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Author Topic: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....  (Read 4264 times)

tenbones

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Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« on: March 10, 2022, 12:00:33 PM »
... or "How one of my favorite books will once again be ruined by Hollywood."

https://deadline.com/2022/02/the-riftwar-cycle-fantasy-books-television-writers-hannah-friedman-jacob-pinion-nick-bernardone-1234923198/

They got the rights to the best material - the first trilogy and the Empire series. Sweet Galactus they're going to shit on Feist.

HappyDaze

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Re: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2022, 12:42:45 PM »
... or "How one of my favorite books will once again be ruined by Hollywood."

https://deadline.com/2022/02/the-riftwar-cycle-fantasy-books-television-writers-hannah-friedman-jacob-pinion-nick-bernardone-1234923198/

They got the rights to the best material - the first trilogy and the Empire series. Sweet Galactus they're going to shit on Feist.
Assuming the worst isn't the best way to be objective. Is there some reason you feel it's going to shitnon the author?

Ghostmaker

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Re: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2022, 02:14:45 PM »
... or "How one of my favorite books will once again be ruined by Hollywood."

https://deadline.com/2022/02/the-riftwar-cycle-fantasy-books-television-writers-hannah-friedman-jacob-pinion-nick-bernardone-1234923198/

They got the rights to the best material - the first trilogy and the Empire series. Sweet Galactus they're going to shit on Feist.
Depends on how much creative control Feist has over the scripts. If you've got a situation similar to Good Omens, it might turn out all right.

But those writing credits for the showrunners? Holy shit. Weak. Fear the Walking Dead had some of the most unsympathetic characters seen (at least one person told me they were rooting for the zombies after a few episodes).

HappyDaze

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Re: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2022, 02:30:22 PM »
... or "How one of my favorite books will once again be ruined by Hollywood."

https://deadline.com/2022/02/the-riftwar-cycle-fantasy-books-television-writers-hannah-friedman-jacob-pinion-nick-bernardone-1234923198/

They got the rights to the best material - the first trilogy and the Empire series. Sweet Galactus they're going to shit on Feist.
Depends on how much creative control Feist has over the scripts. If you've got a situation similar to Good Omens, it might turn out all right.

But those writing credits for the showrunners? Holy shit. Weak. Fear the Walking Dead had some of the most unsympathetic characters seen (at least one person told me they were rooting for the zombies after a few episodes).
Were they less sympathetic than the characters on Stargate: Universe? Other than the math guy, I just couldn't care that they were lost in space.

tenbones

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Re: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2022, 04:28:20 PM »
... or "How one of my favorite books will once again be ruined by Hollywood."

https://deadline.com/2022/02/the-riftwar-cycle-fantasy-books-television-writers-hannah-friedman-jacob-pinion-nick-bernardone-1234923198/

They got the rights to the best material - the first trilogy and the Empire series. Sweet Galactus they're going to shit on Feist.
Assuming the worst isn't the best way to be objective. Is there some reason you feel it's going to shitnon the author?

Can't tell if you're serious. But I have very little faith in novel-to-cinema adaptations. They tend to be middling-at-best. But BAD is normal. Much like I don't care for covers for songs, or remakes. There is *always* an exception to the norm. The norm in this case is poor.

Ghostmaker

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Re: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« Reply #5 on: March 11, 2022, 08:25:08 AM »
... or "How one of my favorite books will once again be ruined by Hollywood."

https://deadline.com/2022/02/the-riftwar-cycle-fantasy-books-television-writers-hannah-friedman-jacob-pinion-nick-bernardone-1234923198/

They got the rights to the best material - the first trilogy and the Empire series. Sweet Galactus they're going to shit on Feist.
Assuming the worst isn't the best way to be objective. Is there some reason you feel it's going to shitnon the author?

Can't tell if you're serious. But I have very little faith in novel-to-cinema adaptations. They tend to be middling-at-best. But BAD is normal. Much like I don't care for covers for songs, or remakes. There is *always* an exception to the norm. The norm in this case is poor.
I swear, Happy is like a fuckin' goldfish. No memory at all.

It's like we didn't just see a shit adaptation of 'The Watch', and we weren't just discussing how much of a dumpster fire 'The Rings of Power' looks to be.


HappyDaze

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Re: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« Reply #6 on: March 11, 2022, 08:28:46 AM »
... or "How one of my favorite books will once again be ruined by Hollywood."

https://deadline.com/2022/02/the-riftwar-cycle-fantasy-books-television-writers-hannah-friedman-jacob-pinion-nick-bernardone-1234923198/

They got the rights to the best material - the first trilogy and the Empire series. Sweet Galactus they're going to shit on Feist.
Assuming the worst isn't the best way to be objective. Is there some reason you feel it's going to shitnon the author?

Can't tell if you're serious. But I have very little faith in novel-to-cinema adaptations. They tend to be middling-at-best. But BAD is normal. Much like I don't care for covers for songs, or remakes. There is *always* an exception to the norm. The norm in this case is poor.
I swear, Happy is like a fuckin' goldfish. No memory at all.

It's like we didn't just see a shit adaptation of 'The Watch', and we weren't just discussing how much of a dumpster fire 'The Rings of Power' looks to be.
At least with the Rings show people pointed out why they thought it was going to be shit based upon the previews and commentary shown. What is the bad feel on this one based upon? I didn't see much on anything in the OP's link that shows this will be good or bad.

Omega

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Re: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« Reply #7 on: March 14, 2022, 01:57:28 PM »
Honestly its likely to be garbage because lately thats all hollywoods been producing. Garbage adaptions. Sometimes just short of in name only. Other times so changed that it might as well have been some other title and no one would have known.

AtomicPope

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Re: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« Reply #8 on: March 15, 2022, 05:28:36 AM »
Good News: Kurt Johnstad is a decent writer.
Bad News: the rest of them aren't.

I wouldn't have much hope for it.

Omega

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Re: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« Reply #9 on: March 17, 2022, 07:56:38 PM »
I dont even trust the creators of an IP to not totally fuck things up because time and again they have when given the chance.

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« Reply #10 on: March 18, 2022, 10:34:00 AM »
I dont even trust the creators of an IP to not totally fuck things up because time and again they have when given the chance.
Totally. Just look at what Ridley Scott did to the Alien franchise. Too many cooks spoil the broth, but giving one person free reign isn't necessarily going to turn out better. Great authors need good editors to rein in their sillier impulses.

I have mixed feelings about reboots. A lot of times they can end up badly and ruin a franchise, but other times they can be a good way to refine a franchise and avoid problems like continuity decay and creator burnout. I am of course talking about the Transformers franchise. It has been rebooted tons of times and has clearly benefitted from that.

On the other hand, I think we would benefit from corpos making new franchises rather than ruining old ones. Most of these attempts will fail, obviously, but it's better to be forgotten in obscurity rather than hated.

Ghostmaker

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Re: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« Reply #11 on: March 18, 2022, 10:43:48 AM »
I dont even trust the creators of an IP to not totally fuck things up because time and again they have when given the chance.
Totally. Just look at what Ridley Scott did to the Alien franchise. Too many cooks spoil the broth, but giving one person free reign isn't necessarily going to turn out better. Great authors need good editors to rein in their sillier impulses.

I have mixed feelings about reboots. A lot of times they can end up badly and ruin a franchise, but other times they can be a good way to refine a franchise and avoid problems like continuity decay and creator burnout. I am of course talking about the Transformers franchise. It has been rebooted tons of times and has clearly benefitted from that.

On the other hand, I think we would benefit from corpos making new franchises rather than ruining old ones. Most of these attempts will fail, obviously, but it's better to be forgotten in obscurity rather than hated.
The word you might be looking for is 'wrangling'. It really does seem like some creators need a person to bop them over the head (looking at you, George Lucas).

Reboots and remakes can give a fresh start to a franchise, and long running ones definitely need something to clear away the driftwood and rubble of less than stellar continuity decisions. But it seems to me that few people know how to do so. Either they wipe EVERYTHING clean and wreck it in the process, or they try to hang on to too many 'hooks' and it's just the same rusting vehicle with a new coat of Bondo on it.

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« Reply #12 on: March 18, 2022, 03:42:40 PM »
I dont even trust the creators of an IP to not totally fuck things up because time and again they have when given the chance.
Totally. Just look at what Ridley Scott did to the Alien franchise. Too many cooks spoil the broth, but giving one person free reign isn't necessarily going to turn out better. Great authors need good editors to rein in their sillier impulses.

I have mixed feelings about reboots. A lot of times they can end up badly and ruin a franchise, but other times they can be a good way to refine a franchise and avoid problems like continuity decay and creator burnout. I am of course talking about the Transformers franchise. It has been rebooted tons of times and has clearly benefitted from that.

On the other hand, I think we would benefit from corpos making new franchises rather than ruining old ones. Most of these attempts will fail, obviously, but it's better to be forgotten in obscurity rather than hated.
The word you might be looking for is 'wrangling'. It really does seem like some creators need a person to bop them over the head (looking at you, George Lucas).

Reboots and remakes can give a fresh start to a franchise, and long running ones definitely need something to clear away the driftwood and rubble of less than stellar continuity decisions. But it seems to me that few people know how to do so. Either they wipe EVERYTHING clean and wreck it in the process, or they try to hang on to too many 'hooks' and it's just the same rusting vehicle with a new coat of Bondo on it.

I saw both issues occur in the Ben 10 toy franchise. The original show (OS) that aired from 2005-8 was a glorified toy commercial, but it was okay; although the quality steadily deteriorated with each season. The writers were clearly flying by the seat of their pants. When Cartoon Network ordered a sequel series, which I'll call the UAF era, they hired an all new showrunner who had no knowledge of the previous series so there were a ton of continuity errors and a complete mismatch in tone. Also, the quality steadily deteriorated with each season until it was about 90% filler. Then it got retooled midway to sell a new line of toys, which sold so poorly that they got blacklisted from retail. The third series (OV) tried to fix the continuity mistakes and tonal inconsistencies only to somehow make things worse, and it was hated by the fans of the previous series who ignore the seasonal decay issues I just mentioned. Then the show got rebooted in 2016 and the fans hated it. I can see why, since it basically threw out the baby with the bathwater rather than attempt to address the mistakes of the preceding retools, but some of the ideas it introduced were actually decent.

Ben 10 fandom is just frustrating to interact with because it reached the peak of its popularity (according to google trends) during an accidental soft reboot and the bulk of fans I've seen are unwilling to acknowledge the problems it created for itself. Believe me, there are so many problems with the writing. Mercifully, this is not a fandom near and dear to my heart so I can ignore it quite easily.

For example, the character Kevin Levin had a backstory that was subject to constant retconning to the point of becoming incoherent. He was initially introduced as a villainous foil for the hero Ben 10 in OS, even poorly copying Ben's powers (although his powers quickly deteriorate and he becomes a body horror mutant). In UAF he's accidentally rewritten as Ben's sidekick with completely different powers because the showrunner never watched OS and his backstory was retconned from running away from parents who rejected him for being a mutant to his father being a space policeman who died in the line of duty. One of the following filler episodes said he was basically the hero's grandpa's godson but this relationship was never previously established and never brought up again after this episode. In the following sequel series, this is retconned again to being false memories and dear god I can't keep track of this retcon bullshit.

In the reboot series, you'd think the writers might take the opportunity to reinvent this backstory to be more coherent. Instead, they invent a completely new unrelated backstory for him. The only thing that stays even remotely the same is that he has the same powers as Ben to make him a foil, and also to sell more toys by giving him villainous counterparts to Ben's alien transformations. That last part is the only smart thing the writers did, and then only because it sells toys, which gives you an indication of how horrible the writing is.

For an example of how brain dead the writing has become in the reboot: the main villain, Vilgax, is after the alien transforming watch worn by Ben. The reason why Kevin has his own watch is because Vilgax gave him the blueprints in a dream (yes, this is an actual plot point). Vilgax later steals it back. If Vilgax can trivially make his own alien transformation watches, then why does he need to steal those ones? These plot holes were caused because the writers were making things up as they went and hadn't actually planned any of it in advance. Which is par for the course at this point. Ironically, they made Vilgax the co-creator of the watch and this actually better explains his knowledge of its existence compared to OS, because the writers never actually bothered to think of how events led up to that in the first place and what few weak explanations we got over the course of the retools (and in supplementary materials written after the fact by interns for special hard-to-find releases that were so obscure that other writers didn't know they existed... what complete fucking idiots did the idiot suits at CN put in charge of managing this shit?) only raised more questions (at one point using time travel, which... dear god, this writing makes my head spin).

Why is any of this relevant? Well, there's a lesson to be learned here: every show that intends to have anything remotely approximately story arcs needs a fluff bible and it needs to be written simply enough that the idiots these corpos hire to manage things can keep the facts straight. Sorry for insulting the underpaid employees these evil corpos abuse to produce this stuff, but jfc dude, what happened to cause this incoherent mess?

The irony here is that the same company that animated the original show in 2005 also produced the reboot. You'd think they'd take the opportunity to reinvent and improve on their past work with the benefit of hindsight, because dear god this is one of those franchises that really needs it, but you'd be wrong.

Also, fans need to pull the sticks out of their asses and recognize that the shows they like from their childhood aren't as perfect as they think. Ben 10 was not carefully plotted in advance like Infinity Train or 2011 Thundercats. The writers clearly made it up as they went. Placing the UAF era on a pedestal is unbecoming of fans who are now in their twenties and should have better critical analysis skills.

If I'm rambling, then I'm sorry. Animation is a subject that I have a love/hate relationship with.

Shrieking Banshee

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Re: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« Reply #13 on: March 22, 2022, 04:08:59 PM »
If I'm rambling, then I'm sorry. Animation is a subject that I have a love/hate relationship with.

Imagine being an animation major.  :'(

tenbones

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Re: Raymond Feist's 'Riftwar' the TV series....
« Reply #14 on: April 03, 2022, 04:01:26 PM »
... with the controversy over Tekumel, how long will it be when Riftwar movie lands that people drum up the Tekumel connections simply for clout?

If for no other reason than to "point it out" and cast shade. At *minimum* I can see this happening, without the obvious race/gender swapping, LGBTQPIP insertions. etc. etc.