Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Ihavewaffles]

With all that money, that dialogue, those actors...jesus...

[Sammonoske]

Out of the billion spent, I think more should have gone to writing. Congratulations to the team for making Galadriel completely unlikeable. Elrond and Arondir are far more interesting to watch.

[Mehrunes]

Googled it and it seems self-identify just being the one who identify your disability to the employer.
Such a weird wording to me, granted english isn't my first.

You can choose not to disclose your disability, but if you do, you would be "self-identified person with a disability".
Feel like they could just use "10% goes to a person with a disability".

Yeah, that wording makes no sense. It should be something like "disclosed disability" in that case.

[Veggie50]

Out of the billion spent, I think more should have gone to writing. Congratulations to the team for making Galadriel completely unlikeable. Elrond and Arondir are far more interesting to watch.

I dunno man, I liked Galadriel a lot in this. She’s very different from the Galadriel in PJ’s movies, but a couple 1000 years of hardships may just change a person.

Very curious to see where they take her!

[eschatological]

Out of the billion spent, I think more should have gone to writing. Congratulations to the team for making Galadriel completely unlikeable. Elrond and Arondir are far more interesting to watch.

I haven't watched these episodes yet, but I often wonder if I could write for Hollywood, considering the quality of writing that has been omnipresent throughout the history of television.

[PACOX]

LOTR dialogue has always been dry

[infinitemeridian]

LOTR dialogue has always been dry

The dialogue sounds pretty on par for what the OT was. I don't see how it is any different.

[Asrialol]

Dude. Some people seriously do not like this show. It is real. Get over it.

It is supposed to be an "aggregated" model used statistically along with other metrics.
Meaning 0 to 10 scale only becomes valuable when used in a larger sample set.
Obviously with all the large number of ratings below a 6, that must mean a lot of people don't like it.
This data is intended to give a general assessment of the overall reception of this show.
I don't get your point other than it is just OK to ignore the obvious.
There are plenty of things that get pretty low reviews all the time and there are plenty that get good reviews.
And I have found that in general the audience review averages tend to be good references.

Seems like you are getting ready to pretend that your opinion is the only reference that matters and that others can't have theirs.
Like come on dude, I don't have time to debate with you about parading your subjective opinion as objective fact again.

I doubt they even gave the show a chance. People decided based off of trailers that they hate it.

Lmao. LOTR fans are worse than Star Wars fans.

[Celement]

Its about in par with a wheel of time. I wish they just made a new fantasy IP for this.

[Adamas102]

Forced diversity is the same thing as discrimination. It is just the people at the top saying that they believe groups of people aren't qualified enough to be hired otherwise. Its -isms from people believing they are "good people".

If you take 2 people, who are closely qualified for a position, and you hire the man over the woman because of his gender, its sexist.

So..... if you take the same 2 people, and hire the woman over the man because of her gender.... what is it?

What a load of horse shit.

No, you’re examples are not sexist as is. There can certainly be good reasons to target a particular candidate based on gender. What would be sexist is if you made the decision based on the idea that one gender is inherently better than the other.

Let’s say you’re picking a team of 5 people and after picking 3 men you decide the next pick should be a woman to bring more diversity to the group. Are you suddenly sexist for acknowledging that both genders are a valuable part of the team? Of course not. That’s not how sexism works.

There’s also no such thing as “forced diversity”. It’s just called “diversity”. The only people who feel it’s forced are those who have a problem with it on an ideological level.

AS FOR THE SHOW:
- Better than expected. My only real complaint would be about all the fast travel making things feel rushed at times, but it makes sense given that they’re trying to keep things going across 4-5 different storylines.
- The production value is definitely there (despite what any naysayers think). Compared to later seasons of GoT where much of the budget was eaten up by a few CGI dragons and an increasingly expensive cast, we’re getting a lot more visual “bang for your buck” in just these two first episodes. Looking forward to more spectacular looking settings and action sequences over the course of the season.

[Sialina]

Pretty bleh, and the random inserts everywhere takes me out of the story. There were so many better ways to do this, more interesting ways. As a stand alone series I'd give this 5/10, as a LOTR adaptation I'll give it 3.5/10 because of the lore butchering going on.
House of the dragon is looking like the clear winner of this titanic fantasy budget match.

[kenn9530]

Again, you have no way to prove this and it is a pointless argument.
In general, a 1 out of 10 means someone dislikes this show and is not going to watch it for the season.
There are many reasons why that is a perfectly valid response, especially as time goes on.
And when combined with the view count data, it will be much more clear how accurate it is.
But outside of Amazon, nobody has that data, so speculating on who is a bot and who is not is pointless.
If the ability exists to give a rating of a certain value, some people will choose it.
Amazon only is concerned about this because of how it may affect viewership.
Outside of that I see no reason to be arguing with you about it.

It is easy to prove because there is hardly anything that actually deserves a 1/10 rating, a 1/10 rating has nothing to do with the show and everything to do with the lack of integrity a person actually has as they are not telling the truth, its not an argument or an opinion as giving a 1/10 rating has nothing to do with how good the show/movie or whatever actually is.

[infinitemeridian]

What a load of horse shit.

No, you’re examples are not sexist as is. There can certainly be good reasons to target a particular candidate based on gender. What would be sexist is if you made the decision based on the idea that one gender is inherently better than the other.

Let’s say you’re picking a team of 5 people and after picking 3 men you decide the next pick should be a woman to bring more diversity to the group. Are you suddenly sexist for acknowledging that both genders are a valuable part of the team? Of course not. That’s not how sexism works.

There’s also no such thing as “forced diversity”. It’s just called “diversity”. The only people who feel it’s forced are those who have a problem with it on an ideological level.

AS FOR THE SHOW:
- Better than expected. My only real complaint would be about all the fast travel making things feel rushed at times, but it makes sense given that they’re trying to keep things going across 4-5 different storylines.
- The production value is definitely there (despite what any naysayers think). Compared to later seasons of GoT where much of the budget was eaten up by a few CGI dragons and an increasingly expensive cast, we’re getting a lot more visual “bang for your buck” in just these two first episodes. Looking forward to more spectacular looking settings and action sequences over the course of the season.

The "forced diversity" shit is so fucking dumb, but there's no pleasing these people. I remember the kicking and screaming when there were black people in Lake town in the first hobbit film and they were just in the crowd. It's only "forced" if you blatantly change a character who's characterization is tied to their gender or racial identity. Implying that completely new characters that are black or female is "forced diversity" means you just don't think they're good enough to be main characters or shouldn't exist in a fantasy universe.

[Specialka]

The "forced diversity" shit is so fucking dumb, but there's no pleasing these people. I remember the kicking and screaming when there were black people in Lake town in the first hobbit film and they were just in the crowd. It's only "forced" if you blatantly change a character who's characterization is tied to their gender or racial identity. Implying that completely new characters that are black or female is "forced diversity" means you just don't think they're good enough to be main characters or shouldn't exist in a fantasy universe.

A few black people or even a black princess (without any kind of justification for it to happen) in an isolationist population is forced diversity.

[Dhrizzle]

A few black people or even a black princess (without any kind of justification for it to happen) in an isolationist population is forced diversity.

Why can't an Elf or Dwarf child occasionally be born with dark skin, just as Elves are occasionally born with red hair?

[ThrashMetalFtw]

It's only two episodes so far, but I was pleasantly surprised, and I don't think the trailers did the show justice at all.

What I really don't get, is the complaints about it not feeling like Tolkien. The dialogue has the some poetic flow as the LOTR trilogy, the costume design is on point, and the set/city design is as if taken out of the movies. If you're one of those hardcore Tolkien purists who also hated the LOTR movies, then yeah, sure, but as a medium level fan of the Tolkien legendarium, the show so far, has been MUCH better than what was expected/feared.

The thing that felt the most "off" was male elvers having short hair and female dwarves not having beards.

[InfiniteCharger]

It is easy to prove because there is hardly anything that actually deserves a 1/10 rating, a 1/10 rating has nothing to do with the show and everything to do with the lack of integrity a person actually has as they are not telling the truth, its not an argument or an opinion as giving a 1/10 rating has nothing to do with how good the show/movie or whatever actually is.

To me it just means I have seen enough and don't want to see anymore.
Considering the fact you are talking about streaming the idea is nobody has time to watch everything.
And because of that, if they watch a few minutes and they just don't want to watch anymore, it is a 1/10.
That is my view on what that means and yes that is a realistic and honest review in that case.
This happens all the time whether or not people take the time to leave a review on it.

Basically Amazon had to come out of the gate all guns blazing to capture those on the fence or curious.
Remains to be seen as to whether it works or not. It was obvious from months ago this was an uphill battle.

Overall we will see how "honest" things are after about a month when more of the show has aired.

[infinitemeridian]

It's only two episodes so far, but I was pleasantly surprised, and I don't think the trailers did the show justice at all.

What I really don't get, is the complaints about it not feeling like Tolkien. The dialogue has the some poetic flow as the LOTR trilogy, the costume design is on point, and the set/city design is as if taken out of the movies. If you're one of those hardcore Tolkien purists who also hated the LOTR movies, then yeah, sure, but as a medium level fan of the Tolkien legendarium, the show so far, have been MUCH better than what was expected/feared.

That's the thing - I'm sure the OT took liberties with the look and feel as well. I'm not a super hardcore fan, but I've read Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (albeit a long time ago and don't really remember them that much), but it's consistent with Jackson's films. To a casual watcher, the show should at least feel like lord of the rings (unless they can't get over black hobbits, which it seems a not insignificant portion of people can't).

[OwenBurton]

I watched much of the first two episodes, and I found the series to be fairly underwhelming and average at best, quite honestly. I admit, I'm surprised some people here liked it quite so much. Comparing the new series to the Fellowship of the Ring is not unlike comparing Shadowlands to Wrath of the Lich King. Sometimes newer continuations of a franchise is better than the original -- for example, off the top of my head, Shrek 2 seemed better and more interesting than the original Shrek. But at other times, the opposite is true; Mulan 2 was nowhere near the quality and popularity of the original Mulan, and neither was the "live-action movie" for that matter. (And I don't care much either way about debate over American identity politics, they could have an all-European or all-Asian cast, and I still would hardly be impressed by this series, if nothing else was changed.)

To me at least, nothing about the show (except maybe the natural scenery) was particularly breathtaking or indicative of some groundbreaking masterpiece. I liked Arwen and even Tauriel, but this portrayal of Galadriel just seems to fail to capture the basic essence of the character, from either the book or the films. She seemed almost like Galadriel's younger half-sister or angry cousin from an alternate universe or something, not the young Galadriel herself. The actress might have been excellent in ANOTHER Amazon series, but I think there were better options for Galadriel in this one.

The same with Elrond, he also seems very off and superficial and not particularly engaging or likable as a portrayal, I didn't even guess that he was the younger Elrond until it was specifically mentioned, perhaps he simply doesn't seem to have much of a resemblance to the Elrond from the films? The actors for Galadriel and Elrond, their skills seemed arguably passable, but nothing particularly special or uplifting either. The dialogue also seemed very awkward and not natural sounding at times. They are supposed to be the two most familiar main characters that enthralled millions of viewers from beginning to end, but there is neither familiarity nor mysticism and poise about them.

Watched the first episode.

It's bad. Not even "it's so bad it's good". It's just not entertaining to watch. Almost all of the characters are unlikeable, either being boring as doorknobs or being actively unpleasant. The only characters I didn't dislike were the hobbit girl and the black elf archer, and even then they're not likeable, just not aggravating like the others. Dialogue is bad and there were at least a couple instances of extremely juvenile exchanges. I certainly wouldn't expect noble elves to be casually making light of human-elf relationships, or a guy literally saying "your mom cut herself, didn't she? Haha that's probably why your dad left" (I'm not joking this literally happened).

The show looks visually unappealing. The costumes either look like the artists didn't even try, or look like cheap cosplays. There are compositing problems and the CGI monsters are weightless. Also, outside of the scenes that take place at Lindon, the show has this grey desaturated look. There are also disconcerting extreme close up shots, and the camera can never seem to sit still for more than 2 or 3 seconds. In some cases there were shots that lasted barely half a second and it very disorienting. Also, the music is forgettable.

- - - Updated - - -

What boggles my mind is that this is a $700 million show. This is like, the most expensive show in the history ever, since Game of Thrones. You'd think that there would be top of the line talent on this show. Good cinematographers. Good actors. Writers who would make the dialogue not cringe. The best costume designers. The best in

Good lord, every new interview and article about this Show shows more and more how absolute trash it is going to be.

How People are even looking forward to this astounds me to no end. Though there doesn't seem to be a shortage of mental illness these days.

Everything about the plot seemed random and confusing from that troll / dishevelled giant creature which crash-landed from the skies with little explanation and was found by two female hobbits, to Galadriel suddenly being sent to Valinor with most of her friends as a "reward" for her failed mission after she nearly got most of her companions killed, but then also choosing to return at the last moment, meeting a random man, and getting rescued by a ship that appeared from nowhere. Nothing seemed "magical" or wondrous in a way that truly made you want to eagerly watch the next episode. The elves in particular seemed to be very plastic and one-dimensional compared to the elves from the original trilogy.

There are some mainstream reviewers who dislike the show, and there are about half a hundred negative reviews on YouTube when I searched, "Rings of Power Amazon review".
https://ew.com/tv/tv-reviews/lord-of...-power-amazon/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultas...iews-entirely/
https://time.com/6209353/rings-of-power-review/
https://babylonbee.com/news/rings-of...am-here-for-it

In short - perhaps this series will improve, along with my review and opinion of it, but I am not feeling very hopeful for its future. Because quite frankly, "Rings of Power" (even its very name) seems more like relatively mediocre fan fiction rather than anything else. I'm sure they tried to give a decent effort into making this...but the end result still seems rather incomplete and lackluster, like something simply out of sync and rhythm.

[Sialina]

Why can't an Elf or Dwarf child occasionally be born with dark skin, just as Elves are occasionally born with red hair?

Likely for the same reason people are born with red hair all over Europe but not with dark skin.

It was difficult to travel 1000 years ago, if you walked to China from Europe, you would be the only white person, you would not walk back. The further back in time you go, the less diverse individual villages would be. If the series was set in modern times, the casting would be fine, if set during medieval times, you would only expect to see differences along travel routes, people going inland after that would quickly have their traits bread out of the general population in 2 or 3 generations.

There are good choices if you want to add people of color, have the people of Rhun bring an oliphant as a gift for the king, have a trade ship arrive. Both would be perfectly good options.

Did you feel left out when none of the main cast in Squidgame were white?