I’m still disappointed they botched the Wheel of Time. Like, right from the very beginning, that started making really questionable choices. I wish they’d do it animated because one, that’d make the magic way cheaper, and two, it’d make it feasible to grapple with the sheer size of the series.
I kind of cant even agree with that. I tried to enjoy it as a WOT adaptation, I tried to enjoy it as just high budget fantasy TV. for me, the writing was a disaster, it was very clear they were ther to tell the BIG story over 10 episodes but really over many many seasons, they were fully committed to this grand fantasy but they forgot that an episode of TV needs to stand on its own. Each episode was just like a 1 hour clip of a 10 hour movie, there was no narrative or structure to individual epsodes.
Outside of that, the CGI is bad, the effects in general were very bad. Set design and costumes were pretty decent mainly but the show looked cheap despite being the most expensive ever made.
There are a lot of other criticisms I have of the show but I don’t think ther is a lot of point going on.
For what its worth, I thought season 3 was actually somehow decently made and written, it was just so late at that point that it meant nothing.
I honestly don’t think it was this bad (coming from someone that has read it three times). Some decisions were weird. The focus on Alanna was a bit high. I also unserstood from the beginning that it can’t possibly be 1:1, so I went in with the mindset that it was a new turning of the wheel, which might’ve helped.
The first season was thoroughly fucked by covid, ans the second season had to handle the fallout of that. By the third season I thought it really was starting to come together, and I was actually getting excited for its future. I was really bummed out by the cancelation.
The 3rd season actually was good and true to the source material as much as possible given where we were at that point.
But like, the first 2 seasons were completely baffling, I find it hard to find much redeeming quality in them at all. The dark one and the final scene of season 1 are both high points that I thought were well executed. But then you have stuff like Perrin being married at the beginning of the series to a random woman, who he then immediately accidentally kills. Insane direction to take that character. You have a decision that the dragon could be male or female, ok, I’m not entirely sure who or how that works if we’re maintaining that it’s strictly the male half of the power that is tainted but I was actually willing to see it through, the only problem was they did all that just for the next episode to say “actually the dragon is just rand, just like you all knew, were not doing anything different, the dragon is a male, were never addressing this again”
It didn’t even own its own decisions, you can make changes to source material but you should have a good reason why and own it. I don’t have to love what you do with it artistically or intellectually but you should stand behind your work
Personally I found the final scene of the first season rather lacking. But I also get it because of the covid restrictions.
Perrin’s wife was probably a good move imo. It’s hard to convey his complex feelings for the axe in a show where we can’t hear the character’s thoughts. This is a quick fix for that.
Mat’s parents is a bit more off for me. I’m not really sure what was gained from that change.
I kinda get it, but this one should have been animated from the start. The length and magic make live action really difficult to pull off, and I’m not surprised Amazon didn’t manage it.
I’m still disappointed they botched the Wheel of Time. Like, right from the very beginning, that started making really questionable choices. I wish they’d do it animated because one, that’d make the magic way cheaper, and two, it’d make it feasible to grapple with the sheer size of the series.
It’s crazy how badly they fucked up everything about that show from top to bottom.
Yeah… If you can decouple it from the books, it’s a fairly entertaining show, but as a Wheel of Time adaptation, it was just not very good.
I kind of cant even agree with that. I tried to enjoy it as a WOT adaptation, I tried to enjoy it as just high budget fantasy TV. for me, the writing was a disaster, it was very clear they were ther to tell the BIG story over 10 episodes but really over many many seasons, they were fully committed to this grand fantasy but they forgot that an episode of TV needs to stand on its own. Each episode was just like a 1 hour clip of a 10 hour movie, there was no narrative or structure to individual epsodes.
Outside of that, the CGI is bad, the effects in general were very bad. Set design and costumes were pretty decent mainly but the show looked cheap despite being the most expensive ever made.
There are a lot of other criticisms I have of the show but I don’t think ther is a lot of point going on.
For what its worth, I thought season 3 was actually somehow decently made and written, it was just so late at that point that it meant nothing.
I honestly don’t think it was this bad (coming from someone that has read it three times). Some decisions were weird. The focus on Alanna was a bit high. I also unserstood from the beginning that it can’t possibly be 1:1, so I went in with the mindset that it was a new turning of the wheel, which might’ve helped. The first season was thoroughly fucked by covid, ans the second season had to handle the fallout of that. By the third season I thought it really was starting to come together, and I was actually getting excited for its future. I was really bummed out by the cancelation.
The 3rd season actually was good and true to the source material as much as possible given where we were at that point.
But like, the first 2 seasons were completely baffling, I find it hard to find much redeeming quality in them at all. The dark one and the final scene of season 1 are both high points that I thought were well executed. But then you have stuff like Perrin being married at the beginning of the series to a random woman, who he then immediately accidentally kills. Insane direction to take that character. You have a decision that the dragon could be male or female, ok, I’m not entirely sure who or how that works if we’re maintaining that it’s strictly the male half of the power that is tainted but I was actually willing to see it through, the only problem was they did all that just for the next episode to say “actually the dragon is just rand, just like you all knew, were not doing anything different, the dragon is a male, were never addressing this again”
It didn’t even own its own decisions, you can make changes to source material but you should have a good reason why and own it. I don’t have to love what you do with it artistically or intellectually but you should stand behind your work
Personally I found the final scene of the first season rather lacking. But I also get it because of the covid restrictions.
Perrin’s wife was probably a good move imo. It’s hard to convey his complex feelings for the axe in a show where we can’t hear the character’s thoughts. This is a quick fix for that.
Mat’s parents is a bit more off for me. I’m not really sure what was gained from that change.
So tired of animated reboots.
I kinda get it, but this one should have been animated from the start. The length and magic make live action really difficult to pull off, and I’m not surprised Amazon didn’t manage it.
I’m so happy I didn’t ruin my childhood memories watching it. It was a tough call at the beginning but I feel thoroughly justified in hindsight.