Oh, I fully agree on the “this change was just unnecessary” bits, starting from Perrin in ep1.
And I don’t trust them to be doing “We need this bit here, that bit later, because that’s what works on tv instead of in books” because I don’t think they’re anywhere near that competent. This isn’t a genius-level jigsaw where they bring in something AFTER Tar Valon instead of before and it makes more sense / emotional payoff to the viewers, because the writers clearly aren’t that smart. They have got it mostly right in terms of the spirit of the books so far though, and this is clearly an adaption with changes not a straight conversion of text to the screen, so I’m okay with it.
(I read at least 7 of the books. Some of them could do with big changes as books let alone onscreen)
Completely agree, there is a lot of stuffing in the books that can go away. But I think the writers of the show are wasting a good opportunity of keeping good parts of the story, and the replacements they have done so far have been underwhelming in their majority. I can see the point on Perrin (and he can be one of the trickiest characters to translate to screen format) in episode 1, but they have wasted a great opportunity with characters like Thom Merrilin, and including the Warder grief story instead of things like Elias Machera or the Caemlyn plot I still don’t really get.
Anyway, I am glad we have an adaptation, if still a bit dubious about it.
Yeah, the only thing I can think is that they felt viewers would be bored if the travelling to Tar Valon took ten episodes, or that getting the Aes Sedai into the spotlight earlier would give people more of a feel for the world / what makes WoT different from others. They’d better move a lot of those storylines to later instead of just dropping them, though.
Second reply to you today about something we both enjoyed
I am watching Arcane right now too. I am in the last third of the show (episode 7 finished) and I was suprised by its quality. I started it because I play Legends of Runeterra (the LoL CCG, which is really good. Has a great f2p PvE mode too). So I expected an anime show I wouldn’t enjoy much because I am usually not a big fan of these (with a few exceptions). But it is very well done and 9 episodes is not too long either.
Been convalescing from a non-Covid but absolute shit of a cold this last week. Has been zero fun but I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries to take my mind off feeling bad (with subtitles as this swine of a virus has taken out both my eardrums). In this spirit I’d heartily heartily recommend OJ Simpson: Made in America.
It won an Oscar, and deservedly so, it’s bloody great. It also helps if you’re recovering from illness because it’s eight hours long, but it goes so deep that you really get an insight into America’s age-old problem of race, and why it was so inextricably tied-up with the trial of a man who never thought of himself as black. It’s not without flaws - I wish it went as deep on domestic abuse as it does on racism - but it’s mesmerising and utterly compelling. Strongly recommended for those of you with eight hours to spare. In the UK, it’s available on iPlayer for the next few months.
The girls found out that there was a new Ghostbusters movie, and that they were all girls, so we watched it last night with popcorn. Corny, hell yeah. Not very funny, tick. Entertaining? Meeeh. Best thing was to see the cameos of the three surviving members of the first movies. The girls liked it enough to not go away mid movie, so that’s something, I guess.
Then I caught up with London has fallen, from Gerry Butler. I did really enjoy the action scenes. Very predictable, but I admit they did really well pretending to blast half of London. Some of those scenes gave me a funny twist in the gut, specially Westminster Abbey.
It’s not a popular opinion, but I loved the new Ghostbusters (haven’t seen Afterlife yet). Holtzmann in particular… gods, she’s funny.
Ironically, my least favourite parts were the cameos from old Ghostbusters. It felt… like a bad fit. But hey, not saying you’re wrong to feel the way you did, but I loved it.
The opening scene of today’s episode (7) of Wheel of Time is one of the most stone-cold BADASS bits of tv this year. I’m definitely invested in this show now.
I admit Holtzmann had the best gags/jokes. Is just that I didn’t buy the other three… at all.
By the way, she should be named Hot, not Holtz. I found her really attractive in that role.
Chris Hemsworth was fine… until he got possessed. I didn’t buy that bit. But I really enjoyed how he was playing the typical role blond women were given to in the 90s and before. Very tongue in cheek.
It’s leaning hard on the prequel book as well. I’m not sure the extra stuff is a spoiler, just like the events / characters they’re missing out in the name of speed aren’t really missed: the viewer still only knows about as much as you would from the first book, it’s just done differently. But no, it’s very much not sticking only to material from book 1, so read more first if you don’t want spoilers.
@SteveB_uk is quite on point, I don’t think they are spoiling much from the other books, besides introducing the Amirlyn Seat in this early (I believe she is not appearing until the second book) but without it, the series would suffer from lack of world-building. The first three books are mostly travel books from the main characters, and the series definitely benefits from insights from what happens in further books with regards of the Aes Sedai politics in the White Tower.
On the other hand, they have made so many drastic changes from the Eye of the World (book 1) I believe you can take them as separate entities.
I think the Wheel of Time as a book saga suffers from many issues, besides being very much a breakthrough in many areas when it came out, and the TV series is definitely not short of issues either, if for very different reasons. Still, I am glad they have made it, even if I have plenty of criticisms to make.
The saga has plenty of really good material that can work wonders on the screen if done well, and if the areas that need polishing get trimmed or even eliminated, even better. I am not sure if this is how I would have done it, but I am no filmmaker…
Watched Hawkeye over the course of a couple of evenings. Hardly groundbreaking or terribly original stuff, but certainly enjoyable and the mix of tones was more smoothly done than in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.
Marvel productions are frequently so carefully put together that you practically hear the elements snapping into place. There’s a bit of that with Hawkeye at times. Still, certainly one of the top three things I’ve watched this month.
