I have a hard time believing the authenticity of the critics' reviews.
The Rings of Power is a complete snoozefest. Stuff is happening, but it's a confusing mess and there are no stakes to make anything interesting. The dialogue is stilted and cringeworthy.
Confusing? We get introduced to the main villain, we learn how the elves came to middle-earth, and we setup the story for how Galadriel will get a second chance for vengeance while Elrond is setup to unite the Elves and Dwarves in a common goal. I'm enjoying it so far, and it's certainly not confusing.
I was confused why the antagonist was the same as LotR, why there were hobbits (they were an obscure race in The Hobbit), and whether this story was supposed to be continuous with the existing Lord of the Rings. These are just a few examples, but while I was watching many details didn't add up to me.
Those don't seem confusing to me considering LotR shows Elrond facing off against Sauron in the Second Age and Hobbits were never indicated to not exist in the Second Age (why would you think that?). They tell you right off the bat that this is well before LotR, so I don't know why you're making these strange assumptions.
That “sink or float” metaphor was clumsily written and reminded me of someone wanting to convey something important, but didn’t know how or what to say. I’ve only watched one episode, but that episode was not good.
In contrast House of the Dragon is better written, equally gorgeous, and is far more interesting. At least it is 3 episodes in compared to the 1 RoP I’ve seen.
I watched the first episode of House of Dragons passively in the background while doing work, but it kept catching my attention. I watched it again in the background, and other parts of it kept catching my attention.
By episode three, it had my devoted attention. This is definitely a great show.
I would suggest watching the second episode. It gets better. I think the first two episodes should have just been one long episode. The first felt like it didn't go anywhere, and then the second pulled it together.
fwiw, to convey that not everyone on either side is a bot, i can barely get through an episode of HOTD despite it's visual appeal while i wasn't even tempted to look at my phone during ROP.
HOTD, to me, lacks even one compelling, relatable, or likable character and has a boring story that feels as though is lacks any weight.
maybe it's because i just rewatched all of GOT thrones though and it's been a few years since i watched any of the Peter Jackson films. (and even longer since i read the books from both authors)
What this whole stupid controversy is emphasizing to me is how many people are living in a post-subjectivity world.
I've enjoyed this show more than any other I've watched recently. I like basically every actor. I've really appreciated the attention to detail in the world. The dialog was awkward at first but after I acclimatized to the style I actually kinda like it—it's quirky, but consistently so.
It turns out, people like and dislike different things! But both sides of this ragefest are in all seriousness accusing the other of not existing because no one could possibly have a different opinion. It's weird.
Unknown to all in LOTR, while the volcano is hot, it has cooled in the thousands of years since the ring's forging. It does not completely dissolve the ring, instead, it melts yet remains together.
Fast forward 10000s of years, the area is mined, and the precious metal is used for fillings in teeth.
Surprise! It's Bezos! And he now has part of the ring of power in his lower right molar.
Now he is understood.
One sales platform to rule them all, indeed!
> I’m going to really ruin things for you: eventually, in the end, the ring dies.
Well, obviously. I mean, the goodies have access to giant eagles and all they have to do is to give the ring to one of them and drop it in Mount Doom and the whole thing is solved, right?
The eagles could be corrupted, yeah. They're sentient and (some at least) are ancient. One of the central themes of The Lord of the Rings is that the Powers of Middle Earth are very, very tempted by the ring and must overcome the test of the ring at cost to themselves: Galadriel is doomed to travel to the West, Boromir loses his mind temporarily, Saruman becomes a tyrant and eventually his staff broken etc. The eagles are themselves a Power and if they picked a Ring Bearer up they'd be tempted to drop said bearer on the ground and fetch the ring from their dead hand, become some type of eagle tyrant.
Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. Big risk either way.
Anyway, this theme is why the most meek people of Middle Earth -- the Hobbits, who desire basically nothing more than a quiet life -- are the only ones in Middle Earth that could actually cart the ring into Mordor. Even then it's not a sure bet, considering Gollum.
Even the hobbits fail - Frodo claims the ring at the last minute and it is only the intervention of Providence (in the guise of Gollum) that saves the day.
Ah yes, fair point. I think it’s Gandalf that says the Hobbits are stouter than even the Wise know or something to that effect but, like you say, they aren’t impervious to the charm of the ring. Except perhaps Sam, with his abundance of hobbit-sense and love for Frodo.
Its actually because the eagles are not just a straight up ally. Eaglea are the servants of the highest god, and that god doesn't really care about the concerns of elfes and men. Just like the ents also don't really care unless you fuck with them directly.
The eagles showing up at the end is more like an 'Oh we were so awesome and heroic that even the high god sees considers this a worthy cause'.
The eagles help Gandalf because of a personal relationship
Don't be ridiculous. The video narrator specifies that the gold on the basalt must have been present locally at the eruption, but as anyone can tell you who has read the Silmarillion seventeen times and memorized every single historical fact therein (while being unable to, for example, name their legislative representatives), Mount Doom is canonically in New Zealand, thus the gold in Iceland can't be from the One Ring. I give this post a 1/10, it would be a 0/10 but Jeff Bezos is censoring me.
I mean, while we're waltzing around the absurd, how meaningful do you really think the continents remain at magmatic depths? We're literally talking about the space where the bedrock melts and flows in the unknowable oceans of Sauron's marmalade, after all. I think the ring spent eons swishing around before reassembling like a blended up sea sponge before making its way back to the surface in the modern-day land of the elves (Iceland). It's only a matter of time before the trolls in the forests of Norway begin amassing their forces. As for that video's narrator, I think his name is Dave Sméagol, so I'd take his misdirections with a pinch of salt.
As a non-geologist, it seems plausible to me that gold that was somehow subsumed into the mantle in New Zealand could migrate to Iceland in the span of thousands of years. As Sméagol pointed out, though, gold coming up in the magma would be more diffuse and not create an identifiable layer on the surface of the lava rock. You're right, though, he's hardly a reliable narrator when it comes to His Precious, so that could be a misdirect. And perhaps there's some attribute of magically endowed gold that causes it to behave in unexpected ways. I searched Google Scholar, but couldn't find any peer-reviewed studies on the physical properties of magic rings.
Antipode of Iceland is not too far (relatively speaking) from New Zealand. Going the other way around it's really Spain, so if The Ring was slowly traveling through Earth's core, one could imagine that it made "wrong turn at Albuquerque" and instead surfacing in Spain it hit Iceland. QED
And Galadriel’s troop fought a snow troll. We have Gil-Galad sending a troublesome commander to Valinor. Elrond used a contest with a dwarf prince as a start on an alliance between elves and dwarves. Orcs are tunneling below human villages to kidnap the inhabitants and Proto-hobbits are helping a man who fell from the sky.
Galadriel dispatches a snow troll isnt story, its just a random 1min action scene that has no impact on anything.
Also that was a really dumb scene in so many ways.
Gil-Galad shouldnt really have the power to just send people away. The just invented some lore to get characters where they want them.
Even outside that, a character that shows up for 2 scenes and make one vagly interedting incredibly cryptic remark isn't exactly a barn burner.
Ok, Orcs still exists, amazing who would have thought. And a random person fell from the sky that is a total mystery and unconnected to anything so far.
So yeah its not much for 2h+ of runtime. Not sure wht you added ' /s'.
That seems like plenty for 2 episodes in spite of your dismissal of each event. This is a series not a movie. I wouldn’t want it to follow the frantic pacing of a movie where they have to compact and discard so much to fit into a short runtime.
Compare it to the first to episodes of Game of Thrones, House of Dragon, Breaking Bad, Firefly or any number other good shows.
Its also not really a good slow burn either. If you want to see that done expertly check out True Detective Season 1. That story draws you in.
And this episodes were very long and all the story lines are slow.
- A Story: Galadriel wanders around without doing much in the first episodes and swims around not doing much in the second episode. She has basically 1 expression, her motivation is the most basic revenge story plot ever and its totally clear that she is right and everybody else is dumb. The scene of going to Valinor standing on boat in full armor looked dumb and it was totally clear she would not go, but I guess show runners wanted to drop a couple million on special effect.
- B Story: Hartfoots mostly slice of life and some interaction with a mysterious wizard that amount to nothing so far. Kind of cute but not interesting and totally different tone then everything else. Including with slap stick humor.
- C Story: Basic Elf-Human love story with neither of the characters being very interesting and they have little chemistry. Also evil is rising, but I don't really care about those characters so I don't really care, for now its just random orcs. Nothing to connect to, no large conflict or the other characters. This is even worse then the love-story the added to the hobbit.
- D Story: Elron goes to the dwarfs and we get lots of exposition about (mostly nonsensical) backstory that is required for the current plot to make sense and some character setups for the dwarfs. Honestly maybe the most interesting part of the first 2 episodes, but not actually that interesting.
The tournament/birth sequence in the first episode of House of Dragon had more interesting character moments, character development, story progression then all of the Rings of Power had in the first 2h.
Or compare it with the story that happen in the first 2h of Lord of the Rings (~10h) total vs Rings of Power (10h).
In hindsight, it is amazing how much happens in the first episode of Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad. I recently rewatched both, and it felt like watching half a season.
Galadriel is searching for Sauron, whom she believes is still hiding and plotting. Her entire plot is about everyone telling her the threat is gone but she (and the viewers) clearly see that’s not the case.
Elrond is trying to recruit the dwarves to help build the forge to create the rings.
The comet guy I’ll grant you is the show’s one mystery, granted, but I have a feeling he’s going to have something to do with the reemergence of Sauron and the creation of the rings.
Yeah, I interpreted most of the symbolism as being pretty ominous too. I know Gandalf is something of a fire wizard, but crashing to earth in a red comet as signs of evil are popping up everywhere? Controlling and then killing a bunch of fireflies?
His fire power comes from his great ring, but it’s not a stretch for the writers to say he had some nascent fire powers which the later ring just enhanced. They are already breaking from canon if this is Gandalf. The death of the fireflies could be an accident. He doesn’t control his power well yet.
I don’t want to over analyze though as they are obviously trying to be ambiguous for suspense.
Breaks continuity with the official timeline, as Gandalf doesn't come to middle earth until thousands of years later. But with the hints they dropped (e.g. the names he mutters and the speaking to insects), I don't see who else it could be. And bringing Gandalf in early for this series would be a good change imho. It would balance out the cast of characters and be an interesting plot development.
Per Tolkien's later writing, the blue wizards arrived during the 2nd age to oppose Sauron in the East, but as far as I know they aren't mentioned directly in the material Amazon has the rights to. Having that role filled by Gandalf might be an acceptable compromise...
It's the same as in every other mediocre fantasy with poor writing: the "Good" people against "Great Evil", which is usually manifested as some kind of deformed monsters, deep voices, nefarious deeds and ominous music.
Meanwhile, this conflict is padded with needlessly elaborate, yet meaningless side storylines and fake drama appealing to the 18-25 demographic.
Say what you want about mediocre fantasy shows, but I thought The Wheel of Time, another Amazon show, was much more interesting than The Rings of Power after a mere two episodes.
Well-written, picturesque, excellent acting, and a number of fresh faces. The visuals for Gault's suit found to be better than anything I've seen thus far in the Marvel universe, which are themselves no slouches.
I think it is turning out rather excellent, and would be a great source for spin-offs too.
I managed to read all 11,898 page across 14 books of Wheel of Time but thought the Rings of Power was much more interesting than the first couple of episodes of Wheel of Time I made it through.
Well yeah sure. But I often just jump in in random places and I don't might skipping over stuff.
I listen to the audiobooks to fall asleep or if I don't want to start something new. When you have like 10 books you want to listen to in theory but can't decide, listen to some Wheel of Time.
Distribution of grades is rarely even, and I'd guess that if you looked at the median grade on Rotten Tomatoes is would be much closer to 70 than 50. Things less than 50 are usually "very horrible".
> I have a hard time believing the authenticity of the critics' reviews.
It's sitting in the 70s in other review aggregators, so I think it's okay.
It's worth also considering that many critics are not reviewing this with Peter Jackson's LotR trilogy in mind, but rather with the exceedingly mediocre The Hobbit trilogy.
They’ve established the backstory.
There is already a conflict within the elves.
Galadriel meets a human who seems like he will be important.
Elrond has a contest with a dwarf as a negotiation tactic.
Orcs are now tunneling under villages to steal the human inhabitants.
We meet proto-hobbits and a man who fell from the sky.
That would be my main worry that it starts splintering off too much. Maybe they’ll merge or kill off some of the storylines. The hobbit and the elf outpost seem like plot devices that might go away to keep it a bit more focused.
To be fair, some series just start off like that. The Expanse felt like a slow start too, but after episode 4, everything starts paying off and the first 3 seasons were (imo) some of the best Scifi on television.
That begin said, I haven't watched any RoP, the "nothing" could be complete fluff because the story is too thin.
I love the expanse but the first few episodes were slow and a little confusing. This is more a problem with the story writing. However, the acting, visuals, and physics were fantastic and the show quickly corrected the story telling.
Amazon seems like it would rather hide reviews than fix the story telling. I couldn’t finish episode 1 without falling asleep
The Expanse is different. Different premise, rules, and stakes compared to other sci-fi on screen. It’s complex. Easing us into the story could have taken a whole season.
Instead, they dumped as much of the setting as possible into those first few episodes. We learn so much about the players, cultures, technologies, physics, histories, economies, even languages, etc. It’s exhausting. So much detail! Go back and watch. But then when the Donnager battle hits, you get it, and the payoff is huge.
I don’t think the writing is bad. I think they had to rush the setting-onboarding to get to the good parts of the story, to create excitement, to better their chances of justifying additional seasons, all within the constraints of their budget. I think the writing is excellent in hindsight.
Exactly. It was a lot to take in in the first few episodes. The alternative would have been an extra season or two, and probably would have been boring.
I always have to advise people, when I recommend The Expanse to them, to make sure to sit through the first 3-4 episodes even if they don't feel like they're really getting hooked. By the time they get to episode 4, they're hooked.
I found the Expanse great from the start. I don't think I'll be watching this series at all based on what I've read in the comments here. I've already read the books and I just don't think they'll be able to do it better.
I think you have to get to episode 4 (the attack on the Donniger) before The Expanse really starts taking off. I was hooked on the first episode, but that's because I'm a sucker for hard sci-fi and I like Noir (Miller's storyline). Most people don't get the show until episode 4.
Rings of Power is so far turning into an interesting show. I would say give it a shot. The second episode is definitely better than the first. Hopefully it will improve from here.
Well for a thing that is supposed to last a whole season (and maybe more) it’s fine to spend one or two episodes setting the scene and introducing characters
My biggest problem with it so far is the overall stylistic look and feel. It's like someone is trying to recreate Ted Nasmith's epic paintings with living people and CGI, and the result just looks awkward rather than epic.
Same thing about the dialogs: the "epic prose" style would work on paper, but not so much in a live action movie.
Yes. I think they doubled down too much on certain aspects of the Peter Jackson aesthetic, which was already a departure from The Hobbit / Lord of the Rings.
The Rings of Power is a complete snoozefest. Stuff is happening, but it's a confusing mess and there are no stakes to make anything interesting. The dialogue is stilted and cringeworthy.
The show just isn't good, and Amazon knows it.