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I really wanted Rings of Power to be good, but they just didn't put the ingredients together into an interesting story.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:48
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Valentin posted:this is not, however, the same thing as tightening up and condensing WOT in the adaptation, because it merely alters the scope rather than reducing it. This is, I think, where a lot of the adaptational issues originate w/r/t pacing and focus, and I think is the source of much of the (non-racist, non-sexist) frustration with the adaptation that sometimes arises. I'd agree with this. I think I'm one of the minority that enjoyed the sad warder episode in S1. It felt like they were trying to make the show their own, gave some focus to a new character and showed how his world was affected, and in turn how that affected the brotherhood of warders. I'd rather they do things like that instead of giving us ChatGPT Ingtar. Would I be sad at losing his moment? Sure. But I might have been less sad over not having it at all then what we ended up with. Like I've said a few times now, the awesome book moments happened because they were earned, they didn't just happen in a vacuum. So tossing in a book "moment" just to check a box feels more like pandering than making the story their own. For example, I thought the Hopper moment landed pretty well. We've been introduced to his character. He and Perrin had been shown together for a few episodes and had a connection. Then Daddy Bornhold does his thing to interrupt Hopper's hero moment. Less than 5 minutes if screen time over the season I'd bet, but it was enough to make the viewer care. And also forms the foundation of future story lines.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:50
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Sad Warder was the best episode of season 1
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Oct 10, 2023 19:51
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EotW has aged really badly. It was very good for 1989 and I enjoyed it a lot when I read it in the late 90s but reading it now in the context of how the fantasy genre has progressed in the last 30 years it is so bland and generic. Even putting the heavy LOTR similarities aside Rand is a really vanilla protagonist and you have to spend so much time with him. It's a poor representation of the strengths of the series as a whole with the majority of the best characters either sidelined or not even in it. The show did a good job of making something more from it imo.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:57
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On the nyneave fletchings thing, I just rewatched 1x1 again and she ties a piece of twine on the old guys leg as first aid durring the trolloc attack. Ya'all I just think the writers are bad at knowing midevil battlefield first aid.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:58
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Dingleberry2 posted:I'd agree with this. I think I'm one of the minority that enjoyed the sad warder episode in S1. It felt like they were trying to make the show their own, gave some focus to a new character and showed how his world was affected, and in turn how that affected the brotherhood of warders.  With the Ingtar moment, I’m kind of OK with what they did in episode 8. I think it would have actually weakened the moment, if they had done the full „no one can walk too long in the Shadow to turn back into the light“ spiel. He simply didn’t have enough moments and development on-screen to have it be earned. Instead what they did is sprinkle a few moments and hints throughout the season where it was possible (he is in the Dark Social, his focus on the Horn, his small scene with burying the Shienaran Darkfriend). The episode 8 scene was a nod to book-readers that they know they couldn’t really show the full sequence, but it happened. Ingtar was a Darkfriend and he sacrificed himself in order to serve the Light. Now, given movie/TV logic and visualisation, he died way too quickly, probably because in TV logic if you don’t show his death he isn’t dead. I would gave liked it a lot better if they had run away while he was still fighting, get away and only at the end (or maybe when Mat blew the horn) show him dead. His quick death cheapened the sacrifice IMO.
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Oct 10, 2023 20:12
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Both of the collared sul'dam died so it looks like that entire subplot is going to get rewritten
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Oct 10, 2023 20:13
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I think it's worthwhile to compare Stepin and Ingtar. Both are deaths of decently prominent secondary characters, but one was taken from the books and the other was invented for the show. I think the former worked quite well because it was set up organically into the story, introduced new information about the aes sedai and warders, and the risks and downsides to the bond. The mourning scene showed the culture and rituals of the westlands. Along with the bel tine lanterns and various burial scenes, this is something the show is doing far better than the books. Ingtar's death wasn't set up well and didn't land for me because there was no broader redemptive arc to the character. It was a self-sacrifice that came without stakes. Is the root cause of that not having enough time in the show? I think that's more likely than a lack of understanding the point of Ingtar's plot in the books. But regardless of cause, I don't think that the inclusion really furthered any broader understanding of the world and its elements. Sure, maybe not everything has to have a direct point to it like that. But it really felt like a miss to me.
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Oct 10, 2023 20:14
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DTurtle posted:The episode 8 scene was a nod to book-readers that they know they couldn’t really show the full sequence, but it happened. Ingtar was a Darkfriend and he sacrificed himself in order to serve the Light. I dont think anyone, book reader or not, likes a hurried and badly done character arc. I'm coming to the point in the light that this show tends to stumble most when trying to cover book points, that it would be better served trying to do its own thing most of the time.
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Oct 10, 2023 20:20
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Nihilarian posted:Both of the collared sul'dam died so it looks like that entire subplot is going to get rewritten I don't think the whole "leaving a suldam collared to shake the seanchan" plot works really, cause it goes nowhere. Historically speaking, bigots are super good at rationalizing anything. We see tuon do it in the books. "Suldam can learn to channel", "well I don't do that so it's fine" It has big importance to a few specific people, but overall nothing really happens with it.
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Oct 10, 2023 20:23
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Health Services posted:I think it's worthwhile to compare Stepin and Ingtar. Both are deaths of decently prominent secondary characters, but one was taken from the books and the other was invented for the show. I think the former worked quite well because it was set up organically into the story, introduced new information about the aes sedai and warders, and the risks and downsides to the bond. The mourning scene showed the culture and rituals of the westlands. Along with the bel tine lanterns and various burial scenes, this is something the show is doing far better than the books. it was a huge miss that scene was the whole point of the character, and one of the best scenes in the books if they weren't going to do it justice, they should have just removed the whole character, and given the saved screentime to some other scene, eg. the rand vs seanchan bladelord duel
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Oct 10, 2023 20:32
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Shageletic posted:I dont think anyone, book reader or not, likes a hurried and badly done character arc. I'm coming to the point in the light that this show tends to stumble most when trying to cover book points, that it would be better served trying to do its own thing most of the time. I think I agree that when they’re confronted with a character whose arc they can’t adapt due to space constraints or other more important changes, they might as well just create a new character who they can give a new arc to. On the other hand every time they do that you get a million complaints about the sad warder.
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Oct 10, 2023 20:32
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Dingleberry2 posted:That's just the SA echo chamber, same as the mentions of hundreds of pages of descriptions of embroidery. The books still hold up. The "slog" was mostly a slog when waiting 2 years between books. This was pretty much it for me. I devoured the first 8 books, constantly posted on the video game's forums and book 9 dropped and I just couldn't get into and still haven't gone back.
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Oct 10, 2023 20:34
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buffalo all day posted:I think I agree that when they’re confronted with a character whose arc they can’t adapt due to space constraints or other more important changes, they might as well just create a new character who they can give a new arc to. On the other hand every time they do that you get a million complaints about the sad warder. Or just delete the character altogether to further develop and create a deeper well of sympathy for the protagonists of this story, who are namely Egwene, Nynaeve, Rand, Moiraine, and Lan.
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Oct 10, 2023 20:44
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Shageletic posted:I dont think anyone, book reader or not, likes a hurried and badly done character arc. I'm coming to the point in the light that this show tends to stumble most when trying to cover book points, that it would be better served trying to do its own thing most of the time. ChubbyChecker posted:it was a huge miss Ingtar‘s death was noble, but nothing special. Turak‘s death by sword was cool, but bullshit. Flicker flicker was a cool concept, but mostly without consequences for the series. The battle in the sky is cool to read about, but would look absolutely stupid on screen (yes, I know about Legion, and it looks dumb and would look even dumber and out of place in the Wheel of Time universe). I’m forgetting some other stuff that was also mentioned as best scene or most important scene, but the long and short of it is that there is not a single must include scene in the entire book series that has to be translated 1:1 from the page to the screen. There have been so many hilariously stupid suggestions about how they could have improved the show that just show that most people have absolutely no idea how to make a good show.
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Oct 10, 2023 20:47
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DTurtle posted:There have been so many hilariously stupid suggestions about how they could have improved the show that just show that most people have absolutely no idea how to make a good show. Hey. All of my suggestions are perfectly filmable and would make the show better.
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Oct 10, 2023 20:56
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ChubbyChecker posted:it was a huge miss The problem with wholly removing Ingtar is that you still need the Shienarians for later with Masema, and for before with the hunt. Maybe having a unmemorable self-sacrifice is the easy way out of the conundrum, but I agree that it was undercooked. It's strange, because Ingtar had some good, if small, scenes with Perrin and the Seanchan and I can't imagine Stepin had a greatly different amount of screentime, but that scene came off a lot better to me.
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Oct 10, 2023 21:06
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It's clear that alot of people didn't 100 percent jibe with the show, even in its 2nd season so it's natural people are brainstorming ways they think it would have improved. And it's also natural that people in the book thread which up to very recently was entirely about the books, would suggest including scenes from a series that they like enough to post about. Like I've always said inclusion of book elements shouldn't be a standard of quality. The TV show should stand on its own. But it then needs to write stuff that is coherently laid out, with metaphors and character arcs that logically hang together, for a season of not an entire series, with epic action scenes that tie everything together. Like the stuff people like about the books. That's really hard to do esp if there is as much micromanaging from Amazon as Rafe mentioned occurred for the pilot. In the back of my mind I'm thinking that Amazon might have been the worst place for a WoT series. Well outside of basic cable.
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Oct 10, 2023 21:11
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S2 worked really well for me, to be clear. I've got a few quibbles about secondary characters like Ingtar and (more significantly) overwrought and clunky dialogue in the earlier episodes, but I think it worked really well on the whole. Much like the books, the hurdle was getting past EotW in a reasonable way. As mentioned earlier, there's a lot of structural issues they had to deal with to make a decent season. Given how good the second season was, in particular with the forsaken and other villains, I'm confident they'll do very well for the rest of the series.
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Oct 10, 2023 21:25
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Health Services posted:The problem with wholly removing Ingtar is that you still need the Shienarians for later with Masema, and for before with the hunt. Maybe having a unmemorable self-sacrifice is the easy way out of the conundrum, but I agree that it was undercooked. It's strange, because Ingtar had some good, if small, scenes with Perrin and the Seanchan and I can't imagine Stepin had a greatly different amount of screentime, but that scene came off a lot better to me.
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Oct 10, 2023 21:30
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CainFortea posted:I don't think the whole "leaving a suldam collared to shake the seanchan" plot works really, cause it goes nowhere. Eh, it laid the seeds for a brighter future even if we didn't see it happen. That was one of the major themes that kept coming up, you had that, the Aiel finding a way to avoid a forever war, etc
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Oct 10, 2023 22:12
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His Divine Shadow posted:There's just no way even the best producers, writers and actors in human television history could do the long, complex storylines of the books justice in 8 episodes even if you had a time machine to go get them and tell them to get it done with that as it's sole restriction. GoT and House of the Dragon are 10 episode seasons and blew WoT away in terms of popularity. People actually got upset at GoT for s7-s8 when they went with fewer episodes (among other things).
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Oct 10, 2023 23:06
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Once again artificial metrics ruin everything
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Oct 10, 2023 23:13
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Yeah, I think Netflix started the 8 episode garbage, but they also were producing mass amounts of poo poo. 10 (HBO) to 13 (FX) episodes is the sweet spot. I am at least grateful they do weekly releases. Another Netflix formula that probably contributed to the 8 episode format since that's when people would pass out doing the Day 1 binge watch.
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Oct 10, 2023 23:52
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I'm a show enjoyer but I completely agree that Ingtar's sacrifice was lame. It's my biggest negative on the show tbh. However you also get bits from the book which hit way harder in the show like Hopper's death so as much as I'm sad about losing that moment I think it balances out overall.
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Oct 10, 2023 23:55
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I hope they stop the 'dump 3 eps in the first week' strategy for S3. Let us savour that poo poo.
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Oct 10, 2023 23:56
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Wasn't the BBC doing 7-8 episode seasons back when all Network shows in the US insisted on 22-26 per season? 7-8 works really well for a single season arc. It works less well trying to condense two very length books into one. Especially very early on in a series.
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Oct 11, 2023 00:07
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The optimal length of a show should be as long or as short as the show creators think is required to tell their story. Normalize non standard season and series lengths
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Oct 11, 2023 00:27
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th3t00t posted:I think Amazon has used the wrong modeling for their algorithm and badly miscalculated the proper episode count. Trying to game the system with low episode counts per season to cater to low attention spans doesn't work. Making content that is good enough to pay attention to no matter the episode count does work. the 8 episode season works great if you are the bbc and produce a really solid miniseries-esque season each year, or if you are netflix and studio mir is producing 8 episode cartoon "seasons" that you are going to drop every four months on an insane release pace. it works way, way worse when you have 8 episode seasons that happen every two years and those seasons are clearly built around a multiple season long plan Valentin fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Oct 11, 2023 |
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Oct 11, 2023 00:31
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Big Mutha Truckers 2 posted:I hope they stop the 'dump 3 eps in the first week' strategy for S3. Let us savour that poo poo. God no give me the whole loving thing at once no matter how long it is. I despise having to wait so drat long.
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Oct 11, 2023 00:38
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All shows follow the Cheers model. We thought we were 3 seasons in and were still in season 1.
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Oct 11, 2023 02:10
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First season of Severance was nine episodes so clearly that's the superior number.
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Oct 11, 2023 02:31
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I like the show
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Oct 11, 2023 02:56
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Barreft posted:I like the show same
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Oct 11, 2023 02:59
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The issue to me is the first season is the only real way to show the Two Rivers folk as "normal" before the crazy poo poo really starts happening to them, we should of had way more episodes of all that. We should have good idea of most of their personalities and convictions by then, instead of them mostly standing around gawking at things happening around them, looking at you Rand/Perrin.
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Oct 11, 2023 03:53
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socialsecurity posted:The issue to me is the first season is the only real way to show the Two Rivers folk as "normal" before the crazy poo poo really starts happening to them, we should of had way more episodes of all that. We should have good idea of most of their personalities and convictions by then, instead of them mostly standing around gawking at things happening around them, looking at you Rand/Perrin. I agree, I really wanted the first episode to hit certain plot points from the first book there (including the original lews therin scene), showing the village, every day business, how sheltered and naive people of a medieval village wold be, Moiraine and Lan are mysterious visitors etc, Rand seeing the "black rider" now and then, at this point the episode should have a kind of horror movie feel I think, then Rand and his dad chilling in the house, suddenly getting attacked, his dad injured and the first episode could end on Rand trying to drag his dad back to town. I honestly don't have a need to see that big battle in town, a smaller battle at Rands house would have been just fine. I did not want that old woman with a pitch fork or whatever it was to scream bring it on or something at a trolloc. I think that was the first time I went "what the gently caress?" honestly that scene bugs me still. It creates the wrong kind of setting / mood, that's some marvel cringe when horror is supposed to be the theme now! Now I'm turning into a nitpicking rear end in a top hat I bet people think, but what can I say? v  v I suddenly felt the need to vent about this scene despite all this time.e: I'm trying to do some honest self-introspection here and not argue in bad faith or be a book reading show nitpicker. I think if I am sounding hard on the show it's probably because I mostly remember all the book scenes and dialouge I was hoping to see going into this show, but didn't get. Or when we did get it, they rewrote the lines and it wasn't as good or impactful (gitara death scene, rand and sichuan dialogue). I am pretty sure it went wrong for me the moment it didn't start with the Lews Therin and Ishamael scene and I remember waiting for that scene the entire first episode to the point I didn't bother following the rest of the plot that closely because I kept wondering when was that scene coming? I can't of the top of my head recall if I have gotten any of my favorite moments/feels from the books yet? I am clearly not as charitable towards this show because I mostly keep remembering it for the stuff I haven't received, rather than what it's actual high points for other people might be. I think that might be a fundamental difference between a show liker or not. His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Oct 11, 2023 |
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Oct 11, 2023 04:41
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His Divine Shadow posted:I agree, I really wanted the first episode to hit certain plot points from the first book there (including the original lews therin scene), showing the village, every day business, how sheltered and naive people of a medieval village wold be, Moiraine and Lan are mysterious visitors etc, Rand seeing the "black rider" now and then, at this point the episode should have a kind of horror movie feel I think, then Rand and his dad chilling in the house, suddenly getting attacked, his dad injured and the first episode could end on Rand trying to drag his dad back to town. I honestly don't have a need to see that big battle in town, a smaller battle at Rands house would have been just fine. The old blood is still strong in the two rivers. I agree that a slower build would have been better, but when you only have 8 episodes and have to cut/shift a ton of things as it is...I get why they had (and showed) winternight in the first ep. I'm cool with the Two Rivers folks fighting back (and still losing) because it sets the tone for what's likely to happen in S3.
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Oct 11, 2023 04:57
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Health Services posted:I think it's worthwhile to compare Stepin and Ingtar. Both are deaths of decently prominent secondary characters, but one was taken from the books and the other was invented for the show. I think the former worked quite well because it was set up organically into the story, introduced new information about the aes sedai and warders, and the risks and downsides to the bond. In theory, yes. In practice, I read/watched quite a few reactions from non-readers and none of them seemed to have picked up on there being some magical effect of the bond breaking causing Stepin to be suicidal. They all just seemed to think that the sad warder was sad. I'm not even sure I saw any non-readers understand that the bond is a magical effect rather than just an interpersonal relationship until much later.
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Oct 11, 2023 05:11
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Nion posted:In theory, yes. In practice, I read/watched quite a few reactions from non-readers and none of them seemed to have picked up on there being some magical effect of the bond breaking causing Stepin to be suicidal. They all just seemed to think that the sad warder was sad. I'm not even sure I saw any non-readers understand that the bond is a magical effect rather than just an interpersonal relationship until much later. I watched it with a non-reader and he instantly was like "Oh poo poo, hide the knives, Stepin's totally gonna off himself because it looked like he straight up died too when Kerene did." And then he spent the entire "Sad Warder" episode on pins and needles waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because the show wasn't all that subtle about Stepin getting absolutely hosed up by her death thanks to the bond--a thing they set up by spending like a quarter of the episode just keelhauling Nyaneve through on behalf of the viewer w/r/t what Warders and the bond are--so that you can very easily tell during the Sad Warder episode that Stepin is just sleepwalking his way to the knife because a part of his soul is now literally missing with Kerene gone thanks to the bond and death is the only cure for that kind of wound. nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Oct 11, 2023 |
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Oct 11, 2023 05:50
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Anyone who complains about Eye being an LOTR ripoff is a crybaby weakling that should be forced to read Sword of Shannara to see what a real LOTR knockoff looks like.
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Oct 11, 2023 06:05
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