Pretty excited for this series. Its alot to adapt. Fortunately, there is a lot you can leave out and not miss it
Just finished Lord of Chaos. Dumai's Wells is so good. Too bad it will take at least 3 seasons to get there.
One thing the show better do that the book for some reason did not is show the Mat and Couladin showdown
So 15 minutes I and absolutely beautiful. Perrins storyline changes may be tough to reconcile. Married already and not to Faile. That said, she was annoying so as long as I can turn that off maybe it’s for the better.
1st episode was very good, but I think it may have benefitted from a bit more grounding and slow play to get to know them in their lives before things went to shit.
Her dying that way actually plays beautifully into Perrins character motivations down the road. I like it now that she died. When she was alive I was like ew no
I really enjoyed it for what it is and need more asap. My memory is not great so I don’t recall how quickly they broke up or any specifics to the storyline other then the concepts. It is definitely a bit fast from a pacing perspective, but I can understand the need to do that especially since one of the major complaints of the books was how they dragged. Loving it so far.
A little eh on them not using Mordeth in Shadar Logoth but I get it at least Mashadar was highlighted. Not sure how I feel about Thom after his first episode. A different portrayal but I could see it growing on me. Pretty cool highlighting the Aiel already
Oh and one minor gripe. Even though they weren't used in the books outside of book 1 I would have liked to see them use a Dragkhar hunting the Emonds Field 5 from the sky maybe as they were going to Shadar Logoth
Liking it so far. I was wtf at Perrin being married at first too, then realized pretty quick she would die. Casting is phenomenal. Wish I could just binge the whole season.
Just how they filmed it. It just seems off to me, some the action sequences look like they filmed it at a lower speed, then set to to normal in post.
Probably will watch today. Hoping I’m indifferent to the Mat casting since he’s replaced in season 2.
Matt is being replaced by this guy. Looks close enough to me except for the eyes/eyebrows. Dónal Finn
This was the commentary on it. Never heard of this before, but now that I know it I do find it more annoying than I would have. "The main criticism of the move is that Layla's death is a classic case of "fridging," a trope in which a female character is killed specifically to serve as a source of anguish for a male character. Not only does the show engage in a pretty lazy trope, it also feels like a mostly unnecessary deviation from the books, which definitely heightens the scrutiny around this particular plot point."
Some Thoughts from Brandon Sanderson (Episode One) Spoiler Hey, all. I posted this on r/fantasy--then realized I probably should have posted it here. I don't want to act like I'm ignoring you all. I made a note in the actual episode one thread, but then realized with 3k comments nobody would see it. So here is a copy of what I wrote over there. I can't say TOO much about the production--mostly because my involvement (as I say below) is really more of a consultant than anything else. I wasn't there for most of the filming or even most of the brainstorming or writing. But I do have some thoughts that you all might find interesting. This includes spoilers for episode one. ---Original Post-- Haven't watched the final product yet, as I wasn't able to make the premier. Disclosure, I'm one of the producers. My part equated to reading the scripts and offering feedback directly to Rafe, the show runner. I'll be watching tonight, and there are a few details I'm curious to find out about in regards to whether he took my advice or not. Biggest thing he and I disagreed on was Perrin's wife. I realize that there is a good opportunity here for Perrin to be shown with rage issues, and to be afraid of the potential beast inside of him. I liked that idea, but didn't like it being a wife for multiple reasons. First off, it feels a lot like the disposable wife trope (AKA Woman in the Fridge.) Beyond that, I think the trauma of having killed your wife is so huge, the story this is telling can't realistically deal with it in a way that is responsible. Perrin killing his wife then going off on an adventure really bothers me, even still. I have faith that the writers won't treat it lightly, but still. That kind of trauma, dealt with realistically and responsibly, is really difficult for an adventure series to deal with. I suggested instead that he kill Master Luhhhan. As much as I hate to do Luhhan dirty like that, I think the idea Rafe and the team had here is a good one for accelerating Perrin's plot. Accidentally killing your master steps the trauma back a little, but gives the same motivations and hesitance. One thing I don't want this WoT adaptation to try to do is lean into being a tonal Game of Thrones replacement--IE, I don't want to lean into the "Grimdark" ideas. Killing Perrin's wife felt edgy just to be edgy. That said, I really liked a LOT about this first episode. I prefer this method of us not knowing who the Dragon is, and I actually preferred (EDIT: Well, maybe not prefer, but think it's a bold and interesting choice that I understand) this prologue. I thought it was a neat, different take on how to start the WoT. I really liked the introduction to Mat, and in screenplay form, I thought the pacing was solid--fast, catchy, exciting. People are complaining about it, though, so maybe in show form it's too choppy. When I was on set, I liked the practical effects, and what I saw of the acting--so I'm expecting both of those to be great in the finished product. EDIT: For those complaining about Abell Cauthon, I did try to get this one changed too. So at least they heard from one of us, offering complaint, before going to production. I always had a soft spot for him. I didn't expect them to change this, though, with Mat's more gritty backstory. Again, I do wish they had taken a less "grim" feel to all of this, though I do think the details of introducing Mat were interesting and a nice acceleration of his character. Which is a good thing, since the series will need to condense from the books, so moving character beats up in time is going to generally help with that. This team is excellent, I have to say. Episode six is the best--least, I think that's the number of the one I'm thinking about--so be on the lookout for it. But they have real respect for the story, and are good writers. This is an enormously difficult project to undertake, and I'm quite impressed by Rafe and everyone involved.
Hard to tell but it looked like they made that Aiel that was laying on the ground really tall. I hope they stay to true to that with casting or special effects. Give me my giant polyamorous desert ginger ninjas
Some Thoughts from Brandon (Episode Two) Spoiler The title is a little bit of a lie. Because I'm going to do more Episode One first. I finally saw the finished product tonight--on the big screen, in 4k, with an atmos sound system. :) I knew that some of my larger suggestions had been adopted, but I was thrilled to see some of the smaller things I'd wanted also got adopted. As an example of some of the things I've been saying: I really leaned hard into the idea that Lan needed to protect Moiraine more in the fighting. And there it was--him stopping trolloc after trolloc from reaching her. I even suggested that he dive over her to protect her from the collapsing building...and lo and behold, that exact moment was added to the finished product. It instantly became my second favorite scene of the episode. (Tam with the sword was my favorite.) I have to admit, the Perrin-kills-his-wife scene turned out really well. The acting was solid, the way the shot was composed, and the gut punch (gut axe?) was solidly delivered to the audience. People in my showing gasped. So while I am still on the side of "this would have worked better with Master Luhhan," I can't really complain about how well the scene worked. And I did ask Rafe to make sure he at least played up the berzerker angle of Perrin here, and I was glad to see that working. So, on to Episode Two. This one had more changes between draft and finished product than Episode One had, but Rafe had warned me it would be. I can talk a little about the behind the scenes here, relating to things I had a hand in. But I won't go into detail. Just as I prefer my beta readers not cut and paste quotes from early drafts for the public, I am not going to spend a lot of time on details of what was changed between drafts of these screenplays, particularly if I didn't have a hand in it. I don't think it's my place; this isn't my writing, but of the WoT television team. Much of this isn't my content to share, and I want to respect their ownership of their storytelling. If scripts ever do get released officially, then perhaps I can say more there. For now, I really just want to give personal reactions and talk about things that I specifically wanted to see in this episode, and how they panned out. One thing I'd requested was more time with the characters, and I was very happy to see that. I really enjoyed the visuals in Shadar Logoth, and the moment between Rand and Egwene looking out was probably my favorite moment in this particular episode. My most relevant lore contribution here probably involved pointing out some Three Oaths issues, and having Rafe go talk to Team Jordan to sort them out. Those are tricky to navigate. For example, it's all right to have a whirlpool made by Moiraine suck down the ferry after Hightower jumped in and swam to it, particularly if she has stopped channeling. It's not okay, though, for her to sink that ferry with lightning while he's on it--even if he's bringing it toward the trollocs, which will put her in danger. To a lot of writers, those two things would seem very similar, but I'm hyper-sensitive to the three oaths after my tenure on the books. The solution Rafe and I hashed out after he'd talked to Maria works well enough, I think. (Sorry to any Hightower fans for his fate. Are there Hightower fans? I mean, there are fans of everything, so I assume so.) Most everything I did in this one was small tweaks like this. Some Lan characterization requests (which were taken) and some tweaks to the Whitecloak encounter. (Which were also taken.) Most if it is small, subtle tone sorts of things. And a few larger requests that he was already planning to change anyway, so I won't go into them here. Though, comparing the screenplay to the finished product, they listened to me a lot on this episode. I hope I didn't overwhelm them. By the time I had reached this episode in my reading, I'd already cemented in my mind my personal canon that this is a completely different turning of the wheel from the books. That helped me focus on helping the story be the best version of what Rafe wanted to make, rather than fixating on whether each scene should be replaced with one more directly from the books. (Though...I still tend to do a lot of requesting scenes be nudged closer to book ones in my feedback, even if I know that isn't the way this adaptation needs to happen. Someone has to look out for you guys. Note that if you are curious WHY this adaptation isn't quite as "straight from the books" as you might like, I go into it here and here.) p.s. I read some people complaining about effects. I thought they ranged from fine to great. Those trollocs are really wonderful. In fact, I had lunch with some of them when I visited the Two Rivers two years back, and they were perfectly pleasant to me. Don't know why they were so interested in killing everyone in this episode. Maybe craft services ran out of donuts.
So I figured we are about 20 chapters into book 1. Most of the changes are significant, but are mostly based around the decision to keep the Dragon a secret. edit: pretty much what Sanderson said above, but I also like his explanation of this being the wheel played out in a different time than the books. Seems a bit of an excuse but I will go with it.
No. The way everything transpired and everyone was together and got separated occurred very differently in the books. Nynaeve tracked all of them to the Stag and Lion in the books. Thom and Min were also there and it was prior to Shadar Logoth. There was a similar scene between her and Lan where he was confused and impressed by her ability to do so.
Yes, I kind of glossed over, that but that made no sense. There is zero place for females who can channel. There is no grey area.
So nobody else here was like wtf? I didn't expect Adaptation to mean complete rewrite of all dialogue.
I wasted all my anger on GoT, I just watched this without any expectations as I had no anger left to give. Also it’s been years since I read WoT so some of the changes I probably didn’t even catch.
Did you read Sanderson's explanation? When you look at it through that lens it is easy to understand. Whether they execute it or not is an entirely other story, but they definitely need time unless the objective benchmark criteria is doing it exactly the same. If they tried to do that we would still be in Emund's Field and this show would end in the year 2092.
My take is that if you changed all the proper nouns and set me down in front of this series I don't know how long it would take me to realise that this story is wheel of Time adjacent? I've read the growing series probably 30 times over the years. When I gave up I hadn't heard a single line seque that I knew. With GoT I was disappointed but WoT is my heart.
Yeah when you know it that well it’s hard to reconcile the changes. If it makes you feel better there was likely nothing they could do to make a show to your liking. I tried on two separate occasions to watch the old Stand miniseries and quit because they butchered it so bad
I just don't see how they could have ever lived up to that expectation. I am glad that I tucked that away, because I can find enjoyment in it as a new but familiar story.
Could never of been perfect but I was cautiously optimistic. Didn't see a complete reimagining coming.