"So say we all". Erik represents the feelings of so many who thought 'these people have a fantastic once-in-a-generation-chance' with money and resources and people and audience having every good hope for their success" To be 2020's answer to Harry Potter was 20 years ago or what Star Wars was to the late 1970's. But they instead turn one of the great contributions of the 1900's into, well, .... I think Erik and so many would agree we like the music a bunch. The emotion you're seeing in these negative reviews everywhere is our extreme sadness coming out as frustration we couldn't say the amazing good things we'd hoped to be able to say and write.
Amazon's marketing strategy must not be overlooked. With its references to "relentless racism" and claims of "patently evil" review brigading, they have signaled that they have no intention of listening to any of their critics.
Why would they listen to criticism? The rings of power is a propaganda piece. It is disguised as a adaptation of a different story but in reality it is a woke reprisal and recreation of the lord of the rings lore and history. It’s entirely made by activists and that’s why it comes off as cheap and lacking creativity in all its areas. It looks like the lord of the rings but it doesn’t feel like it and that’s because it’s fake.
Sauron, on returning to Mordor: "Adar, you arsehole! WTF have you done? I was planning to irrigate and grow crops! The elves have been planting seeds here for years!"
Weirdly RoP rekindled my desire to complete my stories/books. The reactions to RoP exposed people's desire for compelling stories, and how much a good story can inspire and enrich a fellow human's life. RoP was so offensive to the art of storytelling that I feel a responsibility to help restore the damage.
I rewatched the three Jackson Hobbit films back to back to wash the taste of RoP out of my mouth. LOL. The Jackson Hobbit's are far too long and added in a lot of unnecessary schtick and action, but they are brilliant when compared to the RoP shitshow.
@@MrVicfil I first read the LOTR in a tent camping on a mountain in Africa. That same trip I found a copy of the Silmarillion in a book store on the way to the airport. Prized possessions mate.
@@Jubb-eo5vk lol yeah the hobbit stretched things out a bit too much, which is why I didn't initially care much for RoP... but now I'm definitely teaching it too!
A positive came out of how bad ROP is. I'm rereading the appendices to The Lord of the Rings. I reread the sections on the First and Second Ages, then jumped to the story of Aragorn and Arwen. It is beautiful and tragic. Arwen resists both Aragorn's death and her own: "She was not yet weary of her days, and thus she tasted the bitterness of the mortality that she had taken upon her." This idea of loss, a sense that some must sacrifice themselves and their happiness in order to preserve hope of happiness for others, is a central to all Tolkien’s work, yet is entirely absent from ROP. Thanks for the excellent review.
This series actually makes me want to dig back into the same LOTR appendices and map out roughly what I think an 8-episode first season should have done.
@Björn H My main 2 points: 1. Celebrimbor should be the central character. 2. It’s told as a tragedy, because he has a good heart, but is corrupted by Sauron to ignore the counsel of the Noldor and pursue his own ambitions of living up to his grandfather (Feanor)’s legacy Tolkien had strong moral convictions about the agency of his characters deciding their fates, but this show was too much like Oedipus, a prophecy coming true without anyone making any real moral decisions
@@jcooper2373 Exactly! All the Elrond and Dain stuff we got should have been Celebrimbor and Narvi. No Harfoots, no Meteor Man. Original characters if you need them - and the Southlanders were not a bad idea in itself, just the execution was terrible. Use the first season to introduce all the characters and set it up, then for the finale have this guy Annatar showing up. Lead into the second season where we get Annatar befriending Celebrimbor and the forging of the Rings (and not cram the forging into ten minutes in one episode).
There was so much potential and expansion the Rings of Power could have explored. For example, we know little about the extent of Annatar and Celebrimbor's partnership and time together. Were they friends? Or were they strictly master and apprentice? That would have been a great dynamic to explore, but it was reduced to fifteen minutes in the finale and two interactions. Instead we have Galadriel who they fundamentally altered to fit a new narrative that is neither intriguing or engaging. It's just there. None of the changes they made bared fruit, and I was baffled by the sheer incompetence displayed on screen. They couldn't even give us a good, cheesy romance between Arondir and Bronwyn, who only had like five scenes together in the whole show. And yet we're supposed to believe they're truly in love?
Celebrimbor as the star of Season 1 would have been really interesting. Exploring his ambition and pride, his willingness to look the other way. The relationship between him and Annatar could have been a gripping drama. But we get this instead.
@@ErikKain Having Celebrimbor and Elrond interact should have been really interesting too. Celebrimbor's dad and uncles killed Elrond's grandfather, grandmother, uncles, and ransacked his home. To top it all off, Celebrimbor's uncle Maglor raised Elrond and his brother Elros out of guilt. That should be such a great dynamic to see unfold, but instead it's reduced to clumsy dialogue and exposition. I was so disappointed.
@@MrDe4dGuy34 you'd think the people making this show might have some of that information on hand to craft the storylines with but I think they only ever watched the movies.
Great review by Sean Collins. Just about sums everything up. The forging of the actual Rings was the most crushing disappointment for me. The complete nuance of Sauron's guile and infiltration was lost. it was a long process that should have been drawn out over several episodes, showing us the genius manipulator at work and doing the importance of Celebrimbor some due service. Here, he's little more than a dolt without even a basic knowledge of alloys and metallurgy. It's preposterous and an insult.
I thought the show was stunning and bold in making Galadriel not Sauron the true villain of the show. She practically ruined Middle Earth all by herself 🤣
Read your review. Couldn't agree more. Spent millions buying a great existing story, then threw that out and wrote a terrible one while spending more millions. Baffling.
The variety article recently was very telling, I initially thought jd & McKay were innocent, bumbling and at least pointed in the right direction Knowing now the results of their efforts, the unprecedented fan baiting, comparisons to aspirations to milton’s paradise lost, Shakespeare and even breaking bad and the outright rejection of pretty much any critique Holy crap these guys are arrogant and out of touch, it’s their first gig, and they are so sure of themselves, in the face of widespread and deserved criticism The mind boggles … 🤯
After ROP I have new found respect for the efforts made by Bashki and Rankin Bass. Regardless of the end product it's clear they respected the source material.
Nah. Watch all 8 seasons and form your own opinion. Spoils of war alone is one of the most iconic episodes of television ever, and that’s latter in season 7.
Quite simply Rings of Power Season 1 makes all the same mistakes as Game of Thrones Season 8, and some new ones. When you've seen someone make a catastrophic error that is well documented, and you do the same thing anyway without learning from it, you are worse than the original failure.
There's only a small but vocal faction that like to hate on this show for reasons totally different from what they claim now. The show's fine; I like it and am looking forward to season 2.
Season 8 was made by a “seasoned” cast, crew and writers. They went for spectacle because they couldn’t be clever enough. . RoP Season one is all amateurs. Writers have never (still) written a script, the actress couldn’t pull off the action UNCHARACTERISTICALLY demanded of her, the costume department is a crime against cinema, the live sets feel small, THREE FUCKING SHIPS FOR A CAVALRY CHARGE?!? Gaaa! GoT was NEVER that effing idiotic.
@@joeterzio7175 The show is garbage. To call it a subpar imitation of Tolkien's work would be giving it too much credit because they specifically did not adapt Tolkien's work, but rather made up their own (crappy) story. This is Lord of the Rings in name only.
@@joeterzio7175 _"only a small but vocal faction that like to hate on this show for reasons totally different from what they claim now."_ Just wondering... what were the initial reasons and what are they now?
That was a succinct & very welcome video response to the mess Amazon have served up & the article you've referenced is equally brilliant. Ofc the company will ignore all of it.
@@joeterzio7175 Erik is an honest critic and doesn't have an agenda. He wants good writing, a good story. If you want go ignore him, why are you coming to his videos? Though more views for Erik whenever you come so silver lining.
@@mikem9001 I love watching these videos and reading the comments to get into the minds of people like you. Just trying to figure out what makes your ilk tick.
I can tell you as a fan of comics, video games, and fantasy stories, the media and social media take pride and joy at sneering at OG fans of any of these materials. This has been going on now for at least a decade or so. The whole point of being a geek is finding something you love, connecting with it, obsessing over it, etc. Then some producer takes notice of its popularity with fans, and decides to change it for people who don't care either way, are happy to side with them and laugh at the nerds. The media usually goes along with it, touting how they only care about great entertainment and the source material doesn't matter, and they sneer at the fans too (and go along with the demonizing). It's the new stuffing the nerd into the locker. Only this time, the bully then goes to your house and trashes your room, and all of the rest of the school follows behind and applauds it ha.
I read the Silmarillion before watching Rings of Power. I read it quite fast as the story is quite coherent, quite rich, is like peeking into a world that seems quite real. I watched the series and couldn't avoid to notice the Númenoreans so small and common, or the fact that no elf looks like an elf, being the main offender Celebrimbor, because the only elf whose appearance looks aged is Gwindor, after being tortured for years and being maimed. These details shatter the illusion of a coherent world, I watched as what it was: a different fantasy, but even so the plot is quite formulaic and tipical: the protagonists need to gather enough mithril/5000 dollars before one month or their community will lose their place in Middle Earth/the gym/school/etcetera.
Yes Celebrimbor is probably the worst casting of the show. This guy is a Smith?? He swings hammers and melts metals? He looks like a human politician, not a legendary elf lord
@@doomsdaybooty1072 I don't know anything about the actor, and he never got a chance to show any abilities, but he's too old for the part. Part of Celebrimbor's story is that he's young and ambitious; he's under the shadow of his grandfather, and of the evil his father and uncles have done in pursuit of the Oath. He wants to make a name for himself and get out from under that shadow, and he's driven by the genuine desire to create beautiful and wonderful things. He's younger than Galadriel. So if this show has young Galadriel, why the hell have older Celebrimbor? What drives me really nuts is that they get tiny details right, so someone has plainly read the material - they put the Bough of Return on the Númenorean ship, for instance. They have bat-ear headdress on one of the Sauron priestesses - Thuringwethil. Then they go off and have Sauron in love with Galadriel.
@@maryokeeffe3528 he's been depicted in video games and fan art for decades as a strong, dark haired young elven smith. But whatever, do it your way Amazon, you clearly don't care what Tolkien fans think
I have spent many years reading history books, memoirs and official accounts piecing together information to try and get things right on the subjects I am interested in. You might call it obsessive, spergy, being on trhe spectrum, but it's what I love doing. This is why I find Middle-Earth so fascinating; the lore is so deep and complex. The Silmarillion and the appendices to LotR are written as historical records, rather than traditional stories. You could say JRR and Christopher Tolkien have done the same thing with the history of Middle-Earth and come up with a chronicle of that world. So, bearing that in mind, yes, I am a lore nerd, and when someone comes along and changes things because they don't care about the source material then I get annoyed about it. I understand the need for adaptation, of course I do, but adaptation can still be faithful to the lore. With over 3000 years in the 2nd Age, you can fit a lot of storytelling into that period, without changing anything that conflicts the few dates Tolkien actually wrote down. Surely that can't be that difficult? But humans don't live for thousands of years? OK fine, save the human and Hobbit interactions for one of the seasons, and make the rest Elvish, Dwarf and Sauron orientated, but for goodness sake, leave the 'actual' dates alone, and stop inventing ridiculous maguffins like a key for a volcano.
I'll add my two cents to yours and Collins' analysis - which I find very good - and give a possible explanation on why everything seems so slow even if many events take place during this season. Just one premise: I read that the screenwriters said Sauron will be some sort of Walter White during second season. Now, that's something very wrong if you think of how Tolkien designed Sauron and if you consider his lore's tone and themes in general, but I have to say it's something we should expect if we focus on the disgraceful adaptation of Tolkien's work they made with Rings of Power. I mean, many Breaking Bad episodes have same mechanics: Jesse the blonde dumberino makes the stupidiest thing and Walter needs to find a way to fix the situation. In Rings of Power they took a similar approach with some more elements to make the effect even more repetitive and unbearable - here's the very same mechanics we find in almost every episode: there's an expected (prettey much sure) future event --> someone (usually Galadriel) makes a stupid call --> the stupid call causes a number of useless setbacks and boring workaround --> no matter what, in the end the plot develop to the expected event as planned, just in the slowest way possible. NOW SPOILERS Example form the first episode: Galadriel is expected to stay in Middle Earth --> she jumps into the sea just before Valinor --> she swim and find some people stranded at sea --> in the end, many minutes are burned just to have the very same expected result: she won't leave for Valinor but stay in Middle earth. Multi-episode example: Galadriel, Elendil, Isildur and many numenorians are expected to go to Middle Earth --> Galadriel throw herself in a stupid and mindless fight vs the Queen fo Numenor --> alot of useles setbacks take place (from Galadirel incarceration to ships burning, from Halbrand fight to Isildur "sweating" to join the expedition after he left the navy academy etc etc) --> in the end, everyone we expected to go to Middle Earth, goes to Middle Earth. I could continue, but I think you get my point: no number of events can give good pace to the show, if they are all quite expected and preceded by boring seatbacks. See you next video! 😇
LOL. Sadly, you are on to something here. For a being that is literally many thousands of years old, Galdadrial is portrayed as an angry, bumbling nitwit. However, she CAN swim like a son of a gun.
@@ErikKain it's even worse: a thing is totally expected to happen, then someone makes a stupid call (usually Galadriel), alot of setbacks happen, THEN, the thing we already know it would happen, happens - proving all the setbacks we felt useless, were really useless. Example: everyone is supposed to rally after the vulcanic explosion, Galadriel takes Theo and without even checking on on others walks away, they waste time talking and going alone, THEN, everybody rallies as expected.
Your subs going up might possibly reflect the reason I began following you: you're one of the few (possibly) leftists who've remained absolutely honest about the quality of the show. Most of the flak the show is getting is from right-wing, or so-called right-wing, channels/reviewers. It's refreshing to hear the (obviously self-aware) wokebeards be just as tough on this mess as some of those other channels without bending to any pressure. I think it's easy for ardent supporters of the show to point to the likes of reactionaries of Nerdrotic, C Drinker and those channels for making short work of this mess because of x agendas, but it's harder to accuse reviewers such as yourself of doing the same for any such agenda other than wanting it to have decent writing. And people like that sincerity. I think it's safe to say that the mainstream middle is not on board with this slow and huge changes are needed for it going forward into season 2. And it's the ism-less channels like this that can help the corporate dark lords pay more attention when adapting works like this.
It was interesting to read an official review on IGN (does Amazon own them?) apparently written by somebody capable of completely turning off their brain while watching the show. Their finale review was 99.9% gushing praise with the only remotely negative comment being "sometimes they are fast and loose with the canon". I've always thought that those who just aren't as attached to Tolkien will outnumber those who do to the point that Amazon will call this a success no matter what. But still a ballsy move if Amazon is really willing to take another hit to audience interest by waiting 2 years for another season.
Thank you for clearly articulately what I have struggled to put into words from that feeling, the general sense of the unease and wrongness, swirling in the pit of my stomachs as I watched this disappointment unfold.
The story is also contradicting itself. Galadriel and Arondir are shown to be hyper vigilant and have superhuman senses (Galadriel sensing the tunnel behind the ice wall, seeing the one snowflake evaporate on the stone, Arondir having a glance at the chess like game and predicting the win, hearing the talks of the villagers from outside the tavern) yet they don't realise that the cloth wrapped thing is just an ordinary axe. Celebrimbor is called the greatest smith of all of the elves but needs a "little help" from Halbrand about the most basic things in metallurgy. Characters are first genius then morons in the next scene, disliked and shunned in one scene, charismatic leaders in the next (Bronwyn and Arondir in the south lands). Whatever is the most convenient for the current scene to progress, without regards for consinstency in the story arc. I stumbled over a YT-clip about scrapbooking recently. That seems to be a very likely reason for what we see here.
_"Arondir having a glance at the chess like game and predicting the win"_ First, this seemed like such a jerk move. I mean, if you were walking through the park and saw two guys playing chess, would you point out the winning move to one of them? Second, with their "superhuman senses," how did they miss hundreds of orcs digging a huge trench and burning down the forest around it?
@@nolster1 Let's take this one little step furhter: how could a bunch of brutish orcs ambush a whole group of elven warriors and take them prisoner? Seemingly very quick and without great effort or losses. Unless, of course, Arondir and Galadriel are superelves among "normal" elves and we just don't get it. Inconsistent story and terrible world building.
The writers failed in the most elementary aspects of stories. From the smallest stories to the most epic, they always branch out in their narrative arcs from a single starting character or location. I’ve never seen a show that’s not experimental or a mockumentary that starts out with five independent, parallel stories that basically never intersect.
The only group that doesn't intersect with the others are the Harfoots, but of course they're going to play a part along with the wizard. I'm not sure why this current generation can't enjoy a slowly paced story where all the key elements are laid out.
Rings of Power fails on multiple fronts. One of the fronts they fail on is that they're trying to attach themselves to the success of the original film trilogy. There are even these little snippets of references to other famous movies such as 'Elizabeth' where Cate Blanchett played the role of the monarch. Dialogue such as "There is a tempest in me and it swept me to this island for a reason" and "I, too sir, can command the wind - I have a hurricane in me, that will strip Spain bare" are far too similar to be coincidences. No, the problem of this series is that it isn't original at all, it apes and mimics the Lords of the Rings far too much. There are plenty of Middle Earth stories to be written. They should've just kept all the Galadriels, Elronds, all the characters the fans know on the sideline and maybe have Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving do guest appearances (of course digitally de-aging them too) and MADE ORIGINAL CHARACTERS, because as it stands now.. Galadriel and Elrond have been completely and utterly CHARACTER ASSASSINATED.
I literally just told my friend, why didn't they just create a new character instead of using Galadrial! Half of the criticisms would not exist had they done that one simple thing.
@@ginaaliano7311 Amusingly enough the Second Age is practically an open book to be written upon with only a few limitations. The showrunners could have invented a kingdom(s) or realms of Men, which would be conquered by Numenorian settlers later. That's just one idea of what they could've done. I have to admit that when I saw the trailer and heard that was Galadriel my first reaction was that this show is going to suck for that reason alone.
Yeah, and also various Game of Thrones references. "The King that was promised" being the most blatant. And also "Sometimes to find the light we must first touch the darkness"- it's similar to GoT's "To touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow." And I was wondering if the 300 Numenorian ships was a "300" film reference.
All they had to do was fill in the gaps. Tell the vast number of additional stories in the spaces that Tolkien had left vacant. They could’ve added all of their intersectional messaging. I don’t care about that. Fine. Whatever. But the one thing they absolutely had to do was to give us the meat… And give it to us prepared according to the Tolkien recipe. Instead we got an Elseworlds story. An alternate timeline in an alternate reality from that which Tolkien had created. And just to add insult to injury,… They did a horrible job with said Elseworlds story. Just a terrible television show… regardless of it’s tragic deviations from the source material. How could they spend so much money… Yet fail on so many different levels? What a pity.
"Dont like it then dont watch it" is a cop out as well. Why should the many people over the years who love these books from Tolkien scholars to just casual readers like myself have to put their head in the sand and shut up about it. There needs to be push back if Hollywood/Amazon is ever going to stop doing this.
I know a certain FPS game team that said something similar and eventually the game flopped and the person who said that had to resign...they never learn
Glad I am watching House of the Dragon too, so I can still keep my faith on epic fantasy adaptation. That show is brilliant and clearly created by people who respect the source material and at the same time capable in making an engaging story.
Also watching HoTD as well. It’s so incredibly obvious which of the two shows has a talented and experienced creative team behind it and which does not. How Rings of Power’s entire first season premise was QC checked before entering production is astonishing. The writing and dialogue are so bad. It’s hard to believe they spent almost a billion dollars on this show.
Lol, that show still insulted the audience, still changed the source for politics, etc and its owned by the same people who made rop. Thinking like you is why we keep loosing the culture war.
@@ErikKain It's the best piece of TV we got in the last 5 years. I absolutely love it, 10/10. There are very little flaws so far and these are so small I couldn't care less :) They have a lot of freedom since the book has 3 different sources and none of them is considered a very good source. Soo.. they can clearly take some freedom. Martin is an executive producer, I really think nothing in the script or on the set is okay as long as he didn't say so. Can't wait for the new episode tomorrow (we have to wait till Monday in Germany 😕)
Galadriel: "Oops, My Bad. I'm supposed to be the wisest of all beings who Sauron could never deceive, yet until I read a scroll saying there's been no King of The Southlands for a 1000 years I had no idea Halbrand was Sauron! Why tell the truth when a lie will do? I'll pretend nothing is wrong, that I'm not a moron who saved Sauron and helped him with his evil plans. I'll lie to Celebrimbor and say we need 3 Rings, for um...balance, that way I’ll get 1 ring and go and hide in a nice safe woods (maybe Lothlorien) and wait as all the terrible things I set in motion play out and everyone else dies." ROP fails on every level; you can't even watch it purely as fan fiction because the writing and the story are objectively terrible making it boring and rushed at the same time, with crazy time jumps, insurmountable plot inconsistencies, and protagonists who are unlikable, or foolish, or psychopathic, or narcissistic, (or in the case of Galadriel, unlikable and foolish and psychopathic and narcissistic).
_"read a scroll saying there's been no King of The Southlands for a 1000 years"_ Well, to be fair, apparently even the people who LIVE in The Southlands didn't realize there hadn't been a king for 1000 years.
@@nolster1 The people who LIVE in The Southlands not realizing there hadn't been a king for 1000 years makes no sense. They're normal people, not immortal Elves, so it's been over 40 generations, the kingdom disappeared ages ago, there's not even a castle, nothing but a tiny village, so they'd never remember. Worse, they "know" Halbrand (Sauron) is king because he wears a tiny royal crest from a 1000 years before that no villager would recognize. Finally, Galadriel is an immortal Elf who traveled all Middle Earth for hundreds of years tracking Sauron yet she has no idea until she reads a scroll that the Southland Kingdom disappeared long ago because the royal line died out 1000 years earlier? Ridiculous.
They're taking a long time to make season 2 because of the shift from New Zealand to the UK and needing to build an enormous set again. Not trying to excuse them for it though. As an aside, The Wheel of Time season 2 release has still not been announced, as well as The Boys season 3 taking more than a year post season 2 release, so Amazon has form for long gaps.
8 is such a weird small number of episodes for an opening season - its like they were stopped half way through making a complete season! did they get shut down and this media push was trying to claw back some of the money they knew these halfwits wasted?
The mistake I think we make is to think these new fans are *not* Tolkien fans or have any intentions of exploring Tolkien's books/legendarium and such....they are fans of Rings of Power series, which to me is the intention of Amazon and the showrunners.. Also, sorry about the cough, wishing you a speedy recovery!
Yeah, but even so, even if you are just a casual fantasy show fan, you have to be able to see how awful the writing, dialogue, storytelling and pacing of this show is. Or not. I mean, it’s pretty obvious, especially when you directly compare it to House of The Dragon.
@@4G63Tx yeaj, but because we have read and love Tolkien's books, we expect a certain standard, excellence in writing and tone on anything remotely related to middle earth. These "fans" just see RoP as a modern fantasy show with cool looking characters they can ship.
RoP did make me want to get back into reading and owning more Tolkien books beyond Lord of the Rings, because it was that dire. I have wanted new copies of Lord of the Rings as well; I'll be avoiding the "Amazon covers" like the plague!
Absolutely, at the moment my FB page is being inundated with the rings of power literature and promotion much to my annoyance, eventually I commented on this rather blatant fire fighting attempt by Amazon, I commented that the show was one of the worst cases of plagiarism I have seen in a long time let alone the lazy script writing and awful character development, the vitriol I received as a response from some of the types you mention was astounding in there ignorance. Even though I was concerned prior to the show being aired I still watched because I was hopping it would be better than I expected, but oh how wrong I was, I watched the hole debacle, becoming a masochist in the process and made it to the end. What had I just watched, I am amazed that anyone with half a brain could really like this abomination.
I agree completely. This is such a flimsy argument by Amazon. HoTD is an example of written material adapted to a show, and its adapted WELL. The reason we all felt heart strings being pulled at the reunion dinner in the last episode, or Viserys appearing to defend Rhaenyra, is cuz they are compelling and well written, we started to care for them, even in the span of a few episodes. I do not care for a single character in RoP or what happens to them or what turmoil they go through. And I am not saying HoTD did not have some problematic moments or moments I did not like. Rheanyra is portrayed as a much muuuch more sympathetic person and one deserving of support, whereas in the books she is much more entitled, vain, and even cruel. Laenor surviving is also a cheap cop out and something that might throw later seasons into a turmoil. There were little bits of illogical and rushed plot, but all in all, it was an impressively great show. And I doubt it will not continue to be. RoP on the other hand has an impossible task on their hand if they want to keep people interested and engaged.
I can't decide whether it's "a burden shared is a burden halved" or "misery loves company", but complaining online about this mess is a relief 😄. I've loved Tolkien's works since I was twelve, and to see a show that, at its worst, could have been a competent hack job if they just STUCK TO THE BASIC PLOT turned into the usual Bad Robot dross is driving me crazy. So being able to condole with others who realise why this is so bad does help. Sure, TV and movies are not the same as books, and they have to be changed to work in a different medium, but there are necessary changes and then there are "we can do this better so we'll lie about being faithful and then write our own crappy scripts".
Please know I say this out of sympathy and not sarcasm and keeping in mind I am but a rank casual Tolkien fan, but it strikes me that this show must be to you and your folk as Joel Schumacher’s Batman films were to I and my fellow comic obsessed friends. My sincere sympathies.
On the top of my mind, Second season of the Witcher The wheel of time Even the fase 4 of the MCU in general Almost every adaptation of my favorite things are a bit ruined for me, and it's a shame.
To what you say near the beginning about the pacing, I couldnt agree more and was thinking the same thing earlier. The pacing was some of the worst I've ever seen. Somehow, it manages to feel both plodding/meandering and rushed at the same time. Too little happened per episode (to the point where they were pretty much repeating conversations to pad run time), and too *much* happened during the season (to the point where I REALLY dont know how they're going to get 5 seasons out of this)
An interestingly revealing (and horrid) recent behaviour you brought up in relation to art-- that of people trying to redefine faithfulness to an artist, respect for that artist, and objection to the presumed superiority and greater enlightenment of new takes (no matter what form they, ahem, take) as backward and hateful and to be controlled/suppressed by intimidation and stigmatisation. Inevitably by people who claim authority to do so on because they too love the artist (which may in some cases be true) while also having no hesitation in declaring their superiority and condemning the artist/their art in order to benefit their own egos and personal narratives. The artist and their art exists to benefit me. I want the status that comes from the respect they have earned and the status that comes from looking down at them at the same time, and I have no awareness of what this tells the world about me. (God only knows how often people I've met in fantasy clubs patronise Tolkien without a moment's doubt, while their own works invariably are about fairies but they have sex now, and it's steam punk.) Behaviour that can be instantly farmed by the now standard practices of marketing TV and film by billion dollar corporations to make lots of money off the respect earned by dead men. I would say I'm amazed they haven't directly smeared Tolkien as a racist (or some other means of declaring him tainted so they're being kind to him by changing his art, don't you know) but the lady who they hired as a consultant after Tom Shippey left has already done that personally.
Awesome that you quoted Sean T. Collins! I appreciate your analysis as usual. I’ve been reading Tolkien for many years, and I enjoyed some aspects of The Rings of Power, and some I did not. As a longtime reader of Tolkien I don’t think it’s fair to say that they screwed up everything in the adaptation. There are some really beautiful and deep moments in the series that are exactly true to Tolkien’s legacy. Some of the details were changed but some of the ones mentioned in Collins review, such as the wizard being Gandalf, are in no way a forgone conclusion. It therefore seems unfair to criticize it as if it is. Is it fair to critique a critic? It might be, but in some level it seems absurd. So, keep up the good work, and keep challenging your audience to think more. I look forward to your next review.
Keep up the good work. 👍 I do not consider myself a die hard Tolkein fan. I enjoyed The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books, the Lord of the Rings movies by Peter Jackson, did not like The Hobbit movies by Jackson. I am unversed in the lore of Middle Earth prior to the time frame of The Hobbit and TLOTR and "have no dog" in the fight over the shows creators being "true" to the lore. The reason I am not a fan of this series is due to the bad writing, poor character development, boring story line, lack of any likeable main characters, (I'm looking at you Galadriel, and all of the Harfoots. The character I empathize with most is Adar), glaring absences of internal story logic, (Travel over thousands of miles in a day or so, entire armies transported by but a few ships, 99% survival rate of those exposed to a volcanic eruption, character going blind from said eruption with no visible damage to their eyes, etc. etc.) It's just a bad show. If it were based on any other authors work it would have been put to an early mercy death.
What this is setting up is the same mistakes GOT had in season 8. Jon Snow was set up for the big confrontation with the Night King. In ROP Galadriel is being set up to cut the ring and bring down Sauron. Yo have Isildur do it, given the setup will be disappointing. This show should have been about the men that lead the last alliance of elves and men. That’s the story to tell because that is the story Tolkien wrote.
Really thankful to you for speaking out about this There’s a difference between adapting the source marterial and making changes cos certain book things wouldn’t work on screen . This so true for Jackson and the Harry Potter films and everybody loved them And Taking the names of the characters cos you bought (not earned ) the rights to them and just doing what the fuck you want
The Harry Potter books conversion to movies is an adaptation. This was a prequel with poor writers that created new characters, mixed them with altered known characters, inserted them into an existing universe and created continuity errors.
A day may come, in the cold twilight at the ending of our age, when the Light of the West grows dim and the memory of Middle Earth is perverted beyond rescue. A day may come when the tales of our heroic ancestors are lost, and the truths they fought for lie shattered and broken in the dust. A day is coming when none shall sing the songs of the Valar, and the only music to be heard will be the bleating self-reverential yawps of tiny men with weak minds and no imagination. A dark day, when the heroic tales that inspired our ancestors and drove them to seek perfection will all have been forgotten, and replaced with political narratives and gutter allegories. A sad day, when themes of goodness and justice, chivalry, purity and sacrifice are ridiculed and perverted at every turn by those who would deny that such things still exist in the hearts of men. But today is NOT that day! A day may come, my friends, when one cannot tell elf from man or man from woman. When romance, companionship and heartful empathy are replaced with insinuation, innuendo or outright in flagrante, and when all love is a perversion of love. A cold, colorless day when the bearded are left beardless, the hole-bylters rendered holeless and the whole of Middle Earth is left soulless, heartless and meaningless. A day may come when elves, dwarves and men will be judged not for the content of their character, but solely for the colour of their skin, the shape of their junk, or the intensity of their misanthropy. A fell day! An unholy day! When rude race-baiters ridicule any attempt to remain faithful to an author's intent, and Faith itself is mocked, lashed, dragged through the streets in shame and nailed to the cutting-room floor. But today is NOT THAT day! A day may come when the rich and privileged can buy and sell the cultural heritage of millions for a few farthings, and the noble tales of our great forebears will have become naught but triflings and tales to sell beer, pickup trucks and laundry detergent. A black day, at the world's end, when all that men turned to for inspiration will be broken humiliation, when the poetry of the ages will be stripped of its rhyme and meter, and placed in the mouths of mumbling sheep. A day may come when womb-men and wombless-men alike have forgotten the meaning of heroism, and what it truly means to "be a man"; when strength of bicep has become more important than strength of character, and swift, sharp swords are deemed more valuable than a swift mind or a sharp exchange of dialogue. A hopeless, musicless day when none dare lift their voices to hail beauty, truth or excellence lest they be damned for insulting the plain, the insincere and the incompetent. A pointlessly gilded day, when all shall exalt the Mighty, catapault the Message, and decry any recalcitrant who averts their eyes from the sad stage-managed spectacle ... while all about them, every precious tiny thing which could give meaning to life lies abandoned in dust and derision. BUT TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY! Today we still hail good storytelling, effective character development and erudite, meaningful dialogue. Today we judge solely on the basis of literary and artistic merit, not woke orthodoxy or a specified number of box-ticks on some ethno-ideological quota sheet. Today, plot consistency and storytelling skill still matter. All the melanin in the world will not help you hide bad writing, wooden acting and nonsensical narratives Today we still stand, as sisters and brothers and significant others, in defence of the works of JRR Tolkien, and we swear upon our bitterest tears and sweetest joys that we will not step aside. This. Shall. Not. Pass. We shall NEVER accept Amazon fanfiction as canon We will defend the true Tolkien with the light of our knowledge, even in the times of greatest peril when all other lights go out! For all that is still good and decent in this world -- TODAY WE FIGHT!
I totally reserved judgement until I actually saw it. I had no problem whatsoever with original characters and stories set against the backdrop of Tolkien's world. I can accept those if they're done well. But this was not done well. It could have been awesome, had every possible opportunity to be awesome. But it just wasn't.
If someone said they were renting you a 3 story beach house for the week for free, you might be excited and invite some friends. But then you arrive. The outside is Victorian. Ok, you think, kind of weird but whatever. You go inside, noticing the outside is painted puke green... not really a beach color, but sure, ok. The inside is worse. The decorations are chickens and cows; antler lamps and cow horn chairs. There are no towels, no beach toys, and the kitchen is stocked with jars of olives and Fresca. No grill, no buns, hotdogs, no chips. The back deck can fit maybe 2 people at most, but overlooks a parking lot. You head up to the second floor and notice there is no 3rd floor. A few of you will need to share beds. You peer out the second floor bay window and realize you can't even see the beach. There is a lovely view of a gas station though. Oh, and the porta potty all 12 of you will be sharing for the week. RINGS OF POWER!!!
The story was a miss, to much with so little. I strongly believe a focus on the fall of the 9 kings would have been a better story. Who wouldn’t want to watch how Angmar fell and came to serve the dark lord.
As I've said elsewhere, it is not clear that RoP even count as an 'adaptation'. It's not even clear it can legitimately claim to be 'based on' Tolkien. At least, it seems to push such notions to their breaking points.
A few points I suggest folks need keep in mind regarding this travesty of a show that I think are quite truthful; - McKay and Payne are young, easily manipulated yes men that were hired expressly for the purpose of doing what they were told in creating the plotlines for this abomination. - the quality of the show was a distant secondary concern. "The Message" being foremost. There was little consideration (if any) for how True Tolkien Fans would accept it. The focus was on developing a show for a new, naive "modern" audience, one that usurps all the old forms and ideas of entertainment and installs a stunning and brave new medium, by which they (the TRUE 'showrunners') can extend their thoughts and ideas to an easily assuaged, gullible and very easily entertained collective of like minded people. - Tolkien's works were merely a pricey but necessary licence for these folks to gain a strong foothold in the culture war, similar to Star Wars in that regard. You'd think the results of the latter would have shied them off from attempting the same thing twice but it seems to have emboldened them to double their efforts. - Though we devoted fans may think they've done little more than sabotage their own efforts, bear in mind that is the thoughts of us that see through their ploys. There's a huge conglomerate that still fully believe that this show was a strong cultural win, as it once more proved incredibly divisive and subversive and for MANY, that is a win in and of itself. I despise such mindsets and I'm incredibly proud of the True Tolkien Community, for standing firm and shouting; "No further! The line must be drawn here! You...Shall Not...PASS!" p.s. be on your guard, in the year+ interim, they will try again with another licence. Gatekeep what you hold dear my friends, It's the kids (next Gen) they ultimately want, not you.
RoP was run by amateurs, no star power whatsoever, and just corny dork dialouge. Besides some landscapes, it wasn't visually stunning as it could've been (especially fight scenes). HotD was the opposite in those aspects. If Cate Blanchett was Galadriel again, which I would think they could've afforded, it probably would've change the show considerably. It was just stuff we already knew with 90% boring filler
Can we point out how small the cast is? Very few minor characters of any of the races. I know its getting old but compare it to the number of characters on Game of Thrones.
Amazon Studios didn't have a plan to begin with. Benzos just ordered them to compete in the purchase of rights just because HBO (Warner Bros.) and Netflix were also there for the purchase. Netflix pitched a serial universe including an Aragon and a Gandalf series. HBO pitched readaptation of The Lord of the Rings trilogies into tv series. Amazon, didn't have a single cell of a pitch on the table. They just offered a decision making chair behind the round table for the Tolkien Estate. Since HBO is the maester of TV shows, Amazon decided to follow HBO footsteps in buying the rights of The Lord of the Rings trilogies and the Hobbit. After the purchase, Amazon then started brainstorming on the series they are to make but realised they can not make a better adaptation of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit than what Peter Jackson did. Abrams then recommended two amateur showrunners mirroring D&D of Game of Thrones. After flipping through the books of The Lord of the Rings trilogies and the Hobbit, they found out they can only adapt the appendices. So in earnest, Amazon bought the wrong rights for the right TV show with the wrong showrunners.
Its shocking to me how much the mainstream media is shilling for this show. So many publications running interviews and deep dives into every ep. Multiple headlines screaming why RoP isnt being talked about as a hit show like HOTD. They are pointing to critic ratings on RT as if critics can turn a poor show into a hit show. Some prominent critics even intentionally downplaying the success of HOTD in favor of RoP. So disgusting!!
There are aspects of the show I think are interesting takes. I said interesting. Not necessarily good. Sometimes not bad. But I was watching the whole Sauron tricking celebrimbor scene and was Like I don’t think Tolkien would have envisioned this or been satisfied with that scene. It felt forced or weird. Like Galadriel is the reason Sauron lives? She brought him to the elves, so Sauron didn’t trick him himself under a guise as someone else himself? And then he just leaves 👎🏾👎🏾👎🏾👎🏾👎🏾
I don't know if it's the compressor or whatever other filters you have on your mic setup. But there is something causing your voice to clip and pop in a very bizarre way. That being said. A really fun thing to bring up. Apparently George commented that the show runners of HotD made a better Viserys than he did. High praise.
The two are in no way comparable. The House of the Dragon is an adaptation of a book that is several hundred pages long. Amazon's ROP is an "adaptation" of five pages in an appendix of Tolkien's the LOTR. The showrunners keep saying "back to the books" but there are no books, at least none they have the rights to.
I gave up halfway through.... witht he show not your video :P The first two episodes had me hyped I gotta admit, but ep 3 and 4 had me shaking my head the whole lmao
The show is called THE RINGS OF POWER and they "forged" three rings in the last minutes of episode 8 without every mentioning rings or introducing Sauron as the one who tricks the elves into doing so. It is soo bad.
I dont think they actually spent that much money per episode. I say this for 3 reasons there was a article that came out before the show saying the amount of money spend has not been disclosed. That sounds to me like it might have been less than talked about. The costumes and the sets were so cheap. They looked flappy poorly thought out and just low quality and modern. CGI which can be cheaper that practical effects was used as a crutch.
I have not read all of the books, actually only read the Hobbit. But I reluctantly loved the Jackson movies as much as I loved Star Wars. So from that position, I was extremely disappointed. I thought the entire premise of the Amazon series was the forging of the rings, all of the rings and show why they were created. … the elves rings creation was shorter in screen time than the silly Harfoot’s lame story. I was expecting to see a show based on the prologue from Jackson’s fellowship of the ring,. We didn’t get that at all and it seems that the events have been rushed… yet this show lingered on messages and tones that are not in Tolkien’s works.
You know when Galadriel was talking about Celeborn "dying" because his armor was to lose. I think that translates into he just isn't able to get it up anymore when she makes her demand. I would also be "dead" if I had to spend an eternity with that petulant shrew.
In the laws and customs of the Eldar book: their sexual bonding ends after a short honeymoon phase of sorts to use layman's terms here. And often they willingly as per custom in daily life don't NEED to spend horrendous amounts of time with one another every day. Tolkien has made 20 amazing books. So many beautiful works! ❤️❤️❤️
10k subs easy mode! The only reason to watch RoP at this point is to listen to your takes on it. If the 2nd season is anything like the first.....its gonna get canned or taken over by a completely diff writing crew. Had potential in the beginning and it all just disappointingly fell apart the more eps I watched.
Erik went from hopeful to bitter by the end of the show.
That's more character development than anyone in the show
"So say we all". Erik represents the feelings of so many who thought 'these people have a fantastic once-in-a-generation-chance' with money and resources and people and audience having every good hope for their success" To be 2020's answer to Harry Potter was 20 years ago or what Star Wars was to the late 1970's. But they instead turn one of the great contributions of the 1900's into, well, .... I think Erik and so many would agree we like the music a bunch. The emotion you're seeing in these negative reviews everywhere is our extreme sadness coming out as frustration we couldn't say the amazing good things we'd hoped to be able to say and write.
Amazon's marketing strategy must not be overlooked. With its references to "relentless racism" and claims of "patently evil" review brigading, they have signaled that they have no intention of listening to any of their critics.
well the fact that are using people of color just to use them for "anti racism shields" and "racist fans" excuses is quite racist in itself
Why would they listen to criticism?
The rings of power is a propaganda piece. It is disguised as a adaptation of a different story but in reality it is a woke reprisal and recreation of the lord of the rings lore and history. It’s entirely made by activists and that’s why it comes off as cheap and lacking creativity in all its areas. It looks like the lord of the rings but it doesn’t feel like it and that’s because it’s fake.
Sauron, on returning to Mordor:
"Adar, you arsehole! WTF have you done? I was planning to irrigate and grow crops! The elves have been planting seeds here for years!"
I’m still hoping the show runners are fired and the show is soft rebooted. This is like having D&D’s season 8 GoT, except we got it in season 1….
Weirdly RoP rekindled my desire to complete my stories/books. The reactions to RoP exposed people's desire for compelling stories, and how much a good story can inspire and enrich a fellow human's life. RoP was so offensive to the art of storytelling that I feel a responsibility to help restore the damage.
Silver linings!
@@ErikKain no shit!
I rewatched the three Jackson Hobbit films back to back to wash the taste of RoP out of my mouth. LOL. The Jackson Hobbit's are far too long and added in a lot of unnecessary schtick and action, but they are brilliant when compared to the RoP shitshow.
@@MrVicfil I first read the LOTR in a tent camping on a mountain in Africa. That same trip I found a copy of the Silmarillion in a book store on the way to the airport. Prized possessions mate.
@@Jubb-eo5vk lol yeah the hobbit stretched things out a bit too much, which is why I didn't initially care much for RoP... but now I'm definitely teaching it too!
A positive came out of how bad ROP is. I'm rereading the appendices to The Lord of the Rings. I reread the sections on the First and Second Ages, then jumped to the story of Aragorn and Arwen. It is beautiful and tragic. Arwen resists both Aragorn's death and her own: "She was not yet weary of her days, and thus she tasted the bitterness of the mortality that she had taken upon her." This idea of loss, a sense that some must sacrifice themselves and their happiness in order to preserve hope of happiness for others, is a central to all Tolkien’s work, yet is entirely absent from ROP. Thanks for the excellent review.
This series actually makes me want to dig back into the same LOTR appendices and map out roughly what I think an 8-episode first season should have done.
I did exactly that last night lol
@@jcooper2373 I don't know you or Bruce, but I'm sure that you both would do a far better job that the showrunners of RoP.
@Björn H My main 2 points: 1. Celebrimbor should be the central character. 2. It’s told as a tragedy, because he has a good heart, but is corrupted by Sauron to ignore the counsel of the Noldor and pursue his own ambitions of living up to his grandfather (Feanor)’s legacy
Tolkien had strong moral convictions about the agency of his characters deciding their fates, but this show was too much like Oedipus, a prophecy coming true without anyone making any real moral decisions
I’ve started this too lol
@@jcooper2373 Exactly! All the Elrond and Dain stuff we got should have been Celebrimbor and Narvi. No Harfoots, no Meteor Man. Original characters if you need them - and the Southlanders were not a bad idea in itself, just the execution was terrible. Use the first season to introduce all the characters and set it up, then for the finale have this guy Annatar showing up. Lead into the second season where we get Annatar befriending Celebrimbor and the forging of the Rings (and not cram the forging into ten minutes in one episode).
There was so much potential and expansion the Rings of Power could have explored. For example, we know little about the extent of Annatar and Celebrimbor's partnership and time together. Were they friends? Or were they strictly master and apprentice? That would have been a great dynamic to explore, but it was reduced to fifteen minutes in the finale and two interactions. Instead we have Galadriel who they fundamentally altered to fit a new narrative that is neither intriguing or engaging. It's just there. None of the changes they made bared fruit, and I was baffled by the sheer incompetence displayed on screen. They couldn't even give us a good, cheesy romance between Arondir and Bronwyn, who only had like five scenes together in the whole show. And yet we're supposed to believe they're truly in love?
Celebrimbor as the star of Season 1 would have been really interesting. Exploring his ambition and pride, his willingness to look the other way. The relationship between him and Annatar could have been a gripping drama. But we get this instead.
@@ErikKain Having Celebrimbor and Elrond interact should have been really interesting too. Celebrimbor's dad and uncles killed Elrond's grandfather, grandmother, uncles, and ransacked his home. To top it all off, Celebrimbor's uncle Maglor raised Elrond and his brother Elros out of guilt. That should be such a great dynamic to see unfold, but instead it's reduced to clumsy dialogue and exposition. I was so disappointed.
@@MrDe4dGuy34 you'd think the people making this show might have some of that information on hand to craft the storylines with but I think they only ever watched the movies.
@@ErikKain I would agree, but even the films had Celeborn.
@@MrDe4dGuy34 well they had to "subvert" the films or some shit
Count me as someone who is here due to your RoP coverage. Enjoy your insights!
Really appreciate it!
What hurts most is that this story had so much potential to really mean something and instead it is an empty hollow echo.
Great review by Sean Collins. Just about sums everything up. The forging of the actual Rings was the most crushing disappointment for me. The complete nuance of Sauron's guile and infiltration was lost. it was a long process that should have been drawn out over several episodes, showing us the genius manipulator at work and doing the importance of Celebrimbor some due service. Here, he's little more than a dolt without even a basic knowledge of alloys and metallurgy. It's preposterous and an insult.
I thought the show was stunning and bold in making Galadriel not Sauron the true villain of the show. She practically ruined Middle Earth all by herself 🤣
You could make a RoP video every week until the next sh*t season came out, and I would still watch them and laugh every time.
If the show creators keep giving me content to work with I will! They sure like to talk so...
Read your review. Couldn't agree more. Spent millions buying a great existing story, then threw that out and wrote a terrible one while spending more millions. Baffling.
My housemate believes ROP is a tax dodge.
The variety article recently was very telling, I initially thought jd & McKay were innocent, bumbling and at least pointed in the right direction
Knowing now the results of their efforts, the unprecedented fan baiting, comparisons to aspirations to milton’s paradise lost, Shakespeare and even breaking bad and the outright rejection of pretty much any critique
Holy crap these guys are arrogant and out of touch, it’s their first gig, and they are so sure of themselves, in the face of widespread and deserved criticism
The mind boggles … 🤯
once a pos always a pos
It truly boggles the mind. Sheer fucking hubris
After ROP I have new found respect for the efforts made by Bashki and Rankin Bass. Regardless of the end product it's clear they respected the source material.
Gone back to watch GOT and boy the contrast to ROP is astonishing
Just stop after an episode or two of Season 7 and pretend an asteroid wiped out Westeros. I do this to preserve watchability
Nah. Watch all 8 seasons and form your own opinion. Spoils of war alone is one of the most iconic episodes of television ever, and that’s latter in season 7.
Quite simply Rings of Power Season 1 makes all the same mistakes as Game of Thrones Season 8, and some new ones. When you've seen someone make a catastrophic error that is well documented, and you do the same thing anyway without learning from it, you are worse than the original failure.
There's only a small but vocal faction that like to hate on this show for reasons totally different from what they claim now. The show's fine; I like it and am looking forward to season 2.
Hopefully they learn from the criticism and sharpen up the following seasons
Season 8 was made by a “seasoned” cast, crew and writers. They went for spectacle because they couldn’t be clever enough.
.
RoP Season one is all amateurs. Writers have never (still) written a script, the actress couldn’t pull off the action UNCHARACTERISTICALLY demanded of her, the costume department is a crime against cinema, the live sets feel small, THREE FUCKING SHIPS FOR A CAVALRY CHARGE?!? Gaaa!
GoT was NEVER that effing idiotic.
@@joeterzio7175
The show is garbage. To call it a subpar imitation of Tolkien's work would be giving it too much credit because they specifically did not adapt Tolkien's work, but rather made up their own (crappy) story. This is Lord of the Rings in name only.
@@joeterzio7175 _"only a small but vocal faction that like to hate on this show for reasons totally different from what they claim now."_
Just wondering... what were the initial reasons and what are they now?
It is a great analysis. And I would enjoy hearing that writer on your next podcast to do a post mortem
That's a great idea!
@@ErikKain Yeah you should try and do a podcast or something with him if he is amenable
That was a succinct & very welcome video response to the mess Amazon have served up & the article you've referenced is equally brilliant. Ofc the company will ignore all of it.
Appreciate it! And yes, yes they will.
I'd ignore this hack too. And you too for that matter.
@@joeterzio7175 Erik is an honest critic and doesn't have an agenda. He wants good writing, a good story.
If you want go ignore him, why are you coming to his videos? Though more views for Erik whenever you come so silver lining.
@@joeterzio7175 No-one is forcing you to listen to these videos.
@@mikem9001 I love watching these videos and reading the comments to get into the minds of people like you. Just trying to figure out what makes your ilk tick.
ROP made me want to watch Peter Jackson movies again! I watched Fellowship yesterday and intend to watch the other two now!
One of the last great media journalists/critics. Keep up the good work!
They also call critics purists. Oh boy. Wanting a coherent story being in line with the lore is being a purist now.
I can tell you as a fan of comics, video games, and fantasy stories, the media and social media take pride and joy at sneering at OG fans of any of these materials. This has been going on now for at least a decade or so. The whole point of being a geek is finding something you love, connecting with it, obsessing over it, etc. Then some producer takes notice of its popularity with fans, and decides to change it for people who don't care either way, are happy to side with them and laugh at the nerds.
The media usually goes along with it, touting how they only care about great entertainment and the source material doesn't matter, and they sneer at the fans too (and go along with the demonizing).
It's the new stuffing the nerd into the locker. Only this time, the bully then goes to your house and trashes your room, and all of the rest of the school follows behind and applauds it ha.
You don't have to a nerd to understand and appreciate good story telling.
I read the Silmarillion before watching Rings of Power. I read it quite fast as the story is quite coherent, quite rich, is like peeking into a world that seems quite real. I watched the series and couldn't avoid to notice the Númenoreans so small and common, or the fact that no elf looks like an elf, being the main offender Celebrimbor, because the only elf whose appearance looks aged is Gwindor, after being tortured for years and being maimed. These details shatter the illusion of a coherent world, I watched as what it was: a different fantasy, but even so the plot is quite formulaic and tipical: the protagonists need to gather enough mithril/5000 dollars before one month or their community will lose their place in Middle Earth/the gym/school/etcetera.
I should have known once I saw short-haired elves that it would be bad
Yes Celebrimbor is probably the worst casting of the show. This guy is a Smith?? He swings hammers and melts metals? He looks like a human politician, not a legendary elf lord
@@doomsdaybooty1072 I don't know anything about the actor, and he never got a chance to show any abilities, but he's too old for the part. Part of Celebrimbor's story is that he's young and ambitious; he's under the shadow of his grandfather, and of the evil his father and uncles have done in pursuit of the Oath. He wants to make a name for himself and get out from under that shadow, and he's driven by the genuine desire to create beautiful and wonderful things. He's younger than Galadriel. So if this show has young Galadriel, why the hell have older Celebrimbor? What drives me really nuts is that they get tiny details right, so someone has plainly read the material - they put the Bough of Return on the Númenorean ship, for instance. They have bat-ear headdress on one of the Sauron priestesses - Thuringwethil. Then they go off and have Sauron in love with Galadriel.
@@maryokeeffe3528 he's been depicted in video games and fan art for decades as a strong, dark haired young elven smith. But whatever, do it your way Amazon, you clearly don't care what Tolkien fans think
I have spent many years reading history books, memoirs and official accounts piecing together information to try and get things right on the subjects I am interested in. You might call it obsessive, spergy, being on trhe spectrum, but it's what I love doing. This is why I find Middle-Earth so fascinating; the lore is so deep and complex.
The Silmarillion and the appendices to LotR are written as historical records, rather than traditional stories. You could say JRR and Christopher Tolkien have done the same thing with the history of Middle-Earth and come up with a chronicle of that world.
So, bearing that in mind, yes, I am a lore nerd, and when someone comes along and changes things because they don't care about the source material then I get annoyed about it. I understand the need for adaptation, of course I do, but adaptation can still be faithful to the lore.
With over 3000 years in the 2nd Age, you can fit a lot of storytelling into that period, without changing anything that conflicts the few dates Tolkien actually wrote down. Surely that can't be that difficult?
But humans don't live for thousands of years? OK fine, save the human and Hobbit interactions for one of the seasons, and make the rest Elvish, Dwarf and Sauron orientated, but for goodness sake, leave the 'actual' dates alone, and stop inventing ridiculous maguffins like a key for a volcano.
At this point, I’m expecting the Numenorean Bros that got drunk with Sauron to be depicted in season 2 missing him and doing shots in his memory
I'll add my two cents to yours and Collins' analysis - which I find very good - and give a possible explanation on why everything seems so slow even if many events take place during this season.
Just one premise: I read that the screenwriters said Sauron will be some sort of Walter White during second season.
Now, that's something very wrong if you think of how Tolkien designed Sauron and if you consider his lore's tone and themes in general, but I have to say it's something we should expect if we focus on the disgraceful adaptation of Tolkien's work they made with Rings of Power.
I mean, many Breaking Bad episodes have same mechanics: Jesse the blonde dumberino makes the stupidiest thing and Walter needs to find a way to fix the situation.
In Rings of Power they took a similar approach with some more elements to make the effect even more repetitive and unbearable - here's the very same mechanics we find in almost every episode: there's an expected (prettey much sure) future event --> someone (usually Galadriel) makes a stupid call --> the stupid call causes a number of useless setbacks and boring workaround --> no matter what, in the end the plot develop to the expected event as planned, just in the slowest way possible.
NOW SPOILERS
Example form the first episode: Galadriel is expected to stay in Middle Earth --> she jumps into the sea just before Valinor --> she swim and find some people stranded at sea --> in the end, many minutes are burned just to have the very same expected result: she won't leave for Valinor but stay in Middle earth.
Multi-episode example: Galadriel, Elendil, Isildur and many numenorians are expected to go to Middle Earth --> Galadriel throw herself in a stupid and mindless fight vs the Queen fo Numenor --> alot of useles setbacks take place (from Galadirel incarceration to ships burning, from Halbrand fight to Isildur "sweating" to join the expedition after he left the navy academy etc etc) --> in the end, everyone we expected to go to Middle Earth, goes to Middle Earth.
I could continue, but I think you get my point: no number of events can give good pace to the show, if they are all quite expected and preceded by boring seatbacks.
See you next video! 😇
LOL. Sadly, you are on to something here. For a being that is literally many thousands of years old, Galdadrial is portrayed as an angry, bumbling nitwit. However, she CAN swim like a son of a gun.
Exactly. This happens and then this happens is not a good format for compelling storytelling.
@@ErikKain it's even worse: a thing is totally expected to happen, then someone makes a stupid call (usually Galadriel), alot of setbacks happen, THEN, the thing we already know it would happen, happens - proving all the setbacks we felt useless, were really useless.
Example: everyone is supposed to rally after the vulcanic explosion, Galadriel takes Theo and without even checking on on others walks away, they waste time talking and going alone, THEN, everybody rallies as expected.
Your subs going up might possibly reflect the reason I began following you: you're one of the few (possibly) leftists who've remained absolutely honest about the quality of the show. Most of the flak the show is getting is from right-wing, or so-called right-wing, channels/reviewers. It's refreshing to hear the (obviously self-aware) wokebeards be just as tough on this mess as some of those other channels without bending to any pressure.
I think it's easy for ardent supporters of the show to point to the likes of reactionaries of Nerdrotic, C Drinker and those channels for making short work of this mess because of x agendas, but it's harder to accuse reviewers such as yourself of doing the same for any such agenda other than wanting it to have decent writing. And people like that sincerity.
I think it's safe to say that the mainstream middle is not on board with this slow and huge changes are needed for it going forward into season 2. And it's the ism-less channels like this that can help the corporate dark lords pay more attention when adapting works like this.
It was interesting to read an official review on IGN (does Amazon own them?) apparently written by somebody capable of completely turning off their brain while watching the show. Their finale review was 99.9% gushing praise with the only remotely negative comment being "sometimes they are fast and loose with the canon". I've always thought that those who just aren't as attached to Tolkien will outnumber those who do to the point that Amazon will call this a success no matter what. But still a ballsy move if Amazon is really willing to take another hit to audience interest by waiting 2 years for another season.
Thank you for clearly articulately what I have struggled to put into words from that feeling, the general sense of the unease and wrongness, swirling in the pit of my stomachs as I watched this disappointment unfold.
The story is also contradicting itself.
Galadriel and Arondir are shown to be hyper vigilant and have superhuman senses (Galadriel sensing the tunnel behind the ice wall, seeing the one snowflake evaporate on the stone, Arondir having a glance at the chess like game and predicting the win, hearing the talks of the villagers from outside the tavern) yet they don't realise that the cloth wrapped thing is just an ordinary axe.
Celebrimbor is called the greatest smith of all of the elves but needs a "little help" from Halbrand about the most basic things in metallurgy.
Characters are first genius then morons in the next scene, disliked and shunned in one scene, charismatic leaders in the next (Bronwyn and Arondir in the south lands). Whatever is the most convenient for the current scene to progress, without regards for consinstency in the story arc.
I stumbled over a YT-clip about scrapbooking recently. That seems to be a very likely reason for what we see here.
_"Arondir having a glance at the chess like game and predicting the win"_
First, this seemed like such a jerk move.
I mean, if you were walking through the park and saw two guys playing chess, would you point out the winning move to one of them?
Second, with their "superhuman senses," how did they miss hundreds of orcs digging a huge trench and burning down the forest around it?
@@nolster1 Let's take this one little step furhter: how could a bunch of brutish orcs ambush a whole group of elven warriors and take them prisoner? Seemingly very quick and without great effort or losses.
Unless, of course, Arondir and Galadriel are superelves among "normal" elves and we just don't get it.
Inconsistent story and terrible world building.
The writers failed in the most elementary aspects of stories. From the smallest stories to the most epic, they always branch out in their narrative arcs from a single starting character or location. I’ve never seen a show that’s not experimental or a mockumentary that starts out with five independent, parallel stories that basically never intersect.
The only group that doesn't intersect with the others are the Harfoots, but of course they're going to play a part along with the wizard. I'm not sure why this current generation can't enjoy a slowly paced story where all the key elements are laid out.
Rings of Power fails on multiple fronts. One of the fronts they fail on is that they're trying to attach themselves to the success of the original film trilogy. There are even these little snippets of references to other famous movies such as 'Elizabeth' where Cate Blanchett played the role of the monarch. Dialogue such as "There is a tempest in me and it swept me to this island for a reason" and "I, too sir, can command the wind - I have a hurricane in me, that will strip Spain bare" are far too similar to be coincidences.
No, the problem of this series is that it isn't original at all, it apes and mimics the Lords of the Rings far too much. There are plenty of Middle Earth stories to be written. They should've just kept all the Galadriels, Elronds, all the characters the fans know on the sideline and maybe have Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving do guest appearances (of course digitally de-aging them too) and MADE ORIGINAL CHARACTERS, because as it stands now.. Galadriel and Elrond have been completely and utterly CHARACTER ASSASSINATED.
God they really do just rip everything off. (I saw someone else mention a Pirate's Of The Caribbean line as well).
I literally just told my friend, why didn't they just create a new character instead of using Galadrial! Half of the criticisms would not exist had they done that one simple thing.
@@ginaaliano7311 Amusingly enough the Second Age is practically an open book to be written upon with only a few limitations. The showrunners could have invented a kingdom(s) or realms of Men, which would be conquered by Numenorian settlers later. That's just one idea of what they could've done. I have to admit that when I saw the trailer and heard that was Galadriel my first reaction was that this show is going to suck for that reason alone.
Yeah, and also various Game of Thrones references. "The King that was promised" being the most blatant. And also "Sometimes to find the light we must first touch the darkness"- it's similar to GoT's "To touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow." And I was wondering if the 300 Numenorian ships was a "300" film reference.
@@ginaaliano7311 intentional malice
Thanks for bringing this article to my attention. It sounds like a spot-on analysis of what went wrong with ROP.
All they had to do was fill in the gaps. Tell the vast number of additional stories in the spaces that Tolkien had left vacant. They could’ve added all of their intersectional messaging. I don’t care about that. Fine. Whatever.
But the one thing they absolutely had to do was to give us the meat… And give it to us prepared according to the Tolkien recipe.
Instead we got an Elseworlds story. An alternate timeline in an alternate reality from that which Tolkien had created.
And just to add insult to injury,… They did a horrible job with said Elseworlds story. Just a terrible television show… regardless of it’s tragic deviations from the source material.
How could they spend so much money… Yet fail on so many different levels? What a pity.
Have to disagree on the intersectional messaging due to Tolkiens stance on allegory.
@@jspthesecond0723 Fair enough. Lol.
"Dont like it then dont watch it" is a cop out as well. Why should the many people over the years who love these books from Tolkien scholars to just casual readers like myself have to put their head in the sand and shut up about it. There needs to be push back if Hollywood/Amazon is ever going to stop doing this.
I know a certain FPS game team that said something similar and eventually the game flopped and the person who said that had to resign...they never learn
Glad I am watching House of the Dragon too, so I can still keep my faith on epic fantasy adaptation. That show is brilliant and clearly created by people who respect the source material and at the same time capable in making an engaging story.
Also watching HoTD as well. It’s so incredibly obvious which of the two shows has a talented and experienced creative team behind it and which does not. How Rings of Power’s entire first season premise was QC checked before entering production is astonishing. The writing and dialogue are so bad. It’s hard to believe they spent almost a billion dollars on this show.
It's bloody brilliant.
Lol, that show still insulted the audience, still changed the source for politics, etc and its owned by the same people who made rop.
Thinking like you is why we keep loosing the culture war.
Can't wait for tonight's episode 🌿
@@ErikKain It's the best piece of TV we got in the last 5 years. I absolutely love it, 10/10. There are very little flaws so far and these are so small I couldn't care less :) They have a lot of freedom since the book has 3 different sources and none of them is considered a very good source. Soo.. they can clearly take some freedom. Martin is an executive producer, I really think nothing in the script or on the set is okay as long as he didn't say so.
Can't wait for the new episode tomorrow (we have to wait till Monday in Germany 😕)
"A crushing disappointment" once Amazon announced it was making this series and was changing Tolkein it was more or less dead on arrival.
Galadriel: "Oops, My Bad. I'm supposed to be the wisest of all beings who Sauron could never deceive, yet until I read a scroll saying there's been no King of The Southlands for a 1000 years I had no idea Halbrand was Sauron! Why tell the truth when a lie will do? I'll pretend nothing is wrong, that I'm not a moron who saved Sauron and helped him with his evil plans. I'll lie to Celebrimbor and say we need 3 Rings, for um...balance, that way I’ll get 1 ring and go and hide in a nice safe woods (maybe Lothlorien) and wait as all the terrible things I set in motion play out and everyone else dies."
ROP fails on every level; you can't even watch it purely as fan fiction because the writing and the story are objectively terrible making it boring and rushed at the same time, with crazy time jumps, insurmountable plot inconsistencies, and protagonists who are unlikable, or foolish, or psychopathic, or narcissistic, (or in the case of Galadriel, unlikable and foolish and psychopathic and narcissistic).
_"read a scroll saying there's been no King of The Southlands for a 1000 years"_
Well, to be fair, apparently even the people who LIVE in The Southlands didn't realize there hadn't been a king for 1000 years.
@@nolster1 The people who LIVE in The Southlands not realizing there hadn't been a king for 1000 years makes no sense. They're normal people, not immortal Elves, so it's been over 40 generations, the kingdom disappeared ages ago, there's not even a castle, nothing but a tiny village, so they'd never remember. Worse, they "know" Halbrand (Sauron) is king because he wears a tiny royal crest from a 1000 years before that no villager would recognize. Finally, Galadriel is an immortal Elf who traveled all Middle Earth for hundreds of years tracking Sauron yet she has no idea until she reads a scroll that the Southland Kingdom disappeared long ago because the royal line died out 1000 years earlier? Ridiculous.
They're taking a long time to make season 2 because of the shift from New Zealand to the UK and needing to build an enormous set again. Not trying to excuse them for it though. As an aside, The Wheel of Time season 2 release has still not been announced, as well as The Boys season 3 taking more than a year post season 2 release, so Amazon has form for long gaps.
10.000 subscribers! congrats!
8 is such a weird small number of episodes for an opening season - its like they were stopped half way through making a complete season! did they get shut down and this media push was trying to claw back some of the money they knew these halfwits wasted?
Your Forbes article was great!
I hoped to be the 10th subscriber as it was at 9.9k 5 minutes ago.
The mistake I think we make is to think these new fans are *not* Tolkien fans or have any intentions of exploring Tolkien's books/legendarium and such....they are fans of Rings of Power series, which to me is the intention of Amazon and the showrunners.. Also, sorry about the cough, wishing you a speedy recovery!
Yeah, but even so, even if you are just a casual fantasy show fan, you have to be able to see how awful the writing, dialogue, storytelling and pacing of this show is. Or not. I mean, it’s pretty obvious, especially when you directly compare it to House of The Dragon.
@@4G63Tx yeaj, but because we have read and love Tolkien's books, we expect a certain standard, excellence in writing and tone on anything remotely related to middle earth. These "fans" just see RoP as a modern fantasy show with cool looking characters they can ship.
RoP did make me want to get back into reading and owning more Tolkien books beyond Lord of the Rings, because it was that dire. I have wanted new copies of Lord of the Rings as well; I'll be avoiding the "Amazon covers" like the plague!
Absolutely, at the moment my FB page is being inundated with the rings of power literature and promotion much to my annoyance, eventually I commented on this rather blatant fire fighting attempt by Amazon, I commented that the show was one of the worst cases of plagiarism I have seen in a long time let alone the lazy script writing and awful character development, the vitriol I received as a response from some of the types you mention was astounding in there ignorance. Even though I was concerned prior to the show being aired I still watched because I was hopping it would be better than I expected, but oh how wrong I was, I watched the hole debacle, becoming a masochist in the process and made it to the end. What had I just watched, I am amazed that anyone with half a brain could really like this abomination.
I agree completely. This is such a flimsy argument by Amazon. HoTD is an example of written material adapted to a show, and its adapted WELL. The reason we all felt heart strings being pulled at the reunion dinner in the last episode, or Viserys appearing to defend Rhaenyra, is cuz they are compelling and well written, we started to care for them, even in the span of a few episodes. I do not care for a single character in RoP or what happens to them or what turmoil they go through. And I am not saying HoTD did not have some problematic moments or moments I did not like. Rheanyra is portrayed as a much muuuch more sympathetic person and one deserving of support, whereas in the books she is much more entitled, vain, and even cruel. Laenor surviving is also a cheap cop out and something that might throw later seasons into a turmoil. There were little bits of illogical and rushed plot, but all in all, it was an impressively great show. And I doubt it will not continue to be. RoP on the other hand has an impossible task on their hand if they want to keep people interested and engaged.
what is the music you use?
This song is Yonder Hill and Dale by Aaron Kenny (a royalty free, free use song I believe I found via RUclips's audio library).
I can't decide whether it's "a burden shared is a burden halved" or "misery loves company", but complaining online about this mess is a relief 😄. I've loved Tolkien's works since I was twelve, and to see a show that, at its worst, could have been a competent hack job if they just STUCK TO THE BASIC PLOT turned into the usual Bad Robot dross is driving me crazy. So being able to condole with others who realise why this is so bad does help. Sure, TV and movies are not the same as books, and they have to be changed to work in a different medium, but there are necessary changes and then there are "we can do this better so we'll lie about being faithful and then write our own crappy scripts".
Thanks for the coverage Erik!
Perfectly said and very well explained. Thank you.
As a 'casual' Tolkien fan, I 100%ly agree with you here.
Please know I say this out of sympathy and not sarcasm and keeping in mind I am but a rank casual Tolkien fan, but it strikes me that this show must be to you and your folk as Joel Schumacher’s Batman films were to I and my fellow comic obsessed friends. My sincere sympathies.
Great article. Thank you for sharing
Cool review! I recommend you yo use a slowest/softer
zoom in effect
On the top of my mind,
Second season of the Witcher
The wheel of time
Even the fase 4 of the MCU in general
Almost every adaptation of my favorite things are a bit ruined for me, and it's a shame.
To what you say near the beginning about the pacing, I couldnt agree more and was thinking the same thing earlier. The pacing was some of the worst I've ever seen. Somehow, it manages to feel both plodding/meandering and rushed at the same time. Too little happened per episode (to the point where they were pretty much repeating conversations to pad run time), and too *much* happened during the season (to the point where I REALLY dont know how they're going to get 5 seasons out of this)
Going for the long con now. They have begun filming season 2.
An interestingly revealing (and horrid) recent behaviour you brought up in relation to art-- that of people trying to redefine faithfulness to an artist, respect for that artist, and objection to the presumed superiority and greater enlightenment of new takes (no matter what form they, ahem, take) as backward and hateful and to be controlled/suppressed by intimidation and stigmatisation. Inevitably by people who claim authority to do so on because they too love the artist (which may in some cases be true) while also having no hesitation in declaring their superiority and condemning the artist/their art in order to benefit their own egos and personal narratives. The artist and their art exists to benefit me. I want the status that comes from the respect they have earned and the status that comes from looking down at them at the same time, and I have no awareness of what this tells the world about me. (God only knows how often people I've met in fantasy clubs patronise Tolkien without a moment's doubt, while their own works invariably are about fairies but they have sex now, and it's steam punk.)
Behaviour that can be instantly farmed by the now standard practices of marketing TV and film by billion dollar corporations to make lots of money off the respect earned by dead men. I would say I'm amazed they haven't directly smeared Tolkien as a racist (or some other means of declaring him tainted so they're being kind to him by changing his art, don't you know) but the lady who they hired as a consultant after Tom Shippey left has already done that personally.
Well said, sir. Thanks
Awesome that you quoted Sean T. Collins! I appreciate your analysis as usual. I’ve been reading Tolkien for many years, and I enjoyed some aspects of The Rings of Power, and some I did not. As a longtime reader of Tolkien I don’t think it’s fair to say that they screwed up everything in the adaptation. There are some really beautiful and deep moments in the series that are exactly true to Tolkien’s legacy. Some of the details were changed but some of the ones mentioned in Collins review, such as the wizard being Gandalf, are in no way a forgone conclusion. It therefore seems unfair to criticize it as if it is. Is it fair to critique a critic? It might be, but in some level it seems absurd. So, keep up the good work, and keep challenging your audience to think more. I look forward to your next review.
Keep up the good work. 👍
I do not consider myself a die hard Tolkein fan. I enjoyed The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books, the Lord of the Rings movies by Peter Jackson, did not like The Hobbit movies by Jackson.
I am unversed in the lore of Middle Earth prior to the time frame of The Hobbit and TLOTR and "have no dog" in the fight over the shows creators being "true" to the lore.
The reason I am not a fan of this series is due to the bad writing, poor character development, boring story line,
lack of any likeable main characters, (I'm looking at you Galadriel, and all of the Harfoots. The character I empathize with most is Adar), glaring absences of internal story logic, (Travel over thousands of miles in a day or so, entire armies transported by but a few ships, 99% survival rate of those exposed to a volcanic eruption, character going blind from said eruption with no visible damage to their eyes, etc. etc.)
It's just a bad show. If it were based on any other authors work it would have been put to an early mercy death.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Very good points.
Well said
His part about what us expected they sound like legal tests that ROP failed all
yes, like your ideas
totally right, nothing new, unknown endgame
tolkienesque? that's cool. would settle for well written.
tru dat, i was lookin way forward for this series
but what about second breakfast?
There will be no second season, they said that just to save face.
I am desperately waiting on the episode watch numbers
What this is setting up is the same mistakes GOT had in season 8. Jon Snow was set up for the big confrontation with the Night King. In ROP Galadriel is being set up to cut the ring and bring down Sauron. Yo have Isildur do it, given the setup will be disappointing.
This show should have been about the men that lead the last alliance of elves and men. That’s the story to tell because that is the story Tolkien wrote.
Really thankful to you for speaking out about this
There’s a difference between adapting the source marterial and making changes cos certain book things wouldn’t work on screen .
This so true for Jackson and the Harry Potter films and everybody loved them
And
Taking the names of the characters cos you bought (not earned ) the rights to them and just doing what the fuck you want
The Harry Potter books conversion to movies is an adaptation. This was a prequel with poor writers that created new characters, mixed them with altered known characters, inserted them into an existing universe and created continuity errors.
A day may come, in the cold twilight at the ending of our age, when the Light of the West grows dim and the memory of Middle Earth is perverted beyond rescue.
A day may come when the tales of our heroic ancestors are lost, and the truths they fought for lie shattered and broken in the dust.
A day is coming when none shall sing the songs of the Valar, and the only music to be heard will be the bleating self-reverential yawps of tiny men with weak minds and no imagination.
A dark day, when the heroic tales that inspired our ancestors and drove them to seek perfection will all have been forgotten, and replaced with political narratives and gutter allegories.
A sad day, when themes of goodness and justice, chivalry, purity and sacrifice are ridiculed and perverted at every turn by those who would deny that such things still exist in the hearts of men.
But today is NOT that day!
A day may come, my friends, when one cannot tell elf from man or man from woman. When romance, companionship and heartful empathy are replaced with insinuation, innuendo or outright in flagrante, and when all love is a perversion of love.
A cold, colorless day when the bearded are left beardless, the hole-bylters rendered holeless and the whole of Middle Earth is left soulless, heartless and meaningless.
A day may come when elves, dwarves and men will be judged not for the content of their character, but solely for the colour of their skin, the shape of their junk, or the intensity of their misanthropy. A fell day! An unholy day! When rude race-baiters ridicule any attempt to remain faithful to an author's intent, and Faith itself is mocked, lashed, dragged through the streets in shame and nailed to the cutting-room floor.
But today is NOT THAT day!
A day may come when the rich and privileged can buy and sell the cultural heritage of millions for a few farthings, and the noble tales of our great forebears will have become naught but triflings and tales to sell beer, pickup trucks and laundry detergent.
A black day, at the world's end, when all that men turned to for inspiration will be broken humiliation, when the poetry of the ages will be stripped of its rhyme and meter, and placed in the mouths of mumbling sheep. A day may come when womb-men and wombless-men alike have forgotten the meaning of heroism, and what it truly means to "be a man"; when strength of bicep has become more important than strength of character, and swift, sharp swords are deemed more valuable than a swift mind or a sharp exchange of dialogue.
A hopeless, musicless day when none dare lift their voices to hail beauty, truth or excellence lest they be damned for insulting the plain, the insincere and the incompetent. A pointlessly gilded day, when all shall exalt the Mighty, catapault the Message, and decry any recalcitrant who averts their eyes from the sad stage-managed spectacle ... while all about them, every precious tiny thing which could give meaning to life lies abandoned in dust and derision.
BUT TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY!
Today we still hail good storytelling, effective character development and erudite, meaningful dialogue.
Today we judge solely on the basis of literary and artistic merit, not woke orthodoxy or a specified number of box-ticks on some ethno-ideological quota sheet.
Today, plot consistency and storytelling skill still matter. All the melanin in the world will not help you hide bad writing, wooden acting and nonsensical narratives
Today we still stand, as sisters and brothers and significant others, in defence of the works of JRR Tolkien, and we swear upon our bitterest tears and sweetest joys that we will not step aside.
This. Shall. Not. Pass.
We shall NEVER accept Amazon fanfiction as canon
We will defend the true Tolkien with the light of our knowledge, even in the times of greatest peril when all other lights go out!
For all that is still good and decent in this world -- TODAY WE FIGHT!
ROP show runners = Even Dumber and Dumber Still.
The word “disappointment” would imply that we expected anything other than a *HOT MESS* 🤷🏾♂️😂 It was as bad as I anticipated (worse actually).
I totally reserved judgement until I actually saw it. I had no problem whatsoever with original characters and stories set against the backdrop of Tolkien's world. I can accept those if they're done well.
But this was not done well. It could have been awesome, had every possible opportunity to be awesome. But it just wasn't.
Maybe Amazon might hope we forgot and not make it.
Let's talk about Andor now 😊
Too bad the finale didn’t end like Jaime and Cersei with the entire cast squashed by falling bricks.😊
If someone said they were renting you a 3 story beach house for the week for free, you might be excited and invite some friends. But then you arrive. The outside is Victorian. Ok, you think, kind of weird but whatever. You go inside, noticing the outside is painted puke green... not really a beach color, but sure, ok. The inside is worse. The decorations are chickens and cows; antler lamps and cow horn chairs. There are no towels, no beach toys, and the kitchen is stocked with jars of olives and Fresca. No grill, no buns, hotdogs, no chips. The back deck can fit maybe 2 people at most, but overlooks a parking lot. You head up to the second floor and notice there is no 3rd floor. A few of you will need to share beds. You peer out the second floor bay window and realize you can't even see the beach. There is a lovely view of a gas station though. Oh, and the porta potty all 12 of you will be sharing for the week. RINGS OF POWER!!!
The story was a miss, to much with so little. I strongly believe a focus on the fall of the 9 kings would have been a better story. Who wouldn’t want to watch how Angmar fell and came to serve the dark lord.
As I've said elsewhere, it is not clear that RoP even count as an 'adaptation'. It's not even clear it can legitimately claim to be 'based on' Tolkien. At least, it seems to push such notions to their breaking points.
A few points I suggest folks need keep in mind regarding this travesty of a show that I think are quite truthful;
- McKay and Payne are young, easily manipulated yes men that were hired expressly for the purpose of doing what they were told in creating the plotlines for this abomination.
- the quality of the show was a distant secondary concern. "The Message" being foremost. There was little consideration (if any) for how True Tolkien Fans would accept it. The focus was on developing a show for a new, naive "modern" audience, one that usurps all the old forms and ideas of entertainment and installs a stunning and brave new medium, by which they (the TRUE 'showrunners') can extend their thoughts and ideas to an easily assuaged, gullible and very easily entertained collective of like minded people.
- Tolkien's works were merely a pricey but necessary licence for these folks to gain a strong foothold in the culture war, similar to Star Wars in that regard. You'd think the results of the latter would have shied them off from attempting the same thing twice but it seems to have emboldened them to double their efforts.
- Though we devoted fans may think they've done little more than sabotage their own efforts, bear in mind that is the thoughts of us that see through their ploys. There's a huge conglomerate that still fully believe that this show was a strong cultural win, as it once more proved incredibly divisive and subversive and for MANY, that is a win in and of itself.
I despise such mindsets and I'm incredibly proud of the True Tolkien Community, for standing firm and shouting;
"No further! The line must be drawn here! You...Shall Not...PASS!"
p.s. be on your guard, in the year+ interim, they will try again with another licence. Gatekeep what you hold dear my friends, It's the kids (next Gen) they ultimately want, not you.
Yay Erik
RoP was run by amateurs, no star power whatsoever, and just corny dork dialouge. Besides some landscapes, it wasn't visually stunning as it could've been (especially fight scenes). HotD was the opposite in those aspects. If Cate Blanchett was Galadriel again, which I would think they could've afforded, it probably would've change the show considerably. It was just stuff we already knew with 90% boring filler
Can we point out how small the cast is?
Very few minor characters of any of the races.
I know its getting old but compare it to the number of characters on Game of Thrones.
I wholeheartedly hope they never adapt the Elric Saga.
Amazon Studios didn't have a plan to begin with. Benzos just ordered them to compete in the purchase of rights just because HBO (Warner Bros.) and Netflix were also there for the purchase.
Netflix pitched a serial universe including an Aragon and a Gandalf series.
HBO pitched readaptation of The Lord of the Rings trilogies into tv series.
Amazon, didn't have a single cell of a pitch on the table. They just offered a decision making chair behind the round table for the Tolkien Estate.
Since HBO is the maester of TV shows, Amazon decided to follow HBO footsteps in buying the rights of The Lord of the Rings trilogies and the Hobbit.
After the purchase, Amazon then started brainstorming on the series they are to make but realised they can not make a better adaptation of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit than what Peter Jackson did.
Abrams then recommended two amateur showrunners mirroring D&D of Game of Thrones. After flipping through the books of The Lord of the Rings trilogies and the Hobbit, they found out they can only adapt the appendices.
So in earnest, Amazon bought the wrong rights for the right TV show with the wrong showrunners.
Its shocking to me how much the mainstream media is shilling for this show. So many publications running interviews and deep dives into every ep. Multiple headlines screaming why RoP isnt being talked about as a hit show like HOTD. They are pointing to critic ratings on RT as if critics can turn a poor show into a hit show. Some prominent critics even intentionally downplaying the success of HOTD in favor of RoP. So disgusting!!
There are aspects of the show I think are interesting takes. I said interesting. Not necessarily good. Sometimes not bad. But I was watching the whole Sauron tricking celebrimbor scene and was Like I don’t think Tolkien would have envisioned this or been satisfied with that scene. It felt forced or weird. Like Galadriel is the reason Sauron lives? She brought him to the elves, so Sauron didn’t trick him himself under a guise as someone else himself? And then he just leaves 👎🏾👎🏾👎🏾👎🏾👎🏾
It’s gonna take them two years to swim from New Zealand to England.
I don't know if it's the compressor or whatever other filters you have on your mic setup. But there is something causing your voice to clip and pop in a very bizarre way.
That being said. A really fun thing to bring up. Apparently George commented that the show runners of HotD made a better Viserys than he did. High praise.
Yep something is off..I've been trying to fix it but I may have to replace hardware :/
The two are in no way comparable. The House of the Dragon is an adaptation of a book that is several hundred pages long. Amazon's ROP is an "adaptation" of five pages in an appendix of Tolkien's the LOTR. The showrunners keep saying "back to the books" but there are no books, at least none they have the rights to.
I gave up halfway through.... witht he show not your video :P The first two episodes had me hyped I gotta admit, but ep 3 and 4 had me shaking my head the whole lmao
Every time I criticize ROP YT throws me offline! 😡
The same for me too!
The show is called THE RINGS OF POWER and they "forged" three rings in the last minutes of episode 8 without every mentioning rings or introducing Sauron as the one who tricks the elves into doing so. It is soo bad.
I dont think they actually spent that much money per episode. I say this for 3 reasons there was a article that came out before the show saying the amount of money spend has not been disclosed. That sounds to me like it might have been less than talked about. The costumes and the sets were so cheap. They looked flappy poorly thought out and just low quality and modern. CGI which can be cheaper that practical effects was used as a crutch.
I have not read all of the books, actually only read the Hobbit. But I reluctantly loved the Jackson movies as much as I loved Star Wars. So from that position, I was extremely disappointed. I thought the entire premise of the Amazon series was the forging of the rings, all of the rings and show why they were created. … the elves rings creation was shorter in screen time than the silly Harfoot’s lame story. I was expecting to see a show based on the prologue from Jackson’s fellowship of the ring,. We didn’t get that at all and it seems that the events have been rushed… yet this show lingered on messages and tones that are not in Tolkien’s works.
You know when Galadriel was talking about Celeborn "dying" because his armor was to lose. I think that translates into he just isn't able to get it up anymore when she makes her demand. I would also be "dead" if I had to spend an eternity with that petulant shrew.
In the laws and customs of the Eldar book: their sexual bonding ends after a short honeymoon phase of sorts to use layman's terms here. And often they willingly as per custom in daily life don't NEED to spend horrendous amounts of time with one another every day. Tolkien has made 20 amazing books. So many beautiful works! ❤️❤️❤️
Tim Cain sent me.
10k subs easy mode! The only reason to watch RoP at this point is to listen to your takes on it. If the 2nd season is anything like the first.....its gonna get canned or taken over by a completely diff writing crew. Had potential in the beginning and it all just disappointingly fell apart the more eps I watched.