The Wheel of Time
Eric S Brown
Fans have long awaited a live action adaptation of Robert Jordon’s classic Wheel of Time series. This year, Amazon Prime delivered and at the time this is being written, five episodes have been released so far. Opinions of the series’ quality vary wildly as it certianly doesn’t stick exactly to the source material. Complaints range from how the One Power is depicted to how Lan looks. Many of these are nothing more than small things that don’t matter much to show overall. The One Power is mostly unseen in the novels unless a magic user is throwing around something as powerul as Balefire but it did need to be seen in the show. Personally, I feel they did a fantastic job with how it’s shown as tendrils of light and darkness. As to Lan, apparently many saw him as an old school knight in their heads while reading the novels but his more Asian appearance works wonderfully in the Amazon series. Lan is a swordsman more than anything and the lighter, more agile look makes Lan both more likeable and believable for his level of prowess.
The casting of Matt in the Amazon series is spot on and he comes across much better than he did in the early novels. Sadly there is word that the character has already been recast for the second season. However despite what a great job is done with Matt, many fans are upset about the changes made to Perrin. His story is altered greatly from the novels and appears to be failing to please many fans.
All in all, The Wheel of Time may not be a straight up adaptation of the novels but it carries over enough of their magic to be a very enjoyable series in its own right.
