Wheel of Time Discussion - Spoilers(with book spoilers)

Mercurius · Dec 29, 2021

Thanks for the "inside info," @Bolares and @Demetrios1453. That is actually kind of relieving and makes me have faith that S2 will be a significant improvement.

Parmandur · Dec 29, 2021

Mercurius said:
The effects. It is just a head-scratcher, given the supposed big budget for this series. Either they rushed it or it isn't as high budget as it seemed, which is odd considering how much weight the Amazon marketing has given it. Given its popularity, maybe we'll see improvement in season two, but for now it looks a bit too much like a SyFy show from 2005.

A point to consider: while yes, this is a very high budget TV show, it's still less than $10 million per hour: the full ~9 hours city around $80 million, which is a fraction of the budget for, say, Avengers: Endgame for much more screen time.

I'm pretty convinced that the only way to do the visuals of the novel full justice would be as animation, where the budget is more flat and the goal more artistic than "realistic."

Zardnaar · Dec 29, 2021

Parmandur said:
A point to consider: while yes, this is a very high budget TV show, it's still less than $10 million per hour: the full ~9 hours city around $80 million, which is a fraction of the budget for, say, Avengers: Endgame for much more screen time.

I'm pretty convinced that the only way to do the visuals of the novel full justice would be as animation, where the budget is more flat and the goal more artistic than "realistic."

This. The show and Mandalorian/Foundation probably redefining special effects by TV show standards.

Don't expect MCU/Star Wars movie levels of effects.

Mercurius · Dec 29, 2021

Parmandur said:
A point to consider: while yes, this is a very high budget TV show, it's still less than $10 million per hour: the full ~9 hours city around $80 million, which is a fraction of the budget for, say, Avengers: Endgame for much more screen time.

I'm pretty convinced that the only way to do the visuals of the novel full justice would be as animation, where the budget is more flat and the goal more artistic than "realistic."

Yeah, but you don't need an MCU budget to do better than they did. I mean, some of it was just bad, worse than it should have been.

But I think Bolares and Demetrios explained it: they were rushed, and thus did a sub-par job. This is really illustrated by the unevenness of it. If it was really just a matter of budget, then I think it would have been more consistently solid, but instead we have a wide range of great to awful, in terms of effects.

(The image that stood out to me in particular is at 30:34-35...and I think that exact same bit was repeated once or twice)

Bolares · Dec 29, 2021

Mercurius said:
Yeah, but you don't need an MCU budget to do better than they did. I mean, some of it was just bad, worse than it should have been.

But I think Bolares and Demetrios explained it: they were rushed, and thus did a sub-par job. This is really illustrated by the unevenness of it. If it was really just a matter of budget, then I think it would have been more consistently solid, but instead we have a wide range of great to awful, in terms of effects.

(The image that stood out to me in particular is at 30:34-35...and I think that exact same bit was repeated once or twice)

I think the issues should be just that, an explanation. But not an excuse or justification. The correct thing to do was to delay the show to make the last episode better, and that responsability falls with the studio.

Ryujin · Dec 29, 2021

Bolares said:
I think the issues should be just that, an explanation. But not an excuse or justification. The correct thing to do was to delay the show to make the last episode better, and that responsability falls with the studio.

Production companies are going out of business, while they wait for this mess to end. It's either deliver what you can make, or don't deliver anything.

Bolares · Dec 29, 2021

Ryujin said:
Production companies are going out of business, while they wait for this mess to end. It's either deliver what you can make, or don't deliver anything.

That's why I said the responsability was with the studio. They have the power and money to push things to a latter date to ensure a quality material is delivered. Amazon had every reason to delay this show a bit...

Ryujin · Dec 29, 2021

Bolares said:
That's why I said the responsability was with the studio. They have the power and money to push things to a latter date to ensure a quality material is delivered. Amazon had every reason to delay this show a bit...

Quite the contrary. With all of the major competition that was being released around the same time, they had every reason to rush it.