Whether I'm for or against depends on several factors
Lanfear Send a noteboard - 23/09/2009 11:20:06 PM
New Spring is doable as a movie in my opinion.
I would almost certainly be unhappy with any other attempt at making a wheel of time movie. From my perspective, the major problem is simply the length of the books. When people discuss movies and the Wheel of Time the natural tendency is to think that one movie could be made for each book. However, the only way that would be possible would be to delete huge portions of every book. Any movie that attempted to catch 3/4 or all of a single book would be 10 hours long. I wouldn't be happy with a movie that skipped significant portions of the book.
From the producer/film maker's perspective, nobody could afford to make a movie long enough to capture all of the content of each book and nobody (except a very few people like me) would be willing to sit through a movie that long.
Another problem is that many threads within the story are vitally important to the series, but are resolved over the span of 5 or more books. What do you do if you're a filmmaker in that situation? For example, Perrin trying to rescue Faile and take Masema to meet Rand. What book does Perrin leave Rand in? Wasn't it right after Dumai's Wells at the beginning of book 7, a Crown of Swords? At the end of book 11 (Knife of Dreams) Perrin still hasn't completed his mission and just finally rescued Faile. That's a five book span a filmmaker would have to figure out how to tell that part of the story in. If the movies were based on the books, then a fan would see films 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 and still not see Perrin's mission fulfilled.
Another factor is how would a filmmaker actually tell the story. There's a huge problem here for filmmakers. First, RJ tells the story through hundreds of different points of view. Have you seen the movie "Vantage Point"? They tell the story through the eyes of 5 or 6 different people. Imagine trying to tell the Wheel of Time story through the eyes of 100 different characters. Wow. Can I say impossible.
RJ's writing style creates another problem with trying to make a film. We don't just see the story through the eyes of the characters, but we have access to their thoughts. If the filmmaker tries to tell the story without the thoughts of the person, then we miss huge portions of the story. On the other hand, imagine the difficulty of trying to "pause" the action so we the viewer can have access to the thoughts of the person. For example, the trolloc attack at the manor house in Tear in Knife of Dreams. We need to hear Rand's conversation with Lews Therin to understand that LTT has control of Saidin and not Rand. We need to hear Rand explaining what deathgates are and that shadowspawn cannot survive the passage. How could a filmmaker logistically pull this off unless the action were "paused" for us to hear Rand's thoughts?
Further, in the above example, suppose a filmmaker did "pause" the action so we could listen to Rand's thoughts. I suppose that could be accomplished by the sound of Rand's voice offscreen somewhere telling us his thoughts, sort of like in a narrator fashion, but that would be really weird and difficult to pull off.
No so much a problem is how would the filmmaker portray magic/weaving? It can be done with current technology, but it could only be accomplished with special effects and computer generated animation. That costs a lot of money. A whole lot.
I just don't think that it would be possible to make a movie out of the series, or even a movie out of each book. I wouldn't be happy unless they told the whole story or at least 80-90% of the story.
A television mini-series would be ideal in my opinion, but again the difficulty is that in a one hour time slot, you've got 44 minutes of screen time (16 minutes of commercials) to tell a portion of the story. Some "episodes" would be completely boring (e.g. an entire episode of Rand/Mat leaving Fal Dara and chasing after the Horn of Valere in The Great Hunt).
An animated series could tell the whole story and might be the best option, but I like real actors better.
The above just names some of the difficulties.
I would almost certainly be unhappy with any other attempt at making a wheel of time movie. From my perspective, the major problem is simply the length of the books. When people discuss movies and the Wheel of Time the natural tendency is to think that one movie could be made for each book. However, the only way that would be possible would be to delete huge portions of every book. Any movie that attempted to catch 3/4 or all of a single book would be 10 hours long. I wouldn't be happy with a movie that skipped significant portions of the book.
From the producer/film maker's perspective, nobody could afford to make a movie long enough to capture all of the content of each book and nobody (except a very few people like me) would be willing to sit through a movie that long.
Another problem is that many threads within the story are vitally important to the series, but are resolved over the span of 5 or more books. What do you do if you're a filmmaker in that situation? For example, Perrin trying to rescue Faile and take Masema to meet Rand. What book does Perrin leave Rand in? Wasn't it right after Dumai's Wells at the beginning of book 7, a Crown of Swords? At the end of book 11 (Knife of Dreams) Perrin still hasn't completed his mission and just finally rescued Faile. That's a five book span a filmmaker would have to figure out how to tell that part of the story in. If the movies were based on the books, then a fan would see films 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 and still not see Perrin's mission fulfilled.
Another factor is how would a filmmaker actually tell the story. There's a huge problem here for filmmakers. First, RJ tells the story through hundreds of different points of view. Have you seen the movie "Vantage Point"? They tell the story through the eyes of 5 or 6 different people. Imagine trying to tell the Wheel of Time story through the eyes of 100 different characters. Wow. Can I say impossible.
RJ's writing style creates another problem with trying to make a film. We don't just see the story through the eyes of the characters, but we have access to their thoughts. If the filmmaker tries to tell the story without the thoughts of the person, then we miss huge portions of the story. On the other hand, imagine the difficulty of trying to "pause" the action so we the viewer can have access to the thoughts of the person. For example, the trolloc attack at the manor house in Tear in Knife of Dreams. We need to hear Rand's conversation with Lews Therin to understand that LTT has control of Saidin and not Rand. We need to hear Rand explaining what deathgates are and that shadowspawn cannot survive the passage. How could a filmmaker logistically pull this off unless the action were "paused" for us to hear Rand's thoughts?
Further, in the above example, suppose a filmmaker did "pause" the action so we could listen to Rand's thoughts. I suppose that could be accomplished by the sound of Rand's voice offscreen somewhere telling us his thoughts, sort of like in a narrator fashion, but that would be really weird and difficult to pull off.
No so much a problem is how would the filmmaker portray magic/weaving? It can be done with current technology, but it could only be accomplished with special effects and computer generated animation. That costs a lot of money. A whole lot.
I just don't think that it would be possible to make a movie out of the series, or even a movie out of each book. I wouldn't be happy unless they told the whole story or at least 80-90% of the story.
A television mini-series would be ideal in my opinion, but again the difficulty is that in a one hour time slot, you've got 44 minutes of screen time (16 minutes of commercials) to tell a portion of the story. Some "episodes" would be completely boring (e.g. an entire episode of Rand/Mat leaving Fal Dara and chasing after the Horn of Valere in The Great Hunt).
An animated series could tell the whole story and might be the best option, but I like real actors better.
The above just names some of the difficulties.
Movies
23/09/2009 08:13:21 PM
- 766 Views
I'd like good movies or a TV series on the books, but not outside of them *NM*
23/09/2009 09:13:43 PM
- 214 Views
Re: I'd like good movies or a TV series on the books, but not outside of them
24/09/2009 06:15:05 AM
- 529 Views
Whether I'm for or against depends on several factors
23/09/2009 11:20:06 PM
- 562 Views
Personally, I think...
24/09/2009 12:09:46 AM
- 448 Views
I used to be all for it, but I think it would translate horribly.
24/09/2009 04:03:40 AM
- 565 Views
Re: I used to be all for it, but I think it would translate horribly.
24/09/2009 06:12:11 AM
- 507 Views
I hope the movies get done some day and I will definitely watch them. I want ones done on the series *NM*
25/09/2009 03:41:15 AM
- 194 Views