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Reviews
The Wheel of Time: Origins (2021)
Horrible
It took an awesome book and bastardized pretty much all that is good. They ruin the characters. Skip some very crucial scenes and others they changed and made it their own. Which was simply awefull. I've read the series twice and, like the lord of the rings, I was going to give it some leeway. By the third episode it had lost all good will. It has has some of the best female characters in all fantasy and they ruin them. Also, they absolutely ruin one of my favorite characters in the book. Perrin. They invented a marriage and relationships that absolutely ruins much of what what makes him unique. They made him a whiney, mopey boy instead of the strong, stoic, rock. Also they neglected some of his most unique qualities. This serious had SO much promise but the arrogance of the writers and prime to think that A) they can do characters better than Robert Jordan and B) that they can do justice to an extremely complex and thengthy book in 9episodes. Lastly, and most inexplicably, the best and most intersting moments in the book they COMPLEtely alter/change. I want to reiterate, I am by no means a purist but the sins of the writers and producers are much to egregious. THIS IS HOT GARBAGE!!!!!!!!
The Wheel of Time (2021)
Maybe not what I was hoping for but......
Early on I realized that I was going to have to turn off my inner book snob in an attempt to appreciate it for what it is. Below are my ponderings.
So, I do love this series and view the first 4 books as nearly perfect in and of them selves.
That being said, this is a massive series extremely complex and great character development. To really fall in love with the series the relationships developed between the characters is crucial....... Which occurred over 14 books. It's pretty impossible to translate much of this from the page to the string.
So, it's going to be impossible to portray this series as lovingly as I'd live unless this is a 20+ season series.
I realized even before I watching the series that it wasn't going to be any where close to as accurate to the book as I would like. The best I could hope for was for it to keep the essence of the characters and framework of the books.
One season with nine episodes isn't going to do much in that respect. At that point the surface hasn't even been close to being scratched. The characters have been decently realized in Many cases. Red ajah and white cloaks especially are very interestingly realized.
The settings look good and feels lived in. There are sooooo many locations/cities/nations that are amazingly well developed in the book. It's going be impossible to spend enough time to develop them with the time constraints they have. (This is true for the whole series).
To wrap this up, the Tolkien estate stated that LOTR couldn't be fully realized on film. That was three books. This series has 5x as many books. If this is true for LOTR it's so much more for Wheel.
Sit back, turn off the inner critic and attempt to enjoy it for a great looking fantasy based in a world that has an AMAZING amount of potential.
There are a few sacred cows in this series and they haven't violated them so far. There's already been a few instances that have made me angry ( something that happens in episode) but they haven't been too egregious and I am able to forgive.