Multiple Upcoming Games, Movies Based On Jordan's Wheel of Time

Today film studio Red Eagle Entertainment announced plans to establish Red Eagle Games, a studio that will produce games based on Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. The games will be developed alongside movie adaptations of the series, which Red Eagle announced a few months ago. They'll be working with Universal on the films. "[Red Eagle producer Rick] Selvage said in an interview that the game company will make a series of games that will be co-launched with the movies. In addition, Red Eagle Games will make a massively multiplayer online game based on the Wheel of Time universe." Wheel of Time fan site 'Dragonmount' recently spoke with Selvage about the movie plans.

Comments

But Can They Do It Justice?

[eldavojohn]

I am surprised as I haven't been following this news since Jordan's death. I will say I am excited as I picked up Eye of the World for a quarter at a used bookstore in high school. I've been a huge fan ever since but have often wondered if there is any possible way a game or movie can do this series justice.

Wheel of Time has such extensive (sometimes laboriously so) plot lines running in tandem and across multiple characters that may not cross for thousands of pages. Can this be set in film successfully? The introspection of the characters when you're seeing things from their points of view ... the political games ... the extensive dream sequences ... keeping the dream world and waygates straight ... so much they could get wrong!

In truth, I wondered the same of George R. R. Martin's Song of Fire & Ice series recently licensed by HBO. I guess we'll see if they can do that series justice as well.

As for the games, I was a bit disappointed with the 1999 version which was basically a Hexen engine playing as an Aes Sedai in one of the Ajahs. A visually pleasing game, though. I certainly hope they do better with The Wheel of Time MMOs & don't dish me another buggy clone like Lord of the Rings or Warhammer.

Red Eagle & Universal, please don't screw this up! Disclaimer: I am a Perrin fan.

Re:But Can They Do It Justice?

[Miseph]

Or, even better, run each Age for one year. Give a certain number of random players the potential to become the Dragon, but don't tell anyone who they are, ESPECIALLY the people who might be. Players who are in at the beginning of the Age have a better chance of being the Dragon, ta'veren (although I suppose it would also make sense if ALL players were ta'veren), or at least having some special plot role (ie. they could end up like Moirraine, finding the Dragon or other key players by virtue of their awesomeness), but players who join in partway through benefit from a world which is less of a clusterfuck in terms of nobody having any clue what the hell is happening and being able to just drop in on whatever side they like and have at the powers that be.

Obviously, certain things would have to be put into the game to ensure a given Age goes off interestingly, like reliable ways for people to find the Dragon (or at least potential Dragons), compelling incentives to form in-game factions to support Dragons and ta'veren, and ways to ensure that the "randomly" selected players are unlikely to simply fall off of the planet's face.

I'd also be a big fan of a full reset at the beginning of each age, perhaps with perks given to previous high-level characters, but nothing that cannot be overcome by a talented newcomer. of course, I also just get sick of the perpetual suck of not being one of the first hundred people to sign on and always getting stomped by people who will always be bigger and badder just because they've been around longer.

Re:But Can They Do It Justice?

[ultranova]

What they should really do is set a game earlier than what is described in detail in the books, say when one of the false dragons was around. That way there is plenty of conflict, but the game designers have much more leeway on the events and story in the game.

Or set it during the War of Power. You must lead your unit during the war; then, when the Dark One is imprisoned and the Breaking of the World begins, it becomes a desperate race to safe as much of the civilization as possible before it's destroyed by the maddened Aes Sedai. Slashdot archives must not perish !

Or make it "Populous: the Dark Side" - you play the Dark One and need to sow as much destruction as possible to feed your power, break free, and remake the world. I wonder what Jack Thompson would say about a game where you do get points for rape and murder ?-)

How Many Movies?!?!

[aplato]

I wonder how many movies there are going to be? Hopefully I'm still alive when the last one comes out(if they ever wrap the series).

Re:How Many Movies?!?!

[filthpickle]

Thanks for the laugh.

I made it thru Crown of Swords...but mainly because of being too stubborn to admit to myself that I was getting sick of it. Had to do a cross country road trip several years later and got the audiobook for Winters Heart thinking I would catch up that way...

Somewhere in Kansas in the middle of the night I decided that it was so tedious and boring that I threw it out the window in disgust. I admit that it might have had something to do with driving thru Kansas...you can't do that alone and stay sane.

I think I reached a point where I just DESPISED every female character in that book.

Re:A series for the ages...

[LandDolphin]

I personally feel that he made a wonderfully detailed world that had more going on in it then every character focused on one single point. I'd rather have one really good series then several smaller series with much less defined worlds.

Robert Jordan's last words on Red Eagle

[Anonymous Coward]

In one of his final weblog entries before his death, Robert Jordan wrote:

I hear things now and then floating out in the air. For instance, I hear that word was floating about ComicsCon in San Diego that I am displeased with Red Eagle. Too true. Too very true. In a few more months that last contract they have with anyone on God's green earth that so much as mentions my name will come to an end and we can see what happens after that. You see, among other things they forgot an old dictum of LBJ back when he was just a Congressman from Texas, when he famously, or infamously, said "Don't spit in the soup. boys. We all have to eat." Worse, Red Eagle though they could tell me they spit in the soup, or pee in it, if they wanted to and there wasn't anything I could do to stop them. You can't apologize your way out of that with me, not that they tried. There isn't enough money in the world to buy your way out of it with me. Not that they tried that either. So they get no further help from me. Once they are completely out of the picture, we'll see what happens.

The only reason Red Eagle are still in the picture is because they managed to sell an option they had right before it expired. One misstep though, and they'll be belly up. I am waiting with great anticipation for that day.

Re:Song of Ice and Fire

[filthpickle]

If you've read Wheel of Time, you should try Song of Ice and Fire.

couldn't agree more. If you've read WoT in total or part (esp in part) and not SoIaF you should really pick it up.

my favorite thing about that series is how he leaves all the pieces in play...you can't just assume that someone won't die because they are a main char.

Re:A series for the ages...

[cbhacking]

My feelings exactly. Take the world that WoT is most often compared to, LotR. There are certainly lots of parallels - Middle Earth is huge, there are lots of different nations with their own history, traditions, culture, and appearance, and the author crafted each with an incredible attention to detail. However, reading through the books (never mind watching the movies) in LotR doesn't give NEARLY as much a feel of the setting as WoT does. In WoT I can imagine the parts of the cities, the look of the farms, and the speech of the people - even for specific settings that were never visited. Without reading a lot of the LotR background, I've found this not nearly as easy to do. It's just not as immersive.

There's a lot more to this comparison, but I think I'll stop here.

Re:how?

[Bensam123]

I'd settle for nothing less then three movies per book, but we all know that's not going to happen.

Honestly I wish this series was picked up by a animation studio in Japan. There are just some things you can't do without it becomming a series and there is more then enough material there to actually have a couple hundred meaningful episodes. There also are just somethings you can't produce in real life. Good anime bridges the gap between stories, art, and a visual picture.

Re:Loot The Copyright!!!

[rvw14]

I looks like the final "book" may be released in 2 separate volumes. So in a way there will be 13.

Re:Closure

[spiralx]

Yes it will - RJ had already written the ending and several other key elements before he died, as well as dictate the overall plot of the book.

Re:Loot The Corpse!!!

[Abcd1234]

wrist deep in skullfucking

Umm... I'm pretty sure that's not how skullfucking works...