# Wheel of Time - the movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 13, 2008, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823 "2008-08-13T06:37:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/1 "2008-08-13T06:37:13Z")
Let’s see how far [this gets](http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=47959) before it’s abandoned as a big waste of effort. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/2 "2008-08-13T12:32:44Z")
I’ve never read the books; they’re bestsellers, but an awful lot of people seem to think they comprise a big shit pizza. ETA: I’m using “big shit pizza” as a literary metaphor. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/3 "2008-08-13T12:41:16Z")
Hey, you never know. Once you cut out all the character descriptions and unnecessary textual padding, the books are like a quarter of their actual length. 😃 This could be interesting, but I’m not real hopeful. Peter Jackson did the best job anyone could hope for on turning an epic series into watchable movies, and he was absolutely devoted to the task. If the people working on this aren’t committed, it’s very likely it could turn out to be drek. My prediction: We’ll see one mediocre movie, and the profits won’t be enough to justify making The Great Hunt. LOTR worked because it’s incredibly well known. Wheel of Time doesn’t have that kind of popularity to ride. **Baldwin** , essentially: The series started out promising, but Robert Jordan kept adding more and more plotlines and characters without resolving the ones he already had on the table. He would have kept the series going forever if the fans hadn’t raised a ruckus, with little resolution and thus little real happenings of consequence in most of the books. As it happens, the second half of the series is pretty much exactly that; a whole lot of text in which not much happens. Further, his wife was his editor, and so he didn’t get solid advice on trimming up his writing. The first book is very good. The next few are pretty decent too, but they suck you into a downward spiral. As bad as the writing is, it still manages to be the kind of series you just can’t put down. I believe you can stop after the first book and be okay, but the rest are like crack, in both addictive and unhealthy qualities. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/4 "2008-08-13T12:42:23Z")
[QUOTE=Baldwin] I’ve never read the books; they’re bestsellers, but an awful lot of people seem to think they comprise a big shit pizza. ETA: I’m using “big shit pizza” as a literary metaphor. [/QUOTE] The first half of the series is pretty good, but even just doing that would be like a 50 hour movie. It’s not that the material is horrible (generally) it’s that it’s so long. There are what, 15,000 pages in the series so far? ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/5 "2008-08-13T12:57:36Z")
If I had a nickle for every time a studio “acquired” the rights to something followed by the fans ran around screaming “They’re making a \_\_\_\_\_\_ movie!” and then the film never gets out of the talking about it stage I’d be able to fund my own Thundercats vs. Go-Bots movie. There’s about a 1% chance that this ever goes anywhere but I can see the reaction already albeit not in this thread… ---
**Author:** ![jali](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecae2f/32.png) [@jali](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jali)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/6 "2008-08-13T13:00:03Z")
[QUOTE=Just Some Guy] If I had a nickle for every time a studio “acquired” the rights to something followed by the fans ran around screaming “They’re making a \_\_\_\_\_\_ movie!” and then the film never gets out of the talking about it stage I’d be able to fund my own Thundercats vs. Go-Bots movie. There’s about a 1% chance that this ever goes anywhere but I can see the reaction already albeit not in this thread… [/QUOTE] Thundercats movie! I’ll give a dollar. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/7 "2008-08-13T13:45:54Z")
[QUOTE=Just Some Guy] If I had a nickle for every time a studio “acquired” the rights to something followed by the fans ran around screaming “They’re making a \_\_\_\_\_\_ movie!” and then the film never gets out of the talking about it stage I’d be able to fund my own Thundercats vs. Go-Bots movie. There’s about a 1% chance that this ever goes anywhere but I can see the reaction already albeit not in this thread… [/QUOTE] True enough, but WoT has the advantage of being a bestseller series, and fairly popular as fantasy series go. Right now fantasy epics are in, too, what with LOTR, Harry Potter, and Chronicles of Narnia all enjoying decent box office take. I’d say it has a decent chance, _if_ the screenwriters can squeeze Eye of the World down to less than three hours. ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/8 "2008-08-13T13:49:22Z")
I always thought it would make a good TV series. I’m sure they could squeeze about twenty seasons of one-hour episodes out of it … ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/9 "2008-08-13T13:54:27Z")
[QUOTE=SCSimmons] I always thought it would make a good TV series. I’m sure they could squeeze about twenty seasons of one-hour episodes out of it … [/QUOTE] Too right. It would have fit in perfectly in the Hercules and Xena era. ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/10 "2008-08-13T13:55:34Z")
as a WoT geek I would be very interested in any attempt, but I am dubious about the convertability to film of these books. How would channeling be portrayed in visual media? ---
**Author:** ![Walpurgis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@Walpurgis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walpurgis)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/11 "2008-08-13T14:00:10Z")
It would do better as a TV series. Well, at least, reading the books was a lot like watching Days of our Lives. I spent 6 books waiting for Rand to go insane and then I gave up. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/12 "2008-08-13T14:00:50Z")
[QUOTE=One And Only Wanderers] as a WoT geek I would be very interested in any attempt, but I am dubious about the convertability to film of these books. How would channeling be portrayed in visual media? [/QUOTE] CGI sparklies, like the Next Generation transporter effect. It’s what I’m afraid is going to happen, anyway. It should be noted that I read the title of this thread and had a simultaneous sensation of great excitement and profound dread, like a black hole party in the pit of my stomach. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/13 "2008-08-13T14:01:13Z")
[QUOTE=Bosstone] Too right. It would have fit in perfectly in the Hercules and Xena era. [/QUOTE] Terry Goodkind’s _The Sword of Truth_ is currently being made by the Hercules and Xena team. For some reason renamed [The Legend of the Seeker](http://www.legendoftheseeker.com/). ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/14 "2008-08-13T14:50:59Z")
[QUOTE=Snarky\_Kong] The first half of the series is pretty good, but even just doing that would be like a 50 hour movie. It’s not that the material is horrible (generally) it’s that it’s so long. There are what, 15,000 pages in the series so far? [/QUOTE] Considering how very much of it is loving descriptions of what people are wearing, I don’t think that length is as much an issue as other series where you don’t get a few thousand words per character on what they look like. ---
**Author:** ![TroubleAgain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/15 "2008-08-13T15:33:52Z")
I find the prospect to be both exciting and nauseating. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/16 "2008-08-13T15:43:25Z")
[QUOTE=Just Some Guy] If I had a nickle for every time a studio “acquired” the rights to something followed by the fans ran around screaming “They’re making a \_\_\_\_\_\_ movie!” and then the film never gets out of the talking about it stage I’d be able to fund my own Thundercats vs. Go-Bots movie. There’s about a 1% chance that this ever goes anywhere but I can see the reaction already albeit not in this thread… [/QUOTE] Okay, I understand why you’d want to make a Thundercats movie. But Go-Bots? Seriously? I can only imagine doing so if I were a super-villain frustrated by multiple defeats at the hands of the Justice League who decides to take his revenge on the peoples of Earth by making the worst possible film. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/17 "2008-08-13T15:53:29Z")
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer] Okay, I understand why you’d want to make a Thundercats movie. But Go-Bots? Seriously? I can only imagine doing so if I were a super-villain frustrated by multiple defeats at the hands of the Justice League who decides to take his revenge on the peoples of Earth by making the worst possible film. [/QUOTE] Super-Friends. The Justice League is actually occasionally cool. It would be defeat by the Super-Friends (or, worse yet, Wendy & Marvin (or, even worse, Aquaman by himself)) to really embitter a supervillain enough to make a Go-Bots movie… ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/18 "2008-08-13T15:59:24Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] Super-Friends. The Justice League is actually occasionally cool. It would be defeat by the Super-Friends (or, worse yet, Wendy & Marvin (or, even worse, Aquaman by himself)) to really embitter a supervillain enough to make a Go-Bots movie… [/QUOTE] While the recent Justice League cartoon was cool far more than occasionally, the Superfriends had better theme music. [Cite](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgf3LwbXybk). ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/19 "2008-08-13T16:01:49Z")
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer] While the recent Justice League cartoon was cool far more than occasionally, the Superfriends had better theme music. [Cite](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgf3LwbXybk). [/QUOTE] Well, yeah, but I’m going by actual comic book JL\*. Original line-up JLA with teenage civilian sidekick - not cool Satellite Headquarters JLA - cool Detroit Basement JLA - not cool Resort Island JLI - cool, mostly due to Blue Beetle and Booster Gold Moon Base JLA - cool as hell ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823/20 "2008-08-13T20:19:28Z")
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer] Okay, I understand why you’d want to make a Thundercats movie. But Go-Bots? Seriously? I can only imagine doing so if I were a super-villain frustrated by multiple defeats at the hands of the Justice League who decides to take his revenge on the peoples of Earth by making the worst possible film. [/QUOTE] Mainly because they were the first two stupid cartoons from the eighties I could think of. 🙂 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheel-of-time-the-movie/459823.md?page=2)