wheel of time casting

[mr friendly guy]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/08/ ... daptation/

Amazon unveils first batch of casting for The Wheel of Time adaptation
It's been a very long slog, but production is finally slated to begin this fall.
JENNIFER OUELLETTE - 8/15/2019, 8:22 AM

Amazon has announced its first round of casting for The Wheel of Time, the long-awaited TV adaptation of the late Robert Jordan's bestselling 14-book series of epic fantasy novels. Within that genre, Jordan's series is as popular as George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire.The conclusion of the series was published after Jordan died and written from Jordan's notes by bestselling author Brandon Sanderson.

The TV series will center on Moiraine (played by Oscar-nominee Rosamund Pike), a member of a powerful, all-woman organization called the Aes Sedai. (In this world, magic exists, but only certain women can use it—i.e., the members of the Aes Sedai.) She identifies five young people, one of whom could be the reincarnation of a person who, prophecies say, will save or destroy humanity. Together, the youngsters embark on a journey across the world.

Josha Stradowski will play Rand al'Thor, aka The Dragon Reborn, He Who Comes With the Dawn, the Coramoor, Shadowkiller, and who knows how many other monikers. He's apparently the person featured in the prophecy. Marcus Rutherford has been cast as apprentice blacksmith and dream walker Perrin Aybara. Zoe Robins will play healer Nynaeve al'Meara, and Madeleine Madden will play the powerful channeler Egwene al'Vere. Finally, Barney Harris has been cast as series comic relief, Matrim Cauthon.

There was one feeble prior attempt to jump-start a TV adaptation a few years ago. Entitled The Winter Dragon, the 30-minute short series pilot covered just the prologue of the first book in the series, The Eye of the World. The less said about it, the better. As Ars' Lee Hutchinson wrote in 2015:

What makes for a relatively quick few pages in the book is stretched out over 30 interminable, plodding minutes onscreen, including three long commercial breaks. Max Ryan's delivery of his lines as Lews Therin can best be characterized as "ghastly" ("Light forgive me. Light forgive me. Light... forgive me," he says in an emotion-free monotone), and Billy Zane (yes, that Billy Zane) as Ishamael acts less like the godhood-obsessed Betrayer of Hope in the books and more like Cal from Titanic.

In other words: it wasn't good. And apparently it wasn't authorized. There's a reason it aired in the middle of the night on FXX as "client-supplied programming," more akin to an infomercial. Jordan's widow and editor, Harriet McDougal, wrote in a statement that she was "dumbfounded" and had no idea a pilot was being made. The producers then countered with a lawsuit against her, claiming "breach of contract, slander, and interference with contractual relations and prospective economic relations." But all that drama has since been resolved, and hopes are much higher for Amazon's adaptation. Production is slated to begin this fall.

Don't know much about the actors but one WoT fan did watch the actors and considered them good for the role, so that's promising.

[madd0ct0r]

As long as they keep the script sharp and believable, which given the source books is a tall order.

[Elheru Aran]

As long as they keep the script sharp and believable, which given the source books is a tall order.

The source books do have two good things going for them though:

--There's a LOT of material to work with. I'd say it's perhaps a stretch to have each season cover one book (though I can see them doing that with the first book), but you could easily use just two or three books per season.

--The series has -ended-. So they know how it's going to go down in the long run. There's none of this silly "what do we do if the author dies before the work is done?" like with GRRM. Or any of the "what if the way he ends the book series isn't the same as how the show ends". It's all pretty definitive. Kinda spoilery? Maybe, sure, but while they're going to keep most of the plot elements in place, they'll have to shuffle things around a bit if they want to keep it all at a reasonable length.

My main problem: there's a lot of dialogue and a lot of travelling... and not a whole lot of actual action. Oh, the battles are big setpieces and all, but they tend to get crammed in at the end of the books. So if you expand two or three books to say a twenty episode season... that means you only have two or three episodes with big action scenes. While this might be financially conservative (and that's important, because big battles are expensive to produce even if they're just big spectacles of Power wielding), it means that the rest of the episodes in between are going to be a bunch of people standing around talking, riding horses, walking, occasionally screwing or getting knifed in back alleys or whatever. It can work if it's got a good writer. If it doesn't... well, that's pretty much the exact problem that the original books had-- they were too long, and people will start thinking the series is too long, as well.

[Luke Starkiller]

One of the things that made the books, especially the later ones, drag on was the detailed descriptions of clothing and other items. With a visual medium at least there is that help tighten things up right from the start.

[The Romulan Republic]

One of the things that made the books, especially the later ones, drag on was the detailed descriptions of clothing and other items. With a visual medium at least there is that help tighten things up right from the start.

Yeah, in film you can show, not tell. Unless they do lingering close ups on every costume, or something. But only a shitty director/editor would do that.

So. Wow. They're finally actually doing it. I guess something has to fill that Game of Thrones-shaped hole. I just hope they tone down the blatant sexism of the books, though my hopes aren't high (especially if they're consciously trying to fill Game of Thrones' niche).

[The Romulan Republic]

Very interesting that from what the article says, they're focusing on Moiraine more than Rand as the central protagonist. Even with female leads being as popular as they are now, I would not have expected that. I'm good with it if she's written well (ie not horribly sexist), both for political reasons and because Moiraine is one of my favorites in the series, and because epic fantasy from the perspective of the Obi-wan isn't something that's not done too often. And I could see wanting to follow a somewhat less-overpowered protagonist than Rand, even if I think its misguided (the same thinking that says Batman is more compelling than Superman because Superman is too powerful to be relatable or have real drama). But I hope that they don't cut down too much on Rand's journey, because his internal development from naive youth, to grudgingly accepting his destiny for the greater good, to becoming a hardened, nihilistic man who just wants it all to end one way or another, to ultimately making peace with himself and his world, is probably the most compelling character arc of the books.

I feel like this series should be an ensemble (much like GoT), with Moiraine, Egwene, Nynaeve, Rand, Matt, and Perrin as more or less equal co-protagonists, so I'm going to hope for that, and that Moiraine's just getting top billing at this point because she's being played by a name actor.

I also hope they get a really good actor for Ba'alzamon. He's a hammy villain, and fairly flat in the early books, so you need an actor with style to make him a really compelling antagonist.

Also hope they keep a lot of the Whitecloak stuff. Having a faction that was villainous without being aligned with the Big Bad added some nice depth to the series, and a good moral about the dangers of Starring Into the Abyss, as did the Whitecloaks' ultimate redemption.

Agreed with Elheru Aran that its a good thing the books are finished. I don't care about it being perfectly "faithful" to the books, in fact there's plenty of stuff I'd like to see changed (mainly the aforementioned blatant sexism), but its nice to know that whether they stick close to the source material or not, what's there is there, and we're probably not going to get a situation where things suddenly veer off the rails at the last minute.

[Elheru Aran]

So thinking about it:

Moiraine being (possibly) the central protagonist is an interesting approach to take. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some references to New Spring, the prequel novella about how Moiraine became a full Aes Sedai and met Lan. However, I expect it to last mostly through maybe the first season/book and then focus will probably shift to Rand and the Emond's Field gang, and Moiraine will be mostly along for the ride, particularly as throughout the entire run of the novels the party is rarely ever together all at once after the first novel or so.

Re sexism: there's the whole thing about "male Aes Sedai were responsible for the Breaking yada yada" and it looks from the synopsis that they might be up front about it, but yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they scrub it to a certain degree, retaining just enough to push whatever messages they may feel like espousing.

Here's that synopsis:

Set in a sprawling, epic world where magic exists and only certain women are allowed to access it, the story follows Moiraine, a member of the incredibly powerful all-female organization called the Aes Sedai, as she arrives in the small town of Two Rivers. There, she embarks on a dangerous, world-spanning journey with five young men and women, one of whom is prophesied to be the Dragon Reborn, who will either save or destroy humanity.

So thoughts off the cuff: Moiraine finds Rand and wants to take him to the White Tower. Friends come along for the ride. Cue book one. After that, the subplot about the Aes Sedai trying to control Rand becomes a big factor in the series, and Moiraine has to juggle obedience to the Tower and making sure Rand doesn't drop her like a hot potato.

I do look forward to seeing how they interpret the Ogier, though...

[The Romulan Republic]

Wheel of Time manages to be horribly sexist towards both men and women at different points in the series. But what it mostly boils down to is that the universe's entire magic system and cosmology is divided along gender lines, with fixed gender roles (and IIRC, trying to subvert this was what lead to the Dark One getting free, which is some stunningly sexist and transphobic subtext as well).

You have the Aes Sedai as powerful women, but it comes off as them mostly being there to be annoying so the audience can cheer when the male Chosen One* finally puts them in their place. That's not to say I dislike Rand, of course- He, Moiraine, and late-series Nynaeve, Matt, and Galad are pretty much the only characters I care about.


*I do seem to recall there being some mention of some of the Dragon's past lives being female (not sure if its in the books, behind the scenes commentary from the author, or just fans' headcanon), so that might be interesting to explore. The whole past lives thing is quite interesting and important to developing the themes and Rand's character, and it would be interesting if we saw some lives going back even further, rather than just the one previous life. That's something I'd think about changing if I were adapting it.

[The Romulan Republic]

Also, them finally moving ahead on WoT gives me some hope that Dresden Files will finally get the TV adaptation it deserves (I actually don't hate the existing one-season adaptation, but it was too short-lived to really grown into its own, especially given that it was hamstrung by limited budget and last-minute script changes by the execs).

Honestly, I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been more scrambling to put out the "next Game of Thrones".

[Imperial Overlord]

Honestly, I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been more scrambling to put out the "next Game of Thrones".

There's been plenty, but most people haven't heard of it since most of it hasn't gotten this far. Off the top of my head there's been the Game of Thrones prequels, the young Aragorn series, and negotiations over The Black Company and The Prince of Nothing (which didn't come through).

[The Romulan Republic]

Honestly, I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been more scrambling to put out the "next Game of Thrones".

There's been plenty, but most people haven't heard of it since most of it hasn't gotten this far. Off the top of my head there's been the Game of Thrones prequels, the young Aragorn series, and negotiations over The Black Company and The Prince of Nothing (which didn't come through).

I guess the surprise is that most of them have gone nowhere. You'd think every network would want to cash in on filling the Game of Thrones-shaped void in television right now.

[Imperial Overlord]

They do, but nothing else has the same kind of name recognition and all they want as close to a guarantied money maker as possible. All the preproduction stuff takes time and so can the rights negotiation. It is in fact sadly predictable that they've ended up with the ones that had the largest built in following: more Lord of the Rings, more Game of Thrones, and Wheel of Time. There's also the fact that Amazon went through an internal purge a couple of years ago in its content development department which killed the Prince of Nothing development at a stage when the deal is normally done.

And I totally forgot about the two season Shannara Chronicles thing so throw it onto the pile.

[Elheru Aran]

*I do seem to recall there being some mention of some of the Dragon's past lives being female (not sure if its in the books, behind the scenes commentary from the author, or just fans' headcanon), so that might be interesting to explore. The whole past lives thing is quite interesting and important to developing the themes and Rand's character, and it would be interesting if we saw some lives going back even further, rather than just the one previous life. That's something I'd think about changing if I were adapting it.

Objection; for one, we see quite a few of Mat Cauthon's past lives. For another, Birgitte Trahelion remembers much of her past as well. So they're already there to explore. Wouldn't be surprised if we see a bunch of 'history of the World'-establishing flashbacks as well, though those probably won't focus on individual characters' past selves as much. The Aes Sedai trials, for example, are a great way to slip in a bunch of Aes Sedai/world history.

[The Romulan Republic]

Okay, time to dust off my old "adapting Wheel of Time" outline.

As long as they keep the script sharp and believable, which given the source books is a tall order.

The source books do have two good things going for them though:

--There's a LOT of material to work with. I'd say it's perhaps a stretch to have each season cover one book (though I can see them doing that with the first book), but you could easily use just two or three books per season.

--The series has -ended-. So they know how it's going to go down in the long run. There's none of this silly "what do we do if the author dies before the work is done?" like with GRRM. Or any of the "what if the way he ends the book series isn't the same as how the show ends". It's all pretty definitive. Kinda spoilery? Maybe, sure, but while they're going to keep most of the plot elements in place, they'll have to shuffle things around a bit if they want to keep it all at a reasonable length.

My main problem: there's a lot of dialogue and a lot of travelling... and not a whole lot of actual action. Oh, the battles are big setpieces and all, but they tend to get crammed in at the end of the books. So if you expand two or three books to say a twenty episode season... that means you only have two or three episodes with big action scenes. While this might be financially conservative (and that's important, because big battles are expensive to produce even if they're just big spectacles of Power wielding), it means that the rest of the episodes in between are going to be a bunch of people standing around talking, riding horses, walking, occasionally screwing or getting knifed in back alleys or whatever. It can work if it's got a good writer. If it doesn't... well, that's pretty much the exact problem that the original books had-- they were too long, and people will start thinking the series is too long, as well.

Honestly, I think they'd probably be well-served pruning the excess fat and going with, say, three or four books per season for about four or five seasons total (contingent to some extent on how many episodes they get per season), even if some of the book fans will howl over it. But you know the fanboys are going to demand no less than a season per book, just like Game of Thrones, even though the consequence of that would likely be the series never being finished (its way, way longer than Game of Thrones, after all).

Remember that the entire series takes place over, what, two or three years? To my mind, and depending on how precisely they follow the books' timeline, a good breakdown with natural stopping points would be:

Season 1: books 1-3. The end of book three offers a sort of conclusion (the first death of Ba'alzamon), and marks a shift if the style of the series from classic "small band of adventurers" fantasy to more grand politics and strategy, as Rand takes over his first nation. Its a good stopping point, too, if the thing flops and they never get more than one season.

Season 2: Books 4-6. Dumai's Wells could make for a hell of a climax, and this is where Rand starts to take a darker turn.

Season 3: Books 7-9/10. End with the cleansing of Saidin (I skipped a lot of this part of the series, but IIRC a lot of ten is just dealing with the aftermath of Nine).

Season 4: 10/11-12. End on Rand's big epiphany.

Season 5: 13-14. The last two books, the big finale.

Note that the last two seasons would only cover about two books' material each, instead of three. That's due to what I feel are natural breaks in the series, but it also has the nice advantage of cutting down on the amount of stuff you have to cover, so the budget won't be spread as thin on the Last Battle and its build-up.

Five seasons is a decent length for a speculative fiction series in a major franchise. Five to seven is typical for such shows. Only a few (Doctor Who, Stargate, X-Files, Smallville, and GoT* are the only ones that come to mind) have gone over seven. But I could easily see going six and making the final book its own season if the ratings warrant it, if only to allow for more money to be spent on doing the Last Battle justice.

Do New Spring as a special/TV movie between seasons three and four (maybe even a limited theatrical release if the series is a big hit- given Doctor Who's success with limited theatrical releases for its specials for a while, I'm a little surprised HBO never tried this with GoT).

So I'd go with around three or four episodes a book, for around ten to twelve a season, approximately. Enough to keep it concise, and hopefully conserve the effects budget (GoT for most of its run did ten a season).

Also, it occurs to me doing this breakdown that if they start with Moiraine as the main protagonist, then depending on how closely they follow the books, a natural time to shift the focus to Rand would be Moiraine's "death" in book five.



*Also Archer if you count animation.

[Mr Bean]

I'd agree with that except the books get longer with each book and it depends on season length. For myself I'd aim for two books a season so you start in Emond's Field and end in the blowing of The Horn.

Season 2 would start with Rand running from Moraine and ends with the uniting the Aiel

Season 3 would start with the chasing of the Shaido Aiel and end with Dumai's Wells

Season 4 is a perfect pair because the plot splits during the hunt for the Bowl of winds

And so on and so on. Seven seasons total shooting for 5-6 episodes a book or 50 minutes every 150 pages. Three books a season cuts it and at 7 seasons it would end up be shorter than Game of Thrones and easy to pitch.

*Edit and of course there's a lot of stuff easy to skip or condense, the training in the tower, the political machination for the various thrones and King ships, the side moments that just serve to highlight characters. It gets worse in the later books but there are plenty of places where five pages of setup takes 15 seconds to show.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'd agree with that except the books get longer with each book and it depends on season length. For myself I'd aim for two books a season so you start in Emond's Field and end in the blowing of The Horn.

Season 2 would start with Rand running from Moraine and ends with the uniting the Aiel

Season 3 would start with the chasing of the Shaido Aiel and end with Dumai's Wells

Season 4 is a perfect pair because the plot splits during the hunt for the Bowl of winds

And so on and so on. Seven seasons total shooting for 5-6 episodes a book or 50 minutes every 150 pages. Three books a season cuts it and at 7 seasons it would end up be shorter than Game of Thrones and easy to pitch.

That works too, though I feel that the end of Dragon Reborn makes a better breaking point than the end of Great Hunt.

*Edit and of course there's a lot of stuff easy to skip or condense, the training in the tower, the political machination for the various thrones and King ships, the side moments that just serve to highlight characters. It gets worse in the later books but there are plenty of places where five pages of setup takes 15 seconds to show.

Yeah. Also, the long-winded descriptions that the series is (in)famous for, as noted above, can be condensed. A page of description might warrant a five second shot and be the better for it.

Edit: I'll add that I really hope they come up with a less goofy ending for Eye of the World's plot. That climax always felt silly and contrived as fuck to me, and out of step with the themes and style of the later books. Jordan was pretty clearly still learning the ropes and figuring out the details of his cosmology at that point, to me.