We have our first look at images from Amazon’s new Wheel of Time series

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Promotional image for upcoming streaming fantasy series.
Enlarge / The hotly anticipated Wheel of Time series is expected to debut in November 2021 on Amazon Prime.

So far, we’ve only seen a few tantalizing video teasers (which contain only split seconds of actual footage) and some poster art for The Wheel of Time, Amazon’s long-awaited TV adaptation of the late Robert Jordan‘s bestselling 14-book series of epic fantasy novels. But Entertainment Weekly just unveiled an exclusive first look at the new series, featuring four stunning images that give us a welcome taste of showrunner Rafe Judkins’ (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) vision for this fictional world.

(Some spoilers for the first book in Jordan’s series below.)

“Wheel of Time is the first fantasy series that really dove into the political and cultural worlds of all these different characters,” Judkins told Entertainment Weekly. “It was also one of the first to dive into multiple POV characters, so you’re following an ensemble, with each of them having their own agendas and approaches to everything. That’s always felt to me like the missing piece of the fantasy-literature landscape that hasn’t been brought to TV or film yet.”

The TV series will center on Moiraine (played by Oscar-nominee Rosamund Pike), a member of a powerful, all-woman organization called the Aes Sedai. Magic exists in this unnamed fictional world, known as the One Power, divided into male (saidin) and female (saidar) halves. The latter is the province of the Aes Sedai. Long ago, a great evil called the Dark One caused the saidin to become tainted, such that most men who show an ability to channel that magic go mad. It’s the job of the Aes Sedai to track down such men and strip them of their abilities—a process known as “gentling” that, unfortunately, is often anything but. There is also an ancient prophecy concerning the Dragon Reborn: the reincarnation of a person who will save or destroy humanity.

Given the epic scope of the novels, it’s no surprise that the TV series boasts a sprawling cast. In addition to Pike, Josha Stradowski stars as Rand al’Thor, while Marcus Rutherford plays apprentice blacksmith and dream-walker Perrin Aybara. Zoë Robins plays healer Nynaeve al’Meara, and Madeleine Madden plays Egwene al’Vere. Barney Harris plays series comic relief Matrim Cauthon. Hammed Animashaun has been cast as Loail, a close friend to Perrin and Rand al’Thor. Alexandre Willaume portrays Thom Merrilin, a “Gleeman and adventurer”—basically a traveling bard—while Johann Myers plays the villainous Padan Fain, and Alvaro Morte plays Logain.

“I try to stick to the spine and the heart of the books, and bring that to the screen,” Judkins said of his approach to adapting the books. “If I can successfully do that, the story and the characters will sell themselves.” So at the very least, we can probably expect the events of the TV series to hew closely to the overall narrative arc of the first book, The Eye of the World.

We do know that, as in the book, Pike’s Moraine will befriend a group of five young people—Egwene, Nynaeve, Rand, Mat, and Perrin—whose small village has been attacked by monsters called Trollocs. The two women (Egwene and Nynaeve) show some promise as future members of the Aes Sedai. But Moraine also suspects one of the young men might be the Dragon Reborn. “Moiraine is the guide figure in this world, the mysterious stranger who comes to town and changes their lives forever,” Pike told Entertainment Weekly. “They leave with her on a journey that will either save or destroy humanity.”

Jordan’s world includes the ruins of a once-great city called Shadar Logoth, shrouded in a white fog called Mashadar that can kill anyone it touches. So of course, the members of our little entourage must pass through the ghost city on their travels, as they flee from the Trollocs. Those scenes were shot in Eastern Europe.

“We literally built Shadar Logoth from scratch just for 15 minutes of airtime, because it’s that important to the series,” Judkins told EW. “That’s where it becomes very clear it’s not just the forces of good and evil. There are lots of different angles.”

We’ll also be getting a separate Wheel of Time film trilogy focusing events in Jordan’s fictional world before the events of the books. As we’ve reported previously, most of the canonical prehistory of Jordan’s fictional world is revealed in flashbacks and legends found in The Wheel of Time Companion, but it is otherwise largely unexplored territory. The intent is to complement rather than compete with the storyline in Amazon’s adaptation for TV. Screenwriter Zack Stentz (Thor, X-Men: First Class, Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous) will take on screenwriting duties for the first film.

Wheel of Time is expected to debut on Amazon Prime this November. Amazon is so confident in the series, it has already renewed Wheel of Time for a second season.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1788240