You clearly know far better than I.

I am still inclined to think most sets could be handled with location shots and facades. Most of the series takes place in either small towns, countryside or wilderness. Even the biggest cities would not be considered noteworthy in many countries today; the challenge there would be depicting the scale while preserving the Medieval/Renaissance setting.


It could only be done with many unknown actors playing characters we know well, which would almost invariably outrage hordes of fans, many of whom would be subjected to one (or several) of their favorite characters portrayed in an awkward and/or stilted way. Look at how people complained about Viggo Mortensen as "Stareagorn" (I actually thought he did a great job, since I cannot hold him responsible for Jacksons script requiring him to lead Eowyn on in TTT, but every time I see Liv Tyler I am very conscious of the fact her dad was stoned out of his mind throughout the '70s.)


Regrouping the books for feature films is nigh impossible; any compilation that made a film series short enough to be tenable would almost unavoidably cut a LOT of stuff from the first half dozen or so volumes. For example, easiest way to avoid the audience confusing Manetherens fall and the Trolloc Wars with the end of the AoL and the War of the Power? Combine them, or drop the Trolloc Wars entirely.

Neither solution will satisfy twenty year fans of the series any more than dropping Glorfindel to turn Arwen into "Xena: Elf-Warrior-Princess" satisfied me. I got into a big discussion about this recently with some friends, one of whom has (still) never read the series, and it provided me some interesting insight into how people previously ignorant of TLotR perceived the films. I already realized general audiences demanded Aragorn have a more prominent love interest, but what I did not anticipate was the desire for Arwen as a "strong female character" (utterly at odds with her character in the books, where she is barely mentioned until the end, and NEVER anywhere near danger due to Elronds desire to prevent her meeting her mothers fate.) Apparently Eowyn was not enough, and Galadriel does not have enough screen time to make up the difference (even though anyone familiar with the Silmarillion cannot help realizing she towers over every other character in TLotR except (possibly) Gandalf, Saruman and Sauron.)

With TWoT we would see much the same sort of thing multiplied by the greater number of characters. It still offends me that Glorfindel, almost certainly the same Glorfindel who fell defending Gondolins refugees from a balrog, was not in the films, but no one who has not read the Silmarillion knows or cares. That makes it almost irrelevant to producers more concerned about finishing in the black than satisfying die hard fans. Someshta would have the same role in any WoT films as Bombadil had in ever film version of TLotR: None; he is a great character, but a prosthetics headache only present for (IIRC) two scenes in the entire series. So he goes on the cutting room floor—now who kills Balthamel...?

Realistically, the actual content in the first half of the series makes it difficult to compress them to more than two at a time, though that could always be increased after ACoS. Averaging anything less than two books per film pushes it past seven films and requires finding actors who can convincingly play kids in their late teens for a solid decade. There is a reason TV teen dramas rarely run past five years (OK, there are many reasons, but that is a big one.)

It is not impossible; the first five books especially contain a LOT of travel, and Jordan is not obliged to painstakingly describe every fold of every leaf of every tree passed, since he is not tasked with conveying a world foreign to our own but recognizable as its plausible precursor. Jordan therefore reserves his painstaking detail for far more important matters: Clothes (to be fair, the detail he devotes to clothing does do a great deal to establish the presence of many rich and diverse cultures, especially in the Westlands.) The long stretches on horseback with Moiraine and Lan, however, also provide a convenient excuse to info dump the readers under the guise of the characters staving off the boredom that comes with days of uninteresting road trips. Any adaptation that retained much of the backstory would be obliged to do it the same way, perhaps as a flashback to avoid twenty minutes of characters plodding along on horses conversing (though that would probably be a lot cheaper than depicting the fall of Manetheren.)

The real narrative problem is that until CoT every book has a sharp prominent climax, and most are fairly eventful until TPoD. Any combination is thus challenging, but SPLITTING any would be unthinkable for feature films unless the remainder were combined with the entirety of the pre/succeeding volume. Jackson did that to some extent with TTT, reserving Cirith Ungol for the final film, possible because he cut nearly everything after Aragorns coronation. Doubling up still makes the most sense, providing climaxes for the first half of the series in Falme, the siege of Cairhien (or the journey to Rhuidean) and Dumai's Wells, with the Eye of the World, Rand taking Callandor and "Choices" providing mid-film peaks. Still very challenging though; a LOT of things happen in TSR and TFoH, which would almost of necessity form the bulk of two separate films, forcing TDR and LoC to contract to accommodate them. Compared to that, combining TEotW and TGH is almost trivial (particularly since so much of TGH is travel scenes.)

It could be done, but would have to be a money maker second and foremost a labor of love akin to what Jackson did with TLotR (though it might be more accurate to call that an act of stalking, with TWoT taking TLotRs place as the bound and gagged victim of desire. ) A TV series would be far more tenable, because it would not be forced to cram everything into a half dozen bloated installments. Then you just have to convince people to play Morgase and Tallanvor for a few hundred dollars in the first season, knowing they will have crucial roles from the middle of the series to the end. I just stumbled on a cast list that had a number of very good choices for many roles, with the problem being that, for a series or film, it would be impractical to cast Bruce Willis as Abell Cauthon or John Goodman as Vanin.

It could be done, but would require MANY people VERY committed to the project, and I do not expect it will be done, let alone well, any time soon. Feature films are almost out of the question, which would mean doing it with TVs smaller budgets, and convincing a lot of extras to fill roles in armies for no more reward than the privilege of saying they were on TV.