Fan edits terrible Wheel of Time pilot into something worth watching

Before Amazon started adapting The Wheel of Time, there was an awful WoT pilot called “Winter Dragon.” One fan went all Snyder Cut on it and produced something worthwhile.

Amazon is currently hard at work making a TV show based on Robert Jordan’s epic The Wheel of Time series, but it won’t actually be the first time the story of Rand al’Thor’s fight against the Dark One was adapted for the small screen. A few years back, Red Eagle Entertainment made a slap-dash pilot starring Billy Zane as Elan Morin Tedronai, or Ishamael, and paid to have to it aired on FXX in the dead of night, like an infomercial. The pilot was made purely so Red Eagle could fulfill the letter of a contract and hold onto the TV rights to the series, and it is awful:

Amazon is all but guaranteed to make something better than the infamous “Winter Dragon,” which adapts the prologue to The Eye of the World, the first book in the series. But in the meantime, can fans salvage anything worthwhile from it? Wheel of Time YouTube channel The Dusty Wheel put together what creator Matt Hatch calls the “Snyder Cut” of the failed pilot, taking a terrible episode of television and making it something worth watching. Check out “The Winter Dragon Reborn”:

The Wheel of Time series has a lot of passionate fans, and many of them have gone on to make podcasts, fan art, and Youtube channels dedicated to this exciting fantasy world. From The Daily Trolloc to the Black Tower Podcast to Unraveling the Pattern to Talk’aran’hiod, there’s a lot out there for fans who want to spend some time in Randland.

As for The Dusty Wheel, the name of the channel is taken from one of the later books in the series, Towers of Midnight. In the city of Caemlyn, there is a place known as The Dusty Wheel Inn, run by Innkeeper Hatch. It’s here that “the greatest theoretical thinkers in Andor” come to discuss what’s on their minds.

Matt Hatch told me that the inn is based on Theoryland.com, which he also founded. The website was one of the first and largest online communities dedicated to The Wheel of Time, visited by millions of fans since 1998.

As I talked with Matt, I learned that Stormlight Archive author Brandon Sanderson, who completed The Wheel of Time series after Jordan’s passing, added a few other references to fan communities in the final few books. “Brandon did a great job transferring the spirit of my old community into the books, and I try to imbue The Dusty Wheel Show with it,” he said. Sanderson actually borrowed his name for the character of Innkeeper Hatch from Matt himself, which Matt described as “an honor above honors.”

You can find more information about The Dusty Wheel here, but one thing that isn’t mentioned is that it’s a family affair. Matt’s son Taylor runs the behind-the-scenes production and his wife Teri handles the call-in screening during the live show.

Thanks to Matt for his time, and for the edit of The Wheel of Time pilot. Let’s hope Amazon has fans half as passionate working on its show!

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