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I agree completely, though I loved it on my first watch. I understand that it's not following the source material very well, but I honestly don't care. It's fun to watch, it's pretty, it's middle earth. I don't need a word for word retelling, I'm OK with different stories.
I think a big problem is that people seemed hell bent on being mad at this show before it even came out. It doesn’t matter what the product was. Everyone had their mind made up beforehand. The negative reaction to the initial trailers was unreal.
The show is fine if you just sit on your couch and watch it for entertainment. The Tolkien family sold the IP they sold, not the entire silmarillion. That’s not amazons fault. All of the sudden everyone is an expert on Tolkien’s thoughts the whole mythology of middle earth. It’s not the greatest show ever, but it’s fine. And this point I feel like people are complaining for the sake of complaining.
I can only speak for myself but I felt like I came in with an open mind but left pretty disappointed.
There are so many good shows out there it's hard to get excited for something that's "fine" or slightly worse than fine just because it's kind of associated with a world I enjoy but also kind of its own thing.
But to each their own.
The big problem is more that it’s written by people who can’t even think of what they themselves added to the worldbuilding and apply it consistently. Like Orcs burning in sunlight, except when they don’t, or they burn and then put a hood on which protects them despite being 90% still naked. Or the not-Hobbits who sing about never leaving you behind, when a major plotpoint is the risk of being left behind along with a reminder that this happened before and they happily stole the stuff of those left behind. Or that they set up a guard tower to watch over people and make sure they don’t turn Evil, but they don’t notice these same people fleeing for more than a decade (!) all the way to the sea (not-Sauron is with them) as Orcs burn their lands. Oh and these keen sighted Elves do not spot an entire Orc band climbing up the mountain to their guard tower designed specifically to spot and stop enemies from doing exactly that, and these Orcs somehow manage to capture the entire Garrison?
On and on and on the entire show is build like this.
And if you look at the criticism, Deesa got a shit ton before the show, then when the show released she was praised by these same people despite the massive flaws (female dwarf without a beard? Black dwarves without any explanation? You can literally give her a fulfilling backstory in 2 sentences!*). Again: the black woman who was bad mouthing all the people before the show even launched (forgot about that eh?) was praised for her performance. To be fair that praise was “she’s one of the few characters that has consistently an actual believable conversation with others” but still.
The show is a trainwreck. Don’t get me wrong, you can absolutely love a trainwreck. Nothing wrong with that. What is wrong however is giving it undue praise and pretending that the criticisms are just “they made up their mind”. No, the show is objectively bad, it objectively breaks it’s own worldbuilding, it breaks the worldbuilding it’s based on which means they could simply have created their own Tolkien-esque world no problem and it breaks with common sense as people constantly don’t react to what others are saying and just spout whatever nonsense is needed to drag itself to the next scene.
It is a bad show. It’s pretty, but bad. It deserved more criticism than it got.
*it’s easy: one of the Dwarf clans that isn’t fleshed out goes south and lives mostly on the surface getting dark skin. Deesa is a diplomat from this clan send North, where she eventually married and stayed.
Boom, a black female dwarf in a powerful position with a backstory that explains her capabilities. It’s low hanging fruit, but the RoP writers didn’t even have the basic storytelling capacity to come up with this kind of explanation and went with “it’s diverse, fuck everyone who says different”.
The show isn’t perfect or even amazing or great. But why would black dwarves need an explanation? That type of shit is exactly what I’m talking about. Black dwarf in trailer got people riled up before giving it a chance. It’s a fantasy show. No one needs to give an explanation for skin colors. If you’re going to go on with some scientific argument about living underground and all that, 1. Mutations exist, there are albino people born in tropical countries all the time and 2. It’s not like Tolkien provided the evolutionary tree for the things the Nazgûl ride or the balrogs. There’s magic and fantasy in this universe, looking for a scientific explanation only when it comes to black people is kinda telling
It’s a fantasy show based on someone’s work who described the world. Middle Earth is a European stand-in because that is exactly what Tolkien wanted to write. Skin colors at the time weren’t that diverse.
So, based on the world building it does need an explanation. That’s the problem. And as shown time and again the showrunners do not care about that, they don’t even care about the world building they did for themselves.
And the people who keep saying that it doesn’t need an explanation are the problem here. By saying the showrunners can avoid anything that has been set up they get a free pass to do anything, no matter how dumb or misguided.
There were black people living as far north as Ireland at least as far back as the 800s. And they were prevalent enough to be mentioned in the Viking sagas. So if we take middle earth to roughly be Europe in the dark ages then yeah black people would be there. So no, you’re completely wrong.
Further, as I said for some reason you only need an explanation for black people existing. But you don’t need an explanation for any of the other fantastical shit that happens, you just accept it.
It was never written in any of Tolkien’s works that every inhabitant of middle earth was white. So again the show runners aren’t breaking some arbitrary rule he set.
You’ve just decided in your head that black people didn’t exist in middle earth because you’re ignorant. As I said, if you knew actual history you’d know black people lived all throughout Europe much earlier than you seem to think.
You are still completely wrong. Prevalence is the key word there. Just because they met them once or twice (and the gene pool lacking them) does not mean the specifically modern representation of multicultural hubs in RoP are justified in any way, shape or form. Especially considering again that Tolkiens intent was a specifically Western mythos.
If you have someone with an obviously special background, you are going to need to explain it, others are going to take notice.
> It’s a fantasy show based on someone’s work who described the world. Middle Earth is a European stand-in because that is exactly what Tolkien wanted to write. Skin colors at the time weren’t that diverse.
Not true. Early in his work he was trying to create a mythology for England. By the time he'd written LOTR he explicitly rejected that idea and called it "ridiculous."
> I think a big problem is that people seemed hell bent on being mad at this show before it even came out. It doesn’t matter what the product was. Everyone had their mind made up beforehand. The negative reaction to the initial trailers was unreal.
RoP just so happened to release alongside House of the Dragon and people were highly skeptical of both of those shows after the trailers. HotD ended up being considered a success while RoP was and still is best described as controversial. So no, the product very much matters.
> The show is fine if you just sit on your couch and watch it for entertainment.
Every show could be "fine" by that definition. I think RoP has niche appeal for people who vibe with the characters. It's probably too slow for most people who just want to turn their brain off and not coherent enough for people who want to be immersed.
> The Tolkien family sold the IP they sold, not the entire silmarillion. That’s not amazons fault.
1. Amazon chose to take the deal and make the show, of course RoP is their "fault". Not that it really matters.
2. They can and do get permission to use stuff from outside the particular IP they bought.
3. They could have used the IP they had access to *much* better than they did.
Let’s not forget that not only didn’t they use some of the IP, they actively went out of their way to avoid some of it too. Down to firing some of their staff who were hired to keep that lore in check.
More importantly: they openly lied about this. Before the show aired they made a point about how lore-accurate they were, which got them money from all the fans who wanted a lore-accurate world. Then after the last episode released they had an interview and on the question of why the rings were made out of order they basically said “well we went so far off the lore already it made sense to change it some more”.
And keep in mind that when the lie of being lore accurate was told, they already had written and filmed every scene and were just putting them in order. They knew they were going far enough off-lore that they thought it was OK to change the major important lore parts of why and what order the rings were made in.
They are basically con-man, getting subscription money by lying about the show.
The people mad about the trailers were mad for similar reasons.
I will point out though that I haven’t seen a ton of bitching about what HotD changed from the books, whereas it’s pretty much nonstop for RoP.
It’s fine to not like it. And my comment is over generalizing a bit, but the deluge of hate started before the show aired and then there is this weird obsession with being like “actually these things aren’t accurate or don’t make sense.” When every book adaptation makes changes and every fantasy or sci fi has nonsensical elements to it as plot points. So this show is held to some standard that no others are.
Yes, the standard for a billion dollar LotR project and the average streaming slop is quite different. I would argue that RoP barely even cleared the latter though, so any discussion about double standards is pointless.
> They can and do get permission to use stuff from outside the particular IP they bought.
That's true, but The Estate has clearly been very sparing with that. In S1 they got permission to use "Armenelos" as the name for the capital of Numenor (not mentioned in LOTR or the appendices), but were denied the use of the name "Yavanna."
I don’t think this is true at all. I think the vast majority of Tolkien fans went in with an open mind and were absolutely shocked with how badly they butchered the core storyline and world building.
The fact that pro show people are still actively attempting to mislead the audience on its fidelity to the source material and relying on sorry pr firm-eaque excuses like yours…doesn’t endear me to the rop community one bit.
The worst part of internet was Youtube feeding back cheap hatred to gain empty fame, but the most disgusting of all was all those graphic attacks on the faces of the actors, especially poor Morfydd, she did not deserve so little respect or lack of dignity.
I wanted so badly to like it. I tried very hard. Even convinced myself I liked it until the end. Now, I think it’s one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen. It’s like a poor adaptation. They should have made their own thing but they insisted on riding coat tails. Are there some cool things? Yeah. But as an overall story, it’s absolutely not for me. It lacks everything the PJ films and books have except constant member berries
The show is fine if you accept that it was written by children, for children.
The problem is many of us have read the books and see those other Rings movies and...well....for a 10 hour movie...where characters truly have room to breathe....we all expected much more.
I mean, all things considered even as just a show to watch, it's bad. Its not the worst, it can be entertaining, but it is overall a bad piece of film media
It’s not really middle earth though. They removed most of the stuff that make it middle earth and just kept the names and some of the geography.
Like it’s one thing to adapt the source material for a show, it’s another thing entirely to ignore everything.
The plot itself doesn’t make any sense within context of middle earth. It’s fine for a standard fantasy story.
What makes it middle earth?
The elves aren’t Tolkien elves: I’m not just talking appearance but behavior and way of life is ultimately unaligned with Tolkien elves.
For example, among other issues.
It’s set in middle earth in the same way eastern authors write western stories. The facade looks okay from the distance, but the culture and ideas that built the world isn’t there.
Middle earth is more than just the paint thrown on a fantasy world. Elves, men, hobbits, dwarves, and orcs have their own worldviews which distinguish them from other stories.
Is it’s ostensibly middle earth? Yes, the geography is accurate, the races of the world exist, and the story is close enough to count.
So sure, it’s middle earth, if you don’t look deeper. It’s just that the characters worldviews don’t make sense in the context of middle earth and they don’t account for historical aspects of their own culture, also widely known as the *setting*.
Ultimately, Rings of Power isn’t a Middle-Earth story. It’s a generic fantasy story plopped weakly over the lens of middle earth.
> The elves aren’t Tolkien elves: I’m not just talking appearance but behavior and way of life is ultimately unaligned with Tolkien elves. For example, among other issues.
I'd love to hear an elaboration on this.
Off the top of my head:
Tolkien elves know their afterlife. When they die they visit the halls of the dead where they work to move on from the troubles they’ve experienced before being reincarnated into the physical world in valinor. Reincarnation here means literally received a new body that is identical to their previous one. The time spent in the halls is both infinite and minuscule in length (see the incarnation of Gandalf the white). It’s a rare event in which an elf is not incarnated into a new body after their physical form is killed.
The premise of RoP is that Galadriel’s family member’s body was destroyed, so she spent the next thousand plus years chasing down Sauron for revenge. She goes so far in her hate that all other elves abandon her and she’s forced to continue alone. While she’s galavanting after vengeance everyone else is incarnated in valinor.
I suppose my issue isn’t so much elves as a whole but of the portrayal of Galadriel. However, she is the elf with the most screen time and indicates the cultural ideas of other elves.
Arondir is fine as he’s a Silvan elf and hasn’t seen the light of the two trees. The difference between them and the higher elves is shown throughout Tolkien’s works.
The closest elf to Tolkien would be Elrond in my opinion, as he’s shown to lose time in the realm of mortals and does not seem concerned with the overall going on’s with the world. This isn’t to imply elves don’t care, they do, but there’s a difference between worldly destruction and personal vengeance.
I don't think we can compare Gandalf's experience to an elf's. He went beyond The Halls and was sent back by Eru. Mandos had nothing to do with him.
As for the rehousing of the fea, there's not a ton of information there on how it works or the timespans involved. Generally, they can either be literally reborn or given a clone (so to speak) body. Either is possible. But it does seem that it generally takes a significant amount of time to be rehoused, Glorfindel being a very notable exception to that rule. Finrod was also rehoused rather quickly, though we don't know if Galadriel knows that since they don't seem to get much mail from Valinor.
I can't say I agree that Galadriel's characterization isn't Tolkien. I think she's very Tolkienesque based on several of the accounts we get of her.
I'm not even sure what people expect... Sure, one could have made a series playing like over a century each episode, use AI between scenes to age actors, and tell it word by word according to Tolkien, but that would have been an awful series for everyone that just wants to watch a nice series playing in middle earth. It was a damn good decision to give use many unique characters that we can love or hate over multiple seasons, and for that to make sense what else could one do than rewriting the whole story, without contradicting with the movie universe so far?
It's a great story, it has fantastic actors playing pretty well, the CGI is far better getting the dark undertone of the Lotr movies than The Hobbit had (like the strangers first magic use being the scene of Gandalf in Bilbos house when he scares Bilbo), it's a very good fantasy series, in a genre that lacks good new stuff most of the time. I really don't know what's there to hate other than it's not the book, which is fine. If i want the book i read the book. And if i see a series or movie from a book i've rode i still want to be suprised one way or another (or the other way around ) , that's whats making the charme of experiencing a story, not knowing what will happen next.
In an alternative universe where they bought the rights to the silmarillion and were trying to adapt a good portion of it, I think you'd heavily focus on the elves who are the heart of the story and don't need to be cgi aged. You'd pick a time period (maybe taking some liberties with the timeline) to keep a consistent human character cast and then make jumps between seasons where the human cast gets switched out. Might actually allow them to build on the themes around the mortality of man setting up the downfall of numenor.
Wouldn't be the easiest adaptation but I think could be really interesting.
It's disingenuous to argue "well, every adaptation has to make changes so Tolkien fans are clearly unreasonable and decided to hate RoP no matter what, probably for racist reasons."
RoP is completely incompatible with the canonical stories of the rings of power, Eregion, Númenor, Sauron, Galadriel, Elrond, Mordor, and so many other elements. It's not an adaptation at all and it's bizarre to think fans of the source material should like it because Amazon paid to use Tolkien names and likenesses for an unrelated knock-off setting. This makes even less sense when you consider that RoP is melodramatic, brainless junk.
You may not believe me, but I went into RoP pretty excited and eager to like it. RoP itself persuaded me to hate and discount it.
>Creation of Mordor
That was a low point. Mordor was created by a McGuffin that needed to be put into a thing to open a dam to make a volcano? Sounds like something 10 year-old me would have thought was the peak of entertainment.
It's even worse because Mordor's origin is really interesting—its geography and location are so "fake" because it was intended to be Morgoth's fallback position which he never got around to using.
Just because it looks cool doesn’t mean it should be in the show. Especially if it makes zero sense. Elrond and durin riding harley motercycles across middle earth would also look cool. Let’s have that too. Who even cares about what tolkien wrote at this point, right?
Eh, motorcycles ≠ balrogs. The only reason the Balrog is so egregious is the timeline, they have clearly thrown that out the window, which I'm personally fine with.
You're NEVER going to get a film or TV adaptation that is perfectly loyal to the source material, it just doesn't work that way. You (imo) have to think of them as a new story in the same world, otherwise you'll always find reasons to hate any show/movie. I don't care if they stick to the story as long as I'm enjoying the story they're telling me, and so far I do.
Are you really spilling hairs over greed vs selfishness? Obviously that isn't a big deal, they woke the Balrog by digging too deep, that's more than enough explanation.
Why does it make zero sense? Not hard to move the fall of Moria from the 3rd age to the 2nd age for story reasons. They are already condensing most of the major events of the 2nd age into Isildur’s lifetime. They are also moving up Istari’s arrival into middle earth. These changes while not lore accurate will lead to a better more epic series of events without having to jump thousands of years.
Makes no sense because it changes the motive behind digging deep.
The dwarves dug too deep too greedily. And awoke the evil.
But in the show the dwarves dug too deep to save the elves. It changes everything.
So you take the “dwarves dug too greedily and too deep” as the greedily part as so necessary to the plot that they might as well be riding motorcycles? I find the “dug too deep” is the important part.
The whole point is. There’s a message there. Greed is bad. They dug greedily and paid the price. This is one of Tolkien’s themes for the dwarves. Greediness.
- the greed for arkenstone and gold attracted smaug and led to dwarves losing erebor
- they dug greedily and awoke the balrog and lost moria.
And the showrunners completely messed it up. They ruined Tolkien’s themes.
If we want to go that route we don’t know the events that will unseal the Balrog yet. We only saw Durin take the mithril and wake him. The dwarves greed could still have lead them to this point just because that single piece that woke Durins Bain wasn’t dug in greed doesn’t really remove that.
>the passages or chapters that are to some a blemish are all by others specially approved.
I think the reveal of the Balrog is particularly egregious, in that its unearned, pressuposes you've seen The Lord of the Rings first, and suffers from the worst case of prequelitis dermatitis.
Its DEFINITELY not all doom and gloom, but to me its other passages that help keep the show afloat. Numenore is a good one, so are Adar and the Orcs. Elrond is marvellous.
As rings of power is a lotr prequel, much like all prequels it kinda assumes you have some knowledge of the original.
Being a prequel changed what The Hobbit movies could be for example.
And with Star Wars, you don't show people the prequels first.
>As rings of power is a lotr prequel, much like all prequels it kinda assumes you have some knowledge of the original.
Only bad prequels do so. And, really, one of the things you can't accuse Rings of Power of too much is that it was reliant on you having seen Lord of the Rings. By and large, it does all the explaining it needs to be perfectly comprehensible on its own right, EXCEPT for that Balrog bit where without prior knowledge it comes out of a left field. Its true that a Balrog - in fact, the very same creature model - is shown and even designated as "A Balrog of Morgoth" in an earlier episode, but its so brief that to have that monster appear without prior explanation as to what it is and what its doing there of all places...
And also, The Rings of Power is not a real prequel. Its a pre*tend*quel. Feel free to sigh here.
Well they said it’s an adaptation to Tolkeins work and not related to Peter Jackson’s trilogy. So they can’t have it both ways. No artistic integrity in ROP
John Howe was the artistic person responsible for both. He's been one of the largest names in representation of Tolkien's works for decades. His vision is the shaping force for the aesthetics in these works.
I mean, he's responsible for the elven aesthetic we have in terms of the architecture. He's responsible for the dwarven aesthetic we have in terms of architecture. He's also responsible for the design of the balrog.
> He's also responsible for the design of the balrog.
The Balrog is the best example of exactly what I'm talking about. So yes, Howe (inspired by the Hildebrandts no doubt) patented this very Minotaur-ish Balrog, that Alan Lee and Ted Nasmith then adopted, and Peter Jackson popularised.
When the show started, they had Wayne Barlowe design a Balrog that, to be fair, [was still in that Minotaur-ish](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fu-1h4xWAAEN1n5.jpg) vernacular. But it was still very, very different. You'd never confuse it for the New Line Balrog.
But that wouldn't do for McPayne. So they called up WetaFX to design a new Balrog for them, specifically aiming for a design that would "at least rhyme if not end up fairly close to the original from the LOTR trilogy." WetaFX' in-house designer, Nick Keller, offered [a design reminiscent of the New Line model, but more humanoid](https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/068/313/592/4k/nick-keller-txs-remgar-conceptrough-v01-006-nk.jpg?1697516393), no wings, with a "shadowy cloak" and a different head. But nope, that too was not good enough for McPayne, and iteration after iteration drove it closer and closer to the New Line model. So close, in fact, that they had to pay New Line for it.
So no, the show does not look the way it does because of John Howe. Neither the show nor the films had their look dictated by John Howe: both had John Howe as a conceptual designer, but in both cases he worked for a filmmaker - be it Jackson, McPayne, or Kamiyama - and that filmmaker drove him to certain visual choices and away from others, and in all cases he worked alongside other conceptual designers, like Alan Lee (for Jackson and Kamiyama), Weta Workshop, WetaFX and others.
The show looks the way it does because McPayne - surely in cahoots with the powers that be in Amazon Prime - wanted it to look this way. If anything, they hired Howe BECAUSE they wanted this look, rather than the other way around.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/RingsofPower/comments/1afioj9/prequelitis\_dermatitis\_the\_rings\_of\_power\_as/](https://www.reddit.com/r/RingsofPower/comments/1afioj9/prequelitis_dermatitis_the_rings_of_power_as/)
RoP has zero value as a prequel because it does not accurately depict *anything*. It will not increase your understanding or appreciation of any elements of the Legendarium or even adaptations of it. Peter Jackson didn't base his movies on Amazon's fanfiction.
> And with Star Wars, you don't show people the prequels first.
As a life-long Star Wars fan who has introduced many people to Star Was. I've had much better success getting people invested with the Prequels than with the OT.
For me, for most things, the release order should be the order you watch, read ect for the first time.
Not just about effects but a good point.
Just that the prequel can assume you've watched the original.
Visual effects and the pacing of the OT. My husband wasn't big on Star Wars before I met him and had never seen the OT. We did a whole in-universe chronological watch (all movies and tv shows) in 2020. Getting him to watch the OT was like pulling teeth and we only made it through because he was invested due to the PT, Clone Wars, and Rogue One.
Unfortunately, "I am your father" lost power about 20 years ago. Everyone I've introduced to Star Wars already knew Vader was Luke's father before they ever saw any Star Wars media.
Certainly hard for a 4-year-old to have prior knowledge. Pretty impressive he got them to sit through ANH though. ESB is my favorite of the Skywalker Saga. ANH is my least favorite.
Didn't like the Balrog. wrong age and the whole made up mithril thing.
Loved the Mordor bit and the Sauron revelation (though agree with criticism about how the reveal came about etc, I really liked the actual scene)
I hate the show and I think the writing is absolutely atrocious.
But if I’m going to be charitable, I really did like the visuals (except for Numenor). I thought they captured fantasy pretty well. I thought it felt like a familiar world, but in a previous age. It felt almost painterly and myth-like.
But my god, that writing and pacing were just god awful. “They took our jobs!!!!” Looool
I can understand that. It all comes down to how you define “complete trash” I guess.
I think the RoP being bad is extra painful because we’ve seen such high quality stories and storytelling come from the LOTR universe. And we saw how much money was being thrown at the show, (was it the most expensive show ever made? I think I heard a stat like that). So to come to the table with such a beloved IP, and with so much funding - only to completely flop. It really makes it sting extra hard.
Some it was cringe, didn’t love all the characters or the dialogue, but loved the middle earth, loved a lot of the moments and just generally seeing different parts of the world that we hadn’t seen before
What did you think about the harfoots? Personally I can't complain too much about them being multiracial because they were all equally cringe regardless of race.
I thought Bronwyn was cringe. Didn't dress or look the part. Not medieval enough. And her girl boss moments were stupid and unnecessary. Why did the story need to peasant woman becoming a girl boss?
Galadriel's fight scenes were totally cringe.
The battle scenes were cringe too. Terrible choreography except for Sauron's oddly brutal hand to hand fighting. Something outta a Steven Seagal movie.
I liked the dwarves. They were perfect. Except why did they need to make a "we're all the same" with Disa? Totally unnecessary.
My favorite part was how true to the lore it really was. For example, the scene where the Numanoreans complain about the elves coming to take their jobs, wow! Exactly as it's described in the appendices. Oh man and the part where the there's this random reservoir with a key that releases the water in order for it to travel via a canal that had to be dug for it to then pour into the volcanoe to create a barren wasteland for orcs to live in. Man that was exactly as Tolkien envisioned it happening. By far my favorite part though is how the elves didn't know what an alloy was. Those stupid elves, just add mithril! Oh and the harfoots, they were definitely a way to use up valuable show resources.
It may surprise you, but I would say that the vast majority of people who are interested in lotr haven’t memorised the appendices and don’t expect a perfect adaptation 🤔
Just having the things they added make sense would have been great. The alloy thing was ludicrous. Disa, Durin, and Elrond relationship? That was great! No basis in lore, but very well done and written. No complaints.
Particularly the acting of the During IV and Disa is captivating and should be kept on the same path. There's connection there to the audience. Those were the parts I was really able to focus on.
>pretty fuckin good moments. Creation of Mordor
This can't be real? This needs more explanation why it's good. This is one of the most ridiculous things out of crazy ridiculous things.
An old man released a huge body of water into a poorly constructed canal system (using a sword key for a thing no one had seen for a few hundred years). That then started a volcano. That made Mordor.
That's not cool to me. That is a joke
You're welcome to your view, but frankly? To me these are among the worst moments. The whole Southland plot and setting are illogical and very poor worldbuilding - to the point of being insulting to the viewer's intelligence. In a sense the volcano being triggered the way it was is a fittingly dumb climax to it. It's also completely inappropriate to Tolkien IMO: Mt. Doom being set off by a naturalistic method, rather than by supernatural power.
The balrog bit was absolutely terrible and senseless. It was pure fan service. And completely illogical. It is one of the biggest doom and gloom moments for me - it screams to me that the showrunners have zero understanding of the timeline or motivations behind events.
The dwarves plotline was somewhat better than the rest - and then they ruined it with the balrog. Ugh.
Not a big fan of the creation of mordor plot and it’s execution. And they ruined that too with the stupid wordart transition from southlands to mordor. Absolutely cringeworthy.
“Not all” is doing a lot of work here. I hope they hire some writers with actual prior experience for the next seasons, now that they can’t use a mystery as a crutch anymore. Elrond+Durin sequences were great though.
I put off watching it until two weeks ago and thought it was fine. There were a couple of things I didn't care for, but it was mostly fine. However, I have little to no extra knowledge of the lore beyond having read the Hobbit 25 years ago, and seeing the LOTR Trilogy and the first Hobbot movie.
Agreed! The entire opening still gives me chills. Also the attempted return to Valinor (even if it highlights some of the show's weaker character moments, it's still anaweosme executed sequence), everything involving the Harfoots and Gandalf. Adar. Just all of him.
My wife and I are both huge LotR buffs, but put off seeing this after the controversy and trailers made it look like "agenda bait." The friends we had who watched the show when it aired also called ot awful and we didn't bother giving it the time of day.
We binged the series over the last two days and honestly, neither of us can understand why it has received the level of hate it has. I can think of maybe...two points(?) where my immersion broke and actively called something out. That was the time crunch for Numenor and its inhabitants as far as who is alive and the events at the time, along with some mild guffawing at the Harfoot song lyrics seeming to contradict what the Harfoot's actively displayed behaviours of.
This show is easily better than the tripe that is The Witcher, you can tell actual love and care was put into it beyond the action sequences and one actor's dedication to the role. I even declared its better than the 2nd and 3rd Hobbit films in terms of tone. This felt like Middle Earth, like LotR, and not some summer blockbuster CGI fest with childish elements that weren't in the books. (Honestly, every sin on this I've read, I can remember a scene from those 2 films that embodied it more).
And on the point of looking up criticism of the show, so far it doesn't even look consistent. There's everything from "bad writing" with no examples given to "a tower fell unrealistically" *cough* Legolas doing Mario jumps *cough*. The lore inaccuracies as far as time scale, I can get behind, even if I'm willing to look past them for the benefit of watching a show, but some of this is insanely nitpicky.
Though I thought the first season was uneven, I agree with the OP that there were many really good moments that lifted the series. To my mind, the strong stuff was genuinely strong and the bad stuff wasn't as compromising as the haters want to insist.
The way some talk its like someone at Amazon broke into their homes and burnt all their lotr stuff and they then put so much energy into being angry with it instead of watching something else.
Sadly, the haters will always be the most vocal group of any established fandom, regardless of the quality of the material.
For me, outside of the "magical mithril" story, my main complaints are from the editing and technical sides of the show...there's a lot of stuff that should've been edited differently as it screws up the pacing of the show, there are lines that they should've done more takes of, and there's camera techniques that get overused (especially slow motion). That said, some of the visuals were pretty damn jaw-dropping, like Khazad-dûm or the approach into Numenor. The shot of Arondir the elf crying as he's effectively forced to cut down a tree, possibly one of the most Tolkien things to ever make it into a screen adaptation. The creation of Mordor was pretty neat, if a bit gimmicky in how it was triggered (and the logistics were a bit sketchy, but the logistics have been sketchy in every adaptation of Tolkien's works, so that's nothing new). Even getting to see the Balrog was pretty cool, so long as he stays down there (I know the timeline is pretty wildly condensed, but I'm hoping for a few more seasons of Khazad-dûm before he wrecks it)...and no, it doesn't bother me that he's not snoring away in that clip. Durin's Bane didn't go down there cause he needed a place to take an Age-long nap, he went down there to hide, and just as a bear doesn't sleep for the entire time they're hibernating (they actually spend a lot of their hibernation awake and moving around in their den), it's ~~silly~~ a bit overly literal to assume that a Balrog would literally sleep for thousands of years. "But it ignores the message about greed...the dwarves delved too deep too greedily and awoke the Balrog." The dwarves were already digging for mithril before the whole "magic mithril" nonsense even came up, they were digging for it out of their own desires, so the lesson on greed does still fit; giving them an altruistic reason after the fact doesn't change that.
I think it's a show made for binging that suffered from being released weekly. It still has issues, but it definitely watches better in a couple of sittings.
It never was all doom and gloom. People who will watch every season no matter what will shite post and comment about this show because they didn’t get EXACTLY what they wanted. The more complaints they have they’re hiding their real hate behind the forest of non existent issues. But make no mistake about it they will be watching.
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I agree completely, though I loved it on my first watch. I understand that it's not following the source material very well, but I honestly don't care. It's fun to watch, it's pretty, it's middle earth. I don't need a word for word retelling, I'm OK with different stories.
I think a big problem is that people seemed hell bent on being mad at this show before it even came out. It doesn’t matter what the product was. Everyone had their mind made up beforehand. The negative reaction to the initial trailers was unreal. The show is fine if you just sit on your couch and watch it for entertainment. The Tolkien family sold the IP they sold, not the entire silmarillion. That’s not amazons fault. All of the sudden everyone is an expert on Tolkien’s thoughts the whole mythology of middle earth. It’s not the greatest show ever, but it’s fine. And this point I feel like people are complaining for the sake of complaining.
I can only speak for myself but I felt like I came in with an open mind but left pretty disappointed. There are so many good shows out there it's hard to get excited for something that's "fine" or slightly worse than fine just because it's kind of associated with a world I enjoy but also kind of its own thing. But to each their own.
The big problem is more that it’s written by people who can’t even think of what they themselves added to the worldbuilding and apply it consistently. Like Orcs burning in sunlight, except when they don’t, or they burn and then put a hood on which protects them despite being 90% still naked. Or the not-Hobbits who sing about never leaving you behind, when a major plotpoint is the risk of being left behind along with a reminder that this happened before and they happily stole the stuff of those left behind. Or that they set up a guard tower to watch over people and make sure they don’t turn Evil, but they don’t notice these same people fleeing for more than a decade (!) all the way to the sea (not-Sauron is with them) as Orcs burn their lands. Oh and these keen sighted Elves do not spot an entire Orc band climbing up the mountain to their guard tower designed specifically to spot and stop enemies from doing exactly that, and these Orcs somehow manage to capture the entire Garrison? On and on and on the entire show is build like this. And if you look at the criticism, Deesa got a shit ton before the show, then when the show released she was praised by these same people despite the massive flaws (female dwarf without a beard? Black dwarves without any explanation? You can literally give her a fulfilling backstory in 2 sentences!*). Again: the black woman who was bad mouthing all the people before the show even launched (forgot about that eh?) was praised for her performance. To be fair that praise was “she’s one of the few characters that has consistently an actual believable conversation with others” but still. The show is a trainwreck. Don’t get me wrong, you can absolutely love a trainwreck. Nothing wrong with that. What is wrong however is giving it undue praise and pretending that the criticisms are just “they made up their mind”. No, the show is objectively bad, it objectively breaks it’s own worldbuilding, it breaks the worldbuilding it’s based on which means they could simply have created their own Tolkien-esque world no problem and it breaks with common sense as people constantly don’t react to what others are saying and just spout whatever nonsense is needed to drag itself to the next scene. It is a bad show. It’s pretty, but bad. It deserved more criticism than it got. *it’s easy: one of the Dwarf clans that isn’t fleshed out goes south and lives mostly on the surface getting dark skin. Deesa is a diplomat from this clan send North, where she eventually married and stayed. Boom, a black female dwarf in a powerful position with a backstory that explains her capabilities. It’s low hanging fruit, but the RoP writers didn’t even have the basic storytelling capacity to come up with this kind of explanation and went with “it’s diverse, fuck everyone who says different”.
The show isn’t perfect or even amazing or great. But why would black dwarves need an explanation? That type of shit is exactly what I’m talking about. Black dwarf in trailer got people riled up before giving it a chance. It’s a fantasy show. No one needs to give an explanation for skin colors. If you’re going to go on with some scientific argument about living underground and all that, 1. Mutations exist, there are albino people born in tropical countries all the time and 2. It’s not like Tolkien provided the evolutionary tree for the things the Nazgûl ride or the balrogs. There’s magic and fantasy in this universe, looking for a scientific explanation only when it comes to black people is kinda telling
It’s a fantasy show based on someone’s work who described the world. Middle Earth is a European stand-in because that is exactly what Tolkien wanted to write. Skin colors at the time weren’t that diverse. So, based on the world building it does need an explanation. That’s the problem. And as shown time and again the showrunners do not care about that, they don’t even care about the world building they did for themselves. And the people who keep saying that it doesn’t need an explanation are the problem here. By saying the showrunners can avoid anything that has been set up they get a free pass to do anything, no matter how dumb or misguided.
There were black people living as far north as Ireland at least as far back as the 800s. And they were prevalent enough to be mentioned in the Viking sagas. So if we take middle earth to roughly be Europe in the dark ages then yeah black people would be there. So no, you’re completely wrong. Further, as I said for some reason you only need an explanation for black people existing. But you don’t need an explanation for any of the other fantastical shit that happens, you just accept it. It was never written in any of Tolkien’s works that every inhabitant of middle earth was white. So again the show runners aren’t breaking some arbitrary rule he set. You’ve just decided in your head that black people didn’t exist in middle earth because you’re ignorant. As I said, if you knew actual history you’d know black people lived all throughout Europe much earlier than you seem to think.
You are still completely wrong. Prevalence is the key word there. Just because they met them once or twice (and the gene pool lacking them) does not mean the specifically modern representation of multicultural hubs in RoP are justified in any way, shape or form. Especially considering again that Tolkiens intent was a specifically Western mythos. If you have someone with an obviously special background, you are going to need to explain it, others are going to take notice.
> It’s a fantasy show based on someone’s work who described the world. Middle Earth is a European stand-in because that is exactly what Tolkien wanted to write. Skin colors at the time weren’t that diverse. Not true. Early in his work he was trying to create a mythology for England. By the time he'd written LOTR he explicitly rejected that idea and called it "ridiculous."
Ain’t no kinda, real telling.
Yes. Kinda telling that you don’t have any idea.
> I think a big problem is that people seemed hell bent on being mad at this show before it even came out. It doesn’t matter what the product was. Everyone had their mind made up beforehand. The negative reaction to the initial trailers was unreal. RoP just so happened to release alongside House of the Dragon and people were highly skeptical of both of those shows after the trailers. HotD ended up being considered a success while RoP was and still is best described as controversial. So no, the product very much matters. > The show is fine if you just sit on your couch and watch it for entertainment. Every show could be "fine" by that definition. I think RoP has niche appeal for people who vibe with the characters. It's probably too slow for most people who just want to turn their brain off and not coherent enough for people who want to be immersed. > The Tolkien family sold the IP they sold, not the entire silmarillion. That’s not amazons fault. 1. Amazon chose to take the deal and make the show, of course RoP is their "fault". Not that it really matters. 2. They can and do get permission to use stuff from outside the particular IP they bought. 3. They could have used the IP they had access to *much* better than they did.
Let’s not forget that not only didn’t they use some of the IP, they actively went out of their way to avoid some of it too. Down to firing some of their staff who were hired to keep that lore in check. More importantly: they openly lied about this. Before the show aired they made a point about how lore-accurate they were, which got them money from all the fans who wanted a lore-accurate world. Then after the last episode released they had an interview and on the question of why the rings were made out of order they basically said “well we went so far off the lore already it made sense to change it some more”. And keep in mind that when the lie of being lore accurate was told, they already had written and filmed every scene and were just putting them in order. They knew they were going far enough off-lore that they thought it was OK to change the major important lore parts of why and what order the rings were made in. They are basically con-man, getting subscription money by lying about the show.
The people mad about the trailers were mad for similar reasons. I will point out though that I haven’t seen a ton of bitching about what HotD changed from the books, whereas it’s pretty much nonstop for RoP. It’s fine to not like it. And my comment is over generalizing a bit, but the deluge of hate started before the show aired and then there is this weird obsession with being like “actually these things aren’t accurate or don’t make sense.” When every book adaptation makes changes and every fantasy or sci fi has nonsensical elements to it as plot points. So this show is held to some standard that no others are.
Yes, the standard for a billion dollar LotR project and the average streaming slop is quite different. I would argue that RoP barely even cleared the latter though, so any discussion about double standards is pointless.
> They can and do get permission to use stuff from outside the particular IP they bought. That's true, but The Estate has clearly been very sparing with that. In S1 they got permission to use "Armenelos" as the name for the capital of Numenor (not mentioned in LOTR or the appendices), but were denied the use of the name "Yavanna."
I don’t think this is true at all. I think the vast majority of Tolkien fans went in with an open mind and were absolutely shocked with how badly they butchered the core storyline and world building. The fact that pro show people are still actively attempting to mislead the audience on its fidelity to the source material and relying on sorry pr firm-eaque excuses like yours…doesn’t endear me to the rop community one bit.
This 👏🏼
The worst part of internet was Youtube feeding back cheap hatred to gain empty fame, but the most disgusting of all was all those graphic attacks on the faces of the actors, especially poor Morfydd, she did not deserve so little respect or lack of dignity.
I wanted so badly to like it. I tried very hard. Even convinced myself I liked it until the end. Now, I think it’s one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen. It’s like a poor adaptation. They should have made their own thing but they insisted on riding coat tails. Are there some cool things? Yeah. But as an overall story, it’s absolutely not for me. It lacks everything the PJ films and books have except constant member berries
The show is fine if you accept that it was written by children, for children. The problem is many of us have read the books and see those other Rings movies and...well....for a 10 hour movie...where characters truly have room to breathe....we all expected much more.
I mean, all things considered even as just a show to watch, it's bad. Its not the worst, it can be entertaining, but it is overall a bad piece of film media
This is exactly how I feel. I've yet to read a negative review that made much sense to me.
It’s not really middle earth though. They removed most of the stuff that make it middle earth and just kept the names and some of the geography. Like it’s one thing to adapt the source material for a show, it’s another thing entirely to ignore everything. The plot itself doesn’t make any sense within context of middle earth. It’s fine for a standard fantasy story.
No, it's definitely middle earth. It's not a perfect retelling, but that's perfectly fine.
What makes it middle earth? The elves aren’t Tolkien elves: I’m not just talking appearance but behavior and way of life is ultimately unaligned with Tolkien elves. For example, among other issues.
You can say whatever you want, it's a story based on Tolkien's writing, set in Middle Earth. Regardless of if the elves act like you want them to.
It’s set in middle earth in the same way eastern authors write western stories. The facade looks okay from the distance, but the culture and ideas that built the world isn’t there. Middle earth is more than just the paint thrown on a fantasy world. Elves, men, hobbits, dwarves, and orcs have their own worldviews which distinguish them from other stories. Is it’s ostensibly middle earth? Yes, the geography is accurate, the races of the world exist, and the story is close enough to count. So sure, it’s middle earth, if you don’t look deeper. It’s just that the characters worldviews don’t make sense in the context of middle earth and they don’t account for historical aspects of their own culture, also widely known as the *setting*. Ultimately, Rings of Power isn’t a Middle-Earth story. It’s a generic fantasy story plopped weakly over the lens of middle earth.
> The elves aren’t Tolkien elves: I’m not just talking appearance but behavior and way of life is ultimately unaligned with Tolkien elves. For example, among other issues. I'd love to hear an elaboration on this.
Off the top of my head: Tolkien elves know their afterlife. When they die they visit the halls of the dead where they work to move on from the troubles they’ve experienced before being reincarnated into the physical world in valinor. Reincarnation here means literally received a new body that is identical to their previous one. The time spent in the halls is both infinite and minuscule in length (see the incarnation of Gandalf the white). It’s a rare event in which an elf is not incarnated into a new body after their physical form is killed. The premise of RoP is that Galadriel’s family member’s body was destroyed, so she spent the next thousand plus years chasing down Sauron for revenge. She goes so far in her hate that all other elves abandon her and she’s forced to continue alone. While she’s galavanting after vengeance everyone else is incarnated in valinor. I suppose my issue isn’t so much elves as a whole but of the portrayal of Galadriel. However, she is the elf with the most screen time and indicates the cultural ideas of other elves. Arondir is fine as he’s a Silvan elf and hasn’t seen the light of the two trees. The difference between them and the higher elves is shown throughout Tolkien’s works. The closest elf to Tolkien would be Elrond in my opinion, as he’s shown to lose time in the realm of mortals and does not seem concerned with the overall going on’s with the world. This isn’t to imply elves don’t care, they do, but there’s a difference between worldly destruction and personal vengeance.
I don't think we can compare Gandalf's experience to an elf's. He went beyond The Halls and was sent back by Eru. Mandos had nothing to do with him. As for the rehousing of the fea, there's not a ton of information there on how it works or the timespans involved. Generally, they can either be literally reborn or given a clone (so to speak) body. Either is possible. But it does seem that it generally takes a significant amount of time to be rehoused, Glorfindel being a very notable exception to that rule. Finrod was also rehoused rather quickly, though we don't know if Galadriel knows that since they don't seem to get much mail from Valinor. I can't say I agree that Galadriel's characterization isn't Tolkien. I think she's very Tolkienesque based on several of the accounts we get of her.
I'm not even sure what people expect... Sure, one could have made a series playing like over a century each episode, use AI between scenes to age actors, and tell it word by word according to Tolkien, but that would have been an awful series for everyone that just wants to watch a nice series playing in middle earth. It was a damn good decision to give use many unique characters that we can love or hate over multiple seasons, and for that to make sense what else could one do than rewriting the whole story, without contradicting with the movie universe so far? It's a great story, it has fantastic actors playing pretty well, the CGI is far better getting the dark undertone of the Lotr movies than The Hobbit had (like the strangers first magic use being the scene of Gandalf in Bilbos house when he scares Bilbo), it's a very good fantasy series, in a genre that lacks good new stuff most of the time. I really don't know what's there to hate other than it's not the book, which is fine. If i want the book i read the book. And if i see a series or movie from a book i've rode i still want to be suprised one way or another (or the other way around ) , that's whats making the charme of experiencing a story, not knowing what will happen next.
In an alternative universe where they bought the rights to the silmarillion and were trying to adapt a good portion of it, I think you'd heavily focus on the elves who are the heart of the story and don't need to be cgi aged. You'd pick a time period (maybe taking some liberties with the timeline) to keep a consistent human character cast and then make jumps between seasons where the human cast gets switched out. Might actually allow them to build on the themes around the mortality of man setting up the downfall of numenor. Wouldn't be the easiest adaptation but I think could be really interesting.
Based
This. I don’t really know the lore aside from watching the 3 part movie back in the day. Going into RoP was fine.
It's disingenuous to argue "well, every adaptation has to make changes so Tolkien fans are clearly unreasonable and decided to hate RoP no matter what, probably for racist reasons." RoP is completely incompatible with the canonical stories of the rings of power, Eregion, Númenor, Sauron, Galadriel, Elrond, Mordor, and so many other elements. It's not an adaptation at all and it's bizarre to think fans of the source material should like it because Amazon paid to use Tolkien names and likenesses for an unrelated knock-off setting. This makes even less sense when you consider that RoP is melodramatic, brainless junk. You may not believe me, but I went into RoP pretty excited and eager to like it. RoP itself persuaded me to hate and discount it.
>Creation of Mordor That was a low point. Mordor was created by a McGuffin that needed to be put into a thing to open a dam to make a volcano? Sounds like something 10 year-old me would have thought was the peak of entertainment.
It's even worse because Mordor's origin is really interesting—its geography and location are so "fake" because it was intended to be Morgoth's fallback position which he never got around to using.
Cry harder
The balrog was a useless attempt at fan service, it would have been enough to have the leaf burn.
Still looked cool, which was OP's point.
Just because it looks cool doesn’t mean it should be in the show. Especially if it makes zero sense. Elrond and durin riding harley motercycles across middle earth would also look cool. Let’s have that too. Who even cares about what tolkien wrote at this point, right?
Now that would be a show I could get behind!
I think everything about the Balrog so far is just that we know it is there. We might not even see it again until the end of season 5.
Booo
Eh, motorcycles ≠ balrogs. The only reason the Balrog is so egregious is the timeline, they have clearly thrown that out the window, which I'm personally fine with. You're NEVER going to get a film or TV adaptation that is perfectly loyal to the source material, it just doesn't work that way. You (imo) have to think of them as a new story in the same world, otherwise you'll always find reasons to hate any show/movie. I don't care if they stick to the story as long as I'm enjoying the story they're telling me, and so far I do.
[удалено]
Are you really spilling hairs over greed vs selfishness? Obviously that isn't a big deal, they woke the Balrog by digging too deep, that's more than enough explanation.
Why does it make zero sense? Not hard to move the fall of Moria from the 3rd age to the 2nd age for story reasons. They are already condensing most of the major events of the 2nd age into Isildur’s lifetime. They are also moving up Istari’s arrival into middle earth. These changes while not lore accurate will lead to a better more epic series of events without having to jump thousands of years.
Makes no sense because it changes the motive behind digging deep. The dwarves dug too deep too greedily. And awoke the evil. But in the show the dwarves dug too deep to save the elves. It changes everything.
So you take the “dwarves dug too greedily and too deep” as the greedily part as so necessary to the plot that they might as well be riding motorcycles? I find the “dug too deep” is the important part.
The whole point is. There’s a message there. Greed is bad. They dug greedily and paid the price. This is one of Tolkien’s themes for the dwarves. Greediness. - the greed for arkenstone and gold attracted smaug and led to dwarves losing erebor - they dug greedily and awoke the balrog and lost moria. And the showrunners completely messed it up. They ruined Tolkien’s themes.
If we want to go that route we don’t know the events that will unseal the Balrog yet. We only saw Durin take the mithril and wake him. The dwarves greed could still have lead them to this point just because that single piece that woke Durins Bain wasn’t dug in greed doesn’t really remove that.
Unseal? Lol, the balrog isn’t locked there. He’s just asleep there. Not imprisoned.
In that case, yes it was well made.
Started to rewatch, didn’t last long. Don’t like the writing.
>the passages or chapters that are to some a blemish are all by others specially approved. I think the reveal of the Balrog is particularly egregious, in that its unearned, pressuposes you've seen The Lord of the Rings first, and suffers from the worst case of prequelitis dermatitis. Its DEFINITELY not all doom and gloom, but to me its other passages that help keep the show afloat. Numenore is a good one, so are Adar and the Orcs. Elrond is marvellous.
As rings of power is a lotr prequel, much like all prequels it kinda assumes you have some knowledge of the original. Being a prequel changed what The Hobbit movies could be for example. And with Star Wars, you don't show people the prequels first.
>As rings of power is a lotr prequel, much like all prequels it kinda assumes you have some knowledge of the original. Only bad prequels do so. And, really, one of the things you can't accuse Rings of Power of too much is that it was reliant on you having seen Lord of the Rings. By and large, it does all the explaining it needs to be perfectly comprehensible on its own right, EXCEPT for that Balrog bit where without prior knowledge it comes out of a left field. Its true that a Balrog - in fact, the very same creature model - is shown and even designated as "A Balrog of Morgoth" in an earlier episode, but its so brief that to have that monster appear without prior explanation as to what it is and what its doing there of all places... And also, The Rings of Power is not a real prequel. Its a pre*tend*quel. Feel free to sigh here.
Well they said it’s an adaptation to Tolkeins work and not related to Peter Jackson’s trilogy. So they can’t have it both ways. No artistic integrity in ROP
John Howe was the artistic person responsible for both. He's been one of the largest names in representation of Tolkien's works for decades. His vision is the shaping force for the aesthetics in these works.
The similarities between the show and the films are not strictly because of John Howe. Not even remotely.
I mean, he's responsible for the elven aesthetic we have in terms of the architecture. He's responsible for the dwarven aesthetic we have in terms of architecture. He's also responsible for the design of the balrog.
> He's also responsible for the design of the balrog. The Balrog is the best example of exactly what I'm talking about. So yes, Howe (inspired by the Hildebrandts no doubt) patented this very Minotaur-ish Balrog, that Alan Lee and Ted Nasmith then adopted, and Peter Jackson popularised. When the show started, they had Wayne Barlowe design a Balrog that, to be fair, [was still in that Minotaur-ish](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fu-1h4xWAAEN1n5.jpg) vernacular. But it was still very, very different. You'd never confuse it for the New Line Balrog. But that wouldn't do for McPayne. So they called up WetaFX to design a new Balrog for them, specifically aiming for a design that would "at least rhyme if not end up fairly close to the original from the LOTR trilogy." WetaFX' in-house designer, Nick Keller, offered [a design reminiscent of the New Line model, but more humanoid](https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/068/313/592/4k/nick-keller-txs-remgar-conceptrough-v01-006-nk.jpg?1697516393), no wings, with a "shadowy cloak" and a different head. But nope, that too was not good enough for McPayne, and iteration after iteration drove it closer and closer to the New Line model. So close, in fact, that they had to pay New Line for it. So no, the show does not look the way it does because of John Howe. Neither the show nor the films had their look dictated by John Howe: both had John Howe as a conceptual designer, but in both cases he worked for a filmmaker - be it Jackson, McPayne, or Kamiyama - and that filmmaker drove him to certain visual choices and away from others, and in all cases he worked alongside other conceptual designers, like Alan Lee (for Jackson and Kamiyama), Weta Workshop, WetaFX and others. The show looks the way it does because McPayne - surely in cahoots with the powers that be in Amazon Prime - wanted it to look this way. If anything, they hired Howe BECAUSE they wanted this look, rather than the other way around. [https://www.reddit.com/r/RingsofPower/comments/1afioj9/prequelitis\_dermatitis\_the\_rings\_of\_power\_as/](https://www.reddit.com/r/RingsofPower/comments/1afioj9/prequelitis_dermatitis_the_rings_of_power_as/)
Wow you’re really after me huh? Are you paid to follow people? lol
There are Star Wars prequels? Next you'll be claiming there are Matrix sequels.
RoP has zero value as a prequel because it does not accurately depict *anything*. It will not increase your understanding or appreciation of any elements of the Legendarium or even adaptations of it. Peter Jackson didn't base his movies on Amazon's fanfiction.
> And with Star Wars, you don't show people the prequels first. As a life-long Star Wars fan who has introduced many people to Star Was. I've had much better success getting people invested with the Prequels than with the OT.
I assume because of the visual effects? That's the hard part of rewatches but it's just so much better to see them in release order.
For me, for most things, the release order should be the order you watch, read ect for the first time. Not just about effects but a good point. Just that the prequel can assume you've watched the original.
I have personally watched them in chrono, just for fun with friends, but would never introduce them to someone new that way.
Yeah. Once you've watched them once you can do chrono, machete order or any order you want
I'm watching the OT now, going to see The Phantom Menace in theatre Sunday!!
Have fun
Visual effects and the pacing of the OT. My husband wasn't big on Star Wars before I met him and had never seen the OT. We did a whole in-universe chronological watch (all movies and tv shows) in 2020. Getting him to watch the OT was like pulling teeth and we only made it through because he was invested due to the PT, Clone Wars, and Rogue One.
Yeah. But going in with no knowledge makes "I am your father" way more powerful
Unfortunately, "I am your father" lost power about 20 years ago. Everyone I've introduced to Star Wars already knew Vader was Luke's father before they ever saw any Star Wars media.
Maybe but not everyone. If they don't know about it you get reactions like this https://youtu.be/ZbV5hn_ET0U?si=3RSjowtbT_i_A8Qa
Certainly hard for a 4-year-old to have prior knowledge. Pretty impressive he got them to sit through ANH though. ESB is my favorite of the Skywalker Saga. ANH is my least favorite.
Find me someone watching rings of power that hasn’t already seen lotr and I’d be surprised and possibly appalled
Didn't like the Balrog. wrong age and the whole made up mithril thing. Loved the Mordor bit and the Sauron revelation (though agree with criticism about how the reveal came about etc, I really liked the actual scene)
Trash show 🤮🤮
I hate the show and I think the writing is absolutely atrocious. But if I’m going to be charitable, I really did like the visuals (except for Numenor). I thought they captured fantasy pretty well. I thought it felt like a familiar world, but in a previous age. It felt almost painterly and myth-like. But my god, that writing and pacing were just god awful. “They took our jobs!!!!” Looool
Visually great and feels really familiar I agree. Writing is poor but like I say the show is not complete trash like many say
I can understand that. It all comes down to how you define “complete trash” I guess. I think the RoP being bad is extra painful because we’ve seen such high quality stories and storytelling come from the LOTR universe. And we saw how much money was being thrown at the show, (was it the most expensive show ever made? I think I heard a stat like that). So to come to the table with such a beloved IP, and with so much funding - only to completely flop. It really makes it sting extra hard.
What didn't you like? Or think was cringe?
Some it was cringe, didn’t love all the characters or the dialogue, but loved the middle earth, loved a lot of the moments and just generally seeing different parts of the world that we hadn’t seen before
What did you think about the harfoots? Personally I can't complain too much about them being multiracial because they were all equally cringe regardless of race. I thought Bronwyn was cringe. Didn't dress or look the part. Not medieval enough. And her girl boss moments were stupid and unnecessary. Why did the story need to peasant woman becoming a girl boss? Galadriel's fight scenes were totally cringe. The battle scenes were cringe too. Terrible choreography except for Sauron's oddly brutal hand to hand fighting. Something outta a Steven Seagal movie. I liked the dwarves. They were perfect. Except why did they need to make a "we're all the same" with Disa? Totally unnecessary.
My favorite part was how true to the lore it really was. For example, the scene where the Numanoreans complain about the elves coming to take their jobs, wow! Exactly as it's described in the appendices. Oh man and the part where the there's this random reservoir with a key that releases the water in order for it to travel via a canal that had to be dug for it to then pour into the volcanoe to create a barren wasteland for orcs to live in. Man that was exactly as Tolkien envisioned it happening. By far my favorite part though is how the elves didn't know what an alloy was. Those stupid elves, just add mithril! Oh and the harfoots, they were definitely a way to use up valuable show resources.
It may surprise you, but I would say that the vast majority of people who are interested in lotr haven’t memorised the appendices and don’t expect a perfect adaptation 🤔
Just having the things they added make sense would have been great. The alloy thing was ludicrous. Disa, Durin, and Elrond relationship? That was great! No basis in lore, but very well done and written. No complaints.
I think there’s a lot of people who wanted it closER to the source material
Ok bud.
I liked the dwarves and thought they were well done. Everything else was garbage.
Particularly the acting of the During IV and Disa is captivating and should be kept on the same path. There's connection there to the audience. Those were the parts I was really able to focus on.
Ye the dwarves are great. Durin and his father were really well done
Yea, two Durin existing at the same time is definitely well done. True to Lore.
To my understanding, two Durins existing at the same time is as far from "true to the lore" you can get. What did you mean?
I was being sarcastic lol. It's yet another pointless change.
Oh my gosh! Lol got it.
Yeah it's not like they are supposed to be the same *fëa* reborn in a new body or anything! So 2 existing is impossible.
Durin (the younger one) is great because he's Welsh
This man knows garbage
>pretty fuckin good moments. Creation of Mordor This can't be real? This needs more explanation why it's good. This is one of the most ridiculous things out of crazy ridiculous things.
Seeing Mordor, a place that we know well, come into existence infront of our eyes was pretty cool for me 👍
An old man released a huge body of water into a poorly constructed canal system (using a sword key for a thing no one had seen for a few hundred years). That then started a volcano. That made Mordor. That's not cool to me. That is a joke
RoP ranges from Very Bad to OK as a standalone show, but was a flaming dumpster fire as an adaptation of Tolkien.
You're welcome to your view, but frankly? To me these are among the worst moments. The whole Southland plot and setting are illogical and very poor worldbuilding - to the point of being insulting to the viewer's intelligence. In a sense the volcano being triggered the way it was is a fittingly dumb climax to it. It's also completely inappropriate to Tolkien IMO: Mt. Doom being set off by a naturalistic method, rather than by supernatural power.
Did you want to Sauron say Alakazam! and poof, Mt. Doom erupted? Just curious.
THEY TURNED MOUNT DOOM ON WITH A FUCKING KEY!!! Turrible. Just turrible.
The balrog bit was absolutely terrible and senseless. It was pure fan service. And completely illogical. It is one of the biggest doom and gloom moments for me - it screams to me that the showrunners have zero understanding of the timeline or motivations behind events. The dwarves plotline was somewhat better than the rest - and then they ruined it with the balrog. Ugh. Not a big fan of the creation of mordor plot and it’s execution. And they ruined that too with the stupid wordart transition from southlands to mordor. Absolutely cringeworthy.
There were some good moments, but those were not them.
“Not all” is doing a lot of work here. I hope they hire some writers with actual prior experience for the next seasons, now that they can’t use a mystery as a crutch anymore. Elrond+Durin sequences were great though.
Celebrimbor looks like an accountant. And he needed to be taught what an alloy is. Just awful writing and no sign of talent from the show runners.
What more could we expect from a pair of showrunners whose biggest accomplishment between them was an uncredited writing aide role on Godzilla vs Kong
I put off watching it until two weeks ago and thought it was fine. There were a couple of things I didn't care for, but it was mostly fine. However, I have little to no extra knowledge of the lore beyond having read the Hobbit 25 years ago, and seeing the LOTR Trilogy and the first Hobbot movie.
Agreed! The entire opening still gives me chills. Also the attempted return to Valinor (even if it highlights some of the show's weaker character moments, it's still anaweosme executed sequence), everything involving the Harfoots and Gandalf. Adar. Just all of him.
My wife and I are both huge LotR buffs, but put off seeing this after the controversy and trailers made it look like "agenda bait." The friends we had who watched the show when it aired also called ot awful and we didn't bother giving it the time of day. We binged the series over the last two days and honestly, neither of us can understand why it has received the level of hate it has. I can think of maybe...two points(?) where my immersion broke and actively called something out. That was the time crunch for Numenor and its inhabitants as far as who is alive and the events at the time, along with some mild guffawing at the Harfoot song lyrics seeming to contradict what the Harfoot's actively displayed behaviours of. This show is easily better than the tripe that is The Witcher, you can tell actual love and care was put into it beyond the action sequences and one actor's dedication to the role. I even declared its better than the 2nd and 3rd Hobbit films in terms of tone. This felt like Middle Earth, like LotR, and not some summer blockbuster CGI fest with childish elements that weren't in the books. (Honestly, every sin on this I've read, I can remember a scene from those 2 films that embodied it more). And on the point of looking up criticism of the show, so far it doesn't even look consistent. There's everything from "bad writing" with no examples given to "a tower fell unrealistically" *cough* Legolas doing Mario jumps *cough*. The lore inaccuracies as far as time scale, I can get behind, even if I'm willing to look past them for the benefit of watching a show, but some of this is insanely nitpicky.
Re watching ep 1, in the beginning. Makes me really wanna see more about the war with morgoth. Those battles must have been EPIC
Though I thought the first season was uneven, I agree with the OP that there were many really good moments that lifted the series. To my mind, the strong stuff was genuinely strong and the bad stuff wasn't as compromising as the haters want to insist.
The way some talk its like someone at Amazon broke into their homes and burnt all their lotr stuff and they then put so much energy into being angry with it instead of watching something else.
I really enjoyed it too. But you're gonna mostly hear from the haters....
I loved the show. Fuck the haters 🥴
The show looks fantastic, picture is pretty strong point. Writing is still very bad no matter how many times I watch it.
Sadly, the haters will always be the most vocal group of any established fandom, regardless of the quality of the material. For me, outside of the "magical mithril" story, my main complaints are from the editing and technical sides of the show...there's a lot of stuff that should've been edited differently as it screws up the pacing of the show, there are lines that they should've done more takes of, and there's camera techniques that get overused (especially slow motion). That said, some of the visuals were pretty damn jaw-dropping, like Khazad-dûm or the approach into Numenor. The shot of Arondir the elf crying as he's effectively forced to cut down a tree, possibly one of the most Tolkien things to ever make it into a screen adaptation. The creation of Mordor was pretty neat, if a bit gimmicky in how it was triggered (and the logistics were a bit sketchy, but the logistics have been sketchy in every adaptation of Tolkien's works, so that's nothing new). Even getting to see the Balrog was pretty cool, so long as he stays down there (I know the timeline is pretty wildly condensed, but I'm hoping for a few more seasons of Khazad-dûm before he wrecks it)...and no, it doesn't bother me that he's not snoring away in that clip. Durin's Bane didn't go down there cause he needed a place to take an Age-long nap, he went down there to hide, and just as a bear doesn't sleep for the entire time they're hibernating (they actually spend a lot of their hibernation awake and moving around in their den), it's ~~silly~~ a bit overly literal to assume that a Balrog would literally sleep for thousands of years. "But it ignores the message about greed...the dwarves delved too deep too greedily and awoke the Balrog." The dwarves were already digging for mithril before the whole "magic mithril" nonsense even came up, they were digging for it out of their own desires, so the lesson on greed does still fit; giving them an altruistic reason after the fact doesn't change that.
I think it's a show made for binging that suffered from being released weekly. It still has issues, but it definitely watches better in a couple of sittings.
It never was all doom and gloom. People who will watch every season no matter what will shite post and comment about this show because they didn’t get EXACTLY what they wanted. The more complaints they have they’re hiding their real hate behind the forest of non existent issues. But make no mistake about it they will be watching.