Wheel of Time TV pilot

[waggy]

Not into epic fantasy. Why 12 books, plus the 3 by B.Sanderson? Is it worth reading or just a waste of time?

books 1-3 were great. 4-5 were ok. 6+ i were terrible. Though i admit i haven't read the ones by sanderson.

 

[Kaido]

Ugh, felt cheap right from the opening graphics, Riverworld-esqe (although that was still a fun TV show). Skimmed through it, felt like every Dune movie ever made 😛

 

[SKORPI0]

Maybe they should just make this novels into movies, just like Lord of the Rings/Hobbit/James Bond.
3 movies/book and shown every year. It could span 45 years easily. :awe::biggrin:

 

[ControlD]

Maybe they should just make this novels into movies, just like Lord of the Rings/Hobbit. 3 movies/book and shown every year. It could span 45 years easily. :awe::biggrin:

I like it. Show Marvel who the boss really is.

 

[stormkroe]

My favourite series of all time. If it's a bit wordy for some people, well there's always the twilight series 😉

On a side note, even though SoT should be Websters for 'deus ex machina', it wasn't until the end that it jumped the shark so bad I retroactively hated all the books. Sad🙁

 

[Kelvrick]

My favourite series of all time. If it's a bit wordy for some people, well there's always the twilight series 😉

On a side note, even though SoT should be Websters for 'deus ex machina', it wasn't until the end that it jumped the shark so bad I retroactively hated all the books. Sad🙁

Yeah, I guess describing wheel of time as a wordy twilight series is accurate. Although lets mix it with all the main male characters being like superman and being incapable of losing to anyone in a fight..

Will admit I never finished the series. Got tired of the women and men not talking to each other out of high school angst at around book 6.

 

[Kaido]

Maybe they should just make this novels into movies, just like Lord of the Rings/Hobbit/James Bond.
3 movies/book and shown every year. It could span 45 years easily. :awe::biggrin:

Like Days of our Lives, but for nerds! :awe:

 

[Sho'Nuff]

Yeah, it is the same thing. James Joyce is a chore to get through in HS English. Gravity's Rainbow is a chore to get through if you want to impress some really pretentious people who pretended they read it. Tom Clancy would be a chore to get through if you're Amish and don't understand technology. Any book that is a chore is by definition not enjoyable. A GOOD book disappears because you can't put it down. Because you read an extra chapter when you should turn off the lights and go to bed. Because instead of turning on the TV you turn on the Kindle. Nobody ever used the word "chore" for something they enjoy doing. Jordan's books after 3 were a chore because they were endless tedium, like a 50 year long trek through the Aiel Waste (OMFG, how did I remember that place?)

Fine. I understand that you do not like the series. Go thread crap somewhere else.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

books 1-3 were great. 4-5 were ok. 6+ i were terrible. Though i admit i haven't read the ones by sanderson.

1-3 (Jordan) and 12-14 (Sanderson) are the best in the series. 5-11 have some really good moments too, but they move more slowly.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

Yeah, I guess describing wheel of time as a wordy twilight series is accurate. Although lets mix it with all the main male characters being like superman and being incapable of losing to anyone in a fight..

Will admit I never finished the series. Got tired of the women and men not talking to each other out of high school angst at around book 6.

The main characters can't lose a fight? Huh? Did you read the series? Rand gets the shit kicked out of him multiple times, as does Perrin. Hell, Rand is flat out tortured multiple times over the course of the series.

Mat is the only one that doesn't lose, but that is mostly due to luck (which is a central element of his character).

I will say that certain female characters (particularly Aes Sedai) can get very annoying. The personality of many of them can be summed up as a high school age girl who is battling a combination of explosive diarrhea and epic PMS.

Also - you really, really need to read the last 3 books. Killer ending.

 

[Ancalagon44]

I watched half of the pilot. It looks like they wanted to get something out the door just so that they could so they used the rights. You know, to prevent them from falling away. So, unsurprisingly, it is pretty terrible.

I have read the books, and so I know what is going on and I remember that scene pretty well. And to be fair, they probably adapted it fairly close to the book. The problem is, I don't think that is a good idea. If they want to adapt these books, they need a very experienced screenwriter who can make a script that an audience can follow without needing to have read the books first.

For instance, Elan uses lots of jargon that only WOT fans would know about. Things like the Ring of Tamyrlin, Nine Rods of Dominion, Hall of Servants, etc etc.

I'm not even sure that jumping into that scene makes sense from an opening point of view.

 

[inachu]

Better book series that should be made into tv or movie format is anything made by Piers Anthony.

"Color of her panties" is a major win over any of those 12 books any day.

 

[Red Storm]

The first book was awesome, then it just goes downhill from there.

And yes, way too much time spent describing clothes and drapes and whatnot. I distinctly remember having to do a LOT of skimming to skip that useless crap.

 

[Pheran]

The Real Story About That Wheel Of Time Pilot That Aired Last Night

With this interesting addendum:

The following is a statement from Harriet McDougal Rigney, Robert Jordan's wife and editor, regarding the FXX show "The Wheel of Time: Winter Dragon" that aired last night:

"This morning brought startling news. A “pilot” for a Wheel of Time series, the "pilot" being called Winter Dragon, had appeared at 1:30 in the morning, East Coast time, on FXX TV, a channel somewhere in the 700s (founded to concentrate on comedy, according to the Washington Post).

It was made without my knowledge or cooperation. I never saw the script. No one associated with Bandersnatch Group, the successor-in-interest to James O. Rigney, was aware of this.

Bandersnatch has an existing contract with Universal Pictures that grants television rights to them until this Wednesday, February 11 – at which point these rights revert to Bandersnatch.

I see no mention of Universal in the “pilot”. Nor, I repeat, was Bandersnatch, or Robert Jordan’s estate, informed of this in any way.

I am dumbfounded by this occurrence, and am taking steps to prevent its reoccurrence."

 

[Possessed Freak]

The problem with WoT, LotR, and a lot of other epic book series is the character shields are in full effect. You *know* nothing bad is going to happen to anyone major until the bitter end. GoT changes this, it is refreshing to read something not knowing if the characters are going to make it out of book 1 let alone book 5.

The other problem is that everyone is going to be compared to Tolkien. Tolkien wanted to recreate old folk tales in a different setting, create a new universe, new languages, everything. The scope and scale of the project is astounding. Then you get other writers who create a new world... and leave out trivialities like language, history, etc. And people bitch. So then others try to go more in depth and it is a boring read... and people bitch.

 

[blakeatwork]

books 1-3 were great. 4-5 were ok. 6+ i were terrible. Though i admit i haven't read the ones by sanderson.

I'd say read up through Path of Daggers, get the Dragonmount chapter synopses for Winter's Heart and Knife of Dreams (spoiler: Perrin whinges a *lot*), but read Crossroads of Twilight, which was stuck in between. There is still a lot of meat in Winter's and Knife, but it's a tough slog at time as Jordan develops the entirety of the upcoming Last Battle.

The Sanderson books were good, and the pace was frenetic at times. A vastly different read (obviously, given the change in authors). It's worth it, IMHO, to stick it out to the end.

 

[Markbnj]

Fine. I understand that you do not like the series. Go thread crap somewhere else.

I'm not here to beat up on the series, but I read like eight of the books before giving up in disgust. That number of hours invested more than earns me the right to crap all over it in any venue in which I care to, should I care to, which as previously mentioned, I really don't seeing as how the guy is dead and all.

 

[Daedalus685]

... and people bitch.

The human condition, summed up so concisely.

I admit that I read all of them, and loved the world and story so much I basically skim and ignore most of the literary failings. High literature it is not, but I've never read a series that better fosters fun escapism. It is after all supposed to be for fun (though not everyone's cup of tea).

And yes, I even own Asha'man pins for my winter coat... (NEEEERRRRRRDDDDDDDD!!)

 

[Markbnj]

Relevant...

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/wheel-of-time-tv-pilot/

 

[Kelvrick]

The main characters can't lose a fight? Huh? Did you read the series? Rand gets the shit kicked out of him multiple times, as does Perrin. Hell, Rand is flat out tortured multiple times over the course of the series.

Mat is the only one that doesn't lose, but that is mostly due to luck (which is a central element of his character).

I will say that certain female characters (particularly Aes Sedai) can get very annoying. The personality of many of them can be summed up as a high school age girl who is battling a combination of explosive diarrhea and epic PMS.

Also - you really, really need to read the last 3 books. Killer ending.

I'll admit they lost some fights. But the way it was written always gave me the perspective that they were failing their way to the top. Some hidden powers and skills always seemed to pop up and they would go super saiyan and they'd save some local tribe as the hero that was foretold.

It has been a long time since I read the books (probably 10+ years) but my personal feelings are that the dragon lance series that I read when I was even younger had more drama and uncertainty. Although in retrospect, those books had character shields to the max too.

I think books 4 through 8 or so just ruined the series for me. I felt like reading the last few chapters of every book would have kept you up to speed.

 

[Red Storm]

The problem with WoT, LotR, and a lot of other epic book series is the character shields are in full effect. You *know* nothing bad is going to happen to anyone major until the bitter end. GoT changes this, it is refreshing to read something not knowing if the characters are going to make it out of book 1 let alone book 5.

The other problem is that everyone is going to be compared to Tolkien. Tolkien wanted to recreate old folk tales in a different setting, create a new universe, new languages, everything. The scope and scale of the project is astounding. Then you get other writers who create a new world... and leave out trivialities like language, history, etc. And people bitch. So then others try to go more in depth and it is a boring read... and people bitch.

They really aren't the same though. Lord of the Rings is a character focused story, whereas Game of Thrones is more of a medieval soap opera where the characters are a constant revolving door. One is good for movies, the other for TV.