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Lord of the Rings Television

Amazon's 'Lord of the Rings' Prequel Ends Season One. What Did You Think? (msn.com) 288

Posted by EditorDavid from the eyes-on-Sauron dept.
Friday Amazon released the season finale for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. But Amazon's 8-episode first season "might have been best known for its extravagant price tag," jokes the Los Angeles Times. It ultimately cost $700 million — making it the most expensive TV show ever — and they note one viewer's assessment that "Visually, it's great. All the money in production shows..." (The Times' critic called it "visibly expensive.")

But can you quantify whether the show is good, great, or something out of Mordor? The Times cites reports that more than 100 million Amazon Prime viewers watched some part of the show (with the premier attracting 25 million viewers on its first day — a new record for the streaming service). Yet they also add that "It's no surprise that a long-gestating TV show based on the mythology behind a beloved fantasy series has garnered mixed reviews from audiences. (In the main, critics have been more positive, according to review aggregation sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic)."

And CNN is a little less charitable: After initial reviews admired the scope and visual grandeur, though, more critical voices have drifted into the naysaying column, pointing out — as the Daily Telegraph's Duncan Lay put it — that the series "managed to be both pretentious and boring." Forbes' Erik Kain sounded a similar note, writing that after the opening chapters, "The Rings of Power" has demonstrated "how quickly a badly written TV series can wear out its welcome once the shimmer fades."
But there's also this from Business Insider: Creators J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay promise that if viewers were disappointed with season one's story because they expected more Sauron, then they'll dig the second season, which started filming earlier this month. "There may well be viewers who are like, 'This is the story we were hoping to get in season one!,'" McKay told The Hollywood Reporter. "In season two, we're giving it to them."
Indeed, this season accomplished "the hard work of setting up who all those characters are," Amazon Studios head told Variety — possibly hinting again at that surprise reveal of Sauron in the season finale.

And according to The Hollywood Reporter, the show's creators have high hopes for its impact on Season Two: "There's something that Milton does in Paradise Lost that we talked about a lot. Where he makes Satan a really compelling character... Season one opens with: Who is Galadriel? Where did she come from? What did she suffer? Why is she driven?" says Payne. "We're doing the same thing with Sauron in season two. We'll fill in all the missing pieces."

"Sauron can now just be Sauron," McKay adds. "Like Tony Soprano or Walter White. He's evil, but complexly evil. We felt like if we did that in season one, he'd overshadow everything else. So the first season is like Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight is the next movie, with Sauron maneuvering out in the open."
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Amazon's 'Lord of the Rings' Prequel Ends Season One. What Did You Think? More

Amazon's 'Lord of the Rings' Prequel Ends Season One. What Did You Think?

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    • I thought, "I'm not going bother to watch it." And then I didn't.

  • For free with my Free Shipping membership.
    What's not to like?

  • Boring (Score:2, Insightful)

    by blahbooboo ( 839709 )
    Couldnt get past the first episode. What a waste of half a billion dollars.
    • I got through about half of that, but never enjoyed it. This looks like it has the same problems.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by suss ( 158993 )

        Wheel of Time gets worse and worse towards the end.
        I didn't even bother with this bad LOTR fanfic.

    • A lot of people said the same thing after reading the first chapter of the book. Or the first whole book. Some read all the books, and still said it was boring. I myself didn't fully appreciate it until I grew up a little and revisited them.

    • It captured the elves very well - aloof, distant. And the scene of the elven ship going back to Valinor was.. very elven?

      And it was the only episode that I didn't want to punch at least one harfoot in the face.

  • I do not care enough. I would much rather read the LoTR books again than watch some doubtlessly cringe Amazon product.

  • Good Television (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Thunderstruck ( 210399 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @01:54PM (#62969117)

    I liked it. Better than The Hobbit films, not quite as good as the LOTR films.

    • The Hobbit had too much bad cgi. They definitely used more prosthetics and real actors here. The matrix style kung fu was also used sparingly.

    • Re:Good Television (Score:5, Interesting)

      by catmistake ( 814204 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @02:35PM (#62969231) Journal

      Once I abandoned trying to reconcile RoP with Tolkien's work, I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a lot better than Jackson's work. My major complaint with LotR was everything was a close up, too many one shots and two shots, not enough wide shots, hardly any. There was less of this cheap technique in the Hobbit films, but still too much giant heads talking. RoP was shot with plenty of wide and long shots, so it didn't feel like everything was taking place in a phone booth.

      The critics aren't very critical. They nitpick one thing they don't like, and repeat themselves through 5 paragraphs of redundancy. None of the critics in these comments are saying anything intelligible.

      I thought RoP did well, squeezed their story into areas about which Tolkien didn't write. Though a lot happens in the Second Age, for most of it it is impossible to tell where characters like Sauron and Galadriel were exactly, There are just some waypoints of known location and action. So RoP took literary license and filled in gaps, such as the creation of Mt Doom and Mordor. They compressed the timeline massively, but once you get over that, it isn't terrible writing, it's just that it contradicts Tolkien in some places, such as The Stranger, who obviously must be Gandalf. Trouble is, Gandalf doesn't arrive in Middle-Earth until 1000 years into the Third Age, and arrives by swan ship to the Grey Havens, not by meteor to the southeast of the Misty Mountains. Gandalf never goes to Rhûn and says so, "to the East I go not." And his talent with fire came from Narya, the red ring, aka ring of fire, so control of fire wasn't an innate ability. These details can drive you crazy, so letting go of these kinds of details is essential. And maybe it isn't Gandalf. Though it does seem obvious, it really can't be for reasons. Everyone seems to think there were only five wizards, but Tolkien was ambiguous:

      Of this Order the number is unknown; but of those that came to the North of Middle-earth, where there was most hope (because of the remnant of the Dunedain and of the Eldar that abode there), the chiefs was five.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I got four episodes in and keep meaning to come back to it.

        The real problem is that I just don't care about the characters or the coming of Sauron.

        Compare it with House of the Dragon. By the end of the first episode you are invested in the main characters, and even though you know how the story ends, you want to see it play out.

        I don't care about the hobbits, or the elves whose names and relevance I don't know. I don't really care who the man who fell to Middle Earth is, it's not a question I really care ab

        • Re:Good Television (Score:5, Informative)

          by catmistake ( 814204 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @04:10PM (#62969461) Journal

          Compare it with House of the Dragon.

          I have. Both have shown 8 episodes. Both have excellent actors, wardrobe, hair and makeup, and sets. In one show, a lot has happened, maybe too much. There's action, there's progress in multiple storylines.. In the other show, very little if anything has happened. One is legitimate fantasy genre, the other is a soap set in the middle ages.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            As I said I only watched the first 4 episodes of Rings, but yeah... Nothing much happened. Some basic set up for the characters, but for example the whole Galadriel deciding to leave and then changing her mind, then needs help to get back... It's all unrelated to the main plot and completely uninteresting.

            House of the Dragon packs so much into each episode, but doesn't feel overwhelming, and it all fits together really nicely. They managed to get a lot of story set over a very long period of time done witho

      • Re:Good Television (Score:5, Interesting)

        by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @05:27PM (#62969647) Journal
        I agree that this show is best watched with your lore book left in the drawer. Once you watch it on its own merit, it's decent fare and entertaining enough. The overall story arc works, and inserts a few interesting events into the original story. Visually it's great, and I think they did a good job with the casting for most parts.

        Where things start to break down is the writing of details and individual characters. Galadriel is a massive Mary Sue, with those improbable fights, that ridiculous notion of swimming back from Valinor, the silly jail break, and generally how all characters and events just bend around her. The actions and motivation of a lot of the other characters often made as little sense, the reasons for illogical choices or far-fetched outcomes coming about are left unexplained. I kept asking myself why and how throughout the show.

        Some of it is just lazy writing that could have been so much better. For instance, the Harfoots started out with "If you can't keep up, if your cart breaks down, screw you we're leaving you behind", then there was this rousing speech of how they all stood together, after their camp got burnt. Again, no explanation on this change of heart is given. It would have been so much better if the destruction of their camp (maybe a few deaths thrown in) was pitched as the moment their ways changed, thus making it a pivotal event, instead of it merely being some mishap that we're supposed to feel something about.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          People who haven't read the books seem to like it more. The real issue for me is that I just don't care about the characters, and none of them are very interesting as people.

        • I agree that this show is best watched with your lore book left in the drawer.

          Then perhaps don't name it after the lore, promote it as being from the lore, and subsequently ignore it?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      I was entertained more from The Hobbits films than over Rings of Power. I do agree that LOTR films were the best.

    • Silmarillion and The Hobbit suffered from the same problem: taking a short novel (or scattering of tiny stories) and trying to stretch it to an extensive story. In neither case did they even follow the history as laid out.

  • There are many things I could forgive... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dyfet ( 154716 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @02:08PM (#62969149) Homepage

    Reducing much of the 2nd age to a few short weekend benders between the end of the war of wrath and the forging of the rings? Sure.... Lady Galadrial as an elf hottie on the prowl after conveniently misplacing her hubby? Why not. Morder baked overnight?? Ok. But female dwarfs without beards????!!! Nope! That is a bridge too far!

  • Pirated it even though I have Prime (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FeelGood314 ( 2516288 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @02:11PM (#62969165)
    The probability that something will go wrong or just be inconvenient when streaming movies is just to high. The pirates have a better quality product than the streamers.

    That said, I loved the show. The story is complicated but they told it well. It is aimed at a fairly wide audience which is fine. I don't need every fantasy to have women in revealing armor that would barely keep them warm let alone protected. As a for thousand year old civilizations that still have a black princess with a white father it might be less realistic but it is necessary. These are stories that are part of our culture and we can't have a culture that large parts of society can't participate in. We are imagining wizards and other monsters, three ships that hold an entire cavalry, splitting boulders with one blow with no eye protection... I think we can suspend our disbelieve in human genetics.

    • The probability that something will go wrong or just be inconvenient when streaming movies is just to high.

      That is the most bullshit excuse for piracy I've ever heard about a service which literally allows you to download the entire season and watch it at your leisure. Fuck man Amazon even gives you the option to one click download the entire season (unlike Netflix which makes you select each episode).

      The pirates have a better quality product than the streamers.

      Normally I agree with you. But in this case I'm wondering if you're just a parrot repeating someone else's delusion.

  • boring (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Thaelon ( 250687 )

    First few episodes were so boring I just stopped watching. And I didn't have to pay for it.

  • Ignore the hype. Take it for what it is, and don't try to read anything deep and meaningful into it.

    Entertainment. Nothing more.

    It was fun. I enjoyed it, mostly. Some pacing issues.

    I would not watch it a second time, but I will watch season two when it comes out.

  • It was never going to be good. People writing for a TV show employed by a corporation are not going to produce something worthy of an author writing a novel to fulfill an internal vision that becomes an acclaimed work. It's not even a reflection on them as writers (although the terrible dialogue and plot is), the conditions just aren't viable. If some fan had written a full length novel that was rip roaringly good and became a cultural phenomenon then that might make a basis for a TV show.

  • Tolkien is missing from this series. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Angelwrath ( 125723 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @03:08PM (#62969323)

    There's quite a bit missing from this series and it makes me wonder what the series creators were thinking.
    1. It doesn't sound like Tolkien at all. The dialogue sounds utterly lifeless, contemporary. By comparison, listening to the film and TV works of the LOTR movies and GoT TV show - you hear the prose of the writer and the prose is one of the culturally-distinguishing features, sometimes to great effect. This series lacks that entirely, it sounds like generic fiction.
    2. Galadriel wears a night gown? Galadriel travels in full plate armor? The LOTR movies did a great job of making the elves seem serene and regal and slightly aloof - this series does nothing of the sort. Galadriel wears generic looking outfits, this actress's hair style is so thick that it rarely shows the ears when the elves of the movies all had very fine hair that revealed their ears a lot of the time. I just don't get a sense that she is anything unique or significantly different from the humans beside her. And worse - once she rallies the troops she puts on full plate armor (likely some lighter than air Elfish armor of course, but still). This isn't in keeping with the look of Elves at war at all, they avoid heavy armors because they employ their natural agility and avoidance tactics when fighting.. Ismael Cruz is a much better cast, he does have Elfin qualities, although here again you get no sense that Arondir is a woodland elf with a different and unique culture. He's literally a generic "archer with a cause".
    3. The world is mostly just a set. In Tolkien's world the world itself is a character. From moths that aid Gandalf, to forests that shiver and move, Tolkien's planet is alive and steeped in rich magic and mysteries. When trees are decimated in this series, when insects are just bugs, the world itself is totally lifeless. A dead world is not the world of Middle Earth.

    This show definitely needs some major work to really feel like it's a derivative work of Tolkien. I don't know if I'd continue watching more generic fiction that uses the words and symbols of Tolkien's world, but doesn't sound or appear like Middle Earth as Tolkien intended.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Tom ( 822 )

      This.

      If this garbage had been released as generic fantasy with different names, it might've been halfway ok-ish. The way they handled it is an insult to Tolkien at every step. They basically took Tolkiens work and removed Tolkien from it.

  • Predictable. And in fact I did predict it. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @03:27PM (#62969355)
    Before the show premiered, I predicted: (1) Minimal, forgettable writing; (2) mediocre acting; (3) gaming visuals rather than cinematic ones, for franchise purposes. And voila! All of it happened. It was designed from start to finish by a bunch of soulless media consultants and accounting sociopaths who see every costume and musical note as needing to be its own money-making unit.

  • I go by the logic that anything that needs blunt and blatant in-your-face advertising to get eyeballs is usually not worth watching.

    And frankly, any time I watched anything on Prime the past 2-3 months, the nag trailer before it was without fail that show. Somehow, I think I've seen already more of it than I could possibly want to.

  • Dumpster fire (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DrXym ( 126579 )
    Terrible writing, terrible casting, and absurdly woke in the worst way possible.
  • I am not a huge fan of Tolkien. I read the The Hobbit (which I lived very much) and The Lord of the Ring (which I liked less, but still enjoyed) and have seen all the movies (ALL the movies, including the Bakshi and Rankin/Bass animated ones) at one point or another. The Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films were great. The Jackson Hobbit films bored me and I didn't find them memorable. The new series seemed like more of that but also ignored the lore. I also though the production looked uneven. That and al

  • CGI (Score:2)

    by zkiwi34 ( 974563 )
    It was more important than anything else.

  • Don't know.
    And from the little I saw of the advertising, I could not POSSIBLY give less of a shit.

    And I'm a Tolkien-phile.

  • How coudl the plot be that bad - SPOILERS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @06:18PM (#62969767)
    Beautiful scenes, but the plot -how can anyone spend half a billion $ and end up with such a bad plot. Galadriel is presented as an impetuous teenager - but at this point she is thousands of years old. Her thing was being *wise*, not being a warrior-babe

    SPOILERS:SPOILERS:SPOILERS: Galadriel and a dozen elves are hunting Sauron ice climbing in the far north. Are they in hot pursuit? No, he *might* have been there hundreds of years ago, if at all. Then when the run into a troll, it almost trashes them. So I'm curious, what was their plan if they DID find Sauron - the most powerful being in middle earth.

    Then Galadriel jumps off a ship in the middle of the ocean. WTF? Is she planning on swimming thousands of miles back to Middle Earth?

    Then is the guy who turns on to be Sauron just hanging out on a raft in the middle of the ocean? Why?


    Then the evil guys decide to blow up Mt Doom, with this old sword which was really a key because? Um?

    Then the guy who was obviously Gandalf has amnesia? Why? He was sent by the Valar to help stop Sauron

    Then Galadriel finds out Sauron has been helping build the rings - and decides not to mention that.

    Its endless. The plot makes absolutely not sense at all, the character's behavior makes no sense.
    >
    To be clear, I don't care about multi-ethnic elves, etc, 100% OK. by me. I have no problem with warrior-women, but that isn't Galadriel.

  • I saw the first four Jackson movies and gave up. In retrospect I only enjoyed the first one.

    My favorite dramatization was the Hobbit audiobook by Andy Serkis.

    Is this why Prime went up $30? Jesus.

  • Sets and costumes are top notch, on level with the Peter Jackson LOTR trilogy.
    Plot is mostly people talking for 5 episodes, with big twists and reveals left only for the very last.
    Acting is mediocre, with few exceptions like Markella Kavenagh (Nori).

    IMHO

  • I couldn't make it past the first episode. Making Galadrel a she-warrior ruined it early for me.

  • I have read the posts up to this point, and for all of them that compliment or admire the production values, sets, stories, characters, etc. - I agree. Examine any particular detail, and it has all been well done.

    But it is boring. It is one of the biggest yawners I have seen in a long time. It is just slow and labored. There are even "dead air" moments when characters gawk or mug without saying a word, meant to be a dramatic element, but they go on so long that it is painful. If non-essential fluff and

  • Well, I'm gonna say it, damn the torpedos. I loved it.

    The music is what pulled it together emotionally. Bear McCreary is a genius. Each theme is a work of art, The Stranger being the best for me. Khazad dum. Bronwyn and Arondir.

    Aesthetically it's 10/10, music, architecture, landscapes, costumes, interior design -- incredible.

    They did a great job with the characters. With exception of the Numenor Queen whoever, but honestly nobody was going to like her. Even Adar, he had such a great role. An antihero s

  • The writing was just so so bad.

  • Boring and Bad (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Philotomy ( 1635267 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @08:48PM (#62970097)

    Considering the show separate from a Tolkien connection (i.e., letting it stand on its own and not judging it for being different from Tolkien's books and stories), I'd rate it about 4 or 5 out of 10. Its biggest sin is that it's boring. Another big issue is that the main protagonist is unlikable. There are few other characters that you care much about, either. The writing is...uneven, at best, and outright laughably bad at worst (especially some of the dialogue). The story doesn't make a lot of sense, there are lots of meaningless divergences, meandering plot threads, plot armor that breaks verisimilitude, scenes that "have a point" but are way too much on the nose, and the "twists" are obvious to everyone (except the characters in the show, of course). The acting is not great, either, but I don't blame the actors in this case; I think it's poor writing (and poor dialogue).

    When you add in the Tolkien elements it just goes from bad to worse. Terrible casting is a stand out. I'm not talking about casting for the invented characters (they're invented, after all), but for the canonical characters. Some of the greatest figures of the second age (e.g., Gil-Galad, Elrond, Celebrimbor) are cast (and written) as complete dorks. Heck, Celebrimbor doesn't look like a powerful Noldo of the line of Fëanor (or any other line of elf, for that matter); he looks like an old man wearing his grandmother's drapes as a robe. Then there are the timeline oddities and other changes from canon. I could go on at length, but I'll spare you. I understand that a different medium (e.g. TV or film vs. books) might benefit from some alterations, but when that's done it should serve the story, it's tone, etc. in the new medium. The divergences from canon in this show aren't like that at all; they're just kind of thoughtlessly done, even where they're not necessary. Given their approach, I think Amazon should've just skipped the entire Tolkien connection and done their own fantasy show. This thing is about as "Tolkien" as one of those Xena or Hercules shows. Even the show's apologists have started saying stuff like "you need to consider this show as a new or variant story in the overall mythology. It's not trying to tell exactly what Tolkien wrote." Yeah, no kidding. And don't get me wrong, I don't object to original characters and new stories; I think there's plenty of room for that. But I think such new stories are best told within the established framework, doing no damage to the themes, tone, major characters, known 'canon,' et cetera [decider.com]. If you're going to just do your own thing and largely ignore the details of the canon/framework, then why use the framework in the first place? (The only reasonable answer I can come up with for that is to use a popular "brand" for marketing purposes.)

    Anyway, this is getting longer than I'd intended. Suffice it to say I really wanted this show to be good. Sadly, it's just not. It's a missed opportunity for something good and worthwhile. Disappointing.

    To end with something positive: some of the visuals are nice.

  • Stop calling valid criticism, so the fans... (Score:3)

    by JackAxe ( 689361 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @09:36PM (#62970157)
    Ista-phobes and every other current year stupidity, and I would have given this lore destroying show a chance. But they just couldn't help it. They pre-emptively called all of us white supremacism and misogynists, and other labels, and expected this dribble to be well received.

    They should have instead focused on being true to Tolkien and making good content. and left current year zealotry at the door.

    The Boys and The Expanse are two of my favorite shows, Amazon has no excuse for this billion dollar screw up.
    • What did the expanse have that Rings of Power doesn't? Other than plot, character development, pacing, a coherent universe, and actual multi-cultural interest.

      What saddens me is I doubt Amazon management is able to recognize the difference between the Expanse and RoP.

  • Great Start, Mediocre Middle and Awesome Final (Score:3)

    by l810c ( 551591 ) on Sunday October 16, 2022 @12:20AM (#62970379)

    I'm going to re-watch to see if there were any possible clues to what was unveiled in the finale.
    Great visuals and very interesting and exciting start. Writing and plot got a little slow in the middle and I started to get a little bored.
    Loved the finale. Absolutely fantastic and completely made up for any prior transgressions.

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