Amazon Prime The Wheel of Time (2021) - Season 1 (1 Viewer)

[mattCR]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/l...antasy-drama-nabs-amazon-series-order-1148488

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.

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[Todd Erwin]

My wife will be thrilled!

 

[Radioman970]

That was a pc game too. wish I'd finished it in the day. I remember it having some very cool shadowy creatures. But I'll bet it's aged badly. Anyway, definitely my kind of thing. I've yet to watch any Game of Thrones. I'll get to it!

 

[YanMan]

Rosamund Pike cast as Moiraine:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/l...samund-pike-star-amazon-fantasy-drama-1219624

 

[joshEH]

Moiraine was pretty much cool as a cucumber most of the time, too. Pike's a solid choice.

But here's where fans need to let go. Moiraine is described in the books as being quite short and dark-haired, two things Pike is decidedly not. The latter can definitely be fixed, of course. And there's lots of good material for a tight 5-7 (or maybe 6-8) season arc if they plot the whole series beforehand.

 

[joshEH]

Amazon has announced S2 to head into production almost immediately:

The Wheel of Time season 2 is already coming to Amazon Prime Video

The first season of Amazon's The Wheel of Time show is on the way...and apparently they're going to get to work on a second before the first even airs.

winteriscoming.net

I'm guessing we get S1 either early 2022 or autumn of that same year. Also, I have to think they're going to attempt to squeeze in at least two books per season. Even if it's wildly successful, they're not going to have 10+ seasons to get it done.

 

[Sam Favate]

I haven’t read these but have heard only good things about them for decades.
Amazon is going to have this and the Lord of the Rings at the same time. Let’s hope WOT doesn’t get overshadowed.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I haven’t read these but have heard only good things about them for decades.
Amazon is going to have this and the Lord of the Rings at the same time. Let’s hope WOT doesn’t get overshadowed.

Is Amazon developing a remake of LotR? The first WOT book came out in 1990 and Amazon is selling the kindle version for $11. That’s lasting power.

 

[Sam Favate]

Is Amazon developing a remake of LotR? The first WOT book came out in 1990 and Amazon is selling the kindle version for $11. That’s lasting power.

Amazon has a LOTR show coming that (I think) takes place in the Second Age of Middle Earth (so, before the Hobbit/LOTR). It is a VERY big deal, as you can see from the money they are spending. Half a billion dollars for one season is, by far, the most anyone has ever spent on anything.

Amazon’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ to Cost $465M for Just One Season

The highly anticipated fantasy series will cost far more than previous record-breaking estimates: "This will be the largest television series ever made."

www.hollywoodreporter.com

 

[joshEH]

First trailer:




Some parts look great, some parts look too clean and cosplay-ish. The trollocs looked good, though. And the Fade looks amazing. It's even more monstrous than they're portrayed in the books, but I'm fine with that. I'm mostly relieved they didn't just go with "person-with-skin-over-eye-sockets" -- not only is that not book-accurate, it's not that scary.

The Logain-storyline looks like it's getting MAJOR changes. Maybe they're compressing Logain and Mazrim Taim into a single character? I suspect that's going to happen a lot, given the sheer number of characters and plots they'll have to juggle and adapt, here.

(Although I just can't not see Roose Bolton in Tam al'Thor...)

 

[joshEH]

Short interview with two of the producers, discussing the recasting of Mat Cauthon:

Mike Weber & Marigo Kehoe Interview: Wheel of Time

Wheel of Time producers talk epic series.

screenrant.com

We can't actually talk about it. And we loved working with Barney [Harris], and we wish him well.

So this to me seems to rule out anything along the lines of awful behavior (especially towards any of the women in the cast). Because I don't think we'd be getting warm-and-fuzzy words about him if he was let go due to onset behavioral-issues.

If it were due to horrible acting, we'd be getting the "creative differences"-line, right? Could be an off-set issue, like he got a bunch of DUIs or something that made him a liability to the production? Like Michelle Rodriguez and Cynthia Watros on Lost?

 

[AlexF]

Watched the first two episodes this weekend (the first three were released Friday).

A bit slower than I was expecting, but the action scenes were pretty good, and the overall presentation is very well done and (I found to be) quite engaging.

I'm going to watch the third episode after work today.

 

[Randy Korstick]

Watched the first two episodes this weekend (the first three were released Friday).

A bit slower than I was expecting, but the action scenes were pretty good, and the overall presentation is very well done and (I found to be) quite engaging.

I'm going to watch the third episode after work today.

I have seen the 1st two episodes and my review is pretty much the same as yours. I found it slow the 1st 35 minutes and then very engaging after that. I hope it maintains it.

 

[Dave Upton]

I'm a fan of the books, and have read the whole series 3 times now.

I have to say I'm optimistic after episodes 2 and 3. There were narrative elements in Episode 1 that really bothered me in their divergence from the source material, but I'm trying to let that go.

My only other concern with the way they're casting the show is the sort of forced diversity in each episode thus far. I am not saying I want more Caucasian actors or less people of color in the show, just some logic to the various peoples/groups in each locale the story touches.

They're just making every group of people, even a small mountain mining town crazy diverse vs having them all look somewhat of similar ancestry, whatever that may be.

It's like they're afraid of having one geographic region have uniform ancestry to win points with certain viewers, which I understand but am also disappointed by, as each group of people and region are described clearly in the books.

 

[AlexF]

Episode 4 dropped early (Thanksgiving seems to have done that with a bunch of stuff this week) and moved the story on quite well, some good action scenes and our first serious view of what channeling is like.

This definitely does not feel like a halfway point (even though it is) but I'm interested to see how they play the rest of the first novel out over the remainder of the season.

Overall? Definitely still quite engaged with this show.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Haven't read the books and after 4 episodes I'm still ambivalent. This is obviously a series that has to do a lot of heavy lifting given the world and the number of books. Feel like I'm missing a lot because I lack context and the show hasn't done much to alleviate that problem. At this point, any tension feels underwhelming because it always seems problems will get magicked away.

Beautiful scenery though.