Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Rozz]

So far I heard the show looks amazing, most acting is either decent to good, the lore consistency is midtier, and there isn't anything bad besides mouth foaming culture war shit or finding it boring. Which probably means it's an alright show that will either bore you or tickle your interest. I'm going to give it a try this weekend.

Sounds like it'll be better than The Witcher S2 at the very least.

[Gumble]

The thing is those changes are used as a shield for bad writing. When race bending is done it's often a sign to be wary because it means other parts of the product are substandard and it's being used as a shield against criticism. I get just as annoyed when it happens to characters of other races than white btw All American Death Note comes to mind.

Please be specific. Just changing a character's race is NOT a sign that the writing is bad or that they are attempting to deflect criticism. There are plenty of race changes (or sex changes) that result in as good, if not better, characters. Sam Jackson still the best Nick Fury.

The SIGN that has shown up over the last 6-7 years, over and over again, is when there are changes like that and the people in charge of the product start to promote it mainly BECAUSE of those changes.

There is a huge difference between good products that have diversity because the it happened naturally, and bad products that look for diversity to shield them from criticism. Both of them may end up with diversity of one form or another, but the good ones don't feel the need to brag about it.

Good products never have to tout their diversity to guilt you into seeing them. Bad products basically fetishize diversity and treat it like a shield so that they aren't required to ever answer for their poor product.


Have you ever heard some version of the phrase "if you have it, you don't have to tell everyone about it, they know" ? It applies to alot.

[Xath]

How dare you! Don't you know the literary God know as John Ronald Reuel Tolkien wrote about them and that makes them real, because everything he wrote was meant to be historical, and because he so totally meant it that way, that makes it reality?!

Directly changing the tragedy of Tar-Míriel to avoid "triggering" people is fucking idiotic and hurts showing the decay of the Numenorean royal line

[Gumble]

You seem triggered by the idea of being called out on your racist bullshit. It would also be shoehorning to shove white people into Anansi Myths. Which is actually something that should be made into a tv series because it would fit perfectly and hasn't been done 5 billion times unlike a bunch of the current shows.

Well the MCU already ruined Loki. Maybe Anansi can be the trickster Loki was supposed to be?

[Xath]

Please be specific. Just changing a character's race is NOT a sign that the writing is bad or that they are attempting to deflect criticism. There are plenty of race changes (or sex changes) that result in as good, if not better, characters. Sam Jackson still the best Nick Fury.

The SIGN that has shown up over the last 6-7 years, over and over again, is when there are changes like that and the people in charge of the product start to promote it mainly BECAUSE of those changes.

There is a huge difference between good products that have diversity because the it happened naturally, and bad products that look for diversity to shield them from criticism. Both of them may end up with diversity of one form or another, but the good ones don't feel the need to brag about it.

Good products never have to tout their diversity to guilt you into seeing them. Bad products basically fetishize diversity and treat it like a shield so that they aren't required to ever answer for their poor product.


Have you ever heard some version of the phrase "if you have it, you don't have to tell everyone about it, they know" ? It applies to alot.

Nicky Fury was already changed in the comics prior to that however that's fair it's when a product is being promoted based on diversity rather than innate quality and then the changes are used as a shield that it's a giant red flag.

- - - Updated - - -

Well the MCU already ruined Loki. Maybe Anansi can be the trickster Loki was supposed to be?

Unfortunately I doubt we ever see an Anasi tv series because most of the people making these changes are rather racist and don't actually think African cultural stories can stand up on their own. It sucks because it would be very interesting but then again they would probably americanize it like they do with live action adapts like death note.

[BigToast]

You seem triggered by the idea of being called out on your racist bullshit. It would also be shoehorning to shove white people into Anansi Myths. Which is actually something that should be made into a tv series because it would fit perfectly and hasn't been done 5 billion times unlike a bunch of the current shows.

I think you have confused me with somebody else. Or perhaps you have a very tenuous grasp on words and their meanings.

[Specialka]

Not till next week. This is Amazon self-reporting. There are no fast nationals for streaming and VOD.

Nobody records non-US viewership except the companies themselves. Because it is meaningless. The entertainment industry largely only cares about the US market.

That is also why we get so many bad series or movies.

[Xath]

I think you have confused me with somebody else. Or perhaps you have a very tenuous grasp on words and their meanings.

Nope you are definitely one of the ones with a savior complex

[Slybak]

First episode was kinda mid mostly because it tried to compress a long and complicated backstory that for the most part seemed unnecessary for the narrow plot the show appears to be telling. Like the number of times the word "centuries" was said - "the war lasted centuries..." "we searched for centuries..." etc - made that pretty glaring. There probably won't be anything expressly linked to Morgoth so there was no reason to include it. Compared to the opening monologue in Fellowship it was just too convoluted, and ironically does what lore nerds want (always a mistake) even though a lot of them complain about silly violations of canon.

Second episode was much better, with much improved pacing and editing, and honestly made for a better pilot episode than the actual pilot episode. All the stuff about the Two Trees and the War of Wrath and Finrod's death could have been backfilled through the first season, as I suspect the show will do with stuff like Numenor and (I expect) the Silmarils anyway.

[BigToast]

Nope you are definitely one of the ones with a savior complex

I'm definitely not.

[Slybak]

Just finished the first two episodes. I'm hooked but I have one issue. That guy that fell from the sky is probably a wizard but no wizard stepped foot onto middle earth till the third age. I thought it might have been Sauron in disguise tbh. Condensing the timeline makes sense for tv though.

Anatar and Pallando, the Blue Wizards (of whom very little was written by Tolkien), arrived in the Second Age around the time of the forging of the Rings so he could be one of them.

[PC2]

Not till next week. This is Amazon self-reporting. There are no fast nationals for streaming and VOD.

Nobody records non-US viewership except the companies themselves. Because it is meaningless. The entertainment industry largely only cares about the US market.

That is also why we get so many bad series or movies.

Naw that's not why. The reason there is so many bad series/movies is because it's inherently hard to create a new piece of art that isn't derivative and mediocre.

[InfiniteCharger]

Generally, the Blue Wizards came together as a pair because they were friends and they were tasked with traveling to the South and the East to disrupt Sauron's attempt to gather forces there. They were considered successful as Sauron was not able to muster the forces he could have if they had not been present and those forces would have outnumbered all those of Men, Elves and Dwarves. These Southern and Eastern areas would mostly similar to Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The second age was basically Sauron working to corrupt and gather the forces of the South and East. He was initially identified by Galadriel as a looming presence which caused her to create Eregion as a defense and to rally for the support of dwarves and men. Oddly enough doing so, it set up the events of Celebrimbor setting up shop in Eregion as a new great house of smithing into which Sauron appeared to initiate the crafting of the rings of power. After their creation and his full unmasking he want to war with the elves and sacked Eregion and the Elves withdrew into Eriador, while the dwarves shut themselve into Khazad Dum but they were constantly under attack by Saurons forces. Sauron by this time into the second half of the 2nd age was a growing threat and came on the radar of the Numenoreans who then built and sent a full host of forces to challenge him whereupon he surrendered and eventually corrupted them, causing their downfall. This then led to the war of the last alliance where men, dwarves and elves defeated Sauron and retrieved the one ring.

Oddly enough as JRR Tolkien developed the back story of the two wizards, he established the idea that these two eventually caused the spread of various schools of magic (magic cults) in the East and South after the fall of Sauron in the 3rd Age.

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Blue_Wizards

[OwenBurton]

The so-called 'grifters' tended to pretty much call attention to what Amazon and the showrunners were calling attention to, can't really blame them for that. If you actually listened to what the so-called 'grifters' were saying, the general concern was that the show runners are likely focusing on all the wrong things and that the story/show will likely be terrible, not "this show will be terrible because it has representation regardless of the story/presentation!" Couple of them had inside access to the details of the first season content and were warning about what was to come... and they were 100% on the mark so far, down to the tiny details in each episode.

Anyways, the show feels like it's a step above CW shows with an elevated budget in most cases. The writing is still awful, especially Galadriel being pretty insufferable and overpowered as hell, but much of the characterization and dialogue across the board is just poor. Furthermore, the writing is littered with the writers trying to sound auspicious and thought-provoking, when it's just nonsensical ramblings, non sequitur statements, or just circular logic. I've heard it described as the not-Hobbits being like community theatre, and that's pretty accurate. Elves just come off as cosplaying humans versus what Peter Jackson executed and how Tolkien describes elves and their presence. Only thing that comes off good is some of the background views and occasionally the attention to detail with props. This isn't even going into the issues concerning lore deviations and timeline issues, editing, structure, etc.

While I could go into individual scenes to go point-by-point, the overall point is that the show is shaping up to be pretty underwhelming at best. If the show was completely divorced from the Tolkien lore, it'd be just a generic fantasy show that would probably not garner much attention given its quality thus far. If this is the best Amazon can put forward with a billion dollar budget for introducing a flagship series, there's bound to be some panicking.

Much of this ongoing debate is only a distraction. I am curious for example, if they waited until Episode 3 to introduce some of the characters, whether most people would still be upset. If they weren't, perhaps we could discuss people's blind spots. But if there was still considerable dissatisfaction with the premise regardless, then I do think Amazon should try to make a serious effort to improve. People had VERY high expectations for this show, and some Tolkien fans patiently waited for months for its release, and so Rings of Power should indeed be held to very high standards in terms of performance and story and general quality. $250 million spent, and they should have created a brilliant masterpiece that riveted and stirred all audiences from around the world, reviving massive and widespread interest in the LOTR series in 2022, but I don't think this is it.

My main complaints was that:
1. The plot was simply bland and not so gripping, seemed to go off in uninteresting tangents, the pacing and story development seemed imperfect, and did not immediately "draw in" or invigorate the viewer by any means.

2. Elrond and Galadriel seemed unsuitable and at best very average portrayals for two iconic characters. I don't know if it was the lack of resemblance or something about their bearing and dialogue, but they were not ideal fits.

3. It didn't quite seem like the original complex and immersive universe that Tolkien and Jackson shaped together, almost like a ambitious imitation of it from fans (not unlike those Marauders and Snape short films you find on YouTube), but not quite being a worthy successor to the franchise.

4. They should have included some of the nostalgic Shire background music, that might have softened lots of reviewers.

And I wish they went more deeply into Galadriel's backstory, rather than 5 minutes of her putting a toy boat into the water, such as how she actually became the commander, and her further interactions with her older brother Finrod as they grew up together, fleshing her out as an individual. Instead, her brother got killed after those 5 min of screentime, Galadriel goes, "I must now avenge my older sibling", but since we did not know his character, and most viewers probably didn't even recall his name, most of us did not feel his loss much either way.

What I got out of the first episode was that she and a bunch of elves traveled to the Arctic, narrowly killed a giant of some kind, and then got sent to a distant island (except for Galadriel), despite basically failing to complete their mission. Then this giant amnesiac stranger lands in a crater, who whispers to fireflies and got rescued by two bickering female Hobbits. Not the kind of thing that makes everyone cheering for Episode 3.

[tikcol]

It's weird, because you were agreeing and posting the same line of reasoning yesterday with that same poster, who went full mask off this morning and called shows like this a "full race and culture war." I've been a moderator of this subforum for a decade now, which is fucking insane, and it's exhausting as these posters cycle in and out, year after year, making the same complaints, year after year. I myself am a brown man who grew up in America, and all my pop culture touchstones have been white figures. Including white people "forced" into the roles of brown men and other roles they didn't belong. Hell, a white Russian man played the King of Siam in the King and I. And I love the King and I. The point is that it shouldn't be a big deal - except now that it's the reverse, it is a big deal, largely to white people. Except......it's been happening a long time, including the aforementioned "The Wiz," which came out in 1978, and the backlash to it has really only started in the past 10 years...as a political junkie as well, the dovetailing with the Tea Party's racism and xenophobia is unable to be ignored. It's all culture war bullshit, and it's been deliberately stoked by the likes of Steve Bannon and his ilk.

FWIW, I haven't seen this show yet. I have no opinions of it as to its quality. What I do know is that a black dwarf or a black elf doesn't automatically lower its quality.

Weren't you the mod that forbid people from discussing anything besides the show in this thread because it was about to release? I wonder, shouldn't you have watched the show first and then come back to discuss the show instead of helping to derail the thread further about forbidden topics?

I don't know about this insistence on nitpicking on the topic about race, which you're helping non stop btw. It's anything but productive. The show has some real problems and it isn't about or because some characters have dark skin. Stop the ceaseless strawmans please.

[Specialka]

Naw that's not why. The reason there is so many bad series/movies is because it's inherently hard to create a new piece of art that isn't derivative and mediocre.

Because Hollywood panders only to the US market and americans are content with low quality stuff. This is not rocket science.

[Shadowferal]

Generally, the Blue Wizards came together as a pair because they were friends and they were tasked with traveling to the South and the East to disrupt Sauron's attempt to gather forces there. They were considered successful as Sauron was not able to muster the forces he could have if they had not been present and those forces would have outnumbered all those of Men, Elves and Dwarves. These Southern and Eastern areas would mostly similar to Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The second age was basically Sauron working to corrupt and gather the forces of the South and East. He was initially identified by Galadriel as a looming presence which caused her to create Eregion as a defense and to rally for the support of dwarves and men. Oddly enough doing so, it set up the events of Celebrimbor setting up shop in Eregion as a new great house of smithing into which Sauron appeared to initiate the crafting of the rings of power. After their creation and his full unmasking he want to war with the elves and sacked Eregion and the Elves withdrew into Eriador, while the dwarves shut themselve into Khazad Dum but they were constantly under attack by Saurons forces. Sauron by this time into the second half of the 2nd age was a growing threat and came on the radar of the Numenoreans who then built and sent a full host of forces to challenge him whereupon he surrendered and eventually corrupted them, causing their downfall. This then led to the war of the last alliance where men, dwarves and elves defeated Sauron and retrieved the one ring. Oddly enough as JRR Tolkien developed the back story of the two wizards, he established the idea that these two eventually caused the spread of various schools of magic (magic cults) in the East and South after the fall of Sauron in the 3rd Age. https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Blue_Wizards

Later writings;
Their task was to circumvent Sauron: to bring help to the few tribes of Men that had rebelled from Melkor-worship, to stir up rebellion ... and after his first fall to search out his hiding (in which they failed) and to cause [?dissension and disarray] among the dark East ... They must have had very great influence on the history of the Second Age and Third Age in weakening and disarraying the forces of East ... who would both in the Second Age and Third Age otherwise have ... outnumbered the West.
----
Instead of mentioning that they drifted from their mission, Tolkien points out that they played a decisive role in the downfall of Sauron at the end of both the Second Age and the Third Age. They became known as Morinehtar and Rómestámo, Darkness-slayer and East-helper, and were successful in preventing the forces of the East and South from outnumbering those of the Free peoples in the West.

I still like Iron Crown Enterprises' take on the Blues...brothers.

[Ihavewaffles]

im still angry they didn't show morgoth...

[tikcol]

im still angry they didn't show morgoth...

They showed Sauron saving Galadriel's life though, wasn't that precious?

[rogoth]

Fun fact: Humans are all the same "race."

so by extension the human 'race' being the same race, racism is not real and is just a fabricated construct?, following on from that nobody in this forum has posted anything racist because we are talking about human beings, is that what you're getting at here?

OT: having watched about 15 minutes of episode 1 i can tell you that the writing of this show is atrocious, not just the inter character back and forth, but the sheer leaps through time and space that occur, 'we had no word for death', yet throughout the first age you had the elves fighting the armies of Morgoth, the sacking of Angband, the war of wrath, the kinslaying, etc etc, there's no frame of reference given to time, and that's likely on purpose because if they tried to give a timeframe reference it would destroy the rest of their utterly bullshit dialogue, and don't even get me started on the whole elf troop marching through a blizzard, one falls obviously cold and exhausted, 'commander we must stop' - warrior princess barks back a 'NO', and then in the split second after the guy addresses her by her actual name she's all like 'sorry bro, lets rest up aight', and then for no fucking reason whatsoever the entire troop is somehow resoundingly beaten by a snow troll yet warrior princess and her boy toy spare part take it down in a single acrobatic show of nonesense, not to mention that all throughout this first section of the episode all the elves are speaking perfectly good english, then out of nowhere random words of quenya, why?, the entire part should have been filmed and recorded in quenya with english subtitles, it's so out of place it made me laugh, i couldn't watch past the dancing twirling mess that was supposed to be a major fight scene, if the rest is anything like this opening section then i can see this show dying a death in pretty quick order.