45 ms·

My issue with the show has nothing to do with the “woke” stuff mentioned here. I don’t like it because none of the heroes are likable. All of them have some for

My issue with the show has nothing to do with the “woke” stuff mentioned here. I don’t like it because none of the heroes are likable. All of them have some form of sticking it to the man and doing what they want as their story line. True heroes are self-sacrificial and reluctant. Contrast Galadriel who acts like a self righteous dickhead with Aragorn who was reluctant to accept his calling spent and three movies proving himself to be worthy of honor and love and then going to what he thought was certain death to give Frodo a chance to destroy the ring. The gender or race of the characters in TRoP is not the point. It’s that they’re all unlikable because they don’t love and respect others.

isbvhodnvemrwvn 4y ago
Don't you think that 2 episodes is a bit too little to judge the entire series like that? The show covers A LOT more time than LOtR did, there's plenty of space for character development. Galadriel was not exactly likeable when she participated in the first kinslaying, or when she ran away from the war of wrath.
- throw0101c 4y ago
  > The show covers A LOT more time than LOtR did, there's plenty of space for character development. The first two episodes of TRoP are 90 minutes each, for a total run time of three hours. Three hours is about the run time of the first LoTR movie (Fellowship): how much story were they able to tell in those three hours? Further, the other epic fantasy series, House of Dragons, also has released two episodes: how much story have they been able to tell? What are the reviews of that franchise? The TRoP series may not end up sucking after the first eight episodes, but having the first two (allegedly: haven't seen it myself) suck seems to be a waste of everyone's time/effort/money.
  - isbvhodnvemrwvn 4y ago
    I'm not saying it's of the same caliber as the trilogy, but it's definitely not garbage which deserves one star. It's already better than the hobbit, however low of a bar that is.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      If it was worse than everyone has said it was, it’d still be better than Hobbit 3.
  - fabian2k 4y ago
    If I exclude the credits both episodes are almost exactly 60 minutes long. And the credits are ~5 minutes or so, so the displayed runtime is 1 hour and a few minutes. I have no idea where you get the 90 minutes from, that is simply not true. I have watched both Rings of Power and The House of the Dragon, and both are essentially setting up the story in the first two episodes. There is plot in those episodes of course, but a lot is setting up characters and places and the world in general.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      > have no idea where you get the 90 minutes from >> but having the first two (allegedly: haven't seen it myself) Not watching something that you critique, and instead basing it on what you saw on Reddit, HN or YouTube, seems de rigueur these days. I did watch it. Enjoyed it. And will hold my final opinion until I've seen the last episode.
      - throw0101c 4y ago
        > Not watching something that you critique, and instead basing it on what you saw on Reddit, HN or YouTube, seems de rigueur these days. Movie and television reviews have been around for decades. There are only so many hours in a day/week, and everyone has to decide how to spend their finite amount of time, so "pre-judging" a show by early episodes is nothing new. But if you want to try to watch everything as a completionist, start to finish, go right ahead. But as the GP of this sub-thread, I'm was not so much "critiquing" and simply observing that there's a lot ways for people to spend their time, so if a show "wastes" 2 out of 8 episodes with a lot of what folks consider non-plot, then why should I spend my time watching it? Again, I haven't watched it, and I'll wait until the season is over and see what the consensus is after the full season. But even if it does turn out to be good as whole, why did the show runners seemingly not do much with the plot for a quarter of the season? The Expanse took about four episodes to really 'set' the universe, but even the first two episodes had quite a bit that happened ("Remember the Cant!"). How does a show producer worth their salt not know that you have to give juicy bits early in a show's run?
        4y ago
  - asib 4y ago
    I haven't watched the show yet, but is it not generally understood that plot and character development in television proceeds at a slower pace than in film? It's arguably one of the main reasons to chose one medium over the other. You cite House of Dragons, but I hardly think you can argue that the first two episodes of that show could make a movie.
  - auggierose 4y ago
    Watched only the first episode of Dragons, but I am not convinced. What is the point of this show? We know that the real fight between dead and living is happening 200 years later. We know that all of the dragons will be dead at some point. The characters itself are pretty boring, compared to what Thrones had to offer. It is technically well made, but it is boring.
    - bart_spoon 4y ago
      I disagree. Not every narrative has to be one over some apocalyptic threat. I actually prefer the more grounded (for fantasy I suppose) story over the zombie apocalypse-adjacent White Walker stuff.
      - auggierose 4y ago
        If I want to watch a history lesson, I can do that, there are some great documentaries out there. Probably produced for less money. And I would actually learn something. But of course, there are many interesting narratives that don't involve the apocalypse. The Wire has a great one. Bladerunner is superb. The recent Black Bird was captivating, too. Dragons though? Just boring.
    - eternalban 4y ago
      I recently binge watched a series (Irma Vep) that, very tongue in cheek, addressed the malaise of "platforms" affecting film/cinema. It's a very complex work (in terms of multiple layers of readings) spanning the director's closure over his lost love (see Irma Vep 1996), a hat tip to Truffaut's Day for Night, and a very explicitly expressed concern of characters of how "content platforms" have killed cinema and mutated it to "TV" and "series". Naturally all this was said, to wrap up the irony train, on HBO's platform. Irma Vep (2022): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13649314 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13649314
      - auggierose 4y ago
        Have to check it out. Not sure about the 2022 show, but the 1996 movie sounds intriguing. Don't remember anything about Day for Night, just that I found it similarly confusing as Fellini's 8 1/2. I do remember that I really liked Jules et Jim by Truffaut, but then again, it has Jeanne Moreau. I can recommend her movie Bay of Angels. It's a simple but great movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056846/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056846/
- farleykr 4y ago
  I am not opposed to that being her prospective character arc but she’s not portrayed that way. There’s nothing to make us like her and from the storytelling and craft perspective there should be. We should at least see her questioning herself. She’s not presented as a cautionary tale. She’s presented as a strong woman who has to deal with domineering men. Even that would be a compelling story line. But again we don’t have any way to sympathize with her. She treats every other character except her brother in the intro with contempt. All she does is try to prove to the haters that they don’t understand her and she’s gonna do what she knows is right regardless of any warnings.
  - the_lonely_road 4y ago
    Isn’t this just because we, the viewers, know that she is right given the whole Sauron is the big bad in Lord of the Rings? We are suppose to appreciate her focus and refusal to give up given that we know she will be ultimately vindicated.
    - ironcurtain 4y ago
      Story should make no assumptions about what audience knows, it should be fully contained.
- PeterisP 4y ago
  If 2 episodes is a bit too little to judge that a series is bad, then it is also a bit too little to judge that a series is good. If it's too early to review, then scrap all reviews including the good ones, and if reviews are expected, then selective deletion is just creating false advertising.
  - fabian2k 4y ago
    I would generally translate reviews based only on the first few episodes of a new series as "shows promise" or not. You really can't say more than that at this point.
- Amezarak 4y ago
  Galadriel tried to stop the Kinslaying - it's the reason she had to cross the Arctic rather than ride on ships[1] - and she didn't "run away" from the War of Wrath. As for her general character, though she was proud and wanted to be "free" in her own lands, she was described as wise, understanding, and merciful from her earliest years. [2] I am never going to watch the series because the movies were bad enough, and I find it cringe-inducing how people talk about "the lore" and act as though adaptation can occur 1:1 from books to video, but I have found people seem to be spreading and repeating a lot of misinformation apparently in an attempt to make the show look better, which will inevitably be repugnant to Tolkien regardless. Which is the reason I'm not watching it. I don't believe in watching a series that would deeply hurt and grieve the author had he lived to see its production. [1] > Even after the merciless assault upon the Teleri and the rape of their ships, though she fought fiercely against Fĕanor in defence of her mother's kin, she did not turn back. [2] > Galadriel was the greatest of the Noldor, except Fĕ'anor maybe, though she was wiser than he, and her wisdom increased with the long years. [...] From her earliest years she had a marvellous gift of insight into the minds of others, but judged them with mercy and understanding, and she withheld her goodwill from none save only Fĕanor.
  - simonh 4y ago
    There’s propaganda on both sides. You’re quite right about Galadriel in the earlier ages, but those complaining about her being a Mary Sue in the show are also missing the mark. She fought, she had ambition. Tolkien Elves are generally ridiculously OP compared to humans. If you didn’t like the films, you won’t like the show. I’m ok with it so far, it’s exceeded my initially very low expectations, and as fantasy fan fic it’s fine IMHO.
- zppln 4y ago
  My beef is that there isn't much in terms of character development. The first episode was an atrocious formulaic mess that tried to stack as many memorable LotR style moments on top of each other as possible. So far they haven't taken the opportunity to use the format to their advantage at all. Visually appealing, but bland is how I'd summarize things so far.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    > My beef is that there isn't much in terms of character development. In just two episodes? Yeah there won’t be.
    - farleykr 4y ago
      Story tellers need to do their job to give us compelling characters. We don’t owe them watching an unspecified number of episodes - hours of screen time - to give them a chance to give us something to like about the characters. I liked every character in the LotR trilogy within five minutes of their introduction.
      - chrisseaton 4y ago
        > We don’t owe them watching an unspecified number of episodes - hours of screen time - to give them a chance to give us something to like about the characters. Nobody thinks you owe the authors anything - of course you don’t have to watch it at all. But if you wanted to try it how few episodes or chapters are you will to give a creative work time to reach a character development? What's the point of a character development in the first couple of episodes or chapters? That's just churn - they aren't genuinely developing in that time because you won't have given them any time to establish something to develop from. And where do they go from there? Just keep having major developments every episode? That'd be exhausting.
    - towaway15463 4y ago
      In two hours. Yes they could have fit in some character development along with backstory. Want an example? Just look at pretty much every movie ever with run times less than two hours.
- jart 4y ago
  How faithful was that storyline to the Tolkein lore? Did he really write a book where a commander driven literally insane by zeal is vindicated, saves the lives of the men in her company like a mary sue, only to be mutinied and sprung by her king for being right? It makes everyone look repulsive. The only win scenario in that situation is if they'd all just sat on their hands and done nothing.
  - Ygg2 4y ago
    Probably about as faithful as Icon of Sin.
- jiscariot 4y ago
  For a show where you spend 300M just for the rights, you are showing your best effort in those first couple of hours to hook people. At least that's what I've experienced with the many HBO shows I've watched and loved. Maybe the task is more difficult when you're building on an existing story, associated characters and lore that people have expectations of.
- account-5 4y ago
  I managed 2 episodes of Amazon's butchering of the WoT series and judged it to be absolutely crap.
  - simonh 4y ago
    WIT was genuinely awful, no argument there. I just think while ROP isn’t everything I’d have wished for, it’s nowhere near as unwatchable as all that.
    - account-5 4y ago
      I've watched one episode of TRoP and don't mind it. I attempted long ago to read the silmarillon but got bored so I've no vested interest in the book/base material. I dont care whether a white character in a book or comic is played by a black/brown person, or the other way round really. But I am baffled by the reactions they get. You always get the same reaction, people with the same coloured skin as the fictional character complain while the people of the same coloured skin as the actor don't see a problem. But it does only seem to be racist for white people to complain about white fictional characters not being played by white actors, and racist for white actors to play non-white fictional characters. (I'm not talking about stuff like blackface here) Admittedly I have limited knowledge about why this is the case, and obviously risk being labelled a racist for stating these observations. But genuinely I'm confused by it all.
      - towaway15463 4y ago
        Off topic, no one here is complaining about skin colour,
        account-5 4y ago
        Are we reading the same thread?
  - dwringer 4y ago
    I was a huge fan of the books and frankly I think the book series itself went off the rails at some point. I'm still not even done with book 9 and don't really plan to finish it. I still enjoyed the Amazon series, but I will admit it wasn't perfect. I was surprised to see that so many people seem to vehemently hate it. I do recall seeing a lot of one star reviews on Amazon having to do with what the actors looked like, and I observe the same thing in the reviews for Tom Clancy's Without Remorse, which I also enjoyed. Are Amazon productions perfect, on the level of other established studios? No, they're still finding their stride I think, but there is a definite trend of review bombing and I think that's why people are probably assuming it's happening here.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > A LOT more time than LOtR did they compressed 3 thousands years in a ~10 years story "so the mortal characters didn't have to die" (writers' words) So no, there's not much time to cover.
philliphaydon 4y ago
My friend who isn’t really a TV guy watched it because everyone is making such a big deal about it. He told me today it’s not bad but the main characters are just kinda boring. I’m still on sandman so I’ll do ring next. But it seems people do are actually watching it are not too bothered by it.
- swayvil 4y ago
  Have you seen Severance? It doesn't suck. Sandman sucks. I liked the comics. Had high hopes for the show. But sucks. Rings of Power. Haven't seen it. Probably sucks. Movies were gaudy but shallow.
  - unsupp0rted 4y ago
    I don't say this lightly: Severance is the best tv show I've seen in 10 or 15 (?) years. It's a fresh story, acted super well, laid out with suspense and mystery, eliciting emotions from laughter to existential dread and depression... ... it's the height of what a TV show can be in 2022.
    - philliphaydon 4y ago
      Will check it out. I’m enjoying sandman. Not loving it but am enjoying it enough to continue. I couldn’t continue wheel of time after 3 episodes.
MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
Name a „woke“ movie with likable characters. One. Its a contradiction in terms - you cannot be a spiritual scold or schoolmarm and mold a set of likable characters from this essence.
- Ygg2 4y ago
- suction 4y ago
- lallysingh 4y ago
  Black Panther had a few good ones, like BP's sister Shuri.
  - aikinai 4y ago
    Unfortunately she went on to become that exact sort of insufferable character in her followup appearances.
- pubby 4y ago
  To kill a mockingbird
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    How dare you question a woman's lived experience. Not to mention the hate Harper Lee got for Go Set a Watchman showing what happened to the characters 20 years later.
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  Woke seems to purposefully imply a bungled attempt at progressive characters so it's kind of tautological. But if we just mean progressive, then Zootopia.
  - 4y ago
treeman79 4y ago
Perhaps sticking it to the man is what is now considered heroic. Self sacrifice is a foreign concept when your taught to love yourself first.
- motoboi 4y ago
  Self sacrifice is a tool people use to convince others to sacrifice themselves.
  - baremetal 4y ago
    self sacrifice along with competence are both necessary conditions of being a good leader.
  - MarkPNeyer 4y ago
    The little red hen is clearly a tool used to control other people. The story could easily have been written by venture capitalists, trying to convince potential employers to sign on to risky entrepreneurial ventures in exchange for a share in the future rewards. And obviously, animals don’t form cross species coalitions to manufacture baked goods. So it’s Better for us to disregard the story entirely.
- antifa 4y ago
  Wouldn't "sticking it to the man" be a type of self-sacrifice? Obviously we're sticking it to "the man" because he's a threatening oppressor.
drexlspivey 4y ago
I went over 2 pages of 1star reviews in rottentomatos and not one mentioned the woke stuff. Not sure where this notion that it’s been brigaded by the anti-woke crowd comes from. Most bad reviews mentioned bland characters, mediocre acting, bad dialogue/writing etc.
- matsemann 4y ago
  Does that translate to 1 out of 10 stars, though, or are the 1 stars with these generic reviews still just a form of brigading? Edit: lol, sorry for questioning the bad-faith 1-star reviews, keep down voting
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    Isn't that just fair grade inflation. Either 5 or 1 star so either 10 or 1 out of 10.
    - thfuran 4y ago
      What?
- AzzieElbab 4y ago
  All well deserved imho. It is a wax museum of a show.
  - 3nd0rph1n 4y ago
    I swear a lot of Amazon stuff just looks so bland it might as well be AI-generated. "It is a wax museum of a show" is the best wording for that!
- zionic 4y ago
  It’s wokewashing. The more diverse you make your cast, the more immune you are to criticism when your product flops. If the show was less diverse and flopped they couldn’t play the racism card to wipe reviews and churn up sympathetic media.
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> Contrast Galadriel who acts like a self righteous dickhead with Aragorn who was reluctant to accept his calling spent and three movies proving himself to be worthy of honor and love You mean three books, right? The difference here is that Aragorn was written by Tolkien, this show wasn't and has completely betrayed the original material. Race or gender swaps are not a big issue, but they become one if the purpose is the swap for the swap just for marketing purpose. Elves are almost eugenetically born all the same, want to add some diversity? Go for humans. Wanna piss off the audience so that the debate will create more engagement? do exactly what shouldn't be done, because it's out of character. Another example is the new Disney's Pinocchio, were the Blue Fairy is portrait by a black woman. The problem is not that she is black of course. but that the original story is set in Italy, Tuscany, mid 1800, were no black woman was ever seen and she is also described as "il viso bianco come un'immagine di cera" that translates to "her face as white as a wax image". It becomes clear that the black blue fairy was put there to check a box and not because she serves some need to modernize the story, which is exactly the same that Collodi wrote 140 years ago. EDIT it's the same reason why people cricized film directors that casted Scarlett Johansson for every role or the god awful Ghost in the shell live action where, not only the story was orribly mutilated, but the setup was very very far from the original Japanese one, completely ruining the experience. It's not about the colour of the skin or the gender of the actors, of course, it's about expectations. I expect Black Panther to be black, Thor to be white and blonde, Ghost in the shell to be set in futuristic Japan etc.
- vermilingua 4y ago
  You mean one book, right? /s
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    originally it was three, published over the span of ~1 year. 29 July 1954 (The Fellowship of the Ring) 11 November 1954 (The Two Towers) 20 October 1955 (The Return of the King)
    - vermilingua 4y ago
fmajid 4y ago
Galadriel took part in the kinslaying at Alqualondë, she is totally a dick. The LOTR movies portrayed her in a much more positive light than the books. True heroes as you describe them exist only in your imagination and in fairy tales.
- towaway15463 4y ago
  As if LotR isn’t the biggest fairy tale of all.
- danaris 4y ago
  Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings books shows none of that. You only learn about it if you read the Silmarillion (and the other History of Middle-Earth books). It's not at all unreasonable for her portrayal in the movies based on the LotR books to be...based on her portrayal in the LotR books, and not attempting to incorporate largely irrelevant details of her backstory from Tolkien's other writings.
  - bigDinosaur 4y ago
    It's true there's nothing about what she really got up to, but there are hints that she's hardly benign, e.g. in the speech discussed here https://reprog.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/i-wish-jackson-hadnt-ruined-galadriels-speech/ https://reprog.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/i-wish-jackson-hadnt... (that was just the first result I found on Google).
    - danaris 4y ago
      Ehh....Gandalf himself says that if he took up the Ring he would in time be corrupted. I'm not going to say it's wrong to read Galadriel's speech there as, in some way, referring to her checkered past, but I've never read it as indicating that. Basically, anyone with a personality built for command, taking up the Ring, would become a tyrant of some sort. That's part of why it was so important that it came not just to hobbits, but to these hobbits, whose strongest desires were about protecting, and gardening, and living their hobbity lives. (I imagine if Lobelia Sackville-Baggins had gotten her hands on it, she wouldn't have fared so well. Not a Dark Queen by any means, but still something much more dark and dangerous than what became of Bilbo, Frodo and Sam.)
bnralt 4y ago
> All of them have some form of sticking it to the man and doing what they want as their story line. True heroes are self-sacrificial and reluctant. Contrast Galadriel who acts like a self righteous dickhead This seems to be a recurring problem in a lot of media these days. Protagonists who are just self-righteous jerks who both lecture others about how they need to act and pretend they're above any rules themselves. If this was the start of a character arc, fine, but a lot of the times these shows act as if these characters are right and that others should appreciate their toxic personalities.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bitL 4y ago
This Galadriel is such a step down compared to the LoTR trilogy... Also, in one of the first scenes wind was blowing so strongly they barely moved ahead. Then one of the company members falls down, she turns back and walks there like there was no wind at all.
jltsiren 4y ago
That's the Second Age for you. None of the major characters is supposed to be likable, except maybe Elendil. This is not a story about heroism and self-sacrifice. It's a story where powerful people do stupid things out of pride, great empires fall, and almost everyone dies.
- inopinatus 4y ago
  The peanut gallery does not like being reminded that their simplistic preferences make for poor art.
  - thfuran 4y ago
    That's the most pretentious thing I've read in some time.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - inopinatus 4y ago
      Some might take that as a criticism, but when it comes to the creative and performing arts I'm an unabashed elitist snob, and it's a perspective I recommend.
  - LunaSea 4y ago
    What kind of insecure loser you must be to have these kinds of opinions about other people's tastes in art.
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  That is a good point. The simarillion was probably the first true tragedy I was wxposed to.
- zionic 4y ago
  That’s just lazy writing, akin to those cheesy horror movies where everyone has to be a complete idiot to die to the monster. A much better story is where smart, cunning characters vie against one another. There’s eb and flow, give and take, maybe a few pivotal movements that set the characters down a path they’ll resist but ultimately succumb too. Where when they reach the end despite their best efforts looking back they made the (mostly) same choices but still failed. Early Game of Thrones was a masterpiece in this regard.
nraynaud 4y ago
funny, people hated romanticism when it came 150 years ago (Victor Hugo was thrown under the bus), and now people complain because a show doesn't follow the romantic canvas.
cloutchaser 4y ago
The issue with characters you describe is linked to the whole thing though. The philosophy behind the so called works IS to create a new type of hero, one that isn’t someone who takes responsibility, sacrifices, works hard and fails a lot. That type of hero is purposefully removed from fiction because it contradicts what wokeness is about.
bigDinosaur 4y ago
I'm seeing the same pattern I saw with Star Trek: Discovery (race and gender) and Captain Marvel (gender) - a critic would say 'I don't like the plot/logic/world/strength of the hero' and be accused of racism/sexism/not liking strong female characters, where this was untrue and just used to dismiss valid criticism. On the other hand, there was a contingent of people who did dislike it based on somewhat sexist or anti-woke reasoning, but as far as I could tell this was overall a small group. A bit of conflation later and, well, you get the worst of all worlds: critics who feel like they are being censored (or who are), and fans who will not accept the slightest criticism without slinging accusations of racism/sexism/whatever, along with a contingent who is deserving of the latter criticism but is more likely just laughing at the total chaos. The actual quality of the show, on the other hand, almost ends up being irrelevant. Personally I usually wait about two seasons before judging a TV show.
- endominus 4y ago
  Apparently it's also used as a marketing strategy. I remember reading news when the 2016 Ghostbusters trailer dropped of Sony deleting negative comments on the video - but only the non-sexist ones that made legitimate criticisms of the humour or other non-controversial stuff. The theory was that they left the sexist, racist comments live so that they could characterize all their criticism as such. Clever plan, if true.
  - swayvil 4y ago
    It's standard spin tactics. Faint praise is damning. Faint scorn is ennobling. Censor appropriately. The craft of lying is the oldest. Somebody should write a book.
joemazerino 4y ago
It actually is the point. Wokeism cannot create likeable characters or plotlines.
- swayvil 4y ago
  It's a matter of taste. Some like deep mythology. Some like having their politics stroked.
- hoseja 4y ago
  Watch the recent Sandman. Perhaps it's because the source material was already very woke before it was everywhere and the adaptation is very faithful, but the series is quite good.
chaostheory 4y ago
Yeah, the writing is the issue. I have no problem with ethnicity or even gender swaps. Honestly, a gender swap of a male character would have been better than changing Galadriel The problem is that they’re more focused on tying the series to Peter Jackson’s work and ensuring that children can watch it. The original stories were better.
- swayvil 4y ago
  Funny how these people have 500 zillion to invest then hire shit writers. We have an old and well-established culture of writers and system for rating those writers. You'd think they'd consult that.
  - chaostheory 4y ago
    Apparently, the bigger problem is that Amazon didn’t pay for the rights to the Silmarillion which explains a lot
- nobodyandproud 4y ago
  Maybe the casting shouldn’t be a problem, but the kids asked what happened to all of the black hobbits and elves in LotR. I had to sidestep that landmine very fast.
  - chaostheory 4y ago
    I’m not saying that you don’t have a valid critique, but you’ve played into their trap just by publicly posting this online. Now instead of having a valid discussion as to how they’ve butchered the actual story, now they can just lean on how most critics of the show are “racist”, which will garner ratings
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
voidwtf 4y ago
Art is an evolution and transforms over time both in its creation and it’s interpretation. The same stories are told across generations and they both influence, and are influenced by, the culture in which they originate. It’s in this context that I believe every artist sends their creations out into the world. Having a vision of what it means to them and what it may mean to others. A world of the imagination is conveyed that can never be fully reproduced and for which we are left to fill the gaps. It is from these gaps, from our own imaginations, that the story continues. I appreciate that this is a story that will continue to be told, a universe that will continue to grow, through the imaginations of others. I’ve enjoyed the storytelling and pacing so far, I believe there is time for the characters to become more developed and “likable”. Galadriel, however, was never a “hero”. She was an imperialist with a desire to rule her own realm. She was a self righteous dickhead who proudly refused forgiveness. So far the new series isn’t too far left field. Still, even if it was, I would watch it and judge it on its own merits. I want to see more of this type of content, just like I want to see more Star Wars content. I want to see the future continue to be inspired by, and inspire new additions to the story. In the end we will collectively and individually determine what is and isn’t canon.
some_random 4y ago
I really think that the "woke" thing is bullshit, most of the people who don't like XYZ piece of media aren't actually sexist/racist/whatever but are painted in that light to deflect criticism.
ryantgtg 4y ago
Yeah, Galadriel should have just shut up and gone to Valinor!
bergenty 4y ago
They managed to make me hate Galadriel 15 mins into the first episode. It’s brilliant, just not in the way we want.

isbvhodnvemrwvn 4y ago

Don't you think that 2 episodes is a bit too little to judge the entire series like that? The show covers A LOT more time than LOtR did, there's plenty of space for character development. Galadriel was not exactly likeable when she participated in the first kinslaying, or when she ran away from the war of wrath.

throw0101c 4y ago
> The show covers A LOT more time than LOtR did, there's plenty of space for character development. The first two episodes of TRoP are 90 minutes each, for a total run time of three hours. Three hours is about the run time of the first LoTR movie (Fellowship): how much story were they able to tell in those three hours? Further, the other epic fantasy series, House of Dragons, also has released two episodes: how much story have they been able to tell? What are the reviews of that franchise? The TRoP series may not end up sucking after the first eight episodes, but having the first two (allegedly: haven't seen it myself) suck seems to be a waste of everyone's time/effort/money.
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 4y ago
  I'm not saying it's of the same caliber as the trilogy, but it's definitely not garbage which deserves one star. It's already better than the hobbit, however low of a bar that is.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    If it was worse than everyone has said it was, it’d still be better than Hobbit 3.
- fabian2k 4y ago
  If I exclude the credits both episodes are almost exactly 60 minutes long. And the credits are ~5 minutes or so, so the displayed runtime is 1 hour and a few minutes. I have no idea where you get the 90 minutes from, that is simply not true. I have watched both Rings of Power and The House of the Dragon, and both are essentially setting up the story in the first two episodes. There is plot in those episodes of course, but a lot is setting up characters and places and the world in general.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    > have no idea where you get the 90 minutes from >> but having the first two (allegedly: haven't seen it myself) Not watching something that you critique, and instead basing it on what you saw on Reddit, HN or YouTube, seems de rigueur these days. I did watch it. Enjoyed it. And will hold my final opinion until I've seen the last episode.
    - throw0101c 4y ago
      > Not watching something that you critique, and instead basing it on what you saw on Reddit, HN or YouTube, seems de rigueur these days. Movie and television reviews have been around for decades. There are only so many hours in a day/week, and everyone has to decide how to spend their finite amount of time, so "pre-judging" a show by early episodes is nothing new. But if you want to try to watch everything as a completionist, start to finish, go right ahead. But as the GP of this sub-thread, I'm was not so much "critiquing" and simply observing that there's a lot ways for people to spend their time, so if a show "wastes" 2 out of 8 episodes with a lot of what folks consider non-plot, then why should I spend my time watching it? Again, I haven't watched it, and I'll wait until the season is over and see what the consensus is after the full season. But even if it does turn out to be good as whole, why did the show runners seemingly not do much with the plot for a quarter of the season? The Expanse took about four episodes to really 'set' the universe, but even the first two episodes had quite a bit that happened ("Remember the Cant!"). How does a show producer worth their salt not know that you have to give juicy bits early in a show's run?
      - 4y ago
- asib 4y ago
  I haven't watched the show yet, but is it not generally understood that plot and character development in television proceeds at a slower pace than in film? It's arguably one of the main reasons to chose one medium over the other. You cite House of Dragons, but I hardly think you can argue that the first two episodes of that show could make a movie.
- auggierose 4y ago
  Watched only the first episode of Dragons, but I am not convinced. What is the point of this show? We know that the real fight between dead and living is happening 200 years later. We know that all of the dragons will be dead at some point. The characters itself are pretty boring, compared to what Thrones had to offer. It is technically well made, but it is boring.
  - bart_spoon 4y ago
    I disagree. Not every narrative has to be one over some apocalyptic threat. I actually prefer the more grounded (for fantasy I suppose) story over the zombie apocalypse-adjacent White Walker stuff.
    - auggierose 4y ago
      If I want to watch a history lesson, I can do that, there are some great documentaries out there. Probably produced for less money. And I would actually learn something. But of course, there are many interesting narratives that don't involve the apocalypse. The Wire has a great one. Bladerunner is superb. The recent Black Bird was captivating, too. Dragons though? Just boring.
  - eternalban 4y ago
    I recently binge watched a series (Irma Vep) that, very tongue in cheek, addressed the malaise of "platforms" affecting film/cinema. It's a very complex work (in terms of multiple layers of readings) spanning the director's closure over his lost love (see Irma Vep 1996), a hat tip to Truffaut's Day for Night, and a very explicitly expressed concern of characters of how "content platforms" have killed cinema and mutated it to "TV" and "series". Naturally all this was said, to wrap up the irony train, on HBO's platform. Irma Vep (2022): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13649314 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13649314
    - auggierose 4y ago
      Have to check it out. Not sure about the 2022 show, but the 1996 movie sounds intriguing. Don't remember anything about Day for Night, just that I found it similarly confusing as Fellini's 8 1/2. I do remember that I really liked Jules et Jim by Truffaut, but then again, it has Jeanne Moreau. I can recommend her movie Bay of Angels. It's a simple but great movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056846/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056846/
farleykr 4y ago
I am not opposed to that being her prospective character arc but she’s not portrayed that way. There’s nothing to make us like her and from the storytelling and craft perspective there should be. We should at least see her questioning herself. She’s not presented as a cautionary tale. She’s presented as a strong woman who has to deal with domineering men. Even that would be a compelling story line. But again we don’t have any way to sympathize with her. She treats every other character except her brother in the intro with contempt. All she does is try to prove to the haters that they don’t understand her and she’s gonna do what she knows is right regardless of any warnings.
- the_lonely_road 4y ago
  Isn’t this just because we, the viewers, know that she is right given the whole Sauron is the big bad in Lord of the Rings? We are suppose to appreciate her focus and refusal to give up given that we know she will be ultimately vindicated.
  - ironcurtain 4y ago
    Story should make no assumptions about what audience knows, it should be fully contained.
PeterisP 4y ago
If 2 episodes is a bit too little to judge that a series is bad, then it is also a bit too little to judge that a series is good. If it's too early to review, then scrap all reviews including the good ones, and if reviews are expected, then selective deletion is just creating false advertising.
- fabian2k 4y ago
  I would generally translate reviews based only on the first few episodes of a new series as "shows promise" or not. You really can't say more than that at this point.
Amezarak 4y ago
Galadriel tried to stop the Kinslaying - it's the reason she had to cross the Arctic rather than ride on ships[1] - and she didn't "run away" from the War of Wrath. As for her general character, though she was proud and wanted to be "free" in her own lands, she was described as wise, understanding, and merciful from her earliest years. [2] I am never going to watch the series because the movies were bad enough, and I find it cringe-inducing how people talk about "the lore" and act as though adaptation can occur 1:1 from books to video, but I have found people seem to be spreading and repeating a lot of misinformation apparently in an attempt to make the show look better, which will inevitably be repugnant to Tolkien regardless. Which is the reason I'm not watching it. I don't believe in watching a series that would deeply hurt and grieve the author had he lived to see its production. [1] > Even after the merciless assault upon the Teleri and the rape of their ships, though she fought fiercely against Fĕanor in defence of her mother's kin, she did not turn back. [2] > Galadriel was the greatest of the Noldor, except Fĕ'anor maybe, though she was wiser than he, and her wisdom increased with the long years. [...] From her earliest years she had a marvellous gift of insight into the minds of others, but judged them with mercy and understanding, and she withheld her goodwill from none save only Fĕanor.
- simonh 4y ago
  There’s propaganda on both sides. You’re quite right about Galadriel in the earlier ages, but those complaining about her being a Mary Sue in the show are also missing the mark. She fought, she had ambition. Tolkien Elves are generally ridiculously OP compared to humans. If you didn’t like the films, you won’t like the show. I’m ok with it so far, it’s exceeded my initially very low expectations, and as fantasy fan fic it’s fine IMHO.
zppln 4y ago
My beef is that there isn't much in terms of character development. The first episode was an atrocious formulaic mess that tried to stack as many memorable LotR style moments on top of each other as possible. So far they haven't taken the opportunity to use the format to their advantage at all. Visually appealing, but bland is how I'd summarize things so far.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  > My beef is that there isn't much in terms of character development. In just two episodes? Yeah there won’t be.
  - farleykr 4y ago
    Story tellers need to do their job to give us compelling characters. We don’t owe them watching an unspecified number of episodes - hours of screen time - to give them a chance to give us something to like about the characters. I liked every character in the LotR trilogy within five minutes of their introduction.
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      > We don’t owe them watching an unspecified number of episodes - hours of screen time - to give them a chance to give us something to like about the characters. Nobody thinks you owe the authors anything - of course you don’t have to watch it at all. But if you wanted to try it how few episodes or chapters are you will to give a creative work time to reach a character development? What's the point of a character development in the first couple of episodes or chapters? That's just churn - they aren't genuinely developing in that time because you won't have given them any time to establish something to develop from. And where do they go from there? Just keep having major developments every episode? That'd be exhausting.
  - towaway15463 4y ago
    In two hours. Yes they could have fit in some character development along with backstory. Want an example? Just look at pretty much every movie ever with run times less than two hours.
jart 4y ago
How faithful was that storyline to the Tolkein lore? Did he really write a book where a commander driven literally insane by zeal is vindicated, saves the lives of the men in her company like a mary sue, only to be mutinied and sprung by her king for being right? It makes everyone look repulsive. The only win scenario in that situation is if they'd all just sat on their hands and done nothing.
- Ygg2 4y ago
  Probably about as faithful as Icon of Sin.
jiscariot 4y ago
For a show where you spend 300M just for the rights, you are showing your best effort in those first couple of hours to hook people. At least that's what I've experienced with the many HBO shows I've watched and loved. Maybe the task is more difficult when you're building on an existing story, associated characters and lore that people have expectations of.
account-5 4y ago
I managed 2 episodes of Amazon's butchering of the WoT series and judged it to be absolutely crap.
- simonh 4y ago
  WIT was genuinely awful, no argument there. I just think while ROP isn’t everything I’d have wished for, it’s nowhere near as unwatchable as all that.
  - account-5 4y ago
    I've watched one episode of TRoP and don't mind it. I attempted long ago to read the silmarillon but got bored so I've no vested interest in the book/base material. I dont care whether a white character in a book or comic is played by a black/brown person, or the other way round really. But I am baffled by the reactions they get. You always get the same reaction, people with the same coloured skin as the fictional character complain while the people of the same coloured skin as the actor don't see a problem. But it does only seem to be racist for white people to complain about white fictional characters not being played by white actors, and racist for white actors to play non-white fictional characters. (I'm not talking about stuff like blackface here) Admittedly I have limited knowledge about why this is the case, and obviously risk being labelled a racist for stating these observations. But genuinely I'm confused by it all.
    - towaway15463 4y ago
      Off topic, no one here is complaining about skin colour,
      - account-5 4y ago
        Are we reading the same thread?
- dwringer 4y ago
  I was a huge fan of the books and frankly I think the book series itself went off the rails at some point. I'm still not even done with book 9 and don't really plan to finish it. I still enjoyed the Amazon series, but I will admit it wasn't perfect. I was surprised to see that so many people seem to vehemently hate it. I do recall seeing a lot of one star reviews on Amazon having to do with what the actors looked like, and I observe the same thing in the reviews for Tom Clancy's Without Remorse, which I also enjoyed. Are Amazon productions perfect, on the level of other established studios? No, they're still finding their stride I think, but there is a definite trend of review bombing and I think that's why people are probably assuming it's happening here.
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> A LOT more time than LOtR did they compressed 3 thousands years in a ~10 years story "so the mortal characters didn't have to die" (writers' words) So no, there's not much time to cover.

philliphaydon 4y ago

My friend who isn’t really a TV guy watched it because everyone is making such a big deal about it. He told me today it’s not bad but the main characters are just kinda boring. I’m still on sandman so I’ll do ring next. But it seems people do are actually watching it are not too bothered by it.

swayvil 4y ago
Have you seen Severance? It doesn't suck. Sandman sucks. I liked the comics. Had high hopes for the show. But sucks. Rings of Power. Haven't seen it. Probably sucks. Movies were gaudy but shallow.
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  I don't say this lightly: Severance is the best tv show I've seen in 10 or 15 (?) years. It's a fresh story, acted super well, laid out with suspense and mystery, eliciting emotions from laughter to existential dread and depression... ... it's the height of what a TV show can be in 2022.
  - philliphaydon 4y ago
    Will check it out. I’m enjoying sandman. Not loving it but am enjoying it enough to continue. I couldn’t continue wheel of time after 3 episodes.

MrBuddyCasino 4y ago

Name a „woke“ movie with likable characters. One. Its a contradiction in terms - you cannot be a spiritual scold or schoolmarm and mold a set of likable characters from this essence.

Ygg2 4y ago
suction 4y ago
lallysingh 4y ago
Black Panther had a few good ones, like BP's sister Shuri.
- aikinai 4y ago
  Unfortunately she went on to become that exact sort of insufferable character in her followup appearances.
pubby 4y ago
To kill a mockingbird
- thrown_22 4y ago
  How dare you question a woman's lived experience. Not to mention the hate Harper Lee got for Go Set a Watchman showing what happened to the characters 20 years later.
spywaregorilla 4y ago
Woke seems to purposefully imply a bungled attempt at progressive characters so it's kind of tautological. But if we just mean progressive, then Zootopia.
- 4y ago

treeman79 4y ago

Perhaps sticking it to the man is what is now considered heroic. Self sacrifice is a foreign concept when your taught to love yourself first.

motoboi 4y ago
Self sacrifice is a tool people use to convince others to sacrifice themselves.
- baremetal 4y ago
  self sacrifice along with competence are both necessary conditions of being a good leader.
- MarkPNeyer 4y ago
  The little red hen is clearly a tool used to control other people. The story could easily have been written by venture capitalists, trying to convince potential employers to sign on to risky entrepreneurial ventures in exchange for a share in the future rewards. And obviously, animals don’t form cross species coalitions to manufacture baked goods. So it’s Better for us to disregard the story entirely.
antifa 4y ago
Wouldn't "sticking it to the man" be a type of self-sacrifice? Obviously we're sticking it to "the man" because he's a threatening oppressor.

drexlspivey 4y ago

I went over 2 pages of 1star reviews in rottentomatos and not one mentioned the woke stuff. Not sure where this notion that it’s been brigaded by the anti-woke crowd comes from. Most bad reviews mentioned bland characters, mediocre acting, bad dialogue/writing etc.

matsemann 4y ago
Does that translate to 1 out of 10 stars, though, or are the 1 stars with these generic reviews still just a form of brigading? Edit: lol, sorry for questioning the bad-faith 1-star reviews, keep down voting
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Isn't that just fair grade inflation. Either 5 or 1 star so either 10 or 1 out of 10.
  - thfuran 4y ago
    What?
AzzieElbab 4y ago
All well deserved imho. It is a wax museum of a show.
- 3nd0rph1n 4y ago
  I swear a lot of Amazon stuff just looks so bland it might as well be AI-generated. "It is a wax museum of a show" is the best wording for that!
zionic 4y ago
It’s wokewashing. The more diverse you make your cast, the more immune you are to criticism when your product flops. If the show was less diverse and flopped they couldn’t play the racism card to wipe reviews and churn up sympathetic media.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

> Contrast Galadriel who acts like a self righteous dickhead with Aragorn who was reluctant to accept his calling spent and three movies proving himself to be worthy of honor and love You mean three books, right? The difference here is that Aragorn was written by Tolkien, this show wasn't and has completely betrayed the original material. Race or gender swaps are not a big issue, but they become one if the purpose is the swap for the swap just for marketing purpose. Elves are almost eugenetically born all the same, want to add some diversity? Go for humans. Wanna piss off the audience so that the debate will create more engagement? do exactly what shouldn't be done, because it's out of character. Another example is the new Disney's Pinocchio, were the Blue Fairy is portrait by a black woman. The problem is not that she is black of course. but that the original story is set in Italy, Tuscany, mid 1800, were no black woman was ever seen and she is also described as "il viso bianco come un'immagine di cera" that translates to "her face as white as a wax image". It becomes clear that the black blue fairy was put there to check a box and not because she serves some need to modernize the story, which is exactly the same that Collodi wrote 140 years ago. EDIT it's the same reason why people cricized film directors that casted Scarlett Johansson for every role or the god awful Ghost in the shell live action where, not only the story was orribly mutilated, but the setup was very very far from the original Japanese one, completely ruining the experience. It's not about the colour of the skin or the gender of the actors, of course, it's about expectations. I expect Black Panther to be black, Thor to be white and blonde, Ghost in the shell to be set in futuristic Japan etc.

vermilingua 4y ago
You mean one book, right? /s
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  originally it was three, published over the span of ~1 year. 29 July 1954 (The Fellowship of the Ring) 11 November 1954 (The Two Towers) 20 October 1955 (The Return of the King)
  - vermilingua 4y ago

fmajid 4y ago

Galadriel took part in the kinslaying at Alqualondë, she is totally a dick. The LOTR movies portrayed her in a much more positive light than the books. True heroes as you describe them exist only in your imagination and in fairy tales.

towaway15463 4y ago
As if LotR isn’t the biggest fairy tale of all.
danaris 4y ago
Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings books shows none of that. You only learn about it if you read the Silmarillion (and the other History of Middle-Earth books). It's not at all unreasonable for her portrayal in the movies based on the LotR books to be...based on her portrayal in the LotR books, and not attempting to incorporate largely irrelevant details of her backstory from Tolkien's other writings.
- bigDinosaur 4y ago
  It's true there's nothing about what she really got up to, but there are hints that she's hardly benign, e.g. in the speech discussed here https://reprog.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/i-wish-jackson-hadnt-ruined-galadriels-speech/ https://reprog.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/i-wish-jackson-hadnt... (that was just the first result I found on Google).
  - danaris 4y ago
    Ehh....Gandalf himself says that if he took up the Ring he would in time be corrupted. I'm not going to say it's wrong to read Galadriel's speech there as, in some way, referring to her checkered past, but I've never read it as indicating that. Basically, anyone with a personality built for command, taking up the Ring, would become a tyrant of some sort. That's part of why it was so important that it came not just to hobbits, but to these hobbits, whose strongest desires were about protecting, and gardening, and living their hobbity lives. (I imagine if Lobelia Sackville-Baggins had gotten her hands on it, she wouldn't have fared so well. Not a Dark Queen by any means, but still something much more dark and dangerous than what became of Bilbo, Frodo and Sam.)

bnralt 4y ago

> All of them have some form of sticking it to the man and doing what they want as their story line. True heroes are self-sacrificial and reluctant. Contrast Galadriel who acts like a self righteous dickhead This seems to be a recurring problem in a lot of media these days. Protagonists who are just self-righteous jerks who both lecture others about how they need to act and pretend they're above any rules themselves. If this was the start of a character arc, fine, but a lot of the times these shows act as if these characters are right and that others should appreciate their toxic personalities.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bitL 4y ago

This Galadriel is such a step down compared to the LoTR trilogy... Also, in one of the first scenes wind was blowing so strongly they barely moved ahead. Then one of the company members falls down, she turns back and walks there like there was no wind at all.

jltsiren 4y ago

That's the Second Age for you. None of the major characters is supposed to be likable, except maybe Elendil. This is not a story about heroism and self-sacrifice. It's a story where powerful people do stupid things out of pride, great empires fall, and almost everyone dies.

inopinatus 4y ago
The peanut gallery does not like being reminded that their simplistic preferences make for poor art.
- thfuran 4y ago
  That's the most pretentious thing I've read in some time.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - inopinatus 4y ago
    Some might take that as a criticism, but when it comes to the creative and performing arts I'm an unabashed elitist snob, and it's a perspective I recommend.
- LunaSea 4y ago
  What kind of insecure loser you must be to have these kinds of opinions about other people's tastes in art.
galangalalgol 4y ago
That is a good point. The simarillion was probably the first true tragedy I was wxposed to.
zionic 4y ago
That’s just lazy writing, akin to those cheesy horror movies where everyone has to be a complete idiot to die to the monster. A much better story is where smart, cunning characters vie against one another. There’s eb and flow, give and take, maybe a few pivotal movements that set the characters down a path they’ll resist but ultimately succumb too. Where when they reach the end despite their best efforts looking back they made the (mostly) same choices but still failed. Early Game of Thrones was a masterpiece in this regard.

nraynaud 4y ago

funny, people hated romanticism when it came 150 years ago (Victor Hugo was thrown under the bus), and now people complain because a show doesn't follow the romantic canvas.

cloutchaser 4y ago

The issue with characters you describe is linked to the whole thing though. The philosophy behind the so called works IS to create a new type of hero, one that isn’t someone who takes responsibility, sacrifices, works hard and fails a lot. That type of hero is purposefully removed from fiction because it contradicts what wokeness is about.

bigDinosaur 4y ago

I'm seeing the same pattern I saw with Star Trek: Discovery (race and gender) and Captain Marvel (gender) - a critic would say 'I don't like the plot/logic/world/strength of the hero' and be accused of racism/sexism/not liking strong female characters, where this was untrue and just used to dismiss valid criticism. On the other hand, there was a contingent of people who did dislike it based on somewhat sexist or anti-woke reasoning, but as far as I could tell this was overall a small group. A bit of conflation later and, well, you get the worst of all worlds: critics who feel like they are being censored (or who are), and fans who will not accept the slightest criticism without slinging accusations of racism/sexism/whatever, along with a contingent who is deserving of the latter criticism but is more likely just laughing at the total chaos. The actual quality of the show, on the other hand, almost ends up being irrelevant. Personally I usually wait about two seasons before judging a TV show.

endominus 4y ago
Apparently it's also used as a marketing strategy. I remember reading news when the 2016 Ghostbusters trailer dropped of Sony deleting negative comments on the video - but only the non-sexist ones that made legitimate criticisms of the humour or other non-controversial stuff. The theory was that they left the sexist, racist comments live so that they could characterize all their criticism as such. Clever plan, if true.
- swayvil 4y ago
  It's standard spin tactics. Faint praise is damning. Faint scorn is ennobling. Censor appropriately. The craft of lying is the oldest. Somebody should write a book.

joemazerino 4y ago

It actually is the point. Wokeism cannot create likeable characters or plotlines.

swayvil 4y ago
It's a matter of taste. Some like deep mythology. Some like having their politics stroked.
hoseja 4y ago
Watch the recent Sandman. Perhaps it's because the source material was already very woke before it was everywhere and the adaptation is very faithful, but the series is quite good.

chaostheory 4y ago

Yeah, the writing is the issue. I have no problem with ethnicity or even gender swaps. Honestly, a gender swap of a male character would have been better than changing Galadriel The problem is that they’re more focused on tying the series to Peter Jackson’s work and ensuring that children can watch it. The original stories were better.

swayvil 4y ago
Funny how these people have 500 zillion to invest then hire shit writers. We have an old and well-established culture of writers and system for rating those writers. You'd think they'd consult that.
- chaostheory 4y ago
  Apparently, the bigger problem is that Amazon didn’t pay for the rights to the Silmarillion which explains a lot
nobodyandproud 4y ago
Maybe the casting shouldn’t be a problem, but the kids asked what happened to all of the black hobbits and elves in LotR. I had to sidestep that landmine very fast.
- chaostheory 4y ago
  I’m not saying that you don’t have a valid critique, but you’ve played into their trap just by publicly posting this online. Now instead of having a valid discussion as to how they’ve butchered the actual story, now they can just lean on how most critics of the show are “racist”, which will garner ratings

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

voidwtf 4y ago

Art is an evolution and transforms over time both in its creation and it’s interpretation. The same stories are told across generations and they both influence, and are influenced by, the culture in which they originate. It’s in this context that I believe every artist sends their creations out into the world. Having a vision of what it means to them and what it may mean to others. A world of the imagination is conveyed that can never be fully reproduced and for which we are left to fill the gaps. It is from these gaps, from our own imaginations, that the story continues. I appreciate that this is a story that will continue to be told, a universe that will continue to grow, through the imaginations of others. I’ve enjoyed the storytelling and pacing so far, I believe there is time for the characters to become more developed and “likable”. Galadriel, however, was never a “hero”. She was an imperialist with a desire to rule her own realm. She was a self righteous dickhead who proudly refused forgiveness. So far the new series isn’t too far left field. Still, even if it was, I would watch it and judge it on its own merits. I want to see more of this type of content, just like I want to see more Star Wars content. I want to see the future continue to be inspired by, and inspire new additions to the story. In the end we will collectively and individually determine what is and isn’t canon.

some_random 4y ago

I really think that the "woke" thing is bullshit, most of the people who don't like XYZ piece of media aren't actually sexist/racist/whatever but are painted in that light to deflect criticism.

ryantgtg 4y ago

Yeah, Galadriel should have just shut up and gone to Valinor!

bergenty 4y ago

They managed to make me hate Galadriel 15 mins into the first episode. It’s brilliant, just not in the way we want.