[Chance]

QuickTidal, on 24 August 2022 - 12:06 PM, said:

Well I'm halfway through the season now and I still love it intensely. I have nothing to complain about. So maybe I'm just built different?

Will be interesting to see what you think after all 8, if I remember it right it was the last episode which really solified my opinion.

[QuickTidal]

How has no one posted this look at S2 yet?!



The Aiel look dope!

[worry]

Wow can't wait to go on imdb.com and list all the boom mics from that in the Goofs section.

[QuickTidal]

I'm freshly discovering how CRUSTY WOT fans are about this show on reddit...like at least 75% of them are complaining about it, and most of those complaints seem to come down to "adaptation" choices...

But fuck me, it reinforces how much fandoms as a group, fucking SUCK when they dog pile like that.

The wider audience of casuals of WOT seem to like it for the most part...so the contrast between them and the die hards who think that adaptations should be more slavish to the books...is high.

....know what happens when the film/TV medium copies a book exactly how it is written? You end up with completely stilted and batshit boring movies like Smilla's Sense of Snow...Adaptation exists for a reason when you cross mediums like this.

What amused me more is that some people on that WOT show sub were praising SANDMAN as the "right" way to adapt a written story to a TV show...and I laughed because it shows you how insular fandoms tend to be....because a large part of the SANDMAN fandom HATES the Netflix show too....LOL

All fandoms suck, and it's best to avoid them apparently.

[Tiste Simeon]

Agreed. I for one would never go on a website devoted to my favourite series of books - Malazan Book of the Fallen - and talk with like-minded fans there. Toxic!

[QuickTidal]

Also, I'd like to talk about one of the things that stood out to me as exceptional early on....the Emond Fielder's (or is it just Two Rivers people now?) reaction to the Trolloc attack and the Fade....are SUPER genuine. Egwene especially seems taken SO aback. These are things out of legend that no one in their lifetimes has seen, and they all react perfectly to that fact. It just felt really real. Even Rand and Tam encountering the one in their home....Rand is on the backfoot because "What the fuck is this thing?!".....and Tam is just clear, concise and inexorable resolve as he pulls out the Heron blade, as are Lan and Moiraine.

[QuickTidal]

Tiste Simeon, on 24 August 2022 - 02:28 PM, said:

Agreed. I for one would never go on a website devoted to my favourite series of books - Malazan Book of the Fallen - and talk with like-minded fans there. Toxic!

Well, we are people of culture here, so this trap would never befall us!

[Cause]

QuickTidal, have you finished yet. I anticipate this continuing more than I do season 2

[worry]

I didn't looove this show, but I mostly agree with you, QT. It's good! Rave away.

In terms of toxic fandoms, all I gotta say is this board should wear a warning, it's dangerous...I'm falling.

[Slow Ben]

I didn’t care about the adaptation, I just thought it was average overall. Storytelling and pacing were below meh.

But I’ll watch season 2.


Glad you’re enjoying it QT.

[QuickTidal]

I'm watching with my wife (who is enjoying it a LOT....like if you'd told me 14 years ago that the girl I'd just met would one day be into the Wheel of damned Time, I'd have called you a lying liar who lies...but here we are...LOL) so I have to go at the pace that we are able to at night after the kids go to bed, so usually a single episode...but I expect we'll be caught up by next week.

[Briar King]

Chance, on 24 August 2022 - 12:12 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 24 August 2022 - 12:06 PM, said:

Well I'm halfway through the season now and I still love it intensely. I have nothing to complain about. So maybe I'm just built different?

Will be interesting to see what you think after all 8, if I remember it right it was the last episode which really solified my opinion.

It’s the episode that broke me.

[QuickTidal]

You guys all know that Episode 8 was the way it was because COVID screwed production out of what they had planned and they had to roll with those punches to make it work, right? I'm not there yet, but I know going in that it's going to be a hinky ending to the season for reasons beyond productions control, and hopefully S2 shooting went much more smoothly.

[QuickTidal]

Tsundoku, on 04 December 2021 - 01:47 PM, said:

Ep 5

Spoiler

Loial is ... a little short for an Ogier. Surely they could have AT LEAST used the perspective tricks of LOTR? And that hair is ... wtf?

Spoiler

I have a feeling that in future scenes when Loial does IMPRESSIVE shit with strength, it's going to look even cooler that he's not Hulk-sized.

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 04 December 2021 - 05:56 PM, said:

Ep 5 was excellent

Spoiler

I have experienced the suicide of someone I knew, and the whole build up and inevitable ending with Stepin, and his dealings with Lan and Nynaeve through the episode, were spot on and evoked a whole lot of stuff I remember. The way he seems to be doing better and thinking about accepting Alanna's offer right before he kills himself, the way he makes it quite clear to Nynaeve he doesn't want to use the tea to sleep himself. Their conversation about grief felt very real and poignant too. Brilliant actor for the part.

Indeed. I read some people complained about this episode as a sort of side-journey that felt pointless, but I'm the opposite as I feel it did a TONNE of heavy lifting for the world building and the series as a whole. It gave my non-book reading wife a lot more info than she might have otherwise had.

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 04 December 2021 - 05:56 PM, said:

Spoiler

Read something suggesting that the funeral scene at the end of the episode and Lan's part of it borrows from a Korean funereal tradition where someone is nominated chief mourner and there are days of mourning where the "ritual wailing" happens each morning. The looks passing between Lan and Moiraine were so beautifully acted by Daniel Henney and Rosamund Pike.

Yes, and this would make tonnes of sense since Daniel Henny is half Korean on his moms side. A nice real world allegory that fit well.

Renewed For 2 More Seasons, on 05 December 2021 - 03:25 AM, said:

Re: Rand, I'm not finding the show version of him whiny at all. In fact, he's among the most easy going characters in the whole thing so far. Waaaaaaay scaled back from the books. Mat remains the biggest wiener in the books and the show, but the show version is still a lot better, and I agree the actor is nailing it.

Agreed. Hard agree. In the books Rand can be hard to take at times, but here he's very easy to take.

Imperial Historian, on 05 December 2021 - 09:22 PM, said:

Spoiler

padan fain is the peddlar from episode 1 who took stolen goods off Matt in exchange for a lantern, he plays a significant role in the books and has appeared in the background in several scenes across the season, I spotted him briefly in Shadar logoth and tar valon, don't know if anyone else saw him in the other episodes

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 06 December 2021 - 08:39 AM, said:

On Padan Fain

Spoiler

You can hear him whistle in Shadar Logoth but I don't think he appears on screen (I only caught it second time round)

In Tar Valon he's there twice - I think as the boys head to the Inn, and then he's sitting on a bench during the parade laughing to himself before leaving the scene.

Not sure if he's popped up elsewhere, apparently the tell is usually the whistling.

This is BRILLIANT. This MAY be the best thing they've done in the series so far. The ever presence of him in such subtle ways is such a genius thing for the show to do as a shorthand for the character and those around him in the books and how infiltrated everything already is.

EmperorMagus, on 10 December 2021 - 11:27 PM, said:

(BK), on 10 December 2021 - 11:00 PM, said:

Ep 6

Spoiler

nah Mat definitely has to step in last moment. Really don’t want a changed Horn blower. Though nothing says that the Horn must be in the Eye in show like Jordan Prime.

Was that male Accepted? Please no.

Spoiler

they were forced to do what they did with Mat because the actor refused to come back for eps 7 & 8 after lockdown.

I know that there have been other speculations on why Harris left (up to and including conflict between Harris and Rafe)...but I feel like the easiest answer to him leaving and deleting his social media right around the COVID lockdowns all points at him being an anti-vaxxer. I can't think of any other reason for him to leave when he did once filming had finally resumed for eps 7 and 8, nor the fact that he's not returned to Social Media since then...nor the fact that he's not worked in the industry since March 2020 at all. In which case, no matter how good he was at playing Mat (and he WAS good)...good riddance.

I look forward to what Donal Finn brings to the role (and amusingly, he looks the part as much as Barney did).

Anyways, wife and I finished up Episode 7 last night. Was great, and the funny thing is that all the way through the reveal of who the DR was, she was still guessing and not until they turned up at Moiraine's door did she guess it. So the writers did an exceptional job of fooling the non-book readers.

I still love the show BTW to all wondering, and knowing that I'm in for some vast and plot shenanigans due to COVID for Episode 8, I'm prepared for any changes.

I do know one change is not what it seems.

Spoiler

Loial doesn't die as it seems he does, and he will be back for S2.

Wife loves it and is riveted to each episode. She has a crush on Daniel Henney, and I mean...who doesn't?

EDIT:

Adding in another Episode 7/8 COVID/Harris leaving shennanigans factoid from the producers:

They were going shoot on Location in La Gomera (Canary Islands) as The Blight, but COVID restrictions, and Barney leaving forced them onto the backfoot and they had to not only furiously rewrite the ending of S1, but had to shoot on a soundstage AND create the blight in CGI instead....

Here's what the Blight WOULD have looked like if they'd not been fucked by COVID.

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This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 31 August 2022 - 01:55 PM

[QuickTidal]

Okay done episode 8.

I don't get the upset frankly, and I think I largely fall in line with TRB on how I feel after finishing it. I had a few issues, but nothing insurmountable, and as the adaptation of the weakest book in the series, it was damned good for the most part.

Also, the fact that people noped out of the series at ep 8 after enjoying eps 1-7 is strange to me. One episode in a single season kills the entire thing for you? Okay...

anyways spoilers for the ep

Spoiler

The most standout thing to me other than Harris missing from Eps 7 and 8 is Moiraine's hair. In Eps 1-6 they put her in a clear dark wig (her hair is naturally blonde), but in Eps 7 and 8 it's clear she's dyed her real hair to Moiraine's brown (I would expect this is due to the fact that in 2021 they were going to shoot S2 so she knew she was in for the long haul.) I liked this better than the wig.

Let's get the hinky COVID-based shenanigans out of the way first. Harris missing means that most of his stuff went to Perrin...which only SORT of works since Perrin is doing a little double duty. The Blight CGI isn't terrible, but it's very clear that if they'd gone on location to La Gomera it would have looked more naturally occurring and practical, and there are plenty of ruins they could have used as stand-in for the Eye itself. So yeah you can tell it's all soundstage work, but it's not terrible.

The same goes for the channellers facing down the Trollocs, you can tell it's a soundstage, but it's not awful or anything...just a bit wiggy and it didn't deter my enjoyment.

Did it feel a bit rushed? Yes, but again I expect that had more to do with scrambled rewrites after Harris left more than anything else.

I agree with TRB that it felt more like a mid-series finale than a season finale, and when my wife was like "Isn't that the Dark One?" and I'm like "No, I think that's one of the Forsaken named Ishamael" the Amazon Prime Screen Pause lied and called him the Dark One...but yes the show runners and Sanderson comfier that this was done to lead viewers away from who he is due to the fact that not much has been said in S1 about the Forsaken and they felt it would confuse them I think? But yes, Fares Fares plays Ishamael/Ba’alzamon.

I have zero issues with the women defeating the Trolloc army, since having Rand do EVERYTHING in the end of the book is over the top, and having the Channelers take them out works a LOT better than that did.

Losing Amalisa and Agelmar is interesting....unless we've not really lost them yet....I'd be interested to see what happens to their storylines in S2.

I know we haven't lost Loial [he was confirmed as not dead by Rafe], and Uno appears in the teaser for S2 so he's not dead either.

Moiraine being cut off from the source? Not a problem and I agree with others that it will get fixed going forward not long into S2....but it's certainly not some dealbreaker problem.

Moiraine sending the Reds after Mat is an interesting choice, as is the composite from an earlier episode of Harris standing in Shadar Logoth again...

Overall it was a decent episode, if not the best, and while it was a weak finale, as I said earlier it's the season that covers the weakest of the books and MOST of the season was excellent.

Do I feel like the show would benefit from 10 eps VS 8? Probably. Will it be good with 8? For now.

Also, as to the changes people know that both Sanderson and Rafe said this is "another" turn of the Wheel right?

EDIT: Oh, and the Seanchan scene was fine. Who the fuck cares what they sent that Wave at? Also, the little girl on the beach is not in the wilderness, she obviously comes from a village or community set up on Falme/Toman Head and THAT is what will be wiped out by the wave. Complaining about anything else about them is weird. Expecting them to be Asian with Texas accents as Jordan seemed to indicate is very likely not going to happen. All the various provinces (Are they provinces, or countries?) have diverse populations, and I expect the Seanchan to be the same. They felt otherworldly, and that's enough for me.

Bring on S2!

TL;DR: I enjoyed it, and am very much looking forward to S2

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 01 September 2022 - 12:46 PM

[QuickTidal]

Re-watching this and enjoying it even more on the rewatch. SOOOOO many tiny details.

[the broken]

WOT is an interesting one. A lot of the adaptation choices are pragmatic, cutting Baerlon and Caemlyn makes sense just to cut down on the budget and so on, but you have other ones like

Spoiler

Fisherman sending his very young daughter from Tear to Tar Valon on a fishing boat alone, a trip of like 1200 miles or Moiraine being made to swear a personal oath of loyalty on the Oath Rod, something that should make the Hall depose Siuan on the spot for even trying to pull that.

[QuickTidal]

An AMA with Rafe from JordanCon, with many actor intros and other stuff. Enjoy!

[RealGatekeeper1]

I feel like the costume designer from this show recently got fired by Nickleback.

[QuickTidal]

SEPTEMBER 1st baby! FINALLY! Season 2!

A deeply blue book-accurate outfit for Moiraine? NOICE!

Oh and Donal Logue is going to be one of those people who many viewers simply don't realize isn't Barney Harris...he looks a lot like him, and still looks like a perfect Mat.

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This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 24 May 2023 - 02:20 PM