Television The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

I guess. And the weirdly useless but graphic hard birth scenes?

I mean, worse or better is very subjective, but it was pretty piss poor in terms of the writing and the overall acting, Considine apart, was terrible. I can also enjoy both for the entertainment value of them (though also arguable for the amount of filler), but I find it very strange how both shows have been received.

There was a gulf in quality between the two shows to be fair and the receptions reflect that.
 
When I see this thread bumped I don't feel very fondly about this show. In fact it feels like time wasted.
 
, but it was pretty piss poor in terms of the writing .

I often respect your stances on shows (if not your footie opinions!) but you made a point of ridiculing those who complained about the writing, but you’re doing the same here. And other than you enjoying one show more than the other, I’m wondering what gives?

@dumbo you also so I don’t feel like I’m jumping on Rip
 
I often respect your stances on shows (if not your footie opinions!) but you made a point of ridiculing those who complained about the writing, but you’re doing the same here. And other than you enjoying one show more than the other, I’m wondering what gives?

@dumbo you also so I don’t feel like I’m jumping on Rip
I made no point of "ridiculing" anyone, just thought a lot of the complaints about the writing in RoP were exaggerated. It just so happens I just finished watching the dragons one, and the same issues that people had highlighted for the hobbits one are pretty much the same (characters acting irrationally, nonsense decisions, etc.) - or for example, for all the shit given to the character of Galadriel, were there as many complaints towards... well pretty much every character in HotD, apart from Viserys (who is actually a consistently well written character)? This was not a rhetorical question I asked in the other thread, it was genuine curiosity, as I was pretty excited to start watching it considering what I perceived as an overall very positive reaction, and then just had to get through, what was it? 8 or 10 episodes of the same type of show as RoP (set in lore I enjoy less)

I have a preferrence for the Rings of Power because I think I like its naivety, mostly highlighted by the simplicity of the Elrond/Durin relationship, and the (sometimes annoying, I'll agree) passages with the harfoots. I feel it doesn't have any higher aspirations than being a good looking epic fantasy show, whereas I felt that the dragons thought of itself as this clever political intrigue driven thing, which it really wasn't. But overall, I think in the grand scheme of things, they're both meh shows, that might get better in future seasons.
 
I haven't posted since October so I'm not sure specifically what you need. I can say that at the time of airing, I remember getting spammed with ROP youtube recommendations that were thumbnailed with the exact phrasing used in this thread by some of the most vocal critics. Clearly there was a lot of regurgitated, hive mind memes being paraded as genuine criticism. It got to the point where I could predict the odd bit that was about to be posted in here because some angry fedora archetype had just titled his video it in my youtube sidebar. That transparency was worthy of ridicule.

I don't recall ridiculing any individuals who simply didn't like this or that, or found it boring in and of itself. I'd think that any ridicule was mostly targeted at the lazy and feckless. Sure there may have been some off hand flippancy thrown in for fun. Beyond that you'd have to jog my mind for specifics.
 
I made no point of "ridiculing" anyone, just thought a lot of the complaints about the writing in RoP were exaggerated. It just so happens I just finished watching the dragons one, and the same issues that people had highlighted for the hobbits one are pretty much the same (characters acting irrationally, nonsense decisions, etc.) - or for example, for all the shit given to the character of Galadriel, were there as many complaints towards... well pretty much every character in HotD, apart from Viserys (who is actually a consistently well written character)? This was not a rhetorical question I asked in the other thread, it was genuine curiosity, as I was pretty excited to start watching it considering what I perceived as an overall very positive reaction, and then just had to get through, what was it? 8 or 10 episodes of the same type of show as RoP (set in lore I enjoy less)

I have a preferrence for the Rings of Power because I think I like its naivety, mostly highlighted by the simplicity of the Elrond/Durin relationship, and the (sometimes annoying, I'll agree) passages with the harfoots. I feel it doesn't have any higher aspirations than being a good looking epic fantasy show, whereas I felt that the dragons thought of itself as this clever political intrigue driven thing, which it really wasn't. But overall, I think in the grand scheme of things, they're both meh shows, that might get better in future seasons.

tbh, I retract my original post. I was referring to this kind of comment

The criticism of the writing is pretty amusing. It's like we have the screenwriter's guild posting on here or something.

Where for some reason I thought you'd made a lot of comments like this where it seemed criticism of the writing was off limits because we're all non-writers (discounting my penchant for writing furry porn), but actually this was the only one. So I hold my hands up, I thought you'd made consistent comments like this but you hadn't. I'm on a lot of drugs at the moment so my memory is scrambled to feck.

I'm actually pretty optimistic about future seasons, like you said it looks beautiful and I feel it could be one of those shows that finds itself going forwards.


I haven't posted since October so I'm not sure specifically what you need. I can say that at the time of airing, I remember getting spammed with ROP youtube recommendations that were thumbnailed with the exact phrasing used in this thread by some of the most vocal critics. Clearly there was a lot of regurgitated, hive mind memes being paraded as genuine criticism. It got to the point where I could predict the odd bit that was about to be posted in here because some angry fedora archetype had just titled his video it in my youtube sidebar. That transparency was worthy of ridicule.

I don't recall ridiculing any individuals who simply didn't like this or that, or found it boring in and of itself. I'd think that any ridicule was mostly targeted at the lazy and feckless. Sure there may have been some off hand flippancy thrown in for fun. Beyond that you'd have to jog my mind for specifics.

'Bad writing' has become the stock response of the modern content consumer raised on TVtropes, Cinemasins and the Tomatometer, when they encounter something they don't understand, or something they don't like and can't explain why. Aesthetics is dead. Palettes are dulled, criticism is bereft of any context, and taste and personal perspective have been outsourced to online hives.

Volcanos, mystery boxes, being woke, stroppy female charactets, battle formations, I'm bored, I don't like that, That's not in the book, etc. are all filed under the heading of Bad Writing in lieu of any reasoned criticism.

Same with Rooney in La Ville-Lumière, I've unfairly tarred you with my original comment. For some reason I thought you'd constantly criticised those with complaints about the writing, but other than the post I've just quoted (which isn't a particularly unfair one) you haven't, so I apologise. Like I said above I'm on so much opioids at the moment my sense of reality is blurred and opaque.

I also fully sympathise with those youtube thumbnails you mentioned. Even though I never clicked on them, I was bombarded with distorted images of Galadriel sneering, I think one even had her injecting steroids for some reason. Channels named nerdrotic or something were just the worst for it, despite me never watching a single episode.



Mea culpa gents
 
tbh, I retract my original post. I was referring to this kind of comment



Where for some reason I thought you'd made a lot of comments like this where it seemed criticism of the writing was off limits because we're all non-writers (discounting my penchant for writing furry porn), but actually this was the only one. So I hold my hands up, I thought you'd made consistent comments like this but you hadn't. I'm on a lot of drugs at the moment so my memory is scrambled to feck.

I'm actually pretty optimistic about future seasons, like you said it looks beautiful and I feel it could be one of those shows that finds itself going forwards.






Same with Rooney in La Ville-Lumière, I've unfairly tarred you with my original comment. For some reason I thought you'd constantly criticised those with complaints about the writing, but other than the post I've just quoted (which isn't a particularly unfair one) you haven't, so I apologise. Like I said above I'm on so much opioids at the moment my sense of reality is blurred and opaque.

I also fully sympathise with those youtube thumbnails you mentioned. Even though I never clicked on them, I was bombarded with distorted images of Galadriel sneering, I think one even had her injecting steroids for some reason. Channels named nerdrotic or something were just the worst for it, despite me never watching a single episode.



Mea culpa gents
Fair fecks man, I hope you're doing ok (references to drugs).

The post of mine you quoted came pretty late in the day, when this criticism of the writing had just become like a trope people were droning about, even though some of the stuff they were complaining about wasn't linked to writing at all.
 
I also fully sympathise with those youtube thumbnails you mentioned. Even though I never clicked on them, I was bombarded with distorted images of Galadriel sneering, I think one even had her injecting steroids for some reason. Channels named nerdrotic or something were just the worst for it, despite me never watching a single episode.

I had the same thing, half my youtube homepage was suddenly covered in images of Galadriel's face pictured as unappealingly as possible. Some folks must be making great money from all this modern outrage culture bs.

That being said....I did genuinely hate the writing in this show :lol:
 
Only 37% completed the season. Apparently this are for US numbers. Worldwide, it is 40+ percent.

Not surprised. It is really a rubbish show. An insult to Tolkien.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulta...s-of-power-which-is-very-bad/?sh=51ab198c52a6

THR is out with a big new report about Amazon Prime original productions, which Amazon has been throwing money at for years now, yet they arguably have yet to produce the sort of brand-defining programming that other streaming services have, despite a few hits here and there from The Boys to Jack Reacher.

A chunk of the piece centers on the Lord of the Rings’ Ring of Power series, developed mainly because Jeff Bezos wants his own Game of Thrones for the service. But despite a billion dollar spend, the report says that just 37% of viewers finished the entire series. That is…quite bad.
 
Only 37% completed the season. Apparently this are for US numbers. Worldwide, it is 40+ percent.

Not surprised. It is really a rubbish show. An insult to Tolkien.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulta...s-of-power-which-is-very-bad/?sh=51ab198c52a6
I can’t imagine many are that surprised, whatever you thought of it I think it’s fair to say the predominant intrigue/interest in the show ended up basically being a guessing game of who Sauron was, that’s not enough to carry a series with such high expectations. Then it was just the character everyone thought it was anyway.
 
They made the fatal flaw of trying to do too much and trying to be too clever and it just fell so flat at the end.

A shame as there really is potential, some elements worked very well, others were horrendous and dragged it down, bad.
 
Only 37% completed the season. Apparently this are for US numbers. Worldwide, it is 40+ percent.

Not surprised. It is really a rubbish show. An insult to Tolkien.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulta...s-of-power-which-is-very-bad/?sh=51ab198c52a6

I think the show is a 5/10 at best but I would like to see the context for that number in a comparison against other shows, would guess that a majority of them suffer from a similar drop off.

Too much content being produced, too little talent and true creative ideas to go around.

Edit, read the piece dummy, they do give a comparison, and yes, not good.
 
They also probably shouldnt have tried to make the show if they didnt have access to some vital elements on the 2nd Age. On top of that if they were going to film in New Zealand they should have waited till the covid restrictions were lifted as that had a huge knock on effect to the scale and scope of the show.
 
I watch the movies 3/4 times a year, and every time this show gets shittier. I am 40 minutes in to Two Towers now and saw this thread bumped and actually got angry over how bad this show was.

And i thought i liked it when i watched it, its so bad compared to the films/books
 
I think as well it is going up against the films, which makes it difficult. Some people vote the Fellowship of the Ring the best film of the last 25 years. So trying to compete with that is tough.

Granted i havent seen the series, but wont bother now if its poor.
 
I think as well it is going up against the films, which makes it difficult. Some people vote the Fellowship of the Ring the best film of the last 25 years. So trying to compete with that is tough.

Granted i havent seen the series, but wont bother now if its poor.

I wouldn't say its awful, as I said, there were some good parts, it was visually stunning and the dwarves were handled brilliantly imo (better than in the films). Galadriel was... well she was something and the Sauron plot was horrifically written. The hobbits were frustrating.
 
One of the only glimpses of greatness (being Adar) the show had being left with a 00's Movie Maker transition to show he was in Mordor and eventually quitting the project encapsulates the failure here perfectly.
 
I thought the volcano thingy erupting was really well done
 
It's a let down especially when you add it to the Wheel of Time which was also shite.

Complete waste of money and potential so far.
 
I think as well it is going up against the films, which makes it difficult. Some people vote the Fellowship of the Ring the best film of the last 25 years. So trying to compete with that is tough.

Granted i havent seen the series, but wont bother now if its poor.

Can't bother to finish after 7 eps.

It's not shit per se but lacking souls. The actors are bland and the protagonist are hardly charismatic.

It's like a basic 90s cartoon of yehaaa good guys vs bad guys
 


Some good news. Hail Caesar!


Likely going against the grain here but I thought he was a pretty bad Mance (he was dull and stiff whereas Mance is charismatic and commands attention) and not that great as Caesar either (though it's been a long time since I watched Rome).
 
It was obvious from the moment it was announced that this was going to be a dumpster fire so all I looked forward to was YouTube videos ripping into it, and I got that.

People wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt, but it was never made with the intention of entertaining people or honouring Tolkien. It was made to spite Tolkien's work by people who had no interest in his stories.

The big difference between this and the trilogy is that Peter Jackson wanted to honour Tolkien's stories as much as he could in a, what, 9 hour trilogy. The people here just wanted to use his work as a platform to do their own thing.
 
I also fully sympathise with those youtube thumbnails you mentioned. Even though I never clicked on them, I was bombarded with distorted images of Galadriel sneering, I think one even had her injecting steroids for some reason. Channels named nerdrotic or something were just the worst for it, despite me never watching a single episode.
That sneering face was probably from the infamous slow-mo horse-riding scene in which case fair enough. You won’t understand just how awful (and significant at that) it was until you watch it.
 
I think as well it is going up against the films, which makes it difficult. Some people vote the Fellowship of the Ring the best film of the last 25 years. So trying to compete with that is tough.

I vote it the best film ever made.

Even Peter Jackson couldn’t follow his own trilogy, so brilliant it was. The Hobbit is absolutely terrible in comparison.
 
Well, I guess RoP is atleast better than the new Gollum game...

Tolkien is trending on twitter because going by a poster with Aragorn he's going to be played by a black actor in the series.

Edit: perhaps im wrong and they are all talking about a boardgame.
 
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Tolkien is trending on twitter because going by a poster with Aragorn he's going to be played by a black actor in the series.

Edit: perhaps im wrong and they are all talking about a boardgame.

The Rings of Power is set in the Second Age, thousands of years before Aragorn was born, so why is there even talk that Aragorn will be in the next season?
 
The "Mordor" announcement is still one of the shitest big budget television moments I can remember from the top of my head.

Well that and the whole Halbrand telling the 15000 year old super artisan Elven Smith, yo dude maybe you should use, like, a catalyst or something and the 15000 year old super artisan Elven Smith saying durrrrrrrrrrrrr that's such a great idea!!!!!!!
 
Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, The Witcher, Willow, Shadow and Bone second season(quite liked the first, second is woeful) Just an horrendous 2 years for Fantasy TV, far worse than even the most pessimistic thoughts i had.

The second season of The Witcher is odd, first episode was superb and then it just goes to shit so quickly.