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[McTraveller]

The Wheel of Time on Amazon.

It's been a long time since I've read the books (yes, all of them).  So far it's pretty close to what I remember - enough so that I can't say anything's amiss.  Maybe a few odd cinematic choices here and there, but I'm enjoying it!

[Il Palazzo]

I just finished watching Devs, a show about some tech-nerds trying to break the universe.

Overall quality of the show is high. Good music, good visuals, good acting, good dialogue. It does come across as fairly pretentious, which may be a turnoff for some.

After 8 episodes the show gets a nice conclusion to wrap everything up, so it's a safe watch for those who don't like cliffhangers or ambiguous endings.

I've just stumbled upon this one.
It's an Alex Garland show (of Ex Machina, Annihilation). Honestly, that should be enough for a recommendation.
A brainy slow-boiler about quantum gobbledygook and determinism. Starring that girl who was tearing up the dance floor with Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina, Thufir Hawat, and Ron fucking Swanson.
It's kinda great. How is this not talked about more is mystifying.

[EuchreJack]

A while ago I noticed this LoL show on Netflix, called Arcane. Game inspired shows are never good, so it was odd to see a 100% score on rottentomatoes. Went and checked it out. And boy, is it beautiful or what.

Castlevania was pretty good, never watched the second season.

[brewer bob]

The Wheel of Time on Amazon.

It's been a long time since I've read the books (yes, all of them).

Actually started watching this, but after 15 minutes decided that I'll have to read a bit about the world first (haven't read the books or pretty much anything about the premise). Seemed an interesting and decent enough series to watch, but felt like I need to know some background to get the most out of it.

Other than that, I've been re-watching (again) the first campaign of Critical Role. The second campaign was a bit meh and didn't like the "better production values" nor the characters, but the third campaign surprisingly has been entertaining so far, and I even like the characters (except can't really stand Taliesin's punk-rock barbarian that feels super awkward to me).

[Folly]

A while ago I noticed this LoL show on Netflix, called Arcane. Game inspired shows are never good, so it was odd to see a 100% score on rottentomatoes. Went and checked it out. And boy, is it beautiful or what.

Castlevania was pretty good, never watched the second season.

Castlevania has 4 seasons now, with the fourth concluding the story of Trevor Belmont and his company. There is a sequel in the works, set to focus on descendant Richter Belmont.
The series has been a bit rushed in my opinion; ambitiously tackling lots of different characters and plots simultaneously, and not quite giving all of them the time they needed to feel complete. That kept things exciting though.

On the subject of video game shows, DOTA: Dragons Blood is also on Netflix, and I consider it quite good. Production values aren't quite as high as Arcane, and the setting more fantasy cliche. But still a solid show.
Season 2 is scheduled for January 2022!

[McTraveller]

Actually started watching this, but after 15 minutes decided that I'll have to read a bit about the world first (haven't read the books or pretty much anything about the premise). Seemed an interesting and decent enough series to watch, but felt like I need to know some background to get the most out of it.

I would recommend against that actually - if the show can't stand on its own exposition, it failed.  So far it seems to be expositing at about the same pace of the books - at least, in the books, there was a lot about the world you don't learn at the beginning. It does come in bits and pieces.

Part of the enjoyment of any piece of fantasy is getting the information over time, not just all at once... at least in my opinion.

[brewer bob]

Part of the enjoyment of any piece of fantasy is getting the information over time, not just all at once... at least in my opinion.

It's more of a personal preference or maybe an unhealthy obsession for me: I find myself often being more interested in the worlds than the actual stories being told. Maybe it's got to do with me being the eternal DM since a kid, so I try to know as much of the surrounding world as possible (I actually very rarely get to the point of DMing and spend all the time either reading on the setting or trying to create my own)? Dunno.

In any case, I read just a brief description of the premise and that should be enough to satisfy my curiosity for now, so I'll probably give a new go for the series some time soon.

[TD1]

As someone who really enjoyed the Wheel of Time books, the series was a hige disappointment.

Mainly because the characters were altered far too much, and also because the coming of age stuff was completely cut out by aging everyone.

The whole idea of Wheel of Time was that a group of innocent farmers went into the world and grew up while combating its darkness. The WoT show is just generic fantasy.

I will admit that the visual content is incredibly well done, though.

[McTraveller]

Re: Wheel of Time

I feel like a big part of the ire with remakes or book adaptations is that when you are watching visual adaptations of books, they are always going to be somewhat different.  You have to somewhat put aside your expectations and just take the presentation as what it is.  Works of art aren't just for the audience - they are also for the creator.  Let the creators create!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As I said it's been a long time since I've read the books - but I haven't seen too much in avoiding "coming of age".  I mean they are still trying to figure out just who they are.  I don't see them being too "aged" at the moment. Unless I'm not remembering and they were much younger than 20 in the books?

The biggest character development/departure I see from the main 5 in the book I see is with Mat - if you didn't read the books I can see how the stuff he does in the show would be confusing.  He also seems way too depressed; I remember him being more carefree-reckless in the books, not drowning-in-sorrows-reckless.

One thing the show seems to match from the books though is continuing the ridiculous tension building by putting the characters in peril because of characters' dumb choices; one thing that's missing is the mountains of dramatic irony where in the books the reader knows how dumb the choices are, but we don't get as much information on-screen.

Spoiler: True show spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also again I can't remember, and this seems like a big alteration for no real purpose I can see other than cultural pandering: I don't remember there being a love interest between Moirane and Siuan and I don't see how it adds to the story of the politics of the Tower either.  That seemed... really out of place to me.

[brewer bob]

I feel like a big part of the ire with remakes or book adaptations is that when you are watching visual adaptations of books, they are always going to be somewhat different.  You have to somewhat put aside your expectations and just take the presentation as what it is.  Works of art aren't just for the audience - they are also for the creator.  Let the creators create!

I think it's not important for the adaptation to be (too) faithful for the original story or characters -- if I want to experience the original story, I'm probably better off just reading the book. It's more important that the visual adaptation has the same feel as the literary work, which is something most adaptations fail to do, in my opinion (can't say about Wheel of Time, though).

[TD1]

I agree that adaptations should have the same flavour, not necessarily the same content, as the books.

It's what made Dune a good adaptation imo. It tasted the same as the books, and used its medium to push them forward in new ways - for instance with the sound track.

Rand's about 19 in the books, and what... 25 in the series? A big difference.

What the series did to Mat was nearly as bad as what they did to Perrin, largely because it misses the entire 'flavour' of WoT - which, as stated above, is a coming-of-age tale involving simple country boys that lacks GoT style grimdark stuff. The series is a testament to what the producers thought people wanted, not what was true to the source material.

What the series did to Mat and Perrin:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Book Perrin: gentle blacksmith's apprentice, a giant who thinks methodically and is careful with his strength.
Series Perrin: Married blacksmith. Problems with rage. Kills own wife in fight.

Book Mat: adventure-loving trickster who is not as charming as he thinks he is. Seems entirely concerned with self, but displays nobility when others are in danger. He milks cows for his dad and he loves his sisters.
Series Mat: Mother is a drug/alcohol user. Father is an adulterer. Mat is a thief who steals for gain.

You can see how, with these characters at its helm, the series just doesn't feel like WoT to me.

I'll add the caveat that I only managed to stomach two episodes and then had to bail. So maybe it improves.

[McTraveller]

Spoiler: More on WoT (click to show/hide)

Yeah I couldn't remember enough about Perrin's backstory to remember if he had an earlier wife or not.  I thought they were ~20 in the show, not 25... this is based on conversations about Nynaeve being "25 and being too old, compared to the others".

I already mentioned I totally agree about Mat - he just feels way different in the show than he felt in the book.

The rest of the show though I'd say has the same overall feel - lots of cutting between scenes, leaving each one with a mini-cliffhanger because the characters are, in fact, pretty dumb.  I mean even in the books, all the way to the end, I was often like "really? You are still falling for this stuff?"  (I fully realize that is part of the mythos of the wheel of time though - sometimes things work out because they have to, not because of any particular prowess of the characters.)

The world building seems close enough, though I think they foreshadow a bit more hard than the book did.

[lemon10]

I'll add the caveat that I only managed to stomach two episodes and then had to bail. So maybe it improves.

It does not improve.

They change so much stuff, often for little or no reason that it only barely feels like the same series.

I feel like one of the big reasons that GOT was so good was that Martin was alive to make sure that stuff stayed broadly the same (until they got to the end of the books, at which point... well, you know what happened). Jordan is not alive, and thus wasn't there to stop them randomly changing massive elements of the world, characters, plot, themes, and pacing and it shows.
---
Is it a bad show? No. But if you loved the books and you watch it hoping its like the books you will be mighty disappointed.

[McTraveller]

I don't yet feel like Wheel of Time has really completely broken things relative to the books.

I mean it's nowhere near the level of The Dark Tower for example.  I'm still sad about that one - those were some of my favorite books.

[Eschar]

I don't yet feel like Wheel of Time has really completely broken things relative to the books.

I mean it's nowhere near the level of The Dark Tower for example.  I'm still sad about that one - those were some of my favorite books.

The Dark Tower movie is a travesty, a tragedy, and does not deserve to bear the name.