I think my biggest issue is the scale has seemed small. So we saw this cool scene with Rands mom but there was no shot of armies. It would have been so much nicer if they could have started that scene like 10 seconds earlier with her walking up on to that part of the volcano and panned down behind her and shown a scene at the base of the mountain of Aiel and western armies clashing.
Tar Valon looked great but also small. We saw the tower which looks great but the city felt small. Logain being taken down a small street didn’t help. I wish they had made two street for their TV sets, the one they made with the smaller street and having the inn that Rand and May stayed there. Then a larger street orthogonal to it with a broad boulevard where they could have taken Logain down that leads up to the white tower. Fal Dara also looked good but once again only a couple blocks of it were set up.
I think the quality of the sets has been great but the scale of them has felt very small. I’m sure it’s likely related to the cost of them but maybe they could have had more or bigger if their quality had dropped a bit? I read they spent a while for example making Tinker Wagons. I’ve also heard in the pandemic world CGI companies are overworked and it’s gotten more expensive to make shots like that. That might have led to more physical sets and while they look great they don’t look big. But I guess they can be expanded on in further seasons which is a plus while CGI is always a cost.
Anyway I guess I’m saying is the obvious cost limitations (and extras limitation as well with Covid) we’re seeing is just making the world feel small. We see a town and then landscape and then a city and then the ways and then Fal Dara. I would guess if you ask a viewer who’s not read the books how big everything is and they’d probably say like the whole thing is like the size of France. But it’s more a big continent and such.
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