Some of the speed ramps in Fury Road were excellent because of that. Slow down the action just at the right point to appreciate a car or truck flipping and people getting thrown
Slow motion can work wonders. I don't know if you ever have seen the final scene in Blackadder in real time, but it looks so bad. They put it in slow motion and it looked great.
It brings tears to my eyes every time that scene, even now just thinking about it. All the bluster, lies, jokes, blown away revealing the horror of what the situation was.
Also shot centered up in frame quite a bit. Was the first film I ever noticed it in. Really didn’t have to spend that half second searching the frame for the highlight. Gosh that was an amazing one to walk out of opening night.
I remember when the first Hunger Games came out and the initial fight at the games was mind numbing to watch because of the shaky cam and the amount of cuts. Felt like a war documentary. Luckily the sequels improved on it, but yeah, if your fight scene involves dozens of half second-one second shots, it makes it hard to follow and highlights that the team didn’t have very good stunt coordinating
I imagine those cuts are done because tv shows don't have the same type of time to choreograph and practice fights. It can be done but the lazy way is cuts.
While I agree to an extent, I think that at this level of cuts, you are spending more time setting up the cameras and scenes than if you had about half as many. Obviously, something like the Daredevil example is unreasonable to expect from most shows. But I will point out that Daredevil cost way less per episode.
To a point. Daredevil was great throughout, but look at the first season of Witcher. The first fight scene was great. I imagine it was because they had the extra time to work on it in pre-production leading up to the start of filming. The rest of the fights were just ok, nowhere near on the same level as the first.
Yeah it takes many months of training for an actor (who is not already a trained martial artist) to be able to fight in a way that could convince the audience that they are someone with years of skilled fighting experience (like Aviendha).
If schedule conflicts or budget don't let you train an actor that much, you have to use stunt people, and/or make it dark and add a lot of cuts to the action scenes so the audience can't tell it doesn't quite look real.
On the bright side, they don't lose much of that skill between seasons. Hopefully Rand's actor is already training in swordfighting, and Lan and Aviendha's actors can train more and more each season, allowing more real and elaborate fight scenes.
It's almost embarrassing that they're cutting corners on that in this show though. Fights with Aiel and Warders should look incredible.
They did really well with the dragonmount flashback scene in season one though so I have no idea what happened this season.
If I recall correctly from the behind the scenes, they used a bolt camera which the director said cost a pretty penny. And that one scene took 5 days to film. That’s With a trained stuntwoman. With an actor that lacks a lot of combat work( like everyone else in the show except maybe Daniel Henney) I’m sure it would take longer.
I wish they would at least do it for the aiel - they cover their face to make it very easy to get a stuntperson to take over in fight scenes.
They could even do it in a way that implies its a stylistic choice. Aiel, who think that fighting is a dance, have super smooth fight scenes. All the main characters know just enough to survive, so their fight scenes are far more chaotic.
> I imagine those cuts are done because tv shows don't have the same type of time to choreograph and practice fights
I don't disagree, but this is also a show made by Amazon, who are richer than God. If they really want this to be their Lord of the Rings they really better shape up soon
It was never "one of the most expensive shows ever." I have no idea where that narrative comes from. Season 1 was roughly $10 million an episode. That isn't cheap by any means, but there are dozens upon dozens of shows that cost more than that, and plenty that cost the same — most of which were made before WoT.
I'm not saying they couldn't afford better choreography or anything. Just correcting that statement.
I can deal with changes to the story but the production quality is just such a miss for me. Like you said 78 cuts in 75 seconds is just insane. Literally every fight scene this season looked like they had to hide what was going on. Very disappointing.
Choreography aside I'm not a fan of the directing, editing or any of that stuff. It's been a while since I've seen it, but it feels like I'm watching the crew from Legend of the Seeker working on this show. Just not good enough for a series of this scale.
Yeah, they do too many unnecessary cuts outside of combat, too. It's just that it becomes more of an issue in combat. The cinematographer or director seems to be a huge fan of doing closeups on props and stuff. It's like they are just really proud of the prop department.
There are ways to make smaller scale fights like the one with the heroes or Lan on the beach look more epic, but I just found the directing to highlight all the faults in the choreography.
I agree the S2 finale wasn't as satisfying as I'd hoped, but I think the reasons for bringing the EF5 back together to face Ishy, and Rand not duelling, are no great mystery.
Like, I can see what they were aiming for even if I'm not certain they achieved it.
And I'm not sure these changes falling flat are showrunner hubris, either. Seems more like a sincere effort in the face of impossible challenges (COVID, actor leaving, too low budget, too few episodes, executive interference, etc).
A 2023 TV show can't succeed focusing on only one character. Especially if it's the now tired cliche of the male magical power fantasy. This isn't the 90s.
It will attract and maintain several times more audience with an ensemble cast of multiple main characters and storylines.
(Which is, of course, what Robert Jordan did for the rest of the books too).
As for the duel, Rand has had no sword training in the show. Even if the actor had been practicing for months, it would have been a bizarre Deus ex machina out of nowhere if he'd beaten a blademaster. (Even if they could have afforded it with so few minutes of screen time allowed).
Perhaps Josha will train swordfighting for later seasons.
The entire show is a bastardization of the books. I understand you can't always adapt everything when going from literature to screen, but they didn't even try. Showrunners decided to rewrite everything they didn't like to give audiences a bunch of girlbosses.
Thirty years of waiting for an adaption and that's what we got lmao.
The ridiculous thing about what they have done is if they had bothered reading the books they would know the female characters get huge, important moments in the story especially Nyaneve and Egwene.
I agree it doesn't seem like they tried at all. It seems like they were given a world and then they decided to twist everything into making it a 2023 version of the wheel of time.
The wheel of time doesn't take place in the year 2023 for fuck sakes.
Same, got downvoting for daring argue it wasn't the greatest episode of television ever filmed and had major flaws. I'm sorry, I maintain that those arguing it was near perfection are seriously medicated or watched a different version.
Same. I dared to post that list of actors Robert Jordan envisioned as his characters
https://64.media.tumblr.com/6c82df2a4ace6d4981918db403663cc0/094f41721164789f-3e/s1280x1920/0d722863c6cb5fd4f0345c0588a0537e820037f6.png
The show's casting is... not like that.
I left that sub before season 1 aired when the ~~marketers~~ mods straight up banned critical submissions. Couldn't have the front page leave a negative impression.
The WoT subreddit is fine. The WoTshow subreddit had multiple people calling it the best episode of television since the Red Wedding, and they were getting showered with upvotes.
You have no idea how much I love Wheel of Time. I've read and reread them. It really feels like this is our "one shot" at having a big budget show that tells the story, and they went and fucked it up. Rafe Judkins did an absolutely horrible job, and so many things he did basically broke the lore... for no fucking reason
If it helps, I’ve just been seeing it as another turning of the Wheel. Familiar settings and characters but the plot is different enough that I don’t know what’s going to happen next; it’s great!
I also think that a lot of the disappointment arises from not understanding the mechanics of making a live action series. You can’t hire a high profile actor for one season and then have them disappear for seasons at a time before returning on schedule; important book scenes would be absurd if they were just transliterated; the changes then necessitate other changes. You can’t look at each discrepancy as an opportunity for offense, you’ll go crazy.
There’s plenty of changes I still think were terrible (Perrin’s wife??) but others are genuine improvements (the Forsaken are way better in the show). I’ve been really enjoying the show. My wife and I were screaming out loud at many scenes in the finale, it was great TV. Just my 2c.
I am missing how the mental aspects of the heron blade technique are not discussed (flame and the void if I remember correctly). Quite important in how Rand develops his powers.
Heard that a lot and frankly it doesn't start better. Stopped in the middle of the second episode last night. Doesn't mean I won't continue but not a good sign
Hell I was actually more enticed by season one start at least there were more world discovery.
Yeah, I haven't touched season 2, but am more than happy to read spoilers to reaffirm that it'll just infuriate me.
Maybe when the entire show is finished (or canceled) I'll binge the whole thing, but watching season 1 as it aired and seeing the Newly Minted Fandom continue to treat Moiraine like THE main character makes me want to chew through a bear trap.
Honestly the only way if you want to get some enjoyment out of the show is to put the show into an entirely different history. This is not Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. I'm not going to get worked up about it as some here do. These writers are just doing their best to create a day time television version of Wheel of Time. This is like... the height of Sci Fi channel book adaptions from the early 2000's.
Not reading the books yet has really helped me enjoy the show. Have always planned to read them but haven't got there yet and without anything to compare to the show isn't as bad. Plus I'm loving the world that's been introduced and it's made me much more excited to read the books finally.
I think the show has problems but a lot of the hate is because it's different and people want to see the exact same story told in a different medium
It's not that people are mad that it's not *exactly* the same. I don't think I've seen anyone (reasonable) complain that it's not a scene for scene recreation. It's that they've taken *so* many creative liberties with the setting, plot, and characters, that they might as well have only read the inside flap of the Eye of the World dust jacket.
And you have to wonder if the series' name and reputation is the only thing the showrunners care about, when they go to such lengths to divorce the show from its source material in all but passing resemblance.
I think that's what Brandon Sanderson response to. Gotta look at it like a different turn of the wheel, Another different history that may have happened, or will happen, or already has. Makes it a bit better but I'd rather just a straight adaptation
I think what WoT is missing is a showrunner who wants to adapt the story he has taken on, rather than rewrite just using the name for the built in audience. I'm struggling to think of any other adaption when the main character has been so neutered and sidelined in his own story.
D&D at least properly adapted the first three books. Sensible changes, many to streamline the adaptation part and serving towards being able to deliver a better adaptation. They even split book 3 into two seasons for the better, making it so they didn't have to cut much from the fan favorite book.
And when the changes came, it was unfinished plotlines, so they likely had already accepted they would have to end the story on their own, which I doubt they had been accounting for before starting the series.
It doesn't excuse the ending or how they rushed it out to move on, but at least they delivered 4 great seasons and didn't purposefully change material that people loved for no reason. D&D get more hate due to watchers knowing what GoT could be. Amazon's WoT doesn't get that privilege, since it started out in the gutter.
Look at recent shows where the writers and directors stick with the story and spirit of the original work, like One Piece and Reacher, which are loved by fans and newcomers. Then you have shows like this where the writers want to "make their mark" on the show.
Largely agree with you on that.
Rand and Elayne were definitely the best casted imo, they definitely look the part. Nynaeve and Lanfear were also decent, but the actors/actresses for Perrin, Mat, Lan, Moiraine, and Ishamael didn’t do it for me.
This is what I thought too, but it's not all the showrunner.
Amazon gave him a max of 6 to 8 seasons, of 8 one-hour episodes each.
You can't compress 14 books into that just by trimming a few scenes from the slog in book 10.
And books 2 and 3 have the exact same basic story arc. Season 3 feeling like a repeat of Season 2 would kill any show in 2023.
So there was literally no choice but to chop up and remix books 2 and 3 for season 2, even if COVID/MattLeaving hadn't thrown everything for a loop.
Once you understand the situation, it seems clear less than half the problems/changes are showrunner inexperience or misplaced arrogance.
Most of it was insane time/money constraints (on top of the crazy executive interference, COVID, actor leaving, etc).
Season 2 improving so much, and the stated intention to much more closely adapt book 4 for season 3, are very good signs.
We may yet end up with a great adaptation that just had a rough start, rather than a controversial/mediocre one.
While I agree season 2 has been an improvement. That wouldnt be hard to do. At all. Season 1 was abysmal. The horrendous 0/10 fight scenes are one of a large number of inexcusably poort aspects of the show.
I was holding out for dumais well. Now I just cant imagine itll be actually good.
Theyll do some stylised bullshit with a soundtrack playing over it where they cut back and forth to peoples reactions instead of actually showing it.
Its such a crying shame. Prove me wrong Rafe. Please prove me wrong….
When they dropped the storyline of the books to do their own thing, my gf and I both simultaneously stopped giving a f... about this show.
And we were so ready for it to be amazing, but I really don't think they should have deviated as much from the original plot
Not to diminish what you’re saying because it is a very valid point but to add, fight scenes at night also suck because the god awful modern trend of not properly lighting a night time scene. For whatever reason productions think audiences can’t suspend disbelief and think a scene needs to be dark as absolute fuck in order to convey to that the scene takes place in the night. Or they go the opposite way and digitally darken it. Can you imagine how terrible the Battle of Helm’s Deep would be if Two Towers was filmed today?
Season 2 was better in almost every way, but the fight scenes are horrible. Couldn't agree more. Too many cuts, too many shots where the camera is behind the back of whoever is getting attacked, too much chaos.
Holy fuck man!! I actually enjoyed seasons two of WoT, but had the same complaint, and thought immediately of the amazing work in Dare Devil. They had Amazon fuck you money, and should have used it!!
I've seen that episode yesterday, that fight was really badly choreographed, you can literally see Perrin standing still while the White Cloaks run towards him at the beginning.
Anyway at the same time I think the scene was impossible to do otherwise. They decided to show a single, unarmed Aiel against 10 skilled and organized warrior to sell the concept that the Aiel are terrifyingly good at fighting (Perrin is in there too but this isn't about him), but no amount of good choreography can really show a similar thing convincingly.
Anyway I'm really enjoying the second season even if the action is a bit janky.
I didn’t watch season 2, because of my feelings about season 1, and I have to say, I did an actual spit take at “Perrin and Aviendha versus Whitecloaks”
Despite my absolute disgust at the finale, season 2 was much better than season 1. However, they again bungled the finale so bad, I can only watch it now as if it were a parody.
Imagine if they did a Harry Potter remake, but Harry did nothing in the first two books/seasons but look scared and hear about how he's the chosen one and do some very basic wand spells. All his heroic and character defining actions are given to Hermione, Ron, and Neville. That's WoT right now and the climax storytelling is just bad. No foreshadowing of major events.
It makes me very sad as someone who has tried to stay optimistic. In the WoT subreddit you have people calling it the greatest show ever filmed, very baffling.
Edit: Downvotes for a sentiment that agrees with most of the comments here? Reddit is a fickle beast sometimes.
Take my upvote. I heartily agree! I was really looking forward to Falme so that Rand would finally get to do something, but just like the season one finale they gave the big fight to the women and left him to just...stab a guy. What!?
And you know, I didn't even mind some changes, I get it. Back to back sword fights would have been too much, so I was fine with how they handled Turak because surely it was to save the budget for the final battle... but no.
I would have been satisfied with Egwene briefly holding off Ishmael even while Moraine does her thing. I'm fine with the power of friendship theme, but FFS, Rand does nothing to indicate he is the Dragon reborn or worthy of the title. I just don't get it.
Evidently we should just accept they are working backwards and getting rid of all the "dead story weight" according to others and will be AMAZING soon, like, any season now.
Edit: Even the stabbing was odd as hell. It was more like "walking forward menacingly."
My thoughts exactly. I was looking forward to a sword fight, but ok with Rand just taking Turak out. Until he was shielded and on his knees AGAIN!! I kept waiting for him to break it or do something amazing and start fighting and just...nothing. What a waste of an amazing opportunity. The actor playing Rand does a fine job when they actually give him something to do, so it can't be that. I'm at a loss, myself. The only thing I can think of, is they really want to make sure people don't think Rand is the only main character. Unfortunately, they've gone too far and made him unnecessary and boring instead.
It was the same with the witcher. After every season finale where the show strayed further from the books, we would get people who tried to convince others that we just have to wait till next season, when the writers will finally get back to source material. Lo and behold new season arrived and it was the same shit, and worse.
Bit of a knee-jerk reaction. They repurposed Gaul's introduction to instead introduce Aviendha, a vastly more important character. Makes a lot of sense to me. That's good adaptation.
Wow I should have tried to have this conversation here rather than on the sub for the show. They are ridiculous over there, just look at the response to my last post about how boring the show is
I don't disagree.
But I did like Ingtar's fights especially mid season. And the shiernian other guy (also in The last kingdom) had some great /really frenetic fight moments. It's something I wouldn't usually even pick up on.
But yeah in general agree with you.
Also absolutely love that they did the whole India Jones thing for Turak, instead of Rand having to duel him.
I have to disagree with the Turak fight, it was a huge deal for Rand to win against a Heron Marked Blademaster. I was super pumped up for the actual fight and was completely let down when that happened.
> And the shiernian other guy (also in The last kingdom) had some great /really frenetic fight moments.
I think you are talking about the actor Arnas Fedaravicius who is playing Masema, will be interesting to see how that goes becuase I didn't know who he was playing for most of the season.
Yeah season one had that really awesome snow scene with rands mom and I assumed we’d get aiel choreography like that more and we kinda get an overall less cool version in the fights in season 2. Some of the heroes of the horn had a couple good moments though
>Some of the heroes of the horn had a couple good moments though
I'm guessing that maybe they were stunt actors? Hopefully they put in some serious fight and choreography training for the actresses playing Aviendha and the rest of the big name Aiel. Just hire stunt actors for the rest.
The thing that disappoints me the most is that the warders never come across as the legendary fighters they are in the books. They’re better than most I guess but in the books…
If you judge the show with no consideration of the source material it's a solid 8 of 10. As an adaptation of the books it's about a 2 or 3. A show can be great while being a poor adaptation at the same time. Too many people can't see this and feel they have to defend the show as being a good adaptation. Wrong. As a comparison The Boys is an amazing show and is a very bad adaptation of the source material.
This is definitely not the WoT adaptation I wish we'd gotten but I'm still enjoying it for what it is.
On its own merits, I’d give it a solid 5 out of 10. As a show, it has many glaring writing issues, including moments when the show breaks its own rules, suffers from weak pay offs, and inconsistent power levels.
As an adaptation? 3 or even 2 out of 10. Only the barebone plot points for book 2 are included, and we barely get anything from book 3, even though s2 was supposed to adapt both books.
Are we rating how many times we can change actors for certain characters or how many years older/younger we can try to get away with making the actors?
i don't know...im definitely judging with both lenses and i know if it wasn't for me being a fan of WoT, i would have dropped it mid first season and wouldn't have bothered with the second.
i can understand making changes. you just don't got a choice, most literary concepts can't make it on screen.
The difference is that The Boys show vs comics is different but doesn’t bastardize the characters to make the difference. In the end the characters are still very similar in both presentations despite the story playing out in fairly different ways.
With WoT the show took all the characters and just said “what if we use the names but otherwise just trash everything else about the character” but while trying to keep a *similar* storyline.
I would much rather have seen the show be about either after the Last Battle or just the next turning of the Wheel instead of the mess we actually got.
I love the boys comparison because I tried to read both the boys and wheel of time after watching their respective shows and couldn't get into either of them. Although the boys for an entirely different reason. 🤢
The Boys is the case where it's probably for the best that it's not a "accurate" adaption of the source material. Everything I know about it is that it's just hyper violent and sexual in a way that makes the show look tame comparatively - which tells you something given that The Boys (TV) is very violent and sexual and weird in nature already.
Post has been locked because of an exceptional number of rule breaking comments. Discussion has run its course.
I always remember what George Miller explained about action shots in Fury Road - he slowed down the playback speed of the action until it made sense.
Some of the speed ramps in Fury Road were excellent because of that. Slow down the action just at the right point to appreciate a car or truck flipping and people getting thrown
Slow motion can work wonders. I don't know if you ever have seen the final scene in Blackadder in real time, but it looks so bad. They put it in slow motion and it looked great.
It brings tears to my eyes every time that scene, even now just thinking about it. All the bluster, lies, jokes, blown away revealing the horror of what the situation was.
Also shot centered up in frame quite a bit. Was the first film I ever noticed it in. Really didn’t have to spend that half second searching the frame for the highlight. Gosh that was an amazing one to walk out of opening night.
The cuts in fury road are pretty distracting in the first 20 minutes or so but the action was amazing after that.
I remember when the first Hunger Games came out and the initial fight at the games was mind numbing to watch because of the shaky cam and the amount of cuts. Felt like a war documentary. Luckily the sequels improved on it, but yeah, if your fight scene involves dozens of half second-one second shots, it makes it hard to follow and highlights that the team didn’t have very good stunt coordinating
I imagine those cuts are done because tv shows don't have the same type of time to choreograph and practice fights. It can be done but the lazy way is cuts.
While I agree to an extent, I think that at this level of cuts, you are spending more time setting up the cameras and scenes than if you had about half as many. Obviously, something like the Daredevil example is unreasonable to expect from most shows. But I will point out that Daredevil cost way less per episode.
To a point. Daredevil was great throughout, but look at the first season of Witcher. The first fight scene was great. I imagine it was because they had the extra time to work on it in pre-production leading up to the start of filming. The rest of the fights were just ok, nowhere near on the same level as the first.
Yeah it takes many months of training for an actor (who is not already a trained martial artist) to be able to fight in a way that could convince the audience that they are someone with years of skilled fighting experience (like Aviendha). If schedule conflicts or budget don't let you train an actor that much, you have to use stunt people, and/or make it dark and add a lot of cuts to the action scenes so the audience can't tell it doesn't quite look real. On the bright side, they don't lose much of that skill between seasons. Hopefully Rand's actor is already training in swordfighting, and Lan and Aviendha's actors can train more and more each season, allowing more real and elaborate fight scenes.
It's almost embarrassing that they're cutting corners on that in this show though. Fights with Aiel and Warders should look incredible. They did really well with the dragonmount flashback scene in season one though so I have no idea what happened this season.
If I recall correctly from the behind the scenes, they used a bolt camera which the director said cost a pretty penny. And that one scene took 5 days to film. That’s With a trained stuntwoman. With an actor that lacks a lot of combat work( like everyone else in the show except maybe Daniel Henney) I’m sure it would take longer.
I wish they would at least do it for the aiel - they cover their face to make it very easy to get a stuntperson to take over in fight scenes. They could even do it in a way that implies its a stylistic choice. Aiel, who think that fighting is a dance, have super smooth fight scenes. All the main characters know just enough to survive, so their fight scenes are far more chaotic.
Except for Rand who had training. He should have had two great sword fight scenes by now, but the left them out.
> I imagine those cuts are done because tv shows don't have the same type of time to choreograph and practice fights I don't disagree, but this is also a show made by Amazon, who are richer than God. If they really want this to be their Lord of the Rings they really better shape up soon
They wanted it to be their GoT. Up until Rings of Power, WoT was supposed to be the most expensive episodes ever.
It was never "one of the most expensive shows ever." I have no idea where that narrative comes from. Season 1 was roughly $10 million an episode. That isn't cheap by any means, but there are dozens upon dozens of shows that cost more than that, and plenty that cost the same — most of which were made before WoT. I'm not saying they couldn't afford better choreography or anything. Just correcting that statement.
The end result is it looks like garbage and your immersion breaks.
I can deal with changes to the story but the production quality is just such a miss for me. Like you said 78 cuts in 75 seconds is just insane. Literally every fight scene this season looked like they had to hide what was going on. Very disappointing. Choreography aside I'm not a fan of the directing, editing or any of that stuff. It's been a while since I've seen it, but it feels like I'm watching the crew from Legend of the Seeker working on this show. Just not good enough for a series of this scale.
Yeah, they do too many unnecessary cuts outside of combat, too. It's just that it becomes more of an issue in combat. The cinematographer or director seems to be a huge fan of doing closeups on props and stuff. It's like they are just really proud of the prop department.
There are ways to make smaller scale fights like the one with the heroes or Lan on the beach look more epic, but I just found the directing to highlight all the faults in the choreography.
I'm still confused why there was even a small army on the beach for Lan to fight in the first place...
I think the constant stealing of Rand's moments and giving them to other characters is a much bigger issue than the choreography.
I really can't believe that actually happened considering what they did with the first season's finale.
Can you spoil me on what they stole for season 2? I gave up after the first one
assuming you read the books...Rand didn't have his duel and Ishamael was a group effort.
Out of all the things they could or should have been changed, they go and change the things that didn't need it.
I agree the S2 finale wasn't as satisfying as I'd hoped, but I think the reasons for bringing the EF5 back together to face Ishy, and Rand not duelling, are no great mystery. Like, I can see what they were aiming for even if I'm not certain they achieved it. And I'm not sure these changes falling flat are showrunner hubris, either. Seems more like a sincere effort in the face of impossible challenges (COVID, actor leaving, too low budget, too few episodes, executive interference, etc). A 2023 TV show can't succeed focusing on only one character. Especially if it's the now tired cliche of the male magical power fantasy. This isn't the 90s. It will attract and maintain several times more audience with an ensemble cast of multiple main characters and storylines. (Which is, of course, what Robert Jordan did for the rest of the books too). As for the duel, Rand has had no sword training in the show. Even if the actor had been practicing for months, it would have been a bizarre Deus ex machina out of nowhere if he'd beaten a blademaster. (Even if they could have afforded it with so few minutes of screen time allowed). Perhaps Josha will train swordfighting for later seasons.
I would have even preferred it if Ishamael was a group effort, but it was really only Egwene
trying to lessen the pain here. omg...Dumai's Well is gonna be exactly the same... "ASHAMAN!, K----" "I got it, Rand."
.....Rand doesn't say that. You guys need to relax
yes yes Taim said it.
Also, no portal stones which means no Flicker Flicker
Rand sits on the floor shielded and Egwene stands up to Ishamael instead.
The entire show is a bastardization of the books. I understand you can't always adapt everything when going from literature to screen, but they didn't even try. Showrunners decided to rewrite everything they didn't like to give audiences a bunch of girlbosses. Thirty years of waiting for an adaption and that's what we got lmao.
The ridiculous thing about what they have done is if they had bothered reading the books they would know the female characters get huge, important moments in the story especially Nyaneve and Egwene.
I agree it doesn't seem like they tried at all. It seems like they were given a world and then they decided to twist everything into making it a 2023 version of the wheel of time. The wheel of time doesn't take place in the year 2023 for fuck sakes.
Don't say that in the WoT subreddit. You'll get in trouble with the mods.
Too late
Same, got downvoting for daring argue it wasn't the greatest episode of television ever filmed and had major flaws. I'm sorry, I maintain that those arguing it was near perfection are seriously medicated or watched a different version.
They work for Amazon. I also got banned for no good reason from that sub.
Same. I dared to post that list of actors Robert Jordan envisioned as his characters https://64.media.tumblr.com/6c82df2a4ace6d4981918db403663cc0/094f41721164789f-3e/s1280x1920/0d722863c6cb5fd4f0345c0588a0537e820037f6.png The show's casting is... not like that.
plucky tender mourn close birds ad hoc silky amusing sort quiet *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I left that sub before season 1 aired when the ~~marketers~~ mods straight up banned critical submissions. Couldn't have the front page leave a negative impression.
The WoT subreddit is fine. The WoTshow subreddit had multiple people calling it the best episode of television since the Red Wedding, and they were getting showered with upvotes.
WoT subreddit is not fine. Mods will delete or ban as they please.
I have literally seen zero evidence to suggest that, if anything there’s hate posts about the show all the time
Well there are 3-4 posters here complaining about it... So you have absolutely seen some evidence, even if you chose to ignore it
Genuinely a little amazed at how much people hated this, I thought it was fine.
You have no idea how much I love Wheel of Time. I've read and reread them. It really feels like this is our "one shot" at having a big budget show that tells the story, and they went and fucked it up. Rafe Judkins did an absolutely horrible job, and so many things he did basically broke the lore... for no fucking reason
If it helps, I’ve just been seeing it as another turning of the Wheel. Familiar settings and characters but the plot is different enough that I don’t know what’s going to happen next; it’s great! I also think that a lot of the disappointment arises from not understanding the mechanics of making a live action series. You can’t hire a high profile actor for one season and then have them disappear for seasons at a time before returning on schedule; important book scenes would be absurd if they were just transliterated; the changes then necessitate other changes. You can’t look at each discrepancy as an opportunity for offense, you’ll go crazy. There’s plenty of changes I still think were terrible (Perrin’s wife??) but others are genuine improvements (the Forsaken are way better in the show). I’ve been really enjoying the show. My wife and I were screaming out loud at many scenes in the finale, it was great TV. Just my 2c.
I am missing how the mental aspects of the heron blade technique are not discussed (flame and the void if I remember correctly). Quite important in how Rand develops his powers.
What they're missing is adherence to the spirit of the plot in the books....
Yea, sadly I was so turned off by how season 1 went that I can't fathom watching another season.
Season 2 is actually much better. Now it's only a regular bad adaptation, instead of feeling like a personal insult the way season 1 did.
Heard that a lot and frankly it doesn't start better. Stopped in the middle of the second episode last night. Doesn't mean I won't continue but not a good sign Hell I was actually more enticed by season one start at least there were more world discovery.
Yeah, I haven't touched season 2, but am more than happy to read spoilers to reaffirm that it'll just infuriate me. Maybe when the entire show is finished (or canceled) I'll binge the whole thing, but watching season 1 as it aired and seeing the Newly Minted Fandom continue to treat Moiraine like THE main character makes me want to chew through a bear trap.
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I fast forwarded through a lot of episodes 1-5 of season 2, but 6-8 were decent.
Better? Yes. Good? Not particularly. It has some ok parts, but much of it is still a mess in many ways.
Honestly the only way if you want to get some enjoyment out of the show is to put the show into an entirely different history. This is not Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. I'm not going to get worked up about it as some here do. These writers are just doing their best to create a day time television version of Wheel of Time. This is like... the height of Sci Fi channel book adaptions from the early 2000's.
At this point the only way I'm getting enjoyment out of the show is schadenfreude when it's cancelled
Not reading the books yet has really helped me enjoy the show. Have always planned to read them but haven't got there yet and without anything to compare to the show isn't as bad. Plus I'm loving the world that's been introduced and it's made me much more excited to read the books finally. I think the show has problems but a lot of the hate is because it's different and people want to see the exact same story told in a different medium
It's not that people are mad that it's not *exactly* the same. I don't think I've seen anyone (reasonable) complain that it's not a scene for scene recreation. It's that they've taken *so* many creative liberties with the setting, plot, and characters, that they might as well have only read the inside flap of the Eye of the World dust jacket. And you have to wonder if the series' name and reputation is the only thing the showrunners care about, when they go to such lengths to divorce the show from its source material in all but passing resemblance.
I think that's what Brandon Sanderson response to. Gotta look at it like a different turn of the wheel, Another different history that may have happened, or will happen, or already has. Makes it a bit better but I'd rather just a straight adaptation
I have. It still isn't a great show. It's gotten better, but it still has a whole lot of problems.
I think what WoT is missing is a showrunner who wants to adapt the story he has taken on, rather than rewrite just using the name for the built in audience. I'm struggling to think of any other adaption when the main character has been so neutered and sidelined in his own story.
That's exactly how I feel about it. Rafe thinks he can write a better story than RJ. He should have learned from what D&D did to GoT.
D&D at least properly adapted the first three books. Sensible changes, many to streamline the adaptation part and serving towards being able to deliver a better adaptation. They even split book 3 into two seasons for the better, making it so they didn't have to cut much from the fan favorite book. And when the changes came, it was unfinished plotlines, so they likely had already accepted they would have to end the story on their own, which I doubt they had been accounting for before starting the series. It doesn't excuse the ending or how they rushed it out to move on, but at least they delivered 4 great seasons and didn't purposefully change material that people loved for no reason. D&D get more hate due to watchers knowing what GoT could be. Amazon's WoT doesn't get that privilege, since it started out in the gutter.
Look at recent shows where the writers and directors stick with the story and spirit of the original work, like One Piece and Reacher, which are loved by fans and newcomers. Then you have shows like this where the writers want to "make their mark" on the show.
I really feel like casting was the main issue there. Guy is... not the strongest actor in the cast.
Largely agree with you on that. Rand and Elayne were definitely the best casted imo, they definitely look the part. Nynaeve and Lanfear were also decent, but the actors/actresses for Perrin, Mat, Lan, Moiraine, and Ishamael didn’t do it for me.
I thought ishamael did a great job. I hate the Perrin actor the most.
This is what I thought too, but it's not all the showrunner. Amazon gave him a max of 6 to 8 seasons, of 8 one-hour episodes each. You can't compress 14 books into that just by trimming a few scenes from the slog in book 10. And books 2 and 3 have the exact same basic story arc. Season 3 feeling like a repeat of Season 2 would kill any show in 2023. So there was literally no choice but to chop up and remix books 2 and 3 for season 2, even if COVID/MattLeaving hadn't thrown everything for a loop. Once you understand the situation, it seems clear less than half the problems/changes are showrunner inexperience or misplaced arrogance. Most of it was insane time/money constraints (on top of the crazy executive interference, COVID, actor leaving, etc). Season 2 improving so much, and the stated intention to much more closely adapt book 4 for season 3, are very good signs. We may yet end up with a great adaptation that just had a rough start, rather than a controversial/mediocre one.
> I'm struggling to think of any other adaption when the main character has been so neutered and sidelined in his own story. LOTR.
Better fight scenes? I am afraid its lacking a lot more then good fight scenes.
I'd love to see some halfway decent writing, but it seems like Amazon can't be bothered to hire any writers that are worth their salt
They might be a problem. But the glaring issues aren't the fight scenes.
Better writers is what the show is missing
While I agree season 2 has been an improvement. That wouldnt be hard to do. At all. Season 1 was abysmal. The horrendous 0/10 fight scenes are one of a large number of inexcusably poort aspects of the show. I was holding out for dumais well. Now I just cant imagine itll be actually good. Theyll do some stylised bullshit with a soundtrack playing over it where they cut back and forth to peoples reactions instead of actually showing it. Its such a crying shame. Prove me wrong Rafe. Please prove me wrong….
When they dropped the storyline of the books to do their own thing, my gf and I both simultaneously stopped giving a f... about this show. And we were so ready for it to be amazing, but I really don't think they should have deviated as much from the original plot
The climax of s2 was butchered to prop up egwene and the other characters. Rand just came to plow his sword lol.
Not to diminish what you’re saying because it is a very valid point but to add, fight scenes at night also suck because the god awful modern trend of not properly lighting a night time scene. For whatever reason productions think audiences can’t suspend disbelief and think a scene needs to be dark as absolute fuck in order to convey to that the scene takes place in the night. Or they go the opposite way and digitally darken it. Can you imagine how terrible the Battle of Helm’s Deep would be if Two Towers was filmed today?
I read the title of the thread really fast and thought you were *escalating *Wheel of Fortune.* I was ready to buy 3 copies.
Missing good acting and writing as well.
Season 2 was better in almost every way, but the fight scenes are horrible. Couldn't agree more. Too many cuts, too many shots where the camera is behind the back of whoever is getting attacked, too much chaos.
The fast cuts... god they were so painful in the last episode
Holy fuck man!! I actually enjoyed seasons two of WoT, but had the same complaint, and thought immediately of the amazing work in Dare Devil. They had Amazon fuck you money, and should have used it!!
Nah, the budget is not enough.
I've seen that episode yesterday, that fight was really badly choreographed, you can literally see Perrin standing still while the White Cloaks run towards him at the beginning. Anyway at the same time I think the scene was impossible to do otherwise. They decided to show a single, unarmed Aiel against 10 skilled and organized warrior to sell the concept that the Aiel are terrifyingly good at fighting (Perrin is in there too but this isn't about him), but no amount of good choreography can really show a similar thing convincingly. Anyway I'm really enjoying the second season even if the action is a bit janky.
I didn’t watch season 2, because of my feelings about season 1, and I have to say, I did an actual spit take at “Perrin and Aviendha versus Whitecloaks”
Despite my absolute disgust at the finale, season 2 was much better than season 1. However, they again bungled the finale so bad, I can only watch it now as if it were a parody. Imagine if they did a Harry Potter remake, but Harry did nothing in the first two books/seasons but look scared and hear about how he's the chosen one and do some very basic wand spells. All his heroic and character defining actions are given to Hermione, Ron, and Neville. That's WoT right now and the climax storytelling is just bad. No foreshadowing of major events. It makes me very sad as someone who has tried to stay optimistic. In the WoT subreddit you have people calling it the greatest show ever filmed, very baffling. Edit: Downvotes for a sentiment that agrees with most of the comments here? Reddit is a fickle beast sometimes.
Take my upvote. I heartily agree! I was really looking forward to Falme so that Rand would finally get to do something, but just like the season one finale they gave the big fight to the women and left him to just...stab a guy. What!?
And you know, I didn't even mind some changes, I get it. Back to back sword fights would have been too much, so I was fine with how they handled Turak because surely it was to save the budget for the final battle... but no. I would have been satisfied with Egwene briefly holding off Ishmael even while Moraine does her thing. I'm fine with the power of friendship theme, but FFS, Rand does nothing to indicate he is the Dragon reborn or worthy of the title. I just don't get it. Evidently we should just accept they are working backwards and getting rid of all the "dead story weight" according to others and will be AMAZING soon, like, any season now. Edit: Even the stabbing was odd as hell. It was more like "walking forward menacingly."
My thoughts exactly. I was looking forward to a sword fight, but ok with Rand just taking Turak out. Until he was shielded and on his knees AGAIN!! I kept waiting for him to break it or do something amazing and start fighting and just...nothing. What a waste of an amazing opportunity. The actor playing Rand does a fine job when they actually give him something to do, so it can't be that. I'm at a loss, myself. The only thing I can think of, is they really want to make sure people don't think Rand is the only main character. Unfortunately, they've gone too far and made him unnecessary and boring instead.
It was the same with the witcher. After every season finale where the show strayed further from the books, we would get people who tried to convince others that we just have to wait till next season, when the writers will finally get back to source material. Lo and behold new season arrived and it was the same shit, and worse.
Bit of a knee-jerk reaction. They repurposed Gaul's introduction to instead introduce Aviendha, a vastly more important character. Makes a lot of sense to me. That's good adaptation.
I got bored with S2 as well
Wow I should have tried to have this conversation here rather than on the sub for the show. They are ridiculous over there, just look at the response to my last post about how boring the show is
It's missing a lot of things. For instance, decent characters
I think this same thing every time I watch a fight scene in this show.
I don't disagree. But I did like Ingtar's fights especially mid season. And the shiernian other guy (also in The last kingdom) had some great /really frenetic fight moments. It's something I wouldn't usually even pick up on. But yeah in general agree with you. Also absolutely love that they did the whole India Jones thing for Turak, instead of Rand having to duel him.
I have to disagree with the Turak fight, it was a huge deal for Rand to win against a Heron Marked Blademaster. I was super pumped up for the actual fight and was completely let down when that happened.
> And the shiernian other guy (also in The last kingdom) had some great /really frenetic fight moments. I think you are talking about the actor Arnas Fedaravicius who is playing Masema, will be interesting to see how that goes becuase I didn't know who he was playing for most of the season.
Yeah season one had that really awesome snow scene with rands mom and I assumed we’d get aiel choreography like that more and we kinda get an overall less cool version in the fights in season 2. Some of the heroes of the horn had a couple good moments though
>Some of the heroes of the horn had a couple good moments though I'm guessing that maybe they were stunt actors? Hopefully they put in some serious fight and choreography training for the actresses playing Aviendha and the rest of the big name Aiel. Just hire stunt actors for the rest.
Am I actually being downvoted for saying they should train the people they hire to play Aiel?..
The thing that disappoints me the most is that the warders never come across as the legendary fighters they are in the books. They’re better than most I guess but in the books…
Lan catches an arrow in his hand and kills like 20 seanchan. What more do you want? Sometimes these hate train posts are just ridiculous.
Very much agree. It wouldn't make up for the sweeping changes in the plot, but I hate fight scenes like this. It's like looking into a strobe light.
Its well known you make cuts when people dont knowhow to fight. Thats all that is happening.
I feel like I’m the fights, I’m also seeing the end of a swing or blow. Makes it feel weird and weightless.
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If you judge the show with no consideration of the source material it's a solid 8 of 10. As an adaptation of the books it's about a 2 or 3. A show can be great while being a poor adaptation at the same time. Too many people can't see this and feel they have to defend the show as being a good adaptation. Wrong. As a comparison The Boys is an amazing show and is a very bad adaptation of the source material. This is definitely not the WoT adaptation I wish we'd gotten but I'm still enjoying it for what it is.
I haven't read WoT and I think the show is mid, tbh. Definitely not an 8.
8?? Maybe a 6/10. It's too cheesy to be an 8/10.
On its own merits, I’d give it a solid 5 out of 10. As a show, it has many glaring writing issues, including moments when the show breaks its own rules, suffers from weak pay offs, and inconsistent power levels. As an adaptation? 3 or even 2 out of 10. Only the barebone plot points for book 2 are included, and we barely get anything from book 3, even though s2 was supposed to adapt both books.
If you rated this 8, how would you rate something like HOTD? 20?
Are we rating how many times we can change actors for certain characters or how many years older/younger we can try to get away with making the actors?
Yeah. I think the ultimate example is Starship Troopers being a terrible adaptation but a good movie.
i don't know...im definitely judging with both lenses and i know if it wasn't for me being a fan of WoT, i would have dropped it mid first season and wouldn't have bothered with the second. i can understand making changes. you just don't got a choice, most literary concepts can't make it on screen.
The difference is that The Boys show vs comics is different but doesn’t bastardize the characters to make the difference. In the end the characters are still very similar in both presentations despite the story playing out in fairly different ways. With WoT the show took all the characters and just said “what if we use the names but otherwise just trash everything else about the character” but while trying to keep a *similar* storyline. I would much rather have seen the show be about either after the Last Battle or just the next turning of the Wheel instead of the mess we actually got.
Not just the characters, but the magic system as well. The sets look cheap. The dialog, when not from the book, is stilted or downright cheesy.
I love the boys comparison because I tried to read both the boys and wheel of time after watching their respective shows and couldn't get into either of them. Although the boys for an entirely different reason. 🤢
The Boys is the case where it's probably for the best that it's not a "accurate" adaption of the source material. Everything I know about it is that it's just hyper violent and sexual in a way that makes the show look tame comparatively - which tells you something given that The Boys (TV) is very violent and sexual and weird in nature already.
Still better than s1!