WoT Film - good idea/bad idea?

[NGH]

Horrible idea, in my opinion.

I rarely see any movies based of off books (Lord of the Rings is a... passing example. Eragon was killed by the movie, even though Paolini practically murdered it before it was published) give any sort of justice to the literary work. Jordan's WoT series is so complex and stiflingly long that, even were the producers to do a series, they'd never retain interest. It'd be one to three films (if they are even successful) and, after that, fans will start dying off, moving onto bigger things (things with much more sex and things that go boom, if the current mindset of teenagers is to continue).

As Beamer said, a massive rewrite would be completely mandatory. To do that, though, would murder countless integral characters and sub-plots that make WoT what it is.

[the smiling weirwood]

I think it would be just fine to skip over all the tea-drinking, dress-changing, braid-pulling nonsense in favor of plot mobility.

[NGH]

Originally Posted by the smiling weirwood

I think it would be just fine to skip over all the tea-drinking, dress-changing, braid-pulling nonsense in favor of plot mobility.

Yet, to fit an entire series--pointless, mind-numbing, and frivolous scenes aside--which comprises over 10 books into a chain of movies less than three hours each and still hold onto viewer interest while getting the important points of the story across (which are many) is a daunting prospect which I would rather the current Hollywood not undertake.

The recent Legend of the Seeker television series has already further mutilated a declining interest in Terry Goodkind's work (and this was after watching the first episode, no more), I'd rather it not happen again on a much larger and grander scale with a much better piece of literature than Goodkind's.

[the smiling weirwood]

I think if they made a WoT movie they should do only the first book. I thought there really should never have been a series, I was quite happy with just The Eye of the World. Maybe I just say that to spare myself the pain of the rest of them...which I read almost against my will, enslaved by my completionist compulsions.

[Charming Serpent]

I never understood how even before that Nynaeve character found out she had powers that everyone walked around her terrified about her "anger". Dude, she is like 21 and I mean no offense to the women of this forum, but I would have just either told her to shut the f up or smacked her silly if she tried to flip out on me my whole life. (i wouldnt do that in real life, but just sayin :P) Every guy acts like a scared mouse in these books and all the women act like total bitches. Blah .....

Maybe Lifetime would pick it up as a series. :P

[wedgiey1]

Maybe an animated series?

[Wolfbrother ninja]

i think they are making teotw into a mmovie but look what happened with eragon the book was good if ya saw the movie after u read the book though the movie was just crap so
they would need to be careful so that wot fans wouldn't get pissed off because they have a great book series and a crappy movie or movie series

[markus]

Considering there are so many really talented fantasy writer's to choose from (Gemmel, Eddings, Brooks) I think I would rather blow my brains out that have them suffer the movie version of this rambling load of tosh. Sorry if my answer is a bit on the coy side. WOT= Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish, and I say it again for those at the back of the hall who didn't quite hear. Rubbish!

[Novella]

i think a WoT movie would b a very pathetic idea. I've never read the books but my sister is nuts about them and she tells me the story. she has all the books and collectively they weigh more then my baby nephew.

A movie trilogy is out of the question as there is no one the planet who could condense the books in to three movies. and if they do then it wouldn't be worth the liking of the fans.

however WoT TV series is not a bad idea at all. a lot of books means a lot of episodes and none of the story would be cut.

thought fans might have to settle for less then spectacular special effects, but even they are improving for TV everyday.

what say

[Enraged Toaster]

I honestly think this would be an awful idea. The books are far too long and complicated, with so many characters and plot lines, that they would have to omit too much.
And quite frankly, I would hate it.
Though I would probably go watch it just for the record.
Think about how much they cut out of LOTR, right? Well, they would have to cut much, MUCH more out of WOT. Though they did do very well on LOTR, so I'm not sure if that's a good example.
In any case, I really don't think a WOT movie would be a good idea at all.

A animated series could be neat though.

[Clansman]

Originally Posted by Enraged Toaster

I honestly think this would be an awful idea. The books are far too long and complicated, with so many characters and plot lines, that they would have to omit too much.
And quite frankly, I would hate it.
Though I would probably go watch it just for the record.
Think about how much they cut out of LOTR, right? Well, they would have to cut much, MUCH more out of WOT. Though they did do very well on LOTR, so I'm not sure if that's a good example.
In any case, I really don't think a WOT movie would be a good idea at all.

A animated series could be neat though.

There is quite a debate about Jackson's interpretation of LOTR. He cut some very key scenes, such as The Scouring of the Shire, moving the death of Saruman back a whole book, and totally reinterpreted main characters such as Elrond (what a mean bastard), Aragorn ("Let's hunt some Orc!" Gimme a break, what a stupid line), Faramir (a pathetic wannabe in the film, as opposed to the last of the noble line of Westernesse in Gondor), and Gimli (never meant to be the comic relief of the book).

LOTR would have received a better treatment if it had been serialized, like George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, with the upcoming HBO series "A Game of Thrones". A series gives the time and the room that epics need, but you lose the big screen, which epics also need. The charge of the Riders of Rohan would not have been the same. For Jackson to have done it right, he needed four, possibly five films. He could have followed the books and broken it up into six shorter movies, but the studios would have hated that.

An animated film was tried for LOTR. It was a disaster, and they never even finished the story. It is a miracle that the piece of junk was ever released.

My hope is that one day, an ambitious director will want to film "JRRT's The Lord of the Rings", starting with the Hobbit, and working through to Frodo's departure from Middle Earth, that is a faithful interpretation of the original book. Not animated, but with real actors.

[Boneman]

But... WoT was so long, involved and imho, so incredibly boring, that maybe a trilogy, just distilling the essence of the story down to 10-12 hours of action might be really good!!! It couldn't be worse than the books, it just couldn't...

[himynameisbored]

Um theres just no way a movie series would work, they'd never include half of what fans would want. Shadar Logoth would probably vanish, Padan Fain would simply be crazy, instead of really crazy (not much of a difference, but simple crazy is gollum, really i like a antisocial schizophrenic, instead of splitpersonality OCD).
There also the problem of a series that spans 2 years in 14 books. I'd rather not see Sixteen/seventeen year old Elayne, or better yet 10 year old Olver age to much in that time....It might seem odd when they're suddenly 7 years older than they should be, unless someone thinks Hollywood can really role out movies that fast. I'm all for an animated series, where the problem doesn't exist, or a tv series (id say miniseries, but that'd be for each book, which is suddenly a little more than 2 seasons of a show).

[C Of K]

I think it can be done. I just have to wonder if there is any group of people on earth capable of doing it.

There is a whole lot of mess that needs to be cut from this series to begin with. The author had a hard time keeping his fans. How well is this likely to do as a live action incarnation? Legend of the Seeker is just one example of how disastrous it can be to unwisely work with predominantly bad material.

The last half of this series is pretty uninteresting. Sanderson did a great job picking it up, and I'm hoping he can continue to shed much needed light on the WoT, but I would end any live action production with the events of the first 3 books like RJ should have. I doubt the WoT will ever rise to that level of storytelling again.

[Jake Reynolds]

But I REALLY want to see those green and gold coasters on the coffee table in Ebou Dar that took up like five pages, while something a bit bigger like, oh I don't know, the cleansing of frickin saidin doesn't get talked about until two books later.

Movie would be a distaster, complete and utter disaster. An MMORPG set after Tarmon Gaidon would be very cool though.