The One Power is nothing. ¨People obsess with that, but it's really all basic stuff nowadays. CGI would take care of nearly everything and is far less less expensive that some of the techniques you brought up (and I kind of know this, digital VFX is what I do for a living...).

What's very expensive for TV are stuff like CG set expansions, very involved motion tracking, creatures, particle effects. They're very clever how they do it on GoT (which is a big budget show). Nothing's gratuitous and people most often won't notice they found a way to make an impressive shot 10x less expensive by not moving the camera, as would rather have been done in a feature film. Or they'll give us a few very expensive shots, and most of the rest will be cut-saving ones, by clever framing. They can pull it off, notably, because they skip VFX scenes with tons of extras that would require tons of angles in one scene.

But even then, the kind of budget they have on GOT is not really thinkable for a 22 ep/season show.

And forget scenes like Dumai's Wells and such, that's totally unthinkable without SW/LOTR-level of budget. Those crowd simulator like Massive they use in some movies since LOTR, it's way out of TV's budget except for extremely simple shots (crowds standing there simple, forget anything like battles and such).

There's also more than budget (though it's linked, as time is money and it's not a cliché in VFX): TV doesn't have enough time either.

And yes, the casting on WOT would be the biggest nightmare, much bigger than VFX. I've been saying that all along.

The way you regroup the books makes no sense at all. They have problems cramming EOTW in a single movie apparently. A postproduction heavy movie which lasts 3h30/4h costs twice as much as a 2h one, for the same revenues. Hollywood isn't very keen on those nowadays (not that they ever were, they basically invented the 90min for FLF norm...).

People go around saying "they can cut this, and then that" but they just don't realize how much gets also added for a movie to make sense to anyone who hasn't got tons of exposition from the books. OP concepts are complicated for example, and for much of the plot to make sense, you can't skip it. In a movie, you don't have the luxury you have in a book to pepper bits of exposition everywhere and build it up. In TV and even more movies, you need to devote scenes to each concept. OP/the Wheel cosmology and the DO/ta'veren/the WOS-Breaking, the TW, Manetheren and Aridhol, the Borderlands, the conflict in Caemlyn etc. There's a massive lot of exposition to include in EOTW for it to make sense. A lot of the plot is also driven by complicated matters (just think of the Aiel and Cairhien, for example) - twenty countries, tons of cities, a lot of backstory and so on. There are reasons why RJ slowed things down by book 4... he needed more and more space for exposition. The first three books are relatively OK, for long movies or a TV season each. It's by TSR things would derail...

It's a very bad series for a movie franchise. When the source material can't transfer well to the screen without losing its soul because of all sort of constraints, why bother? There are tons of stories based around the same core as WOT that would make far better TV or movie projects. If a network really wanted a WOT-style show, they'd be far better to actually work with a Fantasy author to get a great story crafted specifically for the medium.

I mentionned LHOTP merely for the series's tone and how character driven the show was. If WOT took place in the TR we wouldn't be arguing...