Poll: Winter Dragon: A Wheel of Time Travesty.

[SinisterDeath]

I'm surprised this hasn't hit Escapist yet.

http://getprismatic.com/story/1423518985234?share=MzAzNzM3.MTQyMzUxODk4NTIzNA.X2clJg6huD_7FOMN7l9CMtSk
https://twitter.com/hashtag/wheeloftime?f=realtime
http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2015/02/wheel-of-time-gets-tv-pilot-out-of.html
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/10/8014499/wheel-of-time-pilot-fxx

The run down is simple:
Jordan sold the rights to Red Eagle Entertainment in 2000, Red Eagle Entertainment sold the movie/film rights to Universal Studios in 2008. Red Eagle retained the Video Game rights, and somehow managed to fail after getting EA and Obsidian on board.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/87400-Wheel-Of-Time-Games-And-Movies-In-The-Works
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/98278-Obsidian-Entertainment-To-Collaborate-on-Wheel-of-Time-Games
http://www.red-eagle-entertainment.com/

February 11th, 2015 the ownership of the tv/film rights were to revert back to the Jordan Estate, unless REE(Universal in 2008) put out a Pilot.

They released a pilot, Monday Morning, at 1am on FXX; It wasn't FXX Programming, rather a paid for infomercial slot.

To make things worse; The pilot was produced on almost no budget, the script was written in 24 hours, and the film was shot in under a week. Three days later it aired on FXX.
Though, oddly they managed to wrangle Billy Zane into this film.
The Director Seda, also died in a car accident before it hit the air.

 

[Queen Michael]

This is an even worse outrage than Crossroads of Twilight!

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Billy Zane has to count for something... is he at least his normal over the top campy self?

 

[SinisterDeath]

Billy Zane has to count for something... is he at least his normal over the top campy self?

I haven't had a chance to actually watch the train wreck; but from what I've heard the acting in its entirety was sub-par even for low-budget. (It's claimed to be even more worse than the first fantastic 4 movie)

The acting might be the best part about the film. The CGI has been described as Ps2 Era graphics, and they failed to show probably the most epic part of the scene(Prologue to Eye of the World) they were attempting to film, and that was the creation of Dragonmount as Lews Therin's final act of grief.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

I reckon I would watch the series if it were decent, but I've never read the books. I have The Eye of The World on my bookshelf, with a bookmark in it just after the prologue, but I'm yet to read it.

After ASoIaF, I'm rather wary of beginning any large book series, since I end up neglecting all the stand alone books to read. Plus The Wheel of Time is a notoriously long, and I just don't feel like committing myself to tome after tome.

Edit: How strangely coincidental. I just watched the pilot, and it coincides with the exact portion of the book that I have read. But what a convoluted mess that pilot was, if I hadn't read it I would have had no chance following what was going on.

 

[Risingblade]

I'd watch it if they actually put in the money and effort to make it at least presentable.

 

[barbzilla]

I have been reading WoT since I was 11 years old (started picking up every book as it came out, and I have all of the books in both hard/softback). That said, I always said that I either want a premium channel like HBO or Showtime to make the series, or for someone to make a mini-series that stayed true to the source material. Given how they have treated the material so far, I don't think I'm even interested in sitting down for the pilot episode, lest it turn into another Eragon.

 

[Julius Terrell]

Fuck you Hollywood! Give the rights to an anime studio and let them handle it. If there was ever a book series I wanted made into an anime tv series, THIS IS IT! I've been salivating over an anime adaptation since I first read Eye of the World. It's obvious that Hollywood doesn't care. It's just so sad to see things go like this after all the hard work Mr. Jordan put into writing the books.

 

[DarkRawen]

Well. That was a thing. A... thing, yeah. :/ Such a shame, a decent Wheel of Time TV series would be awesome.

Also, I think I remember that the introduction is similar in the books, but you can't really have a pilot without showing any of the main characters. >_>

 

[SinisterDeath]

Well. That was a thing. A... thing, yeah. :/ Such a shame, a decent Wheel of Time TV series would be awesome.

Also, I think I remember that the introduction is similar in the books, but you can't really have a pilot without showing any of the main characters. >_>

That's just the thing. The prologue is like.. 11 pages (maybe 6?) They stretched it out into 30 minutes. It could easily have been condensed down into 10 or 15 minutes, with the culmination being an Epic CGI mountain/volcano being thrust up out of the ground. Probably a zoom-out pan scene of the entire world just getting wrecked. (Mountains into oceans, Oceans into Deserts. Deserts into Lakes.)
Then it could 'start' chapter 1, where we are introduced to the main characters of the series, in the Two Rivers. I'd actually end the episode just before the flight into the woods where Rand is chased by Trollocs. Literally after his father was talking to him about the war and trollocs and the like.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

I don't think WoT works for television. They'd need a serious budget for makeup, props, and effects. Serious budget requires big time ratings. Big time ratings requires either kid-friendly, all ages content or smut and ultra violence (GoT). WoT is soundly in that pg-13 middle ground, which we've come to recognize as ratings no-man's land.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Well that was interesting, well not really it was crap although I don't think it's down to any lack of talent really, it was just a rush job and done on the cheap.

Also is that how many adverts you American's have to put up with? It was only 30 minutes long and there was 3 advert breaks is that normal?

30 minute blocks of American television generally have 21 to 23 minutes of actual content. Hour-long shows actually only air about 46 minutes. And that's not even the worst of it. When networks air popular big budget films, they usually add a ridiculous amount of commercials. A movie that was 1 hour and 50 minutes in the cinema can have 12 commercial breaks to stretch it into a three-hour block. This is another reason Netflix is so popular, no MFing ads.

 

[SinisterDeath]

I don't think WoT works for television. They'd need a serious budget for makeup, props, and effects. Serious budget requires big time ratings. Big time ratings requires either kid-friendly, all ages content or smut and ultra violence (GoT). WoT is soundly in that pg-13 middle ground, which we've come to recognize as ratings no-man's land.

Well, WoT does have its fair share of Spankings, nudity, and sex.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I don't think WoT works for television. They'd need a serious budget for makeup, props, and effects. Serious budget requires big time ratings. Big time ratings requires either kid-friendly, all ages content or smut and ultra violence (GoT). WoT is soundly in that pg-13 middle ground, which we've come to recognize as ratings no-man's land.

Well, WoT does have its fair share of Spankings, nudity, and sex.

Mostly off screen or implied, though. It would actually wreck the tone of the series if they Game of Throne'd things up in that department, there's an odd sense of innocence that runs through it, combined with a streak of pseudo-Victorian prudishness from many of the characters. Although I guess they could get a lot of mileage out of the Aiel sweat tents if they wanted to go that route...

OT: It was bad, but not as bad I was expecting. I was expecting Roger Corman, I got something that would fit in pretty well on the CW or as a SyFy original series (meaning it's better than one of their original movies, but I digress.) By the way, Narg sad nobody else vote for him.

 

[Julius Terrell]

I just believe that Hollywood doesn't care about fantasy or Sci-fi like it used to. Every time they've released something in recent years, it just turns out to be a train wreck. I miss the days where you could actually watch some hard sci-fi or fantasy.

I stand by my guns that the anime industry can do this series far better justice. If that were to happen, Americans wouldn't care because it's animated and it's not for kids. I believe that the guy who wrote berserk could do an AWESOME job with the wheel of time. Have the studio that did record of lodoss war adapt it for TV. I'd pay serious money to have that.

Whoever got this project could have a potentially career making opportunity if they do it right. The Japanese are specialist when it comes to Sci-fi and Fantasy.

 

[Jadak]

I'd love a Wheel of Time series, but as far as I can tell this was simply a requirement for them to maintain the rights, so this doesn't particularly matter either way.

Actually kind of glad it's so bad, would be disappointing to enjoy it just to have them not follow up on it.

 

[NeutralDrow]

A shame. With the news about the Daily Show, something like this would actually keep me interested in television.

So I guess the answer is "yes, I would watch a Wheel of Time tv show," but probably not this one. And to be honest, it wouldn't be the most ideal format anyway. I'm not entirely sure what the ideal format would be, though...one of the things I loved about the books is just how utterly detailed it is. The length and world-building feels like boring padding to a lot of people, but I'm not one. Problem being, I would love visuals, but visual media always seem to need to compress and follow conservation of detail, which tends to depress me. I guess a game would work, but...yeah.

Fuck you Hollywood! Give the rights to an anime studio and let them handle it. If there was ever a book series I wanted made into an anime tv series, THIS IS IT! I've been salivating over an anime adaptation since I first read Eye of the World. It's obvious that Hollywood doesn't care. It's just so sad to see things go like this after all the hard work Mr. Jordan put into writing the books.

Why must you taunt me with the concept of impossible wonders.

*starts weaving balefire*

...wait, that doesn't affect memories. DAMMIT!

 

[Yopaz]

Fuck you Hollywood! Give the rights to an anime studio and let them handle it. If there was ever a book series I wanted made into an anime tv series, THIS IS IT! I've been salivating over an anime adaptation since I first read Eye of the World. It's obvious that Hollywood doesn't care. It's just so sad to see things go like this after all the hard work Mr. Jordan put into writing the books.

That actually sounds like a great idea. Now I am disappointed that it will never happen.

A shame. With the news about the Daily Show, something like this would actually keep me interested in television.

So I guess the answer is "yes, I would watch a Wheel of Time tv show," but probably not this one. And to be honest, it wouldn't be the most ideal format anyway. I'm not entirely sure what the ideal format would be, though...one of the things I loved about the books is just how utterly detailed it is. The length and world-building feels like boring padding to a lot of people, but I'm not one. Problem being, I would love visuals, but visual media always seem to need to compress and follow conservation of detail, which tends to depress me. I guess a game would work, but...yeah.

The details and padding could probably be one of the strengths of a visual adaptation. The details make it easy to determine how things should look like, the politics could be presented in a subtle way leaving the viewer to interpret the subtext. However I think it would be a challenge to get a good adaptation and the length of the books rule out movies since there would have to be either 2 movies (or more) per book or a lot of details would have to be left out.

The sad thing is that I'm not sure if the popularity of the series is enough to sustain the budget required to give fans an adaptation we could be satisfied by.

OT: The wheel of Time series have been a great part of my life since I started reading it more than a decade ago so I would watch a TV series with it. I haven't watched the pilot, but there are some ideas being thrown around explaining why this happened. Because they have been sitting around twiddling their thumbs for such a long time they have reached the brink of their licensing rights and they would have to renew them or get something done. Rather than doing the sensible thing and deciding that they didn't have interest in making it into a proper adaptation, but they didn't want to give up the rights they figured anything will do and this is the result.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I couldn't make it past book 5. It has an interesting world, but the story moves so incredibly slowly that it make ASoIaF seem like a brisk read. Still, maybe the story is well suited for TV. Just as long as they condense or remove a lot of the stuff. To be honest, it's been so long since I read any of the books that I'm not sure what they could take out.

After watching the pilot on Youtube, I have to say that the pilot definitely piqued my interest. However, the guy playing the Betrayer of Hope (I can't remember him from the books so maybe he shows up later) just seemed off to me. He seemed more annoying than evil... Maybe that's how he is in the books though. Also, the narration parts were kind of awful. It just felt like extremely clumsy exposition. Still, I think it has the potential to be pretty good. Then again, I guess that's the kind of writing you get in 24 hours...