Lord of the Rings TV series gets multi-season order at Amazon

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Well, consider what Disney did with Oni-Wan Kenobi: there they used artificially manufactured racism, by singling out 5 troll comments out of 10,000, in order to claim they were under "racist attack" and thus handwave away the bad reviews. That was clearly deliberate; and I don't think Amazon is any less cunning than Disney.

But that is a well worn defensive parry rather than utilizing it as an offensive tactic.

Most people are too egotistical to genuinely believe in their hearts that people are going to hate their works enough to pre-plan to take advantage of that hatred.

Again, you may be right, but I find it quite odd, in a general sense, to accuse people of being so incompetent that they can't re-write or adapt (in this case) Tolkien's works, even when mutilating it, in an interesting way and at the same time believe that they are so shrewd to utilize the negative reaction to their work to their own advantage.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

B

Again, you may be right, but I find it quite odd, in a general sense, to accuse people of being so incompetent that they can't re-write or adapt (in this case) Tolkien's works, even when mutilating it, in an interesting way and at the same time believe that they are so shrewd to utilize the negative reaction to their work to their own advantage.

Hmm. Nobody but Tolkien can write Tolkien. His mind was, in addition to being brilliant and astonishingly well-educated, unique. His work is inimitable.

Whereas manipulating TV ratings and reviews only requires the sort of low animal cunning which is plentiful in the industry. Compare, e.g., the tremendously effective Oscar-campaign strategy developed by Harvey Weinstein, whom nobody would take for any kind of 'genius.'

Even if the showrunners and producers and PR people were egotistical enough to think they could match the Master, they would have been very aware that they only had rights to the Appendices, and therefore would have to be diverging sharply from the canon, and therefore almost certainly had to be anticipating fan backlash.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

almost certainly had to be anticipating fan backlash.

I still think you are giving them more credit than they deserve.

[Boromir88]

Amazon is taking steps to protect the Rings of Power by implementing policies that will halt the phenomenon of "review bombing."

https://www.avclub.com/amazon-review...-ri-1849493204

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Translation: silence the critics.

A comment from YouTube: "Beware of review bombing, which is,"The practice of blaming negative reviews on audience bigotry when showrunners and other creatives where so preoccupied with inserting ideopolitical messaging that they forgot the fundamentals of story structure, character development, and screenwriting in general.""

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Translation: silence the critics.

A comment from YouTube: "Beware of review bombing, which is,"The practice of blaming negative reviews on audience bigotry when showrunners and other creatives where so preoccupied with inserting ideopolitical messaging that they forgot the fundamentals of story structure, character development, and screenwriting in general.""

To be frank, the critic reviews have been far more positive. Although, for myself I take critic reviews with a grain of salt, since they're part of the industry and have their own agendas to push. I take social media "audience" reviews with even less weight than a grain of salt, because it's intentionally inflammatory. The positive reviews can only go on about the visuals and camera work, nothing else. The instant reaction negative reviews was just mocking anyone who enjoyed it and trying to be gatekeepers defending Tolkien's legacy.

The most damning reviews are the ones I've seen from members here, who I know are fair minded and thoughtful with their opinions...like Lommy, Eomer and elsewhere Agan who say it's boring.

There is a seedling in Episode 2 that the series can get right, imo, if they continue with the theme. It's something that Jackson botched with the movies and Episode 2 touched on it with Elrond and Durin. That is the theme of Elven immortality vs the mortal races. How the races view the world differently causing strain between them, Men's fear of death, and Elves' motivation to preserve their way of life, "unchanged and unmarred." It will be wise for the series to pursue that theme more, but I have little hope the script writers will do the topic justice.

[Huinesoron]

It occurs to me that a non-spoilery review of the first episode (only one I've had time for) would probably be handy for people who are considering whether to watch the series. Adapting this from my spoiler version:

Episode one ("A Shadow of the Past") is not as faithful as I'd hoped, but nowhere near as bad as people anticipated. There's been a lot of impressions based on the trailers, and even in this episode it's clear that the trailers don't show everything.

One thing it is is very pretty. Valinor looks like Valinor. The swan-ship looks like a swan-ship. Lindon is like Movie!Rivendell writ large. There's an "old farm" in the Harfoot sections which is exactly the kind of place you'd like to stumble on exploring a wilderness. Even the small things have had a lot of thought put into them - I flagged an elvish ladder which the propmakers clearly designed as if it had been grown as a single tree, shaped over a decade or more. It does owe a lot, visually, to the Jackson movies (LotR, not Hobbit), so if you didn't like the style there you probably won't here either; but for me, it feels like being in Middle-earth of the Second Age.

That feeling doesn't always extend to the characters. The absolute stand-out stars here are the Harfeet, who are utterly believable proto-Hobbits (and adorable besides). But while Galadriel is a believable Galadriel (if you can accept that the woman who fought fiercely at Alqualonde might possibly pick up a sword once in a while), most of the features male elves have a weirdly craggy look to their faces, though their costumes are usually pretty good. The mortal village swings a little too far into "medieval people wore mud and rags" at times; but based on the trailers, I have high hopes for the Numenorean costume design.

A fair few people have been talking about "inserting ideopolitical messaging" and the like, but honestly, Episode One has none of this. The only argument I can see being made is that the existence of non-white people, or of Galadriel acting like some sort of "man-maiden" or something (), is an ideological statement in and of itself, but I don't put much truck in that claim. I think people are projecting external statements by the actors and creators onto the show, and seeing things that - again, in Episode One specifically - aren't actually there.

The storyline has some canonicity issues. A lot of them stem from what Bêthberry has quoted in another thread - the legal requirement for the writers to not only not use the Silmarillion, but to actively work to make their story not look/be inspired by it. In places, they achieve this by being deliberately vague, but there are places where their storyline and interpretations fly in the face of, if not the text, at least the most likely intent of Tolkien's work. That's probably a good thing for their ability to actually tell a story - to take an extreme example, a Fall of Numenor which tried to vague its way around anything in Akallabeth would have to be completely plotless - but it does mean the Tolkien content is reduced. "The book Tolkien never wrote" is not an accurate description of this show.

Viewed apart from Tolkien (which is hard to do in places), the story is... fine. It falls firmly into the "first episode setup" genre, establishing characters and settings rather than giving us anything to chew on. The characters mostly follow their character as established in the show - I only counted two particularly irrational acts, one of which was highlighted as politics, the other an act of desperation. The elves have the air of smug superiority which you'd expect from the Noldor at their second peak, and there's one moment where Gil-Galad's response to Galadriel is very definitely "I'm the High King, but you are my terrifying aunt and I really hope you don't make an issue of it".

I'm not great at judging dialogue or acting, but I had no problem with it. There are some beautifully delivered lines in this episode, several of which showed up in the trailer. It's clear that Galadriel is the main character, and I think Morfydd Clark can carry that role. There's enough characters who aren't stuck in the Tortured & Harrowed mindset that the ones who are don't drag it all down. And the Harfeet are a positive delight.

Overall, my expectations have lowered slightly, but I enjoyed it, and will still watch the second episode when I get the chance. It works. It's fine - and I hope, when the plot gets its feet under it, it can graduate to "good".

hS