7 ms·

How Faithful Is Amazon’s Rings of Power to JRR Tolkien’s Books?

35 points by BerislavLopac 4y ago

BMc2020 4y ago
However, this characterization appears to be based on the Uzi Rule (the assumption that if J.R.R. Tolkien did not specifically deny the Orcs all carried Uzi sub-machine guns, then they must have carried such weapons; they simply didn’t use them in any scenes of the stories). The Uzi Rule illustrates the absurdity of fan attempts to redefine Tolkien’s Middle-earth on the basis of Absence of Denial, which is a classic logical fallacy.
- audunw 4y ago
  I've seen this argument used against ANY change/addition to Tolkien's story, which is just completely unreasonable. So the question is, when are we talking about giving Orcs Uzis, and when is it a reasonable change/addition? I don't feel like this article addresses the question. He mentions the Uzi rule in relation to "Galadriel was not a warrior in Tolkien’s stories. "But later he writes "So the Amazon show’s portrayal of Galadriel is not inconsistent with some of his thoughts." So is it unreasonable or not? Can we not talk about significant changes/additions to characters or plot points that might have been consistent with Tolkiens thoughts, without immediately jumping to the idea that it's the same as adding Uzis or fighter jets to the story? The "Uzi Rule" seems almost completely useless in this discussion. The use of "Uzi Rule" itself seems like a logical fallacy to me. It's a bit of a false dilemma and a slippery slope fallacy. A change is either OK because it's small enough, or it's just like adding Uzis, and if you made a change as big as X you might as well have added Uzis or fighter jets.
jleyank 4y ago
Err, not? Making a generic story using Tolkien’s names without meaning. Which seems odd in that it alienates a vocal, internet-heavy fan base without gaining a wider audience. Better to use something new or without the fanboy base. Speaking as a fanboy, willfully distorting the subject matter is a no-go.
- Namari 4y ago
  I guess they're using the LOTR's name/fame to attract people, if they would have done another fantasy show without LOTR's name, this would not have work as well so I guess they went for it, regardless of the fanbase. The world can thank Jackson for doing a great trilogy that doesn't change the story that much and that is still a master piece. Let's hope Amazon don't ruin the name.
  - jleyank 4y ago
    Well, the hobbit doesn’t do much to bolster Jackson’s reputation. Harshly lit, far too long, trying to cash in on the Tolkien name and lotr fame. This makes Amazon’s effort start off as a cash in on a cash in - Jackson’s good stuff is almost 20 years and a viewing generation old.
    - Namari 4y ago
      Ah yeah I almost forgot about The Hobbit, you said it, it was far too long. The difference with LOTR is that is doesn't include LOTR in its name, unlike Amazon's new show. But yeah they're trying to milk the cow. Yeah we're not getting younger.
- nextaccountic 4y ago
  I wish the Tolkien estate sold the rights for Silmarillion and other stories published posthumously, AND retained some editorial control over the content of the content. Christopher could have done this in life. If he did, The Rings of Power could use more Tolkien content than just the appendices of Lord of the Rings
  - tpxl 4y ago
    I wish Tolkien copyright wasn't a thing 49 years after the authors death.
    - adrianN 4y ago
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
I'd say that Rings of Power feels it's committed, but in an open relationship kind of way.
icare_1er 4y ago
- joxel 4y ago
  Uh yeah there’s nothing overtly political in the show. People that are getting political vibes from the show all seem to be pointing to being annoyed about color blind casting. That’s not political, unless you’re the kind that thinks having black people in stuff is political, which is sad.
  - lotsofspots 4y ago
    The "elves will take our jobs!" scene in Numenor was pretty overt.
    - jacquesc 4y ago
      Yeah, that part was laughable. No one in Numenor has seen an elf in 100s of years. One elf shows up, and all of a sudden the trade unions think they'll lose all their jobs to her
    - morelisp 4y ago
      On the other hand the show's attitude is overall middling-positive about the elvish imperial state - and on top of that Galadriel's multi-century War on Terror is ultimately justified. I don't think the story is coherent enough to be making a real political statement, even if a few scenes gesture wildly at a few vague (and contradictory) political ideas.
  - icare_1er 4y ago
    I remember how comically absurd it sounded when I saw women on Iranian TV: because the regime does not allow hair, even women in bed are pictured with a hijab on, in their movies. :D The less funny thing now, is that the West has reached that level of absurdity without noticing, because a women sleeping with her hijab on, or an underground black creature (ork), or a black medieval British princess (as seen on some BBC shows), is pretty much the same level of insanity. And you're right, of course there is nothing political in that. :)
joxel 4y ago
Taken as fan fiction I enjoyed most of the show. All the people surviving the Mt Doom explosion was the dumbest part to me.
- karencarits 4y ago
  To be honest, I didn't know the term "plot armour" before this show, which applies it almost parodically
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
I've been enjoying it, but I suspect that LotR purists are having fits. The stories were basically written from whole cloth, based on fairly short mentions, in the four "later" books. From what I understand, they weren't even allowed to use Tolkien's notes. I haven't encountered anything that has made me think this was a different "universe," but the general "feel" of the show is vastly different from Tolkien's writing. For one thing, ol' J. R. R. was more than a little chauvinistic. Women didn't really play much of a part, in his writings, and when they did, they were fairly peripheral, or "objectified" (not necessarily in a sexual manner, but they were obvious stand-ins for some ideal). I've been enjoying seeing Galadriel as an arrogant ass-kicker, but am a bit disappointed in a flower-sniffing Elrond.
- mkr-hn 4y ago
  That's been my experience. I like the show and have largely tried to ignore purist grognards. It's hard when they seem to be well-represented in the media and discussion around the show, but I've managed to go right on enjoying it in spite of their endless negativity.
  - ThunderSizzle 4y ago
    How well do you like the show? How much would you pay just to see the show? I'm curious, because aside from the disregarding the lore, attacks on fans, etc., in the end, the show was just boring. Like seriously falling asleep boring.
    - mkr-hn 4y ago
      I don't know much about the lore, don't know anything about attacks on fans, and didn't find it boring. I watched it alongside a rewatch of the entire Stargate franchise now that it's on Prime again with the change in ownership. What response are you looking for here?
- beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
  > I haven't encountered anything that has made me think this was a different "universe," but the general "feel" of the show is vastly different from Tolkien's writing. I don't 100% agree on your take that Tolkein's stories were outright chauvanistic, but I do agree that the tone of the show is different to the books and the movies to its detriment. Rings of Power does not feel like an Epic in the genre sense, like Beowulf, which was a genre and style that Tolkein knew very well. The show feels far too...casual, the dialogue too sitcom-y at times (the dwarf scenes are brutal), and the world too clean and empty. When there are "epic" scenes, they end up feeling more like Disney or power rangers stuff (akin to Legolas riding the shield down the steps, I must admit). While the effects are, at times, fairly incredible,I also think the writing has been an obvious weakness. The show is just kind of floating along in permanent exposition land. Only when a certain "dark land" is finally created does it actually start to have any stakes at all, but that is 5/6s of the way through the season already. By focusing on 5 distinct storylines for most of the show they keep everything in the shallows.
parkingrift 4y ago
Rings of Power is roughly similar to rewriting the Bible. Keep the same characters but change the timelines and have all the characters get into new and unique things. And then go and ask Catholics to just give it a chance. C’mon don’t be a hater it’s still about Jesus. Give it a chance. Why not just make a show set within the rights you do have?!?
jstx1 4y ago
"Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" is in the Silmarillion which Amazon don't have rights to. So they need to actively avoid stuff that Tolkien has written, either by ignoring parts of the timeline or changing the story.
- k__ 4y ago
  I have yet to meet someone in person who read the Silmarillon and liked it. So, while RoP aren't too exciting, it's probably better off not using that book
  - wiredfool 4y ago
    From the second age of the internet -- when livejournal was still a thing -- we have this: The Silmarillion in 1000 words. It is one of the jewels of the time, and thankfully was not buried in the sea when livejournal went under. https://www.thetolkienforum.com/threads/the-silmarillion-in-1000-words.16370/ https://www.thetolkienforum.com/threads/the-silmarillion-in-... Want Shiny.
  - andrepd 4y ago
    I liked the Silmarilion :)
jacquesc 4y ago
If you'd rather watch (instead of read) a summary of the book history in the 2nd age, here's a nice rundown: https://youtu.be/tuRoZ_fbgXM https://youtu.be/tuRoZ_fbgXM Lot of great content on that channel, without it I would have been completely lost watching Rings of Power. Biggest problem with the show is the writing and the pacing. There's really good stuff in Season 1, it just isn't well written. For all the money Amazon spent on production (it's a really beautiful show), they seemed content to hire amateur writers.
mns 4y ago
Somehow it feels like they are trying too much to milk every last single drop of IP available out there to create the next big thing that everyone is talking about, and for me, Rings of Power, just like with House of Dragon and that Harry Potter thing with Fantastic Beasts, it just seems like there are shows/movies created by suits strictly from a financial or business point of view and have absolutely no soul to them. It's worse with Rings of Power because they don't have all the rights, but they wanted to take advantage of the name to increase the views, create some sort of off brand world that is there but not quite, just like sports games where one company doesn't hold all the rights and you end up playing with some weird teams like White Blue and some generic player names, because you know you can't legally use a name. Can't wait for Gonbolf next season.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  It's pretty much that. Cashing in on nostalgia in some form has kicked into overdrive since halfway 2010s. Not necessarily financial success either (as indicated by many of these projects running massive losses).
  - candiodari 4y ago
    Business executives choosing for the "safety" of something they've seen before? The comfort of having some numbers, no matter how irrelevant they are? Nope, never seen any MBA do that.
- tomashubelbauer 4y ago
  I don't know about Rings of Power, I have never read the books and it's been forever since I've seen the LoTR movies, but in terms of HOTD, it is my understanding based on the Alt Shift X videos on YouTube that analyze the show and how accurate it is to the books (which I have not read either) that it is not bad at all? Some things are different, but in the most recent episode for example, they mentioned that one change (Viserys Targaryen's final years and death) was welcome by Martin to such a degree he said he'd rewrite the book to match if he could. So the writers of HOTD I think are doing a good job being inspired by the source material and I am so far enjoying it more than I have enjoyed several seasons of GoT.
WesleyLivesay 4y ago
Nobody should argue that the show is accurate to the source material. However, this article hides behind a veil of "fact" to really just complain about the things they don't like the show. There are huge gaps of knowledge about what is happening in the Second Age so there are all kinds of things that could be happening (elves watching mordor? Maybe. Elrond buddy-buddy with the Dwarves? He had to learn Khuzdul somehow.) but the article cherry picks what it likes and what it doesn't, complaining about there being no evidence of some things while saying that the lack of information about other events is okay because they like the outcome. Assumptions made about what the Elves could have been doing during this time period in Eregion? The author makes them sound absurd and completely outside of what was written. Whatever the Harfoots are doing? That's okay because the author likes their storyline on the show If you don't like the show that is 100% okay, I think the show is a 7/10 at best and sometimes it dips well below that, but don't hide that distaste behind a call for literary purity.
- rrwo 4y ago
  For what it's worth, the Tolkein Estate is involved with the production, because they were unhappy with Jackson's adaptation. The source material is a vague outline that stretches out over centuries. But I'm tired of purists looking to complain about film and TV adaptations, because there are necessary constraints: - You want story arcs that fit within a season. - The timeline is compressed to keep the story moving. If you don't do this, people will get bored of the show. And in the end, you care about people watching the show, not satisfying purists.
  - stepbeek 4y ago
    I think that Rings of Power bangs up against this timeline compression a lot. It feels weird to us that no one is concerned about Sauron - he was just there! But in the canon timeline there were long stretches of time where nothing very interesting happened. That being said, I would gladly watch a TV series about day-to-day shire life in the third age.
    - BerislavLopac 4y ago
auggierose 4y ago
Never read any of the books, so I don't really care! I didn't see the southlands king turning into Sauron before the last episode, apparently many did, but I think a lot just read about it on the Internet. Just from watching it, it's not obvious at all (except of course, what are the odds that Galadriel stumbles upon the king of the southlands by accident?). And I loved the ending credits soundtrack of the final episode! What a great way to turn Tolkien's poem into a haunting song. I think the show is hitting the spot for people only vaguely familiar with the lore. The greedy look on the faces of the elves in the end looking at the rings was well done. I wonder though how they can make the next seasons interesting, now that we know it is all about getting dwarfs and then humans equipped with rings. I must say, I was positively surprised by the show. I had expected much much worse.
Dawnyhf5 4y ago
rwmj 4y ago
What's the legal basis behind Amazon needing a license to create their own stories based on the names and biographies of characters from a book? Seems like a very broad extension of the usual understanding of copyright. [Tolkien-related tidbit: My English teacher at school was taught by Tolkien at Oxford, so my teacher's teacher was Tolkien!]
- ZiiS 4y ago
  The understanding of copyright by US case law very strongly protects original characters.
- pfortuny 4y ago
  I guess it is the same as… Mickey mouse. I do not think anyone other than Disney could use a mouse named Mickey as a character and not expect to be sued.
300bps 4y ago
My sons and I were looking forward to The Rings of Power so much. In contrast after season 8 of GoT I was not looking forward to House of Dragon. Things have totally flipped. I’m actually enjoying HoD. Not perfect but really engaging story. I literally hate RoP. It has the story, direction and acting quality of a badly done high school musical. It has literally no redeeming qualities. Coming up with an origin story for mithril was stupid enough but the stupidity of the story isn’t even consistent. It’s an absolutely terrible show.
- dementiapatent 4y ago
  Same here, I only caught one episode of HOTD, the one where they are at the feast and the two guys fight over the girl and then she gets kidnapped. The whole episode felt intimate, filled with emotion and natural rhythm, very personal and lifelike. Now I'm a fan. Contrasting to LOTR where a bunch of miscast 20 year olds give wooden performances in front of sterile CGI to advance a bolted on story. Disappointment of the year.
shubhamjain 4y ago
> Amazon didn’t procure the rights to use most of Tolkien’s source material. They are contractually bound to make up nearly everything you see in the show. So Amazon spent $250M on the acquiring rights [1], and yet, that doesn't even cover the meaty parts of the source material? They budgeted a whopping billion dollars, and gave the job of show running to people who had no experience in managing the show of this scale; heck they have no experience at all. Both of them have barely any credits on IMDb [2, 3]. The curse of streaming services is that return on a piece of content is nearly impossible to derive. For a movie, whether it made money or lost money, is pretty obvious. Netflix on other hand sees if you watched something for two minutes and calls it a victory [4]. I won't be surprised if there's a lot of grifting going on in making the production decisions. [1]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/isn-t-game-thrones-amazon-234243756.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/isn-t-game-thrones-amazon-234... [2]: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4260438/ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4260438/ [3]: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4259881/ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4259881/ [4]: https://screenrant.com/netflix-2-minutes-veiwership-numbers-why/ https://screenrant.com/netflix-2-minutes-veiwership-numbers-...
morelisp 4y ago
I wish they had been more bold in staking out a new tone. Instead it feels more like content cut from Jackson's better films, with mostly boring characters and plot that doesn't really move forward. Imagine something that follows the ring-smithing process but with the tone of Primer between Annatar and Celebrimbor. Galadriel in something plotted and shot like a Western war film instead of a handful of mediocre martial arts scenes. Durin and Disa but it's a sitcom with Elrond as the crazy neighbor who keeps dropping by. If you're going to invent, invent.
- WesleyLivesay 4y ago
  Agreed. I think they should have made an effort to be _more_ different than the movies. The LotR trilogy, for many fans, has passed into a kind of mythological state of reverence. When they decided to make a show that followed in the same vein they were just making everything so much more difficult for themselves. They probably should have avoided comparisons to the movies, instead of welcoming them.
ZiiS 4y ago
They are not adaptions of Tolkien's books; they are extrapolations from a single book.
- morelisp 4y ago
  Worse, they are extrapolations from oft-threadbare notes which explicitly need to avoid overlapping with other stories and notes they're intended to overlap with! What a horrible basis for any story, let alone something trying to take an epic tone.
somehnacct3757 4y ago
The people mad at this show are the same people who memorized Silmarillion knowledge. That memorization act for many decades was street cred in the fandom. Now the fandom has opened its borders and rapidly taken in new members who don't share the same value system as the long-time fans, and the old fans are experiencing a devaluation of their dedication and a rejection of their culture. They very predictably try and gatekeep the material. It's not unlike what happened when Disney bought Star Wars and struck down the entire Extended Universe. I suspect when Disney gets around to retelling some of the SWEU's more famous works, that their creative liberties will be similarly challenged.
ajaimk 4y ago
Minus 10?
martin_drapeau 4y ago
I don't mind that the show is not so faithful. What I call out is that it isn't believable. Character building is shallow and predicatble. Everything looks staged. Nothing is shocking and everything is blah. They failed to leave an impact on me where Game of Thrones succeeded.
ultrablack 4y ago
Why. Did. Amazon. Not. Buy. The. Required. Rights? I mean, they spend an obscene amount of money anyway...
- AndrewDucker 4y ago
  Because they aren't for sale.
jl6 4y ago
As a huge Tolkien fan, I am quite relaxed about deviations from the source material. I get that there are storytelling constraints that demand timeline compression. I am also perfectly fine with the addition of new characters. Where RoP falls down is the execution of the storytelling. Inconsistent pacing, cringy amateurish dialogue, fakeout deaths, plot armor, and so much Harfoot filler. The first five episodes should have been two episodes and the last episode should have been three episodes. I wish they had opened the mystery boxes much earlier in the season and then showed how Sauron was cunningly manipulating the other characters - but that would have required some intelligent plotting and dialogue. My diagnosis of root cause is that a good show starts with a good story. But what RoP started with was a brand, onto which they grafted a story. I am hoping that someone will recut the whole first season into a 3 hour movie. For fairness, it’s not a terrible show, just a bit mediocre. I want to give credit to some parts which were awesome: Adar, the dwarves, the cast and character design generally, the scenery, mount doom, and all of the forging of the rings (this is the bit that I wish was shown over more episodes, not just squeezed into the finale).
- secondcoming 4y ago
  > and so much Harfoot filler I really hope we've seen the last of them. I've not read the books and so can't comment on accuracy, but despite the slow start the last aired episode wasn't bad at all.
  - ohCh6zos 4y ago
    Don’t worry, reading the books would not give you much of a reference for the shows.
  - elihu 4y ago
    The Harfoots are mentioned in the prologue of the Lord of the Rings, "concerning hobbits". Honestly, I think they're probably the best example in the show of the writers extrapolating off of what's in the books to create new content that is mostly consistent with the world Tolkien created. I can see where opinions could vary, though.
- jemmyw 4y ago
elihu 4y ago
> The Harfoots (presumed ancestors of the Hobbits of the Shire, Buckland, and Bree) are completely made up. But I rather like them and I think their story is so far pretty logical. The Harfoots aren't just made-up, actually. They're mentioned in "Concerning Hobbits", the prologue to The Lord of the Rings. "Before crossing the [misty] mountains, the Hobbits had already become divided into three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides. The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless, their hands and feet were neat and nimble, and they preferred highlands and hillsides. ... The Harfoots had much to do with Dwarves in ancient times, and long lived in the foothills of the mountains. They moved westward early, and roamed over Eriador as far as Weathertop while the others were still in the Wilderland. They were the most normal and representative variety of Hobbit, and far the most numerous. They were the most inclined to settle in one place, and longest preserved their ancestral habit of living in tunnels and holes." Presumably the Rings of Power storyline takes place before the Hobbit's recorded history began, before they settled between the misty mountains and mirkwood and long before the settled the shire, while they were still wanderers.
emkemp 4y ago
I was of divided mind going into this series. I do consider myself a Tolkien purist (I have most of the History of Middle Earth on my shelf, and recently read the Nature of Middle Earth), and instinctually cringe at the thought of deviating from the books. (And I was irked at some of the changes Peter Jackson introduced in his movies.) But: * You can't cover 3000+ years of history in five seasons without making changes. * If you want to have the same human characters (and the actors who portray them) season after season, you need even more changes. * The series must stand on it's own, without forcing viewers to read the books; and * There are a number of gaps and inconsistencies in Tolkien's writings on events and motives. (Galadriel's history and motives in particular are a mess, so it's not clear what her "true" story even is). The published Silmarillion (including the texts summarizing the Second and Third Ages) is based on the most complete versions of Tolkien's writings, not necessarily his most recent. When did the Sun and Moon first appear? Are Orcs descended from Elves? Was Sauron fully evil when he first collaborated with the Elves on the Rings? The answers all depend on what text you read. So I think there is more freedom here for the show writers than many of their on-line critics acknowledge. Even more so when you consider the Second Age writings have very few scenes and dialogues between characters. We don't get to "know" Elendil, Isildur, Galadriel, or Sauron like we get to know Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, and Gandalf. Does filling in those details make them "unfaithful" to the books? In addition, some of the deviations they clearly have made -- the importance of mithril, Galadriel's dagger and quest, the dark elf Arondir -- do have important useful payoffs in the plot. The lack of mithril gives the writers an opportunity to show how Sauron aided the Elves in Ring making in an understandable way. It also leads to Galadriel giving up her dagger and (hopefully) giving up her obsession with avenging her brother (and perhaps starting her transition to the Wise High Elf we meet in the LotR?). Arondir's appearance allowed for the casting of a damn good actor (Ismael Cruz Córdova), and exploration of an interracial (Elf-Human) relationship by an interracial set of actors (likely emotionally engaging the viewers). I think those payoffs have been worth it. A tangent: I think the casting and acting has been excellent, the CGI beautiful, and the plot twist at the season ending clever (giving viewers a reason to watch the whole season all over again). I enjoyed it, and look forward to the next season.

35 points by BerislavLopac 4y ago

BMc2020 4y ago

However, this characterization appears to be based on the Uzi Rule (the assumption that if J.R.R. Tolkien did not specifically deny the Orcs all carried Uzi sub-machine guns, then they must have carried such weapons; they simply didn’t use them in any scenes of the stories). The Uzi Rule illustrates the absurdity of fan attempts to redefine Tolkien’s Middle-earth on the basis of Absence of Denial, which is a classic logical fallacy.

audunw 4y ago
I've seen this argument used against ANY change/addition to Tolkien's story, which is just completely unreasonable. So the question is, when are we talking about giving Orcs Uzis, and when is it a reasonable change/addition? I don't feel like this article addresses the question. He mentions the Uzi rule in relation to "Galadriel was not a warrior in Tolkien’s stories. "But later he writes "So the Amazon show’s portrayal of Galadriel is not inconsistent with some of his thoughts." So is it unreasonable or not? Can we not talk about significant changes/additions to characters or plot points that might have been consistent with Tolkiens thoughts, without immediately jumping to the idea that it's the same as adding Uzis or fighter jets to the story? The "Uzi Rule" seems almost completely useless in this discussion. The use of "Uzi Rule" itself seems like a logical fallacy to me. It's a bit of a false dilemma and a slippery slope fallacy. A change is either OK because it's small enough, or it's just like adding Uzis, and if you made a change as big as X you might as well have added Uzis or fighter jets.

jleyank 4y ago

Err, not? Making a generic story using Tolkien’s names without meaning. Which seems odd in that it alienates a vocal, internet-heavy fan base without gaining a wider audience. Better to use something new or without the fanboy base. Speaking as a fanboy, willfully distorting the subject matter is a no-go.

Namari 4y ago
I guess they're using the LOTR's name/fame to attract people, if they would have done another fantasy show without LOTR's name, this would not have work as well so I guess they went for it, regardless of the fanbase. The world can thank Jackson for doing a great trilogy that doesn't change the story that much and that is still a master piece. Let's hope Amazon don't ruin the name.
- jleyank 4y ago
  Well, the hobbit doesn’t do much to bolster Jackson’s reputation. Harshly lit, far too long, trying to cash in on the Tolkien name and lotr fame. This makes Amazon’s effort start off as a cash in on a cash in - Jackson’s good stuff is almost 20 years and a viewing generation old.
  - Namari 4y ago
    Ah yeah I almost forgot about The Hobbit, you said it, it was far too long. The difference with LOTR is that is doesn't include LOTR in its name, unlike Amazon's new show. But yeah they're trying to milk the cow. Yeah we're not getting younger.
nextaccountic 4y ago
I wish the Tolkien estate sold the rights for Silmarillion and other stories published posthumously, AND retained some editorial control over the content of the content. Christopher could have done this in life. If he did, The Rings of Power could use more Tolkien content than just the appendices of Lord of the Rings
- tpxl 4y ago
  I wish Tolkien copyright wasn't a thing 49 years after the authors death.
  - adrianN 4y ago

bryanrasmussen 4y ago

I'd say that Rings of Power feels it's committed, but in an open relationship kind of way.

icare_1er 4y ago

joxel 4y ago
Uh yeah there’s nothing overtly political in the show. People that are getting political vibes from the show all seem to be pointing to being annoyed about color blind casting. That’s not political, unless you’re the kind that thinks having black people in stuff is political, which is sad.
- lotsofspots 4y ago
  The "elves will take our jobs!" scene in Numenor was pretty overt.
  - jacquesc 4y ago
    Yeah, that part was laughable. No one in Numenor has seen an elf in 100s of years. One elf shows up, and all of a sudden the trade unions think they'll lose all their jobs to her
  - morelisp 4y ago
    On the other hand the show's attitude is overall middling-positive about the elvish imperial state - and on top of that Galadriel's multi-century War on Terror is ultimately justified. I don't think the story is coherent enough to be making a real political statement, even if a few scenes gesture wildly at a few vague (and contradictory) political ideas.
- icare_1er 4y ago
  I remember how comically absurd it sounded when I saw women on Iranian TV: because the regime does not allow hair, even women in bed are pictured with a hijab on, in their movies. :D The less funny thing now, is that the West has reached that level of absurdity without noticing, because a women sleeping with her hijab on, or an underground black creature (ork), or a black medieval British princess (as seen on some BBC shows), is pretty much the same level of insanity. And you're right, of course there is nothing political in that. :)

joxel 4y ago

Taken as fan fiction I enjoyed most of the show. All the people surviving the Mt Doom explosion was the dumbest part to me.

karencarits 4y ago
To be honest, I didn't know the term "plot armour" before this show, which applies it almost parodically

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

I've been enjoying it, but I suspect that LotR purists are having fits. The stories were basically written from whole cloth, based on fairly short mentions, in the four "later" books. From what I understand, they weren't even allowed to use Tolkien's notes. I haven't encountered anything that has made me think this was a different "universe," but the general "feel" of the show is vastly different from Tolkien's writing. For one thing, ol' J. R. R. was more than a little chauvinistic. Women didn't really play much of a part, in his writings, and when they did, they were fairly peripheral, or "objectified" (not necessarily in a sexual manner, but they were obvious stand-ins for some ideal). I've been enjoying seeing Galadriel as an arrogant ass-kicker, but am a bit disappointed in a flower-sniffing Elrond.

mkr-hn 4y ago
That's been my experience. I like the show and have largely tried to ignore purist grognards. It's hard when they seem to be well-represented in the media and discussion around the show, but I've managed to go right on enjoying it in spite of their endless negativity.
- ThunderSizzle 4y ago
  How well do you like the show? How much would you pay just to see the show? I'm curious, because aside from the disregarding the lore, attacks on fans, etc., in the end, the show was just boring. Like seriously falling asleep boring.
  - mkr-hn 4y ago
    I don't know much about the lore, don't know anything about attacks on fans, and didn't find it boring. I watched it alongside a rewatch of the entire Stargate franchise now that it's on Prime again with the change in ownership. What response are you looking for here?
beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
> I haven't encountered anything that has made me think this was a different "universe," but the general "feel" of the show is vastly different from Tolkien's writing. I don't 100% agree on your take that Tolkein's stories were outright chauvanistic, but I do agree that the tone of the show is different to the books and the movies to its detriment. Rings of Power does not feel like an Epic in the genre sense, like Beowulf, which was a genre and style that Tolkein knew very well. The show feels far too...casual, the dialogue too sitcom-y at times (the dwarf scenes are brutal), and the world too clean and empty. When there are "epic" scenes, they end up feeling more like Disney or power rangers stuff (akin to Legolas riding the shield down the steps, I must admit). While the effects are, at times, fairly incredible,I also think the writing has been an obvious weakness. The show is just kind of floating along in permanent exposition land. Only when a certain "dark land" is finally created does it actually start to have any stakes at all, but that is 5/6s of the way through the season already. By focusing on 5 distinct storylines for most of the show they keep everything in the shallows.

parkingrift 4y ago

Rings of Power is roughly similar to rewriting the Bible. Keep the same characters but change the timelines and have all the characters get into new and unique things. And then go and ask Catholics to just give it a chance. C’mon don’t be a hater it’s still about Jesus. Give it a chance. Why not just make a show set within the rights you do have?!?

jstx1 4y ago

"Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" is in the Silmarillion which Amazon don't have rights to. So they need to actively avoid stuff that Tolkien has written, either by ignoring parts of the timeline or changing the story.

k__ 4y ago
I have yet to meet someone in person who read the Silmarillon and liked it. So, while RoP aren't too exciting, it's probably better off not using that book
- wiredfool 4y ago
  From the second age of the internet -- when livejournal was still a thing -- we have this: The Silmarillion in 1000 words. It is one of the jewels of the time, and thankfully was not buried in the sea when livejournal went under. https://www.thetolkienforum.com/threads/the-silmarillion-in-1000-words.16370/ https://www.thetolkienforum.com/threads/the-silmarillion-in-... Want Shiny.
- andrepd 4y ago
  I liked the Silmarilion :)

jacquesc 4y ago

If you'd rather watch (instead of read) a summary of the book history in the 2nd age, here's a nice rundown: https://youtu.be/tuRoZ_fbgXM https://youtu.be/tuRoZ_fbgXM Lot of great content on that channel, without it I would have been completely lost watching Rings of Power. Biggest problem with the show is the writing and the pacing. There's really good stuff in Season 1, it just isn't well written. For all the money Amazon spent on production (it's a really beautiful show), they seemed content to hire amateur writers.

mns 4y ago

Somehow it feels like they are trying too much to milk every last single drop of IP available out there to create the next big thing that everyone is talking about, and for me, Rings of Power, just like with House of Dragon and that Harry Potter thing with Fantastic Beasts, it just seems like there are shows/movies created by suits strictly from a financial or business point of view and have absolutely no soul to them. It's worse with Rings of Power because they don't have all the rights, but they wanted to take advantage of the name to increase the views, create some sort of off brand world that is there but not quite, just like sports games where one company doesn't hold all the rights and you end up playing with some weird teams like White Blue and some generic player names, because you know you can't legally use a name. Can't wait for Gonbolf next season.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
It's pretty much that. Cashing in on nostalgia in some form has kicked into overdrive since halfway 2010s. Not necessarily financial success either (as indicated by many of these projects running massive losses).
- candiodari 4y ago
  Business executives choosing for the "safety" of something they've seen before? The comfort of having some numbers, no matter how irrelevant they are? Nope, never seen any MBA do that.
tomashubelbauer 4y ago
I don't know about Rings of Power, I have never read the books and it's been forever since I've seen the LoTR movies, but in terms of HOTD, it is my understanding based on the Alt Shift X videos on YouTube that analyze the show and how accurate it is to the books (which I have not read either) that it is not bad at all? Some things are different, but in the most recent episode for example, they mentioned that one change (Viserys Targaryen's final years and death) was welcome by Martin to such a degree he said he'd rewrite the book to match if he could. So the writers of HOTD I think are doing a good job being inspired by the source material and I am so far enjoying it more than I have enjoyed several seasons of GoT.

WesleyLivesay 4y ago

Nobody should argue that the show is accurate to the source material. However, this article hides behind a veil of "fact" to really just complain about the things they don't like the show. There are huge gaps of knowledge about what is happening in the Second Age so there are all kinds of things that could be happening (elves watching mordor? Maybe. Elrond buddy-buddy with the Dwarves? He had to learn Khuzdul somehow.) but the article cherry picks what it likes and what it doesn't, complaining about there being no evidence of some things while saying that the lack of information about other events is okay because they like the outcome. Assumptions made about what the Elves could have been doing during this time period in Eregion? The author makes them sound absurd and completely outside of what was written. Whatever the Harfoots are doing? That's okay because the author likes their storyline on the show If you don't like the show that is 100% okay, I think the show is a 7/10 at best and sometimes it dips well below that, but don't hide that distaste behind a call for literary purity.

rrwo 4y ago
For what it's worth, the Tolkein Estate is involved with the production, because they were unhappy with Jackson's adaptation. The source material is a vague outline that stretches out over centuries. But I'm tired of purists looking to complain about film and TV adaptations, because there are necessary constraints: - You want story arcs that fit within a season. - The timeline is compressed to keep the story moving. If you don't do this, people will get bored of the show. And in the end, you care about people watching the show, not satisfying purists.
- stepbeek 4y ago
  I think that Rings of Power bangs up against this timeline compression a lot. It feels weird to us that no one is concerned about Sauron - he was just there! But in the canon timeline there were long stretches of time where nothing very interesting happened. That being said, I would gladly watch a TV series about day-to-day shire life in the third age.
  - BerislavLopac 4y ago

auggierose 4y ago

Never read any of the books, so I don't really care! I didn't see the southlands king turning into Sauron before the last episode, apparently many did, but I think a lot just read about it on the Internet. Just from watching it, it's not obvious at all (except of course, what are the odds that Galadriel stumbles upon the king of the southlands by accident?). And I loved the ending credits soundtrack of the final episode! What a great way to turn Tolkien's poem into a haunting song. I think the show is hitting the spot for people only vaguely familiar with the lore. The greedy look on the faces of the elves in the end looking at the rings was well done. I wonder though how they can make the next seasons interesting, now that we know it is all about getting dwarfs and then humans equipped with rings. I must say, I was positively surprised by the show. I had expected much much worse.

Dawnyhf5 4y ago

rwmj 4y ago

What's the legal basis behind Amazon needing a license to create their own stories based on the names and biographies of characters from a book? Seems like a very broad extension of the usual understanding of copyright. [Tolkien-related tidbit: My English teacher at school was taught by Tolkien at Oxford, so my teacher's teacher was Tolkien!]

ZiiS 4y ago
The understanding of copyright by US case law very strongly protects original characters.
pfortuny 4y ago
I guess it is the same as… Mickey mouse. I do not think anyone other than Disney could use a mouse named Mickey as a character and not expect to be sued.

300bps 4y ago

My sons and I were looking forward to The Rings of Power so much. In contrast after season 8 of GoT I was not looking forward to House of Dragon. Things have totally flipped. I’m actually enjoying HoD. Not perfect but really engaging story. I literally hate RoP. It has the story, direction and acting quality of a badly done high school musical. It has literally no redeeming qualities. Coming up with an origin story for mithril was stupid enough but the stupidity of the story isn’t even consistent. It’s an absolutely terrible show.

dementiapatent 4y ago
Same here, I only caught one episode of HOTD, the one where they are at the feast and the two guys fight over the girl and then she gets kidnapped. The whole episode felt intimate, filled with emotion and natural rhythm, very personal and lifelike. Now I'm a fan. Contrasting to LOTR where a bunch of miscast 20 year olds give wooden performances in front of sterile CGI to advance a bolted on story. Disappointment of the year.

shubhamjain 4y ago

> Amazon didn’t procure the rights to use most of Tolkien’s source material. They are contractually bound to make up nearly everything you see in the show. So Amazon spent $250M on the acquiring rights [1], and yet, that doesn't even cover the meaty parts of the source material? They budgeted a whopping billion dollars, and gave the job of show running to people who had no experience in managing the show of this scale; heck they have no experience at all. Both of them have barely any credits on IMDb [2, 3]. The curse of streaming services is that return on a piece of content is nearly impossible to derive. For a movie, whether it made money or lost money, is pretty obvious. Netflix on other hand sees if you watched something for two minutes and calls it a victory [4]. I won't be surprised if there's a lot of grifting going on in making the production decisions. [1]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/isn-t-game-thrones-amazon-234243756.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/isn-t-game-thrones-amazon-234... [2]: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4260438/ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4260438/ [3]: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4259881/ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4259881/ [4]: https://screenrant.com/netflix-2-minutes-veiwership-numbers-why/ https://screenrant.com/netflix-2-minutes-veiwership-numbers-...

morelisp 4y ago

I wish they had been more bold in staking out a new tone. Instead it feels more like content cut from Jackson's better films, with mostly boring characters and plot that doesn't really move forward. Imagine something that follows the ring-smithing process but with the tone of Primer between Annatar and Celebrimbor. Galadriel in something plotted and shot like a Western war film instead of a handful of mediocre martial arts scenes. Durin and Disa but it's a sitcom with Elrond as the crazy neighbor who keeps dropping by. If you're going to invent, invent.

WesleyLivesay 4y ago
Agreed. I think they should have made an effort to be _more_ different than the movies. The LotR trilogy, for many fans, has passed into a kind of mythological state of reverence. When they decided to make a show that followed in the same vein they were just making everything so much more difficult for themselves. They probably should have avoided comparisons to the movies, instead of welcoming them.

ZiiS 4y ago

They are not adaptions of Tolkien's books; they are extrapolations from a single book.

morelisp 4y ago
Worse, they are extrapolations from oft-threadbare notes which explicitly need to avoid overlapping with other stories and notes they're intended to overlap with! What a horrible basis for any story, let alone something trying to take an epic tone.

somehnacct3757 4y ago

The people mad at this show are the same people who memorized Silmarillion knowledge. That memorization act for many decades was street cred in the fandom. Now the fandom has opened its borders and rapidly taken in new members who don't share the same value system as the long-time fans, and the old fans are experiencing a devaluation of their dedication and a rejection of their culture. They very predictably try and gatekeep the material. It's not unlike what happened when Disney bought Star Wars and struck down the entire Extended Universe. I suspect when Disney gets around to retelling some of the SWEU's more famous works, that their creative liberties will be similarly challenged.

ajaimk 4y ago

Minus 10?

martin_drapeau 4y ago

I don't mind that the show is not so faithful. What I call out is that it isn't believable. Character building is shallow and predicatble. Everything looks staged. Nothing is shocking and everything is blah. They failed to leave an impact on me where Game of Thrones succeeded.

ultrablack 4y ago

Why. Did. Amazon. Not. Buy. The. Required. Rights? I mean, they spend an obscene amount of money anyway...

AndrewDucker 4y ago
Because they aren't for sale.

jl6 4y ago

As a huge Tolkien fan, I am quite relaxed about deviations from the source material. I get that there are storytelling constraints that demand timeline compression. I am also perfectly fine with the addition of new characters. Where RoP falls down is the execution of the storytelling. Inconsistent pacing, cringy amateurish dialogue, fakeout deaths, plot armor, and so much Harfoot filler. The first five episodes should have been two episodes and the last episode should have been three episodes. I wish they had opened the mystery boxes much earlier in the season and then showed how Sauron was cunningly manipulating the other characters - but that would have required some intelligent plotting and dialogue. My diagnosis of root cause is that a good show starts with a good story. But what RoP started with was a brand, onto which they grafted a story. I am hoping that someone will recut the whole first season into a 3 hour movie. For fairness, it’s not a terrible show, just a bit mediocre. I want to give credit to some parts which were awesome: Adar, the dwarves, the cast and character design generally, the scenery, mount doom, and all of the forging of the rings (this is the bit that I wish was shown over more episodes, not just squeezed into the finale).

secondcoming 4y ago
> and so much Harfoot filler I really hope we've seen the last of them. I've not read the books and so can't comment on accuracy, but despite the slow start the last aired episode wasn't bad at all.
- ohCh6zos 4y ago
  Don’t worry, reading the books would not give you much of a reference for the shows.
- elihu 4y ago
  The Harfoots are mentioned in the prologue of the Lord of the Rings, "concerning hobbits". Honestly, I think they're probably the best example in the show of the writers extrapolating off of what's in the books to create new content that is mostly consistent with the world Tolkien created. I can see where opinions could vary, though.
jemmyw 4y ago

elihu 4y ago

> The Harfoots (presumed ancestors of the Hobbits of the Shire, Buckland, and Bree) are completely made up. But I rather like them and I think their story is so far pretty logical. The Harfoots aren't just made-up, actually. They're mentioned in "Concerning Hobbits", the prologue to The Lord of the Rings. "Before crossing the [misty] mountains, the Hobbits had already become divided into three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides. The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless, their hands and feet were neat and nimble, and they preferred highlands and hillsides. ... The Harfoots had much to do with Dwarves in ancient times, and long lived in the foothills of the mountains. They moved westward early, and roamed over Eriador as far as Weathertop while the others were still in the Wilderland. They were the most normal and representative variety of Hobbit, and far the most numerous. They were the most inclined to settle in one place, and longest preserved their ancestral habit of living in tunnels and holes." Presumably the Rings of Power storyline takes place before the Hobbit's recorded history began, before they settled between the misty mountains and mirkwood and long before the settled the shire, while they were still wanderers.

emkemp 4y ago

I was of divided mind going into this series. I do consider myself a Tolkien purist (I have most of the History of Middle Earth on my shelf, and recently read the Nature of Middle Earth), and instinctually cringe at the thought of deviating from the books. (And I was irked at some of the changes Peter Jackson introduced in his movies.) But: * You can't cover 3000+ years of history in five seasons without making changes. * If you want to have the same human characters (and the actors who portray them) season after season, you need even more changes. * The series must stand on it's own, without forcing viewers to read the books; and * There are a number of gaps and inconsistencies in Tolkien's writings on events and motives. (Galadriel's history and motives in particular are a mess, so it's not clear what her "true" story even is). The published Silmarillion (including the texts summarizing the Second and Third Ages) is based on the most complete versions of Tolkien's writings, not necessarily his most recent. When did the Sun and Moon first appear? Are Orcs descended from Elves? Was Sauron fully evil when he first collaborated with the Elves on the Rings? The answers all depend on what text you read. So I think there is more freedom here for the show writers than many of their on-line critics acknowledge. Even more so when you consider the Second Age writings have very few scenes and dialogues between characters. We don't get to "know" Elendil, Isildur, Galadriel, or Sauron like we get to know Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, and Gandalf. Does filling in those details make them "unfaithful" to the books? In addition, some of the deviations they clearly have made -- the importance of mithril, Galadriel's dagger and quest, the dark elf Arondir -- do have important useful payoffs in the plot. The lack of mithril gives the writers an opportunity to show how Sauron aided the Elves in Ring making in an understandable way. It also leads to Galadriel giving up her dagger and (hopefully) giving up her obsession with avenging her brother (and perhaps starting her transition to the Wise High Elf we meet in the LotR?). Arondir's appearance allowed for the casting of a damn good actor (Ismael Cruz Córdova), and exploration of an interracial (Elf-Human) relationship by an interracial set of actors (likely emotionally engaging the viewers). I think those payoffs have been worth it. A tangent: I think the casting and acting has been excellent, the CGI beautiful, and the plot twist at the season ending clever (giving viewers a reason to watch the whole season all over again). I enjoyed it, and look forward to the next season.