Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[shise]

I'm not sure your "It has nothing to do with Lord of the Rings and isn't related to it at all" argument really cuts it. Not only is it CLEARLY meant to be related to LOTR, but most of the timeline and characters are drawn directly from appendices in Tolkiens work.

I'm glad for you that you're enjoying it. In regards to point C though, while everyone definitely has different tastes, there are also basic tenets to story, theme and character building that are ignored by this series. It's an "executive led" series rather than "creative led" series and it shows.

Yeah, I can agree with you about C.
But I said this about A because it is not coming from the orginal Lore, but instead it is made up pretending to be so. Obviously with all the right and such.

[InfiniteCharger]

What? An adaptation is not required to be canon. I have never said Rings of Power is canon. Again you are inventing things in order to argue.

So what is your point? Why did you respond when I posted that it wasn't canon if you don't disagree then?

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Says you. But as I pointed out, you do not constitute the definitive authority on how adaptations work.

They have certain rights to certain materials, and they are adapting those materials for the screen. The end.

How well they do it and how loosely they do (or do not) follow the materials is a separate discussion.


Nobody said that calling something an adaptation equals making something canon. That's a ludicrous idea.

That being said, "canon" is also loosey-goosey stuff. It's very negotiable.


No I don't and I never said so anywhere, in any way.


Canons change. Something can go against an old canon, and be new canon. Happens all the time. Heck some franchises MASSIVELY reorganized and redefined their canon (Star War, for example). I'm not saying this is happening here, I'm saying that this CAN HAPPEN in general. And those kinds of exclusive categorizations you put forward are something YOU MADE UP.

They don't have the rights to the story of the second age and they are not telling the definitive version of how the rings of power were created. So it isn't trying to "adapt" anything versus telling their own story but having the "rights" to use certain characters and names from Tolkien. You keep not understanding the difference. If there was a book called "rings of power" and they adapted it that would be one thing. They only have the rights to "adapt" the appendices, which aren't a book and that basically only gives them the rights to use "Tolkien" and "Lord of the Rings". Because the literal appendices are not the entire story of the 2nd age or a book in themselves, it is literally not an adaptation. I believe you yourself have made this point in the past. This is literally Amazon making up a story of how the 2nd age "could" have happened, including how the rings of power were created. But it is nowhere close to being an adaptation of anything because they don't have the rights to even begin to try. Literally the only "rights" they have is to use the name "Tolkien", "Rings of Power" and "Lord of the Rings" to market and sell a completely made up story that is only loosely related to the legendarium.

So if what I said is factual, there isn't a subjective opinion to be had. It isn't canon. They themselves say it is only inspired by Tolkien.
Sounds like some people here want it to be more than that when it isn't and the marketing keeps trying to have it both ways.

[Varodoc]

The show is good, the data proves you wrong if you think otherwise.

The data that is manipulated and rigged by Amazon omegalul, you didn't just say that with a straight face.

[s_bushido]

The marketing made people think this would've been faithful. It isn't. And people are upset about it.

Name some ways that it is unfaithful, and I can pretty much guarantee that any other adaptation will feature the same things.

[minteK917]

I dont think the question is when ever its a adaptation or not lol. The problem is this adaptation choose to waste its fucking time on stuff it made up for no reason like the wannabe hobbits, instead of the best part that are now never gona be shown on screen. After how they shit on numenor and we know we wont get any of their best moment in this show after 5 episodes, thats why it sucks. You can adapt things, but if you are gona remove all the best moment to make shit up, why even adapt this in the first place?

[Skayth]

After finishing the fourth episode, I can say with confidence the show is okay. Has some great scenes, and some horrible scenes (orcs shown one second being great bowman, the next being stormtroopers).

The show is growing on me, and I plan to watch the next 2 episodes this weekend. Galadriel is op, but so is legolas from the films. The issue I have is specifically that "she is always right." But whatever. Funny enough, I think the guy she is with halden or whatever, the fake aragorn, is probably sauron. Bin the beginning the elves stated that she and sauron are linked, and that if she is on middle earth, the sauron will rise. Well. She jumped ship last second, and joined halden, thus joining together.

All the other sauron wannabes seem to be there just to pull away from that little knowledge.

[Syegfryed]

Name some ways that it is unfaithful, and I can pretty much guarantee that any other adaptation will feature the same things.

This isn't a binary matter but gradient, you cannot possible make a point that "other adaptions aren't 100% faithful either so this is fine"

Other adaptions unfaithful as this one are garbage too

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So what is your point? Why did you respond when I posted that it wasn't canon if you don't disagree then?

Defenders of the show, like the show itself, don't make sense either

[s_bushido]

After how they shit on numenor and we know we wont get any of their best moment in this show after 5 episodes, thats why it sucks.

...what?

What "best moments" do you think we should have gotten but haven't yet?

[Kumorii]

Name some ways that it is unfaithful, and I can pretty much guarantee that any other adaptation will feature the same things.

What does other shows have to do with their own marketing? If other shows did bad marketing jobs, it only shows they did bad marketing as well...

[s_bushido]

What does other shows have to do with their own marketing? If other shows did bad marketing jobs, it only shows they did bad marketing as well...

Because the complaint: "it's bad marketing because they said they'd be faithful" is essentially meaningless when the creators of basically all adaptations claim that they're staying faithful to the source material. You might as well be whining about it being bad marketing when actors talk about how good the project was in interviews for something you ended up not liking. It's asinine.

Specific issues with the show would be much more useful to talk about than vague nonsense like "it's unfaithful." Because what is or is not faithful is going to vary from person to person.

[Kumorii]

Because the complaint: "it's bad marketing because they said they'd be faithful" is essentially meaningless when the creators of basically all adaptations claim that they're staying faithful to the source material. You might as well be whining about it being bad marketing when actors talk about how good the project was in interviews for something you ended up not liking. It's asinine.

Specific issues with the show would be much more useful to talk about than vague nonsense like "it's unfaithful." Because what is or is not faithful is going to vary from person to person.

Yeah and it's bad when it happens and ofc people will be annoyed or irritated about it and judge accordingly.

I can give you an example of the Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor games.
They never went out of their way to talk about how faithful their games would be. Did people still complain at times at certain things? Yes, but there's no ground for those complaints. You heard very little of it overall.

Payne and McKay didn't. They talked about how faithful they would be and how important it was to get things right etc etc... So of course they will be under more scrutiny when it comes out to things they've changed.

They using proper marketing would lead to less backlash. That would lead to a bit less of hype though, so in another sense it's good marketing to do what they did. People will be annoyed though.

[InfiniteCharger]

Defenders of the show, like the show itself, don't make sense either

Defenders just like to make false equivalences in comparing this to the films.
This show is almost completely made up and not literally based on anything Tolkien actually wrote.
So it isn't even an adaptation. The dialog, many of the characters, events and narratives are completely made up.
By claiming it is an "adaptation" they are claiming it is taking a story with dialog, events, characters and just adapting it.
So it cannot even be compared to the movies because those are based on books with all those things.
The appendices don't have any dialog, only a summary of events and the names of some characters.
Everything else is completely made up.

[s_bushido]

I think the one thing everyone agrees on, at least, is that the dwarves are fantastic.

Cut to 50 pages of arguing about how much of a travesty and an insult to the memory of Tolkien it is that the dwarf ladies don't have beards.

Christ...what have I done?

[babalou1]

Cut to 50 pages of arguing about how much of a travesty and an insult to the memory of Tolkien it is that the dwarf ladies don't have beards.

Christ...what have I done?

I am a little disappointed lmao

[rogueMatthias]

I think the one thing everyone agrees on, at least, is that the dwarves are fantastic. And that's probably it lol

Yeah I think without question Durin and Elrond's friendship friendship and the other dwarves are the saving grace of the show.

I'm not entirely sure how much sense their storyline makes though. The king Elve clearly knew without any doubt that Durin had discovered Mithrill, long before sending Elrond in to see if they'd discovered Mithrill. If he thought that Elrond might better be able to convince Durin to help then that should have been the story from the start.

[roahn the warlock]

it's a giant missed opportunity
at this point is nothing more than fan fiction, it has NOTHING of Tolkien's works but the names of the characters and places
timeline is totally messed up (the elven rings were forged much earlier than Isildur's birth), and no character or race is coherent with Tolkien's original characterization and spirit

and once you accept the fact that this has nothing to do with Tolkien canon, you think you can enjoy an one billion show?
no, and that's the worst part!
this show just sucks on every levels because of terrible writing and terrible acting, specially Galadriel being played by an inconceivably awful actress
everybody does stupid things, nothing is coherent, the plot is non-sense, and you end up wondering how is it possible to waste such an opportunity for a great show

music and visuals are wonderful, but that's it, this is one of the most disappointing shows ever made

Did you bitch as much when LOTR didn't make sure to film the 30 odd years before Frodo left the shire? Like make the movie 10 films long with the first 4 being Frodo and the gang hanging out and smoking pipes.

Like ya'll are whiney. If you have an issue with a 3000 year story being compressed, you come up with a better solution.

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Defenders just like to make false equivalences in comparing this to the films.
This show is almost completely made up and not literally based on anything Tolkien actually wrote.
So it isn't even an adaptation. The dialog, many of the characters, events and narratives are completely made up.
By claiming it is an "adaptation" they are claiming it is taking a story with dialog, events, characters and just adapting it.
So it cannot even be compared to the movies because those are based on books with all those things.
The appendices don't have any dialog, only a summary of events and the names of some characters.
Everything else is completely made up.

The second age is 20 pages in the silmarillion, lol.

[Gumble]

Down with pointy ears!

This show.... it is almost to the point of make me as a Wheen of Time fan feel bad for you guys.

[bledgor]

Did you bitch as much when LOTR didn't make sure to film the 30 odd years before Frodo left the shire? Like make the movie 10 films long with the first 4 being Frodo and the gang hanging out and smoking pipes.

Like ya'll are whiney. If you have an issue with a 3000 year story being compressed, you come up with a better solution.

I mean there is a massive difference between nothing much happening for 30 years and 3000 years of history with massive things going on, like creation of the rings, the rise and fall of Numenor, the wakening of the Balrog, the last alliance of elf and man, etc.

As for how, you just have to accept you will have to recast/new cast/time skip 1-2 times a season while you have down time between the big events.

They wanted an elf lead (I think Elrond or Celebrian would have been better), follow them as they make friendships with mortals during these times only to watch them grow old and fade, and give audiences a view into why Elves act the way they do as they are so longed lived that they have seen a lot, and experienced a lot. Doing so allows the director to do some fun things, like hint at the reincarnation aspect of the Durin line (have him act the same when interacting with Celebrimbor, the dwarf friend), to revisit old places and show the growth/decay of man/elf. You can even have small examples of the rise of Sauron placed in things like rot in a forest growing in between time skips this way.

The biggest issues with the show to me are the fact they paraded before it was released how faithful it was going to be when that isn't true, the AWFUL dialogue and story (be it actual beats or pacing), and the fact we had the potential of a Tolkien story with a $60 million dollar an episode budget and it is so at best mediocre.

If I pretend this show isn't supposed to be Tolkien, and just look at it from a fantasy perspective, it still isn't an amazing show. Yes it looks great, and the music is good, but other than that it has nothing special, and the rest is pretty bad, a 5/10 at best.

Down with pointy ears!

This show.... it is almost to the point of make me as a Wheen of Time fan feel bad for you guys.

Don't forget such amazing lines like "I have a temptest inside me", or "give me the meat and give it to me raw".

[Biomega]

If I pretend this show isn't supposed to be Tolkien, and just look at it from a fantasy perspective, it still isn't an amazing show.

That's really what killed it for me.

I was never super invested in source-accuracy to begin with. All I wanted was a good show, and I wasn't fussed at all about how close it was to the original materials. But the show just sucks on its face value - the writing, acting, pacing are all terribly off. Yes the vistas are gorgeous, but that's about it. Heck aside from that, the cinematography isn't good at all (hi there, 1980s horse-riding slow-mo).

It's a failure on every level even OUTSIDE of how good an adaptation of an existing story it is.

[rhorle]

So what is your point? Why did you respond when I posted that it wasn't canon if you don't disagree then?

I was pointing out the absurdity of you inventing an argument over the show being canon. If the show is made up because something doesn't appear in canon then of course the show will not be canon. Lol. It is crazy how often people that hate the show bring up canon in their arguments when no one in this thread tries to argue that the show is canon.

How can a made up story be canonical when the entire reason it is made up is because it wasn't in the canon? lol.

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So it isn't trying to "adapt" anything versus telling their own story but having the "rights" to use certain characters and names from Tolkien.

So they are adapting the stuff they have the rights to but at the same time not adapting those things to create a show? Lmao.