halfhand wrote: ↑Sat Dec 25, 2021 2:11 pmMy thoughts on Season 1 in general.
First of all, I will acknowledge the challenges that they had. Wheel of Time is a large text that need to be boiled down the a TV serialization format and there is some complex concepts and deep woven lore that is typical of High Fantasy. Covid-19 was a major challenge for the logistics and adding all addition overhead costs. Mat's departure resulted in last minute editting and rewrites. The TV series could have benefit from longer run time and more episodes per Raife's request. With that said, the final product is the final product, and I will judge it based on that.
As a TV show, it gets a B.
Characters. The characterization for the most part was designed for Moiraine and Lan and they got the lion share of development. I think their relationship and those associated with them work out well, and everything else suffered. Egwene and Nynaeve got the second tier, and the boys were the last. Perrin essentially had flat development after episode 1 and Matt literally dissapeared. Rand got some later development, but it was rushed and sacrificed due to the show's attempted mystery. There was many secondary and tertiary characters that shown with their brief time, but many of them dissapeared at various times (Loail).
Camera work and editing. The editing was not polished. At this tier (Prestige TV), there should be a much more experienced editing crew. There was confusing and choppy areas that result in confusion. Examples including abrupt cut when Loail shows up with Nynaeve in Tar Valon out of nowhere, Lan teleporting out of his house in Fal Dara behind Nynaeve, or even the last scene teaser where the Seanchan appear to be tsunaming an empty beach. Characters often appear from off screen from odd locations in the stage. Many of the shots and blocking made rooms appear small. There was a lack of any sweep shot of placed like the White Tower, giving it a small claustrophobic apartment feel.
Writing and plot. The Mystery of the Dragon I think was an interesting hook if they actually made it work. In the first few episodes, it seemed like it was fairly interesting take, but it ended up with really on payoff and became quite predictable. It resulted in a lack of focus on Rand's development, which made it more obvious it was him, but resulted in less satisfying reveal.
The way they simplify many of the concepts just makes a very deep world quite flat and one dimensional. It is almost written in a way that makes it predictable, generic fantasy, and lacking in flavor.
The pacing was unsteady from lack of time available, there is no need to harp on this more.
CGI. Looks expected for the level of costs. There are times when it clearly needed more polish and work.
Costuming. I think it was interesting to see their take on different nation's clothing and their attempt to be consistent. I know there's complaints that people weren't dirty enough, but honestly that level of costuming is like next level polish when they have struggled with some basic level of polish. I don't about care about being too clean ,I just would like a visual spectale that is interesting and consistent. The Aes Sedai ring is emblematic of a lot of issues, taking a elegent visually prop and turning into a gaudy monstrosity. The reasoning that it doesn't show up on screen well is a stupid argument when there is something called Lord of the Rings with famous rings that anyone can recognize and didn't have this problem at all.
Now, as a Wheel of Time Show, I will have to say it is C+. There is some level of faithfulness to general plot lines. However, when I think about what I would want from a Wheel of Time in visual medium, I think about seeing some of the scenes in the books brought to live. And when I think of the EOTW book and my favorite scenes (Matt and Rand meeting creepy Ordeith, Rand confronting the CoL and one of them says "Heron-marked, Bornhald...", Perrin learning about wolves with Elyas, Rand in the Andor Throneroom, the final Rand at the Gap) and realizing none of them made the cut, and knowing that in the same pattern, all of the interesting scenes in the future will be inevitably cut as well (matt and the quarterstaff fight, Lan teaching Rand how to impress Moiraine and Siuan, Dark Prophiecies or any of the prophecies, "Five will ride forth", Rand's battle over Falme mirroring the fight on the ground and sheathing the sword, "I win again Lews Therin", Dumai's Well, "Kneel or be knelt", "Let the Lord of Chaos Reign"). None of those will make the final TV draft. I didn't expect one-to-one remake, but I would expect at least a scene to make it.
And that is probably the biggest challenge as a book reader. All those well written great scenes with such emotional payoff aren't going to make it. And a TV show doesn't need them to be successful, but when you can see the potential of something, a B-grade show it probably going to seem very stale.
My hopes for Season 2 and further.
Some fidelity to at least the lore of the Wheel of Time. Cat's out of the bag with Moiraine "stilled", Rand wndering around by himself. Changes and cuts are obviously necessary. Characters can change, merge, be different. Settings and some plot points can be different sure. But, when you start actively changing basic lore and foundation, it's like changing physics of a world, you have a lot of downstream issues that you can either ignore, or attempt to fix resulting in more and more problems. And unless you have writers that are on the level of RJ, they probably are going to slowly dissolve into an incoherent mess.
Changing things just for the sake of change does not make things better.
Give the audience some credit or intelligence. Data has shown that WoT viewing crew is actually older than the normal streaming crowd. It's entirely possible to present complex history to the audience without dumbing it so much it is generic water down fantasy.
Sometimes a little fanservice will give you a lot of credit with the more hardcore audience (bookreader) that will serve as brand ambassadors.
Agree. And I love nearly every scene you mentioned. Still pisses me off they don’t have Lan calling Rand a sheepherder despite knowing he’s the dragon. Instead Lan is a turd.
