It HAS an audience: the tiny bubble in which the creators live. These people only make movies and series for themselves and the few likeminded and will only ever listen to what those likeminded think of them. The rest of the world is considered too stupid to understand what's good for them and must be educated, that's why they consider everything they do a succes.
I wonder how much of that 37% completion rate was people who fell asleep halfway through the second episode and the rest of it just autoplayed through to the end.
Wait. So lying to your potential audience, insulting them for not liking your crappy product, then outright dismissing their feed back is a bad business policy? Who would have thought?
not like there wasn't. they WANTED this. "if you wish hard enough it (their crappy rehash with THEIR propaganda of 'virtues') will (succeed) come true". they will continue even as reality meets them like the pavement.
@@stephanc6138 Haven't you heard? Gravity is problematic, and the pavement has been cancelled for its involvement in causing indiscriminate harm to all persons who fall on it from a sufficient height, instead of limiting itself to only harming those who 'have it coming', as determined by Twitter poll...
My mom who is one of those people who have read TLOR once a year for 40+ years and she has as far as i understand read every single piece of Middle Earth text/trivia possible, she is an avid reader and also watches alot of tv since retiring. I showed her the first trailer when it dropped and she was just plain disappointed and said she didnt wanna see it because the style and tone felt off. I forced her to watch the first episode because i really wanted a hardcore Tolkien nerds opinion. She absolutely hated it, she complained about almost every single thing being incorrect, confusing or missinterpreted. She laughed when i said how much Amazon had spent on buying the IP and producing the first season,
Can relate. Lifelong Tolkien fan since 5 re-reading Hobbit and LOTR multiple times along with Silmarillion and several of the other later books and the first trailer of ROP did not sit well with me at all for the same reason. I still gave it a shot but the opening scene killed me - the fighting elf kids in Valinor during the Time of Bliss. I stuck it out to 5 just to see how bad it would get but the mithril origin story caused me to skip 6&7. I only came back for 8 as a view party to roast it. Terrible series!
My Mom’s the same way every fall the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings comes out. I didn’t need to watch the show to know that it would be a blood bath. I’m one of the few people that thinks the Peter Jackson version is a travesty because of ‘unnecessary changes and characters being diminished for no apparent reason’. Read the books they are better. So I can sympathize with your mother.
I prefer living in a world where RoP just doesn't exist. Pretty much the same way I feel about Jackson's The Hobbit movies too, after I made the mistake of watching the first one.
as the saying goes. Money evetually rots everything it touches. Like the story of Midas touch. Even if you get everything you wanted was it really what you wanted?
@@ericjohnson7234 Communism rots everything it touches. Maoism, specifically, in this case, through ESG cartel. If they chased money we would be happy, because they would be courting us, the audience. They aren't, they are pursuing the top 100 Equality Index and forced into cooperation via Racketeering. They aren't stupid, this is how the new global economy works.
Understanding the lore and respecting the fans when making a project based on an existing series is important to earn money and love from fans and potential fans.
Hogwarts Legacy is the near-perfect antithesis to Rings of Woke (only near because it's a video game, not a movie or tv series). It's very clearly a love letter to the fans while also expanding the world
"Testing told us that audiences didn't want what we were selling. So we declared the testing wrong and pushed ahead anyway, and for some reason, we failed." You know, I used to think people who qualified from business and media schools had some basic level of competence in their chosen fields. I no longer labour under that delusion.
Ironically it's now content creators like youtubers and streamers who are in tandem with what their audiences want. Also it's where true diversity exists since people from different cultures and ideologies can find something they like. Mainstream media was about getting liked by the common denominator and there's nothing wrong with that.
"I used to think people who qualified from business and media schools had some basic level of competence in their chosen fields" ... some do, maybe even the majority of them do, but as in many other fields it rather seems to be those able to convince themselves and others of the impossible that make it to positions of influence ... :(
The Wheel of Time and Rings of Power were two series that had so much potential to be adapted for television. All of the content was handed to them on a silver platter by great authors. All the showrunners had to do was pick out the exciting bits and pieces to put the shows together. Instead of creating their own shows they turn these purchased beloved IP's into very boring and diluted fanfiction.
Adapt does not mean distort beyond recognition but that was asking too much for Amazon apparently. I don't know Wheel of Time but as a lifelong Tolkien fan I could not recognize Middle Earth in the mess that is Rings of Power.
I disagree, RoP had no adaption potential for a TV show. The reason? Amazon didn't own the rights to the Simarillion or LotR. They paid $250mil for the rights to a very limited amount of material to be able to call it "Lord of the Rings" without actually being able to use most of the lore. Warner Bros owns the actual film rights to the properties that Amazon wanted. It was doomed from the start. Of course, the nonsensical story and character development and mediocre production didn't help.
@@Thomasmemoryscentral They already sold the film rights to Warner Bros long before that. The Tolkien Estate can't sell the exclusive film rights more than once to the same property. Iirc Amazon bought the rights to the only the _appendices_ of Return of the King, and that's it... But yeah, it was a massive waste of money. They counted on the name being able to swing an audience to like the product.
I love how Salke admitted not being to tell the difference between reality and her “internal dialogue”. Don’t think she was being asked about her mental health at that point, but the insight is welcome!
She’s never had to worry about being held accountable for failing, she part of a protected class that keeps getting rewarded no matter how much they screw up.
@@hisdudeness8328 Apparently, there isn’t much accountability at Amazon Studios anyway - they throw away hundreds of millions on trash, or projects that never even materialize, and no one so much as gets reprimanded, it seems.
Probably the last season. They may play like it's all okay, but they're shitting bricks, I expect a drastic change in writing. Either for worse or for better.
"This desire to paint the show as anything as less than a success -- it's not reflective of any conversation I'm having internally..." Translation to English: "I am intellectually and emotionally incapable of accepting the truth."
"This desire to paint the show as anything as less than a success -- it's not reflective of any conversation I'm having internally..." I am perfectly willing to accept that internally, nobody at Amazon wanted the show to be a failure. I am sure that they wanted it to be a roaring success. We don't always get what we want.
Tolkien being butchered by uncaring hacks is the last straw of this culture war at fans. If fans cant stand Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Star Trek and Doctor Who turning into new forms of garbage, Tolkien's works weren't escaping a butchered adaption by fan's wrath
My favorite Amazon Studios fuck up, is that, they were supposed to make a Conan the Barbarian show, but when Jennifer Salke came in she nixed its production due to 'toxic masculinity.' The guy that was supposed to be running that show then went over to HBO and made House of the Dragon. So instead Amazon gets RoP, and HBO gets House of the Dragon. Hilarious.
I've said it before and I'll say it again; Amazon said they wanted the next Game of Thrones. They neglected to specify which season so they got season 8
I see stuff like this, and my immediate thought is that if we fixed copyright laws so culturally iconic series that are as influential as Lord of the Rings can actually enter the public domain so passionate fans can create their own works. Locking up franchises for 95 years or longer allows corporate media to make over produced garbage without actual competition.
This. For a good example, compare the pre-Axanar fan-made Star Trek productions and the dreck produced officially, ie Discovery and Picard seasons one and two.
Having it locked up 95 years allows them to completely destroy any franchise over and over until either people accept the garbage or the people tell them to piss off.
100% this! At this point I'm convinced that they only try to protect the copyright of those franchises just so they can control the narrative. They just know that if the fans would be let free with some of these franchises, their creations would run circles around whatever corporate media would ever even be able to think of- let alone produce. It's for this reason why I believe in: "Death of the author, +10 years grace period, after that: it's Public Domain" There's no reason a company should hold the rights over a franchise whose OG author has long since turned to dust.
the opposite is also true , the previous rights owner managed to safeguard this franchise forever only to then have someone else sell it to amazon so they could butcher it. there should be strict stipulations to how franchises should be handled, but i can agree that massive corpos should not be allowed the reigns to products they do not care about
Thank Disney for that. It's very curious how every time Mickey Mouse's copyright was about to expire, copyright laws changed... Now the character will never enter the public domain as long as it "continues to be used commercially by its owner".
Looks like the big ones are led by the propaganda peddlers, and those are capable of destroying even the seemingly shatterproof industries. In fact they seem to get the kick out of doing so.
@@thehoogard maybe like what the Cohen brothers did with the Ballad of Buster Scruggs: several stories that aren't necessarily connected in a timeline, but happen in the same universe designed by the same creator. Only the Ainulindale would be nearly impossible to do because it is basically God and its angels creating the world through divine music
@@josue.ortega So you just do Ainulindale as a 10-15 minute, narrated segment, and have it be that the narrator was Indis speaking to Fingolfin and Finarfin, and then you can introduce Feanor when she notices he's been listening, just out of sight, invites him over, and he acts like a little shit and leaves. Gives you the creation story, introduces major characters, sets up the relationships between those major characters, etc.
the fact you use the Joker's mad laughter to illustrate the sheer madness of those who finished the series and their state of mind is just 'chef kiss' nothing illustrate more the madness than the madman Joker himself.
6:17 It’s also important to note that the original A League of Their Own was really about the relationship between two sisters - Dottie and Kit. Any political or social issues that arose were highlighted because that’s the world the sisters lived in. Whether it was sexism, racism, or even the War, these things came into focus as a backdrop for the rivalry between the two sisters. In short, Art Before Ideology. All art is political, but art must come first if it is to be effective. And that’s why the movie ALOTO is beloved….and the tv series is not.
Old League of Their Own: "There's no crying in baseball!" New League of Their Own: "OK, here's your Safe Space, your adult coloring books, and your Therapy Pet Peacock. The game is suspended until you no longer feel threatened, just let us know when you're ready. Actually, since we can't have winners or losers anyway, because that hurts people's feelings, let's just forfeit the game and we'll ALL come join you for Coloring Time. The other team's coach has a giant teddy bear, he says he'll share it with us, if we share our milk and cookies. Whaddaya say?"
By "conversations internally" i think she means the same kind that Smiegel had when Gollum was talking in his head? "Filthy stinking Bigotsesss, they hates usssss!"
Yeah I like it when they say "We know the first wasn't liked that much but TRUST US the second one will be better.." In creating media you have a short chance to hook viewers/readers/gamers. You need to do this early enough. And RoP is big, long, and didn't go anywhere quick. The only way to fix is, is to burn it.. forget it existed, and start from scratch! With better writers!
Kind of like the Witcher. We promise season two will be way more accurate to the lore. Later… Yeah, we lied about season two. But trust us! Season three will really be true to the lore, we’re going to give the fans exactly what they want. Just please come back and give us another chance.
I’ve been a Tolkien fan since about 1960 I found an old hard cover copy of The Hobbit in what in my small private school’s attic it must have been a library at some point, and have been a fan ever since. I had been excited about a new Tolkien big budget series. Fortunately RUclips critics gave me a heads up on how Amazon was going to and was vandalizing and wokifing Tolkien’s work and I avoided watching even one minute, and have avoided the mind poison. Likewise I was a huge Star Trek fan from its original series airing and and went to two cons, and watched all the shows… until the Discovery and have not watched any of the new shows…I don’t want these counterfeits to poison my memories and the feel of Roddenberry’s creations.
As an Amazon Employee and as a High Fantasy lover, this makes me happy. The company is going through some financial trouble with the layoffs and the recession as we have our hours and shifts cut as the customers are driven away because Amazon instilled a $15 delivery fee to make up for lost. All the while I heard the President of Amazon Movie and TV studios spends the company's money like no tomorrow while we in the warehouses barely get any healthcare. Amazon doesn't prioritize us who toil away in the warehouse.
When I was a kid, the "A League of Their Own" film came out, and even though I had no particular interest in the plight of 1940s women I was a baseball fan, so I saw the film. It was the baseball that hooked me in, and entertaining performances from the actors and good story that kept me entertained. But despite my lack of interest in the topic going in, I learned a little something about the misogyny women of the era faced, and the lack of respect women athletes were still dealing with at the time, and even into today. In other words, In other words, art can be used to educate people--even spastic young boys--if it's also entertaining and has something to draw their attention and interest in the first place. But if you loudly and proudly declare from the outset that your film about women baseball players is actually about lesbians who play baseball, you're going to immediately lose the majority of the potential audience. Amazon and Hollywood in general could have their cake and eat it too, i.e., make films or TV shows that were both financially successful and promoted a sociopolitical message--it's been done many, many times before--but the producers of said films and TV shows have decided that the sociopolitical message should be enough; demanding that it also be entertaining makes someone a racist homophobic bigot, and they shouldn't have to cater to THOSE people. Because they BELIEVE in their show.
the issues female athletes face today isnt the same as 1943... the issues they face is they are far less entertaining than their male counterparts that even the people who cried for them to have an arena cant be bothered to watch a game.
There's an easy fix for ALL of this, stop prioritizing Wokeness, Diversity, Girl Power, Feminism, and White Men Are All Evil and just focus on making a good show! That's why The Legend of Vox Machina is so damn good, the story and characters come first, then the focus on individual traits once you're well acquainted with them.
If they wrote the show for men over 35 (LOTR's chief demographic), every man over 35 would watch it and so would a huge chunk of all other quadrants. Instead they slapped men over 35 in the face, insulted them, and wrote the show for the opposite of the chief demographic. Absolute brilliance.
you have to consider that there are a ton of ppl watching this mess to the end and still think its a total disaster. dont think for a second that watching it equates a satisfied costumer.
We know these big corporations and especially Amazon are data driven. Apparently Amazon executives are not able to translate their Zettabytes of data into an experienced and talented production. Although I would suggest that their AI could have taken all that data and written a better script and generated more interesting and engaging onscreen characters. Certainly wouldn't have been any worse.
One theory that I've heard is that RoP was written by an ai. At least the dialogue. I think that may be closer to the truth than it appears on the surface to be.
"Relying on data is soul crushing"....You mean the data that shows how many people watch your show? Which has a direct correlation to how much money Amazon makes on your show? Which should, but apparently does not, have a direct correlation to your career? I'm thinking I see the flaw in this business model Amazon.
Yeah, we all have internal discussions. Often on the order of "Uh, oh, did I F-up on this one? Am I still going to have a job?" That might be one you want to pay close attention to, Jen.
Saw a video today about The Rings of Power. Apparently, one of the reasons RoP was so expensive is because Amazon had hired Marketing Research firms to check how popular every decision made for RoP would be for every stage of production. And then the producers ignored everything said Research firms told them and doubled down on all the woke elements of the show.
It's like nobody learned anything from the Soviet Union experience. Countless projects driven by ideological goals only, ignoring any expert advise, scientific evidence or even the Nature itself failed badly, more often than not leaving long-lasting consequences. You'd think that should teach even those that adhere to this ideology - but nooo, no way, we'll do it again and again thinking we'll succeed sometime. It's like they're beating their collective head against the brick wall in hopes to bring it down. You know what'll happen.
All this show did well was uniting Tolkien fans around the world in defense of the greatest fantasy universe ever created. For this, I thank Papa Bezos for dishing out his pesos.
The problem is Rings of Power Season 2 is going to get great reviews, and Amazon is going to say it's because the show is doing better, when in reality it's because all the Tolkien fans didn't bother watching it.
Judging by the quality of the show's writing and characters, the only person who put any effort into reading the source material was tOlkIeN pRoFeSsOR Corey Olsen when he desperately searched through Tolkien's most obscure notes to find excuses for Dwarven women not having beards.
Salke having a disassociation between what’s actually being said and what she’s telling herself without trying to reconcile them, yeah there’s a term for that
I finished. Last night. Two or three weeks of break between the ridiculous penultimate episode and the underwhelming finale episode. Watched it with my son who didn't predict Sauron being who he was--because it made absolutely no sense. ("He's a human? What?" Then, "He was never human? Why was he on that raft? What's he been doing all these years?") I had the prescient advantage of having seen some videos like yours. Yeah, I kind of hate watched. But gaining those kinds of views shouldn't be a flex on the part of Amazon.
A Ferengi and a Hutt love child would be the perfect businessperson. Pure unadulterated ruthless greed. Just don't think too much on what it would look like.
Also, RuPaul ABSOLUTELY IS one of the most ruthless modern businessmen, so a biopic from that angle would work splendidly. Drag Race is basically hourly installments of blatant ads for his new music, tours, and books. Dude's making BANK!
It's me-I made it to the 4th episode and tapped out. I turned to RUclips commentary after that to learn about the volcano that gives birth to Mordor or whatever.
Folks, let's not forget the elephant in the room: Christopher Tolkien. If it hadn't been for his attitude that nobody could touch anything about Tolkien's work ever again, there would never be a need to even try to write a new story for Middle Earth, since he left enough stories behind for the next fifty years. Instead, we get a weak attempt at a futile task, something that should never have been attempted. Just accept that we can't have anything else for another generation, at least. Who knows what the future will bring, but for now, it's off the table. (I'd much rather have nothing than badly conceived, sloppily produced self-aggrandizing egoboo like this.)
The most frustrating thing about the strategy of these streaming networks is that it's completely unnecessary. They're trying to make shows that appeal to everyone, which makes sense if you have a maximum limit of 24 hours of shows per day. But with streaming, people pick and choose what they want. Literally every show could be targetted to a different niche audience and it would still be successful, maybe more so. Instead they churn out middling, timid, orthodoxy. Just...why?
That number doesn't even include the number of people from their target audience who never watched a second. I'm in THAT statistic. It's almost like Lord of the Rings fans wanted LORD OF THE RINGS! 😂
I remember Lenny Henry, Sophia Nomvete, and those two knuckle head producers brought in by JJA insulting anyone that didn't like the show. Calling me a racist and a bigot WILL NOT make me watch a show. Lenny and Sophia just did chest thumping about their skin color, but those 2 producers actually insulted anyone that didn't like their show. What gets me, is why Amazon hired two untested guys based on their relationship with JJA. Don't credentials mean anything for a multimillion dollar project?
Amazon marketing budget for "we has Tolkien at home" season one just dry out and the extended pr department can finally pretend they unbias and tell that the sky is bloody blue
You KNOW if their numbers were as good as they were telling everyone they were they would not hesitate to show their numbers if only to gloat about it to their critics. The fact they held their numbers to their chest made it obvious they bombed and bombed hard.
This is what happens when you stop hiring writers, producers and executives based on merit, experience and skill and instead purely to check woke boxes. These corporate studios are littered with people at every level who's sole qualification was their 'diversity', so of course pushing their diversity becomes the only meaningful contribution any of them are expected (or allowed) to make.
You know if "conversation I'm having internally" is code for I'm talking to myself, does she answer back too? Maybe while listening to the song Dancing With Myself... because that might explain a lot, actually.
1. Take the most well-developed, deep and beloved mythos ever created. 2. Change it to suit what you think a 2023 audience wants. Drag it through mud, piss on it and trample it. 3. Repeat And to my eyes, PJ did the same with his travesties.
How to lose an audience (1) Make a male character. (2) Make that male character female. (3) Name that male, now female, character after a character important to the lore. (4) Strip that male, now female, character named after a character important to the lore of all redeeming qualities. (5) Blame the audience when your male, now female, character named after a character important to the lore who has been stripped of all redeeming qualities is found to be unlikable.
Why is it that SMG has to point out the obvious? Probably because these show creators can't see it. Twisted world view, I suppose. Thanks for this, and keep up the good work!!
That show doesn't have an audience. It has victims! 💀
Velma has a body count.
@@beneko1127 you son fo a gun i hate that rhymes!
Ew... Who'd throw their hot dog down that hallway?
I thought these shows saved lives???
Velma literally turned Scooby-Doo and the gang into soulless stereotypical body bag sacks
It HAS an audience: the tiny bubble in which the creators live. These people only make movies and series for themselves and the few likeminded and will only ever listen to what those likeminded think of them. The rest of the world is considered too stupid to understand what's good for them and must be educated, that's why they consider everything they do a succes.
The new Hollywood motto is "If it ain't broke, fix it until it is!"
Amendment: "If it has any male energy... get it 'fixed'."
I'm pretty sure their mantra is, "If it ain't broke, buy it, and then break it until it can't be fixed."
If it ain't broke, make it woke
watch dungeons and dragons honor among theives. Get that nasty taste of rings of power out of your brain
"If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it's woke."
I wonder how much of that 37% completion rate was people who fell asleep halfway through the second episode and the rest of it just autoplayed through to the end.
Probably all of them!
good point
I had 3 episodes run this way for me. I did actually watch all of it because I kept waiting for it to get better. Yep still waiting.
Seriously. At least 2 of my friends said they fell asleep. Several times watching the series
And the rest were RUclips reviewers like JSG who sat through it so we didnt have too!
Wait. So lying to your potential audience, insulting them for not liking your crappy product, then outright dismissing their feed back is a bad business policy?
Who would have thought?
If only someone had said something at the time.
If only someone, anyone, even if it was just some guy on RUclips, had said anything at the time.
If someone did, he'd surely be called a white supremacist for it 🤣
Hindsight 20/2,000
not like there wasn't. they WANTED this. "if you wish hard enough it (their crappy rehash with THEIR propaganda of 'virtues') will (succeed) come true".
they will continue even as reality meets them like the pavement.
@@stephanc6138 Haven't you heard? Gravity is problematic, and the pavement has been cancelled for its involvement in causing indiscriminate harm to all persons who fall on it from a sufficient height, instead of limiting itself to only harming those who 'have it coming', as determined by Twitter poll...
My mom who is one of those people who have read TLOR once a year for 40+ years and she has as far as i understand read every single piece of Middle Earth text/trivia possible, she is an avid reader and also watches alot of tv since retiring. I showed her the first trailer when it dropped and she was just plain disappointed and said she didnt wanna see it because the style and tone felt off. I forced her to watch the first episode because i really wanted a hardcore Tolkien nerds opinion. She absolutely hated it, she complained about almost every single thing being incorrect, confusing or missinterpreted. She laughed when i said how much Amazon had spent on buying the IP and producing the first season,
Dude ! You forced your own mother to watch it ?! duuuude !!!
Can relate. Lifelong Tolkien fan since 5 re-reading Hobbit and LOTR multiple times along with Silmarillion and several of the other later books and the first trailer of ROP did not sit well with me at all for the same reason. I still gave it a shot but the opening scene killed me - the fighting elf kids in Valinor during the Time of Bliss. I stuck it out to 5 just to see how bad it would get but the mithril origin story caused me to skip 6&7. I only came back for 8 as a view party to roast it. Terrible series!
Your mom is a good mom
You forced your mum to watch it? You should be charged with torture
My Mom’s the same way every fall the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings comes out.
I didn’t need to watch the show to know that it would be a blood bath.
I’m one of the few people that thinks the Peter Jackson version is a travesty because of ‘unnecessary changes and characters being diminished for no apparent reason’. Read the books they are better.
So I can sympathize with your mother.
Salke: It's not reflective of any conversation I'm having internally.
So...what, she's Gollum?
Excellent!!!!
"Nope. Not listening." -- Jennifer Smeagolke
Imagine a world where Rings of Power was actually lore-valid, amazingly well written and acted.
Why can't we live in that world? Stupid amazon...😔
I prefer living in a world where RoP just doesn't exist. Pretty much the same way I feel about Jackson's The Hobbit movies too, after I made the mistake of watching the first one.
as the saying goes. Money evetually rots everything it touches. Like the story of Midas touch. Even if you get everything you wanted was it really what you wanted?
@@TMMReznor
The Hobbit movies are a masterpiece next to this trainwreck, don’t compare them.
why can't we live in that world? we don't deserve that world. we eternally suffer for our sins.
@@ericjohnson7234 Communism rots everything it touches. Maoism, specifically, in this case, through ESG cartel. If they chased money we would be happy, because they would be courting us, the audience. They aren't, they are pursuing the top 100 Equality Index and forced into cooperation via Racketeering. They aren't stupid, this is how the new global economy works.
Understanding the lore and respecting the fans when making a project based on an existing series is important to earn money and love from fans and potential fans.
And a good fanbase will suffuse other people into being fans by talking about how awesome the series is. It's a win/win.
This text should accompany any adaption writing deal
People still buy their trash from Amazon.
You can still have a bunch of shit not in the silmarillion, just dont make it THIS stupid
Hogwarts Legacy is the near-perfect antithesis to Rings of Woke (only near because it's a video game, not a movie or tv series). It's very clearly a love letter to the fans while also expanding the world
"Testing told us that audiences didn't want what we were selling. So we declared the testing wrong and pushed ahead anyway, and for some reason, we failed."
You know, I used to think people who qualified from business and media schools had some basic level of competence in their chosen fields. I no longer labour under that delusion.
Ironically it's now content creators like youtubers and streamers who are in tandem with what their audiences want. Also it's where true diversity exists since people from different cultures and ideologies can find something they like. Mainstream media was about getting liked by the common denominator and there's nothing wrong with that.
"I used to think people who qualified from business and media schools had some basic level of competence in their chosen fields" ... some do, maybe even the majority of them do, but as in many other fields it rather seems to be those able to convince themselves and others of the impossible that make it to positions of influence ... :(
The Wheel of Time and Rings of Power were two series that had so much potential to be adapted for television. All of the content was handed to them on a silver platter by great authors. All the showrunners had to do was pick out the exciting bits and pieces to put the shows together. Instead of creating their own shows they turn these purchased beloved IP's into very boring and diluted fanfiction.
Adapt does not mean distort beyond recognition but that was asking too much for Amazon apparently. I don't know Wheel of Time but as a lifelong Tolkien fan I could not recognize Middle Earth in the mess that is Rings of Power.
Hubris. It's been the bane of Disney, it's the bane of Hollywood.
I disagree, RoP had no adaption potential for a TV show. The reason? Amazon didn't own the rights to the Simarillion or LotR. They paid $250mil for the rights to a very limited amount of material to be able to call it "Lord of the Rings" without actually being able to use most of the lore. Warner Bros owns the actual film rights to the properties that Amazon wanted. It was doomed from the start. Of course, the nonsensical story and character development and mediocre production didn't help.
@@colbunkmust All that money and they couldnt buy the rights to that S novel bare minimum? Is the Tolkien estate a bit restricted on who buys what?
@@Thomasmemoryscentral They already sold the film rights to Warner Bros long before that. The Tolkien Estate can't sell the exclusive film rights more than once to the same property. Iirc Amazon bought the rights to the only the _appendices_ of Return of the King, and that's it... But yeah, it was a massive waste of money. They counted on the name being able to swing an audience to like the product.
My Schadenfreude is enjoying the heck out of this news! Serves them right for disrespecting Professor Tolkien's beloved source material.
I love how Salke admitted not being to tell the difference between reality and her “internal dialogue”. Don’t think she was being asked about her mental health at that point, but the insight is welcome!
She’s never had to worry about being held accountable for failing, she part of a protected class that keeps getting rewarded no matter how much they screw up.
@@hisdudeness8328 Apparently, there isn’t much accountability at Amazon Studios anyway - they throw away hundreds of millions on trash, or projects that never even materialize, and no one so much as gets reprimanded, it seems.
I found that hilarious too. And sad. Sounds like she’s delusional if she can’t see it for what it is: a failure
This "internal conversations" bit is either very badly put or says about her everything one needs to know. Very depressing both ways.
The funniest analogy I heard about that was someone commenting “so what, she’s like Gollum now? “. 😂😂😂
"As greedy as a Ferengi and a Hut love child" classic
I can't wait for season 2. Listening to youtubers ripping it apart while I play video games is a slice of peace that I cherish.
Probably the last season. They may play like it's all okay, but they're shitting bricks, I expect a drastic change in writing. Either for worse or for better.
"This desire to paint the show as anything as less than a success -- it's not reflective of any conversation I'm having internally..."
Translation to English: "I am intellectually and emotionally incapable of accepting the truth."
Also translation: "My therapist is extremely expensive. Like my shows."
Also "We're not talking about it, it's actually forbidden for Amazon workers to mention the show in anything but a positive light".
"This desire to paint the show as anything as less than a success -- it's not reflective of any conversation I'm having internally..."
I am perfectly willing to accept that internally, nobody at Amazon wanted the show to be a failure. I am sure that they wanted it to be a roaring success.
We don't always get what we want.
Internally, as in her wildly delusional mind
Tolkien being butchered by uncaring hacks is the last straw of this culture war at fans. If fans cant stand Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Star Trek and Doctor Who turning into new forms of garbage, Tolkien's works weren't escaping a butchered adaption by fan's wrath
My favorite Amazon Studios fuck up, is that, they were supposed to make a Conan the Barbarian show, but when Jennifer Salke came in she nixed its production due to 'toxic masculinity.' The guy that was supposed to be running that show then went over to HBO and made House of the Dragon. So instead Amazon gets RoP, and HBO gets House of the Dragon. Hilarious.
I've said it before and I'll say it again; Amazon said they wanted the next Game of Thrones. They neglected to specify which season so they got season 8
Loool that's a really good one, Sir!
Jennifer Salty getting internal feedback about ROP : "mirror, mirror on the wall...."
When you hear Mark Hamill's Joker laugh, you know it's gonna be A good video.
Ricky Gervais struggling to not chuckle is too
"It'd be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. Oh, what the hell, I'll laugh anyway. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
I see stuff like this, and my immediate thought is that if we fixed copyright laws so culturally iconic series that are as influential as Lord of the Rings can actually enter the public domain so passionate fans can create their own works. Locking up franchises for 95 years or longer allows corporate media to make over produced garbage without actual competition.
This. For a good example, compare the pre-Axanar fan-made Star Trek productions and the dreck produced officially, ie Discovery and Picard seasons one and two.
Having it locked up 95 years allows them to completely destroy any franchise over and over until either people accept the garbage or the people tell them to piss off.
100% this! At this point I'm convinced that they only try to protect the copyright of those franchises just so they can control the narrative. They just know that if the fans would be let free with some of these franchises, their creations would run circles around whatever corporate media would ever even be able to think of- let alone produce. It's for this reason why I believe in: "Death of the author, +10 years grace period, after that: it's Public Domain" There's no reason a company should hold the rights over a franchise whose OG author has long since turned to dust.
the opposite is also true , the previous rights owner managed to safeguard this franchise forever only to then have someone else sell it to amazon so they could butcher it. there should be strict stipulations to how franchises should be handled, but i can agree that massive corpos should not be allowed the reigns to products they do not care about
Thank Disney for that. It's very curious how every time Mickey Mouse's copyright was about to expire, copyright laws changed...
Now the character will never enter the public domain as long as it "continues to be used commercially by its owner".
I love how businesses are ignoring their own test data to make these train wrecks.
Looks like the big ones are led by the propaganda peddlers, and those are capable of destroying even the seemingly shatterproof industries. In fact they seem to get the kick out of doing so.
The saddest part about it is that the Silmarillion is structured perfectly for a TV series
no it isn't. It's like a mythology book, not good for direct adaptation at all. Besides, they don't have the rights to it.
@@thehoogard maybe like what the Cohen brothers did with the Ballad of Buster Scruggs: several stories that aren't necessarily connected in a timeline, but happen in the same universe designed by the same creator. Only the Ainulindale would be nearly impossible to do because it is basically God and its angels creating the world through divine music
@@josue.ortega So you just do Ainulindale as a 10-15 minute, narrated segment, and have it be that the narrator was Indis speaking to Fingolfin and Finarfin, and then you can introduce Feanor when she notices he's been listening, just out of sight, invites him over, and he acts like a little shit and leaves. Gives you the creation story, introduces major characters, sets up the relationships between those major characters, etc.
the fact you use the Joker's mad laughter to illustrate the sheer madness of those who finished the series and their state of mind is just 'chef kiss' nothing illustrate more the madness than the madman Joker himself.
Nobody talks about this show and yet 20 years later people are still loving the lord of the rings P.J made.
These YT-clips taking a piss on this crap might still be funny even 20 years from now😉
6:17 It’s also important to note that the original A League of Their Own was really about the relationship between two sisters - Dottie and Kit. Any political or social issues that arose were highlighted because that’s the world the sisters lived in. Whether it was sexism, racism, or even the War, these things came into focus as a backdrop for the rivalry between the two sisters. In short, Art Before Ideology. All art is political, but art must come first if it is to be effective. And that’s why the movie ALOTO is beloved….and the tv series is not.
Old League of Their Own: "There's no crying in baseball!"
New League of Their Own: "OK, here's your Safe Space, your adult coloring books, and your Therapy Pet Peacock. The game is suspended until you no longer feel threatened, just let us know when you're ready. Actually, since we can't have winners or losers anyway, because that hurts people's feelings, let's just forfeit the game and we'll ALL come join you for Coloring Time. The other team's coach has a giant teddy bear, he says he'll share it with us, if we share our milk and cookies. Whaddaya say?"
Booh hoo
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣
By "conversations internally" i think she means the same kind that Smiegel had when Gollum was talking in his head? "Filthy stinking Bigotsesss, they hates usssss!"
Wait a second, did Salke imply there were only 2 genders with that Quadrant talk??!
🤣🤣🤣
Yeah I like it when they say "We know the first wasn't liked that much but TRUST US the second one will be better.."
In creating media you have a short chance to hook viewers/readers/gamers. You need to do this early enough. And RoP is big, long, and didn't go anywhere quick.
The only way to fix is, is to burn it.. forget it existed, and start from scratch! With better writers!
Kind of like the Witcher.
We promise season two will be way more accurate to the lore.
Later…
Yeah, we lied about season two. But trust us! Season three will really be true to the lore, we’re going to give the fans exactly what they want. Just please come back and give us another chance.
Aaahh, season 2 of the Witcher, the reason for my cancellation of my Netflix subscription.
"This is a great property with a built-in audience. Now, how do we make it about *me* ?"
I’ve been a Tolkien fan since about 1960 I found an old hard cover copy of The Hobbit in what in my small private school’s attic it must have been a library at some point, and have been a fan ever since.
I had been excited about a new Tolkien big budget series. Fortunately RUclips critics gave me a heads up on how Amazon was going to and was vandalizing and wokifing Tolkien’s work and I avoided watching even one minute, and have avoided the mind poison.
Likewise I was a huge Star Trek fan from its original series airing and and went to two cons, and watched all the shows… until the Discovery and have not watched any of the new shows…I don’t want these counterfeits to poison my memories and the feel of Roddenberry’s creations.
That intro was chef's kiss editing. Great Job!!!
As an Amazon Employee and as a High Fantasy lover, this makes me happy. The company is going through some financial trouble with the layoffs and the recession as we have our hours and shifts cut as the customers are driven away because Amazon instilled a $15 delivery fee to make up for lost. All the while I heard the President of Amazon Movie and TV studios spends the company's money like no tomorrow while we in the warehouses barely get any healthcare. Amazon doesn't prioritize us who toil away in the warehouse.
Serfs are never prioritized until they rebel 😉
When I was a kid, the "A League of Their Own" film came out, and even though I had no particular interest in the plight of 1940s women I was a baseball fan, so I saw the film. It was the baseball that hooked me in, and entertaining performances from the actors and good story that kept me entertained. But despite my lack of interest in the topic going in, I learned a little something about the misogyny women of the era faced, and the lack of respect women athletes were still dealing with at the time, and even into today. In other words, In other words, art can be used to educate people--even spastic young boys--if it's also entertaining and has something to draw their attention and interest in the first place. But if you loudly and proudly declare from the outset that your film about women baseball players is actually about lesbians who play baseball, you're going to immediately lose the majority of the potential audience. Amazon and Hollywood in general could have their cake and eat it too, i.e., make films or TV shows that were both financially successful and promoted a sociopolitical message--it's been done many, many times before--but the producers of said films and TV shows have decided that the sociopolitical message should be enough; demanding that it also be entertaining makes someone a racist homophobic bigot, and they shouldn't have to cater to THOSE people. Because they BELIEVE in their show.
the issues female athletes face today isnt the same as 1943... the issues they face is they are far less entertaining than their male counterparts that even the people who cried for them to have an arena cant be bothered to watch a game.
Plus it reinforces a stereotype
WELL SAID ❤
My sisters pretty bluepilled but also a big tolkien fan and she gave up pretty quick on it
I feel like a lot of this could have been fixed if someone seriously the people sat the people at Amazon down and asked ‘but why?’
"Because, I need to check the boxes"
- Writing staff
There's an easy fix for ALL of this, stop prioritizing Wokeness, Diversity, Girl Power, Feminism, and White Men Are All Evil and just focus on making a good show! That's why The Legend of Vox Machina is so damn good, the story and characters come first, then the focus on individual traits once you're well acquainted with them.
They did. The directors told him to screw off and stop asking questions.
Return of The King is returning to theaters next week, and there is more excitement for that than there was for the majority of Rings of Power.
"Relying on data is soul crushing. " Whomever said this should work at any company, anywhere, ever.
5:08 Greedier than a Ferengi and Hutt Love Child
Now that’s a sentence.
It's forming an image that's going to haunt my dreams tonight I just know it.
a fat slug creature with huge dumbo ears living in a lair filled with so much gold and gold pressed latinum to make every dragon in fiction jealous.
I like the Joker laugh at the beginning and it fit very well
If they wrote the show for men over 35 (LOTR's chief demographic), every man over 35 would watch it and so would a huge chunk of all other quadrants.
Instead they slapped men over 35 in the face, insulted them, and wrote the show for the opposite of the chief demographic. Absolute brilliance.
But those aren't real men to be fair
you have to consider that there are a ton of ppl watching this mess to the end and still think its a total disaster. dont think for a second that watching it equates a satisfied costumer.
We know these big corporations and especially Amazon are data driven. Apparently Amazon executives are not able to translate their Zettabytes of data into an experienced and talented production. Although I would suggest that their AI could have taken all that data and written a better script and generated more interesting and engaging onscreen characters. Certainly wouldn't have been any worse.
Data was actually correct in what audience want. They just chose to ignore it in favor of their ideology.
One theory that I've heard is that RoP was written by an ai. At least the dialogue. I think that may be closer to the truth than it appears on the surface to be.
Love child of Ferengi & Hutt, you are killin' me
"Relying on data is soul crushing"....You mean the data that shows how many people watch your show? Which has a direct correlation to how much money Amazon makes on your show? Which should, but apparently does not, have a direct correlation to your career? I'm thinking I see the flaw in this business model Amazon.
“No no no, stop noticing things!”- Amazon probably
Salke seems truly incompetent.
So incompetent that she has no idea how incompetent she is.
Its been wild watching your content for years and now finally you've grown up enough for your voice to finally drop.
Yeah, we all have internal discussions. Often on the order of "Uh, oh, did I F-up on this one? Am I still going to have a job?" That might be one you want to pay close attention to, Jen.
Saw a video today about The Rings of Power. Apparently, one of the reasons RoP was so expensive is because Amazon had hired Marketing Research firms to check how popular every decision made for RoP would be for every stage of production. And then the producers ignored everything said Research firms told them and doubled down on all the woke elements of the show.
Wow. I shouldn't be shocked, and yet I can't help but facepalm
No wonder it looks so cheap lmao
@@glanni lol yea the fact they told them what the fan wanted and they complete ignore it and went full woke and now they act surprised
It's like nobody learned anything from the Soviet Union experience. Countless projects driven by ideological goals only, ignoring any expert advise, scientific evidence or even the Nature itself failed badly, more often than not leaving long-lasting consequences. You'd think that should teach even those that adhere to this ideology - but nooo, no way, we'll do it again and again thinking we'll succeed sometime. It's like they're beating their collective head against the brick wall in hopes to bring it down. You know what'll happen.
I did not need the mental picture of a Hut/Ferengi child in my head. It's now lurking waiting to strike.
Everyone: quits ROP after 1-3 episodes
The entirety of all content creators: "We shall milk this to the end of humanity"
All this show did well was uniting Tolkien fans around the world in defense of the greatest fantasy universe ever created. For this, I thank Papa Bezos for dishing out his pesos.
The opening just said everything it needed to about the situation. Epic :)
The problem is Rings of Power Season 2 is going to get great reviews, and Amazon is going to say it's because the show is doing better, when in reality it's because all the Tolkien fans didn't bother watching it.
Judging by the quality of the show's writing and characters, the only person who put any effort into reading the source material was tOlkIeN pRoFeSsOR Corey Olsen when he desperately searched through Tolkien's most obscure notes to find excuses for Dwarven women not having beards.
Well...at least League of Their Own didn't say "Oh all these actual real women were secretly gay"
First! And...that series was an effrontery.
"...would be greedier than a Ferengi and Hutt love-child.." :D
Salke having a disassociation between what’s actually being said and what she’s telling herself without trying to reconcile them, yeah there’s a term for that
I finished. Last night. Two or three weeks of break between the ridiculous penultimate episode and the underwhelming finale episode. Watched it with my son who didn't predict Sauron being who he was--because it made absolutely no sense. ("He's a human? What?" Then, "He was never human? Why was he on that raft? What's he been doing all these years?") I had the prescient advantage of having seen some videos like yours. Yeah, I kind of hate watched. But gaining those kinds of views shouldn't be a flex on the part of Amazon.
A Ferengi and a Hutt love child would be the perfect businessperson.
Pure unadulterated ruthless greed.
Just don't think too much on what it would look like.
I forgot this show existed. And my god Just some Guy. Did you finally hit Pubrity?
Have you finally learned how to spell?
Also, RuPaul ABSOLUTELY IS one of the most ruthless modern businessmen, so a biopic from that angle would work splendidly. Drag Race is basically hourly installments of blatant ads for his new music, tours, and books. Dude's making BANK!
Yep. Estimates are she's worth over 60 million dollars.
@@adelucas4824 As the song goes, "...even when I sleep I'm makin', money money money money..." 😂
It's me-I made it to the 4th episode and tapped out. I turned to RUclips commentary after that to learn about the volcano that gives birth to Mordor or whatever.
This should teach them that bad writing drives us away, but I bet they'll claim it only proves how short our attention span is.
Wish RUclips didn’t hide you’re channel
Thank you "Just Some Guy" you are making too much since.
Folks, let's not forget the elephant in the room: Christopher Tolkien. If it hadn't been for his attitude that nobody could touch anything about Tolkien's work ever again, there would never be a need to even try to write a new story for Middle Earth, since he left enough stories behind for the next fifty years. Instead, we get a weak attempt at a futile task, something that should never have been attempted. Just accept that we can't have anything else for another generation, at least. Who knows what the future will bring, but for now, it's off the table. (I'd much rather have nothing than badly conceived, sloppily produced self-aggrandizing egoboo like this.)
Friend of mine told me he likes it but when i asked him to give me one character's name that he didnt already know beforehand from LotR he couldnt
Maybe he enjoyed the visuals more?
The most frustrating thing about the strategy of these streaming networks is that it's completely unnecessary.
They're trying to make shows that appeal to everyone, which makes sense if you have a maximum limit of 24 hours of shows per day.
But with streaming, people pick and choose what they want. Literally every show could be targetted to a different niche audience and it would still be successful, maybe more so.
Instead they churn out middling, timid, orthodoxy. Just...why?
That number doesn't even include the number of people from their target audience who never watched a second. I'm in THAT statistic. It's almost like Lord of the Rings fans wanted LORD OF THE RINGS! 😂
Oh this'll be good
The one scene where corporate greed should take over and run things, it doesn't.
Yep sounds about right. I stopped torrenting it after about ep.3
I remember Lenny Henry, Sophia Nomvete, and those two knuckle head producers brought in by JJA insulting anyone that didn't like the show. Calling me a racist and a bigot WILL NOT make me watch a show. Lenny and Sophia just did chest thumping about their skin color, but those 2 producers actually insulted anyone that didn't like their show.
What gets me, is why Amazon hired two untested guys based on their relationship with JJA. Don't credentials mean anything for a multimillion dollar project?
It would if there was any accountability. But there isn’t. So no it doesn’t matter.
Hadn't seen you in a while. Welcome back to my recommendeds.
Loving your content, brother.
Amazon marketing budget for "we has Tolkien at home" season one just dry out and the extended pr department can finally pretend they unbias and tell that the sky is bloody blue
Hollywood, get over yourself. You are supposed to court my pocketbook but you ain't making anything I wanna watch.
I like to think of it as a "career defining moment" for Jennifer Salke.
Next season will have more action. And dead horses. Go Jen. Flog it.
You KNOW if their numbers were as good as they were telling everyone they were they would not hesitate to show their numbers if only to gloat about it to their critics. The fact they held their numbers to their chest made it obvious they bombed and bombed hard.
nice outfit in your avatar :)
Well, we are NOT victims but Victors!
This is what happens when you stop hiring writers, producers and executives based on merit, experience and skill and instead purely to check woke boxes. These corporate studios are littered with people at every level who's sole qualification was their 'diversity', so of course pushing their diversity becomes the only meaningful contribution any of them are expected (or allowed) to make.
New intro is magnific! Fire baby!
If you only skip one show this year, it should be Rings of Power.
Who could've saw that coming...... Oh that's right EVERYONE.
Your voice sounds different. Are you using the eleven labs tool to get around recording?
Everyone is Hitler yelling at his teddy bear. "It's all your fault!"
"Ferengi and Hutt love child" had me rolling!!! 😂😂😂
You know if "conversation I'm having internally" is code for I'm talking to myself, does she answer back too? Maybe while listening to the song Dancing With Myself... because that might explain a lot, actually.
1. Take the most well-developed, deep and beloved mythos ever created.
2. Change it to suit what you think a 2023 audience wants. Drag it through mud, piss on it and trample it.
3. Repeat
And to my eyes, PJ did the same with his travesties.
That's a lot of cash down the toilet.
How to lose an audience
(1) Make a male character. (2) Make that male character female. (3) Name that male, now female, character after a character important to the lore. (4) Strip that male, now female, character named after a character important to the lore of all redeeming qualities. (5) Blame the audience when your male, now female, character named after a character important to the lore who has been stripped of all redeeming qualities is found to be unlikable.
Dude, sick new intro. Love it.
Curse you for making me picture a Ferengei/Hutt love-child!
I was one of those 1/3, I had to see just how bad it could be... it was staggering!
Why is it that SMG has to point out the obvious?
Probably because these show creators can't see it.
Twisted world view, I suppose.
Thanks for this, and keep up the good work!!
I have not, nor will I ever, purchase any products from Amazon, entertainment, hardware or otherwise.