Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[rhorle]

lets just put it that if you take away the LoTR from it/rename places and characters it wasn't a good show for me. The dialogue is bad, the story is bad, the acting is mediocre, the costumes range from good to worst cosplay level (gods I hate the Numenorean armor). The music was great sure, and the visuals good (but nothing to blow me away considering the 600 million budget for this season), but the show had so many failings. Add in the fact that it had h a $600 million budget and it is not a good show, especially when you consider it was supposed to be an adaptation for a beloved authors work causing it to only get worse for me.

If you are taking away the reason they paid so much money then of course it won't fit its budget when including the amount they paid for just the rights. It was $250 million for the rights and $450 million for s1 production. Also an adaptation of an author's work is a subjective thing. Remember son of the author didn't like the last adaptation even though many fans did.

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Expression used by those overly fixated on a fictional work. Canon describes everything the person believes to be true about a fictional work, while discarding conflicting views as non-canon. While this term is used to gatekeep the opinion of “the fandom”, no evidence has been found that any person using the term had been elected speaker of the fandom, nor to have conducted any representative polling.

That is still just as silly of a definition as some of the others. Canon is simply the official facts of a story. It isn't something a fan decides but what the author, or the owners of the IP, decide. Just like when Disney bought Star Wars they started their own canon even for the EU that was "official but not movie level" of canon.

[Khaza-R]

Loving the “what does canon mean” discussion. I’ll give my definition, prts see if I can get that into webster, or ever more prestigious; the urban dictionary!

Canon:
Expression used by those overly fixated on a fictional work. Canon describes everything the person believes to be true about a fictional work, while discarding conflicting views as non-canon. While this term is used to gatekeep the opinion of “the fandom”, no evidence has been found that any person using the term had been elected speaker of the fandom, nor to have conducted any representative polling.

That about sums it up, me thinks.

Its really not that deep of a discussion in the first place.

The Tolkien Estate considers the books he wrote and that were published during his life as hard canon. And what they mean is that they want the reader to see them as completed works because that's ultimately what stories that Tolkien felt confident telling and releasing to the world.

Not that his other stories aren't important, but they are ultimately incomplete and shouldn't detract from his previously published work.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

We see this exact thing happen to the Star Wars universe. The expanded universe was considered canon. Many different authors, many different creators, all lending their creativity to build on the same universe. Plenty of contradictions, plenty of retcons, etc. But it was all generally accepted by fans as being within the same continuity, and not merely branching out into different retellings or alternate universes. Canon isn't just 'the things that George Lucas wrote'.

The EU being canon was highly in debate for the whole of its life time some fans said it was others said it wasn’t, Lucas said there were two canons one with the movies ones with the EU which fans then turned into 3 canons saying some of the EU is canon to Lucas’s first but other parts aren’t, then there was further splits of what was canon to Which parts of the EU like did star killer found the rebels or not is Kotor canon to clone wars because of a cut scene, and then the Disney canon and then making every thing legends and fans trying to say X and Y is canon based on Easter eggs.

Starwars is like the ultimate example of why the fan base deciding what’s canon makes the term meaningless and why we should go off of what Lucas/Disney say is canon.

[Triceron]

Starwars is like the ultimate example of why the fan base deciding what’s canon makes the term meaningless and why we should go off of what Lucas/Disney say is canon.

Okay, sure.

So what does the Tolkien estate say about Silmarillion?

[Dhrizzle]

Okay, sure.

So what does the Tolkien estate say about Silmarillion?

It's complicated.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Okay, sure.

So what does the Tolkien estate say about Silmarillion?

I couldn't care less about what the Tolkien estate says I wasn't questioning the actual canon I was questioning your definition of canon being decided by the fanbase.

[kenn9530]

lets just put it that if you take away the LoTR from it/rename places and characters it wasn't a good show for me. The dialogue is bad, the story is bad, the acting is mediocre, the costumes range from good to worst cosplay level (gods I hate the Numenorean armor). The music was great sure, and the visuals good (but nothing to blow me away considering the 600 million budget for this season), but the show had so many failings. Add in the fact that it had h a $600 million budget and it is not a good show, especially when you consider it was supposed to be an adaptation for a beloved authors work causing it to only get worse for me.

You are not the one to decide if its a good show or not, your personal feelings have no impact on if a show is considered good or not, the simple facts prove the show is good, most ppl who watched the show liked it and that is proven if you look at all the data, you were never going to get an adaptation that tolkien purests would be happy with, the simple reality is the show has been proven that its good and more ppl like it than not.

Its almost impossible to make a true adaptation from a book to a tv series, even tolkien knew it wasnt possible.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Disney is a corporation that pretends to own "Star Wars". Virtually everyone who was involved in creating Star Wars is no longer involved in Star Wars. Just because a corporation owns a trademark called "Star Wars" does not make them Star Wars. The "sequel trilogy", the Mandalorian, Andor, whatever, is not Star Wars. It is a completely different movie. It's corporate fanfiction. The only thing it has in common is the name slapped on the box. It's pretension. You wouldn't buy tickets to a "Metallica" concert that starred people who weren't Metallica, would you? There are two original members of Metallica: Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield. They have always been in the band. If they are not present, then you do not have Metallica. Star Wars was made by George Lucas. If you do not have George Lucas, you do not have Star Wars, only a product by a corporation that happens to own the name "Star Wars". Tolkien has been dead for a long, long time. The Peter Jackson "Lord of the Rings" movies were fun action flicks, but they're not Lord of the Rings. Final Fantasy XI was the last FF game with the involvement of the OG creators of Sakaguchi, Uematsu, and Koichi Ishii. Everything after is other games with the FF brand name slapped on it, but is not truly Final Fantasy. Suikoden without Junko Kawano is not Suikoden. RWBY without Monty Oum is not RWBY. Berserk without Kentaro Miura is not Berserk.

Reject corporate skinsuits that have no authorship.

[Khaza-R]

Okay, sure.

So what does the Tolkien estate say about Silmarillion?

I think its undeniable that its canon. It is however, incomplete. Tolkien is the ultimate and only source of canon in his literary universe. Or at least that's how his estate treats it.

I think they want readers to interact with the Silmarillion as more of a reference of how Tolkien envisioned the world in the LotR and the Hobbit rather than a literal bible. But that said, no matter how fragmented it is, it was penned by him and you can't really dismiss its usefulness as a tool in trying to match the themes in his work.

[Triceron]

I couldn't care less about what the Tolkien estate says I wasn't questioning the actual canon I was questioning your definition of canon being decided by the fanbase.

But that's my point here.

They aren't exactly defining it. If we're talking about Silmarillion's canonicity, then we're talking about what the fanbase is widely regarding it as. Not what the fanbase decides, what the fanbase is regarding. I am not talking about a collective decision, I want to be clear here. I'm talking about how the fanbase generally regards as being canonical. I think an argument can be made that Silmarillion is widely considered to be canon; not because it was a collective decision but because many people consider it to be.

It's complicated.

Which is exactly what makes it debateable. It's complicated, not as simple as merely dismissing it based on slippery slope.

[rhorle]

Disney is a corporation that pretends to own "Star Wars".

Talk about copium of the highest levels. The creator of Star Wars sold it to Disney. If they don't own it then neither did George Lucas because he intentionally passed the work to a successor. Just because it was sold to a corporation doesn't really change anything. Star Wars is a great example because people were hating on George Lucas for the prequel trilogoy so they didn't even care about authorship. Just as you don't really care about corporate skinsuits.

You are merely looking for a way to dismiss something you don't like for any reason.

[Dhrizzle]

Which is exactly what makes it debateable. It's complicated, not as simple as merely dismissing it based on slippery slope.

Yes but it's debatable because the author and Estate say it's complicated. Deciding how canon a part of the Silmarillion is means figuring out what Tolkien intended for each piece and how it fits together. Even Christopher Tolkien was unsure about whether the works he compiled could be conisdered "canon" and spent a great deal of his life bringing together the rest of his father's work to give greater insights into it. However if he had simply pulled it together and said "this is canon" then it would be canon unless, maybe, you could find a note from JRR saying "this isn't canon."

The main point though is canonicity derives from an authority who can ring fence stuff and say "this is canon." Tolkien's stuff is debatable for a lot of reasons, but in cases like Star Wars and Wheel of Time people have definitively said what's canon and what isn't, and how random internet people feel about it can't change that.

[Syegfryed]

All this talk about canon is to somehow validate the garbage changes in the show, as one can use as excuse to make such nonsense like magic mithrill.

[Triceron]

All this talk about canon is to somehow validate the garbage changes in the show, as one can use as excuse to make such nonsense like magic mithrill.

No one's talking about Rings of Power being canon. Let's keep it that way.

[Syegfryed]

No one's talking about Rings of Power being canon. Let's keep it that way.

I know that, im saying they are using what is canon as an excuse

[rhorle]

I know that, im saying they are using what is canon as an excuse

Those who like the show are not the ones who said canon is whatever fans make it out to be. Stop inventing an argument just you can hate on a side that isn't even relevant to the current discussion.

[Orby]

lets just put it that if you take away the LoTR from it/rename places and characters it wasn't a good show for me. The dialogue is bad, the story is bad, the acting is mediocre, the costumes range from good to worst cosplay level (gods I hate the Numenorean armor). The music was great sure, and the visuals good (but nothing to blow me away considering the 600 million budget for this season), but the show had so many failings. Add in the fact that it had h a $600 million budget and it is not a good show, especially when you consider it was supposed to be an adaptation for a beloved authors work causing it to only get worse for me.

Maybe after Wheel of Time I am more forgiving of Rings of Power, I think I gave WoT a 4/10 and RoP a 5/10. Despite similar issues with both shows, there was far more lasting enjoyment in RoP for me (I use the term 'enjoyment' loosely). I have no intention of watching WoT season 2, Rings of Power at least I want to give another go at season 2 because there was enough to like in the first season to at least make me curious of season 2. If season 2 really is that bad I would stop. I don't like hate watching shit. thats not fun to me. Otherwise I would have continued watching the god awful season 2 of Witcher, which I stopped at on episode 3 lol. I couldn't even rate it cos I didn't finish it :P

[Dhrizzle]

All this talk about canon is to somehow validate the garbage changes in the show, as one can use as excuse to make such nonsense like magic mithrill.

The discussion about canon started because someone claimed to know what actually is canon to Tolkien and continued because it's something I find fascinating and multi-layered

[bledgor]

Maybe after Wheel of Time I am more forgiving of Rings of Power, I think I gave WoT a 4/10 and RoP a 5/10. Despite similar issues with both shows, there was far more lasting enjoyment in RoP for me (I use the term 'enjoyment' loosely). I have no intention of watching WoT season 2, Rings of Power at least I want to give another go at season 2 because there was enough to like in the first season to at least make me curious of season 2. If season 2 really is that bad I would stop. I don't like hate watching shit. thats not fun to me. Otherwise I would have continued watching the god awful season 2 of Witcher, which I stopped at on episode 3 lol. I couldn't even rate it cos I didn't finish it :P

If I am being fair I think I said in an early post that remove it from Tolkien I would give the show a 5/10 so agree with you there, though I might rate WoT lower than you (probably because of the last episode being so bad, the scene with Rand was just so fucking lackluster and the PS2 MAYBE PS 3 graphics really felt bad).

[Orange Joe]

Its really not that deep of a discussion in the first place.

The Tolkien Estate considers the books he wrote and that were published during his life as hard canon. And what they mean is that they want the reader to see them as completed works because that's ultimately what stories that Tolkien felt confident telling and releasing to the world.

Not that his other stories aren't important, but they are ultimately incomplete and shouldn't detract from his previously published work.

You got a link of them saying this?