The Wheel of time

martin g

I am on book 10 of WOT and i have read that Universal pictures have bought the right to make a film for the eye of the world? Does anyone have any info on if its being made or will be made?

Lyanna

As far as I'm aware, the rights were bought years ago so it's unlikely to ever be made.

Black Sheep

I think we'll see a 'Game of Thrones' style series before we see a movie, but I could be wrong.

5starpool

It could make a great tv series or set of movies as long as half of each episode/movie wasn't spent focussing on braid tugging.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

half the special effects budget of the show would go on braid tugging and most of the dialogue would be rand/mat/perrin complaining that the other two never seem to have as much trouble with women as they do

Black Sheep

I suspect the love quadrangle between Rand and his women probably wouldn't go down super-well with feminists.

"What!? They agree to share him!?"

Well, it is the fantasy genre, I suppose.

AnCapaillMor

If it goes TV i can see it go something like legend of the seeker and be utter sh1te.

Agree on the foursome there'd be holy war over it, even though each of them have him wrapped around their finger.

martin g

I hope they dont ruin it on tv, it has the potential to be as good as the game of thrones if made properly...

Mat seems to be getting around a bit too... could be a very good show for the guys to watch !

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

it would be a lot tricker than GoT on tv, GoT doesn't have as much overt magic.. at least not in season 1

wot will have all that "he could see the .. umm... saidin.. or whatever" flowing around him

also trollocs
fades
you'd have to get natalie portman to play lanfear or the whole thing would be a joke

it'd be a mess of cgi

JD1763

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

half the special effects budget of the show would go on braid tugging and most of the dialogue would be rand/mat/perrin complaining that the other two never seem to have as much trouble with women as they do

How could you forget the beard scratching?!?!

ixoy

The dialogue would be easy to write though, allowing them to spend more on SFX.

Egwene: Rand you dunderhead! You've upset Nynaeve!
Nynaeve *pulling braids and muttering*: Stupid farmer's boy! If we were back in Edmond's Field I'd have shown you the upside of my hand, Dragon Reborn or not!
Rand: Oh I'll never understand women!
Lan: Oh come along Nynaeve
Nynaeve: Don't you tell me to come along you big lummox! [Secretly Nynaeve likes this. But she won't say]

Mat: I like gambling. I like women. But I never really understand them.

Perrin: Blood and ashes Faile! Blood and bloody ashes! I'll kill everyone to protect you!
Faile: You dunderhead!

Suiain Sanche could narrate too : "It was a wet day, the rain falling down like water off the fresh catch from the sea. Drunk man weaved down the road as a trout does wandering home. Iron mongers worked at the forge, as a fish works at plankton. A young mum escorted her wandering children to classes, like a giant mother fish bringing her flock. Yes, everything was fine and normal in Rand Land. But what nobody could see was that the biggest fish of them all - the Dragon Reborn - was about to make an appearance that would upset them all, as a goldfish would when knocked out of his bowl."

Black Sheep

For all its faults as a series (and they are legion), I have a special affection for the WoT.

My fear for a mini-series is that it would be a lot more 'Legend of the seeker' than 'Game of Thrones' in execution.

That said, I'd still be curious to see what they could do with it. Much of the dialog would probably have to be adapted, let's face it. A fair few characters and plotlines would probably end up omitted or merged.

wot will have all that "he could see the .. umm... saidin.. or whatever" flowing around him

It's hard to know, but one option would be to take the 'Star Wars' approach to any use of saidin or saidar. Basically, you have a 'whooshing' sound effect in the background, like rumbling, and have the actor scrunch their face up like they're badly constipated. Add in some extended hands, finger pointing and general arm-waving and most viewers will probably get the picture for what's going on.

In a WoT screen adaption you'd need a way to represent people and objects getting lifted up and thrown around (straight forward enough - wires) and I guess ways to represent fire, lighting and bars of light (balefire)... I think most SFX departments could handle that these days.

Trollocs - I guess you'd really only need fancy armour and some animal prosthetics for the faces. Maybe a few bits of CGI work to represent hooves from time to time? Probably have to settle for having the trollocs mostly human-height rather than go through the hassle of having them all as large as they are supposed to be in the books.

Fades - I guess you could just CGI their faces so they appear to have no eyes?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah but in the books fades are just.. menacing. having one around, even though you can't see it just messes with you. i really dont see how they can do fades properly on tv, they'll just come off looking like goths

the best approach to make something scary is to make sure you can't see it properly
so i guess they'd have to remain in shadow with hardly any visible face or something
one quick flash to show the lack of eyes and then back to shadow

duno??

Black Sheep

Well, if John Carpenter could make a guy in a $10 rubber face mask seem incredibly menacing in 'Halloween', there's no reason the same devices couldn't work with Fades .... Keep them off screen as much as possible, use appropriate music, the reactions of other characters etc.

martin g

The fades could be done something like the "invisible" man if you have seen Fringe season 4, ep 6 its done well...

And to talk about the dialogue, most of the Seanchan's would be... " Empress, may she live forever! "

martin g

martin g wrote: »

The fades could be done something like the "invisible" man if you have seen Fringe season 4, ep 6 its done well...

I was thinking that too

Grassey

Good read here about the feasibility of producing WOT for TV/Film

http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/topic/59787-bringing-the-wheel-of-time-to-the-screen/

Temptamperu

I dunno, I would like a movie but dont they all take place in around 3 years, all 14 novels which with there lenght would possibly be 24 movies. That would be quite hard to pull of.

johnnyskeleton

Temptamperu wrote: »

I dunno, I would like a movie but dont they all take place in around 3 years, all 14 novels which with there lenght would possibly be 24 movies. That would be quite hard to pull of.

Nah, 10 minutes to establish they are country bumpkins, 10 minutes for their gaffs to be burned and for the kids to be whisked away, 5 minutes for them to wander around aimlessly through city after city where they play in a local tavern until the guy they suspected was evil turns out to actually be evil (albeit in a one dimensional "I'm evil because I is" way), [deleted scene: the green man]. First book total about half an hour.

Books 2 & 3 - 10 minutes they pick up the great horn and head to the stone of tears where they turn up and everyone goes wow. Occasional evil dude (ala the emperor from star wars) comes along and has a big magic battle.

Books 4-7 - put a big screen card saying "refer to Dune" and then show the girls looking for a bowl, finding it, and making the weather better. More of those evil dudes for the magic battles. Introduce Asmodean and kill him straight off with an audience interval teaser of "I don't know who killed asmodean, do yooou?"

About 1 hour so far.

Books 8-whatever - have a few more evil dudes come along and attack them. New dudes with horns on their head appear out of nowhere, steal pippin's wife, lose their queen then get bored and wander off. Ass sedai decide who their leader is, klingon style. Big evil dude says "right, enough of this farting around, time for me to take over the world".

Quick stop off to cleanse the source of saladin and a quick sex scene (think the scene in blade runner where harrison ford cleans himself up and has an adult scene with sean young before taking on rutger hauer). Without explaining it, Rand appears in the next scene missing a hand saying "damn, I wish my hand wasn't blown off in that brilliant battle that just took place off screen"

1 hour 30 mins.

Evil dude appears and the last battle using the exact same cgi as the battle of minas tirith is played out for 30 minutes or so. Everyone comes back to life, some lesson or other is learned, Rand dies but comes back to life looking like Jesus and Merry and Pippin realise they are homosexual and sail off into the sunset.

Have I left anything out? Oh yeah, the sea folk. Lets throw in a comedy pirate scene ala pirates of the carribean.

In fact, you could probably mash it up using youtube clips if you had half an hour to spare.

Total time, no more than 2 hours.

OwaynOTT

Very little braid tugging in that there so I reckon it would flop.

Tenger

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

.....In fact, you could probably mash it up using youtube clips if you had half an hour to spare.

Total time, no more than 2 hours.

While I would have artistic differences over johnnyskelton's writing/directorial style I have to agree that an awful lot of the book content could be skipped over or explained in passing. Are the SeaFolk really essential to the story? The Kin? The Whitecloaks? The Borderlander armies? Morgase post dethronement? The Shaido post-Dumai's Well's? All those random chapters with random characters being affected by the events elsewhere?

As an example I think pretty much all of Book 9 can be ignored, it did nothing for the overall story.

Looking a LoTR as an example WoT would need at least 3 films. I think I prefer the idea of a TV series though.

After a quick read of the WoT adaption article I like this early statement:
There is a strong opinion amongst a subset of Wheel of Time fans that no adaptation should even be attempted....................The easy answer to this is that it's going to happen. At some point, whether it's next week or twenty years from now, there's going to be an adaptation of The Wheel of Time on screen. The books have sold too many copies and there is too much potential money in a successful adaptation for it to simply be left alone. As a result, it's better (I think) to be taking this as read and considering how it may be best achieved rather than simply hoping it won't happen.

martin g

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

In fact, you could probably mash it up using youtube clips if you had half an hour to spare.

Total time, no more than 2 hours.

2 hours would be nowhere near the time needed to make this into a film. I agree a lot of the sub stories could be shortened or dropped but the essence of the book and scope of it would be lost, meaning fans of the book would be very disappointed and people who havent read the books would not be inclined to watch them like they would of with TLOTR. Instead of people picking up the books to read them they wouldnt because the film isnt 'epic' enough... I reckon you would need 2 2 1/2 hours films to do the books any kind justice !