The Wheel of Time: What is Amazon Prime Video’s fantasy series worth? – ScreenLarge.com

We saw the first three episodes of Amazon Prime Video’s new fantasy series, The Wheel of Time, and they may not be unanimous.

No one will have missed it: The Witcher Passing by Game Of Thrones without forgetting the future series The Lord of the Rings and its indecent budget, fantasy is on the rise, and everyone wants their piece of the pie. Amazon Prime Video even seems to want a second part, since apart from its adaptation project of Tolkien’s universe, the platform has also bet big on another lucrative literary saga and extremely well known to amateurs: The Wheel of Time.

As the philosopher said, the routourne will turn

TAGAZOK

Dense and prolific work inhabited by many rather convoluted concepts and composed of no less than 14 volumes for its main story, the story of The Wheel of Time starts with Moiraine Damodred, an Aes Sedai (to put it simply – fans forgive us – a sort of magician) in search of the Reincarnated Dragon. That is to say, a very special human being half-descendant half-reincarnation of a millennial hero and destined to lead a decisive fight for the existence of the universe … but in which camp?

Thanks to a monster attack on a village, she is certain that her heroic fantasy version of her Dalai Lama is Rand al’Thor, Matrim Cauthon or Perrin Aybara, three villagers around whom dark forces revolve. She takes them all three to present them to the headquarters of the Aes Sedai but the journey – which we suspect will be the subject of all season 1 – will be fraught with pitfalls. Various companions will join the trip: the healer Nynaeve al’Meara and her apprentice Egwene al’Vere, al’Lan Mandragoran, the champion of Moiraine and other names of medicines that we will not risk writing, we have already enough cramps in the fingers.

Nice to meet you Lady Vastarel, I’m Lord Prozaak

If we take the time to make the exhibition, it is because it is obviously one of the two main objectives that the first three episodes of The Wheel of Time, very rich in explanatory conversations and pure presentation scenes. And this is surely the greatest objective quality of the series: if its narrative fidelity to the original material is in the norm of what is currently being done in terms of adaptations, its conceptual fidelity is on the other hand quite exemplary, by its exhaustiveness and its readability. Sometimes even if it means creating a feeling of overflow and losing even the most attentive viewer a little. The bosses of the Name of Thrones have found their new challenge.

We often hear complaining about a typical defect in current concept stories, this is the famous tutorial phase at the beginning of series or films. Sort of long, wordy tunnels about as exciting as a washing machine manual and often ends up in little (review the beginning of Tenet and you will see).

It’s not complicated, however, as I’m a half-elf half-dwarf I have +3 to talk about it with the animals so I can dance with the wolves if the green wind of magic is oriented east-west at 2:75 p.m.

A defect to which The Wheel of Time concede a few precious minutes, in particular the crucial thirty premieres of the first episode, relatively boring, before miraculously finding an organic way to integrate this long phase of presentation into the fabric of his story.

Surprisingly then, while the preliminaries drag on and are still not over after the first three episodes, The Wheel of Time manages to make his world exciting and intriguing. And it is precisely because it concedes only the strict minimum of facilities and extracts from the books all the oddities which made its originality, from the system of magic well taken head to the bushy cosmogony. Like a rule book for a role play, these three hours may be relatively indigestible, they nevertheless make you want to play and wait for the game to really begin.

Welcome to Provins

IN GORE AND GORE

A desire to come back to it all the more paradoxical because, to say things clearly and arrive on a more prosaic ground, despite this beautiful abstract quality, The Wheel of Time is afflicted with a defect which constitutes its essence and whose essential character will probably make it fundamentally “bad” forever (note the quotes): it’s kitsch. Omega-kitsch even. And so debilitatingly ugly and stupidly naive – between Narnia to the best and Eragon at worst. But, there are good kitsch and bad kitsch, and The Wheel of Time regularly goes on the good side of bad taste.

As such, the first real action scene of the series acts as a shock, even a slight crack. Ten minutes of 100% gorasse brutality which, like a fairy-satanic episode of Happy tree friends narrating through the menu the recipe for the man-rams kebab (Roquefort-harissa with lots of ketchup), create a mind-boggling break with the moribund clichés of high fantasy that have been presented to us before.

What a picturesque minstrel

And this is only the first explosion of violence among others leaving half-hilarious half-dazed. Impossible to say if it is reckless courage or furious madness, but one thing is certain: the inconstancy of the tone of the series, oscillating between forbidden to the over eight years and forbidden to the under sixteen, is still as unpredictable as it is spectacular.

A fault usually fatal which here becomes a force. Chaotic certainly, but a force. Whether a monster gets torn in two by a wind of dangerously muddled CGI magic, or a sadistic inquisitor quibbles more than Woody Harrelson in a crisis of symbiotic priapism, The Wheel of Time is for the moment consistently bad to be sure, but her disconcerting bad taste and utter ruthlessness often make her superbly and formidably bad – and therefore delightful to the point of being almost endearing. Formidable but very shabby, very shabby but formidable.

Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyikes

BY GRABTHARR’S HAMMER

However, we have to be honest. As it stands, despite an undeniable playful pleasure guaranteed without cynicism, it seems impossible to appreciate The Wheel of Time in the first degree, despite some surprising projections, like the river crossing in episode 2. A mentor character intelligently makes his benevolent archetype lie there by justifying his means at the end with the help of icy utilitarianism, delivering in the process a deadly exercise of realpolitik applied on figuring innocent old man.

It is therefore a well-informed pleasure that The Wheel of Time and which should leave behind a certain number of spectators, starting with those who had come to seek epic adventure or a dose of fantasy with a budget of more than a hundred crowns and a chervil pie. In a few words, The Wheel of Time is so technically faulty that it is cleanly incapable of lining up anything that does not make pulpboard (a scandal given the budget). The visual cachet of the series combining bad taste and incompetence, it more evokes a kind of big Dungeon of Naheulbeuk serious than the typical kitsch madeleines Legend.

Some elements painfully float

Féérico-Fisher Price designs, costumes stolen from a Power Metal group mixing leather pants and torn tunics in curtains, casting of all colors and yet uniformly lackluster – we even advise fans of Rosamund Pike to go their way if they do not want to break their ideal – nothing here to suggest that it is indeed a series to 100 million dollars. Everything seems poor and fails to bring about a feeling of grandiose or poetry. Only a few impressive exteriors and constructions remain, and the monsters, so far all successful.

That a series as rich in means be reduced to making exist a pack of wolves pursuing two heroes by only means of the sound off screen like the most penniless of Youtubers, even though the sequence takes place in broad daylight on an open ground is that there is a serious lack of competence.

However, good kitsch is like good hunters, it cannot be explained, it is lived. Conceptually, it does not exist, and yet, sometimes, we do. Because, you see, bad kitsch, he sees fantasy, direct he shoots. Good kitsch, he sees fantasy … he shoots too, but it’s not the same. Sometimes, without us understanding how, he puts a headshot. It remains to be seen whether the luck and critical successes will continue.

The first three episodes of La Roue du Temps have been available since November 19 on Amazon Prime Video, then a new episode will be available every Friday.