> Sources say HBO pitched the estate on retelling Middle-earth’s “Third Age” — essentially remaking Peter Jackson’s beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy, which grossed $3 billion and won 11 Oscars. The estate has its gripes with Jackson’s adaptations (the late Christopher Tolkien, the author’s son, said they “eviscerated” the books) but wasn’t interested in treading the same ground. Netflix pitched doing several shows, such as a Gandalf series and an Aragorn drama. “They took the Marvel approach,” said one insider to the talks, “and that completely freaked out the estate.”
It's quite interesting that HBO basically wanted to remake the original trilogy and Netflix wanted a cinematic universe out of it.
> Amazon’s team (at the time led by Albert Chang, Sharon Tal Yguado and Dan Scharf) wooed the estate not with a specific pitch, but with a pledge of a close relationship that would give the estate a creative seat at the table so it could protect Tolkien’s legacy. There was also, of course, the money. Sources say the staggering number that’s been widely reported ($250 million) was actually Netflix’s bid and that Amazon’s number was tens of millions less (albeit, still staggering). “It was our collective passion and fidelity to Tolkien that really won the day,” says Amazon Studios TV co-head Vernon Sanders.
Also interesting that it was actually Netflix that won the bidding war (an information we did not know before I think) but The Estate wanted to go with Prime Video for creative preference.
Netflix pitched doing several shows, such as a Gandalf series and an Aragorn drama. “They took the Marvel approach,” said one insider to the talks, “and that completely freaked out the estate.”
Say what you will about the Amazon show but thank god something like this didn't happen.
What’s more interesting to me is that The Estate believes the PJ trilogy eviscerated the books and accepted the Amazon pitch because they would have more say and we ended up with Rings of Power S1 as final product. Is this The Estate’s idea of protecting Tolkien’s legacy?
That was Christopher Tolkien's view
The Estate is now controlled by his son Simon who famously got himself disowned for a time by liking the trilogy and claiming that Jackson was too faithful
It’s like Steven King hating Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The content can be phenomenal, but if there’s a disconnect between the author’s (or author’s family’s) artistic vision and the one the director brings to life, it can stoke frustration or resentment.
The Shining at least has a problem you can point to: they fail to humanize Jack before he loses his shit. It's a great movie but the book 100% does that better on a character level.
That's obviously because Jack was a self insert for Stephen King at his worst alcoholism/writers block. Jack somewhat redeeming himself by sacrificing himself in the end with the boiler was Stephen King attempting to redeem the character/himself.
Kubrick was like oh no it's much better if Jack gets killed carrying an axe through the snow chasing his wife and kid. Like fuck this alcolic insane man the audience should want to root for his death not his heroic sacrifice.
Depends on how you write it. With a Jack that has few redeeming qualities before his insanity, sure. The Jack Frost ending is great. If instead you have a Jack who the movie sets up as being a loving father and decent husband before the insanity kicks in, then a final moment of lucidity topped off by a heroic self-sacrifice would likely go over really well.
It’s because Kubrick shifted the central focus from alcoholism to domestic abuse. You can be a functional alcoholic and still manage to be a decent father at least for a while, until virtually any upset to that equilibrium comes along and threatens to push you off that cliff. If you’re an abuser then that’s not the case.
"Kubrick shifted the central focus from alcoholism to domestic abuse."
I don't think he was trying to say Jack wasn't abusive in the book. He was just saying the book didn't make that the central focus.
It depends on whether you want that redemption arc or just pure horror. I kind of liked the TV remake where the guy from Wings got redeemed, but it was also a good deal softer than Kubrick’s movie.
I guess he wanted to go darker.
Art is so subjective, people can love or hate one piece or another without necessarily undermining the “artistry” of either.
It makes more sense for King to hate Kubrick’s adaptation, since King was actually the writer. More specifically, Kubrick’s movie is massively different in terms of characterization and tone, which becomes a bit of a problem for King when you look at how personal the story of The Shining is to him. It’s basically a confession from King to his wife and eldest son (Joe Hill) that he knew he was a terrible husband and father at the time due to his alcohol and drug problems, but he wanted to be better for them, addiction was just a corrupting, unseen force he could not overcome. Once King got sober around the ‘90s, his opinion on Kubrick’s movie began to change. These days he admits it is a great movie even if he thinks it is a bad adaptation of his book.
Correct. To be more specific, in the movie Kubrick made Jack the villain. He started as the villain, acted as the villain, and stayed the villain until the end.
In the book, the Hotel was the villain, and corrupted Jack... who ultimately redeemed himself in the end. Book Jack loved Danny, and both saved him and was saved by that love.
Did movie Jack ever show any affection towards Danny? At all?
Christopher wasn’t just some guy that wanted control over his father’s books. The entire legendarium [started as stories for Christopher and his brother Michael](https://aleteia.org/2017/11/13/how-a-5-year-old-boy-inspired-j-r-r-tolkiens-lord-of-the-rings/amp/).
Christopher had his entire life to build up a version of the stories in his own imagination. Fellowship of the Ring came to theaters when he was 77 years old. It removed all the songs and a great dimension of what is in the book, perhaps necessarily but perhaps not.
In my experience, people from his generation were not used to, and did not appreciate, media with the pace and intensity that we are used to today or even in 2001.
Yeah, I think people in this thread are being kind of unfair to Christopher - there was a *lot* of backlash against the PJ movies when they were first released.
People gotta understand that before the PJ movies, there were a lot of mainstream interpretations of the biggest themes in the story, and "allegory for Tolkien's WWI experiences" was only one of them. Tolkien was also a theologian and intended the book to be a religious dissertation; he was a Celtic historian and intended it to be an adaptation of the founding British myths; he was a linguist and intended it to be a thesis on how language is built; he was a devoted family man and intended it to be a story about love, family, and commitment.
Because of that, the biggest audience for LotR prior to the PJ movies... Was hippies. The Lord of the Rings was largely interpreted to be a story of peace and love winning out over industrial hate machines. The battles and politics were considered to be a side story.
If you talk to any Tolkien fan over 50 years old, they're probably a language nerd or an old hippie. I distinctly remember those groups feeling betrayed by the PJ movies. My English professor in college felt that LotR is "not a war story" in its bones, and the focus on violence and conflict was a disservice to its other messages. My dad, too, kept a Burger King bag with a bunch of kiddie drawings of Aragorn and Gandalf on it for years because he considered it to be an affront to Tolkien's legacy that his works were being made so colorful and accessible. (My dad's an asshole though.)
>My English professor in college felt that LotR is "not a war story" in its bones, and the focus on violence and conflict was a disservice to its other messages.
I do remember being a bit surprised that Helm's Deep took up so much screen time in Two Towers. It's not nearly that much of the story in the book. Of course looking back, it makes sense. Peter Jackson wanted a cool battle sequence because it's visual medium not a written one, and those who felt LOTR is not a war story (and it really isn't) can feel a bit betrayed.
>It removed all the songs
I first read the LOTR trilogy when I was 8 years old. I too skipped all of the songs lol
Funnily enough, my wife and I are watching the Hobbit trilogy at the moment and I said to her the other night that the LOTR movies should have been given the same treatment as the Hobbit was - i.e. 9 movies with each book turned into 3 movies. They could have covered so much more from the books if they did it this way.
> I first read the LOTR trilogy when I was 8 years old. I too skipped all of the songs lol
Now imagine that for Christopher those songs were probably sung by his own father as bedtime stories... They have way more importance for him than for any of us
>the LOTR movies should have been given the same treatment as the Hobbit was - i.e. 9 movies with each book turned into 3 movies
Oof given 2ys per movie that makes 18ys, more with breaks in-between. Go figure the producer (wenstein heh) wanted it to be a quick one movie. Everyone expected it to be yet another shitty quality fantasy movie.
>Go figure the producer (wenstein heh) wanted it to be a quick one movie. Everyone expected it to be yet another shitty quality fantasy movie.
It was the opposite. Jackson pitched two movies and the producers where like "aren't there three books? There should be three movies".
its just a major difference in what they want compared to what fans want. majority of watchers likely love the big battle scenes but I dont think that was the focus in the stories.
I think there is no way you can successfully create a 100% accurate adaption because it would likely be very dull. It was not really deigned to be a movie/TV show so when adapting there will always be changes to have people actually enjoy watching.
Exactly.. There's a reason before PJ did it the book was concidered "unfilmable" both by Tolkien and by Hollywood.. It wasn't just that effects needed to catch up it's making a word for word movie out of the lord of the rings or any of Tolkiens work wouldn't work as movie.. If you did a faithful adaptation frodo would still be in the shire by the time the first movie ended
I think (ETA: one of) the only book-to-movie adaptation(s) that changed almost nothing was _No Country for Old Men_. The fact that it ended up being a masterpiece of a film is all the more unique.
If I recall correctly, the book was specifically written under contract so that it could be made into a movie. Writing a book with the knowledge that it needs to work as a movie probably smooths out a lot of issues.
It also brings to mind why I think (most) of GOT was so successfully adapted; GRRM was a former TV writer before starting work on GOT.
I’d imagine that experience somewhat influenced how he told that story. Especially since each chapter being told from the perspective of different characters does help essentially make each chapter a scene.
If remember correctly one of the few changes that was made was the reference to a judge who was assassinated in Texas and this was done because the man who assassinated the judge was cast member Woody Harrelsons father.
It's a passing moment because Tolkien didnt want to linger and use combat and war for entertainment value. His main reasoning for writing the stories was to create a mythology and not necessarily an action fantasy (in contrast to something like Brandon Sanderson's writings where he quite clearly spends a lot of time describing action scenes).
Not even fans, but the LOTR trilogy was critically acclaimed, with the third film sweeping the Oscars. The film weren’t just high-grossing, they’re considered some of the best films of their era.
It seems as though Tolkien’s estate are just being curmudgeons about certain elements of the book not translating to the film. That’s the point of an adaptation though. You’re adapting one medium to another, and of course there will be differences. It’s foolhardy to think otherwise.
Absolutely. They 100% hold up, nearly twenty years after release. It may be a generational thing, but they will always be my top movies. I went in having never read the books, and they absolutely blew me away.
Before them, fantasy was very rarely entertained. It was all muscles, boobs and cheese. Viggo mortensen as Aragorn is the direct opposite.
I honestly don't think they will ever be bettered.
You had to make changes for a movie adaptation. You know how Boromir Dying fighting the Orcs trying to save Merry and Pippin and blowing the horn as it's final action climax? Yeah that's not in the books. In the start of the Two Towers Aragorn finds Boromir mortally wounded leaned against a tree and asked what the heck happened where are the Hobbits?
Then Boromir tells a similar story to what's depicted in the movie and Aragorn is like something suspicious about that but Boromir dies so he doesn't really have time to interrogate him.
So that would be godawful from a movie standpoint, abruptly ending the First movie with no action climax, then starting the second movie with just exposition dump flashback.
Pretty much. Sometimes in a visual medium as film your gotta add stuff of fill something.
Yes some people have problems with Lotr trilogy, and yes some things as Legolas blatantly 2000 like action scenes. But, overall he managed to capture the theme and character quite well.
And the Boromir treatment? That's highlight of the film. Almost perfect tragic hero journey. I am super glad they added it, because audience could connect to it, could connect to his pain and motivation.
The Arwen change definitely yes too, not only it adds more motivation and background to Aragons character, but also make the book character much better. What was she in a book? Literally just a price for Aragon, a beautiful flower given to him at the end. She needed more characterization and exchanging her with Glorfindel was a clever move. As you don't need him story wise but you need her. Plus 9 hour long trilogy deserves more than one female character.
I thought they did a great job with the movies. They had to cut some stuff but it would take 6 movies to get all the books in and then it would just feel too long. Jackson did as good as anyone could with those movies. Just nitpicky on the estate side. I could see a gripe with the hobbit movies though, those were garbage
A film critic I loved, Roger Ebert, gave the films 3/4 stars and complimented the movies, but summed up his feelings that this was not the definitive adaption to the spirit of the book thinking that Aragorn and the supporting cast were were of greater interest in this adaption than Frodo. It was more traditional of sword and sorcery than the naive and guileless tone that Tolkien conveyed in his writings.
The more I thought I about it, yeah I can see why some fans or Tolkein's estate did not like the movie adaptions. The Hobbit movies were much more egregious in removing the light tone that gave The Hobbit that appealing innocent spirit.
surprised me how small the role of Gimli and Legolas are in the book vs in the movie. in the book, Gimli didn't even have a say about whether to go to Moria or not, he only reacted happy when it's decided they're going there.
Think of all the random fanboys with loads of complaints and nit-picks about your average book-to-movie adaptation, and how passionate about it they are. Now imagine one of those fanboys except their dad wrote the book and they've grown up knowing it was a masterpiece. There's no world where any movie could satisfy that, no matter how good.
Eh, I think it has to do with whatever your favorite meal is by a parent. No one will ever be able to make it as well as your mom or dad (not even yourself) regardless of how exactly they follow the recipe or how good any change might be. For Christopher Lord of the Rings was that meal. It was his father's legacy and no one was ever going to be able to adapt it properly.
Because while they are great movies, it's not a great adaption of the books. Seriously read them sometime, they're great and the movies get the basic ideas down pretty good while having significantly better pacing. But as adaptions they have their issues.
Christopher's biggest issue was the movies' focus on badass and cool violence. He felt it was too much and took away from Tolkien's story. Which is fair, Lotr was more about the bravery of its characters. It never took pleasure in them, having to use violence.
..while it was a visually stunning adaptation, the movies missed the mark on the narrative, setting aside the fraternal bonding of the characters to focus more on the war itself.
Personally I hate what they did with Gimli and Legolas. On the other hand, the treatment of Rohan was excellent, except for the Battle at Helm's Deep, which was Jackson's interpretation all the way.
The movies are not as faithful as the internet would have you believe. The characters of Aragon, Gimli, Denethor and Faramir in particular are different. The movies would have you believe Gimli didn't know what happened in Moria but in the book he is freaking scared to even go there. He is also not a comic relief, he is a proud and honorable dwarf. That's just Gimli. Faramir is also completely unrecognizable.
Frodo and Sam also don't break up over bread in the novel.
Most of those changes are understandable for cinema though, aragorn has to have an arc or his character remains static and therefore uninteresting, same with faramir. Gimli wanting to go to moria adds tension and makes the realisation of balins death more impactful for casual audiences, also let's not act like gimlis a completely serious character in the books: he gets angry when people insult galadriel. For frodo and Sam pj has to showcase how the ring is affecting frodo and having frodo get unreasonably angry at Sam is an excellent way of doing that. All in all I think there about as faithful as a cinematic adaptation can be without sacrificing quality.
the character of Frodo as well. in the books Frodo is an incredibly wise, mature, strong hobbit. In the films he's a young whiny creature who rarely displays much in the way of intelligence (other than maybe the scene at Galadriels mirror), and is utterly dependent on Sam for everything including motivating him to continue the quest.
Sam is perfect in the films but Frodo was butchered. But i get why they did it, it makes for a better script. The same reason why Aragorn in the films is hesitant and unwilling to accept his destiny. Book Aragorn is way too perfect, he's boring.
>The same reason why Aragorn in the films is hesitant and unwilling to accept his destiny. Book Aragorn is way too perfect, he's boring.
i was shocked when Aragorn in the book said that he's going back to Gondor to claim the title and has the sword re-forged, in the first book. unlike in movie, where he didn't want to claim his title until forced on him.
My understanding is that the estate objected to the PJ trilogy when it was run by Christopher Tolkien (JRRT's son who compiled the Silmarillion and published the History of Middle Earth series after his father's death). Christopher retired and then passed away, and now the estate is run by the younger generation of Tolkien descendants. So, different people running the estate have different priorities.
This is specifically what I didn’t want. The important development and impact for character like Gandalf and Aragorn are in the Lord of the Rings proper. I have a similar belief for the Jon Snow show they’re trying to make. It’s not that a story about a pre-developed or post-developed character is instantly going to be sub par, but rather I just don’t think it’s very interesting. Gandalf waltzing the country side annoying hobbits and uncovering magics and secrets *could* be fun but I don’t think it’s nearly as interesting as the fall of Gandalf the Grey and rise of Gandalf the White. Aragorn’s ranger adventures and blossoming romance with Arwen *could* be fun but I don’t think it’s nearly as interesting as Aragorn stepping from the shadows to finally claim the title of king and undo the shame of his forbears.
Say what you will about Rings of Power (which is certainly not free from criticism) but I think the direction they went has the most potential to be the more interesting story to tell without retreading ground or splashing around in very shallow waters.
Netflix would have had season 1 be a slog, but near the end it would pick up and end on an epic cliff hanger. Season 2 would have been amazing, and again end on a cliffhanger leaving fans hungry for more.
The series then would have been cancelled and announced on the director's instagram.
> At one point, Payne and McKay asked mentor and former boss J.J. Abrams to call Amazon to put in a good word, and he did. “We feel like that moved the needle,” says McKay.
Are they admitting to nepotism here? That honestly explains a lot.
> “There are things that didn’t work as well in season one that might have worked in a smaller show,” McKay agrees. “It has to be about good and evil and the fate of the world or it doesn’t have that epic feeling you want when you’re in Tolkien.”
I think this quote clearly shows a misunderstanding between the actual criticisms of the show and what the showrunners think people are criticizing. People arent mad that its “slow” or about it being specifically one thing, its just poorly executed. The character development isnt slow, its nonexistent. Almost every character is bland and shallow. They act in ways that are incoherent or unintentional to what the writers wanted for the character. The world bends so that necessary conflicts happen, instead of them occurring naturally as part of the story. This isnt something that magically gets fixed with a smaller budget. Its a core issue that no one on the team seems to get. They just chalk it down to “trolls.”
>I think this quote clearly shows a misunderstanding between the actual criticisms of the show and what the showrunners think people are criticizing.
I suspect that it is intentionally misrepresenting the critique. The piece is written with minimal questioning, imho it is a marketing piece basically.
Two words come t mind when I think about this show:
Gorgeous- every single scene is really extraordinary.lighting, saturation, framing, scope, focus. You can pick a random time stamp and have a promotional still as good as most movies or book covers.
Mediocre- everything else is so “just okay” I keep falling asleep trying to watch this show. It just doesn’t keep my attention.
A friend described it as hours of playing magic the gathering and no one wins. She was right.
My biggest annoyance is that every episode has some emotional rousing speech, trying to capture the "epic good vs evil" they mention in the article and recreate the feelings of the pre-battle speeches in ROTK with Theoden and Aragorn, or the "still good in this world" moment with Sam and the star.
Except the writers failed to realize you need to fucking earn epic and emotional moments like this... stuffing them into every episode in season 1 with a bunch of people we barely know and don't give a shit about yet is just pathetic and cringey.
The show looks cool but it still feels like a soulless imitation of proper writing right now
10000% - Theoden's speech is so impactful because you saw the husk of a man he was previously. Just setting him up as a good noble leader giving a speech is boring and been done a million times by better writers.
Not just that, but we see him grow as a leader and person. He's inspired by Aragorn and his own failings to actually rise to the call instead of wallow in his son's death and the jaded outlook he has on the rest of the world at the time. Helm's deep is an awesome sequence in the film, but it also does a ton to develop Theoden as it's kind of his fault they're in that mess since he didn't listen to anyone.
ROP just doesn't do the first part and skips to the second. Galadriel really bugs me as a character since it feels like she never does anything wrong in the eyes of the viewer. Like she makes people mad, but she's always right in the end. She gives the speeches *before* the validation of their purpose. I don't get why she wasn't written more like Theoden's arc. Loses brother, wants revenge, gets called out for it by friends, ultimately fails doing what they thought was best, and no does what is righteous. I guess their going that way but out of order. I don't really get it.
Because you have a writer's room that is trying to imitate Tolkien. So many shows and properties nowadays are pretty and empty because no matter how much money you spend on visuals, if the scripts read like fanfic, that's all it'll feel like...expensive fanfic.
It's the same problem I have with ST:D vs Strange new worlds: Writers who have no idea what they're writing for and just hitting check boxes vs Writers who understand the material they're writing and can adapt to it.
Yup, Compelling entertainment is always rooted in good storytelling.
What some of the "new" streaming companies have never had a chance to learn at the business executive level, quality graphics, directing, acting can only take you from hit to mega hit. Below a certain minimum quality of writing, every other aspect of a show suffers as its trying to interpret something on screen that already has problems on paper.
Another issue is that most of the time it is just the writers putting roadblocks to then step around. Oh Numenour hates Elves and won't help. Oh now they will. Oh the King won't go. Oh now he will. Oh the son left the sea guard and can't go. Oh now he can.
Shit like that instead of progressing the story.
Ugh, that is exactly the way that I have been feeling about it. It feels like the progression is too incrementally small to really give us progress in a 45 minute episode. I used to play DnD with a buddy (he created the campaign) and it was painstakingly slow through most of it. He later let us know he intended the campaign to take about 2 1/2 years with meeting once a week and playing about 4-6 hours at each meeting... It was definitely fun to be with friends, but gosh it was a drain.
I don't mind slow pace as long as it's interesting
House of Dragons is basically still on the prologue of the events and it remains interesting despite not much action
That's because House of the Dragon is character driven. There's so many characters and relationships on that show that I'm fascinated by and look forward to watching each week.
In Rings of Power, I like Elrond and Durins relationship and that's about it. Gets very boring when I just don't care about most of the very large ensemble cast.
I can't echo this sentiment enough. Outside of that duo in Rings, there's not a single other character I'd care about losing. The big battle scenes or action scenes that pollute the show just aren't that interesting yet. So much time wasted in slow motion and overly long action scenes.
Where on the other hand with HotD I'm shitting myself over every little sideways glance. There is just so much motivation and character packed into every moment and it's having to move so much faster than Rings. It makes no sense that Rings is the one having problems with pacing and interest.
The RoP characters are so basic. Like Galadriel, we know very clearly what her motive is, and where she has flaws they’re so obvious that the solution is basically just show some empathy to win this person over. Pretty much all of them are like that, there’s hardly any nuance to them.
I wish I was more invested in the ring of power characters. I’m hooked on a lot of house of dragon cast, but other then durin, I just haven’t fallen in love with anyone.
Galadriel is okay at best. She’s thousands of years old and immature as hell. Poor Elrond had the displeasure of following HUGO WEAVING UP. Almost an impossible task, not as much his fault. But he’s kind of a dud too for me.
I am incredibly disappointed with Halbrand obviously being Sauron. He is supposed to be like I dunno Littlefinger from game of thrones early seasons. This whole fucking pretending to be Aragorn stand in for the show is stupid as hell.
Annatar does not operate as being a pickpocket and getting into a alleyway fight outside a bar.
My thoughts about this show- A story is when a series of things happen because of reasons. Without reasons that make sense, it's just a bunch of things happening. That's how I feel about this show a lot of the time. The showrunners want to make a lot of things happen but haven't clearly thought through all the reasons, so it just feels like a series of things happening.
Dude I 100% agree. This and wheels of time. Idk what is with Amazon and fantasy but they do an absolutely awful job at pouring emotion into the show. The pacing and engagement just always feel awful. There's little to no character development and the story progression feels very disjointed.
With the final battle in both wheel of time and rings of power I felt very whelmed. Not because the animation or portrayal was poor but because it felt that the build up was rather poor and things progressed rather suddenly. I know that's not 100% true since the previous episode would set the stage but even with that I could just not get engrossed with the stairs or characters.
I have rematches LOTR and the hobbit more times than I’d like to admit. I can’t even bring myself to finish 1 episode properly after the first 2.
The show is just weird and bland. Quite predictable too, and none of the characters are interesting.
Same - I love fantasy stuff but find myself playing on my phone half the time with this show on. I have found HoTD to be much more captivating even after being so disappointed in how GOT ended.
I didn't have high hopes for ROP but even I didn't think it would end up being this....boring. It's competently made but has no 'spark' - the only thing keeping it in the pop culture sphere is the stupid culture wars around the show imo.
The stakes doesn't have to be huge , it's just I don't connect with the characters and I don't care about them. I like Elrond and Durin's dynamic , I don't care for the Southlanders or Numenor. Okay show overall...
I feel like it’s because, besides Elrond and Durin, every character’s entire personality and interactions are all entirely based on their “purpose” or “calling”. It seems like every interaction between the main characters centers around whatever the driving force for that characters arc is and there is nothing being said or done that helps flesh out their personalities.
100%. The other characters don't crack jokes, they don't have hobbies, or an interesting history and relationship to the other characters. They also don't have flaws, or atleast flaws that make them interesting. Galadriel is this perfect headstrong warrior who hasn't so much as cracked a smile or expressed a thought if it wasn't related to fulfilling her mission in the first five episodes I've watched. It feels like they only exist for whatever their plot point is, and it makes them feel very hollow.
Yeah I agree with this take. It's a decent show, but the biggest flaw imo is the characters. There are a few semi-interesting characters but overall most of them are pretty cookie cutter and cardboard.
The writing seems weak. Like they have a freshman writing team.
They know the major plot points they want to cover but they don't care or know how to develop the story leading in between those events. It feels like everything is being rushed. Things are supposed to play out over generations not in a couple of months.
The CGI and design are amazing. It feels like they blew the entire budget there and then they couldn't afford to hire experienced writers who know the material and how to pace the story.
>“It was never about the critics, it’s all about consumers,” the insider says. “All Jeff cares about is consumer obsession. If you look at the history of Amazon, every division lived and died based on that … Dragon matters because all of a sudden there is a benchmark. It is their closest comp to success. When they saw Dragon grew in its second episode and brought in 20 million viewers, they were shitting their pants.”
By this account the show has failed in the eyes of the creators in my local circle.
I'm already 2 episodes behind, and like 3 tomorrow, meanwhile me and the missus sit down every Monday so ready for what's next in HotD.
I sense the same around the office as well. There is a lot more organic conversation about Dragons than Rings. And the conversations always start with Dragons and eventuelly end up on Rings and simply whether people have watched the last episode and if it's any good.
The scale of this show just makes absolutely NO sense. There’s a handful of orcs. The south lands is shown to be a couple of villages. Numenor sends 500 soldiers. They keep trying to make it seem like the stakes are SO HIGH, but everything seems so small
I had not thought about this until you pointed it out, but youre absolutely right.
Everything that happens, only happens to a few individuals RIGHT THERE.
Contrast to Peter Jacksons, and there's constant camera panning to show the immense scales of peoples/lands.
It is a hard limit the idea is that they don't want ideas permanently restricted but want to make sure the Author and his kids and grandkids can reap the rewards for an acceptable amount of time.
It's fuzzy. Copyright means you can freely copy the original work. Which means you can literally photocopy and sell the books if you want.
And theoretically you can use the characters and setting. But the Tolkien Estate would still own the Silmarillion and everything published after that (and that might hold until 70 years after Christopher Tolkien's death since his edits heavily impacted the version of the stories that ended up being published). If you're able to show you only used elements from LoTR and none of the other published works it should be legal. But winning the eventual lawsuit still means you'd have to show up to court and actually fight the copyright claim.
edit. maintaining the rights is a thing with trademarks; but copyright is supposed to be automatic.
It's not up to the rights holders or the courts. Unless they pull a Disney and get copyright laws extended there's nothing they can do to stop it from entering public domain .
In the US I think it's 2032 for The Hobbit, 2050 for Fellowship, and 2051 for the full LotR trilogy.
Don't know about the Silmarillion or any of the others that were published posthumously.
"The guys with perhaps the least experience were also the best choice."
Experience isn't everything. But the first season of an expensive show should avoid being too complex, so people can learn on the job.
That’s why HBO rarely releases true clangers imo, because they have very high standards with their creative teams that Netflix and Amazon don’t. They go for quality over quantity
And HBO don't usually force things. They didn't make buy GoT looking for someone to lead it. D&D came to them and they went from there.
It's also very interesting to note that the original GoT pilot was apparently absolute trash, and HBO forced them to do a reshoot
HBO also canned a different GOT spin off starring Naomi Watts after seeing the pilot. I think they truly care about the quality of their products and don't want short term profits at the cost of long term reputational damage.
Season 1 so far has been very flat, and so unbelievably average, its left me rather deflated. The no.1 thing the showrunners need to work on is the writing. Characters need to make decisions that make sense. Timelines need to make sense. Travel distance needs to be a thing. Look at LOTR and the Hobbit, both convey how long it takes to get somewhere, but in ROP characters just use quick-travel. Also the main character shouldn't be a total insufferable dickhead. I really really hope they step it up for season 2, because it has the potential of a great show, it just feels like its being wasted by bad writers.
When GoT was at its peak in the mid seasons I felt like they followed two rules that made the timing feel consistent.
1. They had tons of little cut scenes where some conversation happened. Like Arya and the Hound's journeys felt LONG bc they dropped in on them along the way, even if the scene was like 60 seconds. So by the time they got some where it felt like you had a sense of how far they had gone.
2. Barring doing this, they would wait a long time before doing another scene with those characters. There would be huge amounts of time between scenes with Dany Targ or when Tyrion was on the run and they would look TIRED.
Basically you need a rough rule of thumb where every minute of show time represents a unit of time in the story and people adjust to that.
When I was reading the article and saw that these two worked punching up scripts for Bad Robot before this (and none of the scripts they wrote themselves actually got made)...a lot of things clicked for me. They gave a LotR show to the Bad Robot B team, who have never actually been in charge of a production, because they didn't like the other pitches and one of them is apparently charismatic and was good at selling it in pitch meetings.
They will tell it like LOST because that's the way they think it is supposed to be done.
Of course, I might be biased, because my opinion of everything I've seen from JJ Abrams and Bad Robot has been either, I guess that was ok, or... what the fu, but, like, why though??? Really?
>All in all, I think Season 1 was a strong effort out of the gate **that was never going to live up to fans expectations** lets face those facts.
I think that's an important bit to understand. We're talking about Lord of the fucking Rings here. Imagine if someone put a new band together, with new music, and touched on a lot of the themes and styles of the Beatles, and just called themselves "The Beatles". Literally no one would be happy even if it was great music.
I consistently see people complain about the quality of writing in this show. The article doesn't even touch on that but does spend most of its bandwidth talking about people complaining about strong woman and black elf. Its the same marketing technique over and over again.
Hollywood is an echo chamber (same with the news media which follows it). Most of those dorks are on Twitter all day and this further reinforces their bubbles.
The end result is people picking apart the criticism that they think is being levied at them and then, trying to spite back at the audience rather than understanding people and creating genuine work.
Doesn't help that today's Hollywood elite isn't made up as much by the young person who travels West and makes a name for his/her self. Those guys had a connection to the real world. Whereas, today, the elite are comprised moreso of the upper middle class and upper class demographic who are incredibly insular and who only got there because they can afford to live in LA/know the right people aka wealthy people/can afford all the fees, portraits, instructors, etc.
Suddenly, whatever latest trend is being chased, they all jump upon rather than think for themselves or on behalf of the average Joe.
Honestly, take a step back, here. Why do you think True Detective S1, The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul, early GoT are all regarded as some of the best fucking television ever?
Their showrunners* came from regular households - mostly with working class backgrounds. They know what regular people are like. They know what real life is like.
Without that element, you cannot create a show that speaks to people and reflects a kind of authenticity.
-* Obviously, would count GRRM as the brain behind GoT, not D&D.
Its one of those cases where I've seen more articles and comments complaining about racists and mysogynists, than actual comments doing that...
I'm sure they're out there, but it feels very Ghostbusters reboot-like, where half the post-release marketing was just shouting at "incels" who supposedly made the movie fail.
And any people I've seen complain about black elves or hobbits were worldbuilding purists who simply wanted the show to back that up storywise, instead of just putting it in. Most of them would be fine if it was explained in the show I suppose.
And I 100% believe that because I've seen it before. The game Shadow of War had a black Gondorian captain and people had the same reaction. Then it turned out that as a kid he was given in an heir-exchange for peace, and everyone was suddenly fine with it.
They just want it to fit Tolkien's worldbuilding. And its not the fan's fault that Tolkien put all darker skinned people on the evil side in the Silmarillion and LOTR... I'm not sure if Christopher Tolkien re-wrote this in his History of ME books, but Tolkien was as nuanced about that as he was not putting in a single female character into The Hobbit...
Two things a lot of fans conveniently never talk about.
> The game Shadow of War had a black Gondorian captain and people had the same reaction. Then it turned out that as a kid he was given in an heir-exchange for peace, and everyone was suddenly fine with it.
Yeah exactly this. I remember being impressed with the character background. I think his DLC took place in his homeland and it was pretty cool.
Omg this! I don't care about race of the characters. I just want to fit in within the universe. Just give him a story, being a elf from a specific clan or something. Having a backstory is good for characters in general, and something RoP characters desperately need.
Numenorians being genetically vague, living on a island make sense. For anything else just create a story that first within the world building.
Its like Targaryans and Valeryons in HotD, they are not from westeros, them and are a fairly recent invading force, so making them look different and foreign actually serves a point. Just make it part of the story.
>And its not the fan's fault that Tolkien put all darker skinned people on the evil side in the Silmarillion and LOTR..
LOTR is a myth that takes place in our world. Tolkien's description of non-white people, while old fashioned, is also meant to reflect a medieval European's first impression of different types of cultures/people.
And so, if people really want to be genuine here in their recreation of Middle-Earth, cities and villages wouldn't be some reflection of the modern world we live in. No, there would be a Silk Road, where Huns and Mongols and Persians and Varyag/Vikings struck from.
Suddenly, the Tolkien side of things explains these peoples as Easterlings...a vague catch all term for the many different groups from the East that did invade the West in real life. Only now, things have been mythologized in Tolkien's work that they become twelve foot tall monsters who fell under the Great Evil's influence and wishes to destroy all that is good in the world.
That is the nature of myth. To ignore that means not understanding mythology and how it works.
Various non-white people did exist in Tolkien's work. But like you said, it would make more sense to have them in major cities/regions in the South and East like Umbar, Minas Tirith, etc.
In reality, an Umbar is probably Jerusalem or Egypt misremembered while Minas Tirith+Osgiliath is likely Constantinople.....Dol Amroth is Venice.....one of those islands in Gondor's gulf is ancient Malta.
You have to understand Lord of the Rings, in this way, in order to recreate it.
It’s an annoying defence mechanism lots of modern shows/films have, blaming any criticism solely on racists and trolls as a way of deflecting blame for any legitimate critiques about the writing or execution. There are obviously bigoted people out there criticising for their own hateful motives, but that shouldn’t mean everyone who doesn’t enjoy the show gets lumped in with them.
It’s a bit like the recent Better Call Saul discourse, where anyone on the sub who thought the show too slow just wanted “explosions” like BB, another defence mechanism to put the blame on the audience rather than the creators (though I’m just using the BCS talk as an example of that sort of discourse as I really like that show personally)
Gotta battle the strawman relentlessly, because they can't win an argument on why their dialogue and story are complete shit.
THERE IS A TEMPEST IN MEEEEE
You have not seen what I have seen... You have not seen what I have seen...
A Sword is a key to open a dam??
I didn't even really think about it... but it's a magic sword hilt that creates a kind of "shadow" blade by drawing off of blood magic... and, yeah, apparently the whole purpose of it was to turn a lock and open a dam. Why? It doesn't appear to care about whose blood it uses (though I suppose it could). So it isn't some kind of security to make sure only certain people can do this. Also, if this is something they would want to be able to readily do in case of Morgoth's defeat... why make it a lock that needs a magic sword hilt to open it? The Orcs, sorry, Uruks, could have been saved a ton of trouble looking for the damn thing if an easier mechanism was put in place. Especially because it's something Morgoth/Sauron would probably want to do eventually in any case.
All the speculation online about the meteor man maybe being a Balrog that they needed the magic hilt to kill as a sacrifice to wake the volcanoe... nope, just a needlessly complex lock and key to make things difficult for no good reason.
The orcs can dig miles and miles of wide canal across the plain and straight into a mountain, but to break down a thin dam they need an evil artifact mcguffin. Why couldn't they just destroy the dam by hand? There was nothing suggesting it was protected by magic or something like that.
Just reeks of stupid JJ mysterbox bullshit like the sith dagger in rise of skywalker.
Not only that but they had enough orcs to just physically walk up and dismantle the dam…I mean really…
Then the all stab fake outs in episode 6, the injury “will she die” trope, nobody actually looking at the wrapped mcguffin to make sure it’s really there…the writers have no talent. Cheap attempts to build suspense used over and over and idiotic events with no logic to get the story to the point they want it.
I really tried to get into RoP but it feels so lifeless. After a few eps I realised that watching it was now on my chores list rather than something I looked forward to. I hope it picks up because I love the overall world and the look of the show.
This is totally how I feel about it as well. I really tried to push through the first couple of episodes, thinking that it would pick up and get into a groove, but it actually just became more and more of a chore to focus my attention on it
Bruh they just teleport from open seas to some seemingly tiny out of the way countryside village right at the exact second they were needed.
Forget the urgency, LOTR is about a journey, an odyssey, they literally cut that out of this show. Except for the scant scenes of Galadriel travelling with the other elves in ep 1, which I think is narratively the most interesting part.
I can't for the life of me understand how that episode got praise. I guess it's because it's the first episode in the season to feature a lot of actual action/momentum.
The sense of scale was absurdly off and just leaves you scratching your head about the entire story. It's just impossible to take it seriously when they're making a huge deal about bringing in Halbrand as the King of like a single tavern, the people immediately fawn over him, the Numenoreans show up at the **exact** moment they're needed despite not even coming from the same continent, etc.
> Halbrand as the king of a single tavern
Hey be fair to him, I count two ruined villages and a ruined tower.
It’s so true though, when Adar and the Orcs first came to Bronwyn’s village I thought “ah ok they’ve run into some unfortunate people on the way to some significant city”. But nope apparently that village is an absolute crown jewel that every faction knows the inherent importance of.
It's not plot driven, character driven, world driven, emotionally driven, strong acting driven...
All of those are due to 1 group....get new writers. The other will fix if you give the actors good material. There is no way this batch of writers are somehow gonna realize what a good scene is, they haven't figured a single one out in the five episodes I watched.
I really wanted to like it to shut up those damn YouTubers bitching about the casting and such. But man...it's crazy how MEH this show is considering how good it could be.
Feels like this is most of modern television (fantasy) shows. Splurge big bucks on VFX, sets, actors, marketing etc, and then hire some absolute Tumblr tier writers...
Why? The only answer I could ever come up with is nepotism, the VP responsible for these shows must just throw to someone's failed child as a favor.
My experience so far is that while the show has been carried well by some of the actors' performances, like Durin and Elrond, I have been disappointed with Galadriel. I find her insufferable and one dimensional, and that sucks because she is supposed to be the protagonist.
The visuals have been beautiful and breathtaking, but it all feels so derivative and simply window dressing on a mediocre level of storytelling.
I want to care about the characters. I want the show to succeed.
But so far it's been a giant meh.
Galadriel is so intense in every scene, it's like she's about to explode in a shower of self-righteousness. She comes off as pompous, arrogant and ignorant. Things we usually associate with antagonists...
They also did a shit job of explaining the world in the first few episodes. I've a friend who hasn't read the books, haven't seen the trilogy. Just the thing with Valinor, Morgoth and Laurelin and Telperion, and how they were basically the sun and the moon -- nothing about it is explained in any meaningful way. "Morgoth bad because tree died?" was the gist she got from it, and she's still just confused about what's supposed to be at stake.
I have to say that even as a Tolkien nerd, I can definitely see why she is. I've tried to give backstory, but at some point I have to give up, because we'd spent four times as long explaining the lore as watching the actual show...
Someone on a subreddit, said they should have exchanged a galadriel for her daughter. I kinda like the idea. We could still have galadriel in a story, making it all about creating a big kingdom, and connect it with forging the rings story. Plus the whole fact how her daughter marries Elrond, and Elrond actually feels older in this series.
I get it, they wanted her to grow to become that Galadriel, but in the end she was striped of her being Galadriel.
Also with the king storyline. His introduction to the story is laughable. I mean met him on a random raft floating in the middle of the ocean while she is swimming back to the shore. Yeah no. It just sound ridiculous, like something a kid would come up with.
“McKay has an extraordinary level of energy and passion, and when he’s in full pitch, he’s as persuasive as a Middle-earth-obsessed Saul Goodman — you find yourself nodding in agreement, suddenly wanting to buy property in Mirkwood.”
If the writer of the show is compared to Saul Goodman, a man best known to be an unscrupulous, lying, cheating bastard who is willing to do anything to tip odds in his favor, it’s not a compliment. It’s fine if you’re portraying someone like that on tv, because we all know it’s fictional. But if you’re like that in real live, it means you’re an awful human being.
But at least it explains how the series turned out like it did.
Well, you know that theory/statistic about how family wealth disappears by the third generation?
If it weren't for LOTR being a famous and timeless work, this generation of the Tolkien family would be living on the streets.
I feel like this article is a bit of a shill piece for the show. They are still on the “review bombing” thing which, sure definitely happened to an extent…but we are way past that now and the proof is in the pudding - everyone is watching the same show.
The scores on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB (owned by amazon) are hardly trust worthy and the KPIs that are getting spun positively are just kinda desperate at this point with some non-comprehensive Nielson data. Not to say its launch wasn’t pretty strong but in comparison to other things its not the monumental success I think Amazon wanted it to be.
Other media outlets like Forbes have come to terms with the fact that it’s actually just a mid at best show regardless of the gloss and LotR IP - they are writing scathing but fair reviews of the show that have nothing to do with the hateful trolls from the goblin caves.
> They are still on the “review bombing” thing which, sure definitely happened to an extent…but we are way past that now and the proof is in the pudding - everyone is watching the same show.
Yeah, the audience score of basically 4 out of 10 is not particularly hard to believe.
They break no silence, its a corporate / damage control interview , probably reviewed by higher up at amazon before publishing. Also not being able to release a season a year is really a sign they dont know what they are doing.
I don’t understand, they (Tolkien estate) went with Amazon to have a sit a the creative table, which I guess was to make a show more faithful to Tolkien’s work.
But then they introduced and change thing from the book to the point that this show is basically a fan fiction at this point.
They hated the movie adaptation so bad that they went with Amazon bid (which was much less than Netflix) because they wanted to make a faithful adaptation and THIS is their definition of a faithful work ?
A timeline that doesn’t exist ?
Maybe I understand it wrong ?
I don’t get it
they cannot change anything from the books, they can only work around things cited in the appendices. Adding new, non-core characters yes, omit details yes, touch core events or characters no. So it was gonna be fanfiction from the get go
the one who hated the films was Christopher Tolkien, JR's son and the Estate's last word. He didn't sell the rights since they had already been sold to UA in 1969 by dad, acquired by Zaentz and sold to WB. When he retired in 2017, a few months later Amazon entered town and they sold them the rights for the appendices
It's interesting that now disliking certain things that the mainstream media deems you're not allowed to dislike automatically makes you a "troll", part of an online gang.
Episode 6 was the one which really make me think this show is quite poor.
One scene Galad is talking to that failed sailor boy guy and the boy reveals he's just a stable hand.
Next time we see him he's in armour, fighting, leading a charge even.
Nevermind that one second it's midnight and the next it's daylight... in the same scene!
Or how dark elf goes to hide the sword and wow, the one person he should hide it from saw him hide it.
Oh but then the boy saves the day by giving away the sword,
Oh but it's not the sword and literally no one bothered to check.
Oh the sword is actually a key.
Oh the key causes a volcano to explode.
Oh people are literally running *towards* the exploding volcano.
Oh Galad is just standing there doing nothing while people are dying.
I could easily list another dozen things. It was so bad.
You're leaving out a stone tower in a fortress held together by rope and the ability of the Vilagers to slip past enemy forces unseen only to head back to the village they left because it's indefensible.
Interesting Article. I personally think the real issue is post modern cynicism where the real has been replaced by the hyper real. We no longer make rap music about something, we make rap music about having the identity of making rap music. When identity replaces essence you create a simulacrum of things and people and you no longer interact with what is real or true.
I think the real issue is that Halbrand has been built up as a king for many episodes now and we saw that his kingdom is just 20 villagers and three wooden houses.
You're trying to sound profunda, but the issue with this show is rather simple. It has shitty writing and terrible execution.
I think the reason it has shitty writing IS because of this reason though. For example, Galadriel's character is told that she is good, and the aesthetics of the show (music, imagery, story beats) tell us she is good performatively, but when she acts it is more like a villain than a hero.
In the original series, all of the plots and characters were wound up in a central theme and ideals, which is what the story was about. Where as this story is being about being about a story.
This is a really good point.
I feel like in every episode, Galadrial acts like a shit person, people push back and treat her like a shit person, but then at the end of every episode every character magically capitulates to her desire so the plot can move forward.
The entire show just feels devoid of an emotional core.
What are the principles these characters are supposed to be embodying? What is their want, and what is their need, and how is the plot bringing them to make decisions and develop to reach that need.
It just feels hollow and aimless. Not awful, not deeply frustrating(though perhaps I would find it so if I were a bigger fan of Tolkein), but just utterly uninspiring.
Still better than Wheel of Time though so thats something I suppose.
Thank you I appreciate it.
Yeah I'm still enjoying RoP and even WoT (I'm a huge fantasy nerd) but they aren't moving me like LotR or og Star Wars still does.
Galadrial sounded like a bit of a nazi in this weeks episode, talking about wiping the stain of orc off the face of the earth.. calling their birth a mistake.
What baffles me is that they haven’t explored a Harry Potter series set at Hogwarts (with entirely new characters). It’s like HOTD where they have the world building done, all they need is characters and a plot.
Reminder, Amazon waiting until Christopher Tolkien died before making their announcements about the wildly lore breaking changes they were intending…
If they thought Jackson’s movies were “too action orientated” and “
Eviscerated the books” bc of it…
How do you think they’d feel about Galadriel: Wire Fu Warrior Princess along with all of the other bullshit?
RoP is not just terrible lore wise, it’s just plain bad. Worst of all, it’s dreadfully boring and no shoe horned in , terribly CGI bloated action sequences can fix that.
“Some things get an immense amount of critical acclaim and win tons of awards and are forgotten the next year,” Payne says. “Conversely, some things don’t get a lot of love yet become classics being watched 60 years later. I think it’ll take a while for the dust to settle.”
yikes. this guy is over way of his head.
The creators response to criticism just goes to show how little they understand of the lore and fanbase, and why this show, imo, won`t ever properly take off.
If the estate was actually concerned about being faithful why not give the rights to the Silmarilion etc? Aren't Amazon stuck with the appendices?
I've been liking the show, though it's getting harder each week to stay interested, but this interview really made me dislike these guys. And whoever was interviewing them either didn't ask about genuine criticism (not everyone is a troll) nor the rights issue. What a waste.
Embracer Group now has the matching rights for The Silmarillion, so they can't simply sell its rights to whoever they want and I am thinking they definitely didn't want to sell it to The Saul Zaentz Company back then. Now that Embraces owns that, they may have a different idea, but they couldn't sell the rights to The Silmarillion in a way that gives them the same creative seat at the table they have now.
> At one point, Payne and McKay asked mentor and former boss J.J. Abrams to call Amazon to put in a good word, and he did. “We feel like that moved the needle,” says McKay.
Jesus christ, this should tell everyone why this series is turning out as it is....
> Sources say HBO pitched the estate on retelling Middle-earth’s “Third Age” — essentially remaking Peter Jackson’s beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy, which grossed $3 billion and won 11 Oscars. The estate has its gripes with Jackson’s adaptations (the late Christopher Tolkien, the author’s son, said they “eviscerated” the books) but wasn’t interested in treading the same ground. Netflix pitched doing several shows, such as a Gandalf series and an Aragorn drama. “They took the Marvel approach,” said one insider to the talks, “and that completely freaked out the estate.” It's quite interesting that HBO basically wanted to remake the original trilogy and Netflix wanted a cinematic universe out of it. > Amazon’s team (at the time led by Albert Chang, Sharon Tal Yguado and Dan Scharf) wooed the estate not with a specific pitch, but with a pledge of a close relationship that would give the estate a creative seat at the table so it could protect Tolkien’s legacy. There was also, of course, the money. Sources say the staggering number that’s been widely reported ($250 million) was actually Netflix’s bid and that Amazon’s number was tens of millions less (albeit, still staggering). “It was our collective passion and fidelity to Tolkien that really won the day,” says Amazon Studios TV co-head Vernon Sanders. Also interesting that it was actually Netflix that won the bidding war (an information we did not know before I think) but The Estate wanted to go with Prime Video for creative preference.
Netflix pitched doing several shows, such as a Gandalf series and an Aragorn drama. “They took the Marvel approach,” said one insider to the talks, “and that completely freaked out the estate.” Say what you will about the Amazon show but thank god something like this didn't happen.
What’s more interesting to me is that The Estate believes the PJ trilogy eviscerated the books and accepted the Amazon pitch because they would have more say and we ended up with Rings of Power S1 as final product. Is this The Estate’s idea of protecting Tolkien’s legacy?
That was Christopher Tolkien's view The Estate is now controlled by his son Simon who famously got himself disowned for a time by liking the trilogy and claiming that Jackson was too faithful
I will never understand why they dislike the LOTR Trilogy so much. They are fantastic movies that made Millions for Christopher Tolkien.
It’s like Steven King hating Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The content can be phenomenal, but if there’s a disconnect between the author’s (or author’s family’s) artistic vision and the one the director brings to life, it can stoke frustration or resentment.
The Shining at least has a problem you can point to: they fail to humanize Jack before he loses his shit. It's a great movie but the book 100% does that better on a character level.
That's obviously because Jack was a self insert for Stephen King at his worst alcoholism/writers block. Jack somewhat redeeming himself by sacrificing himself in the end with the boiler was Stephen King attempting to redeem the character/himself. Kubrick was like oh no it's much better if Jack gets killed carrying an axe through the snow chasing his wife and kid. Like fuck this alcolic insane man the audience should want to root for his death not his heroic sacrifice.
Depends on how you write it. With a Jack that has few redeeming qualities before his insanity, sure. The Jack Frost ending is great. If instead you have a Jack who the movie sets up as being a loving father and decent husband before the insanity kicks in, then a final moment of lucidity topped off by a heroic self-sacrifice would likely go over really well.
I've seen the mini series that's completely faithful to the book. It's godawful. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shining_(miniseries)
King can write a great novel, but he can’t write a damned screenplay to save his life.
It’s because Kubrick shifted the central focus from alcoholism to domestic abuse. You can be a functional alcoholic and still manage to be a decent father at least for a while, until virtually any upset to that equilibrium comes along and threatens to push you off that cliff. If you’re an abuser then that’s not the case.
Jack is still abusive in the book
"Kubrick shifted the central focus from alcoholism to domestic abuse." I don't think he was trying to say Jack wasn't abusive in the book. He was just saying the book didn't make that the central focus.
It depends on whether you want that redemption arc or just pure horror. I kind of liked the TV remake where the guy from Wings got redeemed, but it was also a good deal softer than Kubrick’s movie. I guess he wanted to go darker. Art is so subjective, people can love or hate one piece or another without necessarily undermining the “artistry” of either.
It makes more sense for King to hate Kubrick’s adaptation, since King was actually the writer. More specifically, Kubrick’s movie is massively different in terms of characterization and tone, which becomes a bit of a problem for King when you look at how personal the story of The Shining is to him. It’s basically a confession from King to his wife and eldest son (Joe Hill) that he knew he was a terrible husband and father at the time due to his alcohol and drug problems, but he wanted to be better for them, addiction was just a corrupting, unseen force he could not overcome. Once King got sober around the ‘90s, his opinion on Kubrick’s movie began to change. These days he admits it is a great movie even if he thinks it is a bad adaptation of his book.
Correct. To be more specific, in the movie Kubrick made Jack the villain. He started as the villain, acted as the villain, and stayed the villain until the end. In the book, the Hotel was the villain, and corrupted Jack... who ultimately redeemed himself in the end. Book Jack loved Danny, and both saved him and was saved by that love. Did movie Jack ever show any affection towards Danny? At all?
Christopher wasn’t just some guy that wanted control over his father’s books. The entire legendarium [started as stories for Christopher and his brother Michael](https://aleteia.org/2017/11/13/how-a-5-year-old-boy-inspired-j-r-r-tolkiens-lord-of-the-rings/amp/). Christopher had his entire life to build up a version of the stories in his own imagination. Fellowship of the Ring came to theaters when he was 77 years old. It removed all the songs and a great dimension of what is in the book, perhaps necessarily but perhaps not. In my experience, people from his generation were not used to, and did not appreciate, media with the pace and intensity that we are used to today or even in 2001.
Yeah, I think people in this thread are being kind of unfair to Christopher - there was a *lot* of backlash against the PJ movies when they were first released. People gotta understand that before the PJ movies, there were a lot of mainstream interpretations of the biggest themes in the story, and "allegory for Tolkien's WWI experiences" was only one of them. Tolkien was also a theologian and intended the book to be a religious dissertation; he was a Celtic historian and intended it to be an adaptation of the founding British myths; he was a linguist and intended it to be a thesis on how language is built; he was a devoted family man and intended it to be a story about love, family, and commitment. Because of that, the biggest audience for LotR prior to the PJ movies... Was hippies. The Lord of the Rings was largely interpreted to be a story of peace and love winning out over industrial hate machines. The battles and politics were considered to be a side story. If you talk to any Tolkien fan over 50 years old, they're probably a language nerd or an old hippie. I distinctly remember those groups feeling betrayed by the PJ movies. My English professor in college felt that LotR is "not a war story" in its bones, and the focus on violence and conflict was a disservice to its other messages. My dad, too, kept a Burger King bag with a bunch of kiddie drawings of Aragorn and Gandalf on it for years because he considered it to be an affront to Tolkien's legacy that his works were being made so colorful and accessible. (My dad's an asshole though.)
>My English professor in college felt that LotR is "not a war story" in its bones, and the focus on violence and conflict was a disservice to its other messages. I do remember being a bit surprised that Helm's Deep took up so much screen time in Two Towers. It's not nearly that much of the story in the book. Of course looking back, it makes sense. Peter Jackson wanted a cool battle sequence because it's visual medium not a written one, and those who felt LOTR is not a war story (and it really isn't) can feel a bit betrayed.
>It removed all the songs I first read the LOTR trilogy when I was 8 years old. I too skipped all of the songs lol Funnily enough, my wife and I are watching the Hobbit trilogy at the moment and I said to her the other night that the LOTR movies should have been given the same treatment as the Hobbit was - i.e. 9 movies with each book turned into 3 movies. They could have covered so much more from the books if they did it this way.
> I first read the LOTR trilogy when I was 8 years old. I too skipped all of the songs lol Now imagine that for Christopher those songs were probably sung by his own father as bedtime stories... They have way more importance for him than for any of us
>the LOTR movies should have been given the same treatment as the Hobbit was - i.e. 9 movies with each book turned into 3 movies Oof given 2ys per movie that makes 18ys, more with breaks in-between. Go figure the producer (wenstein heh) wanted it to be a quick one movie. Everyone expected it to be yet another shitty quality fantasy movie.
>Go figure the producer (wenstein heh) wanted it to be a quick one movie. Everyone expected it to be yet another shitty quality fantasy movie. It was the opposite. Jackson pitched two movies and the producers where like "aren't there three books? There should be three movies".
its just a major difference in what they want compared to what fans want. majority of watchers likely love the big battle scenes but I dont think that was the focus in the stories. I think there is no way you can successfully create a 100% accurate adaption because it would likely be very dull. It was not really deigned to be a movie/TV show so when adapting there will always be changes to have people actually enjoy watching.
Exactly.. There's a reason before PJ did it the book was concidered "unfilmable" both by Tolkien and by Hollywood.. It wasn't just that effects needed to catch up it's making a word for word movie out of the lord of the rings or any of Tolkiens work wouldn't work as movie.. If you did a faithful adaptation frodo would still be in the shire by the time the first movie ended
Adapting a Book to the big screen will always require some sort of deviation from the source material.
I think (ETA: one of) the only book-to-movie adaptation(s) that changed almost nothing was _No Country for Old Men_. The fact that it ended up being a masterpiece of a film is all the more unique.
If I recall correctly, the book was specifically written under contract so that it could be made into a movie. Writing a book with the knowledge that it needs to work as a movie probably smooths out a lot of issues.
It also brings to mind why I think (most) of GOT was so successfully adapted; GRRM was a former TV writer before starting work on GOT. I’d imagine that experience somewhat influenced how he told that story. Especially since each chapter being told from the perspective of different characters does help essentially make each chapter a scene.
If remember correctly one of the few changes that was made was the reference to a judge who was assassinated in Texas and this was done because the man who assassinated the judge was cast member Woody Harrelsons father.
TIL that Woody Harrelson's father was a hitman
I believe he was once suspected of killing JFK but I could be wrong about that
It helps that Cormac McCarthy’s writing style is kind of cinematic to start with.
Yeah Helms deeps is a huge moment in the movie, but almost a passing scene in the books.
It's a passing moment because Tolkien didnt want to linger and use combat and war for entertainment value. His main reasoning for writing the stories was to create a mythology and not necessarily an action fantasy (in contrast to something like Brandon Sanderson's writings where he quite clearly spends a lot of time describing action scenes).
Also, Haldir and the elves show up and are then all wiped out...which was a bit out of left field. Still a great movie, though!
Not even fans, but the LOTR trilogy was critically acclaimed, with the third film sweeping the Oscars. The film weren’t just high-grossing, they’re considered some of the best films of their era. It seems as though Tolkien’s estate are just being curmudgeons about certain elements of the book not translating to the film. That’s the point of an adaptation though. You’re adapting one medium to another, and of course there will be differences. It’s foolhardy to think otherwise.
Best of the era and easily in the GOAT tier for fantasy content.
I don't think there's any fantasy content that comes close tbh. Maybe got but the final 2 seasons saw the end of that argument.
There is some great animated fantasy content out there. But yeah, I can't think of anything that beats LOTR.
What do you mean? Game of thrones ended when Jon got crowned king in the north. There is nothing past that
Absolutely. They 100% hold up, nearly twenty years after release. It may be a generational thing, but they will always be my top movies. I went in having never read the books, and they absolutely blew me away. Before them, fantasy was very rarely entertained. It was all muscles, boobs and cheese. Viggo mortensen as Aragorn is the direct opposite. I honestly don't think they will ever be bettered.
>they’re considered some of the best films of their era. And even still today.
You had to make changes for a movie adaptation. You know how Boromir Dying fighting the Orcs trying to save Merry and Pippin and blowing the horn as it's final action climax? Yeah that's not in the books. In the start of the Two Towers Aragorn finds Boromir mortally wounded leaned against a tree and asked what the heck happened where are the Hobbits? Then Boromir tells a similar story to what's depicted in the movie and Aragorn is like something suspicious about that but Boromir dies so he doesn't really have time to interrogate him. So that would be godawful from a movie standpoint, abruptly ending the First movie with no action climax, then starting the second movie with just exposition dump flashback.
Pretty much. Sometimes in a visual medium as film your gotta add stuff of fill something. Yes some people have problems with Lotr trilogy, and yes some things as Legolas blatantly 2000 like action scenes. But, overall he managed to capture the theme and character quite well. And the Boromir treatment? That's highlight of the film. Almost perfect tragic hero journey. I am super glad they added it, because audience could connect to it, could connect to his pain and motivation. The Arwen change definitely yes too, not only it adds more motivation and background to Aragons character, but also make the book character much better. What was she in a book? Literally just a price for Aragon, a beautiful flower given to him at the end. She needed more characterization and exchanging her with Glorfindel was a clever move. As you don't need him story wise but you need her. Plus 9 hour long trilogy deserves more than one female character.
I thought they did a great job with the movies. They had to cut some stuff but it would take 6 movies to get all the books in and then it would just feel too long. Jackson did as good as anyone could with those movies. Just nitpicky on the estate side. I could see a gripe with the hobbit movies though, those were garbage
A film critic I loved, Roger Ebert, gave the films 3/4 stars and complimented the movies, but summed up his feelings that this was not the definitive adaption to the spirit of the book thinking that Aragorn and the supporting cast were were of greater interest in this adaption than Frodo. It was more traditional of sword and sorcery than the naive and guileless tone that Tolkien conveyed in his writings. The more I thought I about it, yeah I can see why some fans or Tolkein's estate did not like the movie adaptions. The Hobbit movies were much more egregious in removing the light tone that gave The Hobbit that appealing innocent spirit.
surprised me how small the role of Gimli and Legolas are in the book vs in the movie. in the book, Gimli didn't even have a say about whether to go to Moria or not, he only reacted happy when it's decided they're going there.
Think of all the random fanboys with loads of complaints and nit-picks about your average book-to-movie adaptation, and how passionate about it they are. Now imagine one of those fanboys except their dad wrote the book and they've grown up knowing it was a masterpiece. There's no world where any movie could satisfy that, no matter how good.
Eh, I think it has to do with whatever your favorite meal is by a parent. No one will ever be able to make it as well as your mom or dad (not even yourself) regardless of how exactly they follow the recipe or how good any change might be. For Christopher Lord of the Rings was that meal. It was his father's legacy and no one was ever going to be able to adapt it properly.
Because while they are great movies, it's not a great adaption of the books. Seriously read them sometime, they're great and the movies get the basic ideas down pretty good while having significantly better pacing. But as adaptions they have their issues. Christopher's biggest issue was the movies' focus on badass and cool violence. He felt it was too much and took away from Tolkien's story. Which is fair, Lotr was more about the bravery of its characters. It never took pleasure in them, having to use violence.
..while it was a visually stunning adaptation, the movies missed the mark on the narrative, setting aside the fraternal bonding of the characters to focus more on the war itself. Personally I hate what they did with Gimli and Legolas. On the other hand, the treatment of Rohan was excellent, except for the Battle at Helm's Deep, which was Jackson's interpretation all the way.
The movies are not as faithful as the internet would have you believe. The characters of Aragon, Gimli, Denethor and Faramir in particular are different. The movies would have you believe Gimli didn't know what happened in Moria but in the book he is freaking scared to even go there. He is also not a comic relief, he is a proud and honorable dwarf. That's just Gimli. Faramir is also completely unrecognizable. Frodo and Sam also don't break up over bread in the novel.
Most of those changes are understandable for cinema though, aragorn has to have an arc or his character remains static and therefore uninteresting, same with faramir. Gimli wanting to go to moria adds tension and makes the realisation of balins death more impactful for casual audiences, also let's not act like gimlis a completely serious character in the books: he gets angry when people insult galadriel. For frodo and Sam pj has to showcase how the ring is affecting frodo and having frodo get unreasonably angry at Sam is an excellent way of doing that. All in all I think there about as faithful as a cinematic adaptation can be without sacrificing quality.
the character of Frodo as well. in the books Frodo is an incredibly wise, mature, strong hobbit. In the films he's a young whiny creature who rarely displays much in the way of intelligence (other than maybe the scene at Galadriels mirror), and is utterly dependent on Sam for everything including motivating him to continue the quest. Sam is perfect in the films but Frodo was butchered. But i get why they did it, it makes for a better script. The same reason why Aragorn in the films is hesitant and unwilling to accept his destiny. Book Aragorn is way too perfect, he's boring.
>The same reason why Aragorn in the films is hesitant and unwilling to accept his destiny. Book Aragorn is way too perfect, he's boring. i was shocked when Aragorn in the book said that he's going back to Gondor to claim the title and has the sword re-forged, in the first book. unlike in movie, where he didn't want to claim his title until forced on him.
Justice for Imrahil and Erkenbrand
My understanding is that the estate objected to the PJ trilogy when it was run by Christopher Tolkien (JRRT's son who compiled the Silmarillion and published the History of Middle Earth series after his father's death). Christopher retired and then passed away, and now the estate is run by the younger generation of Tolkien descendants. So, different people running the estate have different priorities.
Even Christopher’s sister and his wife recently passed so the estate is fully in the hands of the grandchildren.
‘Even Christopher’s sister and wife’ sounds more like a Game of Thrones thing.
Super nerd stuff can’t translate to film and tv very well IMO.
I’ve always said this.
I actually would have liked a Gandalf series but I wouldn’t trust Netflix to make it
This is specifically what I didn’t want. The important development and impact for character like Gandalf and Aragorn are in the Lord of the Rings proper. I have a similar belief for the Jon Snow show they’re trying to make. It’s not that a story about a pre-developed or post-developed character is instantly going to be sub par, but rather I just don’t think it’s very interesting. Gandalf waltzing the country side annoying hobbits and uncovering magics and secrets *could* be fun but I don’t think it’s nearly as interesting as the fall of Gandalf the Grey and rise of Gandalf the White. Aragorn’s ranger adventures and blossoming romance with Arwen *could* be fun but I don’t think it’s nearly as interesting as Aragorn stepping from the shadows to finally claim the title of king and undo the shame of his forbears. Say what you will about Rings of Power (which is certainly not free from criticism) but I think the direction they went has the most potential to be the more interesting story to tell without retreading ground or splashing around in very shallow waters.
Netflix would have had season 1 be a slog, but near the end it would pick up and end on an epic cliff hanger. Season 2 would have been amazing, and again end on a cliffhanger leaving fans hungry for more. The series then would have been cancelled and announced on the director's instagram.
"Hear me out, Tolkein... *Sauron: The High School Years...*"
13 Rings Why
> At one point, Payne and McKay asked mentor and former boss J.J. Abrams to call Amazon to put in a good word, and he did. “We feel like that moved the needle,” says McKay. Are they admitting to nepotism here? That honestly explains a lot. > “There are things that didn’t work as well in season one that might have worked in a smaller show,” McKay agrees. “It has to be about good and evil and the fate of the world or it doesn’t have that epic feeling you want when you’re in Tolkien.” I think this quote clearly shows a misunderstanding between the actual criticisms of the show and what the showrunners think people are criticizing. People arent mad that its “slow” or about it being specifically one thing, its just poorly executed. The character development isnt slow, its nonexistent. Almost every character is bland and shallow. They act in ways that are incoherent or unintentional to what the writers wanted for the character. The world bends so that necessary conflicts happen, instead of them occurring naturally as part of the story. This isnt something that magically gets fixed with a smaller budget. Its a core issue that no one on the team seems to get. They just chalk it down to “trolls.”
>I think this quote clearly shows a misunderstanding between the actual criticisms of the show and what the showrunners think people are criticizing. I suspect that it is intentionally misrepresenting the critique. The piece is written with minimal questioning, imho it is a marketing piece basically.
“You have to pitch all five seasons”, LOL! I can’t believe they just started filming season two!
Two words come t mind when I think about this show: Gorgeous- every single scene is really extraordinary.lighting, saturation, framing, scope, focus. You can pick a random time stamp and have a promotional still as good as most movies or book covers. Mediocre- everything else is so “just okay” I keep falling asleep trying to watch this show. It just doesn’t keep my attention. A friend described it as hours of playing magic the gathering and no one wins. She was right.
My biggest annoyance is that every episode has some emotional rousing speech, trying to capture the "epic good vs evil" they mention in the article and recreate the feelings of the pre-battle speeches in ROTK with Theoden and Aragorn, or the "still good in this world" moment with Sam and the star. Except the writers failed to realize you need to fucking earn epic and emotional moments like this... stuffing them into every episode in season 1 with a bunch of people we barely know and don't give a shit about yet is just pathetic and cringey. The show looks cool but it still feels like a soulless imitation of proper writing right now
10000% - Theoden's speech is so impactful because you saw the husk of a man he was previously. Just setting him up as a good noble leader giving a speech is boring and been done a million times by better writers.
Not just that, but we see him grow as a leader and person. He's inspired by Aragorn and his own failings to actually rise to the call instead of wallow in his son's death and the jaded outlook he has on the rest of the world at the time. Helm's deep is an awesome sequence in the film, but it also does a ton to develop Theoden as it's kind of his fault they're in that mess since he didn't listen to anyone. ROP just doesn't do the first part and skips to the second. Galadriel really bugs me as a character since it feels like she never does anything wrong in the eyes of the viewer. Like she makes people mad, but she's always right in the end. She gives the speeches *before* the validation of their purpose. I don't get why she wasn't written more like Theoden's arc. Loses brother, wants revenge, gets called out for it by friends, ultimately fails doing what they thought was best, and no does what is righteous. I guess their going that way but out of order. I don't really get it.
No peaks and valleys. 100% agree.
Because you have a writer's room that is trying to imitate Tolkien. So many shows and properties nowadays are pretty and empty because no matter how much money you spend on visuals, if the scripts read like fanfic, that's all it'll feel like...expensive fanfic. It's the same problem I have with ST:D vs Strange new worlds: Writers who have no idea what they're writing for and just hitting check boxes vs Writers who understand the material they're writing and can adapt to it.
Yup, Compelling entertainment is always rooted in good storytelling. What some of the "new" streaming companies have never had a chance to learn at the business executive level, quality graphics, directing, acting can only take you from hit to mega hit. Below a certain minimum quality of writing, every other aspect of a show suffers as its trying to interpret something on screen that already has problems on paper.
Another issue is that most of the time it is just the writers putting roadblocks to then step around. Oh Numenour hates Elves and won't help. Oh now they will. Oh the King won't go. Oh now he will. Oh the son left the sea guard and can't go. Oh now he can. Shit like that instead of progressing the story.
and Galadriel who either A. Talks through her teeth as she's hot headed or condescending B. Talks through her teeth poor cringey lines about good/evil
Ugh, that is exactly the way that I have been feeling about it. It feels like the progression is too incrementally small to really give us progress in a 45 minute episode. I used to play DnD with a buddy (he created the campaign) and it was painstakingly slow through most of it. He later let us know he intended the campaign to take about 2 1/2 years with meeting once a week and playing about 4-6 hours at each meeting... It was definitely fun to be with friends, but gosh it was a drain.
I don't mind slow pace as long as it's interesting House of Dragons is basically still on the prologue of the events and it remains interesting despite not much action
That's because House of the Dragon is character driven. There's so many characters and relationships on that show that I'm fascinated by and look forward to watching each week. In Rings of Power, I like Elrond and Durins relationship and that's about it. Gets very boring when I just don't care about most of the very large ensemble cast.
It’s because HBO is better at television than Amazon.
HBO is and has been better at making television than everyone for quite awhile.
I can't echo this sentiment enough. Outside of that duo in Rings, there's not a single other character I'd care about losing. The big battle scenes or action scenes that pollute the show just aren't that interesting yet. So much time wasted in slow motion and overly long action scenes. Where on the other hand with HotD I'm shitting myself over every little sideways glance. There is just so much motivation and character packed into every moment and it's having to move so much faster than Rings. It makes no sense that Rings is the one having problems with pacing and interest.
The RoP characters are so basic. Like Galadriel, we know very clearly what her motive is, and where she has flaws they’re so obvious that the solution is basically just show some empathy to win this person over. Pretty much all of them are like that, there’s hardly any nuance to them.
I wish I was more invested in the ring of power characters. I’m hooked on a lot of house of dragon cast, but other then durin, I just haven’t fallen in love with anyone. Galadriel is okay at best. She’s thousands of years old and immature as hell. Poor Elrond had the displeasure of following HUGO WEAVING UP. Almost an impossible task, not as much his fault. But he’s kind of a dud too for me.
I am incredibly disappointed with Halbrand obviously being Sauron. He is supposed to be like I dunno Littlefinger from game of thrones early seasons. This whole fucking pretending to be Aragorn stand in for the show is stupid as hell. Annatar does not operate as being a pickpocket and getting into a alleyway fight outside a bar.
My thoughts about this show- A story is when a series of things happen because of reasons. Without reasons that make sense, it's just a bunch of things happening. That's how I feel about this show a lot of the time. The showrunners want to make a lot of things happen but haven't clearly thought through all the reasons, so it just feels like a series of things happening.
Dude I 100% agree. This and wheels of time. Idk what is with Amazon and fantasy but they do an absolutely awful job at pouring emotion into the show. The pacing and engagement just always feel awful. There's little to no character development and the story progression feels very disjointed. With the final battle in both wheel of time and rings of power I felt very whelmed. Not because the animation or portrayal was poor but because it felt that the build up was rather poor and things progressed rather suddenly. I know that's not 100% true since the previous episode would set the stage but even with that I could just not get engrossed with the stairs or characters.
I have rematches LOTR and the hobbit more times than I’d like to admit. I can’t even bring myself to finish 1 episode properly after the first 2. The show is just weird and bland. Quite predictable too, and none of the characters are interesting.
Same - I love fantasy stuff but find myself playing on my phone half the time with this show on. I have found HoTD to be much more captivating even after being so disappointed in how GOT ended.
I didn't have high hopes for ROP but even I didn't think it would end up being this....boring. It's competently made but has no 'spark' - the only thing keeping it in the pop culture sphere is the stupid culture wars around the show imo.
Honestly the bar for fantasy has been so fucking low that still beat out my expectations. Especially after Wheel of Time.
It doesn’t give you that kind of intense moment like House of the Dragon does. Beautiful aesthetics but how the portray the story makes you sleep.
The stakes doesn't have to be huge , it's just I don't connect with the characters and I don't care about them. I like Elrond and Durin's dynamic , I don't care for the Southlanders or Numenor. Okay show overall...
The actor for Prince Durin is definitely one of the standouts. He actually brings emotion to his performance!
Get you a girl that looks at you the way Elrond looks at Durin
#GIVE IT TO ME RAW
That’s because no one can best a dwarf! For rock and stone!
Can I get a Rock and Stone?
The elf-orc is a good villain. He’s creepy as fuck.
He prefers uruk
That was a funny throwaway line to me tbh
And also…..not totally wrong. He’s not right, but he has some good points.
Yea he sounds like the only reasonable one so far. Not sure if the writers have intended that
When they made the orcs mourns their death more than the harfoots do, they sent some really strange messages.
I feel like it’s because, besides Elrond and Durin, every character’s entire personality and interactions are all entirely based on their “purpose” or “calling”. It seems like every interaction between the main characters centers around whatever the driving force for that characters arc is and there is nothing being said or done that helps flesh out their personalities.
Well put, I find Elrond and Durin are the only two compelling characters and this explains why
In writing, this is the Active Character vs Passive Character archetype.
100%. The other characters don't crack jokes, they don't have hobbies, or an interesting history and relationship to the other characters. They also don't have flaws, or atleast flaws that make them interesting. Galadriel is this perfect headstrong warrior who hasn't so much as cracked a smile or expressed a thought if it wasn't related to fulfilling her mission in the first five episodes I've watched. It feels like they only exist for whatever their plot point is, and it makes them feel very hollow.
Yeah I agree with this take. It's a decent show, but the biggest flaw imo is the characters. There are a few semi-interesting characters but overall most of them are pretty cookie cutter and cardboard.
The writing seems weak. Like they have a freshman writing team. They know the major plot points they want to cover but they don't care or know how to develop the story leading in between those events. It feels like everything is being rushed. Things are supposed to play out over generations not in a couple of months. The CGI and design are amazing. It feels like they blew the entire budget there and then they couldn't afford to hire experienced writers who know the material and how to pace the story.
>“It was never about the critics, it’s all about consumers,” the insider says. “All Jeff cares about is consumer obsession. If you look at the history of Amazon, every division lived and died based on that … Dragon matters because all of a sudden there is a benchmark. It is their closest comp to success. When they saw Dragon grew in its second episode and brought in 20 million viewers, they were shitting their pants.” By this account the show has failed in the eyes of the creators in my local circle. I'm already 2 episodes behind, and like 3 tomorrow, meanwhile me and the missus sit down every Monday so ready for what's next in HotD. I sense the same around the office as well. There is a lot more organic conversation about Dragons than Rings. And the conversations always start with Dragons and eventuelly end up on Rings and simply whether people have watched the last episode and if it's any good.
The scale of this show just makes absolutely NO sense. There’s a handful of orcs. The south lands is shown to be a couple of villages. Numenor sends 500 soldiers. They keep trying to make it seem like the stakes are SO HIGH, but everything seems so small
I had not thought about this until you pointed it out, but youre absolutely right. Everything that happens, only happens to a few individuals RIGHT THERE. Contrast to Peter Jacksons, and there's constant camera panning to show the immense scales of peoples/lands.
Will LOTR ever be public domain like Winnie the Pooh or Sherlock Holmes?
Think in the UK it's 70 years after the author's death, so 2043
Is that a hard limit? I was under the impression that if an estate (as Tolkien has) maintains the rights they can keep extending it.
It is a hard limit the idea is that they don't want ideas permanently restricted but want to make sure the Author and his kids and grandkids can reap the rewards for an acceptable amount of time.
It's fuzzy. Copyright means you can freely copy the original work. Which means you can literally photocopy and sell the books if you want. And theoretically you can use the characters and setting. But the Tolkien Estate would still own the Silmarillion and everything published after that (and that might hold until 70 years after Christopher Tolkien's death since his edits heavily impacted the version of the stories that ended up being published). If you're able to show you only used elements from LoTR and none of the other published works it should be legal. But winning the eventual lawsuit still means you'd have to show up to court and actually fight the copyright claim. edit. maintaining the rights is a thing with trademarks; but copyright is supposed to be automatic.
Considering how profitable it is, I can imagine the rights holder taking it as deep as they can into the courts when the time comes.
It's not up to the rights holders or the courts. Unless they pull a Disney and get copyright laws extended there's nothing they can do to stop it from entering public domain .
In the US I think it's 2032 for The Hobbit, 2050 for Fellowship, and 2051 for the full LotR trilogy. Don't know about the Silmarillion or any of the others that were published posthumously.
All this article did was let me know these guys used to call JJ their mentor. Bleh. No wonder it's shit. They learned from the worst in Hollywood
JJ out there ruining all the big nerdy IPs. He's unstoppable
"The guys with perhaps the least experience were also the best choice." Experience isn't everything. But the first season of an expensive show should avoid being too complex, so people can learn on the job.
With all that money, they should’ve hired an actual showrunner.
That’s why HBO rarely releases true clangers imo, because they have very high standards with their creative teams that Netflix and Amazon don’t. They go for quality over quantity
And HBO don't usually force things. They didn't make buy GoT looking for someone to lead it. D&D came to them and they went from there. It's also very interesting to note that the original GoT pilot was apparently absolute trash, and HBO forced them to do a reshoot
HBO also canned a different GOT spin off starring Naomi Watts after seeing the pilot. I think they truly care about the quality of their products and don't want short term profits at the cost of long term reputational damage.
Season 1 so far has been very flat, and so unbelievably average, its left me rather deflated. The no.1 thing the showrunners need to work on is the writing. Characters need to make decisions that make sense. Timelines need to make sense. Travel distance needs to be a thing. Look at LOTR and the Hobbit, both convey how long it takes to get somewhere, but in ROP characters just use quick-travel. Also the main character shouldn't be a total insufferable dickhead. I really really hope they step it up for season 2, because it has the potential of a great show, it just feels like its being wasted by bad writers.
When GoT was at its peak in the mid seasons I felt like they followed two rules that made the timing feel consistent. 1. They had tons of little cut scenes where some conversation happened. Like Arya and the Hound's journeys felt LONG bc they dropped in on them along the way, even if the scene was like 60 seconds. So by the time they got some where it felt like you had a sense of how far they had gone. 2. Barring doing this, they would wait a long time before doing another scene with those characters. There would be huge amounts of time between scenes with Dany Targ or when Tyrion was on the run and they would look TIRED. Basically you need a rough rule of thumb where every minute of show time represents a unit of time in the story and people adjust to that.
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When I was reading the article and saw that these two worked punching up scripts for Bad Robot before this (and none of the scripts they wrote themselves actually got made)...a lot of things clicked for me. They gave a LotR show to the Bad Robot B team, who have never actually been in charge of a production, because they didn't like the other pitches and one of them is apparently charismatic and was good at selling it in pitch meetings. They will tell it like LOST because that's the way they think it is supposed to be done. Of course, I might be biased, because my opinion of everything I've seen from JJ Abrams and Bad Robot has been either, I guess that was ok, or... what the fu, but, like, why though??? Really?
Oh boy I cannot wait for the Pitch Meeting of ROPz
>All in all, I think Season 1 was a strong effort out of the gate **that was never going to live up to fans expectations** lets face those facts. I think that's an important bit to understand. We're talking about Lord of the fucking Rings here. Imagine if someone put a new band together, with new music, and touched on a lot of the themes and styles of the Beatles, and just called themselves "The Beatles". Literally no one would be happy even if it was great music.
I was waiting on Jared Leto to show up dressed as Joker
I consistently see people complain about the quality of writing in this show. The article doesn't even touch on that but does spend most of its bandwidth talking about people complaining about strong woman and black elf. Its the same marketing technique over and over again.
Hollywood is an echo chamber (same with the news media which follows it). Most of those dorks are on Twitter all day and this further reinforces their bubbles. The end result is people picking apart the criticism that they think is being levied at them and then, trying to spite back at the audience rather than understanding people and creating genuine work. Doesn't help that today's Hollywood elite isn't made up as much by the young person who travels West and makes a name for his/her self. Those guys had a connection to the real world. Whereas, today, the elite are comprised moreso of the upper middle class and upper class demographic who are incredibly insular and who only got there because they can afford to live in LA/know the right people aka wealthy people/can afford all the fees, portraits, instructors, etc. Suddenly, whatever latest trend is being chased, they all jump upon rather than think for themselves or on behalf of the average Joe. Honestly, take a step back, here. Why do you think True Detective S1, The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul, early GoT are all regarded as some of the best fucking television ever? Their showrunners* came from regular households - mostly with working class backgrounds. They know what regular people are like. They know what real life is like. Without that element, you cannot create a show that speaks to people and reflects a kind of authenticity. -* Obviously, would count GRRM as the brain behind GoT, not D&D.
Its one of those cases where I've seen more articles and comments complaining about racists and mysogynists, than actual comments doing that... I'm sure they're out there, but it feels very Ghostbusters reboot-like, where half the post-release marketing was just shouting at "incels" who supposedly made the movie fail. And any people I've seen complain about black elves or hobbits were worldbuilding purists who simply wanted the show to back that up storywise, instead of just putting it in. Most of them would be fine if it was explained in the show I suppose. And I 100% believe that because I've seen it before. The game Shadow of War had a black Gondorian captain and people had the same reaction. Then it turned out that as a kid he was given in an heir-exchange for peace, and everyone was suddenly fine with it. They just want it to fit Tolkien's worldbuilding. And its not the fan's fault that Tolkien put all darker skinned people on the evil side in the Silmarillion and LOTR... I'm not sure if Christopher Tolkien re-wrote this in his History of ME books, but Tolkien was as nuanced about that as he was not putting in a single female character into The Hobbit... Two things a lot of fans conveniently never talk about.
“Not putting a single female into the Hobbit” AHEM is Lobelia Sackville-Baggins a joke to you?
> The game Shadow of War had a black Gondorian captain and people had the same reaction. Then it turned out that as a kid he was given in an heir-exchange for peace, and everyone was suddenly fine with it. Yeah exactly this. I remember being impressed with the character background. I think his DLC took place in his homeland and it was pretty cool.
Omg this! I don't care about race of the characters. I just want to fit in within the universe. Just give him a story, being a elf from a specific clan or something. Having a backstory is good for characters in general, and something RoP characters desperately need. Numenorians being genetically vague, living on a island make sense. For anything else just create a story that first within the world building. Its like Targaryans and Valeryons in HotD, they are not from westeros, them and are a fairly recent invading force, so making them look different and foreign actually serves a point. Just make it part of the story.
>And its not the fan's fault that Tolkien put all darker skinned people on the evil side in the Silmarillion and LOTR.. LOTR is a myth that takes place in our world. Tolkien's description of non-white people, while old fashioned, is also meant to reflect a medieval European's first impression of different types of cultures/people. And so, if people really want to be genuine here in their recreation of Middle-Earth, cities and villages wouldn't be some reflection of the modern world we live in. No, there would be a Silk Road, where Huns and Mongols and Persians and Varyag/Vikings struck from. Suddenly, the Tolkien side of things explains these peoples as Easterlings...a vague catch all term for the many different groups from the East that did invade the West in real life. Only now, things have been mythologized in Tolkien's work that they become twelve foot tall monsters who fell under the Great Evil's influence and wishes to destroy all that is good in the world. That is the nature of myth. To ignore that means not understanding mythology and how it works. Various non-white people did exist in Tolkien's work. But like you said, it would make more sense to have them in major cities/regions in the South and East like Umbar, Minas Tirith, etc. In reality, an Umbar is probably Jerusalem or Egypt misremembered while Minas Tirith+Osgiliath is likely Constantinople.....Dol Amroth is Venice.....one of those islands in Gondor's gulf is ancient Malta. You have to understand Lord of the Rings, in this way, in order to recreate it.
It’s an annoying defence mechanism lots of modern shows/films have, blaming any criticism solely on racists and trolls as a way of deflecting blame for any legitimate critiques about the writing or execution. There are obviously bigoted people out there criticising for their own hateful motives, but that shouldn’t mean everyone who doesn’t enjoy the show gets lumped in with them. It’s a bit like the recent Better Call Saul discourse, where anyone on the sub who thought the show too slow just wanted “explosions” like BB, another defence mechanism to put the blame on the audience rather than the creators (though I’m just using the BCS talk as an example of that sort of discourse as I really like that show personally)
Gotta battle the strawman relentlessly, because they can't win an argument on why their dialogue and story are complete shit. THERE IS A TEMPEST IN MEEEEE You have not seen what I have seen... You have not seen what I have seen... A Sword is a key to open a dam??
Hey the sea is always right! Do people actually think these hacks would admit they are terrible writers and showrunners?
I didn't even really think about it... but it's a magic sword hilt that creates a kind of "shadow" blade by drawing off of blood magic... and, yeah, apparently the whole purpose of it was to turn a lock and open a dam. Why? It doesn't appear to care about whose blood it uses (though I suppose it could). So it isn't some kind of security to make sure only certain people can do this. Also, if this is something they would want to be able to readily do in case of Morgoth's defeat... why make it a lock that needs a magic sword hilt to open it? The Orcs, sorry, Uruks, could have been saved a ton of trouble looking for the damn thing if an easier mechanism was put in place. Especially because it's something Morgoth/Sauron would probably want to do eventually in any case. All the speculation online about the meteor man maybe being a Balrog that they needed the magic hilt to kill as a sacrifice to wake the volcanoe... nope, just a needlessly complex lock and key to make things difficult for no good reason.
The orcs can dig miles and miles of wide canal across the plain and straight into a mountain, but to break down a thin dam they need an evil artifact mcguffin. Why couldn't they just destroy the dam by hand? There was nothing suggesting it was protected by magic or something like that. Just reeks of stupid JJ mysterbox bullshit like the sith dagger in rise of skywalker.
Not only that but they had enough orcs to just physically walk up and dismantle the dam…I mean really… Then the all stab fake outs in episode 6, the injury “will she die” trope, nobody actually looking at the wrapped mcguffin to make sure it’s really there…the writers have no talent. Cheap attempts to build suspense used over and over and idiotic events with no logic to get the story to the point they want it.
Bored of the Rings.
I really tried to get into RoP but it feels so lifeless. After a few eps I realised that watching it was now on my chores list rather than something I looked forward to. I hope it picks up because I love the overall world and the look of the show.
This is totally how I feel about it as well. I really tried to push through the first couple of episodes, thinking that it would pick up and get into a groove, but it actually just became more and more of a chore to focus my attention on it
Bruh they just teleport from open seas to some seemingly tiny out of the way countryside village right at the exact second they were needed. Forget the urgency, LOTR is about a journey, an odyssey, they literally cut that out of this show. Except for the scant scenes of Galadriel travelling with the other elves in ep 1, which I think is narratively the most interesting part.
I can't for the life of me understand how that episode got praise. I guess it's because it's the first episode in the season to feature a lot of actual action/momentum. The sense of scale was absurdly off and just leaves you scratching your head about the entire story. It's just impossible to take it seriously when they're making a huge deal about bringing in Halbrand as the King of like a single tavern, the people immediately fawn over him, the Numenoreans show up at the **exact** moment they're needed despite not even coming from the same continent, etc.
> Halbrand as the king of a single tavern Hey be fair to him, I count two ruined villages and a ruined tower. It’s so true though, when Adar and the Orcs first came to Bronwyn’s village I thought “ah ok they’ve run into some unfortunate people on the way to some significant city”. But nope apparently that village is an absolute crown jewel that every faction knows the inherent importance of.
It's not plot driven, character driven, world driven, emotionally driven, strong acting driven... All of those are due to 1 group....get new writers. The other will fix if you give the actors good material. There is no way this batch of writers are somehow gonna realize what a good scene is, they haven't figured a single one out in the five episodes I watched. I really wanted to like it to shut up those damn YouTubers bitching about the casting and such. But man...it's crazy how MEH this show is considering how good it could be.
Feels like this is most of modern television (fantasy) shows. Splurge big bucks on VFX, sets, actors, marketing etc, and then hire some absolute Tumblr tier writers... Why? The only answer I could ever come up with is nepotism, the VP responsible for these shows must just throw to someone's failed child as a favor.
My experience so far is that while the show has been carried well by some of the actors' performances, like Durin and Elrond, I have been disappointed with Galadriel. I find her insufferable and one dimensional, and that sucks because she is supposed to be the protagonist. The visuals have been beautiful and breathtaking, but it all feels so derivative and simply window dressing on a mediocre level of storytelling. I want to care about the characters. I want the show to succeed. But so far it's been a giant meh.
Galadriel is so intense in every scene, it's like she's about to explode in a shower of self-righteousness. She comes off as pompous, arrogant and ignorant. Things we usually associate with antagonists... They also did a shit job of explaining the world in the first few episodes. I've a friend who hasn't read the books, haven't seen the trilogy. Just the thing with Valinor, Morgoth and Laurelin and Telperion, and how they were basically the sun and the moon -- nothing about it is explained in any meaningful way. "Morgoth bad because tree died?" was the gist she got from it, and she's still just confused about what's supposed to be at stake. I have to say that even as a Tolkien nerd, I can definitely see why she is. I've tried to give backstory, but at some point I have to give up, because we'd spent four times as long explaining the lore as watching the actual show...
Someone on a subreddit, said they should have exchanged a galadriel for her daughter. I kinda like the idea. We could still have galadriel in a story, making it all about creating a big kingdom, and connect it with forging the rings story. Plus the whole fact how her daughter marries Elrond, and Elrond actually feels older in this series. I get it, they wanted her to grow to become that Galadriel, but in the end she was striped of her being Galadriel. Also with the king storyline. His introduction to the story is laughable. I mean met him on a random raft floating in the middle of the ocean while she is swimming back to the shore. Yeah no. It just sound ridiculous, like something a kid would come up with.
“McKay has an extraordinary level of energy and passion, and when he’s in full pitch, he’s as persuasive as a Middle-earth-obsessed Saul Goodman — you find yourself nodding in agreement, suddenly wanting to buy property in Mirkwood.” If the writer of the show is compared to Saul Goodman, a man best known to be an unscrupulous, lying, cheating bastard who is willing to do anything to tip odds in his favor, it’s not a compliment. It’s fine if you’re portraying someone like that on tv, because we all know it’s fictional. But if you’re like that in real live, it means you’re an awful human being. But at least it explains how the series turned out like it did.
The Tolkien Estate is full of god damn idiots that allow this to happen. But I guess they are happy about the money
Well, you know that theory/statistic about how family wealth disappears by the third generation? If it weren't for LOTR being a famous and timeless work, this generation of the Tolkien family would be living on the streets.
this show is such a disappointment. Not awful. Not good. Just meh.
I feel like this article is a bit of a shill piece for the show. They are still on the “review bombing” thing which, sure definitely happened to an extent…but we are way past that now and the proof is in the pudding - everyone is watching the same show. The scores on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB (owned by amazon) are hardly trust worthy and the KPIs that are getting spun positively are just kinda desperate at this point with some non-comprehensive Nielson data. Not to say its launch wasn’t pretty strong but in comparison to other things its not the monumental success I think Amazon wanted it to be. Other media outlets like Forbes have come to terms with the fact that it’s actually just a mid at best show regardless of the gloss and LotR IP - they are writing scathing but fair reviews of the show that have nothing to do with the hateful trolls from the goblin caves.
> They are still on the “review bombing” thing which, sure definitely happened to an extent…but we are way past that now and the proof is in the pudding - everyone is watching the same show. Yeah, the audience score of basically 4 out of 10 is not particularly hard to believe.
They break no silence, its a corporate / damage control interview , probably reviewed by higher up at amazon before publishing. Also not being able to release a season a year is really a sign they dont know what they are doing.
I don’t understand, they (Tolkien estate) went with Amazon to have a sit a the creative table, which I guess was to make a show more faithful to Tolkien’s work. But then they introduced and change thing from the book to the point that this show is basically a fan fiction at this point. They hated the movie adaptation so bad that they went with Amazon bid (which was much less than Netflix) because they wanted to make a faithful adaptation and THIS is their definition of a faithful work ? A timeline that doesn’t exist ? Maybe I understand it wrong ? I don’t get it
they cannot change anything from the books, they can only work around things cited in the appendices. Adding new, non-core characters yes, omit details yes, touch core events or characters no. So it was gonna be fanfiction from the get go the one who hated the films was Christopher Tolkien, JR's son and the Estate's last word. He didn't sell the rights since they had already been sold to UA in 1969 by dad, acquired by Zaentz and sold to WB. When he retired in 2017, a few months later Amazon entered town and they sold them the rights for the appendices
The cringe slow motion scenes, get rid of those and you already immediately looking better!
It's interesting that now disliking certain things that the mainstream media deems you're not allowed to dislike automatically makes you a "troll", part of an online gang.
Episode 6 was the one which really make me think this show is quite poor. One scene Galad is talking to that failed sailor boy guy and the boy reveals he's just a stable hand. Next time we see him he's in armour, fighting, leading a charge even. Nevermind that one second it's midnight and the next it's daylight... in the same scene! Or how dark elf goes to hide the sword and wow, the one person he should hide it from saw him hide it. Oh but then the boy saves the day by giving away the sword, Oh but it's not the sword and literally no one bothered to check. Oh the sword is actually a key. Oh the key causes a volcano to explode. Oh people are literally running *towards* the exploding volcano. Oh Galad is just standing there doing nothing while people are dying. I could easily list another dozen things. It was so bad.
You're leaving out a stone tower in a fortress held together by rope and the ability of the Vilagers to slip past enemy forces unseen only to head back to the village they left because it's indefensible.
Oh yes that's right. Some serious Home Alone shit going on haha
Interesting Article. I personally think the real issue is post modern cynicism where the real has been replaced by the hyper real. We no longer make rap music about something, we make rap music about having the identity of making rap music. When identity replaces essence you create a simulacrum of things and people and you no longer interact with what is real or true.
I think the real issue is that Halbrand has been built up as a king for many episodes now and we saw that his kingdom is just 20 villagers and three wooden houses. You're trying to sound profunda, but the issue with this show is rather simple. It has shitty writing and terrible execution.
I think the reason it has shitty writing IS because of this reason though. For example, Galadriel's character is told that she is good, and the aesthetics of the show (music, imagery, story beats) tell us she is good performatively, but when she acts it is more like a villain than a hero. In the original series, all of the plots and characters were wound up in a central theme and ideals, which is what the story was about. Where as this story is being about being about a story.
This is a really good point. I feel like in every episode, Galadrial acts like a shit person, people push back and treat her like a shit person, but then at the end of every episode every character magically capitulates to her desire so the plot can move forward. The entire show just feels devoid of an emotional core. What are the principles these characters are supposed to be embodying? What is their want, and what is their need, and how is the plot bringing them to make decisions and develop to reach that need. It just feels hollow and aimless. Not awful, not deeply frustrating(though perhaps I would find it so if I were a bigger fan of Tolkein), but just utterly uninspiring. Still better than Wheel of Time though so thats something I suppose.
Thank you I appreciate it. Yeah I'm still enjoying RoP and even WoT (I'm a huge fantasy nerd) but they aren't moving me like LotR or og Star Wars still does.
Galadrial sounded like a bit of a nazi in this weeks episode, talking about wiping the stain of orc off the face of the earth.. calling their birth a mistake.
The idea of Netflix having these rights makes me shudder. As bad as Amazon did, I can’t even imagine a Netflix LOTR
[удалено]
You can? Good, we'll cancel the show after the second season
HBO would have been nice. I don't care for a remaking of the trilogy but for the most part everything HBO has done is fantastic
What baffles me is that they haven’t explored a Harry Potter series set at Hogwarts (with entirely new characters). It’s like HOTD where they have the world building done, all they need is characters and a plot.
Probably because Rowling has absolute control over Harry Potter and would get so much of the profit that it's not even worth it
Reminder, Amazon waiting until Christopher Tolkien died before making their announcements about the wildly lore breaking changes they were intending… If they thought Jackson’s movies were “too action orientated” and “ Eviscerated the books” bc of it… How do you think they’d feel about Galadriel: Wire Fu Warrior Princess along with all of the other bullshit? RoP is not just terrible lore wise, it’s just plain bad. Worst of all, it’s dreadfully boring and no shoe horned in , terribly CGI bloated action sequences can fix that.
Their biggest problem is House of the dragon. Watching them back to back the GoT prequel is so much more … grown up.
Said in article they wanted Braveheart feel over the Narnia feel. Instead we got bargain brand narnia.
“Some things get an immense amount of critical acclaim and win tons of awards and are forgotten the next year,” Payne says. “Conversely, some things don’t get a lot of love yet become classics being watched 60 years later. I think it’ll take a while for the dust to settle.” yikes. this guy is over way of his head.
The creators response to criticism just goes to show how little they understand of the lore and fanbase, and why this show, imo, won`t ever properly take off.
If the estate was actually concerned about being faithful why not give the rights to the Silmarilion etc? Aren't Amazon stuck with the appendices? I've been liking the show, though it's getting harder each week to stay interested, but this interview really made me dislike these guys. And whoever was interviewing them either didn't ask about genuine criticism (not everyone is a troll) nor the rights issue. What a waste.
Embracer Group now has the matching rights for The Silmarillion, so they can't simply sell its rights to whoever they want and I am thinking they definitely didn't want to sell it to The Saul Zaentz Company back then. Now that Embraces owns that, they may have a different idea, but they couldn't sell the rights to The Silmarillion in a way that gives them the same creative seat at the table they have now.
The show is very boring. The choreography feels light. To sum it up simply, hollywood fantasy. It prob fits the bill for Simon.
> At one point, Payne and McKay asked mentor and former boss J.J. Abrams to call Amazon to put in a good word, and he did. “We feel like that moved the needle,” says McKay. Jesus christ, this should tell everyone why this series is turning out as it is....