Wheel of Time (Amazon)

Is it a Dolly Parton situation where "it costs a lot of money to look this cheap"?

I'm watching Matt Damon's movie "The Last Duel", and that looks absolutely cracking. Again, extensive use of actual historical buildings to achieve the look needed. It cost $100 million total... That's $20 million more than WOT season 1.

I'm sure there different economies with shows versus movies, but as we said earlier, WOT is not that much cheaper (if at all) compared to comparable shows. I think it's the "look" they've gone for, they're trying to build sets to achieve a unique aesthetic for Randland.

The Last Duel is about 2 and a half hours I think. It's not a fair comparison, yes, they're slightly different mediums - but the comparison with other series stands I think.

They did travel to Europe though... The WOT was filmed in Czech republic, Croatia and Slovenia. For reference, The Witcher was filmed in a similar locale, they were in Hungary...

As far as budget goes, it's worth clarifying that neither The Witcher or Game of Thrones had dramatically higher budgets for their first seasons than the WOT.

The Witcher season 1 was around 80 million, same as the WOT season 1, and The early GOT seasons were actually cheaper, at around 60 million a season... Although allowing for inflation I think we could say that 60 would have been 80 now, and I imagine the final seasons were more expensive for a variety of reasons.

I'm also not sure that high fantasy requires building sets, that's just a creative decision. The Witcher and GOT doesn't seem to have gone that route to the same extent as the WOT producers.

As far as the WOT goes I can only conclude it was a creative decision to build sets, there's nothing in the source material to say that they couldn't used historical buildings for many settings. Jordan didn't do his world-building as hugely alien, it's European with a smattering of North Africa, Asia and the Middle East at the edges of the map.

In the books there's a variety of nations and cultures with distinctive dress and appearance, but if it was me spending that 80 million I would have used Europe or central European settings for the Two Rivers, Andor and Tar Valon, and maybe had another shoot in a warmer climate like Tunisia or Croatia for the likes of the Shienar and the Blight.

One element of doing it that way is that you might have preserved distinct looks for the various countries and cultures. GOT achieved this obviously. On the WOT they've made the decision to have everywhere seemingly equally multicultural, which is fine I guess, but it does away with some of the cool elements in the books where you have the Two Rivers folk travelling to particular countries and suddenly they're in this wash of different clothes, different manners, different skin colours... The 'fish out of water' trope is useful in that it highlights how isolated they are from their surroundings, and that matters when one of them is the Dragon and starts to shake things up in the relevant country. I think it's a bit of a pity.

They shot it just outside Prague, and studio locations in Prague. I think the Two Rivers was actually a set built in a quarry on the outskirts of the city.

They did some shooting in a national park in Slovenia as well, that's the nicer mountain scenery. lovely lakes and rivers in Slovenia.

I doubt any of this stuff is filmed anywhere that is not easily accessible by coach / train / taxi these days, considering what's required to be put on, but I guess nothing is cheap these days, no matter where you are, COVID-related inflation.

I just read that season 2 might be filmed in Morocco and Tenerife, it would make sense based on how Carhien and Tear are described in the books, if that's where its going.

I actually don’t know, could be. I read an article on the locations used in season 1 but you could be right and it predated that shooting.