The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power | Amazon Prime Video - September 2, 2022

[jye4ever]

I’m in the mood for something with a lot more energy than this show I might just go do a few rounds of golf instead.

 

[jye4ever]

Me during The Hobbit

Me during ROP

 

[Khev]

 

[chrisstbh]

Enjoy it so far, hardly the train wrecks its been made out to be . Like many shows it's hard to judge right off the bat because it's clearly setting up something larger and we have yet to see what that is.

The Galadriel situation looks troublesome though. If you have a character that faces no consequences and is always overpowered, then there is zero character growth, which means no practical character arc. If you know she can't die, where is the peril in the trials ahead? If you have a main character without an arc, it's bad fundamental storytelling. From a basic nuts and bolts perspective, this is something that needs to change to support the story overall.

She's not overpowered though? She almost dies in the second episode and has to be saved by someone else. When you're watching most shows and movies you know the main character isn't going to die; so I don't really see that as a valid criticism personally.

 

[Wor-Gar]

It doesn't sound like I want to start this show. A non-Tolkien Tolkien show? Slow? Boring? Long? Diverse? Clunky? Mary Sue and Karen all in the first episode?

 

[Bravomite]

The Galadriel situation looks troublesome though. If you have a character that faces no consequences and is always overpowered, then there is zero character growth, which means no practical character arc. If you know she can't die, where is the peril in the trials ahead? If you have a main character without an arc, it's bad fundamental storytelling. From a basic nuts and bolts perspective, this is something that needs to change to support the story overall.

Haven’t they given her an arc by making her like this. She is consumed with revenge, the hunt and bringing death. The Galadriel we know from LOTR is the opposite, she is poised, powerful but measured and her main focus is life (shown through her tending to the forests of Lothlorien). Quite an arc to explore getting from one to the other.

Before watching this I was prepared to cast it off into the mirror dimension with the ST but the show is actually growing on me. It is slow but I don’t mind the pace. Nowadays that’s something that actually stands it in contrast to the other numerous disposable shows that briskly travel from one big frenetic scene to the next with no pause for any character development or to just let a scene breathe.

Galadriel is not nearly as insufferable as I feared. The diversity casting just feels natural and dare I say would not have been noticed by the vast majority if Amazon hadn’t made it the focus of their promotional material. I can live with elves with short hair (although I do find the skin fade hair style a bit too contemporary but that actor is otherwise the perfect choice for an elf). Non-bearded dwarven women are not a problem and if anything bearded ones may have been a bit of distraction.

I’ve seen the first two episodes and am interested to see where it goes from here.

 

[Victοr]

It doesn't sound like I want to start this show. A non-Tolkien Tolkien show? Slow? Boring? Long? Diverse? Clunky? Mary Sue and Karen all in the first episode?

It's just cliches with a generic fantasy backdrop and some surface level Tolkien stuff. Tolkien's work is very rooted in the NorthWestern Euro myths, with some inevitable Southern influences and needless to say Christian mythos, even if he tried to avoid allegories and the such. Celtic, Iberian, AngloSaxon/Germanic, and the further you go I suppose Nordic, aesthetics, coupled with Tolkien's specific writing, are what give it its identity. ROP just feels like an off-brand copy. I'm not seeing any real world influences there. I'm not feeling anything "mythic" and when you get down to it that's what he wrote LotR as; a sort of new myth for Britain to contest with the more preserved and wider mythologies from around the world. Take that out and you've got some subpar attempts at verbose writing which fall flat, nothing that can be tied to any real-world culture, generic fantasy trappings and really nothing that sets it apart.

Personally I just can't forgive the awful costumes. 1 Billion and they're wearing leggings and sleeves with a chainmail pattern. It's insulting.

Check out Discount Aurelian over here!

It's all plastic and soulless. There's nothing that jumps out. Nothing that immerses you. There's nothing that tells me it was crafted with love and care instead of algorithms. And honestly, the tavern scene alone with "knife-ears" was the perfect encapsulation of everything wrong with it.

I remember reading an interview and they were going about how Tolkien's universe is this bright ray of hope and sunshine, and all I could wonder was if that person had actually read anything. Beyond Tolkien's language autism, LotR as a whole is pretty moody and bittersweet at best, which makes sense considering how the story even came about. To frame it as some "guddest guys fight the ene- I mean bad guis and win against the ebil shadows" tale is swallow and corporate, devoid of the writings' spirit.

 

[Rotfish]

Personally I just can't forgive the awful costumes. 1 Billion and they're wearing leggings and sleeves with a chainmail pattern. It's insulting.

Is the pattern on the sleeve visible in the show, though?

It doesn't sound like I want to start this show. A non-Tolkien Tolkien show? Slow? Boring? Long? Diverse? Clunky? Mary Sue and Karen all in the first episode?

I can't say this thread's been very helpful. Most of the posters here either watched one episode and bailed, didn't watch at all, or are just making jokes/comments/assumptions based on other reviews.

I dunno, I feel like the noise surrounding the show has conditioned people to receive it a certain way. ROP could very well have problems, but I wonder how it would've been taken had people jumped in cold. It's probably not a 1-star show (nor a 4- or 5-star either), but you'd think it's the worst thing in the world based on the user reviews coming out.

Same thing happened with She-Hulk; on launch, those who liked it gave it max scores. Those who were rubbed the wrong way by some small aspect of it gave it the minimum in hopes of sending a message of their own.

I'll check it out this weekend and see how it is. I didn't dislike what I saw in the trailers. Some of the aesthetic and tone smacks of modern GOT-esque fantasy, but there could still be an interesting story brewing.

 

[Victοr]

Is the pattern on the sleeve visible in the show, though?

That character hasn't shown up yet, but it's the same costume; how could it not be? I can see it from the picture. It's cheap. Galadriel's armour has gaps at her wrists. The whole reason you're wearing gauntlets is to protect your entire hand and wrist. Has nobody in the entire production studied any actual armours?

I dunno, I feel like the marketing has kind of conditioned people in this thread to receive the show a certain way. ROP could very well have problems, but I wonder how it would've been taken had the frequent posters here jumped in cold.

I didn't look at any marketing. Why would I? The usual tactic of "it's not for you chud" has gotten too stale to even ridicule, and it's not like I'm paying for it. I watched a trailer, laughed at the awful writing, said that I wouldn't even pirate it, but curiosity got the better of me and I tried it. I'm not coming back to it, needless to say. I'll just catch the Sauron scenes on youtube.

I'll check it out this weekend and see how it is. I didn't dislike what I saw in the trailers. Some of the aesthetic and tone smacks of modern GOT-esque fantasy, but there could still be an interesting story brewing.

Sure. They have to stop The Enemy™. And the single mother's scrappy kid finds a not!Dark lightsaber. The Harfoots are country bumpkins with stereotypical Irish accents and now with a hint of exotic Jamaican! There's this "stranger" who's totally not gonna be Sauron. Oh and something something "darkness blablabla" something something. Riveting plot...

Whatever, if anyone enjoys it as discount fantasy, I get it. I'm just saying, proper Tolkien it's not. It doesn't have the aesthetics and mood, writing and everything else aside. There are some genres and settings I can enjoy without demanding some outlandish quality, so I understand consoooooming sometimes without caring enough to analyse it all. But a 1B$ show created with love, this isn't. Amazon literally shut down IMDB's ratings and are in full on "o-only heckin c-chuds hate our brilliant s-show" mode. It's ridiculous.

 

[Rotfish]

Does anyone say "chud" unironically anymore? Besides, you know, users of a certain website.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

Peter Jackson realizing that Rings of Power is causing fans to instantly re-evaluate and appreciate his Hobbit trilogy...

That's the rub here

One could argue The Hobbit needed more depth than three films to do it justice but less than 5 full seasons at 10 episodes each. But it might have been a better idea anyway to just reboot The Hobbit into a full fledged TV series.

I'm going to be honest, the LOTR Trilogy as books were a tough read. Honestly, if you tried to publish them today if there was no fame and it was just unknown, it would be rejected. They are poorly written from a technical sense. ( The core themes and core plot set up is good and interesting, but the execution is really rough...) But The Hobbit is a legitimately good novel all on it's own.

An anthology series would have been interesting. For example, 10 episodes, but each a different story. Maybe one can be about Boromir and Faramir as teenagers. Another about Saruman as a young wizard, etc, etc.

IMHO, if you are going to spend 250 million for the rights, then only do it for central characters that are already known and beloved. Aragorn as a young Ranger, etc, etc.

I also don't think it's a good idea to cast the GOT young Ned Stark, the same actor, to be your Elrond. It just instantly drags GOT comparisons into the mix.

One major difference is this - Peter Jackson had the clout back then to have creative control. With this much money pumped into this show, I don't think that's going to happen here. For better or worse, one voice is more ideal than many conflicting voices in charge.

I still believe giving ROP a full first season is the best play here. There's a lot of world building going on. I wouldn't have written off Wheel Of Time after just one episode. That first full season got pretty ugly at points though....

 

[Victοr]

Does anyone say "chud" unironically anymore? Besides, you know, users of a certain website.

Twitter uses it constantly. I honestly don’t know if it’s used widely in the real world. I don’t live in the AngloSphere to really get what slang is actually popular, so it’s part of the reason why so many of my posts are the way they are. All of my pop culture/slang/[current day] interaction comes through the net. In a lot of ways I still maintain the 00s “net life/real life” dichotomy. Thus, in the net I indulge in zoomerspeak, [current day] terms, over the top meta irony and whatever else. In my real life I’d have to actively work to find someone with even a passing interest in all these things. GoT was the last big, global hit. Everything else is varying levels of niche, and obviously English-based slang and terminologies aren’t a thing. Whatever cultural changes happen, good or bad, get carried over through pop culture with a significant delay.

So, in other words, chuds finna be broken by ROP fr fr no cap deadass.

 

[ironwez20]

Sheesh lord of talk about this series and I’m a huge fan of the films and books. I say that as someone who got into the world through the films. Honestly nothing really looks great to me in the series. Doesn’t grab me like the films or even the hobbit. Everything seems eh. Sadly it looks like house of dragon is more interesting.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Sadly it looks like house of dragon is more interesting.

There you have it.

 

[Khev]

True story: I couldn't get past a single episode of GOT but I'm instantly hooked on HOTD.

Didn't watch a single minute of Wheel of Time nor do I plan to with ROP, lol.

 

[Bo Shrek]

Best part of the two episodes so far is seeing Ents!!” Honestly if that little hobbit girls says “I’m going to call you Gandalf” in future episodes I will loose it!!! I will burn all my movies and action figures, everything I loved since a kid in pop culture and watch day time soaps for the rest of my life!!!

 

[BeefEaster]

I don't know how they managed to make everything look so expensive on a macro scale yet feel so cheap on a micro scale.

The sweeping vistas and stuff look great then you push in on the characters in their costumes and it looks like they cut every corner they could.

In the original trilogy they painstakingly handcrafted everything right down to the chainmail and engravings on belt buckles no one would every even see. In this it you can literally see modern day fabric in the gaps in the armor.

 

[Sassafras]

Sheesh lord of talk about this series and I’m a huge fan of the films and books. I say that as someone who got into the world through the films. Honestly nothing really looks great to me in the series. Doesn’t grab me like the films or even the hobbit. Everything seems eh. Sadly it looks like house of dragon is more interesting.

Well, I caved after watching so many clips figured might as well.

I like slow burns and epic fantasy, books and films. Overall so far I'd say I'm pleasantly surprised and missing the Hobbit/LOTR at the same time. Peter Jackson's world; but at the same time IMO there's some interesting characterizations and design work. And there's stuff that is cringe.

Agree tho with the way it's handled with the race thing, if nobody had ever said anything you'd barely notice. For me it's far more noticeable that Jackson had carefully selected his elves. I think he said in an article during the Hobbit films only 20% of people in the world could play an elf. Here instead of lean bodies and faces, looks like they cast whoever. And there's the cringe modern speech mixed with faux Shakespeare.

Kept thinking if they had left off Tolkien's name, it's an acceptable fantasy series. So far for me 5/10.

 

[chrisstbh]

Best part of the two episodes so far is seeing Ents!!” Honestly if that little hobbit girls says “I’m going to call you Gandalf” in future episodes I will loose it!!! I will burn all my movies and action figures, everything I loved since a kid in pop culture and watch day time soaps for the rest of my life!!!

Actually the best part was seeing Sauron

 

[chrisstbh]

Anyway I wonder who the guy that fell from the sky is because in the first episode they state that the place is so cold that their torches give off no heat due to how evil the place is and the fire in his crater surrounding him gives off no heat.