Wheel of Time is coming to Amazon Prime at the end of the year or early next.
No point in watching because they’ll finish it long after I have departed this world.
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The wheel of time turns on us all.
What amazes me is that the time it would take for me to summarize what happens and actually cover each major plot point is about the time it takes to just read the stupid books.
Imagine if Escaflowne, instead of speeding up and ending all of a sudden, just kept… going. And going. Stuff just keeps happening and happening, at the same pace. Forever. And then eventually, it all slowly wraps up into a very thorough and satisfying ending similar to Adventure Time’s moment where BMO says his second-to-last line.
Some other channel is doing a Dark Tower series, His Dark Materials, and Amazon is also doing the Second Age Lord of the Rings show.
There’s a lot of “epic” fantasy coming to the small screen in the next couple of years.
As tortured anime fans we should all be used to stories that got ahead of their manga and went completely off the rails or completely screwed the ending.
I wish someone would make some original epic fantasy instead of adapting old ones everyone knows. At the very least, if they are going to adapt, adapt something less well known, but still great. Just go to the nerd section of the book store and find a set of volumes that obviously go together and have numbers on them. It’s not hard.
I went on Amazon and in under a minute I found this: https://amzn.to/2M4vuqa
Is it any good? I have no fucking clue. I know nothing about it. It could be absolute trash. But it’s got three volumes and a dragon on the cover, so that’s a great start.
Adapting is the best option commercially. You have a treatment basically already done, plus an existing fanbase and the ability to research how popular the show could be based on the popularity of the book.
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It would be nice if they made a faithful Earthsea, Hainish Cycle, The Broken Earth trilogy (which is admitted supposed to happen), Return to Nevèrÿon series, Binti series, or various other stories that happen to not be primarily white or male.
Fantasy series cost big money, especially as everyone is trying to chase GoT popularity and viewership. No one is going to pay big money for an original or obscure fantasy series. That’s why they’re adapting the well known series.
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Shattered Earth would be fantastic.
if we’re suggesting unknown fantasy series I would nominate The Obsidian Chronicles, has some novel dragon physiology and and excellent chapter in the 2nd or 3rd book where the main character visits the realm of a leech that drank god’s blood during ragnarok
Sign me up for that shit.
Also, next TTRPG I want to be a leech.
I’ve been following the Wheel of Time showrunner’s notes (he also wrote for Agents of SHIELD and the Uncharted games), and he said that the first season of the show is going to be content from the first 2-3 books. So at that pace, especially with how much you can cut from books 7-10, they could do the entire show in 6-7 seasons.
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I don’t think a lot of people really like epic fantasy that much, but they can tolerate a little bit of magic and made-up-animals in their otherwise ‘standard’ human drama.
By that position I think what made Game of Thrones work so successfully with the viewing public as a TV show is because, for better or worse, it’s very light on the fantasy; and you could almost ignore it as being fantasy for the bulk of the show. Treat it as a fictional historical piece and it still mostly works. Most of the plot is focused on very normal human drama and the premise is very straightforward: there’s a Big Ass Throne. Many people are competing politically and militarily and otherwise to be the person on the Big Ass Throne: And the show does what it says on the tin. Sure there’s some subplots with a dragon or some ancient god and so-on, but the main premise is “knights & kings with lots of battles, blood & boobs.” No one is watching for fantasy dragons or magic. If that was all stripped out, it could still make a good series being 100% grounded in realistic physics. (and I guess that’s because it’s just a good realistic story based on history with some of that magic thrown in for flavor so why not?)
If these other proposed series are way more philosophical or lean much heavier on fantasy premise as their foundation to exist, if they just keep throwing more magic and crazy situations at the screen, well, I honestly don’t think that’s going to get anyone another GoT level success. I think the comment that GoT was “dudes with normal ass weapons 99% of the time” is right on. Deviate from that and it turns to a mess of bullshit.
Watching the trailers for His Dark Materials makes me think “you know parts of that look good, but the premise seems like a lot to absorb. Looks like a lot of fun scenarios, but a lot of shit thrown at the viewer just to be more more more. Lots of spectacle maybe. Will it really be very grounded? Will the plot resonate or is it going to be mostly exposition dumps and crazy nouns and verbs and mystical shit I can’t relate to at all?” I never did read the books I just have heard of reference to said books a few times. In all I have little interest in watching it before a number of other better options, unless reviews come back piping hot and glowing.
WestWorld worked with people because the premise is simple: “It’s cowboys but, it’s a real-life videogame theme park. And the robots are starting to get pissed. (also there was a whole movie (also cowboy sex))” Now by season 3 it looks like it’s going to be a cyberpunk sci-fi future, so it’s definitely evolved but, hey, maybe they’re just in CyberWorld. (To be honest, if I was to go to any of the parks, Cyberpunk World would be the best one by far.)
All-in I think we’re going to see a lot of epic fantasy series startups that don’t last more than a book into their runs before falling by the wayside.
I sort of wish they did something with the CD that Hitomi found in the marketplace, rather than be some sort of obscure video game spinoff that will never come to the US.
I’d watch a PoN series just for the scene where Achamian is being tortured by the Scarlett Spires and his Wathi doll is activated. Probably my fave scene in the whole series.
Also, the No-God should have googly eyes. (that do nothing).
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That’s why it can’t see. Eyes googling too much.
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Oh if only we could have the memes a show could generate…