Amazon Prime Releases First Trailer for 'Wheel of Time' Series (gamespot.com) 66
Long-time Slashdot reader flogger shares Amazon Prime's first trailer for its upcoming Wheel of Time series. GameSpot reports:
The first three episodes will arrive on Friday, November 19, with new episodes arriving every Friday afterward, leading to the Season 1 finale on December 24.
The Wheel of Time is based on the best-selling fantasy novels by Robert Jordan, which sold more than 90 million books... The original book series was made up of 15 novels published between 1990 and 2013. Jordan died in 2007 while working on the 12th book, and left behind notes intended to help someone else finish the series. Brandon Sanderson took up the role, and now serves as a consulting producer on the Amazon series...
The series is co-produced by Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television. The first three episodes of season one will premiere together on Friday, November 19, with new episodes available each Friday following. The season finale will air on December 24.
Here's how Variety summarizes the story. The power Aes Sedai organization and "a group of other adventurers head off on a journey across the world. However, one of the members of the group is the Dragon Reborn, who will save humanity or destroy it.
The Wheel of Time is based on the best-selling fantasy novels by Robert Jordan, which sold more than 90 million books... The original book series was made up of 15 novels published between 1990 and 2013. Jordan died in 2007 while working on the 12th book, and left behind notes intended to help someone else finish the series. Brandon Sanderson took up the role, and now serves as a consulting producer on the Amazon series...
The series is co-produced by Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television. The first three episodes of season one will premiere together on Friday, November 19, with new episodes available each Friday following. The season finale will air on December 24.
Here's how Variety summarizes the story. The power Aes Sedai organization and "a group of other adventurers head off on a journey across the world. However, one of the members of the group is the Dragon Reborn, who will save humanity or destroy it.
Big demographic (Score:1)
Turns out the 12-year-old demographic is a big one.
WoT review. (Score:4, Insightful)
Book #1 was one of the best stories I'd ever read, LotR good. Book #2 was great. Book #3, #4, #5 added up to another great book. #6, #7, #8, #9 were getting to the point of never getting to the point. #10 was where I stopped bothering.
Re: WoT review. (Score:2)
When did they buy a vowel?
Re:WoT review. (Score:5, Interesting)
I stopped at #3 when I realized the female characters were one dimensional and obsessed with minutiae of the main character. WoT is Gor without the kinky stuff.
Re:WoT review. (Score:5, Insightful)
You made it further than I did. It had the opportunity to be a compelling story, but it just got lost in pointless details that did nothing to advance the overall plot. I don't need to read 100 pages detailing what someone is wearing only to find out in the next chapter that they've been killed off and actually had no impact on anything whatsoever. This is perhaps one case where a film adaptation that can throw away all of this garbage has a good chance of being better than the source material. In this case there's also the advantage that the original author isn't around to 'help'.
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I sometimes think there are readers out there who don't care about the story arc of a series or the specific narrative, they just like whatever they get out of reading a given series, including excess detail. The actual story in these series could have been told in one, maybe two, novels, but the authors know their audience won't bother unless its planned 34 volume series.
I don't really know why it seems more common in fantasy and to some degree even science fiction. It sort of common in mysteries, but my
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Its one of the reasons I have mostly avoided fantasy books. When even the first book published is marked as '#1 in the MagicCodPiece series' it definitely gives the impression that they're aiming for a soap opera rather than a nice story with a beginning, middle and end.
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I kind of don't get why fantasy books seem to really stand out in this category.
Why do wizards and warlocks, etc, seem to attract this kind of thing?
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I think it's because it makes more sense in a fantasy universe than in the reality we inhabit. Even when discussing the lives of legendary real people most of their experience is like our own and completely mundane. There are some exceptions and people have written fiction that takes place in the modern era of the time, that goes on for book after book, but it usually takes some kind of contrivance to explain why the same set of characters are always having such an exciting time. Whereas in fantasy and scif
Re:WoT review. (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks! (Score:1)
The series ends very strong.
I also cut out after a number of the books, I can't really remember the series plot at all but might re-read the first one to refresh my memory, then skip on to those last three you mentioned and enjoy them.
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Since you read that far, I suggest skipping to the last three books, which were written by Brandon Sanderson after Robert Jordan's death. Sanderson is a much 'tighter' writer and actually gets to the point. The series ends very strong.
I would qualify that down to "reasonably strong". But where Jordan was really not getting to any point whatsoever towards the end, Sanderson is a competent writer that gets his (or Jordan's) story told. I would recommend giving the first book after Jordan a try. I do have to say Jordan's world building and story design still is significantly better than Sanderson's, hence other books by Sanderson do not really work for me. But on execution Sanderson is a lot better than Jordan ever was.
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Thanks for the summary (Score:1)
It's been a long time since I read the series, I remember really liking the first few books then falling off around book 80 or so.... in reality probably got to where you where, maybe it was book 8 I ended at, can't quite remember...
I seem to remember the basic premise was interesting but then it just got either kind of generic, or maybe just repetitive later on. But I don't remember liking the basic story at the same level I liked the LOTR books, or the Game of Throne books... or even some other fantasy s
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I thought so too but I pushed through on the advice of a friend and while, no, not every chapter was the best ever written, after bit of a mid-stream lull there's an amazing story there and I was genuinely sad when it ended that there were no more.
THAT is my measure of a good read.
Game of Thrones revisited (Score:1)
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Erm... Sorry but you got it wrong.
Just because something was created after you had the ability to read, it does NOT means that ANY WORK CREATED BEFORE THAT is a "copy" of the just released works.
For example: one of the Bible fantasy chapter (the universal flood) is a mere copy/pastiche of the previous and (so far) original writing in "The Death of Bilgamesh" (the Sumerian poem, one of the sources for The Epic of Gilgamesh).
In this case, it's not "Game of Thrones revisited" but "Copy-cat Game of Thrones goes
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"The Death of Bilgamesh" (the Sumerian poem [...])
Not a scholar of ancient Sumer, but I believe Bilgamesh was one of Gilgamesh's less known brothers, together with Bobgamesh...
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If you tried to make a joke, you failed miserably.
Bilgamesh is the oldest spelling of Gilgamesh, not a typo in my side.
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Yes, welcome to the fantasy genre...
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A very different story and world though. Give it a bit of time to find its pace.
How EXCITING... (Score:3)
O...kay (Score:1)
I'm more excited about Lower Decks, at least it's from a franchise I know.
Pulling of braids (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Pulling of braids (Score:3)
Seriously, snorts, sniffs, and braid pulls are wht I remember most from the books.
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No, please, not the braid pulling! (Score:2)
God damn do I hope they ditch that. It was kind of lame when it first popped up in the book but then the constant repetition of it just frick'n killed me. Every damn time the story switched back to this character, there'd she be, getting pissed off and pulling her braid. I think I even skipped some sections of the book with that character in it because it became so tiresome.
Of course the character in general isn't that much better. While she gets a bit developed later on she's basically a walking tantrum ag
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Rding. It's like reading, but you don't read the whole thing.
And since you didn't read it, you know it wasn't important!
Must of been some sort of wimen stuff.
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I'm glad you got that off your chest.
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Must *have* been, you illiterate twat!
I hare when English is mangled.
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It must suck having that stick so far up your ass that you have to correct peoples typos.
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Nah, don't have a donkey' so can't comment on the discomfort it may have felt after you put your hand up it's arse. Pervert.
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No, see regardless of what you say here it still must suck to be the type of person who feels they must correct another's typo. You on the other hand are just making stuff up about me, kind of hard to get at me that way.
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Must of been some sort of wimen stuff.
Well, Women's Circle business, I suppose, so you'd best keep your nose out of it, lad.
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I don't mind if she tugs on her braid while she punishes me, I probably deserved it and she has better things to do.
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I couldn't see a single pulling of a braid in the trailer so it doesn't seem very faithful to the original material.
Whaaat? They left the most important thing out????
Slashot and infomercials (Score:2, Insightful)
This would not even qualify as an "infomercial" — this is straight up advertising...
Oh, I see — the guy is too poor to afford to pay for honest advertisement....
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Oh, I see â" the guy is too poor to afford to pay for honest advertisement....
Robert Jordan doesn't have a single cent to his name.
Re:Slashot and infomercials (Score:5, Insightful)
This would not even qualify as an "infomercial" — this is straight up advertising...
Oh, I see — the guy is too poor to afford to pay for honest advertisement....
The guy [wikipedia.org] is dead. He died in 2007, the last three books was completed by a different author [wikipedia.org], selected by the widow.
Also, a lot of nerds are interested in sci-fi and fantasy, and this is a big release - like the Lord of the Rings series, the new Dune movie etc. It's a lot more interesting than a lot of the other "news for nerds" that are posted.
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It was the last two books, not three, and one of them was mostly completed.
There was a rather obvious stylistic break.
If he didn't know this is news for nerds, it just means he's not a nerd; he's one of those gamer geeks who cosplays a nerd.
Re: Slashot and infomercials (Score:1)
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Not actually though.
Jordan was planning to finish the series with a single large last book, which was over halfway written, and he had speculated that it might end up being 2000 pages.
Sanderson was given the task of turning that last book into three regular-sized books. So he gets a writing credit for all three. But he wrote less than half of Towers of Midnight, and none of A Gathering Storm.
Jordan was already writing the book in 2005 when he got sick, and in late 2006 he still thought he would finish it, e
I Wanted To Like It... (Score:2)
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I enjoyed all but the last book very much, and I've always thought it would make a good 9-part epic movie series, but this trailer is really disappointing to me.
They're poisoning the well with this, they're squandering the chance to tell the original story that people loved, with a lazy new made-for-TV-serial story. They won't get more than a couple seasons out of it, because it is Amazon Prime Video, which implies it won't even be included with people's prime membership and only a few people are going to p
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I'm not sure why you think otherwise, but Amazon Prime Video comes with Amazon Prime.
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I'm not sure why you think otherwise, but most of the content on Amazon Prime Video does not come with Amazon Prime Video.
Re: I Wanted To Like It... (Score:1)
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I'm a huge WoT fan and I really REALLY wanted to like this, but there was just something off putting about the whole thing.
In the book, the One Power was mostly invisible except to those who can channel, and that made it much more mysterious until the main characters started to channel. E.g. in the first book, there should be almost no visible effect, except possibly some fire. But from the trailer, visual effects everywhere. That was not a good sign that the production team respected the details in the book.
Also, I found I cannot recognize any of the main characters right away, except possibly Perrin in one scene holding hi
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I agree, there is something in how they cut the trailer that just really doesn't do it for me. And I think it is the fact that the characters just did not seem to display any chemistry and endearment to one another.
I was also highly disappointed with the casting of Perrin Aybera. One of the rare times we have a role casting a very stocky character, and once again...they cast a thin man who doesn't even look like he could wield a large hammer.
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From what I remember at least Perrin looks bulkier than Rand and Mat. Mat's casting left me a bit more perplexed as the guy is bearded and not particularly roguish looking in my opinion. Nyneave and Egwene's casting choices are a bit odd just on appearances as well, the books describe them both as being unusually attractive. All that said though I'm really hoping that all of the casting decisions were actually made based on the acting skills of the actors and that we'll get a great show, and not some campy
Based on the books! (Score:1)
*spoilers* In the first season, Rand saddles a horse.
Season 2 is even more exciting as Rand struggles to make breakfast.
Season 3 sees Rand attempt to tie his shoelaces while batting away a fly.
LOTR rip-off (Score:2)
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Jordan died in 2007. He is entirely blameless in this.
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One thing we can guess about the series (Score:2)
is that it will most likely NOT be the same story we read in the book.
No thanks. I would rather re-read the book than watch how they mangle the story.
Has Jordan finished the series yet? (Score:2)
Missing the point (Score:2)
You're all missing the point about Wheel of Time.
The whole series is an obvious satire of American culture's never-ending obsession with Little Boy Misogyny - the tale that you tell yourselves that women are really the ones with all the power and are all really, really mean and every single one of them is ruthlessly committed to sabotaging and oppressing the natural and wholesome power of men - a very powerful self-justification for keeping women in their place and expressing contempt for them at every oppo
Well... (Score:2)
There are two possibilities.
1. The show is crap.
2. The teaser is crap and doesn't represent the show well.
I'm a scifi and fantasy buff and have been for fifty years. I should be the target demographic. Not even worth looking at the first episode as far as I'm concerned.