The Wheel of Time (Page 2 of 4)

an exanple the film "Beautiful Creatures" a film from a similar genre as the Twilight series. Just like Twilight there are a number of books in the Beautiful stable. Only one  film was made corresponding to the first book , rather a nice film dealing with the young love of a teen mortal guy and a "castor" witch girl. In the book once they meet they have telepathic conversations thereafter. That works on the page as you can have mixed dialogue but the film makers decided to not  have that as that would presumably have meant some type of split screen and muddied the film.  A very gentle love story by the way well worth the watch with two actors who clearly had great rapport the main attraction

I agree with both of you, merc & inkblot, I've really gotten into this series and perhaps one day I'll try the books the way I did with the Expanse but just as those books aren't that series these aren't, and really they shouldn't be... after all, this is a different medium with different sensibilities.

That being said, I really enjoy those Expanse books but I also really enjoy the Expanse series... I also didn't read the Expanse books until after I started watching the series (and haven't advanced past where the series is). The last books I read before a series was made were The Magicians books and I actually feel that series to have been WAAAAAAY better than those boring pretentious books.

It does not help that I literally just finished re-reading the books for the first time in a decade on some of them.

I'll say a few things about the show I like first. They seem to have gone all out in imagining the different clothing of different peoples and cultures in the books. All of it is colorful, and well done, and honestly matches a fair amount of the description in Jordan's work. Visually, Trollocs were well done, and the visualization of magic is... well I wish they'd show that only other Aes Sedai can see the weaves like that. Muggles just see the effects. I actually do like most of what they've done with Logain. Showing his capture was great, showing his stilling was also... goodish, I don't know why the darkness was shown as being expelled from him unless they're just totally ignoring the books at this stage. That's a super relevant plot point later on.

Things I really wish they'd shown. We didn't really get to see much of 2 Rivers. Which is going to be rough when we have a huge callback to that town in about a season or 2 at this pacing. I like that Jordan established it as an idlyllic village on the edge of nowhere in the books, and think that could have been better done in an episode or two. I missed the black rider that tailed Rand, and the other boys which was the one dark spot on the first few chapters. Then we get introduced to Thom, whom the mayor hired to be there as the town can't always afford a gleeman, this was a big deal. I hate how dirty they did Matt's family... the family of drunks were the Buie's in the book with Cenn Buie being the town drunk/trouble causer. Matt wasn't a thief, just a prankster/gambler. Perrin wasn't married and was apprenticed under a blacksmith, on the verge of his mastery and starting his own forge, but having doubts about leaving his aging master. He also wasn't married, and didn't kill his wife, which straight up had all the readers going wtf.

Leaving the village, one of the main reasons they had trouble getting away from the army was a flying Dark-Spawn, a Draghkr (sorry if I misspelled). Anyways, picture a human skinned dragon that makes a trulling noise to paralyze people, while it creeps up on them and sucks out their soul. Easily one of the creepiest recurring monsters on the series and we get nothing on it.

We also didn't get to see the conscious ghost entity of Shadar Logoth, nor did we see the treasure room, nor did we see where Mat got the Ruby Dagger. All very lame decisions.

Rand Matt, and Thom all landed on a boat after Shadar Logoth, the city with the creepy shadow for the TV viewers. So we're not getting to see a really cool smuggler who helped them, who becomes pivotal to the plot in books 4,5, and 6.

Don't even get me started on that scene with the Tinkers and the Whitecloaks with Perrin and Egwene, or the decision to write out Elias, the only person with the same abilities as Perrin, also a recurring character, also with roles later.

Mmmm, see this is where I disagree. Arguably one of the best film adaptations of a book series was Harry Potter. And it was because they took one of the most popular book series of all times and made it exactly what was in the books.

Now I agree with certain works... Foundation for example. That was some prime 60's sci-fi, but having read that it was nowhere near as exciting as what's being shown. And no one would have a clue what 'vegan tobacco' was anyways that everyone smoked in the books. Still though, the major plot points of Foundation so far have survived. The FEELING of the world was well translated from books to screen.

In Wheel of Time's case, there have been so many omissions, and major plot points and changes that it no longer feels like the same works. Which is an issue when you account for it being one of the most popular book series of all time, and the built in audience of millions of fans who already were familiar and fans of the universe.

I get that a 14 book/5-6hundred page per book series is gonna have SOME cuts. But Christ the whole fanbase wouldn't mind if you cut books 6,8,9 in their entirety. Book 1 is establishing the characters and the universe. It just feels way too different for me to enjoy at this point.

Mat is the biggest changed character. In the books he was a bit of a womanizer, gambled, and was a care-free rogue who wanted nothing more than to travel and gamble in inns across the country. Now we have hyper responsible Mat with a super dark back story. Not an improvement.

Judging it by it's own merit, this is a B list show with some weak actors, and a huge budget.

I mean I hear you, but my point still stands since Moraine already said in the episode where they were containing Logain that she 'couldn't see or sense his weaves' because he's a man, and men and women weave different kinds of magic and can't sense the other sex's magic. Another thing they've downplayed because of the trans movement, and the need for shows to be woke for some reason. But they've definitely preserved this concept in the show. They've just done a piss poor job of showing it.

Literally in the books saidain was the male source of power, and saidar was the women's source of power.

My really big issue so far is... which character are we supposed to like at this point? In the books I loved Mat probably the most, he was the lovable rouge... the Han Solo of the group. Rand was the only reason Mat made it so far in the books during their journey to Tar Valon, and you loved Rand because he was the rock of the group. Them showing up in Tar Valon and just stating 'well after a month on the road you'd be tired too' misses tons of character development with Matt and Rand. Matt's worsening condition due to the dagger, and Rand's utter refusal to give up on his friend, no matter what was cut out entirely.

I could massively spoil something in the show too, but I'm not gonna. I can see a major change to the books though already, it actually occurred to me after the last episode, and I know it's going to kill any love left for Mat, it will make zero sense in the long run, and it will have been done solely to make the show 'darker' because they're trying to make this Game of Thrones, when it's just not.

In fact that's the main annoyance for me. This is not A Song of Ice and Fire, it's The Wheel of Time. There have been too many massive changes to characters and plot points for it to be at all enjoyable to anyone who's read the source material at this point.

The way they rewrote Mat's character is truly heinous. He was not like that in the books, nor was his family. In the books, Mat's character is a rather likeable and amusing scoundrel and his future is...amazing.

I wonder how they'll fix it to give the TV Mat that future.

I had to stop watching because I loved the books and this is at this point a terrible travesty to the original works. I hope they stop making it.

I can answer your questions from the book. But careful reading as I could spoil future seasons.

And second question.