9 ms·

Why the Rings of Power Show Is Not Good (Part #7934)

87 points by markus_zhang 4y ago

shmerl 4y ago
It reads too ranty to me. /spoilers below I think it's good. And personally I like that they managed to keep some characters completely mysterious, like Adar and the Stranger and you can't tell who Sauron is. I'd guess it's possibly neither.
- ant6n 4y ago
  Spoilers!
  - shmerl 4y ago
    Added a warning :)
spacemadness 4y ago
I continue to be impressed with how adamant the internet is to tell me I need to not like this show. I’m a middling LOTR geek and I’m just happy to have more on screen adaptations that aren’t the Hobbit. I really enjoy it. Sorry internet!
- philipkglass 4y ago
  I'm enjoying it well enough too. It probably helps that I have only read The Hobbit and LoTR, plus that the negative sentiment I read before I watched the show helped to keep my expectations modest.
  - shmerl 4y ago
    I've read the Silmarillion too. I think the show is very enjoyable regardless and some references are nice too even if they aren't always are completely accurate.
    - cygx 4y ago
      They do not have the rights to the Silmarillion, so being too accurate could get them sued. Given these constraints, I probably won't be too upset by any liberties they take once I get around to watching the show - never mind that by now, I've probably forgotten most of the lore anyway ;) That said, I'd have preferred a taller Galadriel and bearded dwarf ladies would have been fun...
- amalcon 4y ago
  Yeah, kind of reminds me of the Star Wars sequels (well, I actively disliked the last one also, but the first two sequels anyway). Are they as good as the original trilogy? No, but when they came out my expectations were calibrated to the prequels. The bar was basically "Does it have Jar-Jar? No? Then I'm OK with it". Same here. The pacing is inconsistent, and some of the characters seem pretty off. The pacing is not as inconsistent, and the characters not as off, as The Hobbit. Therefore whatever, it's fine. Is it going to be my favorite show? No. Will I watch it? Yeah.
  - mcv 4y ago
    That's pretty much what I've been saying: I don't like that they're contradicting all the events in the Appendix, but at least the stuff they invent isn't quite as bad as The Hobbit. Because how they managed to mangle that brilliant adventure story is just incomprehensible (and yet I even managed to enjoy that, if with sadness about all the stuff they messed up). Still, low bars everywhere. Why can't these sort of shows be made by people who simultaneously love and understand the source material, but also know how to write a good story?
  - saghm 4y ago
    > Yeah, kind of reminds me of the Star Wars sequels (well, I actively disliked the last one also, but the first two sequels anyway) I can definitely relate to this. I didn't mind the first two at all, but the last one was not enjoyable at all for me. I'm the type of person who usually has absolutely no interest in cinematography as an art form (tending to roll my eyes a bit internally when someone actively makes sure to use the term "films" instead of "movies"), but watching The Rise of Skywalker was the first time I ever felt strong negative feelings towards a movie purely based on, well, film-making reasons. I was almost overwhelmed by how quickly the camera shots were changing; at one point I started counting how many seconds each shot lasted, and it took several minutes before I counted one over four seconds. The dialogue also felt extremely stilted; I remember reading beforehand that they had used existing footage of Carrie Fischer due to her dying beforehand, and it seemed like their solution to shoe-horning in the lines of hers they had without making them stick out was just to edit it so that all dialogue in the entire movie felt spliced together rather than the actors actually being on set together.' The Rise of Skywalker may have done a better job of catering to people's nostalgia in terms of where they expected the plot to go after the original movies, but I don't think that doing what people expected is what made the original movies good in the first place.
- danjoredd 4y ago
  The problem is it is not an adaptation in any way whatsoever. It is an original work by Amazon, which is where the frustration comes from. My main frustration is how they did not have Durin as a reincarnated figure, but as part of just a lineage who happened to name themselves the same, like an English king. Thats pretty central to the dwarven situation in The Hobbit and LotR, and it feels incredibly dumb they left that out. I would love for an adaptation of the Children of Hurin, or the struggles of Fingolfin leading to his final battle with Morgoth, or something...but no, they decided to write their own lore in. I have not watched it for the same reason that I avoided Shadow of Mordor. What I know is from the articles and reviews of the show surrounding its release. But the fact that they did not have the rights to the Silmarillion bewilders me why they would try to appeal to fans who have already read it. Tolkien and his son spent near a century working on the lore, and it feels wrong to have a corporation decide to throw it all out for a quick buck. If they wanted a fantasy show to fight Game of Thrones, they should have had an original work. I mean, look at Invincible! Outside of the hardcore comic book scene, nobody has heard of that. Because it was such a good story, people spread the word like wildfire. They can create something original, and that original work can succeed. They are Amazon. They have the marketing to put it in the public's eye, and the money to make it good. Instead they rode the coattails of an author, and even claimed "it was the story he never wrote" as though any of that was based on his works.
  - mcv 4y ago
    > they decided to write their own lore in. They had to. They didn't have the rights to Children of Hurin, or the Silmarillion. And they're never going to get them, because the Tolkien estate is never going to sell those. (And I'm frankly surprised that they let the LotR rights get so far out of their control as to make The Hobbit and this possible. Plenty of authors these days want more control over what happens with their story.) They only had the rights of the Appendix to LotR. There's tons of material in there, but not a complete story. So they took the events from the Second Age to write a story about (though they already seem to be mixing some events from the Third Age into the mix). They could have made this a grand multi-millennia epic, but instead they decided to mix the events of 2000 (or even 4000?) years together into one big soup.
- dereg 4y ago
  I feel the same. I've been entirely tuned out of LoTR/internet culture and so I went into the show with zero expectations. I was surprised by how much I liked the show. When I read this review, the author's complaints are all trivial. The three examples of the show being terrible are: 1. Elron and Durin are really good friends, 2. Galadriel looks suspiciously strong, and 3. the Hobbits aren't reacting the right way to a broken ankle. I'm sure this type of article plays well to a person with a disposition, or someone who has been steeped too deeply into certain internet subcultures.
- nurettin 4y ago
  As an aging 90s dnd and mtg player, I have observed that some will like the pacing, some won't. Some will take anything named LOTR, some will avoid anything that is not canon in their eyes. Some like "progressive diversity" some don't care about fitting everything to the current political climate.
KerrAvon 4y ago
Yeah, I find it fascinating that all of these people seem to be watching a different show than I am. I like it. I know other diehard Tolkien fans who enjoy it a lot. If anything, I could do with a bit more nudity, a bit less graphic violence. But you can't have everything.
- Analemma_ 4y ago
  It's exactly the same with House of the Dragon: if you just go by what you read on Twitter, it seems like show is dead on arrival, utterly terrible, everyone knows GoT is over and done as "a thing". Meanwhile, I like it, everyone in my extended social circle who's watching it likes it, and it's doing huge viewership numbers. Feels like yet another example of "everything you read on the internet is written by insane people".
  - henryfjordan 4y ago
    The r/freefolk subreddit, which was mainly just memes about hating the ending of GoT, has completely changed tune is now almost exclusively memes about House of the Dragon. For weeks up to the launch there were memes about not watching it but now it seems they are all enjoying it (maybe in a Star Wars Prequels kind of way but not outright hate).
- mcv 4y ago
  I think it looks absolutely gorgeous, but it helps a lot if you don't expect it to be true to Tolkien, because they seem to be intentionally getting everything wrong. And I don't see why, because I think the story would make a ton more sense if they stuck a bit more closely to the events described by Tolkien (plus a ton of invention obviously). I'm enjoying it and I'll keep watching it, but they've stirred the entire history into an incomprehensible soup, and the questionable plot keeps jerking characters around to places where they shouldn't be. But if you can sit back and not think too hard about it, it's great. Especially the Disa+Durin+Elrond scenes.
  - parkingrift 4y ago
    They don't have rights to the source material so they literally cannot get it right.
tunesmith 4y ago
I just don't understand why people don't say "I don't like it" rather than "This show is bad". It's not that difficult to have a strong opinion and also leave room for others.
- droopyEyelids 4y ago
  The other side of this coin is why do people need to feel a show is good just because they like it? It's ok to like trashy media.
  - miiiiiike 4y ago
    Exactly. --A guy who watched Suits
  - akvadrako 4y ago
    Saying "it's bad" is exactly the same as saying "I don't like it". At least when talking about art, there is no objective measure.
    - tunesmith 4y ago
      > Saying "it's bad" is exactly the same as saying "I don't like it". No it's not. (meta... meta... meta...)
- thrown1212 4y ago
  Because if you don’t like it, you’re the ass. But, if it’s bad, they’re the ass. Few people bother to climb the steep wall of cognitive dissonance required to embrace the fact that the source of their problem might be intrinsic. Much easier to paint your displeasure in the palette of extrinsic and objective failures. You’re still an ass, but at least you don’t have to think of yourself as one.
  - swiley-gin 4y ago
    idk, I love being an ass and disliking things.
EddySchauHai 4y ago
I’m a pretty big Tolkien fan and I absolutely love this series. They keep surprising me with license-scope beyond what I thought Amazon acquired (using content from the Simarilian for example). If you’re on the fence about this show because of its media, give it a shot! /spoilers Can’t wait to find out who Sauron is, if he’s in the show so far.
- peteradio 4y ago
  Wait, what, is Sauron hiding as one of the characters!?
  - prox 4y ago
    I think he was quite a beautiful and most of all charming character before his corruption if I remember correctly.
    - EddySchauHai 4y ago
      Originally Sauron was a Maia who was 'good and uncorrupted' with a passion for order. He sided with Morgoth because he thought if they could control the minds of Middle-Earth they'd be better off. As far as I know, in the lore, Sauron isn't evil in the way he's portrayed in the movies in that his goal is to improve everyones lives through efficiency and order (so it's not as simple as light v dark). Sauron can shape-shift so in the second age he shows himself as a fair and beautiful man, but he's also portrayed as a werewolf and vampire in the books at different times!
      - prox 4y ago
        Interesting. Didn’t he lose that power when made the final Ring of Power, and when he activated it, he threw all of his “life force” in it (cruelty, malignancy etc.)
        EddySchauHai 4y ago
        Yes in order to make the One Ring more powerful than the other rings he had to put his own strength into it. However the elven rings weren't made by Sauron so he couldn't control those (eventually worn by Gandalf, Galadriel, and Elrond), and if I remember right the Dwarfs were too stubborn to be controlled (or something), so only the humans ended up being controlled anyway.
fullshark 4y ago
Basically he doesn't feel transported to a genuine lived in "honor bound" world. I remember when the big debates over the Star Wars prequels started, one argument in defense was that basically they were for kids and older fans hated them because they hated they were no longer children and could no longer feel the story beats and world it created so strongly due to a decreased sense of imagination and wonderment. I thought that was a lame deflection at the time but now that as the author has said, Fantasy/SciFi genre exercises dominate all of pop culture and I'm older I got to say I think that was 100% correct.
- IgorPartola 4y ago
  I would take a more nuanced approach. I saw Star Wars as a kid (but not in the US), and I thought it was novel and interesting. But I was in my late teens when I saw the prequels. They didn’t strike me as being more sophisticated than the originals. The world was not made more believable by making it feel larger. Instead it still felt like a kids movie(s) but now attempting to be more than that and failing at it. In other words, it failed at staying a great kids movie that adults can enjoy (and before you say that’s impossible, there are plenty of examples of it, from Pixar movies to live action ones). At the same time it failed to become a really sophisticated movie for adults: the world building was half assed, the characters still not multi-dimensional, the story was full of plot holes. I think this is the problem with dual purposing movies for both kids and adults: you can’t have intricate politics in kids movies and you can’t have simplistic world building in adult movies.
- chongli 4y ago
  due to a decreased sense of imagination and wonderment I don't know about that. I didn't read the Harry Potter series until my 30's and I absolutely loved it. Full of imagination and wonderment, I was utterly captivated. I've also re-read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings multiple times throughout my life and it seems to get better every time. I'm pretty cynical about big budget movies and TV shows in general though. I prefer shows where all the emphasis is placed on the writing and acting, such as Better Call Saul.
- iepathos 4y ago
  They are poorly written, filled with painful to watch cliches and lines. Can say this is definitely wrong since there have been subsequent starwars shows that don't suck like the movies did even for adult long-time fans. Don't need to be a kid to appreciate good fantasy/scifi with imagination and wonderment, just need to be a kid to be blind to bad writing.
flumpcakes 4y ago
This is just another "not MY LOTR". It's a show, plenty of people can like it and this attitude is quite insufferable. It's OK to not like a show, but you can't just gake-keep something and say it's "BAD". If people think this is bad, then they truly haven't see a bad tv show - with bad effects, bad writing, bad delivery, bad acting, continuity errors, and so on. > Rings of Power Is Dull Some TV shows are slower than others. > Example the First: The Dwarven Test of Endurance Durin commands the other dwarves, and was punishing a friend for imagined or otherwise misdeeds. I'm pretty sure he can do what he wants with his own agency. > Example the Second: Galadriel Sword Troll Thing I can't see this as anything else than sexism - there was no complaints at the absolute insanity that Legolas did in the LOTR trilogy. > Example the Third: Broken Hobbit Ankle These aren't people living in the modern world. Why apply our sense of fairness or compassion. The author even says we wouldn't be able to understand what the middle ages were like. > I'm Not Watching More LOTR films were not as Tolkien wrote. I recently re-watched them and they're not perfect either, to heap praise on the films but scorn the TV series is looking back with rose tinted glasses at best. > The violence in this show is way too explicit. Again, perhaps the author should revisit the original film trilogy because it was certainly violent.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > you can't just gake-keep something and say it's "BAD". You definitely can. It's better to just defend the show if you like it, rather than telling other people what they can and can't do.
  - flumpcakes 4y ago
    > rather than telling other people what they can and can't do. You should take your own advice.
- parkingrift 4y ago
  >I can't see this as anything else than sexism - there was no complaints at the absolute insanity that Legolas did in the LOTR trilogy. Incredible that you were able to go back and verify that "The Bottom Feeder" had not complained about the absurd depictions of Legolas in the LOTR trilogy. Alas, more misogynists and bigots!
droopyEyelids 4y ago
I think all the points he makes are good, but he misses at the beginning when he describes how now people can be picky about fantasy because we've a glut of it. That's technically true, but so many people are just SO happy to see orcs and wizards, none of the writing matters. Especially if it has a big brand like 'lord of the rings' attached to it plus an enormous CGI budget. You could have children write the story and it'd still make people happy.
areoform 4y ago
> Here's the thing. Art is individual to its creator. Only Van Gogh can paint a Van Gogh. Only Shakespeare can write Shakespeare. Only Tolkien can write Tolkien. > Rings of Power could never, ever be Tolkien. It could be, at best, competently made "I Can't Believe It's Not Tolkien." Yet, Partially-Hydrogenated Tolkien Substitute still could have been a good show. Okay. Sure. But they can launch movements where people try to expand on what they've already created. In this case, the Rings of Power show is beautiful, jaw droppingly beautiful in scale and execution, showing a world larger than has ever been depicted on TV before. https://winteriscoming.net/files/image-exchange/2022/08/ie_91003.jpeg https://winteriscoming.net/files/image-exchange/2022/08/ie_9... https://winteriscoming.net/files/image-exchange/2022/08/ie_91007.jpeg https://winteriscoming.net/files/image-exchange/2022/08/ie_9... A lot of attention to detail has been paid in the little things and I think it's amazing. But that's besides the point. The point is that these are shows and properties meant for the young, people in their teens or those who are growing up. The Hobbit was meant for children. The Lord of the Rings for adolescents. These are stories meant to fire up a young person's imagination and get them to dream bigger than before. By reducing these properties to an audience of adult fans, I feel, does them a disservice. As yes, absolutely media can be made to be enjoyable to all ages, but trying to please these fans is often an exercise in self immolation as whatever you create will never be as rosy as the memories from their childhood. But they are a powerful market. They are the ones buying the merch usually, instead of parents buying it for little kids. And so they have an outsized say on what happens within the product. It's baffling to me to see older generations maintaining a stranglehold over the stories that they enjoyed when they were younger. I think we should give these series and places room to grow and become into something more for each successive generation. And enjoy the process of that growth. Because almost every single person who is disappointed by this series is a diehard, middle aged, Tolkein fan (often male). Who grew up with Tolkein in the 80s, a time when its very reading was an act of mild rebellion. From the article, > Wayyyy back in the 70s and 80s, science fiction/fantasy/superhero content hadn't completely taken over the culture yet. New nerd content was rare and treasured. > The Superman movie (1978) was mind-blowing. (I’m old enough to remember when Superman was a good guy.) A new Star Trek series was an impossible dream. Battlestar Galactica was cherished. We were so desperate for sci-fi stuff that we watched Doctor Who, for God's sake! This is not true anymore. And in that change, the stories that have been told and whom they're being told to has changed as well. And that genuinely seems to bother these middle-aged fans. And I think that's okay. It's hard to let go, but let go they must so that future generations can cherish what they cherished, with fresh, unblemished eyes.
_8j50 4y ago
This is funny in some ways. You have all these people insist that it is bad and the people in comments you always have a contingent that like it. I didn't watch it so I have no opinion so far. But, I also hear people say "Netflix is a wasteland of unfinished shows" but I still like a lot of shows and movies on Netflix. In a way, these people portray it as so shitty that when I do watch these shows I enjoy them. To these naysayers high expectation was met with disappointment. For their readers who watch it anyways, low expectations are met with enjoyable mediocrity. I don't care how much money is spent on it, does it entertain me? Can I turn off my brain for a few hours and watch this? That's my low bar. This is based on tolkein's work, these stories are obviously not written by him. The audience is also basically every prime subscriber not a nice audience of fantasy book readers tokein wrote for. The culture and social dynamics have also changed a lot since the early 2000s movies. I mean, I was shocked when people were hating the hobbit, it was in some ways better than at least "the two towers".
- ribosometronome 4y ago
  >but I still like a lot of shows and movies on Netflix. But are they finished?
  - timeon 4y ago
    Like couple of Kafka's novels. But I have enjoyed them.
  - _8j50 4y ago
    Yeah, i mean the stories come to some conclusive point. They finish at least one season that is.
- flumpcakes 4y ago
  I'm glad Amazon has set aside a vast quantity of money to see this show through and not cancel if after one season.
- danjoredd 4y ago
  >it was in some ways better than at least "the two towers" Im gonna have to disagree. Overall it was decent, but the pacing was horrible. As well, adapting a childrens book to be gritty leads to a lot of tonal problems that I had problems with. The Two Towers, at least in my opinion, is the best movie in the Jackson series. Especially when you factor in the emotions of Theoden King when he lost his son, and the fact that it was all his fault he died. He was the one who listened to Wormtongue, and banished him. Pair that with the highs and lows of the Battle of Helms Deep, and you got an emotional masterpiece! I didn't get any of that from any of the Hobbit movies.
benreesman 4y ago
This show has become a cultural and political football, which is not an accident. People talk in very emphatic terms about liking or disliking it mostly as a form of affiliation. Critic vs audience numbers are all over the map even for 2022, ratings are crazy bimodal, there’s very little serious cinematography criticism going on. I’m not even taking a side here, I think it’s fine but not worth the billion bucks or whatever, I have very “medium” opinions, but it seems to be driving everyone berserk in a way that I can only attribute to the power and money of Prime.
- swiley-gin 4y ago
  It should be fairly obvious that taking a side is part of the PR stunt they planed for it.
skyechurch 4y ago
>We were so desperate for sci-fi stuff that we watched Doctor Who, for God's sake! Doctor Who was great, opinion disregarded. I can't tell if the Bezos Rings show is bad or not yet, it certainly has some very corny scenes but it does some things well (for example the casting is very good imo, all the actors are distinctive/weird looking instead just being blandly handsome and forgettable like 99% of shows). I've definitely seen worse. The Peter Jackson movies were also pretty corny in parts and had no surprises except for the unconscionable omissions, but I quite enjoyed them anyway. Maybe this was mostly affection for the source material, idk. I don't expect the Bezos Rings show will be as successful, but it might be. We will see.
racl101 4y ago
I'd watch it if it was on Netflix. Don't wanna pay for Prime though.
retinaros 4y ago
the show look so cheap. mostly due to its cinematography. where everything in GOT was too dark and you needed a 4k tv to enjoy here everything is too bright almost like overexposed. it creates a feeling of cheapness. the 3d (like the dog fight scene) is cheap too. costumes are too clean and actors are too clean too. its like everyone is designed like legolas man,elves, dwarves. then characters are really simple as well as their design. just compare to house of dragon and look at the bad guy of the first episodes. the crab guy is a really great bad guy nd its design and costum is really awesome. ring of power is in dire need of a good antagonist.
zgiber 4y ago
“Forgot” to read the reviews before starting to watch.. no review can change my mind now: I like the show very much. Epic.
socialismisok 4y ago
I love Tolkien, I'm not a fan of the show. It fundamentally changes the motivations of the elves who left Valinor. In turn, this changes the nature of Sauron and their relationship with him That said, nothing against folks who enjoy it. It's a very well made fan fic! Who am I to tell others that they shouldn't enjoy it.
jmspring 4y ago
It's a good set of sub-stories in an established genre. I don't know accuracy, but it's great visuals and decent story.
mkl95 4y ago
The Rings of Power is beautiful, but it feels like an MMORPG. The journey is epic but the endgame is so so. I wouldn't mind some more dwarven architecture.
siliconc0w 4y ago
I kinda agree - the characters at least are pretty generic/bland and offer little personality. They've started a lot of storylines but I don't really care about any of them because I don't care about the characters. I think Elrond and the Drawf Prince are best part of the show because they actually bothered to offer some but something about Elrond looks a bit weird in that environment so that is a little off-putting. Overall I'm hoping the writing improves and of course because sci-fi/fantasy are in such short supply I'm going to keep watching.
hfourm 4y ago
My only complaints with the new LOTR and Game of Thrones shows is that they seem to be rushing through the story. Part of the appeal of the originals (movies... series.. respectively) is that they feel like more of a "quest" or long adventure, with side stories and character development. Obviously this made for longer content and it took years for GoT to finish, as well as LOTR being longer movies (especially with the extended cuts). These new series seem to jump around time and traveling much quicker. Overall, I still am enjoying them though and don't understand a lot of the internet criticism.
hbn 4y ago
It seems like all of these nostalgia-bait nerd culture TV shows and movies being pumped out by megaconglomerates as of late have absolutely nothing to stand on in terms of story quality or originality, so all they can do to sell it is show you things you remember from good original movies/shows of the past, and race-bait to trick people into thinking if you like this show/movie it means you're a good person. I'm almost certain they cast these shows specifically so they can find someone on twitter to say something racist, and then all the journalists can write ads- er I mean "articles" about the supposed backlash to the diverse casting that's apparently very widespread, even though I never see it. Every time a new show comes out, I only find out because of the dozens of articles claiming that there's a huge swathe of people upset about a black person in it. The entire marketing ploy is so clearly planned in advance, I can't believe we're still doing this routine after all this time.
- dereg 4y ago
  > I'm almost certain they cast these shows specifically so they can find someone on twitter to say something racist [..] I cannot imagine being this cynical about something that is, at the end of the day, an Amazon Prime show. edit: removed judgmental tone
  - hbn 4y ago
    You can't imagine being cynical about a trillion+ dollar company taking advantage of serious issues and socially manipulating people so they can make more money?
    - dereg 4y ago
      Does the character work or not work? For me, the character works. Why do we need to be talking about his race again?
      - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
        It's hard not to be cynical or entertain thoughts of Hollywood planning these things in case the show sucks. Because they can clearly do entertainment with diverse casting, non-white people, female leads and succeed: - Tom Holland Spider-Man does not have a red-head MJ, Flash is Indian and the made up best friend is Filipino. - Domino in the Dead Pool movies is black. NTW doesn't seem to have the same powers and is gay. But I'm not sure what the current character status is. - Everything Everywhere All at Once - Black Panther - Shang Chi - Jordan Peele does good work: Nope, Us, Candy Man, Get Out - The Expanse - Life of Pi - Sandman swaps a bunch of stuff Appetite for completely foreign media is much slower in English speaking countries but once in a while you get a major break through: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Parasite. For iconic female leads: Terminator has Sarah Connor, Ripley from Aliens, The Bride from Kill Bill, Charlize Therons character in the last Mad Max movie. Buffy. I apologize for how narrow the genres are here. I don't think the popular media for anything I just mentioned was too negative (maybe Black Panther?). Is it really just the fans? I bet the overlap of Rings of Power watchers and watchers of the stuff I listed is pretty big ... edit: formatting
zac23or 4y ago
How does Rings of Power have a budget of 465 million? I don't really understand these production budgets. I would love to understand this, if anyone has any spreadsheets or article explaining this, thank you.
- izzydata 4y ago
  300 million for advertising probably.
secondcoming 4y ago
Good Lord, the Irish Itinerant Hobbit parts are painful to watch. The rest of it seems ok, but then I’ve never read any of the books.
swiley-gin 4y ago
I've read the silmarillion and my father read me the trilogy and the hobbit to go to sleep at night. At university my professors mentioned the significance of Tolkien's work. None of what is happening here is lost on us no matter how much you attack HN. We can see through it and that's why they hate us.
jl6 4y ago
The show isn’t bad as such. But why is it so middle-of-the-road? Because the living beating heart of a good show, is a good story with good writing. Everything else - the actors, the scenery, the effects, the sound - is just there to support the telling. But here, the heart of the show is a brand. The story and dialogue was seemingly written to order in some mechanical, box-ticking fashion, like it was just the lights being rigged. (Not to disparage the skill that goes into light rigging).
devmunchies 4y ago
IMO it feels like there were some ambitious directors/writers but they lacked the experience or talent. RoP and House of the Dragon are night and day in terms of the “art of storytelling”.
SilverBirch 4y ago
It's funny. I haven't been enjoying RoP and I read this with interest. But then he started listed problems, and I have to say I disagree. The point of the endurance test isn't honour, it's a power play - after feeling scorned the dwarf wants to put the elf in his place, and once the dwarf feels he has the upper hand his ego lets him engage, the elf knows this and plays along- master diplomat indeed. Galadriel is a bad ass. Yes, in LOTR you could kind of just gesture at it and say "Oh yeah she's 1000 years old and 800 years ago she kicked ass", that's fine when it's not her story, but this is her story. It wasn't executed well, but they did need to actually do it, and she can't act all calm and composed when she's meant to be relatively in her teenage years coping with the loss of her brother. To me, yes there are execution problems. But the core problem is different. It is trying to be Game of Thrones. It's telling several different stories in parallel - the harfoots, the humans, Galadriel, the other humans, the elves. Clearly, one day, these will combine, but at the moment it's five under-served, boring stories. None of the characters are worth getting to know. This is because they're trying to do the complex plotlines of Game of Thrones. But they miss that GoT started as 1 plot. It was the starks of winterfell. Stark went to the capital. End of season 1 he dies and his kids are thrown to the wind and it's only then that the multple plot lines start to explode. By that point you've got a deep investment in the characters and it evolves from there. The exceptions to this - Dani etc. struggle through this, I remember watching the Dani scenes in game of thrones and thinking "For gods' sake when is this going to actually link up with the story" and entire plotlines fail when they don't keep the thread (Dorne).
parkingrift 4y ago
Amazon may as well have attempted to rewrite chapters of the Bible and sell it to the south. "Just give it a chance!" Given the licensing constraints I truly don't know why they didn't just remake Lord of the Rings into a TV show. Rewriting background stories for established characters is a fools errand. I'm curious about the differing fortunes between "Rings of Power" and "House of the Dragon." The "Rings of Power" peaked at episode 1 (7.4) on IMDB, and has been declining with every new episode. Compare this to "House of the Dragon" which seems to be picking up momentum, and the most recent episode was rated extremely well (9.1). Both of these shows cater to audiences with strong opinions set in established worlds.
bjt2n3904 4y ago
There's a charge that people are critical of this series only for political reasons, and not aesthetics. (Ironically, these are also the people who loudly proclaim that everything is political, and that is a good thing.) I'll submit that this proves the existence of people who only LIKE it for political reasons, and not aesthetics. The latest Star Wars trilogy was heralded as magnificent, and only bigots wouldn't be able to appreciate it. Really feels like The Emperor's New Clothes here.
DoneWithAllThat 4y ago
Why is this flagged? Why can’t we talk about this?
- swiley-gin 4y ago
agambrahma 4y ago
I empathize with the writer, and as someone who read LOTR a couple decades ago now (yikes) I agree that this show (and to some extent even "The Hobbit") didn't _feel like Tolkein_. I think he nails part of why, but in general the problem is these shows (due to the economics behind them) have to make people "relate to it" like a modern Disney/Marvel/Pixar movie, whereas the story is set in a time which is _not_ relatable. When you know this, every part where a character does something that is "too much in line with modern sensibilities" can feel inauthentic, and suddenly "break the experience of watching it". At the same time, _shrug_. It does seem inevitable.
slowmovintarget 4y ago
Why on earth is this flagged? The article gives legitimate criticism based on story and character.
elihu 4y ago
I've seen two episodes. I think some parts are great, and some parts are frustratingly bad. It's fun to see people take Tolkien's world in original new directions, but on the other hand about half the time it just seems like lazy Hollywood blockbuster writing by people who don't understand the source material. Many of the elves we've seen act more or less like teenagers. Galadriel seems like a decent character, but the story keeps taking her in weird directions, requiring her in one instance to swim an entire ocean.
hackerbeat 4y ago
Jeez. The show is amazing. Stop hating!

87 points by markus_zhang 4y ago

It reads too ranty to me. /spoilers below I think it's good. And personally I like that they managed to keep some characters completely mysterious, like Adar and the Stranger and you can't tell who Sauron is. I'd guess it's possibly neither.

ant6n 4y ago
Spoilers!
- shmerl 4y ago
  Added a warning :)

spacemadness 4y ago

I continue to be impressed with how adamant the internet is to tell me I need to not like this show. I’m a middling LOTR geek and I’m just happy to have more on screen adaptations that aren’t the Hobbit. I really enjoy it. Sorry internet!

philipkglass 4y ago
I'm enjoying it well enough too. It probably helps that I have only read The Hobbit and LoTR, plus that the negative sentiment I read before I watched the show helped to keep my expectations modest.
- shmerl 4y ago
  I've read the Silmarillion too. I think the show is very enjoyable regardless and some references are nice too even if they aren't always are completely accurate.
  - cygx 4y ago
    They do not have the rights to the Silmarillion, so being too accurate could get them sued. Given these constraints, I probably won't be too upset by any liberties they take once I get around to watching the show - never mind that by now, I've probably forgotten most of the lore anyway ;) That said, I'd have preferred a taller Galadriel and bearded dwarf ladies would have been fun...
amalcon 4y ago
Yeah, kind of reminds me of the Star Wars sequels (well, I actively disliked the last one also, but the first two sequels anyway). Are they as good as the original trilogy? No, but when they came out my expectations were calibrated to the prequels. The bar was basically "Does it have Jar-Jar? No? Then I'm OK with it". Same here. The pacing is inconsistent, and some of the characters seem pretty off. The pacing is not as inconsistent, and the characters not as off, as The Hobbit. Therefore whatever, it's fine. Is it going to be my favorite show? No. Will I watch it? Yeah.
- mcv 4y ago
  That's pretty much what I've been saying: I don't like that they're contradicting all the events in the Appendix, but at least the stuff they invent isn't quite as bad as The Hobbit. Because how they managed to mangle that brilliant adventure story is just incomprehensible (and yet I even managed to enjoy that, if with sadness about all the stuff they messed up). Still, low bars everywhere. Why can't these sort of shows be made by people who simultaneously love and understand the source material, but also know how to write a good story?
- saghm 4y ago
  > Yeah, kind of reminds me of the Star Wars sequels (well, I actively disliked the last one also, but the first two sequels anyway) I can definitely relate to this. I didn't mind the first two at all, but the last one was not enjoyable at all for me. I'm the type of person who usually has absolutely no interest in cinematography as an art form (tending to roll my eyes a bit internally when someone actively makes sure to use the term "films" instead of "movies"), but watching The Rise of Skywalker was the first time I ever felt strong negative feelings towards a movie purely based on, well, film-making reasons. I was almost overwhelmed by how quickly the camera shots were changing; at one point I started counting how many seconds each shot lasted, and it took several minutes before I counted one over four seconds. The dialogue also felt extremely stilted; I remember reading beforehand that they had used existing footage of Carrie Fischer due to her dying beforehand, and it seemed like their solution to shoe-horning in the lines of hers they had without making them stick out was just to edit it so that all dialogue in the entire movie felt spliced together rather than the actors actually being on set together.' The Rise of Skywalker may have done a better job of catering to people's nostalgia in terms of where they expected the plot to go after the original movies, but I don't think that doing what people expected is what made the original movies good in the first place.
danjoredd 4y ago
The problem is it is not an adaptation in any way whatsoever. It is an original work by Amazon, which is where the frustration comes from. My main frustration is how they did not have Durin as a reincarnated figure, but as part of just a lineage who happened to name themselves the same, like an English king. Thats pretty central to the dwarven situation in The Hobbit and LotR, and it feels incredibly dumb they left that out. I would love for an adaptation of the Children of Hurin, or the struggles of Fingolfin leading to his final battle with Morgoth, or something...but no, they decided to write their own lore in. I have not watched it for the same reason that I avoided Shadow of Mordor. What I know is from the articles and reviews of the show surrounding its release. But the fact that they did not have the rights to the Silmarillion bewilders me why they would try to appeal to fans who have already read it. Tolkien and his son spent near a century working on the lore, and it feels wrong to have a corporation decide to throw it all out for a quick buck. If they wanted a fantasy show to fight Game of Thrones, they should have had an original work. I mean, look at Invincible! Outside of the hardcore comic book scene, nobody has heard of that. Because it was such a good story, people spread the word like wildfire. They can create something original, and that original work can succeed. They are Amazon. They have the marketing to put it in the public's eye, and the money to make it good. Instead they rode the coattails of an author, and even claimed "it was the story he never wrote" as though any of that was based on his works.
- mcv 4y ago
  > they decided to write their own lore in. They had to. They didn't have the rights to Children of Hurin, or the Silmarillion. And they're never going to get them, because the Tolkien estate is never going to sell those. (And I'm frankly surprised that they let the LotR rights get so far out of their control as to make The Hobbit and this possible. Plenty of authors these days want more control over what happens with their story.) They only had the rights of the Appendix to LotR. There's tons of material in there, but not a complete story. So they took the events from the Second Age to write a story about (though they already seem to be mixing some events from the Third Age into the mix). They could have made this a grand multi-millennia epic, but instead they decided to mix the events of 2000 (or even 4000?) years together into one big soup.
dereg 4y ago
I feel the same. I've been entirely tuned out of LoTR/internet culture and so I went into the show with zero expectations. I was surprised by how much I liked the show. When I read this review, the author's complaints are all trivial. The three examples of the show being terrible are: 1. Elron and Durin are really good friends, 2. Galadriel looks suspiciously strong, and 3. the Hobbits aren't reacting the right way to a broken ankle. I'm sure this type of article plays well to a person with a disposition, or someone who has been steeped too deeply into certain internet subcultures.
nurettin 4y ago
As an aging 90s dnd and mtg player, I have observed that some will like the pacing, some won't. Some will take anything named LOTR, some will avoid anything that is not canon in their eyes. Some like "progressive diversity" some don't care about fitting everything to the current political climate.

KerrAvon 4y ago

Yeah, I find it fascinating that all of these people seem to be watching a different show than I am. I like it. I know other diehard Tolkien fans who enjoy it a lot. If anything, I could do with a bit more nudity, a bit less graphic violence. But you can't have everything.

Analemma_ 4y ago
It's exactly the same with House of the Dragon: if you just go by what you read on Twitter, it seems like show is dead on arrival, utterly terrible, everyone knows GoT is over and done as "a thing". Meanwhile, I like it, everyone in my extended social circle who's watching it likes it, and it's doing huge viewership numbers. Feels like yet another example of "everything you read on the internet is written by insane people".
- henryfjordan 4y ago
  The r/freefolk subreddit, which was mainly just memes about hating the ending of GoT, has completely changed tune is now almost exclusively memes about House of the Dragon. For weeks up to the launch there were memes about not watching it but now it seems they are all enjoying it (maybe in a Star Wars Prequels kind of way but not outright hate).
mcv 4y ago
I think it looks absolutely gorgeous, but it helps a lot if you don't expect it to be true to Tolkien, because they seem to be intentionally getting everything wrong. And I don't see why, because I think the story would make a ton more sense if they stuck a bit more closely to the events described by Tolkien (plus a ton of invention obviously). I'm enjoying it and I'll keep watching it, but they've stirred the entire history into an incomprehensible soup, and the questionable plot keeps jerking characters around to places where they shouldn't be. But if you can sit back and not think too hard about it, it's great. Especially the Disa+Durin+Elrond scenes.
- parkingrift 4y ago
  They don't have rights to the source material so they literally cannot get it right.

tunesmith 4y ago

I just don't understand why people don't say "I don't like it" rather than "This show is bad". It's not that difficult to have a strong opinion and also leave room for others.

droopyEyelids 4y ago
The other side of this coin is why do people need to feel a show is good just because they like it? It's ok to like trashy media.
- miiiiiike 4y ago
  Exactly. --A guy who watched Suits
- akvadrako 4y ago
  Saying "it's bad" is exactly the same as saying "I don't like it". At least when talking about art, there is no objective measure.
  - tunesmith 4y ago
    > Saying "it's bad" is exactly the same as saying "I don't like it". No it's not. (meta... meta... meta...)
thrown1212 4y ago
Because if you don’t like it, you’re the ass. But, if it’s bad, they’re the ass. Few people bother to climb the steep wall of cognitive dissonance required to embrace the fact that the source of their problem might be intrinsic. Much easier to paint your displeasure in the palette of extrinsic and objective failures. You’re still an ass, but at least you don’t have to think of yourself as one.
- swiley-gin 4y ago
  idk, I love being an ass and disliking things.

EddySchauHai 4y ago

I’m a pretty big Tolkien fan and I absolutely love this series. They keep surprising me with license-scope beyond what I thought Amazon acquired (using content from the Simarilian for example). If you’re on the fence about this show because of its media, give it a shot! /spoilers Can’t wait to find out who Sauron is, if he’s in the show so far.

peteradio 4y ago
Wait, what, is Sauron hiding as one of the characters!?
- prox 4y ago
  I think he was quite a beautiful and most of all charming character before his corruption if I remember correctly.
  - EddySchauHai 4y ago
    Originally Sauron was a Maia who was 'good and uncorrupted' with a passion for order. He sided with Morgoth because he thought if they could control the minds of Middle-Earth they'd be better off. As far as I know, in the lore, Sauron isn't evil in the way he's portrayed in the movies in that his goal is to improve everyones lives through efficiency and order (so it's not as simple as light v dark). Sauron can shape-shift so in the second age he shows himself as a fair and beautiful man, but he's also portrayed as a werewolf and vampire in the books at different times!
    - prox 4y ago
      Interesting. Didn’t he lose that power when made the final Ring of Power, and when he activated it, he threw all of his “life force” in it (cruelty, malignancy etc.)
      - EddySchauHai 4y ago
        Yes in order to make the One Ring more powerful than the other rings he had to put his own strength into it. However the elven rings weren't made by Sauron so he couldn't control those (eventually worn by Gandalf, Galadriel, and Elrond), and if I remember right the Dwarfs were too stubborn to be controlled (or something), so only the humans ended up being controlled anyway.

fullshark 4y ago

Basically he doesn't feel transported to a genuine lived in "honor bound" world. I remember when the big debates over the Star Wars prequels started, one argument in defense was that basically they were for kids and older fans hated them because they hated they were no longer children and could no longer feel the story beats and world it created so strongly due to a decreased sense of imagination and wonderment. I thought that was a lame deflection at the time but now that as the author has said, Fantasy/SciFi genre exercises dominate all of pop culture and I'm older I got to say I think that was 100% correct.

IgorPartola 4y ago
I would take a more nuanced approach. I saw Star Wars as a kid (but not in the US), and I thought it was novel and interesting. But I was in my late teens when I saw the prequels. They didn’t strike me as being more sophisticated than the originals. The world was not made more believable by making it feel larger. Instead it still felt like a kids movie(s) but now attempting to be more than that and failing at it. In other words, it failed at staying a great kids movie that adults can enjoy (and before you say that’s impossible, there are plenty of examples of it, from Pixar movies to live action ones). At the same time it failed to become a really sophisticated movie for adults: the world building was half assed, the characters still not multi-dimensional, the story was full of plot holes. I think this is the problem with dual purposing movies for both kids and adults: you can’t have intricate politics in kids movies and you can’t have simplistic world building in adult movies.
chongli 4y ago
due to a decreased sense of imagination and wonderment I don't know about that. I didn't read the Harry Potter series until my 30's and I absolutely loved it. Full of imagination and wonderment, I was utterly captivated. I've also re-read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings multiple times throughout my life and it seems to get better every time. I'm pretty cynical about big budget movies and TV shows in general though. I prefer shows where all the emphasis is placed on the writing and acting, such as Better Call Saul.
iepathos 4y ago
They are poorly written, filled with painful to watch cliches and lines. Can say this is definitely wrong since there have been subsequent starwars shows that don't suck like the movies did even for adult long-time fans. Don't need to be a kid to appreciate good fantasy/scifi with imagination and wonderment, just need to be a kid to be blind to bad writing.

flumpcakes 4y ago

This is just another "not MY LOTR". It's a show, plenty of people can like it and this attitude is quite insufferable. It's OK to not like a show, but you can't just gake-keep something and say it's "BAD". If people think this is bad, then they truly haven't see a bad tv show - with bad effects, bad writing, bad delivery, bad acting, continuity errors, and so on. > Rings of Power Is Dull Some TV shows are slower than others. > Example the First: The Dwarven Test of Endurance Durin commands the other dwarves, and was punishing a friend for imagined or otherwise misdeeds. I'm pretty sure he can do what he wants with his own agency. > Example the Second: Galadriel Sword Troll Thing I can't see this as anything else than sexism - there was no complaints at the absolute insanity that Legolas did in the LOTR trilogy. > Example the Third: Broken Hobbit Ankle These aren't people living in the modern world. Why apply our sense of fairness or compassion. The author even says we wouldn't be able to understand what the middle ages were like. > I'm Not Watching More LOTR films were not as Tolkien wrote. I recently re-watched them and they're not perfect either, to heap praise on the films but scorn the TV series is looking back with rose tinted glasses at best. > The violence in this show is way too explicit. Again, perhaps the author should revisit the original film trilogy because it was certainly violent.

pessimizer 4y ago
> you can't just gake-keep something and say it's "BAD". You definitely can. It's better to just defend the show if you like it, rather than telling other people what they can and can't do.
- flumpcakes 4y ago
  > rather than telling other people what they can and can't do. You should take your own advice.
parkingrift 4y ago
>I can't see this as anything else than sexism - there was no complaints at the absolute insanity that Legolas did in the LOTR trilogy. Incredible that you were able to go back and verify that "The Bottom Feeder" had not complained about the absurd depictions of Legolas in the LOTR trilogy. Alas, more misogynists and bigots!

droopyEyelids 4y ago

I think all the points he makes are good, but he misses at the beginning when he describes how now people can be picky about fantasy because we've a glut of it. That's technically true, but so many people are just SO happy to see orcs and wizards, none of the writing matters. Especially if it has a big brand like 'lord of the rings' attached to it plus an enormous CGI budget. You could have children write the story and it'd still make people happy.

areoform 4y ago

> Here's the thing. Art is individual to its creator. Only Van Gogh can paint a Van Gogh. Only Shakespeare can write Shakespeare. Only Tolkien can write Tolkien. > Rings of Power could never, ever be Tolkien. It could be, at best, competently made "I Can't Believe It's Not Tolkien." Yet, Partially-Hydrogenated Tolkien Substitute still could have been a good show. Okay. Sure. But they can launch movements where people try to expand on what they've already created. In this case, the Rings of Power show is beautiful, jaw droppingly beautiful in scale and execution, showing a world larger than has ever been depicted on TV before. https://winteriscoming.net/files/image-exchange/2022/08/ie_91003.jpeg https://winteriscoming.net/files/image-exchange/2022/08/ie_9... https://winteriscoming.net/files/image-exchange/2022/08/ie_91007.jpeg https://winteriscoming.net/files/image-exchange/2022/08/ie_9... A lot of attention to detail has been paid in the little things and I think it's amazing. But that's besides the point. The point is that these are shows and properties meant for the young, people in their teens or those who are growing up. The Hobbit was meant for children. The Lord of the Rings for adolescents. These are stories meant to fire up a young person's imagination and get them to dream bigger than before. By reducing these properties to an audience of adult fans, I feel, does them a disservice. As yes, absolutely media can be made to be enjoyable to all ages, but trying to please these fans is often an exercise in self immolation as whatever you create will never be as rosy as the memories from their childhood. But they are a powerful market. They are the ones buying the merch usually, instead of parents buying it for little kids. And so they have an outsized say on what happens within the product. It's baffling to me to see older generations maintaining a stranglehold over the stories that they enjoyed when they were younger. I think we should give these series and places room to grow and become into something more for each successive generation. And enjoy the process of that growth. Because almost every single person who is disappointed by this series is a diehard, middle aged, Tolkein fan (often male). Who grew up with Tolkein in the 80s, a time when its very reading was an act of mild rebellion. From the article, > Wayyyy back in the 70s and 80s, science fiction/fantasy/superhero content hadn't completely taken over the culture yet. New nerd content was rare and treasured. > The Superman movie (1978) was mind-blowing. (I’m old enough to remember when Superman was a good guy.) A new Star Trek series was an impossible dream. Battlestar Galactica was cherished. We were so desperate for sci-fi stuff that we watched Doctor Who, for God's sake! This is not true anymore. And in that change, the stories that have been told and whom they're being told to has changed as well. And that genuinely seems to bother these middle-aged fans. And I think that's okay. It's hard to let go, but let go they must so that future generations can cherish what they cherished, with fresh, unblemished eyes.

_8j50 4y ago

This is funny in some ways. You have all these people insist that it is bad and the people in comments you always have a contingent that like it. I didn't watch it so I have no opinion so far. But, I also hear people say "Netflix is a wasteland of unfinished shows" but I still like a lot of shows and movies on Netflix. In a way, these people portray it as so shitty that when I do watch these shows I enjoy them. To these naysayers high expectation was met with disappointment. For their readers who watch it anyways, low expectations are met with enjoyable mediocrity. I don't care how much money is spent on it, does it entertain me? Can I turn off my brain for a few hours and watch this? That's my low bar. This is based on tolkein's work, these stories are obviously not written by him. The audience is also basically every prime subscriber not a nice audience of fantasy book readers tokein wrote for. The culture and social dynamics have also changed a lot since the early 2000s movies. I mean, I was shocked when people were hating the hobbit, it was in some ways better than at least "the two towers".

ribosometronome 4y ago
>but I still like a lot of shows and movies on Netflix. But are they finished?
- timeon 4y ago
  Like couple of Kafka's novels. But I have enjoyed them.
- _8j50 4y ago
  Yeah, i mean the stories come to some conclusive point. They finish at least one season that is.
flumpcakes 4y ago
I'm glad Amazon has set aside a vast quantity of money to see this show through and not cancel if after one season.
danjoredd 4y ago
>it was in some ways better than at least "the two towers" Im gonna have to disagree. Overall it was decent, but the pacing was horrible. As well, adapting a childrens book to be gritty leads to a lot of tonal problems that I had problems with. The Two Towers, at least in my opinion, is the best movie in the Jackson series. Especially when you factor in the emotions of Theoden King when he lost his son, and the fact that it was all his fault he died. He was the one who listened to Wormtongue, and banished him. Pair that with the highs and lows of the Battle of Helms Deep, and you got an emotional masterpiece! I didn't get any of that from any of the Hobbit movies.

benreesman 4y ago

This show has become a cultural and political football, which is not an accident. People talk in very emphatic terms about liking or disliking it mostly as a form of affiliation. Critic vs audience numbers are all over the map even for 2022, ratings are crazy bimodal, there’s very little serious cinematography criticism going on. I’m not even taking a side here, I think it’s fine but not worth the billion bucks or whatever, I have very “medium” opinions, but it seems to be driving everyone berserk in a way that I can only attribute to the power and money of Prime.

swiley-gin 4y ago
It should be fairly obvious that taking a side is part of the PR stunt they planed for it.

skyechurch 4y ago

>We were so desperate for sci-fi stuff that we watched Doctor Who, for God's sake! Doctor Who was great, opinion disregarded. I can't tell if the Bezos Rings show is bad or not yet, it certainly has some very corny scenes but it does some things well (for example the casting is very good imo, all the actors are distinctive/weird looking instead just being blandly handsome and forgettable like 99% of shows). I've definitely seen worse. The Peter Jackson movies were also pretty corny in parts and had no surprises except for the unconscionable omissions, but I quite enjoyed them anyway. Maybe this was mostly affection for the source material, idk. I don't expect the Bezos Rings show will be as successful, but it might be. We will see.

racl101 4y ago

I'd watch it if it was on Netflix. Don't wanna pay for Prime though.

retinaros 4y ago

the show look so cheap. mostly due to its cinematography. where everything in GOT was too dark and you needed a 4k tv to enjoy here everything is too bright almost like overexposed. it creates a feeling of cheapness. the 3d (like the dog fight scene) is cheap too. costumes are too clean and actors are too clean too. its like everyone is designed like legolas man,elves, dwarves. then characters are really simple as well as their design. just compare to house of dragon and look at the bad guy of the first episodes. the crab guy is a really great bad guy nd its design and costum is really awesome. ring of power is in dire need of a good antagonist.

zgiber 4y ago

“Forgot” to read the reviews before starting to watch.. no review can change my mind now: I like the show very much. Epic.

socialismisok 4y ago

I love Tolkien, I'm not a fan of the show. It fundamentally changes the motivations of the elves who left Valinor. In turn, this changes the nature of Sauron and their relationship with him That said, nothing against folks who enjoy it. It's a very well made fan fic! Who am I to tell others that they shouldn't enjoy it.

jmspring 4y ago

It's a good set of sub-stories in an established genre. I don't know accuracy, but it's great visuals and decent story.

mkl95 4y ago

The Rings of Power is beautiful, but it feels like an MMORPG. The journey is epic but the endgame is so so. I wouldn't mind some more dwarven architecture.

siliconc0w 4y ago

I kinda agree - the characters at least are pretty generic/bland and offer little personality. They've started a lot of storylines but I don't really care about any of them because I don't care about the characters. I think Elrond and the Drawf Prince are best part of the show because they actually bothered to offer some but something about Elrond looks a bit weird in that environment so that is a little off-putting. Overall I'm hoping the writing improves and of course because sci-fi/fantasy are in such short supply I'm going to keep watching.

hfourm 4y ago

My only complaints with the new LOTR and Game of Thrones shows is that they seem to be rushing through the story. Part of the appeal of the originals (movies... series.. respectively) is that they feel like more of a "quest" or long adventure, with side stories and character development. Obviously this made for longer content and it took years for GoT to finish, as well as LOTR being longer movies (especially with the extended cuts). These new series seem to jump around time and traveling much quicker. Overall, I still am enjoying them though and don't understand a lot of the internet criticism.

hbn 4y ago

It seems like all of these nostalgia-bait nerd culture TV shows and movies being pumped out by megaconglomerates as of late have absolutely nothing to stand on in terms of story quality or originality, so all they can do to sell it is show you things you remember from good original movies/shows of the past, and race-bait to trick people into thinking if you like this show/movie it means you're a good person. I'm almost certain they cast these shows specifically so they can find someone on twitter to say something racist, and then all the journalists can write ads- er I mean "articles" about the supposed backlash to the diverse casting that's apparently very widespread, even though I never see it. Every time a new show comes out, I only find out because of the dozens of articles claiming that there's a huge swathe of people upset about a black person in it. The entire marketing ploy is so clearly planned in advance, I can't believe we're still doing this routine after all this time.

dereg 4y ago
> I'm almost certain they cast these shows specifically so they can find someone on twitter to say something racist [..] I cannot imagine being this cynical about something that is, at the end of the day, an Amazon Prime show. edit: removed judgmental tone
- hbn 4y ago
  You can't imagine being cynical about a trillion+ dollar company taking advantage of serious issues and socially manipulating people so they can make more money?
  - dereg 4y ago
    Does the character work or not work? For me, the character works. Why do we need to be talking about his race again?
    - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
      It's hard not to be cynical or entertain thoughts of Hollywood planning these things in case the show sucks. Because they can clearly do entertainment with diverse casting, non-white people, female leads and succeed: - Tom Holland Spider-Man does not have a red-head MJ, Flash is Indian and the made up best friend is Filipino. - Domino in the Dead Pool movies is black. NTW doesn't seem to have the same powers and is gay. But I'm not sure what the current character status is. - Everything Everywhere All at Once - Black Panther - Shang Chi - Jordan Peele does good work: Nope, Us, Candy Man, Get Out - The Expanse - Life of Pi - Sandman swaps a bunch of stuff Appetite for completely foreign media is much slower in English speaking countries but once in a while you get a major break through: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Parasite. For iconic female leads: Terminator has Sarah Connor, Ripley from Aliens, The Bride from Kill Bill, Charlize Therons character in the last Mad Max movie. Buffy. I apologize for how narrow the genres are here. I don't think the popular media for anything I just mentioned was too negative (maybe Black Panther?). Is it really just the fans? I bet the overlap of Rings of Power watchers and watchers of the stuff I listed is pretty big ... edit: formatting

zac23or 4y ago

How does Rings of Power have a budget of 465 million? I don't really understand these production budgets. I would love to understand this, if anyone has any spreadsheets or article explaining this, thank you.

izzydata 4y ago
300 million for advertising probably.

secondcoming 4y ago

Good Lord, the Irish Itinerant Hobbit parts are painful to watch. The rest of it seems ok, but then I’ve never read any of the books.

swiley-gin 4y ago

I've read the silmarillion and my father read me the trilogy and the hobbit to go to sleep at night. At university my professors mentioned the significance of Tolkien's work. None of what is happening here is lost on us no matter how much you attack HN. We can see through it and that's why they hate us.

jl6 4y ago

The show isn’t bad as such. But why is it so middle-of-the-road? Because the living beating heart of a good show, is a good story with good writing. Everything else - the actors, the scenery, the effects, the sound - is just there to support the telling. But here, the heart of the show is a brand. The story and dialogue was seemingly written to order in some mechanical, box-ticking fashion, like it was just the lights being rigged. (Not to disparage the skill that goes into light rigging).

devmunchies 4y ago

IMO it feels like there were some ambitious directors/writers but they lacked the experience or talent. RoP and House of the Dragon are night and day in terms of the “art of storytelling”.

SilverBirch 4y ago

It's funny. I haven't been enjoying RoP and I read this with interest. But then he started listed problems, and I have to say I disagree. The point of the endurance test isn't honour, it's a power play - after feeling scorned the dwarf wants to put the elf in his place, and once the dwarf feels he has the upper hand his ego lets him engage, the elf knows this and plays along- master diplomat indeed. Galadriel is a bad ass. Yes, in LOTR you could kind of just gesture at it and say "Oh yeah she's 1000 years old and 800 years ago she kicked ass", that's fine when it's not her story, but this is her story. It wasn't executed well, but they did need to actually do it, and she can't act all calm and composed when she's meant to be relatively in her teenage years coping with the loss of her brother. To me, yes there are execution problems. But the core problem is different. It is trying to be Game of Thrones. It's telling several different stories in parallel - the harfoots, the humans, Galadriel, the other humans, the elves. Clearly, one day, these will combine, but at the moment it's five under-served, boring stories. None of the characters are worth getting to know. This is because they're trying to do the complex plotlines of Game of Thrones. But they miss that GoT started as 1 plot. It was the starks of winterfell. Stark went to the capital. End of season 1 he dies and his kids are thrown to the wind and it's only then that the multple plot lines start to explode. By that point you've got a deep investment in the characters and it evolves from there. The exceptions to this - Dani etc. struggle through this, I remember watching the Dani scenes in game of thrones and thinking "For gods' sake when is this going to actually link up with the story" and entire plotlines fail when they don't keep the thread (Dorne).

parkingrift 4y ago

Amazon may as well have attempted to rewrite chapters of the Bible and sell it to the south. "Just give it a chance!" Given the licensing constraints I truly don't know why they didn't just remake Lord of the Rings into a TV show. Rewriting background stories for established characters is a fools errand. I'm curious about the differing fortunes between "Rings of Power" and "House of the Dragon." The "Rings of Power" peaked at episode 1 (7.4) on IMDB, and has been declining with every new episode. Compare this to "House of the Dragon" which seems to be picking up momentum, and the most recent episode was rated extremely well (9.1). Both of these shows cater to audiences with strong opinions set in established worlds.

bjt2n3904 4y ago

There's a charge that people are critical of this series only for political reasons, and not aesthetics. (Ironically, these are also the people who loudly proclaim that everything is political, and that is a good thing.) I'll submit that this proves the existence of people who only LIKE it for political reasons, and not aesthetics. The latest Star Wars trilogy was heralded as magnificent, and only bigots wouldn't be able to appreciate it. Really feels like The Emperor's New Clothes here.

DoneWithAllThat 4y ago

Why is this flagged? Why can’t we talk about this?

swiley-gin 4y ago

agambrahma 4y ago

I empathize with the writer, and as someone who read LOTR a couple decades ago now (yikes) I agree that this show (and to some extent even "The Hobbit") didn't _feel like Tolkein_. I think he nails part of why, but in general the problem is these shows (due to the economics behind them) have to make people "relate to it" like a modern Disney/Marvel/Pixar movie, whereas the story is set in a time which is _not_ relatable. When you know this, every part where a character does something that is "too much in line with modern sensibilities" can feel inauthentic, and suddenly "break the experience of watching it". At the same time, _shrug_. It does seem inevitable.

slowmovintarget 4y ago

Why on earth is this flagged? The article gives legitimate criticism based on story and character.

elihu 4y ago

I've seen two episodes. I think some parts are great, and some parts are frustratingly bad. It's fun to see people take Tolkien's world in original new directions, but on the other hand about half the time it just seems like lazy Hollywood blockbuster writing by people who don't understand the source material. Many of the elves we've seen act more or less like teenagers. Galadriel seems like a decent character, but the story keeps taking her in weird directions, requiring her in one instance to swim an entire ocean.

hackerbeat 4y ago

Jeez. The show is amazing. Stop hating!