I know a blogger who is both a great fans of the books and a great critic of the series. She put so big criticism over the series that for me looked as stupid as rings of power. Je, about rings of power, she refused to watch it, she idolizes tolkien too much for watch such blasphemy.
I would like to point out that Amazon was originally working hand in hand with Tolkien scholars and Christopher Tolkien. Christopher is known for his utter loyalty and dedication to his fathers work, and upon his death Amazon fired their scholars and rewrote the scripts.
Chris died long before Amazon did this. You mean Simon. The guy who is a nobody and is jealous of his father and brother. They had Tom Shippey. Friend of Tolkien and true scholar as Tolkien was and Amazon kicked him out the moment he smelled their BS and they didn’t listen to him. Then they brag whenever questioned. Using him as their shield to sound like they care but never telling us themselves that they got rid of him. We had to find out and share it far and wide
@@unsungzero6122 Well, it's not a bad reason, if execute well... It's just sad, if that the reason why they did what they did, I think there's so many way to execute it better. I was told that they (Amazon) don't have full right of the story or the source material, if that's true, they can make original story inside the established story/world/universe of LoTR, with original characters, and use more established characters of it as cameos for lore immersion and stuff. I think it would be better than tinkering with an existing one, sadly... What a waste of opportunity...
A big difference between the two series is that I did not feel there was any actual conflict between any of the characters in RoP. In HotD, I not only felt the conflict between all of the characters but I could name that conflict. In fact, characters only need to look at each other for the conflict to be present.
Yes! This is what I'm saying. Practically all shows, at bottom, are enjoyable because there is some sort of character conflict. In RoP there is no real conflict on a PERSONAL level. Most obstacles are either natural or just impersonal. The Numenoreans hate elves now. It's an obstacle, but it's not taken personally by Galadriel, and for the Numenoreans who are still loyal to elves we aren't with them long enough to see how they're suffering, if at all. The series too too wide a scope from the start. Everything should be grounded in character conflict.
RoP is a good lesson how not to start a story when you’ve many MC. Fundamentally, the first scene/episode almost always has to be where few of MCs are together before they all make their own way. Example in GoT when many MCs gather at Winterfell. In LotR when Gandalf visit the Hobbit. Another important thing is other characters are pretty much never suddenly introduced to viewers without the already established MCs presence; Frodo introduced to Aragorn, Aragorn introduced to Legolas etc, etc. It’s like baton relay race. This is to avoid confusion and make a story more thought out.
Oh I don’t know…first Galadriel, then she meets Elrond, Gil Galad..Elrond meets Celebrimbor, Durin, Disa.. What is wrong with a story having many strings all happening in the same time with different main characters who don’t know each other but everything they do leads them to a point where they unite against the enemy if that’s where the story will have it’s conclusion - with Isildur cutting the one ring off from Sauron’s hand? Prior to that there’s suffering, mistrust and darkness over everything. Even forging the other rings ( elves - dwarfs - humans ) was born out of mistrust. I mean the people who are watching the series aren’t five so following a complicated story, timeline shouldn’t be that mentally challenging. I for one enjoy the show and interested how it will progress and develop. In the Silmarillion book you are referencing there’s only a 20 page part which is about the rings of power and the war of the last alliance and while apparently the producers don’t have rights to the Silmarillion so far the main things line up. ( I presume the Numenorians will fight against Sauron - who will surrender to them them poison their minds thus bringing the downfall of Numenor in the big wave and Elendil, Isildur escaping death, rescuing a seedling of the white tree of Numenor, founding Arnor and Gondor )
@@14DANESSJ Multiple ways, the biggest one being them changing mithril and literally contradicing what happened to the silmarils and making mithril infused with the light of the two trees which the elves need as they are dying which is just a stupid way for them to create drama between the elves and dwarves because gil galad wants elrond to betray durin, they've also changed it so it's only found in khazad dum despite it being found in multiple places and mines even in numenor itself. They've changed the reason the balrog durins bane wakes up, instead of being the dwarves getting to greedy for mithril and ore it's because they are being altruistic. The are some examples of them changing lore they didn't need to, there are plenty of other instances, also there are instances where it'll be impossible to adapt events properly because amazon didn't bother to get the rights to unfinished tales or the silmarillion
Oh the joy of discovering hidden gems on RUclips! You’ve got yourself a new subscriber and now I’m headed to watch all of your past content. Keep it up, this is smart, eloquent and thoughtful material contrasting with most of your “competition”.
The only family member involved in the show is Tolkien's grandson. He's listed as a "consultant," which in showbiz terms means he's not doing anything. He's the black sheep of the family. His father, Christopher, who had the last word on everything, adamantly refused to sell the TV rights (Saul Zaentz Co. had the film and merchandising rights to pretty much everything; Tolkien reluctantly sold those rights in order to set up a trust for his kids/grandkids and pay for his wife's medical care) and hated Jackson's movies. Christopher retired from his role a few years ago, and (surprise, surprise) Bezos wrote that big check shortly thereafter.
Note that George The Giant Slayer made it clear that Chris hated movies in general. He didn’t really understand that sort of thing. PJs work was phenomenal. Look at the documentaries. Not just the out takes. real hand made everything hours and hours and hours and hours by the hundreds of hours by professionals in their craft and who also knew much about Tolkiens works as well as epics. They were all true artists. All the way down to the swordsmanship instructors
@@kurokamo2 that right there says everything. Most of those grandsons are living in the shadow of their father and grand father who they are jealous of and honestly are giant sell outs
@@finnthewestiefinnmccool5916 Christopher retired - or was forced out - in 2017, shortly before the Amazon sale. This was not a coincidence. While Christopher and Simon may have reconciled on a personal level, CT still wouldn't allow him any say in the Estate. They had utterly opposing views on commercial exploitation of JRRT's works.
Something else that really stood out to me was how graphic the violence in both shows was, which shocked me in Rings of Power. Take the first episode, in the cave troll fight, Galadriel slashes the troll in a way that launches blood and guts onto the actual camera. There's a 4th wall break revolving around blood splatter, which is then followed with a direct brain stab with the dagger. The tone was spontaneously brutal, and it didn't feel like it meshed with the rest of the show, and not expected of Tolkien. The PJ trilogy had all kinds of killing and dismemberment, but it didn't feel as graphic and visceral as in RoP. Of course House of the Dragon's first episode had way more gore, but it understood what it was doing. The gore of this episode was framed into the story, advanced characters and plotlines, and generally enhanced immersion. These weren't random events that came and went; there were consequences. And of course, A Song of Ice and Fire is built on this kind of graphic content so it met expectations. The big difference here is that the showrunners for HotD had Game of Thrones alumni involved and some of the better ones. They know what they're doing and inherited the specific production resources for their specific medieval fantasy world. The RoP showrunners were script doctors for JJ Abrams; they have no experience in the producer's chair much less fantasy. Thus, they had to pull a fantasy production out of their asses, and what came out was a turd, unsurprisingly...
Technically the violence is the aspect that fits into the stories of that time period in Tolkien's universe for it is a time of great violence, wars and conflicts, but I would not call the show itself that graphic, I mean it certainly doesn't go further beyond what the PJ movies already had (one can recall the more brutal and realistic feeling of combat when the Fellowship battles Orcs for the first time in Moria, with Aragorn cutting off heads and the dark orc blood spurting out etc.) Tolkien himself in his stories did not shy away at times from som dark stuff though it depends on the people's opinion HOW graphic it may seem :). The House of the Dragon gore is more in line with what was also already seen in Game of Thrones previously. In Tolkien material...to which Amazon doesn't even have rights to :) so no doubt we will never see it in the show hehe, there are sometimes horrific things just casually stated in the text: "Sauron turned north and made at once for Eregion. ... At last the attackers ... captured the chief object of Sauron's assault, the House of the Mírdain, where were their smithies and their treasures. Celebrimbor, desperate, himself withstood Sauron on the steps of the great door of the Mírdain; but he was grappled and taken captive ... Concerning the Three Rings Sauron could learn nothing from Celebrimbor ... In black anger he turned back to battle; and bearing as a banner Celebrimbor's body hung upon a pole, shot through with Orc-arrows, he turned upon the forces of Elrond." Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 4, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn: Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn This moment happened during the War of the Elves and Sauron which ignited after the whole deal with the forging of the Rings and reveal of the Sauron's deception....which we now know in the show is entirely absent :). Then there are the First Age stuff that Tolkien described, events happening before the Second Age of the show setting, and also in other writings outside of the licensing but depict that Middle-earth is sometimes very dark place, one can even make comparisons with the more brutal world of A Song of Ice and Fire, heh some events can be even sort of compared...slaughter at a feast...not quite the Red Wedding but sill hehe: "Thereupon he went into the hall, and cast back his hood, and thrusting aside all in his path he strode towards the board where sat the master of the house and his wife, and other Easterling lords. Then some ran to seize him, but he flung them to the ground, and cried: "Does no one rule this house, or is it an Orc-hold? Where is the master?" Then Brodda rose in wrath. "I rule this house," said he. But before he could say more, Túrin said: "Then you have not learned the courtesy that was in this land before you. Is it now the manner of men to let lackeys mishandle the kinsmen of their wives? Such am I, and I have an errand to the Lady Aerin. Shall I come freely, or shall I come as I will?" "Come!" said Brodda, and he scowled; but Aerin turned pale. Then Túrin strode to the high board, and stood before it, and bowed. "Your pardon, Lady Aerin," he said, "that I break in upon you thus; but my errand is urgent and has brought me far. I seek Morwen, Lady of Dor-lómin, and Nienor her daughter. But her house is empty and plundered. What can you tell me?" "Nothing," said Aerin in great fear, for Brodda watched her narrowly. "Nothing, save that she is gone." "That I do not believe," said Túrin. Then Brodda sprang forth, and he was red with drunken rage. "No more!" he cried. "Shall my wife be gainsaid before me, by a beggar that speaks the serf-tongue? There is no Lady of Dor-lómin. But as for Morwen, she was of the thrall-folk, and has fled as thralls will. Do you likewise, and swiftly, or I will have you hung on a tree!" Then Túrin leapt at him, and drew his black sword, and seized Brodda by the hair and laid back his head. "Let no one stir," said he, "or this head will leave its shoulders! Lady Aerin, I would beg your pardon once more, if I thought that this churl had ever done you anything but wrong. But speak now, and do not deny me! Am I not Túrin, Lord of Dor-lómin? Shall I command you?" "Command me," she answered. "Who plundered the house of Morwen?" "Brodda," she answered. "When did she flee, and whither?" "A year and three months gone," said Aerin. "Master Brodda and others of the Incomers of the East hereabout oppressed her sorely. Long ago she was bidden to the Hidden Kingdom; and she went forth at last. For the lands between were then free of evil for a while, because of the prowess of the Blacksword of the south country, it is said; but that now is ended. She looked to find her son there awaiting her. But if you are he, then I fear that all has gone awry." Then Túrin laughed bitterly. "Awry, awry?" he cried. "Yes, ever awry: as crooked as Morgoth!" And suddenly a black wrath shook him; for his eyes were opened, and the spell of Glaurung loosed its last threads, and he knew the lies with which he had been cheated. "Have I been cozened, that I might come and die here dishonoured, who might at least have ended valiantly before the Doors of Nargothrond?" And out of the night about the hall it seemed to him that he heard the cries of Finduilas. "Not first will I die here!" he cried. And he seized Brodda, and with the strength of his great anguish and wrath he lifted him on high and shook him, as if he were a dog. "Morwen of the thrall-folk, did you say? You son of bastards, thief, slave of slaves!" Thereupon he flung Brodda head foremost across his own table, full in the face of an Easterling that rose to assail Túrin. In that fall Brodda's neck was broken; and Túrin leapt after his cast and slew three more that cowered there, for they were caught weaponless. There was tumult in the hall. The Easterlings that sat there would have come against Túrin, but many others were gathered there of the elder people of Dor-lómin; long had they been tame servants, but now they rose with shouts in rebellion. Soon there was great fighting in the hall, and though the thralls had but meat-knives and such things as they could snatch up against daggers and sword; many were quickly slain on either hand, before Túrin leapt down among them and slew the last of the Easterlings that remained in the hall." So it's not like the Tolkien works can't have a bit of serious, darker vibe. There's also case of...dismemberment: "But the Captain of Morgoth in the west had been commanded to draw out Fingon swiftly from his hills by whatever means he could. . . the Captain of Morgoth sent out riders with tokens of parley, and they rode up before the outworks of the Barad Eithel. With them they brought Gelmir son of Guilin, that lord of Nargothrond whom they had captured in the Bragollach; and they had blinded him. Then the heralds of Angband showed him forth, crying: ‘We have many more such at home, but you must make haste if you would find them; for we shall deal with them all when we return even so.’ And they hewed off Gelmir’s hands and feet, and his head, within sight of the Elves, and left him" Showing the cruelty of the Orcs and forces of darkness etc. Obviously again such specific events are described in texts outside of the amazon's license but what they do have the lore about the wars and events and practices happening in the Second Age could give some sense of a more barbaric and dangerous time if done right etc.
I think this was a really interesting and constructive analysis of why one show seems to be working with the fandom and the other had generated a lot of fan frustration.
@@LienesLibrary More baffling is that this is a trend being carried out by a number of large companies that buy/takeover beloved franchises: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, etc. Then they do a bunch of things to make the original fanbase want to leave and not watch. But isn't the whole (financial) value of a franchise that you have a huge existing fanbase that will happily give you money just for more of the same? I don't understand how this makes financial sense... And it also makes me sad because I wanted more of the same of my favorite franchises.
@@thestoriedcoyote It’s mostly Disney. Amazon’s actually produced some really good shows & adaptations. And Amazon usually doesn’t say much when one of their shows bombs. They have so much money, so much more money than Disney, even, that they can shrug this shit off. The problem is they struck out big time on their two biggest adaptations: Wheel of Time, which everyone still just kinda ignored, and Rings of Power, which was a little harder to ignore given the pedigree and the price tag (even for Amazon a billion dollars is almost a lot of money.) plus RoP is going head-to-head against House of the Dragon (which most GoT fans did not have high hopes for) & is surprisingly turning out to be really darn good.
@@thestoriedcoyote It's a trend all right, and i'm tired of people calling me or others names or assuming i'm politically aligned with alt-right people when we complain about it. Look at moistcritical/penguinz, not normally political, but even he couldn't help but wonder why when watching the Velma trailer that she's mocking fans. The show hasn't even started and it's already mocking people whom those writers perceive as being too passionate. It had nothing to do with Velma's race change, nor Shaggy's race change. It has to do with the obvious contempt or at least mockery that writers have for their own audience. She-Hulk literally had multiple episodes dedicated to mocking/hating on Marvel fans. I didn't even dislike the show. I thought it was fine, even the breaking of the fourth wall that lots of people hated. I just thought that all this effort into mocking critics leaves a bad taste in my mouth, as though these writers were too emotionally invested in internet arguments and wrote a fanfic to express their rage. It doesn't bother me most of the time, but when it does affect a franchise I have fond memories of, it sucks. So I sympathize with the fans being attacked. E.g. In Terminator Dark Fate, Sarah Connor is treated as a bigoted boomer... Just... why? And all of this seems written with disdain. There's no subtlety to it either. It just feels like too many writers lack maturity these days. They focus on a minority of their audience that they love to argue with, and then extend their argument/annoyance against the entire audience and they can't help but express it on twitter or even into their script.
Christopher Tolkien had *nothing* to do with this project whatsoever: he was ousted as head of the Estate shortly before the Amazon deal was made and I strongly suspect the two events were connected- Christopher, who intensely disliked the movies, would have fought against the TV deal tooth and nail. Another indicator of a palace coup having occurred is the prominence in connection with ROP of Christopher's estranged son Simon, whom Christopher would not permit any role in the Estate when he was in charge. Simon, incidentally, has approximately null credentials as a Tolkien "expert."
That's the thing! Both Tolkien works and Witcher books already contain so much great material that the showmakers could have used and yet...they prefer to do their own fanfics if it can even be called that for they simply just write whatever bullshit they come up with so not really a work of fan one might say,.,. and ignore what they do have rights to or alter it so seriously that one wonders why they bothered to 'adapt' that franchise to beging with! Witcher tv show could have been AMAZING just like any properly done Tolkien work adaptation and yet...it's tiring really, what's the point?! They should just as well make their own fantasy worlds and be done with it!
Just found your channel on your more recent videos. This one was especially interesting in POV. New Line/WB still have the rites to FILM adaptions of Hobbit/LotR and the appendices. Same as Amazons TV (4 episode+) rites. In 202 they are planning to release "War of the Rohirric" which comes from the same appendices as Amazon used for RoP. Other than being animated, its the same principle as HBOs HoD, and will focus narrowly on a period and events in the Appendices. With Phillipa Boyens (Original LotR film team with Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson) part of the production and even a return of Miranda Otto as Eowyn who will serve as the narrative voice, I'm already much more excited to see what they come up with.
I caught this post and liked it so much I had to subscribed. There was one point you made where you said that amazon should have picked another part of the world to base the program on. I 100% agree with that statement. For a while there were rumors that the show would focus on the Blue Wizards and there travels. This would have been the perfect area to base the show on. Almost nothing written on it and leaves room to make connections to main story line. Big Big miss on amazon's side. Keep up the great content. Cheers
That's a great breakdown of the issue with the opening two episodes of RoP. I haven't watched any more of it because the first two episodes, ~2 hours of a billion dollar show, was just a moseying tour of a Middle Earth-like setting. It was a bit like a pretty desktop background with strangely epic music.
So far what the intro info told me, Rings of Power should have just been a random fantasy because the inability to use The Silmarillion makes it a pointless show in regards of the universe.
Best critique of RoP so far. Thanks. I think your point about focusing on one area of the map is good. I thought an entire show just in Numemor with the end of the first season them sending the army to middle-earth. Explore what it means to be mortal yet wanting more, the faithful vs the fallen Numernoreans.
If they had written a show to be based around the eastern lands it would have been great. In the east where tolkien only alluded to but never explored. A place where 2 of gandalfs order were combating saurons influence over the men of that region. Exploring easterling and haradrim culture would have been great. And for those obsessed with diversity, well that's where tolkien had people inspired by middle eastern and african cultures.
even if amazon wanted the rights to the silmarillion, they wouldnt get them. The tolkien estate held an auction for the tv rights to the lotr and hobbit books ONLY. Amazon outbid netflix and HBO but rather than just making a tv show version of movies that already exist, they opted to do something different from material in the books. Its not that amazon doesn't care or is being shady, they're just working with what they got.
@@mori1bund well depends ... I think HBO couldve done a good job. But I dont really know if they are still interested in the LotR universe because they will make their own fantasy franchise now with alle the planned Game of Thrones prequels and even one sequel (the upcoming Jon Snow series). Though high fantasy stuff has indeed something special about it. The World of Game of Thrones is more low fantasy / more politics and stuff. But if they really wanted they could introduce high fantasy stuff into the world of game of thrones because there are big parts of the continent Essos that we dont know much about yet. In the books they are mostly described as mystical ... for example Asshai and the Shadowlands... also Yi Ti and everything further east. And that is only the known world. We dont know what is beyond that. Also there is a third continent named Sothoryos that is basically completely unexplored.
@@fate2193 you're right! When it comes to getting shows like that right, HBO would be my first choice too. The cancelled GoT prequel about the origin of the White Walkers and the "Long Night" could have been a high fantasy show with more magic, the Children of the Forest, giants and other creatures.
They could have a series with focus on the East and South, prior/during/after the War of the Ring Showing the descent of those people into Sauron worshipping Possibly showing dissidence among the Rhunic peoples and Haradrim, to show that Sauron worship was not universally accepted Could have used the two blue Wizards, whom the fanbase has long made into headcanon that went East and South and made opposition to Sauron from there
I'm hoping ROP shows how Galadriel transitions from blood-thirsty, self loathing, she-elf to the totally chill, benevolent, bread baking, barefoot queen of Lothlorien.
I completely agree with you! Finally someone who actually talks about the real reasons why RoP is (so far!) rather mediocre, instead of all the "woke this and woke that..." nonsense. The imho two most relevant differences between those shows are, HotD has an original source material on that they can build the plot of the show, they have the original author involved in it and a show runner and a very capable script writer who is hand picked by that author: so the writing is far superior. RoP has a five times higher budget, so the show looks more expensive (but not 5 times more expensive).
This "woke this and woke that" is not nonsense. Because after the real reasons that she has illustrated here became the foundation of the show's failure, which is they do not have the rights, they chose not to give a shit to the things they have the rights to, and chose to replace that material with very blatant woke messaging or at the very least simplistic signalling. The entire characterization of Galadriel as well as her interactions and relationships and dynamic with the uniformly male Elves, is portrayed as one woman being sidelined by men, it is written to be about a woman not taken seriously by the patriarchy and set about to defy it (when in Tolkien's source material there is no such patriarchy, nor was there any unequal dynamic between males and females of the High Elves). And the writers are pretending her to be some kind of "powerful, strong" female character when she is in fact an astonishingly weak-minded and powerless female character. The very fact that they made Tar-Miriel the Queen Regent (she never was) was to created (for optics) a "strong female who rules." When in the lore she was never a ruler. This was done, for optics purposes, for marketing, because they think "audience wants girl boss." They also specifically made the "Southlands" plot into straight up anathema. They turned the Elves into effectively racist oppressors. Elves never occupied land in that manner. They certainly wouldn't see the relative squalor of how people are living and do nothing about it and keep them oppressed. There's a message in there somewhere about something. Is it that the writers are trying to say something about colonialism? about imperialism? about occupations? Is it about Iraq or Afghanistan? If you are purposefully changing the lore and replacing it with things that are issues in our modern world in an attempt to signal "we get it, we're going to forward out take on battling the patriarchy and colonialism" then that is a "woke" agenda.
@@smallla1514 haha, no. That's not what woke means. I literally said nothing about race in my previous comment's criticisms that I have with the show. None. Listen to the actual criticisms instead of inventing something we aren't actually criticising. No Tolkien fan, least of all me, would have any issues with it if the entire show is set in Harad, which would have featured an all-nonwhite cast, because Haradrim are not white. Aliens is my favourite space hard-scifi film franchise. And guess what gender Ellen Ripley is. Female. Black Panther is one of the top MCU Phase 3 films. Guess who the cast is comprised of? Squid Game was my top Netflix show of 2021. There isn't a single white person on that show. The Expanse is my all time favourite science fiction TV show. There is only one straight white male in its lead cast. Stop trying to pretend anyone criticising this show is a racist and sexist so you don't actually have to engage with real criticism. No one has an issue with black people. lmao. The presence of black people or women or gay people do NOT make a work of film or TV "woke." WOKENESS, makes it woke. Wokeness occurs when you make something ideological, it means taking far-leftist flavour-of-the-month political causes and inserting them into your storytelling for the purposes of marketing and virtue signaling, at the expence of story, character, and realism. Inserting "fight the patriarchy" subtexts into a story where the females and males of a people are actually already equal, like what they are doing on this show, is what is defined as wokeness. House of the Dragon isn't woke. Rhaenyra Targaryen is a powerhouse of a character. Need I remind you that Eowyn, Arwen, and Galadriel in the original Lord of the Rings films are fan favourites? These are actually strong women. Wokeness destroyed Galadriel and actually managed to make a strong female absolutely come across as trite, weak, unlikeable, unrespectable. Wokeness is the proselytizing of a specific subset of radical leftist ideological talking points infecting everything without substance at the expense of everything it infects.
It is true. You can not compare them. One is a complete waste of perfectly goof money to show the depravity of modern society while destroying the work of a beloved author. The other one is House of the Dragon.
A mixed bag. It's not so much a question of a like for like adaptation of the existing legendarium. They are doing things that DIRECTLY contradict the legendarium itself which is a far more different animal than having to 'rights' to portray anything. just a few egregious examples. -Giving a false narrative to Finrod and extrapolating that false narrative to Galadriel to give her a 'revenge' motivation than never existed. This undermines both characters. -The false narrative of Finrod by extension undermines the HEART of the legendarium with the Finrod/Beren/Luthien story. -Completely undermining the Ban of the Valar by giving the Elves agency OVER the Valar to decide who sails into the West. -Completely omitting essential characters at the beginning of the Second Age (Celeborn/Cirdan/Celebrian/Anarion) so as to not take agency away from Galadriel (WEAK, they can co-exist perfectly well with competent writing) -Completely undermining the motivations of the Numenoreans to insert clumsy contemporary political tropes. -There is no evidence of Galadriel/Numenor interaction. NONE. If it happened, Tolkien would have outlined it. and on and on..
Spot on Vid you articulated so well how I feel with ROP ...in the end Rings of Power was a waste of life force. HOD ...I can't believe a beach walk lit up badly was so good and intense.
I want to say I wrote this before I realized you posted this a month ago so please bare that in mind. Many things still apply but their are a few that don't because you didn't see all of the shows yet. But my biggest problem with your comparison is you were very big on saying ONLY negative things about RoP and ignoring the negative things about HotD. It was sort of clear you UNINTENIONALLY came into this review with preconceived notions about the two shows. I.E. you were looking for things NOT to like about RoP. The one GLARING thing you did was when you complained about the RoP being all over the place from the start and HotD was focused in one area and you liked that so much better. I am assuming you are a GoT fan correct? How can you complain about RoP introducing too many characters and places from the start and be ok with it when GoT did it to a far greater extent than RoP? I like both shows about equal. They both have their high points and low. And I would give both of them a solid 8-8.5. At times I found myself not paying attention to HotD and looking at my watch a bit too much. And that never once happened in the RoP. To be fair, that might ebcause one was fantasy and the other more historical. I.E. I was far more likly to see something I never saw before in RoP. There was no Tyrion to spice things up. No obviously evil people to hate. Less witty dialogue. And the Targarions CLEARLY looked like elves. I find it funny you didn't mention that but you jumped on what the Hobbits looked like. I did find the Hobbits annoying until later in the season. And by the way, it is accurate to the Lore to have the Hobbits more primitive in this time period. So again, calling them, "not Hobbits" is not really fair because they are following the lore. Yet in GoTs I never felt the Targarions looked like elves. The first 2 or 3 episodes Of HotD I loved. But is gradually bogged down from there for me. While the last two episodes of RoP were the best two to me. But it seems your only interested in pointing out the low points in RoP. I don't think you mentioned one negative thing about HotD at all. Nor did you say one positive thing about RoP. I am not counting your intro. Which is not fair. For instance, you didn't have a problem with the time jump and the need to switch many of the main characters out for older actors half way through the season? But then you complain about The RoP power being all over the place location wise. How can you mention that as bad and not mention the time jump at all? And that Queens Guard. Is it his job to just fall in love and have sex with every Queen he serves? And kill anyone that pisses him off with impunity? And your comparison of HoD focusing on one specific area being a good thing and RoP jumping all over the place was bad, dosn't hold up. I say that because GoT, a far superior show to both of these shows. Skipped all over the place from the first episode to the end. Yet you had no problem with that at all I assume. Please don't get me wrong. I actually liked your review and the things you said were fair enough but this was suppose to be a comparison of the two shows. And other than your intro it turned into a RoP bashing and ignoring of anything wrong HotD did and anything good RoP did.
The people who dislike the show because "woke" is lazy analysis. The reality is (at least for me) ROP is not a well written show. The dialogue seems random, and the plot has decent connecting lines but for the most part is also random. It feels more like Amazon decided the look and cinematography of the show was most important. And it is beautiful, especially in 4k. But there is more to a story than that. It's bland, lacks pop, and is a feeble story.
Thank you! What a great analysis! And I am glad that someone finally underlines the fact that they can't adapt the Silmarillion! lol So what is this? It's an alternate fan fiction timeline.
I have read every word, and I mean EVERY word Tolkien has written. ROP is utter crap. I fervently wish someone could make a show about Beren and Luthien! Then I could die happy!
You have to remember that HoD had everything to prove. They were blindsided by d&d and as a result lost all credibility . If game of thrones ended well I doubt they'd have put even an ounce of the effort in and would like have taken the same route as every other modern day trash. Star wars lord of the rings mcu. Wherever a corpo knows it will make money it cuts corners and takes the opertunity to push a narrative e rather then craft one. Rings of power by contrast has easily the most loyal market in nerdom and because of that. It took liberties
Great comparison Amazon not carrying abour the source material and antigonzing the generation of Tokien fans and try to blame the fans for hating ROP. Also Peter Jackson did not adapted 100% but he respected Tolkien's work and honored it best he could
Amazon does have the rights to the appendicies and regardless of what they don't have the rights to, they made the show anyways which leads to two questions that you can (and absolutely should) ask which are 1. are they being true to the stories that they do have the right to. 2. are they being faithful to the canon/spirit of the mythos and the answer to both of these questions is no.
to me, the whole issue with RoP is that Amazon tried to take advantage of the source material's "name" or "branding" to lure fans and not respecting the source, is just false advertising. They could just make a series unrelated to Tolkien, start their own IP and nobody would have any issues with it, but they tried to lure fans with Tolkien's name and backfired.
The thing is everybody tries to lure in people with name recognition nowadays, because everyone wants to play it safe, no one dares to take a risk with some new, original content. This is why we constantly have remakes & reboots, sequels & prequels, movie and tv franchises, and film adaptions of stories that usually were adapted several times before. Amazon rather spends a massive amount of money for the rights of a brand or name, then coming up with something original, or at least adapt something that's not in the mainstream for almost a century.
yeah, it's weird that they are banking on the name drawing fans but then doing everything in their power to alienate said fans, I just don't understand the logic
They have originally and expert on Tolkien’s lore, they dismissed him. Peter Jackson was willing to help out with the adaption they just send him a letter and than never replied back when he asked for the script. They only good of the show is music, design and graphics which again was not about content and writing. I am not sure but it feels that nowadays the experts, craftsmanship is not appreciated. It is a very expensive fan fiction with some agenda to it and mix racial cast is like nothing compared to lack of imagination, professionalism and love and respect to the source material. What they call giving credits to Peter Jackson trilogy is pretty much copy and paste from the films. It does not have the uniqueness and I cannot believe that this is a real fantasy world. It is just like a beautiful designed video game.
I almost went mad in the first minute of this video. Because of the elbow stripes in Liene's shirt, I had the impression the shirt had short sleeves and then she had some kind of cuff-sleeve thing-ies on her forearms. I swear, I almost lose my mind.
RoP also fucked up the timeline because the sky portal to Valinor doesn’t happen until AFTER Numenor is destroyed. If they had done it right, you could literally just sail there.
@@LienesLibrary if I had a magic wand I would cast new human characters every season to show the passage of time, along with not rewarding Elves a trip to Valinor for failing their mission lol. I’m fairly certain they weren’t going back there until well into the Third Age. Ak vai lol.
I get the frustration for you but for me its about entertainment value and even though i really enjoy House of Dragon i just dont find myself connected to the characters and story like i did with G.O.T and i think its because it has those constant time jumps and its just feels like such a smaller world and i like my fantasy to be bigger in scale. I on the other hand adore Power of The Rings, i waited with bated breath every Friday for the new episode, it wasnt perfect but i thouroughly enjoyed it unlke H.O.D were i still havnt watched the last two episodes yet. Its just a matter of taste and i get P.O.D is only loosley based on the material but that can happen a lot. If you want the book verbatem then just stick to the novels..
I'm more than satisfied with House of the Flying Ds. RoP, I like it so far. It looks beautiful and the acting and all that is largely great. But part of the draw is like WTF are they doing with the material? My guess is they're going to do some fanfiction on how the rings were made 🤷♂️. I like your idea, where they'd be allowed to do whatever in a less explored part of the map, but sadly execs are going to exec even though IDGAS about name recognition. Oh well. And yes, it needed to begin and be structured better. I'm still optimistic.
House of dragon is written better the characters are more likable we’re not just stuck with one character that is just unlikable through the whole show
Yeah I really didn't care about episode 1 of RoP.... I have no investment in any characters do far, I have no idea where exactly in time we are,... I found it very confusing and quite boring tbh. So I agree with all your remarks and your criticisms of RoP and that it's not very useful to compare the two shows.
The thing with RoP is I dont think it knows it's own target audience. That's part of the problem. To enjoy it fully you have got to come in with virtually no knowledge about the characters, history or time period.
but that doesn't work either because if you know nothing, the parts where they drop a big name and expect you to go "OMG" will totally go over your head if you don't know the name...
Oh they know. The normie and the short attention spanned boys and girls. They wanted to pump out schlack that would be consumed as the consumer drools on themselves and get excited about next new product to come! But alas does pissing on the pyramids to make them better make them better? Nope, which one will evaporate in the sun? Which will stand the tests of time ? I go with the pyramid.
@@LienesLibrary Yes but if you know nothing that will probably go over your head as unimportant anyway. Episode 2 (?) Had an odd part where Elrond talked about Feanors hammer. That was obviously a nod to "Real fans" but didnt do anything so the normie doesn't care. Also I wish they wouldn't do that. It's not clever just mentioning the odd thing and "real fans" dont care unless it does something. It's like that annoying guy who goes to a gym class and constantly drops into convo he can bench 200kg yet you only see him use 5kg weights.
Me after watching ROP... "You have not seen what I have seen." Someone who hasn't seen ROP... "Iv seen my fair share" Me... "You have NOT seen... WHAT I HAVE SEEN!"
RoP reminds of a bad adaptation of a decent YA novel or bland network show. There’s a lot of exposition, but I don’t feel like I know the characters. HotD is full of character interaction that helps the audience understand what makes the characters distinct.
True, Amazon only has the rights to the appendixes, for which they paid 250 million for. Damn! Those appendixes do include histories of the second age but are less detailed. People will be making this comparison anyway. There is also season two of the horrible Wheel of Time adaptation coming as well (also Amazon).
@@LienesLibrary Wheel Of Time at least wasn’t this bad. I actually seen it before the books. WoT was actually something neat with or without the book knowledge. ROP is a purposeful stab in the backs of we the people ontop of messing with Tolkiens works. Works of which that touched the hearts of many. Reviving ancient knowledge of England and surrounding countries, Wales and Finland. And definitely Ireland. Giving back a mythology that he said in letters and other places that he was afraid of traditions and culture being drained as every decade went by. So he became famous for this work of art which almost was never published. Ever. Many people saw his works before major publishing and many children still have their letters. Given to their grandchildren and so on. He wrote back to everyone that wrote to him. He was an amazing dialed in soul
Yeah I mean even if they were directly adapting the Silmarillion the RoP decided to go the route of compressing the timeline because the major players are immortal so it's already a very different approach than adapting something about human characters and people. I personally did enjoy the RoP first episodes but I do agree it's kind of in a weird limbo where it almost relies on you knowing something about the world to have buy-in while simultaneously not sticking to any of the major beats that people who have said buy-in would expect. I am hopeful by the end of the season it will be great but we shall see. I would say arguably Fire and Blood is an easier adaptation with much shorter time-scale even if they wanted to flash back to Aegon the Conqueror that's only a couple generations back not the 5,000 years ago of the two trees being destroyed by Ungoliant and Morgoth. RoP definitely decided to try to show off the breadth of the world and cool cinematography more in the first episodes than to focus and have buy-in with plot or characters which wasn't necessarily the best choice to hook the masses but we shall see. I think it will be fair to compare and contrast the first seasons when they are both done. Fun discussion though!!
comparison is inevitable with this type of thing and imo, unless RoP has some big surprises up its sleeve, HotD will come out of this smelling much rosier
THe time compression is only solution if they lack imagination, the time periods we're dealing with in the Lotr backstory are indeed far longer, BUT the reasonable solution would be...to just focus on specific time periods and do some time jumps between seasons! Immortals as you say would remain the same the mortal characters would come and go but it would be also a bit more unique rather than generic narrative :) I mean there are franchises that do play a bit with time and can do so well. In general Amazon seems to really not care about the lore and worldbuilding details, while they do put some information that book fans would know it's only rather come off as some sort of easter eggs rather than genuine attempt at utilizing those lore tidbits and most of the time they just disregard the subtleties and intricacies of the world, the show for certain treats the geography, distance and travel time really, REALLY casually and loosely, a lot of worldbuilding is missing still from the show a lot of stuff is also seriously altered by the time compression like whole historical processes which makes some things lose sense, for instance the aspect of the Numenor and it's slow growth into a giant colonial empire over time. The show in the end relies too much on the fanfictiony stuff that writers put in, instead of trying to dramatize the canon events from Tolkien's material they have to use! There are ways also to include events from different periods, whether flashbacks or things of the sort, recalling and explaining some past events that have relevance to later ones etc. There is a serious lack of focus in the Rings of Power though, and some fo the subplots don't really advance the plot, the hobbit subplot especially is pointless! In any case the very presence of Hobbits (yes they simply ARE just hobbits and using the clan name of Harfoots won't change that...Harfoots were most hobbit hobbits to ever hobbit :)...except that show actually changes the lore about them anyway haha, the Harfoots shouldn't be nomadic cart pullers :) they should be by Tolkien lore...be digging holes in the ground in the true manner that hobbits are known for :)). Tolkien himself did not put the hobbits in any of the stories or material of historical background and events of Second Age, he wrote in a letter about those 'older legends': "Nearly all are grim and tragic: a long account of the disasters that destroyed the beauty of the Ancient World, from the darkening of Valinor to the Downfall of Númenor and the flight of Elendil. And there are no hobbits. Nor does Gandalf appear." J.R.R,Tolkien Obviously the corporate policy it seems was cashing in on the known elements but implementing them either way!
They should have fought more for the rights to The Silmarillion, even if it was just to show Morgoth and Ungoliant destroying the trees. They also could have done the War in the North with the Dain Ironfoot fighting Sauron or the two blue wizards. This is fan fiction rather than an adaption, which is fine in itself. It's got some of the lore wrong, you don't get two Durins at the same time because dwarven kings named Durin are supposed to be reincarnations of Durin I. Not loving the short haired elves, they remind me too much of Shannara. But I still enjoyed it, grinned from ear to ear whenever dwarves were on screen. I think the kid with the evil looking sword hilt might be the Witch-King
They would have never gotten the rights. They shouldn't have wasted their money for this in the first place, and adapted something else. The world is full of great stories.
@@mori1bund I am enjoying it but I think they should have taken the War in the North and Alatar and Pallanto's efforts in the South (or was it East?) and made a show of those elements. Obviously the two blues are underused and it would be good to see those of the Southrons and Haradrim who didn't follow Sauron. Also being the one who refused to join Sauron Dain Ironfoot is my favourite dwarf and dwarves are my favourite of the races, the War in the North would feature the Iron Hill dwarves heavily
Sorry I completely disagree. What they do have the rights to is basically a history and does contain most of 5he story they say they are trying to tell. So they could be accurate if they wished or tell another story and have it both ways
I think I get your point but I can't really agree with this idea or at least the way it's enonciated. The way I see it, comparing, by essence, is to to take two things or more in order to see in which way they are similar and how they differ, which is pretty much what you've done brilliantly in your video. This notion of fairness is more tied the way you're going to compare things, not the act of comparing itself, which is in my opinion always relevant. You could compare HotD to Xena Warrior Princess if you wanted, the Lion King to a Saw movie or a rock to a boat. You can compare anything with the right lens, it helps to have realistic expectations. Personally, when it comes to HotD or RoP, the only thing I'm really interested about is this: are the story and the universe that's being portrayed engaging me, am I interested and invested in the characters and their arcs? I think that's it's fair for anyone to ask himself these kind of questions for both shows, regardless of the way they were created, the material they're adapted from etc.
I think you were too harsh on the Rings of power. As a casual fan of the lore itself I didn't think it was that hard to follow. The show is about Galadriel and her quest to find Sauron and the mystery in relation to where he is and who he is. Your other criticisms also seem either lacking in further detail or completely wrong. Like for instance Simon Tolkien (the grandson of JRR Tolkien) was actually working as a consultant for the show. So to say that no Tolkien relative was involved is misleading. "Amazon doesn't seem to give a S*** about being loyal to the source material" based on what exactly??? Unless you I missed a prior video where you went into further detail explaining why you believe Amazon was treating the source material poorly. It just comes across as really unoubjective and feels like you came in with a heavy bias before the show even aired. Like a lot of people did unfortunately...
About Amazon not caring about the source material... They haven't said that out loud. Actually they have said the exact opposite: that they care immensely for the lore. Unfortunately, they decided to try and cram thousands of years of events into five seasons which just isn't going to happen. Thus they need to smush up the timeline and this combined with the changes they made to the source material gives the impression that they don't care. They might care. But the way they have used the source material isn't convinving at all. And that's how "Amazon doesn't SEEM to give a s*** about being loyal to the source material".
So if amazon doesn't has the right to the silmarillion, and also not give a proper respect to the established lore, why they branded it as a part of tolkien fantasy? It's just they trying to make their own story but borrowing some Tolkien's characters name here and there then market it as "the prequel of the epic legendarium tolkien story" and they even don't care about tolkien fanbase too Why they don't make their own series then....with their own name and brand Still don't get it... N.B I am just casual reader and tv show audience and get confused with all that amazon did to Tolkien's work
I think it would be interesting to compare the writing skills of the two fantasies. It is quite clear that the writers of RoP are novices and have no skill and HotD are way better.
Hey Liene, I am really digging all these book-shows videos you've been doing. As you say, The Rings of Power are not based on the book(s) but it's still very interesting to hear someone with book knowledge talk about it, especially without all the cringe hate most channels go for. I personally think the show is pretty meh so far, feels like an overproduce 6/10. I might have liked it more had it come out before Hot D, but the dialog, drama and acting is just so much better there, that it makes tRoP feel like a high school stage play. Anyway now someone just need to give Joe Abercrombie a billion dollars so the true best fantasy universe can be enjoyed on the big screen :D
LOR have a strong ending, I'm not a fan of it but I appreciate what they did and the film is just amazing all throughout. GOT have a strong start and managed it until season 4 to 5 then it goes into shet, I am a fan of GOT and I enjoy the last season for the reason that I don't have a choice and Dumb and Dumber do it this way, it could've have been a perfect ending, the plot is good. But the details and how they did and wrote it is a pure disgrace, they don't even know the characters goals anymore they did what they did thinking it looks cool or the fan would love it and I think that's sad. So when the HOTD came out my expectation is low and my thoughts are "I'm just going to watch it since it is a part of GOT and now I am purely addicted to it. you can't compare GOT Season 8 or even the whole GOT itself to HOTD, even though they are one, they give a different vibes and it's amazingly weird. I think HOTD just saved GOT from all the shet it suffers. HOTD deserved the praises and GOT got nothing to do with it, the show carried itself.
thats absolutely mind blowing, that amazon does NOT have the rights to silmarilon..... i did not know that, but it makes perfect sense why this show is complete dog poo. why in the world would they go ahead and make this!!!!???? your suggestion at the end of what they could have made the show about makes SO MUCH more sense!
Limited available material aka LoTR appendices is still truly Vast and gives unlimited oportunity because it doesnt bind as much as opus magnum. Show is a avarice greedy evil larceny on many that have emotional connection with Tolkien :) Peace.
I think the appendices have a ton of story outlines to depict. The Annals of the Kings and The Tale of Years cover the second age in a outline that has details sufficient to embellish. One has to be focused. Peter Jackson kept a strict focus on “what moves the story of the ring forward” when he adapted The LOTR books. He left source material out appropriately by using that guideline. The showrunners for ROP needed to have a similar focus. But they don’t. They’ve added “memberberries” left and right - hobbits, Wizard/stranger, elf-human romance - none of that is in the appendices. Maybe later seasons will bring this all together but I think the show has tried to be too much for too many audiences. The second age stories & themes should have be depicted for an adult audience. The event timeline in the Tale of Years should be presented sequentially as in the appendix. Not concurrently in “one moment of time” as the show is trying to do. I could go on but you hopefully get the idea.
@@LienesLibrary Material is not the issue. You can make interesting, epic story out of just one random sentence. Even SuperQueen Elisabeth checked out.
All facts. 🙄💯 I can ONLY tell what the RoP *might* be about, based upon its title. I'm assuming it's about how all of the different peoples of Middle Earth came together to defeat evil, and their leaders were given those special rings or whatever?? See, I don't know. I really can't tell! 🤭 lmao But I've hardly seen anyone critiquing the show based off of its poor writing or poor pacing like this... mostly I've just seen folks whining about People of Color being "allowed" to be a part of the production. But Asian Elves or Black Harfoots or whatever, isn't the problem here. It's the poor pacing, the lack of a proper narrative, and lack of cohesion, that is the issue at hand. The cast could be all white & it would have still been the same outcome. 🤷🏻♀️🥴 So I thank you for addressing the real issue w/the show: The fact that nobody knows WTF it's about!!!
When I think about what Rings of Power COULD be it just makes me angry. From the introduction of Galadriel she was already unlikeable and it hasnt changed one bit since, if anything she got worse. Then theres the Elves that just look weird and out of place, the Harfoots are quite frankly terrible people and I couldnt care one bit about their story, the Numenoreans are made to look weak and foolish for no reason and so far it's only been the Dwarves that have been somewhat interesting. But the story over all is just boring.. The entire convoluted story about kick-starting Mt. Doom was just SHIT. House of the Dragon by comparison is just amazing, especially considering what season 8 of GoT did to the franchise. It's been an uphill battle for them but the characters are fleshed out, they've grown and changed and the best seems to be yet to come. In the beginning I felt like the time-skips could've been done better though.
I couldn't say it in a better way. Personally First thing to learn, do not adapt a story when you don't have the rights, they filled the story with emptiness and not even well executed
I might've told a story sympathetic to the Orcs. Except the insufferables in the writing room probably wouldn't have been able to even attempt doing that without going full-identitiarian with the modern day cultural poison. I don't feel confident in the people creating RoP. They don't seem to really love Lord of the Rings. They seem to hate their viewer, more than they love the content...
The writers don't even care enough to think about why you shouldn't cast a 50 year old actor for a character who supposedly doesn't age. It seriously bothers me that Galadriel and Celebrimbor are supposed to be around the same age (some have told me that Galadriel should be older)
RoP isnt a spin off of the films it is its own adaptation. It isnt connected to Peter Jacksons films in any way so comparing them feels pointless imo. HoTD is actually a prequel of GoT, the most successful show in history, which had 10 years to find its episode/series structure. RoP is completely new and doesnt have any of that work already done and is also at a disadvantage by not having the rights to parts of the 2nd age. On a seperate note, they arent the same types of stories; one is fantasy adventure & the other is a political drama. The series structure cant be the same nor should character motivations. If everyone shat on GoT during the first half of its season when nothing substantial happened then we wouldnt even get HoTD Sorry to turn this into a rant.. Just think RoP is getting pretty unfair treatment because its not like a derivative of GoT.. the irony
One of them is a great TV show that keeps me coming back for more. The other is Rings of Power.
My RUclips recommended is full of scenes from HotD. And I love it 😂
🤣
I know a blogger who is both a great fans of the books and a great critic of the series.
She put so big criticism over the series that for me looked as stupid as rings of power.
Je, about rings of power, she refused to watch it, she idolizes tolkien too much for watch such blasphemy.
I would like to point out that Amazon was originally working hand in hand with Tolkien scholars and Christopher Tolkien. Christopher is known for his utter loyalty and dedication to his fathers work, and upon his death Amazon fired their scholars and rewrote the scripts.
Chris died long before Amazon did this. You mean Simon. The guy who is a nobody and is jealous of his father and brother. They had Tom Shippey. Friend of Tolkien and true scholar as Tolkien was and Amazon kicked him out the moment he smelled their BS and they didn’t listen to him. Then they brag whenever questioned. Using him as their shield to sound like they care but never telling us themselves that they got rid of him. We had to find out and share it far and wide
Tells you all you need to know. Let’s pause and take a moment to thank the late great Christopher Tolkien for all his tireless work cheers Chris
Is this true? Why they did that? If they wanted to start over and rewrite it all why not just make an original story?!...
@@RAI-1911 Because they wouldn't be able to get nearly as many ppl to watch it
@@unsungzero6122 Well, it's not a bad reason, if execute well... It's just sad, if that the reason why they did what they did, I think there's so many way to execute it better. I was told that they (Amazon) don't have full right of the story or the source material, if that's true, they can make original story inside the established story/world/universe of LoTR, with original characters, and use more established characters of it as cameos for lore immersion and stuff. I think it would be better than tinkering with an existing one, sadly... What a waste of opportunity...
A big difference between the two series is that I did not feel there was any actual conflict between any of the characters in RoP. In HotD, I not only felt the conflict between all of the characters but I could name that conflict. In fact, characters only need to look at each other for the conflict to be present.
Yes! This is what I'm saying. Practically all shows, at bottom, are enjoyable because there is some sort of character conflict. In RoP there is no real conflict on a PERSONAL level. Most obstacles are either natural or just impersonal. The Numenoreans hate elves now. It's an obstacle, but it's not taken personally by Galadriel, and for the Numenoreans who are still loyal to elves we aren't with them long enough to see how they're suffering, if at all. The series too too wide a scope from the start. Everything should be grounded in character conflict.
Well put!
Exactly! Daemon merely has to show up and you get what he’s thinking and know something will go down.
RoP is a good lesson how not to start a story when you’ve many MC. Fundamentally, the first scene/episode almost always has to be where few of MCs are together before they all make their own way. Example in GoT when many MCs gather at Winterfell. In LotR when Gandalf visit the Hobbit. Another important thing is other characters are pretty much never suddenly introduced to viewers without the already established MCs presence; Frodo introduced to Aragorn, Aragorn introduced to Legolas etc, etc. It’s like baton relay race. This is to avoid confusion and make a story more thought out.
yeah, though not the only successful way of doing it, that would have been a better way to go about it than what they did...
Oh I don’t know…first Galadriel, then she meets Elrond, Gil Galad..Elrond meets Celebrimbor, Durin, Disa..
What is wrong with a story having many strings all happening in the same time with different main characters who don’t know each other but everything they do leads them to a point where they unite against the enemy if that’s where the story will have it’s conclusion - with Isildur cutting the one ring off from Sauron’s hand? Prior to that there’s suffering, mistrust and darkness over everything. Even forging the other rings ( elves - dwarfs - humans ) was born out of mistrust.
I mean the people who are watching the series aren’t five so following a complicated story, timeline shouldn’t be that mentally challenging. I for one enjoy the show and interested how it will progress and develop.
In the Silmarillion book you are referencing there’s only a 20 page part which is about the rings of power and the war of the last alliance and while apparently the producers don’t have rights to the Silmarillion so far the main things line up. ( I presume the Numenorians will fight against Sauron - who will surrender to them them poison their minds thus bringing the downfall of Numenor in the big wave and Elendil, Isildur escaping death, rescuing a seedling of the white tree of Numenor, founding Arnor and Gondor )
@@finnthewestiefinnmccool5916 nothings wrong with it in theory the show is still shit and breaking tolkiens lore though
@@anotherhappylanding4746 How is it breaking Tolkien's lore?
@@14DANESSJ Multiple ways, the biggest one being them changing mithril and literally contradicing what happened to the silmarils and making mithril infused with the light of the two trees which the elves need as they are dying which is just a stupid way for them to create drama between the elves and dwarves because gil galad wants elrond to betray durin, they've also changed it so it's only found in khazad dum despite it being found in multiple places and mines even in numenor itself. They've changed the reason the balrog durins bane wakes up, instead of being the dwarves getting to greedy for mithril and ore it's because they are being altruistic. The are some examples of them changing lore they didn't need to, there are plenty of other instances, also there are instances where it'll be impossible to adapt events properly because amazon didn't bother to get the rights to unfinished tales or the silmarillion
Oh the joy of discovering hidden gems on RUclips! You’ve got yourself a new subscriber and now I’m headed to watch all of your past content. Keep it up, this is smart, eloquent and thoughtful material contrasting with most of your “competition”.
The only family member involved in the show is Tolkien's grandson. He's listed as a "consultant," which in showbiz terms means he's not doing anything. He's the black sheep of the family. His father, Christopher, who had the last word on everything, adamantly refused to sell the TV rights (Saul Zaentz Co. had the film and merchandising rights to pretty much everything; Tolkien reluctantly sold those rights in order to set up a trust for his kids/grandkids and pay for his wife's medical care) and hated Jackson's movies. Christopher retired from his role a few years ago, and (surprise, surprise) Bezos wrote that big check shortly thereafter.
yeah, Jeff "Money Bags" Bezos was bound to snatch that up faster than Gollum grabbing the precious
Christopher Tolkien died in 2020 not retired, and he and his son Simon M R Tolkien reconciled before C Tolkien’s death.
Note that George The Giant Slayer made it clear that Chris hated movies in general. He didn’t really understand that sort of thing. PJs work was phenomenal. Look at the documentaries. Not just the out takes. real hand made everything hours and hours and hours and hours by the hundreds of hours by professionals in their craft and who also knew much about Tolkiens works as well as epics. They were all true artists. All the way down to the swordsmanship instructors
@@kurokamo2 that right there says everything. Most of those grandsons are living in the shadow of their father and grand father who they are jealous of and honestly are giant sell outs
@@finnthewestiefinnmccool5916 Christopher retired - or was forced out - in 2017, shortly before the Amazon sale. This was not a coincidence.
While Christopher and Simon may have reconciled on a personal level, CT still wouldn't allow him any say in the Estate. They had utterly opposing views on commercial exploitation of JRRT's works.
It's completely fair to compare the two.
Spot on. You can't compare the two. How could you compare top quality story telling and film making with over expensive mediocrity and failure?
You described the situation perfectly. I look at RoP and wonder, "what were they thinking?"
They had access to the appendixes of the lotr which is a decent roadmap for what they could have done to make rop
I like Elendil’s actor but that’s cuz he’s the only one that looks his role and the actor actually knows his Tolkien lore
Something else that really stood out to me was how graphic the violence in both shows was, which shocked me in Rings of Power. Take the first episode, in the cave troll fight, Galadriel slashes the troll in a way that launches blood and guts onto the actual camera. There's a 4th wall break revolving around blood splatter, which is then followed with a direct brain stab with the dagger. The tone was spontaneously brutal, and it didn't feel like it meshed with the rest of the show, and not expected of Tolkien. The PJ trilogy had all kinds of killing and dismemberment, but it didn't feel as graphic and visceral as in RoP.
Of course House of the Dragon's first episode had way more gore, but it understood what it was doing. The gore of this episode was framed into the story, advanced characters and plotlines, and generally enhanced immersion. These weren't random events that came and went; there were consequences. And of course, A Song of Ice and Fire is built on this kind of graphic content so it met expectations.
The big difference here is that the showrunners for HotD had Game of Thrones alumni involved and some of the better ones. They know what they're doing and inherited the specific production resources for their specific medieval fantasy world. The RoP showrunners were script doctors for JJ Abrams; they have no experience in the producer's chair much less fantasy. Thus, they had to pull a fantasy production out of their asses, and what came out was a turd, unsurprisingly...
Technically the violence is the aspect that fits into the stories of that time period in Tolkien's universe for it is a time of great violence, wars and conflicts, but I would not call the show itself that graphic, I mean it certainly doesn't go further beyond what the PJ movies already had (one can recall the more brutal and realistic feeling of combat when the Fellowship battles Orcs for the first time in Moria, with Aragorn cutting off heads and the dark orc blood spurting out etc.) Tolkien himself in his stories did not shy away at times from som dark stuff though it depends on the people's opinion HOW graphic it may seem :). The House of the Dragon gore is more in line with what was also already seen in Game of Thrones previously. In Tolkien material...to which Amazon doesn't even have rights to :) so no doubt we will never see it in the show hehe, there are sometimes horrific things just casually stated in the text:
"Sauron turned north and made at once for Eregion. ... At last the attackers ... captured the chief object of Sauron's assault, the House of the Mírdain, where were their smithies and their treasures. Celebrimbor, desperate, himself withstood Sauron on the steps of the great door of the Mírdain; but he was grappled and taken captive ... Concerning the Three Rings Sauron could learn nothing from Celebrimbor ...
In black anger he turned back to battle; and bearing as a banner Celebrimbor's body hung upon a pole, shot through with Orc-arrows, he turned upon the forces of Elrond."
Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 4, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn: Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn
This moment happened during the War of the Elves and Sauron which ignited after the whole deal with the forging of the Rings and reveal of the Sauron's deception....which we now know in the show is entirely absent :). Then there are the First Age stuff that Tolkien described, events happening before the Second Age of the show setting, and also in other writings outside of the licensing but depict that Middle-earth is sometimes very dark place, one can even make comparisons with the more brutal world of A Song of Ice and Fire, heh some events can be even sort of compared...slaughter at a feast...not quite the Red Wedding but sill hehe:
"Thereupon he went into the hall, and cast back his hood, and thrusting aside all in his path he strode towards the board where sat the master of the house and his wife, and other Easterling lords. Then some ran to seize him, but he flung them to the ground, and cried: "Does no one rule this house, or is it an Orc-hold? Where is the master?"
Then Brodda rose in wrath. "I rule this house," said he. But before he could say more, Túrin said: "Then you have not learned the courtesy that was in this land before you. Is it now the manner of men to let lackeys mishandle the kinsmen of their wives? Such am I, and I have an errand to the Lady Aerin. Shall I come freely, or shall I come as I will?"
"Come!" said Brodda, and he scowled; but Aerin turned pale.
Then Túrin strode to the high board, and stood before it, and bowed. "Your pardon, Lady Aerin," he said, "that I break in upon you thus; but my errand is urgent and has brought me far. I seek Morwen, Lady of Dor-lómin, and Nienor her daughter. But her house is empty and plundered. What can you tell me?"
"Nothing," said Aerin in great fear, for Brodda watched her narrowly. "Nothing, save that she is gone."
"That I do not believe," said Túrin.
Then Brodda sprang forth, and he was red with drunken rage. "No more!" he cried. "Shall my wife be gainsaid before me, by a beggar that speaks the serf-tongue? There is no Lady of Dor-lómin. But as for Morwen, she was of the thrall-folk, and has fled as thralls will. Do you likewise, and swiftly, or I will have you hung on a tree!"
Then Túrin leapt at him, and drew his black sword, and seized Brodda by the hair and laid back his head. "Let no one stir," said he, "or this head will leave its shoulders! Lady Aerin, I would beg your pardon once more, if I thought that this churl had ever done you anything but wrong. But speak now, and do not deny me! Am I not Túrin, Lord of Dor-lómin? Shall I command you?"
"Command me," she answered.
"Who plundered the house of Morwen?"
"Brodda," she answered.
"When did she flee, and whither?"
"A year and three months gone," said Aerin. "Master Brodda and others of the Incomers of the East hereabout oppressed her sorely. Long ago she was bidden to the Hidden Kingdom; and she went forth at last. For the lands between were then free of evil for a while, because of the prowess of the Blacksword of the south country, it is said; but that now is ended. She looked to find her son there awaiting her. But if you are he, then I fear that all has gone awry."
Then Túrin laughed bitterly. "Awry, awry?" he cried. "Yes, ever awry: as crooked as Morgoth!" And suddenly a black wrath shook him; for his eyes were opened, and the spell of Glaurung loosed its last threads, and he knew the lies with which he had been cheated. "Have I been cozened, that I might come and die here dishonoured, who might at least have ended valiantly before the Doors of Nargothrond?" And out of the night about the hall it seemed to him that he heard the cries of Finduilas.
"Not first will I die here!" he cried. And he seized Brodda, and with the strength of his great anguish and wrath he lifted him on high and shook him, as if he were a dog. "Morwen of the thrall-folk, did you say? You son of bastards, thief, slave of slaves!" Thereupon he flung Brodda head foremost across his own table, full in the face of an Easterling that rose to assail Túrin.
In that fall Brodda's neck was broken; and Túrin leapt after his cast and slew three more that cowered there, for they were caught weaponless. There was tumult in the hall. The Easterlings that sat there would have come against Túrin, but many others were gathered there of the elder people of Dor-lómin; long had they been tame servants, but now they rose with shouts in rebellion. Soon there was great fighting in the hall, and though the thralls had but meat-knives and such things as they could snatch up against daggers and sword; many were quickly slain on either hand, before Túrin leapt down among them and slew the last of the Easterlings that remained in the hall."
So it's not like the Tolkien works can't have a bit of serious, darker vibe. There's also case of...dismemberment:
"But the Captain of Morgoth in the west had been commanded to draw out Fingon swiftly from his hills by whatever means he could. . . the Captain of Morgoth sent out riders with tokens of parley, and they rode up before the outworks of the Barad Eithel. With them they brought Gelmir son of Guilin, that lord of Nargothrond whom they had captured in the Bragollach; and they had blinded him. Then the heralds of Angband showed him forth, crying: ‘We have many more such at home, but you must make haste if you would find them; for we shall deal with them all when we return even so.’ And they hewed off Gelmir’s hands and feet, and his head, within sight of the Elves, and left him"
Showing the cruelty of the Orcs and forces of darkness etc. Obviously again such specific events are described in texts outside of the amazon's license but what they do have the lore about the wars and events and practices happening in the Second Age could give some sense of a more barbaric and dangerous time if done right etc.
I think this was a really interesting and constructive analysis of why one show seems to be working with the fandom and the other had generated a lot of fan frustration.
yeah, Amazon seems to being going out of its way to alienate fans which is a baffling choice
@@LienesLibrary More baffling is that this is a trend being carried out by a number of large companies that buy/takeover beloved franchises: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, etc. Then they do a bunch of things to make the original fanbase want to leave and not watch. But isn't the whole (financial) value of a franchise that you have a huge existing fanbase that will happily give you money just for more of the same? I don't understand how this makes financial sense... And it also makes me sad because I wanted more of the same of my favorite franchises.
@@LienesLibrary They learned from Disney.
@@thestoriedcoyote It’s mostly Disney. Amazon’s actually produced some really good shows & adaptations. And Amazon usually doesn’t say much when one of their shows bombs. They have so much money, so much more money than Disney, even, that they can shrug this shit off. The problem is they struck out big time on their two biggest adaptations: Wheel of Time, which everyone still just kinda ignored, and Rings of Power, which was a little harder to ignore given the pedigree and the price tag (even for Amazon a billion dollars is almost a lot of money.) plus RoP is going head-to-head against House of the Dragon (which most GoT fans did not have high hopes for) & is surprisingly turning out to be really darn good.
@@thestoriedcoyote It's a trend all right, and i'm tired of people calling me or others names or assuming i'm politically aligned with alt-right people when we complain about it.
Look at moistcritical/penguinz, not normally political, but even he couldn't help but wonder why when watching the Velma trailer that she's mocking fans. The show hasn't even started and it's already mocking people whom those writers perceive as being too passionate. It had nothing to do with Velma's race change, nor Shaggy's race change. It has to do with the obvious contempt or at least mockery that writers have for their own audience.
She-Hulk literally had multiple episodes dedicated to mocking/hating on Marvel fans. I didn't even dislike the show. I thought it was fine, even the breaking of the fourth wall that lots of people hated. I just thought that all this effort into mocking critics leaves a bad taste in my mouth, as though these writers were too emotionally invested in internet arguments and wrote a fanfic to express their rage.
It doesn't bother me most of the time, but when it does affect a franchise I have fond memories of, it sucks. So I sympathize with the fans being attacked. E.g. In Terminator Dark Fate, Sarah Connor is treated as a bigoted boomer... Just... why? And all of this seems written with disdain. There's no subtlety to it either.
It just feels like too many writers lack maturity these days. They focus on a minority of their audience that they love to argue with, and then extend their argument/annoyance against the entire audience and they can't help but express it on twitter or even into their script.
Amazon only has the rights to LOTR and its appendices. Nothing else. They don't even have a single scene, a line of dialogue, etc. to build upon.
Christopher Tolkien had *nothing* to do with this project whatsoever: he was ousted as head of the Estate shortly before the Amazon deal was made and I strongly suspect the two events were connected- Christopher, who intensely disliked the movies, would have fought against the TV deal tooth and nail. Another indicator of a palace coup having occurred is the prominence in connection with ROP of Christopher's estranged son Simon, whom Christopher would not permit any role in the Estate when he was in charge.
Simon, incidentally, has approximately null credentials as a Tolkien "expert."
Excellent, balanced & honest analysis, Liene. Thank you.
thanks! my pleasure 🧡
Reminds me of what Netflix did with season 2 of the witcher. They threw out the books and just did whatever they wanted
That's the thing! Both Tolkien works and Witcher books already contain so much great material that the showmakers could have used and yet...they prefer to do their own fanfics if it can even be called that for they simply just write whatever bullshit they come up with so not really a work of fan one might say,.,. and ignore what they do have rights to or alter it so seriously that one wonders why they bothered to 'adapt' that franchise to beging with! Witcher tv show could have been AMAZING just like any properly done Tolkien work adaptation and yet...it's tiring really, what's the point?! They should just as well make their own fantasy worlds and be done with it!
Just found your channel on your more recent videos. This one was especially interesting in POV.
New Line/WB still have the rites to FILM adaptions of Hobbit/LotR and the appendices. Same as Amazons TV (4 episode+) rites.
In 202 they are planning to release "War of the Rohirric" which comes from the same appendices as Amazon used for RoP. Other than being animated, its the same principle as HBOs HoD, and will focus narrowly on a period and events in the Appendices. With Phillipa Boyens (Original LotR film team with Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson) part of the production and even a return of Miranda Otto as Eowyn who will serve as the narrative voice, I'm already much more excited to see what they come up with.
That comparison to lord of the rings and the splitting of characters at a later point vs early on was so good and true!
I have compared them
Effin excellent idea about "over here on the map" and create something brand new.
That would have been very smart!
I caught this post and liked it so much I had to subscribed. There was one point you made where you said that amazon should have picked another part of the world to base the program on. I 100% agree with that statement. For a while there were rumors that the show would focus on the Blue Wizards and there travels. This would have been the perfect area to base the show on. Almost nothing written on it and leaves room to make connections to main story line. Big Big miss on amazon's side. Keep up the great content. Cheers
That's a great breakdown of the issue with the opening two episodes of RoP. I haven't watched any more of it because the first two episodes, ~2 hours of a billion dollar show, was just a moseying tour of a Middle Earth-like setting. It was a bit like a pretty desktop background with strangely epic music.
This was great! A breath of fresh air in the chaos 😅
thanks!
So far what the intro info told me, Rings of Power should have just been a random fantasy because the inability to use The Silmarillion makes it a pointless show in regards of the universe.
Best critique of RoP so far. Thanks. I think your point about focusing on one area of the map is good. I thought an entire show just in Numemor with the end of the first season them sending the army to middle-earth. Explore what it means to be mortal yet wanting more, the faithful vs the fallen Numernoreans.
If they had written a show to be based around the eastern lands it would have been great. In the east where tolkien only alluded to but never explored. A place where 2 of gandalfs order were combating saurons influence over the men of that region. Exploring easterling and haradrim culture would have been great. And for those obsessed with diversity, well that's where tolkien had people inspired by middle eastern and african cultures.
even if amazon wanted the rights to the silmarillion, they wouldnt get them. The tolkien estate held an auction for the tv rights to the lotr and hobbit books ONLY. Amazon outbid netflix and HBO but rather than just making a tv show version of movies that already exist, they opted to do something different from material in the books. Its not that amazon doesn't care or is being shady, they're just working with what they got.
HBO and Netflix are probably glad now that they dodged a bullet. ^^
@@mori1bund well depends ... I think HBO couldve done a good job. But I dont really know if they are still interested in the LotR universe because they will make their own fantasy franchise now with alle the planned Game of Thrones prequels and even one sequel (the upcoming Jon Snow series). Though high fantasy stuff has indeed something special about it. The World of Game of Thrones is more low fantasy / more politics and stuff. But if they really wanted they could introduce high fantasy stuff into the world of game of thrones because there are big parts of the continent Essos that we dont know much about yet. In the books they are mostly described as mystical ... for example Asshai and the Shadowlands... also Yi Ti and everything further east. And that is only the known world. We dont know what is beyond that. Also there is a third continent named Sothoryos that is basically completely unexplored.
@@fate2193 you're right! When it comes to getting shows like that right, HBO would be my first choice too.
The cancelled GoT prequel about the origin of the White Walkers and the "Long Night" could have been a high fantasy show with more magic, the Children of the Forest, giants and other creatures.
the thing is, they aren't working WITH what they've got, they are working AROUND what they've NOT got....
Nah. Amazon used a vehicle to drive their message. And as a result didn’t understand nor care about their core material.
To me, it is very simple. HOTD is story told through characters vs ROP is told through events (way too many events).
They could have a series with focus on the East and South, prior/during/after the War of the Ring
Showing the descent of those people into Sauron worshipping
Possibly showing dissidence among the Rhunic peoples and Haradrim, to show that Sauron worship was not universally accepted
Could have used the two blue Wizards, whom the fanbase has long made into headcanon that went East and South and made opposition to Sauron from there
I'm hoping ROP shows how Galadriel transitions from blood-thirsty, self loathing, she-elf to the totally chill, benevolent, bread baking, barefoot queen of Lothlorien.
I doubt it. Book/Jackson-Galadriel is probably too classically feminine for the showrunners.
The real experts have spoken, HOTD got two nominations for golden globes including best drama series, ROP got none
I completely agree with you!
Finally someone who actually talks about the real reasons why RoP is (so far!) rather mediocre, instead of all the "woke this and woke that..." nonsense.
The imho two most relevant differences between those shows are, HotD has an original source material on that they can build the plot of the show, they have the original author involved in it and a show runner and a very capable script writer who is hand picked by that author: so the writing is far superior.
RoP has a five times higher budget, so the show looks more expensive (but not 5 times more expensive).
This "woke this and woke that" is not nonsense. Because after the real reasons that she has illustrated here became the foundation of the show's failure, which is they do not have the rights, they chose not to give a shit to the things they have the rights to, and chose to replace that material with very blatant woke messaging or at the very least simplistic signalling. The entire characterization of Galadriel as well as her interactions and relationships and dynamic with the uniformly male Elves, is portrayed as one woman being sidelined by men, it is written to be about a woman not taken seriously by the patriarchy and set about to defy it (when in Tolkien's source material there is no such patriarchy, nor was there any unequal dynamic between males and females of the High Elves). And the writers are pretending her to be some kind of "powerful, strong" female character when she is in fact an astonishingly weak-minded and powerless female character. The very fact that they made Tar-Miriel the Queen Regent (she never was) was to created (for optics) a "strong female who rules." When in the lore she was never a ruler. This was done, for optics purposes, for marketing, because they think "audience wants girl boss." They also specifically made the "Southlands" plot into straight up anathema. They turned the Elves into effectively racist oppressors. Elves never occupied land in that manner. They certainly wouldn't see the relative squalor of how people are living and do nothing about it and keep them oppressed. There's a message in there somewhere about something. Is it that the writers are trying to say something about colonialism? about imperialism? about occupations? Is it about Iraq or Afghanistan? If you are purposefully changing the lore and replacing it with things that are issues in our modern world in an attempt to signal "we get it, we're going to forward out take on battling the patriarchy and colonialism" then that is a "woke" agenda.
@@Ψυχήμίασμα calling something "woke" is so cringe
@@smallla1514 Yes, because being woke is cringe.
@@Ψυχήμίασμα y'all just use "Woke" when y'all see a non white straight character. It's easy to see the dog whistle.
@@smallla1514 haha, no. That's not what woke means. I literally said nothing about race in my previous comment's criticisms that I have with the show. None. Listen to the actual criticisms instead of inventing something we aren't actually criticising. No Tolkien fan, least of all me, would have any issues with it if the entire show is set in Harad, which would have featured an all-nonwhite cast, because Haradrim are not white. Aliens is my favourite space hard-scifi film franchise. And guess what gender Ellen Ripley is. Female. Black Panther is one of the top MCU Phase 3 films. Guess who the cast is comprised of? Squid Game was my top Netflix show of 2021. There isn't a single white person on that show. The Expanse is my all time favourite science fiction TV show. There is only one straight white male in its lead cast. Stop trying to pretend anyone criticising this show is a racist and sexist so you don't actually have to engage with real criticism. No one has an issue with black people. lmao. The presence of black people or women or gay people do NOT make a work of film or TV "woke." WOKENESS, makes it woke. Wokeness occurs when you make something ideological, it means taking far-leftist flavour-of-the-month political causes and inserting them into your storytelling for the purposes of marketing and virtue signaling, at the expence of story, character, and realism. Inserting "fight the patriarchy" subtexts into a story where the females and males of a people are actually already equal, like what they are doing on this show, is what is defined as wokeness. House of the Dragon isn't woke. Rhaenyra Targaryen is a powerhouse of a character. Need I remind you that Eowyn, Arwen, and Galadriel in the original Lord of the Rings films are fan favourites? These are actually strong women. Wokeness destroyed Galadriel and actually managed to make a strong female absolutely come across as trite, weak, unlikeable, unrespectable. Wokeness is the proselytizing of a specific subset of radical leftist ideological talking points infecting everything without substance at the expense of everything it infects.
It is true. You can not compare them. One is a complete waste of perfectly goof money to show the depravity of modern society while destroying the work of a beloved author. The other one is House of the Dragon.
Rings of power. Let's do something that the fans will hate and push a narrative. Thanks for the video analysis :)
A mixed bag. It's not so much a question of a like for like adaptation of the existing legendarium. They are doing things that DIRECTLY contradict the legendarium itself which is a far more different animal than having to 'rights' to portray anything.
just a few egregious examples.
-Giving a false narrative to Finrod and extrapolating that false narrative to Galadriel to give her a 'revenge' motivation than never existed. This undermines both characters.
-The false narrative of Finrod by extension undermines the HEART of the legendarium with the Finrod/Beren/Luthien story.
-Completely undermining the Ban of the Valar by giving the Elves agency OVER the Valar to decide who sails into the West.
-Completely omitting essential characters at the beginning of the Second Age (Celeborn/Cirdan/Celebrian/Anarion) so as to not take agency away from Galadriel (WEAK, they can co-exist perfectly well with competent writing)
-Completely undermining the motivations of the Numenoreans to insert clumsy contemporary political tropes.
-There is no evidence of Galadriel/Numenor interaction. NONE. If it happened, Tolkien would have outlined it.
and on and on..
Spot on Vid you articulated so well how I feel with ROP ...in the end Rings of Power was a waste of life force. HOD ...I can't believe a beach walk lit up badly was so good and intense.
I want to say I wrote this before I realized you posted this a month ago so please bare that in mind. Many things still apply but their are a few that don't because you didn't see all of the shows yet. But my biggest problem with your comparison is you were very big on saying ONLY negative things about RoP and ignoring the negative things about HotD. It was sort of clear you UNINTENIONALLY came into this review with preconceived notions about the two shows. I.E. you were looking for things NOT to like about RoP. The one GLARING thing you did was when you complained about the RoP being all over the place from the start and HotD was focused in one area and you liked that so much better. I am assuming you are a GoT fan correct? How can you complain about RoP introducing too many characters and places from the start and be ok with it when GoT did it to a far greater extent than RoP?
I like both shows about equal. They both have their high points and low. And I would give both of them a solid 8-8.5. At times I found myself not paying attention to HotD and looking at my watch a bit too much. And that never once happened in the RoP. To be fair, that might ebcause one was fantasy and the other more historical. I.E. I was far more likly to see something I never saw before in RoP. There was no Tyrion to spice things up. No obviously evil people to hate. Less witty dialogue. And the Targarions CLEARLY looked like elves. I find it funny you didn't mention that but you jumped on what the Hobbits looked like. I did find the Hobbits annoying until later in the season. And by the way, it is accurate to the Lore to have the Hobbits more primitive in this time period. So again, calling them, "not Hobbits" is not really fair because they are following the lore. Yet in GoTs I never felt the Targarions looked like elves. The first 2 or 3 episodes Of HotD I loved. But is gradually bogged down from there for me. While the last two episodes of RoP were the best two to me. But it seems your only interested in pointing out the low points in RoP. I don't think you mentioned one negative thing about HotD at all. Nor did you say one positive thing about RoP. I am not counting your intro. Which is not fair. For instance, you didn't have a problem with the time jump and the need to switch many of the main characters out for older actors half way through the season? But then you complain about The RoP power being all over the place location wise. How can you mention that as bad and not mention the time jump at all? And that Queens Guard. Is it his job to just fall in love and have sex with every Queen he serves? And kill anyone that pisses him off with impunity?
And your comparison of HoD focusing on one specific area being a good thing and RoP jumping all over the place was bad, dosn't hold up. I say that because GoT, a far superior show to both of these shows. Skipped all over the place from the first episode to the end. Yet you had no problem with that at all I assume.
Please don't get me wrong. I actually liked your review and the things you said were fair enough but this was suppose to be a comparison of the two shows. And other than your intro it turned into a RoP bashing and ignoring of anything wrong HotD did and anything good RoP did.
You can compare them perfectly well, and you did. Biggest difference: HOTD works.
"What is that thing over there?" My sentiments about ROP exactly.
The people who dislike the show because "woke" is lazy analysis. The reality is (at least for me) ROP is not a well written show. The dialogue seems random, and the plot has decent connecting lines but for the most part is also random. It feels more like Amazon decided the look and cinematography of the show was most important. And it is beautiful, especially in 4k. But there is more to a story than that. It's bland, lacks pop, and is a feeble story.
it's beautiful in the way that a video game is beautiful, but as you say it feels bland and lifeless
You can read??
High fantasy vs dark fantasy, my money is on house of the dragon in the long run, as long as certain people stay on the show, all will be well
Thank you! What a great analysis! And I am glad that someone finally underlines the fact that they can't adapt the Silmarillion! lol
So what is this? It's an alternate fan fiction timeline.
I have read every word, and I mean EVERY word Tolkien has written. ROP is utter crap. I fervently wish someone could make a show about Beren and Luthien! Then I could die happy!
HOTD > That Exclusive Scene From The Rings Of Power > ROP
You have to remember that HoD had everything to prove. They were blindsided by d&d and as a result lost all credibility .
If game of thrones ended well I doubt they'd have put even an ounce of the effort in and would like have taken the same route as every other modern day trash.
Star wars lord of the rings mcu. Wherever a corpo knows it will make money it cuts corners and takes the opertunity to push a narrative e rather then craft one.
Rings of power by contrast has easily the most loyal market in nerdom and because of that. It took liberties
Great comparison Amazon not carrying abour the source material and antigonzing the generation of Tokien fans and try to blame the fans for hating ROP. Also Peter Jackson did not adapted 100% but he respected Tolkien's work and honored it best he could
10:02 my reaction after watching ROP first teaser
Amazon does have the rights to the appendicies and regardless of what they don't have the rights to, they made the show anyways which leads to two questions that you can (and absolutely should) ask which are
1. are they being true to the stories that they do have the right to.
2. are they being faithful to the canon/spirit of the mythos
and the answer to both of these questions is no.
to me, the whole issue with RoP is that Amazon tried to take advantage of the source material's "name" or "branding" to lure fans and not respecting the source, is just false advertising. They could just make a series unrelated to Tolkien, start their own IP and nobody would have any issues with it, but they tried to lure fans with Tolkien's name and backfired.
The thing is everybody tries to lure in people with name recognition nowadays, because everyone wants to play it safe, no one dares to take a risk with some new, original content.
This is why we constantly have remakes & reboots, sequels & prequels, movie and tv franchises, and film adaptions of stories that usually were adapted several times before.
Amazon rather spends a massive amount of money for the rights of a brand or name, then coming up with something original, or at least adapt something that's not in the mainstream for almost a century.
yeah, it's weird that they are banking on the name drawing fans but then doing everything in their power to alienate said fans, I just don't understand the logic
Excellent breakdown of these two shows. RoP is an atrocity against Tolkien. BTW: where did you get that awesome shirt?
Rings fo power isn´t based? So what Amazon has bought for 250 Millions?
They have originally and expert on Tolkien’s lore, they dismissed him. Peter Jackson was willing to help out with the adaption they just send him a letter and than never replied back when he asked for the script. They only good of the show is music, design and graphics which again was not about content and writing. I am not sure but it feels that nowadays the experts, craftsmanship is not appreciated. It is a very expensive fan fiction with some agenda to it and mix racial cast is like nothing compared to lack of imagination, professionalism and love and respect to the source material. What they call giving credits to Peter Jackson trilogy is pretty much copy and paste from the films. It does not have the uniqueness and I cannot believe that this is a real fantasy world. It is just like a beautiful designed video game.
it does look a bit like a video game 🥲
I almost went mad in the first minute of this video. Because of the elbow stripes in Liene's shirt, I had the impression the shirt had short sleeves and then she had some kind of cuff-sleeve thing-ies on her forearms. I swear, I almost lose my mind.
You're overthinking things. ^^
Don't forget to take your medicine dude
RoP also fucked up the timeline because the sky portal to Valinor doesn’t happen until AFTER Numenor is destroyed. If they had done it right, you could literally just sail there.
I swear there are countless youtubers who could have written a better script
@@LienesLibrary if I had a magic wand I would cast new human characters every season to show the passage of time, along with not rewarding Elves a trip to Valinor for failing their mission lol. I’m fairly certain they weren’t going back there until well into the Third Age. Ak vai lol.
@@johnmarks9994 tiešām jāsmejas
@@LienesLibrary at this point it’s a billion dollar fan fiction. Arī mana māsīca Marisa saka sveiki lol.
@@johnmarks9994 čau!
Yes we can.
I get the frustration for you but for me its about entertainment value and even though i really enjoy House of Dragon i just dont find myself connected to the characters and story like i did with G.O.T and i think its because it has those constant time jumps and its just feels like such a smaller world and i like my fantasy to be bigger in scale. I on the other hand adore Power of The Rings, i waited with bated breath every Friday for the new episode, it wasnt perfect but i thouroughly enjoyed it unlke H.O.D were i still havnt watched the last two episodes yet. Its just a matter of taste and i get P.O.D is only loosley based on the material but that can happen a lot. If you want the book verbatem then just stick to the novels..
Know that they are complicated people some of them have ulterior motive by inspect seven political intrigue which I love about house of the dragon
I'm more than satisfied with House of the Flying Ds.
RoP, I like it so far. It looks beautiful and the acting and all that is largely great. But part of the draw is like WTF are they doing with the material? My guess is they're going to do some fanfiction on how the rings were made 🤷♂️. I like your idea, where they'd be allowed to do whatever in a less explored part of the map, but sadly execs are going to exec even though IDGAS about name recognition. Oh well.
And yes, it needed to begin and be structured better. I'm still optimistic.
I'll keep watching RoP and I'll keep hoping it surprises me and is good but I'm not suuuper hopeful...
"and the acting and all that is largely great"
seriously? apparently we've seen different actors in another show
The acting is awful
@@diegosimeone exactly 😂
Planky McStareface.
Who am I referring to? :D
All great prequels begin with a trade dispute and heavy politics
House of dragon is written better the characters are more likable we’re not just stuck with one character that is just unlikable through the whole show
Yeah I really didn't care about episode 1 of RoP.... I have no investment in any characters do far, I have no idea where exactly in time we are,... I found it very confusing and quite boring tbh. So I agree with all your remarks and your criticisms of RoP and that it's not very useful to compare the two shows.
it's so sad to see so much money wasted
The thing with RoP is I dont think it knows it's own target audience. That's part of the problem.
To enjoy it fully you have got to come in with virtually no knowledge about the characters, history or time period.
but that doesn't work either because if you know nothing, the parts where they drop a big name and expect you to go "OMG" will totally go over your head if you don't know the name...
Oh they know. The normie and the short attention spanned boys and girls. They wanted to pump out schlack that would be consumed as the consumer drools on themselves and get excited about next new product to come! But alas does pissing on the pyramids to make them better make them better? Nope, which one will evaporate in the sun? Which will stand the tests of time ? I go with the pyramid.
@@LienesLibrary Yes but if you know nothing that will probably go over your head as unimportant anyway. Episode 2 (?) Had an odd part where Elrond talked about Feanors hammer. That was obviously a nod to "Real fans" but didnt do anything so the normie doesn't care.
Also I wish they wouldn't do that. It's not clever just mentioning the odd thing and "real fans" dont care unless it does something. It's like that annoying guy who goes to a gym class and constantly drops into convo he can bench 200kg yet you only see him use 5kg weights.
Me after watching ROP... "You have not seen what I have seen."
Someone who hasn't seen ROP... "Iv seen my fair share"
Me... "You have NOT seen... WHAT I HAVE SEEN!"
RoP reminds of a bad adaptation of a decent YA novel or bland network show. There’s a lot of exposition, but I don’t feel like I know the characters.
HotD is full of character interaction that helps the audience understand what makes the characters distinct.
True, Amazon only has the rights to the appendixes, for which they paid 250 million for. Damn! Those appendixes do include histories of the second age but are less detailed. People will be making this comparison anyway. There is also season two of the horrible Wheel of Time adaptation coming as well (also Amazon).
ugh at least RoP is better than WoT (so far)
@@LienesLibrary Wheel Of Time at least wasn’t this bad. I actually seen it before the books. WoT was actually something neat with or without the book knowledge. ROP is a purposeful stab in the backs of we the people ontop of messing with Tolkiens works. Works of which that touched the hearts of many. Reviving ancient knowledge of England and surrounding countries, Wales and Finland. And definitely Ireland. Giving back a mythology that he said in letters and other places that he was afraid of traditions and culture being drained as every decade went by. So he became famous for this work of art which almost was never published. Ever. Many people saw his works before major publishing and many children still have their letters. Given to their grandchildren and so on. He wrote back to everyone that wrote to him. He was an amazing dialed in soul
Yeah I mean even if they were directly adapting the Silmarillion the RoP decided to go the route of compressing the timeline because the major players are immortal so it's already a very different approach than adapting something about human characters and people. I personally did enjoy the RoP first episodes but I do agree it's kind of in a weird limbo where it almost relies on you knowing something about the world to have buy-in while simultaneously not sticking to any of the major beats that people who have said buy-in would expect. I am hopeful by the end of the season it will be great but we shall see. I would say arguably Fire and Blood is an easier adaptation with much shorter time-scale even if they wanted to flash back to Aegon the Conqueror that's only a couple generations back not the 5,000 years ago of the two trees being destroyed by Ungoliant and Morgoth. RoP definitely decided to try to show off the breadth of the world and cool cinematography more in the first episodes than to focus and have buy-in with plot or characters which wasn't necessarily the best choice to hook the masses but we shall see. I think it will be fair to compare and contrast the first seasons when they are both done. Fun discussion though!!
comparison is inevitable with this type of thing and imo, unless RoP has some big surprises up its sleeve, HotD will come out of this smelling much rosier
@@LienesLibrary only time will tell haha
@@RodgersReads oh time has told. Tolkien >>>>>> Martin. LOTR >>>>>>> GOT. YET.
ROP
@@RevAnakin 💀🤣🤣
THe time compression is only solution if they lack imagination, the time periods we're dealing with in the Lotr backstory are indeed far longer, BUT the reasonable solution would be...to just focus on specific time periods and do some time jumps between seasons! Immortals as you say would remain the same the mortal characters would come and go but it would be also a bit more unique rather than generic narrative :) I mean there are franchises that do play a bit with time and can do so well. In general Amazon seems to really not care about the lore and worldbuilding details, while they do put some information that book fans would know it's only rather come off as some sort of easter eggs rather than genuine attempt at utilizing those lore tidbits and most of the time they just disregard the subtleties and intricacies of the world, the show for certain treats the geography, distance and travel time really, REALLY casually and loosely, a lot of worldbuilding is missing still from the show a lot of stuff is also seriously altered by the time compression like whole historical processes which makes some things lose sense, for instance the aspect of the Numenor and it's slow growth into a giant colonial empire over time. The show in the end relies too much on the fanfictiony stuff that writers put in, instead of trying to dramatize the canon events from Tolkien's material they have to use! There are ways also to include events from different periods, whether flashbacks or things of the sort, recalling and explaining some past events that have relevance to later ones etc. There is a serious lack of focus in the Rings of Power though, and some fo the subplots don't really advance the plot, the hobbit subplot especially is pointless! In any case the very presence of Hobbits (yes they simply ARE just hobbits and using the clan name of Harfoots won't change that...Harfoots were most hobbit hobbits to ever hobbit :)...except that show actually changes the lore about them anyway haha, the Harfoots shouldn't be nomadic cart pullers :) they should be by Tolkien lore...be digging holes in the ground in the true manner that hobbits are known for :)). Tolkien himself did not put the hobbits in any of the stories or material of historical background and events of Second Age, he wrote in a letter about those 'older legends':
"Nearly all are grim and tragic: a long account of the disasters that destroyed the beauty of the Ancient World, from the darkening of Valinor to the Downfall of Númenor and the flight of Elendil. And there are no hobbits. Nor does Gandalf appear." J.R.R,Tolkien
Obviously the corporate policy it seems was cashing in on the known elements but implementing them either way!
They should have fought more for the rights to The Silmarillion, even if it was just to show Morgoth and Ungoliant destroying the trees. They also could have done the War in the North with the Dain Ironfoot fighting Sauron or the two blue wizards. This is fan fiction rather than an adaption, which is fine in itself. It's got some of the lore wrong, you don't get two Durins at the same time because dwarven kings named Durin are supposed to be reincarnations of Durin I. Not loving the short haired elves, they remind me too much of Shannara. But I still enjoyed it, grinned from ear to ear whenever dwarves were on screen. I think the kid with the evil looking sword hilt might be the Witch-King
They would have never gotten the rights. They shouldn't have wasted their money for this in the first place, and adapted something else. The world is full of great stories.
@@mori1bund I am enjoying it but I think they should have taken the War in the North and Alatar and Pallanto's efforts in the South (or was it East?) and made a show of those elements. Obviously the two blues are underused and it would be good to see those of the Southrons and Haradrim who didn't follow Sauron. Also being the one who refused to join Sauron Dain Ironfoot is my favourite dwarf and dwarves are my favourite of the races, the War in the North would feature the Iron Hill dwarves heavily
Sorry I completely disagree. What they do have the rights to is basically a history and does contain most of 5he story they say they are trying to tell. So they could be accurate if they wished or tell another story and have it both ways
I think I get your point but I can't really agree with this idea or at least the way it's enonciated. The way I see it, comparing, by essence, is to to take two things or more in order to see in which way they are similar and how they differ, which is pretty much what you've done brilliantly in your video.
This notion of fairness is more tied the way you're going to compare things, not the act of comparing itself, which is in my opinion always relevant. You could compare HotD to Xena Warrior Princess if you wanted, the Lion King to a Saw movie or a rock to a boat. You can compare anything with the right lens, it helps to have realistic expectations.
Personally, when it comes to HotD or RoP, the only thing I'm really interested about is this: are the story and the universe that's being portrayed engaging me, am I interested and invested in the characters and their arcs? I think that's it's fair for anyone to ask himself these kind of questions for both shows, regardless of the way they were created, the material they're adapted from etc.
The main difference is the quality of the writing
I think you were too harsh on the Rings of power. As a casual fan of the lore itself I didn't think it was that hard to follow. The show is about Galadriel and her quest to find Sauron and the mystery in relation to where he is and who he is.
Your other criticisms also seem either lacking in further detail or completely wrong. Like for instance Simon Tolkien (the grandson of JRR Tolkien) was actually working as a consultant for the show. So to say that no Tolkien relative was involved is misleading.
"Amazon doesn't seem to give a S*** about being loyal to the source material" based on what exactly???
Unless you I missed a prior video where you went into further detail explaining why you believe Amazon was treating the source material poorly. It just comes across as really unoubjective and feels like you came in with a heavy bias before the show even aired. Like a lot of people did unfortunately...
About Amazon not caring about the source material...
They haven't said that out loud. Actually they have said the exact opposite: that they care immensely for the lore. Unfortunately, they decided to try and cram thousands of years of events into five seasons which just isn't going to happen. Thus they need to smush up the timeline and this combined with the changes they made to the source material gives the impression that they don't care.
They might care. But the way they have used the source material isn't convinving at all.
And that's how "Amazon doesn't SEEM to give a s*** about being loyal to the source material".
Please watch and do research before you jump on camera and start reviewing things
6:00 - “I have no idea what this is about”
One is a GREAT show the other is RoP.
So if amazon doesn't has the right to the silmarillion, and also not give a proper respect to the established lore, why they branded it as a part of tolkien fantasy?
It's just they trying to make their own story but borrowing some Tolkien's characters name here and there then market it as "the prequel of the epic legendarium tolkien story" and they even don't care about tolkien fanbase too
Why they don't make their own series then....with their own name and brand
Still don't get it...
N.B I am just casual reader and tv show audience and get confused with all that amazon did to Tolkien's work
I think it would be interesting to compare the writing skills of the two fantasies. It is quite clear that the writers of RoP are novices and have no skill and HotD are way better.
Hey Liene, I am really digging all these book-shows videos you've been doing. As you say, The Rings of Power are not based on the book(s) but it's still very interesting to hear someone with book knowledge talk about it, especially without all the cringe hate most channels go for. I personally think the show is pretty meh so far, feels like an overproduce 6/10. I might have liked it more had it come out before Hot D, but the dialog, drama and acting is just so much better there, that it makes tRoP feel like a high school stage play.
Anyway now someone just need to give Joe Abercrombie a billion dollars so the true best fantasy universe can be enjoyed on the big screen :D
I'm so ready for a FL adaptation but also terrified of the prospect of it being crappy like WoT and RoP
LOR have a strong ending, I'm not a fan of it but I appreciate what they did and the film is just amazing all throughout. GOT have a strong start and managed it until season 4 to 5 then it goes into shet, I am a fan of GOT and I enjoy the last season for the reason that I don't have a choice and Dumb and Dumber do it this way, it could've have been a perfect ending, the plot is good. But the details and how they did and wrote it is a pure disgrace, they don't even know the characters goals anymore they did what they did thinking it looks cool or the fan would love it and I think that's sad. So when the HOTD came out my expectation is low and my thoughts are "I'm just going to watch it since it is a part of GOT and now I am purely addicted to it. you can't compare GOT Season 8 or even the whole GOT itself to HOTD, even though they are one, they give a different vibes and it's amazingly weird. I think HOTD just saved GOT from all the shet it suffers. HOTD deserved the praises and GOT got nothing to do with it, the show carried itself.
thats absolutely mind blowing, that amazon does NOT have the rights to silmarilon..... i did not know that, but it makes perfect sense why this show is complete dog poo. why in the world would they go ahead and make this!!!!???? your suggestion at the end of what they could have made the show about makes SO MUCH more sense!
Well said. I have been enjoying RoP. I think the writers are attempting to make the best of limited available material aka LoTR appendices.
Limited available material aka LoTR appendices is still truly Vast and gives unlimited oportunity because it doesnt bind as much as opus magnum. Show is a avarice greedy evil larceny on many that have emotional connection with Tolkien :) Peace.
I think the appendices have a ton of story outlines to depict. The Annals of the Kings and The Tale of Years cover the second age in a outline that has details sufficient to embellish. One has to be focused.
Peter Jackson kept a strict focus on “what moves the story of the ring forward” when he adapted The LOTR books. He left source material out appropriately by using that guideline.
The showrunners for ROP needed to have a similar focus. But they don’t. They’ve added “memberberries” left and right - hobbits, Wizard/stranger, elf-human romance - none of that is in the appendices. Maybe later seasons will bring this all together but I think the show has tried to be too much for too many audiences.
The second age stories & themes should have be depicted for an adult audience. The event timeline in the Tale of Years should be presented sequentially as in the appendix. Not concurrently in “one moment of time” as the show is trying to do.
I could go on but you hopefully get the idea.
I think the writers are attempting to make something out of the material they wish they had
@@LienesLibrary Material is not the issue. You can make interesting, epic story out of just one random sentence. Even SuperQueen Elisabeth checked out.
In conclusion, HotD is better than RoP
They do not know either !!
Um, yes I can compare them. I don’t care what you say. One of them sucks and the other one doesn’t.
If you are really critic, both suck.
Yes. One sucks and the other is spectacular.
All facts. 🙄💯
I can ONLY tell what the RoP *might* be about, based upon its title. I'm assuming it's about how all of the different peoples of Middle Earth came together to defeat evil, and their leaders were given those special rings or whatever??
See, I don't know. I really can't tell! 🤭 lmao
But I've hardly seen anyone critiquing the show based off of its poor writing or poor pacing like this... mostly I've just seen folks whining about People of Color being "allowed" to be a part of the production.
But Asian Elves or Black Harfoots or whatever, isn't the problem here. It's the poor pacing, the lack of a proper narrative, and lack of cohesion, that is the issue at hand. The cast could be all white & it would have still been the same outcome. 🤷🏻♀️🥴 So I thank you for addressing the real issue w/the show:
The fact that nobody knows WTF it's about!!!
yeah I feel like all the discourse about diversity in the show is really a distraction from the real problem which, as you say, is the poor writing
Don’t compare them, HOTD Is a masterpiece, RoP is some forgettable fantasy show soon to fall by the wayside
#Cancel ROP
When I think about what Rings of Power COULD be it just makes me angry. From the introduction of Galadriel she was already unlikeable and it hasnt changed one bit since, if anything she got worse. Then theres the Elves that just look weird and out of place, the Harfoots are quite frankly terrible people and I couldnt care one bit about their story, the Numenoreans are made to look weak and foolish for no reason and so far it's only been the Dwarves that have been somewhat interesting. But the story over all is just boring.. The entire convoluted story about kick-starting Mt. Doom was just SHIT.
House of the Dragon by comparison is just amazing, especially considering what season 8 of GoT did to the franchise. It's been an uphill battle for them but the characters are fleshed out, they've grown and changed and the best seems to be yet to come. In the beginning I felt like the time-skips could've been done better though.
I couldn't say it in a better way. Personally First thing to learn, do not adapt a story when you don't have the rights, they filled the story with emptiness and not even well executed
I might've told a story sympathetic to the Orcs. Except the insufferables in the writing room probably wouldn't have been able to even attempt doing that without going full-identitiarian with the modern day cultural poison. I don't feel confident in the people creating RoP. They don't seem to really love Lord of the Rings. They seem to hate their viewer, more than they love the content...
He still trying to finish that book
nothing can compare to garbage
The writers don't even care enough to think about why you shouldn't cast a 50 year old actor for a character who supposedly doesn't age. It seriously bothers me that Galadriel and Celebrimbor are supposed to be around the same age (some have told me that Galadriel should be older)
the elves all just look like roman senators, I can't make myself believe they are Tolkien's elves
Galadriel is 3000 years older than him so it’s even weirder
@@LienesLibrary exactly. Exactly.
House of dragon is 10 times better I hate to say it but the original Game of Thrones It’s definitely better than an eighth season
RoP all day!
That’s exactly what an episode of ROP seems like-all day!
RoP isnt a spin off of the films it is its own adaptation. It isnt connected to Peter Jacksons films in any way so comparing them feels pointless imo. HoTD is actually a prequel of GoT, the most successful show in history, which had 10 years to find its episode/series structure. RoP is completely new and doesnt have any of that work already done and is also at a disadvantage by not having the rights to parts of the 2nd age. On a seperate note, they arent the same types of stories; one is fantasy adventure & the other is a political drama. The series structure cant be the same nor should character motivations. If everyone shat on GoT during the first half of its season when nothing substantial happened then we wouldnt even get HoTD
Sorry to turn this into a rant.. Just think RoP is getting pretty unfair treatment because its not like a derivative of GoT.. the irony
House of the dragon they focus talk entertaining too much boring 🤣
What??
It would be awesome if people let other people enjoy what they enjoy, just glad we re getting fantasy shows bro
if you don't want to hear criticism I recommend not clicking on videos with "problem" in the thumbnail
Targaryen‘s are cooler