Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Orby]

Are we allowed to talk about the show? It seems ok, hard to tell after only a couple of episodes. I certainly don't feel compelled to go review or rate it right away. Almost seems like a person would need some kind of agenda to rush into such actions.

See that's always been my way of thinking, unless the site has a review episode by episode format (as IMDB does), but you shouldn't be able to rate the whole season until the season is finished, it makes sense... at least in my opinion

[Kumorii]

They are getting treated differently because one was review bombed. Its not that people dislike it is the issue. Wheel of Time was disliked but wasnt review bombed. I can assume the sites problem saw a mass influx of traffic to their sites coming to downvote. I don't get the feeling Wheel of Time saw that much influx when people were upset about that show who's complaints were very similar I may add :P

What I meant is, why is the review bombers treating the show differently when both have been criticized for the same thing?
If diversity and BLACK PEOPLE were the problem and main drive for a review bomb, then surely HotD would be susceptible for it as well. But it wasn't, even though it received the same critique.

[DarkAmbient]

Are we allowed to talk about the show?

I wish they would. Woke up today to several more pages of race/diversity bullshit. I mean I get it, but there's no point going on about it and the mods have already given warnings. Just shut the fuck up about it. There's a risk of this thread being closed and that would suck.

Anyway... seems like some people are suggesting that Halbrand is Annatar, and that there might even be some romance between him and Galadriel. There's even a hint of it in the writing, when the king speaks about her to Elrond: "She might have inadvertently kept alive the very evil she sought to defeat" I really hope not though.

[Orby]

What I meant is, why is the review bombers treating the show differently when both have been criticized for the same thing?
If diversity and BLACK PEOPLE were the problem and main drive for a review bomb, then surely HotD would be susceptible for it as well. But it wasn't, even though it received the same critique.

I think there are many reasons,

House of the Dragon was made with George RR Martin and close to the end of Season 8, so that familiarity is fresh and in the show keeps with continuity, also after season 8 I would assume a lot of fans were dead low on expectations.

With Rings of Power it mostly has to do with lead up and time between franchises, there are no familiarity with the source material, that worried alot of fans, say what you want about Hobbit, it had that familiarity with Lot. Also its not being made with help from people who helped make the movies which may put people off where as House of the dragon was made by basically the same team. I can also feel that Lord of the Rings like star Wars has a very gate keepy toxic fanbase who cling onto the past of how things were done then, let's not forget that the original movie was 20+ years ago. With House of the Draogn it's been like only 5 years since Season 8?

There are so many reasons I havent included because its never just one. there's also cos the fandom is racist as fuck, but that's the obvious go to. Let's not forget that the lead up to the show featured grifter channels constantly posting Galadriel, the black elf and the black dwarf in the thumbnail, so they knew what their main focus was on.

[s_bushido]

There's even a hint of it in the writing, when the king speaks about her to Elrond: "She might have inadvertently kept alive the very evil she sought to defeat"

He said that because she's consumed by her need for vengeance...not because of some man she hadn't even met yet. It's possible the theory about him is true, but I don't see any reason to ship them just because of what Gil Galad said.

[DarkAmbient]

He said that because she's consumed by her need for vengeance...not because of some man she hadn't even met yet. It's possible the theory about him is true, but I don't see any reason to ship them just because of what Gil Galad said.

People aren't shipping them/guessing his identity based 100% on that line. It's just a possible hint, which is something that writers occasionally do. I would be surprised if he is Annatar, because it would have been quite a clumsy and obvious introduction.

[Snufflupagus]

Well seems to be important too many People

Woke Vs Traditional Familie

We will not surrender to forced inclusivity or abomination like self-identified disability people

It’s a war.

Racial upheaval and cultural clash

Amazon Woke Ideology is tryinf to put a Bear,Lion and a Monkey into the same Cage.

It doesn’t work.

Simple as that, proof it works.

Oh see everybody is talking about race and woke infused agenda on ring on powers

Come back and try again at making your idiotic point when you’ve learned to spell.

[s_bushido]

People aren't shipping them/guessing his identity based 100% on that line. It's just a possible hint, which is something that writers occasionally do. I would be surprised if he is Annatar, because it would have been quite a clumsy and obvious introduction.

eh, people ship basically any two characters who spend more than a couple minutes on screen together.

But the idea that Sauron would try to seduce Galadriel isn't a terrible one. "...enemies closer" and all that.

[Ihavewaffles]

My brother was not kind to this show lol..

Said they were too giddy that they got their hands on the show, so the story didn't have a good flow, they acted like a tribute band, had to display their excitement, a 100 things were happening at once, should have taken their time lije 1st movie hanged around in the shire..
He didn't care for space jesus meteorite man talking to fire flies thingy

That the elven company should have been their own episodes, 2-3, unlike the fellowship for the ring, u didn't get to know any of the elves, name-less..

The dwarves were too much n it was too nice khazad-dum, wanted more like Erebor before smaug..

[Skulltaker]

Well seems to be important too many People

Woke Vs Traditional Familie

We will not surrender to forced inclusivity or abomination like self-identified disability people

It’s a war.

Racial upheaval and cultural clash

Amazon Woke Ideology is tryinf to put a Bear,Lion and a Monkey into the same Cage.

It doesn’t work.

Simple as that, proof it works.

Oh see everybody is talking about race and woke infused agenda on ring on powers

And there we have it. All pretense that this is about freedom of speech, quality, censorship, right out of the window. Full-on right-win nutjob. You go on fight your war, then. Let's see how many of you show up. It'll be fun to watch.

[jdbond]

Confusing story. Usually 2 episodes are released to "conclude" a beginning. Adrift was just..adrift.

How come HoDragons didn't try to appeal to all "cultures"?

Didn't Elrond marry Galadriel's daughter? I thought she be much older compared to him.

[exochaft]

There are so many reasons I havent included because its never just one. there's also cos the fandom is racist as fuck, but that's the obvious go to. Let's not forget that the lead up to the show featured grifter channels constantly posting Galadriel, the black elf and the black dwarf in the thumbnail, so they knew what their main focus was on.

If you followed all the Amazon sponsored media surrounding the launch of the series for the past couple months... they're the ones that were constantly bringing up diversity/representation/etc. It's only natural to respond to what the showrunners are saying about the show. Furthermore, when your main message is heavily identity politics when advertising a show instead of what actually should matter in a show, that's generally a sign that they're not confident in their product. The current game plan that Disney/Amazon/etc. like to play is to get ahead of a release (sometimes months in advance) and say that their shows will get hate because of racism/bigotry/etc., and when their shows get released and are terrible even without considering identity politics they just deflect to what they said prior. Again, it's a marketing tactic that gets eaten up by low information news consumers, and it's not reflective of reality.

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.

[Heathy]

seems pretty decent, its an interesting time period to see, I'm not enough of a mega Tolkien fan to know how much he actually wrote about this era that isn't just cliff notes. guessing a large part of this is fan fiction but they know where its going so its a matter of filling in the gaps. the ring wraiths don't exist yet so I guess it'll cover the fall of angmar among other things. shadow of war and mordor were interesting for the exposition spouting wraith. so its more of that maybe. I think the only flaw with shows like this is that ultimately you know where its going. not that it can't shock and awe but you know certain characters have full plot armor.

[Ihavewaffles]

Lol nerdrotic calls galadriel for guyladriel, brilliant

[s_bushido]

How come HoDragons didn't try to appeal to all "cultures"?

What "appealing to cultures" have they done so far, exactly.

[Orby]

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.

I am not going to say the show is perfect its not, and yea the Galadriel scenes are the worst part of the show for me too, which is worrying as the story revolves around her, I also have an issue with pacing in both that it does go past too fast while at the same time not getting anything done either, but I tend to like the show, I loved the score, I loved the backdrops and the sweeping visuals and the set designs, the dwarfs were great and as much as I hated the short haired elves interpretation I did kind of forget about it as the show got going, and I really like the guy who plays Elrond here.

And yes there is a lot (ALOT) of liberties taken in this show, but as someone who knows the books exists and will still exist after this show, I do not care too much because I still enjoy the show so far. But who knows maybe by the end of episode 8 I may change my mind, but I don't think the show is bad or as bad as a lot of people are making out... so far. Yes the show is very fan fiction, but that doesn't bother me too much.

also I did not see the cast call meetings that was intended for PR, journalists, and shareholders, and if you did then you are probably setting yourself up to hate it.

[Romanthony]

Whoever the homeless meteor guy is I don't want to find out. Even if he disappears into thin air and isn't mentioned again it would still be better for the series

I can almost 99% say its gonna be Gandalf.

Also I kinda hate, how Amazons Responce to negative responces.

"Your racist you dont like black Dwarves"
"Your sexist, You dont like Galaderial being a powerful warrior"
"Your Homophoic, you dont like Elrdond being gay"

Like what if a show is bad, because its bad? I swear sometimes they just hire these actors, so they can use them as a shield "Oh you dont like our show must be racist"

[Niwes]

Was so hyped for this series but once i saw the bad imdb ratings i wont even give it a chance. I wont watch anything below 8.5 rating.

lol. wow, an 8.5 imdb rating. well, so you will not watch that much stuff in your life.

and you will watch never some comedy (they are always underrated) and you will watch A LOT of super heroes and marvel stuff (they are always overrated).

to use some imdb rating as an absolute criterium is imo, after being a cineast since more than 30 years, the most stupid thing one can do. using imdb ratings in some relative relations to rotten tomatoes or metacritic is fine. but using imdb‘s absolute rating values as some breakpoints to rate stuff for your own taste… „good luck“ (to quote Morgan Freeman here, from The Dark Knight).

[Orby]

I can almost 99% say its gonna be Gandalf.

Also I kinda hate, how Amazons Responce to negative responces.

"Your racist you dont like black Dwarves"
"Your sexist, You dont like Galaderial being a powerful warrior"
"Your Homophoic, you dont like Elrdond being gay"

Like what if a show is bad, because its bad? I swear sometimes they just hire these actors, so they can use them as a shield "Oh you dont like our show must be racist"

Well if the show is bad for being bad its not going to fit those things you mentioned is it? No one is going to call you any of those things if you say the pacing is bad or the scenes with Galadriel are not that interesting. Or that it doesn't feel very Tolkien that the show feels off or the acting is bad in places. :P

But if you are going around saying 'I don't want black dwarfs or elves in my middle earth', and that's your only cause of concern and that makes up the main point or your argument, then yea, I can see that you may have some underlining issues you may need to get checked out on. A black elf and a black dwarf doesn't a bad film make. and you can have those concerns, I wont call you racist for that, but when its your main concern and your only concern, then we have issues. Becuase I think the actress who played Princess Disa did an Amazing job. but the actress who played Galadriel wasnt that great. am I sexist that I liked one and not the other. Its all about context,. You are allowed to not like certain things, its your approach to it that matters. :P

[Ihavewaffles]

I can almost 99% say its gonna be Gandalf.

Also I kinda hate, how Amazons Responce to negative responces.

"Your racist you dont like black Dwarves"
"Your sexist, You dont like Galaderial being a powerful warrior"
"Your Homophoic, you dont like Elrdond being gay"

Like what if a show is bad, because its bad? I swear sometimes they just hire these actors, so they can use them as a shield "Oh you dont like our show must be racist"

Elrond is that? I didn't notice, still odd defense on amazon's part seeing how effiminate elves are sometimes in lotr n the hobbit. I guess they can't admit their version of elrond was bad n has nothing to do with his leanings..
If he had apoeared gay in the movies, wouldn't have changed his performance, which is lacking in the show..

And Gandalf was played by a gay actor ffs, i guess amszon are scared cuz they know their show sucks...