Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[AcidicSyn]

My point was that it wasn't subtle and happened constantly. Going by the books he barely used his sword in comparison. It's a movie thing. And it was not really subtle either. Skies were filled with lightning seen tens to hundred miles away, setting entire circles of trees on fire. Casting light so bright it consumed entire flight of Nazguls.

There were more subtle moments of magic usage as well yes, just as there is in DnD but there were enough of these blazing moments as well and typically in almoust every battle scene he is involved.

Not to mention he was the wielder of the flame of Anor and bearer of the ring of fire, which he absolutely used (fire and light magic) LIBERALLY while the fellowship was running from the orcs in Moria (and every other combat encounter). Heck, he even spoke words of command in the same sequence. Dude flung spells as casually as legolas shot arrows. The idea that Gandalf was subtle about magic was, like you said- a movie thing.

In Galadriels case, the way she fought at Dol Goldur in the hobbit movie was actually one of the things I liked about it, I feel like she'd fight more like that than with a traditional sword or bow. But, then again, in this show she doesn't have Nenya yet, so perhaps she changes alot after getting it.

[dlld]

"Generic" is the go-to word parroted by people, especially fans of a franchise, who just want to hate on something when they cannot say why. It means nothing, and people probably use it without even knowing what it means. Some people hate "The Rings of Power" because of brown elves and clean-shaven dwarf princesses, so the trailer must be bad. Since they find nothing objectively bad about it, they resort to "it looks like any other fantasy show or movie (Wheel of Time, Narnia, etc)". It's "generic". Well, of course, it is a fantasy show, they would share some tropes. It's like when, in new Star Trek shows, they introduce a new ship or a new race. Well, some people hate Kurtzman's guts, so of course the new ship must be bad, so they say it's "generic." It's not that there's anything wrong about it, it's just that it looks like a ship from any other Sci-Fi show, it does not scream "Star Trek", so it's bad and Kurtzman "hates the fans", etc. Well of course it does not scream Star Trek, it's new! The first Borg ship, when it was introduced, did not scream Star Trek at all. And it was a cube, can you have more "generic" than that? Guess fans were a bit more open-minded back then...

I have watched all of the ESO cinematics, they have nice visuals but the best word I can describe them with is 'soulless' i feel absolutely nothing when watching them, no hype, excitement, joy, interest etc. Meanwhile this now 16 year old cinematic still gets me pumped even-though i never even played the game it was tied to. Likewise I just watched the latest SWToR cinematic and thought it was pretty cool and interesting even though i despise the game and never even been a starwars fan. Similar to ESO, watching the new lotr trailer made me feel nothing. People saying it's generic are likely having the same feeling or rather lack of.

[Xath]

Everything looks way too clean it's a consistent issue in Amazon productions that was one thing Reacher actually did well stuff that should be dirty looked dirty he actually sustained damage and grime it didn't just not happen or disappear. Even the promo shots there is nothing to show having gone through battles or even worn the clothes more than 5 mins.

[Orby]

Everything looks way too clean it's a consistent issue in Amazon productions that was one thing Reacher actually did well stuff that should be dirty looked dirty he actually sustained damage and grime it didn't just not happen or disappear. Even the promo shots there is nothing to show having gone through battles or even worn the clothes more than 5 mins.

Something that Amazon got to learn to do is add filters. Wheel of time has this issue too everything lacks a style or identity, its too clean and polished.

Outside of that the teaser trailer looks whatever to me, its not made me any more pumped or any less disappointed I am exactly where I started. It entirely relies on the story for me, if you can deliver an engaging story (9from which so far has promise), then I can get past many of its faults.. :P

[druchii5]

I have watched all of the ESO cinematics, they have nice visuals but the best word I can describe them with is 'soulless' i feel absolutely nothing when watching them, no hype, excitement, joy, interest etc. Meanwhile this now 16 year old cinematic still gets me pumped even-though i never even played the game it was tied to. Likewise I just watched the latest SWToR cinematic and thought it was pretty cool and interesting even though i despise the game and never even been a starwars fan. Similar to ESO, watching the new lotr trailer made me feel nothing. People saying it's generic are likely having the same feeling or rather lack of.

I just came to say that the Mark of Chaos cinematic trailer was super badass. I've watched it so many times. Can't say I disagree with your analogy here.

[Koriani]

Damn...25 new pages to read full of posts of people talking about their own fears and own fantasies for a show made up in their minds - since not a single minute of the show has actually aired yet.

One of the issues of the internet - giving people all the room to discuss things they have very little to no actual information on. And since humans have a need to discuss things - we just eat our own tail and rip each other apart; all based on nothing but the imaginations and biases of our own minds. Humans are silly.

[Makabreska]

Random find of the day. Someone made a Reddit post containing combined pre-release criticism of 2001 trilogy. Many arguments seem weirdly familiar:

https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/commen...riticized_pjs/

[Syegfryed]

A lot of the criticism back then were valid - wanting something faithful, not many changes -, the movie just did extremely good to overcome the changes.

To this day, i think the elves helping in rohan was damn stupid, make no sense and was detrimental to the story overall, as they just show up to die and take credit from the humans who were supposed to stand alone.

[bledgor]

The thing is that as is usual with these modern productions, the sweeping, scene setting shots of landscapes, cities etc. do look good. Really good even. The problem arise when we get into more minute details and events. As is usual, armours and clothes tend to be overdesigned with idea that more clutter is always better, closer sets appear sterile and almoust feel like that if camera shifts even little bit we can see the studio hall peeking from the corner or it's so CGI'd up it cannot be missed. This while general makeup/styling is bland (not bland as is colourless or necessarily poorly made but the sort that doesn't convey a look at real people. Rather, they look like cosplayers trying to appear like the people they actually are).

This has been my issue with many of these new modern fantasy series.

Also for most modern fantasy series every fucking scene looks like it was scrubbed to be free of any filth/mud/germs. They are traveling around on horses in forests for days on end and every scene looks like they bathed everything, including the horse, and shined the armor. The cosplay tier armor is just par for the course at this point.

[Coniferous]

A lot of the criticism back then were valid - wanting something faithful, not much changes -,, the movie just did extremely good to overcome the changes.

To this day, i think the elves helping in rohan was damn stupid, make no sense and was detrimental to the story overall, as they just show up to die and take credit from the humans who were supposed to stand alone.

Agreed! Two Towers definitely had the most changes and they were all kinda weird, including the whole Aragorn floating down the river plot. My personal fave was everyone yelling at Theoden to “ride out and meet” the orcs when he had like 75 soldiers lol.

The book strategy makes total sense - hole up in your greatest stronghold and wait for reinforcements to arrive.

The movie strategy recommended by Gandalf was, “You’re heavily outnumbered with an army full of boys and old men, you should attack.”

But those deviations, while they detracted from the story, were pretty minor and could mostly be ignored. Although Theoden attacking the entire army with 20 horsemen and winning was also pretty fucking stupid haha.

[bledgor]

Agreed! Two Towers definitely had the most changes and they were all kinda weird, including the whole Aragorn floating down the river plot. My personal fave was everyone yelling at Theoden to “ride out and meet” the orcs when he had like 75 soldiers lol.

The book strategy makes total sense - hole up in your greatest stronghold and wait for reinforcements to arrive.

The movie strategy recommended by Gandalf was, “You’re heavily outnumbered with an army full of boys and old men, you should attack.”

But those deviations, while they detracted from the story, were pretty minor and could mostly be ignored.

Also while not exactly the same, the speech he gives when they ride into the fields of Minas Tirth was beautifully crafted, and still gives me chills. When you get scenes like that it builds back a lot of trust/faith.

[Makabreska]

Also while not exactly the same, the speech he gives when they ride into the fields of Minas Tirth was beautifully crafted, and still gives me chills. When you get scenes like that it builds back a lot of trust/faith.

So maybe history will repeat itself?

[Triceron]

A lot of the criticism back then were valid - wanting something faithful, not much changes -,, the movie just did extremely good to overcome the changes.

To this day, i think the elves helping in rohan was damn stupid, make no sense and was detrimental to the story overall, as they just show up to die and take credit from the humans who were supposed to stand alone.

I agree with most of what you said here.

PJ made a LOT of changes, but they still hold up the spirit of Tolkien's work.

I don't know if I can say the same about this Amazon production. There seems to be a lot of creative liberties taken that don't seem to capture the essence of what the Second Age should be about. But time will tell.

[bledgor]

So maybe history will repeat itself?

Thing is, if it was an established director, from anyone but Amazon I would probably be open to it, but after The Rafe of Time and the fact they once again went with basically no names to produce it, I don't.

This series seems to be following the same path as WoT and that was an utter fucking abomination.

[Coniferous]

Also while not exactly the same, the speech he gives when they ride into the fields of Minas Tirth was beautifully crafted, and still gives me chills. When you get scenes like that it builds back a lot of trust/faith.

As a general rule (this applies to GoT too) when watching these series, the best scenes follow the plot of the source material closely (like the ride to Gondor, which if not worded exactly the same is pretty damn close). The worst scenes are the ones where the plot is changed (“ride out and meet them!”).

Hell, a lot of the best lines in the movies are lifted directly from the books - “and it would seem like wisdom but for the warning in my heart”.

Speaking of things the movie messed up, Faramir has to be pretty high up there too huh… he was great in the books and terrible in the movies. It’s the usual issue - movie writers want to create conflict so they made Faramir an initially threatening character instead of a good guy.

Anyway, the point is, when that’s the reality, why should we have any hope that something with no source material to work from could be good?

[Wilian]

My personal fave was everyone yelling at Theoden to “ride out and meet” the orcs when he had like 75 soldiers lol.

The book strategy makes total sense - hole up in your greatest stronghold and wait for reinforcements to arrive.

Actually that is the reversal of book strategy. In the book, Gandalf and others urged Theoden to bring women and children with him to Helm's Deep and to gather forces there while the small Edoras garrison would ride to strengthen the guard along river Isen and it's crossing. Theoden refuted this and said Gandalf did not realize how he had roused him from the darkness andhe himself will ride to strengthen river garrison and potentially cross it to meet Saruman and this is what they did.

It's only on approach of river when they face fleeing riders of Rohan and scattered beaten troops they realize the threat is vastly worse than anyone had imagined. Only then they turned around and they were practically racing their way to Helm's Deep with the army of Uruk-Hai right at their heels.

[Coniferous]

Actually that is the reversal of book strategy. In the book, Gandalf and others urged Theoden to bring women and children with him to Helm's Deep and to gather forces there while the small Edoras garrison would ride to strengthen the guard along river Isen and it's crossing. Theoden refuted this and said Gandalf did not realize how he had roused him from the darkness andhe himself will ride to strengthen river garrison and potentially cross it to meet Saruman and this is what they did.

It's only on approach of river when they face fleeing riders of Rohan and scattered beaten troops they realize the threat is vastly worse than anyone had imagined. Only then they turned around and they were practically racing their way to Helm's Deep with the army of Uruk-Hai right at their heels.

It's not the opposite, you just fleshed out the details a bit more. The key point remains that in the book at some point they all agreed that it made sense to hide out in Helm's Deep, while in the movie Gandalf was unwavering in saying it was a bad idea (while his suggestion seemed like a really bad idea). The book made sense, the movie did not.

[Wilian]

It's not the opposite, you just fleshed out the details a bit more. The key point remains that in the book at some point they all agreed that it made sense to hide out in Helm's Deep, while in the movie Gandalf was unwavering in saying it was a bad idea (while his suggestion seemed like a really bad idea). The book made sense, the movie did not.

Your post implied that holing up in Helm's Deep was the getgo plan which was smarter than the movie "them suggesting Theoden to ride on" when in fact Theoden, on his own will rode on while he was told not to in the books.

[Coniferous]

Your post implied that holing up in Helm's Deep was the getgo plan

Literally nothing in the post implies this. You are nitpicking.

[Tyris Flare]

Random find of the day. Someone made a Reddit post containing combined pre-release criticism of 2001 trilogy. Many arguments seem weirdly familiar:

https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/commen...riticized_pjs/

Maybe there's nothing wrong with this? Maybe the impetus is on the creators to not fuck up something that already exists and is beloved? Maybe they should have to earn it?

Anyway the worst thing that could happen to a show like this is to be ignored. People getting mad is still engagement, which drives more eyeballs to it.