Amazon's "The Wheel of Time"

[Deleted]

Hey all,

First news emerging on this one, on the bane of my bookshelf.

variety.com/2019/tv/news/rosamund-pike-wheel-of-time-amazon-series-1203247268/

The long-gestating “Wheel of Time” TV adaptation has finally found its lead.

Rosamund Pike cast been cast as Moiraine, a member of the powerful all-female organization called the Aes Sedai, in the Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television co-production.

Based on Robert Jordan’s best-selling fantasy novels, “The Wheel of Time” is set in a high fantasy world where magic exists, but only certain women are allowed to access it. The story follows Moiraine as she embarks on a dangerous, world-spanning journey with five young men and women, one of whom is prophesied to be the Dragon Reborn, a powerful individual who will either save humanity or destroy it.

The series draws on numerous elements of European and Asian culture and philosophy, particularly Buddhism and Hinduism.

Pike, who will also produce, recently starred in “State of the Union” alongside Chris O’Dowd.

[...}

The long-gestating “Wheel of Time” TV adaptation has finally found its lead.

Rosamund Pike cast been cast as Moiraine, a member of the powerful all-female organization called the Aes Sedai, in the Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television co-production.

Based on Robert Jordan’s best-selling fantasy novels, “The Wheel of Time” is set in a high fantasy world where magic exists, but only certain women are allowed to access it. The story follows Moiraine as she embarks on a dangerous, world-spanning journey with five young men and women, one of whom is prophesied to be the Dragon Reborn, a powerful individual who will either save humanity or destroy it.

The series draws on numerous elements of European and Asian culture and philosophy, particularly Buddhism and Hinduism.

Pike, who will also produce, recently starred in “State of the Union” alongside Chris O’Dowd. The Sundance TV comedy series consisted of ten 10-minute episodes which pieced together the reasons behind the two characters’ collapsing marriage. Last year she was nominated for a Golden Globe for her portrayal of journalist Marie Colvin in “A Private War.”

I think the approach of centering the series on Moiraine instead of "the three boys from Two Rivers" might do the narrative some good, and it avoids the inevitable parallels to the usual suspects, from LotR to Shannara and GoT. - I'm more excited about this project than I necessarily am about other movies or series that are currently in production, I got to confess. Not a series guy, necessarily, but this one has me charmed.

Yours,

Rafe

[Deleted]

Well, I guess she's going to be the "Ned Stark" of the show; so, *one* main character, not *the* main character: I also think it's an indicator for something I had hoped for, and that is the incorporation of "New Spring". (For those who haven't read the series, a 300-page prequel novella, released when the series was already ten books old.) I like this because it's an indicator that they're going to work with entirety of show's lore: Not, like, say, with "Shannara", where the books are as far from the show as "The Lord of the Rings" is from "Star Wars". - This goes with another *rumor* I read some time ago, that the powers that be are going to do one season for every two books, or so, if the series catches on, as it was done with "The Expanse": That puts the show at between six and eight seasons, depending on how the showrunners decide to treat the Sanderson novels.

...And while I'm certainly not thinking as far ahead as the series' conclusion, for a start, a first season based on "New Spring" and "The Eye of the World" could be pretty sweet. Rand revealed as the Dragon in season 2 would also make sense. Then, with seasons 3 and 4 centering around the Morgase/Elayne storylines, the universe could be expanded quite nicely. - Like, imagine, if we got just those four seasons in "prestige production" format, how awesome that could be.

[Falconer]

I haven’t read these books. Is she the girl on the white horse on the cover of the first book?

[Deleted]

Jun 20, 2019 9:56:36 GMT -6 Piper said:

She starts the action rolling on the whole multi-book saga and isn't a bad choice to center a show around. But there is one problem with going this route. She disappears a few books in and doesn't reappear until close to the end of the saga.

- Which is why I said she was going to serve as "the [sic] Ned Stark": Rand & Co. are going to be the usual no-name tweenie actors, and she's the big actress that's supposed to bring in the name value. A first season centered around her seems appealing to me because it lessens the "Flight from the Shire" flair that the first half of "The Eye of the World" has. Like, the story of three, four youngsters running from dark riders, we have already seen that one. So, Moiraine being in the focus for that part of the story might be worth the while.

Now, because my statements on this have been kind of unclear in the past, let me just say: I really like (if not "love") WoT. I like to mock it, yes, mainly because of its gargantuan length, but I would definitely recommend it over a lot of contemporary (post-1985) fantasy. I have read, what, eight of the thirteen or fourteen books that make the entire series, and I've felt well-entertained. That I'm not talking about it in more glowing terms is mainly connected to the fact that I have no deeply personal attachment to the series, as I've had the luck to have with other pieces of fiction. - That might be related to me reading the books divided over a long period of time (15+ years), or to the fact that I was already an adult when I was introduced to the series. Or, simply, that many of the themes and motifs from the first few books were already too familiar to me when I found them in Jordan's books. - But overall, I think it's a great series, and, despite the worldbuilding being oversimplistic on one side, and overly convoluted on the other, it's great entertainment. One particular thing that I like about the books is that Jordan is a very able writer - his literary style is just great, and that fact compensates for a lot of minor weaknesses that the books do carry.

If you are pondering a "warmup read" before the start of the show, you can't really go wrong with this one, in my view.

[Deleted]

Jun 20, 2019 18:51:17 GMT -6 Piper said:

Now, because my statements on this have been kind of unclear in the past, let me just say: I really like (if not "love") WoT.

Zero distortion on this side of the conversation, but thanks for the clarification.[/quote]

- Nah, just thought I'd say this because WoT is frequently the target of some of my jokes here on OD&D'74: Like "Paradise Lost", or the works of William Faulkner, it's a text that many quote and reference, but only a few have read. Because it's 12.000 pages, after all. I've always enjoyed those books, and I've read them with pleasure - but, of course, they embody both the best and the worst of the fantasy genre: Great style and attention to detail, yet an insane stretching and padding of plotlines to the point of cynicism and absurdity. Still so, I'd love to see the series done well, especially after the grandiose disappointment that "Game of Thrones" was for me. I'm not really the TV/series type, at least not compared to some other of my friends and acquaintances, but this one will bind me to the sofa for some time.

[cadriel]

I read the first 6 books in this series, but it got tiresome after that. My impression was that it started as a sort of self-conscious cross between The Lord of the Rings (dark lord, epic quest, fantasy world, flight from a village, inhuman adversaries) and Dune (female mystics, chosen one linked to desert people who can use the same powers as the female mystics, wheels within wheels plotting) but over time became too laden with cruft to be enjoyable. A TV series can probably shorten most of the narrative problems that I had with the books, so I'm interested to watch it.

Putting Moiraine as the lead is an interesting frame. If they really have thought about the adaptation and do justice to the parts that are really solid adventure writing without getting bogged down, I could see this being a solid series. But I have to admit that the first thing I looked at when I heard Moiraine had been cast was how tall the actress is, and was disappointed that she's so tall.

[Finarvyn]

I read the first book and couldn't force my way into the second. My wife read much farther into the series and said that I would like it if I could just read a little farther...

I agree that book #1 had a very "escape from the Shire" feel to it. Maybe that's why I didn't like it much.

And as to Rosamund Pike, I looked her up in Wikipedia and she has a very long list of credits except that I'm not sure I've seen ANY of them. (Even the James Bond one.)