Wot I am watching now

[Bartley_baggie]

The Continental John Wick series , watched 1st one last night , good bit of nonsense , enjoyed it!

[AnelkasBeard]

The Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime. I've read all the books, and whilst there's some changes, Season 2 especially has been top drawer. Highly recommend if you're in to fantasy stuff. If they keep this form, it will shit all over Game of Thrones.

One of my favourite book series.

Didn't mind season one, but can't get into the first episode if season two, just doesn't bear any resemblance to the books and hasn't grabbed me in another way.

I implore you to keep watching season 2. It's fantastic, and it definitely gets to "book resemblance" if that term makes senes.

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The Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime. I've read all the books, and whilst there's some changes, Season 2 especially has been top drawer. Highly recommend if you're in to fantasy stuff. If they keep this form, it will shit all over Game of Thrones.

One of my favourite book series.

Didn't mind season one, but can't get into the first episode if season two, just doesn't bear any resemblance to the books and hasn't grabbed me in another way.

It's worth a watch for when you run out of other stuff. It's definitely been toned down / woked up, which is seriously detracting from what made the books stand out. It all just feels a bit cookie cutter now. Maybe the Yanks couldn't follow the book twists and turns?

I couldn't disagree with you more. Not to say there's no issues, but the last 3/4 episodes have been fantastic. As for "woked up", please explain your flawed logic on this one. I'll wait.

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The Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime. I've read all the books, and whilst there's some changes, Season 2 especially has been top drawer. Highly recommend if you're in to fantasy stuff. If they keep this form, it will shit all over Game of Thrones.

Read all the books, thought Series 1 was a little heavy handed with the wokeness (FFS where's the nudity gone? ), need to get around to series 2... it's got to improve a lot for me before it even gets into the same toilet area as GoT.

Season 2 is a lot better. And I liked season 1. But they've really gone well this time. Give it a go.

Am on episode 6, yes it's better than series 1, still nowhere near GoT levels. It's like a teen read an adult series and decided to tone them down. Improved since Lanfear rocked up, but first couple of episodes were ponderous.

What's with the jarring accents?? The Seanchan all sound like Trump supporters, just need them to start saying bro and stuff.

Have you really never made the connection that the Seanchan are based on Americans from the time period aroudn the Vietnam war? The books literally describe their accents as a drawl, and is based on the Texan accent.

Also what are you on about "toned down"? Please explain with specific examples of what has been toned down.

[NewWanker]

Toned down; in short, sex and violence. the books from memory are quite violent and don't veer away from it. Yes, there's some violence in the TV series, but compared to say The Continental, or LOTR / GoT it's very toned down, not sure how else I can explain it. It's starting to remind me of the 'action' / violence that is in something like the Hunger games. Heck I noticed it's rated as a 15, there is no way the books would have been 15.

The nudity has been completely removed, which made the whole Nynaeve accepted, arches scene a joke... You must enter the arches with nothing... take off your dress... oh it's Ok leave the rest on... Maybe they should've changed the speech to not state you must enter with nothing... It's niggles like that, that have annoyed me, and it just feels all toned down. If I remember correctly there's plenty of Rand and other bloke's nude scenes in the books too, so I suspect they'll get teen-ified.

no I never made a connection with the Seanchan being Americans from Vietnam, I did think the TV makes it like oh look American invaders, so the concept of a generic type accent was OK,( but there is no drawl, just a deep dumb sounding Yank one, maybe they should've gone for the Southern States version instead?). it also makes everyone else's accents more stupid, as in kids from a small village should be very similar, yet these are the most diverse crew ever. Yes Rand isn't technically from there, but growing up there they'd all again sound similar... (heck whole swathes of a country (Brummie, Geordie, Scouse for example) can share similar accents and they're larger areas than the backwoods, nobody visits so will be pretty insular two Rivers), and it seems allowed for the Seanchan, but not everyone else...)

This is where my woked up comment comes in, it's like they've gone out of the way to be as inclusive as possible, but it's detracting from the belief. I wouldn't have a problem if all of the Two Rivers were black, green, white, yellow or orange or whatever, but to have a deliberately diverse mix just smacks of wokeism, to me. Same as some of the other small places that they've been to, again the people wouldn't be so diverse.

(Standard reply oh look a racist, sex pest... or similar)

[Birdman1811]

Tbh, I do get those complaints but they don't bother me, that's standard TV adaption faire.

My issues are around the removal of the male and female sides of the power, characters just being utterly different to how they were in the books, the way some storylines just don't follow any of the steps in the book.

I have watched the second episode of season 2 now, and it is growing on me, but it's not The Wheel of Time, but another story loosely based on it.

[NewWanker]

Tbh, I do get those complaints but they don't bother me, that's standard TV adaption faire.

My issues are around the removal of the male and female sides of the power, characters just being utterly different to how they were in the books, the way some storylines just don't follow any of the steps in the book.

I have watched the second episode of season 2 now, and it is growing on me, but it's not The Wheel of Time, but another story loosely based on it.

I never picked up on the removal of male / female power, they keep mentioning he'll go mad from weaving, so just assumed it was there.

Your last part is what I agree with, it feels like it's set in a similar universe at best. As I say when Lanfear crops up, it does improve, but it's a low bar to improve from.

I took the advice from here and gave the Continental a go, now that is good fun. I've only watched 2 John Wicks i think, so not fully up on that universe, but even without the knowledge it's just easy to get into and enjoy.

[AnelkasBeard]

Toned down; in short, sex and violence. the books from memory are quite violent and don't veer away from it. Yes, there's some violence in the TV series, but compared to say The Continental, or LOTR / GoT it's very toned down, not sure how else I can explain it. It's starting to remind me of the 'action' / violence that is in something like the Hunger games. Heck I noticed it's rated as a 15, there is no way the books would have been 15.

-Robert Jordan literally created a descriptive fighting system where he named sword forms things like "Cat crosses the courtyard" or "arc of the moon" etc etc, so he wouldn't have to describe the violence (because of PTSD from the Vietnam War, I believe). We've also seen Perrin tortured, plenty of gore, Lanfear killing indiscriminantly (she literally disintegrated a dudes head), and we've had plenty of horror elements in sa well. So... afraid I disagree with this one. 

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The nudity has been completely removed, which made the whole Nynaeve accepted, arches scene a joke... You must enter the arches with nothing... take off your dress... oh it's Ok leave the rest on... Maybe they should've changed the speech to not state you must enter with nothing... It's niggles like that, that have annoyed me, and it just feels all toned down. If I remember correctly there's plenty of Rand and other bloke's nude scenes in the books too, so I suspect they'll get teen-ified.

-This is simply a byproduct of TV - they want it accessible to a larger audience, thus they remove the nudity. It is what it is. I also doubt you'd get many/any actors/actresses who would want to be stark bollock on the TV. From memory (happy to be corrected, it's been a while), only Daenarys and Cersei of the main cast got her naked in GoT, and that was about 3/4 times in 8 seasons... and I'm fairly sure Emilia Clarke said she regretted the naked scenes.  

I do strongly disagree that the Arches scene was a joke because she wasn't naked? That's a pretty weird take. The scene hit exactly how it needed to. 

Notice they've actually aged up the EF5 so they're all sexually active etc which isn't true until later in the books, so it's not like there's no sexual tension etc. But, this one is pretty subjective, so fair enough.

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no I never made a connection with the Seanchan being Americans from Vietnam, I did think the TV makes it like oh look American invaders, so the concept of a generic type accent was OK,( but there is no drawl, just a deep dumb sounding Yank one, maybe they should've gone for the Southern States version instead?). it also makes everyone else's accents more stupid, as in kids from a small village should be very similar, yet these are the most diverse crew ever. Yes Rand isn't technically from there, but growing up there they'd all again sound similar... (heck whole swathes of a country (Brummie, Geordie, Scouse for example) can share similar accents and they're larger areas than the backwoods, nobody visits so will be pretty insular two Rivers), and it seems allowed for the Seanchan, but not everyone else...)

-This is pretty nitpicky, but still subjective so fair enough. I get it's immersion breaking potentially, but I've not something I've paid much attention to. The Seanchan accents are all different too. Suroth, Turak, Renna all have different, Americanised accents.

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This is where my woked up comment comes in, it's like they've gone out of the way to be as inclusive as possible, but it's detracting from the belief. I wouldn't have a problem if all of the Two Rivers were black, green, white, yellow or orange or whatever, but to have a deliberately diverse mix just smacks of wokeism, to me. Same as some of the other small places that they've been to, again the people wouldn't be so diverse.

-I see where you're coming from, assume you mean because it's meant to be a backwater, not much immigration etc, so all people should be the same/similar ethnicity. Fair enough, but in book you have enough people coming from afar. Nynaeve isn't from The Two Rivers, neither are Tam/Rand and I think there's other that I can't specifically remember, so I don't fully agree. It's not a huge stretch to make it more diverse, especially in the current climate.

If the actors/actresses didn't emobdy the characters so well thus far, then it's a fair comment. But the casting has been pretty much nailed on, at least for me.

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(Standard reply oh look a racist, sex pest... or similar)

-Sadly you'll be disappointed, I've actually debated your specific points instead of calling you "racist".

I've replied to your comments in the quote. Overall, I think the stuff you're focused on is pretty small stuff that, whilst I can see it would be immersion breaking, doesn't actually matter much in terms of the story told. They've hit or are going to hit the major plot points from the first two books over the first two seasons, and I think we'll see it get better and better. 

But hey, if you don't like it, then fair enough. Each to their own.

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Tbh, I do get those complaints but they don't bother me, that's standard TV adaption faire.

My issues are around the removal of the male and female sides of the power, characters just being utterly different to how they were in the books, the way some storylines just don't follow any of the steps in the book.

I have watched the second episode of season 2 now, and it is growing on me, but it's not The Wheel of Time, but another story loosely based on it.

There were plenty of outside issues with Season 1 that meant things had to change. Not least, Amazon cutting the run time down from 10 to 8 episodes, covid halting filming and Barney Harris (Mat) leaving the show being the major ones.

Keep watching Season 2, you'll see it get closer and closer to the book story line, they've done well to get it more back on track, and the last few episodes have been fantastic.

In terms of characters being different, other than Lan (who so far isn't remotely the same character), I think they're all pretty close/spot on, so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on who's so different.

Whilst they haven't specifically mentioned the male/female power in the show, it IS in the "behind the scenes"/lore videos that you get on Prime. So, it is there I just think they didn't want to confuse show only viewers too much. It's a fair criticism, but I'm certain it will be coming at some point, not least for the fact that the cleansing of Saidin is a major plot point from.... book 9? I think it was.

[Big Daddy Cool]

Currently watching The Boys. Probably my favourite show since Breaking Bad. Homelander is a great character.

[NewWanker]

The 'violence' that is in it, just feels off... again, that's my general feeling with most of it. As Birdie said, it just doesn't feel like it's the same characters / story etc...

My point on the arches nudity was they still use the 'You must go in with nothing' then make her remove her dress, but leave her shift on...makes no sense... had they cut the line then fine, but they left it in. That's the joke, the actual nudity is a secondary point, but it feels like they went out of the way to avoid it, but forgot to tell the dialogue writers... It will be interesting to see how they handle the Aiel tribes tent bath things that happened a lot. From what I remember of the books they made GoT look quite prudish at times.

I disagree with the casting being good, Rand is pretty much devoid of anything, just a very blank face with a largely monotone voice, Nynaeve is OK, new Matt is better than old Matt (not difficult though!), Perrin seems more like a spoiled kid than someone going through mental anguish, he just looks like he is holding in a big shit! And Lan who is described from other sources as being 6'5 and muscular, is nowhere near it in the show, but he is growing on me a little.

But it's all good, and each to their own and all that, you're enjoying it more than me and that's cool. I'm getting into it more, but am just hoping they stop holding it back(which is just the feeling I get), because I loved those books (so much so I went back and re-bought the paperbacks in hardback)

For me the immersion matters, it makes the situation more believable, it's like when a game spoils the immersion. Currently WoT feels off...and it's the little things that are throwing me that way.

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Currently watching The Boys. Probably my favourite show since Breaking Bad. Homelander is a great character.

I loved the Boys, and I normally don't like Super hero stuff.

[AnelkasBeard]

The 'violence' that is in it, just feels off... again, that's my general feeling with most of it. As Birdie said, it just doesn't feel like it's the same characters / story etc...

My point on the arches nudity was they still use the 'You must go in with nothing' then make her remove her dress, but leave her shift on...makes no sense... had they cut the line then fine, but they left it in. That's the joke, the actual nudity is a secondary point, but it feels like they went out of the way to avoid it, but forgot to tell the dialogue writers... It will be interesting to see how they handle the Aiel tribes tent bath things that happened a lot. From what I remember of the books they made GoT look quite prudish at times.

I disagree with the casting being good, Rand is pretty much devoid of anything, just a very blank face with a largely monotone voice, Nynaeve is OK, new Matt is better than old Matt (not difficult though!), Perrin seems more like a spoiled kid than someone going through mental anguish, he just looks like he is holding in a big shit! And Lan who is described from other sources as being 6'5 and muscular, is nowhere near it in the show, but he is growing on me a little.

But it's all good, and each to their own and all that, you're enjoying it more than me and that's cool. I'm getting into it more, but am just hoping they stop holding it back(which is just the feeling I get), because I loved those books (so much so I went back and re-bought the paperbacks in hardback)

For me the immersion matters, it makes the situation more believable, it's like when a game spoils the immersion. Currently WoT feels off...and it's the little things that are throwing me that way.

Fair enough, I do see your points, I hope they start to dissipate.

THe main thing is, the TV show will hopefully bring more readers to the book series, and that can't be a bad thing.

[NewWanker]

The 'violence' that is in it, just feels off... again, that's my general feeling with most of it. As Birdie said, it just doesn't feel like it's the same characters / story etc...

My point on the arches nudity was they still use the 'You must go in with nothing' then make her remove her dress, but leave her shift on...makes no sense... had they cut the line then fine, but they left it in. That's the joke, the actual nudity is a secondary point, but it feels like they went out of the way to avoid it, but forgot to tell the dialogue writers... It will be interesting to see how they handle the Aiel tribes tent bath things that happened a lot. From what I remember of the books they made GoT look quite prudish at times.

I disagree with the casting being good, Rand is pretty much devoid of anything, just a very blank face with a largely monotone voice, Nynaeve is OK, new Matt is better than old Matt (not difficult though!), Perrin seems more like a spoiled kid than someone going through mental anguish, he just looks like he is holding in a big shit! And Lan who is described from other sources as being 6'5 and muscular, is nowhere near it in the show, but he is growing on me a little.

But it's all good, and each to their own and all that, you're enjoying it more than me and that's cool. I'm getting into it more, but am just hoping they stop holding it back(which is just the feeling I get), because I loved those books (so much so I went back and re-bought the paperbacks in hardback)

For me the immersion matters, it makes the situation more believable, it's like when a game spoils the immersion. Currently WoT feels off...and it's the little things that are throwing me that way.

Fair enough, I do see your points, I hope they start to dissipate.

THe main thing is, the TV show will hopefully bring more readers to the book series, and that can't be a bad thing.

I'm not so sure that the tv watching types these days could handle the time and effort to get through the books! think I only managed it back in the day due to getting the bus to work and needing stuff to read!