Last week’s #WoTWednesday saw The Wheel of Time showrunner Rafe Judkins waxing broadly about how reincarnation would impact the television adaptation of Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy series. This week, Judkins gets a lot more specific, sharing an actual excerpt from the pilot script!
“For #wotwednesday this week,” Judkins tweeted, “I’ll do something scandalous and give you an actual snippet from the first script of one of those iconic scenes that simply must exist. Introducing THREE key characters ;)”
That would be Tam al’Thor, his son Rand—and, yep, Bela the shaggy brown mare. While there is no dialogue in the excerpt above, it certainly still sets the scene in ways that Rand’s inner monologue does in The Eye of the World. Maybe next time Judkins will give us a whole page.
So far, so good.
Please don’t mess it up, please don’t mess it up…
And I am getting quite intrigued by the cast. Personally, I hope they will cast new faces who are not world-famous yet, but would fit our beloved characters like a glove (kind of like they did with so many cases with ASOIAF).
Yes, but will Billy Zane be back? Because if he’s not, the entire project is doomed to failure.
I don’t know whether @2 is being facetious or not. NO WAY can Billy Zane play Ishamael (and I actually liked many of the choices in the notorious “Winter Dragon”, but not his performance!) If he insists on being in it, I could possibly see my way clear to letting him play Asmodean.
P.S. I can’t believe that I am actually first to make a comment about CASTING BELA! How will we live through the torment of wondering which of the unknown numbers of long-coated, brown, small breeds equine actors will play this crucial role that caused so much consternation and bad jokes for decades??????
I’m pleased to see that Judkins recognizes Bela as a key character. :)
Thanks @3! I had never heard of “Winter Dragon” before and now I know what horrible thing I’m watching today!
That being said, I actually like Zane’s work as an over the top baddie. Come on guys, he’s great in Demon Knight. LOL
@2 – ahahaha, that was my first thought too. I don’t even hate Billy Zane, it’s just that his choice of portrayal didn’t really fit. I’d love to see him in it (kind of as an injoke maybe) in some other capacity though.
That said…wowww it seems like this is actually happening!
I’m actually hoping this is the first shot. I’m hoping they don’t do the Prologue to open the series.
Although, a Fellowship of the Ring–style narrated montage of the War of Power may be necessary for non-book readers. Casual TV watchers really, really don’t appreciate not having a clue what a show is about
@3, what if they cast a black-coated equine?
Oh, Anthony. I agree on skipping the prologue, and from that excerpt the showrunners may do as well: too much confusion for the new fans. As for exposition over a montage: we all learned the history as we went along and, with how much passion is being poured into this by the show runners, I’m sure they will teach all the new fans just the same way, drips and drabs where needed.
In other news:
Billy Zane? (Faugh!). Winter Dragon? (Ashes!). Expositing montages with voice overs? (Light preserve us! Not for the beginning!) A black-coated Bela? (Light take the fool! *shivers in horror)
Hopefully this is moving one step closer to production.
Billy Zane could play Narg!
I would like to echo the cal for “please don’t suck, please don’t suck”. This does read pretty well and its seems like Judkins has an understanding of the series. I hope it gets a shot.
Regarding Billy Zane, I nominate him for Weiramon Saniago. That may be suitable punishment for his portrayal of Ishamael in ‘Winter Dragon’ *shudders*.
Liking Billy Zane as Weiramon lol.
Given his fondness for playing random redshirt parts (see: The Force Awakens), I want Daniel Craig as the joke actor playing Narg. Either that, or have Hugh Grant follow up his hilarious stunt casting from Cloud Atlas. Narg definitely has to be some kind of joke.
In all seriousness, my dream casting as Lews Therin (we will need to see him eventually). . .Mandy Patinkin. Not only is he more than capable of taking genre seriously and playing with utter conviction, I’m not sure anyone else could pull off the level of operatic anguish necessary. Though he’s singing, see his performance on the original recording of The Secret Garden (particularly on “A Bit of Earth” and “How Could I Ever Know”) for evidence.
I always thought Tam was in his early to mid-forties.
That I can’t find anything to back it up, that’s still how I will view the character in the books lol
I like the idea of Billy Zane as Asmodean, he has the air of self importance and snark for it
I agree. Mandy Patinkin definitely has the theatrics for the role. (smile)
And I love that recording! Glad to know others are still familiar with it.
My husband and I actually sing How Could I Ever Know as a duet. A heart-rending song, and oddly apt in a way; though in this case presumably it would be Lews Therin remorsefully asking Ilyena how he could have known.
@14 If Tam left home at 16(ish); made his way to Illian; served in the military long enough to both make second captain and blademaster; then retire with wife and babe; don’t see how he could be so young.
OMG. I had forced myself to forget about this, and now I am a ball of nerves about it again. Awesome.
I actually think Billy Zane, with some decent prosthetics, could work as a great Aginor.
Random observation by a long-time WOT reader: I think a high-quality production of the series would be VERY expensive to make, and a low (or even reasonable) cost one would likely be really, really bad. So I am apprehensive.
My impression of the GoT history is that GRRM was a TV writer before ever starting the series of books, and turned to novels because of the cost limitations placed on TV productions. Then, when his novels were off-the-chart popular, the TV folks courted him and he was able to dictate conditions. The result was a first-class show, very expensive but very well made.
i don’t know anything about the arrangements for the WoT production, but I shudder to imagine the price-tag of a high-quality show, and shudder even more violently at the thought of what might result from an “economy model” effort!
@20:
It doesn’t matter what conditions GRRM was able to set. That’s the standard now for fantasy TV. That’s what they are trying to compete against, and that’s the quality level (and mass appeal show) that Jeff Bezos demanded from Prime when he fired their last Creative VP for valuing prestige TV over things that would bring eyeballs.
If they want to compete, they’re going to have to spend as much per season as GoT. My worry is that the Lord of the Rings show will get more attention, and this production will be the “spare heir,” and not get the same level of attention from the bosses.
Yup. Just look at the Shannara train wreck from MTV. Terry Brooks was always a touch formulaic (David Eddings too), but they were decent books and I’m fond of them for the escape they provided in Middle School. Paramount and MTV skimped on the budget and pulped the story beyond recognition outside of character names and one or two plot points. It was like they consulted with the CW on dialog and character development. Ugh.
I know Amazon can do great shows. Patriot. The Man in the High Castle. Even Bosche is decent. But they had better not screw this up. I was secretly hoping for an animated series since that’s less risky and would solve a lot of the visualization issues without screwing with the magic system or fancy sword play. Live action? WoT’s way harder than GoT. GoT is a gorified soap opera. Think about it. It’s perfect for a live action high production value miniseries. WoT is way more complex. Capturing the cultural aspects alone will cost millions
@22:
“Just look at the Shannara train wreck from MTV.”
I’m not sure that was a budgetary issue. The show looked great and had decent effects. Way better than some fantastic scifi fantasy shows from a decade ago, or two decades ago. The fact that it sucked was one hundred percent in the writing, and casting decisions. I’m not even sure the performances were bad, they just weren’t right.
@7 & 8: I agree. Honestly, I thought the opening lines of the first chapters (“The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass” etc.) were more evocative beginnings than any of the book prologues (especially in the first book). And honestly, I only thought the prologue scenes in the first two books even added anything significant to the story.
WoT, like Lord of the Rings, is a story of people on the fringes of the civilized world getting swept up in matters they know little or nothing about. There’s a reason that Tolkien, the founding grandmaster of the modern epic fantasy, didn’t include a prologue in Fellowship of the Ring.
I too hope they don’t do a Sword of truth series.
You’re bound to loose a few things getting this huge story on screen, but if they take their time and really focus on the magic system it could be the best out there.
Up to know there has not been any great magic powers on screen. WOT is all about magic, that is what I really want to see.
Can’t wait the anticipation alone is incredible.
It starts with “We’re higher in the mountains” to set the scene, which seems to be implying that we are higher than we just were sometime before, which would indicate it’s not a first scene, as the setting is describing itself in relation to something that seems to have come before. What preceding scene might be lower in elevation? The prologue, taking place before LTT turned his house into a very high mountain of his own?
I hope this is good. We need a good fantasy series now that GOT is ending. We don’t need another flop like Shannara Chronicles was. @8 I have never read WOT until now, I’m just now reading the first book. I don’t know why I put them off until now. I appreciate not knowing what the show is about. @22, Amazon Prime did a great job with the Jack Ryan series, I have read all of Tom Clancy book’s and have seen all of the Jack Ryan movies so I was worried about the series but I enjoyed it. I am confident Prime will give WOT everything the series needs to succeed but I hope it is not animated, I want it to be a live action series.
Lonewriter (@27)
Don’t know if you’ve seen Sylas’ first-time read. If you haven’t, I can highly recommend it! As a long time fan it’s been a great insight and I’ve heard that first-time readers are enjoying it too!
Check it out here: https://www.tor.com/series/reading-the-wheel-of-time/
Welcome to the fandom!