Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[DarkAmbient]

On the positive side, I actually quite enjoyed the scene with Gandalf and the Sauron worshippers. The "I am good!" line was awful, but the rest of it was fine. Glad Sadoc's dead. I thought the Sauron reveal was okay. I mostly enjoyed the interaction between the two of them except for that ridiculous close-up shot of them yelling at each other on the raft, that should have been cut. And that scene included my favourite shot of the entire show, the illusion in the water of a crowned Sauron standing next to his Queen Galadriel.

On the negative side... oh boy. I won't even go into the utter disregard for the lore. The uncanny valley CGI. The pacing, the rushed storylines. The utter cheese of the Harfoot's needlessly long scenes of forced sentimentality. The on-the-nose allegory. The clumsy signposting and awkward dialogue. These fuckers better step up their game for season 2.

[Specialka]

I had a higher tolerance for trying to turn books into shows/movies, but its been worn away.

I have 5 favorite authors, and 4 of them have all been disgraced by this:

Terry Brooks
Terry Goodkind
Robert Jordan
Anne Rice
Melanie Rawn

I was disappointed in Legend of the Seeker by a horrible main actor who looked and acted nothing like Richard and having the whole plot given away in the first 10 minutes.

I endured the Shannara Chronicles and chaulked it up to "well don't let MTV try to make something good".

I gave Wheel of Time every opportunity to make me like it and it spat on the author and the story.

Anne Rice was protected for awhile (I even liked Aaliyah, OMG RACE CHANGE, because she really threw herself into that character.... as badly as that movie mangled the story), and hopefully this abomination of a boring show will fade away and they can stop trying to suck blood from her corpse.

The only one I have left is Melanie Rawn. Maybe the face that she can't finish a series will hold them off from every adapating the Dragon Prince series until Hollyweird gets some writers and directors who have actually accomplished anything (and not just ones who JJ Abrams was friends with)

As this show stands, I'm sorry for you LOTR fans, the show was boring, bland and predictable. The whole story was guessed by episode 1 and they haven't deviated or had characters grow in any way. Everyone is still exactly who they were, and nothing has happened.

You deserved better.

I hate you. Because I never knew they desecrated the Sword of Truth. Now, I know

[rhorle]

That's nice, but it was still Peter Jackson who got it all rolling, who reached out to New Line, who talked to them and sold the product to them, got them to commit. Or, as you'd say, the driving force, not the simply tacked-on director you made him out to be. Get your facts straight.

It would have been a watered down final product if it wasn't for NLC though. Or it would have been cancelled and never made. They are still the driving force behind the project whether or not I got other details wrong. I'm not even sure why you are so insistent on making it all about me being wrong while ignoring everything else. If facts are what is important then you can't ignore how the project was doomed, like most other attempts at adaptation, before NLC. Jackson also could have been more of a producer like with The Hobbit instead of director as well or even replaced on the project.

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Just like he never reads the books, he never reads his own articles. He clearly showed that in the wot thread.

It is funny how you and others hold such a grudge just because you were proven to be wrong about somethings. Just as I am wrong about somethings. Let it go and stop hate watching things.

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It was a decent episode though the "drama" of the Numenorian part slowed it down. Those had little action or reveals to help. It is interesting that they don't seem to be going with the 16 rings. One of the cult members had a crown before they got banished so I wonder if they will be the Witch-Queen. When one of the others got stabbed in the foot the scream reminded me of a Nazgul from the Jackson work. It also remains to be seen if it is Gandalf. The subtle hints are there but it could easily be another of the known Wizards or a new one invented for the show.

One of the stronger episodes and I really liked the mind-prison scene. It does make you wonder if Galadriel has unknowingly been doing Saurons bidding this entire time. Opens up for her husband to return if he was captured by the cult or in a similar "mind prison" so Sauron could get info about Galadriel.

[Skulltaker]

It would have been a watered down final product if it wasn't for NLC though. Or it would have been cancelled and never made. They are still the driving force behind the project whether or not I got other details wrong. I'm not even sure why you are so insistent on making it all about me being wrong while ignoring everything else. If facts are what is important then you can't ignore how the project was doomed, like most other attempts at adaptation, before NLC. Jackson also could have been more of a producer like with The Hobbit instead of director as well or even replaced on the project.

Yeah, no. They gave money. That's a significant contribution all right, but the driving force was Jackson, from start to finish, no matter how doomed the project may have been. New line didn't urge him to do more than he intended to do from the beginning, namely doing the work of Tolkien justice. He did that. They agreed with him and posessed the foresight to fund a fully fledged adaptation. It still took a successful screening at Cannes for them to fund the final budget the movie had.

[Orby]

I had a higher tolerance for trying to turn books into shows/movies, but its been worn away.

I have 5 favorite authors, and 4 of them have all been disgraced by this:

Terry Brooks
Terry Goodkind
Robert Jordan
Anne Rice
Melanie Rawn

Oh yeah, The Shannara Chronicles still holds one of my lowest scores on IMDB, people shit on Rings of Power but at least Rings of Power is nice to look at, at times. The Shannara Chronicles adaptation blows me away with how bad it is. I could rant forever. It shocks me that it even made a second season, which I never watched by the way, season one was enough. Even worse that it actually has a 7.1 on IMDB. So my score is one of the lower ones :P

I remember getting excited when i saw the trailer...



Boy was I not prepared lol

As for my favourites yet to be butchered,

They are making an adaptation of Anthony Ryans's 'Raven's Shadow' trilogy...

https://collider.com/ravens-shadow-a...es-adaptation/

Fantasy adaptations are the rage now it seems, I know they are trying to do Joe Abercrombie's First Law into an adaption too. As well as Rebecca F. Kuang’s The Poppy War, Dragon Republic and The Burning God books... good help us all. :P

[Redwyrm]

Fantasy adaptations are the rage now it seems, I know they are trying to do Joe Abercrombie's First Law into an adaption too. As well as Rebecca F. Kuang’s The Poppy War, Dragon Republic and The Burning God books... good help us all. :P

I too was disappointed with the Shannara adaptation. IMO if a fantasy series can't be done with the same level of care as Jackson's LotR trilogy or Harry Potter (at minimum) then they should try doing it as an anime first. If that succeeds, then maybe move on to live action.

Otherland
Memory, Sorrow & Thorn
Dragonlance
Thomas Covenant Chronicles

[babalou1]

Dragonlance

No. Just no.

and please no Drizzt series. Let it stay to books.

[Redwyrm]

No. Just no.

and please no Drizzt series. Let it stay to books.

I know its a basic story with cliche characters. But it was a fun read when I was younger. I guess the closest we will get to it is the new D&D movie which has the same fantasy-humor-schlock vibe going

[Triceron]

We were discussing if an adaptation would have been allowed. You've argued for pages that Tolkien was against adaptations and the second age never would have been approved. I've argued the opposite. That Tolkien was fine with adaptations and the second age wouldn't be an exception. Piecemeal comes into this because he didn't publish his entire legendarium yet it is to be taken as a whole. Hence it being published in 4 pieces. I never once said JRR sold the rights to a piece of a book. Once again you show that you need to invent delusions because you can't handle being wrong. Lmao.

You're making as much of an egregious assumption here though. Just because a creator sold his property's film rights for money doesn't mean he is okay with the resulting adaptations, or even the decision to adapt it.

Look at George Lucas and the Star Wars aftermath. He sold off Lucasfilm. He's not happy about what's happened with the Sequel Trilogy since, and has been very vocal about that. Your assumption would be if Lucas died before the sequel trilogy, he'd be totally happy with the Sequels because he was willing to sell his work off and have other people taking over the material. Your implication here is that he would be completely supportive of anyone taking over his work. That's a half-truth at best, and an assumption that disregards the fact that we know George Lucas in retrospect regrets the decision to hand it off to people who mishandled the sequels of the main trilogy.

We won't ever really know Tolkien's intent for the 2nd Age adaptations, because they were never formally published outside of the appendices. Silmarillion was post-humously released, and it is the closest thing we could call to being an actual story, even though it's more like a historic outline. The appendices aren't stories at all really, more of a backstory account than anything. So to say he would be completely fine with people taking a small section of the appendices and adapting it into a full blown series would be absolutely presumptuous on your part. You don't know, therefore you can't really make that claim just to 'disprove' someone.

At best, your argument should be 'no one knows', not 'He would be okay with it because he was at one point in his life'.

[Jotaux]

I really liked the episode but I think Galadriel was way too suspicious and how she came to the truth made no sense to me. Like this guy was fine to be just a normal smith. It was her that pushed him to even come to middle earth. Also its perfectly reasonable to me that there be some random unknown heir that he could be descended from.

[exochaft]

One of the stronger episodes and I really liked the mind-prison scene. It does make you wonder if Galadriel has unknowingly been doing Saurons bidding this entire time. Opens up for her husband to return if he was captured by the cult or in a similar "mind prison" so Sauron could get info about Galadriel.

Only thing 'strong' about this last episode was that things of importance actually happened... beyond that, it was terrible. Even if one didn't know the leaks about the show that were known when the series launched, the show stinks of Bad Robot/JJ Abrams (thanks for the writers/showrunners with only one uncredited writing credit prior to doing this show being hired due to JJ Abrams pushing for it). It's filled with the standard mystery boxes, red herrings, lack of subtlety, appealing to the lowest common denominator viewer, repurposing lines/scenes from better content, etc. that we've come to know from the JJ Abrams and Bad Robot style of creation to the point that the parallels between the RoP series and a movie like TROS are insanely apparent.

One of the biggest attempts as a red herring mystery box was "Who is Sauron? Is it this person? Nope, guess again!" that was done over and over... when it was patently obvious from the first introduction of Halbrand it was Sauron because these showrunners can't write. They're basically more concerned about baiting people than making things make sense, as well as making ship-bait out of Galadriel and Sauron. Another side effect of abandoning all logic to shoe-horn in a mystery box is that can ruin your characters, especially Galadriel. While people probably have forgotten a lot of the episodes at the start of the series, think back to how logical Galadriel's actions are when it comes to Sauron. The show runners want people to believe that Sauron seduced and manipulated Galadriel, but she was just an obtuse moron from the start. Who the hell even entertains the idea a smart person believing that someone is a king based upon an item in possession of a man who repeatedly tells you he's not the king and how he got the item? To be fair, Galadriel and Miriel are equally dense in this regard because there were warning flags since the beginning that any normal person would question what's going on. First thing a smart Miriel would've done (especially since they're supposed to be distrusting of elves for reasons) is question what Galadriel is telling her about Halbrand, check your records, and investigate Halbrand's background. However, the plot can't happen if your characters are smart, and your characteres are only as smart as the writer, so many dumb events/actions had to occur in order for their plot to happen.

I also think Galadriel even mentioning her husband was part of the reshoots because that scene is part of a sequence that makes logically no sense in terms of her and Theo abandoning everyone instantly. Also, the way Galadriel acts throughout the series just makes her come off as a heartless bastard who doesn't give a damn about her husband at all, despite both her husband and brother supposedly dying in a similar manner. Whenever Galadriel is to have an emotional scene due to her past, her husband only gets mentioned once to the point you could suspect she's a psychopath who murdered him and constantly forgets to mention or show the correct emotions about his death. Doubled down with Sauron trying to manipulate her through mind games, representing himself as her bloody brother and not her husband... unless she's a legitimate bro-con, wouldn't be surprised if they had her getting 'intimate' with her brother given how things have gone down.

Now, I wouldn't be surprised if her husband is dead but comes back anyways for reasons... again, a lot of the logic and writing style seen in TROS is present in RoP. My head canon is that he faked his death because he couldn't stand Galadriel, making him the first actual sympathetic character in the show. However, I wouldn't put it past the show runners to have a severe tonal shift with how Galadriel treats her husband in the next season if they're going to bait that he's alive. This should still just cement that the show runners really don't care about the lore, especially if there's a tonal change in the second season.

Man, there's so much wrong with the last episode alone that I can't do it justice in writing it down. I actually had to stop the episode several times while watching because my head hurt from how inept the logic and writing was, as even small things can unravel or reveal a lot of issues that cascade into a disaster. What's worse is that once I started thinking about stuff when the episode ended, the worse it got. When you start thinking back to the entire series, you realize that most of it was a waste of time going in circles about stuff that either doesn't matter or is meant to be mystery box and red herring fodder... you could've probably cut out 75% of this show and not lost anything of value, and that's me be very generous. RoP is the epitome of what's wrong with a lot of the entertainment being released nowadays, especially content that Bad Robot and its disciples touch.

Also its perfectly reasonable to me that there be some random unknown heir that he could be descended from.

That was instantly what I thought when that scene went down. Actually paused the show and said "Wait a minute, why is he doing the twirling mustache villian monologue and revealing his plan before it's done, and his grand idea is to convince Galadriel to just let his plan continue... when you could've just kept playing the con. Easiest solution is to just say you're descendent of a bastard child of the last king, which is why it wouldn't show up in the records... boom, done, not the best but perfectly plausable. They're probably just doing this to cause drama." Unpaused the show and sure enough, it's just to cause drama because everyone's an idiot in this show. Classic example of twisting your characters to make your plot happen rather than the plot happening based upon actions that are reasonable for your characters to make in their given situations... aka, it's a sign of bad writing.

[rhorle]

Yeah, no. They gave money. That's a significant contribution all right, but the driving force was Jackson, from start to finish, no matter how doomed the project may have been. New line didn't urge him to do more than he intended to do from the beginning, namely doing the work of Tolkien justice.

And yet Jackson was going to produce it all with $75 million budget for two films. It was NLC that urged him to add cut portions back and dream even bigger. It was NLC that got him to do it justice. Without NLC taking the helm it wouldn't have happened the way it did. It is silly to deny that.

[IIamaKing]

I really liked the episode but I think Galadriel was way too suspicious and how she came to the truth made no sense to me. Like this guy was fine to be just a normal smith. It was her that pushed him to even come to middle earth. Also its perfectly reasonable to me that there be some random unknown heir that he could be descended from.

Him coming out as Sauron at that point, under that accusation, made little sense to me. He could easily say, "I was happy to be a smith, you needed a figurehead to lead a charge for YOUR quest. You thrust upon me a crown I never asked for or eluded to being mine. I took the chance to better my station, have I done anything other than help you?" and leave it there.

[druchii5]

"I am...good."

What an unfortunate mess.

[Jotaux]

That was instantly what I thought when that scene went down. Actually paused the show and said "Wait a minute, why is he doing the twirling mustache villian monologue and revealing his plan before it's done, and his grand idea is to convince Galadriel to just let his plan continue... when you could've just kept playing the con. Easiest solution is to just say you're descendent of a bastard child of the last king, which is why it wouldn't show up in the records... boom, done, not the best but perfectly plausable. They're probably just doing this to cause drama." Unpaused the show and sure enough, it's just to cause drama because everyone's an idiot in this show. Classic example of twisting your characters to make your plot happen rather than the plot happening based upon actions that are reasonable for your characters to make in their given situations... aka, it's a sign of bad writing.

Yeah, I mean I was pretty sure he was just going to lie since its pretty flimsy evidence. Instead he like "you caught me! I'm Sauron!"

[rhorle]

Also, her husband is 100% dead. Please please stop wasting everyone's time with these inane posts.

Nothing has said her husband is 100% dead. Just as lines from a different IP can be a subtle misdirection. Until the show confirms it then it isn't confirmed.

[Jotaux]

Him coming out as Sauron at that point, under that accusation, made little sense to me. He could easily say, "I was happy to be a smith, you needed a figurehead to lead a charge for YOUR quest. You thrust upon me a crown I never asked for or eluded to being mine. I took the chance to better my station, have I done anything other than help you?" and leave it there.

I 100% agree.

[rhorle]

You're making as much of an egregious assumption here though. Just because a creator sold his property's film rights for money doesn't mean he is okay with the resulting adaptations, or even the decision to adapt it.

I am not. Tolkien sold rights so people can make adaptations. Whether or not he would like what people made is irrelevant. He actively decided to sell the rights. We even have him consulting on projects while still alive. Even though he hated the script and changes he also didn't want to kill the project because he liked the imagery. None of this discussion is about Tolkien being happy with how Rings of Power adapted his story. Stop creating a strawman just so you can insert yourself into an argument.

[Kumorii]

Him coming out as Sauron at that point, under that accusation, made little sense to me. He could easily say, "I was happy to be a smith, you needed a figurehead to lead a charge for YOUR quest. You thrust upon me a crown I never asked for or eluded to being mine. I took the chance to better my station, have I done anything other than help you?" and leave it there.

Problem is that they wanted Galadriel to catch him out... but couldn't think of a proper way to deliver it.

[Triceron]

I am not. Tolkien sold rights so people can make adaptations. Whether or not he would like what people made is irrelevant. He actively decided to sell the rights. We even have him consulting on projects while still alive. Even though he hated the script and changes he also didn't want to kill the project because he liked the imagery. None of this discussion is about Tolkien being happy with how Rings of Power adapted his story. Stop creating a strawman just so you can insert yourself into an argument.

Yeah but you are making assumptions by drawing a conclusion that because he did something earlier in his life, he would be fine with it happening after he already dismissed the entire effort as being 'unfilmable' later in his life. You're molding the facts to fit your argument, rather than sensibly assessing that no one really knows the conclusion and you and IC are merely disagreeing over the same point, rather than either of you proving what is right or wrong.

I'm not the one claiming he would be fine with the decisions he made. No one has that information, so yes I'm calling you out on drawing a conclusion for something you absolutely have no knowing for real. It's not a strawman argument at all, it's literally something you are claiming.

And to be fair, IC is also making false claims on the other side of the argument. The only answer here is that no one knows what Tolkien would react concerning 2nd Age adaptation, because such a thing would not have been fathomable at the time he sold off the rights, considering the main body of work had not been properly adapted in Live Action in the first place. The appendices alone do not even have enough material to sustain a full story, which is part of the problems with Rings of Power right now.