House of Dragons vs. Rings of Power (and a touch of Wheel of Time)

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Someone sad-faced my assessment of Wheel of Time, but I stand by it.

That show is the worst adaptation I've seen since Shannara, and frankly I enjoyed Shannara more, since it just went ahead and made the show it's own thing, instead of trying to pretend it was being faithful.

WoT has made my wife and I wary of adaptations at all. I dread the notion that the Chronicles of Prydain might get a live action adaptation, after watching the first episode of WoT, and reading what they've done since then, even though they're very different studios.

And this, after doing so well on casting.

I started to have worries when they changed the look of iconic things in ways that felt very 90's superhero movie, by which I mean some suit said the equivalent of "don't put them in yellow and blue tights, it will look stupid and no one will take it seriously". Lans sword becomes a katana for no reason. There are recreations of the swords from the series that match Jordan's description, and they look great, someone justj thought katanas are the apex of "cool sword".

Then it came out that they pushed the showrunner to go darker and darker, for an adaptation of a story of hope that even in it's darkest chapters wasn't unambiguously dark.

Andj then they made Perrin married to a minor character from the books that he mentioned having a thing for as a kid, in passing, when he and his actual wife were back in the Two Rivers, and had him kill her to jumpstart his internal struggle...and then still used the event that started that story arc in the books like 1 or 2 episodes later!

Nah.

Let the CW wannabe waste of time "adaptation" fade into a bad memory.
 

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WoT wasn't great. Kinda enjoyed it but it was rough.

It's the weakest of the 5 fantasy shows on atm imho.
I agree
House of dragon
Witcher
Rings of power
Shadow of bone
Wot
That’s my order

Clearly the Witcher has a lower budget than rings but the characters are far more likeable than any of the shows below. The monsters are more interesting and have more character to them
Ring's and wot should be higher. 18 year old me if I could time travel would be saying these should be awesome with the budgets . Wot tried to make a fantasy version of riverdale. The kids were dressed like they in a cosplay and the main star isn’t very compelling
Rings is jamming hundreds of years into a few days and I’m not sure why. The acting at times isn’t very good at times but the scenery is some of the best
Shadow and bone isn’t compelling, acting isn’t very good and I think it’s probably the first that gets cancelled
 

Parmandur

Book-Friend
Someone sad-faced my assessment of Wheel of Time, but I stand by it.

That show is the worst adaptation I've seen since Shannara, and frankly I enjoyed Shannara more, since it just went ahead and made the show it's own thing, instead of trying to pretend it was being faithful.

WoT has made my wife and I wary of adaptations at all. I dread the notion that the Chronicles of Prydain might get a live action adaptation, after watching the first episode of WoT, and reading what they've done since then, even though they're very different studios.

And this, after doing so well on casting.

I started to have worries when they changed the look of iconic things in ways that felt very 90's superhero movie, by which I mean some suit said the equivalent of "don't put them in yellow and blue tights, it will look stupid and no one will take it seriously". Lans sword becomes a katana for no reason. There are recreations of the swords from the series that match Jordan's description, and they look great, someone justj thought katanas are the apex of "cool sword".

Then it came out that they pushed the showrunner to go darker and darker, for an adaptation of a story of hope that even in it's darkest chapters wasn't unambiguously dark.

Andj then they made Perrin married to a minor character from the books that he mentioned having a thing for as a kid, in passing, when he and his actual wife were back in the Two Rivers, and had him kill her to jumpstart his internal struggle...and then still used the event that started that story arc in the books like 1 or 2 episodes later!

Nah.

Let the CW wannabe waste of time "adaptation" fade into a bad memory.
Yeah, I went in open minded and willing to let the showrunners do their own thing, but their own thing was incoherent.

Any good qualities the show has (acting, visuals) actually make it worse for me, because the gestalt is such a mess that the value is lost.

Rings of Power, on the other hand, has restored a bit of faith in humanity for me.
 


Zardnaar

Legend
I agree
House of dragon
Witcher
Rings of power
Shadow of bone
Wot
That’s my order

Clearly the Witcher has a lower budget than rings but the characters are far more likeable than any of the shows below. The monsters are more interesting and have more character to them
Ring's and wot should be higher. 18 year old me if I could time travel would be saying these should be awesome with the budgets . Wot tried to make a fantasy version of riverdale. The kids were dressed like they in a cosplay and the main star isn’t very compelling
Rings is jamming hundreds of years into a few days and I’m not sure why. The acting at times isn’t very good at times but the scenery is some of the best
Shadow and bone isn’t compelling, acting isn’t very good and I think it’s probably the first that gets cancelled

Think I would put Shadow and Bone ahead of RoP. Otherwise think I'll go with your list.

I think it was a big hit in terms of viewers. More importantly it was really cheap comparatively. 60 odd million iirc whole season.

Wouldn't nitpick any list personal preference etc. Unless someone put WoT at the top:) That's just wrong.

Probably rewatch Shadow and Bone, already done Either rewatch and I'll see how good RoP is binged.
 
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doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Yeah, I went in open minded and willing to let the showrunners do their own thing, but their own thing was incoherent.

Any good qualities the show has (acting, visuals) actually make it worse for me, because the gestalt is such a mess that the value is lost.

Rings of Power, on the other hand, has restored a bit of faith in humanity for me.
Absolutely. Had summaries and such of subsequent episodes been heartening we were open to giving WoT a second chance, but for every good thing (Loial being a lovable doof, the recent casting of Elayne, the Tower being pretty gay) there are multiple things that are either very bad (Perrin, Matt’s Family) or just dumb and vaguely annoying (Lan's katana, waygates looking totally wrong, Thom’s guitar and cloak, Logain looking like a rough vagrant, etc). Taken together, it just reminds me of a less fun Shannara.

Tbh, I think it just needed either a different studio or showrunner, or both, based on who was so worried about things not looking “cool” enough or familiar enough to American audience, who pushed for “make it darker! More edge!”, etc. The casting and acting is great, the visuals mostly solid, the sets especially are great, even the writing and directing aren’t bad. It’s more just the top level decision stuff.
 

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