Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Triceron]

Cant claim something is bad

Yes you can, because bad is subjective and claiming something to be bad is an expression of opinion. You have no control over other people's opinions, all you can do is disagree.

I can say tomatoes are bad. I can say the sun is bad. I can say you are bad. There is no objectivity involved, because it is an expression of opinion, and your facts don't mean shit in context. You can't stop me from expressing my opinion.

You can't even refute it by presenting the positives, because the context of it being bad is purely expressed by the individual, something you have no control over. If I think tomatoes are bad, there's no factual evidence you can bring to the table to change my mind about it.

And all you're doing is fussing over things you can't control and pretending to be an authority over all opinions. Sorry buddy, but you're not the thought police.

For the show to be factually bad

Do you mean objectively bad? I don't think movies and art/entertainment should be subject to objective values, since even criticism is not universal. All you can speak towards is an aggregate or collective opinion, which itself is still rooted in subjectivity.

And if we're regarding collective opinions to be factual, then that works against you here since the collective majority in this forum think the show is bad. That is also a fact.

[exochaft]

Is 40 mill in 11 days not a good number of viewers when the boys got 45 mill in a lot longer time, house of the dragon 29 million in 5 days, shogun is rated very highly and is at 10 million, not everyone likes certain genres of tv/movies, has no bearing on it at all on percentage who watch it on a platform, what matters is actual numbers.

Numbers without context are meaningless.

The metric being used is views, but what exactly is a view? Well, it depends on the streaming service, but they all have a bit of shadiness to them. For example, one full viewing an episode can be something as silly as watching one minute but not watching any more of it (yes, this seems ludicrous but this is a metric that's used). Views may not filter repeat viewings by the same person, or if a show is automatically started due to how the streaming software works, or if the stream crashes/restarts, and so forth. While there's even more things to consider that question what a view actually is, the point is that it's rarely straight forward... and that's by design.

This is also why series that are expected to need a PR win have multiple episodes release on the premiere date instead of just one episode: it makes it look better on a lot of ratings lists. Besides views, another common metric used to gauge a show's worth is minutes watched. If you dump 3 episodes equating to roughly 3 hours of a show on premiere night and compare it to another series with a 25-40 minute single episode release, of course the 3 episode release show is going to look way better in terms of minutes viewed even if way less people watched it. As with the views metric, minutes viewed doesn't indicate that anyone was actually watching the show, as people could fall asleep while watching it (and inflate it again by queuing it back up potentially), the streaming software automatically queues it up, and a bunch of other issues that are similar to using views as a metric.

Here's the deal: streaming services do NOT want you to know their actual numbers when it comes to how many people actually watch their content... unless they're good and worth bragging about. These streaming services absolutely know (or have a really good idea) how many actual people are watching their shows, but it does them no good to tell people unless it's advantageous to them; it's similar to how Blizz won't give exact numbers concerning the amount of people playing WoW anymore and keep it nebulous, because there's too many downsides PR-wise to do so. When you see these streaming services or news sources bragging about views or minutes watched, the reality is likely that the actual number of people watching the content isn't good enough to warrant releasing the real numbers, leaving the next best option is to pick some random arbitrary metric that shows a big number to spin as being good. They're banking on "perception is reality, so let's create the perception that the content is good!"; to be fair, it's a smart move from a pure PR standpoint, but it also can negatively impact the ability for the content to be good and/or improve.

[rogoth]

Here you go again - show bad? opinion. show good? ACTUALLY.

That's not how it works.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with going "I like this show". Knock yourself out. Enjoy it. I'm happy you found something that does it for you. Genuinely, no snark.

But that doesn't make the show actually good. It makes it a show you like. And you keep mixing up these two things: opinions and assessments. You pretend that everyone who says it's bad is merely voicing an opinion; while you saying it's good is portrayed as "actual" fact. When it's just another opinion, i.e. a subjective preference.

You like it. The end. That's totally fine, and no one gets to say you don't like it - this is a preference, and as such it's inviolate. We take you at your word.

But it has exactly as much validity as someone else saying they don't like it. Exactly as much.

If you want your position to mean more, you also have to provide more - not just "it's actually good", but "I think it's good because X, Y, Z" where X, Y, and Z are arguments you can back with evidence (and not just more subjective preferences, like you not caring about Tolkien or whatever). And in turn, if you want to engage with negative arguments you have to engage with them on that level as well: see what evidence THEY bring, and counter it with better evidence.

Anything outside of that is just more opinion vs. opinion clashes, which never lead to anything because they're not arguments. And you ESPECIALLY cannot mix arguments and opinions, by pretending everything other people say is opinion and what you say is argument.

We can never know how "good" a show is. That's not a metric that can be measured. It can be inferred by certain other metrics, but only very roughly and with large gray areas. We can know how "popular" a show is; though that data is often vague and may take a long time to become accessible. But it's at least in principle measurable in some objective way. For this show, however, we do not yet have that information.

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As I say, sometimes that happens, for weird reasons. Do you have an EXAMPLE for a show that did well financially but was cancelled anyway? Then we can examine what the reason was.

Do you have an example for a show that did well enough financially but was cancelled because of a minority outrage? Because that's your argument. If you have an actual example for that... GIVE IT TO US, please, so we can discuss it.


Big yikes, brother.

Big, big yikes.

I return to this thread and notice it's the same mentally challenged morons trying to argue that this sorry excuse for bad fanfiction and money laundering is a 'good show', everybody knows that Kenn here is either a room temp IQ troll poster, or has real mental deficiencies going on to keep posting arguments from a failed position.

as an aside, there is nothing in the known universe that can prove this failed slop of a show is 'good' The entire argument is and always has been anybody who criticises the show is either a bigot/misogynist/racist/homophobe and any other ist/phobe they pull out of their arse holes from the 'how to defend the modern audience playbook 101'.

the bastardization of Tolkien's work going on here gets to new lows every episode that is released, it's actually impressive at this point just how warped from the actual lore that the professor created this show has sunk to, and if anything it should be nominated for many awards from that awards show that gives awards to utterly shit shows and movies, forget what they are called off hand right now but you know the one.

the only reason I'm even making this post is that a close IRL friend of mine said he was watching this show and was using it to help him out with his new job as his boss is the target demographic for this mess. He knows how much of a Tolkien nerd I am and asked me to explain from the lore what was going on, when I explained to him the proper timeline, and appropriate events, and removed the completely fabricated people and storylines that this show seems proud to have produced, he was gobsmacked at just how bad it is and how good it could have been.

the sooner this pandering nonsense dies, the happier so many people will be, no one asked for this nonsense, and based on recent viewing figures, nobody but the most ardent of 'modern audience' members even cares enough to keep watching this mess anymore.

[molliewoof]

Tolkiens writing was too old for most ppl to bear, his books were more of a niche all the way until the movies were made, his world building compensated for his old writing style that many ppl cant enjoy, his books are a chore to get through unless you are a real indepth fan of reading.

To be fair I've had almost this exact discussion here before and mainly agree with you.

I just wouldn't extend it to ltr / the hobbit, I'd probably start it at the silmarillion.

I also include cultural relevance when I'm rating the books so even though I prefer a lot of most modern fantasy to lotr, I also remember a lot of people being excited when the films came out, almost all of my friendship group for example knew what it was and if they are readers, they aren't fantasy readers

We will probably have to agree to disagree the series is good or bad

[Syegfryed]

You do like to talk a ton of nonsense, house of the dragon for example i have not watched it yet is classed as pretty good overall and it have far less total viewers than Rings of Power

care to show any proof?

Season two with sambatv data had a 1.3 millions from the debut, while rings of shit had 900k only

[rogoth]

Tolkiens writing was too old for most ppl to bear, his books were more of a niche all the way until the movies were made, his world building compensated for his old writing style that many ppl cant enjoy, his books are a chore to get through unless you are a real indepth fan of reading.

this entire piece of text smacks of you basically saying because you don't read, and therefore struggle to read these beloved books, that somehow you represent a majority?

i read the hobbit for the first time as a 9 year old, I first read the fellowship of the ring a year later, I first read the two towers and return of the king by the time I was 13, then a few years later as part of 'silent reading' at school I re-read them in their entirety as part of a recognised school activity, as a birthday present for my 18th birthday I was gifted a special edition hardback copy of the Silmarillion which I read completely by the time I was 20, I could name DOZENS of people in my age bracket who did virtually the same thing, are they all 'real indepth fans'? how about the millions of people worldwide who have also done similar things?

I guess by your metric the 10's of millions of people who enjoy these books and more are just niche reading nerds who don't understand you and the rest of the modern audience who struggle to read basic sentences thanks to the dominance of social media and the shrinkage of speech.

[Syegfryed]

Im being positive about the show unlike most of the posters here, constant negative postings are not constructive in the slightest along with ignoring how good the show actually is,

List five things about this show that are good that isn't the CGI or music

Dialogue is dogcrap, acting is awfull, plots are terrible written and make no sense whatsoever, butchering lore being even less canonical than season 1.

Its ok to like bad stuff, everyone have their guilty pleasures, but usually they admit is bad, cause no, Guyladriel shipping with Sauron is not good.

tolkiens writing being difficult to bear through are just some simple facts, he talks through history and mythology, most ppl watching the show care very little if it all follows what tolkien may of written or not, facts are we will never know because the stories that tolkien wrote are incomplete.

Tolkien work stood the test of time by being read by different generation and by different people, there is nothing in his books that are difficult"

We need more shows about middle earth, following areas of middle earth tolkien barely even talked about, the show is honouring the world that tolkien built and showing it to many who would never read any of the books.

"show is honoring tolkien"

With what? by butchering his story? twisting his world? shitting on his characters? its a complete disrespect and we don't need more of hack writers ripping off Jackson movies because they are THAT bad at their job.

There is a scene where the show is so bad it copies the scene in the movies where it does a close shot of the elves with their hand close showing up the rings, and the writers are so mental they didn't realize that is not an actual scene that happened, they didn't stood there looking at the rings close with each other, its a representation to the audience, to explain the events, like they did with the dwarves and men close

This is the level of how bad the show is

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I just wouldn't extend it to ltr / the hobbit, I'd probably start it at the silmarillion.

The problem is that silmarillion is not a book tolkien wrote and published, its a collection of stuff

hobbit and lord of the rings are the stories, so obviouslly people could get a bit lost with silmarilion, but its not rly that hard to read

[molliewoof]

The problem is that silmarillion is not a book tolkien wrote and published, its a collection of stuff

hobbit and lord of the rings are the stories, so obviouslly people could get a bit lost with silmarilion, but its not rly that hard to read

I agree, I think I actually said that in an earlier post (if not I meant to, I'm not the best at editing posts and can delete things by accident)

The difference is I did find them hard to read although I'd say I was 11 at the time, at the start of it ' and then they harkened ' stuff really put me off , I've never liked books that use (what I consider) ' fake' language. I'm talking stuff like shakespeare 'alas poor yorrick I knew him Horatio ' I don't know how to describe it, words put together to make the author seem intelligent.

But as we've both said these weren't novels that were written by jrr to be read by people they were ideas for novels compiled by chris

What's shipping btw? I googled it and the main thing that came up was moving goods lol

[Kumorii]

What's shipping btw? I googled it and the main thing that came up was moving goods lol

RelationSHIP.

Basically shipping means trying to make 2 a couple or have some romantic interaction.

[molliewoof]

Oh that's rubbish lol.

Thank you

[alach]

Another angry and exhausting rant.

Are you a professional crictic? I am wondering why I should put your opinion above others, or even my own. Why am I not allowed to say the inverse on what you post and use it as a positive. Why do argue so furiously over other peoples enjoyment?

Also, I am really curious to know what you consider to be good tv, and if you are somehow comparing those to this show, don't. What are your top 5?
Someone brought up the fact this thread has so few pages. Its not because of lack on interest, its because soon as anyone posts anything reflective or positive here about it, they are immediately vaulted upon by walls of text on how they are stupid and have no taste. Grow up. People like different things.

And I am pretty sure I did list 5 things that I enjoyed, last year. They still hold true.

[molliewoof]

Are you a professional crictic? I am wondering why I should put your opinion above others, or even my own. Why am I not allowed to say the inverse on what you post and use it as a positive. Why do argue so furiously over other peoples enjoyment?

Also, I am really curious to know what you consider to be good tv, and if you are somehow comparing those to this show, don't. What are your top 5?
Someone brought up the fact this thread has so few pages. Its not because of lack on interest, its because soon as anyone posts anything reflective or positive here about it, they are immediately vaulted upon by walls of text on how they are stupid and have no taste. Grow up. People like different things.

And I am pretty sure I did list 5 things that I enjoyed, last year. They still hold true.

From what I've seen that started happening when kenxxxx started posting, there seems to be some past between them and other people.

I don't mind you liking it and being positive about it even if I mostly disagree

Don't mind is definitely the wrong phrase but I don't know how else to say it

[alach]

From what I've seen that started happening when kenxxxx started posting, there seems to be some past between them and other people.

I don't mind you liking it and being positive about it even if I mostly disagree

Don't mind is definitely the wrong phrase but I don't know how else to say it

Well thank you for the polite discourse. Maybe we could share some positives (or negatives) on it when it's finished in the future.

[molliewoof]

Well thank you for the polite discourse. Maybe we could share some positives (or negatives) on it when it's finished in the future.

NO ITS FUCKING SHIT RAAAAAAAA

sorry lol, that was a joke, ofc we can haha

[Triceron]

To be fair I've had almost this exact discussion here before and mainly agree with you.

I just wouldn't extend it to ltr / the hobbit, I'd probably start it at the silmarillion.

To be fair, he didn't write the Silmarillion. They were collected from his notes, and presented like a history book. It lacked all the poetry and writing that made LOTR what it was. It's all narrated, and none of the characters have any actual dialogue. We can't really even call it a novel.


LOTR and Hobbit movie adaptations still feel like Tolkien because they borrow heavily from the dialogue that Tolkien had in the books. The point being, dialogue existed to be adapted. Rings of Power doesn't have that benefit. They don't have the rights to the material, and the writers have to create new dialogue that can only mimic what Tolkien might have written. And to be honest, the writing is very hit and miss. Its attempt is too shallow, or how I'd describe it, undercooked. Character dialogue often fluctuates between modern vernacular and old 'Tolkien' styled language. The inconsistency can be quite jarring. I think this is one of the reasons why certain things just sound corny when said aloud; it lacks authenticity and easily breaks suspension of disbelief. It's dipped its toes in the water when it should be immersed in it.

And so, we get gems like:

I will not be made a prisoner. I would sooner knee-cap a stallion than seek to imprison the mighty commander of the Northern Armies.

[molliewoof]

To be fair, he didn't write the Silmarillion. They were collected from his notes, and presented like a history book. It lacked all the poetry and writing that made LOTR what it was. It's all narrated, and none of the characters have any actual dialogue. We can't really even call it a novel.


LOTR and Hobbit movie adaptations still feel like Tolkien because they borrow heavily from the dialogue that Tolkien had in the books. The point being, dialogue existed to be adapted. Rings of Power doesn't have that benefit. They don't have the rights to the material, and the writers have to create new dialogue that can only mimic what Tolkien might have written. And to be honest, the writing is very hit and miss. Its attempt is too shallow, or how I'd describe it, undercooked. Character dialogue often fluctuates between modern vernacular and old 'Tolkien' styled language. The inconsistency can be quite jarring. I think this is one of the reasons why certain things just sound corny when said aloud; it lacks authenticity and easily breaks suspension of disbelief. It's dipped its toes in the water when it should be immersed in it.

And so, we get gems like:

I will not be made a prisoner. I would sooner knee-cap a stallion than seek to imprison the mighty commander of the Northern Armies.

I didn't know it had no dialogue, it shows how far I got into the silmarillion ha.

Is that from really from rop lol? I don't really watch it with full attention, I just kind of look at the TV for a second think ' oh barrow wites' then carry on doing whatever.

This isn't a style thing like yours but this last episode the dwarf king has a monologue about other races being slaves to the sun and them not being now. Like they'd suddenly stopped the sun going down

Just killed me and I started cleaning again

[Triceron]

Just killed me and I started cleaning again

I get the opposite. I usually put shows on as background noise while I work, half-paying attention. Something this jarring makes me focus on it, and I can't continue working because it just broke my brain.

[Tuor]

To be fair, he didn't write the Silmarillion. They were collected from his notes, and presented like a history book. It lacked all the poetry and writing that made LOTR what it was. It's all narrated, and none of the characters have any actual dialogue. We can't really even call it a novel.

Tolkien did wrote the Sillmarillion, he even presented the first draft of it to his editor more or less at the same time he wrote LoTR. His editor refused to publish it. He kept updating it untill his death, and later his son finally publish it.

And Silmarillion does have dialogues.

[Biomega]

I didn't know it had no dialogue

It does, but less of it and less direct. And most of it is written very differently from LotR or The Hobbit.

Which doesn't really matter. This isn't Finnegan's Wake or some obscure experimental piece you can't make heads or tails of. It's just a bit more poetic than your run-off-the-mill fantasy work. No excuse whatsoever not to do it justice in an adaptation. Anyone claiming they couldn't write good dialogue because The Silmarillion didn't provide any for them to go off of is being ridiculous. Is it harder to adapt than the LotR? Yes. Is it so hard you have to accept sub-par quality with a budget going on a billion dollars? FUCK NO. I bet there were British high school wannabes who wrote stage plays off The Silmarillion that had better dialogue.

[Tuor]

It does, but less of it and less direct. And most of it is written very differently from LotR or The Hobbit.

Which doesn't really matter. This isn't Finnegan's Wake or some obscure experimental piece you can't make heads or tails of. It's just a bit more poetic than your run-off-the-mill fantasy work. No excuse whatsoever not to do it justice in an adaptation. Anyone claiming they couldn't write good dialogue because The Silmarillion didn't provide any for them to go off of is being ridiculous. Is it harder to adapt than the LotR? Yes. Is it so hard you have to accept sub-par quality with a budget going on a billion dollars? FUCK NO. I bet there were British high school wannabes who wrote stage plays off The Silmarillion that had better dialogue.

Adapting the whole book is insane, but Tokien always saw the Silmarillion has 4 main stories, The story of Beren and Luthien, the story of Tuor and the fall of Gondolin, the story of the sons of Hurin, and the story of Earendil.

Any of these 4 main stories have small versions on the Silmarillion and larger versions, Cristopher Tolkien finished at least 2 of these stories, the story of Tuor and the fall of Gondolin and the story of the sons of Hurin. At least these 2 are easely adaptable to the screen.