> Each critique is then evaluated to determine whether it’s genuine or a forgery created by a bot, troll or other breed of digital goblin.
In general, this sounds like a good idea to me. There are a lot of reviews that aren't in good faith, or aren't useful because they're something like "0/10 this sucks" or "10/10 lol", and I don't really see those as valuable — in fact, the opposite.
However, the evaluation of what reviews are and aren't worth keeping would have to be done by an independent third party, not the company that produced the show, and who has an obvious conflict of interest.
Amazon would never do something like that, which is why as a rule I would keep in mind that reviews for Amazon products on Amazon platforms are not reliable (to the extent that any crowd-sourced reviews are reliable, which is a different conversation).
I find it very interesting that Amazon, after years of criticism for not doing anything regarding sellers gaming reviews, pauses reviews on the product they spent a billion dollars on.
Yea, they alsp began shitting on Tolkien fans preemptively by saying if ypi don't like it you're against diversity, etc.
It's no accident they enacted this shortly before releasing such a steaming pile of IP monetization.
Again- this is Amazon, who have shown they have no regard for laws, or their customers, and have a strained relationship with the truth to say the very least.
I'd bet dollars to donuts no one knew about this policy because it was never enforced until now.
Add to this the fact that they recently deleted all reviews on this show with a rating lower than 6 from IMDB, which confirms for me that they are not to be trusted to be subjective about this at all.
I wonder what the decision process about this is like. It’s as if this show is “too big to fail”, and management is scrambling to make it appear a success.
Whatever you call it, a score infiltrated by people (or not) who haven't seen or care for the material has no value for me.
The value of aggregate reviews is to tell if I want to watch something. Amazon might be treading a dangerous line, but it appears to be in my interest.
There's the dehumanizing language I'm talking about. By all means delete the actual bot reviews, but that's not what Amazon did. They removed all the bad reviews, and their sycophants online use dehumanizing language to justify it.
That's not dehumanising, that's the reality of who's voting. You can't talk about interpreting online polls without acknowledging the data source and problems around it.
Your focus on bots isn't enough. Real people who haven't seen this have mobbed online votes because somebody else has told them to hate it.
How do you actually tune into people who actually watched it? How do you condition that data from the contaminated mess that it is to something has value to people who want an unbiased review?
There are some technical options, but even (eg) only allowing votes from people who used an Amazon account means cutting legitimate votes that saw it under another Amazon account, from an IMDB account, etc, etc. There is no perfect solution. What's best?
> Real people who haven't seen this have mobbed online votes because somebody else has told them to hate it.
As stated in another comment[1], Amazon already has the data on who has watched it and who hasn't. It's pretty clear that they're acting in bad faith by completely ignoring this data and removing all negative reviews, when they could have simply removed reviews from people who hadn't seen it.
> only allowing votes from people who used an Amazon account means cutting legitimate votes that saw it under another Amazon account, from an IMDB account, etc, etc. There is no perfect solution.
The solution above is more than good enough. The majority of people watch streaming content on their own accounts, and I'm willing to bet that that's also true for the vast majority (>95%) of watches. The solution above is more than adequate - the fact that Amazon isn't using it speaks to the fact that they don't actually care about the reviews being representative of what individuals thought when they watched it, they just want positive reviews.
Go to the IMDb login page on your phone. The choices of account are: IMDb, Amazon, Google, Apple.
So while we're betting, I would bet most new accounts fall into the last two. They offer zero-friction without another password to remember. Longstanding users have IMDb accounts that predate the Amazon takeover.
So I'm not so sure as you are that it's that simple. You're also limiting it to one vote a family.
So Amazon does have some data. They could probably infer some more from metadata. Perhaps those reviews should have remained, and if they wanted to do this in the future, a "verified purchaser" model might work Fairly-Enough™ but it still discounts many, probably most, fair reviews
Possibly yes. The only way to find out is time. Because review bombers tend to stop after the first few days. So the future reviews will tend to be more reliable than the early reviews
I'd say not. The problem is that many 'critics' are just randoms like you and I.
'critics' giving it 8/9/10 out of 10 aren't being truthful.
I love how people are all 'you can't rate a show that just came out!' but critics have done just that as well.
Reading the RT 'critics'[1] we find there are a total of three critics (none of them 'top critics'. We have a 7/10, a 3.5/5 and a fresh score. Somehow that translates to an 84% score at the moment.
Why are bullshit high reviews not considered 'positive review bombing'?
I would like to see the criteria they are using to filter reviews. Are they removing disingenuous good reviews with equal force? Are they removing genuine, sincere, and insightful bad reviews?
Rings of power is equal parts boring, predictable, and positively ho-hum in every respect. Feels like it got focus-grouped to death. I am likely not the target audience, seeing as how Amazon provides ~14 languages for closed captioning - they may be seeking a more global audience with this content.
I read all the books and saw the Peter Jackson trilogy in theaters. This adaptation leaves a dull impression.
Look at "The Boys" with regards to 'closed captions' (hint 30+). It's good they translated the TV shows, and drawing conclusions about its target audience out of that is dumb.
There’s nothing wrong with not being the target audience of a show, but I find the bit about subtitles in 14 languages a bit odd. How could that possibly be an indicator that you’re not the target audience?
He was a philologist who oversaw translations during his lifetime and even wrote a guide for translators to use when translating fictional names. It sounds like he was picky and critical of translations, but not because he didn’t want them to exist.
I didn't mean to imply that Tolkien opposed translations.
Maybe I'm being a bit naive, but intuitively I would think that most writers do not write a book with the explicit intention of the book being translated. The first intended audience is typically readers in the original language.
This is opposed by producing a series for Amazon, where it is mostly clear that the intended audience is world wide, talking many languages (in particular if it is about such a famous topic). And I wouldn't be surprised if this fact does impact the production of a work.
> intuitively I would think that most writers do not write a book with the explicit intention of the book being translated. The first intended audience is typically readers in the original language.
I don’t think so. I think most writers are only fluent in a very small number of languages and they choose one of those languages to write in.
Or simply an audience targeted by something other than the language they speak. As others have mentioned, it’s very common for new original content from major streaming services to have subtitles in many languages. Even if that weren’t the case, it wouldn’t be surprising for a Lord of the Rings show, given that the book series has been widely translated and the author himself was a philologist who reportedly meticulously oversaw early translations of his works.
I wouldn't be so sure. There's a reason why Big Dumb Action movies get cranked out while comedies have largely died: they do well in the foreign market. This is basic least-common-denominator thinking that leads to bland schlock.
Based solely on my anecdotal data it seems like many comedies where I live are local (aka not from the US).
Some of them do well others don't but they are certainly there.
Is there a similar set of movies in the US (aimed at the national/state level market) or is all the money sucked up by productions for the international market.
for 50$, I mean they could use "google translate". Seriously though localizations and translations are a serious business and important. Not everyone speaks (or understand movie/tv show) English.
I think that many of us are coming at this with Peter Jackson's trilogy in mind (and the extended editions at that), but we have - probably intentionally - forgotten the exceedingly mediocre The Hobbits trilogy.
If you use that more recent work as the baseline, then I can see how the episodes released so far place the series fairly in the "watchable, but forgettable" category.
I do hope Amazon releases some UHD stills of the cities though. The team who handled those did an exceptional job.
> forgotten the exceedingly mediocre The Hobbits trilogy.
True. That could have been a 2 hour movie or at most two episodes. However, one difference is that the characters there do not seem that much at odds with the book or the first three movies. Galadriel in the Amazon show, on the other hand, just doesn't feel like the book or the movie Galadriel so it's a bit jarring. For their large budget, the dialog and characters should have been done a bit better I thought.
>True. That could have been a 2 hour movie or at most two episodes.
It was: check out the fan edits. So far, my favorite is the Maple Films Edit. It's about 4 hours long and it's pretty great. It cuts most of the crap and leaves all the good stuff in.
>Galadriel in the Amazon show, on the other hand, just doesn't feel like the book or the movie Galadriel so it's a bit jarring.
Galadriel here is thousands of years younger than the version you saw in Jackson's movies or the LotR books. Presumably she's matured.
The Hobbit trilogy wasn't mediocre - it was just astonishingly bad and worse, they added a huge amount of material that had nothing to do with the book.
The Hobbit is a single book that is shorter than any of the three LoTR books. There was no reason to make three movies out of it other than greed.
That is exactly what I was terrified of. I just watched the first episode a couple hours ago. It's pretty good. Not as good as the trilogy, but heaps better than the hobbit.
I've been telling people to forget the Peter Jackson movies exist (LotR and Hobbit). This is a different vision of Tolkien's world, and trying to compare them is apples to oranges. If you go into it with just the expectation of it being high fantasy with high production values, I think your average viewer would enjoy it.
Amazon/Netflix/Disney all provide 30+ subtitle tracks for every show, by the way. I don't think you should make any conclusions from the amount of subtitles. And besides, for all we know, they could be very bad.
I am not the tatget audience for children's movies yet I can still review them and not expect my review to get deleted.
What Amazon is doing here is just another example of big tech censorship, and yet there are still people here who would argue that Twitter, Meta, Google and Amazon aren't censoring people, altough in Amazon's defense it's just for profits instead of politically motivated so it's at least understandable.
I got the same impression as far as the story and dialog goes (-"You have not seen what I have seen.", -"Yes, I have!", - "No, you haven't!"). I am trying to like Galadriel but she's just too different than the movie or the book version, so it's a struggle for me.
However, I do like special effects and the costumes. I like how they did the ship sailing to Valinor. It's not how I imagined it when reading, but it's still interesting.
Khazad-dûm in the second episode looked pretty epic, I thought. The wife could have used a beard :-) but, oh well, not not a big deal.
She is 6,000 years removed from the Lord of the Rings though, and this is before she acquired her great ring, and the responsibilities that went with it. I think it makes sense that we see her in a younger, more raw form.
Yea, if you look at elves in the books, they made a bunch of crazy mistakes all the time. In LOTR they are all calm, wise and peaceful, but that's after several millenia of massive screwups.
The dialogue could have used a couple more passes to be more subtle and cleverly written.
It is important to remember that Tolkien was like a British gentleman: well-mannered with a sharp wit. All of his characters have that same coloring to them.
The trolls body movements in Ep1 took me out of the show, the CGI looked worse than most games. But agreed otherwise they did a good job production-wise. It didn't lean too heavily into the New Zealand Peter Jackson style while still keeping it on point.
> I am likely not the target audience, seeing as how Amazon provides ~14 languages for closed captioning - they may be seeking a more global audience with this content.
Yes -- instead of you they're focusing strictly on Earthlings.
> "Rings of power is equal parts boring, predictable, and positively ho-hum in every respect."
Unfortunately, this seems to be a common issue with our current, cookie-cutter style of storytelling. I think the root cause is the rate at which streaming services are trying to produce content. I know my work suffers when I take on too much. I assume the same is true for Netflix, Apple, Amazon, etc.
Don’t forget end producers and the top brass who often cut content because they are scared as heck for some innovation.
These things work in cycles. New hit series breaks through, say “GoT” which is different enough, and everyone thinks they need make series X, but in the style of “GoT”, until everyone does it and it gets meh.
Or like every series doing a life flashback to build story. (I think Lost started that)
It's not really based on the books at all. Amazon has rights to the Lord of the Rings only, but not the stuff that was used to make the Peter Jackson films. Rather than remake The Lord of the Rings (can you imagine the outrage?), they decided to focus on the brief summary of the history of the rings of power given as an appendix to the last book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Basically a couple of paragraphs in the epilogue where Tolkien says "btw, 6,000 years earlier such-and-such happened and that's how the rings were made." Amazon invented this entire show out of those couple of paragraphs.
There are larger bodies of work (The Silmarillion, The History of Middle Earth, etc.) which go into great detail about this era and the conflict which involved, incidentally, the crafting of the rings of power. But Amazon doesn't have the rights to those books. So they're creating a storyline out of what little scraps were provided in the appendices of Return of the King, while reusing some of the characters in the Lord of the Rings which would have been around back then--Elrond, Galadriel, etc.
And I agree. Forget about the books and watch it as high fantasy on TV, and you'll be enjoyed. It is well made, and so far is following a couple of interesting plot lines.
It's kind of enjoyable if you fast forward through the parts where they're doing mundane things in slow motion. Like picking up that key at the mountain.
I feel like there is room for an underground torrent scene to re-cut awful films and tv shows - especially the ones that excessively interleave different stories, spreading out the meat with lots of bland filler. Maybe we can have our own personal ML models do this in future "Cut out all the scenes with this character + put the whole show on a linear timeline + max interleaved character timelines = 2 per show"
"I am likely not the target audience, seeing as how Amazon provides ~14 languages for closed captioning - they may be seeking a more global audience with this content."
Because you have nothing in common with folks that aren't fluent in English? Even when they live in the same city and neighborhood as you? I really don't understand this. Lots of folks have common interests even though not all of them are fluent in English. Subtitles are so widespread and entertainment so international that even streaming sites tend to have decent subtitles. I truly don't understand how this says anything about the content of the show.
That's the smell I got from glimpses of a trailer. Bland, middle-of-the-road, bleh. I'm guessing the behind-the-scenes social events were given much more attention than the actual show.
Tons of languages is not that uncommon for big providers as I see - e.g. I just watched The Foundation on Apple TV and they have 8 languages for audio (sorry, I count all French variants as one, surely earning everlasting hate of every francophone) and about 40 languages as subtitles. If you've got money, I imagine that's not that expensive to translate a set of CCs.
What is the implication of having a more global audience? In today's interconnected world we all watch the same tv shows and movies, would you expect a person in Europe to have lower standards for watching a series than a person in the US?
> I am likely not the target audience, seeing as how Amazon provides ~14 languages for closed captioning - they may be seeking a more global audience with this content.
It seems global audience is not thrilled with Amazon inserting US identity politics into the movie though, which I think was quite predictable from the begging. I don't know what were they thinking or what audience they were targeting with this.
This is no more Tolkien than the various incarnations of “Star Trek” pushed by Paramount+ are Star Trek. The names and locations may be similar, but once they have diverged from the original creator’s vision and mythology, it’s simply exploitation for financial gain.
Speaking of star trek, I'd highly recommend "lower decks" to anyone who is repulsed by the latest live action horror show. It's kind of funny that a lower budget cartoon has managed to be more authentic, original and well written all at the same time - it manages to pull off making fun of the old franchise while also being nostalgic about it. For any true star trek fans, the only real new star trek show is lower decks imo.
I would say the reverse, while agreeing with most of what you wrote.
It pulls off making fun of the old franchise while also being nostalgic about it.
But it’s simplistic with characters who are so dumb and childish that there’s no Star Trek in Lower Decks either.
Not a single character on the show is an adult. They’re all edgy and nerdy tweens vying for influence in the middle school yearbook club… in adult bodies. This includes the captain and bridge crew.
Lower Decks would be a phenomenal Star Trek if they would mentally age all the characters by 10 ~ 20 years, especially the captain, XO, security officer and every alien.
> But it’s simplistic with characters who are so dumb and childish that there’s no Star Trek in Lower Decks either.
Well... i wouldn't completely disagree, but it's a cartoon comedy so it seems fitting, the characters might be dumb and simplistic but they make fun of themselves; unlike Discovery where the characters are also dumb and simplistic yet pretentious and serious with terrible acting making it unbearable.
Lower Decks might be an excellent cartoon comedy by some measures, but it's not very good Star Trek for the same reasons.
The whole thing with Star Trek is competent "culturally evolved" professionals exploring the universe and representing the best of us.
There's no way any Starfleet character from Lower Decks could have made it through the academy entrance exam or psych eval from TNG. They're not competent and they're driven by childishness, which is what makes the show a comedy and not good Star Trek.
Lower decks is okayish in the sense that it can only be watched if you enjoy (or tolerate, for that matter) high school humor. I'm regularly meeting with friends, we currently watch Voyager and sometimes shove in an episode of lower decks here and there when it's getting late. It's alienating everyone enough to take a long break afterwards. The characters are all hyperactive and constantly screaming, including the senior officers, most episodes feature or are about shit, piss or sex in some way. It's good in the sense that it doesn't throw away everything you like about the older series and try to ruin them retroacticely like Picard did. That doesn't make it a good series though.
> Speaking of star trek, I'd highly recommend "lower decks" to anyone who is repulsed by the latest live action horror show.
I wouldn't. I tried, not once, not twice, but three times to watch it. The speech from all characters is just way to fast for me to understand.
I actually reinstalled Far Cry 2 (which was widely lambasted for speech being too fast) to compare, and the speech in lower decks is a lot faster than Far Cry 2.
As a Star Trek fan I found Lower Decks to be one of the worst of the bunch. It seemed targeted at kids/teenagers though so I reserved judgement. To each his own.
Strange New Worlds is very good. The story arc about the medical officer who kept his daughter in the transporter buffer was awesome and reminded me of TnG while Gene Roddenberry was still around.
And that's "fine", right? I mean it's not for me, because I really like The Lord of the Rings, but then nobody's holding a gun to my head to watch it.
As I've gotten older, I've gotten more and more okay with shrugging and accepting that most things are not made for me anymore. What I think is only going to result in fruitless frustration, is thinking "this _should_ be made for me, because I do like X".
There's an argument to be made that quality in the arts has been declining as a result of — in part — dumbing down, or trying to appeal to the most people, based on current social norms, but I feel that's unrelated and not behind why people get so worked up with these things.
I'm unsure what distinction you make here. Are you saying it would be totally fine if Amazon used Middle Earth, Elrond, Galadriel, Sauron etc. for a story as long as they didn't call it a prequel to Lord of the Rings?
There is no Thor, Odin nor any other character in lotr, there is no direct referencing to any other works (ie talking wholesale of anything) afaik.
Tolkien used a some of lesser character from norse mythology and completely rewrote its origin, purpose and made him central player in his story.
I think that's completely comparable to lets say: making movie about evil galactic empire, i mean dictatorship with its leader in black costume that has telepathic powers and laser sword... /s
Yes nobody will notice.
There is difference between inspiration, homage, and just ripping off a setting with minimal effort.
> Amazon used Middle Earth, Elrond, Galadriel, Sauron etc. for a story as long as they didn't call it a prequel to Lord of the Rings?
If Amazon writers want to tell their story about their issues the way they want it go ahead. There are plenty of original shows, and plenty more would be even better.
I sense the displeasure is due to a perception, which may well be correct, that certain cultural artifacts are recycled as a platform for propagating socio-political agendas. Emasculation and milk toast male characters, for example, seem to be de rigueur these days.
One of my all time favorite European works is Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival. He wasn't the original author of the legend of Percival, and there were other versions after him. It evolved, but that process took centuries and imo was an organic development.
So I think the generally unspoken issue is who is doing the 'growing and evolving' (here: Corporations) and how are they evolving dearly beloved cultural works. Wolfram for example changed some bits and even inserted a short (rather amusing) interlude to vent his frustrations with women, but we can be certain there wasn't a committee with a social agenda sponsoring him to write that.
So, genuine development is definitely OK. At least in my book.
Unfortunately, with most new productions it’s clear that the new folks don’t understand the story or characters they’re supposed to be extending. Or rather, they don’t care to and want to tell their own. That would be fine if they just chose a new name.
> ...Can't some popular stories grow and evolve beyond one, albeit original, author's imagination?
Of course they can, but it's also the case that Tolkien was extremely defensive against divergent interpretations of his work, and he has a large fan-base with the same attitude.
> if I sell my startup to Google I can't then berate them for deviating from my vision and making it too corporate.
I'm pretty sure can. Maybe they could gag you with a contract during the sale, but I am certain that fans of your original business are well within their rights to criticize what Google later does with it. Your decision to sell something doesn't oblige others to respect what the new owner does with it.
The problem is, what typically happens is an author writes an original story and then it's "extended" by filming a completely unrelated off the shelf plot with some of the names changed and lore added. If something isn't a Hollywood hero's journey it's going to be one now. Scouring of the Shire would've been a lot more original than any new material we're getting here.
Though American TV has improved a lot since the time they had directors of making sure none of the protagonists were women.
They can, but then change the name and any implication that it is somehow more of what we got before (Lord of the Rings). Or clearly state it is only based on it, but has actually nothing to do with the original work, only draws inspiration from it.
This is not the case.
Here the directors / whoever just think they can do better than Tolkien (and that's fine) but then they appropriate themselves with everything he did, including claiming it's his work, but that they "improved" or "modernized".
> Can't some popular stories grow and evolve beyond one, albeit original, author's imagination?
Sure, it's simple. Name it differently when you already plan to stray from the author's vision and as a bonus people will rate it more independently from the original (though that also means no free marketing by riding on a known brand).
Rather than blocking reviews, how hard would it be for a company like Amazon to release some anonymized data about these alleged review bombing incidents and allow independent researchers to make their own analysis on whether or not these are genuine reviews or not?
There's a big moral hazard here in that it's trivial for a big corporation to make claims that cannot be verified. Are we supposed to just trust them?
Based on the kinds of things I've heard in the past about supposedly "anonymized" data being reassembled, I have to imagine that Amazon's lawyers would unequivocally decline that idea before the soundwaves finished reverberating off the conference room walls.
but then they would not be able to manipulate the results their own way which is exactly what is happening. make a crapfest look better than it should by cherry picking reviews.
I just don't understand the level of virtriol about a TV show. Is this the fruit of waning religiosity, where everyone adopts whatever random cause and fights to the death about it?
I thought we got past this malarkey with the stunning finale of The Sopranos... creative art is not there to satisfy your clamouring desires. That is 'content'.
Tolkien created one of the most fleshed out fantasy universes to date. As a result, there's a not inconsiderable number of die hard fans who don't react well to disregarding canon as there is a rather insane amount of detail spelled out in the books.
As long as one can get in the mindset of 'this is some disposable Tolkien-ish fantasy content', it's an OK bit of filler (IMO, having watched the first couple of episodes)
> As a result, there's a not inconsiderable number of die hard fans who don't react well to disregarding canon as there is a rather insane amount of detail spelled out in the books.
This sounds very similar to what happened with the fans of the well-known Wheel of Time series. Given the broad divergence from the canon, the future of the series is in doubt [1]
I don't understand why they even bothered trying to adapt the Wheel of Time. The values expressed in those books, particularly w.r.t. gender, were obviously going to clash hard with the present zeitgeist and necessitated butchering the story to bring it into compliance. Anybody could have seen that coming. They should have just written a new story.
In no particular order:
Conflict between men and women leads to ruination.
Men need women and women need men, without the other they aren't complete.
Men are naturally stronger than women, but women make up for it with teamwork.
Powerful men get harems. Men frequently take multiple wives but the reverse is virtually unheard of.
Slavery as a cultural difference to be respected.
Good guys allying themselves with an empire built by the chattel slavery of women.
Wheel of Time season 2 was confirmed before season 1 ended and season 3 was confirmed before any part of season 2 aired.
Amazon is doubling down. Expect more of this sort of "we'll buy your favorite property and change it and there's nothing you can do about it". Nothing that is still protected by copyright is sacred, you just need a rich enough business to buy it to change it.
I've seen several memes presented to me by Facebook, since it's normally the kind of content and subject matter I'd consume, counseling people to not even "hate-watch" it. So there is some variety of blind opposition or boycot afoot, and shockingly, the comment sections very frequently come back around to color-blind casting.
> "Now after all this rant: I didn't watch rings of power, and I don't plan to, why soil a good memory and good mental mythos I have of that world?"
> "I watched up till the intro credits of episode one. It seems... OK?"
> "I watched the trailer and I didn't watch the show yet, but I if it follows the trend, I imagine what I will find. I don't know if I will watch it."
> "I found the first episode very long drawn and boring. Wanted to leave a review but Amazon told me: "please watch till the end to leave a review". Not going to torture myself just to leave a review."
> "I’ve only watched one episode, but that episode was not good."
> "That begin said, I haven't watched any RoP, the "nothing" could be complete fluff because the story is too thin."
> "I don't think I'll be watching this series at all based on what I've read in the comments here."
> "zero sympathy here; Tolkien reader; not watching this media at all.. zero"
> "I don’t known about others, but I really don’t want to watch this show now."
Am I the only one that seems weird to? Like, watch it and have whatever opinion you feel! But when did not watch it and have a strong opinion become a valid option?
Note that the canon is somewhat fluid: Tolkien changed his mind on various things (off-hand, I can think of the creation of the orcs, when the wizards first arrived in middle-earth and what exactly Balrogs look like).
But 'Jupiter' has been dead for close to 50 years. While Tolkien was protective of his work and its integrity, I'm not entirely sure he would have wanted it to ossify entirely (as already quoted elsewhere: "I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many others only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama").
> I just don't understand the level of virtriol...
I can't comment on the social phenomenon of Amazon mob reviews, but the attitude of Tolkien toward his work is relevant. He incorporated a tremendous amount of material from his research on northern European mythology, and had very definite ideas about how it should all hang together. Once LotR was published, he would react very strongly against interpreting or extending that material in any way that didn't match his vision. A large part of Tolkien's fan base takes a similarly serious attitude towards his material.
That's fine, but Amazon isn't rewriting his books. I think it is impossible to infer Tolkien's reaction, and furthermore, quite silly to try and enforce that inferred reaction.
Take the Wheel of Time series. A lot of unhappy fans again. Robert Jordan isn't around to give his opinion, but Brandon Sanderson finished off writing the series after Jordan's death and has talked about what he thinks of the TV series. His comments are remarkably less hysterical than what fans say. He basically says he likes it and there are some things he would have done differently [1].
Ghost in the Shell is another example. The live action movie was bad. There was a whitewashing controversy about a caucasian actor playing the lead role. The original Ghost in the Shell anime director came out and said it didn't matter [2]. His comments are worth reading:
> ...Oshii said that because the main protagonist – Major Motoko Kusanagi – is a cyborg, the question of race and whitewashing is a moot point. “What issue could there possibly be with casting her?” Oshii said. “The major is a cyborg and her physical form is an entirely assumed one. The name ‘Motoko Kusanagi’ and her current body are not her original name and body, so there is no basis for saying that an Asian actress must portray her. Even if her original body (presuming such a thing existed) were a Japanese one, that would still apply.”
Oshii added that he thought Johansson was the best possible person to play Kusanagi in the Rupert Sanders-helmed remake, which is out next weekend in the US. He also argued that actors of different backgrounds from the characters they are portraying is part and parcel of the film-making world.
”In the movies, John Wayne can play Genghis Khan, and Omar Sharif, an Arab, can play Doctor Zhivago, a Slav. It’s all just cinematic conventions,” he explained.
”If that’s not allowed, then Darth Vader probably shouldn’t speak English, either.”
That raises a kind of interesting point. They aren't rewriting his books, they are rewriting his world.
Tolkien started out with a hobby of creating languages. He then was inspired to build worlds in which those languages would live. His fiction came out of a desire to have adventures in those worlds.
I've read descriptions of Tolkien's dealings with people who wanted to adapt his published stories for film. He was quite ready to accept modifications to the stories to fit the needs of another medium, so long as the main thrust of the narrative was preserved. What would really draw his ire, though, was when people tampered with his world.
All that said, though, his writings, especially later in life, give me the impression that if it were explained to him that racial diversity was to become the hang-up for people that it has, he would have sought to modify his stories to avoid giving offense.
I seriously missed some weird angry mob. I watched the first two episodes yesterday out of curiosity and it was the most compelling TV show I’ve seen in years. I’ve read the books a long time ago and enjoy fantasy. I thought this was a great start for a fantasy series.
It’s mostly hysteria. I’m enjoying it a lot more than the clunky GoT prequel series, for instance. I can’t possibly see how it could move someone to join in a one star review-bombing campaign unless they had a political agenda they weren’t being honest about.
I’m not saying you can’t have an opinion, of course. The recent Star Wars trilogy isn’t exactly an unparalleled artistic achievement. But unfortunately when the internet’s overflowing with misogynists and racists desperate to hold their crumbling cultural Maginot line, any legitimate criticism isn’t going to be heard.
House of the Dragon has surprisingly been great, sure you have the random teleporting character or out of character military tactic but it also shows HBO learned from their mistake and you can feel they brought back the politics and meetings and focus on characters instead of fan service and whatever made the last 4 got seasons the garbage they turned into.
But again you have to have read GRRM's work and not be a contrarian just for the sake of it to enjoy it.
Rings of power had a budget of a billion $, either there is some money laundering scheme at work that I'm unaware of, or people have just forgotten how to hire good writers and other people to make a decent movie/series.
If you gave me a billion $ today I'd just hire Peter Jackson, pay him a shit ton of money so he accepts, and give him FULL creative power over the project so it doesn't turn out like The Hobbit trilogy or That Raimi directed Dr Strange in the multiverse of madness. And if he refuses to do it then find another good director and I'm sure there are a lot of big names who would gladly accept the challenge of topping Jackson's work.
A billion $ is A LOT of money in cinema, despite you having to pay the movie theaters, marketing, etc. Amazon owns imdb so can market it themselves on 2 of the most visited websites in the world: Amazon and imdb (for movie/series watchers), and if that's not enough, they own the streaming service where they plan to put it.
People aren't saying it sucks (at least I'm not) but that it had no reason to not be great. Galadriel felt inhuman in Jackson's movies, she's supposed to be one of the fairest and mightiest elves in middle earth, I doubt she felt like that to anyone in rop.
Now after all this rant: I didn't watch rings of power, and I don't plan to, why soil a good memory and good mental mythos I have of that world? I made that mistake with the witcher, I had built up the characters in my head from the books and later the videogames, then Netflix took a huge dump on this mental model, and now whenever I think about some character (outside of Cavill and a few others who did great work) I also get the image of the new one in my head: I hope this weird rambling makes sense.
Galadriel is thousands of years younger in this show... The show does a good service to both the lore and the old movies, you can see they put a lot of care into it so dont worry. The orcs actually look like corrupted elves, which they didnt in peter jackson. Peter showed that he was done with lotr in the hobbit..
Amazon, that union busting corporation, spent a billion dollar to deface Tolkien and Variety thinks "trolls" are the problem here? See the greater picture and it's implications. And Amazon thinks they deserve a medal for being performatively "woke"? while having the most utter disdain for their employees trying to organize for better work conditions?
This is the latest culture war front. The right-wing media ecosystem are pointing their hundred millions viewers at this one outrageous thing. It'll eventually wane like the previous iterations, such as critical race theory in schools.
Wait what's the culture war angle here? I don't get the correlation between "purist" Tolkien fans and the right wing vs left wing? I'm probably missing something since I've never read or watched anything related to tolkien or LOTR, but for me it looked more like a typical fanboy reaction/rage to Amazon adding new stuff to an original story.
(Which honestly can suck, because of course some people will just review bomb it no matter without ever actually watching a single episode. Makes it harder for everyone else to actually know if it's bad on its own merits.)
That's an oversimplification. The "controversy" is that some people already had an image of what elves looked like (tall, very white, long haired) and now one of the main characters who is an elf, is a short haired black man.
As someone who doesn't live in the US, it is always a bit amusing when you see these Hollywood productions very clearly add or make some characters certain race or gender because of US politics.
It's even more bizarre when you consider that all of Tolkien's works are based on an incredibly Anglo Saxon/European centric view of the world.
I find it extremely ironic that people are so bent out of shape about a couple characters cast with darker skin. These must be the same people that have no clue that every character in their favorite book (The Bible, King James version) was non-white. These are most likely the same people with the historically inaccurate pictures of Jesus Christ as a caucasian man.
The two largest fantasy franchises in the world are Euro-centric white fantasy (Middle Earth and GoT). It isn't enough that our fantasy canon dominates the world, we need to have every actor be caucasian as well?
It's a US political decision. In my country, where there are very very few black people, it definitely wouldn't be a political decision to not include black people. But it goes beyond that. What I usually see is that the focus is on including black characters. There is rarely focus on including for example Asian or Hispanic characters, or they are portrayed in much more stereotypical ways.
As I said, it's a very US thing, that is very noticeable to non US viewers. Try watching some non US movies or shows and you'll see what I mean.
The US seems to have in general a lot of interest in races for some reason. For some applications or forms I've had to fill for US things, I was asked my race or ethnicity, which to me seems completely bizarre (what does it matter?). Moreover I didn't even know what race I was supposed to put (am I white? am I Hispanic?) because I've never been asked.
> The US seems to have a lot of interest in races for some reason.
The reason being systemic racism imposed on brown and black people in the US.
Look back to the 1990s movies where you'd have large casts depicting everyday life, and there'd be literally 0 non-white people. Non-whites were explicitly excluded in many movies, obviously with exceptions, but we're talking about averages and tendencies here. Racism didn't end in the 1960s.
Conservatives think we live in a post-racial era where there's equality of opportunity just because there aren't laws that explicitly discriminate against certain races. But that's a really flawed sociolegal analysis, given that equality of opportunity isn't exclusively determined by equality under law, and given that there's laws that aren't explicitly racist but cause racist outcomes and likely have unstated racist motivations (e.g. marijuana criminality, immigration restrictions).
> There is rarely focus on including for example Asian or Hispanic characters
I totally agree that they need to do a better job on that.
> it’s a political decision to have movies and tv shows with entirely white people in them.
Well, that kind explains "I just don't understand the level of virtriol about a TV show." from OP.
For instance, I don't live in the US, I don't care about the US and most importantly I don't care about US politics, but the US is the only capable of running shows like this.
I imagine there would be americans that don't want politics or political influences in their beloved stories too.
Me, I just want a Tolkien show despicted as in (or as accurate as possible to) the books. I watched the trailer and I didn't watch the show yet, but I if it follows the trend, I imagine what I will find. I don't know if I will watch it.
How much time will I have to wait for a new version? 15, 20, 30 years? I'll probably be long gone.
Lots of shows have black people in them, and most of them don't get tons of negative reviews.
So here's my theory: LOTR is extremely popular with a huge number of fans. This show is subpar. Subpar adaptation of very popular thing means lots of disappointed fans, meaning lots of negative reviews.
I'd heard "meh" things about it before it was even out and none of it included anything about there being a black elf. What was complained about were weak writing, trying to add sex/nudity to GoT it, and firing their lead "Tolkenist" because he was opposing it, etc.
Rings of Power isn't suffering from trolling, it's suffering from angering tolkien fans. Every review I've seen on youtube pretty much hates it. The gist I get is that good writing has taken a backseat to woke messaging.
I've noticed in the past few years that the professional reviews on rotten tomatoes tend to skew in way different directions than user reviews. I don't think it's because the professionals are right though. I think there's a lot of group think and peer pressure.
Giving it a 1/10 score just means that person is very angry for some reason, not because they objectively evaluated the series and gave it a 1/10 rating because it's terrible on all fronts.
Giving it a 3/10 means that series needs to live up to some kind of standard that other series don't need to live up to.
If this series wouldn't be based on Tolkien and was released before anyone heard of "woke", it would at least be a 7/10. For reference, Xena is a 6.7/10.
Well, basing a series on a well known work is a tradeoff. You have an automatic audience, but they have certain expectations and if you fail to meet them the backlash is harsh. Would it be higher rated if it wasn't based on Tolkien? Probably, but vastly fewer people would care about it. End of the day you have to respect the source material.
Even a 6.7 likely has a few people giving it 1/10, a few people giving it 3/10 and a few people giving it 10/10. I have probably rated a couple of things 1/10 out of the 20 odd ratings I may have provided IMDB, but that does not make me angry, just that the particular topic (move, series, episode) somehow seemed to waste my time, but someone else may feel otherwise.
> Giving it a 3/10 means that series needs to live up to some kind of standard that other series don't need to live up to.
Whatever standard people used to give 3/10 to Xena could be used to give 1, 3 or 10. The problem is we do not know who is a genuine critic, and who is just a hater (or a complete aficionado) unless we start doing some kind of meta-analysis which is what Amazon seems to be trying to do, as long as they do it consistently.
Also worth mentioning how the Tomatometer is calculated: reviewer's scales (be it some number of stars, a 1 to 10 rating, a letter grade, etc) are quantized down to being either "positive" (1) or "negative" (0), and then, they are averaged to a percentage.
One issue with this method is that middling reviews have more effect than they should. For example, if 100 reviewers all thought a movie was 51% good, the Tomatometer would read 100%. And, conversely, with just a two point difference, if they all thought it was 49%, the Tomatometer would be 0%. In both circumstances, the Tomatometer would probably not represent how the reviewers felt about the movie.
The “woke messaging” narrative is just racists mouthing off. Ignore them.
The Tolkien fans angry about deviations from books maybe have a point. But not being one I’m really enjoying it, praying it doesn’t go down hill but so far so good.
I think it's entirely possible to be annoyed with overt obnoxious virtue signaling without being a racist, which seems to be what the critics are saying.
One reviewer pointed out that the protagonist manages to be both a Mary Sue AND a Karen. (If you're unfamiliar with the tropes -- automatically good at everything with no heroes journey to develop themselves, and wants to speak to your manager). I haven't watched it personally but yikes if that's accurate.
I love the first two episodes and I am looking forward to the next one. Orcs are downright terrifying compared with Peter Jackson's version. I liked the tension between the elf legions and the men whose land they occupy. It is an interesting new angle.
It has been said a country only needs 10% of its populace to united behind a radical ideology to start a revolution. This has roughly held for the American Revolution, French Revolution, Russian Revolution. I would not be surprised if the same holds true here. An extremely vocal minority is extremely discontent with this show. The average Amazon Prime watcher meanwhile is completely oblivious to the controversy. They find the show to be somewhere between slightly below and slightly above average. The issue is that they are writing reviews at a much lesser rate than the rabble rousers.
Nope, I'm enjoying it! It's been a long time since I've been looking forward for a new TV show episode. It's obvious to me that they've put a lot of work and love into it, and (in spite of the hate from hardcore Tolkien fans) it's obvious that they really care about the world that Tolkien wrote.
I'm nervous because no TV show stays good forever, but I'm very excited for the rest of this season.
Elves are supposed to be a different species of humanoid, so making them more human-like by thinking they're supposed to be a certain way that humans are doesn't feel like the source material. It's important to adhere to that source because they are using the name for recognition. They could have just made a new fantasy story with short hair elves, and I think that would have been judged on its own.
In the source material they look pretty much just like Men. The most consistent difference seems to be their height (they’re taller than Men) and the fact that their bodies don’t really age at the same rate. There’s never any mention of them having pointy ears, or any other obvious physical characteristic.
I think there are several places across the Silmarillion and other books where it’s mentioned that some Men are mistaken for Elves. If I recall correctly, this happened with Túrin, who was given the name Adanedhel (“Man-Elf”), which he got because he was so alike to them.
The Wizards are given the appearance of old men, but the Men think that they’re elves. Gandalf’s name comes from the Old Norse for “wand/staff elf”. In-universe, in the north he was known as “The Elf of the Wand”, because Men mistook him for an Elf.
Also, I’m not sure that calling them a “different species” is accurate. They certainly can produce offspring with Men just fine.
Then i guess don't give them pointy ears. I remember reading they had long hair, regardless they are called something different and have completely different lives.
> They certainly can produce offspring with Men just fine.
While true, in fantasy all kinds of mixes are possible that result in creatures like minotaurs, half-orcs, half-demons, half-dragons, etc., and those are obviously not human.
Not giving them some distinguishing physical characteristic sounds like a great way to make the work more difficult to understand. Personally I don’t mind the change.
> I remember reading they had long hair, regardless they are called something different and have completely different lives.
Some of them had long hair, but presumably others don’t. I’m not aware of any part of the Legendarium which suggests all elves had long hair. That would seem like an uncharacteristic thing for Tolkien to write about them.
> While true, in fantasy all kinds of mixes are possible that result in creatures like minotaurs, half-orcs, half-demons, half-dragons, etc., and those are obviously not human.
This is not D&D. As far as I know, there’s nothing in the Legendarium suggesting there can be unions of anything other than Men and Elves, Men and Orcs, and Elves and Maiar.
A union of an Elf and Maia happened exactly once, and is a bit of an odd becuse Maiar choose the physical form they take. Melian presumably clothed herself in the body of an Elf, at least as far as mattered.
The Men and Orcs thing is unusual in two ways. One is that it’s not explicit how they were combined. Saruman did it… somehow, but the implication is that it was through his art (magic). yhe other is that, depending on the day, Tolkien considered Orcs to be anywhere between corrupted Elves/Men, fallen Maiar, or something like animals. He wasn’t ever comfortable with the ramifications of any of these different origins had, but I think that at the time of writing Lord of the Rings, the idea was that they were corrupted Elves. I’m not super sure on that though. Either way though, I can see a lot more philosophical justification for Men and Orcs being crossed than Men and dragons, balrogs, or anything else that isn’t an Elvish/Mannish being.
Anyway, this is a long way to say that just because it happens in other fantasy settings doesn’t mean it applies here. Tolkien thought about this kind of stuff a lot, and wrote extensively on it. If you’re interested in reading more about this kinda thing, I highly recommend the History of Middle Earth series of books, especially Morgoth’s Ring, which deals a lot with the nature of existence (both physical matter and things like souls) in the Legendarium.
> ...there’s nothing in the Legendarium suggesting there can be unions of anything other than Men and Elves, Men and Orcs, and Elves and Maiar.
Tolkien, Race, and Racism in Middle-earth[1] has a long section discussing this. Tolkien regarded elves, men, hobbits, dwarves, and orcs all as races of one species, who thus could interbreed.
Thanks! That was the impression I had, but as I was writing the comment I realized I couldn’t recall any specific line that made me think that all the children were basically the same species (though I did know that Hobbits were counted among Men).
Fair points. Sure, pointy ears I guess is expected, although I think they could definitely make it work otherwise. Regarding the races, it seems there is a vagueness to the lore which means an opportunity to stay within Tolkien and still expand it with these types of questions (what it means to be human, etc). This is one way they could work with what already exists while adding something new.
The situation is more complicated than that though. The apparent vagueness is not a sign that there is wiggle room, but rather that there are existing contradictions the author didn’t manage to resolve. The reason the origins of the Orcs changed so often is because Tolkien laid down some pretty hard boundaries in his world as to what it meant to be an Elf/Man/Dwarf, what Melkor was able to do (not capable of independent creation), free will existing, Orcs always being evil, and his desire to maintain consistency with his Catholic faith regarding salvation.
But because of a vague memory about something you read sometime (which looks like it was wrong), the presence of short-haired elves breaks your immersion and damages your enjoyment of the show?
Ok, well I'm just alluding that there's probably source material around certain differences. I wouldn't mind short-haired elves, but personally I'd want some justification that makes sense within the story since it deviates from what is previously established.
I mean if I had glorious elven hair, I would probably not cut it. Also short is one thing, but in RoP the elf Arondir has a military buzz cut, which raises more questions.
> They could have just made a new fantasy story with short hair elves, and I think that would have been judged on its own.
And all of 10 people would have watched it. IP is for name recognition more than anything else. What percentage of people who watched the Peter Jackson trilogy actually read a book from the trilogy? I'd bet way less than 50%.
Jackson didn't adhere 100% to the source material either. There are length lists, including many substantial non-narrative related changes, for[1] each[2] film[3].
> What percentage of people who watched the Peter Jackson trilogy actually read a book from the trilogy?
The trilogy was great because of the writings of Tolkien. Peter Jackson did his best respecting that and telling Tolkien's story, not his own. I think that's why they were successful.
What's the point of adapting a source material if you think it should be changed to begin with? Just don't adapt it... but of course they want the massive fanbase even though they're not acknowledging why it's big in the first place.
> The trilogy was great because of the writings of Tolkien. Peter Jackson did his best respecting that and telling Tolkien's story, not his own. I think that's why they were successful.
Laughable statement.
Where did Gandalf hit Pippin when they talked to Denethor in the books? That was in complete contradiction with the Gandalf from the books so please dont tell me this was faithful in any way.
Sauron became a floating eyeball and characters were made into caricatures of themselves (Denethor) or forced to undergo 'character growth' not present in the books (Aragorn, Faramir).
The movies are great, but by no means some sort of gold standard of faithful adaption of the source material.
Do you really think they won't get a massive fanbase just because of the outrage of a couple thousand anonymous strangers on the internet?
As far as I can tell, outrage over controversial changes to the IP (e.g. Game of Thrones, The Last of Us 2, Star Wars 7-9) is _positively_ correlated with popularity.
I think it's not as big as it could have been. They might still be successful in terms of views (although that's yet to be seen), but I think that might be because a lot of people are giving it a chance. We'll see how it does towards the end of the season.
I'm not saying it will or won't be popular. I'm saying the quality of the writing according to "proc0" is not going to have any impact on the situation.
I find it ridiculous to refer to "source material" as if it was gospel. Amazon owns the rights for this tv show, and therefore anything they make is new source material.
Just like how in the Marvel cinematic universe Spiderman's MJ is mixed race and not a redhead, Thanos in the comics doesn't care about halving the universe's population, he wants to kill as many as he can to court the embodiment of Death, or most of the Eternals are gender and race swapped from their comic versions.
Elves are now closer to humans, and they can be black, but the old material with white, tall, long haired elves is still there for you to enjoy... is it really a big deal?
The source material is subject to criticism as well, but it should also be given credit. The reason we're even talking about it is because the books were really good and had a huge impact around the world. It's no coincidence that movies based on books tend to be great. Authors think through their world in detail which serves as a foundation for the screen adaptation. Deviating from this is risky, as directors have different skills, and more than likely they won't write a better world and dialogue than a renown author.
This was very clear with Game of Thrones with George RR not being able to finish his saga, and this being so obvious after season 4 (or 5). The quality dropped dramatically and it all crashed and burned by the last season. Had they planned it more carefully, so that George was in charge of the story until the end, I think we would have seen the most successful fantasy show of the century.
I’m honestly surprised by the writing in the show so far. I was afraid they would go the Game of Thrones Season 8 route and just dumb everything down to stupid quotes.
But so far, there’s a definite richness in the writing that I wasn’t expecting. Its not entirely Tolkienesque, but its richer than I expected a mainstream blockbuster show to be.
So you have this entity Sauron trying to forge a tool to control and dominate all life. I think the people at Amazon are well positioned to write this narrative.
I have a hard time believing the authenticity of the critics' reviews.
The Rings of Power is a complete snoozefest. Stuff is happening, but it's a confusing mess and there are no stakes to make anything interesting. The dialogue is stilted and cringeworthy.
Confusing? We get introduced to the main villain, we learn how the elves came to middle-earth, and we setup the story for how Galadriel will get a second chance for vengeance while Elrond is setup to unite the Elves and Dwarves in a common goal. I'm enjoying it so far, and it's certainly not confusing.
I was confused why the antagonist was the same as LotR, why there were hobbits (they were an obscure race in The Hobbit), and whether this story was supposed to be continuous with the existing Lord of the Rings. These are just a few examples, but while I was watching many details didn't add up to me.
Those don't seem confusing to me considering LotR shows Elrond facing off against Sauron in the Second Age and Hobbits were never indicated to not exist in the Second Age (why would you think that?). They tell you right off the bat that this is well before LotR, so I don't know why you're making these strange assumptions.
That “sink or float” metaphor was clumsily written and reminded me of someone wanting to convey something important, but didn’t know how or what to say. I’ve only watched one episode, but that episode was not good.
In contrast House of the Dragon is better written, equally gorgeous, and is far more interesting. At least it is 3 episodes in compared to the 1 RoP I’ve seen.
I watched the first episode of House of Dragons passively in the background while doing work, but it kept catching my attention. I watched it again in the background, and other parts of it kept catching my attention.
By episode three, it had my devoted attention. This is definitely a great show.
I would suggest watching the second episode. It gets better. I think the first two episodes should have just been one long episode. The first felt like it didn't go anywhere, and then the second pulled it together.
fwiw, to convey that not everyone on either side is a bot, i can barely get through an episode of HOTD despite it's visual appeal while i wasn't even tempted to look at my phone during ROP.
HOTD, to me, lacks even one compelling, relatable, or likable character and has a boring story that feels as though is lacks any weight.
maybe it's because i just rewatched all of GOT thrones though and it's been a few years since i watched any of the Peter Jackson films. (and even longer since i read the books from both authors)
What this whole stupid controversy is emphasizing to me is how many people are living in a post-subjectivity world.
I've enjoyed this show more than any other I've watched recently. I like basically every actor. I've really appreciated the attention to detail in the world. The dialog was awkward at first but after I acclimatized to the style I actually kinda like it—it's quirky, but consistently so.
It turns out, people like and dislike different things! But both sides of this ragefest are in all seriousness accusing the other of not existing because no one could possibly have a different opinion. It's weird.
Unknown to all in LOTR, while the volcano is hot, it has cooled in the thousands of years since the ring's forging. It does not completely dissolve the ring, instead, it melts yet remains together.
Fast forward 10000s of years, the area is mined, and the precious metal is used for fillings in teeth.
Surprise! It's Bezos! And he now has part of the ring of power in his lower right molar.
Now he is understood.
One sales platform to rule them all, indeed!
> I’m going to really ruin things for you: eventually, in the end, the ring dies.
Well, obviously. I mean, the goodies have access to giant eagles and all they have to do is to give the ring to one of them and drop it in Mount Doom and the whole thing is solved, right?
The eagles could be corrupted, yeah. They're sentient and (some at least) are ancient. One of the central themes of The Lord of the Rings is that the Powers of Middle Earth are very, very tempted by the ring and must overcome the test of the ring at cost to themselves: Galadriel is doomed to travel to the West, Boromir loses his mind temporarily, Saruman becomes a tyrant and eventually his staff broken etc. The eagles are themselves a Power and if they picked a Ring Bearer up they'd be tempted to drop said bearer on the ground and fetch the ring from their dead hand, become some type of eagle tyrant.
Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. Big risk either way.
Anyway, this theme is why the most meek people of Middle Earth -- the Hobbits, who desire basically nothing more than a quiet life -- are the only ones in Middle Earth that could actually cart the ring into Mordor. Even then it's not a sure bet, considering Gollum.
Even the hobbits fail - Frodo claims the ring at the last minute and it is only the intervention of Providence (in the guise of Gollum) that saves the day.
Ah yes, fair point. I think it’s Gandalf that says the Hobbits are stouter than even the Wise know or something to that effect but, like you say, they aren’t impervious to the charm of the ring. Except perhaps Sam, with his abundance of hobbit-sense and love for Frodo.
Its actually because the eagles are not just a straight up ally. Eaglea are the servants of the highest god, and that god doesn't really care about the concerns of elfes and men. Just like the ents also don't really care unless you fuck with them directly.
The eagles showing up at the end is more like an 'Oh we were so awesome and heroic that even the high god sees considers this a worthy cause'.
The eagles help Gandalf because of a personal relationship
Don't be ridiculous. The video narrator specifies that the gold on the basalt must have been present locally at the eruption, but as anyone can tell you who has read the Silmarillion seventeen times and memorized every single historical fact therein (while being unable to, for example, name their legislative representatives), Mount Doom is canonically in New Zealand, thus the gold in Iceland can't be from the One Ring. I give this post a 1/10, it would be a 0/10 but Jeff Bezos is censoring me.
I mean, while we're waltzing around the absurd, how meaningful do you really think the continents remain at magmatic depths? We're literally talking about the space where the bedrock melts and flows in the unknowable oceans of Sauron's marmalade, after all. I think the ring spent eons swishing around before reassembling like a blended up sea sponge before making its way back to the surface in the modern-day land of the elves (Iceland). It's only a matter of time before the trolls in the forests of Norway begin amassing their forces. As for that video's narrator, I think his name is Dave Sméagol, so I'd take his misdirections with a pinch of salt.
As a non-geologist, it seems plausible to me that gold that was somehow subsumed into the mantle in New Zealand could migrate to Iceland in the span of thousands of years. As Sméagol pointed out, though, gold coming up in the magma would be more diffuse and not create an identifiable layer on the surface of the lava rock. You're right, though, he's hardly a reliable narrator when it comes to His Precious, so that could be a misdirect. And perhaps there's some attribute of magically endowed gold that causes it to behave in unexpected ways. I searched Google Scholar, but couldn't find any peer-reviewed studies on the physical properties of magic rings.
Antipode of Iceland is not too far (relatively speaking) from New Zealand. Going the other way around it's really Spain, so if The Ring was slowly traveling through Earth's core, one could imagine that it made "wrong turn at Albuquerque" and instead surfacing in Spain it hit Iceland. QED
And Galadriel’s troop fought a snow troll. We have Gil-Galad sending a troublesome commander to Valinor. Elrond used a contest with a dwarf prince as a start on an alliance between elves and dwarves. Orcs are tunneling below human villages to kidnap the inhabitants and Proto-hobbits are helping a man who fell from the sky.
Galadriel dispatches a snow troll isnt story, its just a random 1min action scene that has no impact on anything.
Also that was a really dumb scene in so many ways.
Gil-Galad shouldnt really have the power to just send people away. The just invented some lore to get characters where they want them.
Even outside that, a character that shows up for 2 scenes and make one vagly interedting incredibly cryptic remark isn't exactly a barn burner.
Ok, Orcs still exists, amazing who would have thought. And a random person fell from the sky that is a total mystery and unconnected to anything so far.
So yeah its not much for 2h+ of runtime. Not sure wht you added ' /s'.
That seems like plenty for 2 episodes in spite of your dismissal of each event. This is a series not a movie. I wouldn’t want it to follow the frantic pacing of a movie where they have to compact and discard so much to fit into a short runtime.
Compare it to the first to episodes of Game of Thrones, House of Dragon, Breaking Bad, Firefly or any number other good shows.
Its also not really a good slow burn either. If you want to see that done expertly check out True Detective Season 1. That story draws you in.
And this episodes were very long and all the story lines are slow.
- A Story: Galadriel wanders around without doing much in the first episodes and swims around not doing much in the second episode. She has basically 1 expression, her motivation is the most basic revenge story plot ever and its totally clear that she is right and everybody else is dumb. The scene of going to Valinor standing on boat in full armor looked dumb and it was totally clear she would not go, but I guess show runners wanted to drop a couple million on special effect.
- B Story: Hartfoots mostly slice of life and some interaction with a mysterious wizard that amount to nothing so far. Kind of cute but not interesting and totally different tone then everything else. Including with slap stick humor.
- C Story: Basic Elf-Human love story with neither of the characters being very interesting and they have little chemistry. Also evil is rising, but I don't really care about those characters so I don't really care, for now its just random orcs. Nothing to connect to, no large conflict or the other characters. This is even worse then the love-story the added to the hobbit.
- D Story: Elron goes to the dwarfs and we get lots of exposition about (mostly nonsensical) backstory that is required for the current plot to make sense and some character setups for the dwarfs. Honestly maybe the most interesting part of the first 2 episodes, but not actually that interesting.
The tournament/birth sequence in the first episode of House of Dragon had more interesting character moments, character development, story progression then all of the Rings of Power had in the first 2h.
Or compare it with the story that happen in the first 2h of Lord of the Rings (~10h) total vs Rings of Power (10h).
In hindsight, it is amazing how much happens in the first episode of Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad. I recently rewatched both, and it felt like watching half a season.
Galadriel is searching for Sauron, whom she believes is still hiding and plotting. Her entire plot is about everyone telling her the threat is gone but she (and the viewers) clearly see that’s not the case.
Elrond is trying to recruit the dwarves to help build the forge to create the rings.
The comet guy I’ll grant you is the show’s one mystery, granted, but I have a feeling he’s going to have something to do with the reemergence of Sauron and the creation of the rings.
Yeah, I interpreted most of the symbolism as being pretty ominous too. I know Gandalf is something of a fire wizard, but crashing to earth in a red comet as signs of evil are popping up everywhere? Controlling and then killing a bunch of fireflies?
His fire power comes from his great ring, but it’s not a stretch for the writers to say he had some nascent fire powers which the later ring just enhanced. They are already breaking from canon if this is Gandalf. The death of the fireflies could be an accident. He doesn’t control his power well yet.
I don’t want to over analyze though as they are obviously trying to be ambiguous for suspense.
Breaks continuity with the official timeline, as Gandalf doesn't come to middle earth until thousands of years later. But with the hints they dropped (e.g. the names he mutters and the speaking to insects), I don't see who else it could be. And bringing Gandalf in early for this series would be a good change imho. It would balance out the cast of characters and be an interesting plot development.
Per Tolkien's later writing, the blue wizards arrived during the 2nd age to oppose Sauron in the East, but as far as I know they aren't mentioned directly in the material Amazon has the rights to. Having that role filled by Gandalf might be an acceptable compromise...
It's the same as in every other mediocre fantasy with poor writing: the "Good" people against "Great Evil", which is usually manifested as some kind of deformed monsters, deep voices, nefarious deeds and ominous music.
Meanwhile, this conflict is padded with needlessly elaborate, yet meaningless side storylines and fake drama appealing to the 18-25 demographic.
Say what you want about mediocre fantasy shows, but I thought The Wheel of Time, another Amazon show, was much more interesting than The Rings of Power after a mere two episodes.
Well-written, picturesque, excellent acting, and a number of fresh faces. The visuals for Gault's suit found to be better than anything I've seen thus far in the Marvel universe, which are themselves no slouches.
I think it is turning out rather excellent, and would be a great source for spin-offs too.
I managed to read all 11,898 page across 14 books of Wheel of Time but thought the Rings of Power was much more interesting than the first couple of episodes of Wheel of Time I made it through.
Well yeah sure. But I often just jump in in random places and I don't might skipping over stuff.
I listen to the audiobooks to fall asleep or if I don't want to start something new. When you have like 10 books you want to listen to in theory but can't decide, listen to some Wheel of Time.
Distribution of grades is rarely even, and I'd guess that if you looked at the median grade on Rotten Tomatoes is would be much closer to 70 than 50. Things less than 50 are usually "very horrible".
> I have a hard time believing the authenticity of the critics' reviews.
It's sitting in the 70s in other review aggregators, so I think it's okay.
It's worth also considering that many critics are not reviewing this with Peter Jackson's LotR trilogy in mind, but rather with the exceedingly mediocre The Hobbit trilogy.
They’ve established the backstory.
There is already a conflict within the elves.
Galadriel meets a human who seems like he will be important.
Elrond has a contest with a dwarf as a negotiation tactic.
Orcs are now tunneling under villages to steal the human inhabitants.
We meet proto-hobbits and a man who fell from the sky.
That would be my main worry that it starts splintering off too much. Maybe they’ll merge or kill off some of the storylines. The hobbit and the elf outpost seem like plot devices that might go away to keep it a bit more focused.
To be fair, some series just start off like that. The Expanse felt like a slow start too, but after episode 4, everything starts paying off and the first 3 seasons were (imo) some of the best Scifi on television.
That begin said, I haven't watched any RoP, the "nothing" could be complete fluff because the story is too thin.
I love the expanse but the first few episodes were slow and a little confusing. This is more a problem with the story writing. However, the acting, visuals, and physics were fantastic and the show quickly corrected the story telling.
Amazon seems like it would rather hide reviews than fix the story telling. I couldn’t finish episode 1 without falling asleep
The Expanse is different. Different premise, rules, and stakes compared to other sci-fi on screen. It’s complex. Easing us into the story could have taken a whole season.
Instead, they dumped as much of the setting as possible into those first few episodes. We learn so much about the players, cultures, technologies, physics, histories, economies, even languages, etc. It’s exhausting. So much detail! Go back and watch. But then when the Donnager battle hits, you get it, and the payoff is huge.
I don’t think the writing is bad. I think they had to rush the setting-onboarding to get to the good parts of the story, to create excitement, to better their chances of justifying additional seasons, all within the constraints of their budget. I think the writing is excellent in hindsight.
Exactly. It was a lot to take in in the first few episodes. The alternative would have been an extra season or two, and probably would have been boring.
I always have to advise people, when I recommend The Expanse to them, to make sure to sit through the first 3-4 episodes even if they don't feel like they're really getting hooked. By the time they get to episode 4, they're hooked.
I found the Expanse great from the start. I don't think I'll be watching this series at all based on what I've read in the comments here. I've already read the books and I just don't think they'll be able to do it better.
I think you have to get to episode 4 (the attack on the Donniger) before The Expanse really starts taking off. I was hooked on the first episode, but that's because I'm a sucker for hard sci-fi and I like Noir (Miller's storyline). Most people don't get the show until episode 4.
Rings of Power is so far turning into an interesting show. I would say give it a shot. The second episode is definitely better than the first. Hopefully it will improve from here.
Well for a thing that is supposed to last a whole season (and maybe more) it’s fine to spend one or two episodes setting the scene and introducing characters
My biggest problem with it so far is the overall stylistic look and feel. It's like someone is trying to recreate Ted Nasmith's epic paintings with living people and CGI, and the result just looks awkward rather than epic.
Same thing about the dialogs: the "epic prose" style would work on paper, but not so much in a live action movie.
Yes. I think they doubled down too much on certain aspects of the Peter Jackson aesthetic, which was already a departure from The Hobbit / Lord of the Rings.
In general, this sounds like a good idea to me. There are a lot of reviews that aren't in good faith, or aren't useful because they're something like "0/10 this sucks" or "10/10 lol", and I don't really see those as valuable — in fact, the opposite.
However, the evaluation of what reviews are and aren't worth keeping would have to be done by an independent third party, not the company that produced the show, and who has an obvious conflict of interest.
Amazon would never do something like that, which is why as a rule I would keep in mind that reviews for Amazon products on Amazon platforms are not reliable (to the extent that any crowd-sourced reviews are reliable, which is a different conversation).