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TV's NEXT Game Of Thrones?
MoreTears
Posts: 7,025 Forum Member
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Ever since Game Of Thrones started on HBO, fans have been expressing hopes about what OTHER fantasy book series they would like to see get the "Game Of Thrones treatment" and be made into epic TV series in the US. Now we know what that next fantasy book series will be. A series based on Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series of novels (which has seven books in it so far, with an eighth soon to be published) has just been greenlit by Starz. Starz has ordered 16 episodes, and Ron Moore is the executive producer in charge of the project. Gabaldon is American, but her story is very British. It is about a World War II-era English nurse named Claire Randall who is time-warped back in time to 1743 Scotland, where she becomes involved with a Scotsman named Jamie Fraser. It is reported that filming for the series is going to take place in Scotland. Apparently the first book in the series was published under the title Cross Stitch in the UK, but Outlander was chosen as the name in the US. Has anybody read the book?
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The books are more "romance novels"
Same here
They ruined Torchwood
Yes, it's got naff all to do with fantasy other than the time travel and it's basically a "bodice ripper" pseudo historical novel in which she gets half the dates wrong (in the first book). The series does improve though, there's eight books at the last count if I remember rightly. There's also a spin off series featuring one of the characters who appears in the first book called Lord John.
It's also full of sex and nudity and there's a far bit of fighting, at least one rape scene and a male rape too if I remember rightly, haven't read it since my early 20s.
"Magical" time-travel is how she gets to the 18th century, so I would say that qualifies as a fantasy premise, but I get what you mean -- there won't be fantasy things happening once she is in the past. Still, it will be a 20th century woman in the 18th century, which means it can't be standard historical romance. At every single moment, someone is there who belongs 200 years in the future.
She falls through a "time loop" inside a stone circle, there's really absolutely no fantasy to the story at all. It's pretty much an absolutely bog standard historical romance believe me. The only hook is that she's from 1943 or thereabouts and so has "modern ideas" which they think is witchcraft. The first book is fairly dreadful, then Gabaldon started to research Scottish history a little bit better and they slowly improved but, at the end of the day, they are bodice ripper romance novels centring around the trials and tribulations of the relationship between 24-year-old Jamie Fraser and the older Claire Beauchamp and her "dilemma" about having an affair with him because she's technically married back in the 20th century.
Yes, I understand what you are saying, and I read the whole detailed plot description for the first novel at Wikipedia. It looks like we disagree, but I contend that time travel by supernatural Hitchcock "Mcguffin" still makes something fantasy. There is no story without that bit of magical whatever. Is it something else in addition to being fantasy? Sure. Historical fiction. Romance. Adventure. All the descriptions I see say it crosses multiple genres.
Honestly that is the only "fantasy" element in the novels, she falls through a time loop in a standing stone circle. It's usually found on the historical romance shelves in the book shops not with the fantasy/sci-fi. Her hook for it being different to the traditional bodice ripper is that her heroine is 200 years older than the hero
There's no way I'd personally ever describe it as cross genre, not like a similar book The Time Traveller's Wife, where the actual element of time travel is an integral and complex part of the story narrative. In the Outlander series it becomes very much a bit of a deus ex excuse for introducing an element of "oh noes what's going to happen next".
That's not to say the books are poor though, they improve greatly throughout the series and she is able to paint an exceptionally good picture of Scotland around the time of the Jacobite Rebellion and subsequent events as well as England at the height of the Empire etc. The modern bits don't work quite so well imho and, as I said, there are a few times when reading when you think something's been about as subtle as a sledgehammer.
They just don't seem to have the finesse of HBO and Showtime who can both do TV with adult content in it but keep it feeling classy and relevant to the story where as Starz just seems to have its adult elements seem cheap, exploitative and unnecessary
Maybe they will surprise me and finally produce a mature show rather than a show that seems like a group of 13 year old boys wrote but I'm not convinced
But they definitely haven't earned the same reputation that HBO has. The history of fantasy has been so spotty that most people will assume a new fantasy series will be bad until proven otherwise. HBO's reputation made people a little more optimistic leading up to Game of Thrones, but Starz won't get that benefit of the doubt.
The comparison was about the "adaptation of fantasy book series" angle. I wasn't saying that the series would be much like Game Of Thrones, though I can now see how the title I chose for this thread -- "The NEXT Game Of Thrones?" -- is confusing. And yes, notwithstanding the points that Cadiva made above, I still think the "magical time travel" in the whole story makes the series a fantasy story at it heart, even if the historical fiction and romance elements are more prominent and the books are marketed to the romance reader.
I had just read the first Wheel Of Time novel and wonder if that series could be made into the next Game Of Thrones.
I am sure it will be poorly cast though. It is always difficult when you love a book - you picture the characters in your head and most of the time casting director's have an entirely differant concept of the characters. Game of Thrones is the only show I can think of that really did well with the casting, so many of the characters are just perfectly cast and acted. Very tough act to follow in book to TV adaptations.
Game of Thrones had a massive advantage in GRR Martin. His TV background means I think he writes well for the medium, and his involvement with the show means his vision doesn't get lost.
But casting not matching what you pictured "in your head" is not the same thing as "poor casting." Since book fans always picture different things in their heads, there is simply no satisfying all of them with any choice. Some people are going to hate the decisions made. There are plenty of fans of the Game Of Thrones books who hate the TV show, and not just the casting.
Once you have read a few of the novels in the Wheel of Time series, I suspect you'll revise your opinion. The first book had promise, but he soon ended up churning them out as money-spinners that failed to advance the plot sufficiently. There are whole novels after Book 4 or 5 where practically nothing happens except braid pulling, scolding, and other tiresome nonsense. IMO, Wheel of Time is the sort of fantasy that gives fantasy a bad name.
Casting someone who is vastly different from a physical description in books is more what I mean. Haven't come across many of those personally who dislike GoT casting, but having read the fan sites and forums for Outlander and seen the suggestions for casting made by fans I am expecting the worst!
As someone else said GoT casting had involvement from GRR Martin, I hope Diana Gabaldon has similar input for Outlander.
I have been reading Outlander fan suggestions for casting. Outlander fans seem to have major disagreements with each other over this, with what certain fans want striking other fans as terrible.:)
I want to ask you what you think about somebody I thought of for the role of Claire, based on the description of her: Hayley Atwell. After I thought of her I wanted to know if any fans had already thought of her, so I Googled "Claire Randall Hayley Atwell" and sure enough, somebody had already suggested her. Then another fan told that fan it was a bad choice.:D
As for Diana Gabaldon being involved, she has said that if the project gets picked up for a series she will be a consultant and executive producer, which she defined as meaning "No power, but they will talk to me." That is pretty much exactly the arrangement George RR Martin has with the Game Of Thrones' producers.
I can imagine the reaction on the fansites. (I read the first couple of books in the series and some of the fans can border on the obsessive). From having seen Spartacus, I could imagine that they would fear the adaptations might be too coarse - although as others have already said, there is an abundance of sex and violence in them.
I grew bored with the series so gave up.
Some more critical readers I came across on a reading forum used to call the series "Everybody loves Jamie" - but you have to know the books to get the jibe.
I've just googled her and, FWIW, physically, I think she's a good call.:)
I'll have to mosey over to the websites and have a look at the arguments over who's going to be Jamie. I do love a good fight.:D
Hayley Atwell doesn't do nudity so that leaves her hamstrung on a Starz production - IYKWIM