Lathspell said:

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Oh, there's no way to do it without a metric **** ton of CGI.

Season 1 of GOT didn't have massive battles being fought constantly. The world is similar to our world. The people are just people. There were no spren. I don't see how you get that kind of budget for the first Season of a high fantasy show with no previous movie or TV exposure.

I would be happy if we got an animated version if it's at the quality of Arcane's animation.

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Sure there is. Not saying it will necessarily be successful, You or I may not like it either, but it's a "adaptation" with changes. If we want one of our favorite novels on screen some concessions will be made. but I still think there's certainly a way to do it well and still capture the spirit and tone of the novels (but like I said, it does get a lot tougher after book 1, but by then hopefully you have viewers and Apple is willing to pony up).

Most of the battles can take place off-screen screen like they did in GoT, or done "small". (In GoT you had a battle where Tyrion is knocked out, so they don't show the battle but it didn't change anything narratively to not show it) For example, you could focus on Kal looking for Tien, and not the battle writ large(hell, is it completely necessary for any of that to happen in a battle? You can still accomplish that in a different way). Most of the plateau engagements could happen off screen, you see the bridges go out, then return. Some dialog after discussing what happened, etc. You don't HAVE to show any of that. Thats where a bulk of these production budgets go. (And honestly part of where D&D screwed upGoT. They kept wanting more huge set pieces like Battle of the *******s and got away from the characters)


But Apple isn't afraid of the money. They didn't cheap out on Foundation , and I'd venture Sanderson has a much larger following/fan base

Removing all the necessary CGI would make the world feel empty and would basically neuter Stormlight.

Without heavy CGI a Stormlight show fails.

What would be most likely is adapting MIstborn. That would take less budget and would give Apple a gauge on how profitable the Cosmere can be. If that is successful, then I can see them eventually greenlighting Stormlight.

You'd need CGI everytime you see Shardplate...or a chasmfiend, the plants retreating into the rocks when you try to step on them (I suspect this is going to get nixed completely), spheres, and don't forget Dalinar's visions, which include Heralds and Knights Radiant. And that's just WoK.

Can you do it? Sure...but is it the best way? I would argue no. I think an animated series would allow them to most readily create a faithful rendition of the Cosmere. Because while we're talking Stormlight and Mistborn now, if, IF these are successful, then you've got to believe the rest of the franchise could be possible, and there are a LOT of challenges to live action with some of those.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cosmere/comments/1qps9wy/update_from_brandon/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

excerpt
Join me for a livestream on Friday, probably 6pm mountain. I'll talk more then.
But I will be writing the Mistborn screenplay myself over the next 5 months, as my full time work.
Goal is for a theatrical Mistborn, then Stormlight show after. Focus on doing it carefully and right.

Casting for Stormlight will be really interesting. Everyone in the books is described with Asian features.

Orome said:

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Let's just start with Mistborn Era 2 before Henry Cavill gets too old to play Wax

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I like that one. Tom Hiddleston was my first choice. Too old now but I always pictured Christian Bale as Wayne. David Tennant or Daniel Radcliffe would make great Waynes, as well.

I always pictured David Tennant as Hoid

I was thinking that the interludes would make great 5-10 minute shorts that could release between episodes on the main feed.

Man I'm glad this thread popped up. I'm just kicking off my journey into these books. My reading order is a bit weird, I read Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. Took a break and came back and decided to dive into the first Mistborn trilogy. About to finish that first book.

Love them all so far.

Correct. That'll be a predominantly Asian cast. The only western is big eyed Szeth

Quad Dog said:

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Casting for Stormlight will be really interesting. Everyone in the books is described with Asian features.

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I'll see if I can find time to track it down, but he had a video one time where he made it clear what the sorts of influences were for each race in the real world. But yea, a lot of the main characters early on

Orome said:

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Correct. That'll be a predominantly Asian cast. The only western is big eyed Szeth

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Shallan? Red hair and freckles.

CapCityAg89 said:

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Orome said:

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Correct. That'll be a predominantly Asian cast. The only western is big eyed Szeth

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Shallan? Red hair and freckles.

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She still has the epicanthic folds

Haha... I was right! Mistborn first, followed by Stormlight. I'm sure Apple wants to see success with Mistborn before dedicating the budget to Stormlight.

My issue with Stormlight is the fact it isn't finished. I don't think he plans to even start on the second half for a few years, at least.

Lathspell said:

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Haha... I was right! Mistborn first, followed by Stormlight. I'm sure Apple wants to see success with Mistborn before dedicating the budget to Stormlight.

My issue with Stormlight is the fact it isn't finished. I don't think he plans to even start on the second half for a few years, at least.

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We aren't seeing stormlight 6 until early 2030's

Yep... that's basically what I said, lol.

It does explain how Elantris sequels fell off of the schedule with the movie news. I wonder if we see a refocus on getting Stormlight out sooner

CapCityAg89 said:

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Orome said:

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Correct. That'll be a predominantly Asian cast. The only western is big eyed Szeth

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Shallan? Red hair and freckles.

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Lupita Nyongo confirmed

CapCityAg89 said:

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Orome said:

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Correct. That'll be a predominantly Asian cast. The only western is big eyed Szeth

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Shallan? Red hair and freckles.

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She still has those Asian features.

This video literally has Brandon telling him that: (sry, didn't bookmark. Around the 17 minute mark)

Average Joe said:

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Orome said:

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Let's just start with Mistborn Era 2 before Henry Cavill gets too old to play Wax

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I like that one. Tom Hiddleston was my first choice. Too old now but I always pictured Christian Bale as Wayne. David Tennant or Daniel Radcliffe would make great Waynes, as well.

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I'm my imagination, Wax is Kurt Russell's Wyatt Earp from Tombstone. Wayne is Kevin Costner's Jake from Silverado.

Lathspell said:

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CapCityAg89 said:

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Orome said:

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Correct. That'll be a predominantly Asian cast. The only western is big eyed Szeth

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Shallan? Red hair and freckles.

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She still has those Asian features.

This video literally has Brandon telling him that: (sry, didn't bookmark. Around the 17 minute mark)

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This was one of the videos I saw that I was thinking of, thanks for posting it.
I know he has talked about it a few others times on his podcast/weekly videos he does.
I think also once in a talk with Cavill too

From 3 years ago



"would you be open to changing elements of Roshar's ecology to make adaptation easier?
answer: I would not have to do that considering the budgets we have been regularly offered...CGI."

then he goes on to discuss the spren and the challenges with including them correctly and how it would be challenging

He also just did this panel with Christian Linke who worked was part of the team that worked on Arcane, the animated show on Netflix based on the League of Legends game lore... interesting

I definitely won't be mad about all the beautiful Asian women we'll get to see cast in Stormlight. I'm assuming many will be Korean due to Sanderson's past missions to Korea and the average Korean height tends to be taller than most other Asian countries.

It will be interesting if they truly cast over 6ft tall actors for the Alethi or if they just leave the Alethi height out as a requirement.

This is most assuredly different from garbage like The Witcher, where every episode looked like a community theater production.

Sanderson has already been on record talking about the importance of defined cultures and races in the Stormight Archive. He's mentioned you may see some mixtures on the borders of countries, but the appearance and culture of each kingdom in SA are key to the worldbuilding, which Sanderson literally teaches classes on.

Also, with the fact that most of our real world races are covered in these various kingdoms, I don't see some weird DEI protocol being necessary. The bridge crews have an assortment because most of them are all slaves from other parts of the world.

So, I'm fairly confident the Alethi will be cast as Asians. Now, the height part may be something that is too difficult to cast and is not necessarily as important of an aesthetic. Basically, just make sure Kalidan and Dalinar are both tall, because I believe that's an important part to their characters.

Lathspell said:

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Haha... I was right! Mistborn first, followed by Stormlight. I'm sure Apple wants to see success with Mistborn before dedicating the budget to Stormlight.

My issue with Stormlight is the fact it isn't finished. I don't think he plans to even start on the second half for a few years, at least.

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The Stormlight TV show is already in early development.

I would imagine we wouldn't see a Stormlight show debut for at least another 2 years. Then just assume you cover 1 book per season, that's another 5 years minimum before you would need more source material. With Sanderson being so involved and having final say on everything, i find it hard to believe he would let the show get ahead of the books, a la Game of Thrones.

That will indeed be interesting. I think it comes down to how popular the series ends up being. If it attains massive popularity, I can see Apple pushing to continue on before the series is complete.

Brandon is doing a live on Friday where he will probably talk more about it. I'm sure this was all negotiated and discussed, so it's possible he could reveal what they actually decided on.

Lathspell said:

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Also, with the fact that most of our real world races are covered in these various kingdoms, I don't see some weird DEI protocol being necessary. The bridge crews have an assortment because most of them are all slaves from other parts of the world.

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"We have to make sure all races and ethnicities are represented accordingly. So none of that woke DEI garbage."

I mean... Sanderson built a great world with unique races and cultures. It's why he can introduce a character and explain his or her appearance to the reader by referencing the Alethi or Thaylen or Makabaki, just to name a few.

He even has Kingdoms that slightly mix different features because of common ancestry. It's just something I care a lot about when I read fantasy based in other worlds.

I mean, look at the US. All the various concentrations of different races and cultures have entire histories of how and why they exist. This is paramount to everything making sense and feeling authentic, imo.

ETA: But again, I have no concern with any of this being adapted correctly because Sanderson has final approvals.

I do think he has mentioned he is going to gender swap one of the Mistborn crew due to under representation of females in Mistborn era 1…. Breeze would make the most sense but I think he mentioned Ham….

Here's a good breakdown of the various races on Roshar. I really like how each description is given, with reference links:

https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/55723-human-races-on-roshar-a-brief-guide-ver10/