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The Wheel of Time (Amazon) (Spoiler Thread)

Through episode 4 and not impressed. Good enough to watch, but so far it does nothing to make me beg for more, heh heh.

I find I'm liking the ambiance, I guess you could say. I'm really loving Moiraine, but it's not supposed to be her story only. The world building interests me. I'm just not convinced there's a real story here, not yet anyway. This is not a criticism of the original Jordan/Sanderson story, which I've been told is massive and satisfying by the end, but of the show development.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Likewise, although I grew bored between book releases and stopped reading WoT waaaaay back when, heh heh.
I find I'm liking the ambiance, I guess you could say. I'm really loving Moiraine, but it's not supposed to be her story only. The world building interests me. I'm just not convinced there's a real story here, not yet anyway. This is not a criticism of the original Jordan/Sanderson story, which I've been told is massive and satisfying by the end, but of the show development.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
I just watched the pregnant lady fight scene, and I mean, the show has been rather sad with fight scenes anyhow, and armor design... But, this scene takes the category of "why the hell do these people wear armor" combat scene to another level. Or maybe because was the first scene of the episode I paid more attention. I'm sure that was intended to be exciting and dramatic, but failed.

At this point, I mostly watch out of curiosity and my daughter is okay with it, heh heh.
 
Just finished the season.

It feels like a show that authentically had the chance to be an 8 or 9 but, stubbornly, chose to be a 6.

The pacing is the very worst aspect of it. Imagine your favorite season of your favorite show. The WoT version of that show's season would be 1/4 as long and skip from major event or plot point to the next with very little in between. And, stubbornly, the too-few in-between parts are individually drawn out much longer than they need to be.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
I haven't finished yet... but. yeah. That's part of it. To be blunt, I think it's piss poor story telling all around.

Whatever lessons might have been learned by the success of the first 6 seasons of GoT were lost and instead... well, this is what we got, which feels more like the last season of GoT withOUT a quality set up, heh heh. So much could be said, but not much point.

Just finished the season.

It feels like a show that authentically had the chance to be an 8 or 9 but, stubbornly, chose to be a 6.

The pacing is the very worst aspect of it. Imagine your favorite season of your favorite show. The WoT version of that show's season would be 1/4 as long and skip from major event or plot point to the next with very little in between. And, stubbornly, the too-few in-between parts are individually drawn out much longer than they need to be.
 
Whatever lessons might have been learned by the success of the first 6 seasons of GoT were lost and instead... well, this is what we got, which feels more like the last season of GoT withOUT a quality set up, heh heh

Ha, yeah, like that.

Wait until you see the little scene at the very end of the season. I'll assume many readers of the books will know its import, but for everyone else it will be a "Huh? Okay I guess" moment.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
The last episode wasn't terrible until that last scene... eeyeah. Not real good, but it was at least a little entertaining. The whole tends to bear the hallmarks of fantasy that leaves me flat. Too "high magic" or whatever on top of questionable storytelling. With Sanderson's producer credit I thought maybe... but then, while I love Sanderson as a helpful writer bloke, I can see where he'd be into the cool-over-substance that tends to plague these sorts of movies.
 
I just watched the pregnant lady fight scene, and I mean, the show has been rather sad with fight scenes anyhow, and armor design... But, this scene takes the category of "why the hell do these people wear armor" combat scene to another level. Or maybe because was the first scene of the episode I paid more attention. I'm sure that was intended to be exciting and dramatic, but failed.

I really liked that scene. A lot. But then I've always been a fan of stylized bad-assery.

My problem with the scene is how it was used in the episode/season/show. It's as if the showrunners thought, "Whelp, we need this episode to focus on Rand. We need to reveal Rand is in fact the much-discussed Dragon Reborn. Rand started as a baby once-upon-a-time, right? So we need to show his birth. And we need to make him a bad ass by extension....

Oh yeah, even if we are going to 'hide' [giggle giggle] his being the Dragon Reborn until the end of the episode. [tee hee]."

I mean, everything about its inclusion and use there was contrived.

I would compare his birth scene to Kirk's birth scene in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek.

We already knew about Kirk. Who he was. Who that baby was destined to be. Etc. We had all the context and history with the character. The opening to that movie is one of my all-time favorite movie openings.

But Rand? The Dragon Reborn? Heck, even the Aiel? To this point, there hadn't been much, at all, about any of it. No context. No reason for us to care much about what is happening in that scene. I suppose you could say there was no resonance. Perhaps long-time fans of the book might have felt some resonance, but for everyone else it would have been lots of flash and bang about nothing.

Edit: Oops, was writing the above when you commented again, this time on the final episode.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
The end just seemed determined to clue is in that there was going to be a season 2 over and over and over, heh heh. Kind of the opposite of the last MASH saying goodbye over and over and over.
 
The end just seemed determined to clue is in that there was going to be a season 2 over and over and over, heh heh. Kind of the opposite of the last MASH saying goodbye over and over and over.

A lot of the season felt mechanical. Paint-by-number.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Fake bad assery scenes died for me sometime during a Tarantino movie and never came back to life, heh heh.

I really liked that scene. A lot. But then I've always been a fan of stylized bad-assery.

My problem with the scene is how it was used in the episode/season/show. It's as if the showrunners thought, "Whelp, we need this episode to focus on Rand. We need to reveal Rand is in fact the much-discussed Dragon Reborn. Rand started as a baby once-upon-a-time, right? So we need to show his birth. And we need to make him a bad ass by extension....

Oh yeah, even if we are going to 'hide' [giggle giggle] his being the Dragon Reborn until the end of the episode. [tee hee]."

I mean, everything about its inclusion and use there was contrived.

I would compare his birth scene to Kirk's birth scene in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek.

We already knew about Kirk. Who he was. Who that baby was destined to be. Etc. We had all the context and history with the character. The opening to that movie is one of my all-time favorite movie openings.

But Rand? The Dragon Reborn? Heck, even the Aiel? To this point, there hadn't been much, at all, about any of it. No context. No reason for us to care much about what is happening in that scene. I suppose you could say there was no resonance. Perhaps long-time fans of the book might have felt some resonance, but for everyone else it would have been lots of flash and bang about nothing.

Edit: Oops, was writing the above when you commented again, this time on the final episode.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
I never did see Kill Bill. I've avoided Tarantino flicks for a long while. I finally watched Django Unchained and was horribly unimpressed. You know I was unimpressed because I just used an adverb there.

Ha, and I was also thinking of Kill Bill when I wrote that sentence. (re: bad-assery)
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Thinking a little more on the bad assery scene, part of it is a taste and realism issue, but it isn't that a movie can't get away with stylized bad assery with me, it's just that it needs to be done in a way that pulls me into the world in such a way as to accept it. Natural Born Killers. Matrix, as an oddball tech example, or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Wheel of Time simply hasn't managed to check my disbelief at the door, heh heh.
 
Yeah, there was a lack of resonance. I don't think I ever knew how Rand was born, or at least didn't remember it from the first several books, but I remembered the Aiel from the books and I always loved them. Even if they made me think they might be a knock off of the Fremen. Or a close cousin. So it resonated a little bit for me, an, "Aha! Yes! I remember the Aiel" sort of thing. The rest of the episode didn't live up to the initial hype for me, and the fact that its placement came to feel contrived also hurt it once my hindsight kicked in.

There were other cases of this. The Aes Sedai lightning storm, with burnt out Aes Sedai resulting, was really good. But it reminded me of all the other parts of the season that weren't great, heh.

And there were promises not kept. Like Perrin. The final episode actually pissed me off when I saw Perrin meekly acting, as if utterly helpless. Hadn't I been promised more?
 
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