Lord of the Rings - [Amazon] *Spoilers*

I couldnt agree more - this is a fiction set in middle earth - The deranged excuses being thrown about are also becoming tired. As is the STILL UNDERWAY Smear campaign against criticism.

If im not mistaken, the only reference to Hobbits in the Second Age - is that they exist. Where as obviously we can point to Galadriel as having been warped out of recognition. She at least plays a part in the proper lore. Everything in the Hobbit plot is made up .. excuse me... 'original content'

The timeline is totally warped. Its set in the second age, for sure. But they have taken events, and people, from throughout this 3 thousand year period, and have jammed them together... It would be like watching a historical based show, involving Caesar, Napolean, Henry VIII, and a young Hitler. Depending on which RINGS OF POWER plot thread you look at, the rings should already exist, as should the one ring. And a war should be underway

I agree.

My own opinion. There are only a few components keeping this show together, and alive

• The Spin (criticism is all racist and misogynistic)
• The frankly embarrassing reviews talking about how utterly amazing it is (see below for the most cringe inducing review)
• The budget (Amazon may in fact accept a loss, rather than publicly accept failure)
• Those that continue to watch - i understand that we wont have legitimate viewing figures for a while (we may not get any in fact) - the figures are being enhanced by having LOTR-TROP 'auto play', when one finishes anything on Amazon Prime - thats apparently where the figure of 25 million came from

Title of the above article : The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power review – so astounding it makes House of the Dragon look amateur

It cannot hold a torch to HOTD - The fact that any professional author could pen the above, and stand by its publication is astounding.

Also she gets to Numenor and demands a ship. So she wasn't planning to swim all the way when she jumped off that ship two episodes back? She's capable of swimming all the way if she has to but it would be better to have a ship?

The whole Galadriel story arc stemming from the fact that she jumped off a boat 100s of miles from land planning to swim the entire way back to Middle-Earth is kind of hilarious. Why didn't they just do a rewrite? It's the equivalent of deciding to walk home from work then the first petrol station you pass you decide to steal a car because there's no way you can get home on foot. Ah, but the CGI looks fantastic!

Obviously it's not for anyone to tell others what they should and should not like.

I do think it's strange that this thing is marketed as "Lord of the Rings" but really doesn't attempt at all to do anything with Tolkien's lore. So it's really Tolkien for people who don't know enough about Tolkien to know that it's not really Tolkien.

Just makes me ask why they even bought the rights if they aren't going to do anything decent with it.

I guess it would kind of be like if myself and a friend went to a Radiohead concert and I am a big fan of the band but they don't really know much about Radiohead. The show is about to start and Chris Martin from Coldplay comes out on stage with Matt Bellamy from Muse and they do covers of Radiohead songs for two hours. I am standing there thinking "what the hell is this" but my friend is smiling saying "actually I am really enjoying it". They did play their own versions of Radiohead songs but it's not really a Radiohead concert from my perspective but my friend who just assumed that they were Radiohead is none the wiser.

That's kind of how I feel about this now. It's Amazon using the lure of LOTR and Tolkien's name to get people to pay for subscriptions but anyone with even a passing knowledge of the lore can see that it's just not Tolkien at all. I get that movies and shows always need to take some liberties when making adaptations. This is beyond ridiculous though.

I think I'm out. If they manage to go all the way to season 5 and it ends up with a stellar reputation then I might pick it up again someday. Personally I would love to see this just be a thing that years from now people will say "we don't mention Amazon's disastrous attempt to create an LOTR show". It's horrible.

I have never watched any of the lord of the rings movies or read any of the books but i have watched this and i find it quite enjoyable except for the Harfoots whom I find childish in the extreme.

I wonder would the original movies had they been released today have done as well? If you were a kid/teenager in ~60's-80s the books were popular, D&D etc. so the movies had a ready base/nostalgia base and the effects for the time were spectacle level. In broad brush LOTR is less important for under 40's? so even a competent show would be liked but viewership would still skew to a show with dragons and bewbs?

Everyone's view on something as unimportant as a television show is worthwhile and it'll eventually come down to whether someone enjoys it or not and there'll be many reasons for doing either.

As far as 'Game of Thrones' is concerned, I never read any of the books and the first I heard of the story was when HBO announced the TV series, which I enjoyed throughout its entire run, even if S08 was a wee bit "rushed" in its execution. I kinda dismissed the series as Tolkien with tits at the beginning, but was very much enjoying it once I'd settled in. Couldn't care less about its deviation from a source material that I never experienced and that, no doubt, helped me to like the series over all more than people who had invested their time in JRR Martin's novels.

As for 'Rings of Power', I'm getting very little out of it so far. But not because I'm some Tolkien fanatic or anything. I haven't read 'Lord of the Rings' since the 80's and have read 'The Hobbit' only twice since then too. The last time being about 5 years ago and, frankly, it was a bit of a struggle because it was so damned childish. It was written specifically for kids after all. Jackson's LotR movies were enjoyable enough, but I still never felt like they captured Tolkien's world that well at the end of the day. So I have no real investiture in this series at all from either a literary or cinematic POV. However, it still isn't resonating with me in any real way for reasons that are outside such states of mind, as it were. It just, so far, hasn't been terribly good.

It would have to be the worst thing ever for me not to watch this as it is so visually stunning. The level of detail is fantastic and the colours. Story is only ok but episode 3 set a few things in motion that could elevate the show. Level of vitriol levelled at is both predictable and ridiculous. Will happily watch it and hopefully the story improves.

What annoys me most is actually...so ya Tolkien invented the stereotypical fantasy elf...

Like, seriously, this show has all the ugliest elves I have seen in any show/film 😂

Ya they look like the various ages of Liberace or Gary Glitter with those stupid hairdos

Haha..

Looking at pictures of Will Poulter it seems like he would have looked more like Hugo weaving's version of Elrond, it appears they just gave up and went for the first big name for the recasting.

The latest thing bugging me is episode 2, when the elves arrived at Moria, they casually stroll over to the door(which is supposed to be invisible?) with no horses, no gear, no bags, no swords, no bows, nothing. Its again a stark lack of attention to detail in my opinion. The distance is half the world right? Like twice the distance the hobbits covered in the fellowship?

Not the same door used in LOTR (yet to be build), just because we don't see horses, doesn't mean they weren't used.

We don't see characters eating much or using the facilities, we just assume they do.