D&D Movie/TV Dragonlancing TV show being worked on by WotC confirmed

[UngeheuerLich]

I am very afraid they will change it much like they did The Wheel of Time (which I liked but lets be fair they changed a lot and not for the better).

Wheel of time was overall actually good.

They scrapped and seemed to melt different characters and story archs together... And honestly that is a bold but good way of porting a story from (too) many books to a TV show.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Laurana was a blonde. Tika was a redhead.

You were right, but...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It’s not a matter or ANY change it’s making BAD changes. Like Lan and Nynaeve hoping in the sack asap. Not to mention Moraine being anything less than prim and proper around others.

Fundamental changes to the characters.

Those were good changes.

So you're arguing a very subjective opinion, which is pretty pointless. I don't think either change detracted from the story or characters. Bear in mind easily 90%+ of the audience will not have read the books in any event, so only stuff that actually damages the story is bad.

And the WoT TV series did the opposite to that - it combined stuff, added stuff in, clarified stuff in a way that improved the telling of the story, and particularly improved its accessibility to broad audience. I know some people hated the "it could be any of the kids" rather than "it could be any of the male kids", but it was part of making it work for TV.

If anything, it told the story of WoT rather better than I'd expected. Hewing closer to the book would have made it worse.

I've already read the Dragonlance books more than once. I don't need (or really want) a series to cleave too tightly to the books. Not only does a change in medium require changes to the narrative, setting, and characters, but the books are not without their flaws that I imagine a TV series can fix or simply erase.

Yes, and this has been done countless times - many book series which were "beloved" but slightly questionable in their writing have turned into much better TV shows, and even some which were well-written had changes made which made them work better - sometimes with the author (if still alive) actually recommending or applauding those changes. Hell even with movies that can happen - Steven King himself said of The Mist that the ending of the movie (which I know upset a lot of people lol but was great) was just better than his ending and he wished he'd thought of it.

The original War of the Lance books, whilst beloved, are not masterpieces. Honestly, all they really have totally nail for me to approve is Caramon/Raistlin.

Of course this presumes they're actually doing it, which I'll believe when I see something official, not CBR talking smack as usual.

You were right, but...

Sure, but that's the alt-Dragonlance that WotC is doing, and it's a single piece of art, so I doubt anyone making a TV show will feel in any way bound by it. Hell I doubt WotC feel bound by it.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Wheel of time was overall actually good.

They scrapped and seemed to melt different characters and story archs together... And honestly that is a bold but good way of porting a story from (too) many books to a TV show.

Like I said, I liked it but made a lot of unnecessary changes. Getting Lan Ana Nyn together asap felt more CW than the series needed.

Nyn is supposed to be the character that holds to her traditions no matter what. She doesn’t sleep with him until they are married. No she just banged a dude asap like everyone else does

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Like I said, I liked it but made a lot of unnecessary changes. Getting Lan Ana Nyn together asap felt more CW than the series needed.

Nyn is supposed to be the character that holds to her traditions no matter what. She doesn’t sleep with him until they are married. No she just banged a dude asap like everyone else does

Ok... that was indeed very fast... among other things.

I stand by my point though: it was a fun ride and it is a different take on the same story as far as I am concerned.

 

[Stormonu]

This. The obsession with books being the same as tv / movies is odd to me. Like, really odd.

When I want to see a TV/Movie adaption of the book, I want it to be as close to the book as you can get it. After all, it’s the book that brought me in the first place. I’m not there to see “a story using the book’s name to get me to watch”, but an honest-to-god visual version of the book.

 

[humble minion]

But anyway, given Dragonlance's smaller scope (3 novels - possibly 6 if it goes well - compared to 14), there will be much less need for condensation and reorganization. I'm sure it will still happen, but on a much lesser degree. Heck, if they go a book a season, they may have to add stuff to DoAT to flesh it out enough (the other two books have a lot going on off-screen to help with any issues with run time).

Well, it's more likely to be 6 novels, possibly 9 if all goes well. You'd kinda need to include material from the mid-00s Lost Chronicles books if you're making a TV show. They cover a lot of the gaps between the books of the original trilogy. The books can get away with stuff like using a bit of poetry at the start of a chapter to offhandedly mention that Laurana and Sturm discovered the dragon orb and the dragonlance in the process of killing a dragon highlord in the icy north, but in a TV show you need to actually show it happening...

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I am very afraid they will change it much like they did The Wheel of Time (which I liked but lets be fair they changed a lot and not for the better).

The only hope is they saw how great The Last of Us did and realize changing every single thing isn't the only way to do things.

I would hope they change it some. What works in books and TV are not the same.

 

[Parmandur]

Wheel of time was overall actually good.

They scrapped and seemed to melt different characters and story archs together... And honestly that is a bold but good way of porting a story from (too) many books to a TV show.

Guh...but the show was kind of just bad as a show, in addition to showing zero understanding of the themes of the book? Like, not even a casual mention of meditation techniques even.

None of the 4 million plus words of the Wheel of Time unnecessary, though granted you have to read it a few times to see that clearly. And no show could ever capture the detail and inferiority the literature accomplishes.

 

[Parmandur]

Those were good changes.

So you're arguing a very subjective opinion, which is pretty pointless. I don't think either change detracted from the story or characters. Bear in mind easily 90%+ of the audience will not have read the books in any event, so only stuff that actually damages the story is bad.

And the WoT TV series did the opposite to that - it combined stuff, added stuff in, clarified stuff in a way that improved the telling of the story, and particularly improved its accessibility to broad audience. I know some people hated the "it could be any of the kids" rather than "it could be any of the male kids", but it was part of making it work for TV.

If anything, it told the story of WoT rather better than I'd expected. Hewing closer to the book would have made it worse.

I didn't mind the mystery element, and making all 5 Edmond's Fielders into Ta'aviern just made sense. However, the story is basically unfilmable, listening again to the series on audio book now and that's pretty clear. Anything short of a really, really drawn out anime style cartoon juat won't work.