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Skuzal posted:I would also like to point out that in a series with literal magic, that having characters that seemingly have supernatural powers due to intense training or thats how Aiels are makes the world more interesting. Talking about how unrealistic something is when theres loving wizards throwing fireballs, a creature made of wind and pocket dimensions that characters can teleport to is really loving funny. The show seems to be shrugging off a lot of the details of how the mechanics of the world works, for whatever reason. So in that context, I think your comment about the Aiel basically are going to have superpowers, makes sense. But as a whole package, it all just makes the show feel less down to earth and gripping than the books are (obviously there are limits to how far that goes in the books, I mean high fantasy requires suspension of disbelief). El Grillo fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Dec 17, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2021 16:35
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His Divine Shadow posted:It didn't though, it was cringe as gently caress Who says cringe
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Dec 17, 2021 16:37
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Regarding the fight in the cold open, I enjoyed the hell out of it, and I'm a historical rapier/saber nerd, with a bit of practice with longsword. If this show had claimed to be set in 15th/16th century Italy or France or Germany, I would, indeed, have been right miffed. However, it doesn't do that. It's set in Wheel of Time-land, which is anime bullshit to the nines. And I am completely willing to suspend my disbelief to enjoy something that - from a realism standpoint - would get you murdered in two seconds, but which looks cool on screen. Is it silly? Sure! But it's fun. And, like I said in the book-thread, it's no sillier than some fights the Witcher has pulled.
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Dec 17, 2021 16:40
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RC Cola posted:Who says cringe Idiots
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Dec 17, 2021 16:40
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RC Cola posted:Who says cringe Idiot kids.
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Dec 17, 2021 16:42
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El Grillo posted:I dunno. I think in a big high fantasy series like this, you're better off either leaving things super vague (like LOTR or the magic stuff in GoT) or you actually need to get into the detailed mechanics for how all the magic and stuff actually works. If you're somewhere in between, it comes of as pulpy Harry Potter type handwaving. There's no depth to it. But if you actually get into the mechanics of how the One Power works in the books, and all the accoutrements to that, it becomes quite compelling and immersive (immersive for what it is, anyway).
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Dec 17, 2021 16:42
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Realistic medieval fighting is boring as gently caress to watch, there's a reason films and TV shows don't do it
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Dec 17, 2021 16:47
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Unless the series goes for some realism (and it's not the case here): looking cool > looking real It's kinda like watching kung-fu movies with all those flourishes that would be completely impractical if it were two martial artist at a competition  Martial arts skills translating to being able to do quasi-supernatural feats is pretty normal (even in a non-fantasy setting)
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Dec 17, 2021 16:48
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Nah, actual swordfighting is fun to watch. But it's much too quick for most scenes and if it devolves into wresting that's not usually the image they want to project with the fight.
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Dec 17, 2021 16:51
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RC Cola posted:I'm just curious, what circle of book reading are you are told that the wheel of time is bad? I read a fair amount of fantasy, trash, and fantasy trash and I've always been dissuaded from reading WoT because people I know who did described it as "good parts with meandering bullshit in between." I might have signed up for that if I'd hopped on at book three or something, but staring at 15 doorstoppers of that cold is a bit much.
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Dec 17, 2021 16:54
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I also don't get how people can say this show looks cheap. The production design is so intricate, the sets feel like real inhabited worlds and the CGI is for the most part beautiful. I've not watched the Witcher but I've seen plenty of clips and that feels like nothing in comparison. IIt's like people are watching an entirely different show
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Dec 17, 2021 16:57
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:I read a fair amount of fantasy, trash, and fantasy trash and I've always been dissuaded from reading WoT because people I know who did described it as "good parts with meandering bullshit in between." I might have signed up for that if I'd hopped on at book three or something, but staring at 15 doorstoppers of that cold is a bit much. Books 1-3 are very good and books 4-6 are amazing, it's only books 7-10 where things really tank but at that point your attachment to the characters carries you through and then books 11-14 just get better and better
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Dec 17, 2021 16:59
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Nothingtoseehere posted:Nah, actual swordfighting is fun to watch. But it's much too quick for most scenes and if it devolves into wresting that's not usually the image they want to project with the fight. Not emptyquoting. edit to add: Also, the chances of any given realistic swordfight devolving into wrestling is always at 70 % or more.
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Dec 17, 2021 17:00
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LionArcher posted:There was very little in there that wasn't perfect actually, and drastically better fighting than 99% of the GOT sword fights. Stunt woman/actor had solid training with spears/staffs, and spacing was great. Very well thought out, not a ton of fluff there at all. nah Ghislaine of YOSPOS posted:there is just no subtlety to any part of the script. im allergic to this queeny theater kid melodrama. im disappointed because for a few episodes I thought this would be something I would actually like on its own merits and could recommend to people. it's a fantasy tv show, which means that the "theater kid" stuff is inherent
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Dec 17, 2021 17:00
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I think the fight scene was basically good, but I was irritated at it right away for the simple reason I had no idea who anybody was. I don't enjoy spectacle unless it's motivated by character, and I'm not saying that to sound like I am a distinguished trash consumer, I just noticed that I wasn't enjoying the fight scene even though it was basically good. It was just some random poo poo they were showing off - or so I thought, then at the end of the episode it ties back in and now it doesn't bother me at all because that was Rand's mum and Tam, and she was an Aiel who are apparently super fighters which is why she was able to shred so many soliders like that. There are people who insist things are amazing just because they're over the top, and sometimes I am on board sometimes I'm not. WOT definitely falls into the corny side of over the top with its fight scenes sometimes. I remember thinking Alanna's magic showcase was unnecessary, too - but I don't have to like everything they do and it isn't the majority of the show. There's also the fact both that scene and this one feature a woman destroying a horde of men and while that doesn't add anything for me, there are a lot of people who just enjoy watching that so it tips the corniness into fun territory. roomtone fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Dec 17, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2021 17:01
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:I read a fair amount of fantasy, trash, and fantasy trash and I've always been dissuaded from reading WoT because people I know who did described it as "good parts with meandering bullshit in between." I might have signed up for that if I'd hopped on at book three or something, but staring at 15 doorstoppers of that cold is a bit much. If you enjoy audiobooks, that is my favorite way to consume the wheel of time. I'm biased because I've read the series a dozen or so times, but the last 3 have been audio books. It's done by a husband and wife pairing, they do a fantastic job. 1.25x speed seems to work perfectly. I'd say it's worth your time, but there are some slower books in the back half. The thing that works out is that the series is finished now, so you don't have to wait years after a bad book for another book. You can plow through them. That said I understand not wanting to dive into such a long dense series. If you do, check out the Wheel of Time book thread for new readers. Lots of first time readers there posting some good reactions now. This series rules and I'll die on the hill of trying to get everyone to read it 
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Dec 17, 2021 17:04
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I'm watching the Rurouni Kenshin live action movie right now. Are you all telling me this isn't real sword fighting? MY IMMERSION Edit: next you'll tell me that swords don't just catch fire and people don't normally jump 15 feet in the air
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Dec 17, 2021 17:05
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Sab669 posted:Can't help but feel like all the Pegwene stuff is just Perrin "overreacting" to what he heard in the wind, rather than actually wanting to boink Egwene. It definitely comes off as Machin Shin only telling you things you already think, so it can't just be him over-reacting to something it said that he doesn't think to some degree. Sab669 posted:I both liked and disliked the little recap of Rand doing stuff once it's revealed. I kinda wish they just let the audience pick up on those moments during a re-watch rather than explicitly showing everything, although actually seeing weaves on this showing was a neat addition. While it's certainly possible they could have left it up to the audience to put two and two together and know that Rand channeled to knock the door down, I don't think it's reasonable to expect the same in the Ways, because there's really nothing suggesting Rand was responsible there and Egwene says she did it without intending to. It'd also mean skipping over him thinking about Tam babbling about his birth if they didn't. Two of the three flashbacks the show provides are things the audience can't connect without those flashbacks. Sab669 posted:Definitely thought the Blight looked kinda dumb; I pictured it like "weird desert with what is growing is all decaying and wrong", not dense rear end forest of dead tree things. I'm pretty sure that's just part of the Blight, considering Moiraine described it as including ashen deserts to Rand as they're approaching. MegaZeroX posted:Yeah, Hawkeye has 2.5 times the per episode budget, and that doesn't require much for special effects or costuming. And if you look at most of the top shows from Netflix/Disney+, you are going to notice their budgets exceed WoT's. I mean, a lot of that budget in Hawkeye is going to be going on paying Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfield, Florence Pugh, Vera Farmiga and possibly Vincent D'Onfrio, but even taking that into account, yeah, there's a difference. It's also worth noting that in the case of Wheel of Time, the production videos they've put up make it obvious that a lot of that budget has gone into setting up a completely new studio, and future proofing for further seasons with research into and some production of stuff we won't see for a long time. So the per episode budget on stuff actually in the episode itself is probably lower than you'd think looking at the numbers. Rarity posted:I also don't get how people can say this show looks cheap. The production design is so intricate, the sets feel like real inhabited worlds and the CGI is for the most part beautiful. I've not watched the Witcher but I've seen plenty of clips and that feels like nothing in comparison. IIt's like people are watching an entirely different show It comes off as inhabited because it basically is; a lot of the sets are real, physical spaces, with actual interiors and not just facades or CGI. You can see a pulled back production shot of Tar Valon in filming during one of the behind the scenes videos, and there's a dozen or more two story buildings on the set to line a street. They're presumably built of cheap materials not meant to stand up to weather or anything, but they're actual buildings. Emond's Field was an actual real village built specifically for one episode, with every building have a fully decked out interior. Which was then all burned for the first episode, and hasn't been used since. RC Cola posted:If you enjoy audiobooks, that is my favorite way to consume the wheel of time. I'm biased because I've read the series a dozen or so times, but the last 3 have been audio books. I actually had a bit from The Great Hunt (the second book) pop up in my YouTube feed earlier today, and gave it a listen since I read the first ten books years ago and knew roughly what transpired, but was curious how the audiobook played it. It reminded me of how fun some of it is, though I'm about a quarter of the way through book one at the moment anyway and realizing that as much as I like the show, I just miss a lot of the world building and slower scenes the books include. The point I wanted to make though, is that at some point after the season is over it might be an idea to grab some of those audio book clips off YouTube from events the show has already covered, and paste them into the thread to give people an idea of what the difference is or try to get them into those. tsob fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Dec 17, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2021 17:11
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:I read a fair amount of fantasy, trash, and fantasy trash and I've always been dissuaded from reading WoT because people I know who did described it as "good parts with meandering bullshit in between." I might have signed up for that if I'd hopped on at book three or something, but staring at 15 doorstoppers of that cold is a bit much. those 15 books could perhaps be edited into 3 good books
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Dec 17, 2021 17:13
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The mining village in episode three was also something they just built completely
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Dec 17, 2021 17:17
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ChubbyChecker posted:those 15 books could perhaps be edited into 3 good books
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Dec 17, 2021 17:19
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th3t00t posted:(Can we make this dude’s screaming face an emoticon for the forums? ) For the love of god no, posts about these losers is by far the worst posts in the thread. If I never see his baby rage face again that's okay
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Dec 17, 2021 17:22
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ChubbyChecker posted:those 15 books could perhaps be edited into 3 good books This one of my favorite terrible takes 
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Dec 17, 2021 17:23
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RC Cola posted:This series rules and I'll die on the hill of trying to get everyone to read it Oh sure. You asked about the advice received that led to me not reading it yet. I'm an incredibly impatient fiction consumer so, much like GoT, I'll probably read the whole thing between season 1 and 2. I'd have started already but I couldn't find a logical crossover to where the story is to where the book was when I last tried. It seemed like there were at least four extra characters in each scene.
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Dec 17, 2021 17:23
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Ghislaine of YOSPOS posted:there is just no subtlety to any part of the script. im allergic to this queeny theater kid melodrama. im disappointed because for a few episodes I thought this would be something I would actually like on its own merits and could recommend to people. Episode 4 is actually when the show started to get really good OP. It's genre fiction it's gonna have theater melodrama. Also, a lot of the core actors are quite young and green. None of the GoT younger actors were ever any good except from Lady Mormont, but they came to at least be competent at their characters. I would imagine their acting is going to improve quite a bit even by next season.
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Dec 17, 2021 17:24
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:Oh sure. You asked about the advice received that led to me not reading it yet. I'm an incredibly impatient fiction consumer so, much like GoT, I'll probably read the whole thing between season 1 and 2. I'd have started already but I couldn't find a logical crossover to where the story is to where the book was when I last tried. It seemed like there were at least four extra characters in each scene. It's probably worth jumping in at the start with either the actual books or the audiobooks anyway, just because there's so much world-building in book one that hasn't really been covered in the show. A lot of it is probably referenced in further books, but between it and the slight changes in character/circumstance, it's probably worth it. Lan in the show is quite a stoic character, but in the books he's basically a stone slab a lot of the time so it'd probably be jarring to jump from one to the other without some initial grounding in how the Emond's Fielders view him. Rosamund Pike also read the first book as an audiobook, and that debuted on Audible along with the first episodes. I haven't listened to it yet, but the clip they have of it is good and I bought it on the strength of that alone since it was on sale at the time anyway as part of a site wide sale.
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Dec 17, 2021 17:26
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lol any mild criticism of the show, even from people who enjoy and root for it in general, is met with "you're an incel yelling" I'll never understand how people wrap up their consumption preferences into their own sense of self worth. I found one fight scene to be underwhelming and thought they could have done something better with it and apparently I'm the same as racists and misogynists wanting a Nazifest. Just a totally normal, cool atmosphere in here. Nothingtoseehere posted:Nah, actual swordfighting is fun to watch. But it's much too quick for most scenes and if it devolves into wresting that's not usually the image they want to project with the fight. This is true which is why I think a balance can and should be struck when possible. Here's a pretty good example of what I'm talking about. There are definitely some "Hollywood" elements here but these two dorks managed to create a better fight scene in some old Czech castle that Amazon could with the amount of resources they have. The disarms and blade work are just really great - no one gets impossibly flipped after a parry, just for example. FLIPADELPHIA fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Dec 17, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2021 17:27
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tsob posted:The point I wanted to make though, is that at some point after the season is over it might be an idea to grab some of those audio book clips off YouTube from events the show has already covered, and paste them into the thread to give people an idea of what the difference is or try to get them into those. I’m not really the target audience for this, since I have read the books before (and have holds placed on the first two with my library to reread them), but I think that’s a good idea—and one that doesn’t violate the “no book spoilers” goal of this thread.
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Dec 17, 2021 17:28
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Rarity posted:Books 1-3 are very good and books 4-6 are amazing, it's only books 7-10 where things really tank but at that point your attachment to the characters carries you through and then books 11-14 just get better and better
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Dec 17, 2021 17:29
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:lol any mild criticism of the show, even from people who enjoy and root for it in general, is met with "you're an incel yelling" Maybe don't yell then?
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Dec 17, 2021 17:36
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:lol any mild criticism of the show, even from people who enjoy and root for it in general, is met with "you're an incel yelling" You may not share their overall opinion of the show, but when it came to your screed about spears and fighting technique...
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Dec 17, 2021 17:37
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lol those guys post 2 hour videos, I wrote like 3 sentences about one scene Seriously some of you guys need to disentangle your egos from whether or not everyone shares your opinions on subjective art. "Both you and a nazi wanted a more realistic fight scene so you must also be a nazi" is super toxic, even for this forum. Anyway, this is a dumb derail and I apologize for starting it. Had no idea it would generate this kind of a response.
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Dec 17, 2021 17:42
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please shed a tear for the aggrieved poster who was made fun of for saying the fight scene in a show about wizards who could explode someone's head if they felt like it wasn't realistic enough
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Dec 17, 2021 17:42
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Lol, are we really having a Sword Fight Realism argument? Episode owned. I'm wondering if the Perrin Egwene subplot is going to be fully resolved by this confrontation and its aftermath (and presumably one more scene with those two talk it out) or if it will keep going. Lan and Nynaeve were also great this week, as usual. Really liked the Black Wind scene. The only thing about the intro fight that kind of bugged me is why she didn't put her veil back on. I assume the "real," reason is because they wanted to make it clear this warrior was a woman so it would own more when she butchered like six dudes in armor while having birth contractions, but you could have done that without needing to keep her veil off. In fact, I think it would have been cooler in the traditionally dramatic sense to take the veil off AFTER all the fighting is done because then you get "Oh, she was a woman. OH, HER STOMACH IS BIG BECAUSE SHE'S PREGNANT! AND SHE KEPT PAUSING BECAUSE OF HER CONTRACTIONS, NOT HER WOUNDS! :O " Either they didn't trust their audience to be able to figure out why this was cool without the training wheels of seeing a woman's face through the whole thing, or they thought it was just too important to let the actor do some FACIAL EXPRESSION ACTING, and its the later it makes me a little unhappy. I could elaborate why, but a lot of it is book stuff so I'll just limit myself to saying "Aiel are supposed to take their traditions extremely seriously."
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Dec 17, 2021 17:46
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They removed so much of Roose Bolton's face with CGI to make him look younger that he looked like that weird human pokemon from Detective Pikachu.
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Dec 17, 2021 17:47
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Johnny Joestar posted:please shed a tear for the aggrieved poster who was made fun of for saying the fight scene in a show about wizards who could explode someone's head if they felt like it wasn't realistic enough This comeback has become a cliche. I'm not defending the whole 'the swordplay was unrealistic' bit, because who cares, but I don't think there's anything wrong with saying a fight scene broke your suspension of disbelief in a fantasy show. Just because something also features magic doesn't mean absolutely nothing matters and anybody who thinks 'eh this doesn't feel real/earned' is an enraged misogynist.
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Dec 17, 2021 17:49
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:lol those guys post 2 hour videos, I wrote like 3 sentences about one scene And LOL someone changed your AV
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Dec 17, 2021 17:49
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I don't need realism, the fight was stagey but fine but also could have been a third of the length and gotten the same point across imo.
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Dec 17, 2021 17:49
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Johnny Joestar posted:please shed a tear for the aggrieved poster who was made fun of for saying the fight scene in a show about wizards who could explode someone's head if they felt like it wasn't realistic enough I was wrong to think his opinion was dumb and bad. It is actually even dumber and bader than I'd realized.
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Dec 17, 2021 17:50
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roomtone posted:This comeback has become a cliche. I'm not defending the whole 'the swordplay was unrealistic' bit, because who cares, but I don't think there's anything wrong with saying a fight scene broke your suspension of disbelief in a fantasy show. Just because something also features magic doesn't mean absolutely nothing matters and anybody who thinks 'eh this doesn't feel real/earned' is an enraged misogynist. That Italian Guy fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Dec 17, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2021 17:54
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