4 ms·

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

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.

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.