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Amazon putting a three-day pause on reviews for Rings of Power

• Ritotiki 4y ago
  This show is a steaming pile of crap. It's low effort, low IQ political propaganda fan fiction in Tolkien's universe. Lead characters are Mary Sues and the rest of the cast serve as useful idiots. Nothing in the storyline makes any sense, or has any coherence. This very same show would have bombed immediately and hardly been mentioned if it were in a new universe. Can't believe Tolkien's heirs sold out for that kind of trash. Evil cannot create anything on its own, it can only corrupt. JRR was right about that.
• codefreeordie 4y ago
  It's pretty telling that they're so afraid of reviews that they have to intervene this hard to keep their score above water.
  • dmix 4y ago
    The first time they've been this concerned about fake reviews and they just happen to be all the negative ones.
    • codefreeordie 4y ago
      Well, it's the most expensive television program in history on a cost-per-minute basis, it is critical for them that it looks like a success.
    • CaliforniaKarl 4y ago
      From the article: > Amazon introduced the policy earlier this summer, starting with its reboot of A League of Their Own, which contended with review bombers who opposed the show’s political stance.
      • dmix 4y ago
        Amazon developed that series too? That only supports my point, regardless if it's the first time they did it.
      • CuriouslyC 4y ago
        Turns out people don't like it when you take something not about being woke, and make it about being woke. Amazon should hurry up and learn their lesson. If they want a show about being gay they should just make one, don't rewrite an existing story to shoehorn it, and if you want black and brown fantasy characters, don't appropriate something cobbled out of anglo-saxon mythology to do it.
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• type0 4y ago
  Hopefully Streisand effect will be strong and it backfires on Amazon
  • dmix 4y ago
    Streisand here would mean more people watch it, since the negative backlash from censorship creates more publicity. Just like awful superhero movies these things don't die for simply for being bad. Even I watched it just to see how much they messed it up (I thought it was merely okay, not awful). The test will be whether it maintains momentum with the 4th and 5th episode. That's usually where big shows die.
  • jwilber 4y ago
    That would depend on the veracity of the negative reviews, many of which offer no substance apart from, “it’s too woke and not canon!” I don’t think the show is incredible, but visually the show is pretty awesome, and I enjoy the story enough to continue watching so far.
    • DiggyJohnson 4y ago
      I simply don’t understand why that cannot possibly be a legitimate review, albeit one you strongly disagree with and one I think is bluntly put.
• josephcsible 4y ago
  Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32700019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32700019
• logicalmonster 4y ago
  Rather than blocking reviews, how hard would it be for a company like Amazon to release some anonymized data about these alleged review bombing incidents and allow independent researchers to make their own analysis on whether or not these are genuine reviews or not? There's a big moral hazard here in that it's trivial for a big corporation to make claims that cannot be verified. Are we supposed to just trust them?
  • ekianjo 4y ago
    but then they would not be able to manipulate the results their own way which is exactly what is happening. make a crapfest look better than it should by cherry picking reviews.
  • jffry 4y ago
    Based on the kinds of things I've heard in the past about supposedly "anonymized" data being reassembled, I have to imagine that Amazon's lawyers would unequivocally decline that idea before the soundwaves finished reverberating off the conference room walls.
• mistrial9 4y ago
  Isn't "brigading" and "review bombing" just pure spin? What if thousands of viewers do care enough to write reviews? worried about your "investment" ? zero sympathy here; Tolkien reader; not watching this media at all.. zero
  • happymellon 4y ago
    Because what they care about might not be the content of the show, but particular political views. For example there was quite a vocal group when the first trailers came out and they found out that (shock) not everyone in the show is white.
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    • pydry 4y ago
      These groups are often amplified (or in one case, astroturfed into existence) as part of an outrage marketing strategy: https://switch.com.mt/outrage-marketing-how-why-what/#:~:text=Outrage%20marketing%20builds%20on%20the,about%20is%20brought%20under%20attack https://switch.com.mt/outrage-marketing-how-why-what/#:~:tex.... Ghostbusters was also promoted this way.
    • BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
      >”For example there was quite a vocal group when the first trailers came out and they found out that (shock) not everyone in the show is white.” These people exist, but I am extremely skeptical that this is the primary motivator for the droves of negative reviews. What major media production isn’t diverse? This reminds me of the controversy around Ghostbusters 2016 where people claimed review bombers hated the movie because of the female cast. I would say it is much more likely that these well-loved properties had botched adaptations and that is why so many people are raking it over the coals.
      • thebooktocome 4y ago
        > What major media production isn’t diverse? It’s still pretty common, especially in sitcoms and romcoms. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MonochromeCasting https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MonochromeCastin...
• crmd 4y ago
  Vertical integration, where the firm that controls the marketplace platform is also a vendor on their own platform, should be unlawful.
  • andsoitis 4y ago
    You don’t think someone should be able to make content and distribute it?
    • manchmalscott 4y ago
      Amazon owns IMDB, which reportedly deleted a bunch of negative reviews[1] a few days ago. This could be what he's talking about? [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32700019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32700019
      • andsoitis 4y ago
        Would we really think of IMDB as a market place?
        • midoridensha 4y ago
          I'd say that's more like a big corporation buying a newspaper and then preventing it from publishing anything unflattering.
    • crmd 4y ago
      Not if they also control a marketplace where they have the opportunity to favor their own products over competitors. That is a perversion of capitalism. The marketplace should be run by an independent firm without a conflict of interest.
      • mcphage 4y ago
        > That is a perversion of capitalism. In what sense? Setting up a store to sell our own product seems to be pretty consistent with capitalism.
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• 650 4y ago
  It was going to be a flop from the start, proclaimed by many that such a huge budget would not lead to success. The executives signing off on this will claim this as a huge project they led as usual, meetings will be had brushing losses under the rug, tweaking metrics. The world will move on. Cannot help thinking that these execs are king makers, choosing which few individuals to crown with their follies.
  • themitigating 4y ago
    What evidence do you have of what Amazon executives did?
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• vehemenz 4y ago
  I have a hard time believing the authenticity of the critics' reviews. The Rings of Power is a complete snoozefest. Stuff is happening, but it's a confusing mess and there are no stakes to make anything interesting. The dialogue is stilted and cringeworthy. The show just isn't good, and Amazon knows it.
  • panick21_ 4y ago
    After 2 episodes we still don't know what the central conflict actually is.
    • antisthenes 4y ago
      It's the same as in every other mediocre fantasy with poor writing: the "Good" people against "Great Evil", which is usually manifested as some kind of deformed monsters, deep voices, nefarious deeds and ominous music. Meanwhile, this conflict is padded with needlessly elaborate, yet meaningless side storylines and fake drama appealing to the 18-25 demographic.
      • panick21_ 4y ago
        To be fair, in good fantasy it can also 'good' vs 'evil'.
      • vehemenz 4y ago
        Say what you want about mediocre fantasy shows, but I thought The Wheel of Time, another Amazon show, was much more interesting than The Rings of Power after a mere two episodes.
        • nl 4y ago
          I managed to read all 11,898 page across 14 books of Wheel of Time but thought the Rings of Power was much more interesting than the first couple of episodes of Wheel of Time I made it through.
• Cryptonic 4y ago
  Idk I like it so far. I don't understand the hype about giving bad reviews for short haired elves. This review hazard will only make them not producing more seasons. The reviewers earn nothing by this and ruin it for those who like the new approach. While some may have point, I believe it only became a sport to give bad reviews to personally annoy Jeff.
  • Calvin02 4y ago
    Yeah, same here. I didn’t go in with much expectations and found it interesting and well done. I’m eagerly waiting for episode 3.
  • proc0 4y ago
    Elves are supposed to be a different species of humanoid, so making them more human-like by thinking they're supposed to be a certain way that humans are doesn't feel like the source material. It's important to adhere to that source because they are using the name for recognition. They could have just made a new fantasy story with short hair elves, and I think that would have been judged on its own.
    • rimunroe 4y ago
      In the source material they look pretty much just like Men. The most consistent difference seems to be their height (they’re taller than Men) and the fact that their bodies don’t really age at the same rate. There’s never any mention of them having pointy ears, or any other obvious physical characteristic. I think there are several places across the Silmarillion and other books where it’s mentioned that some Men are mistaken for Elves. If I recall correctly, this happened with Túrin, who was given the name Adanedhel (“Man-Elf”), which he got because he was so alike to them. The Wizards are given the appearance of old men, but the Men think that they’re elves. Gandalf’s name comes from the Old Norse for “wand/staff elf”. In-universe, in the north he was known as “The Elf of the Wand”, because Men mistook him for an Elf. Also, I’m not sure that calling them a “different species” is accurate. They certainly can produce offspring with Men just fine.
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• andsoitis 4y ago
  Reviews ultimately don’t matter. What matters is whether people love the show and whether Amazon is able to attract new customers to sign up to Prime (or increase likelihood that Prime customers stay subscribed, or buys stuff, whether LOTR merch or other stuff).
  • __warlord__ 4y ago
    I agree, they actually don't. Amazon cancelled the expanse, a series with very good reviews and praise sadly it didn't create new prime members...
• thunkshift1 4y ago
  I believe these reviews are targeted. How the hell you are going to review a series based on just first 2 episodes? The first few episodes of breaking bad were extremely sedate, and no way in hell the series or even the first season was reflective of the pace set in those episodes
  • panick21_ 4y ago
    Wtf are you talking about, the pilot of Breaking Bad was a great hook and draws people in. It sets up the world amazingly well. Also, this is a 1h show, so you have 2 hours, that is the length of a full movie. And people review movies all the time. People also reviewed the first to episodes of House of the Dragon.
  • StanislavPetrov 4y ago
    >How the hell you are going to review a series based on just first 2 episodes? The series may turn out to be worthwhile, but the first 2 episodes are objectively not good. The writing is poor, the dialogue isn't good, the characters are not compelling and the episodes themselves aren't well put together. I don't see how anyone can watch the first 2 episodes of this series and then watch the first 2 episodes of breaking bad and see any comparison. The vibes I got while watching this show reminded me of the last season of Game of Thrones after it had gone off the rails. The difference here is we haven't spent years getting invested in the story line and the characters, which kept us watching even as the quality was poor. I won't be tuning in for episode 3 and certainly won't feel like I've missed anything.
    • dewert 4y ago
      I'm enjoying the show so far. I can totally see where you're coming from, too, but I think it's pretty disingeous to give a bunch of opinions and then slap the word "objectively" on them.
      • StanislavPetrov 4y ago
        > I can totally see where you're coming from, too, but I think it's pretty disingeous to give a bunch of opinions and then slap the word "objectively" on them. Whether something is entertaining or not is purely subjective. However, speaking in my capacity as someone who has worked in the film industry for the last 30 years, the writing of the first two episodes was objectively "not good". I think Hesh Rabkin put it better than I can, on Season 1, Episode 10 of the Sopranos when he said, "There’s one constant in the music business...A hit is a hit...and this, my friend, is NOT a hit." The same holds for tv shows.
• tomohawk 4y ago
  In the not to distant past, movie studios were not allowed to own movie theatres. The FTC was very wary of large companies using vertical integration to take over the market and keep movies from smaller companies from being shown. What you're seeing here is the future. Amazon produces the movies, finances the movies, distributes the movies, controls how they're reviewed (they also own IMDB). Oligarchs never trust what they don't own.
  • stormbrew 4y ago
    I didn't know the Paramount decree was ended, but I guess it was put in a two year sunset period two years ago so it is indeed gone. That's a shame, it's hilarious that the FTC doesn't think the studios could bring back the old studio system. Doing that might be the only thing that'll save mainstream theatres from Blockbuster's fate tbh. We really desperately need a similar ruling for streaming services though.
• tomkarho 4y ago
  In other news, IMDB (which Amazon owns it seems) has a strange bug (certainly an accident and coincidence /s) that you can't see any of the written reviews of Rings of Power that are under 6 stars. And yet, House of the Dragon works just fine in that department. How very odd.
  • dmix 4y ago
    iMDB said they deleted all negative reviews. That was yesterday. Today they announced the ban on all new reviews. https://old.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/x46870/imdb_have_deleted_all_the_negative_reviews_for/ https://old.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/x46870/imdb_have_dele... It's a feature not a bug.
  • lunias 4y ago
    https://www.metacritic.com/tv/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/season-1/user-reviews https://www.metacritic.com/tv/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-ring... I haven't trusted IMDB for years. Reviews certainly aren't everything; "bad" art can still be loveable to some, but I'm at the point where I just avoid anything attached to a preexisting franchise; lest I become enveloped by cynicism.
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  • echelon 4y ago
    HBO (Discovery+?) should sue and claim damages for trust-related preferential treatment. This is clearly an instance of a multi-industry-spanning giant preferring its own content. They're giving it away for free / as a loss leader, and yet they were able to spend enormous institutional capital on it. How can any production company compete? This is overwhelmingly monopolistic.
• proc0 4y ago
  This doesn't change anyone's mind, and is also evidence that they're not interested in listening to feedback. They have this opportunity to make the show because of the success of the source material and movies they think is so problematic.
• Barrin92 4y ago
• Blackstrat 4y ago
  This is no more Tolkien than the various incarnations of “Star Trek” pushed by Paramount+ are Star Trek. The names and locations may be similar, but once they have diverged from the original creator’s vision and mythology, it’s simply exploitation for financial gain.
  • spullara 4y ago
    You should watch Strange New Worlds. Has so much of ToS in it.
    • illumin8 4y ago
      Strange New Worlds is very good. The story arc about the medical officer who kept his daughter in the transporter buffer was awesome and reminded me of TnG while Gene Roddenberry was still around.
  • paulryanrogers 4y ago
    > ...once they have diverged from the original creator’s vision and mythology, it’s simply exploitation for financial gain. Must things always stay the same? Can't some popular stories grow and evolve beyond one, albeit original, author's imagination? As stories cross generations I think it's kind of awesome when each can add some flavor to the retelling or expansion of the tale. I have a special adoration for Star Wars yet am happy to see it getting more production, even if it must be at the hand of Disney.
    • astrange 4y ago
      The problem is, what typically happens is an author writes an original story and then it's "extended" by filming a completely unrelated off the shelf plot with some of the names changed and lore added. If something isn't a Hollywood hero's journey it's going to be one now. Scouring of the Shire would've been a lot more original than any new material we're getting here. Though American TV has improved a lot since the time they had directors of making sure none of the protagonists were women.
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• Overtonwindow 4y ago
  It’s absolutely dreadful and I think this behavior is shameful on the part of Amazon. What’s the point of a review system if you’re going to game it. Reviews mean nothing anymore
  • ShamelessC 4y ago
    Reviews havent been meaningful for as long as I've been alive (90's). Watch trailers, watch the show, make your own assessment, keep it to yourself, move on.
    • exodust 4y ago
      > "Watch trailers" Trailers are not suitable replacements for reviews. They are edited and packaged to deliver hyped expectation via self-congratulatory endorsement. Reviews are better than trailers. You could stick to reviews from news publishers if you don't trust user reviews. Here's a snippet of the Washington Post's review of Rings of Power: "The performances are serviceable but unremarkable, while the dialogue is particularly corny and inartful... Rarely has danger felt so dull." washingtonpost.com/tv/2022/08/31/lord-rings-tv-show-review/ Reviews are great!
      • ShamelessC 4y ago
        How could you possibly trust that statement without watching the show yourself first? The subjective nature of entertainment means that one reviewer's opinions are not universal. This means you basically have to go find a reviewer who agrees with your opinions on average - effectively telling you what you want to hear. How is that a useful system?
        • exodust 4y ago
          > subjective "Corny dialog" is rarely a subjective observation. It's either corny or it isn't. The rare exception might be when the dialog is deliberately corny for stylistic reasons or some kind of self-referencing theatrics. Corny dialog is easily identified... "I've got a baaad feeling about this". > How could you possibly trust that statement Because the statement doesn't sit in isolation. It's from a longer professional review where the show is deconstructed and analyzed. The statements are qualified, unlike user reviews. Of course there are subjective aspects too, but there are also strongly bonded criticisms across reviews that can't be dismissed with "subjective" counter-claims. If not universal, then near-universal qualities can be found. Take the recent James Bond movie. Even the good reviews were noting the "woke" themes. They specifically hired a writer to help inject those themes into the movie, such as anti-toxic masculinity etc. It turns out many people don't have much love for injected woke themes forced into their fictional movies. Many people wanted escapism from 007, not a social re-education lecture or some awkward comment about current world events.
• dang 4y ago
  Url changed from https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/4/23336624/amazon-prime-video-three-day-pause-rings-of-power-review-bombing https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/4/23336624/amazon-prime-vide..., which points to this.
• cm2012 4y ago
  I love this show so much. I'm reading some criticisms from tolkien purists on rings of power. My thought is: the details are changed from the silmarillion but there is so much love for the work in this show. A lot of respect for the feeling and themes of the source material Ex. How some things are meant to be by a higher power in Arda. If you havnt read the books - believe me, this plot is going exciting places. Highly recommend!
  • Tagbert 4y ago
    I agree. Really enjoyed watching the first two episodes. Was a little frustrated that the next episode wasn’t ready to watch. Most shows, I’m fine waiting. Yes, there are changes from the Silmarillion. How could there not be. That is a massive book written more as a reference for Tolkien than as a single cohesive narrative. It’s not the kind of writing that would translate directly to video. It needs some translation. I got out my 1977 edition to peruse after the shows, but am not surprised if there are differences. Also, yes, there are some dark skinned people in this new work. Big deal. If that kind of thing “takes you out of the story” then perhaps you should ask yourself why that is.
    • ShannonLimiter 4y ago
      FWIW The show is based on the appendices of Lord of the Rings and not the Silmarillion, which they don’t have the rights for and have to avoid infringing upon.
      • Tagbert 4y ago
        Thanks. I’m mainly going over the maps and looking up names to remind myself. Plus it’s been a while since I revisited this book.
    • spaceman_2020 4y ago
      > Also, yes, there are some dark skinned people in this new work. I’ve never understood why people get so worked up about stuff like this. Nothing changes within the narrative itself. In-show characters don’t acknowledge the character’s newfound darker skin tone. The character stays true to the original vision - except that their skin is darker. I would be outraged if Dev Patel played an English knight and then was shown eating Indian food or wearing Indian clothes. That’s breaking the consistency of the narrative and the authenticity of its world. But Dev Patel simply plays an Englishman - with English habits and speech. Nothing within the world is changed to match the actor’s skin color or heritage. Rather, the actor’s skin color blends into the narrative’s world.
• dudul 4y ago
  This is not a bad Tolkien show, it's just a bad show. Terrible writing, as in seriously, show this thing in schools to illustrate how to not tell a story and write dialogues. Nobody would care about this thing if it didn't have the LOTR name.
  • pclmulqdq 4y ago
    This is not a Tolkien show. This is a show by Amazon wearing Tolkien's world as a skinsuit. The same thing happened to Star Wars. The viewership of this show is still riding on the name recognition, but as soon as it flops, people will stop watching more. Give it 5 years, and the original Peter Jackson trilogy videos will no longer be culturally relevant because nobody wants LoTR content any more, while record amounts of it continue to get produced.
    • t6jvcereio 4y ago
      > Give it 5 years, and the original Peter Jackson trilogy videos will no longer be culturally relevant because nobody wants LoTR content any more, while record amounts of it continue to get produced. hehe this reminded me how after matrix 2 and 3 I had forgotten how good the original matrix was. Took me 10 years to rediscover it.
      • wrp 4y ago
        xkcd comic: https://xkcd.com/566/ https://xkcd.com/566/
• causality0 4y ago
  I'm not sure who it was, the director, producer, somebody, who gave an interview fairly recently in which they stated one of the central themes was "how far into evil will you go to do good?" Given that that is diametrically opposed to the central theme of Tolkien's work, which is that it is worth not using/doing evil in order to fight evil even though it is much harder and requires greater sacrifice, I elected not to view this show. Perhaps after it is done someone will say to me "oh it wasn't like that at all" and I will enjoy it then.
  • bbstats 4y ago
    Bro this is literally the entire plot of the original trilogy. Boromir, Faramir etc all want to use evil for good. Nonsense.
    • fknorangesite 4y ago
      > Faramir In the movies, yes, but not in the books.
      • Groxx 4y ago
        In the books, the dichotomy between them is pretty significant. Boromir gave in to temptation to use it to defeat his enemies and was killed because of it. Faramir did not, suffered a bit for not having that weapon, but survived and was rewarded in the end. They were extremely clearly intended as a moral lesson. The movies completely reversed Faramir.
        • godmode2019 4y ago
          Also the book has a extra chapter at the end where the shire turns into a police state, Fordo leads a horse back revolution to kick out the corrupt hobbits who inslaved their own people with the new tools from the people with the machines. I was surprised as an adult when I first watched the movie that it didn't have this ending to the character arch, missing the final stage of the hero's journey.
• petermcneeley 4y ago
  So you have this entity Sauron trying to forge a tool to control and dominate all life. I think the people at Amazon are well positioned to write this narrative.
  • Bud 4y ago
    I bet Sauron can't deliver cat food to me within 4 hours.
  • ffhhj 4y ago
    Is Sauron against unions?
• freetime2 4y ago
  > “The Rings of Power” has been fending off trolls for months, especially ones who take issue with the decision to cast actors of color as elves, dwarves, harfoots and other folk of Tolkien’s fictional Middle-earth. This article feels a bit quick to write off the negative reviews as being from racist “trolls”. A quick look of reviews on Rotten Tomatoes [1] shows a lot of negative reviews that seem legitimate to me. I personally enjoyed the first two episodes, but the show is far from perfect. [1] https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_lord_of_the_rings_the_rings_of_power/s01/reviews?type=user https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_lord_of_the_rings_the_...
  • refulgentis 4y ago
    It doesn't read as sole attribution, but rather a description of some trolls
    • freetime2 4y ago
      Fair point. But that’s the only justification given in the article for the negative reviews, which I think gives the impression that the bulk of negative reviews are coming from said trolls. I think it would have been worthwhile to at least mention some of the legitimate criticism the show has received (pacing, dialogue, straying from Tolkien in other ways, one-dimensional characters, etc.)
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  • denlekke 4y ago
    fwiw i found that a large proportion of the metacritic user reviews i looked at the night it come out appeared to be fake, not all containing racist/sexist content, and more seemed to take a "tolkein would be rolling in his grave" slant it was a fun problem to consider though, how to evaluate whether a review is fake or not. obviously the most powerful tools would be ip logging or browser fingerprinting or requiring other user verification but absent that i wonder what approaches review verification services take based on the content alone. i use some plugin for amazon reviews that i think looks for similar terms but it seems like it can sometimes be overzealous when products are very simple so many reviews seem similar when they might be from unique people
• wly_cdgr 4y ago
  So basically they are openly admitting to censoring their user reviews on cultural/political grounds. Cool to know
• matheusmoreira 4y ago
  These days any negative opinion is trolling I guess.
• sour-taste 4y ago
  I have no opinion on this show, but the cynical side of me says that the majority of watch time comes from the first few days and Amazon doesn't wanna put potential viewers off by negative reviews. If you combine this with the aggressive marketing they do then it's basically a ploy to get people to watch. I get it, they sunk gobs of money into this and want returns, but it does seem like they're trying to trick people into watching. The moderation of reviews is an obvious conflict of interest but is also a massively hard problem to solve (just look at Steam reviews). This is a good time to plug a practice I started a while back of only watching things a year or so after they release, it really lets all the positive and negative hype die down so you can get good reviews and opinions. Plus you don't need to wait for episodes to premiere each week.
  • vlunkr 4y ago
    It’s the Ghostbusters 2016 strategy: blame negative reactions on bigots until everyone gets the chance to see for themselves that your product is trash.
    • rileymat2 4y ago
      I enjoyed the 2016 ghostbusters, in particular McKinnon and Hemsworth. I can see someone involved trying to justify the lackluster economic performance.
      • vlunkr 4y ago
        That's fair, I was being hyperbolic. I thought I would like it, the cast is obviously great. The humor just fell flat for me.
        • midoridensha 4y ago
          Like so many bad movies, it had terrible direction. Just look at George Lucas's SW prequels. Having a great cast is useless if the director is bad.
    • denlekke 4y ago
• karaterobot 4y ago
  > Each critique is then evaluated to determine whether it’s genuine or a forgery created by a bot, troll or other breed of digital goblin. In general, this sounds like a good idea to me. There are a lot of reviews that aren't in good faith, or aren't useful because they're something like "0/10 this sucks" or "10/10 lol", and I don't really see those as valuable — in fact, the opposite. However, the evaluation of what reviews are and aren't worth keeping would have to be done by an independent third party, not the company that produced the show, and who has an obvious conflict of interest. Amazon would never do something like that, which is why as a rule I would keep in mind that reviews for Amazon products on Amazon platforms are not reliable (to the extent that any crowd-sourced reviews are reliable, which is a different conversation).
  • Balgair 4y ago
    >> ... by a bot, troll or other breed of digital goblin. Ok, the goblin bit is cute though.
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  • wyre 4y ago
    I find it very interesting that Amazon, after years of criticism for not doing anything regarding sellers gaming reviews, pauses reviews on the product they spent a billion dollars on.
    • snowwrestler 4y ago
      They actually instituted it earlier, but it's just being noticed/discussed now in the context of the Rings show.
      • effingwewt 4y ago
        Yea, they alsp began shitting on Tolkien fans preemptively by saying if ypi don't like it you're against diversity, etc. It's no accident they enacted this shortly before releasing such a steaming pile of IP monetization. Again- this is Amazon, who have shown they have no regard for laws, or their customers, and have a strained relationship with the truth to say the very least. I'd bet dollars to donuts no one knew about this policy because it was never enforced until now.
• EugeneOZ 4y ago
  • zmgsabst 4y ago
    I don’t view your comment as particularly useful: “Everyone who disagrees with me are just bigots!” isn’t the standard we should encourage — and that’s all you’ve said. > Please don't underestimate their ability to shitpost and spam negative reviews - they are high-skilled and have many years of training in this kind of battle. This part in particular sounds like projection. Edit: replying here due to posting cap. Yes — in a thread about general negative reviews you: a) associated the general negativity with people you view an extremists, and b) presented a claim that whole communities were just “triggered bigots” without showing any of their actual comments or reasoning. That kind of strawmanning leads me to believe you’re calling them bigots as a slur, rather than based on substance. I think you’re projecting your own intolerance and stereotyping of those people onto them, to reach the conclusion “they’re just bigots”.
    • EugeneOZ 4y ago
      Then maybe you need to re-read it. I’m saying you that *chan communities have hundreds of posts calling for 1-star reviews. I’ve explained their reasoning. They are bigots because they are racists, misogynists, and homophobes, not because they “disagree with me” - I have nothing to agree with them. I haven't submitted any reviews for this show, I’m not trying to protect my opinion. Amazon is fighting with hordes of shitposters, not just doing some censorship.
    • EpicBlackCrayon 4y ago
      > “Everyone who disagrees with me are just bigots!” isn’t the standard we should encourage — and that’s all you’ve said. If you cannot admit that the people who regularly visit 4chan are bigots, then you are not arguing in good faith. That is a fundamental premise to continue the discussion. If we can't agree on that premise, then your comments are not particularly useful. This is okay bait at best.
    • EugeneOZ 4y ago
• d_burfoot 4y ago
  Hot take: maybe the writers wanted to show their loyalty to Tolkien by making the first couple of chapters really boring
  • lsh123 4y ago
    Best comment ever, lol ;)
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • isbvhodnvemrwvn 4y ago
    Too little singing and spending an hour describing a tree.
• durovo 4y ago
  Couldn't most of the backlash (the legitimate parts) be addressed by changing the title of the show to LOTR fanfic: Rings of Power?
  • lethologica 4y ago
    It was the same with most recent Star Treks too, including all of the new movies. They may as well have been titled “Generic Sci Fi Movie” and “Generic Sci Fi TV Show” Strange New Worlds is the only Star Trek in a long, long time that has been worthy of the name Star Trek. But well known and deeply loved IPs sell, so we get a ton of generic media with the name slapped on it.
  • xxs 4y ago
    it's just not considered half decent fanfic, is the main issue.
• Ycombigatorz 4y ago
• rishav_sharan 4y ago
  Here's a quick review from someone who is brown skinned and has read most of Tolkien's legendarily. # I was somewhat biased against the idea of black elves before the show started and will admit that in actuality, it felt like a non issue as the show went on. # The visuals and production values are amazing. One of the best in any TV show I have ever seen. Music, is surprisingly not memorable at all. # the dialogs are cringe inducing. They have tried too hard to write in prose and utterly failed. You will have characters talking to each other in similies and metaphors which make no sense. # The plot so far feels very slow and hamfisted. And at the same time, it seems to lurch randomly here and there, hoping to find some way forward. Too many Hollywood cliche decision making, lack of logic in the characters # Harfoots are both endearing and boring at the same time. Would have been nice to cut their screentime to half as nothing happens in their story parts at all other than setting the fact that these are simple, good natured people. # This wasn't Tolkien. This was some generic fantasy. Thats the only way to digest this work, if you have read Tolkien. It is fine to make fill in the gaps in his writing (Or appendices in this case) with your own invention. Its another to overwrite what he wrote with unhinged ideas # One of the things which I hated in the LOTR movies is here as well - Bollywood elf physics. # Dwarves again are Irish and exist mainly for comedic relief. Would have loved to see at least this show to give them some gravitas. They might as well have wandered from the sets of the Hobbits movies. Elves look rather old and just human. Nothing like immortal, ethereal beings they are supposed to be. Would have preferred younger actors for the role. # Female dwarf beards? That was such a stupid controversy anyway. Even in the original writing, I read it as a funny throwaway line from JRR. I am happy that the showrunners didn't go with beards. That would have been extremely stupid to look at. # The main character of Slay Queen is very unlikable. She is dour, humourless, everyone is ready to heap praise on her yet we only see how terrible of a leader she is. Not a fan of Galadriel. Elrond is better but the stilted dialogs and a complete lack of screen presence from the actor kills his character as well. Nori, the Harfoot, is the only one I liked so far. She is Hobbit, through and through. # If I has to give it a rating, it would be a solid 6/10. a mediocre rating for a mediocre show. Not a terrible show by any means but not that good either. For reference, I would give Wheels of Time 5/10 - so they both are pretty close by in quality. # Will I continue to watch it? Likely. Though, if the quality doesn't improves, I expect I will wander off to shinier things by episode 5.
• k__ 4y ago
  They should do these reviews with all reviews of their products.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• eatbitseveryday 4y ago
  Any hints whether this will end up on disc at some point?
  • tmnvix 4y ago
    Good question. I'm not really too sure how this works these days. Does any Netflix/Apple/Amazon content make it to disc?
• spaceman_2020 4y ago
  I’m honestly surprised by the writing in the show so far. I was afraid they would go the Game of Thrones Season 8 route and just dumb everything down to stupid quotes. But so far, there’s a definite richness in the writing that I wasn’t expecting. Its not entirely Tolkienesque, but its richer than I expected a mainstream blockbuster show to be.
  • topranks 4y ago
    Yeah. Racists (thankfully) are a small group, as are Tolkien die-hards. Amazon was probably right not to pitch the show at either group.
• 0xedd 4y ago
• Gatsky 4y ago
  I just don't understand the level of virtriol about a TV show. Is this the fruit of waning religiosity, where everyone adopts whatever random cause and fights to the death about it? I thought we got past this malarkey with the stunning finale of The Sopranos... creative art is not there to satisfy your clamouring desires. That is 'content'.
  • coffee_beqn 4y ago
    I seriously missed some weird angry mob. I watched the first two episodes yesterday out of curiosity and it was the most compelling TV show I’ve seen in years. I’ve read the books a long time ago and enjoy fantasy. I thought this was a great start for a fantasy series.
  • BurningFrog 4y ago
    There isn't, in the big picture, a huge level of such vitriol. It's mostly that it's a very easy angle to write click-friendly articles about. You can easily go "nut-picking" on Twitter, and find people saying whatever crazy thing you need for an article like that.
    • ethbr0 4y ago
      The HN comment threads above indicate there's a fair amount of vitriol.
  • blihp 4y ago
    Tolkien created one of the most fleshed out fantasy universes to date. As a result, there's a not inconsiderable number of die hard fans who don't react well to disregarding canon as there is a rather insane amount of detail spelled out in the books. As long as one can get in the mindset of 'this is some disposable Tolkien-ish fantasy content', it's an OK bit of filler (IMO, having watched the first couple of episodes)
    • ethbr0 4y ago
      This feels different though. (a) Most of the angry people haven't even watched (!) the few episodes (!!) that are out. (b) I'm not sure most of the outraged are Tolkien fans. It honestly feels more like dog piling / mob hysteria. When did we become consumers of visual media where "I don't like it, and I haven't and won't watch it" is a valid position to publicly kvetch about?
• blackoil 4y ago
  User reviews are anyway getting useless. As a society we are now trained to have strong opinion about everything and being internet, there'll be a million loud voices supporting your view. So why worry about reading counter view and nuanced details when you can live happily in your echo chamber.
  • ekianjo 4y ago
    user reviews are way more reliable on average than critics reviews who are paid to lick someone elses boots.
    • ahoho 4y ago
      I’m not sure I agree. There are at least two independent websites designed to combat paid user reviews on Amazon alone.
    • themitigating 4y ago
      What proof do you have of this wide accusation?
    • hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
      Bullshit. I find that user reviews and critic reviews often diverge in the same way that an Adam Sandler movie is never going to win an Oscar even if it is popular with theatergoers, but that's fine. In fact, I find it really useful to categorize movie reviews as: * High critic score, high audience score - OK, why did everybody love this movie? * High critic score, low audience score - usually a more "niche" or academic topic, definitely something that will make me think, even if I don't like the movie. * Low critic score, high audience score - A "turn my brain off and enjoy it" kind of movie.
      • kevinventullo 4y ago
        The Last Jedi was not panned by the populace for being too highbrow, quite the opposite.
    • 4y ago
• asdfk-12 4y ago
  Rings of power is equal parts boring, predictable, and positively ho-hum in every respect. Feels like it got focus-grouped to death. I am likely not the target audience, seeing as how Amazon provides ~14 languages for closed captioning - they may be seeking a more global audience with this content. I read all the books and saw the Peter Jackson trilogy in theaters. This adaptation leaves a dull impression.
  • tenpies 4y ago
    I think that many of us are coming at this with Peter Jackson's trilogy in mind (and the extended editions at that), but we have - probably intentionally - forgotten the exceedingly mediocre The Hobbits trilogy. If you use that more recent work as the baseline, then I can see how the episodes released so far place the series fairly in the "watchable, but forgettable" category. I do hope Amazon releases some UHD stills of the cities though. The team who handled those did an exceptional job.
    • rdtsc 4y ago
      > forgotten the exceedingly mediocre The Hobbits trilogy. True. That could have been a 2 hour movie or at most two episodes. However, one difference is that the characters there do not seem that much at odds with the book or the first three movies. Galadriel in the Amazon show, on the other hand, just doesn't feel like the book or the movie Galadriel so it's a bit jarring. For their large budget, the dialog and characters should have been done a bit better I thought.
      • kixiQu 4y ago
        > That could have been a 2 hour movie or at most two episodes. https://hobbitfanedits.fandom.com/wiki/Hobbit_Fanedits_Wiki https://hobbitfanedits.fandom.com/wiki/Hobbit_Fanedits_Wiki :)
        • wardedVibe 4y ago
          Watched one of these (forget which), and it was actually a decent movie.
• deleted 4y ago
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• kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
  All they have to do is wait until the sun comes up and all the trolls will just turn to stone.
• ALittleLight 4y ago
  The Lord of the Rings is obviously a masterpiece of literature. I've not seen the new show, but it seems obvious that any new story would likely be far inferior - simply as a matter of chance, most stories aren't at the level of The Lord of the Rings. The new show could be pretty good and would still look bad in contrast to the originals. Just seems like a cost of not being original.
  • ipnon 4y ago
    This is a good point: There have been many flopped reboots of Shakespeare, the Bible, Mark Twain. They mostly arose before they could be instantly criticized en masse the day of their release with the Web. We only remember the good ones for a reason.
  • Rebelgecko 4y ago
    Even The Hobbit, which should've had a much easier time piggybacking off of the success of LOTR than ROP, struggled to recapture the magic that made LOTR great.
• logisticseh 4y ago
  [flagged]
  • speeder 4y ago
    Tolkien actually fought in the World War and was trying to make a anti-war and anti-industrialization message. For example he portrays Melkor (the ultimate evil in his lore) as the Maia (think Catholic saint) responsible for Industrialization, where one of his greatest achievements was building a fortress that was a factory that had chimneys that spewed coal smoke... Even artisan characters were often portrayed negatively (Sauron, that made the Rings of Power, or the guy that made the Silmarils and then people commited genocide and other atrocities because of them). One of the most famous obviously war-inspired scene Tolkien wrote, were the dead marches, that are absolutely creepy and repulsive, and they were basically a description of the terrain during the Battle of the Somme, where he was physically present in the trenches fighting.
    • logisticseh 4y ago
      • astrange 4y ago
        LOTR was like the most popular book in the world behind the Bible. Of course everyone who's general-aged knows about it. Naming a government contractor Palantir is a joke on whoever did it of course, since the palantirs destroyed everyone who tried to use them.
        • logisticseh 4y ago
          It wasn't really primarily about the generals. It was mostly about the captains (who are YOUNG) and soliders. It was the movies, not the books, that made LOTR a powerful tool for DoD. They didn't just know about it. It was an organizing piece of ideology and shared identity. Any analogy or metaphor that made reference was more likely to be funded. > Naming a government contractor Palantir is a joke on whoever did it of course, since the palantirs destroyed everyone who tried to use them. Sometimes trolls are all in on the same joke.
• andsoitis 4y ago
  Metaverse: when you have to fight internet trolls instead of real trolls.
• hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  I'm surprised most of the comments here are about the pros and cons of The Rings of Power. I thought it would be more about how Amazon reacted quickly and decisively to protect their own content and product from trolling reviews, but then why does it feel like so many of the other products on their site are swimming in BS reviews?
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • mrtree 4y ago
  • tdeck 4y ago
    This is the real point. Amazon seems to only care about review quality when it hurts their short-term bottom line. They don't much care when even a third party website like Fakespot can detect fake reviews better than their own systems.
• mrtree 4y ago
• friendlypeg 4y ago
  • ketzo 4y ago
    > I have yet to understand why it is “racist” to explicitly prefer one race over another Then I’m not really sure you’re getting the core concept?
    • friendlypeg 4y ago
  • deleted 4y ago
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• oxplot 4y ago
  Delaying the effect of human actions seems like a great idea in general. Humans tend to get angry and do/write something they would either regret later or something that hurts others. Even if the reviews aren't verified, simply confirming with the poster a few days later whether they want to make changes before making it public may reduce the number of rash remarks.
  • dvhh 4y ago
    Shouldn't this rule applying to everything instead of just the amazon one's ?
    • oxplot 4y ago
      Yes, as much as practically possible. For instance, in an online forum, days long delays would be impractical, but maybe 10-20 minutes.
  • ipnon 4y ago
    This seems to be the intended effect of the Presidency and the Supreme Court in the United States. Congress hastily shoehorns a bill to vote, the President has a chance to veto it. If a truly unworthy law makes it so far as to be executed into law, the people have the chance to bring a lawsuit wherein the Supreme Court can strike the whole thing down on a reasonable constitutional basis. Perhaps it would be wise for the United States government to start bankrolling Tolkien reboots?
• a-user-you-like 4y ago
  They’ve slipped the ring on
• pharos92 4y ago
  Casting choices and politics aside, the intro was weak, the story lacked grip and the characters were all unlikable. It doesn't even feel like Tolkien. As a huge Tolkein fan, it feels like yet another betrayal (just like The Hobbit movies). I'll give it the benefit of doubt for another episode or two, and if it fails to improve I'll give up.
  • dmix 4y ago
    > (just like The Hobbit movies) This is a good point. Everyone is saying people just expected Peter Jackson movies and got disappoint... but the Hobbit series was PJ and had a significant amount of negative reviews. Especially the further it got into the series, particularly by diehards. For ex: this imdb page has plenty of 1 and 10s, just like the new show but you can't simply dismiss it all as culture war nonsense like people are trying to do this time around https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2310332/reviews?ref_=tt_urv https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2310332/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
    • midoridensha 4y ago
      Even Peter Jackson can't make a worthy successor to the Peter Jackson LotR movies. If he can't pull it off, how can anyone else be expected to achieve that level of greatness? Maybe people should just re-adjust their expectations and stop expecting a cinematic masterpiece. We got lucky with LotR, and honestly, FotR because the successor movies in that trilogy (particularly the last one) weren't as good as the first.
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• swayvil 4y ago
  When you put a halt to all reviews it's because you are afraid of bad reviews. And this "but no, these bad reviews are insincere" stuff is pure malarkey. I know it, you know it, my cat knows it. Amazon isn't fooling anybody.
• kybernetyk 4y ago
  I found the first episode very long drawn and boring. Wanted to leave a review but Amazon told me: "please watch till the end to leave a review". Not going to torture myself just to leave a review. So that's a novel way to keep the reviews artificially high, I guess.
• ballenf 4y ago
  Why does Amazon care about the reviews? Just seems like they have more to lose with this extraordinary freeze. Just have to wonder if the move isn't ego driven instead of business driven. But I also think Bezos can do whatever he wants on his website. Including undermining users' trust.
  • ipnon 4y ago
    It's bad PR to have a review bomb on a show with a billion dollar budget. A review bomb also discourages people looking for something new to watch. Amazon is in the unique position of having a near monopoly on quantifiable reviews with their internal system. It's in the best interest of the company to buffer the review bombing by any means, so long as the buffering doesn't induce negative PR in itself.
• 29athrowaway 4y ago
  It's the equivalent of Karate Kid (2010), where the martial art being practiced is not even karate, but kung fu. Complete nonsense.
• spoonjim 4y ago
  I'm amazed at how much "content" people will devour inside their fandoms these days. Whether it's Marvel, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, etc... seems like people will watch like 15 movies of content and happily lap up more. I don't have the time for too much content these days with several young children but when I do get more time I hope there's more interesting stuff to watch.
• adastra22 4y ago
  I love the first two episodes and I am looking forward to the next one. Orcs are downright terrifying compared with Peter Jackson's version. I liked the tension between the elf legions and the men whose land they occupy. It is an interesting new angle. Am I the only one that feels this way?
  • ipnon 4y ago
    It has been said a country only needs 10% of its populace to united behind a radical ideology to start a revolution. This has roughly held for the American Revolution, French Revolution, Russian Revolution. I would not be surprised if the same holds true here. An extremely vocal minority is extremely discontent with this show. The average Amazon Prime watcher meanwhile is completely oblivious to the controversy. They find the show to be somewhere between slightly below and slightly above average. The issue is that they are writing reviews at a much lesser rate than the rabble rousers.
  • ksidudwbw 4y ago
    It actually looked like a corrupted elf, which makes it that more scary and sad. They also portrayed elves really well. Vain and ideological. It's these lore holes that normal people dont have and they miss out on a lot of connections watching this series
  • koonsolo 4y ago
    Same here, I think I will enjoy the rest of this series too. From what I observed, the negativity stems from a few different groups: - Tolkien fans that are very critical towards derived works. - anti-woke groups that take offence in racial and gender castings. - People that like to see big Amazon fail. After all the dust has settled, I think this series will do pretty well for Amazon. Giving it a score below 6.7 basically means "This show is worse that Xena: Warrior Princess." Which it clearly isn't. The internet crowd was already upset before the first episode aired.
  • lolinder 4y ago
    Nope, I'm enjoying it! It's been a long time since I've been looking forward for a new TV show episode. It's obvious to me that they've put a lot of work and love into it, and (in spite of the hate from hardcore Tolkien fans) it's obvious that they really care about the world that Tolkien wrote. I'm nervous because no TV show stays good forever, but I'm very excited for the rest of this season.
• AHappyCamper 4y ago
• jrsj 4y ago
  I don't like the idea of pausing / censoring reviews in general, but its understandable given the hate brigading thats going on with this show in particular. Hopefully they stick to no censorship of reviews/user ratings after the "pause" period but who knows. Personally I found the show to be pretty good, I was pleasantly surprised.
  • agilob 4y ago
    In the last few days Amazon was removing negative reviews from IMDB (owned by Amazon), they are not stopping with this move
    • jrsj 4y ago
      Well in that case...it sounds like Amazon is abusing their position in the market and ought to be broken up into several smaller companies :)
• yessirwhatever 4y ago
  > Each critique is then evaluated to determine whether it’s genuine or a forgery created by a bot, troll or other breed of digital goblin Look they’re criticizing us! They must be trolls.
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • ninth_ant 4y ago
    Not all criticism is equal in value, or in a vacuum. Coordinated review bombing — as described in the article — distorts the purpose of a review average. Im this case we have a well- organized group of people determined to hate on a show because it offends their racial purity ideals. If you’re not part of that hate cult, when they deliberately skew the average figure in order to make a political point, that makes the review less useful. Honestly Amazon should probably give up on reviews and do surveys instead. And they and other studios likely do this for their internal reviews, which is why we see Wheel of Time and House of the Dragon continue on despite the vocal hate cults surrounding those shows as well.
    • TulliusCicero 4y ago
      > Im this case we have a well- organized group of people determined to hate on a show because it offends their racial purity ideals. Yeah, but looking around it looks like there's also LotR fans who are offended because they feels it shits on Lord of the Rings. Maybe not the best motivation to slam the series with 1/10's either, but certainly less bad. And then there are others who just think it's poorly executed in general. Seems to be a mix of things.
      • ninth_ant 4y ago
        From this perspective I’m not sure that it’s the motivation that really matters, but the effect. If a bunch of ultra-hardcore lotr fans review bomb, the effect is the same as when republicans do it. They give their own clique outsided weight in the review average, skewing the result so it would be less representative of a true average result.
• yessirwhatever 4y ago
  I don’t known about others, but I really don’t want to watch this show now.
• vishnugupta 4y ago
  This is Amazon adopting their shady practice of review pumping they perfected on physical goods store to digital media.
• Ekaros 4y ago
  I hope they use the same standard for any review giving high score. Let's say anything over 6. As surely those are product of bot farms or dishonest culture warriors too.
• wellthisisgreat 4y ago
  Can we just say two world about the non-stop background music that sounds like it was written an Alexa-powered symphonic orchestra stuck in the elevator
• jmspring 4y ago
  Holy heck, the diving into Silmarillion (sp?) intentions. Amazon has a series. It’s not true to subject matter. It’s been entertaining (not at the level Amazon paid). Just like the movies, liberties aren’t taken.
• jgreen10 4y ago
  I like the show so far. I don't mind that some people don't. Let's see what happens next.
• smsm42 4y ago
  Has any content producer/review platform blocked reviews on freshly released flagship product before or is it a new thing invented by Amazon?
• overgard 4y ago
  Rings of Power isn't suffering from trolling, it's suffering from angering tolkien fans. Every review I've seen on youtube pretty much hates it. The gist I get is that good writing has taken a backseat to woke messaging. I've noticed in the past few years that the professional reviews on rotten tomatoes tend to skew in way different directions than user reviews. I don't think it's because the professionals are right though. I think there's a lot of group think and peer pressure.
  • secret-noun 4y ago
    Also worth mentioning how the Tomatometer is calculated: reviewer's scales (be it some number of stars, a 1 to 10 rating, a letter grade, etc) are quantized down to being either "positive" (1) or "negative" (0), and then, they are averaged to a percentage. One issue with this method is that middling reviews have more effect than they should. For example, if 100 reviewers all thought a movie was 51% good, the Tomatometer would read 100%. And, conversely, with just a two point difference, if they all thought it was 49%, the Tomatometer would be 0%. In both circumstances, the Tomatometer would probably not represent how the reviewers felt about the movie.
  • koonsolo 4y ago
    Giving it a 1/10 score just means that person is very angry for some reason, not because they objectively evaluated the series and gave it a 1/10 rating because it's terrible on all fronts. Giving it a 3/10 means that series needs to live up to some kind of standard that other series don't need to live up to. If this series wouldn't be based on Tolkien and was released before anyone heard of "woke", it would at least be a 7/10. For reference, Xena is a 6.7/10.
    • kshacker 4y ago
      Even a 6.7 likely has a few people giving it 1/10, a few people giving it 3/10 and a few people giving it 10/10. I have probably rated a couple of things 1/10 out of the 20 odd ratings I may have provided IMDB, but that does not make me angry, just that the particular topic (move, series, episode) somehow seemed to waste my time, but someone else may feel otherwise. > Giving it a 3/10 means that series needs to live up to some kind of standard that other series don't need to live up to. Whatever standard people used to give 3/10 to Xena could be used to give 1, 3 or 10. The problem is we do not know who is a genuine critic, and who is just a hater (or a complete aficionado) unless we start doing some kind of meta-analysis which is what Amazon seems to be trying to do, as long as they do it consistently.
• LoveMortuus 4y ago
  My impression was that although the acting felt a bit amateurish it was still an enjoyable experience and I'm looking forwards to next episodes. I have wanted the trilogy, many times, including the extended edition and I've really loved it. While I'm not a fan of woke stuff in media, the first episode seemed okay, even though there was a black elf and such. The PC stuff did ruin Dr. Who for me though but I'm still hoping that I'll one day return, because I really loved that show.
  • beachy 4y ago
    Kind of hard to say that a black elf signifies wokeness isn't it?
    • jamiek88 4y ago
      Didn’t you know? There are two types of actor. White male and political.
    • AmazingTurtle 4y ago
      > An elf is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic mythology > The word elf is found throughout the Germanic languages and seems originally to have meant 'white being. Lmfao how is a black elf not woke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elf
      • goto11 4y ago
        Norse mythology have dark/black elfs (Svartálfar).
• Paul_S 4y ago
  No one had to pause reviews for Top Gun.
• yes_really 4y ago
  > Amazon has introduced a new weapon in the battle against internet trolls: delays. What a bunch of BS. Their product was received very negatively by the users and they would rather call them "trolls" than admit they screwed up.
  • glanzwulf 4y ago
    That's the thing tho, was it received very negatively? No. It was not. The general consensus is that it's an ok show so far, a 6/7 out of 10. But there's a bunch of people mass bombing the show with 1/10. How is that fair? On the other hand you also have those trying to tip the scales by giving it a 10/10 which is also very wrong. Unwinnable scenario for Amazon (or any content producer in any medium). Only way to win is by not playing it or changing the rules. Have to Kobayashi Maru the user reviews.
    • MichaelCollins 4y ago
      > The general consensus is that it's an ok show so far, a 6/7 out of 10. That's only the "general consensus" after you exclude people who disagree, using dehumanizing language to justify the invalidation of their opinions. > But there's a bunch of people mass bombing the show with 1/10. How is that fair? One person, one vote. That's as fair as it gets.
      • denlekke 4y ago
        my ideal for reviews are: one person one vote, the voter actually watched the content (or owns the product etc), and voters have a relatively similar standard for what value corresponds to each possible rating. however, i have no faith that any of these ideals are met for reviews on any platform. by and large this is why i don't pay attention to any reviews but it's really hard, or in the case of physical things, expensive to take this approach. just like any platform that has to deal with spam it can be dangerous for them to release information about what they do to combat spam because it can enable to people trying to spam. so there's a bit of a stalemate where the user lacks a justification for having faith in the reviews as far as most platforms, i'd be shocked if they done anything more than a captcha or ip restrictions, and you can just pay ~$1 for 1000 solved captchas and about the same cost again for proxies
• glanzwulf 4y ago
  User reviews is a very tricky subject, it's a shame but there's really no way to win, be it on IMDB, Metacritic, Steam, etc. User reviews are always a pain and more often than not they're abused by either side of the scale, be it the mass bombing of 1/10 or the bots that give 10/10. Companies want to use reviews to promote the product, people feel the only way their voice is heard is by mass bombing. You look at Rings of Power and you see tons of 10s and tons of 1s. But the show is just ok, it's neither of those scores. but both sides are trying to misuse the system. Honestly I wish we'd just abolish user reviews altogether.
• secondcoming 4y ago
  Not being a huge LoTR fan, I watched RoP after the review hoohah first came up. It’s pretty bad but I’ll watch the rest. The Fantasy Irish Gypsies of Colour was a bit much though; tough to watch.
• elcapitan 4y ago
  Good thing they deactivated reviews. Maybe it's just one of those Chinese copies of well-known existing products slipped into Amazon's warehouse to make a buck off unsuspecting customers.
• hoseja 4y ago
  Will I be allowed to watch it for free for 72 hours too?
• alpaca128 4y ago
  > In the case of “A League of Their Own,” it appears to have worked: To date, the show has an average 4.3 out of 5 star rating on Prime Video, with 80% of users rating the show with five stars and 14% with one star. Great, now just delete those 14% and the result will be even better and closer to what the audience is supposed to think.
• MrPatan 4y ago
  Let's stop pretending it's about the hair or the color. It's about clumsily shoving some politics down everyone's throats. When Peter Jackson made some changes it didn't cause this response because it wasn't politics-shoving, and it wasn't clumsy. Maybe you liked it, maybe you didn't, but it was easy to engage with it at the level of art or entertainment. When Amazon makes this show, it's so appallingly obvious that the number one requirement is on the politics level that people respond at that level. These are not artistic changes. This is propaganda. So it gets treated as such.
  • tarsinge 4y ago
    Can you be more specific? I’m a fan of the books and I quite enjoyed these first episodes. I didn’t notice obvious politic agenda and diversity was handled quite gracefully (i.e. not noticeable if you are not looking for it), nothing clashing with the spirit of the books and preventing the enjoyment for me.
  • goto11 4y ago
    > clumsily shoving some politics down everyone's throats I assume it is the presence of dark-skinned characters which you call politics-showing? If the movies had retained Tolkiens description of half-orcs as having squint-eyes, would you have considered it completely un-political?
  • lolinder 4y ago
    Have you even watched the show? I expected after all of the outrage to find something political in it, and it's just not there as far as I can tell. Is there anything truly political besides black people and Galadriel as a warrior? Any dialog you found offensive? What I expected based on all the cries of politics was something like the Star Wars prequel trilogy, where every 20 minutes or so someone would say something that was obviously a jab at a modern political party. I'm just not seeing that at all.