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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

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.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    Oh seriously? But they are allowed to use the characters? How does that work?
    - cygx 4y ago
      Not a lawyer, but I'm assuming anyone who's mentioned in the Hobbit, the trilogy and the annexes (ie the stuff Amazon bought the rights to) even in passing can make an appearance. However, if these people do things exclusively described elsewhere in the way they are described in those other works, there's an issue...
    - mcphage 4y ago
      Remember recently when a Netflix got sued by Arthur Conan Doyle's estate, because they showed Sherlock Holmes being emotional? The argument was that while the early Sherlock stories were in the public domain, it wasn't until the later stories that Sherlock showed more emotion, and those later stories are not yet in the public domain.
    - parkingrift 4y ago
      They have access to: Fellowship of the ring, the two towers, return of the king, appendices, and the hobbit. They cannot even accidentally make a Tolkien-accurate story in the universe unless it’s directly depicted in one of the sources I listed above. My assumption here is that they chose to intentionally make a unique story to avoid a lawsuit. However, this is also the equivalent to rewriting the backstory for Jesus and telling Catholics to just give it a chance because the cinematography is so good.
  - mcv 4y ago
    From what I understand, they have the rights to the Appendix of LotR, and while that's not remotely a complete story, there's a lot of events described there, and they're getting all of them wrong. If they didn't have the rights at all, maybe they shouldn't have pretended it was Tolkien and not used his names. I would have loved an original big fantasy show, but I think it's pretty clear that would never have gotten this kind of budget. They're entirely trading on Tolkien's name and not fulfilling that promise.

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.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  Oh seriously? But they are allowed to use the characters? How does that work?
  - cygx 4y ago
    Not a lawyer, but I'm assuming anyone who's mentioned in the Hobbit, the trilogy and the annexes (ie the stuff Amazon bought the rights to) even in passing can make an appearance. However, if these people do things exclusively described elsewhere in the way they are described in those other works, there's an issue...
  - mcphage 4y ago
    Remember recently when a Netflix got sued by Arthur Conan Doyle's estate, because they showed Sherlock Holmes being emotional? The argument was that while the early Sherlock stories were in the public domain, it wasn't until the later stories that Sherlock showed more emotion, and those later stories are not yet in the public domain.
  - parkingrift 4y ago
    They have access to: Fellowship of the ring, the two towers, return of the king, appendices, and the hobbit. They cannot even accidentally make a Tolkien-accurate story in the universe unless it’s directly depicted in one of the sources I listed above. My assumption here is that they chose to intentionally make a unique story to avoid a lawsuit. However, this is also the equivalent to rewriting the backstory for Jesus and telling Catholics to just give it a chance because the cinematography is so good.
- mcv 4y ago
  From what I understand, they have the rights to the Appendix of LotR, and while that's not remotely a complete story, there's a lot of events described there, and they're getting all of them wrong. If they didn't have the rights at all, maybe they shouldn't have pretended it was Tolkien and not used his names. I would have loved an original big fantasy show, but I think it's pretty clear that would never have gotten this kind of budget. They're entirely trading on Tolkien's name and not fulfilling that promise.