"You're evil if you criticize Rings of Power" Topic

So…if you criticize the show, you're evil, says the showrunners. It can't be that people are calling out legitimate flaws or concerns with the production, some of which could be used to improve the show or as messaging points to allay fan concerns. Nope -- you're just evil…

LOTR: Rings Of Power Showrunners Discuss "Patently Evil" Backlash To The Show
"I don't see how people who are saying these things think that they're fighting for good. It's patently evil."

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Sorry,

I found the acting so-so, the writing bad and way too woke for me. If that makes me evil so be it. Maybe if you just done a better job with the show, I wouldn't be evil, who knows?

Maybe if you just done a better job with the show, I wouldn't be evil, who knows?

ROFLMAO!

Ain't seen it and don't plan to. As an ex would
tell you, evil is me…

One of the virtues of capitalism. You can virtue signal all you want in your show, tell the world how awesome you are because you hire certain people, check off all the boxes in your story to get invited to the right parties, and make sure everyone knows what a good person you are, but if the product you turn out is garbage, no one will watch it and you will fail.

When the reviewers fall asleep while watching three of the four episodes they saw, maybe it's time to fire the showrunners:

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So We are all servants of Sauron. All hail the Dark Lord!!!!!!

I found it visually sumptuous, musically lush, but narratively mediocre, until the end of the most recent episode, when their water skier went sailing gracefully over the 🦈.

A violent volcanic eruption triggered by stream? Pshaw!

I'll keep watching just to see how they resolve the reveal of 2 mystery characters, but this whole thing is starting to wear kinda smooth.

On the upside, there are 2 glorious YouTube videos available taking the whizz out of Tolkien,…

youtu.be/5gYZ7-9lyIs

and of Rings of Power,…

youtu.be/twmojN_N90Y

:》

If the showrunners don't like the viewers, why don't they just hire new ones?

I'm with Ed
Haven't watched it& don't plan to
It would just me off.

It is POSSIBLE that the showrunner quoted MAY be responding to some particular criticisms, not simply comments on artistic merit or faithfulness to source. Even so "evil" is pitching it a bit high.
I continue to watch, and its been good to actually see realisations of places and things only previously referred to in the appendices.I think it seems to be conceded that the visual aspect is the show's strongest factor.
Yes, I keep going back to the appendices and frowning as I try to make sense of a very compressed/rearranged timeline, while accepting there have to be compromises to make a screenplay managable.
I have issues about events that seem improbable so Im certainly not watching uncritically.
The books are the books, and will always be the "real" version-this is just entertainment. And we already had Amazon Prime, so its not costing me anything extra!

I have watched the coverage of the ROP show relatively carefully, and I formed the opinion a few weeks ago that there was a deliberate strategy to paint criticism of the show as merely a loud contingent of racists upset over people of color being cast in the show. Now, there IS a small group of racists bent out of shape about black elves and dwarves, that is true; however, the overwhelming amount of criticism I have seen (agree with it or not) is about the merits of the show (or lack thereof) with regard to story, dialogue, etc. I am an unabashed progressive and fly those colors proudly, but I sincerely believe that Amazon is purposefully exploiting the culture wars to hide criticism of their show and boost ratings.

I don't think they understand what the word "evil" means.

I am in agreement with those who say it's not a blanket statement that all who have a beef about the show are "evil". I would be quite confident that they are referring to a smaller group of people. The internet gives voice to many a foul creature.

As far as the show goes, I am watching and enjoying it. It had a slow start, but you have to build the story, that takes time. Watch or not, it matters not to me.

On the plus side, it's now possible to supply all of England's energy demands simply by clipping jumper cables to a certain tombstone in Oxford.

People who agree with "me" are people with good ideas, people who disagree are evil people with ideas. Seems to be the prevailing assumption of a lot of mainstream these days.

I happen to believe that everyone is on the spectrum of evil, so I'm not surprised that some of the show's critics would be evil.

I was just having a conversation with a coworker comparing the two prequels Ring of Power (RoP) and House of Dragons (HoD). They are both about the same amount of episodes in and I just find HoD to have much more developed characters and to have really set the table for some great storylines. On the other hand, the various characters in RoP just seem undeveloped and bland. I can empathize with the various characters in HoD even if I don't like them. I have no feeling for any character in RoP.

For me, this has nothing to do about wokeness or racial diversity in fantasy. I think Steve Toussaint has done an excellent job as Corlys Valaryon. His delivery of the line regarding history remembering names not blood was one of my favorite scenes thus far.

If you don't want to watch Rop, you can still watch these deepfakes of Charlie Hopkinson's Gandalf stitting around in his bathrobe roasting the show:
YouTube link

Hilarious!

On the other hand, the various characters in RoP just seem undeveloped and bland. I can empathize with the various characters in HoD even if I don't like them.

I think a foundational problem is that Amazon decided early on in the production process to use Tolkien as a marketing tool for their own content, rather than try and do something based more deeply in Middle Earth. They decided to copycat scenes and themes from other sources to stitch together a low risk "hit" rather than risk creating an original show with compelling characters and storylines (risk is how we got the Peter Jackson LOTR trilogy and Game of Thrones),

So the storyline is really a series of "fan service" and copycat scenes cobbled together from other movies and shows in order to try and fabricate audience engagement moments from the other movies instead of creating new compelling scenes, characters and so on.

People liked the Ride of the Rohirrim? We'll do our own!

People liked Helm's Deep? Look, we got one!

People liked acrobatic Legolas? Look, we got one!

People liked Hobbits? Look, we got some!

People liked bloody fights? Look, we got some!

Remember that chase scene when Arwen spoke to her horse in Elvish? We got that too!!

I'm more of a High Chaparral guy.

I don't think they understand what the word "evil" means.

They sure do, it means anyone disagreeing with me. Comparisons to Hitler are so passe and elicit WWII discussions. This ends those and provides an aura of goodness to the victim.

I'll never watch it, just not that interested and the reviews seal the deal. But then I'm more of a Conan guy, Arnold version only.

I'm so glad that I don't take notice of the furore in social media about these shows and just watch them – and enjoy them – both

Am I evil if I haven't watched it yet? We are planning on watching it, we just wanted to watch Sandman first. Sandman was awesome.

Maybe I'm better off not watching it, if it's going to make me evil.

And, candidly, while I feel like I can ignore the hubbub about wokeness and I think I could enjoy it even if it's not true to the source material, I haven't heard anyone say they love it.

We'll probably watch it anyway, at least the first couple.

Did they even read the Simarillion?

Tolkienesk here, they ruined it so no desire to see it. Peter Jackson did enough to Drag it down.

The total lack of self-awareness of the show runners is staggering. They are the bad guys.
They come from the "everyone gets a participation award" mentality. This will only be remembered as a disaster or a bad joke.

Just because they "tried really hard" doesn't mean this isn't dog You can tell they think this is so great and clever, when it's the total opposite.

Even if you separate Tolkien from whatever this is, they simply have no idea how to construct a coherent story.
Stuff happens because it needs to. It builds on one stupid thing to another so that every decision and event means nothing. No one cares about the main characters. Adar, is the only character with any depth – and he's the throw-away bad guy.

The list of problems with this show is so long it will take months to go through. When normal people laugh out loud at 'serious' conversations and action scenes (the worst) they have big problems.
From complete lore desecration to the stupidly long pauses between line delivery (it becomes so annoying once you notice it), this is the definition of failure.

The music tries sooo hard to make us feel something, when the characters and events mean nothing. They can't frame shots and the extras are always doing distracting things, so that means the directors are also bad.

House of the Dragon had a fight with child actors that was better established, choreographed, edited, and looked realistic while setting up future conflicts.
Then we get the cosplay attack on the villagers who make every dumb decision and win with zero stakes for main characters.

The money laundering/tax scam theory makes the most sense. They cheaped out on the actors, technical crew and took massive shortcuts with the CGI. House of the Dragon is superior in every way on half the budget.

Meh, didn't keep watching from ep 3,not because it's woke, or I felt they'd screwed up the source material but because I found it unengaging.

Andor however, that's been nothing short of fantastic so far.

I am watching it, but profoundly disappointed so far. The visuals are great, much of the casting is actually quite good, but he bad casting choices stand out mightily (and I'm talking about acting, not skin color- the bad actors are so bad that it diminishes the very good ones). The writing is just plain bad and the fight choreography is atrocious.

Much of the writing feels like checking off event boxes from a plot summary.

"Give me the meat and give it to me raw!" Ugh. That's a real line from the show in a simple conversation. I actually like that actor, but that line. He should have words with the writing staff.

I haven't watched it yet.

I plans to still be evil after I do.

Springtime for Sauron!

The Bad Robot Theory: JJ Abrams used his influence to help two failed writers who "punched up" scripts that never got produced land the job of producing the most expensive TV show ever made. In a Hollywood Reporter behind-the-scenes article, Payne and McKay both say that it was Abrams' help that "moved the needle" to land the job on a con and a prayer, using diversity marketing, the lure of the megabucks-making Peter Jackson movies and the ignorance of their targets about JRRT's works. It's The Producers of streaming content!

So basically Bad Robot helped place two of their poorest writers into Amazon as the Showrunners of a $1 USD Billion flop to harm their top streaming content competitor.

I think the whole "Amazon doesn't have the rights to the Silmarillion" defense for ROP is overused. Amazon couldn't tell stories that are solely located in the Silmarillion, nor could they use characters that solely existed in the Silmarillion, but that doesn't mean Amazon was forbidden to model their Second Age versions of characters and events on what Tolkien's canon overall says about those same characters and events.

What the IP limitation means is they can't tell Beren and Luthien's story, they can't show the oath of Feanor and his sons, etc., nor use characters like Turgon of Gondolin. It doesn't mean that they have no choice but to ignore the Silmarillion and LOTR in writing characters like Elrond and Galadriel, or make crap up about mithril, or completely ignore timelines. To the extent Amazon is doing that they are being disingenuous and attempting to cover for crappy scripts by the showrunners.

"The money laundering/tax scam theory makes the most sense. They cheaped out on the actors, technical crew and took massive shortcuts with the CGI. "

It's well known in the film industry that they spend next to nothing on the scripts. In other words, the audience gets what the producers paid for… ;-)

The money laundering/tax scam theory makes the most sense. They cheaped out on the actors, technical crew and took massive shortcuts with the CGI.

An inexperienced production lead can totally blow up your budget, usually when they order a scene re-shot or a CGI sequence changed AFTER its been finalized. Then they have to re-stage the set, schedule the shoot for the same lighting and time of day, re-assemble the actors and rehearse the scene, etc. And in CGI changes same thing, you're gonna burn a lot of time and resources when the producer says, "Can we change the lighting on this sequence," because they have no idea what it takes to do that.

I'm guessing this has happened a lot, which is why we see some many continuity errors.

I'm guessing this has happened a lot, which is why we see some many continuity errors.

That tracks with the reports they did months of reshoots because the first cut was somehow even worse.
So much repeated exposition because they don't trust the audience to work anything out for themselves. A lot of scenes with flat CGI and light source suddenly changing direction might be the give away.
The belated reference to her hubby Celeborn (but not her child) felt like an afterthought and had 'reshoot' all over it.

LOL! I just noticed the Numenorean cavalry charge in ep6 comes sweeping in from the WEST at DAWN with the sun at their backs….

It is also ironic that in chasing "diversity" Amazon has whitewashed Middle Earth. The whole of the made-up "Southlands" area is set in JRRT's areas of Harad and Rhun, which were populated by Middle Eastern and Asiatic Steppes Tribes peoples. That means the only village in the area should look like, probably, Persian in nature, a combo of Asiatic + Middle Eastern design and aesthetics, and populated by POC. Instead we get a bland generic fantasy hamlet populated by "OI! Dis and OI! Dat" white folks with a smattering of "representation."

SBMinisguy – correct, they made strange choices in their own made-up story.

The cavalry charge scene sums up one of the main issues of style over substance. They couldn't even make up their mind if it was morning or night.

Halbrand/Sauron is the 'Southlands' king (somehow) – of 30 villagers. This epic fantasy establishes that the Southlands consists of 2 villages. One of which is wiped out off-screen by orcs and the other gets wiped out by a volcano.

Bandolier+1

Bandolier +1,000

I also find Amazon's bot comment campaign on social media to be as clumsy as it is annoying. Heavy use of common words include Amazing, Awesome, Epic, Awestruck, Inspiring and Breathtaking.

E.g from an Amazon bot on Facebook: "I mean wow! What an Epic ending I was smiling so hard and had chills. That was amazing thank you for finally giving us the breathtaking opportunity to see such a important and amazing time in middle earth. Again EPIC!"

Yes, I'm sure a normal person writes like that! The bot did miss two of the six common phrase words, but earned back bot points by using two key phrase words twice in the same comment.

Hehe. So true.
Same when the early access media were given their 'talking points' that they dutifully parotted.

It's been interesting watching the early access shill sites and YouTube channels trying to deal with disaster of the final episode.
A few finally admitted they hated it and others were pretending hard it was was 'solid'.
Now the lore has been officially completely broken, it's taken all the interest out for them.

It's been interesting watching the early access shill sites and YouTube channels trying to deal with disaster of the final episode.

True -- and their efforts to support the show become laughable. One of their latest lines of spin is "It's fantasy, it can be anything!"

Well, now that the last episode has aired, after another week or so of back and forths it will all die down for almost two years. Two years? Yep, last I read Amazon has pushed Season 2 out to October 2024…

Two weeks since the final episode of the first season and no one is talking about this show.
Amazon have had weeks to trumpet about the amazing success, but they saying nothing – and it speaks volumes.
Hopefully the rumours of the show runners being sidelined are true. It will be almost impossible to retroactively fix all the problems.

It is easy to fix it, what do you mean? They should quietly shitcan the whole thing and slink off like it never happened. See? All fixed. :D

So now its March 2023, I still havent watched it, (I dont have Amazon Prime) Is there any reason to get a free month of Prime, and watch it. ( Ive heard lots of the criticisms of it which really turn me off. Kind of like the Starwars thing, they ruined my 2nd favorite movies, ( kind of like Jackson did with Lord of the Rings, my favorite movie, when he produced that crap Hobbit movie, out of one of the best books ever).

So now after almost 6 months of reflection, what do people now think?

ROP ok… but not all that wild… prefer HOTD.THAT ain't bad… but not up to early series GOT.

ROP? Locations and cgi very good. Writing…lot of 'pregnant pauses in dialogue… not leading up to much. Slow starter…might get better. Will continue but when DVD will come out? No idea!

HOTD
Am trying to get through Book… but hard going… rather 'twisted'. TV series 'DRAWS' on book for incidents but does not closely follow.. I think, may be just as well! Can be a bit gory in places… and 'setting things up'.

My main prob is the blonde wigs on coloured characters… not needed… not Targaryens!
Would suggest not bothering with book… until they eventually get next series out. There is one TV moment…WOW! Did NOT see that coming! Book would have been 'spoiler'!

I do not stream but was able to get both on DVD… though thnk one was NTSC format, so had to change TV setting temp.

I keep seeing people refer to showrunners. That is a mistake, they are showruiners.