Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[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.

[Triceron]

The Queen of Dwarves, should have a beard. They're not giving her one because she's a main character and they want her to be appealing to the audience (pretty/sexy). Dwarf females weren't supposed to be known for their beauty... except, of course, to their spouses.

I honestly don't know how that would work on screen. If they went for it, it's just gonna look comical or overdramatized. There aren't many examples of bearded ladies taken seriously in a drama series.

[AcidicSyn]

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.

Although that is more or less what actually happened in the book, with the exception that as far as Theoden was concerned, he was charging out to a glorious death. He had no idea Erkenbrand(sp?) and Gandalf would show up.

For my part I was more upset they just decided to kill Haldir because cool, completely removed Gimli and Eomers stand in (what would become) the glittering caves and the wholesale omission of beragond and prince Imrahill from rotk. minor stuff sure but I really liked Gimli fawning over the caves like a schoolboy in the books.

Don't even get me started on Faramir even so much as batting an eye at the ring.

[Soulwind]

I honestly don't know how that would work on screen. If they went for it, it's just gonna look comical or overdramatized. There aren't many examples of bearded ladies taken seriously in a drama series.

Kathy Bates from American Horror Story comes to mind.

[Orby]

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/

Kudos for you for finding this, cos I was explaining really earlier in this thread that people don't realise the amount of critism there was on the original franchise. I do feel that for a lot of people here they were kids when the trilogy came out where as I was like 18, so I was on the internet forums and message boards and noticed a lot of criticisms where they most likely did not.

but yes these were some of the things I saw too. there are also some criticisms I didn't see and there are some I remember that are not there.

This is like how now you have people who like the prequel Star wars trilogy and now its seen as a good trilogy. where as at the time a lot of star wars fans (by a lot I mean most) hated it, myself included.

another year just with new things to whine about. Nerds gonna nerd.

[AcidicSyn]

She's got it on the sides of her cheeks, like very overgrown sideburns, which women typically don't have.

- - - Updated - - -



The Queen of Dwarves, should have a beard. They're not giving her one because she's a main character and they want her to be appealing to the audience (pretty/sexy). Dwarf females weren't supposed to be known for their beauty... except, of course, to their spouses.


It's the same annoying shit that they did in The Hobbit -- making a Dwarf more visually appealing so they could add in some weird, out of place love story between him and Tauriel.

Bolded bit is even cited in the appendices as one of the reasons why Dwarves eventually die off. They are insanely picky and particular about relationships.

[Coniferous]

Although that is more or less what actually happened in the book, with the exception that as far as Theoden was concerned, he was charging out to a glorious death. He had no idea Erkenbrand(sp?) and Gandalf would show up.

For my part I was more upset they just decided to kill Haldir because cool, completely removed Gimli and Eomers stand in (what would become) the glittering caves and the wholesale omission of beragond and prince Imrahill from rotk. minor stuff sure but I really liked Gimli fawning over the caves like a schoolboy in the books.

Don't even get me started on Faramir even so much as batting an eye at the ring.

I think TV writing standards haven't yet caught up to the new era. Standards for logic in TV writing tend to be very low, as long as everything's dramatic and characters are arguing all the time no one cares. The theory is that you need to create conflict every chance you can because that's more dramatic, logic and story consistency be damned.

Most fantasy stories don't need that, and it's fine. With good enough writing you can just have buds wandering around the woods and having adventures. Meanwhile the lack of consistency that comes from inserting conflict everywhere is what ruins stories because audiences expect a higher degree of consistency in these bigger series now.

[Orby]

Exactly. And people see it as no big deal, but after so many changes and new material added, it eventually gets to the point where it's not even the original work anymore... or even close to it.

Thats why the books still exist. Want the original work, you will only ever find it there. Thats why anything else is called adaptations. You are never going to get a perfect faithful retelling.

[Veggie50]

I don't want perfect... I'd just want some damn effort put into it to make it close and feel like it's part of the original stories.

Insert “amateurs…” meme.

[Orby]

I don't want perfect... I'd just want some damn effort put into it to make it close and feel like it's part of the original stories.

well the show isnt out yet, and all we have is a teaser trailer... so what effort they have put in isnt really out there outside of that teaser. But hey you could be right, I aint gonna say its going to be good myself, I don;t know either. But the story is what is going to make or break it for me.