Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Koriani]

I agree.

But that also tends to just 'kill' threads, because honest discussion doesn't last. Like, look at how this thread or the She Hulk thread gets way more discussion than good shows like House of the Dragon or Andor here. Contention is king here.

If we were being honest about LOTR, then I honestly don't think there's much to talk about. It'd be as dead as the Willow thread.

Yeah, but I, for one, would rather a dead thread than 100 pages of people 'arguing' back and forth (and yeah I use that term, loosely, LOL) about the use of some word, or 'woke' , or whatever the Hell else shitposters are pointlessly yelling into the void back at each other for - each of them thinking their yell into the void is 'winning'.

Its ok for discussion about something to be over, and to then move on to another thread/another topic. Its suppose to have a natural 'end' to the discussion. Its NOT letting things end that results in hundreds of pages of 'shitposting', arguing in circles about the *exact same things*, and people getting fedup with the entire forum and just not posting or reading at all.

And the negative feedback/toxicity loops would fall off, and wouldn't be a plague around here so much, if people would let topics END.

I mean do any of us really want to see another 34 page argument about the exact logistics of what makes something an "adaptation" or not; or why the inclusion of a minority character is/is NOT a violation of lore or story appropriate or 'checking a box'. I know I don't. I certainly don't want it 4 times in a single thread. Let it Die. =D

[SpaghettiMonk]

There is a lot of then for sure, but its kinda pointless when all of then share the same recipe and are, well, rly bad.

The last fantasy shows look like some weird isekai of people from california transported into a medieval world that look the same

You can put rings of shit, willow, wheel of time, witcher scenes together and it looks like is the same generic show.

I mean, the look of RoP is a bit different in order to copy off Peter Jackson, but otherwise I completely agree. The stories are all very similar though. They are using the ip as background and then telling whatever story they want to tell, and their ideas of “how to update” the lore are all depressingly similar and bad.

Again, I have to exclude HotD from this criticism. It had its own style and is much more faithful to its source.

[Koriani]

Its largely in part because of the slow development time needed for shows, GoT got the ball rolling but it took years for many of these shows to be green lit, people hired, acting done, etc. Now we have a glut of them coming at once. Doesn't help so few of them are made with love and care, but instead corporate productions lacking soul, leaving us the viewers disillusioned with it all.

The growing demand of content churn. Can't spend 'years' developing every show when your audience is demanding the new shows at a faster pace because now its a 'subscription.' And now they burned through what would have taken (at least) two months of weekly episodes to watch (in a 10 episode show), in a single day. Burning through what use to be an entire YEAR's worth of a cable channel "prime time" content, in a single week.

Tv/Movies have *always* been plagued with this level of crap. Its just before you had to pay a fee for every separate channel, then the crap-shows could be ignored for the better shows airing the same days in 'general cable'. And the Crap Movies were "known" because "Direct to video" was plastered on every one of them. So you immediately knew, before hitting 'play', what to expect.

Now there's none of that divide - the Netflix D-college student shit-script for theater class gets the same 'front advertisement' as the Big Oscar Contender. And people watch accordingly and get pissed that they keep being 'tricked' expecting an A product and getting an D-product. Or, like me, they just stop watching at all without knowing/discerning for themselves whether its a 'direct to video' grade movie/show or not.

As well as the reality of, for those who don't pay for basic cable, the only channels they have to 'watch' are the subscriptions. So expecting Disney and Netflix (by themselves) to somehow provide the same number of hours of entertaining content as 105 cable channels is setting themselves up for disappointment. They just don't have the same content hours.

And we, as the audience, have created the beast we now hate.

If nothing else, its an interesting social experiment. I wait to see, ultimately, how this is really all going to iron out into whatever the 'norm' will be. Because 'streaming on demand at any time' is no longer the winnable formula. More and more streaming networks are going back to weekly episode release format, because of that reality. It remains to be seen if these big streamers will start combining their subscriptions to keep the $$ flowing, (to create more value, the way Disney+/ESPN/Hulu does) thereby becoming a remix of the original 'cable' offerings; or how people will start balancing/cutting various streaming networks in a 'rotation' because they can't afford to keep up all 7 of them at the same time, etc. The kinks are still being figured out - and the pandemic just slowed that process down by skewing it all outside of the 'norms'.

I mean part of the reason "cable tv networks" (combined together in one package) had the time, and money, to be able to spend on the better developed prime-time shows is because of the lack of investment needed in the slew of gaming shows, reality tv, and soap operas. The 'shit shows' creating enough advertising revenue for media parent companies to then spend into the 'quality scripted' shows. Not to mention the DECADES of syndicated tv programming that also helped fill time, in multiple channels, without spending $$ but gaining advertising dollars.

HBO itself came up in a world where it wasn't expected to provide 24/7 entertainment. If you paid for HBO you got it on TOP Of the 30, 40 or later on 100+ channels you already got. So HBO having only one or two series a year that was considered 'top of the line tv' , and kept them in better standing against Showtime and Cinemax, was a financially winning scenario that could have gone on for eternity. But now? HBO is not only competing with more "premium channels" (other streaming networks), but its also expected to provide MORE of that content for the same price.

9.99 or 14.99 a month is never going to get you 24/7 quality television. It never did. But consumers are consuming the media on a 24/7 level NOW - and not all the watchers have the 'fluff' of the other cable channels - and that's why THIS is an impossible model for streaming networks to try and keep up. And an impossible expectation for consumers to have.

And why I still pay for "basic cable" =D. Just getting it cheaper, and with better dvr access using YoutubeTV than I ever did with "regular cable company" (which for me was Spectrum). (And shit, better than what Hulu/Disney offers. They charge more for you to be able to watch your OWN DVR without commercials. Which to me is utter bullshit and just dirty. Not giving them a penny. Fuckers.)

[Triceron]

I mean do any of us really want to see another 34 page argument about the exact logistics of what makes something an "adaptation" or not; or why the inclusion of a minority character is/is NOT a violation of lore or story appropriate or 'checking a box'. I know I don't. I certainly don't want it 4 times in a single thread. Let it Die. =D

I get the sentiment, but the thread is what it is. It's little different than the She-Hulk thread turning into the catch-all Marvel series discussion thread when the show's been said and done for quite a while now, and there's a perfectly good Marvel thread that existed well before it. It just happens to progress because that's where talk happens to be active.

I wouldn't mind if the thread died. It's only still alive because of what I consider to be the 'nature of MMO-C', which is the fact it's gathered the polarized people in one place, and the chaos still ensues because it's become an established setting for polarized opinions. "Rings of Power Thread" just happens to be where the shit flinging is happening, not because anyone really cares to discuss the show, but because people know it's the thread that's active enough where they can find something to speak out about, usually for the sake of arguing. And it ends up staying on the 'latest posts' enough that it attracts others back to the chaos.

If MMO-C didn't have the 'Recent Post' thing, I think a lot less attention would be given to the thread as a whole. It's not like anything important relating to the show has been talked about in the past couple months or so.

It's not really about the thread itself or the topics, it's about being settings for drama. Because once one drama thread dies, another just takes it place. It's quite cyclical. This shit happens all the time in Gen-disc and any 'New Class' threads, where the same Pro-Tinker/Anti-Tinker people carry on their decades-old debate until the mods step in. Then things simmer down, until someone makes another 'New Class' thread, and that shit starts up over again.

[SpaghettiMonk]

I just wanted to point out that this thread might be the most active one on the entire forum over the past 6 months haha… RWF got 50 something pages, this baby is at 340 pages since July haha…

[rhorle]

I know I don't. I certainly don't want it 4 times in a single thread. Let it Die. =D

Then stop following the thread? It is always strange how people preach about things with out doing those things themselves. Its okay when they do things but not okay when others do the same things.

[jackofwind]

If MMO-C didn't have the 'Recent Post' thing, I think a lot less attention would be given to the thread as a whole. It's not like anything important relating to the show has been talked about in the past couple months or so.

If MMO-C didn't have the Recent Post tracker no one would even use this forum.

[crusadernero]

<snip>

I agree with all of what you say here. As years have gone by, I have often thought that theres to much crap made on netflix, hbo or whatever other streaming service. Show after show. Movie after movie. Blockbuster series/Movies or random ass shite show/movie gets slapped on the front page. Its so much clutter with 95% of it being utter garbo.

I have also noticed that I probably watch 1-3(at top) quality shows each year. Theres way more shit series/movies i've started to watch and dropped. Theres just so much garbo out there that im at the point I dont even bother checking up series anymore. I used to have subs to a couple streaming services, but I dropped it long ago. My GF still keeps 1-2 subs going now and then, so sometimes we give a show a shot. But.. Well, most is bad.

Im not sure, but I think Steve Jobs(might have been someone else, but whatever) once said that once the PR/marked deparment take over something the engineers(in that case) - the creativity is gone. At that point, its all about churning out maximum profit with least effort. So instead of being innovative, creative, artistic etc - Theres mass produced shitshows.


Im also done paying a monthly sub for mostly bad quality shows. If something great shows up, I will probably hear about it and sub.

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If MMO-C didn't have the Recent Post tracker no one would even use this forum.

This. If it got removed, I probably wouldnt bother lol

[Biomega]

I have also noticed that I probably watch 1-3(at top) quality shows each year. Theres way more shit series/movies i've started to watch and dropped. Theres just so much garbo out there that im at the point I dont even bother checking up series anymore.

I feel you, and it's getting annoying. But the reality is probably that this is a minority reaction, and that most people are just going MORE MORE MORE NEW NEW NEW and aren't really super concerned with quality or sophistication. And the services gravitate towards what they think will make them the most money, which tend to be "the hot new show" kind of deals rather than years-long developments of television artistry and craftsmanship. Many things are to blame for it, but ultimately, consumers get to speak - if they just bite down on the garbage, that's what they'll keep getting fed.

I've rewatched more old series this year than finished new ones... by far. Not counting things I was obligated to watch for work, I think I finished 1 new series; most others I could not get past the first few episodes, or even the trailer. It's just become so hard to stomach dreck like Rings of Power or Wheel of Time, and I've run out of patience. I'll just stop, and move on. Or back in time, as it were.

Maybe there's a niche to be carved out there, I don't know. A streaming service and studio for people who want actual narrative, actual cinematic excellence. Not just a reheated stew of tired old tropes and predictable stereotypes, served in an incoherent mess of half-baked narrative and amateurish casting. But who's to pay for that? Not enough people willing to actually draw a line, I guess.

[SpaghettiMonk]

I feel you, and it's getting annoying. But the reality is probably that this is a minority reaction, and that most people are just going MORE MORE MORE NEW NEW NEW and aren't really super concerned with quality or sophistication. And the services gravitate towards what they think will make them the most money, which tend to be "the hot new show" kind of deals rather than years-long developments of television artistry and craftsmanship. Many things are to blame for it, but ultimately, consumers get to speak - if they just bite down on the garbage, that's what they'll keep getting fed.

I've rewatched more old series this year than finished new ones... by far. Not counting things I was obligated to watch for work, I think I finished 1 new series; most others I could not get past the first few episodes, or even the trailer. It's just become so hard to stomach dreck like Rings of Power or Wheel of Time, and I've run out of patience. I'll just stop, and move on. Or back in time, as it were.

Maybe there's a niche to be carved out there, I don't know. A streaming service and studio for people who want actual narrative, actual cinematic excellence. Not just a reheated stew of tired old tropes and predictable stereotypes, served in an incoherent mess of half-baked narrative and amateurish casting. But who's to pay for that? Not enough people willing to actually draw a line, I guess.

HBO getting bought by Discovery+, home of reality cooking TV shows, feels like McDonalds buying Nobu.

[rhorle]

HBO getting bought by Discovery+, home of reality cooking TV shows, feels like McDonalds buying Nobu.

No. HBO has been a part of Warner Media since at least the 1990's. WarnerMedia was merged with Discovery by AT&T in 2022.

[Biomega]

HBO getting bought by Discovery+, home of reality cooking TV shows, feels like McDonalds buying Nobu.

Funny you should mention cooking shows, just the other day I ranted about how you can't even find cooking shows that are just about, you know, COOKING anymore - no, it all has to be some kind of gimmick, like it's a gameshow or something. I just want to watch professional, high-quality shows about sophisticated cooking. Just the cooking. Not a story about a Korean nun who only cooks for the public twice a decade. Not a show about cooking for 50 people on a $50 budget. Not a documentary about the thousand ways the host can bite into a sandwich. JUST FUCKING COOKING that's not YouTube quality production value. But noooo....

I guess it's a larger symptom of an increasingly warped media landscape, where everything is sensationalized and converges towards some kind of market-share mentality. You can't find purity anymore, and you can't find originality, either. It's all just... soup. Which is doubly bad with the streaming service landscape fragmenting even further so you don't even know where to go anymore. It's cable networks all over again.

[SpaghettiMonk]

Funny you should mention cooking shows, just the other day I ranted about how you can't even find cooking shows that are just about, you know, COOKING anymore - no, it all has to be some kind of gimmick, like it's a gameshow or something. I just want to watch professional, high-quality shows about sophisticated cooking. Just the cooking. Not a story about a Korean nun who only cooks for the public twice a decade. Not a show about cooking for 50 people on a $50 budget. Not a documentary about the thousand ways the host can bite into a sandwich. JUST FUCKING COOKING that's not YouTube quality production value. But noooo....

I guess it's a larger symptom of an increasingly warped media landscape, where everything is sensationalized and converges towards some kind of market-share mentality. You can't find purity anymore, and you can't find originality, either. It's all just... soup. Which is doubly bad with the streaming service landscape fragmenting even further so you don't even know where to go anymore. It's cable networks all over again.

Yup, and they're playing games too. Since Discovery bought HBO, they started doing shit like pulling certain content off the website to create limited availability windows. Meanwhile I honestly don't understand what Amazon is thinking with Prime - where's the synergy between free delivery and tv shows?

[bledgor]

...

Honestly think they should be looking at streamers/twitch/youtube as the model to use, sponsor people to play games/create content/play music/etc as your IRL stuff/repeatable content and inter-splice it with your media companies big ticket items (the big shows, your Game of Thrones) so that people can look forward to a big new show every few months from a streaming service while having the content catalogue to enjoy + daily streamers who have content to provide.

Amazon has the easiest path forward in my opinion as they have twitch, think they should look to include it in prime video to supplement it, and if people can watch twitch through amazon prime more likely to browse for something or buy something if they remember they need it if they are already at the site.

The rest of them would have work to do but could make it happen, though netflix could pick up the foreign market shows (I have enjoyed a number of the Korean shows/movies) and use that angle if they can get it exclusively.

[SpaghettiMonk]

The growing demand of content churn. Can't spend 'years' developing every show when your audience is demanding the new shows at a faster pace because now its a 'subscription.' And now they burned through what would have taken (at least) two months of weekly episodes to watch (in a 10 episode show), in a single day. Burning through what use to be an entire YEAR's worth of a cable channel "prime time" content, in a single week.

Tv/Movies have *always* been plagued with this level of crap. Its just before you had to pay a fee for every separate channel, then the crap-shows could be ignored for the better shows airing the same days in 'general cable'. And the Crap Movies were "known" because "Direct to video" was plastered on every one of them. So you immediately knew, before hitting 'play', what to expect.

Now there's none of that divide - the Netflix D-college student shit-script for theater class gets the same 'front advertisement' as the Big Oscar Contender. And people watch accordingly and get pissed that they keep being 'tricked' expecting an A product and getting an D-product. Or, like me, they just stop watching at all without knowing/discerning for themselves whether its a 'direct to video' grade movie/show or not.

As well as the reality of, for those who don't pay for basic cable, the only channels they have to 'watch' are the subscriptions. So expecting Disney and Netflix (by themselves) to somehow provide the same number of hours of entertaining content as 105 cable channels is setting themselves up for disappointment. They just don't have the same content hours.

And we, as the audience, have created the beast we now hate.

If nothing else, its an interesting social experiment. I wait to see, ultimately, how this is really all going to iron out into whatever the 'norm' will be. Because 'streaming on demand at any time' is no longer the winnable formula. More and more streaming networks are going back to weekly episode release format, because of that reality. It remains to be seen if these big streamers will start combining their subscriptions to keep the $$ flowing, (to create more value, the way Disney+/ESPN/Hulu does) thereby becoming a remix of the original 'cable' offerings; or how people will start balancing/cutting various streaming networks in a 'rotation' because they can't afford to keep up all 7 of them at the same time, etc. The kinks are still being figured out - and the pandemic just slowed that process down by skewing it all outside of the 'norms'.

I mean part of the reason "cable tv networks" (combined together in one package) had the time, and money, to be able to spend on the better developed prime-time shows is because of the lack of investment needed in the slew of gaming shows, reality tv, and soap operas. The 'shit shows' creating enough advertising revenue for media parent companies to then spend into the 'quality scripted' shows. Not to mention the DECADES of syndicated tv programming that also helped fill time, in multiple channels, without spending $$ but gaining advertising dollars.

HBO itself came up in a world where it wasn't expected to provide 24/7 entertainment. If you paid for HBO you got it on TOP Of the 30, 40 or later on 100+ channels you already got. So HBO having only one or two series a year that was considered 'top of the line tv' , and kept them in better standing against Showtime and Cinemax, was a financially winning scenario that could have gone on for eternity. But now? HBO is not only competing with more "premium channels" (other streaming networks), but its also expected to provide MORE of that content for the same price.

9.99 or 14.99 a month is never going to get you 24/7 quality television. It never did. But consumers are consuming the media on a 24/7 level NOW - and not all the watchers have the 'fluff' of the other cable channels - and that's why THIS is an impossible model for streaming networks to try and keep up. And an impossible expectation for consumers to have.

And why I still pay for "basic cable" =D. Just getting it cheaper, and with better dvr access using YoutubeTV than I ever did with "regular cable company" (which for me was Spectrum). (And shit, better than what Hulu/Disney offers. They charge more for you to be able to watch your OWN DVR without commercials. Which to me is utter bullshit and just dirty. Not giving them a penny. Fuckers.)

As a fan of fantasy series, I think of it as the difference between Brandon Sanderson and a guy like GRRM. I like Brandon Sanderson's books, and I like that his output is prodigious, but I am starting to get less interested in them as time goes on. I can't put my finger on it but they do feel somewhat formulaic - which makes sense, I don't think you can put out as many books as he has without being formulaic. I think Wheel of Time was similar - prodigious output, but not super well done. The guys who do great stuff don't have a ton of output. Personally I was always comfortable with HBO - at their peak they didn't have a ton of output, but they usually had at least one good show that was currently out, and that was enough for me. In ordinary times I'm ok with reading Sanderson's stuff, but I would drop his books in a second if Winds of Winter came out. The problem is he gets paid the same for the 17th cosmere book as GRRM gets paid for his first ASOIAF book in umpteen years.

[Triceron]

Meanwhile I honestly don't understand what Amazon is thinking with Prime - where's the synergy between free delivery and tv shows?

It's all about the Prime subscription. No different than how WoW Classic operates for WoW. It's meant to sweeten the reason to stay subbed. Prime Video perks fill in the 'deadzone' between online purchases, an incentive to avoid unsubbing.

Sub for the Free Delivery, stay for the month-to-month TV shows. Cuz to be honest, there's not much in their business model that justifies perpetuating a monthly sub just for the sake of free delivery.

[bledgor]

As a fan of fantasy series, I think of it as the difference between Brandon Sanderson and a guy like GRRM. I like Brandon Sanderson's books, and I like that his output is prodigious, but I am starting to get less interested in them as time goes on. I can't put my finger on it but they do feel somewhat formulaic - which makes sense, I don't think you can put out as many books as he has without being formulaic. I think Wheel of Time was similar - prodigious output, but not super well done. The guys who do great stuff don't have a ton of output. Personally I was always comfortable with HBO - at their peak they didn't have a ton of output, but they usually had at least one good show that was currently out, and that was enough for me. In ordinary times I'm ok with reading Sanderson's stuff, but I would drop his books in a second if Winds of Winter came out. The problem is he gets paid the same for the 17th cosmere book as GRRM gets paid for his first ASOIAF book in umpteen years.

I think as long as you have novel stories and don't string them out to long you can do formulaic writing and make it interesting, I still enjoy Koontz from time to time when he does his off beat stories (still love Frankstein and Odd Thomas series). Brandon has got the talent to make different but still formulaic stuff too, like I enjoy the world of Way of the Kings enough to have read the books published so far, but some of his other series I never got into because it felt a bit to similar.

Honestly Butcher when he was in his prime of pushing two books a year I still loved, as The Dresden Files was such a fun concept of modern day wizard and yet I still enjoyed the Codex Alera greatly too because it was a different world concept.

I guess what I am saying is they want to do formulaic, I find I enjoy if they do a different style fantasy next to the high or normal fantasy series to keep it interesting.

[SpaghettiMonk]

I think as long as you have novel stories and don't string them out to long you can do formulaic writing and make it interesting, I still enjoy Koontz from time to time when he does his off beat stories (still love Frankstein and Odd Thomas series). Brandon has got the talent to make different but still formulaic stuff too, like I enjoy the world of Way of the Kings enough to have read the books published so far, but some of his other series I never got into because it felt a bit to similar.

Honestly Butcher when he was in his prime of pushing two books a year I still loved, as The Dresden Files was such a fun concept of modern day wizard and yet I still enjoyed the Codex Alera greatly too because it was a different world concept.

I guess what I am saying is they want to do formulaic, I find I enjoy if they do a different style fantasy next to the high or normal fantasy series to keep it interesting.

I think the part that's bothering me is the cosmere stuff. The series are mostly fine on their own, but having Hoid pop in and suddenly Kelsier is still alive and they're going into Shadesmar, all that crap just requires way too much energy for me. A random guy will appear in one series, say a few things, and I'm supposed to realize that it's that guy from another book I read 5 years ago. I generally like Hoid as a character but his shtick is running thin too. After 10 books of being a mysterious guy popping up in every single big story from time to time, I'm ready to actually find out wtf is going on. There's all this random side crap going on that I just don't have the dedication to follow.

[rhorle]

Yup, and they're playing games too. Since Discovery bought HBO, they started doing shit like pulling certain content off the website to create limited availability windows. Meanwhile I honestly don't understand what Amazon is thinking with Prime - where's the synergy between free delivery and tv shows?

Discovery didn't buy HBO. AT&T bought Discovery for $85 million and merged the WarnerMedia (the parts they didn't sell off) into it. Amazon has stated in the past that Prime Video trials convert at a higher rate then other trials. So it helps keep people paying and interacting with Amazon. If you are paying to watch videos why not enjoy the 2-day shipping as well. It's not like it should be that baffling since Amazon has their hands in everything and their web services is really eclipsing even the retail at this point.

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Amazon has the easiest path forward in my opinion as they have twitch, think they should look to include it in prime video to supplement it, and if people can watch twitch through amazon prime more likely to browse for something or buy something if they remember they need it if they are already at the site.

Neither Twitch or Prime Video need to supplemented and they should likely be kept seperate since one is the traditional Movie industry and one is gaming. They market Twitch as a part of the Prime Gaming perks (Free games, in-game stuff, rotating Luna games each month, free twitch sub). There seems little reason to mix the influencers with video on demand. They could integrate Amazon into Twitch so they link to the company more but I bet they have the data to judge if that is a good or bad idea more than any of us here.

[Biomega]

As a fan of fantasy series, I think of it as the difference between Brandon Sanderson and a guy like GRRM. I like Brandon Sanderson's books, and I like that his output is prodigious, but I am starting to get less interested in them as time goes on. I can't put my finger on it but they do feel somewhat formulaic

Sanderson is the fast-food equivalent of fantasy writing, really. It's okay, but never really much more than okay - and just lives off of volume volume volume. GRRM isn't exactly 3-star cuisine, but it's more like... that super exclusive dining club you wait 2 years for a reservation, and you get a memorable experience of sufficient quality even if it might be a little overwhelming.

Compensation is hardly anything to go by in creative work, really. It's mostly a function of hype only weakly related to quality - it's more about hitting the right mass appeal at the right time, which is how 7 Harry Potter books make you a billion dollars. Not because they're particularly amazing or particularly well made, they just managed to take off in the right way. It's not exactly fair to the artists, but you don't become an artist for the money (not if you're any good at it, anyway). It's more like a lottery you can manipulate a little bit yourself. But only a little bit.

I think time is a big factor, though, especially when it comes to platformed products like made-for-streaming shows. They can't take their time, because they need to pump content like crazy to keep their service relevant. Which means most projects are rushed one way or the other, even if they would artistically benefit from extra time in the oven. A film or show is a very different thing from a novel - sure writer's gotta eat, but anyone can at least in principle just sit down and write a novel in their spare time. They CANNOT just sit down and make a TV series in their spare time. You need massive funding, and with that funding come all the constraints that ruin good art.