Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

It seems most of the hate for this show comes from those expecting a page to screen xerox, or those that call anything inclusive “woke BS”. The show is a work of art from a costume, soundtrack, and set/location standpoint. With that budget it could hardly miss in those areas. The women are clothed appropriately for their class and daily life. Moiraine roughing it in a ballgown doesn’t make too much sense if you give it 10 seconds of thought. The sets and locations are amazing - every one of them fit perfectly into the scene with no detail overlooked. CGI was almost entirely successful to my eye, with just a few stumbles in the most difficult shots. This is definitely an adaptation, and introduces some major changes to backstories. A couple of those changes are ones that I don’t see as necessary… yet. (Moiraine and Lan at the inn huh?) Others that seem arbitrary make sense with some forward thinking. For example, Perrin’s tragedy in the first episode neatly sidesteps 5 books worth of inner monologue about the axe-hatred. Now the show can insert a two second flashback and new viewers will understand the inner conflict immediately. The producers wanted to make an adult adaptation, and so aged up the main characters to avoid looking like typical YA fare… so the boys are a lot more experienced with women out of necessity. The list goes on, but in almost every case I can think of reasons why they would serve as narrative shortcuts, or replace language/situations that today’s audience might find ridiculous. As a stand-alone show for newcomers the pacing suffers sometimes as they try to cram in things that purists couldn’t handle being without, but is otherwise very solid. Most of that solidity comes from divergence from the source material. Fans have to acknowledge that if we want ten seasons we’ll have to grant concessions in the name of accessibility. At the time of this review there are only three episodes out, but that hasn’t stopped a decent contingent of folks from deciding that the changes made were pointless and arbitrary, that all of them were made in the name of “political-correctness”, yada yada yada. Ignore the haters. Be steadfast - this chance will come but once.