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<blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 8704704" data-attributes="member: 6988941">I have the highest hopes for the D&amp;D movie, because I believe it is very possible for a few screenwriters to write a fun little fantasy adventure movie based on an existing property and have it actually be good. It seems like a readily achievable project which, unless they bog it down with setting up sequels or yet another cinematic universe, has comparatively limited narrative ambitions. It might succeed, it might fail, but it doesn't seem like a bad idea to me.These fantasy series seem like bad ideas to me. I think that the sort of writers room committee required to produce a season of television drama is unlikely to pull off the sort of sweeping fantasy epic they are hoping for with either the LotR or the Game of Thrones prequels. I'm not a &quot;book is always better&quot; extremist by any means, but the mess that is the Wheel of Time adaptation made me realize how poor the prospects for a&nbsp; a fantasy series are when they really want to do &quot;grand, sweeping epic&quot; but the writing is done by a large team of Hollywood writers on a deadline rather than by an obsessive novelist taking his or her own sweet time. And Wheel of Time has proper source material, they just choose not to use it half the time and make nonsensical story decisions in place of it (many of which made sense for the individual episode, but not so much the series as a whole). These series are making up a lot more. They look awful pretty, but I suspect they will both be narrative messes.I think having any television show have satisfying season long storylines requires someone at the helm with both a strong creative vision and the pull to get their way to a degree rarely achieved, and that the structure of television writers rooms works a lot better for episodic storytelling based around well-developed characters than for grand ongoing narratives.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Benjamin Olson, post: 8704704, member: 6988941"] I have the highest hopes for the D&D movie, because I believe it is very possible for a few screenwriters to write a fun little fantasy adventure movie based on an existing property and have it actually be good. It seems like a readily achievable project which, unless they bog it down with setting up sequels or yet another cinematic universe, has comparatively limited narrative ambitions. It might succeed, it might fail, but it doesn't seem like a bad idea to me. These fantasy series seem like bad ideas to me. I think that the sort of writers room committee required to produce a season of television drama is unlikely to pull off the sort of sweeping fantasy epic they are hoping for with either the LotR or the Game of Thrones prequels. I'm not a "book is always better" extremist by any means, but the mess that is the Wheel of Time adaptation made me realize how poor the prospects for a a fantasy series are when they really want to do "grand, sweeping epic" but the writing is done by a large team of Hollywood writers on a deadline rather than by an obsessive novelist taking his or her own sweet time. And Wheel of Time has proper source material, they just choose not to use it half the time and make nonsensical story decisions in place of it (many of which made sense for the individual episode, but not so much the series as a whole). These series are making up a lot more. They look awful pretty, but I suspect they will both be narrative messes. I think having any television show have satisfying season long storylines requires someone at the helm with both a strong creative vision and the pull to get their way to a degree rarely achieved, and that the structure of television writers rooms works a lot better for episodic storytelling based around well-developed characters than for grand ongoing narratives. [/QUOTE]

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