"OneRing and other Social Media purging negative reviews" Topic

It doesn't bode well for a show when your top media allies ruthlessly purge negative show reviews and comments from their pages and discussion venues…

I hope ROP is good, I fear it is not because Amazon has changed key characters and having them do things they never did, with people they never met, in places they never went. Guess I'll know in a day or so…

I, too, am pessimistic. WHy do these media types think their ideas are so much better than Tolkien's?

You're expecting Hollywood to respect the writer?!?!?

We're talking about people from two classes:
The creative class, for whom it's all about their vision (and not anybody else's).
The marketing class, for whom it's all about how much money they get.
Neither give an ant's patootie about protecting and honoring the original source, much less the original creator.

That's why shill media and their reviews are worthless and people understand that more and more. Those review sites have been paid big chunks of Amazon money to run promos and favourable commentary. OneRing.net is so corrupted, it's sad.

Edit: Some of the objective reviewers are confirming many of our fears.

I don't know what you're worried about. It has a 100% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes. It must be good.

I'm amazed I could write that with a straight face. Like much visual entertainment these days it appears to be nothing more than a bunch of tropes strung together. The art of writing for TV and movies seems to be dying.

There's like a thousand cable channels out there, I'm sure there's something else worth watching… ;-)

Watching? No. Listening, so you can paint at the same time. I recommend the BBC Merrison Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, or the Jim French series of the same name.

But yes, plenty of good stuff out there. The trick is sorting through all the dross to find it.

BBC Merrison Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,

Good pick!

Been enjoying them on BBC4Xtra.

Lot of good stuff there to paint along to.

So….2 episodes in.
This show is as expected.
All style, no substance. Lame attempts at inserting lore.
Slamming us with CGI with nothing to back it up gets old quickly.
And the worst of sins – Boring (capital B).

Galadriel is a problem. Flat and unlikable, like Captain Marvel. This is the fault of the writing and directing.
The worst thing is that we already know she is untouchable…

Terrible, forced dialogue and sometimes embarrassing to comprehend.
Bad fight scenes and no sense of adventure.
Some characters are ok, most are cardboard cut-outs.
There is no hook or intrigue – which is a problem when first episodes are supposed to suck you in.
Only 6 episodes left for something to happen…anything…

Well, you have to wait for the dragons… ;-)

My Tolkien, like my Howard, my Edgar Rice Burroughs, my Conan Doyle and my Austen, are safe on my bookshelves where nothing Hollywood does can touch them.

And, in fairness, every now and then the movie-makers get it right. Enjoy it when they do, and just let the others go.

I was just getting ready to watch episode #1, now I don't know??????

Amazon has stopped user reviews for some reason…

According to the writers; rocks sink in water because they look downwards. Boats float because they look to the light – or something.

That is the tripe they are offering and the non-stupid people are calling it out.

Watched twenty minutes before being called away by other things. Will watch it out, but so far the elves are kind of meh. Jackson captured the other worldy nature of them perfectly, but in this they come across as just pretentious with some pretty lame dialogue.

The 20 mins I watched doesn't allow for any credible critique.

Was never a GoT fan, but the clips from the new show I've watched on YouTube you definitely get a sense that its a far more capable cast.

Ok, watched both eps. The diversity casting can be distracting, but every one of those actors are miles ahead quality wise than the rest of the cast.

Khazad Dum is excellent, that was something special seeing it in all its glory.

Will watch the next eps, suspect the portrayl of Numenor will make or break it for me.

Did you enjoy Galadriel, the uber-elf ninja killing the troll in 10 seconds? It's nice she waited for the troll to kill a dozen elves before intervening.
Aragorn went one-on-one against a troll in the battle of the Black Gates – he couldn't defeat it. He only survived when the troll ran away once the One Ring was destroyed.

I can't wait to hear the dialogue in the next episode.

Galadriel doesn't sit right at all, and yeah that sequence was rubbish. When Legolas goes all elf ninja it served the story and the character, and builds up over three films, i.e. he doesn't go all ninja out of the gate.

I didn't mind how they framed Galadriels motivation, her dead brother and all, but there were some weird moments like those between her and Elrond. Like, the dude is married to your DAUGHTER!

Having her question whether the war is really over, having her as the main POV character works for me on paper, she's an all out badass in Tolkien's world, but the execution of that I've mixed feelings on.

And I didn't pick up that the Elf King you see is Gil Galad, I don't even think they call him that and it was only my wife looking up the shows IMDB listing that brought that to light!

LOL! Now Amazon is in full defense mode, accusing anyone who doesn't like their poorly executed Middle Earth fanfic of being rrraaaaccccissst! This is all because of their poor decision to use Middle Earth as a marketing tool for their own stuff rather than to do a good faith adaptation of JRRT's works. What a damn waste -- the 2nd Age has some great epic events -- the rise and fall of great societies, great betrayals, great battles, etc. And grim?? You want GoT -- Amazon has two in-canon events they have the rights to.

1. The War of Elves and Sauron – Eregion is sacked by Sauron after he reveals himself with the forging of the One Ring, and Celebrimbor fights to the death, dies riddled with arrows. His corpse is stripped, disemboweled and hung on a pike as a banner for Sauron's forces.

2. The Fall of Numenor – Sauron, as Annatar, corrupts the king of Numenor, appealing to his ego and fear of death, and the king turns on the valar and begins to persecute anyone who remains faithful to Illuvatar. Eventually there's open worship of Morgoth, the White Tree is burned in sacrifice and ceremonies that include debauchery and human sacrifice. GoT anyone??

Oh, Tolkien goes past GoT in terms of destruction! GoT wipes out one city, JRRT wipes out an entire civilization! The Numenorean "Great Armament" (great Armada) attacking Valinor is destroyed by Illuvatar who folds the land upon itself to swallow their army, sinks their fleets with a great vortex storm and then destroys Numenor with fire, earthquakes, and shatters the island under the waves. THEN Illuvatar reshapes the world! Where Geography in the 2nd Age was a fluid magic thing with Middle Earth being "flat" and linked to the Undying lands by essentially a portal, Illuvatar enforces natural geography upon Middle Earth and turns the world into a sphere, and severs the easy passage to the Undying lands.

What a dang shame Amazon didn't have the desire or creativity to do something better.

It shows how desperate Amazon are that they call anyone with criticisms the usual names to deflect from their sub-standard product. The vast majority of the problems with the show have nothing to do with melanin levels of the actors.

Episode 3 is more of the same.
Take away the pretty and shiny and there's little substance and no soul.
Galadriel continues to be unlikable and infallible. Sauro…Halbrand continues to flag the obvious.
The writers love to either tell us the bleeding obvious or throw in things that tell us nothing. Leaps of logic that defy suspension of belief. More terrible and misjudged dialogue.
The elf scenes are so mishandled, the actors look they are overcompensating.
Hobbits are still stupid in their actions, accents and motivations.

They're gonna have to do a lot of purging…

As for Eru Illuvator, that would require presenting a single Creator who has established rules of behavior which people are supposed to live by, and, though loving of mankind (and elves, dwarves, hobbits, etc.), and working to redeem his creation with mercy and love, is ready and willing to unleash wrath and justice upon those who turn from him to pursue their selfish, evil desires beyond the point of no return. Yeah, Hollywood/Amazon is gonna make THAT film…

Tolkien was Catholic. His fantasy world reflects his faith— all of it. The God of the Garden is also the God of the Flood. Sin demands Justice and Judgment. Mercy allows Repentance and Redemption. But if one does not Repent, then Judgment cannot be avoided. That's what Tolkien believed, and that's what he wrote. One can agree or disagree with his beliefs or like them or dislike them, but when you're dealing with the words he wrote and the world of Middle-Earth that he created, you either present what he held to be the truth of it, or what you present will never ring true.

I bring this up not to make a religious statement at all— just to point out that Tolkien's work (like any writer's work) is steeped in who Tolkien was and what Tolkien believed. One can no more separate Tolkien's world view from his work than one can separate Moorcock's or Lovecraft's or Tolstoy's or Steinbeck's or King's or Proust's or Nabakov's or any other writer's view from theirs. One might as well try to shove fluffy bunnies and rainbow sprinkles into GoT as do what Amazon is doing to Middle-Earth.

Whatever this mish-mash is, it's not Tolkien.

After watching episode 4 it's safe to say the show is fundamentally broken beyond repair.

So disappointing that they couldn't write even a mediocre story, passable dialogue or well-executed fight scenes with their huge budget. The Galadriel imposter character is irredeemable. Miriel's nostril flaring doesn't make her any better, either. Too much wrong to expand on at the moment without spoilers. It's stunningly stupid with lame Easter egg lore inserted to try to lift the story – it fails.

At least we have House of the Dragon.