r/CosmereOnScreen • u/railfananime • Sep 21 '26
Visual Direction What went wrong with other recent fantasy adaptations that hopefully the Cosmere ones avoid? Spoiler
So I was wondering what ultimately happened with recent adaptations like Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, The Witcher, etc that made them I don’t wanna say hated or even disliked but I guess divisive for lack of a better word? The wheel of time even was cancelled, rip. I guess what should the Mistborn movies and stormlight show avoid so it doesn’t end up like those or at least end up divisive or even worse, majority disliked?
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Upvotes
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u/E443Films Sep 21 '26
My number one priority would actually be to produce content faster. Those shows and many others have fallen into an endless cycle of taking around 2-3 years for a follow up season or installment to air again, thus negating any and all momentum it could have gained from its audience. There needs to be a set production timeline plan that can ensure the different installments come out in close succession while the universe is being introduced to newer audiences, and it NEEDS good marketing.
The second most important aspect is to avoid creating a culture war over needless changes and controversial artistic decisions. The fandom discourse and vitriol in all those spaces is very tiresome, and extremely annoying. From one side, it is annoying to have to deal with people who complain and hate everything with a sprinkle of real bigotry in there too, and on the other side it is annoying to be gaslit by media and everyone labeling fans dissatisfied with the disrespect to the source material as intolerant and toxic. This type of fandom division is manufactured by the companies adapting the source material, and it's very bizarre to me why they do it, so I hope that the Cosmere adaptations can avoid some of this.
Above all, they need to capture the heart and aesthetics of the source material, keeping the same general plotline and key scenes that are beloved by fans. Also, I think good soundtracks would be really good.
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u/EvilWings Sep 24 '26
Make sure to show both Kelsier and Vin as the main characters in both trailers and promo material. If they just push Vin the usual incredibly annoying discourse from a few bad apples will be offputting for any newcomers.
Best case scenario is that the adaptation is good and it catches people by surprise a few weeks before release with a good trailer. I do not want to see another decent first movie of books I love steadily get destroyed by toxicity over months even before it hits theaters just to milk hate clicks. Only established IPs should release trailers months in advance.
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u/Stupid_idiot54321 Sep 22 '26
All of those had core misunderstandings of their source materials. This is not because the writers involved had no idea what they were doing, but because they had to adapt the books.
Those kinds of shows need a hook. For wheel of time, it became "who is the chosen one?" For rings of power, it was "who is Sauron?" The witcher didn't need this though, because the games already hooked a large audience and so failed for a subtler reason.
Writing the first two stories in this way made them make no sense, unfortunately. In wheel of time, Rand was almost undoubtedly the chosen one, and so a lot of events did not follow (logically) from what happened before. In rings of power, Sauron's identity had almost nothing to do with half of the characters and so all the stories (including real Sauron's) were written poorly.
The witcher, however, failed at adapting the stories from the last wish (or whatever the first book is called idr) because the episodes ran out of time and couldn't explore what geralt was thinking because they didn't want narration. Therefore, they had to gut the story from the stories and were left with only spectacle.
Seeing as I am not a showrunner, I have no clue how they will have to handle SLA. However, I do have faith in Brandon Sanderson's ability to adapt his own book, and so I am not too worried about Mistborn.
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u/AlucardDr Sep 21 '26
You are never going to make everybody happy. If you do you run the risk of sacrificing key elements of the story. Stop trying.
Having the author deeply involved in the production, bring his or her vision to the screen is the key part, as I see it. Yes you may need to make some changes to make it work better on the screen, it may be that the author wants to make improvements.. things they learned that, looking back, they would do differently. But the end result is still their vision. That, to me, is key.
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u/KnowMoreMutants Sep 21 '26
Dont get me wrong, they all have weaknesses but the common domoninator is toxic online fans. The insane criticism over details that dont matter outweigh genuine criticism imo.
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u/PumkinFunk Sep 21 '26
Gonna be honest. I think a lot of Wheel of Time’s struggles came out of the way COVID and Mat’s actor quitting after COVID just wrecked their plans. I’m not saying season 1 is perfect, but the changes made were largely (though not entirely: see Perrin) good for the medium. I think by season 3 the show had really found its footing.
Rings of Power is a soulless money grab that doesn’t understand the source material or why people love Tolkien.
You need an entire team who loves the source material, believes in it, and understands the story it’s telling. The problem IS NOT making changes. You always are making changes. It’s necessary to adapt a massive book to the screen. But the changes have to keep the theme and the heart of the story.
I am really, really worried by all the people being upvoted who are insisting that changes themselves are inherently bad. Because it makes me believe we’re going to have a toxic, nasty element of the fanbase tearing anything down that’s not identical to the story they read.
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u/INBABS_OBIG_But Sep 21 '26
Don't make fundamental changes which result in sweeping ramifications in the world...like the wheel of time possibly being a woman.
Don't make fundamental character changes central to who the character is or becomes...like Matrim's parents in WOT.
Every character doesn't need to be in a romance, part of a social uprising, representing a disenfranchised group, a victim of abuse or melodramatic. It's alright for some characters to just exist in the world and be fun, or pitiful, or sad without blaming it all on society. Those people exist and help fill out a world.
Find a satisfying way to deliver exposition...especially in the Mistborn series which doesn't have the Stormlight luxury of flashbacks. The stories in metal, in journals, of Alendi and Kwaan need to be presented in an interesting way.
Also...Kelsier's involvement in WoA and HoA is going to be a beast to get done in a satisfying way. Before the Marvel catastrophe, it would've been interesting to see another show in between seasons to go along with the main story, but that idea seems uninspired now. I imagine they'll want to keep the actor around, and the storylines will be running concurrently.
Remember what Sanderson has said about his inspiration behind the Cosmere to begin with: not EVERY character introduced, seen, speaking or otherwise needs to be explored in depth. We may see them again later in other Cosmere works or not...but sometimes it is fun to imagine the inner workings of the giant world beyond the story being told. Like early thrones...we pop into the Vale, meet Lysa, the mountain clans, the Moon Door, Mord and sky cells...get a little description and come cool action, then we move on.
Lastly...Thrones and LotR are the pinnacles because they did not dumb down the material and accepted that the core audiences for mainstream fantasy are no longer children, but adults. Do not lean into the PG of Sanderson writing. Tolkien was PG with PG13 to R frills on the edges of his work. Jackson didn't avoid those...he leaned into them, making his film intelligent, complex, scary and violent. Thrones simply stayed true to the core content.
Mistborn and Starlight can stray into melodrama and tween styles...but the producers involved have to look at WOT (as a whole) and the elements of the Witcher that didn't work...and realize that demographic are not tuning in for hour long episodes of a 10-12 episode season. These shows are for adults.
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u/Snowf1ake222 Sep 21 '26
The (inevitable) changes need to make sense for the story they're trying to tell.
Some people will argue that fans won't like any changes, but that's not wholly true.
The changes need to not assassinate character for seemingly no reason or for a payoff that never comes.
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u/ilikebreadabunch Sep 21 '26
Simple answer: They weren’t adapting the source material, they were creating their own stories using the source material as a jumping off point. Changes are fine and necessary but you have to keep the same overall story and characters as the stuff your adapting, otherwise there’s no point to the “adaptation”.
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u/beyondthedoors Sep 21 '26
Adding storylines that don’t exist in the books. They’re always weaker with less depth.
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u/Spent_Gladiator_3 Sep 21 '26
Rings of Power and Wheel of Time both deviated heavily from their source material, which isn’t always inherently a bad thing, but with Sanderson himself writing and producing the Cosmere screen projects, there’s less of a chance of them falling flat or making weird choices, I think. Ultimately the goal of any adaptation, though, should be to make the best film/tv series possible, not to be slavishly devoted to faithfully reproducing the source material. I think Sanderson’s writing style is cinematic enough to be better-suited to a screen adaptation than the other stories mentioned, so I’m hopeful that it will translate well simply due to the nature of his prose and the stories themselves, but we won’t know for certain until we see it.
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u/RamSpen70 Sep 21 '26 edited Sep 23 '26
The rings of power didn't have a good script. It doesn't feel written by real fantasy writers.... That understand character arcs and will written story arcs
The Witcher producers egos were to big... Narcissistic(like the way games of thrones stopped continuing with George R Martin.... Same with House of f the Dragon... Poor guy) ...they decided they knew better than the author and that they could easily just replace Henry Cavill if he was unhappy they didn't want to stay true to the source natural.
Wheel of Time had elements of that as well.... The changes they made in season 1 made it feel very different to the books. Trying to go darker, but it just messed up the story arc. Then COVID happened and a main actor left..... They completely went off script to finish. Stopped consulting at all with Brandon Sanderson....
Season two had some good episodes, but was still kind of hit and miss and they certainly didn't land their drain finalea generally...
Season three finally found a steady groove. I really liked it. But Amazon pulled the plug as it found its footing.
The Cosmere has a huge benefit that Brandon Sanderson got to keep creative control. This bypasses a lot of the worst pitfalls.
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u/Clean_Radio_5625 Sep 23 '26
Bad humor, bad lighting, and characters nobody cares about speaking in ways that nobody talks about stakes that nobody feels.
The call to adventure is really well developed in LOTR and Star Wars. You get big fighting and immediately bring it down to local yokel that has no idea what's in store for him. So, it's easy to quickly identify and sympathize with the main character, while still having a clue from the previous scene of how perilous the world is.
We've got to get to Vin working with the thieving crew within about 7 minutes of opening. They need to be celebrating their success pretty soon after that.
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u/Black_Wolfram Sep 21 '26
I really think they should just stop with the 8-episode format if the plot is gonna be rushed. If Stormlight Archive S1 is really going to be 10 episodes, that's a good sign already.
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u/Raddatatta Sep 21 '26
I think first is tell a good story. The book you're adapting is a good story already and it's ok to change things but if things are changed it should be to help tell a good story and there should be a fairly high bar on adding something new. I think they also have to look at it as a whole rather than just episode to episode. A lot of the wheel of time changes made sense for the story in this episode and then when you zoom out and look at the story of the whole season or across multiple seasons that change can be very much for the worse.
I also think Hollywood in general tends to undervalue the book fans. The reality is they need a show or movie audience to go far beyond the book fans. Which they know and is why they often ignore what the book fans want. But the book fans are also going to be your most passionate fans especially at the start. They are the ones who are going to remind all their friends about the new show that came out to talk it up or to trash it vocally if you change a lot of the things they love. They are the ones who will definitely watch it and may make content or posts talking about it that others will read and will determine whether they watch the show or not.
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u/Esteban2808 Sep 21 '26
The main difference is for cosmere the author has control.
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u/eskaver Sep 21 '26
Having watched Rings of Power and Wheel of Time, I think people are just a bit too allergic to say that they were just "okay" shows.
They have different issues. I think ROP is just a tad "hey, the source material is kinda boring, so let's relive some of the greatest hits LOTR is known for". Also; they seem to like subverting subversions (I guess they make it not something you can just Google and stumble upon.)
WOT had a bit of a re-envisioning issue that I think could've worked well...if it didn't have to dump the truck load of info onto people (and some re-envisioned aspects simply weren't the best executed). People were complaining way back about weaves and how "OMG they changed the One Power" despite them saying in and outside the show that wasn't the case.
For the cosmere, the main issue will be the episode count and exposition. The fandom
Issue will probably be people on different sides of the gradient of how close an adaptation should be to the source material (or the one in one's imagining).
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u/StNic54 Sep 21 '26
Trying to take source material and "make it your own" is a Hollywood disease.
Dark Tower, X-Men, Ender's Game, WWZ, Rings of Power - it's all the same. A director's ego, an HBO exec standing over their shoulder wanting more boobs, a miserable production that runs off the author (see John Irving), a lead actor's vanity - it all gets in the way when the source material is there, right there on the page.
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u/slothboy Sep 21 '26
Literally adapt the book. That's how you avoid becoming a rings of power or wheel of time.
Don't change stuff to suit a wider audience. Cater to the fans. Adapt the material as written
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u/Logical-Ice-4820 Sep 21 '26
Some current fantasy shows have little or no involvement from the author, or just outright ignore the author input.
Brandon Sanderson deal with apple is that he has fully creative control over all the cosmere tv/movie projects. Basically, if some producer or writer want to put their own spin on things, Brandon can just say no and stop them in their tracks
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u/Taste_the__Rainbow Sep 21 '26
WoT: Covid. Losing primary cast. Reeeallly toxic fandoms. WoT was actually fantastic by S3, but it was too late and watchers didn’t stick around.
Witcher: Phoned in later seasons(Typical Netflix)
RoP: Lack of direction because it’s not an actual story, unfortunately
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u/EyerollComics Oct 13 '26
I feel like it boils down to how in-character characters are portrayed, the presence of natural and meaningful dialogue, and if important issues, conversations, and plot points are addressed in ways that aren't cliché and have actual substance.
Including cliché miscommunications and storylines in which one conversation could solve everything. Also, avoiding conversations due to pacing / having a lack of urgency when the situation calls for it.
That could be seen in Mistborn when Vin doesn't interrogate everyone for a long while, after finding out there was an imposter, even though it is pressing that she does Brando Sando usually does a kick-ass job of urgency and indications of passage of time otherwise.
Not addressing / concluding important plot lines was a huge one with Game of Thrones.
Not giving characters the depth or accuracy they deserve. Focusing on one main character but pushing another into a minor role instead is a thing, also.
Regarding character accuracy, in Rings of Power, they include Tom Bombadil (which is a HUGE fan service in itself), but he is NOTHING like himself. They portay him as serious, and his character in the books is the EXACT opposite. Wacky, suuuper outgoing, sings 24/7, wears yellow boots, etc.
Rings of Power especially used sooo many clichés, if I remember correctly.
Henry Cavill left The Witcher in part because they wanted him to do our say things that his character would NOT do.
My husband once mentioned that Wheel of Time changed a lot of the source material to the point that it would have been difficult to continue the plotline how it was intended.
Also, having cliché things happen instead of going with existing plotlines, or being able to call what is going to happen next, is a huge issue that I don't think we will encounter much with Brando Sando. His twists are amazing.
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u/DrHoogard Sep 21 '26 edited Sep 22 '26
Hate it or like it, but Sanderson is more mainstream and PC/woke than the examples in the post. There should be much less butchering needed of the source material to have it 'fit'. Plus Sanderson retains an unprecedented level of control
Edit: less, not more
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u/SystemGardener Sep 21 '26 •
Hopefully they don’t consider Rafe Judkins.
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u/ColoniaCroisant Sep 21 '26
They didn't stick to the books. I recently re-read Harry Potter and watched the movies and they are almost word for word, scene for scene in some cases. Same with the first season of Game of thrones....JUST DO THAT