Just putting this here for those who might miss it.

I saw season 1 and it was…okay? I gather that Wheel of Time diehards were upset about plot deviations. I never read the books so that didn’t matter much to me. IMO the world setting seemed janky - it was as though Robert Jordan couldn’t build an original world to save his life and borrowed bits and pieces of different Earth cultures and threw them in a blender. I could pass on the next season but I have too many people around me who will want to watch it so I feel somewhat compelled to.

What did you think of season 1? Will you be watching season 2?

  • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Ummm … so this is a troll? That’s clearly not an official trailer for Season 2.

    My quick search pulled this up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-1OT1jxuQo

    Looks good to me … I’ll watch it. Never read the books. Started book 1, and found the heavy LoTR borrowings tiresome. My understanding is that that was intentional and the series becomes its own thing after that, but I never got through it.

    S1 was obviously janky, but I appreciated the world and the set up of the forces at play … honestly want to see what the story is and look forward to watching it in hopefully decently produced TV form.

    I wonder what the relationship is between wheel of time and rings of power productions over there on prime??

  • BertramDitore@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m with you. I haven’t read the books, but I watched it because of how celebrated the books are. I did not enjoy the first season. I wanted to like it, but I found it aggressively mediocre and generic. Couldn’t tell you anything about it, I barely remember anything other than the famous lead actress, who was…fine.

    I’ll probably watch the first couple episodes of the second season to see if they’ve taken any of the widespread criticism to heart, but I’m not optimistic.

    • Notcho@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Don’t judge the author by the show. I don’t know what the intention was but it seems the producers have a deep hate for the books.

      It’s a great series to read; the longest I’ve ever read. The series has highs and lows but I cared for the characters and that’s very important for me to like a book.

      WoT is great to read and a letdown to watch.

      • BertramDitore@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Oh totally, that’s a good point. I’m definitely not judging the author, and I’ll probably still try to read the books at some point.

        What is it with all these shows lately that actively hate their source material?? I’m thinking about the Witcher here too…

      • ser@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It looks like Rosamund Pike is carrying the whole show. The actor playing Rand… Wears the character like an ill fitting suit. The other side characters are more interesting.

  • Kaldo@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Season 1 left a really weird taste in my mouth. I don’t mind deviations from the books but I don’t understand why they made them when it just makes for a worse story with less likeable characters and tons of inconsistencies or plot holes. It really felt like it was the show writers trying to tell their own, much worse and badly written, fanfic story instead of R. Jordan’s, and that’s not why I watched the show at all. It doesn’t help that it felt like they don’t even understand the source material, like for example completely missing how saidin and saidar “work” and “feel”, or how novices have impressive AoE heals without any practice at all.

    It’s the same criticism I had about Witcher and that one went off the rails even worse in later seasons so I really have low hopes for WoT.

    edit: OP’s link is not for the official trailer

  • ඞmir@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I see people in the comments saying this is fanmade, is that a joke because of how bad it is or is it actually fanmade? I can’t tell anymore at this point…

  • woodnote@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I’m looking forward to Season 2. Season 1 wasn’t the most incredible story I’ve ever seen, but I found it compelling, visually very appealing, and the story, performances and characters were strong enough that I’m excited to see how things play out. I’ve not read the books, though.

    I think there’s so much mediocre TV out there, it often seems like fantasy/scifi is held to a weird standard where it has to be groundbreakingly innovative and earthshatteringly well-done to get people on board. I’d much rather watch the next season of Wheel of Time than NCIS: Duluth or whatever else is getting pumped out by the police procedural-industrial complex (and believe me, I watch plenty of schlock crime dramas too).

  • jennwiththesea@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’ll watch it for the costumes alone. Truly amazing! I honestly can’t remember much about the plot from season one.

  • PenguinJuice@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Terrible, terrible show.

    We should just start over and have someone who actually cares about the source material work on it

  • Skyrmir@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Read all the books, and enjoyed the first season of the show. But I also didn’t expect it to be true to the books, so I’m just enjoying their reinterpretation of the story.

    There’s so much lore and background story and side stories in the books that large chunks have to be reworked or removed to put it on a screen. And that was always going to happen, so I went in just hoping for an easy watch, that didn’t have me angry at the characters doing too much stupid shit. And also knowing there’s some background reasons for the stupid things they do, and hoping that holds true on the screen.

  • oʍʇǝuoǝnu@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Similar experience to you, never read the books and watched it off the recommendation from some work people. I wasn’t a big fan, the story and characters were alright but nothing really gripped me. I’ll probably check out a few of the first episodes of the new season, but I don’t expect myself to keep up with it.

  • Zorque@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    You know almost every “original world” borrows elements from the real world, right? It’s incredibly hard to make something that isn’t influenced by reality would be incredibly hard… and almost impossible to relate to.

    Admittedly, I only watched the first episode and have read five or six of the books. They seemed to be rushing through any kind of development, character or plot wise, so any similarities may have been enhanced due to a lack of depth.

    • QHC@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Game of Thrones took tons of ideas from real human cultures and it wasn’t very subtle, but that world still seems much more alive and real to me than what I see in the WoT television series. (I have only read parts of the first book in this series and I know the fans adore the world building, so I assume this failure is on the show and not the source material.)

    • archpaladin1@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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      1 year ago

      Yes, that’s true; everybody borrows.

      This seemed particularly plagiaristic though. Oddly placed yin-yangs? Allusions to the Roma people? An underworld looking distinctly hell-like?

      At least make me work to find the source material.

  • CeruleanRuin@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    I watched the first two episodes, concluded it was even worse than the book, which was already a tropey mishmash of poor-man’s Tolkien ideas, and decided I had better things to do.