The Unfortunate Problem With The Rings of Power
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- Опубликовано: 6 окт 2024
- Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings are considered some of the best adaptations ever put to film. When Peter Jackson returned for The Hobbit, many fans were let down by the rushed production schedule, and hyper-glossy look of Middle Earth. Now, working without source material, Amazon Studios Rings of Power has attempted to expand the mythos of Tolkiens works, but it has mostly fallen flat with audiences. Rings of Power had an uphill battle from the start, but now with Season 2 all but wrapped up, it seems Lord of the Rings fans are still not enjoying the show. Will anyone ever reach the heights of Peter Jacksons original Lord of the Rings trilogy?
#lordoftherings #ringsofpower #peterjackson #thehobbit
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If this show had one tenth of the budget, was set solely in Shire, with low stake adventures like "the swan's escaped" or "a frying pan has gone missing", it would have had a much higher chance of being a beloved addition to Tolkien's world.
A missing frying pan? Sounds like the sorta speciality task that would call for a witcher.
@@BaseReality good idea...NOT!!!
You know, I would have one hundred per cent watched a show about Hobbits doing daily life shenanigans while important people passed through worrying about big ole outside events.
They could've made it a bit like the Animatrix weaving little bits and pieces maybe with an overarching slowly culmintating.
There's many issues (inept writers, poor actors, focus on grand standing and ID politics...) but one in particular is because it is dumped en masse and not a weekly release, they are unable to react themselves to audience ratings and then make changes down the line like a traditional show would
😂
What went wrong: Envy, Avarice and money laundering.
It doesn't help either that they don't even bother to follow the sequence of events as they are told in the appendices.
It feels even more disconnected to Tolkien's works.
They did about the same with wheel of time. If you set aside writing and casting, their adaptations aren't so bad.
Been saying this the whole time. Fans too focused on the lore. Bezos doesnt give a single shit about that fucking nerdy stuff. The show looks like a b movie. Clearly there is money disappearing somehow.
You forgot No talent
You forgot to add woke.
I recently watched a video essay on RUclips “Why The Rings of Power cost a billion dollars” and it was basically saying how the whole point of the existence of this show and buying the properties was to BOOST Amazon’s Prime sub counts and to use the show as a vehicle to get more and more people to buy through Amazon through their Prime subscription. There was absolutely no creative desire to have and make this show it was primarily only for advertising.
And they boost shit, no body is subbing to see that garbage 😂
they wanted to make it multicultural and pervert it since the beginning, the actors even boasted about it (black legolas). It also might be because of money white washing as in no way this crap could justify the costs
Ok, but you're going to get a lot more subs if you make a good show than not.
That's not true tho. They made it just because Bezos wanted a pet fantasy show and had a ton of money
As lanychabot said, they would still want to make a good show, obviously. Also, the people who spent all that money aren't the same people actually making the show... I'm sure that out of the 30 potential showrunners, many of them had good ideas and probably a real desire to make something good. Heck, the current showrunners probably wanted to make something good, they just... Failed pretty miserably. I genuinely feel bad for the people who need to stick around for another three seasons of this stuff, surely they know by now that it's not exactly well received. The show just did absolutely nothing for me and didn't feel like LOTR at all. And that's not because I'm anti-inclusivity, the story and characters and look of the show just really suck.
I didn't even notice that Adar had been recast. And he's still the most compelling character of the show.
Right. You were so obviously paying attention if you didnt even notice the actor change😅😅😅
Dude me neither… never bothered to rewatch the first season and hadn’t noticed at all when catching up with the second 😂
nah,it’s the mouse and horse for me 😉
It's a show?
@@KDA8919 Huh…?
“The problem with rings of power”
Me: only nine minutes long lol
Peter Jackson's OG Trilogy is 100% immortal!
It's internal
agreed!
Can something be 90% immortal? 😂😂
@@victorhinojosa7370 Achilles
We will NEVER get anything close to it ever again - so it’s one of a kind
i felt like everything is so smoll.
an army is like 100 dudes
That's probably been my biggest problem. The writing/characters/acting are good enough, especially in season 2. but Armenelos feels like 3 sets, Lindon is just that one spot with the tree, Eregion is just a courtyard and Celebrimbor's chamber... Makes me wonder where the hell the budget went.
Yeah, dude. The "epic" is missing, for sure.
@@PalmelaHanderson Writing and characters are good enough?
@@PalmelaHandersonmost budgets go to an overly priced camera these days. Look at the budget for Oppenheimer: it was mostly the cameras. 100m budget for something shot primarily in the desert for 2 weeks lmao
@@tiebeswinkels8584 Sure, it's fine. I like the stuff with Khazad Dum and Eregion, basically anything with Arondir or Elendil. The gandalf/hobbit stuff could be entirely removed from the show and nothing would change, but they also only had like 30 minutes of screen time this whole season, so it's whatever. I enjoy it well enough.
Honestly my biggest grip is that the show feels so small in scope. there's rarely more than a handful of people on screen ever. Talking to all the elves when there's less than a hundred. All the orks look like they make up the same number. Massive Dwarven city, Less than 100 barely visible on screen ever
Yes, it could almost be a play given the small number of actors. However, when they did put thousands of orcs onscreen in the last episode they managed to bung it up with the worst (most idiotic) siege in cinematic history.
@@uvicjames They said in the follow up after it was CGI and there where only about 25 during the siege.
@@uvicjameshow was the siege idiotic?
and they don't even TRY to give the illusion of scope. No CGI crowds or armies.
Scriptmage has a great video illustrating this issue, comparing the coronation scene to The House Of The Dragon's.
The key problem being "first-time" show runners.
They did the same thing to The Wheel of Time. :(
Look to the North. The dwarves are coming
They show one horse rider with a beautiful sunrise as background
(Clearly this is the East)
The problem is the show runners are morons
Plenty of first-timers with talent and passion have succeeded. They failed because they are talentless, woke hacks.
I dont think thats the issue. There is first time for everyone. Tarantino first time is different than these guys first time. The actual issue is that the job is not given to the most talented people but people with connection to the right people. This is politics instead of art produced by actual talented people.
@@Zoltan1251 Tarantino didn't get a billion dollars for his first film.
Is it weird I didn't even realize they recast Adar? I thought they simply changed something with his make up. I had no idea it was another guy, lol.
It goes to show they got a good actor for the role to be honest.
It’s totally bizarre. When I first heard of the LoTR show, I assumed it would be drawing from the rich lore of the extensive history of Middle Earth, and chock full of stories from the Silmarillion and other Tolkien writings. I’m gobsmacked that this show was basically fan fiction. Why did Amazon even buy this show?
they don't have rights to the Silmarillion or any other stuff than the Hobbit, LotR and its appendices so they couldn't draw from it. So I can't fathom why they wanted to make a show about the second age.
@@resathe6760 Unfortunately, that is no excuse. The books available to the makers of the series contain everything you need to create a TV series about the Second Age. Every character and every important event is included in the books or their appendices. The problem is simply that they don't care at all about the story and want to tell their own story and therefore add things that never happened or that they think a normal TV audience would expect, such as the fact that there are hobbits and Gandalf in Middle Earth even though they didn't actually exist in the Second Age. In addition, I have the feeling that the makers of the series have no overall plan for how they want to shape the series, but rather just move from season to season, which leads to major continuity problems, such as the fact that the 3 Elven Rings are first and not, as in books no. 17-19.
I’m right there with you. I was really excited about the news of this new show when I first heard of it. My hopes proved to be far too high!
@@General-Gauder Agreed. I've had so many awesome late second age adventures playing MERP, infiltrating Angmar, recruiting the help of the hill men, evading the baleful eye of the witch king. My DM from my freshman year of college could write a better fan-fic middle earth plot than these folks. And other than an occasional brief appearance of a nazgul we never ran into any character from the book, and our stories were better for it. The strength of this franchise is its world building. There's a reason most other fantasy works since have been largely derivative of this one. Not leveraging that for the sake of including a few marque characters and making everyone mad at you is just such an unforced error.
Ad revenue. It was designed to drag people into Amazon Prime.
"What went wrong:"
Amazon
Someone didn't see Fallout
Reacher is a good show
Any show is dead to me if I ever saw some producer or actor attacking the fans. I don't even want to know who is right or wrong. I just like to stay away from controversy and devote my time to beloved products.
That poem at the end of the video has to be the funniest thing to come out of all this 🤣
I don't understand why these billion-dollar franchises keep getting handed to people who have no idea what they're doing.
Not only that, but they still keep getting more chances even after they fail multiple times.
"20 pages in the Silmarillion" yeah as if they were even allowed to use it. They don't have the rights to the Silmarillion.
a total waste of 💰
"Let's make a prequel but not buy any of the rights to the extensive prequel lore." This show was dead before it even started production.
@@undercoverduckon the nose
not like they used the appendices
@@undercoverduck Even if they had the rights to every line of what Tolkien wrote they'd still end up with this show. Because fundamentally they have bad talent.
Probably, the first major TV series from Amazon I skipped. Have 0 regrets, highly recommend it to everyone!
I recommend Hazbin Hotel instead
They have always been hit or miss. I miss the quality of the expanse, Amazon knew what they were doing back then
I know from certain individuals who have connections to the show that allegedly, it was a nightmare behind the scenes. people were fired left and right, writers couldn't agree what story they wanted to tell, the show was originally about a young Aragorn, some wanted to adapt the Silmarillion but didn't have the adaption rights to the book, the Tolkien estate giving them a long list of things they could and couldn't do on the show such as referencing the movies (even though the showrunners wanted to connect ROP to the movies) writers being fired because they wanted to insert more woke elemets into the show and was met with disapproval, Tolkien selling out to Bezos on his tantalizing and money venture in making LOTR into the next Game of Thrones (which we all know how highly successful that was) a Tolkien scholar being fired, COVID19 impacting everything, the originally being 10 episodes but somewhere being changed to 8 instead, Jeff Bezos allegedly visiting the set and was furious on what he saw and demanded changes to be made in the middle of shooting. All in all, this show was produced with everyone's hands tied behind their backs, not really knowing what they wanted to do and the clock was ticking, and the best they could come up with was fan fiction.
The only recent Amazon hit was Fallout. For Those About To Die also suffered from trivial / flat writing. It just had more nudity and violence to lean on
You recommend to EVERYONE skipping a show that many will enjoy? Not very smart, is it?
It might be an unpopular opinion but I think The Silmarillion could be easily adapted into a dark, political fantasy story, so Amazon could have actually gotten their competitor to GoT if that's what they wanted - if they had the rights to the material of course, which they don't. The fact they basically bought the wrong books and then spent a billion on a poor attempt at fanfiction would be funny if the whole thing wasn't so disrespectful and annoying.
My biggest gripe with this show isn't even that they decided to make it. I think that adding tv shows and movies to franchises is pretty standard practice these days, with marvel and star wars milking the cash cow. My biggest gripe is that they did with absolutely zero creative desire behind it, and with a complete misunderstanding of the original source material. Peter jackson did an amazing job with lord of the rings and also with the hobbit in my opinion. Even with straying a little from the book, he made with movies extremely creatively and with clear reverence to the books. I'm fine with Amazon creating a show about the lore of how the rings were made, but if you're gonna do it, give it the respect it deserves.
It's hilarious that the producers said they wanted it to look "real and "lived in", and then proceeded to make almost the entire thing with painfully obvious CGI.
First of all, yes, RoP is a horrible travesty.
As for the forging of the Rings, while (as you say) it doesn't get a lot of pages in Tolkien's primary works (Silmarillion, The Hobbit, LotR), I think this story has an important thematic role in the Legendarium. Celebrimbor, as Fëanor's only grandchild, both suffers the final blow of the Doom of Mandos and redeems his heritage by acting with honor for the common good. Most importantly, his independent creation of the final three lesser rings made it possible for some elves to thrive in Middle Earth until the end of the Third Age. Sauron would have triumphed rather easily if elves like Glorfindel, Elrond, and Galadriel had sailed into the West long ago.
My greatest confusion about RoP is why they rearranged the order and circumstances in which the 16, 3, and 1 were created. The way they've done it makes everything nonsensical, requiring multiple characters to behave idiotically to make the plot work.
Tom Bombadill, been around since the beginning of time, refuses entirely to leave his land. Except that one time he had a brief stint in Rhun of course...
Tom's "land" used to be the whole of Beleriand. It was only by the time of LOTR that his domain had shrunk to the small area encompassing the Old Forest and the Barrow Downs. I'm not defending this stupid series, just pointing out that there could well be stories of Tom's influence in earlier ages. :)
@@Serai3 i've not heard of that before, quite interesting. as far as i know, his history before settling in the old forest is unknown but from my assumption of him "witnessing the shrinking of the forests" would imply that maybe the old forest stretched into beleriand, but still made his home the old forest? idk if you know something i don't but lmk if im onto something here hahah
@@Serai3 There's a reason why Bombadil lives in a lush forest near a river... and I just couldn't help but laugh when he started singing about willows and rivers at the end of episode 8 while he's in a desert.
The thing about season 1 that turned me off from going any further was how events that were supposed to take place across centuries occurred over the course of a long weekend. It's a very cramped and small tale that just didn't match with the sweeping epic Fellowship's prologue hinted at.
Yeah, Peter Jackson would've never done tha- ... oops wait.
@@FilmscoreMetaler Bit different when you only have 2 hours to tell a books story. Less forgivable when you have an entire show and are literally writing it yourself.
No excuse. HotD has a lot of timeskips, which they execute very well. Elves don't age, but nonetheless you can certainly tell to the viewer that X years have passed without yelling.
It's bad storytelling, plain and simple. The showrunners need to be canned and sent to the Void.
The Hobbit was always meant to be.
It's own story. He was forced into making lots of the rings because fans and his publishers wanted him to. The Slimarillion was basically.
His his own passion project, that He was never gonna publish himself Due to the fact that he thought that it would be only interesting to him.
Nobody forced Tolkien to write LOTR, dude. His publisher asked him about it several times, and that got him thinking. He then went ahead and _started_ writing it. It took him nearly 20 years, so no, there was no "forcing" about it. He had a perfectly good day job; writing fiction was just a hobby that ended up making him some money.
@@Serai3 The Lord of the Rings was never meant to be a direct line sequel to The Hobbit.
@@jaredmarkham7300 Um. yes it was. That was the whole point. The publisher wanted a sequel to The Hobbit, which had sold very well. Tolkien started out writing a sequel to the Hobbit, but according to him, the older stories kept worming their way into it. Jeez, have none of you ever bothered to read Tokien's biography? Or his published letters? Or any of Tom Shippey's books on Tolkien? You seem ignorant of the most rudimentary knowledge about how he wrote and what he intended. Please, for gods' sakes, get the least bit informed before you make such painfully uninformed statements!
@@Serai3 Look in the forward to the fellowship of the ring as well as the preface to the Slimarillion
I've read from I think what Christopher Tolkien wrote or, or what he himself wrote maybe in letters, that he planned LotR to be the conclusion to a two part saga, first being War of the Jewels and the 2nd being War of the Ring. They were all passion projects, he certainly didn't do it cause he thought he was gonna be rich or something lol
What's insane is that this thing had everything going for it - a ridiculous budget, Peter Jackson expressing a willingness to help, Tom Shippey on board, the example of Jackson's LOTR model to emulate, and a ready-made audience that would have hysterically embraced the show and made it the most successful property in history if done right. And they just threw that all in a giant dumpster and tossed in a Molatov cocktail. After season 1, I didnt believe this could be fixed. They would have had to fire the showrunners, most of the cast, the costume designers, and basically made an entirely different show. I have seen LOTR probably 50 times by now, and every time I'm on the edge of my seat, filled with all kinds of emotions - it feels warm and alive, and the stakes feel real. The elves feel ethereal and mysterious. The hobbits feel merry and loyal. Gandalf feels wise and powerful and inscrutable. The orcs are terrifying and EVIL. It is telling that the only compelling character in ROP is Adar - it's par for the course of "modern sensibilities" where characters can't simply be evil because they are. For good characters to fail, they have to be stupid, arrogant, and constantly make idiotic choices - it can't be that they are up against the full dark power of evil and only prevail through struggle, camaraderie, and refusing to surrender to evil - those are oldtimey ideas that have no place in the modern world, I guess. They tried to do this with the Harfoots and Gandalf and failed because they hadn't earned the audience caring about these characters at all. And that's the deepest problem - who cares about these characters? Who cares if Galadriel is captured by orcs? Who cares if the Harfoots are captured by an evil wizard? Who cares if Sauron ever gets his dumb rings finished? It feels like watching a high school play based on some drama kid's fan fiction. It might be impressive if that's what it was. But it's the most expensive show in history with a standard already set that was so far superior it makes ROP look like a bad joke.
LoTR is amazing not because it's an accurate retelling, but because it changed a lot while maintaining the spirit of Tolkien
Yeah calling the LoTR movies book accurate felt like a stretch
A big problem is the lack of respect they have for the source material. Established characters are not yours to play with for fun. You can totally do interesting things with the setting of Middle-Earth - but don't just screw with the continuity for money.
they’re like kids playing with their older siblings action figures 😓
Honestly that's a weak argument. Tolkien used to remake stuff a lot. If it makes sense and it's well put, it shouldn't matter.
If you don't care about lore, then cribbing also creates problems. Copy and paste risks bringing across moral messaging or symbolism that doesn't work in the mishmash you've created. But the big problem for me was the question of what was this season about? Where there cohesive themes? Symbolism? Numenor could have been interesting (as you had characters allowing themselves to be sacrificed to sea monsters in the name of their faith), but was given about as much time as whether Isildur gets with some random girl.
They didn't respect the source material. They didn't create something super compelling (to me at least) in lieu. And when they borrowed from the source, they needed to make sure it wasn't injecting incoherence.
why not? They paid for it, they can do what they want with it.
It’s just bad fan fiction, not even real lord of the rings
The unfortunate problem is that it exists
The most interesting character is Adar. They should have focused on him and his attempt to create a land for the Orcs and other things that go bump in the night while the Elves and Men try to prevent it.
Sauron should just be a shadow pulling the strings and not an actual visualized character. Galadriel and Elrond should have been tertiary characters at best.
Or just make a show all about Khazad-dûm. Dwarves are interesting characters that don't get enough story time.
Its as if these studios couldn't wait for Christopher Tolkien to pass so they could bastardise his fathers work.
Exactly. I fear what’s going to happen to Back to the Future when Gale and Zemeckis pass and Universal comes to their families with buckets of money.
If the show doesn’t get cancelled, I won’t be surprised when we find out Sauron is just misunderstood. He’s merely trying to bring his convenient delivery system to all of middle-earth.
That's pretty much exactly what they are pitching, really. When he's not crying or trying to get a girlfriend, he's just a misunderstood guy, like the rest of us.
Of all the ways they could have made a Middle Earth series, this is surely the worst possible. How the hell did Tolkien's notoriously protective estate let this garbage happen?
😂100%
@@bobbob-vh9ee He should try a cowboy hat, ‘roids, and a bronco. Worked for Morgoth.
"Braveheart, not Narnia" is precisely what we got. Just maybe not in the way the producers intended.
This video way to short for all the problems in that show 😂
If only we had 2 hours, haha.
@@Nerdstalgic Not worth the effort for such a dumpster fire.
The "mystery box" of who the secret Sauron is was what absolutely killed the first season. Adar was really cool as the possible dark lord who hates Sauron... and then they screwed him. Gandalf the Salt and Pepper was totally wasted. And then you have Wal-Mart Aragorn, who probably would've been way more interesting as the young version of the Witch King of Angmar.
To my undersanding, the showrunners don't have the rights to the full Tolkien legendarium and they can only use the appendix of the Lord of the Rings
What went wrong was the story is all over the place. If the show is the Rings of Power, it should focus on Sauron’s rise and creation of the rings exclusively without the other storylines that feel shoehorned in. Most notably the hobbits, Gandalf, Galadriel’s story not even remotely following the books, etc. It’s what bothers me most about the show because you’ll have these moments of potential. Charlie Vickers did an extraordinary job and, he should have been the main focus. My point is there are too many characters who we do not care about.
"Tolkien's cozy fairy story" What are you on about there brother? 😂
No half measures waltuh, you're tom bumbling it!
It's GoT with an LOTR desktop theme. LOL.
At first, I was excited, then as it got closer to airing, I became less and less enthused.
1. I learned they only really had the rights to the appendices and some other stuff, so there's not really much to make a cohesive story
2. I watched the "superfans" video
3. I watched the trailers where they focused mainly on sets, and not so much the characters
Told myself I wouldn’t listen to all the video voiceovers from RUclips and watch the series and make my own conclusions. I will he completely honest. It’s a decent show that has been over blown since its inception. They talk about the greatest budget ever yet the battles just seem so small. Also like someone said each setting has only a few places you see. That’s normal though but take game of thrones and we see the scale of these places through fly overs or some other device. They have made middle earth unpopulated it feels like. The army numbers for GoT are way overblown but I can still see that as possible. Where as the armies and populations of middle earth make it seem like this is a third world country that the majority of Arda’s population stays away from like the plague. Pretty much my biggest gripe is that. The scale they hyped up just doesn’t exist.
Did they ever market it that way? I think "the most expensive series ever" was just what news sites reported. Still then the production budget is much less than what the movie trilogy had available.
guess Amazon chose wrongly with their decision as to the current novice showrunners,that Aragon pitch sounded pretty interesting 🤔
I doubt most people even noticed that Adar was recast lol.
The rings themselves were secondary macguffins, but there was a story of how Sauron corrupted Numenor.
Problem in the series, Numenor is already divided before Sauron even had to lift a finger. While he only started doing so after what's supposed the war that began in season 2...
I watched the first episodes just because of JA Bayona
I'm a fan of his work, since THE IMPOSSIBLE
He's a great director.
I’ve never read the books, so I actually enjoy the show. 🤷♂️
Same here
It means you have very bad taste.
The issue with streaming TV is that hard work and spending money to make a good product isn't their business model. They want people to subscribe to their service. Hyping something to get subscribers is far cheaper than actually making a good show that keeps people coming back.
I don’t think it needs to exist. I know that could be said for most pieces of media but it feels like there isn’t enough plot to fill the scale that the show wants
it really doesnt even seem like lord of the rings, it feels like a new dam universe entirely. I also hate how they characterized Sauron, he feels like a spoiled brat and whiny when he doesnt get what he wants rather than actually threatening or scary. The way he tortured whatever his name was (these characters are so unremarkable and so uncharacteristic i cant even remember their names) it felt weird and like Sauron was having a tantrum. Overall.. -10/10 i hate this series
I watched The Rings of Power X2 speed, I couldn't stay awake otherwise.
I find most online Tolkien super fans incredibly tiresome. I’m not sure anything they put on screen would satisfy that crowd.
It wouldn't. That's why they shouldn't create fan fiction movies and TV shows like this one. Create some other bs that people will swallow.
We need more creators to come out against this type of showrunner. New rockstars, ringer podcast network, and others are doing a disservice to future stories by not outright panning this show.
..... there's literarily hundred of second grade podcasts and essayist calling the show awful. I wouldn't be suprised if they have made more money on RoP than Amazon
@@Yurt_enthusiast7 no, the minor channels are only hungry for your clicks.
I was under the impression that Amazon didn’t actually buy the rights to lord of the rings and only got the rights to the Silmarillion that’s why they had to do a prequel
where it all went wrong: paying $250,000,000 and not getting rights to The Silmarillion. Worst negotiation in history.
At the end of the day I just don’t think this show was needed- part of the intrigue and excitement of Middle Earth is how we only really get to know it when it begins to die- it’s glory years are behind it, and the fact that we’ve only heard about those years through song and legend are what make them even more spectacular. I wish people better understood that good world building is not explaining every single detail to death, but instead making some place intriguing with enough mystery to make it feel big.
Perhaps someone who truly loved Tolkien's work and had enough creativity could have maybe made a decent movie out of the story of Beren and Luthien, but this is to me just childish fan fiction at best. A mockery that only Morgoth could be proud of...
The saddest part, is what it COULD have been, with the resorces given to it, sadly i doubt we will ever see anything like the original 3, yes that includes the coming movie. There wil be forced narrative there, mark my words. The "anime" coming is walking on thin ice aswell and it just makes me sad that producers start i with gold in terms of material and ends up with a big cow dung at the end.
Hollywood must really hate Peter Jackson for LOTR, because after that trilogy, fans and cinemagoers felt they had a right to well written and professionally made movies. People made have had the mistake impression that the trilogy set the benchmark for things to come.
In short, they thought they could out-write Tolkien. And they could not write a consistent show, regardless of the source material. Also, the had such an opportunity and they missed it. It will be impossible to make another attempt at this story in decades to come. Curse on them, indeed.
I've learned from the traumatic, disappointing experiences to take all TV/Movie adaptations of beloved books as "Fanfiction POVs". I've found it to be less intoxicating/disheartening, and a more enjoyable time while getting a "high-budget fanfiction POV.". The earliest I can remember is Spielberg's Jurassic Park from Michael Crichton's book all the way up to, of course, GRRM's ASOIAF disastrous adaptation-including the early seasons, with the producer's "logical" mindset of "What if we produce a TV show completely based on a fantasy series, but let's remove as many fantasy elements as possible because we didn’t just want to appeal to that type of fan- but to expand the fan base to people beyond the fantasy fan base, like "mothers and NFL players." I simply refused to keep souring my experiences with the usual "but the book says" mindset. The book are the books, and the shows are adaptations.
To be honest, although I have read the books, know "most" of the lore, LOVE the stories, and so on, I'm not a Tolkien zealot(?). Some of his writing, while magical can tend to be deliberate, which, while offering depth to the world building some of his descriptive language may occasionally feel too dense or too slow-paced, absolute black and white morality, underdeveloped shallow characters, etc . Yes, I understand they were written almost 100 years ago, WWI (hope and despair) and correspond to the overall styling of the age (i.e., I, Claudius, blah blah), and it may make it challenging to maintain reader engagement over extended sections.
Therefore, I DO like TROP so far (as a POV) and entered the show knowing well beforehand that Amazon didn't have the copyrights to key material in JRRT's work and will do pretty much "whatever they could/wanted" because "it is theirs", as every other Studio has been doing since the dawn of cinema. I still think Adar is not a new random character but an unlicensed one-tinfoil hat on: Maglor. Could it be better? OF COURSE. Could it be more accurate? NO DOUBT.
In the end, I am happy to see my favorite fantasy series making it to mainstream media, having a high production budget (I see you 90s adaptations) and not just living in my head and imagination.
Corridor Digital did a fantastic live-action rendition for the Shadow of Mordor games. I wish they had taken the creative lead rather than Amazon
It's so crazy to me that they handed this show to first time show runners. This biggest budget show ever given to amateurs.
“My friends, you bow to no one”
*everyone bows to the hobbits*
Is the single greatest moment ever put on film.
I know it’s the point of this video, but it feels like you’re having to be overly knit-picky to get your point across .. Personally, I’ve really enjoyed Rings Of Power S1 & S2. I felt like they lay the groundwork in S1 & then took it up a notch in S2 … all the scenes featuring Celebrimbor especially are just fantastic
Amazing show. Costume designer Kate Hawley created over 2000 designs for the series and they are really amazing. It's a shame all the creative effort by so many actors and artists for the show seems to be going largely unsung due to the current trend of bashing anything perceived as "wokeness"
@@martineldritch Yes, there is so much beauty in this series I can't understand how everyone chooses to be so upset about every single detail. Makes me believe if the books/movies came out just today they would hate them the same. In an alternate timeline the internet may look like this:
"So the nazgûl can't distinguish hobbits from pillows? Are you kidding me??? How are these clowns supposed to ever find anyone?"
"You tell me there isn't a even single farm outside Minas Tirith? What do the people even eat, grass? It's like they knew they needed the place for an epic fight scene later because you know ... movie logic."
"Wait why did they suddenly have the donkey, it wasn't with them when they tried to cross the mountains?"
"I liked how all these sniper elves suddenly failed to hit that ONE orc carrying the explosive. So convenient."
"lololol they could've just used the eagles, this garbage is full of plot holes!"
"How many endings do you want for your trilogy? YES!"
So much love and care went into Jackson’s trilogy. These “writers think they can write it better than Tolkien and put themselves in the story.
When Amazon is hiring a warehouse manager in a small town in the middle of nowhere, they ask for several years of relevant experience in managing positions. So when they hired 2 bafoons with no experience whatsoever, let alone relevant one with achievements of any kind, for the roles of showrunners of a billion-dollars-per-season project - we know its not ignorance, because they know how HR works. In doing that, they made very clear their attitude towards Tolkien. Why, I cant say. It probably has something to do with American politics, which I know little about
I watched a couple grueling episodes and remember thinking…huh, Adar is almost something worth watching.
I won't watch this or Wheel of Time because I don't want my myths busted.
I only watched the first few episodes, but it didn't bust any myths for me. The LOTR movies and books don't feel tarnished in any way. It's basically like fan fiction. Just... Not good.
Jackson & Associates: keep it simple,stay in spirit
ROP Showrunners: f*ck it,a shipping we will go
😅
They tried to force their agenda with Mary Sue written op powers and no character development or plot development
Bruh. The No. 1 unfortunate problem with the show is that it's made mostly by people that not only shouldn't have been given keys to one of the most beloved cultural franchises of all times, they should've stayed away from the filmmaking business altogether.
As a simpleton, All that matters to me is "Connection", do I connect with the Characters, And usually that comes when a Character is in danger or dies, Like what did I feel when Boromir died, or even Haldir, sad and Noooo was the the emotion, what did I feel when someone died in the Rings of fire?! Nothing 🎉
This video puts into words what I’ve had trouble conveying to my peers who enjoy Rings of Power: The intentions behind a creative project matter just as much as the content itself. Artistic liberties aside (since Jackson’s version had plenty of those) Amazon’s show simply wasn’t crafted in the spirit of Tolkien’s work. It was a cynical attempt to monopolize a fanbase.
Let's see if they keep the idea of making 5 whole seasons. Maybe there will be still someone to watch the last and final season??
It's weird that the Russo brothers were in the picture yet amazon picked showrunners that had no prior experience.
What went wrong? I think the 3 main problems are 1) You cannot make a TV show about 3.400 years of history, 2) A mystery box prequel? Really? 3) Constant efforts to play everything for nostalgia
Add an unhealhty amount of disrespect for the source material and you've got yourself a recipe for disaster
Imagine making Galadriel a bigger villain than Sauron
We need a sitcom starring sean astin as mayor. Doesnt need any fantasy elements. Just Hobbits being hobbits and Sam trying to reign it in. Just pure escapism. A through line of Sam learning to live for himself from time to time instead of solely being in the service of others. Finale has him reuniting with Frodo in the undying lands to live out his days.
There should be a Law that Tolkien's works should only be directed by Peter Jackson.
They’re trying to tell a story that can’t be told without the rights to The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.
Also compressing thousands of years of history into a season of television makes all the characters seem incompetent when it’s obvious from the start that the Rings are cursed and Ar-Pharazon can just straight-up usurp the throne of Numenor and everyone goes along with it… and then furthermore just do a 180 on Numenorean presence in Middle Earth where in Akallabeth it was a centuries-long process of turning benevolent interventions into extractive colonization.
There’s some flashes of brilliance, but every time I watch the show I wonder who the show is for
They bought the rights BEFORE hiring a writer??!? "Alexa, sell all Amazon stock."
.. what went wrong is "all followers, no leaders" 🧐🙄😅.. it's a fun show & in some ways it's actually better than Peter Jackson's great works, but no one wants to think independently & question group think 🤔🤨😅
We are all rasists, no other explanation
There are not so many pages about this era, and they didnt follow even them. They supposed to make between the gaps, not totally reinvent everything. This show has nothing similar compared what Tolkien wrote, besides the names
'Tolkien fanfiction' is the most accurate account of this show. It's fanfiction acted out by actors. An anthology based series with each season taking place in a different area would have been much cooler. Like season 1 - silmarillion anthology. Season 2 - history of shire. Etc.
Some believe The Rings of Power is actually more faithful to Tolkien's work than Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit". As of RoP Season 2, I'm starting to believe it. We will need a "we were wrong" but the end of Season 3.
I really appreciate that small poem in the end, well done!
I might watch it if they had gone to the east, to Rhûn. That area was barely outlined by Tolkien, was wide open to interpretation.
Who on earth did not know that Halbrand was Sauron? 😅😂
Speaking of Amazon shows to either critique or praise, try Hazbin Hotel.
Trash. There, done.
If they wanted to make a Game of Thrones style Tolkien TV show they should have bought the rights to Children of Hurin. It’s dark, it’s epic, it’s got incest and a dragon.
Another glaring problem with The Rings of Power that he seems to avoid mentioning is the forced diversity in Tolkien's work where it didn't make sense.
Tolkien's elves should not be an everyday commodity, paraded around just like every other creature in Middle Earth. They should be sparsely used to maintain their otherworldliness and ethereal nature. This is one of the key aspects where Rings of Power fails miserably. To them the elves are like elves in DnD: just another set of creatures to play with. Humans with pointy ears and utterly banal, everyday problems.
I’m not a professional screenwriter (yet!) but I already know what I would do if I got the rights to the Silmarillion or other Tolkien content: the opposite of The Rings of Power. I love the original Peter Jackson films, so that’s a pretty good guide to follow about what to do right. I can only enjoy ROP when I pretend that it’s not supposed to be Tolkien. I enjoy it, but I don’t get much deep meaning out of it. Even then there’s some pretty obvious writing flaws that are still not passable. There’s a lot of questions the writers should have asked themselves before putting this show into production that they clearly never considered. The show’s concept could have turned out much better if they had asked those questions. I remained hopeful that the writers would consider those questions for season two, but I ended up pretty disappointed. (Like, how do we write a powerful woman that has true strength of character and isn’t just arrogant and aggressive? How do we fill in the blanks of a text without completely changing the tone of the original work? How do we stick to the central themes of Tolkien’s work and not twist them to fit the standard of other popular shows that that are liked for completely different reasons than LOTR? How do we make elves stoic and aloof without making them seem robotic? How do we give elves accurate hairstyles? Etc.)
This is what one billion dollars looks like. I liken it to when you have an infinite money glitch in a video game. There's no struggle to succeed, no innovation, no toil or sense of achievement because you can breeze through the whole game with the power of the $$$ alone. Amazon just threw a billion dollars at the RoP team and it actually made the show the worse off for it. The newbie showrunners had no need to make a truly good product, because that would require actual struggle, which they thought they could bypass with the shows massive budget. If the RoP team ran into a problem, lack of onsite filming locations, TERRIBLE costumes, awful dialogue, poor writing, nonsensical timelines, a complete disregard for the established lore etc. etc. they would throw money at the problem until they THOUGHT it went away (which it didn't). Too much money made them lazy and complacent. Made them lean on cash instead of talent and innovation. Ultimately, it shows. Its like comparing the homes of the ultrarich, and a regular lower or middle class family. The latter put actual effort into making their homes, you know, homely and comfortable. Whereas the former pay interior designers to do it for them because they cant be arsed to do it themselves. One looks and feels lived in and loved whereas the other, a hotel lobby. When it comes to the fantasy shows in general and ESPECIALLY Tolkien's works, the worst thing you can do is make it look.. corporatized, sterile and soulless. This is what one billion dollars can buy, and yet it somehow looks and feels worse than a trio of movies that came out 20 years ago for a third of the budget. Money can do a lot of things, but money alone cant make masterpieces, only hard work and passion can do that.
There's no one who misunderstandings the themes of tolkein than the tolkein estate.
Seen as they’re basically just doing fan fiction, they might as well use ai to write the remaining seasons.
What went wrong ??
Them thinking that they had the talent to be creative 🤷🏾♂️
I was just looking for a good show to watch and amazon couldn't deliver..
It's so hard to enjoy this show, it's nothing compared to the books and films. I enjoy The Hobbit films more than RoP, it's so difficult to get through even one episode without rolling my eyes or yawning.
The writing was kinda on the wall when one of the first promotional images showed a female character in what was meant to be golden scale-armor. But it was just a tshirt with the armor-pattern printed onto it.
Oops.