Wheel of Time (Amazon)

Gbear

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/wheel-time-fantasy-drama-nabs-amazon-series-order-1148488

Robert Jordan's epic world of magic and mysticism is being brought to the small screen.
The long-gestating TV show based on Robert Jordan's epic The Wheel of Time novels is officially a go at Amazon.

The streamer confirmed on Tuesday that it had ordered the one-hour action fantasy to series, with Sony Pictures TV co-producing and Rafe Judkins (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), who adapted the books for TV, serving as showrunner.

This has been teased for a while but it's now been confirmed to have been picked up by Amazon.
I think Judkins had been writing a pilot for a while. Presumably Amazon liked it.

It's going to be very tough to do justice, just by the sheer scale.

Sarn

Interesting. /tugs braid.

Gbear

Sarn wrote: »

Interesting. /tugs braid.

There needs to be at least some quantity of braid tugging and moustache knuckling or there'll be a riot.

Going on the press release, it appears they're bigging up Moiraine from the get go, so she might be the central figure who introduces us into the world.

The cast is going to be enormous, but we've seen with GOT that you can dump 12 main characters on the audience in the opening episode and it's fine.

WOT will probably only be around 8 to begin with.

Easy.

According to the above piece it's an hour long, which I presume on streaming is a full hour (rather than the 45 minutes or whatever it is on TV).

I'd say it'll be something like 6 or 7 series, around two books a season, with some compression in books 8-11, 10-14 episodes a season.

The first few books are pretty straightforward, so I don't think they should have a huge problem bringing them to life. Later on, they're going to start running into some of the problems GOT has had, with big battles, SFX and what not.

Ave Sodalis

Gbear wrote:

Going on the press release, it appears they're bigging up Moiraine from the get go, so she might be the central figure who introduces us into the world.

I've been following this for weeks now. If anyone, they're bigging up Bella!

I can't wait for this. I really really hope they don't mess it up (and that we can watch it in this country).

OwaynOTT

Gbear wrote: »

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/wheel-time-fantasy-drama-nabs-amazon-series-order-1148488




This has been teased for a while but it's now been confirmed to have been picked up by Amazon.
I think Judkins had been writing a pilot for a while. Presumably Amazon liked it.

It's going to be very tough to do justice, just by the sheer scale.

Amazon: If only I knew book adaptions like HBO does.

ixoy

Be interesting to see if they play down certain rather irritating elements: "Men! I'll never understand them! Not like <every-other-character>" in favour of even more braid tugging. Blood and ashes I hope not!

It could work quite well, although there will indeed be massive culling of minor characters - the Aes Sedai, the Aiel, etc can be reduced. Latter books where nothing bloody happens can be breezed through.

The SFX budget will need to be good too - armies of creatures, all the Aes Sedai saidar use such as tel'aran'rhiod , etc.

As to the cast - well indeed they'll all have to be young - wasn't Rand a teenager when he started? Along with Egwene, Mat, and Perrin? Hopefully they won't age them.

As much as I like to diss a little on the series, I'll be looking forward to this more than the Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones prequel series.

Gbear

ixoy wrote: »

Be interesting to see if they play down certain rather irritating elements: "Men! I'll never understand them! Not like <every-other-character>" in favour of even more braid tugging. Blood and ashes I hope not!

Tone'll be one of the trickier thing in my eyes.

The tone of WOT is sort of equidistant from ASOIAF and LOTR. It's a grounded fairytale.

The nudity isn't graphic but it's not particularly obstructed, and it has overt and fairly brutal violence, references to sex, sexual violence and cannibalism.
On the other hand, the language is quite twee. I'm not sure "mother's milk in a cup" is going to work on screen as a swear.

I'd imagine they'll go for a sort of PG-13 rating, with craftily hidden nudity, fade to black on sex, and probably dial back the graphic violence against people, but, as with Orcs in LOTR, they'll be happy enough lopping bits off Trollocs.

I'm not sure there's an audience for an 18/R rated version where they just have the nudity there uncommented on, as it is in the books, while everyone is using the silly swears and it takes a sort of light touch approach to relationships in general and sex in particular.

ixoy wrote: »

It could work quite well, although there will indeed be massive culling of minor characters - the Aes Sedai, the Aiel, etc can be reduced. Latter books where nothing bloody happens can be breezed through.

There's a few plot threads that can be handed over to 2 or 3 side characters, rather than a dozen, especially around the Aes Sedai. I wouldn't necessarily want to lose them entirely but they could certainly coalesce around a sort of B-team.

ixoy wrote: »

The SFX budget will need to be good too - armies of creatures, all the Aes Sedai saidar use such as tel'aran'rhiod , etc.

Large armies of any sort are pretty straightforward these days - filling in crowds has become de rigeur for pretty much everything. I think (and hope) the Trollocs and Myrddraal will be practical when they're in the foreground.

I think TAR could probably work mostly with some darkened camera filters.

As for the Source, I think they'll probably "show" the threads when a channeler's POV is being shown, especially if they show them learning them, and just show the results - levitating, explosions or whatever, the rest of the time.

ixoy wrote: »

As to the cast - well indeed they'll all have to be young - wasn't Rand a teenager when he started? Along with Egwene, Mat, and Perrin? Hopefully they won't age them.

I think they're late teens. Rand's 17 or something. A bit of makeup and a shave and they'll look grand so long as they're starting under 25.

I think the whole thing takes place over something like 3 or 4 years, so if it's 6/7 seasons then they'll be grand.
They won't have the same sorts of problems that GOT had where you have actual children.

I presume they'll be unknowns. They might get a few names for side characters, or genre actors that we've seen do a few similar projects like David Bradley or Ciaran Hinds.
Elaida, Siuan, the Great Captains and such. Those'd be the sorts of roles where you want to inject a bit of star quality.

ixoy

Now, unless I'm recalling wrong, all the main cast are white. That's not going to likely happen in this version so I await the angry cries. If they do it, I wonder how they'll approach it. Could they cast a black actress in say Elayne's role, and all her family? I mean there's story reasons why Two Rivers folks would be of the same race but is there any reason that the Andorians couldn't be of a different race? And obviously the Aiel at a later point.

OwaynOTT

ixoy wrote: »

Now, unless I'm recalling wrong, all the main cast are white. That's not going to likely happen in this version so I await the angry cries. If they do it, I wonder how they'll approach it. Could they cast a black actress in say Elayne's role, and all her family? I mean there's story reasons why Two Rivers folks would be of the same race but is there any reason that the Andorians couldn't be of a different race? And obviously the Aiel at a later point.

I think some if the borderland such as saldea could be cast as black and maybe those from tear and some other nations from the south, tarabon. These were described as olive skinned and of darker complexion in the books, so not too much of a leap.
I don't think you can do that with the aiel. I recall Jordan describing them as having an Irish heritage. Going against rhe usual desert tribe route.
Seanchan could definitely have a lot of black parts. Isn't Tuon black in the books?
The two rivers folk are andorians like elayne.
The sea folk, tinkers and other cultures could be non-white. Lots of aes sedai could be non-white too as they come from all over. The forsaken too, I think two of them are described as black in the books too.
Plenty of scope to diversify the cast, even if they stick to a strict interpretation of the books.
Lan, taim,thom, bayle doman, the amerlyn and her keeper could all be cast with non-white actors and they are all big and recurring parts that occur early in the series. All, apart from thom, are borderlands or southern nation characters.

One thing you can say, is that they don't have to worry about too few female parts. Say like lord of the rings.

Looking forward to this.

matrim

ixoy wrote: »

Now, unless I'm recalling wrong, all the main cast are white. That's not going to likely happen in this version so I await the angry cries. If they do it, I wonder how they'll approach it. Could they cast a black actress in say Elayne's role, and all her family? I mean there's story reasons why Two Rivers folks would be of the same race but is there any reason that the Andorians couldn't be of a different race? And obviously the Aiel at a later point.

If they were doing that I wouldn't be surprised if they used Lan. They could probably do Thom too but I'd be more upset with that mainly because his white hair and moustache are such a thing in his description.

Wasn't it was the southern kingdoms that were darker skinned, but I don't think there are many people from there in the early books so they might mix up some of that.

matrim

ixoy wrote: »

And obviously the Aiel at a later point.

What would they do with Rand?

Gbear

ixoy wrote: »

Now, unless I'm recalling wrong, all the main cast are white. That's not going to likely happen in this version so I await the angry cries. If they do it, I wonder how they'll approach it. Could they cast a black actress in say Elayne's role, and all her family? I mean there's story reasons why Two Rivers folks would be of the same race but is there any reason that the Andorians couldn't be of a different race? And obviously the Aiel at a later point.

They can make the northerners Asian. They draw heavily from Chinese, Mongolian and Japanese culture. It'd probably need to be done with a bit of a lighter touch than I suspect Jordan did in the 1980's. It's a series that plays heavily into stereotypes, even as it frequently undermines their validity.

Takeshi Kitano cast as Lan. You heard it here first.:pac:

The Seanchan are mostly black or mixed race. When I picture Tuon I picture Lupita Nyong'o, and the majority of their aristocracy would be similar.

The Arthurian roots of WOT are what pin Andor as England, basically.
Cairhien is based off of France.

Then the southerners are all sallow-skinned.
Tear would be ethnically Mediterranean, Turkish or what have you, I think. Illian is based off Renaissance Italy/Rome.

There's plenty of racial diversity within the world. I think they probably should make them ethnically similar from similar parts of the world. Emond's field is in Andor, so I don't think it would make sense to make Elayne black, although I suppose within a particular dynasty, you mightn't have the sort of interbreeding that might make her representative of her subjects.

She has a particular look that quite specific. Changing her would definitely piss people off. To be honest, from a purely practical point, I don't think they'll make a net gain by doing that kind of representation box-ticking.

NK Jemisin has won two Hugo awards for her Broken Earth series. I think it has mostly black people. If they're looking to collar black audiences, I think picking something with black protagonists isn't an unreasonable suggestion.

The Aiel might make more sense. I'm not really sure why they don't all die of skin cancer in the books because they're all fair haired and fair skinned. It is important to their history how they came to live in the Wastes - they're not from that land so it wouldn't stack up with the lore, but it'd probably be the most sensible change if they felt they had to make one.

I should note at this point, that this is the TV forum, and not the books forum. I'm endeavoring not to spoil anything.

I think that the writers are going to have to do a fair bit of tweaking with some of the representations of women, relationships and so on, that you have to sort of shrug off as being a bit anachronistic in the books and that wouldn't translate to modern television, but I'd like to think we're not yet at a point where we have to cynically go through the main cast with a checklist to make sure everyone is represented so that the series hits all Amazon's key demographics.

The show-runner, Rafe Judkins, is a big fan so I remain optimistic in him being pretty faithful. He's not particularly prolific though. Seems like a pretty huge project for him to be taking on.

Ave Sodalis

Gbear wrote:

Takeshi Kitano cast as Lan. You heard it here first.

I've always pictured Lan as a something between Keanu Reeves and Viggo Mortensen (although I am sure the latter is just due to his fantastic casting in LOTR). Therefore, that is an awful choice!

Gbear wrote:

The Seanchan are mostly black or mixed race. When I picture Tuon I picture

That's Tuon exactly.

OwaynOTT

Gbear wrote: »

They can make the northerners Asian. They draw heavily from Chinese, Mongolian and Japanese culture. It'd probably need to be done with a bit of a lighter touch than I suspect Jordan did in the 1980's. It's a series that plays heavily into stereotypes, even as it frequently undermines their validity.

Takeshi Kitano cast as Lan. You heard it here first.:pac:

The Seanchan are mostly black or mixed race. When I picture Tuon I picture Lupita Nyong'o, and the majority of their aristocracy would be similar.

The Arthurian roots of WOT are what pin Andor as England, basically.
Cairhien is based off of France.

Then the southerners are all sallow-skinned.
Tear would be ethnically Mediterranean, Turkish or what have you, I think. Illian is based off Renaissance Italy/Rome.

There's plenty of racial diversity within the world. I think they probably should make them ethnically similar from similar parts of the world. Emond's field is in Andor, so I don't think it would make sense to make Elayne black, although I suppose within a particular dynasty, you mightn't have the sort of interbreeding that might make her representative of her subjects.

She has a particular look that quite specific. Changing her would definitely piss people off. To be honest, from a purely practical point, I don't think they'll make a net gain by doing that kind of representation box-ticking.

NK Jemisin has won two Hugo awards for her Broken Earth series. I think it has mostly black people. If they're looking to collar black audiences, I think picking something with black protagonists isn't an unreasonable suggestion.

The Aiel might make more sense. I'm not really sure why they don't all die of skin cancer in the books because they're all fair haired and fair skinned. It is important to their history how they came to live in the Wastes - they're not from that land so it wouldn't stack up with the lore, but it'd probably be the most sensible change if they felt they had to make one.

I should note at this point, that this is the TV forum, and not the books forum. I'm endeavoring not to spoil anything.

I think that the writers are going to have to do a fair bit of tweaking with some of the representations of women, relationships and so on, that you have to sort of shrug off as being a bit anachronistic in the books and that wouldn't translate to modern television, but I'd like to think we're not yet at a point where we have to cynically go through the main cast with a checklist to make sure everyone is represented so that the series hits all Amazon's key demographics.

The show-runner, Rafe Judkins, is a big fan so I remain optimistic in him being pretty faithful. He's not particularly prolific though. Seems like a pretty huge project for him to be taking on.

So basically everything I said regarding the layout of the cultures. :pac:


I suppose it all depends how they adapt the book how early they can introduce the seanchan and others nations that's are non British/Western European inspired.


I think we are almost at the stage you mentioned regarding demographics. We haven't even went to the second page and we are all ready discussing it.

I suppose they could make Manetheran a non-white nation, so they could something with the two rivers folk then.

ixoy

OwaynOTT wrote: »

I think we are almost at the stage you mentioned regarding demographics. We haven't even went to the second page and we are all ready discussing it.

It comes a little bit from the rumoured casting news for Ciri in the upcoming Netflix adaptation of 'The Witcher'. Fans feeling the casting call was a box ticking exercise because it didn't represent the character as described at all. Makes me a little cynical.

I do wonder if they'll spruce up the magic a bit too - there was a marked difference, IMO, with some of the innovations done once Brandon Sanderson finished the series. Be curious to see if he consults at all on the project.

NK Jemisin has won two Hugo awards for her Broken Earth series. I think it has mostly black people. If they're looking to collar black audiences, I think picking something with black protagonists isn't an unreasonable suggestion.

Actually, she's won three. Excellent series by the way although I think it'd be a terrible TV adaptation - it's not made for it. WoT on the other hand is actually pretty well suited for TV and we can all think who'd suit various roles.

I don't know about wot being suited for tv. i'm very nervous about this, i have loved the series for a long time now, and don't know what to expect from an adaptation!

pixelburp

Never read the Wheel of Time series, but ... this AND the Lord of the Rings show? Amazon are being a little selfish; is there room for two High Fantasy epics on the same 'network'?

OwaynOTT

pixelburp wrote: »

Never read the Wheel of Time series, but ... this AND the Lord of the Rings show? Amazon are being a little selfish; is there room for two High Fantasy epics on the same 'network'?

Is there room for four high profile fantasy series on tv at the same time? might be too much I'd say.

Gbear

pixelburp wrote: »

Never read the Wheel of Time series, but ... this AND the Lord of the Rings show? Amazon are being a little selfish; is there room for two High Fantasy epics on the same 'network'?

Is there room for two big superhero blockbuster films every year?

I don't see how there'd be any hassle having one run from February to May, and one from September to December.

Epic family-friendly fantasy that's actually any good... how much of that is there on TV?

I don't think it's particularly saturated.

Gbear

I swear, me and OwaynOTT have been seen in different locations at the same time.:pac:

OwaynOTT

No we haven't.

OwaynOTT

Gbear wrote: »

Is there room for two big superhero blockbuster films every year?

I don't see how there'd be any hassle having one run from February to May, and one from September to December.

Epic family-friendly fantasy that's actually any good... how much of that is there on TV?

I don't think it's particularly saturated.

I think the better comparison is the Netflix superheroes shows. I think they struggle to keep you interested. And I think they may be reaching saturation and they don't run concurrently.
WoT
Witches
LotR
Game of Thrones prequel

That's a lot of high budget fantasy on the small screen all year. Now, I'll probably love them all but they don't need to win me over.
They need the casuals to be successful and I don't think casual viewers will want all that.

pixelburp

Gbear wrote: »

Is there room for two big superhero blockbuster films every year?

I don't see how there'd be any hassle having one run from February to May, and one from September to December.

Epic family-friendly fantasy that's actually any good... how much of that is there on TV?

I don't think it's particularly saturated.

I never said it was saturated, I was just remarking that it's odd to see a TV service dive into not just one High Fantasy series, but two - and two of the biggest ones n' all. I suppose Amazon have more money than god at this stage so can afford the larger-than-average budgets that Sci-Fi and Fantasy can demand (rumours suggesting LotR will have a $1 billion budget)

Gbear

OwaynOTT wrote: »

I think the better comparison is the Netflix superheroes shows. I think they struggle to keep you interested. And I think they may be reaching saturation and they don't run concurrently.
WoT
Witches
LotR
Game of Thrones prequel

That's a lot of high budget fantasy on the small screen all year. Now, I'll probably love them all but they don't need to win me over.
They need the casuals to be successful and I don't think casual viewers will want all that.

I think the Netflix Marvel shows struggle because they're a bit crap and too long. It's been pretty much straight downhill from Daredevil season 1, with a slight uptick for the Punisher.

Also, episodic release rather than the box set format might have an impact. I'll probably watch the Witcher over a weekend.

I do wonder about Game of Thrones. It's no longer a show that I think stands on its own merit. It's benefitting from inertia at this stage, as well as being an adaptation. The new show will have to work in its own right.

pixelburp wrote: »

I never said it was saturated, I was just remarking that it's odd to see a TV service dive into not just one High Fantasy series, but two - and two of the biggest ones n' all. I suppose Amazon have more money than god at this stage so can afford the larger-than-average budgets that Sci-Fi and Fantasy can demand (rumours suggesting LotR will have a $1 billion budget)

I think it's more new than odd, because of those budgets. We're only now getting to a point where such a thing is affordable. Fantasy has been very poorly represented on TV; far worse than, say, Sci-Fi. Sci Fi was cool for a bit, but fantasy has never been, really.

We're about to see a glut of it, I think.

There's no shortage of fantasy to adapt, but some fruit is lower hanging than others. It'll be interesting to see where it goes once they've plucked that.

Cheesey Dresden Files guff, hopefully.

Taltos

Also very nervous for a few reasons.
1. Dare they repeat what they did to the Dresden Files (since it was mentioned), that series was fun and got me into the books but I have to admit I love the books and am currently reading the series for the 5th time.
2. How the series was wrapped up after the author died. I was sucked in from the first book and used to wait impatiently for the next one to be released. While the stand in author did the best they could it just didnt ring true for me and I’m afraid that the same may occur here where the vision of the original author just can’t be replicated.

Burn out - used to love Arrow and the rest of the DC series, can barely force myself to watch Flash and Legends now just hoping they improve, but the rest - adios, just like with Fist, etc on Netflix.

Hope I’m wrong though, has great potential but seeing how they handled some of the other SF series at the moment (shot in NZ I think) well they smack of Hercules and Xena a bit too much for my liking

Gbear

Taltos wrote: »

Also very nervous for a few reasons.
1. Dare they repeat what they did to the Dresden Files (since it was mentioned), that series was fun and got me into the books but I have to admit I love the books and am currently reading the series for the 5th time.

I don't think it will be like that. I don't know who produced that, but from what I gather there was absolutely no respect for the source material, and it was the an adaptation in the loosest sense of the word. It sounds like it followed the elevator pitch of the books rather than the actual content.

Taltos wrote: »

2. How the series was wrapped up after the author died. I was sucked in from the first book and used to wait impatiently for the next one to be released. While the stand in author did the best they could it just didnt ring true for me and I’m afraid that the same may occur here where the vision of the original author just can’t be replicated.

Burn out - used to love Arrow and the rest of the DC series, can barely force myself to watch Flash and Legends now just hoping they improve, but the rest - adios, just like with Fist, etc on Netflix.

I think Sanderson did a brilliant job of finishing the series. There was a few loose ends that I'm not sure Jordan really knew what to do with, that Sanderson had to fudge a little bit to get it done in a reasonable timeframe, but what you really need to look at are the key character moments and the finale of the series, and I think, however much he had to do with those (there was plenty to work from left over by Jordan), the result is spectacular.

There was a bit of a hiccup with his handling of Mat, as he'd admit himself, but I think he got there in the end.

However, there's a difference between finishing a series and an adaptation for another medium. I think you have to accept that the showrunner will have an element of their own vision that'll strongly influence it, and you kinda have to take it on its own merits. It's a different medium that asks different things of the consumer, and its a very different time to when Jordan started the series.

I think the straightforwardness of the narrative, the likeability and almost cartoonish, fairy-tale-like nature of characters and the fact that it's actually finished is what makes this doable.
It's a tonne of feathers. It's pretty light, but there's a lot of it.
It's not the sort of tangled web of GOT, and they won't be caught with their pants down having to write beyond their ability to match the work of the source's author.

It needs good people involved, obviously. The adaptation of GRRM's material when it was there was brilliant, mostly, the casting all but perfect, and the general production value was enormous from the get go. If they get good people I don't think it's something that can't be properly brought to screen.

It's not like the Silmarillion, where you'd need a sort of visionary who gets the material back to front, but is also capable of writing a coherent narrative nearly from scratch.

fitz

What its going to need most is available ruthless editor, something that WOT badly needed from book 7 on. If they do it right, it could be terrific, but I foresee a whole lot of braid-pulling among fans who are pissed off with the amount of material will be cut. Can see some character consolidations happening, and a bunch of books 7/8/9 being covered in the space of a couple of episodes. Like GOT, the adaptation will be it's own thing. Being slavish to the books would be madness in this case.

ixoy

Gbear wrote: »

I think the straightforwardness of the narrative, the likeability and almost cartoonish, fairy-tale-like nature of characters and the fact that it's actually finished is what makes this doable.
It's a tonne of feathers. It's pretty light, but there's a lot of it.
It's not the sort of tangled web of GOT, and they won't be caught with their pants down having to write beyond their ability to match the work of the source's author.

Exactly - this is why I think it's a good one to adapt (as would say Sanderson's work). The characters are largely pretty easy to divide between "good" and "bad". There's no anti-heroes really, no grimdark. It's good vs evil in the big scheme of things, reflecting the times in which it was begun (six years before 'A Game of Thrones' made edgy fantasy more popular).
I guess they'll take the broad points - certain key battles and encounters, things like the Foresaken, particular key schisms that occur, etc but weave their on way around the rest. And cut down on endless Aes Sedai meetings please...

Gbear

fitz wrote: »

What is going to need most is available ruthless editor, something that WOT badly needed from book 7 on. If they do it right, it could be terrific, but I foresee a whole lot of braid-pulling among fans who are pissed off with the amount of material will be cut. Can see some character consolidations happening, and a bunch of books 7/8/9 being covered in the space of a couple of episodes. Like GOT, the adaptation will be it's own thing. Being slavish to the books would be madness in this case.

You'd need to edit the books, but I don't think you'd actually need to cut that much stuff for the show. There's a famous plotline that spins its wheels (I won't spoil which), but if you've read the books you probably know the one I mean. Something that sprawls between books 9 and 11, comprising nearly 140k words, or 15% of all the text in those three books, could be handled in about a dozen scenes over the course of 2 or 3 episodes.

There's a famous scene in the books where Elayne takes a bath for a whole chapter. I think it's regarded as the worst chapter in the series. You could cut it, although there's probably some dialogue and political intrigue sprinkled in. But even if you wanted to keep it, something that takes half an hour to read would take one 3 minute scene on screen.

It'd only be if they're going for a 5 season run or something like that where they'd really have to crack out the shears.

I think the biggest changes will be changing some of the order of events so that climaxes occur at neat intervals in the two final episodes of each series.

Ave Sodalis

Just bumping this because it seems we have a casting director!



http://www.thedailytrolloc.com/2019/04/kelly-valentine-hendry-wheel-of-time.html?fbclid=IwAR2NSH9_C6Zrl0K-uhMYGV-aveDM8VSSD_2TzBgXbyBFyP3lvQwqbusy0jA

Gbear

First casting news is out.

Rosamund Pike has been cast as Moiraine, and I must say that seems like a very good get.

OwaynOTT

I can definitely see her as Aes Sedai. Big enough name too but I'm not getting my hopes up about this show!
Must stay grounded!*


*tugs braid and smooths dress

fitz

OwaynOTT wrote: »

I can definitely see her as Aes Sedai. Big enough name too but I'm not getting my hopes up about this show!
Must stay grounded!*


*tugs braid and smooths dress

Yeah, a really good fit for the "ageless" look.
Great start to the casting imo.

Kiith

Main cast have been picked.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=110975971&postcount=15

JP Liz V1

Kiith wrote: »

Main cast have been picked.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=110975971&postcount=15

Zoobins (Power Rangers) as Nynaeve

Ave Sodalis

Lan has also been cast: Daniel Henney

matrim

Ave Sodalis wrote: »

Lan has also been cast: Daniel Henney

Looks ok for the role. Hopefully they make him a bit more rugged looking than his Instagram photos

Agent Coulson

First look at Lan

Ave Sodalis

Not quite how I pictured Lan, but I'm excited to see what they do with him!

Full_Circle_81

I keep forgetting this is getting made. Hopefully LOTRs didn't suck up all of Amazon's budget.

Agent Coulson

Renewed for a 2nd season ahead of the debut of the 1st season.

Agent Coulson

Starts November 19th

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fus4Xb_TLg&feature=emb_title

pixelburp

I dunno, looks a little cheap in places. I know Amazon were never going to give it LoTR money, but some of the sets and costumes don't look that much better than a typical Syfy channel show. Still, the meat will be the story and characters.

fitz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117839582#Comment_117839582

Thought exactly the same - too clean...but I remember thinking the same when I started watching the first season of The Expanse, but that didn't matter. How they adapt the story and characters will sell it or not.

OwaynOTT

I’m not sold. Is Rand even in this? You couldn’t tell from the trailer that he’s the main character.

ill admit that I’m a huge fan of the books and might be hard to please with this but I don’t like the look of the Fade either. 😄

Dave_The_Sheep

Felt it was very Aes Sedai heavy as a trailer. Maybe that's intentional to use Pike to hook people in, or to emphasize the female centric power structures from the books, but as you say, trailer makes no mention of the Dragon Reborn at all. Very odd. Though I suppose it could be to keep the suspense a bit as to who is supposed to be (mind you, it should be obvious as f*ck really).

Regarding the Fade, I suppose they've to try and differentiate them from the Nazgul in LOTR, and this definitely did that. Jordan admitted he deliberately made the first book very similar in some areas to LOTR, but obviously we can't do that too much here.

Really hope this does well.

twinex

Is anybody like me and wished they should maybe have left it alone but I’m still going to watch it, judgmentally like Nynaeve, or any Aes Sedai for that matter…

human 19

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117840413#Comment_117840413

The fade reminded me of the Mouth of Sauron, and with the very Galadriel-like intro, I wonder if they are going with a LOTR feel. I was thinking of switching from Netflix to Amazon, mainly for this, but when I went to the Prime site, it said "This title isn't available in your location". Are they going to have it in Ireland or have they sold the rights to Sky or something?

ixoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117855678#Comment_117855678

It's not released yet, so everyone will get some message like that. November 19th is the start date.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117855678#Comment_117855678

Try primevideo.com instead of through the amazon.co.uk site. For some reason you can get different permissions between each.

Also that trailer stinks of The CW and how clean/sterile everything looks

FileNotFound

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117839582#Comment_117839582

Based on when the took over the expanse. Amazon really are only syfy level.

Worried to be honest, had always wondered would anyone take on this or Malazan after GoT. But to do them justice would need massive money in. Hopefully amazon don't ruin it by not throwing the cash behind. Least they'll know how to wrap it up.