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  1. #1
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    This Is Not Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time - A Review

    Whatever the plot of this series is, it isn’t the Wheel of Time’s. This is a review, from a longtime reader, so if you don’t want book (or series) spoilers – you probably want a different review. There have been major changes to the characters, geography, magic system, and various setting elements introduced which cause significant plot issues for the story down the line.

    Instead of this ridiculously hackneyed, trope-laden soap opera, we could have had a sweeping epic. It was already written for them. All they had to do was adapt it. Not replace it. Not re-imagine it. This isn’t Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. This is The Wheel of Thrones – and it is vastly poorer for it.

    https://razorskiss.net/2021/12/this-...time-a-review/
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  2. #2
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    I really didn't mind it deviating from the books, but so much of it is just filler to make time. The Expanse was kind of the same way, but not to this extent.

    What I really don't like is how the show shoehorns diversity into the cast. It's so in your face and hitting you over the head with how diverse the cast is, that it's almost comical. You have every ethnic group imaginable. I would not mind that if the show didn't try so hard to hit home the point that they want every social group in the world on their show. Game of Thrones was not in your face like that. That show was a good example on how to have a diverse cast without making it a big issue.

    Wheel of Time tries way too hard to drive that point home.
    Last edited by DavidmeetHal; Dec 05 2021 at 08:01 PM.
    "Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your children when you wanted to."

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by DavidmeetHal View Post
    I really didn't mind it deviating from the books, but so much of it is just filler to make time. The Expanse was kind of the same way, but not to this extent.

    What I really don't like is how the show shoehorns diversity into the cast. It's so in your face and hitting you over the head with how diverse the cast is, that it's almost comical. You have every ethnic group imaginable. I would not mind that if the show didn't try so hard to hit home the point that they want every social group in the world on their show. Game of Thrones was not in your face like that. That show was a good example on how to have a diverse cast without making it a big issue.

    Wheel of Time tries way too hard to drive that point home.
    WoT = Waste of Time. I gave up on the book series part-way through because it was so heavily padded and repetitious that it just got too annoying to continue. If there's filler in the TV series then, well, that reflects how the books were written. Add to that the improbable-looking diversity, something which as you say GoT did *not* do (its diversity matched that of its setting, as and when appropriate) but unfortunately The Witcher did (and I wasn't keen on it there, either).

    The best fantasy series this year was Arcane. Old and jaded though I may be (and initially mildly sceptical of a series based on League of Legends of all things) I was absolutely blown away by its sheer quality (art style, character and world design, animation, writing, voice-acting, fight choreography, you name it), the amount of effort they'd obviously poured into it and how it pulled no punches. It's also hands-down the best adaptation of a game IP I've ever seen. (Also, diverse characters but done organically so it looks natural).

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU View Post
    WoT = Waste of Time. I gave up on the book series part-way through because it was so heavily padded and repetitious that it just got too annoying to continue. If there's filler in the TV series then, well, that reflects how the books were written. Add to that the improbable-looking diversity, something which as you say GoT did *not* do (its diversity matched that of its setting, as and when appropriate) but unfortunately The Witcher did (and I wasn't keen on it there, either).

    The best fantasy series this year was Arcane. Old and jaded though I may be (and initially mildly sceptical of a series based on League of Legends of all things) I was absolutely blown away by its sheer quality (art style, character and world design, animation, writing, voice-acting, fight choreography, you name it), the amount of effort they'd obviously poured into it and how it pulled no punches. It's also hands-down the best adaptation of a game IP I've ever seen. (Also, diverse characters but done organically so it looks natural).
    Wow, I gave up on the books for that same reason.


    I've never heard of a series called Arcane, I'm gonna have to do some research on it.

    Edit: Oh, it's on Netflix, gonna check it out.

    I just finished a K Drama there called Hotel De Luna, I loved it. Be warned though, it's a romance, if you don't like those.
    "Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your children when you wanted to."

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by RazorsKiss View Post
    Whatever the plot of this series is, it isn’t the Wheel of Time’s. This is a review, from a longtime reader, so if you don’t want book (or series) spoilers – you probably want a different review. There have been major changes to the characters, geography, magic system, and various setting elements introduced which cause significant plot issues for the story down the line.

    Instead of this ridiculously hackneyed, trope-laden soap opera, we could have had a sweeping epic. It was already written for them. All they had to do was adapt it. Not replace it. Not re-imagine it. This isn’t Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. This is The Wheel of Thrones – and it is vastly poorer for it.

    https://razorskiss.net/2021/12/this-...time-a-review/

    A reader found this review helpful. /Props.

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  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by RazorsKiss View Post
    Whatever the plot of this series is, it isn’t the Wheel of Time’s. This is a review, from a longtime reader, so if you don’t want book (or series) spoilers – you probably want a different review. There have been major changes to the characters, geography, magic system, and various setting elements introduced which cause significant plot issues for the story down the line.

    Instead of this ridiculously hackneyed, trope-laden soap opera, we could have had a sweeping epic. It was already written for them. All they had to do was adapt it. Not replace it. Not re-imagine it. This isn’t Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. This is The Wheel of Thrones – and it is vastly poorer for it.

    https://razorskiss.net/2021/12/this-...time-a-review/
    Summary: "OMG they changed it". I mean come on, you should have been able to surmise from the example of GoT that adapting a sprawling fantasy epic as a TV series means significant plot and pacing changes, characters being changed, combined or removed entirely and things (places, people, etc.) not looking quite the way you imagined them. I'd read A Song of Ice and Fire from the beginning long before it hit the screens and was something of a fan (enough to go see George R R Martin when he as doing a book tour, for example) but it'd have never entered my head to go through the books point by point like that to critique the series. A TV series is necessarily its own thing. And WoT was not without its flaws to begin with; you say that the TV series is hackneyed and trope-laden but from my point of view - of a disgruntled former reader who gave up on the books partway through for those very reasons, among others - I have to say of course it is, because that's partly down to the source material.

    e.g. the Trollocs aren't as varied as they are in the books (and it's easy to guess why they aren't) but otherwise they're the same essential concept of outsized, brutish animal-human hybrids so they do the job they're meant to do: much the same role Orcs fulfil as unnaturally-created evil grunts who can be killed without compunction (and there are other similarities, besides). And the Big Bad having beastmen on the payroll is a hoary old popular fantasy trope that crops up frequently elsewhere, including pen-and-paper games that predate WoT entirely (e.g. Beastmen in Warhammer and the Broo in RuneQuest). That's as mainstream as a fantasy trope can get, and so you shouldn't be overly surprised when an adaptation that includes the concept then has it resembling other popular things that reference it.

    As for the TV series being a soap opera - WoT was always one! It's just more obvious on-screen.

  7. #7
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    Oh Rad, so far I’ve watched 2 episodes of Arcane, good stuff.
    "Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your children when you wanted to."

  8. #8
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    I think there's some missing the forest for the trees ----> and I have to say, Amazon's "progress" on WoT is only raising my already-existent concerns about the Second Age "LOTR" series to "ludicrous speed, levels of dread"!

    Ty to the OP for the review and for all the discussion so far- I could follow and am with it on many points

    ((Warning: TL;DR massive post below with Spoilers for "Wheel of Time," LOTR, GoT, "Star Wars," and "Alita: Battle Angel" as I make some comparisons / contrasts))




    With WoT, I'm seeing far too much flat-out bad writing for television. Say what we will about Peter Jackson's LOTR movies; as someone who watched the movies first (*gasps* LOL!) and - then - read Tolkien's books, I can already tell some things that PJ's movies succeeded at that the WoT series fails miserably at, and I'm glad I was able to take the movies on their own merit first as a viewer before making the endless lore comparisons between them; it gave me a ton more enjoyment for both the LOTR movies and books respectively. But the "Wheel of Time" TV series is, alas, not giving me that option, at least not as a viewer.

    So, I will now compare WoT with the PJ LOTR films when it comes to basic writing for a screen; Peter Jackson was far better at:

    A- The delivery of information. Never mind the WoT Amazon series versus Robert Jordan's novels; haven't read Jordan yet, and so, on that, I cannot yet judge what I have not yet read or attempted to read.

    But I can judge on what I'm seeing on-screen and, more importantly, what I'm - NOT - seeing: the WoT series has no "Middle-earth" equivalent map shown or displayed for the viewers - or explained very well.

    PJ did a fantastic job at showing viewers the Map of Middle-earth with Galadriel explaining the --- premise --- behind the story. GoT, in its opening crawl, kept reminding us of the shifting circumstances of Westeros and Essos.

    B- The premise. We don't have a rotten clue in Denmark as to who this Dark One was, or why this Dark One is scary, or who this Dragon was, or any of it. It's like we're eavesdropping like spies on conversations we're not privy to. There are sorceresses wearing blue, green, and red, saying various minutiae that don't make sense to the viewer- and I emphasize - do not make any sense at all to the viewer.

    Who are these people, and why should we care about them?

    Meanwhile, and again, I'm not talking books versus movies, PJ gives us a decent view of who Bilbo is, who Gandalf is, who Frodo is, what the Shire is, and we already care for Bilbo's struggle with the Ring in ways we DO NOT CARE at all about these blokes sitting around a table in the Two Rivers who all come across as bland and empty-headed. We don't know who these people are; we don't care about them; we don't get to know them enough to care about them, whereas, in only a few minutes of screentime, PJ makes Frodo and Bilbo and Gandalf likeable and worth our paying attention to.

    GoT gets us to care about the deserter, Ned Stark, his family, and the Wight Walkers all in the first ten minutes.

    C- The pacing. Peter Jackson, working in the films, moves us right along fairly well in the flow of events. Sure, they paved-over the 17-year gap between Gandalf leaving and returning to the Shire and made Frodo stay younger throughout the story. But guess what? It worked! It kept a-pace with the story, with the Nazgul coming and Frodo leaving, and ok, sure, it was weird to have Gandalf leave to go see Saruman when Frodo was in such danger, and that's a flaw, but it's nowhere near the flaws I'm seeing with WoT.

    With WoT, we got some red sorceresses and some dudes dressed as Dothraki extras running through a desert, one disappears, and the other is captured. All I'm wondering from the very start is: Who are these people, and why should I care about them? The storytelling gives no good reason for me to care about these people at all. It's like they just exist.

    At least GoT tells us who the Targaryens are, or were, and we know just enough to feel sympathy for Dany and very little sympathy for her creepy brother, Viserys.

    D- All the stuff with running through the woods incessantly reminds me a ton of the penultimate "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" movie (Part 1) that was similarly a disaster: a disjointed, endless trek through the wilderness where the purpose and the stakes involved are totally unclear to the viewer. Actually, no. At least we understood what the horcruxes are and why Harry needs to find them before Voldemort does.

    I even at least understood that Palpatine was back and who he was in the last of the "Star Wars" Sequels, even if I found it all ultimately contrived and absurd, it's a very low bar, and if a television series refuses to even do that, to, at the bare minimum, explain why its baddies are bad, then it's failed spectacularly at the bottom of the totem pole!

    If you are making mistakes running a television show that are worse than the "Star Wars" prequels and sequels combined, it's some serious trouble.

    With GoT, this was done visually. Come on. An undead zombified Wilding girl with the same stare as the twins in the hallway of King's "The Shining." That conveyed plenty more than the "World of Warcraft"-style Tauren-Minotaur hybrids suddenly attacking the Two Rivers led by fusions of Nazgul, Death-Eaters, and the maws of Giger's Aliens. I'm able to care about a little girl whose suffered a sorry fate and become a monster; I can tell right then and there what's up with that story.

    E- While the visuals are spectacular, I feel like the visuals are used as "eye candy" to try to conceal the deeper writing issues. FYI: it didn't work, anymore than the CGI slug-fest that was the third "Hobbit" movie tried to pass itself off as another Middle-earth story, or any more than the wooden scenes between Anakin and Padme in "Star Wars" tried to convince us it was truly romantic dialogue! (*Try saying "I hate sand" at the next date, and actually, no, DON'T! Please DO NOT! *Laughs!*).

    In short, having watched through the 6th episode of WoT: they've made it a chore to feel or care about these characters, just as pure television writing. I don't care about who these people dressed in white are or who the Nature people running around like gypsies are or who any of them are based on their narrative failure to represent their world as a coherent, lived-in place that has rules and bounds that make sense. Thom Merrelin and the Fantasy-Gypsy Matriarch have more character development combined than most of the main cast, which again, marks severe narrative trouble.

    Within the first hour of the LOTR movies, I understand:

    A- Who Sauron is, and why he's evil - and what in the world Middle-earth is with some of its geography; even a MAP!
    B- What the One Ring is
    C- Who Elendil and Isildur were, and how Isildur got the Ring
    D- How Isildur lost the Ring
    E- Who Gollum was, how he found it
    F- How Bilbo found it
    G- What the Shire is
    H- Who Frodo and Gandalf are
    I- That something's odd with Bilbo Baggins not aging as a normal Hobbit would
    J- That Bilbo has a secret / the vanishing
    K- That Bilbo is struggling with something dangerous; we are relieved when Gandalf gets him to forfeit the Ring
    L- And when the Nine Nazgul finally start chasing Frodo around, we are invested in the plot, in the characters, in their sense of danger, and why Sauron has to be defeated somehow.

    This is pretty basic stuff! Not advanced fantasy writing let alone film writing: to get the viewer to care about what they're watching on the screen. So if I take Peter Jackson's movies just as themselves, by themselves, and only but themselves, the movies themselves make me care about the characters they portray, fundamentally, as characters in a movie (*again, not talking Lore here).
    ---

    But for all those same story beats, for Amazon's "Wheel of Time," it's the opposite. We do not truly learn:

    A- Who the Dark One is and why he's evil or what in the world the Wheel of Time is!
    B- Who the Dragon was / how the Dark One was defeated
    C- What had happened in the intervening thousands of years
    D- Who the Aes Sedai are
    E- How their magic works
    F- The precise character of the split in magic between male and female
    G- Who this False Dragon dude is
    H- Why the red sorceresses are pursuing him

    ...

    I could go on and on and on. Would LOVE to see a "Cinema-Sins" style take on this series on YouTube someday. I'll still watch WoT, holding-out hope they'll hear the critics, the reviews, and try to get their act together.

    But I'm terribly worried now about the Tolkien IP. Just from the "Two Trees" screenshot, and from the casting, I'm already detecting the same pattern as WoT a year before the series launch date: 1- Super puffed-up visuals and eye-candy; 2- A mostly unknown, untested cast of actors; 3- other super-obvious similarities between them in production value and whose producing them.

    Now: on diversity. I will say this: I am overall in favor of diversity casting; it does need to make sense for the story you are telling me as the viewer. So, in "Alita: Battle Angel," probably one of the best fantasy films of the century so far IMHO, not only do we fundamentally care about Alita and her past throughout the movie, but it's all very well explained to the viewer that all of humanity combined under the last flying city in existence in the aftermath of an apocalypse that wiped-out most humans in their war with the Martians, and so, it makes perfect sense to have a Coruscant-style melting pot of characters.

    In short: I need a story reason that makes sense for the story; the casting needs to work in tandem with the narrative. I liked that the MCU made Asgard more diverse; in that vastness of the multiverse, I could buy the "Thor" storyline and much involved with it, as the MCU does a fair job at setting-up its multi-verse as "anything goes" and somehow manages to pull it off. *snaps his fingers*

    That said, I did appreciate the 6th episode of WoT, and I felt they did a far better job at telling us who the Seat of the Aes Sedai was, and I actually cared about her, her father, that she had to leave her home, and was able to follow what was going on with what transpired in that particular episode. I only wish the previous 5 episodes had done a far better job following the basics of storytelling. So, I'll hang-in there or try to as long as I can. I do like learning from bad or troubled adaptations; keeps the writing edge sharp and focused.

    I'm very interested in trying out "Arcane" now BTW!

    Cheers!
    Last edited by Phantion; Dec 18 2021 at 08:56 PM.
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  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Phantion View Post
    So, in "Alita: Battle Angel," probably one of the best fantasy films of the century so far IMHO,
    I never heard of this, I'm gonna have to look into it.
    "Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your children when you wanted to."

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Phantion View Post
    Within the first hour of the LOTR movies, I understand:

    A- Who Sauron is, and why he's evil - and what in the world Middle-earth is with some of its geography; even a MAP!
    B- What the One Ring is
    C- Who Elendil and Isildur were, and how Isildur got the Ring
    D- How Isildur lost the Ring
    E- Who Gollum was, how he found it
    F- How Bilbo found it
    G- What the Shire is
    H- Who Frodo and Gandalf are
    I- That something's odd with Bilbo Baggins not aging as a normal Hobbit would
    J- That Bilbo has a secret / the vanishing
    K- That Bilbo is struggling with something dangerous; we are relieved when Gandalf gets him to forfeit the Ring
    L- And when the Nine Nazgul finally start chasing Frodo around, we are invested in the plot, in the characters, in their sense of danger, and why Sauron has to be defeated somehow.
    But LOTR itself is written that way, e.g. with a chapter's worth of exposition as Gandalf brings Frodo up to speed (hobbits make a great reader surrogate there as they don't know what the heck is going on either). Also why the Shire is set up as a relatively familiar-feeling, comfortable setting to ease the reader in before other, stranger stuff is introduced. So it wasn't something PJ & Co. came up with, the source material took care of it really well already.

    It's been a *long* time since I read The Eye of the World so I can't recall how well WoT spells things out itself, but you'd need to do that to draw a fair comparison.

    But I'm terribly worried now about the Tolkien IP. Just from the "Two Trees" screenshot, and from the casting, I'm already detecting the same pattern as WoT a year before the series launch date: 1- Super puffed-up visuals and eye-candy; 2- A mostly unknown, untested cast of actors; 3- other super-obvious similarities between them in production value and whose producing them.
    It's a rather different beast though as it's being written almost entirely from scratch: the overall scenario and some major plot points are there courtesy of Tolkien but all the detail is having to be filled in, characters developed etc. Which of course means all the more opportunities for it go awry.

    Now: on diversity. I will say this: I am overall in favor of diversity casting; it does need to make sense for the story you are telling me as the viewer. So, in "Alita: Battle Angel," probably one of the best fantasy films of the century so far IMHO, not only do we fundamentally care about Alita and her past throughout the movie, but it's all very well explained to the viewer that all of humanity combined under the last flying city in existence in the aftermath of an apocalypse that wiped-out most humans in their war with the Martians, and so, it makes perfect sense to have a Coruscant-style melting pot of characters.
    Going back to the earlier point, that has the trope of an amnesiac protagonist who has to learn what's going on, again as a surrogate for the audience (a trope that's massively overused in manga, which is what it started out as) but at least there's a good explanation for it in this particular case. The post-apocalyptic cyberpunk setting does make for a natural explanation as to why the city is the way it is, it's a context in which you'd expect broad diversity. The key point though is that whatever the setting is, diversity needs to look natural for that time and place and the wider context it exists in and not simply reflect modern Western society "just because". The same goes not just for obvious things like race or gender but social class - like sometimes people take a character who's meant to be of noble birth and try to turn them into a humble everyman, while blithely ignoring how that' should make a huge difference to how other characters would look at them and treat them. Or more generally they may have supposed nobles and commoners hanging around together as if class wasn't a thing at all. That's always a red flag for me.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by RazorsKiss View Post
    Whatever...[/url]
    Today's music and book adaptations always use well known formulas. Producers limit risk adversity at all cost. This why all popular music sounds the same. This is why all tv series look the same. It appeals to those who view this world thru a 3x6 display. How people haven't worked this out is amazing.

    I followed the link and ya I didn't read it. I also didn't read Phantion's post here either. Its more of the same, same rant review. They too get as old as the topic of modern adaptations.


    So, I guess that's some kind of poetic justice. Two functions in modern life that found a niche albeit a worthless one.



    Basically, Its grab a known IP and warp into some sjw accreditation for accolades and cash. I watched the tv series up to its latest episode. I also listened to all the books years ago. I didn't have any expectation comparing the two because above. Those two women in the tower hahaha. The formula goes on.


    Amazon's Lord of the Rings won't be any different. Save the review rants for the next life. I won't read them in this one or the next.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by sapienze View Post
    Today's music and book adaptations always use well known formulas. Producers limit risk adversity at all cost. This why all popular music sounds the same. This is why all tv series look the same. It appeals to those who view this world thru a 3x6 display. How people haven't worked this out is amazing.
    If they were that risk-averse then I doubt we'd have seen adaptations of 'heavy' sci-fi like The Handmaid's Tale, Brave New World or Foundation, much less anything as weird as Raised by Wolves (which has the air of an old sci-fi novel but is apparently original). Not that there weren't issues with all of those, but still. You might have more of a point with fantasy as adaptations of that seem to get formulaic all the sooner.

  13. Dec 20 2021, 12:19 AM

  14. Dec 20 2021, 12:29 AM

  15. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU View Post
    But LOTR itself is written that way, e.g. with a chapter's worth of exposition as Gandalf brings Frodo up to speed (hobbits make a great reader surrogate there as they don't know what the heck is going on either). Also why the Shire is set up as a relatively familiar-feeling, comfortable setting to ease the reader in before other, stranger stuff is introduced. So it wasn't something PJ & Co. came up with, the source material took care of it really well already.

    It's been a *long* time since I read The Eye of the World so I can't recall how well WoT spells things out itself, but you'd need to do that to draw a fair comparison.
    But I wasn't saying that it was "something PJ & Co. came up with." As someone who knows the books very well, I assure you- I know that and you're right!

    I'm just talking just plain screen-writing or television-writing: what I, as a viewer, understand or don't based on what they show me as someone who is watching a movie or tv show.

    Peter Jackson simply directed from Tolkien's "premise" very well when it came to presenting the world of Middle-earth to the viewer and its characters; I have yet to read "The Eye of the World." But I do know that what I saw on-screen from WoT was very much lacking, regardless of books.

    So, if the WoT folks made the FOTR film instead of Peter Jackson:

    A- The movie would've started with Frodo reading a book with Gandalf showing up. No prologue, no Galadriel, no Sauron, no Isildur, no Gollum, no map.
    B- We would've been launched and tossed in the middle of the Hobbits chatting with each other without much context.
    C- We would not have learned who Sauron was, only about some vague Dark Lord in passing.
    D- We wouldn't have known what the One Ring was; it would have just existed.
    E- The Nazgul would've shown up without much context or explanation.
    F- We would not have known what Bree or any of the places are.
    G- By the time we got to Rivendell, we would not have known where we were, who was who, what was happening, and had little to zero understanding of the dangers involved.

    Even without knowledge of the WoT books, I think I have enough to go-on here to say WoT just isn't doing it for me as a viewer as it isn't giving me enough info to understand the situation or care about the characters. The PJ films, even with the lore issues, allowed me to at least connect with what was going on with them and enjoy them as movies instead of scratching my head.

    I've really tried very hard to try to like and enjoy what WoT is up to; but it isn't working for me, and I very rarely like to "review" adaptations like this and rarely do it.


    Quote Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU View Post
    It's a rather different beast though as it's being written almost entirely from scratch: the overall scenario and some major plot points are there courtesy of Tolkien but all the detail is having to be filled in, characters developed etc. Which of course means all the more opportunities for it go awry.
    Oh I'm expecting the LOTR prequel series to make PJ's "Hobbit movies" look good and at least somewhat more entertaining. From what I'm seeing with WoT, it doesn't bode well at all with LOTR with, as you've said, far less Second Age source material to go on. Of course, it'll depend on the writers and actors; but they'll have to surprise me this time in a good way, not the other way around.



    Quote Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU View Post
    Going back to the earlier point, that has the trope of an amnesiac protagonist who has to learn what's going on, again as a surrogate for the audience (a trope that's massively overused in manga, which is what it started out as) but at least there's a good explanation for it in this particular case. The post-apocalyptic cyberpunk setting does make for a natural explanation as to why the city is the way it is, it's a context in which you'd expect broad diversity. The key point though is that whatever the setting is, diversity needs to look natural for that time and place and the wider context it exists in and not simply reflect modern Western society "just because". The same goes not just for obvious things like race or gender but social class - like sometimes people take a character who's meant to be of noble birth and try to turn them into a humble everyman, while blithely ignoring how that' should make a huge difference to how other characters would look at them and treat them. Or more generally they may have supposed nobles and commoners hanging around together as if class wasn't a thing at all. That's always a red flag for me.
    Exactly! Also, "Alita" had a good-hearted story I was really able to get into and enjoy; it had some - soul - to it, and the story's organization and overall beats gave me as the viewer some good reasons to care about the characters as the story went on. They didn't miss a beat, from what I saw; I wanted to learn more and see what happened next. Christoph Waltz was good as Dr. Ido- I really like it that he's not letting himself get typecast RE- certain roles he's played in the past (*although, he certainly seems to have developed quite the penchant for playing "bounty hunters," and I almost half-want to see him in "The Mandalorian" now if only for that reason, *laughs!* Love that actor, so I'm a bit biased there :P )

    Ah, well, it's all good fun Ty for the discussion

    Cheers!
    Last edited by Phantion; Dec 20 2021 at 07:56 PM.
    Landroval player; I am Phantion on the forums only and do not have a corresponding character in-game with that name on any server. Cheers! :)

    .

  16. #14
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    Jan 2011
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    1,182
    Quote Originally Posted by DavidmeetHal View Post
    I never heard of this, I'm gonna have to look into it.
    Highly recommended "Alita: Battle Angel" a pretty fun ride; as you can see from our comments above, it's got more of a sci-fi meets anime vibe, but the characters are mostly realistic in how they look, and Alita's character............... I can't quite explain it, with her appearance, but it works. It just works; I can buy into it, and it has some pretty amazing effects as a film as well as some tight, consistent, and very fun writing

    It does in about 20 minutes of screen-time what WoT hasn't done in over 7 episodes.

    I really hope they'll make a sequel to "Alita"; it deserves one, especially with where things end up, and I'll say no more on how it ends. But it is hopeful that one of its directors, Rodriguez, is planning to "pitch" an "Alita" sequel to Disney based on how his next "Star Wars" series does for them. So, fingers crossed!

    Cheers!
    Landroval player; I am Phantion on the forums only and do not have a corresponding character in-game with that name on any server. Cheers! :)

    .

  17. #15
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    Oct 2019
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    3,505
    Quote Originally Posted by DavidmeetHal View Post
    Oh Rad, so far I’ve watched 2 episodes of Arcane, good stuff.
    I'm on episode 6 of Arcane right now, really enjoying it.
    "Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your children when you wanted to."

  18. #16
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
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    10,062
    Quote Originally Posted by DavidmeetHal View Post
    I'm on episode 6 of Arcane right now, really enjoying it.
    Thought you might

  19. #17
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    Oct 2019
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    Quote Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU View Post
    Thought you might
    Finished it, REALLY good!
    "Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your children when you wanted to."

 

 

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