“Explore the years and centuries before our tale,” the tweet reads. “On November 19, see the new animated shorts on X-Ray by pressing up on your FireTV remote or tapping on your mobile device while watching The Wheel of Time.”
The short trailer features a series of dark and moody animation segments, fitting perfectly to the kind of imagery used in many other fantasy epics when a chunk of mythology needs to be explained outside the main story, and a voiceover explains both the purpose of the episodes and how to access them. “Experience the origins of The Wheel of Time with exclusive animated bonus content from Prime Video X-Ray…and see how the world Broke,” the narration begins. After explaining how to access the bonus content via FireTV remote or mobile app, it continues, “Each episode is an expansive backstory of The Wheel of Time. It must be seen to know the whole truth.”
In many ways, the interactive and branching abilities of streaming allow viewers to be brought into series and movies more than ever before. When the Lord of The Rings movies arrived on DVD and Blu-ray with a host of appendices that expanded on what could be put on screen as part of the main movies. Skip forward two decades and filmmakers and TV execs now have the ability to put this kind of detail into the fingers of views without them having to change discs or go searching through additional menus. The Wheel of Time is a perfect property for this kind of additional content to come into its own.
The first three episodes of the first season will premiere on November 19th, with the first Origins shorts, all via Prime Video.
