Coming to a tv near you courtesy of Sam Raimi. Which means it will probably have a healthy dose of camp. Really, I just can't imagine how this will be done. Certainly the story can only be improved by cutting out huge chunks but there's all the rapes and murders and blood. If they get that far, will the Evil Empire still be....Communism?

.... what???? How can this be possible? How can it work??

I fear for it. Although, I do like Sam Raimi. But. Wow. I'm blown away.

Holy shit! This is true? I'm a huge fan of the books, and as much as I love Sam Raimi, I also have no idea how this will work, without getting rid of a lot of dark material. I'll defintely check it out, but I am somewhat cautious.

I'm . . . I'm . . . flabbergasted. They cannot possibly depict, let's say, the Mord'Sith faithfully . . . or can they? :)

I'm in as long as they bring in "The Chin".

That may be a problem. He's currently on "Burn Notice" (which, if you haven't checked out, I'd heartily recommend). I think episodes are available on USA network's website.



Let's hope FX picks it up then.

Oh god! This vile, offensive, idiotic thing will now pollute minds through TVs! Although I may check in for slaugther of evil peace demonstration armed with lack of moral clarity, and for evil chicken who is not chicken, of course. I can't believe actors will be telling all those lines with straight faces...

Yeah, how exactly is this going to be brought to the screen? I will have to watch at least some of it, at least out of morbid curiosity (and some faith in Sam Raimi).

Wow, I'd blocked all memory of the mistaken, unnnecessary and merciless slaughter of the peace demonstrators that was somehow morally correct anyway.

I suspect that most of the later books are actually quite filmable. Once you strip out the stupid philosophy and redundant dialogue, each 500 page book becomes a 60-page shooting script. (I'll admit that I thought that some of the early books were quite fun and wouldn't mind seeing them done with the Rami touch.)

Anyway, I think the Mord-sith are going to be easy to film. Since their method of torture is to touch someone with what looks like a little stick, none of those scenes need to be all that gaphic.

The Evil Empire did start out as Communism (sacrifice your own good for that of those who have less etc.) but towards the end it was getting more towards organised religion. ("It is the will of the Creator", suffer in this life for reward in the next.)

Heh. I can't believe I read that entire series from start to finish. That's a few months of my life I'll never get back.

Is it done, or is there one more book? I haven't read the last three, or is it four, waiting for the whole thing to be done. Pillars of Creation, that was the one that spent 99% of the story with Richard's incredibly boring half-sister and deranged half-brother, that could have been reduced to about 50 pages easy. Like Robert Jordan he became infected with epic-itis.

Really? Really? *mind boggles*
I'm almost embarressed to admit I read most of the series. I actually enjoyed the first few, then it got really dull and way overly preachy about principles that don't even make sense. I have no idea how they're going to do this.

So Disney is doing this, huh?

And it's a weekly series, with a full 22-episode first season?

*mind boggles some more*

So the heroine's superpower is still to permanently and irrevocably turn people into her personal mindless slaves?

And the evil dominatrix is going to torture Richard bloodily until he's her sex slave, and only when he falls totally in love with her will he finally be able to kill her? But it's all okay, because this turns her into his own guardian angel?

And they can tell when the bad guy has corrupted the good guy's dominatrix assistants because they've got a nipple missing?

And... and...

Disney? Really?

I love your summary, Codger. Heh. Very good points, all of them. :-)

These guys made good summary as well, although I am sure most of you have read it:
Sandstorm
No site pimping intended!

I think my personal favorite is when Kahlan steals a country that she was asked to help rule for awhile, promises to give her rape victim sister to rapists again because she doesn't want to help her fight the war. She also orders murder of her brother who brought the news along.
The only way to do one better is to film Gor series. For the win!

And Disney? Seriously? This went right over my head.

I hadn't seen that site before, Dallas Fan, so thanks for providing the link. Good Stuff! :-)

I haven't read any of the novels, but based on Dallas Fan's site, I'd say that this will be one of those times where the TV show actually benefits from the adaptation decay.

Evil chicken? Seriously?

After reading that site, I'm going to check the show out, simply for curiosity's sake, but I'm going to have a really hard time taking it seriously.

Oh, I know...and he's great in that role. But you can never have enough Bruce on-screen.

I definitely agree. Maybe you can get the producer to film this in Miami so Bruce won't have to travel too far. I think Bruce would make a good Zedd. Different from the books, but a lot of fun.

I am in... shock? Maybe that's the word I'm looking for. I have read all of the Sword of Truth books (yes, I'm that girl) and I while I fully believe that first four (up through Temple of the Winds) are extremely well-written, entertaining fantasy novels, I can't really believe they can do a movie or television show of these novels.

Unless this is on HBO or Showtime or something, there just seems to be way to much graphic violence and a whole lot of rape and torture for it to make it's way to television.

I'm at a loss... do we know anything about casting or where they're filming or the budget? I'm at work or I'd dig around myself.

It's going to be a broadcast series, not cable. Tribune has already green-lighted it as a fall series. IMDB has an entry for it, but still no cast listed yet. The forum for the series on Goodkind's site doesn't have any cast info yet, either. But then, wouldn't you have a moat?

Thanks for the info Codger. WGN in Chicago... I wonder if that means it's going to be horribly cheesy, ala Young Hercules, or some such.

Hmm... I'm a little nervous about casting. I mean, in all the times I've read these books I've never really thought about someone portraying these characters. Especially people like Kahlan, or Cara, or Chase. I mean, who do you possibly get to play Chase?! You guys, I don't know if I'm excited about this, or incredibly freaked out. Ugh.

Terry Goodkind talks about the series on his site.

What a great link... I'm a little wary about the fact that Disney is the one we have to worry about, though. I guess in all, I'm just worried about them trying to "cute-ify" the entire series (like the word?). I really love how some parts of the series (especially WFR) get kind of dirty and nasty and I'd be sad if they lost it.

Still, I'm waiting very impatiently. No matter what, I can't wait to see how this turns out.

If it ends up with goofy, campy moments like Hercules or Xena I won't mind. The series takes itself way too seriously. And I hope they have to excise more material than they add so we don't have the long, meandering stretches in the books that bored me to tears.

Oh, hey, good point, Vermicious Knid - they'll no doubt *have* to cut out all the rambling, pretentious, my-opinions-are-the-only-ones-that-are-right speeches! Although I don't remember how many of those are in the first book.

I seriously hope, if they go on to make more of the series, they cut out the extended Kahlan "rape-tease" elements (not just Book 9, where it occuppied about half the book, but there's also a scene in an earlier book where she's thrown down a pit with a gang of men and can't access her Mother Confessor Power). If I was Mrs Goodkind, I'd be seriously disturbed.

I'd also like to see Zedd teaching Richard more about being a wizard - maybe not in Book 1 (they were generally too busy running, from what I recall) but in later books when they do have some down time (hanging out in the Mud People village and the like). You almost expected Richard to ask more about the rules of wizardry and Zed to reply, "No, I can only teach you one per book!"



Possibly an incarnation of the devil, (well, the Keeper) IIRC!

Chime-in-a-chicken was what it was... the Chimes were released at the end of Temple of the Winds and Soul of the Fire shows Richard's attempts to banish them. However, some of the chimes could take over soulless creatures (animals) and animate them. One of the chimes inhabited a chicken and it was high-larious!

I only read one or two of these books, some years ago when the series debuted. They were kinda disturbed, very kinky, and not that compelling to me, so I moved on to other better fantasy writers like George R. R. Martin.

And you're telling me that there are ... many MORE of these books ... and that Disney (of all companies) is making them into a TV series. *boggles*

Why not just outsource them to a higher-end porn studio and be done with it?

Each book to a season?

The casting for Richard and Kahlan was announced today.


Here is the link for the article.

But... that guy is so young... and childish looking. Richard is supposed to be manly. This kid doesn't even look like he can grow a full beard.

Hrrumph. I know it's hard when casting these types of things because all readers have their idea what the character is supposed to look like, but bleh. Also, if the imdb page I saw for Bridget Regan is correct then I am even more upset. Red hair? What?

Here's a better picture of her (the redhead on the left.) No reason she can't dye her hair or wear a wig for the series, though. BSG will be done by then, we should push to get Tricia Helfer to play Cara. :-)

Anybody going to Comic Con?

Oh man, Vermicious Knid, to bad I'm not going. I will be at GenCon, though, so maybe they'll preview something there? It's not likely, but one can hope.

I'm sort of worried about the lack of media this show is generating though. I really want it to do well, but it's going to need a big advertising push. I mean, TWOP is the only place I'm ever hearing about this.

This is now called "Legend of the Seeker" and the first promo is up.

http://www.legendoftheseeker.com/

No Mord-Sith anywhere :(

What kind of idiots change the name of something that might benefit from name recognition?

Admittedly John Q. Public wouldn't have known "The Sword of Truth", but I'm supposing Fantasy book buyers might have.

Really, to me this whole thing seems like it might be too complicated to transfer over to series TV, but let them prove me wrong. I mean the good news is that they have 990 minutes (22 episodes times 45 minutes of actual non-commercial time) to do it in.

They probably started reading the books beyond the first one and realized a few of the thing the "hero" does might rub people the wrong way. By the look of it, it seems that it'll have more in common with Hercules and Xena than with the original books.

On the shallow side, at least the girl is hot. You can never go wrong with a redhead.

They changed the plot of the movie based on The Dark is Rising and renamed it The Seeker and it totally bombed. This doesn't bode well. On the other hand if it turns into a campfest a la Hercules it could be highly entertaining. Not good, but entertaining.

Idiots who may have realized that the books are pretty loaded with BDS&M; how "pervy sex" is not their corporate image; and how plots may even now be hastily re-written to nerf them for "mainstream American television".

This is Disney - what do you expect?

According to this link, the producers didn't want to the focus of the show to be just the first book-- and so they can make the other books into sequels without keeping them under the umbrella of the first book's title. I would think, anyway.

Either way, I'm curious to see this, even though I gave up reading the series after the 5th or 6th book. Enjoyed it in the beginning, but my attention petered out as the series kept going. But watching the trailer, the actor playing Richard just looks too young. We'll see. I'm sure I'll tune in out of curiosity.

Wow, that preview looks completely cheesetastic. I'm not sure about this at all. I'm giving it two episodes for it to really grab me... otherwise I'll just wait around for Dollhouse.

And catray, you are definitely right on Richard. The actor looks like he's 12 years old.

Yeah, that preview defintely gave the show a Hercules and Xena feel, which since it's from Sam Raimi, makes total sense. But at least I now know what I'm getting into. It may be cheese, but hopefully it will be fun. And bonus points if Raimi can get Bruce Campbell to show up.

But count me as someone who isn't feeling the actor playing Richard. He is way too young, and for a lack of a better word, not exactly manly. The best way I can put it is if the books were made into a major film instead, I would picture Richard being played by someone like Christian Bale. Instead, this guy is less Bale, and more Orlando Bloom, IMO. Not that I'm a Bloom hater, but that's just not the Richard I expected.

From catray's link above: Oh,yeah. They're totally going to pretend the books don't exist. It's just going to be Hercules except using the names Richard Cypher and Kahlan. This bids to be worse than Flash Gordon on a bad day. Worse even than The Bionic Woman.

Wow. I barely made it through the first book of this series but if it's camped up for fun, then I may well tune in.

Yeah. I had a similar reaction after reading the first book. I've since tried a few later ones, checked out from the library, but the problem is that while Goodkind may have had good world building skills, his writing is ponderous.

So I guess there can't be many complaints about a format where by definition they um... CAN'T be overly wordy. Of course they could give us the TV equivalent - 22 episodes, where nothing important happens in 19 or 20 of them.

Word. Richard is handsome not pretty. Whatever happened to manly men? Ugh, I am dreading what they do to Chase or the D'haran Quads. Assuming either makes an appearance.

I loved the ultra-camp of Xena and Hercules and I can't wait for this show to start popping up in syndication.

I have no prior knowledge of the source material. I think this is probably once of the instances where that's a good thing. I didn't even know there were books, I just figured Rami and Tapert were cashing in on the Potter phenomenon, it's about time someone on tv did.

His age doesn't bother me precisely, but he just isn't big enough. I think Bale would be way too old, really, but he is definitely more the physical type for the role.

I do hope they completely ignore the books. I liked the first one quite a bit, but by the time I got to the Aes Sedai ripoffs (complete with men who can't control magic--no that's totally not familiar at all) I was done. Everything I've read about Goodkind's politics after that has told me this was a good idea.

But some good campy Xena-esque fun would be welcome.

Haha. nymphaea, have you ever read any of David Drake's Lord of Isles series? As I was reading it I'd go, and this character is Rand, and this is Perrin... RJ gets a lot of crap, but there are a lot of authors who "borrowed" a whole bunch from him.



Quoting myself is bad, I know. But they released some casting information over at The Legend of the Seeker fan page.



You can see screenshots from the trailer and pictures of the actors here. Just click on the character names.