Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Adamas102]

The problem is that it does break when we include everything else that happened. The involvement of Numenor, the existence of Halbrand, and of course, Galadriel's personal involvement in the creation of the Rings of Power. It's all interconnected because their direct relationship is causal to these events. Most of these events and the written history wouldn't happen without them having a direct connection to each other, while the history of these events are not supposed to involve them together at all.

Galadriel and Sauron having a history is not lore breaking itself, but results in being responsible for certain events, which opens up significant plot holes when regarding the history it's intended to tell.

How is the lore broken with these events? Numenor is involved in battles against Sauron, and ultimately the fate of Numenor culminates in its destruction with very specific characters escaping the calamity to carry on the story to the established narrative that is LotR. Nothing so far suggests that fate will change. Some of the details have been changed to accommodate the medium of a 5 season series because casting 15 different kings of Numenor in order to get from the forging of the rings to the destruction of Numenor would be absurd (especially when many of them were nothing but a name on a list with no narrative relevance whatsoever).

Halbrand very clearly fills the role of Annatar while giving it more narrative depth (disguise used to teach elves jewelcraft isn't an example of deep lore). It's Sauron either way, there are no details as to what he actually teaches them, he simply acts as the catalyst for the elves creating the rings. Nothing really changed there.

As for Galadriel's role, all she really contributes is the idea to make three. There's nothing in the lore to explain why Celebrimbor made three so any explanation works as long as the three elven rings are made. Again, nothing broken there.

So again, where does it all break?

I went through the appendices and Silmarillion together, and my previous comments about rich and detailed lore is in regards to everything we know about the Second Age. If you were talking specifically about the Appendices, then I'll admit to miscommunicating my response. My sentiment remains the same otherwise.

I don't really care if they don't have the rights to Silmarillion's 2nd Age. IMO, lacking the rights to the material is not cause to go ham on a completely new thing and pass it off as being the history behind Lord of the Rings. IMO, if you lack they lack the rights to detailed accounts of specific historic events in the 2nd Age that they want to adapt; then just... don't use that specific setting.

I referenced the Silmarillion as well when you tried to cite a deep history for why Numenor (Tar-Minastir specifically) helped the elves in the fight against Sauron. It was one sentence with no real detail. The entirety of the events that cover the forging of the Rings and the subsequent battles is roughly six and a half pages in the version I have in front of me right now. In the context of real history, there are entire books that focus on a single event or battle. Rattling off a few names and covering events in one to two sentences isn't deep, rich history. The Silmarillion is a collection of notes, work in progress that was compiled posthumously. No matter how much you want to revere it, it's not a detailed account.

It's also just so ludicrous to me to say "just don't use the setting if you can't make it the way I want you to". There's nothing gained from your gatekeeping. If you don't like the adaptation or feel like it doesn't add anything to your enjoyment of the source material then that's fine. You can even criticize it if you want, whatever. But saying that other artists should be prevented from adapting the setting and the stories is just absurd.

[Triceron]

How is the lore broken with these events?

It is not broken.

It is a diminished form of those historic events.

Numenor rises to fight Sauron out of his hubris.

Halbrand very clearly fills the role of Annatar while giving it more narrative depth (disguise used to teach elves jewelcraft isn't an example of deep lore). It's Sauron either way, there are no details as to what he actually teaches them, he simply acts as the catalyst for the elves creating the rings. Nothing really changed there.

I will wait and see, but so far I'm not very sure where they're going with this with his reveal at the end of S1.

But what we have so far is a highly diminished versio of Annatar if we are making the comparison; one that is far less charismatic, effective, and showed his disguise to the enemy in an effort to sway them to his side. That never really happened with Annatar, and if anything, his guise was almost too convincing considering he had trouble gaining his Orc followers due to his appearance.

I referenced the Silmarillion as well when you tried to cite a deep history for why Numenor (Tar-Minastir specifically) helped the elves in the fight against Sauron. It was one sentence with no real detail. The entirety of the events that cover the forging of the Rings and the subsequent battles is roughly six and a half pages in the version I have in front of me right now. In the context of real history, there are entire books that focus on a single event or battle. Rattling off a few names and covering events in one to two sentences isn't deep, rich history. The Silmarillion is a collection of notes, work in progress that was compiled posthumously. No matter how much you want to revere it, it's not a detailed account.

It's also just so ludicrous to me to say "just don't use the setting if you can't make it the way I want you to". There's nothing gained from your gatekeeping. If you don't like the adaptation or feel like it doesn't add anything to your enjoyment of the source material then that's fine. You can even criticize it if you want, whatever. But saying that other artists should be prevented from adapting the setting and the stories is just absurd.

My opinion that they avoid doing something they don't have the liscence for does not equate to me having the power to prevent them from doing anything.

If you don't agree with my opinion, then feel free to disagree. I'm pro-adaptation, and also pro meeting fan expectations. I don't think these are mutually exclusive concepts. And no, expressing an opinion is not gatekeeping; forcing it on others would be gatekeeping. I am very clearly expressing a personal opinion, not extending a mandate for everyone to follow. I find these accusations quite insulting.

For example, we have two Mario movies that are unique adaptations that don't adhere to game lore. There's nothing wrong with the 90's SMB movie choosing to be creative and telling its own story, but I can have and express the opinion that it would be better if they stuck closer to the games and gave the fans something closer to what they came to see. And I can point at the success of the new Mario movie (which is an equally creative adaptation telling its own story) as an example of what I'm talking about when fan expectations are met. My opinions on these franchises come from my expectations as a fan, nothing more nothing less.

Of course, this is merely an opinion that I'm expressing, and by no means the primary fault of the series. If anything, I think RoP lacked a strong vision behind it. Even if the concepts and premises they had are arguably solid, the execution of the series was just terrible, and marred by poor pacing and way too many disjointed POVs and plot lines. This topic just happens to be about the lore, so that's what I've been generally sticking to, but by no means is the lore a root of the problem of the show. I'm of the opinion that there could have been better alternatives than what we got.

[Veggie50]

Conversation circle:

“Rings of power is objectively bad”

- “Why is it objectively bad?”

“Gives several subjective reasons”

- “those are not objective reasons, so it being bad is your opinion, not a fact”

“Yes it is bad, that’s a fact not an opinion”

- “so explain, what makes you say that?”

And restart the circle.

[s_bushido]

Conversation circle:

“Rings of power is objectively bad”

- “Why is it objectively bad?”

“Gives several subjective reasons”

- “those are not objective reasons, so it being bad is your opinion, not a fact”

“Yes it is bad, that’s a fact not an opinion”

- “so explain, what makes you say that?”

And restart the circle.

Whining about this or that interpretation of lore/source material is about as far from "objective" as it gets.

[Triceron]

Conversation circle:

“Rings of power is objectively bad”

Why is it objectively bad?

[kenn9530]

And since 67% of the audience didn'y even finish the show, you know it was shit.

Does not matter if you got 100mlion of minutes watched, not viwers btw, because you had a powerful ip behind, if people do not care about finishing your show



no, no one is going to eventually watch garbage for no reason.



the fact is that 67% of their US audience didn't finish the show, this is a fact that people didn't like the show, period.

- "Attracted more than 100 million viewers worldwide to the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, making it the most watched Amazon Original series in every region of the world, with more than 24 billion minutes streamed," Amazon announced it its Q4 2022 earnings report.

You can at least attempt to back yourself up with some relevant information but you cant even be bothered to spend 2 mins to find accurate information that completely debunk anything you say, RoP is very successful and already proven to be a good show for all that watched it.

Facts are your opinions on the show dont matter, i cant be bothered watching house of the dragon yet or several shows but im not going to claim any of them are bad just because i have little interest in watching them.

[Shadowferal]

I'm sure Amazon will say whatever to shine up crap.

[The Stormbringer]

Considering this dipshit does not own the rights to anything in LOTR and interpretive works does not give you access to copyright protections if the work is interpreted from someone else's creation, he's gonna get crushed in a lawsuit. Amazon doesn't own the rights to anything LOTR either, they are merely licensing segments of the content, so they don't really have a case against the guy because they aren't the rights owners, but the Tolkien estate does.

I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean that owner of the original IP can just yoink someone's fanfic and publish it...

[Ragedaug]

It’s definitely a large departure but here’s what I mean by compartmentalized:

In the book you have a bunch of humans under extreme duress defending helm’s deep. In the movie you have a bunch of elves. Either way, you basically never hear from those characters again, except that they are in the background in certain scenes. It is a departure that is 100% confined to that scene. The elves’ participation doesn’t drive any future or prior plot.

That’s fundamentally different from rings of power where all major story threads contain consistent long term deviations from the story.

Actually the Dúnedain replacement is not confined to that scene, and did have a further reaching major impact to the story in Return of the King. Which is a cautionary tale to why a story writer should do everything they can to stay on track with the book they are adapting. Similar to how GRR Martin talks about tiny changes in the first season or two of GoT , that were just a ripple created from a pebble, causing a tidal wave by the time you get to the last seasons.

And while watching Two Towers, I didn't mind the change to the Elves riding to Helm's Deep, as I understood the nature of the change was due to the reducing cost due to the medium; I would really have liked Jackson to keep the Dúnedain if it was possible.


For the record, the changes involve the Dead Men of Dunharrow, which lead to a huge departure in Battle of the Pelennor Fields. In the books, the Dead Men help Aragorn and the Grey Company defeat the 50 ships of Corsairs before the Corsairs can fortify the armies of Sauron. Then Aragorn releases the Dead Men from the curse at Pelargir. Only the Grey Company join Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. If memory serves, Minas Tiras and the Rohirrim were not overwhelmed like they were in the movies, with the arrival of the Rohan army tilting the battle in favor of Minas Tiras. The Dead Men served to cut off reinforcements that otherwise would have tilted the battle back to Sauron's favor. And then it's Aragorn and the Grey Company who help Minas Tirith make their final push to victory. The movie changes that to Minas Tirith being on the brink of falling when the ghost army shows up and presses their "I-Win" button. One of two major departures from the books that never sat well with me.

[Dhrizzle]

Conversation circle:

“Rings of power is objectively bad”

- “Why is it objectively bad?”

“Gives several subjective reasons”

- “those are not objective reasons, so it being bad is your opinion, not a fact”

“Yes it is bad, that’s a fact not an opinion”

- “so explain, what makes you say that?”

And restart the circle.

Nah, you also have to throw in the word "bastardize" every post like you're 8 years old and just discovered a legitimate way to use a swear word.

[Ragedaug]

Nah, you also have to throw in the word "bastardize" every post like you're 8 years old and just discovered a legitimate way to use a swear word.

While I would agree, using the phrase "objectively bad" is extremely difficult to justify when it comes to art, I can say that there have been a plethora of reasons given on each of every page of this thread to explain why the show is subjectively bad.

So I would argue that saying no reasons have been given to explain why the show is bad is quite a bit more disingenuous than someone being dramatic and using the word "objectively" instead of "subjectively".

- - - Updated - - -

- "Attracted more than 100 million viewers worldwide to the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, making it the most watched Amazon Original series in every region of the world, with more than 24 billion minutes streamed," Amazon announced it its Q4 2022 earnings report.

This was due to the IP. The entire reason they paid for the story is because they knew at least 10's of millions would watch it based on Peter Jackson and Tolkien's work. It's completely disingenuous to claim that the show runners or quality of RoP was responsible for bringing in the 100M. If it was a quality show, it would have maintained or grew it's audience. You can't start a show with a baked-in audience of 100M strong, lose 2/3's of them before the first season is over, then call that "success".

Facts are your opinions on the show dont matter, i cant be bothered watching house of the dragon yet or several shows but im not going to claim any of them are bad just because i have little interest in watching them.

This is fair. You should not claim something is bad that you have not experienced. That said, there's very little of that here. I would contend that practically every poster in this thread who noted they have a problem with RoP, was among the 100M who started watching the series. That said, if you can find someone calling it "bad" who has not watched it, I would back you in criticizing them.

[rhorle]

I'm sure Amazon will say whatever to shine up crap.

I'm curious. If Amazon said it was a failure would you think they are lying as well? Or would you 100% believe Amazon because it matches your opinion?

- - - Updated - - -

If it was a quality show, it would have maintained or grew it's audience. You can't start a show with a baked-in audience of 100M strong, lose 2/3's of them before the first season is over, then call that "success".

So Season 1 of any show can't be labeled successful because they can't maintain something that didn't exist prior to. Remember the article about Ring of Powers completion rate said 50% is solid for a show. Completion rate means zero with out a baseline of what is standard for shows and the industry. Is 100% normal? Is 50% closer to normal? The context also is that Amazon makes money on subscriptions and people engaging on other parts of their service.

So the show could still be a success because of subscriptions paid to watch it (yes some would be free trials) and some of those spending money elsewhere on Amazon. This notion that the show has to be a failure is silly. Are you another one of those that will think Amazon is lying until they say something that aligns with your viewpoint?

[Khaza-R]

Conversation circle:

“Rings of power is objectively bad”

- “Why is it objectively bad?”

“Gives several subjective reasons”

- “those are not objective reasons, so it being bad is your opinion, not a fact”

“Yes it is bad, that’s a fact not an opinion”

- “so explain, what makes you say that?”

And restart the circle.

To be fair, that's what happens when you try to make absolutist, overly general statements. About anything really. That's not to say the quality of a show is entirely subjective. Its the sum of thousands of different individuals pouring their efforts into creating a cohesive experience. It mostly certainly can be broken down piece by piece and scrutinized for quality on an objective basis.

But of course that's not what's happening here. This is just people debating their own opinions and preferences and trying to invalidate others.

[Koriani]

Conversation circle:

“Rings of power is objectively bad”

- “Why is it objectively bad?”

“Gives several subjective reasons”

- “those are not objective reasons, so it being bad is your opinion, not a fact”

“Yes it is bad, that’s a fact not an opinion”

- “so explain, what makes you say that?”

And restart the circle.

Haha - you forgot -

"Its a bad adaptation" - "No - what makes an adaptation an adaptation?" - "Good/Bad Adaptation doesn't mean success!"

"Its a failure!!1!" - "Amazon doesn't think so." - "What does success even mean?"

"You're just trolling." - "No you're posting in bad faith." - "Nuhuh! You are!"

Portions of the ever-circling argument.

C'mon guys - only about 5 more pages and you will have repeated these same arguments over and over again for 500 pages!

Surely, outside of "rate all the movie/show" threads, its gotta win a forum-thread-length award or something!

[Triceron]

Surely, outside of "rate all the movie/show" threads, its gotta win a forum-thread-length award or something!

This isn't even close to a megathread on gen disc.

[kenn9530]

This was due to the IP. The entire reason they paid for the story is because they knew at least 10's of millions would watch it based on Peter Jackson and Tolkien's work. It's completely disingenuous to claim that the show runners or quality of RoP was responsible for bringing in the 100M. If it was a quality show, it would have maintained or grew it's audience. You can't start a show with a baked-in audience of 100M strong, lose 2/3's of them before the first season is over, then call that "success".


This is fair. You should not claim something is bad that you have not experienced. That said, there's very little of that here. I would contend that practically every poster in this thread who noted they have a problem with RoP, was among the 100M who started watching the series. That said, if you can find someone calling it "bad" who has not watched it, I would back you in criticizing them.

There are bad shows and there is just saying its bad because you dont like it for whatever reasons, the one main reason is they were unrealistically expections it to be tolkien when that was never going to happen and thats all it boils down to, they have this feeling of what LOTR should be and because it does not give that feeling the whole show is bad to them, even the movies were not tolkien and tolkien himself knew a true adaptation could never happen.

Any show that can get more than 10 million viewers to watch a full series is considered pretty good, RoP had upwards of 40-50 million watching the whole series, thats 4-5 times more than house of the dragon, that alone is adequate enough to say the show is good.

[rogoth]

No, actually, they can't just say anything they want, that's the kind of thing you get in trouble for.

Will they word things that are already positive in a way to be even more positive? Absolutely. Not a company running that doesn't do the same sort of PR bullshit.

i love how moronically naïve you are, you genuinely believe a company like Amazon plays by the rules?, you seriously believe the 'checks and balances' that are in place prevent them from lying outright to anybody about anything?

let me educate you on something, Amazon has more money than some of the G10 countries in the world, to them breaking laws is a matter of cost benefit analysis, if the juice is worth the squeeze then it's done, if it's not they play by the rules until such a time as they can either find a loophole to abuse or outright ignore and pay the miniscule fine to make the problem go away.

and it's been made perfectly clear that this show was an abject failure in the industry, it may well have been a rip roaring success TO AMAZON, but as an industry standard this show failed SPECTACULARLY based on both critic reviews of the whole series after the fact, the severe and prolonged public backlash against the dross served up, as well as the internal reports that showed that the series bombed spectacularly and couldn't even maintain a respectable threshold of viewership DESPITE being free to view to anybody with an Amazon prime subscription, and if that doesn't speak volumes in and of itself then i don't know what will.

[jackofwind]

Here's a question: why do you care if the show was a success?

The show being "a success" should be irrelevant to whether you like it or not. It's a stupid thing to argue about.

[Ragedaug]

Here's a question: why do you care if the show was a success?

The show being "a success" should be irrelevant to whether you like it or not. It's a stupid thing to argue about.

I don't think it's as simple as caring about the show and it's status. I think for many people it's more about caring that their feelings are the majority opinion. So they'll argue why their feelings are justified, and that's typically by trying to explain or prove that most people agree with them.

Otherwise, there are a subset of people who do care that a show was a success because they have spent time vested in the story, for example, being a big fan of the books and/or the movies and spending a lot of time and focus on the IP. Because they are so vested in the IP, they want the show to be successful, and if they feel it's not, they will explain why they are disappointed that it is not. So they care about the success of the IP because they have vested their own time and money in that IP.

[Adamas102]

It is not broken.

It is a diminished form of those historic events.

Numenor rises to fight Sauron out of his hubris.

Well, you said "it breaks when you include... The involvement of Numenor, the existence of Halbrand, and of course, Galadriel's personal involvement in the creation of the Rings of Power". But ok, "diminished" then.

It sounds like you're referring to when Numenor moved against Sauron under the rule of Ar-Pharazon (when Sauron was declaring himself as King of Men) which hasn't come up in the show yet, though I'm sure it will. The other times Numenor sent aid in order to fight Sauron (under Tar-Aldarion and Tar-Minastir) there isn't much detail at all. The former was convinced by a letter from Gil-Galad that a servant of Morgoth was gaining power, but no details about any actual battles, and the latter was simply "he loved and envied the elves" (nothing about Sauron's hubris). There is A LOT more detail given in the show to convince Miriel to send aid, so how is the lore diminished here?

I will wait and see, but so far I'm not very sure where they're going with this with his reveal at the end of S1.

But what we have so far is a highly diminished versio of Annatar if we are making the comparison; one that is far less charismatic, effective, and showed his disguise to the enemy in an effort to sway them to his side. That never really happened with Annatar, and if anything, his guise was almost too convincing considering he had trouble gaining his Orc followers due to his appearance.

How is Halbrand a "highly diminished version of Annatar"?
There's almost nothing to diminish in the first place. The appendices don't even mention the disguise ("Sauron endeavors to seduce the Eldar... the smith of Eregion are won over") and the Silmarillion only references it once and has no details about what he looked like (just "his hue was still that of one both fair and wise"), his personality, what gifts he offered, what knowledge he imparted upon the smiths of Eregion (did he teach them about designing better crafting equipment? where to find new materials? how to cast spells? how to derive certain properties from alloys ?). Just saying "he was charismatic" isn't deep. Halbrand as portrayed by Charlie Vickers was charismatic as well. Where did you read about him having trouble with orcs in his disguise? Both the appendices and the Silmarillion just say he peaced out to Mordor and made the One Ring. If anything I think it's kind of silly that Galadriel, Elrond, and Gil-Galad distrusted him and yet he still chilled in Eregion for over 300 years. There's no real substance here that can even be greatly diminished. I feel like you have this far more detailed fanfic in your head that just doesn't jive with the words on the page.

My opinion that they avoid doing something they don't have the liscence for does not equate to me having the power to prevent them from doing anything.

But they DO have the license for these characters and events. The appendices might not be all that much, but there's very little else about the Second Age in posthumously published notes. Tolkien simply didn't provide much detail.

And no, expressing an opinion is not gatekeeping; forcing it on others would be gatekeeping. I am very clearly expressing a personal opinion, not extending a mandate for everyone to follow. I find these accusations quite insulting.

Just because you're not successfully gatekeeping doesn't mean you don't share the mentality. If you were in Jeff Bezo's position, it very much sounds like you would prevent the project from proceeding just because "they lack[ed] the rights to detailed accounts of specific historic events in the 2nd Age that they want to adapt", which very much sounds like "if they're not going to do it the way I want them to then they shouldn't do it at all".

Even if the concepts and premises they had are arguably solid, the execution of the series was just terrible, and marred by poor pacing and way too many disjointed POVs and plot lines. This topic just happens to be about the lore, so that's what I've been generally sticking to, but by no means is the lore a root of the problem of the show. I'm of the opinion that there could have been better alternatives than what we got.

I'm not arguing about whether the show was good or not. I too agree that the pacing was poor in large part due to plot bloat.

The points I'm taking issue with is the idea that A. there is a rich and detailed lore for these characters and events that they ignored or diminished (because there's very little detail and substance to the Second Age notes) and B. the choices they made break continuity going forward (which doesn't really seem to be the case yet). The ONLY detail that would contradict B so far is if Celeborn is indeed dead, but I'm fairly certain that isn't the case so I'll wait to see.