It seems like all of these nostalgia-bait nerd culture TV shows and movies being pumped out by megaconglomerates as of late have absolutely nothing to stand on in terms of story quality or originality, so all they can do to sell it is show you things you remember from good original movies/shows of the past, and race-bait to trick people into thinking if you like this show/movie it means you're a good person.
I'm almost certain they cast these shows specifically so they can find someone on twitter to say something racist, and then all the journalists can write ads- er I mean "articles" about the supposed backlash to the diverse casting that's apparently very widespread, even though I never see it. Every time a new show comes out, I only find out because of the dozens of articles claiming that there's a huge swathe of people upset about a black person in it. The entire marketing ploy is so clearly planned in advance, I can't believe we're still doing this routine after all this time.
Intrinsic in that belief is the belief that those actors would not be cast if they weren't POC. Like that the only reason they were cast was because they were POC. And that their talent and qualifications were not sufficient. Like, if that belief were not held, then there would be no backlash to speak of.
I mean, seriously. Race-baiting? Race-baiting. I can't even fathom the twists of mind it requires to believe this.
I've seen a lot of people talking about the "supposed backlash to the diverse casting" that they never see. Those people don't realize that they're the backlash that the rest of us are talking about. That's why they don't see it. It's a blind spot. It doesn't require someone to say something overtly racist like using slurs or whatever. We've already got legions of people complaining about race-baiting and how there is no other explanation other than it being a cynical marketing ploy, like NO other imaginable explanation because of course these POC would not be hired for reasons other than being POC.
Why is it so hard for some people to believe that these days, casting can cast a wider net and that there are plenty of qualified actors of all races that will still fit the parts being cast?
> Why is it so hard for some people to believe that these days, casting can cast a wider net and that there are plenty of qualified actors of all races that will still fit the parts being cast?
that's not the part that's hard to believe. there are enough talented actors to make an entire (good!) cast out of any single race if the management so desired.
the part that's hard to believe is that the racial makeup of the cast is not itself an intentional choice. this particular story is a PR minefield for a large company. in universe, there are multiple literal races (species?) of humanoid creatures that have intrinsic differences. there's no way they just "let the chips fall as they may" on those casting decisions.
I don't think they deliberately chose a diverse cast to be able to argue that anyone who didn't like the show was a racist. I do think it is part of a larger strategy to make their $750mm show appeal to a broad audience at the expense of upsetting nerds whose suspension of disbelief is shattered by an interracial dwarf marriage.
You can't imagine being cynical about a trillion+ dollar company taking advantage of serious issues and socially manipulating people so they can make more money?
It's hard not to be cynical or entertain thoughts of Hollywood planning these things in case the show sucks. Because they can clearly do entertainment with diverse casting, non-white people, female leads and succeed:
- Tom Holland Spider-Man does not have a red-head MJ, Flash is Indian and the made up best friend is Filipino.
- Domino in the Dead Pool movies is black. NTW doesn't seem to have the same powers and is gay. But I'm not sure what the current character status is.
- Everything Everywhere All at Once
- Black Panther
- Shang Chi
- Jordan Peele does good work: Nope, Us, Candy Man, Get Out
- The Expanse
- Life of Pi
- Sandman swaps a bunch of stuff
Appetite for completely foreign media is much slower in English speaking countries but once in a while you get a major break through: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Parasite.
For iconic female leads: Terminator has Sarah Connor, Ripley from Aliens, The Bride from Kill Bill, Charlize Therons character in the last Mad Max movie. Buffy. I apologize for how narrow the genres are here.
I don't think the popular media for anything I just mentioned was too negative (maybe Black Panther?). Is it really just the fans? I bet the overlap of Rings of Power watchers and watchers of the stuff I listed is pretty big ...
I continue to be impressed with how adamant the internet is to tell me I need to not like this show. I’m a middling LOTR geek and I’m just happy to have more on screen adaptations that aren’t the Hobbit. I really enjoy it. Sorry internet!
The problem is it is not an adaptation in any way whatsoever. It is an original work by Amazon, which is where the frustration comes from.
My main frustration is how they did not have Durin as a reincarnated figure, but as part of just a lineage who happened to name themselves the same, like an English king. Thats pretty central to the dwarven situation in The Hobbit and LotR, and it feels incredibly dumb they left that out. I would love for an adaptation of the Children of Hurin, or the struggles of Fingolfin leading to his final battle with Morgoth, or something...but no, they decided to write their own lore in.
I have not watched it for the same reason that I avoided Shadow of Mordor. What I know is from the articles and reviews of the show surrounding its release. But the fact that they did not have the rights to the Silmarillion bewilders me why they would try to appeal to fans who have already read it. Tolkien and his son spent near a century working on the lore, and it feels wrong to have a corporation decide to throw it all out for a quick buck.
If they wanted a fantasy show to fight Game of Thrones, they should have had an original work. I mean, look at Invincible! Outside of the hardcore comic book scene, nobody has heard of that. Because it was such a good story, people spread the word like wildfire. They can create something original, and that original work can succeed. They are Amazon. They have the marketing to put it in the public's eye, and the money to make it good. Instead they rode the coattails of an author, and even claimed "it was the story he never wrote" as though any of that was based on his works.
They had to. They didn't have the rights to Children of Hurin, or the Silmarillion. And they're never going to get them, because the Tolkien estate is never going to sell those. (And I'm frankly surprised that they let the LotR rights get so far out of their control as to make The Hobbit and this possible. Plenty of authors these days want more control over what happens with their story.)
They only had the rights of the Appendix to LotR. There's tons of material in there, but not a complete story. So they took the events from the Second Age to write a story about (though they already seem to be mixing some events from the Third Age into the mix). They could have made this a grand multi-millennia epic, but instead they decided to mix the events of 2000 (or even 4000?) years together into one big soup.
Again, why write a story set in Middle Earth and market it towards fans if they don't even have the rights? Its just begging to hated on by anyone familiar with the ACTUAL story. If they didn't have the rights, they should have made an original work set in their own world, and not tarnish the works of someone else.
Like, imagine if I wrote a story where everyone who died in Hunger Games duked it out as zombies, then claimed it was Suzanne Collins because I have the rights to the characters but not the books. I would rightfully be mocked, even though the story was loosely based off of the original story.
Rings of Power should have been its original world. Not a ripoff of an author that people love dearly, because they wanted the name recognition without the rights.
Haven't seen Rings of Power yet, but I'm probably going to be fine with it - Tolkien fan-fiction still scratches the itch. I found what they did to the Hobbit far more upsetting, and had a friend who absolutely hated the original movie trilogy back in the day: In contrast to Rings of Power, where the writers just make shit up, there was detailed source material available, making any deviation far more jarring.
Sauron the flaming eyeball? Denethor smacking his lips and dribbling food down his chin so that even the last person in the audience understands that he's a "bad guy". Faramir getting tempted by the ring? It's quite interesting how some people treat it as some sort of gold standard of faithful adaption...
Because compared to most attempts at adapting books, LotR did a good job. The changes were made to make the trilogy easier to watch since the books can be a little difficult at times, or to make the characters more dynamic. They weren't perfect, but no adaptation is. As for the Hobbit, I agree with you. That entire trilogy was a mistake.
Personally, while I loved the LotR movies, I also feel like they were the worst thing to happen to the books. Ever since the movies came out every studio has wanted a piece of it for nostalgias sake. I remember when the first two Narnia movies came out I was sad that not as many people liked it since I love Lewis every bit as much as Tolkien, and I wanted my enjoyment of the books to spread. Prince Caspian had inaccuracy problems, but the core story was there. After the abomination that was 2010s Dawn Treader, and seeing how corporatized Middle Earth has become, that seems like a mercy in hindsight.
> Again, why write a story set in Middle Earth and market it towards fans if they don't even have the rights?
But they do have the rights. They have the rights to this.
The problem is that they're mixing everything up into a nonsensical story and telling it poorly. And I really don't understand why, because with their budget, they should have been able to get the best writers in existence.
> Rings of Power should have been its original world.
I don't think it would have been able to stand on its own without Tolkien's name attached. Certainly not with this kind of budget.
Yeah, kind of reminds me of the Star Wars sequels (well, I actively disliked the last one also, but the first two sequels anyway). Are they as good as the original trilogy? No, but when they came out my expectations were calibrated to the prequels. The bar was basically "Does it have Jar-Jar? No? Then I'm OK with it".
Same here. The pacing is inconsistent, and some of the characters seem pretty off. The pacing is not as inconsistent, and the characters not as off, as The Hobbit. Therefore whatever, it's fine. Is it going to be my favorite show? No. Will I watch it? Yeah.
That's pretty much what I've been saying: I don't like that they're contradicting all the events in the Appendix, but at least the stuff they invent isn't quite as bad as The Hobbit. Because how they managed to mangle that brilliant adventure story is just incomprehensible (and yet I even managed to enjoy that, if with sadness about all the stuff they messed up).
Still, low bars everywhere. Why can't these sort of shows be made by people who simultaneously love and understand the source material, but also know how to write a good story?
> Yeah, kind of reminds me of the Star Wars sequels (well, I actively disliked the last one also, but the first two sequels anyway)
I can definitely relate to this. I didn't mind the first two at all, but the last one was not enjoyable at all for me. I'm the type of person who usually has absolutely no interest in cinematography as an art form (tending to roll my eyes a bit internally when someone actively makes sure to use the term "films" instead of "movies"), but watching The Rise of Skywalker was the first time I ever felt strong negative feelings towards a movie purely based on, well, film-making reasons. I was almost overwhelmed by how quickly the camera shots were changing; at one point I started counting how many seconds each shot lasted, and it took several minutes before I counted one over four seconds. The dialogue also felt extremely stilted; I remember reading beforehand that they had used existing footage of Carrie Fischer due to her dying beforehand, and it seemed like their solution to shoe-horning in the lines of hers they had without making them stick out was just to edit it so that all dialogue in the entire movie felt spliced together rather than the actors actually being on set together.'
The Rise of Skywalker may have done a better job of catering to people's nostalgia in terms of where they expected the plot to go after the original movies, but I don't think that doing what people expected is what made the original movies good in the first place.
I'm enjoying it well enough too. It probably helps that I have only read The Hobbit and LoTR, plus that the negative sentiment I read before I watched the show helped to keep my expectations modest.
I've read the Silmarillion too. I think the show is very enjoyable regardless and some references are nice too even if they aren't always are completely accurate.
They do not have the rights to the Silmarillion, so being too accurate could get them sued.
Given these constraints, I probably won't be too upset by any liberties they take once I get around to watching the show - never mind that by now, I've probably forgotten most of the lore anyway ;)
That said, I'd have preferred a taller Galadriel and bearded dwarf ladies would have been fun...
I feel the same. I've been entirely tuned out of LoTR/internet culture and so I went into the show with zero expectations. I was surprised by how much I liked the show.
When I read this review, the author's complaints are all trivial. The three examples of the show being terrible are: 1. Elron and Durin are really good friends, 2. Galadriel looks suspiciously strong, and 3. the Hobbits aren't reacting the right way to a broken ankle.
I'm sure this type of article plays well to a person with a disposition, or someone who has been steeped too deeply into certain internet subcultures.
As an aging 90s dnd and mtg player, I have observed that some will like the pacing, some won't. Some will take anything named LOTR, some will avoid anything that is not canon in their eyes. Some like "progressive diversity" some don't care about fitting everything to the current political climate.
Yeah, I find it fascinating that all of these people seem to be watching a different show than I am. I like it. I know other diehard Tolkien fans who enjoy it a lot. If anything, I could do with a bit more nudity, a bit less graphic violence. But you can't have everything.
I think it looks absolutely gorgeous, but it helps a lot if you don't expect it to be true to Tolkien, because they seem to be intentionally getting everything wrong. And I don't see why, because I think the story would make a ton more sense if they stuck a bit more closely to the events described by Tolkien (plus a ton of invention obviously).
I'm enjoying it and I'll keep watching it, but they've stirred the entire history into an incomprehensible soup, and the questionable plot keeps jerking characters around to places where they shouldn't be. But if you can sit back and not think too hard about it, it's great. Especially the Disa+Durin+Elrond scenes.
Well they stuck Tolkien on the front and we’re expecting Tolkien-ish. But it’s generic fantasy and the characters don’t seem to match. Given the supposed pedigree, people are judging it based on that and rightly so. There are better shows especially if you want diverse characters. Go watch The Expanse again. I watched the first three episodes and it’s meh if you ignore the LotR connection. But still kinda boring after 3 eps.
I miss when Tolkien was compared more to CS Lewis than Game of Thrones. It feels that since GoT came out, whoever has the rights to Middle Earth tries to give it a grimdark feel.
I’ve seen some episodes of House of the Dragon too. I have never read the books. So the black characters may have been shoehorned in. I have no idea. But a bunch of stuff has happened. Definitely a better show.
The problem is that they're trying to do too much at once, and therefore not really committing to anything at all. They want to tell the story of Celebrimbor forging the rings, but first they need to get the dwarfs' help with that forge, therefore Elrond has to make friends with Durin where they subtly hint at the balrog. Meanwhile Galadriel has to make some irrational decisions in order to end up in Numenor so we can already foreshadow the destruction of Numenor. Meanwhile there's also Orcs turning the southlands into Mordor. And all of these require Sauron, who is still absent.
What I would do instead is this:
Season 1: Galadriel founds Eregion, Celebrimbor makes friends with the dwarfs (with Elrond's help, if we really have to have him), and they get to work making that forge and whatever else Celebrimbor needs, possibly with some politics and negotiations. Numenorian ships arrive and set up some trading posts all over the coast. We probably get to see some stuff happening in the southlands, including Orcs preparing to turn it into Mordor on behalf of Sauron who we don't see there. Instead Sauron shows up in disguise and tries to persuade Gil-Galad, gets blown off, eventually succeeds with Celebrimbor, and teaches him how to forge the rings. The rings get forged. The season ends with Sauron completing Barad-Dur and forging the One Ring in Mount Doom. (Or maybe he does that in the penultimate episode and in the last one he starts his invasion?)
Season 2: Sauron attacks Eregion! This season is mostly going to be war. It's not going well for the elves. The Numenorians are doing great, but not getting involved very much yet, until the final episode when they arrive just in the nick of time to bail the elves out. Together they defeat Sauron. Everybody is happy and all is right in the world.
Season 3: The focus shifts to Numenor. They grow more powerful, their trading posts turn into forts and cities, but they also grow more jealous of the elves. Rebellion and division in Numenor. Sauron is subtly corrupting some human kings, giving them rings, and turning them into nazgul. (Or maybe they got those rings in an earlier season? When do the dwarfs actually get their rings?) This season lacks a bit of a climax. Probably something ring-wraith related. Or maybe the repentance of Tar-Palantir when he realizes how Numenor is going wrong?
Season 4: Ar-Pharazon seizes power! His expedition to capture Sauron. All the events up to the fall of Numenor. Spectacular climax assured. We've got to know Elendil and his family during this season and they escape the destruction.
Season 5: Elendil makes friends with the elves and they form the Last Alliance, fight Sauron, Elendil and Gil-Galad die, and Isildur refuses to destroy the ring.
That's epic. It's in the right order. Every story has room to be told, but keeps focus. There's plenty of room to invent more stuff in every season. You can still have Sindar in the southlands discover Orcs there, for example. Just let all the big events each have their own season.
From what I understand, they have the rights to the Appendix of LotR, and while that's not remotely a complete story, there's a lot of events described there, and they're getting all of them wrong.
If they didn't have the rights at all, maybe they shouldn't have pretended it was Tolkien and not used his names.
I would have loved an original big fantasy show, but I think it's pretty clear that would never have gotten this kind of budget. They're entirely trading on Tolkien's name and not fulfilling that promise.
The problem is the Tolkien estate. Amazon cannot depict something in the appendices unless it was exhaustively depicted. They cannot accidentally get bits of backstory correct.
Remember recently when a Netflix got sued by Arthur Conan Doyle's estate, because they showed Sherlock Holmes being emotional? The argument was that while the early Sherlock stories were in the public domain, it wasn't until the later stories that Sherlock showed more emotion, and those later stories are not yet in the public domain.
They have access to: Fellowship of the ring, the two towers, return of the king, appendices, and the hobbit.
They cannot even accidentally make a Tolkien-accurate story in the universe unless it’s directly depicted in one of the sources I listed above. My assumption here is that they chose to intentionally make a unique story to avoid a lawsuit. However, this is also the equivalent to rewriting the backstory for Jesus and telling Catholics to just give it a chance because the cinematography is so good.
Not a lawyer, but I'm assuming anyone who's mentioned in the Hobbit, the trilogy and the annexes (ie the stuff Amazon bought the rights to) even in passing can make an appearance. However, if these people do things exclusively described elsewhere in the way they are described in those other works, there's an issue...
It's exactly the same with House of the Dragon: if you just go by what you read on Twitter, it seems like show is dead on arrival, utterly terrible, everyone knows GoT is over and done as "a thing". Meanwhile, I like it, everyone in my extended social circle who's watching it likes it, and it's doing huge viewership numbers. Feels like yet another example of "everything you read on the internet is written by insane people".
The r/freefolk subreddit, which was mainly just memes about hating the ending of GoT, has completely changed tune is now almost exclusively memes about House of the Dragon. For weeks up to the launch there were memes about not watching it but now it seems they are all enjoying it (maybe in a Star Wars Prequels kind of way but not outright hate).
Basically he doesn't feel transported to a genuine lived in "honor bound" world. I remember when the big debates over the Star Wars prequels started, one argument in defense was that basically they were for kids and older fans hated them because they hated they were no longer children and could no longer feel the story beats and world it created so strongly due to a decreased sense of imagination and wonderment. I thought that was a lame deflection at the time but now that as the author has said, Fantasy/SciFi genre exercises dominate all of pop culture and I'm older I got to say I think that was 100% correct.
I have not seen the show. I don’t have a horse in this. But I think the author’s point was more general: the world and the actions of the characters don’t make any sense. The honor culture thing is a fantasy trope, and you need to either follow it, or replace it with a different value system. He claims the show does neither.
Some people are happy to watch badasses swing swords at things. Other people are interested in character development, world building, and storytelling. He is saying the show panders to the first group while neglecting the second.
Like the recent Star Wars movies. The action scenes were immaculate, but the character develoment was half baked, and plotwise it teetered on the edge between paying homage to the original trilogy and just recycling the same plot with a different coat of paint.
Some people say that hardcore fans will hate on any new adaptation, regardless of content. But the few SciFi movies that actually did commit to narrative focus and believable characters got rave reviews from the same crowd. Dune and the Blade Runner sequel come to mind.
Dune, Bladerunner, but also The Mandalorian, for a Star Wars example. When Star Trek was rebooted as The Next Generation, and followed up with DS9 and Voyager; those shows were all great. Mad Max Fury Road got rave reviews.
It is absolutely possible to do justice to existing properties, and to write new great stories in them. But existing successful properties also seem to attract writers who are just looking to milk the franchise's reputation for a quick buck.
The story you're telling should be able to stand on its own without the big name attached. If it can't do that, it doesn't deserve the big name.
> Other people are interested in character development, world building, and storytelling. He is saying the show panders to the first group while neglecting the second.
And other people are saying that nothing happens, that it's all character introduction and setup. Peoples' complaints aren't very consistent
These things are not mutually exclusive. That was part of the author’s complaint. They spent a lot of film marking time without doing anything to advance the world, characters, or story.
I would take a more nuanced approach. I saw Star Wars as a kid (but not in the US), and I thought it was novel and interesting. But I was in my late teens when I saw the prequels. They didn’t strike me as being more sophisticated than the originals. The world was not made more believable by making it feel larger. Instead it still felt like a kids movie(s) but now attempting to be more than that and failing at it. In other words, it failed at staying a great kids movie that adults can enjoy (and before you say that’s impossible, there are plenty of examples of it, from Pixar movies to live action ones). At the same time it failed to become a really sophisticated movie for adults: the world building was half assed, the characters still not multi-dimensional, the story was full of plot holes.
I think this is the problem with dual purposing movies for both kids and adults: you can’t have intricate politics in kids movies and you can’t have simplistic world building in adult movies.
They are poorly written, filled with painful to watch cliches and lines. Can say this is definitely wrong since there have been subsequent starwars shows that don't suck like the movies did even for adult long-time fans. Don't need to be a kid to appreciate good fantasy/scifi with imagination and wonderment, just need to be a kid to be blind to bad writing.
due to a decreased sense of imagination and wonderment
I don't know about that. I didn't read the Harry Potter series until my 30's and I absolutely loved it. Full of imagination and wonderment, I was utterly captivated. I've also re-read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings multiple times throughout my life and it seems to get better every time.
I'm pretty cynical about big budget movies and TV shows in general though. I prefer shows where all the emphasis is placed on the writing and acting, such as Better Call Saul.
This is just another "not MY LOTR". It's a show, plenty of people can like it and this attitude is quite insufferable. It's OK to not like a show, but you can't just gake-keep something and say it's "BAD".
If people think this is bad, then they truly haven't see a bad tv show - with bad effects, bad writing, bad delivery, bad acting, continuity errors, and so on.
> Rings of Power Is Dull
Some TV shows are slower than others.
> Example the First: The Dwarven Test of Endurance
Durin commands the other dwarves, and was punishing a friend for imagined or otherwise misdeeds. I'm pretty sure he can do what he wants with his own agency.
> Example the Second: Galadriel Sword Troll Thing
I can't see this as anything else than sexism - there was no complaints at the absolute insanity that Legolas did in the LOTR trilogy.
> Example the Third: Broken Hobbit Ankle
These aren't people living in the modern world. Why apply our sense of fairness or compassion. The author even says we wouldn't be able to understand what the middle ages were like.
> I'm Not Watching More
LOTR films were not as Tolkien wrote. I recently re-watched them and they're not perfect either, to heap praise on the films but scorn the TV series is looking back with rose tinted glasses at best.
> The violence in this show is way too explicit.
Again, perhaps the author should revisit the original film trilogy because it was certainly violent.
> there was no complaints at the absolute insanity that Legolas did in the LOTR trilogy.
Eh, I very explicitly remember them going over board with him and talking w/ friends how it really took us out of the movie. Same thing with Yoda in episode 2 (I think?) where he's flying around like a ninja. Feels like the movie stopped and some exec swooped in "BUT WHAT IF HE WAS A NINJA MAKE IT HAPPEN!"
I felt the same thing with that fight scene. And I think author did a pretty good job of explaining why it was off putting (because it felt shallow). For me personally I might re-phase to say it felt childish. Leader of a group of warriors goes and fights this huge ancient scary thing, they are all worthless and get beat up (but seem totally unharmed?), she swoops in and insta kills it while doing backflips without being touched by it. It just feels like something an 8 year old would write.
There are examples of bad writing in here. But you're right; it's not all bad. And effects, acting, etc are generally pretty good. Though not great. (Except Disa; she's great.)
> I can't see this as anything else than sexism
The complaints about Galadriel aren't sexism. At least, the legitimate complaints aren't. If anything, the show undersells her. She should be one of the three most powerful elves in Middle-Earth right now. She ruled Lindon and rules Eregion, and yet her nephew the high-king dismisses her like she's a nobody. And she acts rather irrationally much of the time.
I think the main complaint about the troll fight isn't that she's the one to kill it (because of course she is), but that the other elves are so completely useless.
> LOTR films were not as Tolkien wrote. I recently re-watched them and they're not perfect either, to heap praise on the films but scorn the TV series is looking back with rose tinted glasses at best.
The LotR films are really pretty good. By no means perfect, you're right about that, but they treat the source material with a lot more respect than The Hobbit or the Rings of Power did, and the result is a much better story. It was made with love, and you can tell. I can forgive Osgiliath (even if I still miss the Scouring of the Shire).
I think some of the point he is making is that, for Tolkien, destiny and inherent character really mattered. In his world, words _matter_. Some vows simply cannot be broken and a lot of the tragedies in the Silmarillion are due to hasty or careless words.
I am reminded of this quote by Gildor: "Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all counsels may run ill."
Galadriel and Legolas are very different characters in more ways than just sex and ignoring those differences makes the characters more superficial. I read the critique as suggesting another kind of sexism in play: that Galadriel had to be portraited similar to Legolas (in a kind of macho way) to be seen as powerful, rather than exploring the traits that Tolkien gave her. For example, when I read the books, Galadriel gave me associations to Virgin Mary - and for Tolkien, a resemblance to Virgin Mary would be the greatest honor for any character, far more than being competent with a sword
I agree with you that the films also contained violence - and the author does not deny this. But I agree with the author that some of the scenes are more explicit than necessary and they made me too uncomfortable
However, note that Galadriel is supposed to be over six feet tall, and her Teleri name is Nerwen - man-maiden - because she used to tussle with the boys back in the day. She's "a match for both the loremasters and the athletes of the Eldar in the days of their youth" and "she was then of Amazon disposition and bound up her hair as a crown when taking part in athletic feats".
Yeah, I have absolutely no problem with Galadriel fighting. I do have a problem with her being dismissed as a nobody by her nephew the king, her getting on that boat without Celeborn, or her trying to swing across an entire ocean. I know that she's athletic, but there's just no logic in any of that.
I do understand why they did it: they wanted her to end up in Numenor. But they did that in a poor way, and for poor reasons, because the destruction of Numenor isn't supposed to happen until millennia later. The rings haven't even been forged yet!
I feel you. "Thankfully", my memory of how these things were supposed to happen is foggy at best, so I'll be able to enjoy the series on its own merits...
Having an opinion is not gatekeeping. Telling someone they aren't allowed to have an opinion about something unless their opinion passes your muster is gatekeeping
>I can't see this as anything else than sexism - there was no complaints at the absolute insanity that Legolas did in the LOTR trilogy.
Incredible that you were able to go back and verify that "The Bottom Feeder" had not complained about the absurd depictions of Legolas in the LOTR trilogy. Alas, more misogynists and bigots!
I’m a pretty big Tolkien fan and I absolutely love this series. They keep surprising me with license-scope beyond what I thought Amazon acquired (using content from the Simarilian for example). If you’re on the fence about this show because of its media, give it a shot!
/spoilers
Can’t wait to find out who Sauron is, if he’s in the show so far.
Either one we’ve seen or one we haven’t! In the canon lore he disguises himself as the Lord of Gifts from Valinor and works with Celebrimbor to create the rings of power. Elrond, Gil-Galad and Galadriel don’t trust him but don’t realize who he really is. My money is on Halbrand, as he’s a good smith and able to persuade people to do as he wants but it’s probably a false lead and he’ll come in later.
I've seen good arguments why the Meteor Man might be Sauron. It doesn't fit a lot of things from the Tolkien lore, but it does fit some hints from the show.
That's because they're completely mixing up the history. They're already hinting at the destruction of Numenor, and they've introduced all the characters involved in that (except Sauron himself), all of which should happen 2000 years after the forging of the rings. And they're even hinting at the dwarfs digging too deep in Khazad-Dum (4000 years in the future).
They're clearly writing a completely new timeline, made up of parts of Tolkien's timeline.
One of my biggest pet peeves in made up fantasy worlds is the fact that their worlds are absolutely static for hundreds or thousands of years at a time. Nations rise and fall constantly! Maps shift! First the kingship is in Eridu, now it's in Bad-Tibira! Then Bad-Tibira fell and the kingship was taken to Larag!
(Of course, this makes the trope I'm complaining about Older Than Dirt, since the Sumerian King List claims their kings ruled for tens of thousands of years)
Originally Sauron was a Maia who was 'good and uncorrupted' with a passion for order. He sided with Morgoth because he thought if they could control the minds of Middle-Earth they'd be better off. As far as I know, in the lore, Sauron isn't evil in the way he's portrayed in the movies in that his goal is to improve everyones lives through efficiency and order (so it's not as simple as light v dark).
Sauron can shape-shift so in the second age he shows himself as a fair and beautiful man, but he's also portrayed as a werewolf and vampire in the books at different times!
Interesting. Didn’t he lose that power when made the final Ring of Power, and when he activated it, he threw all of his “life force” in it (cruelty, malignancy etc.)
Yes in order to make the One Ring more powerful than the other rings he had to put his own strength into it. However the elven rings weren't made by Sauron so he couldn't control those (eventually worn by Gandalf, Galadriel, and Elrond), and if I remember right the Dwarfs were too stubborn to be controlled (or something), so only the humans ended up being controlled anyway.
I kinda agree - the characters at least are pretty generic/bland and offer little personality. They've started a lot of storylines but I don't really care about any of them because I don't care about the characters. I think Elrond and the Drawf Prince are best part of the show because they actually bothered to offer some but something about Elrond looks a bit weird in that environment so that is a little off-putting. Overall I'm hoping the writing improves and of course because sci-fi/fantasy are in such short supply I'm going to keep watching.
>We were so desperate for sci-fi stuff that we watched Doctor Who, for God's sake!
Doctor Who was great, opinion disregarded.
I can't tell if the Bezos Rings show is bad or not yet, it certainly has some very corny scenes but it does some things well (for example the casting is very good imo, all the actors are distinctive/weird looking instead just being blandly handsome and forgettable like 99% of shows). I've definitely seen worse.
The Peter Jackson movies were also pretty corny in parts and had no surprises except for the unconscionable omissions, but I quite enjoyed them anyway. Maybe this was mostly affection for the source material, idk. I don't expect the Bezos Rings show will be as successful, but it might be. We will see.
This show has become a cultural and political football, which is not an accident.
People talk in very emphatic terms about liking or disliking it mostly as a form of affiliation. Critic vs audience numbers are all over the map even for 2022, ratings are crazy bimodal, there’s very little serious cinematography criticism going on.
I’m not even taking a side here, I think it’s fine but not worth the billion bucks or whatever, I have very “medium” opinions, but it seems to be driving everyone berserk in a way that I can only attribute to the power and money of Prime.
The show isn’t bad as such. But why is it so middle-of-the-road? Because the living beating heart of a good show, is a good story with good writing. Everything else - the actors, the scenery, the effects, the sound - is just there to support the telling. But here, the heart of the show is a brand. The story and dialogue was seemingly written to order in some mechanical, box-ticking fashion, like it was just the lights being rigged.
(Not to disparage the skill that goes into light rigging).
I think all the points he makes are good, but he misses at the beginning when he describes how now people can be picky about fantasy because we've a glut of it.
That's technically true, but so many people are just SO happy to see orcs and wizards, none of the writing matters. Especially if it has a big brand like 'lord of the rings' attached to it plus an enormous CGI budget. You could have children write the story and it'd still make people happy.
This is funny in some ways. You have all these people insist that it is bad and the people in comments you always have a contingent that like it.
I didn't watch it so I have no opinion so far. But, I also hear people say "Netflix is a wasteland of unfinished shows" but I still like a lot of shows and movies on Netflix.
In a way, these people portray it as so shitty that when I do watch these shows I enjoy them. To these naysayers high expectation was met with disappointment. For their readers who watch it anyways, low expectations are met with enjoyable mediocrity.
I don't care how much money is spent on it, does it entertain me? Can I turn off my brain for a few hours and watch this? That's my low bar.
This is based on tolkein's work, these stories are obviously not written by him. The audience is also basically every prime subscriber not a nice audience of fantasy book readers tokein wrote for. The culture and social dynamics have also changed a lot since the early 2000s movies.
I mean, I was shocked when people were hating the hobbit, it was in some ways better than at least "the two towers".
>it was in some ways better than at least "the two towers"
Im gonna have to disagree. Overall it was decent, but the pacing was horrible. As well, adapting a childrens book to be gritty leads to a lot of tonal problems that I had problems with. The Two Towers, at least in my opinion, is the best movie in the Jackson series. Especially when you factor in the emotions of Theoden King when he lost his son, and the fact that it was all his fault he died. He was the one who listened to Wormtongue, and banished him. Pair that with the highs and lows of the Battle of Helms Deep, and you got an emotional masterpiece! I didn't get any of that from any of the Hobbit movies.
It's funny. I haven't been enjoying RoP and I read this with interest. But then he started listed problems, and I have to say I disagree. The point of the endurance test isn't honour, it's a power play - after feeling scorned the dwarf wants to put the elf in his place, and once the dwarf feels he has the upper hand his ego lets him engage, the elf knows this and plays along- master diplomat indeed. Galadriel is a bad ass. Yes, in LOTR you could kind of just gesture at it and say "Oh yeah she's 1000 years old and 800 years ago she kicked ass", that's fine when it's not her story, but this is her story. It wasn't executed well, but they did need to actually do it, and she can't act all calm and composed when she's meant to be relatively in her teenage years coping with the loss of her brother.
To me, yes there are execution problems. But the core problem is different. It is trying to be Game of Thrones. It's telling several different stories in parallel - the harfoots, the humans, Galadriel, the other humans, the elves. Clearly, one day, these will combine, but at the moment it's five under-served, boring stories. None of the characters are worth getting to know. This is because they're trying to do the complex plotlines of Game of Thrones. But they miss that GoT started as 1 plot. It was the starks of winterfell. Stark went to the capital. End of season 1 he dies and his kids are thrown to the wind and it's only then that the multple plot lines start to explode. By that point you've got a deep investment in the characters and it evolves from there. The exceptions to this - Dani etc. struggle through this, I remember watching the Dani scenes in game of thrones and thinking "For gods' sake when is this going to actually link up with the story" and entire plotlines fail when they don't keep the thread (Dorne).
I love Tolkien, I'm not a fan of the show. It fundamentally changes the motivations of the elves who left Valinor. In turn, this changes the nature of Sauron and their relationship with him
That said, nothing against folks who enjoy it. It's a very well made fan fic! Who am I to tell others that they shouldn't enjoy it.
Amazon may as well have attempted to rewrite chapters of the Bible and sell it to the south. "Just give it a chance!"
Given the licensing constraints I truly don't know why they didn't just remake Lord of the Rings into a TV show. Rewriting background stories for established characters is a fools errand.
I'm curious about the differing fortunes between "Rings of Power" and "House of the Dragon." The "Rings of Power" peaked at episode 1 (7.4) on IMDB, and has been declining with every new episode. Compare this to "House of the Dragon" which seems to be picking up momentum, and the most recent episode was rated extremely well (9.1). Both of these shows cater to audiences with strong opinions set in established worlds.
I empathize with the writer, and as someone who read LOTR a couple decades ago now (yikes) I agree that this show (and to some extent even "The Hobbit") didn't _feel like Tolkein_.
I think he nails part of why, but in general the problem is these shows (due to the economics behind them) have to make people "relate to it" like a modern Disney/Marvel/Pixar movie, whereas the story is set in a time which is _not_ relatable.
When you know this, every part where a character does something that is "too much in line with modern sensibilities" can feel inauthentic, and suddenly "break the experience of watching it".
At the same time, _shrug_. It does seem inevitable.
the show look so cheap. mostly due to its cinematography. where everything in GOT was too dark and you needed a 4k tv to enjoy here everything is too bright almost like overexposed. it creates a feeling of cheapness. the 3d (like the dog fight scene) is cheap too. costumes are too clean and actors are too clean too. its like everyone is designed like legolas man,elves, dwarves. then characters are really simple as well as their design. just compare to house of dragon and look at the bad guy of the first episodes. the crab guy is a really great bad guy nd its design and costum is really awesome. ring of power is in dire need of a good antagonist.
I just don't understand why people don't say "I don't like it" rather than "This show is bad". It's not that difficult to have a strong opinion and also leave room for others.
Because if you don’t like it, you’re the ass. But, if it’s bad, they’re the ass.
Few people bother to climb the steep wall of cognitive dissonance required to embrace the fact that the source of their problem might be intrinsic. Much easier to paint your displeasure in the palette of extrinsic and objective failures.
You’re still an ass, but at least you don’t have to think of yourself as one.
Because then it's a concrete, immutable, fact and anyone who disagrees is flawed.
The reciprocal of this in comedy is claphter. When people clap or laugh because they hear something they agree with, whether it's funny or not. Usually not.
People say things like "It's/They're not funny" if they don't agree with the person, sentiment, message a lot now.. Which, doesn't work. My favorite thing to do is give comedians, any comedian, at least 5 minutes after the end of their first joke to see if they can make me laugh. There are comics out there who really rubbed me the wrong way at first but had me laughing before time ran out. Can't make me laugh in 5 minutes, your special is over. If I'm giggling before then I'm watching the whole hour, don't care who you are.
I'm not really digging Rings of Power but She-Hulk is the current "show that is bad™" that I really like. I was a huge Marvel kid but I've been sick of the MCU since about Iron Man 3. [0] She-Hulk gets the comedy structure right (the show runner wrote for a bunch of Adult Swim shows and Silicon Valley) and doesn't feel like it was written exclusively for ten-year-olds. Feels like they'll get their footing by season 2.
I've been reading a lot of articles saying things like "the men are unrealistic in She-Hulk." But, I've heard guys say some of the lines from She-Hulk verbatim. The dialog can be an exaggeration.. But it's not that inaccurate. I'm guessing parts of the scripts were transcribed more than written.
The best part about She-Hulk is that you have people who are good at what they do but are still pathetic playing off pathetic people who aren't good at what they do. It's funny.
[0]: And yet, I still watch every single one of them. WHY? I don't know, hope? Hawkweye was pretty good. And, that's from a guy who would say "Shut up Hawkeye" to his girlfriend every time Jeremy Renner opened his mouth.
I thought Ms. Marvel was really good, and compared especially well to Moon Knight, at least in terms of how they represented their respective cultural influences. It's pretty rare that I'll watch a show like a Marvel show and actually learn some stuff that I didn't even know I didn't know (Pakistani history, the partition, etc). With Moon Knight it felt like anti-learning, like I felt like if I wasn't careful it would make me more ignorant.
Ms. Marvel hasn't really connected for me. Maybe I should give it another try. Moon Knight was brilliant, though. I've heard of people who considered it a waste of Oscar Isaac's talent, but I think his talent shines wonderfully in it. Certainly better than it did in Star Wars.
Poe looked the most Star Wars a Star Wars character could look. He and Boyega would have been perfect if the writers had been interested in developing their characters.
Well, that exactly. The first half of TFA was perfect, and then it went rapidly downhill. After the intro, Poe was barely in the movie he was supposed to be one of the three leading characters in.
Is She-Hulk bad? I think it's pretty good. It's very different because it's very light-hearted and seems to be staying that way (unlike Wandavision, for example). I think it does what it does very well, but you have to judge it for what it is, and not by the standard of other MCU shows, because it's completely different.
That's the point. Why do you need to disagree that they don't like it? They can expand, and say "I don't like it, for these reasons". Then if you read it, maybe you feel moved to engage and share that you like this or that aspect. Or maybe you like something the other person didn't like. And then you can compare viewpoints. And maybe learn something about each other. Before long, you've got an actual conversation going!
There's a charge that people are critical of this series only for political reasons, and not aesthetics. (Ironically, these are also the people who loudly proclaim that everything is political, and that is a good thing.)
I'll submit that this proves the existence of people who only LIKE it for political reasons, and not aesthetics.
The latest Star Wars trilogy was heralded as magnificent, and only bigots wouldn't be able to appreciate it. Really feels like The Emperor's New Clothes here.
I've read the silmarillion and my father read me the trilogy and the hobbit to go to sleep at night. At university my professors mentioned the significance of Tolkien's work.
None of what is happening here is lost on us no matter how much you attack HN. We can see through it and that's why they hate us.
My only complaints with the new LOTR and Game of Thrones shows is that they seem to be rushing through the story. Part of the appeal of the originals (movies... series.. respectively) is that they feel like more of a "quest" or long adventure, with side stories and character development. Obviously this made for longer content and it took years for GoT to finish, as well as LOTR being longer movies (especially with the extended cuts).
These new series seem to jump around time and traveling much quicker. Overall, I still am enjoying them though and don't understand a lot of the internet criticism.
I've seen two episodes. I think some parts are great, and some parts are frustratingly bad. It's fun to see people take Tolkien's world in original new directions, but on the other hand about half the time it just seems like lazy Hollywood blockbuster writing by people who don't understand the source material. Many of the elves we've seen act more or less like teenagers. Galadriel seems like a decent character, but the story keeps taking her in weird directions, requiring her in one instance to swim an entire ocean.
IMO it feels like there were some ambitious directors/writers but they lacked the experience or talent. RoP and House of the Dragon are night and day in terms of the “art of storytelling”.
How does Rings of Power have a budget of 465 million? I don't really understand these production budgets. I would love to understand this, if anyone has any spreadsheets or article explaining this, thank you.
The Rings of Power is beautiful, but it feels like an MMORPG. The journey is epic but the endgame is so so. I wouldn't mind some more dwarven architecture.
> Here's the thing. Art is individual to its creator. Only Van Gogh can paint a Van Gogh. Only Shakespeare can write Shakespeare. Only Tolkien can write Tolkien.
> Rings of Power could never, ever be Tolkien. It could be, at best, competently made "I Can't Believe It's Not Tolkien." Yet, Partially-Hydrogenated Tolkien Substitute still could have been a good show.
Okay. Sure. But they can launch movements where people try to expand on what they've already created. In this case, the Rings of Power show is beautiful, jaw droppingly beautiful in scale and execution, showing a world larger than has ever been depicted on TV before.
A lot of attention to detail has been paid in the little things and I think it's amazing.
But that's besides the point. The point is that these are shows and properties meant for the young, people in their teens or those who are growing up. The Hobbit was meant for children. The Lord of the Rings for adolescents. These are stories meant to fire up a young person's imagination and get them to dream bigger than before.
By reducing these properties to an audience of adult fans, I feel, does them a disservice. As yes, absolutely media can be made to be enjoyable to all ages, but trying to please these fans is often an exercise in self immolation as whatever you create will never be as rosy as the memories from their childhood. But they are a powerful market. They are the ones buying the merch usually, instead of parents buying it for little kids. And so they have an outsized say on what happens within the product.
It's baffling to me to see older generations maintaining a stranglehold over the stories that they enjoyed when they were younger.
I think we should give these series and places room to grow and become into something more for each successive generation. And enjoy the process of that growth.
Because almost every single person who is disappointed by this series is a diehard, middle aged, Tolkein fan (often male). Who grew up with Tolkein in the 80s, a time when its very reading was an act of mild rebellion. From the article,
> Wayyyy back in the 70s and 80s, science fiction/fantasy/superhero content hadn't completely taken over the culture yet. New nerd content was rare and treasured.
> The Superman movie (1978) was mind-blowing. (I’m old enough to remember when Superman was a good guy.) A new Star Trek series was an impossible dream. Battlestar Galactica was cherished. We were so desperate for sci-fi stuff that we watched Doctor Who, for God's sake!
This is not true anymore. And in that change, the stories that have been told and whom they're being told to has changed as well. And that genuinely seems to bother these middle-aged fans. And I think that's okay. It's hard to let go, but let go they must so that future generations can cherish what they cherished, with fresh, unblemished eyes.
I think it's good. And personally I like that they managed to keep some characters completely mysterious, like Adar and the Stranger and you can't tell who Sauron is. I'd guess it's possibly neither.
I'm almost certain they cast these shows specifically so they can find someone on twitter to say something racist, and then all the journalists can write ads- er I mean "articles" about the supposed backlash to the diverse casting that's apparently very widespread, even though I never see it. Every time a new show comes out, I only find out because of the dozens of articles claiming that there's a huge swathe of people upset about a black person in it. The entire marketing ploy is so clearly planned in advance, I can't believe we're still doing this routine after all this time.