Why people hate The Rings Of Power | Watching as a Writer
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- čas přidán 5. 06. 2024
- Many versions have been voiced, but I don't think the most important one has been discussed enough.
In this "watching as a writer" video, I propose my view of why Amazon's The Lord of The Rings: The Rings Of Power show has been so poorly received.
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* * * DISCLAIMER * * *
I am still an unpublished writer, so consume my thoughts on writing at your own risk.
Also, at the time of recording I haven't watched episode 4 yet, so some of the things I mention as intriguing may not make sense anymore.
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Scenes from Amazon's rings of power, LOTR, and Star Wars are used under fair use.
Intro (0:00)
The argument (0:20)
Main question & First example (3:00)
Second example (4:45)
Third example (6:00)
Last example (8:15)
The writing on this show suffers from the same problem that many modern movies and shows have. For some reason the writers believe that in order to make particular characters look strong, the other characters around them need to look weak and incompetent. They incorrectly believe that if other characters are also strong it will diminish the one they are trying to highlight. It is a trait of unhealthy, insecure thinking. That's why no one believes these characters to be strong. Because the writers themselves don't understand how to exemplify strength in their writing. Only insecurity and weakness and, in the end the character only comes across as insufferable and arrogant.
Excellent comment.
You described the snowflake mentality perfectly
Results of the "participation trophy" process.
They made a turd.
Here's your award!
They entered a competition, and came in last place...
Here's your trophy!
They don't want to win by getting better... they DESERVE to be GIVEN awards simply for doing something, no matter how poorly... they are... ENTITLED... and thus, they make everyone else WORSE, so that THEY can "win".
i am gonna steal your comment to use it on a friend who is writing and doesnt understand this concept!
Yes, I was going to write something very similar. Most modern movies and shows do that but also do this thing where the 'heroes' are all ready formed or merely one step away from achieving greatness. There is no hero's journey; everyone is born as a badass already. Also they are so 1 dimensional; for example, Galadriel is reduced to just a scowling teenager in every episode. In fact there was that shot of her on a horse going to the Numenor library where she is smiling in slow motion and it just looked so out of place. Why would she be super pissed off all the time but then suddenly in pure ecstasy while on a horse and then go back immediately to brooding again? This is why people liked the first Disney Mulan over the second too. The old Mulan was a nobody who through trials and determination saves the empire. The new Mulan was a badass from the beginning.
I suppose in summary it seems most modern movies and shows - particularly high budget ones - focus 100% on plot and almost 0% on character. In the moment it can feel 'wow' due to production value but afterwards it just feels hollow and uninteresting.
I think another problem is the very literal lack of love between characters. By the end of Fellowship, you could see real love and camaraderie between characters. And it was earned by shared experience.
Yes. And they overcame racist bias. I mean: an elf and a dwarf!
You cant have shared experience when Gigachad "Galadriel" goes on without a single mistake or fail, winning all the time and showing everyone how inferior males they are.
"By the end of the Fellowship" yet you're judging the characters barely 3-4 episodes in.
You're right, I feel absolutely nothing towards the characters and Galadriel is cringe af.
I would say they portray the friendship of Elrond and Durin quite nicely. And the brief moment that shows us the relationships in Elendil's family was also telling, showing people who know and love each other. As for other characters, I'd say they either didn't get a chance to show their affections or are not supposed to have any at that point of the narrative.
An analogy I thought of based on how they treat their creations:
Lord of the Rings - a person, clothing, a place
Rings of Power - a character, a costume, a setting
It’s still leagues better than the Hobbit trash. It’s a flawed show. But I don’t understand the hate considering the trash they tossed at us almost a decade ago.
This show is the Potato Jesus of the Tolkien world.
@@mohr4less I sort of agree and disagree at the same time. To me it feels like The Hobbit was just a lot of action around no plot. The rings of power is the exact opposite: Barely anything happens and there is a lot of bad plot. I prefer a no plot action movie over a plot that has more holes than a swiss cheese, but mayabe that's just personal preference. The argument could be made that a bad plot is still better than mindless action with no plot to follow because that makes the action pointless.
@@mohr4less Because there were many things to like, even love, about The Hobbit movies, and we got an honest look into why it had as many problems as it did (massive production changes, tight deadlines, studio interference). Whereas all RoP seemed to be was mediocre writers trying to push an agenda, and instead of doing anything to meaningfully dissuade fans of that notion, Amazon chose to be hostile and call them evil.
@@mohr4less Hobbit is better than RoP. Don't even try .
It almost feels like the writers/show runners weren’t big fans of the material and treated it like a school paper they were assigned in high school.
The crazy thing to me is that you have people who love and breathe LotR that would probably kill to be a writer for the show but instead people who hate Middle Earth are writing for it. Makes you wonder why did these writers get this job?
All for the modern vision of Hollywoke. -Toxic- rainbow empowerment.
@@MollyHJohns lol how old are you? God damn lmao
@@EJD339 well, how young are you?
Sadly, I'm not only saddened by the lack of commitment to the wonderful creation they're adapting, but also perceive a lack of root-level professionalism in the product. The seeming total ignorance of world-building just adds to the awfulness.
IOW, I don't think they'd have gotten a very good grade on that school assignment.
The writers have already stated that they saw Tolkien's works as "problematic" according to their ideologies, and that it was their job to "fix" it
It's the same shit as letting Abrams on Star Trek, because said he hated Star Trek ...
@@george89 Abrams was the POTUS on Star Trek,,,,but look at her campaign, because America is so racist her campaign funds are only coming from Hollywood, Wall Street, and Fortune 500 companies...the poorest of billionaires.
And the problem with both of these franchise issues (RoP and Abram’s ST) has to do with the licensing. Both parties were legal limited to what they could use or do.
With the RoP;
they had the rights to the appendices from LotR:RotK and the movies to work with, which makes it problematic to adapt a for a TV show.
With Star Trek?
Paramount only had the rights for the movies. And so we got a reboot with an alternate timeline and big changes. While CBS only had the rights to the shows, and likewise had to make significant changes. Thankfully Viacom holds the full rights to the franchise once again.
Productions with split rights to a franchise sucks for us fans that want at least a loose canon adaption. Without LostTales and the Silmarillion and the rest, RoP is pretty much winging it.
Ed S
Then they should have created their own IP. One that they have FULL control. Same for disney SW. They could have saved themselves the billions for the IP.
Or how about Tamora Pierce's novel? Female author? Check! Strong female character? Check! Large lore filled world capable of accomodating diversity? Check! Sensible character shipping? Check!
I find it odd that multi billion dollar company virtue signaling women empowerment, they don't notice authors like tamora pierce.
How did they see Tolkiens work as 'problematic' not enough black people or women in high positions or something?
All the main characters seem to be promoted by making others around them super incompetent. Propping one person up only by putting others down is the narcissist's way, i.e, the way of no love. Great analysis, I think you are spot on.
Making women the best at everything and make all the men (at least the white ones) foolish, evil, cowardly, and incompetent, has become a modern media trope. It's almost every single movie and TV show at this point.
That's the way woke writers are. Rey from SW, Burnham ST:D, She hulk, etc etc.
The woke community IS narcissistic. Good catch here. Makes more sense now for me.
Well said. That is very sloppy writing. If you want your main character shine, you need to make their opponents and friends *almost* as brilliant as she is. She is just a bit tad more brilliant. You need to give the secondary characters time to mature, to make the viewer involved with them, so when they are killed or betray the main character, the viewers actually feel the pain.
@@ulfsark78 that’s the way boring writers are. The woke is a bonus
Denis Villeneuve stated in interviews how much he loved the Dune books since he was a teenager and that kinda manifests in his magnificent adaptation of Dune. Kinda a similar situation with Peter Jackson and Lotr who had absolute passion for that project. I think this is absolutely necessary for a faithful and succesful adaptation of beloved source material.
agreed but it doesn't always work out, that person has to have good tastes themselves. JJ Abrams was a massive fan of Star Wars but his Force awakens was a shameless recreation of a new hope and didn't follow the sequence of events in any logical manner. it was like nothing happened from return of the Jedi to The force Awakens. It just got worse from that first movie. So yeah sometimes when a fan is in control, it doesn't always turn out well. in this case, JJ Abrams, a fan just wanted to recreate what he was a fan of instead of building off of it.
@Fallen Soul I feel like thats something you would say about any person you hated in the entertainment business.
@Fallen Soul Indeed! No world-building or love there. Just a bunch of random boring illogical events in Dune.
Chack out
World-building in Arcane
czcams.com/video/a704NNWjTd0/video.html
@Fallen Soul absolutely disagree
@Fallen Soul I'm 100% with you. I hated his Dune movie too.
Great analysis on Arondir and his superior at that scene.
Do you know what's worse? This scene breaks so much things the writers were trying to establish. The orcs can't stand the sun, so Arondir brings down the tent. But when the guy escapes, he is shot because there are orcs out there in the sun anyways. And soon after that, when Theo was hiding in the well, the orc that first finds him just walks into the sun without any cover whatsoever.
Then in later episodes Arondir grabs an arrow in the middle of its trajectory with not much difficulty. But his superior, even seeing the orc archers right in front of him, just gets shot, why didn't he show some sign of agility too?
Then when Arondir ,Brownyn and Theo escapes the orcs, the orcs don't dare to go into the sun to keep chasing them, despite various previous scenes that I mentioned of orcs being just fine in the sun anyways...
I haven't actually watched that garbage, so I don't know how the scenes with the orcs actually play out, but orcs aren't vampires, they're just somewhat irritated by the sunlight since they're creatures of darkness (since Morgoth can't create anything "light"). They certainly try to avoid it if possible, but it's not actually harmful - I've always read it as similar to walking outside in summer daylight shortly after you've had eyedrops that widen your pupils (just on a more "full-body" scale, plus probably some psychological level).
This is what happens when you don't have a story or a plot, but just a bunch of cool-looking scenes strung together. All logic and established lore can be thrown out the window in service of making each particular scene work. It's even entirely plausible that there was no director or producer keeping continuity between scenes. Since movies (and a TV miniseries) are often filmed completely out-of-order, depending on availability of sets, weather, and actors, someone has to be paying attention. Given the huge cast and bloated budget, it looks like they probably had multiple different film crews, and basically none of them ever communicated. They each filmed their cool scenes, and sent them to the editor who had the job of trying to stitch together this mish-mosh of nonsense.
For me the most inexplicable thing is that orcs letting elves work outside under the direct sunlight.... even the orcs cannot be that stupid.
From what little that I could stomach to see this series looks like a billion dollar production, with a soap opera script and soap opera acting. Funny, how Peter Jackson's movies were not record breaking in expense, and still look amazing, and had superior acting and fantastic character development.
Peter Jackson was actually a tolkien fan. He intentionally kept politics out of it and tried his best. It showed. Best trilogy ever made.
It was obvious to the viewers that everyone involved with the LotR films loved what they were doing and cared about the result. They knew that what they were doing mattered.
It doesn't even look like a billion dollar corruption. They have the Queen of Numenor wearing an armor pattern printed T-shirt. It looks like the bastard child of a money-laundering scheme and the worst woke "fan"fic they could find on the Internet.
What billion dollars? Those costumes and armour look like something that LARP'ers would be too embarassed to wear. Scale mail printed on cloth?
NOW this is the summary that nails it IMO. It's just honestly a badly written show. I can't even tell how poor the acting is because the script is so bad. It actually seems like the acting is just fine, but you're left thinking...what is the point of this? I'm truly amazed that something w/ this much energy behind it could be so bad. Like they all were so busy patting themselves on the back and nobody points out it's actually not good. Yikes...
I agree with a lot of what you are saying. Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy spoke to us because the performances were heartfelt and what little exposition there was did not insult the intelligence of the audience. The actors and crew on that series saw LOTR as a labor of love and they endeavored to stay true to the source material. There was no agenda other than to tell a heartfelt story. The ROP is anything but.
...and yet the Tolkien estate did not like Jackson's version.
Never underestimate your audience. They're generally intelligent and sensitive people who respond positively to quality entertainment.
Which this show is clearly fucking not.
@@The_Invisible_Self Boy, what a line . . .
@@MELODYMUNRO more specifically it was Christopher Tolkien who hated it, and his reason for hating it was for extreme purist reasons… if he was alive to see this abomination, he’d wage a single man war on Amazon
@@Tounushi They also didn't realize that Tolkien fans are fans of relatively complex literature. They are not readers of comics for children, and many of them read the books a long time ago and are no longer adolescents without criteria, they are adults, often quite intelligent, who want a language for adults.
I distinctly remember the rope-holding scene on the raft. After a few moments of Galadriel doing absolutely nothing with the rope, it became such a strange, glaring issue that I was distracted by it. Your solution of having her tie a boating knot is such a simple fix that it's wild.
Cause she didn't know what to do with it. Just a sailing noob on a boat about to lose their fingers. Never wrap a rope around your own hand for crying out loud. This irritated the hell out of me.
@@DameMitHermelin You can tell not a single member of directing staff has actually done any of the things in the movie.
Sailing, swordfighting, wrestling, climbing, hiding, running... You could tell they had no understanding beyond a vague imagination of what it would be like. Detracted from every scene because no-one cared enough about the story to actually get any experience of it
@@Blobbyo25 Yes! Nor have they even taken time to research what happens when a volcano erupts. Clearly, this series was written and directed by people who have a life experience and world knowledge of a toddler.
@@DameMitHermelin Lmao Galadriel survives a pyroclastic flow I forgot about that! She'd have been completely incinerated, elf or not.
@@Blobbyo25 Absolutely right "Elf or not" - there's a chapter in "Silmarillion" where a volcano erupts and all the Elves who didn't make it to the higher ground die. "Many charred bones had there their roofless grave; for many of the Noldor perished in that burning, who were caught by the running flame and could not fly to the hills". But I guess Tolkien never *specifically* stated, that Galadriel wasn't made of asbestos, so there's that. 🤣 Go back to the books, go back to the books, go back to the books… Right.
Viggo Mortensen actually brought his sword everywhere he went during their taping of LOTR in New Zealand. He even brought it with him during lunch break to the dentist after he broke his teeth during a swordfight scene. (Lord of the Rings Commentary)
I remember the others commenting on that ... they'd go out to dinner and he'd have his sword with him. that was such a cool thing to note in the appendices as well.
Heh. I can think of some real world problems that would present, because normal people aren't allowed to carry swords in public for all the obvious reasons.
@@gromm93 There is a story about how he got the cops called on him becasue he was going through the coreography when he left the studio swing about his sword in public.
I love when people include a source 🥹
@@gromm93 as a reformed weeb, you'd be surprised at the number of places a normal person can go with a sword. I've brought a 9 foot katana onto a public bus and the only reaction I got was "don't take it out of the scabbard, ok?"
On behalf of every Tolkien fan who is disgusted by this show, I salute you and I thank you for your work.
I cant believe how bad Galadriel is portrayed in this!!! biggest Karen character of all time!poor girl portraying a beloved character of grace and beauty!looks like Galadriel was born with a resting biatch face in this!
It’s an AWFUL PIECE OF WOKE SHIT
If only the nerd of the rings channel could be brought low
@@squaeman_2644 he can be good but if he's embraced this one then that's on him. This is the split of numenor, and he's chosen the side against the valar
Here here!
You bring up a great point about not seeing the trees for the forest
ROP is a story designed top-down by an enormous company and it really shows. Each plot point is approved by committee and needs to hit whatever goals that the showrunners or Amazon sets. Everything is grand and sweeping (like the social issues the showrunners care about) and so the individual characters get lost.
Tolkein's original stories were all written by one guy who had strong feelings about industrialization and its effects on the quiet countryside that he loved Amazon has no such love--it only exists to profit. Its showrunners are motivated primarily by anger and it shows; most important in their work is updating what they consider "problematic" classics to fit their dogma. There's no love in their work, only anger for past grievances, anger at large-scale social issues, and disgust for people who are not on their "side". The result is a cynical, contemptuous, and vindictive story told by one of the largest companies on Earth against the will of the audience.
This right here is one of the most insightful summaries I've read yet about the key issues plaguing RoP. Well penned!
Great comment, well written. Thanks.
Yes. I couldn't put into words the underlying issues in all the recent stuff out of Hollywood, but your summation here is spot on. Thank you.
Exactly!!!
Movies since 2016 in a nutshell. Perfectly summed up.
"THE ELFS ARE GONNA STEAL YER JOBS!!!" this is Rings of Power, nothing else needs to be said
Wow, this is spot on, and I never could’ve found the words to describe this myself. The world feels sterile, like it’s just a set with some actors, not a real place where real beings live. Also, the characters are so broad… the Elf character who helps everyone escape is one of the most generic fantasy figures I could imagine. No humor, no depth, just some dude who can fight and advance the story
Oh god, that's why ring of power made me sleepy when I comparing the feeling when I watch lord of the ring
i never come across a fair black elf before who a worst fighter than a women.what is the message here ?
The consequences of checking boxes and hiring incompetent writers, directors and production staff is what is driving cinema into the ground. The whole look and feel of Rings is totally off.
I’m convinced not one member of the writing staff has successfully held a conversation with another human being. How else could you explain the ridiculous character dialogue? Watch Galadriel & Muriel’s first conversation in episode 3. They’re not even having the same conversation.
I thought something seemed off about the set of Numenor as well. For a beautiful as the set was, it seemed to “clean”. Like the contractor’s had just finished the last coat of paint the day before. There was nothing that said “ancient city”. I missed the little details of cracks in the wall, crumbled stone corners, ect. Everything was uniformed, even the costumes. Everyone dressed the same. Galadriel and “Not Sauron” were from different countries than the Numenorian’s yet blended right in with them while walking through town.
@@yourenotmarywelcome8693 To be fair, Numenor is supposed to look like it has been built the day before, but I agree that the people there just look like regular humans and not numenorians.
You don’t know that, they hired the best people for the job
Call me paranoid but i think this is not incompetence. It was made with the only purpose of destroying the last true european epic mythology
@@MrC-55 lmao you really mean that? Have you seen HOD? That's objectively a real good show. Only with those dialogues and acting makes you feel that you're watching something special, well written, even shakespearian. Rings of power instead looks like a low budget tolkien exploitation, no matter the amount of money put it in. That slow motion scene where the black elf, the milf and her idiot son were running from the orcs, i was rooting for the orcs. Please kill them, dear orcs, at least one of them, i said to myself. Absolutely hateful characters. But watching those so called actors interviews it's even worse. You see that the real purpose of this show is destroying tolkien's great legacy and with that all that tradition that makes men and women worthy to be called so. It's the woke agenda, the great reset, agenda 2030, biosecurity state and so on
You hit the nail on the head! I would also add there is a lack of character development. In a good story, characters drive the plot. In a bad story, the plot drives the characters. The plot just unfolds and the characters have to react. In "House of Dragon," the characters drive the plot with the decision they make. This makes it more interesting because we are always left wondering what will they do next. Take, "The Lord of the Rings," Frodo's decision to leave the Shire drives the plot. His decision to trust Strider drives the plot. His decision to take the ring to Mordor drives the plot, and his decision to leave the fellowship drives the plot. In Rings of Power, there is very little of this. The plot just happens and the characters have to react. Galadriel is forced to return to Lindon, then she is forced to go to Valinor, where the only decision she can make is to jump in the ocean and magically swim hundreds of miles. Then the plot forces her to Númenor. She is not driving the plot. She is merely reacting to it. The same happens with Arondir. The black sludge cow just shows up, forcing him to investigate. Then he finds a tunnel forcing him to investigate. Then he is captured forcing him to react. In a story where the characters drive the plot, there is character development, which makes it interesting. Let's take Arondir's story. A better way the writers could have done this is that once he finds out he is leaving the Southlands he tells his captain he heard of poisonous grass and he needs to just quickly investigate it. He then stops by Bronwyn's house and asks her to go because she is a healer and may be of use. There was no need for the cow scene. This would have been an example of the characters driving the plot, and not the other way around. The show is boring because there is no character development, the plot just unfolds and the characters are always reacting and rarely driving it forward.
It occurs to me as I read your post that the writing process seems to be driving at least partially under the influence of Dungeons and Dragons or computer roleplaying games, where mere eventfulness is the main point of the story.
@Tracchofyre im sure there are dozens of writers out there that care deeply about the work they produce, they could have gotten the writers from the original trilogy films to help develop this project. I watched the 4th episode last night and literally fell asleep within 10 minutes. Its just boring and predictable. This series had no limit on $$$, it should have been a producers and directors dream to be able to make a literal masterpiece become live action gold on screen. Instead its a billion dollar turd that has amazing CGI. If they had just decided to make landscape scenes of the world of Arda with no characters in it it would have been way more successful this the dumpster fire they made.
Elvish medicine was only considered for Halbrand,the perceived noble. Not the commoners in the hospital tent. I think Tolkien’s Galadriel would’ve shown more love to Mankind since she was a seer and knew that men were the future. That’s why she was aiding them to begin with.
Defenders of this rubbish love to say, the Second Age isn't fully flushed out with a ton written about it, how could you know who Galadriel was and acted? Well, we have a lot of material of her in the First and Third age. If your depiction can't be in line with those two points, then you goofed.
She can't be like that, because they don't have the rights to the silmarillion.
I think you nailed it. The creators of the original trilogy gave them selves severe anxiety worrying that what they created would be worthy, and you can literally see, feel, and hear the love that went into everything.
Spot on! This “lack of love” issue is rife in Hollywood. It’s business now… there is no room for creative, passionate expression anymore and it’s killing entertainment. These days you have to go to lower budget indie movies to see the real passion.
a business model with no love anywhere at all, the output will always reflect this..
That doesn't even make sense to me. Who is rushing out to spend their money on media that is shouting at them about identity politics?
Overall I agree with you. But while watching this video I though to myself "I believe that The Witcher series, despite its flaws, really delivers the atmosphere that it deserves and maybe that's to do with the creator being involved and the cast being passionate about the work...
you could argue the same is true for music, video games, and culture in general.
Art reflects the times
Jackson and his crew of writers,
Illustrators and Weta Workshop loved and greatly respected Middle Earth. So did the cast. So did the Tolkien experts who lent their knowledge. The only politics in the movies were those relevant to Middle Earth. Their dream was to bring Tolkiens mind to life, to touch the world with his incredible story of Good vs Evil.
Amazons dream is to score political points, usurp Game of Thrones and make billions. That makes all the difference.
Precisely this "Amazons dream is to score political points, usurp Game of Thrones and make billions. That makes all the difference.". I really, really doubt Amazon would have tried to make this show if it weren't for the success of GoT. It's a cashgrab because Bezos and co think that money can create anything for you, but they have forgotten that it can also corrupt...and so alas here we have a show that is seeking to profit off of a fantasy world by destroying anything of substance within it
Peter Jackson indicated his respect for the source material when he said he didn't want to inject any of his own themes or messages into the films - he wanted to stay true to what Tolkien was trying to express. He demonstrated that with the end result. We kept hearing in interviews and promotional events that the writers and showrunners/producers for RoP loved and respected the source material, but we didn't see that demonstrated, even despite the very poor writing skills displayed. The lack of talent and respect for the source material was painfully evident, and very unfortunate.
And Tolkien was making a political statement in real life about the dangers of technology and the evil of man shaped by his experiences as a soldier. Which is why politics belongs in my fantasy.
I thought I noticed my own scene that had *lack of love.* It's when the white guy who rescued Galadriel from the open waters, whenever they hit a storm and Galadriel starts drowning. She sinks very deep and by the time the guy swims down for her, she'd of definitely not been able to regain consciousness to swim herself back to the top. It was very deep at the furthest depth she sank too and she already lost her consciousness at that point, they showed it. The next scene instantly cuts to her and the guy piercing back out to the surface on their own accord, like Galadriel swam back to top by herself, and on top of that Galadriel had an easy/refreshing breath instantly upon resurfacing, instead of chocking up water and actually having too take a huge first breath to recuperate. After being unconscious and half drowning, she swam to the top on her own and took an average breath once she reached the surface, and it came across very lazy and unbelievable overall.
Not to mention she was tied to wood, part of the thing they were using to stay afloat, then all of a sudden wood decides it is extremely heavy and pulls her down
@@lukecomstock3447 That's probably some special elven wood anchor. Imagine it described by a whispering voice: 'It flows like the lightest plank, but when it is needet, it sinks like the heaviest stone'.
But yeah, I also remember that scene and asked myself, how in middle earth she would be drawn into the deep by pieces of their floating device and why she did not need any medical assistance after drowning.
Nice!
yep. I do not hate the show, but I did notice inconsistencies. Same with Bronwyn's fakeout death when she was shot. Only stupid action movies feel the need to reawaken their unconscious main characters like that.
she's an elf. not a human.
"No, they eat and drink, Sam. *The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own.* I don't think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them; and if they are to live at all, they have to live like other living creatures." - Tolkien
You are so right about the lack of love in ROP. There is so much warmth in Tolkien's writing. There is warm affection and humour for the hobbits and affectionate amusement for their foibles. Humans with all their flaws still are likeable and we want them to win.
And ultimately Lord of the Rings centres on the growing love, friendship and respect between the fellowship of the ring. Gandalf has a twinkle in his eye when he addressed Merry and Pippin, Aragorn looks warmly at the hobbit. The dwarves are humorous, stubborn and proud but we grow to love them too as they soften in their approach to the elves. Tolkien's writing is not two-dimensional, his characters can have flaws - Boromir is highly flawed, but even he is redeemable and dies saving the hobbits. And of course Samwise leaves his beloved shires in order to be at Frodo's side. The hobbits have a deep love of home - the Shires. Friendships, growing bonds, love for homelands, nature and others is a strong flowing force throughout Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien had a deep love for nature and the countryside of his English homelands and this is reflected in the realism and beauty of his landscape descriptions.
And then we have ROP where it is hard to understand, like or care about the characters. Does this lack of love reflect the world of Woke activists, who are more motivated by anger and ideology than compassion for all humans?
Every single scene in RoP is people bickering and engaging in some conflict or other. So strange, it feels like the writers don't even realize it
They said they wanted to reflect the real world, but I think rather they are projecting how they view the world.
@@astrovarius543 exactly. They probably grew up in fractured homes where bickering was the norm and they are now projecting their anger on the world. Sad as it is possible to heal.
No, and making a political issue out of it is the opposite of critical analysis.
@@majkus Critiquing and speaking out against the injection of social politics into entertainment is what makes it political huh?
There is a name for what you're doing right now, it's called *gaslighting*
We also fall short of love for the most important character introduced in this series so far...Namely Galadriel. Nearly every scene has her angry and demanding with no charm or kindness. She behaves like a spoiled teenager even though she is over 1000 years old at the time of these tales. It is hard to empathize with her or care about her mission?
Heck, she's closer to 4,000 years old. She was 1,000 WHEN THE SUN WAS INVENTED. We're at the later half of the Second Age of the Sun, and she's literally older than the sun but acting like a petulant child.
Yeah. I really wanted to like this show and accept it for what it is and appreciate it as it is and not what it could be. However, the characters are so poorly developed and Galadriel is one of the worst examples of how poorly a character with a rich back story and life experience spanning ages can be presented. Her character should reflect wisdom, grief, empathy, compassion and forethought at the least and yet she is shown as an impetuous headstrong young woman who appears to act without thinking and doesn’t care about how her actions affect others or care to be mindful of others. It is just wrong.
The weird thing is that they're setting her up to have a character arc, going from spoiled teenager to something else (probably the woman we get to know in The Lord of the Rings), but it doesn't make sense for someone with a thousand years of history to have such a big change in such a short timespan.
Spot on sir
I totally agree. However, a good reminder that Legolas in LOTR was more than 2000 years old, and carried some of the same youthful impatience and mannerisms that we see in Galadriel in the Amazon show. However, I still think Galadriel, having lived in the light of the Two Trees, been alive during the kin-slaying, and had been a part of some of the most momentous historical events, would have had much more wisdom, grace, and tact by this time. Further, even Legolas shows a grace and "air of transcendence" about him (in the movies) that Galadriel of RoP lacks. Ultimately, as you said, Galadriel acts like a child or teenager, rather than the ancient sage she likely was by that time.
When the actors from LOTR were interviewed, they talked about their characters, and how much effort they put in to making them like those in the books! When the director was interviewed, he talked about Tolkien and the books!
When the actors from the ROP were interviewed, they talked about themselves. If they did mention their character, they consistently inserted their own feelings, into how their character felt! When the writers were interviewed, they only wanted to talk about how amazing their show was, and how much of their own politics they'd injected!
There's a clear difference between the two! One reeked of passion, committment, integrity, humility, and respect! The other, of, entitlement, arrogance, narcissism, ego, disrespect, and self indulgence!
The ROP is an abomination, created by the worst society has to offer! How can a group of people create something which is founded on principle, courage, sacrifice, heroism, integrity, honour, and all that is good, when they don't even know what those things mean?
The rings of power writers said they wanted it to, "reflect the real world", and given the current state of society? The ROP couldn't have given a better representation!
Couldn’t agree more, and very well said. Hey though, we still have our books :)
The most baffling thing for me ia how only the bad characters have a really noble purpose. Sauron trying to mend his errors amd Adar looking for a home for his children. Galadriel acts moved by petty vengeance and the elves and dwarves by petty polotics and that Mithril plot abomination.
Even Durin's Bane is only upset because the dwarves were banging at its home and woke it from its nap.
I think that's what drew me most to the show. I loved that Galadriel (in her young age and arrogance) was practically the baddie.
@@parameshnat But she isn't young
I don't super hate the series but I also don't like it. Couldn't really put into words why though. But you made me aware of why I actually feel like that. I have to agree with all the points you made here. And the main checkbox that I hate in this series is the ongoing need to portray Galadriel as the toughest elf you could imagine, filled with anger up to a point where it makes her mouth and eyes do funny twitching movements... That just seems so anti Galadriel and so forced it pulls me out of the world like nothing else.
What about her accent? She not only sounds pretentious but her lines are pretentious as well so she always sounds really fake and has a high school principal vibe going on. She acts entitled and starts fights with queens and breaks into the kings bed chamber like an assassin but that’s not a problem a few days later because the leaves fell off the white tree😂. You would think that she would have been taught some diplomacy in her thousands of years experience.
@@samscreativefarm seriously. The way she was talking to the royal court was crazy. Especially after breaking out and assaulting guards. Episode should have ended with her swinging in the gallows.
@@The_Invisible_Self Her acting is bad with a bad script, I dread scene's with her, the other Charecters I can tolerate!
I agree. Even if I would accept that she is not really the same character but a new spin on the character, she still comes off as unlikeable. And most of it, imo, comes down to the script and directing. Mostly the script.
It's really frustrating. I want to like the show, and though I have some major issues with the nature of the production and the priorities of the company and show creators, I've been able to get around that many times before and take away things I enjoyed. But it just fails to grab me. I'm holding out to see where things go, but it's become a chore.
"Feeling the need to show their intellectual superiority" is exactly the kind of inferiority complex the writers are suffering from. Amazon fired Tom Shippey, one of the very few surviving Tolkien scholars immediately after Christopher Tolkien passed away in 2020. And instead, hired a bunch of C-list writers who were let go from Star Trek Discovery (a bad reboot) . And then they came up with the insane idea of having to redefine Tolkien because he didn't understand the modern world (literally the one thing he never wanted to happen to his work: project modern day politics and social issues on his story).
Mordor was an analogy for creeping urban industrial blight threatening to destroy pastoral England (i.e. the Shire). That's what the Ents were on about. So social issues were there, but baked into the storyline.
@@troubadour723 Well... You aren't wrong but technically by that logic all wars are "social issues" in the end. In fact, if you have an issue and it involves more than a handful of people it is already a social issue. Anyway, I think we both understood the OPs point either way.
Why did he put sooooo much of the political, social and environmental issues of his time into this fantasy world? Ecology, equality between nations, races and so on, democracy, progressing emancipation of... literally everybody, globalisation, (un)peaceful coexistence and collaboration between cultures, some guys say they want to eliminate entire race(s), what does a successful company do for fellows with a(ny) handicap, what way will women choose, and those theories of that guy Darwin...
Certainly not Tolkien's fault that almost all of these issues are still and even more important for us and our children nowadays 😀
There are Discovery writers on this? No wonder it's so... [expletive deleted]!!!
There's an interview of Tolkien where he literally says that he hates allegories and that he basically wanted to create a Better world than ours. Any similarity with our society is basically a coincidence or his subconcious
I just remember the battle of Helms Deep when Haldir died as compared to the Erendir and nameless stand in commandy elf with irrelevant name dying.
The writing and storytelling by acting is so vastly different. On one hand you have a well thought out scene with a noble commander fighting for his life and watching his men die before dying himself.
On the other hand you have... Rings of Power..
But to be honest haldirs death felt pretty lame as well, I mean yeah elves are stiff so his deep friendship with Aragon was kinda understated in the movies
@@tobbse4ever Not in the least was his death "lame" it was well done even though he wasnt at the battle in the books.
I've read it ages ago, but I'm pretty sure Haldir wasn't killed in the books.
@@DameMitHermelin
That is correct.
I was refering to the storytelling in the movie rather than the book though.
Should have been more clear on that.
@@tobbse4ever Eh, the scene itself I would argue was pretty good, the issue to me is more that Haldir was so anecdotic in the films that his death's impact relied entirely on the very few interactions he has before and during the battle.
"At the end of the day, a book is just a collection of words. And each of those words needs to be chosen with care and love..."
Sometimes, something just feels OFF, but it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly why. Your analysis explains the 'why' for ROP beautifully. In a word: Incongruity. A does not make B which leads naturally to C, it just jumps straight to F. For such a prominent IP and budget, the ROP is shockingly bad.
What the show lacks is immersion. For different people, immersion is broken in different ways. The story is nonsensical and the characters act for the plot to happen, which breaks immersion for one set of viewers. There is no deep world full of lore lurking beneath the show, waiting to be spotted (how ironic, considering this is supposed to be LotR), which breaks immersion for another set of viewers. There's no cast of deep and interesting side characters for the mains to play off of, which breaks immersion for yet another set of viewers. There is no real depth and complexity to the main characters' motivations, which breaks immersion to yet another set of viewers.
It has some pretty shots, tough, which is all that's needed to sustain immersion for exactly one set of viewers.
Book Furnace calls the thing that's missing "love". I call it Depth. Same thing. The show is shallow.
@@Peter-jl4ki I think he means "missing love" as in there is no love while making this show, people only care about their pay check, it's a JOB more than an actual passion to representate Tolkien's world. He gave a great example with Viggo, he did things out of his own creativity, passion and ideas.
For RoP no one seems to care, they are just "checking boxes", which in turn makes it "lack depth" as you say.
No one cares about their acting, no one cares about the directing, no one cares about the story.
The show is just eye candy for the masses.
@@Gentamoru This! And so did McKellen and Lee (greatest LotR nerd)! You can feel the passion. And even if Jackson was overwhelmed by the project, he wanted it to become Tolkiens vision.
Needs time ,is very early , i believe is getting better after its episode ,many shows have this .For example Breaking Bad was an extreme boring show in 2-3 first episodes and a lot o people i now stop there,i stopped there only to continue later and stuck really bad.Im just giving an example with BB .
I believe the massive negativity before ROP even released played some role because humans,admit it or not,they are easy manipulated and negativity unfortunately speaks louder than positivity
@@Peter-jl4ki good stuff man. I enjoy this perspective and agree. Most characters on ROP could die and i wouldn't care much, with the exception of Durin IV and his wife Disa. The other characters just haven't shown much to make us as viewers love them, and its probably that they are victims of the show writers.
I'll be shocked if this show survives 5 seasons without serious changes. It is hemorrhaging badly at the moment.
Having just watched the 4th episode it struck me what is wrong with this show. The writers only care about how it looks. The cinematics are beautiful. The backdrops are beautiful. The colours are beautiful. But there is no depth to it. When many of the big set pieces were over, when they clearly wanted us to feel in awe or to shout "Yes!", I was just left thinking "There is no way in hell that she would have done that". The motivation is utterly absent - or where it is present, it is laughable and weak. And I still don't care about any of the characters. If they all died in the next episode, I simply wouldn't care. I'm just staying to see which of them turns out to be Sauron.
Your point about running out of axes happens again in this episode where they run out of arrows. It looks like about 50 orcs are hunting down a few humans, yet they never catch up to them even when the humans stop for a while. And when the humans get out into the relative safety of the sunshine, none of the orcs kill them with arrows and wait for later to go out to the bodies. None of the orcs even try to cover themselves up and charge out, even though we saw them doing that in earlier episodes. Somehow they have all turned into vampires who would be insta-killed by the sunshine. It's mind boggling in its stupidity.
The show is shallow. The characters are shallow. The motivations are weak. The links that bind the various elements of the story together are weak. The emphasis is entirely on making the show look good and almost no care has been spent on details or connections or consistency or reason. The show needs a strong director who can push back against whatever drivel the writers think is good enough.
When I watch the Rings of Power, I feel like I'm watching a summary or the highlights of another show. Like when you watch the highlights of a football game - you see the main events and the final score but you felt nothing of the struggle that the teams and players went through.
.... If they all died in the next episode, I simply wouldn't care.....
the enormous difference with Game of Thrones, people invested in the character and then got shocked when the character, which was thought essential for the story got killed at a weddingparty.
When one of the "essential" character gets killed in this show people probably shug it of of with a "that should have happened sooner."
rumor has it that Sadoc Burrows, played by Lenny Henry will get killed..... will anybody miss him, I won't.
The highlight analogy is perfect. Kudos.
A few personal notes.
1. Galadial probably has the strongest motivation in the whole cast right now. Second only to everyone elses attempt to brush her asside and believe Sauron is gone or died off. My only issue with her has not been her motivation (personally I like it. Its personal) but her attitude because of it. Which is at the same time, also intriguing? I always thought this younger version of her would be less tempered by comparison to LOTR but its so untempered its like she has 0 wisdom which gets contridicted several times where she has some great lines that just feel like they are forcing her to be edgy for the sake of being edgy.
2. I have to admit I like Adah. I like where he comes from and the idea around him. To see one of the fallen dark Elves is a nice refresher. I even like his sales pitch to Galadial about dismissing Sauron. Everything happening has got his name basically written all over the chain of events and everyone is doing their damned hardest to pretend its not him. I honestly like this a lot. It really is going to show how subtle, patient, and cunning Sauron is. But...
That is about where my praise ends. I expected more from the look of the Numenorians. Probably because of what we got of Gondor in LOTR. I liked the city scape and the massive structures, but the visuals of their military does not feel as refined or advanced as I would expect from this civilization. Especially when Gondor and before them Aranor were just built by the reminants of Numenor. It just did not hit the same even with their grand music.
The only two characters I actually care about are Elerond and Durin the 4th. Their relationship and interactions are the only thing I have looked forward to in this show. To see a real bond between Elf and Dwarf prior to LOTR. And even by comparison, the bond here is still unique and not trying to overshadow that of LOTR. Everything else.. idk. The only other aspect I liked so far is how people speak. But that is about it. It feels like an average show. To be honest, I am not even surprised. This is probably the best I expected.
abut Karendroiel ennif said
I agree that Adar as a fallen Elf is a refresher, but I dislike it he is put in an unrealistic ( witin fanatesy limit) storyline. He could have had a great story arc about the trauma's a captured Elf went through during captivity and AFTER captivity. distrust of the other Elves was often thetr fate. And if a show wants to bring the story to today, why not study the fate of ex-captives have in the real word, bet you can find material there.
Elrond and Durin..... mm... it's starts to look like the relaltion betweem a woopsy and a douchbag. Elrond still lack internel life sprouting pseudo filosofic lines and Durin has more internal life but as a matrital doormat with wisecracks. When the woke inclusity demands a gay relation it is very unwoke to have it between two equal weak men.
One thing every writer has to learn is that even when you LOOOOOVE something you wrote, if it doesn't serve your story, doesn't make sense, doesn't come across to the reader, or for whatever reason doesn't WORK, you HAVE to cut it or change it, no matter how cool it is, no matter how much you love it.
That's true. Unconditional love is not good enough in this context.
@@BookFurnace Oh! Apologies; I didn't think about my comment in context to the thesis statement you're arguing for this vid. I totally agree with what you've said! I meant in terms of scenes like the jailbreak with Arondir where they're just too glued to the cool factor to care about the scene making sense in other ways. The ultimate way of loving your piece (unless you want to keep it just to yourself, of course) is making sure it WORKS with the audience. And if something just does not work, no matter how much you love that one thing, you have to let it go for the greater good of the story/piece.
@@Kait2478 No worries, I think you conveyed your message clearly right away. :)
I just meant to rephrase/add to your idea. Since "unconditional love" (sometimes also thought of as "motherly love") would be to "love your creation despite its flaws", it's really not the type of love a writer/producer should practice.
Instead, as you said, they should show "tough love", as a demanding coach or teacher, who ultimately want their students to succeed, but have to be strict and exacting in the process.
@@Kait2478 I really like the metaphor we stumbled upon in this little conversation, so thank you very much for your comment :) Maybe I'll even make a video exploring the topic further, sometime.
@@BookFurnace Talking about writing is great! I've enjoyed this conversation :) I firmly believe so many pieces of screenwriting would be greatly improved these days if they would actually go through a workshopping process. I came across a Hollywood Reporter article yesterday about Rings of Power where it said, basically, the showrunners came up with the entire story in one night and that's what they pitched. They pitched a FIRST DRAFT that they didn't workshop with anyone or even sit on to give it time to breathe. Along with so much of Marvel lately, these things need to be given to beta readers for feedback and that feedback taken seriously, for the sake of the work. But it's like no one wants to risk leaks getting out, so bad writing stays in an echo chamber instead of getting refined the way it ought to be.
The Nautical knot example was very interesting and something that I see now is missing from the polish of the show. Good attention to potential, and I’d love to see more breakdowns from you on this show.
So glad someone has finally mentioned the 'tugging the rope' scene.
This scene has been stuck in my head for about a week, I just can't get over how awkward this was.
I didn't want to be over-analyzing the show so that I could enjoy it but this scene stuck out to me as well. I actually replayed it twice just to see if there was something she was doing that I missed.. turns out nope she is just tugging at it for no reason.
Yep me too I'm watching (forcing myself to actually) and I'm going "WTH is she doing? That's like as useful as a screen door in a submarine! STOP IT sit down and BE QUIET GALADRIEL!" HAHA. Galadriel was always my favorite character because she projected power with saying very little. This is NOT Galadriel. This is a brat. I'm no professional writer, I've dabbled but this is a terribly written script, their lines are just awful. It's pretty and THAT'S IT'S ONLY REDEEMING QUALITY. Lately I've been watching, I kid you not... Chinese and Korean dramas because there is no sex (least the ones I watched) and little gore but the story is AMAZING and the romance is just enough (low key) that you just know. It's pretty bad that Americans can't seem to remember how to write a good story! I recommend Bugusal (or Immortal Souls) on Netflix. Great story, love between characters. Made me think about it for a week after I finished. To me that is the mark of a good story.
Just found your channel and you’re completely spot on. Lack of love. That’s exactly how the phrase “toxic fans” came about. A bunch of idiots took over an IP they know little if anything about, check off a few boxes, and say “TADA!” Then when the fans, who have loved the IP for literal years, object, and say “that’s not the thing we love” they’re called toxic. And we’re like wait a minute, our love for this IP is what’s kept it alive for so long. Our love of this IP is what made you purchase it in the first place. Great video.
No the phrase toxic fans came from racists.
Oh my word, thank you for articulating this so very well. I knew the show felt "off" and unlikeable, but it was hard to pinpoint a reason. Lack of congruity, characters with no clear motivation, lack of subtlety, lack of attention to detail - in short, a lack of love. Well done!
I like the "checking boxes" metaphor. I usually compare such feeble attempts at displaying art or skill as "paint by numbers". You get something that kinda-sorta looks like a painting if you hold it at arm's length and squint, but there's no heart and no soul.
It's a full-on monet
To quote Cher Horowitz
i totally get the chess thing. it was done so unelegantly, so superficially. watch in contrast the riddle from bilbo's birthday speech at the beginning of the fellowship "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." all hobits look at each other dumbfounded, only gandalfs smiles knowingly. absolutely well done!
It's a great scene in the movie, well portrayed, but the line was lifted directly from the book. Unfortunately tRoP is lifted from the appendix of the LOTR, and there's no dialogue there to borrow for the tRoP.
I realized this morning that I don’t like Galadriel. This Galadriel.
The original Galadriel mesmerized me as a reader. She had an aura of mystery and transcendence. perhaps she hasn’t attained that kind of serenity yet. Ok, but why must she be so abrasive? This Galadriel is always angry. Never a light moment, never a flash of humor.
And does she love anyone? Does she even like anyone?
She really liked the horse. Does that count?
@@alexcwagner 🤣
@@alexcwagner lolz. love the sarcasm right there.
this is lady Karendriel the evil twin sister of Galadriel. it will all be revealed in episode 10
No characters in the show like her except maybe Elrond.
Imagine reading the Rings of Power as a Novel
That's all that needs to be said.
When book burning becomes an act of kindness...
You hit the nail on the head with that one. The whole show just feels like a soulless, cold and sterile snooze fest written by some corporate A.I. software
I think another problem for the series is that they are quite shamelessly copying the Peter Jackson movies. Not the books, but the movies. Its obvious from the outset.
Shots of them walking across snow covered mountains, guy sitting in tree with a book, Elf Council, King running away from his past, fighting a troll in a cave, Hobbits and a wizard, the list continues.
They even rip off things from Jackson that are nowhere to be found in the books. For example, hobbits having large feet is a Jackson invention. They've also used the exact balrog design from the movies despite the fact there's a pretty good argument to be made that balrogs don't look anything like that.
I'd actually say this is to create a sense of 'continuity' for the normies, since they clearly dont care about the actual canon.
If only they had copied the elves as well 🙄
I agree
This was actually insightful. I get tired of the “in your face” rants about bad shows even though I mostly agree. Your calm demeanor and simple yet deep analysis is a nice change of pace. Keep it up!
The reason these rants happen is because it's truly about more than just the show. By focusing on the show, they are also vicariously ranting against things in society in general ("woke"ness usually). We just get mad about these shows because they are part of our culture and many feel are driving us in the wrong direction now as a society.
Here is the thing that people forget, Tolkien is an AMAZING writer. He is so incredibly meticulous, with 0 details left out, that turning his books into films was almost effortless. In fact, every time Peter Jackson strayed away from the books, stuff just didn't make sense any more (Saruman's death scene, Gimli somehow not realising that all the Dwarves in Moria are dead, 80% of the Hobbit trilogy). On the other hand, this series is made based on very little of Tolkien's writing, so it's not surprising it falls short of his writing. I am hoping that over time they will improve and learn from their mistakes, in the mean time, I am just going to enjoy the beautiful rendering of Tolkien's world at least.
What you are describing with the escape is exactly what they did in Andor. So true. So heartbreaking and ironic that Kino Loy, leading the escape, giving a most badass speech, in the end can't escape, because he can't swim. We feel so much in that one sentence, knowing we won't see him and that he is doomed, although he saved all the others.
Actually, we're just hating it back as Amazon, the writers, cast and directors made it quite clear from the beginning that they hated us first.
This video hits the nail exactly on the problem this and many modern shows and movies have: they are written for the sole purpose of views and money and they don't have writers that care and love the story. Compare those to Sandman or House of Dragons, with incredibly talented writers behind, and the difference in quality is immense.
not that big of a difference tbh
@@sakeytoes yeah exactly it isn't that different ;d
Agreed. I have to say, I was least excited to watch House of Dragons but man it has exceeded my expectations exponentially. They almost seem like they learned what worked in Game of Thrones and leaned into those things while telling a story. And they had the much harder task of getting fans interested in show whose ending flopped and which great details are already known. It feels like they pay homage to GOT but the stories are inherently distinct/well told. It's so good someone who has never watched GOT could enjoy even if the nods to GOT go unnoticed.
In this show Galadriel act more like Sauron than Sauron himself.
Contrast this with the prison escape in Andor... when Andy Serkis' character is left at the top and says 'I can't swim' it hits so hard!
Your reconstruction of last death scene really hit how shallow the show is. I could feel the character's pain in it😭
YES! someone finally gets it. You are 100% right my friend. When you watch a show, you are sacrificing your own internal story to the one on the screen, I want experience loving something, only then, when it attacked, or ruined, I can feel fear or sadness. The show never lets me enjoy character or any scene, its always conflict, its always anger, its always revenge. This is why Even from critics, the dwarves are the only likable characters in the show, because they are actually likable!
The Dwarves are indeed the BEST part of the show so far. Which... kinda sucks considering we know what's coming to them soon.
As a writer I can only imagine how much studio interference is going on with this show and how much it's affecting the writing.
They skipped the studio interference step by just hiring yes-men writers who have admitted to never even reading the books and are just there to write in political messages.
@@antoniooliver7708 I don’t even think that’s true. It’s even worse than that. I genuinely didn’t see an injection of politics into the show the writers are just terrible at their jobs. They can’t create character stories. They can’t make dialogue. They have no idea what they want their characters to be and it changes all the time.
It feels like they pulled ten randos off the street, had them watch a CZcams video about being a writer, then shoved them into a room and had them write the screenplay.
I know Jackson's version wasn't perfect compared to the books. But he still loved the story and I think he stayed true to what Tolkien was trying to do.
Loved this video. The saddest part is Amazon had the money to hire competent people to make this show.
But thier friends needed jobs.
See... no, that's not how it works. You dont hire people to create a specific piece of art. Creative people are the one who look for money in order to fulfill their vision. The problem with rings of power and all Star Wars movies etc as of late is that they are not made out of passion. They are not the idea of an individual interested in telling a story, but it's a corporate mandate in order to exploit a renown brand. No wonder they are so uninteresting. Because people get hired to do those jobs instead of actually being interest in telling the story. What he menas by lack of love is exactly that. I'm sure the writers of RoP if given something they are really interested in would make a good job, but when they get hired they are just doing it to get a paycheck, not to express their creative dreams. All good movies start from that spark of imagination the creator have and have an nterest in telling that story. When you hire people to that kind of job you get nothin but a soulless cashgrab.
Also, with more money involved the more the producer want they're saying in the final product, so what they do is hire less contentious individuals in order to be free to steer them as much as they want without any ripercussion. No world renown director would listen to a producer (can you imagine Tarantino listening to the advice of a producer?), because they have enough leverage to tell them to fuck off. So they specifically hire unknown writers and directors so they are easier to manipulate and fulfill quotas, agendas, and market polls the producers deems worthy of. Producers only care about not losing money. They are basically gamblers that find the best possible combinations to not lose any. They dont care if they make the new groundbraking genre defining movie that will also make shit tons of money, they just dont want to lose on the investment even for a marginal gain. They dont wanna take risks. With the new digital streaming services producer are even less inclined to take risks, there's too much competition and no return investment after the release trough DVD sales. So in essence we will be constantly inundated by mediocre products that dont try to be bold but will be as gray and broad as possible to not lose money. And this is by design.
@@fabiodastolfo1207I guess my point is, there’s a craft behind producing TV shows, specially in unrealistic settings like fantasy or science fiction. As with everything, there’s talented people and there’s not. If you want talent, you pay the price. I agree passion is key, but so is competence. It seems to me, they had a lot of money but don’t know what to do with it. It also seems they have no story, and they certainly didn’t hire talented actors. Peter Jackson has gone on record explaining how hard it was to make LoTR happen, and he only managed to pull it off just once. In summary, the current show producers of RoP are really bad at their job.
The weird thing is that in the end it might play out for amazon. Yes, they made a crappy show and it is disliked by many viewers and hated by the fans.
But see it from their perspective: They could have hired the best people and made a decent show - but the fans would still hate it, because it is not exactly the same as LOTR or the Hobbit and for normal viewers it would be far to complicated.
By making the show in the way they did it, normals will be able to view it during dinner and the fans will still watch it, to see why they hate it.
And this is probably the biggest lack of love: The lack of love for the show itself. The lack of love to yourself and your own produce, because they only love viewing figures and money.
This gotta be some massive money laundering scheme.
Like many others said, you explained it perfectly. Like you said with the "Escape"-scene, it's the same for the Ice Troll fight. It would have been really cool to see Galadriel fight side by side with her men, struggling against this Ice Troll, just like they did against the cave troll in Fellowship. Instead her men just look like idiots, standing around while a troll attacks them, a few of them try waving their torches at it, they haven't even taken out their swords. And after they've all been beaten, Galadriel steps in and takes it down alone, before her men all start saying it's too dangerous and they need to leave, after none of them even died. If they actually struggled together, and the elf who did the most against it ended up dying, we would actually feel the direness of the situation.
I love this sort of analysis. It helps to describe what we feel or fail to feel as we watch a show, and why
Very good observations. It's like I felt this lack of love problem but didn't understand it, and you just put it into words and applied it perfectly. Subscribed!
I’m not sure that it’s a lack of love, or ambition or care. (Although it is obviously a lack of time spent working on the script.)
I think it’s amateur hour.
Take the very first scene introducing child Galadriel. She makes a magic paper boat, gets bullied, attacks the bullies but her brother stops her before it goes anywhere, and then he gives her a pompous speech.
So here’s a list of writing problems in that little scene alone.
Why do they want to establish that even as a child she was far superior - physically and magically- to the other elf children?
Why do they start the show with elves in paradise being evil?
Why do they stop the fight before she either shows a flaw (reckless and violent) or get beat up a bit? The latter would have built up a bit of sorely needed sympathy for her.
And also, why does her brother stop her so early? Don’t they realize that this is frustrating for us, because we want to see bullies punished? Thereby making us annoyed with him rather than sympathetic…
Why is his parable so dumb? Didn’t they read it out loud to someone who could tell them it’s ass. It is A: pretentious B: dumb and sounds hollow C: shows that neither big brother or the writers understand how boats work D: actually says that ships float by positive thinking, when you think about it a bit, and E: is irrelevant to her future character development.
Also, the dialects are already out of whack. Galgal and big bro talk elven posh, but instead of having exactly the same dialect, her bully sounds like Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter movies. That makes no sense.
This scene is broken. And it would have been easy to fix. Let Galgal attack the bullies but get her ass whupped, for some easy sympathy, showing us that she’s brave but also makes bad unwise impulsive decisions. Let her big hero older brother rescue her from a beating that could have been more serious, so that we actually get some sympathy for him. Let the parable be about picking a hill to die on with a bit more thought. And someone, for the love of god, get the dialect coach on set!
I’m not a published author, I don’t have a list of bona fides, but I’m interested in writing and to me this seems really elementary. And this scene is just the first one in an almost unbroken line of scenes where the dramatic 101 doesn’t work. Characters don’t retain their motivations between scenes. And most of them are both flat and unlikeable. Conflicts come out of nowhere and are either resolved instantly or ignored and forgotten. The music becomes super dramatic in mundane moments. Physics makes no sense in ways that makes the world feel unreal. Most of the dialogue is completely straight with zero nuance or subtext, it sounds as if the preliminary script had placeholder lines like ”angry at Elrond” and then instead of crafting a line that would show that Durin is angry at Elrond, the character just says ”I’m angry at you Elrond”. A lot of the dialogue is also inexplicably hostile and contrary for no understandable reasons.
And then you watch the next episode of House of the Dragon, and everything about the writing is normal and competent again. It’s uncanny.
The show was 1 hr & you still stuck on 4-5 min scene,the scene was not so bad as explained in paragraph.
@@Zoromihawk767 It was. he could also focus on the Troll fight scene, but why bother?
Doesn't that just go to show how flawed the show is? If one person can break down a single scene and not only show how it's flawed but how it could be improved, that says something.
Your response is derisive, dismissive and shallow by comparison, and offers no counterpoints in the show's defence.
This exchange between the two of you has been echoed across the internet between others since the show's release. This kind of exchange is why the show's advocates and defenders (like yourself) are losing the discussion.
If you like the show that's fine, it's good that you have a show you enjoy and something to look forward to.
But that doesn't disappear all the legitimate criticisms and blaring flaws which lead the vast majority to not enjoy it.
Galadriel doesn't look like a leader in this scene.
And then we can see, that all the First Age wasn't enough to improve her leader skills.
@@Zoromihawk767 if a 4-5 min scene is this shit and has so many problems how long would it take to truly dissect the whole show. These people are ruining the perfect world as valinor is supposed to represent something like the Garden of Eden but for some reason before the elves were poisoned by the words of Morgoth. As soon as the topic of how horrible the show is, the writers and the cast pass it off as racism.
I don't know if this is a good comparison, but in the last example, I immediately thought of Haldir. We meet him right before the Battle of the Hornburg commences and only know that both Aragorn and Legolas are acquainted with him, but I feel his death was more emotionally charged than... whoever that elf was.
I thought we met him in Fellowship commanding Galadhrim, too?
Haldir is a character in FotR.
@@declanmoran18 Whoops. Sorry, I only watched the Jackson films. I haven't read the books yet.
@@1313fina he's in the FoTR movie too 👀😅
@@declanmoran18 though that proves how brilliant it is because a character you forgot existed was killed and you cared deeply
Lack of love or lack of brains? words cannot describe how back this show is.
This video is so great!! Putting an explanation and detail just explains what so many of us felt watching. I would watch a whole series of you breaking this down
Who made the show didn't think it through in ep4 people of numenor are angry about elfs are taking their job. Total number of elf in island is one, people are angry about one elf taking all of their job.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
No, you don't get it. Numinor fell into the sea because of MAGA. And the white orcs and white southerners are both racists all that's missing is the white kkk hoods.
I didn't think this show could get worse, but I thought I was being paranoid about the woke in ep 3 by the on the nose portrayal of orcs as white robed racists, but ep4 cinches it.
Maga destroyed numinor, and the orcs and white southerners are the KKK.
Whoever made that show was bent on stuffing it as much as possible with their views on modern politics even if it makes absolutely no sense in Tolkien universe context.
They just forgot that I watch a show to enjoy a good story, not to get brainwashed into thinking like them so I'll make sure to cancel my free amazon prime trial just to send them a message.
i bet those people were followers of cis orange wizard Trumpuman. i'm still shocked nobody was wearing a red baseball cap
Or they just used the fear that people have of that happening in order to manipulate them to support the Anti-Elven ideas that the „Kings men“ have?
Just because something is happening doesn’t mean you should take it at face value. It could instead be seen as characterisation which makes it more interesting for me to watch
that elf escaping scene is pretty ridiculous. they can escape (although, most of them died) with whatever weapon available but they were captured by the orcs when they're in full armor? i mean, huh?! the elves in this world is so ridiculously bad at fighting, dude.
The writers couldn't even be bothered to show them getting captured. I guess it would take time away from their precious front-and-center characters.
I mean, what is the difference between RoP elves and men?
Pointy ears? What else?
There seems little to differentiate between the two in terms of racial aspect.
The Dwarves have a more unique racial characterisation than the elves with significantly less screen time.
Tolkien's elves (the real ones) of course are totally unique in aspect, and nobody would mistake one for a human.
@@astrovarius543 Well, how do people recognize Elves in Tolkien's world? It isn't obvious, especially since he did not mention ear shapes in the works he published (unless you drew a conclusion from the subtle relationship of Amon Lhaw, the Hill of Hearing to 'las-' for leaf. But no one did). He refers to them as tall, fair, ageless, and graceful; in the case of the Noldor, the light of the Two Trees is in their eyes. This is pretty subtle.
Since such things are harder to do on screen, pointed ears are understandable, and probably required - but not as a substitute for the other things. Galadriel is 5'4" tall in this show, and you can _tell_ she is shorter than everyone else; they even point the camera down at her half the time. Celebrimbor cannot by any stretch be described as 'ageless'. Arondir is stalwart, but doesn't have the sort of unique body-language that Orlando Bloom gave Legolas in the Jackson films.
Worse, by making the ears (remember, never mentioned by Tolkien) the _single_ distinguishing characteristic of the elves, they become the focus of clumsy slurs like 'knife-ears' and 'the pointies'. These sound wrong not only because direct expressions of mistrust like this are uncharacteristic of Tolkien's characters, but because we unconsciously remember that Tolkien's characters never focus on the elvish ears as a distinguishing trait.
@@majkus 100% agree with you
@@astrovarius543 - Galadriel’s albino horse has been the most ethereal character in the show thus far.
Your analysis of the problems with the escape scene made me think of another recent prisoner escape: the "One Way Out" episode of Andor. That episode was an incredible hour of television, and I think that is in no small part to it doing exactly what you say RoP should have done - instead of it being Andor who is the key figure for the breakout attempt, it's Kino Loy. Andor helps motivate him to escape, comes up with the plan, and is necessary for executing it, so our main character isn't just sitting around passively and remains integral to the whole sequence, but it's Kino who truly leads the attempt, who makes the incredible speech rallying everyone else to the fight, and who can't get away himself at the end of it (and to add to the tragedy of the moment, we have every reason to think that he knew he wouldn't be able to escape the whole time).
Well argued, and although you criticise the show you do come across as a genuine person who would rather like it but sees objective issues with what they are watching.
You earned a new sub! :D
Watching the Rings of Power I always got the feeling that I must have missed whole episodes. I never know why the characters interact with each other like they do! I am asking myself, why should I care....what did I miss!
So true. Elves are ready to discard their swords at any given moment. Swords are stories. Peter Jackson gave them ample minutes to shine on silver screen.
Even cosplayers are proud to bear those fake swords.
Thank you, I really enjoyed this breakdown! This show has been killing me, I basically stopped watching after episode 2, but my wife is still watching it for some reason so I keep having to hear it in the background.
Just stumbled on this channel and damn that's a good review. Yes, it doesn't cover the episodes but the core. Ive never seen someone criticizing the show from this perspective. Keep up the god work Furnace👍🏻
I agree completely! It's not ridiculous at all. Amazon made a product that I previously called "souless" and it's this "lack of love" that i meant. LOTR is a masterpiece because everyone involved poured their love/soul into it. Rings of Power attempts to mimic that like an AI algorythm would. And so I take my leave with this qoute “Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made.”
Brilliant quote.
@@Shadow-gm9ct ah, I did do a quick search of the quote before commenting previously and saw it was attributed to Tolkien, but digging a little deeper I see now it was a publication's summary of the overarching theme of his works. Still, a good succinct line to think on, even if it isn't as carefully articulated as his letters 😊
Thanks for pointing out that scene on the raft with the rope. It really took me out of the scene when I was watching it. I was sitting there thinking "what is she doing? What does she hope to achieve by doing that?"
The problem is super simple, the show doesn’t even try to feel like Tolkien. Say what you will about Peter Jacksons trilogy, they definitely sensationalized Tolkiens work, but they understood the messages and themes that Tolkien communicated. For people like myself who have read the books there are obvious inconstancies and changes… but the reason the movies are still enjoyed by most Tolkien readers, is that they were clearly made with passion and love.
Tolkiens values were simple and pure, and he enjoyed the little things in life. He loved the natural world, and he disdained the rapid industrialization of the modern world. He also greatly valued the wisdom of those who lived close to the land. In the movies farmer maggot is a cranky old man, in the books he is still certainly a little cranky. More importantly, he is wise, and even Tom Bombadil recognizes the wisdom of the farmer, and other simple folk.
I could go on but I can’t do Tolkien justice in a short CZcams comment. His views were pure and wholesome, and lotr is a labor of love that he spent his whole life crafting. Then his son spent his whole life curating his fathers legendary works.
Peter Jackson isn’t perfect but he and his crew understood the values lotr. It’s sad to see a faceless corporation bastardize his life’s world and turn it into meaningless schlock. With them clearly having no real understanding of what makes his work special, and now tens of thousands of people have a false idea of this legendary authors meticulously crafted world. All of this is so antithetical to Tolkien and that’s why this is so sad for me.
Regardless though, I still have my books. Tolkiens untainted works will always be there for those who want it… just try your best to avoid looking at the new cover art lol.
This was actually useful. I have this issue A LOT with Hollywood lately. All of their products just feel... dead. And I just. can't. put. my. hands. on. why. I mean, you do feel that nobody really cares about the movie they're making, but I couldn't articulate, what exactly gives us this feeling. Your video helped with that.
I have a suspicion that part of the problem is a current trend of not trusting the actors, because I am the director and I know what to do, shut up everyone else. Which leads to the exact lack of "my character should mend their own clothes" scenes.
All feels like it's going through the motions doesn't it?
Absolutely wonderful video, its such a shame that this show could be "fixed" by something as simple as caring just a little more. You gave me chills just imagining the escape scene at the end. The amount of difference just a few changes would make is astounding, and makes me beyond sad that with all the money in the world, fans are still writing better scenes and characters than the "professionals" writing this show.
It also makes simple heroes and villains into morally complex characters. That doesn't work in LOTR because it takes away from those moments of emotional release. If the enemy is a sympathetic one, then you don't cheer as loud when the heroes overcome them. If the heroes are less heroic their deaths don't hit as hard.
Great analysis. I've watched so many reviews and roasts or RoP, and you actually nailed it. Lack of Love. Which is what people miss: heart, authenticity, caring, passion. Those things can't be made in a corporate boardroom
That was really insightful. Do you plan on doing more videos on the ROP series ?
Keep up the good work :)
Really appreciated your takes here. That attention to detail and pointers on how to get something extra out of scenes and characters.
Shows how being obsessed with pushing a certain idea forward and not creating a well thought out tale really shows and ruins what has real potential.
Success is the sum of small efforts.
You point out this small, yet important message very well.
Wow, actually a solid take on why this series feels so "off". Great video. Like the series or not, you have to admit, the writers are rushing to get dozens of characters established as fast as possible without caring for them or the audience enough to craft their stories over time.
Super rushed like the last few seasons of Game of Thrones.
Well said. It's basically a manufactured pop cover of a masterpiece. Like spice girls covering Mozarts 5th symphony or something and baby spice googles Mozart whilst writing it
You make excellent points. Thank you.
Best thing was the fight against the snow troll in the cave, instant cut to the next scene and disappearance of its corpse. It’s like the scene was added later on, to increase the pace by adding an action scene. It seemed out of place.
Its what happens in games. The dead bodies disappear when a new scene is loaded in.
If you re-watch the scene, notice there are 7-8 elves attacked by the ice troll, 3 or 4 of whom are killed during the fight. But 10+ elves lay down their swords in front of Galadriel.
That’s just pure laziness. No one who cares about their work product would miss that glaring mistake.
Yeah this stuck out like a soar thumb for me. The fact that this was the first episode really says to me that they don't care and this is a money grab
This is so true. Another example is how they feel the need to make Galadriel so hell-bent on her mission (and checking boxes to prove she is awesome and better than everyone else) that they actually make her come across as an incompetent leader, a terrible team player, and an extremely difficult and unlikeable person.
More like a spoilt brat
I think that’s kinda what they’re going for. Like she’s really good at stuff, but her character flaw is that she doesn’t appreciate those around her. It makes for a three dimensional character, which is good, but it doesn’t make her likeable. Do protagonists need to be likeable? There are certainly unlikeable characters who are fan favourites (see: Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones). I think whether or not people root for a character is a bit more complicated
Exactly; the show creators desperately want us to like this version of Galadriel, but the result is the complete opposite; I could never see RoP Galadriel grow into the Galadriel we know and love in the Peter Jackson movies.
This literally intentional. Like she's supposed lack self awareness, she is even called out on it in the show
@@StoogesFan it cost nothing to read the comments above yours.
tbh there were 2 relationships that I was invested in. It was the Captain Elendil(Father) with his Son Isildur, and Elrond the Elf with Durin the dwarf.
I saw Elendil trying to be both Captain of the guard for his city and trying to be a father "supportive" of his son. Stuff like giving him opportunities and scolding him. His son was naive, but still apologizes to his friends and is good of heart. Brave enough to act under duress, enough to help his friends.
Elrond and Durin's relationship was also nice to see. Despite the scheming of the Lord Elf, they were still friends, and willing to help one another on that alone.
They were the relationships where I saw "love"
10:48 - Like Kino Loy in Andor. We felt for him because we saw him grow and lead even though he personally couldn’t achieve victory.
You explained it so well and beautifully. Without being overly harsh or rude, just heartfelt and legit critique about how media is made
Complete lack of love, indeed. Resulting in a hollow, vacuous, soulless, contrived production. The contrast could't be more blatant with Peter's Jackson trilogy, in which so much love, care and attention to detail was poured into. Not to mention the formidable conjunction of talents, which is also cruelly lacking to this show.
It cost a billion dollars,
how is it they are lacking any kind of talent?
@@keungwan5901 clearly its the same question the fans are asking. Galadriel actress sucks. The dwarves are overacting, Arondir acts like a simpleton. Elrond actor is the only one making an effort.
Cool analysis thank you very much for your work.
I was thinking, in Mulan (1998), she does pretty much the same thing as the ROP's chess scene you discuss here. Near the start of the movie, when there's the whole musical scene of her getting prepared for the matchmaker lady's test, she plays a move for an old guy on some chess looking game which clearly seems to help him (arguably worse than Erendil's interference).
What do you think makes that scene work whereas it does not in ROP? Does it work at all actually? To me she seems helpful in that instance but she's basically interfering as Erendil does.
Awesome video! Really puts things in perspective! Keep it up Please!
You've hit the nail on the head. Many critics have had valid issues with the show but you're the only one who brought up the lack of love in the story and in the actual making of the show. When the Peter Jackson LotR movies came out there was a lot of criticism in the changes he made to the lore but people still enjoyed the movies because they were made with love.
Yeah, I think that is why LOTR succeeded and the Hobbit films were not as well received. A lot more love.
Really good analysis bro. Lack of sincerity and love is the real killer of this show.
First time I have come across your channel really enjoyed your take on it. I’ve subscribed and look forward to seeing your content. Hope your channel does well 👍
it feels like an assignment, not a project of passion. I think you've nailed that.
I'd like to see more vids like this showing examples of the lack of care of this show. Another great example is when Galadriel throws 4 guards literally twice her size into that jail cell in choreography so unbelievable they cut away for half of it
Omgosh yes thank you! That was the lamest on so many levels -- "How did she do it, you ask? We don't need to show you, she can do anything, trust us."
My goodness. I played this video thinking i was going to hate it, but i appreciate your thoughtful analysis instead of spewing hate. While I like the show, I don’t feel fully connected to many of the characters, Galadriel being the primary one. Thank you for pointing out why. (The rope bugged me too.) She’s just so angry and all about being a badass. Why? To me, that’s not what’s important. What’s important is how much she cares about middle earth. Her abilities are secondary. Her ego is secondary. I do like the two girl harfoots. I think their timing shows a long friendship and how young girls can behave. Those two have most endeared me to the show. I’m glad i took a chance on your video, and I am glad you don’t just call things stupid, but offer something constructive. Thanks.
Thank you! It matters a lot that even somebody who likes the show could still enjoy the video.
That's what I generally hope to achieve on this channel - the ability to discuss things, even things that have an underlying heated ongoing debate, without having to pick sides in an all or nothing fashion.
Two words "character development"
Folks seem pissed off that the "good guys" are sort of shit (or very shit in some cases)... but they aren't actually the good guys yet.
This is a 5 season series folks... If the characters didn't change/grow over the course of the series, it would really legitimately suck.
Give it some time ;)
@@travcollier
Even flawed characters need to be likeable or charming in some way. Like in House M.D., for example.
You need to show seeds of goodness or some charm early on, not just plain abrsiveness. Otherwise people just won't like the character at all and won't care about their development.
@@BookFurnace Those seeds are there, but so many folks just seem to refuse to see them. Negative expectations and confirmation bias are strong.
The writers have been extremely obvious (a bit too much IMO) with what they are doing, especially with Galadriel. She is firmly in the "darkness" on her way to finding the "light". Yet there are plenty of moments where she shows self-awareness and even kindness.
I don't think the show is perfect or even particularly great, but it is decent and shows a lot of promise. Again, we're 6 episodes into a main plot which is set to run 5 seasons.
BTW: Different groups of elves went on genocidal wars against *each other*... self-righteous asshole is pretty much the default for elves.
The latest episode mentions Sauron's motivation (control and order) as well as hinting strongly at how radically different it is from Morgoth's. Good stuff... also actually faithful to Tolkien.
Yep, you’re absolutely right on all observations and suggested directions. I’m so bummed about ROP, but like a car accident I couldn’t look away and watched every episode all along complaining venomously at the tv or whoever walked by.
The writers said to themselves, "What are smart people like? I know! They're good at chess! It worked with Goldblum in Independence Day! I was going to have Arondir help a peasant child with their trigonometry homework, but this is so much better!"
Actually that would have been better, if you ignore that obviously they wouldn't be doing trigonometry. It would have shown Arondir's fundamental decency, which we generally see for the rest of the series. Whereas the smart ass chess thing is totally out of character with everything else he does, not just the smart ass bit, but also that his character is quite reserved and almost shy. In fact the more you think about it, the worse it gets...