eagerness to gossip about witches and monsters has kept me going and I'm happy I have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Lord Patrek said:

So how can WoT often look so half-assed as far as visual effects go? The CGI range from piss-poor to so-so and Loial looks like something out of a cheap musical. Acting and writing aside, technically speaking at least, visually WoT should look as good as season 6 of GoT. So why does it look as though GoT had double the budget?

Keep in mind by season 6, most of the GoT's R&D had been done. Sets designed and built, costumes in place, digital models built and refined, etc. Dragons walked before they flew. WoT is jumping out of the (way)gate with trying to catch up.

I agree WoT doesn't have the visual wow factor some shows have, but I wouldn't label it as having poor production values either. I've seen plenty of shows/films with poor production. Netflix is full of them...

The scope of the sets is a big issue. Every set feels small. Even the hallways and streets. Bree feels larger in FotR than Tar Valon at the street level. All street level activity in TV and SL happened within the same 40 ft span of street. Balconies too. (Ok, the escape from SL did give a larger sense of city size). The sweeping vistas of real landscapes does balance the cramped sets a bit, but there is little transition between the two.  

For every design/visual success, something fails. The trolloc design was a surprise in that it wasn't a joke. Loial's design did the opposite. One could argue this is an intentional choice of the production team who fully embraces the yin yang symbolism permeating the text.   

Am I saying I see all 10 million per episode on the screen? No. But it's not Zena either. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Myrddin said:

 Am I saying I see all 10 million per episode on the screen? No. But it's not Zena either. 

I wholeheartedly agree that it's not Xena or any of the multitude of low-budget offerings on Netflix.

Having said that, the question still stands. Rewatch some of the key scenes of GoT season 6 and compare them to the key scenes we've seen thus far on WoT. GoT blows WoT out of the water.

We're trying to figure out where the money goes to account for such a huge difference. Both shows have big casts and shoot in multiple locations. Both shows are epic in scope and vision. And both shows have the same budget per episode. Even if you factor in the inflation, visually WoT shouldn't look this half-assed. The battle with the Trollocs in episode 1 and the Aes Sedai fighting Logain's followers shouldn't have looked this low-budget, and yet their production value was decidedly B-movie-esque.

Pike gets 300,000$ per episode. So where does the rest of the money goes? In an interview regarding Loial, Judkins explained that they don't have the sort of budget that would allow them to have a CGI character. Hence the costume and the make-up. Problem is, you can see better on Canada's Drag Race.

With 10M$ per episode to work with, visually speaking WoT should be much better than it is. Watching those segments from the 6th season of GoT really made it look even worse than it is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the previous thread, Ran partially answered this question with the issue of lighting.

I think this explains a great deal of things. I'll also add my personal gripe about costumes (which are also mentioned in the video posted by Ran), which often seem too clean/new, even when they really shouldn't.

BTW, the two combined magnify each other: clean costumes in bright lighting look really cheap.

So a short answer would be: it's not about the money, but about the fact that some people in charge (of lighting, of costumes, of sets... ) are just... Not that good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/14/2021 at 1:10 PM, Babblebauble said:

Why wouldn't wizards consider it important to be magically powerful? That's the thing that makes them special, makes them wizards. Their literal power. 

The confusion/consternation over this part of Aes Sedai culture is, frankly, revealing. People who think they're special are jealous and superior about being slightly more special than their peers. 

Have you people never had a job before?

I never said it wasn't important , I wouldn't think it is the only deciding factor in who leads. The most powerful may also be the most incompetent leader.

 

The Amyrlin is chosen by the hall. So their leadership is not based just on who is most powerful.

 

You seem quite cynical about any leadership. I have experienced good and bad leaders on jobs and other places.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

So a short answer would be: it's not about the money, but about the fact that some people in charge (of lighting, of costumes, of sets... ) are just... Not that good.

The good part of this is that great improvements are possible between seasons by bringing on the right people, and even significant improvements can come just from the existing people getting more experienced. Shows in general take time to find their feet after all, so I think a lot of complaints around these areas should naturally improve

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, karaddin said:

The good part of this is that great improvements are possible between seasons by bringing on the right people, and even significant improvements can come just from the existing people getting more experienced. Shows in general take time to find their feet after all, so I think a lot of complaints around these areas should naturally improve

No arguments there, but I still hope the show doesn't get cancelled (for lack of success) before it can improve.

I watched the video posted by Ran entirely, and that woman makes a lot of good points. Episode 5 really wasn't good at all, and she manages to point out exactly why.
It made me realize that I've been far more indulgent with the Wheel of Time show than with other shows (like Foundation).
The main reason, I think, is that the WoT books felt a bit cheap and cheesy at times. So I'm not overly surprised to have cheap and cheesy moments in the show. Except... The show could have done much better and eliminated them entirely.

For instance, the Whitecloaks are a joke in the books, ok. But now they're also cartoon villains in the show. Instead of this cruel easily-scared Valda, couldn't they have come up with a truly cunning antagonist? Someone not necessarily gratuitously cruel, just smart and fanatic enough that you can sense the threat he poses?
And what about making the Whitecloaks incapable of dealing with a handful of wolves who, with the lighting, really look like a small bunch of bad dogs? Now they don't even seem able to fight "standard" battles, let alone fight magic-wielders.

One overall problem of the show is really about numbers and scale. There are often too few people (or wolves) in the scenes, and the sets look small (even in Tar Valon).
It's the very opposite of what you'd expect from the big budget adaptation of such a series. And it's a problem, because I find myself uncapable of recommending this show to anyone.

With more work on the technical side of things at least, they could have truly improved the source material. It wasn't even that hard to do. And yet, they screwed up, in a couple of episodes at least. It's not that the show can't recover: this is only the first season after all, and it's not uncommon for the first season of a show to be underwhelming. But they also need to find an audience, and that could be difficult now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well they've definitely got a second season, and the performance with the audience seems sufficient for season 2 to at least be given a proper chance so they'll have that opportunity.

I think rather than holding WoT to a lower standard I just hold most things to a lower standard in an attempt to enjoy them lol. I enjoyed much of Foundation as well and feel I'm happier for that approach.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

51 minutes ago, karaddin said:

The good part of this is that great improvements are possible between seasons by bringing on the right people, and even significant improvements can come just from the existing people getting more experienced. Shows in general take time to find their feet after all, so I think a lot of complaints around these areas should naturally improve

The vast majority of TV series don't have the luxury of having a budget of 10M$ per episode. Usually, they improve when their budget is increased in subsequent season.

With the money involved, WoT should be visually great now. Not in season 3. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

GoT Season 6 had had five seasons of R&D to bed in its approach to effects, locations and sets. It was a relatively smooth-operating machine at that point. Regardless of the money - and the $6 million GoT started with per episode in 2011 was not chicken feed, even back then - you need experience to tie things together. GoT didn't have that until the third and fourth season, Star Trek: The Next Generation didn't have that until its third season, Babylon 5 didn't get on top of those problems until its second (and that was uncommonly fast). The Witcher's first season budget was reasonable but the show's vfx, costumes (especially armour) and some of its prosthetics work (particularly the laughable dwarves) were horseshit. You can see in the promos those elements have been hugely improved for the second season.

Any show requires time for all its components to gel together. You simply can't throw money at problems to make them disappear. Whilst individuals in production were very experienced, they hadn't worked together as a team before and that takes a while to bed in. The show also had a huge problem in being partially filmed and completely edited and run through post during a pandemic, with all of the vfx team and the editors and everyone working remotely. That does slow the rate of feedback and how quickly improvements can be made. 

The current mass production of television also has a problem in that experienced personnel are in short supply. There's a lot of vfx companies, costumiers and other resources which are put to work on big projects without necessarily having a ton of experience, because the sheer volume of production is maxing out the capacity of the industry (just a few weeks ago the Czech government was noting they had a shortage of electricians, set-builders and even movers because their film industry had become so huge it was devouring every spare hand they had). They have to learn on the job.

That's why I suspect even LotR will have some ropey moments in its first season, despite having a budget at least thrice that of WoT.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...