[Tsundoku]

Ep 6

Well, semi-titillating and a bit more ... revealing (?) than RJ was in the books.

That episode was odd. To me - in TV pacing terms - it was both slow and quick.
There's a lot of getting from point A to point F very quickly, but I guess I'll understand when you're dealing with a bajillion pages of source material.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Episode 6 was pretty good.

SFX - magic was very good, but rotating aerials / overhead views of sets continue to look a little too obviously unreal.

Acting - for the most part good, though the

Spoiler

Amyrlin Seat actor

rapidly mumbled a couple of her lines, and Pike was doing very well until she went a little overboard with the face acting to the point of distracting and detracting from the poignancy of the moment.

Plot and pacing - good, a huge improvement over what little I remember of RJ.

Dialogue wasn't amazing, but wasn't bad. Wonder how of it isn't in the books. Probably most of the better parts....

Read two risibly bad, troll-ish takes by professional reviewers.

Progressive: WoT isn't the new GoT, it's better! Because there's no

Spoiler

sexual violence

(guess they hadn't read about the

Spoiler

spankings?

, no explicit

Spoiler

sex scenes

, cast is more diverse, better lighting. Clearly that means it's a better series. Granted, there's a secondary argument that WoT relies less on shock value and titillation (not sure exactly how true that is---more like it's toned down a bit, more of the modern YA style).

Conservative: believed he'd like WoT because he thought RJ was a macho man (because he read he was a decorated Vietnam war veteran who later worked for the military as a nuclear engineer). Was appalled by New Age-y feminism. Claims most of the actors suck compared to GoT because they're diversity hires, only good actor was the one who got fired for racism. Oh, and complained that their names are too hard to pronounce (xenophobic/racist dog whistle from a probable Brexiteer).

[Cause]

Tiste!!! Don’t read this

Don’t read this if you haven’t read the books

Spoilers


Spoilers

Spoiler

I remember reading mat was gonna be recast and just assumed another sexual harassment problem or something. Apparently the reason is not know. However he doesn’t enter the ways at the end of episode six and apparently this wasn’t a plot choice but he had already quit been fired by this point? If so wow! That’s gonna be a hard problem to fix story wise.


I remember commenting to a friend who asked me about the wot books and about the show that the book would be hard to adapt today. Jordan may not meant it, but the book kinda says women can touch saidin and men can touch saidar and there are two genders and they are different and they matter and the battle between them is a major plot point. In the trailer they have the line the dragon can be one of the five of you. In the books there was never any doubt at all that the dragon had to be a man. It’s kinda the whole point. It’s the only deviation I think that is a significant departure from the the theme of the books as opposed to a change to make the story easier to understand. Quicker paced etc.

The tainting of the male half, the battle of the sexes, the imbalance that only women have been able to channel safely for thousands of years is a huge deal.

Even when belthamel is body swapped into a women, he remains a male channeler.

[Tiste Simeon]

I really want to read what you've written!

Anyway, episode 6:

Spoiler

I really loved seeing the inner workings of the Aes Sedai and the relationship between Moiraine and the Amblin Seat (sp??)
Mat is a douche. Why is he still being a moody git and ditching everyone?

Both Mrs Tiste and I love the ogre guy, very happy he's now with the group!

[Morgoth]

I've continued watching this, alas without Laura as she fell off fairly quickly. It's improved I agree, I enjoyed the fourth episode. I still struggle with the mediocre cgi though, and the camera work is just so weak. Compare it to anything else we've watched recently; Midnight Mass, Cowboy Bebop, Fleabag, and it just doesn't hold up at all. Not to mention that a lot of the locations feels very much like sets, not lived in places.

Is the answer that this is a fairly low budget show? I assumed it was one of Amazon's big things, but I guess I don't actually know.

[worry]

Season 1 is 8 episodes and cost reportedly $80 million to make, so not very low budget at all.
In that light, I think the magic looks (generally) horrible. The trollocs look great in closeup or at a standstill, and look pretty bad when they're running, especially when there are a bunch on screen. It's like they're skipping frames of animation.

Somewhere in New Zealand there's a sheep stuffed with about $30 million.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Morgoth, on 13 December 2021 - 07:10 AM, said:

I've continued watching this, alas without Laura as she fell off fairly quickly. It's improved I agree, I enjoyed the fourth episode. I still struggle with the mediocre cgi though, and the camera work is just so weak. Compare it to anything else we've watched recently; Midnight Mass, Cowboy Bebop, Fleabag, and it just doesn't hold up at all. Not to mention that a lot of the locations feels very much like sets, not lived in places.

Is the answer that this is a fairly low budget show? I assumed it was one of Amazon's big things, but I guess I don't actually know.

I've been reading around a bit and the budget was supposedly in the region of £80million for the full series. People have been reading that and going "£10million an episode and the CGI looks like that?" which I doubt is how the budget is split. Rafe Judkins did a Reddit AMA and made the point that

Spoiler

Caemlyn

has been pushed into series 2 because of the budget on locations and they already had three big locations to do (the biggest I assume being Tar Valon).

I would hope it gets a bit more to play with going forwards.

I liked episode 6. Not as much as 4 or 5, though seeing the inner workings of the Tower was fun. Nice confirmation of what Jordan was clearly hinting at but couldn't explicitly put in the book in the 90s with Moiraine and Siuan's relationship.

I suspect

Spoiler

Mat's not going through the Waygate marks the point the actor departed. The reaction shot of him standing there looked out of sync and cut together - but I can't really blame the show for that. It's a scenario they have to make work as best they can. I wonder if the way forward will be Moiraine couldn't completely sever him from the dagger alone and so he'll be healed as per the books and wake up as the new actor. There's no easy way to do the transition but that makes the most sense to me.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 13 December 2021 - 08:37 AM

[Macros]

Any word on what actually happened with the actor?

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

No, nothing has been said other than multiple comments about how pleased they were with his performance, so nothing to do with his acting. I saw something saying he'd deleted all of his social media presence at the time as well. Hope he's alright.

[Chance]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 13 December 2021 - 08:36 AM, said:

Rafe Judkins did a Reddit AMA and made the point that

Spoiler

Caemlyn

has been pushed into series 2 because of the budget on locations and they already had three big locations to do (the biggest I assume being Tar Valon).

Am I the only one who thinks the reverse would have been a better decision no Tar Valon and some

Spoiler

Caemlyn and meeting what at least 5 crucial minor and greater characters rather than some pointless Aes Sedai stuff.

But I might be getting a bit disillusioned with the series, it has its moments but it is only in the vaguest of ways WoT.

This post has been edited by Chance: 13 December 2021 - 11:03 AM

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Each to their own, I think. I like the shift up of the Aes Sedai and the Tower - I don't think we got any of it until the third book, which always felt late to me.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 13 December 2021 - 12:18 PM

[Macros]

I always considered WoT massively bloated with minor characters and descriptive passages, so chopping a lot of that would have improved the books immeasurably, losing it for an adaptation on TV is (in my mind) not a bad thing at all.

[Cause]

I don’t think it’s a problem having the Caemlyn meet up become the tar ballon meet up. However they should have I think had 2 important side characters show up in some way in tar halon too then.

Spoiler

namely Min and Elayne. Elayne could have easily been introduced to Rand as as an accepted. He could find out later she is a princess. In the books he did meet her after all while trying to get a peek at loghain anyway.

Min similarly was met in a almost random town, but was sent to tar ballon by moraine for her safety. Easy enough to just have her already there to meet Rand. However I guess the focus on Rand by introducing both would give the game away maybe.

Also am I remembering right that mat is only healed during the great hunt? He isn’t with Rand and Perrin. It’s also part of his story that he most of all is frightened away from Rand when he is revealed to be the dragon.

[Cause]

I don’t think it’s a problem having the Caemlyn meet up become the tar ballon meet up. However they should have I think had 2 important side characters show up in some way in tar halon too then.

Spoiler

namely Min and Elayne. Elayne could have easily been introduced to Rand as as an accepted. He could find out later she is a princess. In the books he did meet her after all while trying to get a peek at loghain anyway.

Min similarly was met in a almost random town, but was sent to tar ballon by moraine for her safety. Easy enough to just have her already there to meet Rand. However I guess the focus on Rand by introducing both would give the game away maybe.

Also am I remembering right that mat is only healed during the great hunt? He isn’t with Rand and Perrin. It’s also part of his story that he most of all is frightened away from Rand when he is revealed to be the dragon.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 13 December 2021 - 08:36 AM, said:

I liked episode 6. Not as much as 4 or 5, though seeing the inner workings of the Tower was fun. Nice confirmation of what Jordan was clearly hinting at but couldn't explicitly put in the book in the 90s with Moiraine and Siuan's relationship.

Did seem like one of the best lines might have been inspired by Fleabag.

Spoiler

'Kneel.'

Much better allusion than 'bend the knee'....

Context of course transforms it.

[Slow Ben]

Finally caught up. It’s pretty good. Definitely enjoying it enough to keep watching.

It’s fun watching it with the old lady who has no idea about the source material.

“WHICH ONE IS THE DEAGON?!”

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Slow Ben, on 13 December 2021 - 07:00 PM, said:

Finally caught up. It's pretty good. Definitely enjoying it enough to keep watching.

It's fun watching it with the old lady who has no idea about the source material.

"WHICH ONE IS THE DEAGON?!"

While I remember almost nothing from the books I read as a child, I do remember---possibly just from blurbs read later in life?---who the dragon is. But as with GoT they could change it for the show---much bigger change, but still... much more room for improvement too.

If they don't,

Spoiler

show watchers will be disappointed.

I'm holding out hope for a change....

Really it's silly that I'm thinking so much about this series when there are so many better fantasy novels just waiting to be made into better TV series than this.

[Cause]

That’s too much change. It would break so much story.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Cause, on 13 December 2021 - 09:35 PM, said:

That's too much change. It would break so much story.

What if

Spoiler

they went with the option they've already suggested of making multiple people the dragon reborn? One soul in multiple bodies. Then I'd guess plot points they want to keep could be kept.

Though rewriting much of the story seems like a major positive to me....

Wonder if they'll reveal it by the end of season one. Might examine how popular the series is and consider how much of that is fans of the books. If the answer seems to be only a tiny percentage, they might be more willing to take liberties for the sake of a better show....

Hopefully if this series continues to succeed it will lead to more high fantasy tv series getting funded....

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 14 December 2021 - 01:22 AM

[Tiste Simeon]

Azath Vitr (D, on 14 December 2021 - 01:22 AM, said:

Cause, on 13 December 2021 - 09:35 PM, said:

That's too much change. It would break so much story.

What if

Spoiler

they went with the option they've already suggested of making multiple people the dragon reborn? One soul in multiple bodies. Then I'd guess plot points they want to keep could be kept.

Though rewriting much of the story seems like a major positive to me....

Wonder if they'll reveal it by the end of season one. Might examine how popular the series is and consider how much of that is fans of the books. If the answer seems to be only a tiny percentage, they might be more willing to take liberties for the sake of a better show....

Hopefully if this series continues to succeed it will lead to more high fantasy tv series getting funded....

Re: your spoilered bit, that's the theory myself and my wife think might happen. As I've already mentioned neither of us have read any of it so we're thinking that because

Spoiler

all 5 of them (Rand as the exception?) are showing some form of power, they're all going to be the dragon reborn.