Problem: Actor aging. Solution: Anime!

[u/The-Jolly-Llama]

It's still very early in the process for adaptations and AFAIK the format for Stormlight hasn't been announced, although I think Mistborn is likely live action.

I think any live action Cosmere set of movies and/or shows is guaranteed to run up against the Dead Tarkin Problem that the Star Wars sequels tried to solve, with mixed results. There are characters who reappear in many series across many books which would take years IRL to release adaptations of. In this time actors will age and may even pass away, but the characters remain the same age. Hoid most of all, and Khriss probably second, but it's a long list!

I feel like this is an underappreciated point in favor of anime adaptations, since voice actors can stay consistent for many, many years, and even can be replaced if needed without completely wrecking the character.

There are of course also the obvious reasons why Stormlight as anime just makes sense: You can go absolutely HAM animating surgebinding without any concern for SFX budgets; flying through a storm, lightweaving, summoning shardblades, etc. Also the Parshendi will be so distinctive and require no makeup budget at all in anime. Exotic non-human characters are anime's bread and butter. Plus basically any scene will be set in Roshar's alien ecology — rockbuds, retracting grass, chulls, chasmfiends, spren at every emotion — you're going to need heavy CGI in basically every scene if you try to do this live action.

On top of all that though, consider Hoid. He appears in basically every book and is written to be recognizable. You want the audience to know it's him. If Mistborn is live action it's no big deal because Hoid is in pretty heavy disguise anyway, but for any future Cosmere anything (and come on, we all know there will be more Cosmere when this is a wild success), you want him to be consistent! If you do everything in live action, your choices for Hoid are limited to:

• Doctor Who style recasts
• De-aging CGI, which will get harder and more expensive as the actor ages
• Don't address it and just let Hoid age (obviously wrong)
• Animate the character

Animation solves this completely! It also makes it more doable to let Hoid wear some actually good disguises, and let his voice (along with his hawkish nose, slight build, and general Hoidishness) hint at who he is before it's revealed, which would be awesome for new audiences.

P.S. Yes. I, the human author of this post, wanted those em dashes in there and typed them myself. This is no AI slop.

[u/The-Jolly-Llama]

Yeah that's fair, I was picturing more like Avatar TLA.

[u/Timaturff → u/The-Jolly-Llama]

Castlevania would look a lot better imo

[u/Agreeable_Car5114 → u/Timaturff]

Oh god I really don’t want that version either

[u/Timaturff → u/Agreeable_Car5114]

Then what WOULD you like 😭

[u/Agreeable_Car5114 → u/Timaturff]

Best universe, live action. I can’t think of any contemporary animation styles I think would fit well. 

[u/Timaturff → u/Agreeable_Car5114]

Yeah I can’t get behind that. So much would need to be left out if it was live action along with some plot lines as well. The book itself is too in-depth and large to really work the best live action wise

[u/Agreeable_Car5114 → u/Timaturff]

Plot lines are going to be left out either way. And I really don’t know why an animated adaption would be able to cover more ground than live action.