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Old 09-04-2022, 08:00 AM   #41
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There are ways to do a prequel, and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power does them all wrong. It takes six or seven things everyone remembers from the famous movie trilogy, adds a water tank, makes nobody fun, teases mysteries that aren't mysteries, and sends the best character on a pointless detour. The latter is uber-elf Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) who spends the premiere telling people to worry about Sauron. In response, people tell her not to worry about Sauron. That's one hour down, seven to go this season. Sound like a billion dollars yet?
https://ew.com/tv/tv-reviews/lord-of...-power-amazon/

Boring. Good looking… but really dull.

If it wasn’t called LOTR I wouldnt watch anymore.

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Old 09-04-2022, 08:35 AM   #42
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The Hobbits are enjoyable, or whatever they're called. Elandriel's story is good to follow, though the giant sea creature was needless filler. Lots of expostion but enough good scenes to keep me interested. The second episode dragged I thought.

The CGI is too clean.

And Dwarves suck, LoTR's is best Tolkien because there was only one.
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Old 09-04-2022, 11:33 AM   #43
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I'm actually liking the show so far. I went in with very low expectations though. Based on reviews about CGI and pacing, I was expecting Hobbit levels of bad. Some of reviews about pacing are genuine, but there's also definitely been a number of review campaigns that are resulting in reviews that aren't truthful.

The complaints about a female lead are pretty unfounded. Galadriel is an already established character in the universe. It's not a case of the creators just cramming in a female lead for the sake of it.

I do get the complaints about being untrue to the source material. However, the Peter Jackson movies deviated a lot too. The material from Tolkien himself is pretty limited. It's also very whimsical, and it would be pretty difficult to translate onto screen, while not coming across as pretty silly.

This show is very focused on build up. So I'll reserve judgement until we see how they stick the landing. However, I do like, overall, what I've seen so far.
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Old 09-04-2022, 12:39 PM   #44
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https://ew.com/tv/tv-reviews/lord-of...-power-amazon/

Boring. Good looking… but really dull.

If it wasn’t called LOTR I wouldnt watch anymore.
Totally agree. The first two episodes were boring and dull as hell. Very disappointed.
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Old 09-04-2022, 01:57 PM   #45
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.....

The complaints about a female lead are pretty unfounded. Galadriel is an already established character in the universe. It's not a case of the creators just cramming in a female lead for the sake of it.

....
Galadriel is a peaceful character famed for her beauty and grace. Amazon galadriel is a retread of gandalfs search for Sauron from the hobbit movies. There is essentially zero overlap between the two characters, so i think its safe to call amazon galadrial a crammed in character.

The Amazon Galadriel is a pretty generic female lead: she's very masculine, plucky, no discernible flaws and is constantly being oppressed by the incompetent men around her. They just picked the safest character template available to them and put galadriel's name on it.

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Old 09-04-2022, 02:42 PM   #46
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I don’t get the complaints. The first episode took a while to get going, but I thoroughly enjoyed episode 2, and I thought the story moved at a good pace. I also like the characters and the acting so far. And the CGI and effects look better than House of the Dragon.

Overall I’d give it a solid 7/10 so far.
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Old 09-04-2022, 03:03 PM   #47
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Galadriel is a peaceful character famed for her beauty and grace. Amazon galadriel is a retread of gandalfs search for Sauron from the hobbit movies. There is essentially zero overlap between the two characters, so i think its safe to call amazon galadrial a crammed in character.

The Amazon Galadriel is a pretty generic female lead: she's very masculine, plucky, no discernible flaws and is constantly being oppressed by the incompetent men around her. They just picked the safest character template available to them and put galadriel's name on it.
I disagree on this take. Galadriel was always supposed to be a very formidable warrior. Tolkien referred to her as "Mighty", and she was supposed to be special in that she was a warrior female:

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Therefore ere the Third Age was ended the Elves perceived that the Ring of Sapphire was with Elrond, in the fair valley of Rivendell, upon whose house the stars of heaven most brightly shone; whereas the Ring of Adamant was in the Land of Lórien where dwelt the Lady Galadriel. A queen she was of the woodland Elves, the wife of Celeborn of Doriath, yet she herself was of the Noldor and remembered the Day before days in Valinor, and she was the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth.
Multiple more references to her being a top warrior in this article too:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultas...ays-a-warrior/

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Nature of Middle-Earth: “"Account of Galadriel’s quarrel with the sons of Fëanor at sack of Alqualondë. How she fought...”

Unfinished Tales: “she... fought heroically”

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Morgoth’s Ring: “Marginal note against the passage describing the involvement of the second host in the fighting: 'Finrod and Galadriel (whose husband was of the Teleri) fought against Feanor in defence of Alqualonde.”

People’s of Middle-Earth: “Even after the merciless assault upon the Teleri and the rape of their ships, though she fought fiercely against Feanor in defence of her mother's kin, she did not turn back. Her pride was unwilling to return, a defeated suppliant for pardon; but now she burned with desire to follow Feanor with her anger to whatever lands he might come, and to thwart him in all ways that she could."
It might seem like a cliche to have the rare female warrior trying to find their way in a male dominated warrior world, but that was what Tolkien had intended. Galadriel was supposed to be that rare female warrior.

Elves, generally, by the time of the LotR were a lot more peaceful than previously. This was because they knew they had made huge errors with previous approaches, and there had been a major reformation within their society following the previous battle with Sauron.
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Old 09-04-2022, 03:41 PM   #48
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Okay, so I am not a purist, I watched the first two episodes and my socks remain firmly affixed to my feet, contrary to popular belief they were not indeed 'blown off.'

Those first two episodes were 3.6 Roentgen.

What I dont understand is the Economics of this show.

It is, I am estimating, the most expensive show ever? About $1B for 8 episodes? Granted, I am assuming that figure is inflated due to the up-front acquisition cost of the rights which were ~$250M right off the hop.

Further, I imagine that the official cost is going to spread out over a number of seasons and as thye go along the production costs might smooth out?

I just dont understand how using a cost/benefit analysis this is going to pay off for Amazon.

The cynic in me thinks this is a Bezos 'Passion Project' that is designed to generate an enormous loss that he's going to drag out of Amazon Video and apply against the enormous profits of Amazon's core businesses, but he's already shown that they know how to efficiently and effectively dodge taxes.

If its really just a Bezosian Passion Project and 'cost be damned just make it!' then by all means, go ahead.
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Old 09-04-2022, 05:17 PM   #49
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It is, I am estimating, the most expensive show ever? About $1B for 8 episodes? Granted, I am assuming that figure is inflated due to the up-front acquisition cost of the rights which were ~$250M right off the hop.
I've read that the $1B cost would include about 5 seasons of episodes. Still an extremely show on a per-episode basis.

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If its really just a Bezosian Passion Project and 'cost be damned just make it!' then by all means, go ahead.
I think it's a combination of both a passion project for Bezos and also an attempt to create a "prestige" show for Amazon to attract attention regardless of cost, in the same way it's trying to do with the Thursday Night NFL games. That's supposed to be a $1B/year and I'm not sure how a flat-rate streaming service is going to make money (or even breakeven) without car, alcohol and betting advertisement.
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Old 09-04-2022, 08:15 PM   #50
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People have a problem with Galadriel being the lead? Tolkien himself made her one of the most powerful Elves.

Plenty to bitch about in this show so far, but her being the lead isn’t one of them.

Her swimming across and ocean was dumb AF though lmao.
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Old 09-04-2022, 08:16 PM   #51
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People have a problem with Galadriel being the lead? Tolkien himself made her one of the most powerful Elves.

Plenty to bitch about in this show so far, but her being the lead isn’t one of them.

Her swimming across and ocean was dumb AF though lmao.
I just chocked it up to 'Elves are amazing and they can do unthinkable things.'

Albeit, if you're going for that...do something fun with it?
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Old 09-04-2022, 08:21 PM   #52
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The character concept of Galadriel as the female warrior is fine by me, but the actress they cast has seemed weak to carry the role so far imo. Hopefully she'll improve as the show continues. I just haven't found her compelling at all.

I do like the casting for Durin and for Elrond, and for a few of the Harfoots though, especially the lead girl Harfoot.

This show just isn't going to be Amazon's GOT. GOT had a very unique combination of brutal violence, sex, and total uncertainty about who was going to live or die even among the most prominent and loved characters. That combination really drove a lot of the stickiness of GOT and captured audiences. POTR can't do that. We know too much about characters already and audiences won't be nearly so easy to surprise or fill qith a real sense of tension about a character they like facing possible death. POTR really needs to just captivate by plugging into the world of Tolkien and making it feel wonderous again. They still have lots of runway to make that happen.
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Old 09-04-2022, 09:21 PM   #53
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I'm excited to be back in middle Earth. I'm not familiar with the source material but the first two episodes have me on the hook for at least a few more to see how everything plays out. Looking forward to the next couple weeks!
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Old 09-04-2022, 10:17 PM   #54
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We know too much about characters already and audiences won't be nearly so easy to surprise or fill with a real sense of tension about a character they like facing possible death.
This is certainly one of the intractable problems they've now saddled themselves with in the show - choosing Galadriel and Elrond as main protagonists severely limits the way the story can be told as everyone who has read the books or seen the movies knows neither is going to die. They would both work better similar to how they were in LOTR, minor characters there to provide advice and help, not drive the story themselves.

Why the story couldn't have focused on unknown characters (like the Ewok, err, Harfoot girl) who become heroes during the events of the Second Age while simultaneously having the political story being told separately yet interwoven with that, I do not know. Arondir's story, despite it being extremely poorly executed, is at least somewhat unpredictable, and four or five story threads like that, to be eventually merged, would have been much more interesting then SuperElfMaiden and K-Pop Boy.
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Old 09-05-2022, 04:36 AM   #55
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People have a problem with Galadriel being the lead? Tolkien himself made her one of the most powerful Elves.

Plenty to bitch about in this show so far, but her being the lead isn’t one of them.
The main complaint I see about her isn't about her being the lead, it's about her being, essentially...a warrior, instead of a wizard.
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Old 09-05-2022, 07:40 AM   #56
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I liked it and look forward to seeing where it goes. I’ve watched enough series over the years to recognize that meaningful story arcs take time.

Swimming across a sea seems as unlikely as a being arriving on a meteorite, a ship of warriors placidly sailing into a bright light together, beings living at their peak for a hundred years, or even massive walls of ice, fire breathing dragons, surviving falls out of towers only to become clairvoyant, etc.

It’s fantasy. I accept it as is and move along.

YMMV of course.
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Old 09-05-2022, 11:03 AM   #57
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I just chocked it up to 'Elves are amazing and they can do unthinkable things.'

Albeit, if you're going for that...do something fun with it?
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Old 09-05-2022, 01:55 PM   #58
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I'm actually liking the show so far. I went in with very low expectations though. Based on reviews about CGI and pacing, I was expecting Hobbit levels of bad. Some of reviews about pacing are genuine, but there's also definitely been a number of review campaigns that are resulting in reviews that aren't truthful.

The complaints about a female lead are pretty unfounded. Galadriel is an already established character in the universe. It's not a case of the creators just cramming in a female lead for the sake of it.

I do get the complaints about being untrue to the source material. However, the Peter Jackson movies deviated a lot too. The material from Tolkien himself is pretty limited. It's also very whimsical, and it would be pretty difficult to translate onto screen, while not coming across as pretty silly.

This show is very focused on build up. So I'll reserve judgement until we see how they stick the landing. However, I do like, overall, what I've seen so far.
Pretty tough to stay 'true' to the source material, when you're not allowed to use ANY of the source material to establish proper back stories.

As an example, they can't talk about the Kinslaying, War of Wrath, Beleriand, etc even though both Elrond and Galadriel played major roles in those and many other 1st age happenings.

You can tell the writers are trying to keep within the backstory that the book people know about, but doing it without actually using any of the backstory.

I agree with Cecil, if you're a purist, blame the Tolkien Estate for now allowing them to use whatever they wanted to get it proper justice.
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Old 09-05-2022, 01:58 PM   #59
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I agree with Cecil, if you're a purist, blame the Tolkien Estate for now allowing them to use whatever they wanted to get it proper justice.
If the could squeeze a quarter billion out of the limited amount they licensed to Amazon, I imagine the estate will be raking in another billion + in future for remaining rights if this show is a success.
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Old 09-05-2022, 01:58 PM   #60
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People have a problem with Galadriel being the lead? Tolkien himself made her one of the most powerful Elves.

Plenty to bitch about in this show so far, but her being the lead isn’t one of them.

Her swimming across and ocean was dumb AF though lmao.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Galadriel refused to go to Valinor after the War of Wrath, which was in the 1st age.

The writers couldn't use that, so they obviously tried to figure something else out, and it did come out pretty dumb.
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