How lame is it that Amazon had Celebrimbor call Sauron the Lord of the Rings when Sauron hasn't forged The One yet, and so has no ring to rule them all.
@@ErikKain How did those two pass high school English? No, that's not just a slam or a joke. I mean, I did my high school English in a different country and decades ago. But... has the English curriculum changed, has the competence of teachers changed, is there some issue with American high school education changed? PAYNE STUDIED ENGLISH LITERATURE? MCKAY GOT AN MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING? *HOW??* WHY aren't their degrees being REVOKED? ... wait. No. Modern Star Wars, modern Star Trek, modern Doctor Who. AppleTV's disgusting demolition of Isaac Asimov's "Foundation". Is it the writers, or is our age truly lost? What IS being taught now in English Lit and Creative Writing?
The more I learn about this show the more I think the greatest problem happened in the pitch meeting. It is insane that they went with this crew with this level of talent and experience and with this vision. Whoever green lit this show and selected this path is the person (or group of people) most responsible for all that followed.
Yes. I can't bring myself to be angry at the writers, they are clearly complete amateurs who cannot be expected to do a good job on a project like this. It's like putting a teenager who just got his driving license behind an F1 car and wondering why he crashed. The blame is on the person who gave him that car, not the kid
💯they were so eager to get their hands on the IP and Bezos wanted it to be Game of Thrones and you see that influence everywhere in the show. it was rushed through development by a studio (Amazon) that had basically no experience or track record in producing good television and boy does it show. i would love to see what HBO would've done with the rights. they're currently putting out the best show on television about a secondary batman villain without batman. such a shame
I totally agree about Morphydd Clark being Galadriel. She is way too short and she just seems to lack that ethereal, regal presence needed for the role. I have found myself watching House of the Dragon and thinking that Emma D'Arcy should have been Galadriel. I truly believe the biggest flaw of the series is that they have chosen amateurs to produce it, which is baffling to me. It is known that Amazon wanted this series to be 'the next Game of Thrones' and yet they have shot themselves in the foot by selecting neophytes of the industry rather than seasoned veterans. The script seems awful and I don't know how it ever made it through whatever approval process an initial draft goes through. I finished the series Shogun for the first time and it had me wishing that Rings of Power was written so well. The character of Toranaga was brilliantly portrayed and was clearly adept at Machiavellian political intrigue and I truly wish Sauron could have been portrayed to be as brilliant in that aspect. We could have had multiple seasons with complex power plays among the elves that truly demonstrated Sauron's sinister genius, but instead he just bumbles his way through with luck and the occasional magical coercion. It really was a lost opportunity, which is how I feel about the entire series. SAD.
I will never understand why they gave this project to a bunch of amateurs. It was always going to be an extremely difficult project - the source material is way too narrow for a 5-season show so they were always going to need to make up most of the story, and the extra material needed to be written in a way that resembles Tolkien's style (as well as the basic assumption that the writing is _good)._ Add on top of that the difficulty producing a billion dollar project always has. It would have been difficult to get right for a veteran crew - completely impossible for this lot. What were they thinking?
@exantiuse497 because, like most of these corporate productions, companies they like yes men they don't want real creativity they think that a study group is better than a storyteller !
@@exantiuse497yet the director of the battle scene - which was an utter disaster with the exception of that one long shot ending with ",roof slide elf" - is an experienced man in his late 60s!!! How?!
'The story-maker...makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter...The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed.' J.R.R.Tolkien
I was just thinking about the stakes yesterday. I read The Fall of Gondolin and month ago, and am reading The Children of Hurin now. I recently re-watched the extended editions of all 6 of Peter Jackson's movies (and I've read The Silmarillion and other tales from the Histories of Middle Earth). The biggest difference is that I get emotionally invested in the books and the Jackson movies, and get misty-eyed at times. Watching ROP I feel nothing except irritation, boredom, or an eye-roll.
Children Of Húrin expands greatly through Unfinished Tales. ❤ Laws And Customs Of The Eldar and Morgoth’s Ring helps ALOT with one’s Tolkien dives. Which lassy lifetimes. ❤
@@yurikendal4868it’s not dry at all when you don’t skip the songs and poems and how Fingolfin stares Morgoth run the face without faltering and so forth. Remember his speech outside of Angband? Not dry at all. ❤
"Rings of Power" always reminds of a scene in "The Majestic". Where a producer in a story meeting says "Can we put a dog in it? People love dogs!". And that's how we ended up with Gandalf, Hobbits and the Balrog in a show set in the 2nd age.
It's a good summary. I would add "contrived writing". And you missed the most important: unlikable characters!! Likeable characters can carry the show even if the plot is weak. This show fails at everything!
the FACT that Aarondir is somehow alive and the show just forgets that it gave us the edit WITH him getting stabbed not once, but twice, only to act as if it never happened whatsoever is honestly mind-boggling. Imagine being the actor and seeing that and not being like "hey, guys? what was that?" - I imagine we will start season 3 with Theo burning another wrapped up body in Pelagir (it's like poetry, it rhymes). You know what it is? I bet it is because they totally forgot he ties into the Ent plot and need him for season 3 AFTER the fact. Unbelievable.
I am convinced that whoever wrote episode 8 never got the memo that Arondir was supposed to be dead, and nobody proofread the script after the fact. It's the most incomprehensible detail in a show filled with incomprehensible plot points - a character flat out getting killed on screen and raising from the dead in the next scene for no reason
Arondir is really stuck. Without Bronwyn and the Epic Romance (🙄), he really doesn't have anything to do. But because they made such a big freakin' deal with the first season about "the Black Elf" and how anyone who didn't like the character was because of racism, they can't just kill him off without looking like fools. So now he's there without really anything to do, or any position of authority to justify him showing up and being more than an ordinary Elven soldier, and it shows.
In a lot of ways it seems like it’s not written by or for Tolkien fans, but then weirdly they also rely on the audience understanding the lore. The politics in Numenor make no sense unless you already know who the Faithful and the King’s Men are. Celebrimbor is motivated by wanting to live up to Feanor, but normies would have no idea who that is. Not-Saruman is explaining his and Grand Elf’s backstory by name-dropping *Manwe.* This show doesn’t know what kind of audience it wants.
That is a large part of it. Unless you have some idea of the lore, Pharazon grabbing the kingship because an Eagle showed up makes no sense. If you're a casual viewer, this must be totally baffling. Some giant bird flies in and then flies off, and that makes him king? Who are the Valar, and why does anybody care about them? They are rushing so much because they depend on "you already know the background", but then their stated rationale for the changes from lore is "you already know the background so this wouldn't be a surprise to you" and I'm just lost.
Thanks Erik, all so sad but true. The show lacks any sense of scale or real majesty. Numenor is just an impressive harbour with a few squabbling fools, not a huge island continent with a population of millions. The Soutlands was a grubby village with a handfull of people (with for some strange reason mostly generic NORTHERN English accents). Eregion weirdly underpopulated etc etc. Even when they attempt at something "large" with the Elven cavalry charge it just looked wrong and completely fake. See Bonarchuks 1970 Waterloo for what a real mass cavalry charge really looks like.Even if the Elves are magical, wonderful horsemen it just takes you so out of the moment, or it would if anything in this show took you into the moment,.
The characters lack heart and authenticity. I just imagine myself really not liking the writers if we ever had dinner together. The characters most likely reflect themselves. Zero humility, empathy and warmth. Even Durin’s story which had a level of warmth to it, got butchered in the end. I just think the new breed of writers coming through are on social media endlessly, tweeting, living a rich life and lacking any real life experience.
You are right. I am a hard core Tolkien's fan, but granted you cannot just "map" that vast legendarium into movies without modification. But the dialogues are wooden and jarring, the spatiotemporal logic is absent, the number of stories overwhelming... And, as you say, there is not even a philosophical message. It is one scene after another. What a waste.
Thank you 8 have a word for why I was so confused all the time. Missing Spatiotemporal logic, I presume, is the reason I was completely confused about where everybody was and how it related to the city, during the battle scene?
The costuming and props are so cheap looking. The art design is poor as well, the rings look like total garbage. Who thought big chunky uncut stones was a good choice?
So well said! That’s basically what I was discussing with a friend last night . And he insists how I should just don’t overthink or overanalyze the show in order to enjoy it . But I am not purposely trying to overthink it ,even if initially ,while watching I am not analyzing every aspect of it ,it just feels off and it can’t get me immersed ,because of those issues . I don’t find it believable because it lacks internal logic ,even when I try separate it from Tolkien’s lore . It still makes no sense . And I can’t “ just enjoy it” because it is not enjoyable ,really …
Yes I've heard this so much before. "Don't overanalyze it." "Don't demand perfection, just enjoy it." But I can't enjoy it. It feels like the writers aren't trying to get me to enjoy it because we never get to see their own characters long enough to care about them and can't be bothered to come up with compelling plots. The audience is told what they should feel without it actually being earned.
There's no overthinking or overanalysing it, I just look and see. And you're 100% right that it doesn't work even when entirely separated from the lore, the writing is so atrocious that it makes my brain hurt.
I believe this show is the manifestation of a participation trophy, specifically one that is awarded by oneself to oneself. I kept getting the feeling that the show is not concerned with making its viewers happy or excited about it, and rather felt that the writers and showrunners are somehow owed praise for their wonderful work. I honestly found nothing to enjoy about this story and felt that that scenes such as battles and fights were so incompetently made and illogical, even a good story wouldn’t save it. When logic and cohesion is missing, because the writers probably didn’t grow up watching the stories that they are now working on, as a viewer, you get the feeling that literally everyone besides these writers could have done a better job. And what was up with sending in that troll during the big battle? He walks in and gets an owie from that siege engine? Great film making that is. I rate this entire series a 1/10. Ps: the sea is always right.
Thank you for mentioning the attention to detail. The same with Wheel of Time show, the biggest issues I have is these shows failing to follow their own internal, “show created and established” logic. Egwene in both seasons finales is a great example on what not to do
I lasted about 20 minutes into WoT until they made about the 20th utterly crude/Gay reference and said F this. Jordan is spinning in his grave over that abomination. Utter feces.
It's always fun reading your Forbes articles and then seeing the corresponding video show up in a day or two. It makes me wish someone else was around so I could blow their fuckin mind by guessing what the "5 Biggest Problems" are before watching the video.
the dialogue not being conversational at all is one of the absolute biggest problems in my opinion. the entire show sounds like something i used to write in grade school trying to fulfill a word and metaphor quota in an essay. the jackson movies do a great job of keeping all of the dialogue conversational. the characters are all well spoken, but they also talk to each other normally. absolutely everyone in ROP is putting on airs whenever they speak with anyone.
What exactly is Galadriel doing when she holds out her hand with the ring on it pretends to give it to Sauron? "I bet you want this don't you, Sauron! Ha, ha. Can't have it". What imbeciles have written this scene and dialogue?
I can't comprehend how George R.R. Martin even attempted GoT's with so many characters. It's impressive he got so far before stumbling. I originally intended my first book as a standalone. But with 2 main characters and a few side characters (with major presence), it just became too big for one book. I'm trying to wrap it up with a third, but I've done a Martin and written myself into a corner. Multiple characters is not for amateurs like Me, Payne and McKay.
#1 Sauron Crying #2 Sauron's Wig #3 Sauron's Fivehead #4 Sauron trying to get into Galadriel's Panties & #5 EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE SHOW! Apart from Adar, Waldreg, Damrod & Glug...who are now all dead.
The problem is these writers are shockingly bad and they don't even know. They might legitimately think they're doing better than Tolkien. Whatever horrible parenting raised these idiots told them they were special way to often and never criticized anything they did. This show is worse than anything I could've imagined a Tolkien adaptation could be done. It's so bizarre. The delusional incompetence just leaks down into every other aspect. Cheap, amateur, and lazy at all levels
"too inexperienced to handle this story",... ...and then some! Perhaps 'too inexperienced to handle logical conundrums like "Hey, didn't you get stabbed to death last episode"' is closer to the mark
I have seen in TH-cam, several AI generated short videos about Tolkien's stories like from Silmarillion, and they are like way better than what Amazon did with its RoP show, considering the massive one Billion dollars budget that they have . At least the story from these AIs, though they are short seems to respect Tolkien more, in terms of the narration and the characters ( elves do look like elves described by Tolkien, men looks like men, dwarves look like dwarves, and so on)
I think one of the big problems with Rings of Power is the writer's lack of understanding of basic Cause and Effect. Things just happen in the show that have no logical following.
3:40 - I think a '1:1' adaptation could have been done. The showrunners are handicapped in that they think that there HAS to be a main cast and this main cast must live on through all the seasons. You can't really do that with like 3,000 years of lore and non-immortal characters. Instead what you can do is dedicate a season or a series of episodes to a range of years. On screen you could show the year or range of years and then you could probably compress down several years. This would also help with focusing the story instead of having 20 different plots going in a 480min season. Could make a season on Celibrimbor+Annetar working on crafting the rings. Could make a season on Sauron besieging Ost-en-Edhil. Could make a season that focuses on the Numenoreans. Could make a season that focuses on the war.
1. It existed. 2. Lack of talent across the board. 3. DEI politics 4. Crapping on Tolkien and insinuating that they were true to the spirit of his work when it's so obvious that they weren't. 5. Crapping on Tolkien fans because fans will raise you up or tear you down.
I can hear Galadriel saying, "You have your own choice, to make, Aragorn.. To rise above all your fathers, since the days of Elendil.. Or to fall into darkness with all that is left of your kin"..
I think they should've spend the first few seasons building the world, not the rings. Like who is he going to give the rings to? One dwarf and some human peasants? Have Annatar travel through Middle Earth, forging alliances, while our plucky band of new characters is slowly becoming aware of him, and he of them.
A lot of the most baffling choices: 1: Galadriel having no magical powers without the ring, implying elves aren't magical on their own. 2: The rings being made as specifically 3, 7 and 9, with no others (ruining the idea bilbo's ring could be anything but the one) and no specific reason for those numbers. 3: the elves have openly betrayed the southlands and no one talks about it. They seem to have no standing army and the elves failed to protect them. The story of the second age should be about elves and men coming together, and the only human characters are Theo and Estrid. 4: the mystics and the east are given almost no development, despite this being fertile ground for new concepts. We don't even know the witch's name at the end of season 2.
#2 - exactly. Nobody seems to harp on this enough. It's huge!! Hundreds of years of ring making history that has a specific line of lore all woven into it all upended and shat upon to tell a nonsensical tiktok iq story...
Your season plan made me think about how I would have done it, which in turn made me think of 'The Mandolorian'. The Mandolorian used it's important assets very sparingly, so when Luke turns up, viewers are genuinely excited. With RoP, if the first season focused solely on, as you say, Celebrimbor alone - his back story, his corruptability, the making of the rings IN THE CORRECT ORDER, you could then have Galadriel/Gil-Galad turning up at the end of his arc, perhaps then persuading/helping to forge the Three. Celebrimbor as a flawed character could've sound less 'elfy' - a more relatable normal character for the viewer - meaning the dialogue wouldn't need to be so over-burdened, faux Shakespeare (and Monty Python). Galadriel/Gil-Galad *could* then have more of the elf about them, as wise older leaders, also imbuing them with some of the strange other-worldlyness Jackson managed to give Galadriel in the films. You can use the Memberberries as long as you do it cleverly and infrequently.
Im not a Catholic, but imagine how would Tolkien (someone who was a devout Catholic) react to Galadriel and Elrond kiss taking in consideration they were cousins, Galadriel is married and would become his mother in law.
Exactly. I see so many conservatives saying that the work needs to be respected because it's Christianity and it's the truth. No, it needs to be respected because we honour the author's intent. We present it as it was intended to be understood. Anything less is an insult to the author and the work, and to the whole concept of interpreting literature with fairness and with as little bias as possible. I don't have to be a Christian to be deeply offended by the hackish and agenda-driven way that this work was appropriated and defaced.
@2:15 I'm not sure if you watch Little Platoon but he makes a good point that this show only understands Tolkien on a superficial level. Some examples being the constant jarring on the nose callbacks and references to the PJ movies or books, or how they depict something Tolkien vaguely wrote about (such as orc families, or the portrayal of Galadriel in her youth, or Sauron as a master manipulator) but botch the landing/execution, that it's only Tolkien in name, and it's exacerbated by terrible writing.
@@ErikKain Yes please do so. He does have a trope of being cynical and a lot of dry humor, his videos are also very long on each episode (over an hour), but it is because he goes into depth not only on Tolkien lore but the craft of storytelling itself, has a lot of overlap with what you say.
What most people don't realize, is that in Poppy's speech, 17:17, she was actually referring to the show, Rings of Power, and how it would be wisest to abandon season 3 and start over from scratch.
Agreed on all points. Really well said, great feedback without being over the top like many youtube reviews. Some of those may be right but they are painful to watch and not really helpful. Thanks for this level headed discussion!
Yes - especially that last point - the elves are different creatures because they can and have literally walked with the gods, and people are checking galadriels ears because she is on the small side of human physically and in motivation. I'm agnostic but a solid spiritual system is as important as a magic system in these things - to what extent do gods act in the world, and to what extent is belief reasonable for the characters to act? that's one thing Martin did particularly well. Tolkein was like - dwarves know themselves to be the children of aule. This show is like - deesa knows she is the best singer and wants to be queen just cuz.
I came across a Facebook post saying Sauron's deception in RoP should be studied in psychology... I didn't have the heart to tell them they're idiots, just like the characters Sauron easily deceived LOL
The showrunners mentioned Braveheart and there is a line they clearly ripped from that movie in season one. In Braveheart, when the King returns, he kills his son's advisor. Braveheart: "Who is this person that speaks to me as if I needed his advice?" The King. RoP: "Who is this person that speaks to me as if he has the slightest idea who I am?" Galadriel. Also, let's make Galadriel the Commander of the armies of the north, like Maximus in Gladiator, another movie they cited as inspiration.
Even if one can look past the constant canon breaking of ROP, it' is a horribly written, directed and acted show. Call it something else with no connection to Tolkien and it is still a pathetic fantasy series. Considering the extreme budget at least the spectacle elements should be engaging. They are not...
Every time they try for epic, I laugh out loud. Every time they try for "Member this?" I laugh out loud. I'm enjoying this show in the same way I enjoy traffic accidents. Which means I don't enjoy it at all, but I just can't look away.
I agree. I am usually very pedantic about lore breaking (I have big issues with Peter Jackson's films for this reason) but with this show I don't have to point at lore changes to prove the writing is poor since the non-lore related issues are so pronounced anyone can see them without reading the originals. It is actually quite refreshing
Don't know if this gets mentioned, but my god when ever the actress who plays Galadriel has to do anything athletic or a fight scene, it looks woeful. Not sure if she's just really poor, or she's not put in the effort to try make it look realistic, but it's terrible everytime she's involved in any action
She's just badly cast, and on top of that is the terrible work around fight scenes and even stage swordsmanship. They want "will this look cool?" and not "is this even remotely plausible?" Shad did a recent video on the fight with Sauron using the crown and no way that works, even with the benefit of "But it's a fantasy". Swords don't work that way, arms don't work that way. The fight is semi-realistic in that Sauron would indeed easily beat Galadriel, if the two were fighting as the actors, because she's too small and weak to overcome him. I'm really disappointed in the big battle for the siege of Eregion, because this is what we'd been building up to all season, and we got a couple of good shots but the rest of it was wasted (modern artillery grade catapults can knock lumps off a mountain but not bash down city walls, riverbed is dry and solid enough to support the Orc army, Elven cavalry charge stops dead and does nothing, etc.)
it boils down to atrociously bad writing. culpability for this disaster really lies with the producers. you have a billion dollars to blow on this and the best talent you could hire was dumb and dumber from bad robot? wtf
The problem first, last and foremost is the writing, and that is on Payne and McKay who are the ones setting down the parameters. I still cannot understand what the point of Galadriel and Halbrand is. Why. It's not convincing to me, and they don't seem to have any spark between them. This is not a Romeo and Juliet story where there are a pair of star-crossed lovers trying to escape the feuding of their respective families. It just makes no sense. I really do think that the problem is Payne and McKay are used to working on movie scripts so they have no idea how to handle an episodic show over seasons.
I like the idea of building a series on a longlived race, and the challenges that would present in terms of showing how that is experienced by the characters themselves without needing to condense the timeline. Not being a Witcher fan from the start I remember the mindfuck partways into season 1 when I realized that the characters in this episode was in fact the children from a former episode. It wasn't obvious from episode to episode but as you followed the story it gradually became clear just how apart from the rest of humanity the main characters were. There are more examples of this too, and I can't help but think of how amazing an adaptation could have been if they would have taken that route instead (as well as the opportunity to have a bigger and more varied cast to play the different generations).
Thank you Erik. I really appreciated your review. Your points are all bang on. For me Amazon’s RoP has been a huge missed opportunity and I’m really sad about that. This show could have been truly awesome. I confess I have warmed to it in S2 despite the cringes which just keep coming up, not-Tom, Numenor’s population of 42 people, the not (really) Blue wizards, Gil-Galad not being magisterial, the elves being unexceptional, cavalry charges with an emergency stop function, distances and journey times being ignored, elf fading (or paranoia about it) seemingly turned up to 11, river-damming by peashooter, undiscovered caverns a short rolling-ball away from Moria central. Oh, and the farcical aquatic ceremony of Cirdan (of all people!) rowing out a few metres to dump The 3 🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️. I could go on, and on… The structure is off; you’re right the multiple parallel storylines created by their decisions on compression, don’t help, but could have been smarter. Numenor was meant to decline slowly, not within the space of a few months 🤦🏼♂️. The writing and dialogue is off. Yes, not conversational and sometimes silly. I did like how Sauron’s manipulation of Celebrimbor and the smith (not smiths) was achieved, that was a highlight in what was otherwise more frustrating than grand. Shame them with great shame. Still, I do look forward to seeing seasons 3-5 and how they will cover the closing events of the Second Age.
3:45 - Which is perhaps why they should not have tried at all. Not every work of fiction is adaptable to film and television. Look at how War and Peace has been inadequately captured on film or stage. 8:44 - Perspective. The word is "perspective". Point of View is 1st, 2nd, 3rd person. 14:02 - No, it's simple incompetency. Event-driven stories with no central dramatic question, problem, conflict where the writer(s) just think of things to more or less arbitrarily then have them happen in sequence is a hallmark of amateur writing.
@@ErikKain *POV* in a novel refers to the grammatical "person" telling the story: 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person. *Perspective* is the vantage point from which individual characters perceive and interpret the story’s events. For example, in A Song of Ice and Fire, *the POV is third-person limited*, but each chapter is told from a *different character’s perspective*. For more detail, see "Point of View in Fiction" by Norman Friedman or any intro to fiction writing course.
@@seanmurphy7011 yep, I know the difference. But again, common usage of the phrase "POV character" is what it is. Such is language. I am a linguistic libertarian, or perhaps libertine, and English is a populist tongue.
I like that you really found the biggest problems with the show. And in my opinion lacking that divine spirit and missing the.clear separation between good and evil and the corruption that the evil is slowly doing is one of the biggest problem. Plus everything and everyone seem so stupid.
I think the writer group of this show sit down with the specific aim of antagonizing and pissing off the actual fans of Tolkien since they know they have no talent in writing a good fantasy story and have less creativity of NOT plagiarizing the works of other better and talented writers and show runners. No talent, no creativity, so, let's piss off the fans and give them the finger! Anyway, that's what I think these talentless hack are trying to do with this show! 🤷♂️
There is no grand conspiracy to anger fans or intentionally make bad shows. The makers of the show just don't know what they're doing. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence
Subbed after your Agetha review, and after this one I know that was the right call. Another really good video. I appreciate the detail you went into around the character of Tolkien, I didn't know any of that and I think I understand his book a bit better in light of it.
Currently watching Hobbits extended, it's wild how much better it is the rings of power. It's clear the stakes, the goals and the characters. Rop is just dog crap.
The Mary Sue article makes sense if you take it as speaking for an audience that wants to watch a soap opera. Once you realize the showrunners are producing a soap opera and not high fantasy many aspects of the show suddenly make sense. Maybe they thought this route was necessary to appeal to younger viewers, even though turning off the core audience to reach a newer audience rarely, if ever, works out.
I know I'm in the minority on the internet, but I really enjoyed several storylines of this show. The Sauron/Anatar + Celebrimbor scenes were usually great, even if it made some changes. The Durin/Dwarves storyline has been really enjoyable since S1, and Elrond stuff was always good. The weakest parts were definitely the Stranger storyline, the Numenor stuff (acting was great though) and the Theo stuff. They made the Numenorian people seem really dumb, and they had a hard time showing proper scale. Sometimes it felt like there were only a few dozen people in the whole city. But I'm a person who expects changes when adapting any book to TV or film. The original LOTR Trilogy changed plenty as well, hence why the Tolkien estate vehemently refused to support it. So I'll definitely continue watching, I just hope the show carves more of its own path & relies less on callbacks
Grandelf *has* been wearing the same robe for two seasons now, he definitely needs a change. And they can't just pop down to Wizarding Fashions boutique to buy an outfit, so yes: season three - how Grandelf got his Gray! 😄
I wonder how many of the problems in this show started with marketing decisions at the top. Like, I would bet that when Amazon and the studio were considering show runners and their various proposed treatments, their guidance was probably along the lines of, "Look, we paid a lot of money for these rights, so anything you show us has to play all the hits - it has to have Gandalf, it has to have Galadriel, Elrond, Sauron obviously, the Balrog, hobbits, all the things, canon be damned." I would bet that a lot of the bastardization of the characters and the timeline started before the first script was ever written.
One of the most reasonable reviews I have seen so far. A lot of the criticism is backed up by attacks on the actors and their ethnicities, when the whole show is poorly written.
I think my biggest gripe is that I will probably imagine Wickers as Sauron from now on when reading lotr or other Tolkien works. No such issue, with Galadriel, Elrond or Gandalf, but since Jackson made Sauron this larger than life faceless evil, which was brilliant imo, my brain will cling to the only actual face we have for him and I hate it. Same with Celebrimbor or Cirdan. And likely Gil-galad, since we've only seen like 10 seconds of him in the trilogy and it is honestly depressing. I should have never watched it and i wish it could be deleted from everyone's memory
One silver lining from sitting through another disappointing and exasperating season has been discovering Erik's reviews! The prequilitis is strong with this one. At this rate, we'll be regaled with the origin story of (not my) Gandalf's left sock in season 5.
I can't bring myself to try this show again because the first few episodes of season one were infuriating and very boring, but I am fascinated by the dialogue around it. It's a train wreck on both sides that I can't look away from, but I'm thrilled to find someone giving good faith and well founded criticism without devolving to misogynistic/racist ad hominem attacks against the cast. From all I can see as a non viewer, I agree, and I love that Garth Nix plug. Spot on!
Awesome forbes article. Could not agree more with what you said about season 2. It's satisfying to hear that I'm not the only one who thought about all of these utterly bad moments in the show 😂
I have to say Eric 2 years ago I thought you had jumped on the ant woke hysteria. But you’ve made that abundantly clear that that is simply not the case . You absolutely nailed it with your critique and I’m sure there are more. The lack of the “ Numinus “ is especially insufferably. Bravo ! Listening to your critiques makes me Bear the show much like Gollum bears the stench of the dead marshes . Looking forward to your critique of season three .
I am glad this review was one of tge sanest I have seen. It was not "woke, woke, woke, marxism, marxism, marxism, leftism and activism is evil..." incels/neocons rages. .
Tolkien wrote about personal relationships, but he also couched them in larger stakes involving the survival of entire groups of people. Rings of Power is only minimally concerned with the fates of each civilization. Most of them don’t seem particularly worth saving.
Strangely enough, I found Poppy's speech touching and, in fact, about the only "Tolkienesque" thing in the show. Tolkien has strong themes of fall from grace, loss and melancholy. At that point in the story you see the good guys at their low and they indeed lost something permanently (Númenor turned to evil, Eregion destroyed never to be rebuilt). I didn't see the speech as saying that one should give up, quite to the contrary, we need to go forward and not dwell on the past taht cannot be fixed. PS: I am not defending the show (it is horrible in every respect except some pretty cgi). Just interesting how people hate the one thing that worked for me.
I'd say objectively, better then season 1. On a whole, it lacks focus. There were some great parts, and I liked Sauron's character way more than I did for the other characters who are on the good side. One might call this Sauron's POV of the 2nd Season. Another problem I had is 8 episodes of 1 hour lengths don't do it justice if you're trying to cover multiple POVS. On the one hand, Vikings had 20 episodes, but it managed to show multiple POVS. At least 10-15 episodes. But they all have to cover arcs of Numenor, Middle earth that you say to yourself, okay, so whose story am I covering then? It seems like they want to cover a LOT, but they end up butchering it because it's not easy to adapt. I doubt any 2nd season material is for LOTR. And let's give ep 5 a good plus. Because it showed what this show can be. Not the greatest, but it didn't have any writing credits I believe. They have to do some recasting, and they have to do the scale justice. The scale is like 20 dwarves, 30 elves etc. This is something that can be easily fixed. That being said, I enjoyed s2 more better because it did fulfil on one thing: How Sauron literally brings ruin to Eregion. That arc was complete.
The smart money is asking: If this is the kind of mess Amazon is making with Tolkien's Second Age, imagine the horrors to come when Netflix tackles the Narnia books.
Like you brought up for GRRM, the problem of „too much“ in an ongoing series really does show itself again and again. Manga like Naruto and One Piece are great, and diminish in quality as the casts get way too big and bloated while the authors try to juggle most of them
I'd love to see what your AI song prompts are, lol. I always said they needed to narrow their scope. A series about the Blue Wizards, Khamûl, and Rhun would have allowed them to fanfic to their heart's content without ruining canon or established characters.
Worst is are the origin stories. Before this is over, Mari and Nori will have discovered the Shire and potato farming. Disa will have caused Frodo's mithril coat to be crafted. Galadriel will have founded Lothlorien. Miriel will have laid the foundation stones of Minas Tirith and Orthanc.
I feel like the people who love the show would love the old D&D movie, the one with Jeremy Irons, just as much if it had Lord of the Rings in the name.
I have watched a bunch of people commenting about this show and i think you summed up very efficiently pretty much 99% of what's wrong with it. Your last point about the lack of that sort of "religious feeling" in the show being your best one. Modern scrptwriters certainly dont get that and thats also probably because they dont believe in anything and they completely lack classic culture. Which is why everything is so shallow. This is certainly ok if you write for Marvel but Middle Earth is more than that, it has roots, deep roots. It is some kind of aggregated occidental mythology, woven with talent and echoing from the distant past. It has mysticism, magic and religion and you cant remove all that without completely messing up the result.
I quit in revulsion after three episodes of Season 1. Good to know my instincts were spot-on. Thank you for your analysis. Of course there is numinosity - the people who made this, and most others in Hollywood and the like, abhor Catholicism and Christianity. Instead, they inject modern far-left political ideology into the production. "Lipstick on a pig." One correction though, the show is most definitely "woke", in the worst possible way, in addition to being an insult to Tolkien and his fans.
this is not any far left ideology but more like trying to gaslight people that they should not bother longer about injustices, thus one could easily call it far-right thinking. But in fact I believe that show as it is has been the product of an unfortunate game of egomaniac ambitions (Bezo's, Simon Tolkien's and the Showrunner's ones) combined with inferior skills, contempt for JRR Tolkien's work and the complete disregard for the only thing that mattered: to tell a story that is good in its own right.
This is one of, if not the, best videos you have made and excellently highlights both your knowledge of Tolkien's lore and how to correctly adapt it to the small screen. Made for the Tik Tok generation is the proverbial nail on the head. I'd love to see you debate this with the likes of Critical Drinker and Gary from Nerdrotic.
I really like your break down, I think your criticisms are both fair and on-point. I feel like the writes are not only not that great at their craft, but they've also produced a YA fantasy rather than epic fantasy. It is soapy and frankly, immature in the way it deals with its characters. In my mind I could never accept their Sauron and Galadriel since they don't resemble those characters at all. I think Jackson did Sauron well when he presented him as almost alien and as a transcendent being, who spoke in a booming dark language and never in English. ROP Sauron will chill at the pub with you and share his painful childhood stories while pining over a girl that got away.
I think that the concern with the "numinous" is even more important in the story of the making of the rings. It is the attempt by the elves to once again circumvent the "divine" plan. It is an attempt to assert their own power, to play God in creating a paradise on earth. While they want to use that power for good ends, it is the same impulse of Sauron and Morgoth (the belief that they can create something better on their own rather than what Eru intended). Rather than working to realize the divine plan and drawing on divine power (what Tolkien considered true artistry or creation), the elves want to seek some other source to do something "good" but it isn't the "good" as Eru originally wanted. And thus they are open to using a questionable source (Annatar) for that end. As a Catholic, Tolkien was a good Augustinian: evil is the "privation of good". Even evil has something "good" about it. But something about it lacks the full good that comes only from the "divine". So much here that the show could have done, even in philosophical terms rather than outright religious terms. But instead, the rings are simply convenient tools to patch up sudden and unforeseen problems. As you say, it's just so much more "petty".
How lame is it that Amazon had Celebrimbor call Sauron the Lord of the Rings when Sauron hasn't forged The One yet, and so has no ring to rule them all.
BUT THEY SAID THE THING
Total hacks
MEMBERBERRIES!!! Do you ‘member a Lord of the Rings? They have those here too!
It's so crazy how bad they are at this! It feels like I'm taking crazy pills....
@@ErikKain How did those two pass high school English?
No, that's not just a slam or a joke. I mean, I did my high school English in a different country and decades ago. But... has the English curriculum changed, has the competence of teachers changed, is there some issue with American high school education changed?
PAYNE STUDIED ENGLISH LITERATURE? MCKAY GOT AN MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING?
*HOW??* WHY aren't their degrees being REVOKED?
... wait. No. Modern Star Wars, modern Star Trek, modern Doctor Who. AppleTV's disgusting demolition of Isaac Asimov's "Foundation".
Is it the writers, or is our age truly lost? What IS being taught now in English Lit and Creative Writing?
The more I learn about this show the more I think the greatest problem happened in the pitch meeting. It is insane that they went with this crew with this level of talent and experience and with this vision. Whoever green lit this show and selected this path is the person (or group of people) most responsible for all that followed.
This.
Jennifer Salke
I can't wait for the Pitch Meeting on this show...
Yes. I can't bring myself to be angry at the writers, they are clearly complete amateurs who cannot be expected to do a good job on a project like this. It's like putting a teenager who just got his driving license behind an F1 car and wondering why he crashed. The blame is on the person who gave him that car, not the kid
💯they were so eager to get their hands on the IP and Bezos wanted it to be Game of Thrones and you see that influence everywhere in the show. it was rushed through development by a studio (Amazon) that had basically no experience or track record in producing good television and boy does it show.
i would love to see what HBO would've done with the rights. they're currently putting out the best show on television about a secondary batman villain without batman. such a shame
I totally agree about Morphydd Clark being Galadriel. She is way too short and she just seems to lack that ethereal, regal presence needed for the role. I have found myself watching House of the Dragon and thinking that Emma D'Arcy should have been Galadriel.
I truly believe the biggest flaw of the series is that they have chosen amateurs to produce it, which is baffling to me. It is known that Amazon wanted this series to be 'the next Game of Thrones' and yet they have shot themselves in the foot by selecting neophytes of the industry rather than seasoned veterans. The script seems awful and I don't know how it ever made it through whatever approval process an initial draft goes through.
I finished the series Shogun for the first time and it had me wishing that Rings of Power was written so well. The character of Toranaga was brilliantly portrayed and was clearly adept at Machiavellian political intrigue and I truly wish Sauron could have been portrayed to be as brilliant in that aspect. We could have had multiple seasons with complex power plays among the elves that truly demonstrated Sauron's sinister genius, but instead he just bumbles his way through with luck and the occasional magical coercion. It really was a lost opportunity, which is how I feel about the entire series. SAD.
Excellent comment, agreed on all aspects.
You forgot having a good cry that what I really want for the pure evil dark Lord watching them cry like a baby 😂
I will never understand why they gave this project to a bunch of amateurs. It was always going to be an extremely difficult project - the source material is way too narrow for a 5-season show so they were always going to need to make up most of the story, and the extra material needed to be written in a way that resembles Tolkien's style (as well as the basic assumption that the writing is _good)._ Add on top of that the difficulty producing a billion dollar project always has. It would have been difficult to get right for a veteran crew - completely impossible for this lot. What were they thinking?
@exantiuse497 because, like most of these corporate productions, companies they like yes men they don't want real creativity they think that a study group is better than a storyteller !
@@exantiuse497yet the director of the battle scene - which was an utter disaster with the exception of that one long shot ending with ",roof slide elf" - is an experienced man in his late 60s!!! How?!
'The story-maker...makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter...The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed.' J.R.R.Tolkien
I was just thinking about the stakes yesterday. I read The Fall of Gondolin and month ago, and am reading The Children of Hurin now. I recently re-watched the extended editions of all 6 of Peter Jackson's movies (and I've read The Silmarillion and other tales from the Histories of Middle Earth).
The biggest difference is that I get emotionally invested in the books and the Jackson movies, and get misty-eyed at times. Watching ROP I feel nothing except irritation, boredom, or an eye-roll.
The Children of Hurin is my favourite Tolkien story of them all. Hope you enjoy it, it's pretty bleak.
@@blairsinclair1797 I pretty much know how it goes already...just reading it for the details.
The similarian is a dry history read and was quiet a slog. Still though it didnt deserve rop
Children Of Húrin expands greatly through Unfinished Tales. ❤ Laws And Customs Of The Eldar and Morgoth’s Ring helps ALOT with one’s Tolkien dives. Which lassy lifetimes. ❤
@@yurikendal4868it’s not dry at all when you don’t skip the songs and poems and how Fingolfin stares Morgoth run the face without faltering and so forth. Remember his speech outside of Angband? Not dry at all. ❤
"Rings of Power" always reminds of a scene in "The Majestic". Where a producer in a story meeting says "Can we put a dog in it? People love dogs!".
And that's how we ended up with Gandalf, Hobbits and the Balrog in a show set in the 2nd age.
It's a good summary.
I would add "contrived writing". And you missed the most important: unlikable characters!!
Likeable characters can carry the show even if the plot is weak.
This show fails at everything!
Simply too many things to list!
the FACT that Aarondir is somehow alive and the show just forgets that it gave us the edit WITH him getting stabbed not once, but twice, only to act as if it never happened whatsoever is honestly mind-boggling. Imagine being the actor and seeing that and not being like "hey, guys? what was that?" - I imagine we will start season 3 with Theo burning another wrapped up body in Pelagir (it's like poetry, it rhymes). You know what it is? I bet it is because they totally forgot he ties into the Ent plot and need him for season 3 AFTER the fact. Unbelievable.
That actor won’t care. Listen to 2 seconds of him speak…
I am convinced that whoever wrote episode 8 never got the memo that Arondir was supposed to be dead, and nobody proofread the script after the fact. It's the most incomprehensible detail in a show filled with incomprehensible plot points - a character flat out getting killed on screen and raising from the dead in the next scene for no reason
Arondir is really stuck. Without Bronwyn and the Epic Romance (🙄), he really doesn't have anything to do. But because they made such a big freakin' deal with the first season about "the Black Elf" and how anyone who didn't like the character was because of racism, they can't just kill him off without looking like fools. So now he's there without really anything to do, or any position of authority to justify him showing up and being more than an ordinary Elven soldier, and it shows.
I come for the AI music.
I stay for the shadenfreude.
Heh
Comment of the day, possibly month and we’re only 1/2 way there.
In a lot of ways it seems like it’s not written by or for Tolkien fans, but then weirdly they also rely on the audience understanding the lore. The politics in Numenor make no sense unless you already know who the Faithful and the King’s Men are. Celebrimbor is motivated by wanting to live up to Feanor, but normies would have no idea who that is. Not-Saruman is explaining his and Grand Elf’s backstory by name-dropping *Manwe.* This show doesn’t know what kind of audience it wants.
That is a large part of it. Unless you have some idea of the lore, Pharazon grabbing the kingship because an Eagle showed up makes no sense. If you're a casual viewer, this must be totally baffling. Some giant bird flies in and then flies off, and that makes him king? Who are the Valar, and why does anybody care about them? They are rushing so much because they depend on "you already know the background", but then their stated rationale for the changes from lore is "you already know the background so this wouldn't be a surprise to you" and I'm just lost.
Thanks Erik, all so sad but true. The show lacks any sense of scale or real majesty. Numenor is just an impressive harbour with a few squabbling fools, not a huge island continent with a population of millions. The Soutlands was a grubby village with a handfull of people (with for some strange reason mostly generic NORTHERN English accents). Eregion weirdly underpopulated etc etc. Even when they attempt at something "large" with the Elven cavalry charge it just looked wrong and completely fake. See Bonarchuks 1970 Waterloo for what a real mass cavalry charge really looks like.Even if the Elves are magical, wonderful horsemen it just takes you so out of the moment, or it would if anything in this show took you into the moment,.
Very much so. Yes.
The characters lack heart and authenticity. I just imagine myself really not liking the writers if we ever had dinner together. The characters most likely reflect themselves. Zero humility, empathy and warmth. Even Durin’s story which had a level of warmth to it, got butchered in the end. I just think the new breed of writers coming through are on social media endlessly, tweeting, living a rich life and lacking any real life experience.
@@leighsimmons2663 zero empathy and warmth, 100%
You are right. I am a hard core Tolkien's fan, but granted you cannot just "map" that vast legendarium into movies without modification. But the dialogues are wooden and jarring, the spatiotemporal logic is absent, the number of stories overwhelming... And, as you say, there is not even a philosophical message. It is one scene after another. What a waste.
Cinematic masturbation😂
Thank you 8 have a word for why I was so confused all the time. Missing Spatiotemporal logic, I presume, is the reason I was completely confused about where everybody was and how it related to the city, during the battle scene?
your mention of the numinous hits home. the writers messed with a well thought out mythology with ideas from Breaking Bad and Star Wars
#1 Showrunners
#2 Writers
#3 Directors (hiring for gender instead of merit)
#4 Casting
#5 Costumes
I can keep going
To be fair, there are several directors each season and my guess is they’re not involved with casting.
@@chriz4450 my guess is they've never read Tolkien.
The costuming and props are so cheap looking. The art design is poor as well, the rings look like total garbage. Who thought big chunky uncut stones was a good choice?
@@chriz4450 probably not with "plot" either
#1 Mid-Level Managers
So well said!
That’s basically what I was discussing with a friend last night . And he insists how I should just don’t overthink or overanalyze the show in order to enjoy it .
But I am not purposely trying to overthink it ,even if initially ,while watching I am not analyzing every aspect of it ,it just feels off and it can’t get me immersed ,because of those issues . I don’t find it believable because it lacks internal logic ,even when I try separate it from Tolkien’s lore . It still makes no sense . And I can’t “ just enjoy it” because it is not enjoyable ,really …
Yes I've heard this so much before. "Don't overanalyze it." "Don't demand perfection, just enjoy it." But I can't enjoy it. It feels like the writers aren't trying to get me to enjoy it because we never get to see their own characters long enough to care about them and can't be bothered to come up with compelling plots. The audience is told what they should feel without it actually being earned.
There's no overthinking or overanalysing it, I just look and see. And you're 100% right that it doesn't work even when entirely separated from the lore, the writing is so atrocious that it makes my brain hurt.
I believe this show is the manifestation of a participation trophy, specifically one that is awarded by oneself to oneself. I kept getting the feeling that the show is not concerned with making its viewers happy or excited about it, and rather felt that the writers and showrunners are somehow owed praise for their wonderful work. I honestly found nothing to enjoy about this story and felt that that scenes such as battles and fights were so incompetently made and illogical, even a good story wouldn’t save it. When logic and cohesion is missing, because the writers probably didn’t grow up watching the stories that they are now working on, as a viewer, you get the feeling that literally everyone besides these writers could have done a better job. And what was up with sending in that troll during the big battle? He walks in and gets an owie from that siege engine? Great film making that is. I rate this entire series a 1/10.
Ps: the sea is always right.
Or the C minus, as in the best directing school grades these idiots ever got in school😂
Thank you for mentioning the attention to detail. The same with Wheel of Time show, the biggest issues I have is these shows failing to follow their own internal, “show created and established” logic. Egwene in both seasons finales is a great example on what not to do
@@denglongfist4270 to be fair to that show, at least it got somewhat better in S2
I lasted about 20 minutes into WoT until they made about the 20th utterly crude/Gay reference and said F this. Jordan is spinning in his grave over that abomination. Utter feces.
It's always fun reading your Forbes articles and then seeing the corresponding video show up in a day or two. It makes me wish someone else was around so I could blow their fuckin mind by guessing what the "5 Biggest Problems" are before watching the video.
@@HenryThree heh
the dialogue not being conversational at all is one of the absolute biggest problems in my opinion. the entire show sounds like something i used to write in grade school trying to fulfill a word and metaphor quota in an essay. the jackson movies do a great job of keeping all of the dialogue conversational. the characters are all well spoken, but they also talk to each other normally. absolutely everyone in ROP is putting on airs whenever they speak with anyone.
Agreed. The whole thing just sounds contrived and utterly fake.
What exactly is Galadriel doing when she holds out her hand with the ring on it pretends to give it to Sauron? "I bet you want this don't you, Sauron! Ha, ha. Can't have it". What imbeciles have written this scene and dialogue?
@@AnnoyingCritic-is7rp i find myself asking that question at almost every exchange of dialogue in the show
this... they tried so hard to sound poetic and failed
I can't comprehend how George R.R. Martin even attempted GoT's with so many characters. It's impressive he got so far before stumbling.
I originally intended my first book as a standalone. But with 2 main characters and a few side characters (with major presence), it just became too big for one book. I'm trying to wrap it up with a third, but I've done a Martin and written myself into a corner. Multiple characters is not for amateurs like Me, Payne and McKay.
"i CaNt FiNiSh My BoOkS bEcAuSe Of FaCiSm." - George Martin
lol...
I screamed a little when you mentioned Garth Nix. The Old Kingdom series probably had the second biggest impact on my life growing up, behind LOTR.
Very well put, keep up the great work.
@@kelticowl9400 thanks!
#1 Sauron Crying
#2 Sauron's Wig
#3 Sauron's Fivehead
#4 Sauron trying to get into Galadriel's Panties
&
#5 EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE SHOW!
Apart from Adar, Waldreg, Damrod & Glug...who are now all dead.
Sorry, haven't seen it - what the quack is Sauron's fivehead?
@@noldo3837 It's a slang term for a large forehead.
The problem is these writers are shockingly bad and they don't even know. They might legitimately think they're doing better than Tolkien. Whatever horrible parenting raised these idiots told them they were special way to often and never criticized anything they did. This show is worse than anything I could've imagined a Tolkien adaptation could be done. It's so bizarre. The delusional incompetence just leaks down into every other aspect. Cheap, amateur, and lazy at all levels
What do you expect for a show that has a post show recap that is writers & actors patting themselves on the back for their talent?
She fell from such a great height, that was crazy. I thought for sure she was beyond healing.
The tree broke her fall, that's absolutely why they made her hit it on the way down 😂
"too inexperienced to handle this story",... ...and then some!
Perhaps 'too inexperienced to handle logical conundrums like "Hey, didn't you get stabbed to death last episode"' is closer to the mark
Elizabeth Debicki could be a great Galadriel. She's brilliant in acting and I loved watching her in Tenant and the Crown as Diana.
I have seen in TH-cam, several AI generated short videos about Tolkien's stories like from Silmarillion, and they are like way better than what Amazon did with its RoP show, considering the massive one Billion dollars budget that they have . At least the story from these AIs, though they are short seems to respect Tolkien more, in terms of the narration and the characters ( elves do look like elves described by Tolkien, men looks like men, dwarves look like dwarves, and so on)
It's really shocking that a free AI program has better casting than ROP.
I think one of the big problems with Rings of Power is the writer's lack of understanding of basic Cause and Effect. Things just happen in the show that have no logical following.
I think the problem is the writers never graduated second grade or read a book not written by a DEI consultant😂
3:40 - I think a '1:1' adaptation could have been done. The showrunners are handicapped in that they think that there HAS to be a main cast and this main cast must live on through all the seasons. You can't really do that with like 3,000 years of lore and non-immortal characters. Instead what you can do is dedicate a season or a series of episodes to a range of years. On screen you could show the year or range of years and then you could probably compress down several years. This would also help with focusing the story instead of having 20 different plots going in a 480min season. Could make a season on Celibrimbor+Annetar working on crafting the rings. Could make a season on Sauron besieging Ost-en-Edhil. Could make a season that focuses on the Numenoreans. Could make a season that focuses on the war.
Have you ever watched the channel "Tolkien Untangled"? He re-wrote the series as it could have been and it's great viewing/listening!
1. It existed.
2. Lack of talent across the board.
3. DEI politics
4. Crapping on Tolkien and insinuating that they were true to the spirit of his work when it's so obvious that they weren't.
5. Crapping on Tolkien fans because fans will raise you up or tear you down.
No. #3 The writing is not that deep
#5 As a whole media makers gaslight us for disliking their garbage
I can hear Galadriel saying, "You have your own choice, to make, Aragorn.. To rise above all your fathers, since the days of Elendil.. Or to fall into darkness with all that is left of your kin"..
I think they should've spend the first few seasons building the world, not the rings.
Like who is he going to give the rings to? One dwarf and some human peasants?
Have Annatar travel through Middle Earth, forging alliances, while our plucky band of new characters is slowly becoming aware of him, and he of them.
@@jesperburns sure, a season of that and then the rings. But they could have established the world in many ways. They didn't at all.
A lot of the most baffling choices:
1: Galadriel having no magical powers without the ring, implying elves aren't magical on their own.
2: The rings being made as specifically 3, 7 and 9, with no others (ruining the idea bilbo's ring could be anything but the one) and no specific reason for those numbers.
3: the elves have openly betrayed the southlands and no one talks about it. They seem to have no standing army and the elves failed to protect them. The story of the second age should be about elves and men coming together, and the only human characters are Theo and Estrid.
4: the mystics and the east are given almost no development, despite this being fertile ground for new concepts. We don't even know the witch's name at the end of season 2.
#2 - exactly. Nobody seems to harp on this enough. It's huge!! Hundreds of years of ring making history that has a specific line of lore all woven into it all upended and shat upon to tell a nonsensical tiktok iq story...
Your season plan made me think about how I would have done it, which in turn made me think of 'The Mandolorian'. The Mandolorian used it's important assets very sparingly, so when Luke turns up, viewers are genuinely excited. With RoP, if the first season focused solely on, as you say, Celebrimbor alone - his back story, his corruptability, the making of the rings IN THE CORRECT ORDER, you could then have Galadriel/Gil-Galad turning up at the end of his arc, perhaps then persuading/helping to forge the Three.
Celebrimbor as a flawed character could've sound less 'elfy' - a more relatable normal character for the viewer - meaning the dialogue wouldn't need to be so over-burdened, faux Shakespeare (and Monty Python). Galadriel/Gil-Galad *could* then have more of the elf about them, as wise older leaders, also imbuing them with some of the strange other-worldlyness Jackson managed to give Galadriel in the films.
You can use the Memberberries as long as you do it cleverly and infrequently.
Im not a Catholic, but imagine how would Tolkien (someone who was a devout Catholic) react to Galadriel and Elrond kiss taking in consideration they were cousins, Galadriel is married and would become his mother in law.
Especially since he considered Galadriel as a sort of Virgin Mary analogue.
And it's so unnecessary-- a tender kiss on the cheek or forehead would have provided the needful distraction without hinting at romance.
Exactly. I see so many conservatives saying that the work needs to be respected because it's Christianity and it's the truth. No, it needs to be respected because we honour the author's intent. We present it as it was intended to be understood. Anything less is an insult to the author and the work, and to the whole concept of interpreting literature with fairness and with as little bias as possible. I don't have to be a Christian to be deeply offended by the hackish and agenda-driven way that this work was appropriated and defaced.
@@cosmicmuffin322 Agreed.
I think he'd be outraged, but not because he was Catholic. It would be because it was a f*cking stupid piece of writing.
@2:15 I'm not sure if you watch Little Platoon but he makes a good point that this show only understands Tolkien on a superficial level. Some examples being the constant jarring on the nose callbacks and references to the PJ movies or books, or how they depict something Tolkien vaguely wrote about (such as orc families, or the portrayal of Galadriel in her youth, or Sauron as a master manipulator) but botch the landing/execution, that it's only Tolkien in name, and it's exacerbated by terrible writing.
Exactly. The fans of the show are the same. They know about the deep lore but don't understand nor care about it.
@@jspthesecond0723 I don't but I'll look it up
Little Platoon and Random Film Talk are both worth the subs for their Rings of Power content.
@@ethanhandel1001I definitely agree. I have subbed to both and also recommend them.
@@ErikKain Yes please do so. He does have a trope of being cynical and a lot of dry humor, his videos are also very long on each episode (over an hour), but it is because he goes into depth not only on Tolkien lore but the craft of storytelling itself, has a lot of overlap with what you say.
What most people don't realize, is that in Poppy's speech, 17:17, she was actually referring to the show, Rings of Power, and how it would be wisest to abandon season 3 and start over from scratch.
Agreed on all points. Really well said, great feedback without being over the top like many youtube reviews. Some of those may be right but they are painful to watch and not really helpful. Thanks for this level headed discussion!
Yes - especially that last point - the elves are different creatures because they can and have literally walked with the gods, and people are checking galadriels ears because she is on the small side of human physically and in motivation.
I'm agnostic but a solid spiritual system is as important as a magic system in these things - to what extent do gods act in the world, and to what extent is belief reasonable for the characters to act? that's one thing Martin did particularly well. Tolkein was like - dwarves know themselves to be the children of aule. This show is like - deesa knows she is the best singer and wants to be queen just cuz.
I came across a Facebook post saying Sauron's deception in RoP should be studied in psychology... I didn't have the heart to tell them they're idiots, just like the characters Sauron easily deceived LOL
They don't believe in evil or bad just blank slates and misunderstood people
Pretty sure whoever said that is a bot.
You should have said thats crazy
The showrunners mentioned Braveheart and there is a line they clearly ripped from that movie in season one. In Braveheart, when the King returns, he kills his son's advisor.
Braveheart: "Who is this person that speaks to me as if I needed his advice?" The King.
RoP: "Who is this person that speaks to me as if he has the slightest idea who I am?" Galadriel.
Also, let's make Galadriel the Commander of the armies of the north, like Maximus in Gladiator, another movie they cited as inspiration.
This show's dialogue doesn't even hold a candle to the worst episodes of Hercules the legendary journeys at least that show was clever!
This is such a thoughtful, well-spoken, ragebait-free critique I had to check twice to see if I was still on TH-cam
Even if one can look past the constant canon breaking of ROP, it' is a horribly written, directed and acted show. Call it something else with no connection to Tolkien and it is still a pathetic fantasy series. Considering the extreme budget at least the spectacle elements should be engaging. They are not...
So true. Every aspect of the show feels amateurish.
Because the writers/showrunners are amateurs
Every time they try for epic, I laugh out loud. Every time they try for "Member this?" I laugh out loud. I'm enjoying this show in the same way I enjoy traffic accidents. Which means I don't enjoy it at all, but I just can't look away.
I agree. I am usually very pedantic about lore breaking (I have big issues with Peter Jackson's films for this reason) but with this show I don't have to point at lore changes to prove the writing is poor since the non-lore related issues are so pronounced anyone can see them without reading the originals. It is actually quite refreshing
@exantiuse497 I tried so hard to like it but just couldnt! For the reasons you mention.
"Cheaply written but so expensive" summarizes it SO well! Nuff said.
"Never in the field of human script writing has so much damage been done by so few to such a great IP." - Not Churchill
Possibly Lincoln
ok, but what about The Penguin... that is so enjoyable to watch!!
@@olligo330 it's great!
Don't know if this gets mentioned, but my god when ever the actress who plays Galadriel has to do anything athletic or a fight scene, it looks woeful. Not sure if she's just really poor, or she's not put in the effort to try make it look realistic, but it's terrible everytime she's involved in any action
She's just badly cast, and on top of that is the terrible work around fight scenes and even stage swordsmanship. They want "will this look cool?" and not "is this even remotely plausible?" Shad did a recent video on the fight with Sauron using the crown and no way that works, even with the benefit of "But it's a fantasy". Swords don't work that way, arms don't work that way. The fight is semi-realistic in that Sauron would indeed easily beat Galadriel, if the two were fighting as the actors, because she's too small and weak to overcome him. I'm really disappointed in the big battle for the siege of Eregion, because this is what we'd been building up to all season, and we got a couple of good shots but the rest of it was wasted (modern artillery grade catapults can knock lumps off a mountain but not bash down city walls, riverbed is dry and solid enough to support the Orc army, Elven cavalry charge stops dead and does nothing, etc.)
it boils down to atrociously bad writing. culpability for this disaster really lies with the producers. you have a billion dollars to blow on this and the best talent you could hire was dumb and dumber from bad robot? wtf
Also happy to see your channel growing, it's well deserved.
The problem first, last and foremost is the writing, and that is on Payne and McKay who are the ones setting down the parameters. I still cannot understand what the point of Galadriel and Halbrand is. Why. It's not convincing to me, and they don't seem to have any spark between them. This is not a Romeo and Juliet story where there are a pair of star-crossed lovers trying to escape the feuding of their respective families. It just makes no sense. I really do think that the problem is Payne and McKay are used to working on movie scripts so they have no idea how to handle an episodic show over seasons.
I like the idea of building a series on a longlived race, and the challenges that would present in terms of showing how that is experienced by the characters themselves without needing to condense the timeline. Not being a Witcher fan from the start I remember the mindfuck partways into season 1 when I realized that the characters in this episode was in fact the children from a former episode. It wasn't obvious from episode to episode but as you followed the story it gradually became clear just how apart from the rest of humanity the main characters were. There are more examples of this too, and I can't help but think of how amazing an adaptation could have been if they would have taken that route instead (as well as the opportunity to have a bigger and more varied cast to play the different generations).
Very precise and convincing analysis
the hairstyle choices for the harfoots are just horrific
Thank you Erik. I really appreciated your review. Your points are all bang on.
For me Amazon’s RoP has been a huge missed opportunity and I’m really sad about that. This show could have been truly awesome. I confess I have warmed to it in S2 despite the cringes which just keep coming up, not-Tom, Numenor’s population of 42 people, the not (really) Blue wizards, Gil-Galad not being magisterial, the elves being unexceptional, cavalry charges with an emergency stop function, distances and journey times being ignored, elf fading (or paranoia about it) seemingly turned up to 11, river-damming by peashooter, undiscovered caverns a short rolling-ball away from Moria central. Oh, and the farcical aquatic ceremony of Cirdan (of all people!) rowing out a few metres to dump The 3 🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️. I could go on, and on…
The structure is off; you’re right the multiple parallel storylines created by their decisions on compression, don’t help, but could have been smarter. Numenor was meant to decline slowly, not within the space of a few months 🤦🏼♂️.
The writing and dialogue is off. Yes, not conversational and sometimes silly.
I did like how Sauron’s manipulation of Celebrimbor and the smith (not smiths) was achieved, that was a highlight in what was otherwise more frustrating than grand. Shame them with great shame.
Still, I do look forward to seeing seasons 3-5 and how they will cover the closing events of the Second Age.
3:45 - Which is perhaps why they should not have tried at all. Not every work of fiction is adaptable to film and television. Look at how War and Peace has been inadequately captured on film or stage.
8:44 - Perspective. The word is "perspective". Point of View is 1st, 2nd, 3rd person.
14:02 - No, it's simple incompetency. Event-driven stories with no central dramatic question, problem, conflict where the writer(s) just think of things to more or less arbitrarily then have them happen in sequence is a hallmark of amateur writing.
Chapters in books told from the Point Of View of a character. This is common parlance, whether or not you agree with it. POV chapters.
@@ErikKain *POV* in a novel refers to the grammatical "person" telling the story: 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person.
*Perspective* is the vantage point from which individual characters perceive and interpret the story’s events. For example, in A Song of Ice and Fire, *the POV is third-person limited*, but each chapter is told from a *different character’s perspective*.
For more detail, see "Point of View in Fiction" by Norman Friedman or any intro to fiction writing course.
@@seanmurphy7011 yep, I know the difference. But again, common usage of the phrase "POV character" is what it is. Such is language. I am a linguistic libertarian, or perhaps libertine, and English is a populist tongue.
I like that you really found the biggest problems with the show. And in my opinion lacking that divine spirit and missing the.clear separation between good and evil and the corruption that the evil is slowly doing is one of the biggest problem. Plus everything and everyone seem so stupid.
I think the writer group of this show sit down with the specific aim of antagonizing and pissing off the actual fans of Tolkien since they know they have no talent in writing a good fantasy story and have less creativity of NOT plagiarizing the works of other better and talented writers and show runners. No talent, no creativity, so, let's piss off the fans and give them the finger! Anyway, that's what I think these talentless hack are trying to do with this show! 🤷♂️
There is no grand conspiracy to anger fans or intentionally make bad shows. The makers of the show just don't know what they're doing. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence
Subbed after your Agetha review, and after this one I know that was the right call.
Another really good video.
I appreciate the detail you went into around the character of Tolkien, I didn't know any of that and I think I understand his book a bit better in light of it.
@@llllllblodllllll appreciate that! And glad to hear!
Currently watching Hobbits extended, it's wild how much better it is the rings of power. It's clear the stakes, the goals and the characters. Rop is just dog crap.
This vid should have way more views, great analysis!
The Mary Sue article makes sense if you take it as speaking for an audience that wants to watch a soap opera. Once you realize the showrunners are producing a soap opera and not high fantasy many aspects of the show suddenly make sense. Maybe they thought this route was necessary to appeal to younger viewers, even though turning off the core audience to reach a newer audience rarely, if ever, works out.
I know I'm in the minority on the internet, but I really enjoyed several storylines of this show.
The Sauron/Anatar + Celebrimbor scenes were usually great, even if it made some changes. The Durin/Dwarves storyline has been really enjoyable since S1, and Elrond stuff was always good.
The weakest parts were definitely the Stranger storyline, the Numenor stuff (acting was great though) and the Theo stuff. They made the Numenorian people seem really dumb, and they had a hard time showing proper scale.
Sometimes it felt like there were only a few dozen people in the whole city. But I'm a person who expects changes when adapting any book to TV or film. The original LOTR Trilogy changed plenty as well, hence why the Tolkien estate vehemently refused to support it.
So I'll definitely continue watching, I just hope the show carves more of its own path & relies less on callbacks
fancy outside
hollow inside
I just turned 52 and I just found out what the term "shipping" meant a few weeks ago. Otherwise, this video wouldn't make a whole lot of sense.
Grandelf *has* been wearing the same robe for two seasons now, he definitely needs a change. And they can't just pop down to Wizarding Fashions boutique to buy an outfit, so yes: season three - how Grandelf got his Gray! 😄
Making Galadriel a "boss chick" was the first mistake. Good analysis my friend.
I wonder how many of the problems in this show started with marketing decisions at the top. Like, I would bet that when Amazon and the studio were considering show runners and their various proposed treatments, their guidance was probably along the lines of, "Look, we paid a lot of money for these rights, so anything you show us has to play all the hits - it has to have Gandalf, it has to have Galadriel, Elrond, Sauron obviously, the Balrog, hobbits, all the things, canon be damned." I would bet that a lot of the bastardization of the characters and the timeline started before the first script was ever written.
One of the most reasonable reviews I have seen so far. A lot of the criticism is backed up by attacks on the actors and their ethnicities, when the whole show is poorly written.
I think my biggest gripe is that I will probably imagine Wickers as Sauron from now on when reading lotr or other Tolkien works. No such issue, with Galadriel, Elrond or Gandalf, but since Jackson made Sauron this larger than life faceless evil, which was brilliant imo, my brain will cling to the only actual face we have for him and I hate it. Same with Celebrimbor or Cirdan. And likely Gil-galad, since we've only seen like 10 seconds of him in the trilogy and it is honestly depressing. I should have never watched it and i wish it could be deleted from everyone's memory
One silver lining from sitting through another disappointing and exasperating season has been discovering Erik's reviews!
The prequilitis is strong with this one. At this rate, we'll be regaled with the origin story of (not my) Gandalf's left sock in season 5.
I can't bring myself to try this show again because the first few episodes of season one were infuriating and very boring, but I am fascinated by the dialogue around it. It's a train wreck on both sides that I can't look away from, but I'm thrilled to find someone giving good faith and well founded criticism without devolving to misogynistic/racist ad hominem attacks against the cast. From all I can see as a non viewer, I agree, and I love that Garth Nix plug. Spot on!
Awesome forbes article. Could not agree more with what you said about season 2. It's satisfying to hear that I'm not the only one who thought about all of these utterly bad moments in the show 😂
I have to say Eric 2 years ago I thought you had jumped on the ant woke hysteria. But you’ve made that abundantly clear that that is simply not the case . You absolutely nailed it with your critique and I’m sure there are more. The lack of the “ Numinus “ is especially insufferably. Bravo ! Listening to your critiques makes me Bear the show much like Gollum bears the stench of the dead marshes . Looking forward to your critique of season three .
I am glad this review was one of tge sanest I have seen. It was not "woke, woke, woke, marxism, marxism, marxism, leftism and activism is evil..." incels/neocons rages. .
Isn't that the famous Numenorian expression? "Disa is always right!"
The proclamation part.. I felt something was wrong with the dialogue but couldn't find the right way to describe it.
Tolkien wrote about personal relationships, but he also couched them in larger stakes involving the survival of entire groups of people. Rings of Power is only minimally concerned with the fates of each civilization. Most of them don’t seem particularly worth saving.
Season Two''s big event - old man finds a cool stick.
Strangely enough, I found Poppy's speech touching and, in fact, about the only "Tolkienesque" thing in the show. Tolkien has strong themes of fall from grace, loss and melancholy. At that point in the story you see the good guys at their low and they indeed lost something permanently (Númenor turned to evil, Eregion destroyed never to be rebuilt). I didn't see the speech as saying that one should give up, quite to the contrary, we need to go forward and not dwell on the past taht cannot be fixed.
PS: I am not defending the show (it is horrible in every respect except some pretty cgi). Just interesting how people hate the one thing that worked for me.
I'd say objectively, better then season 1. On a whole, it lacks focus. There were some great parts, and I liked Sauron's character way more than I did for the other characters who are on the good side. One might call this Sauron's POV of the 2nd Season.
Another problem I had is 8 episodes of 1 hour lengths don't do it justice if you're trying to cover multiple POVS.
On the one hand, Vikings had 20 episodes, but it managed to show multiple POVS. At least 10-15 episodes. But they all have to cover arcs of Numenor, Middle earth that you say to yourself, okay, so whose story am I covering then? It seems like they want to cover a LOT, but they end up butchering it because it's not easy to adapt. I doubt any 2nd season material is for LOTR.
And let's give ep 5 a good plus. Because it showed what this show can be. Not the greatest, but it didn't have any writing credits I believe.
They have to do some recasting, and they have to do the scale justice. The scale is like 20 dwarves, 30 elves etc. This is something that can be easily fixed. That being said, I enjoyed s2 more better because it did fulfil on one thing: How Sauron literally brings ruin to Eregion. That arc was complete.
Jon with a jet pack and a laser gun would not have been worse than the original season 8 ending tho
1st problem the show was made without any respect to the original content Tolkien created.
The smart money is asking: If this is the kind of mess Amazon is making with Tolkien's Second Age, imagine the horrors to come when Netflix tackles the Narnia books.
Like you brought up for GRRM, the problem of „too much“ in an ongoing series really does show itself again and again. Manga like Naruto and One Piece are great, and diminish in quality as the casts get way too big and bloated while the authors try to juggle most of them
Coming up on Season 3: Fifty Shades of Sauron. "Yo, Galadriel, guess where I'm going to put this ring?"
I'd love to see what your AI song prompts are, lol. I always said they needed to narrow their scope. A series about the Blue Wizards, Khamûl, and Rhun would have allowed them to fanfic to their heart's content without ruining canon or established characters.
Worst is are the origin stories. Before this is over,
Mari and Nori will have discovered the Shire and potato farming.
Disa will have caused Frodo's mithril coat to be crafted.
Galadriel will have founded Lothlorien.
Miriel will have laid the foundation stones of Minas Tirith and Orthanc.
"We Wuz Baby Mamas" - RoP Orcs
I feel like the people who love the show would love the old D&D movie, the one with Jeremy Irons, just as much if it had Lord of the Rings in the name.
They should have written the story before buying the rights.
1. Crap.
2. Crap.
3 more crap.
4. Sprinkled with crap.
5. Topped with crap.
I have watched a bunch of people commenting about this show and i think you summed up very efficiently pretty much 99% of what's wrong with it. Your last point about the lack of that sort of "religious feeling" in the show being your best one.
Modern scrptwriters certainly dont get that and thats also probably because they dont believe in anything and they completely lack classic culture. Which is why everything is so shallow. This is certainly ok if you write for Marvel but Middle Earth is more than that, it has roots, deep roots. It is some kind of aggregated occidental mythology, woven with talent and echoing from the distant past. It has mysticism, magic and religion and you cant remove all that without completely messing up the result.
I quit in revulsion after three episodes of Season 1. Good to know my instincts were spot-on. Thank you for your analysis. Of course there is numinosity - the people who made this, and most others in Hollywood and the like, abhor Catholicism and Christianity. Instead, they inject modern far-left political ideology into the production.
"Lipstick on a pig."
One correction though, the show is most definitely "woke", in the worst possible way, in addition to being an insult to Tolkien and his fans.
Glad you said far left. I am left but i hate those people.
this is not any far left ideology but more like trying to gaslight people that they should not bother longer about injustices, thus one could easily call it far-right thinking.
But in fact I believe that show as it is has been the product of an unfortunate game of egomaniac ambitions (Bezo's, Simon Tolkien's and the Showrunner's ones) combined with inferior skills, contempt for JRR Tolkien's work and the complete disregard for the only thing that mattered: to tell a story that is good in its own right.
This is one of, if not the, best videos you have made and excellently highlights both your knowledge of Tolkien's lore and how to correctly adapt it to the small screen. Made for the Tik Tok generation is the proverbial nail on the head. I'd love to see you debate this with the likes of Critical Drinker and Gary from Nerdrotic.
Problem one: J. D. Payne
Problem two: Patrick McKay
Feel free to continue...
I really like your break down, I think your criticisms are both fair and on-point. I feel like the writes are not only not that great at their craft, but they've also produced a YA fantasy rather than epic fantasy. It is soapy and frankly, immature in the way it deals with its characters. In my mind I could never accept their Sauron and Galadriel since they don't resemble those characters at all. I think Jackson did Sauron well when he presented him as almost alien and as a transcendent being, who spoke in a booming dark language and never in English. ROP Sauron will chill at the pub with you and share his painful childhood stories while pining over a girl that got away.
19:59 stakes are ridiculous on this show. No tension.
I think that the concern with the "numinous" is even more important in the story of the making of the rings. It is the attempt by the elves to once again circumvent the "divine" plan. It is an attempt to assert their own power, to play God in creating a paradise on earth. While they want to use that power for good ends, it is the same impulse of Sauron and Morgoth (the belief that they can create something better on their own rather than what Eru intended). Rather than working to realize the divine plan and drawing on divine power (what Tolkien considered true artistry or creation), the elves want to seek some other source to do something "good" but it isn't the "good" as Eru originally wanted. And thus they are open to using a questionable source (Annatar) for that end.
As a Catholic, Tolkien was a good Augustinian: evil is the "privation of good". Even evil has something "good" about it. But something about it lacks the full good that comes only from the "divine".
So much here that the show could have done, even in philosophical terms rather than outright religious terms. But instead, the rings are simply convenient tools to patch up sudden and unforeseen problems. As you say, it's just so much more "petty".