The Wheel Of Time (Amazon Prime) TV Show • Page 14

If I absolutely had to keep the first episode at the runtime it is at or under, and wanted to keep a lot of things still mysterious to the viewers of the show who don't know the books, I would have completely leaned in to the idea of the violent disruption to the idyllic life, and opened with an extended scene at The Winespring Inn featuring all of the main players celebrating Egwene's acceptance to the Women's Circle / getting ready for Bel-Tine. Don't cut away to any other things. Have Lan & Moraine show up and start poking around and asking questions without revealing who they are explicitly, making everyone uncomfortable and Nynaeve angry, have the Trollocs show up out of nowhere and start killing and then have Moraine & Lan save the day, kinda like they do. Then use the time after the attack for Moraine to explain why she is there and some of what is going on to the characters (and the audience in general.) I know exposition dumps get a bad rap but if handled properly they can be fine and helpful to the audience. You could work the exposition into an argument between Moraine & Lan and all of the Two Rivers folks with her explaining herself and arguing her point and them pushing back on it. It wouldn't seem so abrupt and like they just abandon their families and loved ones.

The way Episode 1 plays now it feels like a much longer episode or a movie shot in the traditional way that then had to be chopped down to under an hour and nothing else was as important as that length.

I really don't like the cold open with the Red Ajah chasing the two dudes, and would have just gone with no cold open, or Moraine's little getting geared up intro, or even the animated breaking of the world short as a prologue. That type of cold open has to have something really evocative that grabs the viewers attention, and for me the Red Ajah thing wasn't that at all.

I did just read that Rafe Judkins received over 11,000 notes from Amazon executives about what they wanted with the pilot, so I'm sure he had an impossible task. I'm not sure I believe that number just for the first episode, but I'm sure he had all sorts of people breathing down his neck to an insane degree.

 

This establishes the madness of men using the power without explaining that particular detail all that well.

 

I can't decide if they are saving material for later with flashbacks / showing scenes just going back to stuff that already happened but we didn't see, or if they are legit just going to blow by certain stuff.

I assume Tam's fevered mutterings were left out because they'd too obviously tip the scales toward Rand being the one versus any of the others and they're trying to keep the mystery alive at this point, but things like the Heron-mark sword - it's there in the scene, and it gets a quick close up, but there is no mention from any of the characters. Rand just kinda shoves it into his belt the wrong way and we move on. I'm hoping as the show goes on the story gets a little space to breathe. The details of the world are what make the story cool.

 

Rewatching now and I’m so glad the show rectified not calling Egwene ta’veren when she clearly is.

 

Glad for the level-headed takes in this thread. It’s a breath of fresh air compared to the subreddits!
Loving what I’ve seen so far - I’m just hoping we get the full journey.

 

Finished episode 3, and I didn't love it as much as the first two. Thom's introduction and everything happening in that little town felt off to me, even if the payoff was cool. Thom pointing out the hair color of the man who was shot with arrows was a really nice touch. Perrin and Egwene with the wolves feels slightly clunky, but I think they nailed the way their relationship is portrayed in the books, and I liked that they kept in the bit about trying to start a fire and Egwene tries to channel. Perrin's dream with Ba'alzamon was killer, first time I felt really tense in the show. If you didn't catch the glowing red eyes in the window go watch it again, it was awesome. I think Moraine/Lan/Nynaeve are my favorites so far from a casting standpoint and chemistry. They are perfect, and Nynaeve might even be coming across cooler than she was in the books.

 

After years and years of being Nynaeve's biggest fan but many book readers not having the same opinion, I'm all for Nynaeve Supremacy, tbh.

 

I feel like Nynaeve comes across like a mad babysitter in Eye of the World until [book spoilers] The stuff with her and Lan starts developing. Up until that point I didn't really know how much of a "main character" she was going to be.

 

I'm sorry but Nynaeve is annoying in the books and is annoying in the show, so I think her casting is perfect, but she'll never not be the worst out of the main group me. I think her arc in the books is the weakest. My wife who has never watched it said right away how annoying she seems, and I said 'yep, they're absolutely nailing her character'.

After thinking more, I really am enjoying it but I do think we're glossing over a lot without explaining things, and there is a lot that's probably really unclear to non-readers. Not, 'I'm confused and can't follow the plot', but just general. I don't think there's enough context to most of the chasing and decisions being made. I am positive the bad FX pilot soured everyone from using the prologue to start, but it would have added some much needed context.

Having said that, I think that it's going to slow down a bit and added in those story details. When Dana was discussing about all the places she wanted to see like the stone of tear, I got all giddy thinking about what's to come.

As a book fan, my biggest gripe is Thom. He is not at ALL how i pictured him, I felt his song and singing (or crooning) didn't fit, and I think the music with the guitar strum is corny every time he appears on scene.

 

I’m all in on the Laila was a Darkfriend theory.

 

Well dang. Recasts of major characters in live action stories I'm invested in is a huge pet peeve of mine lol. Without spoilers, how much of a role will Mat have in the first season?

Aside from this I'm still hyped to start watching in the next few days, even though impressions so far are all not exactly showing a ton of acclaim.

 

He’s extremely important, haha. But as we’ve been given no info as to why he’s had to be recast, a lot of people are assuming health issues. I hope he’s alright, because he has truly nailed Mat.

 

Guess I'll get around to this soon

 

Yeah it’s a HUGE bummer Mat had to be recast. The actor is nailing it and some through the first 3 episodes.

 

Just watched the first episode and for 10m an episode or whatever it cost you would think it would look better.

 

Between yesterday and today I rewatched all three episodes with my wife who is completely unfamiliar with the books. She doesn't read fantasy books but she likes fantasy shows on TV. She says she liked it so far and definitely wants to keep watching. She had a lot of questions for me about who people were and what was going on. I played the animated short about The Breaking of the World for her and she said that definitely should have been a prologue or something. She didn't think the episodes felt rushed at all but she did say that it was kind of annoying how little they tell you about the world and what is going on.

For me, I still end up wishing the first episode was about twice as long but I really loved episodes 2 & 3 this time with no reservations. Thom's introduction this time made me positively giddy.

 

That's what threw me off from the trailers, it all looked..... too pretty, if that makes sense. Too clean, which makes it look cheap

 

Rafe (the showrunner) did an AMA on Reddit this morning. Some highlights as I read through it:

1. The Pilot was scripted for two hours, but Amazon had him cut it down to an hour before they shot it.
2. Watch through between episodes 1-3 is the highest in Amazon history, so the pacing isn't bothering most watching it enough to stop. However, season three has not been greenlit yet as previously reported.
3. The Aiel in episode 3 is not Gaul as one rumor is saying.
4. Dumai's Wells is his favorite scene in the books and his most anticipated to film. The Shadow Rising is his favorite book (damn straight).
5. Heavy hints that Tam's fever dream will be a flashback later in the season. Also that Padan Fain may have a scene in Shadar Logoth as well.6. Brandon's notes on the script are the ones he listens to/follows the most.
7. Aviendha has been cast.
8. We will see the EOTW prologue at some point once "Lews Therin has a bigger part to play."
9. Many scenes in book 1 will appear later in the story than they do in the novel, sometimes down to just actor availability.
10. The ruby on the Shadar Logoth dagger was removed because you couldn't actually see it on camera.
11. VFX quality is varied in the first season due to COVID taking out part of the team and not having as many eyes on the final product due to turn around time. Related to VFX, to keep costs down and Loial in more scenes, his appearance (as we've seen from the leaks) was altered to solely be make-up and prosthetics.
12. Says many of the Easter eggs they've put in the first three episodes for long time fans haven't been found yet.
13. The lady in Emond's Field with a pitch fork that attacks the trolloc is Daise Congar.

Answer about why Perrin was married: Well, firstly in the longer version of the script I'd had Perrin being the apprentice to the town blacksmith, who he then accidentally killed during the Trolloc attack. It really was important to me that he have an iconic moment of violence in the first episode that would underpin his long term journey with violence and whether he'd choose the axe or the hammer. So I'd made that blacksmith his mom. But as we had to trim a bunch of page length down in the scripts, it became a simpler story to tell it as his wife, and also felt natural that if these characters were in their early 20s in a small mountain village, that one of them likely would be married. There's a scene in the books where Perrin talks about if he'd stayed in the Two Rivers he might've married Laila Dearn, and voila, Laila was born. My only sadness is we couldn't have seen more of her. Helena Westerman who played her was AMAZING.

 

This is all very interesting. With the structure of things so far, the pilot episode absolutely plays to me like it was originally intended to be about twice as long - that would have been a solid foundation and a great launching-off point for the story in my eyes, but as the viewership numbers prove, it's not bothering most people and seems to be very successful at this point. I'm sure Amazon is not second guessing that decision in the slightest.

I don't feel the special effects were at any level to be apologized for or necessitating any type of explanation. They were fine. There are some f/x shots in Avengers: Endgame that look wonky, and they can pretty much be found in almost any movie with special effects. The f/x in this were solid and served the story well, and there were some that were actually really impressive.

I don't love the fact that they had an original plan for Loial and then changed him for budgetary reasons or just to make it easier. That's not a great sign, and is the type of thing that can be annoying when you know that Jeff "I have enough money that I just built a space program and made myself an astronaut" Bezos is paying for things, but I will definitely reserve judgment for seeing how he actually looks in the show. I thought the leaked pic of him looked great, so we'll see.

 

NYNAEVE AL’MEARA

 

Wow. That episode was excellent. Actress for Liandrin is perfect.

 

Hard agree on both of these counts.

That episode was fucking incredible. I am so on board with this show now it isn't even funny. I enjoyed that episode more than I can remember enjoying any episode of anything in a long, long time. I was completely sucked into the story and utterly engrossed with the world and enjoying every single second of it.

Holy shit that entire scene was amazing. There was a whole series where I audibly gasped and had a physical reaction to what just happened on screen only for the show to hit me again before I had even recovered and it happened like 3 or 4 times in a row haha. Fucking amazing.

 

There were a ton of holy shit cool moments in this episode, but one little subtle detail that I thought was great was how Lan steps in front of Nynaeve when the arrows are raining down upon their group.

I feel like this episode in particular was absolutely jam-packed with those kinds of awesome details throughout all of the background action and everything happening on screen. That attention to detail and to character, to me, goes to show that how much the creators really value these characters and this world and it's really awesome to watch.