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: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...

[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.