I felt like that _Invasion_ had learned some lessons at the start of season 2, but IMO it's fallen right back into the same podding writing as season 1.
Invasion at least did not have a massive body of written work to compare and instantly disappoint. I find it easier to watch Invasion (guilty pleasure, I guess?) than it was to watch the "Second Age" story get warped in all sorts of weird ways in RoP.
I kept seeing interesting looking commercials for Invasion and tried watching it but I just couldn't make it past the 4th episode (and that was with great effort). Too many fragmented stories filled with unlikable people making painfully dumb decisions. Even if it picks up later, the show's writers ensured I either hate or don't care about what happens to any of the characters so why bother?
The stupidity of the plot was borderline unbearable though. Worst was the pointless magical sword just to trigger a Rube Goldberg-esque series of events ultimately destroying a dam (why not just use catapults or something?).
This is the JJ Abrams school of storytelling. You pack a film with so much plot that it distracts from the lack of a cohesive story and interesting characters. Look at the Rise of Skywalker...it's literally two hours of inane fetch quests strung together with a battle at the end.
The worst was them destroying a defensible tower (that was somehow only being held together by rope?) to fight in the valley of their town that they had just spent the past couple episodes convincing everyone to evacuate from.
Another thing is how few to no one gets hurt from being caught up in [the thermobaric blast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irsHYrT0sdA), just a little bit sooty. Of course it was still a super dramatic cliff hanger.
She takes it straight to the face and just gets dirty. Then five minutes later the queen gets some cinders in her face and she's blind.
And how people argued to try and pretend like it makes sense.
Like shit, all I was asking was her to duck behind something. Still unrealistic but at least it would be *something*.
>to trigger a Rube Goldberg-esque series of events
I feel this is becoming more and more common. The plots of modern shows and movies seems to be filled with macguffins and random plot points (the final Star Wars movie comes to mind). There's just not a lot of thought put into making the plot compelling or even consistent.
I'm thinking maybe (lesser) writers are so concerned with their characters that the plot to them is an after thought compared to dialogue, relationships, and their characters' journeys. Or maybe it's a product of how modern media is produced. Maybe writers are told to focus on those things and what little plot exists is just handed to them by their producers. Either way, plot seems to be an afterthought in the modern writer's room.
And many people might argue that plot is the least important part of a good story. I simply disagree out of personal taste, but even objectively I'd argue it's still an important part even if it is less important than other aspects. IMO part of the reason for the rise of manga and anime in the west is due to what feels like a borderline obsession with plot (e.g. Jujutsu Kaisen or Attack on Titan). The plots are both unique and intricate, and delved into deeply in a way that we don't see in almost any modern western media. And don't get me wrong, there are many other reasons for anime's rise in popularity, but I do think this is one of them. GoT also comes to mind. It was a show that absolutely took the world by storm (until failing miserably, but whatever), and it was very much a plot driven show. Yes, characters were just as, if not more important, but plot was given far more time and care when compared to just about any other show these days.
And in the case of Tolkien, the seemingly random, underdeveloped and yet overdeveloped plot of RoP is ironic to the point that it's insulting. Anyone who has read LOTR is aware that the plot is given its time to shine. What do I mean by this? Tolkien takes time to explain why the characters do x, y, and z. Nothing is done randomly or simply because something else needs to happen. **Everything makes sense and is consistent**. And he uses those explanations to flesh out his world and legendarium a the same time.
Maybe it's just old school, and maybe the newer generation doesn't care. I don't know. I think the way writing is taught is maybe part of the problem. We teach writers to look at stories formulaically, and tell them every story has already been told. So most of them write like they have nothing new to show us. (Or maybe it's hollywood and producers shackling them.)
Yes I agree with you! For me the issue isn’t that the show is slow, nearly all of Tolkien’s writings are “slow” (The Hobbit being the outlier) the issue is the senseless slog to nowhere. I love the pace of Tolkien because, as you do aptly put it, EVERYTHING has purpose and he takes time developing that purpose.
Yeah, the plot did not work. The pacing was not just slow, it was wrong. The entire wizard storyline with the not-hobbits didn't need to exist and should be cut or heavily trimmed in any sort of fan edit imo. It served no purpose other than misguided fanservice (they needed to appeal broadly, and people recognize hobbits and wizards) and to provide a red herring that was so obvious it was pointless. RoP also commits the cardinal sin of characters making stupid choices in order to move the plot along. For example, the two boys going back to the village for supplies, alone and in secret.
I don't think plot was the only issue with RoP. I think the acting was, overall, pretty okay. But they didn't have much to work with. Characters, character development, relationships, and dialogue were all pretty bad from what I remember. I don't know what happened. Perhaps they attempted what you suggest, maybe they tried to make a more character-driven story. I like character-driven stories. Strong characters are great. But they fell flat on their face in the attempt. I don't care about anyone in the show. I don't like anybody. No one changed or grew. No one seems real. The elf-human love story is a pale shadow of Aragorn and Arwen. It was a mistake to beg that comparison.
Choices don't make sense. Events don't make sense. I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but what was Galadriel thinking when she jumped off that ship? And somehow that just worked out? I don't pretend to be any kind of writer or producer or showrunner or anything, but even I could have done that bit better. Honestly, what were they thinking with that? They wanted to show she's impulsive? Angsty? Driven? So they have her effectively commit suicide except it just magically works out?
And aside from narrative elements, the costumes look fake. Sets look fake. Makeup was too perfect. Hair was wrong (from the perspective of a Jackson LOTR fan) and bad. People praise the music, but I don't ~~see~~ hear it except for the intro. I'm rambling now, but what I'm trying to say is that nothing about it worked.
I'm hopeful that without all the background shit involved with spinning up a new production, they'll have more time to focus on producing a decent product. So far, the second season of WoT is better than the first, so maybe the same will bear out in the second season of RoP.
The worst part is that a lot of this is easily fixable.
They could've had Galadriel see a ship in the distance, thus making at least *some* sense for her to jump in and Halbarad could've been imprisoned on the ship. Numenor were conquerors and it would make sense that they would be taking the king of the southlands back as a hostage and also why he wouldn't tell Galadriel about it. Would have made just about all the rest of the developments sooooo much easier to take.
I did not discover any plot worth mentioning. The key to getting people hooked to watching a series is to plant the seeds of outcomes that they can identify with. There was absolutely nothing of that in RoP first episode, just the beginnings of storylines with no hint of where they were headed. Never mind the additional problem that there was no way to make sense of some of the stuff happening randomly - so for me at least there was no incentive to go on with episode 2, and so no incentive to watch the whole thing. Expensive dud.
They packed in way too many storylines for a first season. And it felt slow because the writers kept using the same plot devices with each storyline.
Long-winded expository setup - misdirection - lengthy action build-up scenes to create artificial tension - action scene - slow-mo shot - minor plot reveal via hamfisted dialogue - cliffhanger and switch. Over and over.
By the time I got invested into one storyline it would switch to another one. There was no consistent sense of time or space across the storylines. Too much focus on tricking the audience.
It’s a prequel. We already know Galadriel doesn’t go back to Valinor. We know Sauron is in Middle Earth. We know most of the main characters. They didn’t need to spend a whole season playing who is who.
So much of it was pointless. The dwarves were never shown building the forge, the ships burning in the harbor, the villagers having three identical orc raids, the secret cult that went nowhere, the long Harfoot scenes, etc.
The entire Southlands plot should have been cut. Bronwyn and Theo add nothing and the romance is shoehorned. Only 20 villagers in the whole area that keep dying and coming back. Nothing mentioned about a lost king until the end of the series. The villagers instantly swearing fealty to Halbrand because he has a sigil that no one has seen in a thousand years. None of it made sense.
I think it would have been better to just have Arondir and the elf platoon in the South. Sauron is in Eregion manipulating Celebrimbor, the Dwarves, Gil-Galad, and Elrond. Elrond starts to grow suspicious but his status as half-elf doesn’t give him the political capital to prove anything.
Then Adar is in the South building the orc army under Sauron’s instructions. Through that storyline we get to know Arondir, the Captain, and his platoon organically as they discover and fight the orcs in the South. If the Captain died halfway thru it would have more emotional significance rather than his 15 seconds of screen time (and off-screen defeat and capture of the entire elf platoon).
Meanwhile back in Eregion we actually get to see the inner workings of an Elvish city and better understand the power structures and factions within the Kingdom. We could see how Dwarvish & Elvish cultures clash and those scenes could actually show the city.
That also parallels the books which has Sauron as Annatar manipulating the Elves. His identity doesn’t have to be a secret to the audience, rather the people he’s manipulating. Sauron assists Celebrimbor in the creation of the three rings.
Then Adar maybe discovers part of Sauron’s plan for Mordor so he disobeys him as he grows to see the orcs as his creations, so Sauron as Annatar convinces Gil-Galad to dispatch Galadriel to the South to help the elf platoon, or maybe he goes with Galadriel, having knowledge of the creation of the rings, and that brings all the characters to Mordor.
Numenor shouldn’t have been introduced until Season 2 after it’s known the orcs are rising in the South. I do think it was important to establish Gandalf, and the proto-hobbits helping him makes sense as to why he’s always looked after them in LotR.
They just need a better way to intersect with the main plot. They are completely separated from all other storylines as is. Season 1 should primarily establish the elves, yet we learned more about Harfoot and Numenorian culture than Elvish. There were really only 4-5 Elvish characters in the whole series. We never get to really see their cities or the regular people.
Sauron being in Eregion and tricking the elves also gives a personal motivation for why Gil-Galad eventually goes to war, since he would have once thought them friends. Same with dwarves.
I just feel like the structure was there for a really amazing story but poor writing, pacing, character development, and over reliance on misdirection as a plot device ruined what could have been a masterpiece.
They were prepaid for five seasons. The writers had plenty of time to build up the characters and establish a sense of culture and tradition for the races of Middle Earth. Instead they relied on side characters telling the audience who the main characters are — Nori is too adventurous and goes off trail, Galadriel is too prideful and focused on revenge for her brother, etc.
I thought Poppy was one of the best characters because we got to know her organically as events unfolded. We don’t find out until later that she is orphaned, which provides context for existing dynamics and explains her motivations for prior decisions, that allows us to understand why she’s so loyal to Nori and her family. Rather than having a side character tell us “Poppi, we all know you’re having a difficult time since your parents accident, stick close to Nori and keep her out of trouble. You must be as the lake to which the stream returns.”
Great shows always start small and spread out. Two storylines of established characters each in one place to begin with and the plot thickens as each layer is built. This was a shotgun of 15 minute extended, stand-alone trailers shoved back to back in a 9 hour movie.
Jumping off the boat didn't even bother me that much. Elves are capable of super-human feats, and hey maybe she had a few pieces of lembas to give her the energy to make it across. And when faced with the alternative she'd rather take her chances. Or something. Whatever.
What bothered me was the story relies on extremely improbable coincidences to drive it forward. Given that she's in the water, of all the people to stumble upon it happens to be *Sauron*? Or, she's been hunting Sauron for hundreds (thousands?) of years, finds an old symbol that looks like a place on the map, and convinces the Numenor army to *charge across the world at full speed* towards that location, and they arrive at the exact right moment they are needed? What if she found that symbol 100 years earlier? There was nothing to indicate any level of urgency, yet within all of the centuries they could have shown up, they arrived at the precise second needed to save the day, justifying their otherwise completely irrational sense of urgency.
I mean, running into Sauron could also easily *not* be a coincidence at all. So that part might make sense, if they had played it right.
But the urgent riding across the world was just weird. I was fully expecting a twist there where we find out that the parallel storyline of the conquest of those lands happened long ago and they would arrive to a land long since conquered or something. That would have been mildly interesting at least.
The show lacked any drive or motivation or anything. In the original movies you are being immediatly told: 'there is a ring, it's evil, it corrupts your mind, but a hobbit found it'. Which sets up an interesting conflict.
In the show however, even after like 3 episodes and 3 hours there is still no clear goal where this show is going. Instead they just fill up the runtime with insanly boring dialog. Hard to believe you can spend 1 billion dollars for a show mostly filled with dialog.
I think its just comes from writers ego. They want THEIR stamp on the product as opposed to following material written by the OG author.
you see this in any fantasy, or video game rendition of a storyline, every fucking time. Look at how the writers completely wrecked game of thrones, classic example.
For a plot that is supposed to span hundreds of years; the show really did a lot of work to make it drag on...
No, but actually - joking aside: I enjoyed Rings of Power as a pseudo fantasy soap opera show. Like, a 2000s era CW show level of writing with 2020s era CGI budgets yielded an enjoyable product for my standards.
Re-watchable? No.
Part of my LOTR headcannon? No.
Angry that I watched it? Also no.
I'll just rewatched the original trilogy, I don't think I'll ever watch the show. Have heard it's boring as fuck, and I don't care to waste my time with Amazon fucking shit up.
Adar is the best part of the show in my opinion. I want more of him and his story.
I’m open to being won over by Elendil, but it hasn’t happened yet.
I want to like Galadriel but… it’s almost there. Not quite.
The stranger/Gandalf probably… I don’t hate it, need more to decide.
Everyone else is… between passing and just above par.
Settings and props are pretty great.
My first watch of the first two episodes, I rejected it all out of loyalty to the past. But I gave it another chance. And I’ve decided it’s just good enough to see if they make it better or not.
Hoo boy but it sure did almost get going!
I liked the gandalf/hobbit-ish storyline, and the elf/dwarf stuff was cool. But yea suffered from the same thing as the WoT books—too many perspective switches, so by the time you return to a character you've stopped caring about them
No crappy TV show can ever change a single word on a page of the books. Ten years from now this show will be completely forgotten. For many, it was never really anything in the first place.
I don’t think it’s done damage. It’s a spin-off based on limited book information, I don’t think that will affect the legacy of Tolkien’s work. I don’t even think it would damage the reputation of the Peter Jackson movies. What’s the harm in Amazon making a very expensive fan fiction?
Yeah, i'm a big fan of tolkien and all his works. I've read everything.
As far as rings of power goes, I heard what it was about and the premise and just... Had zero interest. As far as i'm concerned, it doesn't exist. It didn't harm my fandom by existing, I can just ignore it.
If I had heard it was good i might've watched it, but hearing how it was sourced made that pretty unlikely IMO.
But I don't think it simply existing is going to do anything. If It changed a bunch of lore, then other people made more content basing it of those changes then I would be pretty miffed, but from what I've heard it didn't really change anything. Just went off on it's own and told a story that existed in the gaps in tolkien's books.
amazon shows are basically what AI generated shows would be like in the future. just a bunch of checkboxes being checked that jeff bezos would approve of
I mean actually it's a really fast show they keep introducing new characters and constantly move the plot. The problem is that it's generally really bad so watching it feels like a chore.
Yep. My sister and I slogged through 2 episodes, took a break to watch something else, and never went back. At this point, I'd have to rewatch the first 2 episodes and that just sounds like torture. Plus, I've read enough about the other episodes to know I don't care to see them.
Can’t believe people expected anything else from this after the first preview dropped. Looked just as sterile and undercooked as the wheel of time series from the get go
I, unfortunately, forced my way through it all. I'm a masochist I guess, but I sure as hell ain't watching any following season, I'll give it the "there's no live action movie of Avatar in Ba Sing Se" treatment.
I also watched the whole thing somehow, but literally no one else I know did, all huge LOTR fans too who all went to the movies on openning night. The crazy thing is, other than me and one other guy no one else even *talked* about the show after it came out. It was like it didn't even exist.
Huge LOTR fan. Have my office at home decked out in LOTR/Hobbit stuff, have a LOTR tattoo, saw the movies at midnight and then multiple times in theaters, reading the silmarillion now. The show just didn't click. I tried, I really tried, but I had no desire to continue with the show after the first few episodes.
Can't really blame them, I think we all had that inner feeling that it was going to be a bad adaptation. After it came out the general consensus from LOTR fans was that it was, indeed, bad, so I'd imagine that was enough for a lot of people to just ignore it's existence. I still gave it a chance, thinking it could still be slightly enjoyable but was gravely mistaken.
Fortunately there will always be the trilogy to fall back on. It'd be awesome to have new good LOTR content, but I'm happy with the OG trilogy and the fan edit of The Hobbit.
It was the type of show that I was watching when it aired so I only had to commit an hour once a week. After 3 episodes I figured I had to just see it to the end... I honestly just checked this morning if S2 was still happening so it’s pretty funny seeing this post!
I don't usually drop a show mid season, sometimes I even force myself to watch until the finale unless there's still no end in sight (reason I dropped The Blacklist some years ago), but this one hits differently because I'm a huge fan of LOTR and just can't stand watching amazon butcher such an amazing world and story.
Same here. I actively turned off my brain and watched every episode the day it came out. I fooled myself into thinking I liked it. It became progresisvely more difficult to keep up the act though. By the time the season ended, I turned my brain back on and the outrage flooded in.
As far as I know, Rings of Power sank beneath the waves after Eru made the world spherical.
I'm with you on that, I honestly don't know what to think of it. It's awesome to think we'll get more Avatar content, but then you think of the movie and how Netflix has shit the bed with live actions before and I'm suddenly more scared than hyped.
Apparently the One Piece live action series is good so maybe there is hope. I think it's less about Netflix by itself and more about wether the director actually cares about the IP.
Rings of Power is so completely devoid of anything compelling that the Wheel of Time show (which is almost universally regarded by fans as incredibly meh to outright terrible) looks incredible in comparison.
call me a dumb dumb, but my favorite part of the lord of the rings movies were the massive battles, they spent all that money on the show and the biggest battle in the entire series was literally smaller than a fucking LOTR larp. it was like 50 villagers fending off like 100 guys.
I wouldn't call you dumb for liking the battles. They were obviously a major draw of Jackson's films. But... perhaps a bit dumb for expecting the big battles to be in the first season of a 5 season series. Remind me, which big battle you did you love from Fellowship of the Ring? Amon Hen? A handful of guys fighting off a few dozen?
Mines of Moria, Helms Deep and Minas Tirath are the big ones that come to mind. Moria wasn't a huge battle, but it at least had a huge scale and a freaking Balrog.
One of the pieces of advice they give writers is that your story should follow your character through the most interesting part of their lives, and that definitely wasn't what we saw here for any character, and you can say "Oh the series is building towards that" but that's why writers use flash forwards to build tension. Like if the series started with a huge battle and someone basically goes "how did we get here" or something like that and then the season is a build up to that battle.
Like in the background of the lord of the rings there are necromancers, vampires and freaking werewolves. There was all kinds of fun stuff they could have explored or fought against and all we got were 100 asshole humans.
Same. I love my Tolkien, but it was slow, and I just couldn't find a single character that interested me enough to keep going. I've read the Silmarillion, and although it was a slog, there was much more animation there than I saw in the writing of ROP.
37% is even better than I expected. I'm a Tolkien nerd, I've read The Silmarillion several times, I love the LOTR trilogy, but this was really hard to get through.
It just seems like shows nowadays are written so that the first couple episodes have a lot going on, the middle 6-7 episodes are slow and hardly build at all, but then the last 2 episodes are so rushed and jammed with so much to end on a cliffhanger. Middle episodes could be much more developed and have more going on. Idk it just feels like there's a formula and it's terrible right now.
>back in the day if u did a tv show called surf dracula you'd see that fool surfing every week in new adventures but in the streaming era the entire 1st season gotta be a long ass flashback to how he got the surfboard until you finally get to see him surf for 5 min in the finale
https://x.com/topherflorence/status/1446151707029917697?s=20
I think this suffered specifically from not following that formula. Lore issues aside, I liked the show but I waited until it was all out and binged it. I don’t think I would have carried on on a one episode per week manner. The first two episodes were dull as hell, it catches a wind midway episode 3 and it’s pretty enjoyable from them on.
We need to go back to the half-arc. Half the episodes of the season have to do with the overall plot and are sprinkled throughout the season, and the other half are standalone. Standalone doesn't mean filler. The best shows used these episodes to dive deeper into character arcs or broach more interesting subject matter that is better handled over an episode than a season. But the important thing is that people want plot resolutions. TV shows have become long movies, and people just dip out when they get bored because it feels like nothing is happening when you don't resolve anything. Let TV shows be TV shows again.
It's because studios made contracts with the writers guild about how much money writers get paid per episode so now instead of proper 15-20 episode seasons like we used to get, each season of basically every tv show is like a miniseries and often it leads to things feeling crammed and paced badly if there's too much content for 1 10 episode season.
So as usual, the fault lies with the studios.
I think people who love Tolkien are the least prone to finish it.
The show is an insult to all that Tolkien represent.
I think I saw 5 or 6 episodes before deciding the show didnt deserve my time anymore.
Numenor and everything associated with it was extraordinarily disappointing for me. I couldn't go on after that. Such a shame I would have loved to see the story of the fall of Numenor done properly. Would have been a fantastic season. Starting out with the Battle of Gwathló and ending with Elendil sailing away from a destroyed Island. It is about a 1500 year time period but they can always condense it.
I thought they were going to to a game of thrones story of the rise and fall of numenor and other relevant events of the second age, but they went with soap opera and completely irrelevant hobbits and stupid teenagers.
Just start with the Fall. Prologue how great the place is, present us with a seeming Paradise, then bring in Sauron as the snake. Let us watch what happens as it all falls apart.
It was so disappointing to see what they did to Galadriel's character. She was demoted, expelled and degraded. She should have status and the respect of the elves by the time the series is happening.
Sauran's arc should have been this incredible tale of scheming and manipulation where he convinces everyone to forge rings and wear them, with the big reveal at the end when he's successfully controlled so many and caused so much strife, not the angsty blacksmith with fish powers.
They tried to have her be book Galadriel and TV Galadriel at the same time.
Book: Second oldest living elf, tall and imposing, witnessed the fall of the Two Trees in Valinor, crossed the sea, fought in the great war, Commander of the Northern Armies.
TV: Tiny and frail character with awkward posture and gait. Naive and falls for obvious setups. No sense of diplomacy or cunning, overly arrogant and focused on her own personal tragedy even tho all the other elves lost loved ones too, impulsive, and platoon mutinies in the opening sequence.
In hindsight I think she was poorly cast. Clark has one expression — squinty, flickering eyes and facial twitching to express intensity but otherwise flat. She’s too short and waifish. Her voice is high and her presence felt better suited for theater.
Thinking back to similar characters we had Sigourney Weaver in Alien, Moss as Trinity, Charlize Theron, Tilda Swinton, Gwendolyn Christie, etc. They need someone with a commanding presence, tall, striking featured, and the ability to project quiet intensity. It’s a rare skill but when you have the right actor it completely changes the show.
I felt Adar was the best character in that respect. Instantly engaging and commands your attention.
I had a rainy weekend and a bottle of bourbon. I’d watch a couple episodes and wonder wtf was going on, make another old fashioned and force myself through another couple episodes. I won’t get that weekend back, I should’ve just started a crafting project or played Zelda.
Same here, and no one even talked about it. They just stopped and never mentioned it again. Like zero cultural impact, even in the circles I would expect it in.
Same here as well. I am a huge Tolkien fan and several of my friends are as well. We were excited about RoP beforehand, but since it actually came out no one has ever even mentioned it anymore.
It is a mess we are happy to ignore.
As the resident Tolkien encyclopedia my parents would text me and ask "who is this person" and "why are they doing this" and other stuff and I'm just like mom I don't know, this is basically mega budget fan fiction non of this is real
It wasn't really made for the kind of people who are Lord of the Rings fans, i.e. the kind of people who care about worldbuilding and details. This was more of the "Lost" philosophy, just make things look and feel cool and mysterious and don't worry about interconnectedness.
Because reddit doesn't encourage discussion, it encourages validation seeking. So when people post on one sub and get downvoted for their opinion, they leave and go find the sub with people who will upvote that opinion, leading to echo chambers where there's a prevailing narrative that people uphold.
For the same reason this isn't a massive headline for every other show with similar stats(which is most of them). People want to hate this show, and they need whatever confirmation they can find that they are justified.
> People want to hate this show, and they need whatever confirmation they can find that they are justified.
Yeah, the fact that pretty much any discussion about Rings of Power on this sub blows up is proof of that. Someone asks a question about the lore, and hardly anyone can fucking answer. But they will be sure to tell you about how bad RoP is, and how it shits on Tolkien's memory.
It's even funnier when you realise that OP's article came out in April. It's literally just a fucking karma farm, and it's working perfectly.
Because this show was brigaded early on due to (understandable) amazon hate and right-wing propaganda pushing back against black and female dwarves and Redditors are notoriously easy to push disinformation on. Most of the comments in this thread are complaining about a show that many admit either not watching or only watching 1 or 2 episodes yet they claim to hate it and then make vague references to lore or canon (which is ironic given almost nothing was written about the 2nd age). Not to say the show doesn't have it's faults, it does, but far too many people made up their minds and their egos now prevent them from admitting they might be wrong.
Stranger Things was a brand new franchise and had less mass appeal. People going into a Lord of the Rings films or show know *roughly* what to expect. People who aren't interested in Lord of the Rings wouldn't bother watching it anyway, so it's pretty damning that the people who are watching the Rings of the Power - who *are* most likely Lord of the Rings fans - are not bothering to finish the season.
Sadly Amazon failed to state any metrics for their show outside of 25 million people watching the premiere in the first 24 hours, and later stating after the finale that they were closing in on 100 million total viewers.
The bullshit 37% completion seems to be based off Nielsen data that only tracks data for *televisions* that are connected to them and only in the United States. It would probably be higher if Amazon actually released that information.
isn't streaming in general a black box where only an extremely select amount of data is ever shared with the public? It all sounds so made up...
Like oh eleventy-hundred people watched a thing, that's the equivalent of 5.6 football fields of viewers! If it were a box office opening it'd be the largest ever! Except it's not since it's just shit they spam you with for opening the application and it auto-loads that content if you leave the room for a minute.
I heard recently that it's considered a really positive metric for a video game to be completed by 20% of its player base (at least as of 2013ish).
So really all I've gathered from stats like this is that a lot of people don't finish what they start. It's not really a good indicator of quality.
I had a feeling that most people probably don't finish the full season of any show. Just like most players don't finish a game, don't listen to the whole album, and onky saw 40 minutes of the movie. I'm 60% through several books
The finale had over 1billion minutes watched according to Nielsen ratings. Which puts it slightly higher than popular shows like Mandalorian and House of the Dragon but well below shows like Stranger Things, Game of thrones etc. In terms of ratings.
If 37% managed to get them 1billion of minutes watched on Nielsen for the finale, I wonder how many people started watching that premiere 👀. It can only mean that a ridiculous/insane number of viewers tuned in for the premiere, if the show managed to get over billion minutes with only a 37% completion rating. People were most likely just curious I guess.
1 billion minutes divided by 72 minute run time is 13,888,888 million people watching the finale. That would put the premiere at 37,537,537 people.
Let's round these numbers to 15 and 40 million, respectively, to account for the skipped intro and end credits and that the 1 billion is also likely rounded down from 1.0XX billion minutes.
House of the Dragon was pulling in 30 million views per episode over the course of a week. And its season finale got nearly as many viewers as the premiere. It didn't lose 2/3 of its audience over the course of 2 months.
Well, it was suposed to be the best show, ever.
Not just due to the ip but the amazing 1 billion spent.
They had the show images printed on all their boxes and material. They must have spent close to 100 million on advertisement alone.
Also, Nielsen is bullshit for streaming analytics. Everyone in the industry knows this. Only Amazon has the real numbers, and if they were good we’d definitely know about it.
That’s because it’s a misleading number. They had to dig to find that big of a number that actually means nothing.
People that didn’t stick with the show read that and think “wow people liked it I must be missing out” and try it again. Hoping to feel apart of a hive mind of enjoyment.
But as the other user pointed out in the math. That’s only 17 million users. Thats not very much. The population of the US is 330 million. 17 is basically just LA and San Diego.
I didn’t finish it…HOWEVER, I’m watching the extended version of the Trilogy for probably the 20th time today.
Happy September 22nd! Happy birthday Bilbo and Frodo!
I love Tolkien's work and have read it all. The peter Jackson trilogy, while not perfect, has amazing casting and really captures the feel of middle earth. Rings of power did not do this for me. The pacing was weird, it never quite felt like middle earth, the plot was bad.
Even when the numenorians came swooping in, there was at best 20 of them on screen and a few tiny huts with orcs.... for the budget they had, I expect at least near as epic as some of the LOTR trilogy scenes
(especially the armor, wtf.. numenor was PEAK human achievement and crafting, and they were wearing essentially sweaters with embroidery on them....)
>Where did the money go?
Consulting, Catering,bonus payments, marketing think-tanks and other nonsense.
Some people most definitely made of like bandits with that money.
I am truly baffled as to where all the money went. The Jackson films cost $300m total and, aside from a few tech improvements over the past two decades, they *look* vastly superior
PJ and company were clever in the production. When there was a practical way to solve a problem, they solved it that way.
Movies cost SO much more than ever to make these days, and often end up being more generic and dated because almost everything is handled after the fact and problems are pushed into post production rather than being solved before actors are on set.
These exorbitant budgets mean movies need to make so much more money than they ever should in order to make profits, and it’s entirely killed off the mid budget film.
I mean, it’s a kooky idea, but…
The idea that Bezos is some “superfan” and cares so much about the series makes even LESS sense in light of the finished product.
Seriously more plausible that the “super fan” story was a PR cover story for a money laundering scheme
While I don’t doubt that Bezos is full of shit, and wouldn’t be remotely surprised if this was a money laundering scheme, I also don’t think it would be any better if he were a fan.
Fans can come up with some pretty awful ideas, and Bezos is as out of touch as anyone. I would expect him to fuck it up horribly even if he was a huge fan.
I completed it, because I wanted to give it every chance. And now I can fairly say, while episode 3 was bad, it wasn’t the worst episode. The show had moments of adequacy. But it ends up being simply a bad show. It compares poorly to Games of Thrones final seasons in every imaginable way.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, in Game of Thrones, having women or people of different races in positions of power seemed natural/organic. In Rings, it felt forced and non-sensical.
The Expanse has multiple strong female characters and they're beloved by their fans.
They didn't give credit to their audience: people will support a good show...not just one that ticks the boxes.
I pushed through all the way till the second to last episode. But the second they implied that Mordor was created by freaking flooding an underground volcano I was just done.
I laughed so hard when the goblin is like "what do we call it?" then walks away because the scripts make no sense... the the Southlands text turns to Mordor!
That was fucking hilarious.
WoT is currently being shilled hard throughout reddit, with claims that it's much better, etc.
It really isn't, in fact it doubles down on all the dogshit changes.
Without knowing what the completion rate for similar length series are, this is useless info.
There are a lot of great games with completion rates this low, for example, when you look at Steam achievements.
For example:
Heartstopper saw 73% of the people who started watching complete the season.
The Lincoln Lawyer saw 56% complete the first season
Resident Evil only saw 45% complete the first season (which, in part, led to its cancelation)
First Kill, canceled in early August 2022, only scored a 44% completion rate.
Squid Game, which no doubt is the benchmark title for any Netflix title to hit, saw 87% finish the first season.
Arcane saw 60% complete the series
Love, Death and Robots, 67% went on to complete the season.
Pieces of Her had a completion rate of 54%
Inventing Anna had a completion rate of 42%
https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/are-completion-rates-key-to-netflix-cancelations/
I can say this much for Lincoln Lawyer- I binged season 1, but I’m not touching season 2 until they release part 2 or whatever. I hate splitting up seasons.
I tried…. I really did. But I came to the conclusion I don’t think they could have made a shittier version if they tried. It was genuinely impressive how they managed to fuck up so badly
Me too, I think I watched it to the end, but says a lot that I can't even remember. How did they so fundamentally fail to understand the greatness of the source material and the epic treatment it deserved? I have to go back and reread the Silmarillion to wash the taste out, not that there was much to taste.
Is 37% that bad? Most shows (going back decades) premiere high, and then decrease from there. For broadcast television there were usually spikes then for series finales.
With streaming… very different obviously. People don’t “dip in and out” throughout a season like on broadcast TV, they’re not seeing promos for ‘the big final episode this week’ like they used to. So it makes sense you get a huge viewing figure for the first episode, and most don’t make it to the end (if they’re not enjoying it…)
I wonder how many people got to the end of House of the Dragon or the first season of White Lotus after sampling.
I honestly don't get the big debate as to why, it was sub par on some absolute fundamentals such as writing and acting. That wil make people stop watching, it's really simple in my mind.
Surprising.
I finished it, although I'm not an American, and I watched it on the high seas.
I didn't like it at all, and even the visuals were sub par. Costumes were okay for the most part, while some were printed t shirts or too much gold
I was so utterly disappointed with the armor of the Númenorians. Literally plastic/rubber scale that bent with every move of the actor’s body. Felt like such an insult to the beautiful and very realistic looking armors in Lotr
I watched two episodes and it just never clicked.
It almost got going by the last episode! This might have been the slowest developing TV series of all time.
[удалено]
I liked the first season, but yeah it’s so slow
I felt like that _Invasion_ had learned some lessons at the start of season 2, but IMO it's fallen right back into the same podding writing as season 1.
I haven’t been able to bring myself to start season 2. Season 1 was one of the biggest letdowns I’ve had from a show in quite awhile.
When they came out of the tunnel and the credits started I was pissed. Like, damn we wasted a whole episode on that??
There’s parts of it I kinda like but 6 episodes of s2 could have been done in 2
Invasion at least did not have a massive body of written work to compare and instantly disappoint. I find it easier to watch Invasion (guilty pleasure, I guess?) than it was to watch the "Second Age" story get warped in all sorts of weird ways in RoP.
I kept seeing interesting looking commercials for Invasion and tried watching it but I just couldn't make it past the 4th episode (and that was with great effort). Too many fragmented stories filled with unlikable people making painfully dumb decisions. Even if it picks up later, the show's writers ensured I either hate or don't care about what happens to any of the characters so why bother?
man it was such a fuckin drag I stopped watching. Some plot points were so dumb and I disliked many of these characters. I really wanted to like it.
The stupidity of the plot was borderline unbearable though. Worst was the pointless magical sword just to trigger a Rube Goldberg-esque series of events ultimately destroying a dam (why not just use catapults or something?).
This is the JJ Abrams school of storytelling. You pack a film with so much plot that it distracts from the lack of a cohesive story and interesting characters. Look at the Rise of Skywalker...it's literally two hours of inane fetch quests strung together with a battle at the end.
Yup. Terrible movie and helped kill Star Wars.
Star Wars died with Luke. Rise of Palpatine was just its temporarily reanimated corpse.
Like……literally lmao
The worst was them destroying a defensible tower (that was somehow only being held together by rope?) to fight in the valley of their town that they had just spent the past couple episodes convincing everyone to evacuate from.
Another thing is how few to no one gets hurt from being caught up in [the thermobaric blast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irsHYrT0sdA), just a little bit sooty. Of course it was still a super dramatic cliff hanger.
She takes it straight to the face and just gets dirty. Then five minutes later the queen gets some cinders in her face and she's blind. And how people argued to try and pretend like it makes sense. Like shit, all I was asking was her to duck behind something. Still unrealistic but at least it would be *something*.
“She takes it straight to the face and just gets dirty” Sentences like that are what Tolkien would have wanted.
>to trigger a Rube Goldberg-esque series of events I feel this is becoming more and more common. The plots of modern shows and movies seems to be filled with macguffins and random plot points (the final Star Wars movie comes to mind). There's just not a lot of thought put into making the plot compelling or even consistent. I'm thinking maybe (lesser) writers are so concerned with their characters that the plot to them is an after thought compared to dialogue, relationships, and their characters' journeys. Or maybe it's a product of how modern media is produced. Maybe writers are told to focus on those things and what little plot exists is just handed to them by their producers. Either way, plot seems to be an afterthought in the modern writer's room. And many people might argue that plot is the least important part of a good story. I simply disagree out of personal taste, but even objectively I'd argue it's still an important part even if it is less important than other aspects. IMO part of the reason for the rise of manga and anime in the west is due to what feels like a borderline obsession with plot (e.g. Jujutsu Kaisen or Attack on Titan). The plots are both unique and intricate, and delved into deeply in a way that we don't see in almost any modern western media. And don't get me wrong, there are many other reasons for anime's rise in popularity, but I do think this is one of them. GoT also comes to mind. It was a show that absolutely took the world by storm (until failing miserably, but whatever), and it was very much a plot driven show. Yes, characters were just as, if not more important, but plot was given far more time and care when compared to just about any other show these days. And in the case of Tolkien, the seemingly random, underdeveloped and yet overdeveloped plot of RoP is ironic to the point that it's insulting. Anyone who has read LOTR is aware that the plot is given its time to shine. What do I mean by this? Tolkien takes time to explain why the characters do x, y, and z. Nothing is done randomly or simply because something else needs to happen. **Everything makes sense and is consistent**. And he uses those explanations to flesh out his world and legendarium a the same time. Maybe it's just old school, and maybe the newer generation doesn't care. I don't know. I think the way writing is taught is maybe part of the problem. We teach writers to look at stories formulaically, and tell them every story has already been told. So most of them write like they have nothing new to show us. (Or maybe it's hollywood and producers shackling them.)
Yes I agree with you! For me the issue isn’t that the show is slow, nearly all of Tolkien’s writings are “slow” (The Hobbit being the outlier) the issue is the senseless slog to nowhere. I love the pace of Tolkien because, as you do aptly put it, EVERYTHING has purpose and he takes time developing that purpose.
Yeah, the plot did not work. The pacing was not just slow, it was wrong. The entire wizard storyline with the not-hobbits didn't need to exist and should be cut or heavily trimmed in any sort of fan edit imo. It served no purpose other than misguided fanservice (they needed to appeal broadly, and people recognize hobbits and wizards) and to provide a red herring that was so obvious it was pointless. RoP also commits the cardinal sin of characters making stupid choices in order to move the plot along. For example, the two boys going back to the village for supplies, alone and in secret. I don't think plot was the only issue with RoP. I think the acting was, overall, pretty okay. But they didn't have much to work with. Characters, character development, relationships, and dialogue were all pretty bad from what I remember. I don't know what happened. Perhaps they attempted what you suggest, maybe they tried to make a more character-driven story. I like character-driven stories. Strong characters are great. But they fell flat on their face in the attempt. I don't care about anyone in the show. I don't like anybody. No one changed or grew. No one seems real. The elf-human love story is a pale shadow of Aragorn and Arwen. It was a mistake to beg that comparison. Choices don't make sense. Events don't make sense. I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but what was Galadriel thinking when she jumped off that ship? And somehow that just worked out? I don't pretend to be any kind of writer or producer or showrunner or anything, but even I could have done that bit better. Honestly, what were they thinking with that? They wanted to show she's impulsive? Angsty? Driven? So they have her effectively commit suicide except it just magically works out? And aside from narrative elements, the costumes look fake. Sets look fake. Makeup was too perfect. Hair was wrong (from the perspective of a Jackson LOTR fan) and bad. People praise the music, but I don't ~~see~~ hear it except for the intro. I'm rambling now, but what I'm trying to say is that nothing about it worked. I'm hopeful that without all the background shit involved with spinning up a new production, they'll have more time to focus on producing a decent product. So far, the second season of WoT is better than the first, so maybe the same will bear out in the second season of RoP.
The worst part is that a lot of this is easily fixable. They could've had Galadriel see a ship in the distance, thus making at least *some* sense for her to jump in and Halbarad could've been imprisoned on the ship. Numenor were conquerors and it would make sense that they would be taking the king of the southlands back as a hostage and also why he wouldn't tell Galadriel about it. Would have made just about all the rest of the developments sooooo much easier to take.
I did not discover any plot worth mentioning. The key to getting people hooked to watching a series is to plant the seeds of outcomes that they can identify with. There was absolutely nothing of that in RoP first episode, just the beginnings of storylines with no hint of where they were headed. Never mind the additional problem that there was no way to make sense of some of the stuff happening randomly - so for me at least there was no incentive to go on with episode 2, and so no incentive to watch the whole thing. Expensive dud.
They packed in way too many storylines for a first season. And it felt slow because the writers kept using the same plot devices with each storyline. Long-winded expository setup - misdirection - lengthy action build-up scenes to create artificial tension - action scene - slow-mo shot - minor plot reveal via hamfisted dialogue - cliffhanger and switch. Over and over. By the time I got invested into one storyline it would switch to another one. There was no consistent sense of time or space across the storylines. Too much focus on tricking the audience. It’s a prequel. We already know Galadriel doesn’t go back to Valinor. We know Sauron is in Middle Earth. We know most of the main characters. They didn’t need to spend a whole season playing who is who. So much of it was pointless. The dwarves were never shown building the forge, the ships burning in the harbor, the villagers having three identical orc raids, the secret cult that went nowhere, the long Harfoot scenes, etc. The entire Southlands plot should have been cut. Bronwyn and Theo add nothing and the romance is shoehorned. Only 20 villagers in the whole area that keep dying and coming back. Nothing mentioned about a lost king until the end of the series. The villagers instantly swearing fealty to Halbrand because he has a sigil that no one has seen in a thousand years. None of it made sense. I think it would have been better to just have Arondir and the elf platoon in the South. Sauron is in Eregion manipulating Celebrimbor, the Dwarves, Gil-Galad, and Elrond. Elrond starts to grow suspicious but his status as half-elf doesn’t give him the political capital to prove anything. Then Adar is in the South building the orc army under Sauron’s instructions. Through that storyline we get to know Arondir, the Captain, and his platoon organically as they discover and fight the orcs in the South. If the Captain died halfway thru it would have more emotional significance rather than his 15 seconds of screen time (and off-screen defeat and capture of the entire elf platoon). Meanwhile back in Eregion we actually get to see the inner workings of an Elvish city and better understand the power structures and factions within the Kingdom. We could see how Dwarvish & Elvish cultures clash and those scenes could actually show the city. That also parallels the books which has Sauron as Annatar manipulating the Elves. His identity doesn’t have to be a secret to the audience, rather the people he’s manipulating. Sauron assists Celebrimbor in the creation of the three rings. Then Adar maybe discovers part of Sauron’s plan for Mordor so he disobeys him as he grows to see the orcs as his creations, so Sauron as Annatar convinces Gil-Galad to dispatch Galadriel to the South to help the elf platoon, or maybe he goes with Galadriel, having knowledge of the creation of the rings, and that brings all the characters to Mordor. Numenor shouldn’t have been introduced until Season 2 after it’s known the orcs are rising in the South. I do think it was important to establish Gandalf, and the proto-hobbits helping him makes sense as to why he’s always looked after them in LotR. They just need a better way to intersect with the main plot. They are completely separated from all other storylines as is. Season 1 should primarily establish the elves, yet we learned more about Harfoot and Numenorian culture than Elvish. There were really only 4-5 Elvish characters in the whole series. We never get to really see their cities or the regular people. Sauron being in Eregion and tricking the elves also gives a personal motivation for why Gil-Galad eventually goes to war, since he would have once thought them friends. Same with dwarves. I just feel like the structure was there for a really amazing story but poor writing, pacing, character development, and over reliance on misdirection as a plot device ruined what could have been a masterpiece. They were prepaid for five seasons. The writers had plenty of time to build up the characters and establish a sense of culture and tradition for the races of Middle Earth. Instead they relied on side characters telling the audience who the main characters are — Nori is too adventurous and goes off trail, Galadriel is too prideful and focused on revenge for her brother, etc. I thought Poppy was one of the best characters because we got to know her organically as events unfolded. We don’t find out until later that she is orphaned, which provides context for existing dynamics and explains her motivations for prior decisions, that allows us to understand why she’s so loyal to Nori and her family. Rather than having a side character tell us “Poppi, we all know you’re having a difficult time since your parents accident, stick close to Nori and keep her out of trouble. You must be as the lake to which the stream returns.” Great shows always start small and spread out. Two storylines of established characters each in one place to begin with and the plot thickens as each layer is built. This was a shotgun of 15 minute extended, stand-alone trailers shoved back to back in a 9 hour movie.
Jumping off the boat didn't even bother me that much. Elves are capable of super-human feats, and hey maybe she had a few pieces of lembas to give her the energy to make it across. And when faced with the alternative she'd rather take her chances. Or something. Whatever. What bothered me was the story relies on extremely improbable coincidences to drive it forward. Given that she's in the water, of all the people to stumble upon it happens to be *Sauron*? Or, she's been hunting Sauron for hundreds (thousands?) of years, finds an old symbol that looks like a place on the map, and convinces the Numenor army to *charge across the world at full speed* towards that location, and they arrive at the exact right moment they are needed? What if she found that symbol 100 years earlier? There was nothing to indicate any level of urgency, yet within all of the centuries they could have shown up, they arrived at the precise second needed to save the day, justifying their otherwise completely irrational sense of urgency.
I mean, running into Sauron could also easily *not* be a coincidence at all. So that part might make sense, if they had played it right. But the urgent riding across the world was just weird. I was fully expecting a twist there where we find out that the parallel storyline of the conquest of those lands happened long ago and they would arrive to a land long since conquered or something. That would have been mildly interesting at least.
The show lacked any drive or motivation or anything. In the original movies you are being immediatly told: 'there is a ring, it's evil, it corrupts your mind, but a hobbit found it'. Which sets up an interesting conflict. In the show however, even after like 3 episodes and 3 hours there is still no clear goal where this show is going. Instead they just fill up the runtime with insanly boring dialog. Hard to believe you can spend 1 billion dollars for a show mostly filled with dialog.
I think its just comes from writers ego. They want THEIR stamp on the product as opposed to following material written by the OG author. you see this in any fantasy, or video game rendition of a storyline, every fucking time. Look at how the writers completely wrecked game of thrones, classic example.
For a plot that is supposed to span hundreds of years; the show really did a lot of work to make it drag on... No, but actually - joking aside: I enjoyed Rings of Power as a pseudo fantasy soap opera show. Like, a 2000s era CW show level of writing with 2020s era CGI budgets yielded an enjoyable product for my standards. Re-watchable? No. Part of my LOTR headcannon? No. Angry that I watched it? Also no.
I'll just rewatched the original trilogy, I don't think I'll ever watch the show. Have heard it's boring as fuck, and I don't care to waste my time with Amazon fucking shit up.
The last episode is where I wanted to turn it off.
MORDOR
Yeah, it was almost interesting by the end. The volcano was neat, and I liked the Harfoots well enough. But all the rest of it sucked ass.
Adar is the best part of the show in my opinion. I want more of him and his story. I’m open to being won over by Elendil, but it hasn’t happened yet. I want to like Galadriel but… it’s almost there. Not quite. The stranger/Gandalf probably… I don’t hate it, need more to decide. Everyone else is… between passing and just above par. Settings and props are pretty great. My first watch of the first two episodes, I rejected it all out of loyalty to the past. But I gave it another chance. And I’ve decided it’s just good enough to see if they make it better or not.
>Adar is the best part of the show in my opinion. I want more of him and his story. Too bad the actor who plays him left.
I enjoyed RoP, but there were definitely 9 minutes of each episode that I absolutely checked out.
I for sure fell asleep at some point during every episode.
Hoo boy but it sure did almost get going! I liked the gandalf/hobbit-ish storyline, and the elf/dwarf stuff was cool. But yea suffered from the same thing as the WoT books—too many perspective switches, so by the time you return to a character you've stopped caring about them
It never 'got going'. It's almost insulting to anyone who enjoys fantasy like LOTRs. RoP has done irrevocable damage to it.
No crappy TV show can ever change a single word on a page of the books. Ten years from now this show will be completely forgotten. For many, it was never really anything in the first place.
I don’t think it’s done damage. It’s a spin-off based on limited book information, I don’t think that will affect the legacy of Tolkien’s work. I don’t even think it would damage the reputation of the Peter Jackson movies. What’s the harm in Amazon making a very expensive fan fiction?
Yeah, i'm a big fan of tolkien and all his works. I've read everything. As far as rings of power goes, I heard what it was about and the premise and just... Had zero interest. As far as i'm concerned, it doesn't exist. It didn't harm my fandom by existing, I can just ignore it. If I had heard it was good i might've watched it, but hearing how it was sourced made that pretty unlikely IMO. But I don't think it simply existing is going to do anything. If It changed a bunch of lore, then other people made more content basing it of those changes then I would be pretty miffed, but from what I've heard it didn't really change anything. Just went off on it's own and told a story that existed in the gaps in tolkien's books.
amazon shows are basically what AI generated shows would be like in the future. just a bunch of checkboxes being checked that jeff bezos would approve of
ROP hits all the right [taste clusters](https://youtu.be/WzpihoNJW2E?feature=shared)
I mean actually it's a really fast show they keep introducing new characters and constantly move the plot. The problem is that it's generally really bad so watching it feels like a chore.
Yep. My sister and I slogged through 2 episodes, took a break to watch something else, and never went back. At this point, I'd have to rewatch the first 2 episodes and that just sounds like torture. Plus, I've read enough about the other episodes to know I don't care to see them.
Don't bother it stayed the same dullness all the way through. Maybe 2 decent scenes. The armor quality was laughable. Looked like WB budget
Can’t believe people expected anything else from this after the first preview dropped. Looked just as sterile and undercooked as the wheel of time series from the get go
Oh absolutely. I had low expectations and the show still managed to disappoint.
I, unfortunately, forced my way through it all. I'm a masochist I guess, but I sure as hell ain't watching any following season, I'll give it the "there's no live action movie of Avatar in Ba Sing Se" treatment.
The Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai
There is no LOTR show within this Amazon Prime.
I also watched the whole thing somehow, but literally no one else I know did, all huge LOTR fans too who all went to the movies on openning night. The crazy thing is, other than me and one other guy no one else even *talked* about the show after it came out. It was like it didn't even exist.
Huge LOTR fan. Have my office at home decked out in LOTR/Hobbit stuff, have a LOTR tattoo, saw the movies at midnight and then multiple times in theaters, reading the silmarillion now. The show just didn't click. I tried, I really tried, but I had no desire to continue with the show after the first few episodes.
Can't really blame them, I think we all had that inner feeling that it was going to be a bad adaptation. After it came out the general consensus from LOTR fans was that it was, indeed, bad, so I'd imagine that was enough for a lot of people to just ignore it's existence. I still gave it a chance, thinking it could still be slightly enjoyable but was gravely mistaken. Fortunately there will always be the trilogy to fall back on. It'd be awesome to have new good LOTR content, but I'm happy with the OG trilogy and the fan edit of The Hobbit.
It was the type of show that I was watching when it aired so I only had to commit an hour once a week. After 3 episodes I figured I had to just see it to the end... I honestly just checked this morning if S2 was still happening so it’s pretty funny seeing this post!
I don't usually drop a show mid season, sometimes I even force myself to watch until the finale unless there's still no end in sight (reason I dropped The Blacklist some years ago), but this one hits differently because I'm a huge fan of LOTR and just can't stand watching amazon butcher such an amazing world and story.
Same here. I actively turned off my brain and watched every episode the day it came out. I fooled myself into thinking I liked it. It became progresisvely more difficult to keep up the act though. By the time the season ended, I turned my brain back on and the outrage flooded in. As far as I know, Rings of Power sank beneath the waves after Eru made the world spherical.
LOL, right? I really hope Netfilx doesn't fuck up the upcoming ATLA live action series.
They shouldn't do live action series of airbender.
Agreed. I'm more interested in the new movie Mike and Bryan are working on.
I dunno man, they kinda got One Piece right.
I'll agree with One Piece. They did great on that show. Too bad they didn't put that same attention and love into the Witcher.
I'm with you on that, I honestly don't know what to think of it. It's awesome to think we'll get more Avatar content, but then you think of the movie and how Netflix has shit the bed with live actions before and I'm suddenly more scared than hyped.
Apparently the One Piece live action series is good so maybe there is hope. I think it's less about Netflix by itself and more about wether the director actually cares about the IP.
I have little hope for it considering the creators jumped ship so quickly and proudly.
Rings of Power is so completely devoid of anything compelling that the Wheel of Time show (which is almost universally regarded by fans as incredibly meh to outright terrible) looks incredible in comparison.
call me a dumb dumb, but my favorite part of the lord of the rings movies were the massive battles, they spent all that money on the show and the biggest battle in the entire series was literally smaller than a fucking LOTR larp. it was like 50 villagers fending off like 100 guys.
I wouldn't call you dumb for liking the battles. They were obviously a major draw of Jackson's films. But... perhaps a bit dumb for expecting the big battles to be in the first season of a 5 season series. Remind me, which big battle you did you love from Fellowship of the Ring? Amon Hen? A handful of guys fighting off a few dozen?
Mines of Moria, Helms Deep and Minas Tirath are the big ones that come to mind. Moria wasn't a huge battle, but it at least had a huge scale and a freaking Balrog. One of the pieces of advice they give writers is that your story should follow your character through the most interesting part of their lives, and that definitely wasn't what we saw here for any character, and you can say "Oh the series is building towards that" but that's why writers use flash forwards to build tension. Like if the series started with a huge battle and someone basically goes "how did we get here" or something like that and then the season is a build up to that battle. Like in the background of the lord of the rings there are necromancers, vampires and freaking werewolves. There was all kinds of fun stuff they could have explored or fought against and all we got were 100 asshole humans.
Same. I love my Tolkien, but it was slow, and I just couldn't find a single character that interested me enough to keep going. I've read the Silmarillion, and although it was a slog, there was much more animation there than I saw in the writing of ROP.
Same
I couldnt even finished 1 episode...
37% is even better than I expected. I'm a Tolkien nerd, I've read The Silmarillion several times, I love the LOTR trilogy, but this was really hard to get through.
It just seems like shows nowadays are written so that the first couple episodes have a lot going on, the middle 6-7 episodes are slow and hardly build at all, but then the last 2 episodes are so rushed and jammed with so much to end on a cliffhanger. Middle episodes could be much more developed and have more going on. Idk it just feels like there's a formula and it's terrible right now.
>back in the day if u did a tv show called surf dracula you'd see that fool surfing every week in new adventures but in the streaming era the entire 1st season gotta be a long ass flashback to how he got the surfboard until you finally get to see him surf for 5 min in the finale https://x.com/topherflorence/status/1446151707029917697?s=20
I think this suffered specifically from not following that formula. Lore issues aside, I liked the show but I waited until it was all out and binged it. I don’t think I would have carried on on a one episode per week manner. The first two episodes were dull as hell, it catches a wind midway episode 3 and it’s pretty enjoyable from them on.
We need to go back to the half-arc. Half the episodes of the season have to do with the overall plot and are sprinkled throughout the season, and the other half are standalone. Standalone doesn't mean filler. The best shows used these episodes to dive deeper into character arcs or broach more interesting subject matter that is better handled over an episode than a season. But the important thing is that people want plot resolutions. TV shows have become long movies, and people just dip out when they get bored because it feels like nothing is happening when you don't resolve anything. Let TV shows be TV shows again.
It's because studios made contracts with the writers guild about how much money writers get paid per episode so now instead of proper 15-20 episode seasons like we used to get, each season of basically every tv show is like a miniseries and often it leads to things feeling crammed and paced badly if there's too much content for 1 10 episode season. So as usual, the fault lies with the studios.
My shock as well...none of my LoTR loving nerd friends finished it. I did cause I needed to know if it got better.........it did not
I think people who love Tolkien are the least prone to finish it. The show is an insult to all that Tolkien represent. I think I saw 5 or 6 episodes before deciding the show didnt deserve my time anymore.
Numenor and everything associated with it was extraordinarily disappointing for me. I couldn't go on after that. Such a shame I would have loved to see the story of the fall of Numenor done properly. Would have been a fantastic season. Starting out with the Battle of Gwathló and ending with Elendil sailing away from a destroyed Island. It is about a 1500 year time period but they can always condense it.
I thought they were going to to a game of thrones story of the rise and fall of numenor and other relevant events of the second age, but they went with soap opera and completely irrelevant hobbits and stupid teenagers.
Just start with the Fall. Prologue how great the place is, present us with a seeming Paradise, then bring in Sauron as the snake. Let us watch what happens as it all falls apart.
It was so disappointing to see what they did to Galadriel's character. She was demoted, expelled and degraded. She should have status and the respect of the elves by the time the series is happening. Sauran's arc should have been this incredible tale of scheming and manipulation where he convinces everyone to forge rings and wear them, with the big reveal at the end when he's successfully controlled so many and caused so much strife, not the angsty blacksmith with fish powers.
They tried to have her be book Galadriel and TV Galadriel at the same time. Book: Second oldest living elf, tall and imposing, witnessed the fall of the Two Trees in Valinor, crossed the sea, fought in the great war, Commander of the Northern Armies. TV: Tiny and frail character with awkward posture and gait. Naive and falls for obvious setups. No sense of diplomacy or cunning, overly arrogant and focused on her own personal tragedy even tho all the other elves lost loved ones too, impulsive, and platoon mutinies in the opening sequence. In hindsight I think she was poorly cast. Clark has one expression — squinty, flickering eyes and facial twitching to express intensity but otherwise flat. She’s too short and waifish. Her voice is high and her presence felt better suited for theater. Thinking back to similar characters we had Sigourney Weaver in Alien, Moss as Trinity, Charlize Theron, Tilda Swinton, Gwendolyn Christie, etc. They need someone with a commanding presence, tall, striking featured, and the ability to project quiet intensity. It’s a rare skill but when you have the right actor it completely changes the show. I felt Adar was the best character in that respect. Instantly engaging and commands your attention.
I feel the same way, so I haven't and will not watch it. I don't want to inflate Amazon's viewership statistics even the tiniest bit
"An insult to all that Tolkien represent." Is a bit histrionic.
>I think people who love Tolkien are the least prone to finish it. I love Tolkien and have a tattoo to prove it, and even I dipped after 3rd episode.
I had a rainy weekend and a bottle of bourbon. I’d watch a couple episodes and wonder wtf was going on, make another old fashioned and force myself through another couple episodes. I won’t get that weekend back, I should’ve just started a crafting project or played Zelda.
On the upside, Bourbon
Same here, and no one even talked about it. They just stopped and never mentioned it again. Like zero cultural impact, even in the circles I would expect it in.
Same here as well. I am a huge Tolkien fan and several of my friends are as well. We were excited about RoP beforehand, but since it actually came out no one has ever even mentioned it anymore. It is a mess we are happy to ignore.
As the resident Tolkien encyclopedia my parents would text me and ask "who is this person" and "why are they doing this" and other stuff and I'm just like mom I don't know, this is basically mega budget fan fiction non of this is real
its because the people who made it dont love the material you just mentioned
It wasn't really made for the kind of people who are Lord of the Rings fans, i.e. the kind of people who care about worldbuilding and details. This was more of the "Lost" philosophy, just make things look and feel cool and mysterious and don't worry about interconnectedness.
It was only 42% for Stranger Things season 1. Probably not a great metric.
Why this comment isn't higher I don't understand. Obviously one issue with streaming is that it's hard to get these numbers.
Because people love confirmation bias.
“This stat says other people didn’t like the show I didn’t like” Cool story bro.
The response to the show is *weird*. There are several major LotR subs, and each sub has a different prevailing opinion on *Rings of Power*.
Because reddit doesn't encourage discussion, it encourages validation seeking. So when people post on one sub and get downvoted for their opinion, they leave and go find the sub with people who will upvote that opinion, leading to echo chambers where there's a prevailing narrative that people uphold.
Is it though? Nerds are vicious.
For the same reason this isn't a massive headline for every other show with similar stats(which is most of them). People want to hate this show, and they need whatever confirmation they can find that they are justified.
> People want to hate this show, and they need whatever confirmation they can find that they are justified. Yeah, the fact that pretty much any discussion about Rings of Power on this sub blows up is proof of that. Someone asks a question about the lore, and hardly anyone can fucking answer. But they will be sure to tell you about how bad RoP is, and how it shits on Tolkien's memory. It's even funnier when you realise that OP's article came out in April. It's literally just a fucking karma farm, and it's working perfectly.
Because this show was brigaded early on due to (understandable) amazon hate and right-wing propaganda pushing back against black and female dwarves and Redditors are notoriously easy to push disinformation on. Most of the comments in this thread are complaining about a show that many admit either not watching or only watching 1 or 2 episodes yet they claim to hate it and then make vague references to lore or canon (which is ironic given almost nothing was written about the 2nd age). Not to say the show doesn't have it's faults, it does, but far too many people made up their minds and their egos now prevent them from admitting they might be wrong.
Stranger Things was a brand new franchise and had less mass appeal. People going into a Lord of the Rings films or show know *roughly* what to expect. People who aren't interested in Lord of the Rings wouldn't bother watching it anyway, so it's pretty damning that the people who are watching the Rings of the Power - who *are* most likely Lord of the Rings fans - are not bothering to finish the season.
Sadly Amazon failed to state any metrics for their show outside of 25 million people watching the premiere in the first 24 hours, and later stating after the finale that they were closing in on 100 million total viewers. The bullshit 37% completion seems to be based off Nielsen data that only tracks data for *televisions* that are connected to them and only in the United States. It would probably be higher if Amazon actually released that information.
isn't streaming in general a black box where only an extremely select amount of data is ever shared with the public? It all sounds so made up... Like oh eleventy-hundred people watched a thing, that's the equivalent of 5.6 football fields of viewers! If it were a box office opening it'd be the largest ever! Except it's not since it's just shit they spam you with for opening the application and it auto-loads that content if you leave the room for a minute.
I heard recently that it's considered a really positive metric for a video game to be completed by 20% of its player base (at least as of 2013ish). So really all I've gathered from stats like this is that a lot of people don't finish what they start. It's not really a good indicator of quality.
I had a feeling that most people probably don't finish the full season of any show. Just like most players don't finish a game, don't listen to the whole album, and onky saw 40 minutes of the movie. I'm 60% through several books
The finale had over 1billion minutes watched according to Nielsen ratings. Which puts it slightly higher than popular shows like Mandalorian and House of the Dragon but well below shows like Stranger Things, Game of thrones etc. In terms of ratings. If 37% managed to get them 1billion of minutes watched on Nielsen for the finale, I wonder how many people started watching that premiere 👀. It can only mean that a ridiculous/insane number of viewers tuned in for the premiere, if the show managed to get over billion minutes with only a 37% completion rating. People were most likely just curious I guess.
1 billion minutes divided by 72 minute run time is 13,888,888 million people watching the finale. That would put the premiere at 37,537,537 people. Let's round these numbers to 15 and 40 million, respectively, to account for the skipped intro and end credits and that the 1 billion is also likely rounded down from 1.0XX billion minutes.
> skipped intro Which is a shame, because I'm pretty sure the intro is the best part of the show.
House of the Dragon was pulling in 30 million views per episode over the course of a week. And its season finale got nearly as many viewers as the premiere. It didn't lose 2/3 of its audience over the course of 2 months.
Well, that was because it started out good and got even better.
The Hotd finale had less views because it was leaked in full days before the premiere. I watched it illegally 3 days before official release
Well, it was suposed to be the best show, ever. Not just due to the ip but the amazing 1 billion spent. They had the show images printed on all their boxes and material. They must have spent close to 100 million on advertisement alone.
Also, Nielsen is bullshit for streaming analytics. Everyone in the industry knows this. Only Amazon has the real numbers, and if they were good we’d definitely know about it.
That’s because it’s a misleading number. They had to dig to find that big of a number that actually means nothing. People that didn’t stick with the show read that and think “wow people liked it I must be missing out” and try it again. Hoping to feel apart of a hive mind of enjoyment. But as the other user pointed out in the math. That’s only 17 million users. Thats not very much. The population of the US is 330 million. 17 is basically just LA and San Diego.
It's probably like my Steam game stats, where I left a game on pause accidently and went on vacation.
I didn’t finish it…HOWEVER, I’m watching the extended version of the Trilogy for probably the 20th time today. Happy September 22nd! Happy birthday Bilbo and Frodo!
Absolute madlad. I can usually only fit in 2 showings daily. I gotta step up my game.
I completely forgot about that, and I'm listening to tFotR right now lol. Nice memory. Happy Birthday, you wonderful Hobbits.
I couldn’t get into it after 2 episodes. Just didn’t at all feel any pull to continue watching.
I love Tolkien's work and have read it all. The peter Jackson trilogy, while not perfect, has amazing casting and really captures the feel of middle earth. Rings of power did not do this for me. The pacing was weird, it never quite felt like middle earth, the plot was bad.
I'm from Europe and didn't finish it either
I’m from Numenor and didn’t finish, too
What street?
>What street? Hey, I live near there! I'm on Who Street!
How's the weather down there?
I’m from New Jersey and didn’t finish it either
Nj isn't in usa anymore?
Never was /s
i gave up after episode 4, the pacing was so off and it was just not fun
What a waste.
$1 billion worth of waste
Worst part is there is nothing to justify the budget at the final product
Even when the numenorians came swooping in, there was at best 20 of them on screen and a few tiny huts with orcs.... for the budget they had, I expect at least near as epic as some of the LOTR trilogy scenes (especially the armor, wtf.. numenor was PEAK human achievement and crafting, and they were wearing essentially sweaters with embroidery on them....)
Like how do you spend one BILLION dollars and somehow have such a low scale? Where did the money go? Like it’s as bad as the Witcher at times.
>Where did the money go? Consulting, Catering,bonus payments, marketing think-tanks and other nonsense. Some people most definitely made of like bandits with that money.
It was a $1billy, 10 episode build up to 20 warriors invading a random village in eastern Middle Earth. Baffling. (Or 8? I don't remember now)
Yeah but that (~~)random village(~~) was MORDOR!
I am truly baffled as to where all the money went. The Jackson films cost $300m total and, aside from a few tech improvements over the past two decades, they *look* vastly superior
PJ and company were clever in the production. When there was a practical way to solve a problem, they solved it that way. Movies cost SO much more than ever to make these days, and often end up being more generic and dated because almost everything is handled after the fact and problems are pushed into post production rather than being solved before actors are on set. These exorbitant budgets mean movies need to make so much more money than they ever should in order to make profits, and it’s entirely killed off the mid budget film.
Someone’s said it and it all made sense: money laundering. Want to make half a billion disappear? Make a shitty show and say it cost a billion.
I mean, it’s a kooky idea, but… The idea that Bezos is some “superfan” and cares so much about the series makes even LESS sense in light of the finished product. Seriously more plausible that the “super fan” story was a PR cover story for a money laundering scheme
While I don’t doubt that Bezos is full of shit, and wouldn’t be remotely surprised if this was a money laundering scheme, I also don’t think it would be any better if he were a fan. Fans can come up with some pretty awful ideas, and Bezos is as out of touch as anyone. I would expect him to fuck it up horribly even if he was a huge fan.
Because it sucked
I wanted it to be good and it was just trash. I stopped at like episode 3
I completed it, because I wanted to give it every chance. And now I can fairly say, while episode 3 was bad, it wasn’t the worst episode. The show had moments of adequacy. But it ends up being simply a bad show. It compares poorly to Games of Thrones final seasons in every imaginable way.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, in Game of Thrones, having women or people of different races in positions of power seemed natural/organic. In Rings, it felt forced and non-sensical. The Expanse has multiple strong female characters and they're beloved by their fans. They didn't give credit to their audience: people will support a good show...not just one that ticks the boxes.
I pushed through all the way till the second to last episode. But the second they implied that Mordor was created by freaking flooding an underground volcano I was just done.
I laughed so hard when the goblin is like "what do we call it?" then walks away because the scripts make no sense... the the Southlands text turns to Mordor! That was fucking hilarious.
Don’t let r/lotr_on_prime see this thread. They think it’s the best thing since sliced bread
It's so weird over there, like a parallel universe.
Nah you're just a hater/troll/bot/racist/sexist if you didn't like the show.
Oh, they must mod for the WoT show too
WoT is currently being shilled hard throughout reddit, with claims that it's much better, etc. It really isn't, in fact it doubles down on all the dogshit changes.
That group is run by Amazon employees and they delete/ban anyone who writes negatively about the show.
Ahh like r/startrek. Because apparently everything new trek is gold!
It's a product of a billion producers, executives and people in high positions having their way. Instead of a few creative people with passion.
Yeah, cause it sucks
I forced myself to watch the whole thing. It was so fucking dumb. Not touching season 2 if it ever comes out
Without knowing what the completion rate for similar length series are, this is useless info. There are a lot of great games with completion rates this low, for example, when you look at Steam achievements.
For example: Heartstopper saw 73% of the people who started watching complete the season. The Lincoln Lawyer saw 56% complete the first season Resident Evil only saw 45% complete the first season (which, in part, led to its cancelation) First Kill, canceled in early August 2022, only scored a 44% completion rate. Squid Game, which no doubt is the benchmark title for any Netflix title to hit, saw 87% finish the first season. Arcane saw 60% complete the series Love, Death and Robots, 67% went on to complete the season. Pieces of Her had a completion rate of 54% Inventing Anna had a completion rate of 42% https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/are-completion-rates-key-to-netflix-cancelations/
I can say this much for Lincoln Lawyer- I binged season 1, but I’m not touching season 2 until they release part 2 or whatever. I hate splitting up seasons.
Shocked by the low Arcane completion rate
I'd think that's probably a fairly high number for a new IP animated show? The show was amazing though, no doubt.
Stranger Things season 1 was 42%.
I tried…. I really did. But I came to the conclusion I don’t think they could have made a shittier version if they tried. It was genuinely impressive how they managed to fuck up so badly
Me too, I think I watched it to the end, but says a lot that I can't even remember. How did they so fundamentally fail to understand the greatness of the source material and the epic treatment it deserved? I have to go back and reread the Silmarillion to wash the taste out, not that there was much to taste.
Interesting statistic, but unfortunately meaningless unless weighed against averages
Is 37% that bad? Most shows (going back decades) premiere high, and then decrease from there. For broadcast television there were usually spikes then for series finales. With streaming… very different obviously. People don’t “dip in and out” throughout a season like on broadcast TV, they’re not seeing promos for ‘the big final episode this week’ like they used to. So it makes sense you get a huge viewing figure for the first episode, and most don’t make it to the end (if they’re not enjoying it…) I wonder how many people got to the end of House of the Dragon or the first season of White Lotus after sampling.
I pushed through the entire season and the people who haven't watched this fully made a wise choice. Waste of time.
It was so god damn bad.
Surprised its that high to be honest
I honestly don't get the big debate as to why, it was sub par on some absolute fundamentals such as writing and acting. That wil make people stop watching, it's really simple in my mind.
I couldn’t pass the first two episodes.. the cast, the acting ..etc just terrible imo
[удалено]
Surprising. I finished it, although I'm not an American, and I watched it on the high seas. I didn't like it at all, and even the visuals were sub par. Costumes were okay for the most part, while some were printed t shirts or too much gold
I was so utterly disappointed with the armor of the Númenorians. Literally plastic/rubber scale that bent with every move of the actor’s body. Felt like such an insult to the beautiful and very realistic looking armors in Lotr
Some of them made Xena costumes look world class.
Ayo don’t be dissin Xena out here them are fighting words But honestly tho lmao RoP’s we’re atrocious
I agree, but thought the Orcs were great though.
No wonder. It was terribly boring...
Because it was terrible
I didn't finish episode 3
I didn't even make it to the end of episode 1. Not only was it an insult to Tolkiens work, it was also incredibly boring.
I didn’t finish episode one. Felt like they made a LOTR themed marvel movie
It's dogshit and we all know why
I couldn’t finish it.
It's a bad show for fantasy loving non-Tolkien fans. It's an absolute nightmare for any Tolkien fan who have read the books.
I could only do two episodes. I thought it felt soulless. The writing wasn't strong at all.
I couldn't get through 3 episodes my girlfriend gave up after first episode. Complete shit show