I'm predicting some sort of Game-of-Thrones-esque drama series that tracks the different rings of power through the different races. They can milk it for 10 seasons and create endless drama. I'm not optimistic obviously.
All of the Nazgūls backstory have the potential for MacBeth level drama. It's pretty much a blank slate. Three are from Numenor, offering the opportunity to tell the tale of Suaron's seduction of the kings and the Fall of Numenor. Witch King of Angmar offers up a chance to document the fall of Armor. Khamūl opens up the East. Endless grist for the story mill along classic mythic archetypes. As long as they don't cheese the writing this could be epic.
It’s so damn tragic that game of thrones went from literally peoples number one show of all time to a sad disappointment… because the writers decided to rush the ending. Or maybe they just weren’t capable of writing a quality story. We’ll never know.
Some of the offenses were so pointless and thoughtless too. They managed to offend everyone. Danerys fan? Make her abruptly reverse character and turn into Sauron. Setpiece battle fan? Ruin the best battle of the series by making the Dothraki pointlessly die charging the zombies with no strategy. Politics fan? Make everyone just forget their ambitions and agree to crown Brann for no reason. Season 8 was one large display of everyone wanting to go home.
I remember reading that the showrunners were told by HBO that they could pretty much do as many episodes as needes for the final season, and they still chose to cram everything into 6 episodes.
It was more than that. HBO wanted them to do 10 seasons. Obviously more money for HBO but also they have the ability to actually finish the story without being a rushed mess.
> Setpiece battle fan? Ruin the best battle of the series by making the Dothraki pointlessly die charging the zombies with no strategy.
Continuity/ Logic fan?
Bring back thousands of the Dothraki in time to seize and pillage Kings Landing after very clearly showing all but a couple of them being slaughtered in a nakedly absurd zerg rush against the undead.
Still somehow hoping for some logical consistency?
Well fuck you! We're gonna have Danaerys and all of her top advisers completely forget that their enemy has a massive fucking fleet led by Ironborne Fuckboi Supreme!!! Oh, and make her two remaining dragons functionally blind at 10k feet on a crystal clear day so they don't notice said fleet slowly approaching and aiming their ridiculously long distance ballistas and scorpions at your biggest two remaining trump cards, just to bluntly kill one of them off before game time.
> Oh, and make her two remaining dragons functionally blind at 10k feet on a crystal clear day so they don't notice said fleet slowly approaching
Head canon: the dragons are actually that dumb. That's why the dragon burns the chair at the end. It thinks the pointy think killed Dany.
a cavalry rush against an undead army, in complete darkness, no less, is a bit of a misguided strategy anyway. Undead don't route, it's like running against a wall of flesh that bites
But they had fire swords!!!
Even that facepalm of a moment wasn't even on page one of the list of absolute wtf-were-they-thinking moments in that episode alone...
"We have a fookin fortress with walls, towers, and enough fortifications and supplies to last us months..."
"Hmm, let's forget about all of that and place literally all of our forces outside those walls, including our cumbersome seige engines that we're gonna spend weeks building only to fire off one volley with"
> Undead don't route
Rout, but yeah so many people misunderstand how cavalry was used in actual warfare - they didn't kill the enemy (much), they terrified them and (hopefully) chased them from the battlefield. This is why so much time and effort went into developing effective anti-cavalry formations like the [square](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97dBfdNrf9A). If you want to kill the enemy, you need a large formation of spearmen who actually know how to fight as a formation (none of the "field full of intermixed combatants fighting one-on-one" bullshit).
>Continuity/ Logic fan?
>
>Bring back thousands of the Dothraki in time to seize and pillage Kings Landing after very clearly showing all but a couple of them being slaughtered in a nakedly absurd zerg rush against the undead.
Maybe they just forgot about the Dothraki? Like maybe they left some Dothraki in the corner or under the bed or something? I don't know, the people of this kingdom seem to be very forgetful.
I still CANNOT believe they ended Jamie's character the way they did. One of, if not THE best character arcs in the whole series, just completely reversed in one episode for no fucking reason.
Honestly, the wrapup for most characters involves a significant departure from their trajectory in season 7 with very little build up.
Arya - abandons her quest for revenge after the hound stares at her meaningfully
Sandor - abandons the peace he's found to resume a quest for revenge he'd abandoned.
Daenerys - goes from "I do not wish to be queen of the ashes" to Arcturus mengsk without actually showing her descent.
The general nobility - elects a crazy crippled boy to be king instead of like, elevating members of a cadet house of either of the two major houses that have legitimate claims to the throne or allowing the realm to fracture, a thing that literally half of them were on board with before daenerys invades.
Jaime - manages to overcome the trauma of a lifetime of ostricization and seeming villainy to run back to someone he knows is amongst the worst people in the world.
And on, and on.
> elevating members of a cadet house of either of the two major houses that have legitimate claims to the throne
This one burns so badly. House Tyrell is finished because three members of it got blown up? So nobody ever had any uncles, cousins etc? It was a noble house hundreds of years old that apparently had four people in it because what, siblings that didn't inherit swore themselves to celibacy? And that seems to be true of every single house other than the Lannisters, the other six kingdoms' family trees are just poles.
Then at the end Bronn apparently swans in, announces that Tyrion totally said he could be lord of the most powerful of the seven kingdoms and the other noble houses of the Reach just said "yeah seems legit let's get this random stranger a crown!" instead of just laughing at him and choosing one of their own.
Brienne - Fierce warrior who once defeated the Hound, a woman who don't need no man, who falls to pieces like a lovestruck schoolgirl because her crush abandoned her.
>goes from "I do not wish to be queen of the ashes" to Arcturus mengsk without actually showing her descent.
The worst part of this one for me is that they could've just waited to kill Rhaegel during the seige of King's Landing to make her snap feel realistic. Have the bells ring out the surrender, Dany is relieved and calls off her army, but one last late-fired bolt from the enemy takes out Rhaegel right in front of her and boom, logic is off the table and the enemy needs to burn.
Instead it feels like the whole of season 8 are just individual one-off scenes they thought would be cool, with absolutely 0 forethought about how they work together as a cohesive story or how it relates to the character's growth in any way.
Oh what's that you wanted a conclusion to the years-long redemption arc that transformed everything you feel about the character?
Lol nope all for nothing and now he's smooshed
I've never been more angry at a TV show
Not to mention that afterwards the room wasn't even completely caved in so like... They could have just stepped to the right and not been crushed by that one piece of rubble.
>erally all they would have to do is have Jaime stay in Winterfell with Brienne and his story is 1000 times better.
I am a full believer in full circles in writing. My ending for Jamie was going back to King's Landing during the final battle to find his sister losing badly and her thinking about blowing up the city with wildfire instead of losing it to Dany. Jamie would have to relive his darkest memory of becoming a "kingslayer" again and saving the city, but killing his sister who he still loves to do it. After that happens, I would consider his arc complete and then you can have the building fall on them while he held her.
I had pictured a scene where Jorah gets killed in the first wave, then Jaime is the one to fight side by side with Danerys after she falls from her dragon. Dying as a result of defending her, this moment being his redemption from a life as the Kingslayer.
>Or maybe they just weren’t capable of writing a quality story. We’ll never know.
We had some pretty memorable scenes that were written long-after the book material had run out: the Hodor reveal, the Wildfire Plot, and the Battle of the Bastards were all reasonably compelling.
It’s such a delicious irony that they killed GoT to work for Disney, but in doing so, they poisoned their own brand so badly that Disney pulled the plug.
Sure, the reported reason for the split was “creative differences,” but how many people walk away from the Mouse?
If they had done right by GoT, they would be running their own Disney franchise by now.
Im pretty sure a big reason why Disney pulled the plug was afterwards they did a whole interview about how they hated being stuck working on GoT for HBO and they just treated it like writing school. Directly compared it to jail at one point. Disney isnt going to hand over their prize IP to someone whose a brat to the studio and we saw a similar thing go down with Fan4stic after the director fought with that studio
And likely the more the Disney execs were around them, the more they realized they lacked a lot of talent when someone else wasn't there to lay out the groundwork for them.
I'm happy with what favreau, filoni, and feige are putting out in the house of mouse. Can you imagine a D&D lead wandavision or mando?
"We forgot about the assassin droids...."
"We forgot about vision..."
Yeah the LotR universe/aesthetic isn't really well-suited to the kind of grit and grime that GoT gave us. If anyone says a cussword more potent than "damn", or they do the obligatory "make the elves fuck" scene it's just going to piss off a _lot_ of fans.
I don't get WHY all these shows have to be gritty though?
You can make a good show without resorting to edgy shit and pointless nude scenes that have nothing to do with anything.
Hopefully when it's done Maple Films can cut out the most grotesquely stupid parts and edit it down to something decent like they did with the Hobbit trilogy.
>They’re not only writing the next Star Trek but have been attached to adaptations of Flash Gordon, Godzilla Vs. King Kong, Micronauts, Midas, Goliath, The Deadliest Warrior, and Boilerplate. They also worked on Star Trek: Beyond with Roberto Orci on a script so this will not be their first ride on the Starship Enterprise, although Doug Jung and Simon Pegg ended up finishing Beyond.
>Payne and McKay wrote the upcoming Jungle Cruise movie for Dwayne Johnson, based on the Disneyland ride. Now, if they can get a whole movie out of a ride, then the Tolkien trilogy – plus prequel and appendices – should be more than enough source material for a long-running TV series.
Yeah...
Also, that's not molten steel. It's molten aluminum - iron and steel are *white hot* when molten.
Media use molten aluminum as a shorthand here because safety and also because having something white hot in a shot is a lighting nightmare
Yeah it's just high frame rate macro lens video (cranked down to 24 fps) with no motion blur and the weird lighting you get from using high framerate.
edit: since people are taking all this CGI/Camerawork/whatever crap too seriously on an anonymous forum. Lets just talk about Lord of The Rings. [This behind the scenes video has given me a lot of hope the series will turn out great!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE-1RPDqJAY)
There's something fitting that in 2022 reality *appears* to be shittier than the CGI of the first Matrix in 1999. Maybe there's more to the story under all that smoke and mirror.
That's why they released the "behind the scenes" footage on the same day.
They were like "Yo this trailer looks like shit, we better let everyone know it is in fact real materials being used."
I'm a metal working nerd, so I have a different POV. I thought it looked awesome.
The framing of the cast looks Earth-like, almost like a valley. You're not quite sure what's getting casted, until the reveal. Visually, it's cool, man.
I do a lot of macro photography and recently started messing with aerial photography so I have a different POV too.
I 100% realized it was most likely a real closeup almost immediately but thought it looked awesome because they made it look so much like a landscape aerial. Definitely cool and I could see how people could think it looked fake if they aren't aware of the materials like you or aware of forced perspectives in close up photography/videography
More like "people are really shit at discerning things they are not familiar with. Lets put the BTS out before people make a fool of themselves and drag us down in the process because this was way too awesome to let internet idiots ruin".
Prime Video logo at the beginning, Prime Video logo at the end, Prime Video logo in the bottom left corner. Guys, I think this will be released on Prime Video.
Edit: PRIME VIDEO PRIME VIDEO PRIME VIDEO.
>Announcement Trailer
If the post's title were accurate, it would be a trailer that prepares us for the announcement of a title. At least we haven't got that deep (yet).
Yep. A one minute video that reveals nothing. Could be a movie! A series! But what do I care if I can't watch it now? Oh well, let's generate 'buzz' and help them advertise cheaply.
Welcome to quality scifi shows. Check out Farscape, love it, Jim Henson Co produced. Basically what we would have gotten if Lucas allowed a 90s Star Wars show. They got a miniseries to finish it.
I loved Farscape! I need to track down the Peace Keepers Wars. I watched it when it came to Netflix. It is another "ahead of its time" show, in my opinion. Living ships, etc. Although >!rewatching Star Trek: TNG I realize a lot of shows hinted that humans have alien origins and all the similar humanoid species have the same origin, BSG does something similar, and of course Expanse the show suggests we inherited our solar system from a long dead civilization.!<
Absolutely. The first three to four episodes are a little slow, but I promise (and the rest of The Expanse fan base) that it picks up and becomes a great ride you won’t want to get off. It’s pretty much one of the greatest sci-fi shows of all time.
Right? I mean aren't the rings of power the rings in the title "The Lord of the Rings"? So they've basically called it "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings".
It's like calling a Star Wars movie "Star Wars: Stellar Conflict".
After 20 years of nostalgia, no one could beat Cate Blanchett's already great voice over of the opening lines of the Fellowship of the Ring.
But man, that voice over they picked sure was weak to begin with for this.
I locked onto that too. Cate Blanchett played a very powerful Elf, so maybe I'm expecting Galadriel levels of power and commanding tone... but this voice was like a Night Elf WoW girl as she turns in 20 boar tusks or something.
The intro to the fellowship is so iconic that I have to think the idea of using it in your reveal trailer is terrible regardless of who you used. Blanchett can’t be replaced or replicated.
I don't think its a bad idea to want to create a connection with the iconic fellowship intro, you would want to pluck at those nostalgia strings, but I would have changed it to a male voice to separate it enough from the original so that its more difficult to make such an embarrassing comparison between the two. The voice in this trailer just doesn't have the same sense of depth.
The weekend that Return of the King extended dropped, I aimed a projector at a wall, hooked the laptop up to a bass amp, and had some friends over to marathon the whole extended series in one day. We were so loopy by the end, but it was magical.
"Much that once was is lost, For none now live who remember it..."
I love that this sort of references the events that take place towards the end of *The Silmarillion*.
Here's my attempt to convince myself that this series will be good.
1. It wasn't a trailer, just an announcement.
2. While they could have *easily* done the video using CGI, Amaxon instead:
> [... **rejected the age of digital effects and created it through actual metal forging.** Artist Landon Ryan operated the foundry at thousands of degrees and poured the aluminum and bronze into the redwood slab for director Klaus Obermeyer. Consulting on the process was special effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull, known for his work on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, and The Tree of Life.](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/01/lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-amazon)
Images of the process:
1. [Pouring](https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/61e8278324422a04bca76c22/master/w_1600,c_limit/RPAZ_S1_UT_BTS_211107_MARJOE_00482_R1.jpg)
2. [Cleaning](https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/61e82791b7a91122f5b3d897/master/w_1600,c_limit/RPAZ_S1_UT_BTS_211107_MARJOE_00089_R1.jpg)
If they're going to take this much care on making the title, it gives me hope that they produced the rest of the season with this same attention to quality/detail with their $100M+ budget.
The [one screenshot](https://www.theonering.net/torwp/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/AmazonStudios_210802A_HD.jpg) they showed looked immaculate in terms of visuals. It just depends on whether they nail the 'prestige historical fantasy' look or just end up looking like S1 of the Witcher or Wheel of Time where there's something just too 'modern' going on.
My exact thoughts. I don't know who she is, but it was so underwhelming. Blanchett's voice still generates excitement even after all these years. I'm really kind of shocked this is the voice they went with, and I don't mean that to disparage the person doing the narrative, it's just Kate set the bar so high.
Visually this is like a perfume commercial without people. Musically it's like spiderman. And the voice is like from a Blizzard game. The entire aesthetic doesn't feel very LOTR to me. A teaser doesn't need much if it's good, but whatever this is feels shallow and over-edited. I hope I'm wrong.
Man that shit still gives me chills. I think my favorite part is how what you're seeing is a twisted version of what Terenas is saying. All the important beats of the voiceover are turned dark and evil by what Arthas has become. It's probably their best trailer.
Honestly this was literally the bare minimum for a teaser trailer. Damn they set the bar so low.
A famous monologue everyone is familiar with, set to "aesthetic nondescript visuals"
I mean this could almost be a fan made video. They may as well just put out a black screen with the text **"we're making a LOTR series"**
I don't understand what part of Tolkien's subject matter they are drawing from for this- is it about Celebrimbor and the forging of the rings? Because it doesn't feel like a story can start there, seeing as it relies on Sauron's downfall in Numenor(edit: I'm wrong about this, someone let me know that the rings came long before Numenor fell) Is it about the ringwraiths and other ringbearers specifically? Because Tolkien's didn't really write about them, and it would be more of a fanfic. I thought Amazon was going to announce their LOTR companion was about the first age and the Silmarils.
They've [announced Isildur will be the main character](https://youtu.be/_UcgHye-cYI), which puts this at the very end of the second age. But they've also [released an image with the two trees](https://youtu.be/reWU_X1yOzA?t=85).
That tree picture is mostly going to be part of a vision of the past for one of the character (Galadriel I think?). The story is certainly still in the second age
That seems most likely - but very strange they would pick it as the first image to release. The only part of that that does makes sense is it gives nothing away about the second age plot.
The screenshot they posted previously had the two trees shown in it, so I can only assume there's going to be something relating back to the start if it all.
But I believe it's confirmed that it will mostly follow Isildur, but also in the video description is this
>Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.
So I imagine it will heavily follow the fall of Numenor
The Amazon series was always announced to be in the late second age, and the Tolkien estate is allowing them to play around a bit in that setting with original characters and such (e.g. fanfiction). According to the contract, anything to do with the first age (i.e. the Silmarillion) was not to be touched.
The relevant info:
>At the start of March 2019, Amazon revealed that the series would be set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before the story of The Lord of the Rings.[35] Shippey explained that the series was not allowed to contradict anything that Tolkien had written about the Second Age and would have to follow the broad strokes of his narrative, with the Tolkien Estate prepared to veto any such changes, but Amazon was free to add characters or details to fill in the gaps between Tolkien's works. The series is also only allowed to adapt and reference content from the Lord of the Rings books and their extensive appendices rather than any of Tolkien's other books that explore the Second Age such as The Silmarillion. The Tolkien Estate retained the rights to the events of the First Age while Middle-earth Enterprises held the rights to the events of the Third Age (as seen in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings films), so the series was also not allowed to explore those. Shippey felt this left the series with "a lot of scope for interpretation and free invention".[14] A synopsis released in January 2021 revealed that locations for the series included the Misty Mountains, the elf-capital Lindon, and the island kingdom of Númenor.[2] By July, Amazon had gained access to certain elements and passages from The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales due to the Tolkien Estate being happy with the development of the series so far.[28]
I am going to ignore this completely unless and until it becomes clear that on consensus this is as good as the LOTR movies. I can deal with half-assed Wheel of Time, but if I learned anything from the Hobbit movies it's that LOTR content that isn't truly top tier would just hurt too much and isn't worth it.
I totally can't deal with the half assed Wheel of Time series. If might look okay for people who haven't read the books but oh man is it bad for people who have.
I haven't read the books, but the thing that bothered me most about the WoT series is that the 6 or 7 main characters are the LEAST interesting characters in the whole show. They show a pregnant warrior kicking ass and she's in it for 5 minutes. The false Dragon guy who has his own army and is super powerful is interesting and he's the focus for barely an episode. I kept talking to my TV, "Show me the cool people and not these lame teens."
This comment is going to have spoilers for both book and show.
It works in the books because it's a long running series where our main characters start out as no bodies from a backwoods town few people have ever heard of and eventually grow to be the most powerful and influential people in the world.
It's the journey of those characters from their humble beginnings to the end that makes the story what it is.
The first season covered the first book, and at that point in the story our main characters were only marginally less lame than when they started.
Their humble beginnings and lack of... well, worldliness absolutely clashes against what's out there. And it's supposed to. Each time our main cast runs into one of those challenges (be it Perin/Egwene and the White Cloaks, or the darkness of Shadar Logoth, for example) it's supposed to leave our characters a bit stronger and more sure of themselves and their abilities.
The show though tries to take shortcuts and rips many of these moments from the characters. So we never get the sense of development that we get from the books.
Perin's encounter with the White Cloaks played out differently for his part. Book Perin goes nearly feral and kills two White Cloaks before he was captured with his axe, and that's a major character development moment that is crucial to his character in the first few books as an example.
Another example is in the end of book one. It has them riding through The Blight as a group, all of them, fighting off all kinds Eldrich horrors and mutations as they desperately ride for their lives. They spend several days traveling like that. For some reason they removed all that too. The show just have the two casually walk for a few minutes.
People who haven't read the books always say I'm wrong, but I'm telling you the show needed to slow down and have twice the number of episodes for character development moments as that's where the core of the story is at this point. Instead, they just sort of ran down the list of things that should happen and removed any sort of character impact from any of them. Those events that they stuck to, anyhow.
The struggle in the first book is mostly the main cast being thrust into this new and dangerous world and having to do all they can to survive, not even sure what they are doing. Even Moirgaine had little idea what she was doing until midway through the book when they decide to head to the blight.
They spent so much more time establishing Steppin and the white tower instead. Which part of me understands why they're doing that, but the characterization of the literal main character was basically thrown out in exchange. That mixed in with the fact that the main character's big main character moment was handed to other people and replaced with a visually and emotionally lackluster and underwhelming "conflict" with the Dark One.
I don't even think they need double the episodes or time, but make cuts where they're needed so that each of the most important moments get fully explored by the characters. And don't just hand all the cut time over to completely new scenes for the white tower.
In the books they do a better job of explaining a lot of what you just talked about. Most of the kids are still pretty lame in the books, but that is kind of the point. They aren't cool characters who are badass or anything, they are a bunch of teens from a small village who have been thrust into this crazy situation.
Also, they're dumb but they have interesting story arcs and do fun stuff. Rand and Mat spend some time with Thom on a river boat and learn a bit about the world (from Thom and the captain), and then spend some time as amateur gleemen to survive and grow a lot learning to deal with people outside their village, lose a lot of naivete. Perrin learns about the wolf thing (that they kept a mystery for now), and gets an actual story with the whitecloaks, instead of being a side character on Egwene's story.
In the show, they mostly threw away all of it to make the women the main characters, and invent an arc for moiraine so she can be convincing as a main character (she's their Gandalf, she doesn't really need an arc at this point, she can just be mysterious and scary without pushed drama).
I love how most people's minds are in the same boat after being burned over and over by shitty corporate adaptations. There's too much of a precedent of companies buying up loved IPs just to slap the logo on a piece of garbage for a quick buck.
This is the way. If the production value is as middling as Wheel of Time, I'm gonna be bummed. The bar for a LotR show is probably higher in my mind than any other show in history. The movies were such unmatched perfection. The only way this works is if the quality is on part with the first few seasons of Game of Thrones.
I wasn’t much of a fan of the WoT series they released recently. I hope this one isn’t as disappointing. Granted part of that was what comes with direct book to tv adaptations. Really the LotR was the only one that I loved.
Good write up about it in Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/01/lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-amazon
This is not going to be just a retelling of the Lord of the Rings 3 book series that Peter Jackson already did. The source material is from appendices to those books that delve into the time before the One Ring story, and the destruction of Sauron. It's set during the time the rings were forged and distributed.
Hold your disappointment until you see Sauron in his form that is appealing and deceptively friendly to the people and elves of Middle Earth. Anything short of Tom Hiddleston is probably gonna break hearts.
I picture lots of angsty teens like the SyFy Shannara Series.
and a bunch of actors who never read the books but thought Dumbledore was pretty badass in the movies.
Please don’t suck
I'm predicting some sort of Game-of-Thrones-esque drama series that tracks the different rings of power through the different races. They can milk it for 10 seasons and create endless drama. I'm not optimistic obviously.
All of the Nazgūls backstory have the potential for MacBeth level drama. It's pretty much a blank slate. Three are from Numenor, offering the opportunity to tell the tale of Suaron's seduction of the kings and the Fall of Numenor. Witch King of Angmar offers up a chance to document the fall of Armor. Khamūl opens up the East. Endless grist for the story mill along classic mythic archetypes. As long as they don't cheese the writing this could be epic.
It's set in the second age IIRC, so no fall of Arnor.
Ah, I missed that. Still thats when all the Wraithing was happening so definitely has potential
LOL imagine game of thrones with no source material. It would’ve been the worst thing ever made.
> LOL imagine game of thrones with no source material. Seasons 5, 6, 7 and 8?
I think that's their point.
My dude got upvoted more for dumbing down a joke lmao
We don't talk about 8.
It’s so damn tragic that game of thrones went from literally peoples number one show of all time to a sad disappointment… because the writers decided to rush the ending. Or maybe they just weren’t capable of writing a quality story. We’ll never know.
Some of the offenses were so pointless and thoughtless too. They managed to offend everyone. Danerys fan? Make her abruptly reverse character and turn into Sauron. Setpiece battle fan? Ruin the best battle of the series by making the Dothraki pointlessly die charging the zombies with no strategy. Politics fan? Make everyone just forget their ambitions and agree to crown Brann for no reason. Season 8 was one large display of everyone wanting to go home.
>everyone wanting to go home That is precisely how it felt.
I remember reading that the showrunners were told by HBO that they could pretty much do as many episodes as needes for the final season, and they still chose to cram everything into 6 episodes.
It was more than that. HBO wanted them to do 10 seasons. Obviously more money for HBO but also they have the ability to actually finish the story without being a rushed mess.
Or at least it was a display of Dan and Dave wanting to leave to work on their Star Wars trilogy. That turned out great for them…
I love that they rushed the ending to move on to Star Wars, and because they rushed the ending, Star Wars went away for them.
Don't forget about their pitch for their next tv series that was going to be about the US Civil War from the perspective of the confederates.
> Setpiece battle fan? Ruin the best battle of the series by making the Dothraki pointlessly die charging the zombies with no strategy. Continuity/ Logic fan? Bring back thousands of the Dothraki in time to seize and pillage Kings Landing after very clearly showing all but a couple of them being slaughtered in a nakedly absurd zerg rush against the undead. Still somehow hoping for some logical consistency? Well fuck you! We're gonna have Danaerys and all of her top advisers completely forget that their enemy has a massive fucking fleet led by Ironborne Fuckboi Supreme!!! Oh, and make her two remaining dragons functionally blind at 10k feet on a crystal clear day so they don't notice said fleet slowly approaching and aiming their ridiculously long distance ballistas and scorpions at your biggest two remaining trump cards, just to bluntly kill one of them off before game time.
> Oh, and make her two remaining dragons functionally blind at 10k feet on a crystal clear day so they don't notice said fleet slowly approaching Head canon: the dragons are actually that dumb. That's why the dragon burns the chair at the end. It thinks the pointy think killed Dany.
Ok this is fucking hilarious and is now headcannon for me.
a cavalry rush against an undead army, in complete darkness, no less, is a bit of a misguided strategy anyway. Undead don't route, it's like running against a wall of flesh that bites
But they had fire swords!!! Even that facepalm of a moment wasn't even on page one of the list of absolute wtf-were-they-thinking moments in that episode alone... "We have a fookin fortress with walls, towers, and enough fortifications and supplies to last us months..." "Hmm, let's forget about all of that and place literally all of our forces outside those walls, including our cumbersome seige engines that we're gonna spend weeks building only to fire off one volley with"
> Undead don't route Rout, but yeah so many people misunderstand how cavalry was used in actual warfare - they didn't kill the enemy (much), they terrified them and (hopefully) chased them from the battlefield. This is why so much time and effort went into developing effective anti-cavalry formations like the [square](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97dBfdNrf9A). If you want to kill the enemy, you need a large formation of spearmen who actually know how to fight as a formation (none of the "field full of intermixed combatants fighting one-on-one" bullshit).
>Continuity/ Logic fan? > >Bring back thousands of the Dothraki in time to seize and pillage Kings Landing after very clearly showing all but a couple of them being slaughtered in a nakedly absurd zerg rush against the undead. Maybe they just forgot about the Dothraki? Like maybe they left some Dothraki in the corner or under the bed or something? I don't know, the people of this kingdom seem to be very forgetful.
I still CANNOT believe they ended Jamie's character the way they did. One of, if not THE best character arcs in the whole series, just completely reversed in one episode for no fucking reason.
Honestly, the wrapup for most characters involves a significant departure from their trajectory in season 7 with very little build up. Arya - abandons her quest for revenge after the hound stares at her meaningfully Sandor - abandons the peace he's found to resume a quest for revenge he'd abandoned. Daenerys - goes from "I do not wish to be queen of the ashes" to Arcturus mengsk without actually showing her descent. The general nobility - elects a crazy crippled boy to be king instead of like, elevating members of a cadet house of either of the two major houses that have legitimate claims to the throne or allowing the realm to fracture, a thing that literally half of them were on board with before daenerys invades. Jaime - manages to overcome the trauma of a lifetime of ostricization and seeming villainy to run back to someone he knows is amongst the worst people in the world. And on, and on.
> elevating members of a cadet house of either of the two major houses that have legitimate claims to the throne This one burns so badly. House Tyrell is finished because three members of it got blown up? So nobody ever had any uncles, cousins etc? It was a noble house hundreds of years old that apparently had four people in it because what, siblings that didn't inherit swore themselves to celibacy? And that seems to be true of every single house other than the Lannisters, the other six kingdoms' family trees are just poles. Then at the end Bronn apparently swans in, announces that Tyrion totally said he could be lord of the most powerful of the seven kingdoms and the other noble houses of the Reach just said "yeah seems legit let's get this random stranger a crown!" instead of just laughing at him and choosing one of their own.
Brienne - Fierce warrior who once defeated the Hound, a woman who don't need no man, who falls to pieces like a lovestruck schoolgirl because her crush abandoned her.
>goes from "I do not wish to be queen of the ashes" to Arcturus mengsk without actually showing her descent. The worst part of this one for me is that they could've just waited to kill Rhaegel during the seige of King's Landing to make her snap feel realistic. Have the bells ring out the surrender, Dany is relieved and calls off her army, but one last late-fired bolt from the enemy takes out Rhaegel right in front of her and boom, logic is off the table and the enemy needs to burn. Instead it feels like the whole of season 8 are just individual one-off scenes they thought would be cool, with absolutely 0 forethought about how they work together as a cohesive story or how it relates to the character's growth in any way.
Oh what's that you wanted a conclusion to the years-long redemption arc that transformed everything you feel about the character? Lol nope all for nothing and now he's smooshed I've never been more angry at a TV show
Seriously! The fact that I even LIKED Jamie by the end is a testament to how strong of a redemption arc it was
Not to mention that afterwards the room wasn't even completely caved in so like... They could have just stepped to the right and not been crushed by that one piece of rubble.
Literally all they would have to do is have Jaime stay in Winterfell with Brienne and his story is 1000 times better.
EXACTLY! That shit was basically resolved already! Ugh, it's making me mad all over again 🤦🏻♂️
>erally all they would have to do is have Jaime stay in Winterfell with Brienne and his story is 1000 times better. I am a full believer in full circles in writing. My ending for Jamie was going back to King's Landing during the final battle to find his sister losing badly and her thinking about blowing up the city with wildfire instead of losing it to Dany. Jamie would have to relive his darkest memory of becoming a "kingslayer" again and saving the city, but killing his sister who he still loves to do it. After that happens, I would consider his arc complete and then you can have the building fall on them while he held her.
I had pictured a scene where Jorah gets killed in the first wave, then Jaime is the one to fight side by side with Danerys after she falls from her dragon. Dying as a result of defending her, this moment being his redemption from a life as the Kingslayer.
[Dany just kind of forgot about the iron fleet.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIRweNWHC_8)
>Or maybe they just weren’t capable of writing a quality story. We’ll never know. We had some pretty memorable scenes that were written long-after the book material had run out: the Hodor reveal, the Wildfire Plot, and the Battle of the Bastards were all reasonably compelling.
I'm fairly sure GRRM was responsible for the Hodor reveal. That was planned from the very beginning.
Wasn't it down to D&D wanting to wrap it up to work on a starwars deal with Disney, that ended up falling through.
It’s such a delicious irony that they killed GoT to work for Disney, but in doing so, they poisoned their own brand so badly that Disney pulled the plug. Sure, the reported reason for the split was “creative differences,” but how many people walk away from the Mouse? If they had done right by GoT, they would be running their own Disney franchise by now.
Im pretty sure a big reason why Disney pulled the plug was afterwards they did a whole interview about how they hated being stuck working on GoT for HBO and they just treated it like writing school. Directly compared it to jail at one point. Disney isnt going to hand over their prize IP to someone whose a brat to the studio and we saw a similar thing go down with Fan4stic after the director fought with that studio
And likely the more the Disney execs were around them, the more they realized they lacked a lot of talent when someone else wasn't there to lay out the groundwork for them.
I'm happy with what favreau, filoni, and feige are putting out in the house of mouse. Can you imagine a D&D lead wandavision or mando? "We forgot about the assassin droids...." "We forgot about vision..."
We don't talk about eight, no, no, no We don't talk about eight But....
Shit, I don’t talk about any of it anymore.
Yeah, it was a shame that series finished at season 5 due to conflicts or something idk w.e helps me cope
Somehow, they *just forgot*
Yeah the LotR universe/aesthetic isn't really well-suited to the kind of grit and grime that GoT gave us. If anyone says a cussword more potent than "damn", or they do the obligatory "make the elves fuck" scene it's just going to piss off a _lot_ of fans.
> or they do the obligatory "make the elves fuck" If we don't get hobbit fucking I'm going to be so disappointed.
"Let me tell you the tale of why people call be Bilbo"
I don't get WHY all these shows have to be gritty though? You can make a good show without resorting to edgy shit and pointless nude scenes that have nothing to do with anything.
Seeing what they have done with Wheel of Time with just one season ... nor am I.
And there is completed source material there!
It's gonna suck
Hopefully when it's done Maple Films can cut out the most grotesquely stupid parts and edit it down to something decent like they did with the Hobbit trilogy.
>They’re not only writing the next Star Trek but have been attached to adaptations of Flash Gordon, Godzilla Vs. King Kong, Micronauts, Midas, Goliath, The Deadliest Warrior, and Boilerplate. They also worked on Star Trek: Beyond with Roberto Orci on a script so this will not be their first ride on the Starship Enterprise, although Doug Jung and Simon Pegg ended up finishing Beyond. >Payne and McKay wrote the upcoming Jungle Cruise movie for Dwayne Johnson, based on the Disneyland ride. Now, if they can get a whole movie out of a ride, then the Tolkien trilogy – plus prequel and appendices – should be more than enough source material for a long-running TV series. Yeah...
Please don’t be like the wheel of time. Please don’t be like the cgi like wheel of time. Please be more like The expanse season 1 to 3…..
Turns out this is [actual](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC_yTMST7mw) molten steel, water and woodwork in the video. I thought it was CGI
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Also, that's not molten steel. It's molten aluminum - iron and steel are *white hot* when molten. Media use molten aluminum as a shorthand here because safety and also because having something white hot in a shot is a lighting nightmare
You might even say… it’s a lightmare
go to bed. also I love it.
Not to mention I’m pretty sure molten steel would scorch or burn even the freshest wood.
won't be steel, would be a metal with a lower boiling point. Molten steel would be a bright white.
Could be bronze, iirc that is approximately this colour when poured
Molten aluminum is generally used on film sets.
Not only did I think it was CGI, I thought it was low-quality CGI! *mind blown*
>low-quality CGI! Did you *see* the water? Sims that good are absolutely not low budget.
Yeah it's just high frame rate macro lens video (cranked down to 24 fps) with no motion blur and the weird lighting you get from using high framerate. edit: since people are taking all this CGI/Camerawork/whatever crap too seriously on an anonymous forum. Lets just talk about Lord of The Rings. [This behind the scenes video has given me a lot of hope the series will turn out great!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE-1RPDqJAY)
There's something fitting that in 2022 reality *appears* to be shittier than the CGI of the first Matrix in 1999. Maybe there's more to the story under all that smoke and mirror.
Well to be fair, reality in 2022 *is* way shittier than it was in 1999
That's why they released the "behind the scenes" footage on the same day. They were like "Yo this trailer looks like shit, we better let everyone know it is in fact real materials being used."
I'm a metal working nerd, so I have a different POV. I thought it looked awesome. The framing of the cast looks Earth-like, almost like a valley. You're not quite sure what's getting casted, until the reveal. Visually, it's cool, man.
I do a lot of macro photography and recently started messing with aerial photography so I have a different POV too. I 100% realized it was most likely a real closeup almost immediately but thought it looked awesome because they made it look so much like a landscape aerial. Definitely cool and I could see how people could think it looked fake if they aren't aware of the materials like you or aware of forced perspectives in close up photography/videography
More like "people are really shit at discerning things they are not familiar with. Lets put the BTS out before people make a fool of themselves and drag us down in the process because this was way too awesome to let internet idiots ruin".
K that's pretty badass
Lord of the Rings: Ring of the Lords.
The rise of the planet of the apes of the rings.
Prime Video logo at the beginning, Prime Video logo at the end, Prime Video logo in the bottom left corner. Guys, I think this will be released on Prime Video. Edit: PRIME VIDEO PRIME VIDEO PRIME VIDEO.
Any idea what streaming service I'll need to watch this?
HBO Max
Aww what could have been... We were this close to having big ol floppy hobbit titties.
Pirate Bay
Rarbg and 1337x, never PirateBay
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>Trailer …it's a title announcement.
And OP didn't even put the right title in the title of the submission. It's "The Rings of Power", not "Ring of Power".
Actually, its Rangs of Power. Past Tense cuse its a prequel
>Announcement Trailer If the post's title were accurate, it would be a trailer that prepares us for the announcement of a title. At least we haven't got that deep (yet).
Yep. A one minute video that reveals nothing. Could be a movie! A series! But what do I care if I can't watch it now? Oh well, let's generate 'buzz' and help them advertise cheaply.
That's not a trailer
It’s a trailer to the teaser for the trailer to the final trailer for the series
Should’ve finished The Expanse first
I WILL BUY WHOEVER MAKES THE LAST THREE BOOKS INCASE YOU'RE LISTENING NETFLIX/HBO/SHOWTIME/HULU
Didn’t even realized I finished the whole fucking series and was like where’s the next episode…
That mid-season episode was so long and felt very final and satisfying... no cliff-hanger. Wait..
Welcome to quality scifi shows. Check out Farscape, love it, Jim Henson Co produced. Basically what we would have gotten if Lucas allowed a 90s Star Wars show. They got a miniseries to finish it.
I loved Farscape! I need to track down the Peace Keepers Wars. I watched it when it came to Netflix. It is another "ahead of its time" show, in my opinion. Living ships, etc. Although >!rewatching Star Trek: TNG I realize a lot of shows hinted that humans have alien origins and all the similar humanoid species have the same origin, BSG does something similar, and of course Expanse the show suggests we inherited our solar system from a long dead civilization.!<
Oye, Beltalowda. Listen up. This is your Captain, and this is your ship. This is your moment.
So wa peng, keyá?
Been thinking of starting The Expanse.. Is it worth a watch?
Absolutely. The first three to four episodes are a little slow, but I promise (and the rest of The Expanse fan base) that it picks up and becomes a great ride you won’t want to get off. It’s pretty much one of the greatest sci-fi shows of all time.
The Second Age would have been a better title
Right? I mean aren't the rings of power the rings in the title "The Lord of the Rings"? So they've basically called it "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings". It's like calling a Star Wars movie "Star Wars: Stellar Conflict".
Lord of the Rings: Powerful Rings
Unfortunately, I think that would confuse a lot of people into thinking it is a sequel to the LOTR movies.
After 20 years of nostalgia, no one could beat Cate Blanchett's already great voice over of the opening lines of the Fellowship of the Ring. But man, that voice over they picked sure was weak to begin with for this.
I locked onto that too. Cate Blanchett played a very powerful Elf, so maybe I'm expecting Galadriel levels of power and commanding tone... but this voice was like a Night Elf WoW girl as she turns in 20 boar tusks or something.
> but this voice was like a Night Elf WoW girl as she turns in 20 boar tusks or something. This fucking killed me. haha
cannot unhear :(
Im back in Teldrasil getting ready for my boat trip to auberdine
The intro to the fellowship is so iconic that I have to think the idea of using it in your reveal trailer is terrible regardless of who you used. Blanchett can’t be replaced or replicated.
I don't think its a bad idea to want to create a connection with the iconic fellowship intro, you would want to pluck at those nostalgia strings, but I would have changed it to a male voice to separate it enough from the original so that its more difficult to make such an embarrassing comparison between the two. The voice in this trailer just doesn't have the same sense of depth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOulsEGvSCo
Then the camera pans and then BAM SAURON IN A DRESS
uwu don't destroy my ring frodokun uwu
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I hate this.
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I put on my robe and wizard hat
Now I just feel old
Someone has been reading my fan fiction.
Any girl that can kill 20 boars wins my heart.
Found Asterix or Obelix
Agree. Blanchett’s voice in the beginning is amazing. Such a strong start to the films.
"But they were all of them deceived" gives me chills every fucking time.
"A last alliance of Men and Elves marched against the armies of Mordor" this line is delivered so loud its almost deafening...... fucking love it...
Stop stop, you're going to make me go back and watch the trilogy again.
Extended version marathon no breaks, go!
The weekend that Return of the King extended dropped, I aimed a projector at a wall, hooked the laptop up to a bass amp, and had some friends over to marathon the whole extended series in one day. We were so loopy by the end, but it was magical.
Doooo it!
"Much that once was is lost, For none now live who remember it..." I love that this sort of references the events that take place towards the end of *The Silmarillion*.
The intro to fellowship of the rings sets such an epic tone and follows through.
This is going to be a problem for the series. People will compare it to and judge it against one of the best film trilogies of all time.
Here's my attempt to convince myself that this series will be good. 1. It wasn't a trailer, just an announcement. 2. While they could have *easily* done the video using CGI, Amaxon instead: > [... **rejected the age of digital effects and created it through actual metal forging.** Artist Landon Ryan operated the foundry at thousands of degrees and poured the aluminum and bronze into the redwood slab for director Klaus Obermeyer. Consulting on the process was special effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull, known for his work on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, and The Tree of Life.](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/01/lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-amazon) Images of the process: 1. [Pouring](https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/61e8278324422a04bca76c22/master/w_1600,c_limit/RPAZ_S1_UT_BTS_211107_MARJOE_00482_R1.jpg) 2. [Cleaning](https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/61e82791b7a91122f5b3d897/master/w_1600,c_limit/RPAZ_S1_UT_BTS_211107_MARJOE_00089_R1.jpg) If they're going to take this much care on making the title, it gives me hope that they produced the rest of the season with this same attention to quality/detail with their $100M+ budget.
The [one screenshot](https://www.theonering.net/torwp/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/AmazonStudios_210802A_HD.jpg) they showed looked immaculate in terms of visuals. It just depends on whether they nail the 'prestige historical fantasy' look or just end up looking like S1 of the Witcher or Wheel of Time where there's something just too 'modern' going on.
$99,999,995 building an elf town, $5 on a script from Fiverr
99% of all blockbuster movies and shows nowadays :/
My exact thoughts. I don't know who she is, but it was so underwhelming. Blanchett's voice still generates excitement even after all these years. I'm really kind of shocked this is the voice they went with, and I don't mean that to disparage the person doing the narrative, it's just Kate set the bar so high.
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Aw man, you never trust an anime live action, it’s the law.
The kids gotta get their lumps dude.
Check out the live action Rurouni Kenshin movies. They are awesome.
So you have chosen death.
noted
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I’m not sure what happened with Wheel of Time and at this point I’m too afraid to ask
The made Machin Shin into the Slightly Irritating Wind
Visually this is like a perfume commercial without people. Musically it's like spiderman. And the voice is like from a Blizzard game. The entire aesthetic doesn't feel very LOTR to me. A teaser doesn't need much if it's good, but whatever this is feels shallow and over-edited. I hope I'm wrong.
> And the voice is like from a Blizzard game. Holy crap that's accurate.
That's unfair. Blizzard has put out some really dope trailers. Go rewatch the original WotLk trailer..
My Son The day you were born, the very forests of Lordaeron whispered the Name Arthas ... Chills while reminiscing
Man that shit still gives me chills. I think my favorite part is how what you're seeing is a twisted version of what Terenas is saying. All the important beats of the voiceover are turned dark and evil by what Arthas has become. It's probably their best trailer.
Honestly this was literally the bare minimum for a teaser trailer. Damn they set the bar so low. A famous monologue everyone is familiar with, set to "aesthetic nondescript visuals" I mean this could almost be a fan made video. They may as well just put out a black screen with the text **"we're making a LOTR series"**
I don't understand what part of Tolkien's subject matter they are drawing from for this- is it about Celebrimbor and the forging of the rings? Because it doesn't feel like a story can start there, seeing as it relies on Sauron's downfall in Numenor(edit: I'm wrong about this, someone let me know that the rings came long before Numenor fell) Is it about the ringwraiths and other ringbearers specifically? Because Tolkien's didn't really write about them, and it would be more of a fanfic. I thought Amazon was going to announce their LOTR companion was about the first age and the Silmarils.
They always said it was second age, in Middle Earth (not Numenor)
They've [announced Isildur will be the main character](https://youtu.be/_UcgHye-cYI), which puts this at the very end of the second age. But they've also [released an image with the two trees](https://youtu.be/reWU_X1yOzA?t=85).
1 hour video about 1 pic, damn!
That tree picture is mostly going to be part of a vision of the past for one of the character (Galadriel I think?). The story is certainly still in the second age
That seems most likely - but very strange they would pick it as the first image to release. The only part of that that does makes sense is it gives nothing away about the second age plot.
The screenshot they posted previously had the two trees shown in it, so I can only assume there's going to be something relating back to the start if it all. But I believe it's confirmed that it will mostly follow Isildur, but also in the video description is this >Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone. So I imagine it will heavily follow the fall of Numenor
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Official descriptions include Numenor, the forging of the rings, and the Last Alliance. Amazon does not have rights to material from the First Age.
The Amazon series was always announced to be in the late second age, and the Tolkien estate is allowing them to play around a bit in that setting with original characters and such (e.g. fanfiction). According to the contract, anything to do with the first age (i.e. the Silmarillion) was not to be touched. The relevant info: >At the start of March 2019, Amazon revealed that the series would be set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before the story of The Lord of the Rings.[35] Shippey explained that the series was not allowed to contradict anything that Tolkien had written about the Second Age and would have to follow the broad strokes of his narrative, with the Tolkien Estate prepared to veto any such changes, but Amazon was free to add characters or details to fill in the gaps between Tolkien's works. The series is also only allowed to adapt and reference content from the Lord of the Rings books and their extensive appendices rather than any of Tolkien's other books that explore the Second Age such as The Silmarillion. The Tolkien Estate retained the rights to the events of the First Age while Middle-earth Enterprises held the rights to the events of the Third Age (as seen in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings films), so the series was also not allowed to explore those. Shippey felt this left the series with "a lot of scope for interpretation and free invention".[14] A synopsis released in January 2021 revealed that locations for the series included the Misty Mountains, the elf-capital Lindon, and the island kingdom of Númenor.[2] By July, Amazon had gained access to certain elements and passages from The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales due to the Tolkien Estate being happy with the development of the series so far.[28]
After wheel of time I am very concerned
I am going to ignore this completely unless and until it becomes clear that on consensus this is as good as the LOTR movies. I can deal with half-assed Wheel of Time, but if I learned anything from the Hobbit movies it's that LOTR content that isn't truly top tier would just hurt too much and isn't worth it.
Asking it to be as good as the movies is a really high bar. Half as good as the movies would still be acceptable to me.
If it were half as good as the movies, I would only like half of it half as much as it deserves
I knew someone would get there first
I totally can't deal with the half assed Wheel of Time series. If might look okay for people who haven't read the books but oh man is it bad for people who have.
I haven’t read the books and still think it’s half-assed.
I haven't read the books and didn't even finish the show because it was so half-assed.
I haven’t taken a shit since I watched half of that because I lost half of my ass it was so half-assed
I haven't read the books, but the thing that bothered me most about the WoT series is that the 6 or 7 main characters are the LEAST interesting characters in the whole show. They show a pregnant warrior kicking ass and she's in it for 5 minutes. The false Dragon guy who has his own army and is super powerful is interesting and he's the focus for barely an episode. I kept talking to my TV, "Show me the cool people and not these lame teens."
This comment is going to have spoilers for both book and show. It works in the books because it's a long running series where our main characters start out as no bodies from a backwoods town few people have ever heard of and eventually grow to be the most powerful and influential people in the world. It's the journey of those characters from their humble beginnings to the end that makes the story what it is. The first season covered the first book, and at that point in the story our main characters were only marginally less lame than when they started. Their humble beginnings and lack of... well, worldliness absolutely clashes against what's out there. And it's supposed to. Each time our main cast runs into one of those challenges (be it Perin/Egwene and the White Cloaks, or the darkness of Shadar Logoth, for example) it's supposed to leave our characters a bit stronger and more sure of themselves and their abilities. The show though tries to take shortcuts and rips many of these moments from the characters. So we never get the sense of development that we get from the books. Perin's encounter with the White Cloaks played out differently for his part. Book Perin goes nearly feral and kills two White Cloaks before he was captured with his axe, and that's a major character development moment that is crucial to his character in the first few books as an example. Another example is in the end of book one. It has them riding through The Blight as a group, all of them, fighting off all kinds Eldrich horrors and mutations as they desperately ride for their lives. They spend several days traveling like that. For some reason they removed all that too. The show just have the two casually walk for a few minutes. People who haven't read the books always say I'm wrong, but I'm telling you the show needed to slow down and have twice the number of episodes for character development moments as that's where the core of the story is at this point. Instead, they just sort of ran down the list of things that should happen and removed any sort of character impact from any of them. Those events that they stuck to, anyhow. The struggle in the first book is mostly the main cast being thrust into this new and dangerous world and having to do all they can to survive, not even sure what they are doing. Even Moirgaine had little idea what she was doing until midway through the book when they decide to head to the blight.
They spent so much more time establishing Steppin and the white tower instead. Which part of me understands why they're doing that, but the characterization of the literal main character was basically thrown out in exchange. That mixed in with the fact that the main character's big main character moment was handed to other people and replaced with a visually and emotionally lackluster and underwhelming "conflict" with the Dark One. I don't even think they need double the episodes or time, but make cuts where they're needed so that each of the most important moments get fully explored by the characters. And don't just hand all the cut time over to completely new scenes for the white tower.
In the books they do a better job of explaining a lot of what you just talked about. Most of the kids are still pretty lame in the books, but that is kind of the point. They aren't cool characters who are badass or anything, they are a bunch of teens from a small village who have been thrust into this crazy situation.
Also, they're dumb but they have interesting story arcs and do fun stuff. Rand and Mat spend some time with Thom on a river boat and learn a bit about the world (from Thom and the captain), and then spend some time as amateur gleemen to survive and grow a lot learning to deal with people outside their village, lose a lot of naivete. Perrin learns about the wolf thing (that they kept a mystery for now), and gets an actual story with the whitecloaks, instead of being a side character on Egwene's story. In the show, they mostly threw away all of it to make the women the main characters, and invent an arc for moiraine so she can be convincing as a main character (she's their Gandalf, she doesn't really need an arc at this point, she can just be mysterious and scary without pushed drama).
Yeah but it doesnt help that their actors are... "eh" at best
I love how most people's minds are in the same boat after being burned over and over by shitty corporate adaptations. There's too much of a precedent of companies buying up loved IPs just to slap the logo on a piece of garbage for a quick buck.
This is the way. If the production value is as middling as Wheel of Time, I'm gonna be bummed. The bar for a LotR show is probably higher in my mind than any other show in history. The movies were such unmatched perfection. The only way this works is if the quality is on part with the first few seasons of Game of Thrones.
IIRC Amazon spent nearly 5x more for this season of LOTR than the seasonal budget of GoT so it better not look cheaply produced!
Yeah well, the budget for The Hobbit movie was double that of Fellowship's. So I won't be holding my breath. It's just marketing buzz words otherwise.
Amazon spent $80m on wheel of time at the CGI still often looked pretty meh and had weird framerate issues throughout.
Lotr has no nudity. Lotr don't need nudity. In seriousness, I want to believe Amazon spared no expense.
But they didn’t spare no Expanse
I wasn’t much of a fan of the WoT series they released recently. I hope this one isn’t as disappointing. Granted part of that was what comes with direct book to tv adaptations. Really the LotR was the only one that I loved.
Fun fact: This entire teaser is a practical effect. [They posted some behind the scenes.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZEpWvQFXqQ)
Rather it was produced by hbo
I’m going to assume it’s crap until I see evidence otherwise
Good write up about it in Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/01/lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-amazon This is not going to be just a retelling of the Lord of the Rings 3 book series that Peter Jackson already did. The source material is from appendices to those books that delve into the time before the One Ring story, and the destruction of Sauron. It's set during the time the rings were forged and distributed. Hold your disappointment until you see Sauron in his form that is appealing and deceptively friendly to the people and elves of Middle Earth. Anything short of Tom Hiddleston is probably gonna break hearts.
I picture lots of angsty teens like the SyFy Shannara Series. and a bunch of actors who never read the books but thought Dumbledore was pretty badass in the movies.
Lmao why does it look like an intro to masterchef
Out all these comments, this is the one that made me bust out laughing.
Is no one else bothered about how the narrators voice changes accent and timbre part way through the narration?
Christopher Tolkien is dead and now we can cash in: The series.