Schizoposting

@Oltux72, I actually agree with you about the executions. But, I think that you're underselling film as a visual medium—the brilliance of Brandon's worldbuilding in TFE, is that he manages to visually convey the dystopia through the ashfalls and the red sun; in the film, you can establish that this is an absolutely awful dystopian world by showing the ashfalls and the poor and dirty Skaa, contrasted with the ornate keeps of the nobles in the first 30 seconds. This would allow you cut down on a lot of the filler and to really streamline the plot. I think that this film should paced like Ocean's Eleven—not like Ocean's 11—even though I prefer the original to the remake.

I don't think it really matters, to be honest; if Mistborn is a success, then Apple will almost certainly be willing to make other adaptations.

Apparently, Apple TV has only acquired the rights to Mistborn and Stormlight, not the entire Cosmere (I imagine that this would change if they're successfully adapted), so this discussion regarding Warbreaker is a moot point. I think talking about anything other than the upcoming Mistborn film is putting the cart before the horse, because the existence of any other adaptations will depend on its success or failure.

I feel like any film adaptation would probably have cut down on the multiple POV's to make it work; otherwise, it will feel too unfocused. So, the film will probably lean into one side over the other. Honestly, I think that it would work better as a mini-series, than as a standalone film. As for the marketing, presumably the film would be made after Mistborn, and Stornlight, so they could lean in the shared universe side of things.

If something like Eyes Wide Shut managed to be commercially successful, I don't see why a Warbreaker film can't also be viable. For any adaptation, the vast majority of viewers will not be fans, unless if it's a flop, so I don't think that alienating the LDS part of Fandom will that big of a deal.

I guess that it may depend on prior experience; if you read a generic hero's journey story for the first time, it may be mind-blowing, but reading the same basic story for the hundredth time will probably get repetitive. But at the same time, stuff like Fifty Shades of Grey or The Da Vinci Code, is wildly popular, so maybe people just have bad taste—I recently hate-read a popular mystery/thriller, and it was legitimately awful. Maybe I have given you the wrong impression about Tigana; while I did cringe at some of the sex, I still liked it overall, although this may depend on your tolerance for this sort of stuff. From what I remember, there were only like 5 sex scenes over the course of about 500 pages, and they didn't last for more than a few pages. I don't think that they're necessarily meant to be arousing. It's more so that they're weird, than that they're prevalent. From what we've seen of his upcoming (standalone) Cosmere book, the prose is actually very lyrical and poetic, but that's more of the exception than the rule. Overall, while I don't hate his prose, I wouldn't exactly call him concise and to the point— something like The Belgariad, does the super simple "windowpane" prose a lot better than Sanderson, IMO.

To be fair, he intentionally made them weird in Tigana; in The Lions of Al-Rassan the sex scenes are a lot less weird, although they're still very explicit, and you can see his... preferences shine through. I would also say that he's nothing like Tolkien, in a stylistic sense; most of his work is historical fiction masquerading as fantasy (although, it has been rumored that he ghostwrote The Silmarillion). Out of all the contemporary authors, I'd say that Tad Williams is the closest to Tolkien—his Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series, was actually the inspiration behind ASOIAF.

Don't get me wrong, it's good; it's just that if Brandon where to rewrite it from scratch, he'd probably do a much better job. His secret projects are some his best work, especially in terms of prose. I actually liked WAT, so I wouldn't necessarily say that the quality has decreased (although I agree that WOK and WOR represent Brandon at his best). Yeah, that's the big question hanging over all of this: will Brandon's heavy involvement result in a high-quality adaptation, or will it hamper necessary changes to the material? I am cautiously optimistic that Brandon has humility to recognize his own weaknesses and to get help where he needs it, but obviously we'll have to wait and see.

That's what I'm curious about: how well does the actual story hold up? My understanding is that a lot of romantasy (like most romance) is heavily derivative, and that all the popular stories use the same basic tropes (e.g. enemies to lovers, Tall, dark and handsome male love interest, third act break up, and so forth). But it's possible that this isn't actually reflective of the genre as a whole, which is why I'm asking. BTW, if you don't like sex scenes, then Tigana is probably not for you, since it has some very weird and explicit sex scenes.

True, but a big problem with the slog is that the different books aren't very well delineated, so it becomes very indistinct—I remember The Dragon Reborn pretty well, but I have no clue in which book the Seanchan invaded. Contrast this with Stormlight, where Oathbringer, for example, is very distinct from Words of Radiance and Rhythm of War.

@bedtime, do you think that romantasy is any good? I ask this, because the general consensus (among fantasy fans) seems to be that it's slop, so I'm curious to see your opinion, since it was your introduction to fantasy.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say with this, sorry. It seems like it's a universal quality of fandoms, to want to get new converts, and to expand membership. Personally, as someone who has seen this play out with other communities, I'm ambivalent. To be sure, reading is probably a superior activity to doomscrolling TikTok, and Sanderson is a far better writer, than, say, Rebecca Yarros or Terry Goodkind; but having a massive influx of "normies" will probably be very annoying for a lot of established fans, and will likely decrease the quality of the community. Is it? Brandon's work, especially his early work (like Mistborn era 1) is far from perfect; is it really so difficult to believe that an older and more mature Brandon could help create an adaptation that manages to improve on the original? It's by no means guaranteed, but I think it's very plausible. Do you just not like film? Because otherwise, it seems ridiculously premature, IMO, to proclaim that you will prefer the books to an adaptation that hasn't even begun development. Given how much control Brandon will have, it's almost certainly not going to exceed the level that he's comfortable with. Now, he's gotten more liberal over time, so it's possible that the film will be more sexually explicit than the books, but's not going to exceed the level seen in Wind and Truth or era 2.

This feels needlessly harsh; there's a variety of possible (good) reasons why this may have been delayed. Remember, Brandon was not the person who revealed this news—it was The Hollywood Reporter; so, he was probably taken by surprise.

Why would it be nice to have? I'm genuinely curious why you think this. These are some of the most well renowned films out there; it's fine if you don't watch films but declaring that all adaptations are bad based off of limited experience is ridiculous. I know what you're referring to, and that's not what I'm talking about; I'm talking about something like The Shining or Starship Troopers as being reinterpretations of the original, not that screenplay. What I'm saying is that it's more important that the film is good than that it's faithful to the original, not that there should be changes for their own sake. The films are being made for a general audience, not the hardcore fans; 99% of the viewers will not be familiar with the original. My point is that there's no such thing as a book that is "good enough".

Basically, every great film, ever, is an adaptation of some sort: It's a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, The Godfather, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Blade Runner, The Princess Bride, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Shawshank Redemption, Eyes Wide Shut, The Prestige, Arrival, etc. Now, I haven't actually read any of the originals, so it's entirely possible that something like Dream Story is a literary masterpiece, and that Kubrick is just some hack. But I doubt it. Why should adaptations try to be faithful to the material? In fact, I think that adaptations should either try to improve on the original or reinterpret it in some way; otherwise, there's no point in trying to do the exact same thing over and over again. True, in some cases (like with Tad Williams, but only because MST is a veritable masterpiece) their first or second work is their best, and everything after that is just trying to live up to that; but this doesn't apply to Brandon, whose best work is Stormlight, by far. If the books were good enough, there'd be no need to make an adaptation.

TFE was Brandon's second published book, and while the concept is great, the actual execution isn't the best—a film adaption would negate the issues with the prose and dialogue, whilst (potentially) streamlining and improving the plot. While some purists may prefer the books, if the films end up being better, then the former will be overshadowed by the latter. I also used to think that a film adaptation should be 100% faithful to the source; but overtime I realized that film is a fundamentally different medium, and that what works in a book, doesn't necessarily work in film. To put it bluntly: faithfulness to original doesn't matter; what matters is how good the film is. That's why Starship Troopers is a great adaptation, even though it's incredibly unfaithful. I mean, I've watched three different films that are adapted from Stephen King's book's (The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile), and I've yet to read a single one of them. Most people are not going to read a book when they've already watched a film with the same basic story unless if the books are substantially better/different. (As an aside, I think that LOTR is a lot better than the adaptation, but that's a discussion for another day.) I wonder to what extent Brandon is going to be associated with the films—Game of Thrones was a massive sensation, and yet George R. R. Martin isn't that well known. I guess it'll depend on the marketing and branding. Also, I don't think that there'll be much theorizing in the casual film/television watching community, since all the answers will already be in the books. So, that aspect will probably decrease in importance in the fandom.

It's basically a forum that allows people to create their own subtopics, that other people can post in, and that's moderated by the users. The specific Reddit subforum(s) that are oriented towards Brandon and the Cosmere, are orders of magnitude more popular than this one. Edit: Brandon is also apparently popular on "BookTok" and "BookTube"

...Reddit?

I am not (solely) talking about this forum, but about the fandom as a whole.

There's an interesting possibility that I haven't really seen anyone mention—suppose that the Mistborn film is an excellent adaptation that not only preserves, but also improves upon, the source material; wouldn't this result in it supplanting the original? For example, in this hypothetical, if someone new to the Cosmere asks whether or not they should read TFE, people will just tell them to watch the film instead, because it's just the better version. Even if the film isn't substantially better than the novel, as long as it's good adaptation, it'll probably replace the original in public consciousness, simply because films are a lot more popular (and accessible) than books. I like watching films and reading books, so this doesn't particularly bother me; but I suspect that a lot of the purists here are going to be very annoyed by all the "normie" fans who will only watch the films/television but will refuse to read the books.

It depends on how much I like the series: I read Wheel of Time straight through in ~2 weeks, because the books where enjoyable enough* that I wanted to see what would happen next; on the other hand, I'm taking a break from reading The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, because the books are a bit of a slog (IMO). *With the exception of New Spring and the Andoran civil war plotline—which I found to be excruciatingly boring—I did not have any particularly big issues with the infamous slog, although at around Lord of Chaos it became one big mush for me until The Gathering Storm.

Honestly, I think that the film ought to be R rated, even though it's probably going to be PG-13 to get a wider audience—the violence should be disturbing, and not just cheap entertainment. Otherwise, you really undermine the gravitas of the setting (which is already over the top violent and brutal as others have already pointed out).

I think that this adaptation deal is literally the best possible deal that Brandon could've conceivably gotten—he gets a major studio that has a good track record of producing high quality television, while at the same time maintaining a crazy amount of creative control. The only issue is, given how much control Brandon has, the success or failure of the film will pretty much depend on him. And he doesn't necessarily have a ton of experience with adaptation. But hopefully, he's willing to listen to those with the relevant experience when necessary.

To be fair, Brandon has a very cinematic style, and Mistborn would probably work better as a film than as a book, especially since Brandon's biggest weakness (prose) won't matter. Also, it was his second published book, and he's improved a lot since then as a writer.

I finished the Shadowmarch tetralogy by Tad Williams two days ago. I actually had relatively low expectations for this series, based on some online comments/reviews that I saw, but I was pleasantly surprised—it was a solid epic fantasy that provided everything I love about the genre: enormous scope, with an ensemble cast, and world-defining stakes. It's one of those books/series that actually make you kind of sad when you finish, because there's nothing more left to read. (That being said, I feel that this series is still inferior to Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, which I think is a genuine masterpiece.) Despite this, I do still have some gripes with some of the plotting, and the way the multiple POV's were handled. For instance, having the Qar just sit outside of Southmarch for two whole books, felt like somewhat underwhelming in my opinion; also, the series suffered from some of the challenges of balancing a huge number (~10) of major POV character's, with many different plotlines, which resulted in a rather slow pacing, and the mildly frustrating phenomenon of having to read like 50 pages of unrelated plotlines to get to one that you find to be most interesting or that is otherwise in a cliffhanger. Whilst most of the series was pretty slow paced, the final book was like A Memory of Light, in that it was essentially just one huge climax (or Sanderlanche), that made the whole "slog" preceding it, totally worth it. In addition, I thought that Williams did a good job with characterization—particularly, I thought that the Autarch made for a very entertaining villain, and I also liked the dynamic between Barrick and Briony, although I would have liked to see more of it at the end. So, while not Tad Williams' best work, or particularly groundbreaking, Shadowmarch makes for a well written epic fantasy that will probably appeal to most fans of the genre.