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posted by janrinok on Friday November 26 2021, @08:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the underused-nexus! dept.

Ars Technica has a series-recap-thing going on for "The Wheel of Time" series on Amazon: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/11/two-book-readers-recap-the-first-three-episodes-of-amazons-the-wheel-of-time/

In the event that you dislike people ruining great books for stupid political agendas, perhaps you should steer clear of this review of Amazon's TV Series.

These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. If you want to stay unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you.

#1 The way magic works in the Wheel of Time (WoT) is crucial to the plot of the entire series. This is ignored entirely in the first three episodes. Which makes me think, they're going to be doing even more stupid things.
#2 Being inclusive and trying to say, but the girls should also be included as possible main plot "Dragon Reborn" hype is stupid. Egwene goes from village girl to badass quite well on her own in the books, thank you very much.
#3 Lan in the first few episodes sucks. In the books, he can take a few dozen trollocs on his own. Whereas in the first few episodes, Moiraine is barely able to take down a nice grouped up bunch? That is stupid beyond words. (We will gloss over the deliberate destruction of the town's property, because apparently it's easier to throw bricks.)
#4 Mat is a thief and his parents are evil, essentially. His Mom is a drunk, apparently driven to it by his Dad who is shown as unfaithful and essentially a deadbeat.
#5 There is a lot of sexing going on. This is a long ways away from Perrin and his lady falling down the stairs on top of each other and being embarassed.
#6 Where is Elyas?

This is no faithful adaptation from the books. In the event that you happened to like "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", but were put off by "The Silver Chair", because they turned Peter into a whiny brat... you will be even more put off by the random stupid changes they made in this book. Rand wasn't always a brooding semi-sociopath and Mat is a lot more honorable than portrayed by these first few episodes.

[...] Probably the most annoying things to me are the twisting of characters and plot to make them more "woke". Like, if they'd added a scene in Lord of the Rings where someone asks, if Frodo and Samwise are gay. You know, because they are traveling together, so you must be gay. What kind of stupid?


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  • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday November 28 2021, @12:59AM (1 child)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Sunday November 28 2021, @12:59AM (#1200110) Journal

    this has been an issue for many decades - Disney with re-told fairy tales, through to enough re-boots of spiderman to make an addidas factory.

    Apparently, creating your own story is too hard, so they just steal/re-appropriate others' stories ... so often, badly..

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Sunday November 28 2021, @02:34PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Sunday November 28 2021, @02:34PM (#1200217) Journal

    Amen to the Spiderman reboots.

    Thankfully there are still some bright spots out there. The Expanse has been good. Babylon 5 remains intact.

    The recent film adaptation of Dune is OK, though its casting was uneven. Jason Momoa was mis-cast as Duncan Idaho and Timothée Chalamet is rather an imperfect Paul Atreides. Zendaya as Chani has the right look but insufficient gravitas to play the Fremen woman who is Paul's destiny. Oscar Isaac, though, did a good job as Duke Atreides and Stellan Skarsgard is always good. Doctor Yueh was surprisingly superior to the old Dune adaptation's.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.