I never read the books.
So far I am unimpressed.

quote:

Originally posted by nukeandpave:
I never read the books.
So far I am unimpressed.

Ditto

Having read the books, I can say that I like what they are doing with the world. I will definately give it the full season.

I will give it a try. Pike is usually good.

quote:

Originally posted by Jester814:
I guess that without having read the books, the series would be OK.

I think the biggest issue(s) is/are not the the changes themselves, but the fact that almost all of the changes were completely unnecessary.

I like the grim and serious tone, but am left scratching my head as to why they changed things around so unnecessarily.

So let's discuss this. I will use Perrin as an example:

In the books, Perrin was all angsted up about the warrior/smith thing. It was, sort of, clear because Perrin did a lot of thinking about it. THIS DOES NOT MAKE FOR GOOD TV! So they short-cutted it, making Perrin married and ****** SPOILER ALERT ******* accidently killing her with an axe. Now he has angst that all can see!

There was NO WAY that there was going to be a perfect recreation of books to the screen, so they did their best.

And the whole wokeness - to be clear, the Dragon, a male, broke the world. Aes Sedai, both sexes, fucked it before hand and after, but the Dragon broke it.

The first scene was with the Red Ajah, the men hating/hunting ones. And something that will be revealed later.

I'm amazed they are getting it as close as they have been.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Loswsmith,

Read the series and I’m disappointed in the casting but I’ll watch it no matter what.
If they do a decent job, it could run for years.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ss9961,

Some Spoilers Ahead

Hollywood, its producers and directors never seem to grasp that a book is popular not because of Hollywood’s vision but the original author’s vision. And inevitably, when Hollywood starts changing things up, they blow it. Right now, we have three major movie/series based on three of the most famous and popular Sci/fi & fantasy works ever - Dune, Foundation, and Wheel of Time.

Not surprisingly, Dune which is the most true to Herbert’s vision, is pretty good. The Foundation, is so far from Asimov’s vision it is not recognizable. And not surprisingly, it is absolutely horrible. The Wheel of Time (WOT) is in the middle but closer to the Foundation than Dune and is really not that good.

Also forgotten by the directors is that the Wheel of Time is as much a coming of age story for Matt, Perrin, Rand and Egwene as it is their journey to save the world. Unfortunately, rather than casting these four as 17-20 year olds (which I believe is their age in the books), the producers cast them as adults that come across as in their late 20’s to early 30s. In real life, these four might be close to their characters ages from the books, but they come across as very hardened and experienced.

As for Egwene, she has to be the worst cast character. Simply put, this actor doesn’t even come remotely close to Jordan’s vision. I can see her as Aes Sedai (red or brown) but as the “belle of the ball” coming of age from a small village, who is destined for greatness as she grows up and mature? Nope. Nada. Not even close.

Having Perrin married and Mat as a thief were almost as bad of choices. That being said, take the actor portraying Perrin and skip ahead a few years to the Last Battle and he would be how a mature Perrin would look and act.

The vision for Tam was also a huge mistake. Why or how they thought taking a quiet man who is still in love with his deceased wife and turn him into a womanizing drunk (OK not quite a drunk) was stupid.

Moiraine, Nynaeve, and Lan, while not as I visioned them, are OK, not distracting and characters I’m starting to like. In contrast, Egwene and Mat had me constantly wondering what and who they were. That the producers and directors thought these two were great casting choices speaks more for how poorly written the adaption is than anything else.

All in all, we will see a Dune 2 and it will be quite good. I think Apple TV and Amazon have to much invested to give up on Foundation and WOT in one year. But, I seriously doubt we will see a third year unless there are drastic and immediate changes. And, unfortunately, based upon Hollywood’s poor casting and adaptions, it will be decades if ever before another director tries to take these works on again.

Based upon what I have seen recently, I am worried that the prequel to LOTR is going to be as bad as Foundation or WOT. The saying that “A movie is never as good as a book” must have have seen WOT and Foundation.

I've read the books and am disappointed so far. They really fucked up the characters. They are nowhere near the same people as in the books. I also feel like I'm watching Hamilton. While it doesn't really matter for the story line, there is a hell of a lot of diversity for a small, middle-ages type village. It's just not very sensible.

They did a much better job on The Expanse.

They had to make the characters older so they could add more sex scenes. It’s easier than writing a better adaptation.

I had unrealistic expectations of seeing the books on screen. I will check back later and try to get through the first episode.

I watched a couple of episodes. I haven't read the books, so I don't care one bit about how the show changed anything.

But the show is fair to middling. I will probably watch one or two more as a test, but I am on the fence as to whether it is worth watching for an extended series. The script is not that great, and the acting is middle of the road. That may be Pike's real accent, but it sounds pretentious and put on.

quote:

Originally posted by ss9961:
*****Spoiler*********
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Loswsmith, you should consider editing your last post to remove the black ajah part.
Anyone who is watching the show and has seen all the released episodes should be able to read through all of the posts and would likely ignore spoiler alerts.
The black ajah members may not be revealed for a 2 or 3 seasons. We don’t know.

Fair. Done.

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
I've read the books and am disappointed so far. They really fucked up the characters. They are nowhere near the same people as in the books. I also feel like I'm watching Hamilton. While it doesn't really matter for the story line, there is a hell of a lot of diversity for a small, middle-ages type village. It's just not very sensible.

They did a much better job on The Expanse.

I agree on the village diversity comment. Emonds Field/Two Rivers was the place where you grew up and never left. Rarely were there strangers that settled there. Should be virtually zero diversity. (other than one member )

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Graniteguy,

It is not a middle-ages village. It is total fantasy - there are horn-headed demons and magic, for pete's sake. There is no reason that the people in a fantasy world can't be any race, color, or whatever. If their skin color or eye shape isn't important to the story for some internal reason, it just doesn't matter. It isn't a matter of "sensible." This isn't an English or German village from 1300. It is total fantasy.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
It is not a middle-ages village. It is total fantasy - there are horn-headed demons and magic, for pete's sake. There is no reason that the people in a fantasy world can't be any race, color, or whatever. If their skin color or eye shape isn't important to the story for some internal reason, it just doesn't matter. It isn't a matter of "sensible." This isn't an English or German village from 1300. It is total fantasy.

I am about to go a little bit nerd here. Keep in mind I started reading the series when the first book was published, re-reading each book in order every time a new one was published so I would have everything fresh in my head when I read the latest book.

The backstory is that the people of the Two Rivers region have been fairly isolated for about 1000 years. So, they should all have similar racial features (with one notable exception that I won't mention because it could be a major spoiler). If I recall correctly the author said they should look like people in southern Europe close to the Med (or maybe Middle Eastern types).

Jordan does play around a lot with racial/ethnic ideas by having Viking looking people as desert nomads, Orientals from the frozen north, black/dark brown people as an ocean-going nation etc.

It all does make sense in the books. The Breaking of the World really was just that. Due to the powers that were used during the war against the Dark One and afterwards when his evil tainted the male half of the One Power (the source of magic) the world was litterly broken. Mountains were leveled, river courses changed, oceans drained. It took about 100 years or so before the landscape became really stable and people started making long-term settlements.

quote:

Originally posted by Herkdriver:

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
It is not a middle-ages village. It is total fantasy - there are horn-headed demons and magic, for pete's sake. There is no reason that the people in a fantasy world can't be any race, color, or whatever. If their skin color or eye shape isn't important to the story for some internal reason, it just doesn't matter. It isn't a matter of "sensible." This isn't an English or German village from 1300. It is total fantasy.

I am about to go a little bit nerd here. Keep in mind I started reading the series when the first book was published, re-reading each book in order every time a new one was published so I would have everything fresh in my head when I read the latest book.

The backstory is that the people of the Two Rivers region have been fairly isolated for about 1000 years. So, they should all have similar racial features (with one notable exception that I won't mention because it could be a major spoiler). If I recall correctly the author said they should look like people in southern Europe close to the Med (or maybe Middle Eastern types).

Jordan does play around a lot with racial/ethnic ideas by having Viking looking people as desert nomads, Orientals from the frozen north, black/dark brown people as an ocean-going nation etc.

It all does make sense in the books. The Breaking of the World really was just that. Due to the powers that were used during the war against the Dark One and afterwards when his evil tainted the male half of the One Power (the source of magic) the world was litterly broken. Mountains were leveled, river courses changed, oceans drained. It took about 100 years or so before the landscape became really stable and people started making long-term settlements.

Those are valid internal reasons. When those exist, I understand the objection.

I also read the series from the beginning (including the prequel book) and re-read the entire thing multiple times as the new ones came out. Amazing to stick with something for that many years...

After reading this - I'm fairly hesitant to bother watching the shows.

My daughters were in the room when I finished reading the last book/last scene (the series took longer to finish than my daughters are old - about 22 years) and they were laughing at me when I heaved a big sigh and smiled. It was a good ending. I was SO gratified to reach it.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
It is not a middle-ages village. It is total fantasy - there are horn-headed demons and magic, for pete's sake. There is no reason that the people in a fantasy world can't be any race, color, or whatever. If their skin color or eye shape isn't important to the story for some internal reason, it just doesn't matter. It isn't a matter of "sensible." This isn't an English or German village from 1300. It is total fantasy.

No shit. However, if I had to assign a generic time period…swords, horses, monarchs, and castles. Hmmmm…

quote:

Originally posted by Veeper:
EDIT - I should have read the list of grievances posted above. What a pile of shit this thing is.

Good grief.



**** POSSIBLE SPOILER ****



WTF. The first two sentences blames the breaking on MEN. It was effing BOTH men and women that opened the bore. The whole point of the bore was it was using both to get to the "true source" which was a lie to begin with.

Aaand they've just tossed Egwene into a river, and since she lived she's a woman now or something.

Good lord. I have to watch more?

Okay Sam Raimi's "The Legend of the Seeker" did more justice to Terry Goodkind's novels than this is doing to Robert Jordan's. Holy smokes this is so bad.

The Bore isn’t the same thing as the Breaking. I don’t recall the complete list of who made the Bore, but the Breaking was caused by men who could channel going insane and, well, breaking the world with the one power.

The books don’t go into any ceremonies WRT how girls are inducted into the Women’s Circle. Dunno why they decided to make something up to show it, but it doesn’t bother me. I mean, it’s not like they turned her into a thief, or made her dad a womanizer*.

IMHO, the only objectively bad things they’ve done is not have heron marks on Tam’s sword’s hilt and have everyone immediately agree that they have to leave now (and I’m pretty sure that was only done because Amazon wouldn’t let them do a 2-hour premiere episode like the show people wanted to do). Subjectively, I’m really not a fan of how they changed Matt and his family.


*Which, how would that even work? It’s a small village where everyone knows everyone else and knows what’s going on, and the Women’s Circle uses that to enforce morality. Does that really sound like a place where someone could find a lot of people to cheat with?

quote:

Originally posted by TheOtherDave:



IMHO, the only objectively bad things they’ve done is not have heron marks on Tam’s sword’s hilt

The heron mark was there. Just one quick flash but it was there.

IMHO, the only objectively bad things they’ve done is not have heron marks on Tam’s sword’s hilt…


-They showed the heron.