Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[rhorle]

Things are heating up... listen, it's not terrible if you don't know the source material. It's fine, boilerplate TV fantasy, with all the flaws of TV writing. But like, you don't spend 250 million to buy this IP and get boilerplate fantasy.

You've and others have already shown that source material isn't the issue. As the Jackson films deviated and where even disliked by the Tolkien Estate for not capturing the spirit of the work properly. Yet those films are praised by you and others as being a good thing. It just shows that deviations, "spirit", and other terms to describe Canon sources are ultimately meaningless in discussions. If a product is liked those things no longer matter. If a product isn't liked then those things matter.

The show isn't exceptional by any means but it isn't generic "boilerplate" either. It still draws a lot from Tolkien's world.

[Syegfryed]

I love the false equivalence of "the source isn't a problem cause peter jackson movie changes stuff too" like, ma boy you are comparing a lake with the fucking ocean, Jackson changes are not nearly close to the bs they did in this show

Things are heating up... listen, it's not terrible if you don't know the source material. It's fine, boilerplate TV fantasy, with all the flaws of TV writing. But like, you don't spend 250 million to buy this IP and get boilerplate fantasy. And, like with Wheel of Time, I don't believe that it's a successful strategy to create something that's just not appealing to the most dedicated fans of that IP because you changed too much. Yes, sure, you need to appeal to wider audience than Silmarillion fans, but I think you need Silmarillion fans to be excited about it and help spread it by word of mouth.

Even if this was a random fantasy world this show would still be mediocre though, that is the second biggest problem with it after the destruction of tolkien work, and that is why it flopped so hard.

[rhorle]

I love the false equivalence of "the source isn't a problem cause peter jackson movie changes stuff too" like, ma boy you are comparing a lake with the fucking ocean, Jackson changes are not nearly close to the bs they did in this show

That is my point that you seem to have missed. Changes that would normal be picked apart are ignored because you like the movies. Even when the Tolkien's do not like it. Shouldn't we be going by their opinion for what fits the spirit of Tolkien? Since they are the closest to the original author as we will ever get. Yet their disdain is also ignored.

The show has not flopped. It still has high viewership. It stopped the decline in viewers for the finale. The barometer for a flop is not your personal taste. It is strange how you, and others, can't actually accept that the show wasn't a flop. You have to keep denying reality for some strange reason. Why is it that any success can't be allowed when you dislike the show?

[Syegfryed]

That is my point that you seem to have missed. Changes that would normal be picked apart are ignored because you like the movies

And that is false, straight up a false equivalence, the changes in the movies are not nearly as retarded as the ones in the show, period.

The show flopped fucking hard, no matter how many artificial numbers amazon cam come up with, it didn't perform nearly as good as other shows with less budget and less fanbase

[rhorle]

The show flopped fucking hard, no matter how many artificial numbers amazon cam come up with, it didn't perform nearly as good as other shows with less budget and less fanbase

Amazon doesn't control Nielsen. Those numbers indicate that the week episode 8 came out they had 1,137 million minutes streamed on US TV's. That is close to the two episode premiere of 1,253 million mins. It didn't flop hard. Why can't you acknowledge that the show didn't flop? It doesn't change anything else about the show and how good or bad it was.

You also mistake bring up the Jackson work. It isn't to equate the changes in any way. It is easier for you to create a strawman, that you copied from another poster, then to counter what I've actually said. Mr. Jackson had some big changes like all elves being blonde hair clones. Or Helm's deep being drastically different. That wasn't the point of though. It was how "changes from Canon" or "Against the spirit of Tolkien" only matter to you, and others, when you dislike the work. If it is work like the Jackson films that you like then it doesn't matter if it went against the spirit of Tolkien.

[Syegfryed]

As I mentioned earlier, I seriously tried to find plot points that existed in this show that also actually exist in Tolkien's work. I came up with:

Tar-Palantir dies
Mithril is discovered
Three rings are made

And that's literally it. From the entire 8 episode season I can't come up with anything else, unless you count the prologue.

And if you take two of those 3 points, they are way different from the actual events, like how the elven rings are supposed to be made last and how mithril was not some fucking dip dope magic ore with the power of silmaril

To the "false equivalence" point - it's as if people think you're going to say, "You know what, you're right, I think it's great now because you reminded me Jackson changed things too!" This is all subjective stuff - it's not wrong to think that one set of changes is ok and the other is bad.

The problem is - some people - want to compare a deep cut in your arm to literally ripping off your arm, its signal of desperation and bad faith

I do think it might just be that the showrunners have bitten off an incredibly difficult task. Jackson's work was very good when he had strong source material - Lord of the Rings - and bad when he had weaker material (Hobbit). And Jackson nearly ended RotK on an incredibly sour note when he planned to have Aragorn fight Sauron in the last battle while Frodo was on Mount Doom - that would have been an awful scene. Similarly, GoT fell apart when it ran out of book material, and Disney Star Wars movies flopped too. I think there's a big lesson in recent years that you need very strong source material, and that TV/movie writers aren't going to make that good a universe on their own.

They had a difficult task, but they still tried to chew too much, full of themselves, saying shit like "we will make a story tolkien never did", the dialogue, the acting, everything was medium to bad.

[Xath]

You're right, but why even waste your time? This thread has entered the usual phase popular threads in this sub-forum enter; the same handful of miserable cunts whining incessantly and anyone that dare be positive is being paid, are a shill, or a troll, or whatever. Anything positive is seen that way. There is immediate distrust. While anything negative is met with serious acceptance, because how could this piece of media be seen any other way? Though, tbf, this thread started off that way long before there was even a single episode.

Personally, I'll just wait until S2 starts and see which of them immediately decides its dogshit in the months before it airs, even if they change anything for the better. That's all this shitshow of a sub-forum ever is; the dregs of media consumption. People that doesn't actually watch things (unless they get called out on it enough and then do lol). People that just read summaries (Xath). People that are blatant hypocrites that will accuse you of arguing for the sake of it, while doing exactly that themselves (Triceron). People that make YouTube videos 6 months before an episode airs to tell you how evil cannot create anything good with a butchered Tolkien quote (Val). These are not serious people and certainly don't deserve your time. Let them rage like the impotent beings they are. If they don't do it here, they're probably just doing it in YouTube comments anyway.

Its a shame I won't read replies to this post, though.

Sure you won't we all know you literally live for the replies to your contrarian bs.

- - - Updated - - -

Amazon doesn't control Nielsen. Those numbers indicate that the week episode 8 came out they had 1,137 million minutes streamed on US TV's. That is close to the two episode premiere of 1,253 million mins. It didn't flop hard. Why can't you acknowledge that the show didn't flop? It doesn't change anything else about the show and how good or bad it was.

You also mistake bring up the Jackson work. It isn't to equate the changes in any way. It is easier for you to create a strawman, that you copied from another poster, then to counter what I've actually said. Mr. Jackson had some big changes like all elves being blonde hair clones. Or Helm's deep being drastically different. That wasn't the point of though. It was how "changes from Canon" or "Against the spirit of Tolkien" only matter to you, and others, when you dislike the work. If it is work like the Jackson films that you like then it doesn't matter if it went against the spirit of Tolkien.

Nielsen for streaming is ending up about as reliable as political polls. If you want to actually know how shows are doing pay attention to what is prioritized in advertising hint it isn't shows that are bombing.

[rhorle]

Nielsen for streaming is ending up about as reliable as political polls. If you want to actually know how shows are doing pay attention to what is prioritized in advertising hint it isn't shows that are bombing.

We know that isn't how Amazon views things based on recent comments about from the Studio leader. They have advertised Rings of Power but they also want to keep people in the ecosystem. So they will advertise smaller projects because the big ones don't need the boost. It is also why they will advertise series that haven't had new content for a while when similar shows appear.

"Salke outlined the strategy to go after big globe-trotting fantasy and action-genre fare such as “The Boys,” “The Wheel of Time,” “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and “Jack Reacher” in anticipation of “Rings of Power” arriving this year. Amazon Prime Video has committed to five seasons of “Lord of the Rings.”

“Those are two areas that we will invest in as global tentpole content strategies. But we also want to appeal to local audiences,” Salke said. “People will come for the big global content. But what we don’t want is a customer to come in to be able to just watch one show, and then there’s nothing else for them. So we want to make sure we are really surfacing to them a collection of content that they love.”"-- https://variety.com/2022/biz/news/lo...gm-1235408282/

Rings of Power has not bombed. Nielsen ratings are not unreliable. They are just part of a picture. The only reason why you are trying to now call them into question is because they don't support that the show has bombed. If the numbers were low I bet you would be using them as evidence of failure. I don't understand why it is so hard for you, and others, who dislike the show to admit anything positive about the show. It having a high viewership doesn't stop the rest of the show from being good or bad. Yet you folks always try to tear down any hint of it not being an utter failure just because.

[ldev]

I did like 1 minute of reviewing this show before giving it a try (decided to not watch it, not interested in lotr that much) - from my understanding is that amazon tried to update lore to year 2022, because this was written by a british cunt so obviously it has tons of racism and classism and what not and neckbears downvoted show to oblivion?

Or did I get a wrong impression?

---

OT: rowlen or w/e harry poter writer's name is was also british and, surprise surprise - also a cunt. Any british writers that aren't cunts? See you all in a month.

Infracted.

[Triceron]

They have done other appearances. The official podcast even has a post-finale (day after it aired) interview at NY Comic Con. The CEO of Amazon studios talked about Rings of Power at Mipcom. Even House of the Dragon hasn't said what they have in store for the future. All they have said is they won't return until 2024 and a few general plans. You are holding Amazon to a standard that practically no one follows. Amazon hasn't even talked about future seasons of their other shows right after a season ended.

https://variety.com/2022/biz/news/lo...gm-1235408282/

Which is all pre-planned and part of the marketting behind the series as it was being released.

Nothing is addressing how the series did or how they gauged its performance. Even the Variety article states that the mip om thing was practically pre-recorded

Instead, Salke recorded a 35-minute live-to-tape Q&A with Cynthia Littleton, Variety’s Co-editor in chief.

So yeah, nothing that addresses how the series actually did and how to address any of the rumors we've been getting now. It's not like we didn't know about the 5 seasons planned and the fact that S2 is coming in 2024, that was already known. What I'm talking about is a report similarly to what they did when the show first released giving out big numbers, which they did for post finale for the Boys and some other Amazon Prime shows, which is quite the opposite of you saying that they don't do that.

[rhorle]

Which is all pre-planned and part of the marketting behind the series as it was being released.

You don't think other shows that do stuff isn't pre-planned and part of marketting? A speech at a industry conference is "marketing"? Why does it matter if it is pre-recorded or not if it was being done remotely?

Very few shows address rumors like we are getting now. Numbers from Nielsen haven't even had a full week of the season finale and you are already asking for them to discuss it. They also rarely have done such for their past show. Do you have an actual link to Amazon talking about The Boys right after the season ended? I can't find a press release and google just shows articles talking about Nielsen or season premiere comments by Amazon.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Good god is this still going on? How can something people apparantly hate so much with such vigor keep people busy a freaking month after the show finished?

Also why did you fucking watch it in the first place or more than one episode?

Give it a rest allready.
See you when season 2 airs becuase everyone in here hating the ever living fuck out of it will definetly noooot watch it *winkwink*

The posters in question were super invested in the show failing before it aired and aren’t willing to accept that it was any thing other then a flop so when ever viewer numbers come out from Amazon or other sources they need to make sure every ones know that all the numbers are wrong or being fakes by Amazon.

This will likely continue for every news update we get until season 2 or they find a new show to obsessively hate.

[kenn9530]

and yet every available metric shows it to be a failure of epic proportions, so bad was its' failure it's got all upper management at Amazon desperately scraping around to get the fires put out and run as much damage control as is possible, with the showrunners all but begging people to watch the show in recent interviews they did for the same publication calling out the 'creatively bankrupt first season', but i mean you don't believe in hard data, you don't believe when people tell you something months in advance which turns out to be true after the fact, because the only metric you believe in is your feelings, and as you have demonstrated countless times in this thread as well as myriad other threads over time, if something hurts your feelings it's the biggest travesty known to mankind, but by all means, keep telling everyone how much of a masterpiece this commercial failure has been, i'm sure your little echo chamber will enjoy that, all 5 of you.

You dont know how to read metrics then, the show is doing better than most other show they have and better than many tv shows available, you obviously dont know what a failure is, goodluck with your completely wrong opinion.

The simple reality you refuse to accept is more ppl like the show as it is than dont like it, the only thing that matters is enough ppl like the show than not, that then means its a success.

[MakeMeLaugh]

You're right, but why even waste your time? This thread has entered the usual phase popular threads in this sub-forum enter; the same handful of miserable cunts whining incessantly and anyone that dare be positive is being paid, are a shill, or a troll, or whatever. Anything positive is seen that way. There is immediate distrust. While anything negative is met with serious acceptance, because how could this piece of media be seen any other way? Though, tbf, this thread started off that way long before there was even a single episode.

Personally, I'll just wait until S2 starts and see which of them immediately decides its dogshit in the months before it airs, even if they change anything for the better. That's all this shitshow of a sub-forum ever is; the dregs of media consumption. People that doesn't actually watch things (unless they get called out on it enough and then do lol). People that just read summaries (Xath). People that are blatant hypocrites that will accuse you of arguing for the sake of it, while doing exactly that themselves (Triceron). People that make YouTube videos 6 months before an episode airs to tell you how evil cannot create anything good with a butchered Tolkien quote (Val). These are not serious people and certainly don't deserve your time. Let them rage like the impotent beings they are. If they don't do it here, they're probably just doing it in YouTube comments anyway.

Its a shame I won't read replies to this post, though.

That's because this series was really bad. It's probably the worst series I've ever seen and I'm not even exaggerating.

Considering the money Amazon has, the popularity of the franchise, how much lore there's available(doesn't matter if it's not about the time the series happens), how there are movies already that worked wonderfully, it amazes me how on earth the end product came up like this. I feel like Amazon just gave money to some dudes who had no idea what Lord of the Rings is and did not supervise it at all.

I cannot comprehend how bad the end product end up, in my mind it was impossible to end up being this bad.

[bledgor]

That's because this series was really bad. It's probably the worst series I've ever seen and I'm not even exaggerating.

Considering the money Amazon has, the popularity of the franchise, how much lore there's available(doesn't matter if it's not about the time the series happens), how there are movies already that worked wonderfully, it amazes me how on earth the end product came up like this. I feel like Amazon just gave money to some dudes who had no idea what Lord of the Rings is and did not supervise it at all.

I cannot comprehend how bad the end product end up, in my mind it was impossible to end up being this bad.

Also people pretend it was a massive success, the show spent over 600 million on this season alone, you need to get MASSIVE numbers to justify that, not just good or even great numbers, and the fact it isn't sitting on top for not even weeks is proof the show performed subpar.

[rhorle]

Also people pretend it was a massive success, the show spent over 600 million on this season alone, you need to get MASSIVE numbers to justify that, not just good or even great numbers, and the fact it isn't sitting on top for not even weeks is proof the show performed subpar.

For a traditional network sure. Amazon doesn't use third party ads and has a monthly/yearly subscription to more then just Prime Video. There is a stand alone prime video subscription that would be easier to use for a basic numbers=success equation but I bet that is a minority. Also House of the Dragon didn't sit on "top" either so does that mean it is sub-par and a failure as well? Or do we change the definitions based on show and how much you like them?

A show about a serial killer held the top spot for much of both shows. Does that mean everything but that show was a failure?

[Biomega]

Also people pretend it was a massive success, the show spent over 600 million on this season alone, you need to get MASSIVE numbers to justify that, not just good or even great numbers, and the fact it isn't sitting on top for not even weeks is proof the show performed subpar.

Part of the problem is that "success" is a very vague term that can mean any number of things. Did it please critics? Audiences? Award committees? Is the financial success measured in absolute numbers? Relative to the budget? Relative to expectations? Relative to number of screens?

As an example, you could say a movie making $500m box office is successful; but if that's a marvel movie with a star-studded lineup and hundreds of millions in budget, that's not actually a success. Whereas if that's an independent film shot by a debut director on a two million dollar art grant, it's a success beyond imagination.

Any number of ways of measuring "success" can be used and yield different results for different projects. In terms of absolute numbers, I'm sure RoP pulled in a viewership that for most shows would be considered a success; but this is not just ANY show, it's a show with extremely high expectations, and an extremely high budget. Ignoring that by simply regurgitating absolute numbers obscures highly important facts.

And then there's also the expectations on the side of the producers. A project can be critically AND financially "successful", and yet still disappoint the expectations of the producers. It sounds silly to call something that, say, makes $100m profit and wins awards a "failure", but if the studio went in hoping to make $500m profit and win more awards, that could well be a disappointing performance.

It's all relative to how you're looking at it. There's few if any magic threshold numbers in the absolute.

[bledgor]

As an example, you could say a movie making $500m box office is successful; but if that's a marvel movie with a star-studded lineup and hundreds of millions in budget, that's not actually a success. Whereas if that's an independent film shot by a debut director on a two million dollar art grant, it's a success beyond imagination.

Any number of ways of measuring "success" can be used and yield different results for different projects. In terms of absolute numbers, I'm sure RoP pulled in a viewership that for most shows would be considered a success; but this is not just ANY show, it's a show with extremely high expectations, and an extremely high budget. Ignoring that by simply regurgitating absolute numbers obscures highly important facts.

And then there's also the expectations on the side of the producers. A project can be critically AND financially "successful", and yet still disappoint the expectations of the producers. It sounds silly to call something that, say, makes $100m profit and wins awards a "failure", but if the studio went in hoping to make $500m profit and win more awards, that could well be a disappointing performance.

It's all relative to how you're looking at it. There's few if any magic threshold numbers in the absolute.

For my part it goes along the lines of 3 things:

1. Does it make enough money to justify it, because while yes Amazon has money to spare if the show is consistently losing money that means it is either massively wasting money or not getting near enough viewership to justify spending the money on it vs other shows.

2. How is the reception of the show? This is a much harder to measure statistic as there are like you said a variety of measurements for it, be it the actual viewership (which we can really only speculate about), the amount of secondary product it drives consumers to buy/view (a much worse stat for amazon because unless purchased/watched on their website they aren't getting money for games/toys/etc), and the general buzz/talk about the show (be it online or in person). The last one is also fairly hard to measure as you can't get a number for person to person talk/watercooler talk about the show, but the online buzz for the show was IIRC 10% of HotD, a direct competitor for the fantasy genre and what Bozo himself said he wanted to create/beat.

3. Finally pride/quality of the art created. This one is another that is hard to properly measure as some shows/movies people love and others people hate. It in part is related to the other two as well, as money/talk can certainly point to quality, though it isn't always the case. Sometimes shows/movies that are masterpieces never make the money/name they deserve, but at least people can respect the work still. For me a good example of this (that also happens to be adaptation) is Dredd. The movie was fantastically made, enjoyable throughout, and captured the essence of the source. Yet the movie lost money, and while it has an okay cult following, it didn't drive press/talk. Rings of Power other than the CGI doesn't really drive people to love it, it doesn't have that "It" factor to make something about it immortal/have a cult following. Even the people I know that enjoyed it didn't have a thing about it that they loved, they just enjoyed it. As soon as another pretty show comes around it will be largely forgotten.

So TLDR with the show having an amazing/immensely well known source, the largest budget for a show ever, and one of the easiest/best value subscription/methods of access, what we got was not a rousing or even good success, heck personally I see if as a massive failure. However even if I view it subjectively I wouldn't be happy with the results if I was amazon, as the show was given a diamond spoon and produced results you can get from much cheaper shows like Reacher.

[Triceron]

You don't think other shows that do stuff isn't pre-planned and part of marketting? A speech at a industry conference is "marketing"? Why does it matter if it is pre-recorded or not if it was being done remotely?

Very few shows address rumors like we are getting now. Numbers from Nielsen haven't even had a full week of the season finale and you are already asking for them to discuss it. They also rarely have done such for their past show. Do you have an actual link to Amazon talking about The Boys right after the season ended? I can't find a press release and google just shows articles talking about Nielsen or season premiere comments by Amazon.

I didn't criticize their marketting, I criticized their lack of addressing the supposed success this show had, since that's what we're calling it right? Everything in the marketting covers news and interviews, regardless of whether the show did well or not.

If you're linking to stuff that's pre-recorded and interviews that are part of an official podcast that obviously will have a final episode that is released after the finale is already out, then you're not really addressing anything I'm talking about.

All you're being is dishonest as fuck and replying to my comments without addressing anything I've actually said, really. Arguing with yourself again.

[rhorle]

All you're being is dishonest as fuck and replying to my comments without addressing anything I've actually said, really. Arguing with yourself again.

So I take it you turning to insults and the usual derailment of discussion means you won't be providing a source to these times Amazon has done it in the past? I've addressed the things you've said. You don't like them. A speech at an industry conference live or remote/recorded is not "standard show marketing" no matter how much you want to claim it is.

If you are going to get so upset at being asked to provide a source please put me back on ignore.