0:00 Intro 1:33 A Wizard of Earthsea & Harry Potter 4:15 A Song of Ice and Fire 7:37 Star Wars 9:49 Inspiration and the Cauldron of Story 15:23 Conclusion
The points made in your section on A Song of Ice and Fire very much remind me of how George R. R. Martin and Stephen King discussed the very same ones at one point in a discussion of theirs that I highly recommend watching if you haven't seen it already.
You can’t make excuses for terrible writing and Reddit level fan fiction wasting a billion dollars thanks to hubris that lashes out at the fans. That billion dollars should have been spent on talented writers who had the upmost respect to Tolkien lore and the most loyal Tolkien fans.
Jess really hit the nail right on the head when jt comes to loving a world so much that anything to come from it will at least be intriguing or engaging For instance I was one of many individuals who saw Avatar the Last Airbender when it was originally airing, I watched every episode, I remember I started walking to school for the first time by myself because I wanted to make sure I could stay at home to watch the finale of season 1 So the show is incredibly important to me, then when Korra came out I couldn't be anything but excited for it When I see new fans today who have just watched Last Airbender for the first time and then jump into Korra and complain non stop and tear the show apart, it's not that their critiques are incorrect I just can't bring myself to hate the show as much as everyone else I went years without anything other than comics from my favourite thing ever and then a sequel came out and I can't be anything but incredibly grateful for that
In regard to the Catholic view of evil: saying it is a “separate force” isn’t quite accurate, since evil is understood to be a perversion or twisting of the good, not something that exists in and of itself apart from the good. Beings who embrace evil can certainly act as agents of evil in the world by trying to corrupt and twist other good things, though (which is how we get Satan, the fallen angel, and in the context of this conversation, Morgoth and Sauron). It’s a small distinction, but I think an important one, since evil is in no way equal to or independent of Good. (Sorry, my inner theology nerd is coming out…). But everything else you said about Tolkien’s Catholic roots was spot on!
Was coming to make a similar point! As a former calvanist now catholic convert, I think GOT embraces a more reformed protestant view of humanity: "total depravity" vs the more catholic view of the fall and the effects of original sin. It can seem like a fine line at times, but I think something along this line is seen in the difference between GOT and LOTRs. Also a theology nerd.
The Catholic view is kind of nuanced. It's not just corruption of good things, but sometimes is also described as the absence of good, a shell without anything at the center.
The thing I can't get past with this show is the fact that it sets itself in Tolkien's world without actually utilizing his lore. The southlanders are never given a name when Tolkien had many cultures in that region, such as the Haradrim, the Numenoreans get a badly written catch phrase in place of their deep and ancient culture, and the Harfoots are a mad max culture inexplicably stuck in a fantasy world. See, that last part I actually thought was cool, but then they try to pair it with the tone of the Shire and it makes no sense. The Harfoots would have been so much cooler in any other fantasy setting, so why did they choose Tolkien? Because JBezzy saw dollar signs, that's why.
I think the major difference between all the stories that you listed here and Amazon's The Rings of Power is that all these stories clearly took some inspiration from Tolkien, but then went and made their own thing. They had their own stories to tell and tried to have their story stand on its own. Amazon's The Rings of Power however didn't take that approach at all. They just wanted "something with Tolkien" because his name sells. They bought the rights before they had any plan what story they wanted to tell. If they had taken inspiration and then created an original fantasy story, I would have applauded them for it. But then they couldn't have promoted it with Tolkien's name, couldn't have thrown names like "Galadriel" and "Elrond" and "Sauron" into the promotion material, and it would have been a lot more different to establish their new story. So, aside from the show having a really bad script, the main thing I dislike about it is that it's a corporate product, not born of a storyteller's desire to tell a story, but of a big company trying to make money off of Tolkien's name. If they hadn't constantly insisted that they're writing it "Tolkien-esque" and are always going "back to Tolkien", then maybe I could accept the series as the weird fanfic that it is. But they didn't and let their marketing create completely false expectations, and here we are now. It's fantastic if story makers are inspired by other work - as you showed very well it's exactly how some of the greatest stories of our time ce to be, including Tolkien's stories. But that's just not what Amazon's The Rings of Power is.
Could you please give some examples from the show that you didn't like or thought was done bad? As someone who reads The Silmarillion once a year and who loves the show so far I'm genuinely curious. Nothing in your comment really applies to what we've seen so far. If you dislike the company Amazon in its self, that alright, but the Studio devision is a different matter....
@@eryniel95the character debacle of Galadriel I think is a good reflection of how bad they got it wrong. Galadriel went from being tall, graceful, the embodiment of feminine power, discerning enough to immediately see Sauron for who he really was to “Guyladriel”, who is pint sized, angry, egotistical, pretty much the embodiment of whatever “toxic masculinity” is defined as. Even by the time RoP is supposed to take place, she had been under the tutelage of Melian the Maiar learning and gaining magic power. One could say she’s supposed to be more of a spiritual plane warrior instead of the acrobatic sword swinging fool we got in the show
@@eryniel95 The origin-story for Mount Doom that no-one asked for? I have one or two questions for you if you don´t mind...who created the sword that´s fits exactly into the keyhole that has been hammered into the ground by someone to exactly fit the key I guess? how did they hammer a perfect circle into the ground around it so that you can turn the key properly? It´s stupid, lazy and bad writing in my opinion that doesn´t fit in with Tolkien´s Lore at all. As if the forces of evil would puprosely construct a chain-reaction that gets triggered by turning a key to get a volcano to errupt... I don´t know, I just hugely dislike that.
I think so many people don’t see the beauty of Middle Earth. But you seem to. When one gets to experience a taste of it one is willing to let some imperfections slide. It’s not just about reconciliation of cannon and lore…it’s about an essence. I love the CS Lewis quote that was on the back of my first copy of LotR: I think it read: “[H]ere are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron; here is a book that will break your heart…good beyond hope.” Thank you for your channel.
You are very wise and pinpoint exactly what I have been thinking and feeling since watching Rings of Power without being able to explain my position exactly. Yes, I see that it doesn't follow Tolkien's stories completely. Yes, I may have objections to the appearance or behavior of characters. But I experienced the series in itself as an exciting adventure story, at least as logical as Star Wars and much more faithful to the original than various films about Robin Hood or King Arthur through the years. So I decided to accept the compressed time, the new explanations for certain conflicts as well as for certain developments. And then the series turned out okay. One of the complaints, especially before the series started, was that hobbits cannot be included because they have not been part of any legends before Bilbo's adventures. They solved that very intelligently by placing the halfling's story completely outside the other events. And it is of course a fact that the hobbit's ancestors were still somewhere doing something during this period. Nice solution! So thank you for remaining open-minded and open to new interpretations and instead seeing possibilities when new generations are given the chance to encounter Tolkien's world. Who knows, maybe Rings of Power will make more people curious about the original and start reading the books? And then Amazon won not only money but also my approval and respect.
I had hope for the show. I honestly tried to give ir a fair chance and didn't give much weight to all the hate with the trailers... but I can't stress enough how much I didn't like this show
Another super video. I am binge watching and listening to these and feel silly commenting on stuff that later gets covered. You really do the Tolkien community an invaluable service, and I hope your thought process encourages others. I am watching your essays Playlist after having seen the others and look forward to the journey and eventually being caught up.
Very late to this party. I will say that I enjoyed Rings of Power more than most during my first run through, but I wasn't really totally familiar with the events of the second age at that point. In fact, the only Tolkien I had read were The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Rings of Power inspired me to move beyond those works leading me to read The Silmarillion for the first time and the Fall of Numenor book, which allowed me to really familiarize myself with the events of the second age for the show. However, having read Fall of Numenor, I find that I'm not as fond of Rings of Power anymore. LOL! Oh well...
I think Peter Jackson had the right idea. He adapted what needed to be adapted but kept the spirit of the story Tolkien told intact. He wanted to honor and respect Tolkien's themes and messages. The show runners of ROP did not take the same approach. They wanted to change what they fundamentally disagreed with Tolkien into their own vision and message while using Tolkien's names of characters and places. There was no love of Tolkien's story in this show, no passion in it. It felt more like a middle finger to Tolkien and his fans that they own the rights and they can do whatever they want with the story, to make it better in their eyes. I agree that stories do change as the decades go on and Peter Jackson was able to successfully take a decades old story and bring it into the modern age with love and respect to the creator. ROP didn't and don't respect Tolkien and his story and wanted to change it to fit their modern take on the world. Tolkien and his fans be damned. You are way too lenient on ROP and their show runners.
Following archetypes or drawing from the same underlying sources is not the same as mimicking. Some prominent works of fantasy fiction and gaming have been much more obvious in their mimickry of Tolkien than the ones you cited: Shannara and Dungeons & Dragons - though I remember TSR downplaying this in the 90s and citing other pulp sword and sorcery fiction from the early 20th century as a truer inspiration. Be that as it may, the classic race division of human, elf, dwarf and halfling is an obvious mimickry of Tolkien's setting, even if they did shrink the elves. I feel a commonality between what I would call the more vulgar sort of fantasy and sword and sorcery fiction and the Renaissance Italian epic _Orlando Furioso_ which, along with its contemporary _The Faerie Queene_ might be called fanfic of _The Song of Roland._ There's an organic fashion to how storytellers draw from, expand on and mimic each other's works and draw from the same sources. Let's not forget _Wheel of Time_ which drew from Tolkien's works in some basic establishing ways before going way out on its own: let's not forget that, for all of his philosophy about the flow of story and legend, the author of those *novels* had a specific vision and intent. And with that particular example in mind: Amazon's adaptation has been made under corporate control, in a mass-media culture that is quite different even from the print revolution in which those epic poems were written. Tolkien himself chose a specific medium and reserved skepticism toward the other mass-media of his day. Consider also Alan Moore, who steadfastly refuses to have anything to do with screen adaptations of his works. He has not been shy at appropriating others' stories to drive his own works - look at _League of Extraordinary Gentlemen._ Does that make Moore a hypocrite? I submit that there are ways and ways of doing all this. How about putting it this way: there's a kind of ethic to playing jazz or folk or Medieval music, where there is a repertoire of standards, and each new performance can be understood to give a personal touch to the interpretation of those standards. But it's all founded on an attitude of respect and humility. I have not seen that kind of respectful ethic evident in Amazon's promotion of their adaptation.
All the examples you mentioned are great! The examples I chose for this video were primarily to serve the structure of my argument, but the ones you present here are certainly legitimate. I agree that the act of adaptation is definitely shifting with massive corporations at the helm. However it's a balancing game. You have to change a work in order to adapt it, so I find it more constructive to focus less on the fact that changes were made, and more on what those changes are: the way that we choose to transform a work, not the fact that it was transformed. I don't feel comfortable assuming the intentions of the creators of the Rings of Power. I think I'll need to see the show in order to determine how apt of an Adaptation it is. Either way, I hope you're able to continue enjoying Tolkien and all the works that were inspired by him, even if the show doesn't resonate with you. Thanks for watching and commenting!
D&D was always more inspired by sword and sorcery and pulp fantasy than Tolkien. There's far more of Moorcock and Poul Anderson, and Jack Vance in D&D than Tolkien. Gary Gygax was saying that all the way back in 1979 with the original Appendix N.
I was looking forward to The Rings of Power, I was dissapointed by the Hobbit movies but really believed RoP could be excellent. But. It really didn't live up to the potential mainly because of poor story telling choices and bizarre world building - travel felt like a game cut scene. On the flip side it hasn't ruined my childhood and I still love the books (and their descendants).
I'm coming to this pretty late, well after the first season of Rings of Power was released. I've seen the first 4 episodes, after which I lost interest. First let me say how I approached the show. I've been around long enough to remember when the Peter Jackson movies came out. Movies based on books are (and pretty much always have been) notorious for often having almost nothing beyond the title in common with the book they are supposedly based on. So I, along with most Tolkien fans, approached The Fellowship of the Ring with some trepidation. And there are some who still hate the movies because of the not insignificant changes it makes to some characters and some of the plot. But most of us recognized that it was still telling essentially the same story, and doing so very well. In other words, the Peter Jackson movies are an adaptation of the books, not a different story told with some superficial resemblances (such as using the same names) to the original story. I think a lot of directors/screen writers see a book as a marketing tool rather than as a source of a story to tell. They don't really want to tell the story from the book, so they tell the story they want to tell and find ways to add some superficial similarities to the book they are supposedly adapting. (This is probably excessively cynical. Most of the time the new story is probably inspired by the original story in some way, even if it's more of a rebuttal than an adaptation of that story.) Now, I need to point out that while this will inevitably be disappointing to the fans of the book they are pretending to adapt, it doesn't always result in bad movies. Just the first example that comes to mind for me is How to Train Your Dragon, one of my all time favorite animated movies. I've read the book it's supposedly based on, and I think it's an example of this. The book is very different, even though many elements of the film are clearly inspired by the book. In my opinion the book is not as good, but if I'd read it first and been a fan of it I might have found the movie disappointing. Anyway, Peter Jackson didn't do this. His movies are truly an adaptation of Tolkien, even with everything he cut out and/or changed. With Rings of Power there were indications before it came out that the show runners were not really interested in adapting Tolkien, but rather had their own story that they wanted to tell. So going in my expectation was that it would not be a good adaptation of Tolkien. I hadn't completely given up hope, but I was prepared to be disappointed. I was also prepared to give the story they wanted to tell a chance, even if it wasn't really Tolkien. I was so determined not to prejudge that even while the story was clearly not anything like Tolkien's telling of the Second Age from very early on, I kept trying to figure out how they could tie it back in and make it work out in the end. But I eventually had to give up on that. Which left me with the question, are they telling a good story, and telling it well, even if it doesn't really have much to do with Tolkien's story? And by the time I got to the end of the 4th episode I concluded that the answer to that was also no. Don't get me wrong - there are parts that I enjoyed, and parts that were visually good. But the haphazard, contradictory, and let's be honest, at times utterly stupid elements of the plot eventually left me uninterested in continuing. Anyway, this isn't the first video of yours that I've seen in which you indicated that you didn't hate Rings of Power, but I'm not sure I've seen anything like a review from you after you had the chance to actually see it. I'm curious to know what you think of it now. Do you have a review of it?
I agree with the majority of your video regarding adaptation and the inspiration or partial inspiration that LotR may have had on other author's books. The Cauldron of Stories is a wonderful metaphor that rings true to me as I have read many fantasy works by many authors over the decades and the echoes of ideas (heroes journey, sacrifice required to face down evil etc) do indeed arc across them But, and it's a big but, George RR Martin, Ursula Le Guin, JK Rowling, nor any of the other authors you mention claim either to be directly based on the works of Tolkien or set in his world of Middle Earth. That sets RoP apart in a major way from those other works, so I think it's fair to say you are not comparing like with like there. RoP does not claim to be loosely inspired by some of Tolkien's ideas, in fact it makes bold claims to be the "story that Tolkien never wrote", that it would bring Middle Earth back to our screens and that when in doubt the showrunners claimed they would "return to the source material". And it isn't as if there wasn't a significant block of source material available for their use. And yet the departures from the source material are egregious and jarring in terms of character, timing, plot, timing etc etc etc Not only does this not feel like a return to Middle Earth, it feels like an attempt to say "Look how much better our Middle Earth is than Prof Tolkien's". This is no love letter to Tolkien or fond homage to his work and since RoP aired there have been many stories in the media that attempt to defend RoP not on it's own merits but by attacking Tolkien himself. It seems fairer to say that makes RoP look more like an attempt to usurp Middle Earth than to make the kind of adaptation that Peter Jackson made, ie one that while not slavishly following the source material has been widely acknowledged as a real attempt to lovingly bring Tolkiens work to the screen. That most certainly does not seem to be the reception of RoP. I acknowledge that this video was made before the first season of RoP had aired, but we are long past that point now. Jess, you have strongly critiqued the departures made by the LotR movies vs the books in terms of character etc - and I think that much of your critique is very fair. Has the time not come for the same level of critique to be applied to RoP?
My biggest issue with Rings of Power and most recent adaptations of beloved stories (Fantastic Beasts, Star Wars, last series of GoT) is that the stories just aren't very good. It doesn't feel like the respect is there for the fans anymore. "Somehow Palpatine came back", Galadriel jumps off a boat in the middle of the ocean and just so happens to get picked up by a boat with the very person she is after on it. Newt Scamander is a wanted criminal and at the end of the movie they just let him go free and unleash his untested memory juice on the whole city of New York...and then it turns out that only worked on bad memories. Why are English Aurors arresting people in Paris...where are the French aurors? Why is McGonagall in it? 😂 Those are just a few examples, but I feel with so many TV shows and movies now, the stories are just an afterthought, built around whatever is convenient. Producers seem more intent on attacking fans rather than listening to their comments and respecting their love and passion for that story. They are vehicles either to push certain agendas or just are the latest cash cow and beloved worlds and characters are suffering as a result. I'm not a fan of everything about the Hobbit movies, but you can tell a certain amount of love and respect for the source material has gone into it. Same with House of the Dragon. Anyway, iv ranted enough 😂.
I think the biggest issue is we need new stories...but there's a reluctance to take that risk so Hollywood slaps an old name on a new story and you get a weird uncanny beast that is wearing an X skin suit but is clearly not X anymore.
I think you missed the point why the internet people got angry, or disappointed: it was not what we were promised. They said they make a show true to Tolkien, back to the books, back to the books, back to the books, instead we got so many changes, Tolkien is barely noticeable anymore. It could be the best thing in the world, engaging story, masterful screenplay, but it won't change the fact, that it was a bait-and-switch. Oh, you like Tolkien? Then we release something completely different under his name! I also don't agree this is supposed to "draw in new fans" and "unite" them. The new ones will be shocked when they see the differences to Tolkien, and all interviews promoted dissolution instead unity. "Representation", "redress", "inclusivity", "all the racists get out" - they are actually trying to disperse the fans, and prevent unity.
What book? The appendices? A literal adaption of this time period would be more of a documentary with a narrator saying "and Celeborn and Galadriel traveled south....", "The battle took many lives.." and so on. Adaptions for each medium need to work within the strengths and limitations of those mediums.
First off thank you for the thoughtful response and for taking the time to watch! I definitely understand feeling betrayed, but I'm not sure if I agree that Tolkien is barely noticeable. IMO, Middle Earth is still being represented, even if many details have been changed. They were going to have to adapt and change Tolkein's work one way or another, and while people may disagree with the direction the showrunners chose to take, I don't want to criticize them simply for needing to change things in order to create the show. Everyone has a threshold where a work is changed so far that they consider it unrecognizable, and it is a shame that this show has hit that threshold for some people. As to your second point, I can't speak as to the showrunners intention with the show. I was moreso trying to speak to the fanbase at large, and hoping that this show could bring in new fans, reignite some ones that may have forgotten about Middle Earth, and hopefully allow more open conversations about the original work. Thanks again for watching and commenting!
I don't think you're honestly related what they were "promising" to fans. And, they who? The studio? It's the writers, directors, actors and editors who make a work of art.
The main difference between LOTR and "A Song of Ice and Fire" is that as a Christian, Tolkien believed all humans bear the _Imago Dei_ - the image of God - and thus, no person is wholly fallen or evil. Martin's series paints a pessimistic view of humanity while Tolkien sees in people the capacity for not just great evil, but great good, and the goodness will ultimately win the day by God's (Illúvatar's) grace.
I have adapted two novels to stage--Bram Stoker's DRACULA and J.Sheridan LeFanu's CARMILLA--and have found I had to give myself absolute permission to change anything and everything in my process. The result each time was a starting re-imagination that was in fact a deeper dive into the source material than was usual. I find many of the best adaptations do this. IMHO Interestingly, J.K.Rowling has said she was not very aware of EARTHSEA and Ursula K. LeGuin in her book "Language of the Night" strongly hinted she was not particularly influenced by Tolkien (and while envying those who grew up with Tolkien, worried about how much of a shadow he cast on the genre). While George R.R.Martin makes no bones about his inspiration from Tolkien, so too did Stephen King in his fantasy epic THE DARK TOWER, and Stephen R. Donaldson in his THE CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT THE UNBELIEVER (although he also notes Wagner's RING cycle as a far more central influence). Tis very interesting, like all your videos.
First off, great video! I generally share your perspective of adaptations and inspirations. I think we all are getting a little ahead of ourselves with judging the show before it’s even come out. That being said all the promotional material for rings of power don’t exactly give me the warm and fuzzies. Initially when I heard the show was in development with a huge budget and a ton of amazing writers I was stoked. However, even prior to the trailer I was afraid it might lack a clear vision for what the show would really be about. My fear is that Amazon wanted to create a show to ride the GOT wave and decided that the world of LOTR would be very marketable then hired a bunch of people to make it happen rather than it being organic inspiration. That being said we just need to wait and see for ourselves. It should be entertaining in some way.
Thanks for the comment! You bring up an interesting point. I have zero doubts that Amazon made this show in order to try and fill the Game of Thrones void and make money. Unfortunately that seems to be the case with almost all big budget media projects lately, so in some ways I find it hard to criticize this show particularly for that fact. I don't have a solution for this overall issue unfortunately, I guess it comes down to each of our opinions on whether we think they struck a balance between business and passion.
Yeah, striking a balance between business and passion is key with any movie or tv production. When it’s based on a really popular book or series of books it’s just an extra layer of difficulty. Pleasing all the fans of the source material is very rare and incredibly difficult.
@@Jess_of_the_Shire Oh, beware , you are implying that normalizing a problem legitimizes it. Every of the many expressions of a problem are worthy of critique, and especially important when there are many.
I love watching your videos. You're grasp on J R R Tolkien is very good. You know his works and his life. You have very clearly done meticulous research on him and his works and it shows. I have enjoyed every video, even the quirky ones, alot. I will continue to follow.
What I love about the adaptation is its rich, beautiful portrayal of the landscapes and cultures of Middle Earth. We finally get to see Lindon, Eregion, and the dwarf kingdom of Khazad-dum in all their glory. Something only hinted at in LoTR, where most of that world lies in ruins. It's a visual masterpiece. Of course, the music isn't up to Howard Shore's standard. That was great music. This is good music. It makes a huge difference in the atmosphere and enjoyment of the story, especially the setting. What I didn't appreciate is alterations to the characters and their own histories. Peter Jackson's revisionings were perhaps understandable, given that he was trying to fit a thousand pages of material into a 13-hour film. But I don't think that applies here. They could have been more faithful to the character arcs established by both Tolkien and Jackson. Rather than going for drama and thrills. I don't approve of it at all. Especially in Galadriel's case. To my mind she's practically sacred. It'd be like spraying graffiti on a statue of the Virgin Mary.
First, let me just say, this was an eloquent, professional video essay to rival ANY college thesis! I stayed because it drew me in by these elements, even though I knew I would generally not agree with your conclusion most likely. And yes, unfortunately that means my mind was made up before I began, putting your essay at an (unfair) disadvantage. But even so, to complement it even more, I kept listening. I have to say, it was very close to swaying me toward the part where you went back in history to all the great stories of the past that have amalgamated into our modern stories today. So close! Like this close: ( ) Unfortunately, the big kicker for me on the ROP show ultimately was I just didn’t think the writing was all that great. I think I could have totally gotten on board with the “It’s an adaptation” bandwagon if it would have been an interesting story with clever twists and turns and compelling characters with dramatic arcs and everything we love about a good story. But for all the money they spent, it sure seems like they could have hired at least a better writer…you know? Not even saying a top tier amazing person, but just a decent writer who cared enough to at least explain their plot holes or come up with a *slightly* better way to create Mordor than…pulling a lever… would have been nice. Does that make sense? If you are going to try to avoid the “it’s all a cash grab” argument, then you should focus on putting in some quality to your script, some love into character arcs, and some time into immersive world building so that things don’t seem too much like obvious short cuts. It just falls into the same Rise of Skywalker category otherwise. Yeah it’s an adaptation and continuation of a story… but for gawds sake, couldn’t you have just spent ONE more afternoon on the Script before putting out “Somehow Palpatine has returned” into movie theaters the world over? So, those are my thoughts. Your SUPERB video essay is just fighting an uphill battle on this one, methinks. I hope you see this for how it is meant, as I genuinely admired it and you in this work.
I just want to pop by and thank you for using "Adaptation" instead of adaption. That is one of my greatest pet peeves. Glory to you and your house. Carry on.
I really didn't like the show at first until my sister said she did like it. That's when I realized that since my sister hasn't read the silmarillion she wasn't aware how inaccurate the story was. I decided to try to watch the show, rather than analyze it and I found myself enjoying it more. It still has problems like anarion being a girl and galadriel being an angry little brat but I found myself letting go of that and just watching the show. All in all I would give it a five out of ten.
I do not have high hopes for it tbh PJ set the bar very high and judging by the trailers they aren't even trying to do Tolkien justice. The trailers looks pretty bad overall, in fact I think it'll crash and burn like Gollum vainly clinging to the one ring lol 🤷🏼♂️
I guess it comes down to differences in taste then! There were certainly elements of the trailers that I didn't love, but I'll definitely have to see the real show to make a final judgement. Thanks for watching!
Love the fairness in exploring new adaptations! I understand that feeling of being 'protective' of stories that we come to love SO much that we feel like we have a sort of ownership of it. And its especially easy with the Legendarium to fall into this nitpicky criticism of anything that comes from it because of HOW they are written. Tolkien presents his stories as a literal history and we as fans have fun treating them as such- citing sources and and 'researching' Middle Earth as if we were history buffs. So the 'umm actually' reactions are so so easy to slip into. But in the end, like you said, the source material is always there. If I wanted the perfect LOTR or Silmarillion... I'll just read it lmao. When it comes to adaptations, I still get excited to see what new things people can come up with based on what Tolkien left us. I WANT to see some original stuff too and see how they might stick the landing or totally flop. Considering the insane amount of fanfiction Ive read, I would be a hypocrite to complain if its not 1000% accurate. I DO have to say, I do feel SOOOOOO happy that we FINALLLY get more dwarves that are treated with SERIOUSNESS. In most every adaptation, dwarves have been put aside and turned into jokes or reduced or ignored (even in the movies that are SUPPOSED to be about THEM- GAHHHH). What is so fun in the fandom is that there is less info about the dwarrow compared to the elves because they are so secretive. Some of my favorite parts of fanartists and writers is how they can play in the space and come up with so much beautiful culture for the dwarrow that feel in line with what Tolkien wrote. Lets not forget that from the few scraps of Khuzdul that Tolkien left the Dwarrow Scholar created an entire conlang called Neo-Khuzdul- to the happiness of every dwarf fanatic out there. YES i am protective of the image IVE created of dwarves in my head but I acknowledge that I dont own 'dwarves'. I do have to fight the urge to cry when i see a lack of a beard but.... am i willing to look past cosmetic choices in exchange for stone song and Kazad-dum and dwarves that LOOK like dwarves and beautiful friendships and acknowledgement of their secret names and CULTURE... abso-fucking-lutely.
Interesting video with some good points. I don't get all of the groaning and moaning from a lot of the folks on the internet who are intent on being fed-up with the show before it has even arrived. I for one would love to see more explored around the 2nd Age which is essentially just notes and smaller stories in Tolkien's writings - hopefully this does that and has fun with the idea, giving us more Tolkien-based stuff to enjoy on the screen. As someone who watched the Peter Jackson films and absolutely loves them, I can't see it being any more/less wild when it comes to tinkering with the canon established story. SO much of Jackson's LotR was changed from the books and altered to make it work on film and so obviously things have to be changed, tweaked and added to make a TV show about the 2nd Age too. I've read the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings and love them. I have equally watched the old Bakshi movies, small fan projects, played Shadows Of Mordor/Shadows Of War and loved all of them. More Middle-earth is a good thing. What I hope that Rings Of Power does is entertains and enthralls viewers as a show in its own merit and gets people to WANT to read the books and find out more. Fingers crossed anyway and I can't wait to see the show. If Nerd Of The Rings as a massive Tolkien nerd can watch the first two episodes and say they enjoyed it - I reckon I am going to have a good time.
I really do think a lot of the internet distress comes from a place of loving Tolkien and wanting to see it respected, but I definitely agree. I wish people had more patience with the showrunners (especially since the show hasn't come out yet) The Peter Jackson point is really great too. I think a lot of people forget how much he changed the source material when he made the movies. Especially since the second age has even less to work with, I don't find it at all surprising that major changes have been made. I also am just excited for more Middle Earth! Even if I don't love every Adaptation, it's just so fascinating to see these different visions being realized by different artists. Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I hope you enjoy the show tomorrow!
A Wizard of Earthsea has held a dear place in my heart since I discovered it at 18. (I was introduced to Tolkien at 12.) Maybe you could devote a video to it sometime; I'm having trouble thinking of anything it has in common with LOTR, apart from genre tropes. There's no ancient evil, no fellowship of adventurers, no elves or dwarves (or dwarfs). It's a coming of age story, whose stakes are largely limited to the main character. There are barely any other characters who appear in more than one scene. And it's fundamentally atheistic, lacking a good/evil dichotomy or sense of any agency guiding the world.
I only found your channel a couple of days ago, but I'm hooked! Your level of knowledge is excellent, and your presentation is great. With regards to adaptations, it's understandable that some things need to change when adapting to different media. I understand some of the changes made to Lord of the Rings are necessary. Where I take issue is some adaptations, particularly modern, that have little resemblance to the original stories. Foundation is one that comes to mind. Of course, this is not a new phenomenon. I am also a fan of James Bond novels and movies. The first of the movies were fairly true to the text. By the time Moonraker arrived, all that was shared was character names and a loose connection with rockets. I believe an adaptation should at least share some story elements and themes, changed as necessary. Otherwise, it's a reimagining, as per the 2004 Battlestar Galactica. If it shares no story elements and simply has characters and not much else, this is a new story. Going back to James Bond, the Daniel Craig movies, Casino Royale excepted which is pretty accurate including the chair scene, aren't based on novels but the character. As long as those new movies remain faithful to how James Bond would be in the setting, then they are faithful to the original. An example would be if someone writes a new story perhaps detailing events between Hobbit and Fellowship, and remained true to the intent and characters, this would be faithful in my view. I haven't yet watched the Rings of Power and am looking forward to seeing what you have to say about them. Keep up the excellent work!
I always enjoyed the adaptation that Terry Brooks penned in his Shannara series. Yes, it borrows heavily from Tolkien, but it’s set in future earth after a nuclear holocost (he wrote a prequel series for current events before the holocost). It’s a very enjoyable read.
Ooof. Shannara books were some of my first reading loves in grade school. But they are NOT acknowledged adaptations. They are hackneyed rip-offs of Tolkien. And not well-written, either.
My issue is with the show runners saying the show won’t drag in contemporary politics, and the actors saying it’s all about bringing in contemporary politics. It is that the cast, at least, feel empowered to “tell the story Tolkien couldn’t “ and tell it their way, but call it a Tolkien story. It may be a good series, but it sure doesn’t look like a Tolkien story. Additionally the attention to detail that the PJ movies paid to every aspect seems missing here; swords that can’t be drawn easily, polyester fabric with gold foil rather than layers of embroidery, the substitute of shiny for depth of craftsmanship. The trailers are supposed to showcase the show, as commercials are supposed to sell a product. I am not seeing very much of Tolkien. I am not impressed with the details. Might it be a cinematically, visually beautiful show? Sure. But Tolkiens Middle Earth? Not so much. Call it a Tolkienesque show. Call it a fanfic. Don’t call it an adaptation of Tolkien. It needs more than character and place names in common to be that. And don’t tell me it will be better than anything Tolkien did because you made it “relevant “. It’s popularity throughout the world, throughout the different populations, different religions, different nationalities, proves that a specious statement.
I don't care if people make their own version of an existing tale. I don't like any of the adaptations except maybe Bakshi's one and listening to the Swedish Radio theater one from 1995. But I don't hate anyone for making their own twist and it is good that people use their fantasy and create something new, that others may like even if I don't. Anyway what I do hate is people that don't let others have their own opinion, and especially when large companies are blocking reviews and stuff because of backlash. That is a horrible behaviour to try and silence others. People today cannot accept that others don't agree with them and that is causing so much diversion among groups and people these days. Anyway thanks for an interesting channel.
I mostly agree but whilst it undoubtedly changed it irrevocably I really don't think we can say that Rowling birthed the YA genre, there was a whole heck ton of it long before she released anything. For example the Redwall series, the pern chronicles, all the point fantasy books and many others. It was a huge influence for sure but saying she created the genre erases a rich body of literature that preceded and may well have inspired her.
I really like your open-minded perspective on story inspirations and portrayals. Since you mention a similar pattern with the King Arthur legend, I wonder whether you've ever read the adaptation that Gerald Morris created under the title "The Squire's Tale"?! That ten volume YA series has so many wonderful characters in it and the humor manages to be amazingly lighthearted in the midst of the dramatic material. It was both incredible and quite logical to me to discover that the author was a Christian pastor. I've reread his series multiple times, and yet I was still able to appreciate the very different approach of Marion Bradley in her much darker and more 'history' oriented "Mists of Avalon". Looking forward to your review of the upcoming release 💍▶✳
So here we are a year on from your excellent video and Rings Of Power season 2 isn't too far away. The idea of the second age of middle earth being made into TV series is really cool. I can't image a Tolkien fan who wouldn't be excited. The first Age is very, very tragic and not really my cup of tea. Good triumphs in the end but lots of nice elves, dwarfs and humans die before the Valar finally decide to get their finger out and sort out Morgoth. It would lose viewers as their favourite characters get stamped on by Balrogs. The second age does have a "happy ending" and lots of adventure and Sauron seducing the mighty race of Numenor by feeding their pride. So, did I enjoy Season 1 of rings of power? ...I prefer it to Bily Connolly riding a goat while the sand worms from Dune somehow appear in the wrong movie. I didn't mind season 1. It was a bit slow, but This Wondering Day was sweet enough to get on a couple if my spotify playlists. I like that song and Tolkien liked his songs too. I did find myself reaching for the tablet while Rings of power was on though. It didn't engross me. The production was amazing but the plot wasn't up to Game of Thrones. Rings isnt even as pacey as The Witcher and that plot is glacial. However, we know season 2 is going to be punchier, so let's give it a go. My last thought is that I used to be a star wars fan, but there are so many spin offs that I'm just over it. Disney did the same thing with Marvel, death by spin off. Let's hope that never ever happens to LOTRs.
A 7 for me. Regarding RoP. I enjoyed it. But I always had the feeling it missed something. I would have liked more time for sauron as annatar. Or will that come in season 2 somehow. Also adapting this show was doomed to be challenging because the creators only had the rights to the appendix. And before people claim I am not a real fan. I have read, lived in and enoyed the world of Tolkien since I was 10 :)
I'll definitely release a full review once it's all out, but I'm enjoying it! It's definitely not perfect, the timeline mashing gets a little confusing, there are some pacing issues (sometimes too slow sometimes too fast) and iffy writing here or there, but I look forward to watching it every week, which is good enough for me!
I have! The first episode anyway. Incidentally, I haven't actually gotten to watch Game of Thrones yet, (that segment of this video was largely helped by Dillon haha) but I really enjoyed House of the Dragon. Solid design, good writing, and I was able to keep up with it, despite my GoT ignorance. My only nitpick may be that they used a few instances of extreme violence in the first episode alone. The way I see it, graphic violence is a great tool to raise the stakes of a story, but when you have it happening multiple times in the first episode alone, it begins to lose its punch. Then again, if you find graphic violence fun, I could totally see it being cool, so its probably just a matter of taste. Have you seen it?
I just watched the second episode and so far I’m really enjoying it. It might be good that you haven’t seen GoT when watching it. I’m having a hard time of separating the two in my mind and analyzing all the differences. I didn’t necessarily mind the violence in the first episode, but it did seem unnecessary and the context was kind of odd. Having essentially a gladiatorial fight to the death during a medieval tourney threw me off a little bit. One could argue they are trying to show the Westeros culture’s comfort with violence, but I think it was more likely the show runners letting the audience know that it’s going to be gritty like GoT was.
Well, this video did not age well. The 1st season has come and gone, and it was as bad or worse than many (myself included) had feared. Just one example; the character Galadriel was utterly unlikable, sharing nothing with Tolkien's description of Galadriel except her name. The RoP Galadriel behaved like a stroppy teenager, imperious and demanding. The writing was sophomoric and decision-making dumb; who thought it was a good idea for Galadriel to jump ship 2000 miles from the nearest land? Like most viewers (internationally, only 38% of viewers watched all 8 episodes), I'll not waste my time on season 2. I hope they follow Disney's lead with Snow White and deep-six the Rings of Power. I recently read that Time-Warner bought the film rights to make other Tolkien films; here's hoping they do as good a job with these as they did with the original LotR.
Girl, if your opinion on the show is a positive one, you are not alone!!! Something that had been interesting to follow along was that even before s1 premiered there was such a negativity towards it (do people now hate Tolkien or fantasy?) yet as time went on and actual fans and fantasy lovers got a chance to actually watch the show, more and more voices began to praise it. Idk why this project in particular became target to so much critic when there were far more worthy contestants for disappointment in the past (The Hobbit trilogy anyone? The Percy Jackson movies? GoT s8? Dragonball Evolution? The Last Airbander movie???). Even the so beloved LotR trilogy had to do a ton of changes when being adapted for the big screen, yet it is universally praised today. Having young Elrond with short hair or female dwarfs without beards does NOT take away from the fact that so far we’ve seen Valinor, The Two Trees, the Oath of Feanor, Finrod, Galadriel in her young warrior days, NUMENOR in its glory, freaking Khazad-dûm, the creation of Mordor, and much much more.
8:58 Like clinging to the ancient msyticisms of the Force? 😏 - Hm, no, that's different, right? Well, you recorded this before the show aired, so while part of the outrage might have been 'fandom autism', it might also have been intelligent foreseeing, reading the signs, understanding the big picture, sensing a tarnishing of the essence. (Which really didn't take much deep insight in the existing overt societal context.)
I really appreciate you giving some more context about adaptations and inviting dialogue rather than complaints. I’m of the opinion that you shouldn’t form judgements about something before you’ve given it a fair chance. Watching a 2 minute trailer for a multi-hour television series does not count as a fair chance in my mind…even if it’s not a perfect show, I hope it at least tells a good story that can stand on its own merit! If it doesn’t, I’ll just pretend it doesn’t exist, haha.
In an ideal world, it would have been better if they had had the rights to THE SILMARILLION and just adapted it. Once it became clear that wasn't legally possible, then it wasn't worth making a show at all. At that point, they'd have been better off just creating an original fantasy series that was an homage to Tolkien but stood on its own.
I've seen this claim made, but nobody ever explains the reasoning. You don't NEED the Silmarillion to tell stories from the Second Age. They did just fine without it. And the Silmarillion would be WAAAAAAY harder to adapt than filling in color on what are essentially timeline events from the Second Age.
@@hawkname1234 The reason it's better to have access to adapting THE SILMARILLION is it gives you more freedom to tell something closer to canon. Imagine, in comparison, if you were a filmmaker who was adapting HARRY POTTER, but you only had the legal rights to half the books. That means you'd have to adapt part of the story, but then be forced to spend the other half making up brand new things that can't ever veer too close to what was in those books you don't have the rights to. Even if what you write is really good, it's still going to feel like oddly-constructed fan-fiction and the book fans will invariably compare it to the source material.
So, when you saw it, what did you think? This is long after it faded and the riot has settled but will resume when it plays its second season. I know you have found the silly foreign adaptations to be cute. From what I could see, they at least tried to keep to canon. ROP didn't even try. And I do wonder how anyone could find Guyladriel to be anything but annoying, regardless of the relation of the character to anything Tolkien wrote in any of the versions of her story. Thing is, those of us who were expecting something to at least fit reasonably into the long Tale were thinking that they would respect the actual characters and if they had an urge to depart from his tale as told, that they would make up new characters to populat that version. That would have been disappointing, but honest. What they did was steal known characters and, pace their haircuts, utterly revise them inside. That was the problem. These were not the characters Tolkien wrote. He didn't write any characters like these. So it's IP theft and I for one am not going to approve of it.
Your perception that wizard of Earthsea is underrated and unknown has got to be a generational thing. I am Gen X and wizard of Earthsea was almost as well known as Tolkien. It makes me feel old to hear that that is no longer so.
Wow. I also DIDN'T hate The Rings of Power. And I will say that Jess is very brave to say that in the midst of all the fandom mania and groupthink around The Rings of Power. People were absolutely MINDLESS in their hate for that show, and they were so low integrity they didn't even care when they contradicted themselves in their desperation to conform to what all the influencers were saying. So, regardless of the particulars, kudos to Jess for having the mindset and courage to think for herself. Pretty rare.
Yeah, it has a ton of problems, but it also did some things that I loved. Overall, I found it disappointing, but I also think it's something they can improve and I'm HOPEFUL that they will heed the valid critiques and the next 4 seasons will build to something truly incredible.
I was really excited when I first heard about it lol then I saw the trailers and…idk it just doesn’t feel like the Lord of the Rings movies (︶‸︶) I love the fanmade Hunt for Gollum and Born of Hope they just feels like the actual movies to me lol I write Lord of the Rings fanfics my myself lol rings of power does feel more like Game of Thrones I suppose and we know how that ended up 7:28 :/ Alas…I will just have to wait and see it for myself I suppose *fingers crossed* ^~^
We'll have to see! Honestly, I kind of wished that they had taken it in a fully different direction than PJ'S movies, so that we could see a new vision of Middle Earth. If they try to replicate his vision, it's highly likely that it may fall into a sort of "uncanny valley" where it's almost like it, but not quite. I hope you're able to get something out of it if you do watch it though! Thanks so much for watching and taking the time to comment!
It's funny how history repeated itself. With the success of the LOTR films in 2001-2003, big companies tried to capitalize on the revitalization of the fantasy genre and we saw a lot of decent shows and movies and some terrible knock offs. It extended to the video game space too. But by the late 2000s, it already started dying off and people were sick of the "chosen one"/"save the world from ancient evil" fantasy. GOT came in just in time in 2011 to put a different spin on fantasy and take a more grimdark approach and then the same thing happened. We got shows, movies and video games that are knock offs of GOT. But more than 10 years later, I think people are getting sick of this grimdark fantasy. Let's see what the next cultural phenomenon will be in the fantast genre.
Really not pleased with this show. I don't like how Elves, the most awesome, are made to be clueless and annoying. They should have just made every character up.
Overall, a great video essay. Every example you included applies to your thesis. The problem is Rings of Power. It is not in any way the same type of inspired story that you were describing. It's a thinly veiled attempt at an IP cash-grab being produced by people who do not know or respect the material. It lacks the authenticity which made the Jackson trilogy so beloved, and is practically sacrilegious when it comes to the lore. It isn't trying to adapt Tolkien's stories and themes, it's doing the opposite: using the name, whilst subverting and discarding the stories and themes. On top of that, it's just incompetently done.
Hello Jess, I just subscribed to you. I love your videos and your personality. I absolutely love your passion for Tolkien. However, I have to differ with you on this. It is precisely the King Arthur analogy that I don't want for Lord of the Rings. I grew up loving Earth Sea, King Arthur, Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, Harry Potter, Star Wars, The Never Ending Story, ect... and so on. (The fact that I like King Arthur doesn't validate Rings of Power. If you are going to tell a story, you should stay as true to it as possible. I'd prefer to have the true story over the fiction.) A good story is one that doesn't change. Details are what make for a great story. Once details become jumbled, the story begins to turn and ferment. Until what you are left with is a pale imitation of the original. I am still trying to "like" Rings of Power, and I'm in the middle of my second watch now. Sadly, I feel I might have to settle for "tolerate" Rings of Power. The main issues with Rings of Power are that they try to push their agendas instead of focusing on the story. The swordsmanship and dialog were both trash. The plot was lousy. The costumes were... ok. The only thing I liked was the scenery and the nostalgia.
I agree with everything you say here regarding adaptation and making anew. I do wonder if your opinion of rings of power is still positive after watching. In my opinion it suffered from poor writing more than any stylistic choices, but that’s just my opinion. I’m sure lots of people enjoyed it, my tolkien brain just couldn’t turn off I was watching events that were supposed to take place thousands of years apart 😂
It’s a well made, entertaining series built into (sort of) Tolkien’s middle earth so, what the heck, I’m just going to enjoy it and not bother getting on my high horse about it. Love your videos PTH!
I thought the first two episodes were great. They immediately made we want to see more. I am looking forward to the return to Middle Earth with this story.
I love your take on this, and the caldron analogy you use, for me the threads that are woven between different franchises and stories make them relatable, nothing is sadder than when a world ends, the author dies or runs out of inspiration and you know that this magical place where you have lived for a while will never change or grow again . Those little nods back to those worlds make new worlds safer, or more welcoming to explore, and I never understand this notion that many people seem to have, that you can only love one genre or franchise, or that they should rival , replace or be constantly judged by another franchise, to me they are flowers in a border, different, but adding to a greater whole, I neither loved nor hated rings of power, and thought it was very brave to even try it, they got some things 'wrong' (according to my personal taste) but at other times I was just happy to be back in Middle Earth,. I feel that George Lucas would acknowledge an influence from Tolkien and does so by naming his forest moon 'Endor', also you gave a brilliant summery of Star War's origins, I would only add to it by throwing in street car racing, which he is a huge fan of and based the rebel fighters on the idea of modded, souped up hotrods, and the very uniform Empire ships on the patrol cars chasing them, you can really see how he evolves some ideas from the earlier THX and American Graffiti movies in the trench run and other scenes.
What is this, reasonableness? Miss, do you realize you’re on the internet? Anyways, when you were talking about SW and LOTR it really sounded like you were talking about the Hero’s Journey. You might be interested in something like The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
Wow, Having recently listened to a podcast on Tolkein's essay On Fairie Tales, my entry level perspective tells me you are digging deep. Great use of the cauldron of story. Good work. Thanks.
When first I caught your Channel I figured you had experience in broadcasting or training in broadcasting. You are that smooth and practiced in front of the camera.
I guess I move on, but only for this video. I write this long after the first season ended. I would like to say something, though, about how arrogant, smug people want to play silly games after a writer is deceased. I'm trying to write a set of novels that has been gestating in my mind, heart and spirit since the early 1980s. I have no idea if it is worth anyone's time. I've written a great deal of it. There is a lot of effort that goes into such a creation. I would like to self publish before I die. I am very much a woman of my time and have a poor education. Again, I am not sure it is worth anyone's time. BUT, and again, BUT... if my novels ever became as popular as Tolkien's or Rowling's and some fool of a Hollywood producer dared touch a hair on William de Landenlas' head... or a gown that Mellisa Mennorey wore, and do both without any respect for my years of creative hard work... and, I was deceased, I would find a way to come back to earth and haunt them so horribly that they would fall to their knees and beg me for mercy. (and I could be a very cruel ghost!) They would have to beg God to pull me back, destroy their their obscene and disrespectful show and promise never to do anything that daft and evil again. I write what I write because that is the story. Of course, I will never be that popular, but, if I WAS....
I’m sorry but I politely disagree. There are just too many red flags for me to fully embrace this adaptation, though I must admit that I am curious enough about it to give it a watch. But from the cheap-looking costumes, to the show runners and cast contradicting themselves on multiple occasions (e.g. first female dwarf ever), to the creators not even being able to answer questions about lore despite vehemently saying they poured over the source material. I must say it doesn’t look to bode well. It seems that this is more of a cash grab than anything else. Also, I personally took offense to them changing Galadriel’s character and arc for what seems to be an effort to appeal to modern masses (she’s one of my favorite characters in any sort of media). I mean, the source material is considered timeless by many and therefore should not have to be altered to this degree. Also, changing the paths that important characters take may cause big changes to the story later on, which could be irredeemable for the die-hard fans and could cause confusion for potential newcomers. It also feels as if no heart was put into this series; though I fully agree that I could be proven wrong. But the Jackson films were made with such love and care, and Peter Jackson insinuated several times that he disliked diverting from the text on several occasions. Also, overuse of cgi does not a movie make; plus it just doesn’t stand up to physical objects that are actually in front of the camera (e.g. actors in makeup/costume and miniatures/sets). Lastly, this is touted as the most expensive television show of all time. Completely eclipsing the budget for the hobbit films and the original trilogy. Where on earth did all that money go? Certainly not on the costumes and props. Nor on engaging or memorable designs for characters. P.s. Despite my outlook for this show, I enjoyed your video/optimism and found it very engaging.
I am a big fan of the books, read them a few times each. And I loved the Rings of Power. Not perfect, but the last couple of episodes are masterful and i felt really touched.
Were you any prettier, I would not be able to take it. Rings of power is a terrible show. As terrible as wheel of time. Get hired to help these friggin amateurs
Corporate profit-chasing ruins most things. Rings of Power, original GoT, Star Wars becoming more and more watered down (no, I don't mean "GiRlS bAd").... sigh.
"Westerns took a great deal of inspiration from samurai films" Akira Korusawa was a giant in the field, but you'd have to provide a bit more evidence to generalize the connection to Westerns generally rather than just "The Magnificent Seven" specifically.
The tv show butchered the mythos in so many respects I felt like I was watching it out of obligation because I definitely wasn't enjoying it. Maybe they should have bought the rights to "The Silmarillion" if they wanted to tell a Second Age saga.
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0:00 Intro
1:33 A Wizard of Earthsea & Harry Potter
4:15 A Song of Ice and Fire
7:37 Star Wars
9:49 Inspiration and the Cauldron of Story
15:23 Conclusion
Would love to hear your thoughts on The Chronicles of Prydain.
@@FathersLoveWithoutEnd I haven't heard of it, I'll have to check it out!
The points made in your section on A Song of Ice and Fire very much remind me of how George R. R. Martin and Stephen King discussed the very same ones at one point in a discussion of theirs that I highly recommend watching if you haven't seen it already.
You can’t make excuses for terrible writing and Reddit level fan fiction wasting a billion dollars thanks to hubris that lashes out at the fans. That billion dollars should have been spent on talented writers who had the upmost respect to Tolkien lore and the most loyal Tolkien fans.
Jess really hit the nail right on the head when jt comes to loving a world so much that anything to come from it will at least be intriguing or engaging
For instance I was one of many individuals who saw Avatar the Last Airbender when it was originally airing, I watched every episode, I remember I started walking to school for the first time by myself because I wanted to make sure I could stay at home to watch the finale of season 1
So the show is incredibly important to me, then when Korra came out I couldn't be anything but excited for it
When I see new fans today who have just watched Last Airbender for the first time and then jump into Korra and complain non stop and tear the show apart, it's not that their critiques are incorrect I just can't bring myself to hate the show as much as everyone else
I went years without anything other than comics from my favourite thing ever and then a sequel came out and I can't be anything but incredibly grateful for that
Oh my goodness!!! I'm so glad I'm not the only one who doesn't hate this show! Thank you so much Jess!
In regard to the Catholic view of evil: saying it is a “separate force” isn’t quite accurate, since evil is understood to be a perversion or twisting of the good, not something that exists in and of itself apart from the good. Beings who embrace evil can certainly act as agents of evil in the world by trying to corrupt and twist other good things, though (which is how we get Satan, the fallen angel, and in the context of this conversation, Morgoth and Sauron).
It’s a small distinction, but I think an important one, since evil is in no way equal to or independent of Good. (Sorry, my inner theology nerd is coming out…). But everything else you said about Tolkien’s Catholic roots was spot on!
Was coming to make a similar point! As a former calvanist now catholic convert, I think GOT embraces a more reformed protestant view of humanity: "total depravity" vs the more catholic view of the fall and the effects of original sin. It can seem like a fine line at times, but I think something along this line is seen in the difference between GOT and LOTRs.
Also a theology nerd.
@@Stygard Oh thats such an interesting observation! Worldviews really do inform the stories we tell.
The Catholic view is kind of nuanced. It's not just corruption of good things, but sometimes is also described as the absence of good, a shell without anything at the center.
The thing I can't get past with this show is the fact that it sets itself in Tolkien's world without actually utilizing his lore. The southlanders are never given a name when Tolkien had many cultures in that region, such as the Haradrim, the Numenoreans get a badly written catch phrase in place of their deep and ancient culture, and the Harfoots are a mad max culture inexplicably stuck in a fantasy world.
See, that last part I actually thought was cool, but then they try to pair it with the tone of the Shire and it makes no sense. The Harfoots would have been so much cooler in any other fantasy setting, so why did they choose Tolkien? Because JBezzy saw dollar signs, that's why.
I think the major difference between all the stories that you listed here and Amazon's The Rings of Power is that all these stories clearly took some inspiration from Tolkien, but then went and made their own thing. They had their own stories to tell and tried to have their story stand on its own.
Amazon's The Rings of Power however didn't take that approach at all. They just wanted "something with Tolkien" because his name sells. They bought the rights before they had any plan what story they wanted to tell. If they had taken inspiration and then created an original fantasy story, I would have applauded them for it. But then they couldn't have promoted it with Tolkien's name, couldn't have thrown names like "Galadriel" and "Elrond" and "Sauron" into the promotion material, and it would have been a lot more different to establish their new story.
So, aside from the show having a really bad script, the main thing I dislike about it is that it's a corporate product, not born of a storyteller's desire to tell a story, but of a big company trying to make money off of Tolkien's name.
If they hadn't constantly insisted that they're writing it "Tolkien-esque" and are always going "back to Tolkien", then maybe I could accept the series as the weird fanfic that it is. But they didn't and let their marketing create completely false expectations, and here we are now.
It's fantastic if story makers are inspired by other work - as you showed very well it's exactly how some of the greatest stories of our time ce to be, including Tolkien's stories. But that's just not what Amazon's The Rings of Power is.
couldn't of said it better myself!
perfectly said.
Could you please give some examples from the show that you didn't like or thought was done bad? As someone who reads The Silmarillion once a year and who loves the show so far I'm genuinely curious. Nothing in your comment really applies to what we've seen so far. If you dislike the company Amazon in its self, that alright, but the Studio devision is a different matter....
@@eryniel95the character debacle of Galadriel I think is a good reflection of how bad they got it wrong. Galadriel went from being tall, graceful, the embodiment of feminine power, discerning enough to immediately see Sauron for who he really was to “Guyladriel”, who is pint sized, angry, egotistical, pretty much the embodiment of whatever “toxic masculinity” is defined as. Even by the time RoP is supposed to take place, she had been under the tutelage of Melian the Maiar learning and gaining magic power. One could say she’s supposed to be more of a spiritual plane warrior instead of the acrobatic sword swinging fool we got in the show
@@eryniel95 The origin-story for Mount Doom that no-one asked for? I have one or two questions for you if you don´t mind...who created the sword that´s fits exactly into the keyhole that has been hammered into the ground by someone to exactly fit the key I guess? how did they hammer a perfect circle into the ground around it so that you can turn the key properly? It´s stupid, lazy and bad writing in my opinion that doesn´t fit in with Tolkien´s Lore at all. As if the forces of evil would puprosely construct a chain-reaction that gets triggered by turning a key to get a volcano to errupt... I don´t know, I just hugely dislike that.
I think so many people don’t see the beauty of Middle Earth. But you seem to. When one gets to experience a taste of it one is willing to let some imperfections slide. It’s not just about reconciliation of cannon and lore…it’s about an essence.
I love the CS Lewis quote that was on the back of my first copy of LotR: I think it read: “[H]ere are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron; here is a book that will break your heart…good beyond hope.”
Thank you for your channel.
You are very wise and pinpoint exactly what I have been thinking and feeling since watching Rings of Power without being able to explain my position exactly.
Yes, I see that it doesn't follow Tolkien's stories completely. Yes, I may have objections to the appearance or behavior of characters.
But I experienced the series in itself as an exciting adventure story, at least as logical as Star Wars and much more faithful to the original than various films about Robin Hood or King Arthur through the years.
So I decided to accept the compressed time, the new explanations for certain conflicts as well as for certain developments. And then the series turned out okay.
One of the complaints, especially before the series started, was that hobbits cannot be included because they have not been part of any legends before Bilbo's adventures. They solved that very intelligently by placing the halfling's story completely outside the other events. And it is of course a fact that the hobbit's ancestors were still somewhere doing something during this period. Nice solution!
So thank you for remaining open-minded and open to new interpretations and instead seeing possibilities when new generations are given the chance to encounter Tolkien's world. Who knows, maybe Rings of Power will make more people curious about the original and start reading the books? And then Amazon won not only money but also my approval and respect.
I had hope for the show. I honestly tried to give ir a fair chance and didn't give much weight to all the hate with the trailers... but I can't stress enough how much I didn't like this show
Another super video. I am binge watching and listening to these and feel silly commenting on stuff that later gets covered. You really do the Tolkien community an invaluable service, and I hope your thought process encourages others. I am watching your essays Playlist after having seen the others and look forward to the journey and eventually being caught up.
super isnt the word I would use.
@@purefoldnz3070 Okay. I don't yuck other people's yums as a rule. Enjoy that.
@@danielmorlan1558 well try growing some balls and have some opinions of your own.
@@purefoldnz3070 k
Very late to this party. I will say that I enjoyed Rings of Power more than most during my first run through, but I wasn't really totally familiar with the events of the second age at that point. In fact, the only Tolkien I had read were The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Rings of Power inspired me to move beyond those works leading me to read The Silmarillion for the first time and the Fall of Numenor book, which allowed me to really familiarize myself with the events of the second age for the show. However, having read Fall of Numenor, I find that I'm not as fond of Rings of Power anymore. LOL! Oh well...
I think Peter Jackson had the right idea. He adapted what needed to be adapted but kept the spirit of the story Tolkien told intact. He wanted to honor and respect Tolkien's themes and messages. The show runners of ROP did not take the same approach. They wanted to change what they fundamentally disagreed with Tolkien into their own vision and message while using Tolkien's names of characters and places. There was no love of Tolkien's story in this show, no passion in it. It felt more like a middle finger to Tolkien and his fans that they own the rights and they can do whatever they want with the story, to make it better in their eyes.
I agree that stories do change as the decades go on and Peter Jackson was able to successfully take a decades old story and bring it into the modern age with love and respect to the creator. ROP didn't and don't respect Tolkien and his story and wanted to change it to fit their modern take on the world. Tolkien and his fans be damned. You are way too lenient on ROP and their show runners.
The problem is not that the Rings of Power is an adaptation, the problem is simply one of quality - or the glaring lack of it.
Following archetypes or drawing from the same underlying sources is not the same as mimicking. Some prominent works of fantasy fiction and gaming have been much more obvious in their mimickry of Tolkien than the ones you cited: Shannara and Dungeons & Dragons - though I remember TSR downplaying this in the 90s and citing other pulp sword and sorcery fiction from the early 20th century as a truer inspiration. Be that as it may, the classic race division of human, elf, dwarf and halfling is an obvious mimickry of Tolkien's setting, even if they did shrink the elves.
I feel a commonality between what I would call the more vulgar sort of fantasy and sword and sorcery fiction and the Renaissance Italian epic _Orlando Furioso_ which, along with its contemporary _The Faerie Queene_ might be called fanfic of _The Song of Roland._
There's an organic fashion to how storytellers draw from, expand on and mimic each other's works and draw from the same sources.
Let's not forget _Wheel of Time_ which drew from Tolkien's works in some basic establishing ways before going way out on its own: let's not forget that, for all of his philosophy about the flow of story and legend, the author of those *novels* had a specific vision and intent. And with that particular example in mind:
Amazon's adaptation has been made under corporate control, in a mass-media culture that is quite different even from the print revolution in which those epic poems were written. Tolkien himself chose a specific medium and reserved skepticism toward the other mass-media of his day. Consider also Alan Moore, who steadfastly refuses to have anything to do with screen adaptations of his works. He has not been shy at appropriating others' stories to drive his own works - look at _League of Extraordinary Gentlemen._
Does that make Moore a hypocrite? I submit that there are ways and ways of doing all this. How about putting it this way: there's a kind of ethic to playing jazz or folk or Medieval music, where there is a repertoire of standards, and each new performance can be understood to give a personal touch to the interpretation of those standards. But it's all founded on an attitude of respect and humility. I have not seen that kind of respectful ethic evident in Amazon's promotion of their adaptation.
All the examples you mentioned are great! The examples I chose for this video were primarily to serve the structure of my argument, but the ones you present here are certainly legitimate.
I agree that the act of adaptation is definitely shifting with massive corporations at the helm. However it's a balancing game. You have to change a work in order to adapt it, so I find it more constructive to focus less on the fact that changes were made, and more on what those changes are: the way that we choose to transform a work, not the fact that it was transformed.
I don't feel comfortable assuming the intentions of the creators of the Rings of Power. I think I'll need to see the show in order to determine how apt of an Adaptation it is.
Either way, I hope you're able to continue enjoying Tolkien and all the works that were inspired by him, even if the show doesn't resonate with you. Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@Jess_of_the_Shire Thanks for an interesting conversation. I've been enjoying your channel.
D&D was always more inspired by sword and sorcery and pulp fantasy than Tolkien. There's far more of Moorcock and Poul Anderson, and Jack Vance in D&D than Tolkien. Gary Gygax was saying that all the way back in 1979 with the original Appendix N.
And let's not forget Fionavar Tapestry, which might have been cobbled together from Tolkien's reject notes.
I was looking forward to The Rings of Power, I was dissapointed by the Hobbit movies but really believed RoP could be excellent. But. It really didn't live up to the potential mainly because of poor story telling choices and bizarre world building - travel felt like a game cut scene. On the flip side it hasn't ruined my childhood and I still love the books (and their descendants).
Another great video. I enjoyed seeing you compare and contrast some other works with Tolkien. I would like to see more of this.
I'm coming to this pretty late, well after the first season of Rings of Power was released. I've seen the first 4 episodes, after which I lost interest. First let me say how I approached the show. I've been around long enough to remember when the Peter Jackson movies came out. Movies based on books are (and pretty much always have been) notorious for often having almost nothing beyond the title in common with the book they are supposedly based on. So I, along with most Tolkien fans, approached The Fellowship of the Ring with some trepidation. And there are some who still hate the movies because of the not insignificant changes it makes to some characters and some of the plot. But most of us recognized that it was still telling essentially the same story, and doing so very well. In other words, the Peter Jackson movies are an adaptation of the books, not a different story told with some superficial resemblances (such as using the same names) to the original story. I think a lot of directors/screen writers see a book as a marketing tool rather than as a source of a story to tell. They don't really want to tell the story from the book, so they tell the story they want to tell and find ways to add some superficial similarities to the book they are supposedly adapting. (This is probably excessively cynical. Most of the time the new story is probably inspired by the original story in some way, even if it's more of a rebuttal than an adaptation of that story.) Now, I need to point out that while this will inevitably be disappointing to the fans of the book they are pretending to adapt, it doesn't always result in bad movies. Just the first example that comes to mind for me is How to Train Your Dragon, one of my all time favorite animated movies. I've read the book it's supposedly based on, and I think it's an example of this. The book is very different, even though many elements of the film are clearly inspired by the book. In my opinion the book is not as good, but if I'd read it first and been a fan of it I might have found the movie disappointing. Anyway, Peter Jackson didn't do this. His movies are truly an adaptation of Tolkien, even with everything he cut out and/or changed.
With Rings of Power there were indications before it came out that the show runners were not really interested in adapting Tolkien, but rather had their own story that they wanted to tell. So going in my expectation was that it would not be a good adaptation of Tolkien. I hadn't completely given up hope, but I was prepared to be disappointed. I was also prepared to give the story they wanted to tell a chance, even if it wasn't really Tolkien.
I was so determined not to prejudge that even while the story was clearly not anything like Tolkien's telling of the Second Age from very early on, I kept trying to figure out how they could tie it back in and make it work out in the end. But I eventually had to give up on that. Which left me with the question, are they telling a good story, and telling it well, even if it doesn't really have much to do with Tolkien's story? And by the time I got to the end of the 4th episode I concluded that the answer to that was also no. Don't get me wrong - there are parts that I enjoyed, and parts that were visually good. But the haphazard, contradictory, and let's be honest, at times utterly stupid elements of the plot eventually left me uninterested in continuing.
Anyway, this isn't the first video of yours that I've seen in which you indicated that you didn't hate Rings of Power, but I'm not sure I've seen anything like a review from you after you had the chance to actually see it. I'm curious to know what you think of it now. Do you have a review of it?
I agree with the majority of your video regarding adaptation and the inspiration or partial inspiration that LotR may have had on other author's books. The Cauldron of Stories is a wonderful metaphor that rings true to me as I have read many fantasy works by many authors over the decades and the echoes of ideas (heroes journey, sacrifice required to face down evil etc) do indeed arc across them But, and it's a big but, George RR Martin, Ursula Le Guin, JK Rowling, nor any of the other authors you mention claim either to be directly based on the works of Tolkien or set in his world of Middle Earth.
That sets RoP apart in a major way from those other works, so I think it's fair to say you are not comparing like with like there. RoP does not claim to be loosely inspired by some of Tolkien's ideas, in fact it makes bold claims to be the "story that Tolkien never wrote", that it would bring Middle Earth back to our screens and that when in doubt the showrunners claimed they would "return to the source material". And it isn't as if there wasn't a significant block of source material available for their use.
And yet the departures from the source material are egregious and jarring in terms of character, timing, plot, timing etc etc etc Not only does this not feel like a return to Middle Earth, it feels like an attempt to say "Look how much better our Middle Earth is than Prof Tolkien's". This is no love letter to Tolkien or fond homage to his work and since RoP aired there have been many stories in the media that attempt to defend RoP not on it's own merits but by attacking Tolkien himself. It seems fairer to say that makes RoP look more like an attempt to usurp Middle Earth than to make the kind of adaptation that Peter Jackson made, ie one that while not slavishly following the source material has been widely acknowledged as a real attempt to lovingly bring Tolkiens work to the screen.
That most certainly does not seem to be the reception of RoP. I acknowledge that this video was made before the first season of RoP had aired, but we are long past that point now. Jess, you have strongly critiqued the departures made by the LotR movies vs the books in terms of character etc - and I think that much of your critique is very fair. Has the time not come for the same level of critique to be applied to RoP?
My biggest issue with Rings of Power and most recent adaptations of beloved stories (Fantastic Beasts, Star Wars, last series of GoT) is that the stories just aren't very good.
It doesn't feel like the respect is there for the fans anymore.
"Somehow Palpatine came back", Galadriel jumps off a boat in the middle of the ocean and just so happens to get picked up by a boat with the very person she is after on it. Newt Scamander is a wanted criminal and at the end of the movie they just let him go free and unleash his untested memory juice on the whole city of New York...and then it turns out that only worked on bad memories. Why are English Aurors arresting people in Paris...where are the French aurors? Why is McGonagall in it? 😂
Those are just a few examples, but I feel with so many TV shows and movies now, the stories are just an afterthought, built around whatever is convenient. Producers seem more intent on attacking fans rather than listening to their comments and respecting their love and passion for that story. They are vehicles either to push certain agendas or just are the latest cash cow and beloved worlds and characters are suffering as a result. I'm not a fan of everything about the Hobbit movies, but you can tell a certain amount of love and respect for the source material has gone into it. Same with House of the Dragon. Anyway, iv ranted enough 😂.
I think the biggest issue is we need new stories...but there's a reluctance to take that risk so Hollywood slaps an old name on a new story and you get a weird uncanny beast that is wearing an X skin suit but is clearly not X anymore.
I think you missed the point why the internet people got angry, or disappointed: it was not what we were promised. They said they make a show true to Tolkien, back to the books, back to the books, back to the books, instead we got so many changes, Tolkien is barely noticeable anymore. It could be the best thing in the world, engaging story, masterful screenplay, but it won't change the fact, that it was a bait-and-switch. Oh, you like Tolkien? Then we release something completely different under his name!
I also don't agree this is supposed to "draw in new fans" and "unite" them. The new ones will be shocked when they see the differences to Tolkien, and all interviews promoted dissolution instead unity. "Representation", "redress", "inclusivity", "all the racists get out" - they are actually trying to disperse the fans, and prevent unity.
What book? The appendices? A literal adaption of this time period would be more of a documentary with a narrator saying "and Celeborn and Galadriel traveled south....", "The battle took many lives.." and so on. Adaptions for each medium need to work within the strengths and limitations of those mediums.
First off thank you for the thoughtful response and for taking the time to watch!
I definitely understand feeling betrayed, but I'm not sure if I agree that Tolkien is barely noticeable. IMO, Middle Earth is still being represented, even if many details have been changed. They were going to have to adapt and change Tolkein's work one way or another, and while people may disagree with the direction the showrunners chose to take, I don't want to criticize them simply for needing to change things in order to create the show.
Everyone has a threshold where a work is changed so far that they consider it unrecognizable, and it is a shame that this show has hit that threshold for some people.
As to your second point, I can't speak as to the showrunners intention with the show.
I was moreso trying to speak to the fanbase at large, and hoping that this show could bring in new fans, reignite some ones that may have forgotten about Middle Earth, and hopefully allow more open conversations about the original work. Thanks again for watching and commenting!
I completely agree with OrionIV
@@watershipdown Exactly.
I don't think you're honestly related what they were "promising" to fans. And, they who? The studio? It's the writers, directors, actors and editors who make a work of art.
The main difference between LOTR and "A Song of Ice and Fire" is that as a Christian, Tolkien believed all humans bear the _Imago Dei_ - the image of God - and thus, no person is wholly fallen or evil. Martin's series paints a pessimistic view of humanity while Tolkien sees in people the capacity for not just great evil, but great good, and the goodness will ultimately win the day by God's (Illúvatar's) grace.
I have adapted two novels to stage--Bram Stoker's DRACULA and J.Sheridan LeFanu's CARMILLA--and have found I had to give myself absolute permission to change anything and everything in my process. The result each time was a starting re-imagination that was in fact a deeper dive into the source material than was usual. I find many of the best adaptations do this. IMHO
Interestingly, J.K.Rowling has said she was not very aware of EARTHSEA and Ursula K. LeGuin in her book "Language of the Night" strongly hinted she was not particularly influenced by Tolkien (and while envying those who grew up with Tolkien, worried about how much of a shadow he cast on the genre).
While George R.R.Martin makes no bones about his inspiration from Tolkien, so too did Stephen King in his fantasy epic THE DARK TOWER, and Stephen R. Donaldson in his THE CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT THE UNBELIEVER (although he also notes Wagner's RING cycle as a far more central influence).
Tis very interesting, like all your videos.
First off, great video! I generally share your perspective of adaptations and inspirations. I think we all are getting a little ahead of ourselves with judging the show before it’s even come out. That being said all the promotional material for rings of power don’t exactly give me the warm and fuzzies. Initially when I heard the show was in development with a huge budget and a ton of amazing writers I was stoked. However, even prior to the trailer I was afraid it might lack a clear vision for what the show would really be about. My fear is that Amazon wanted to create a show to ride the GOT wave and decided that the world of LOTR would be very marketable then hired a bunch of people to make it happen rather than it being organic inspiration. That being said we just need to wait and see for ourselves. It should be entertaining in some way.
Thanks for the comment! You bring up an interesting point.
I have zero doubts that Amazon made this show in order to try and fill the Game of Thrones void and make money. Unfortunately that seems to be the case with almost all big budget media projects lately, so in some ways I find it hard to criticize this show particularly for that fact.
I don't have a solution for this overall issue unfortunately, I guess it comes down to each of our opinions on whether we think they struck a balance between business and passion.
Yeah, striking a balance between business and passion is key with any movie or tv production. When it’s based on a really popular book or series of books it’s just an extra layer of difficulty. Pleasing all the fans of the source material is very rare and incredibly difficult.
The Game of Thrones series came out in 2011, ROP came out in 2022. There was no GOT "wave" that rings of power could have been riding
@@Jess_of_the_Shire they did,t! Ideology won!
@@Jess_of_the_Shire Oh, beware , you are implying that normalizing a problem legitimizes it.
Every of the many expressions of a problem are worthy of critique, and especially important when there are many.
I love watching your videos. You're grasp on J R R Tolkien is very good. You know his works and his life. You have very clearly done meticulous research on him and his works and it shows. I have enjoyed every video, even the quirky ones, alot. I will continue to follow.
It´s simple...if I don´t want or like something I won´t watch it...I would still watch the Oiginal Trilogy on endless repeat
I remember being shocked to my core when GOT killed off it’s main character before the end of the first season. Sean Bean just can’t catch a break 🥺
Curious about your opinion of the show now that we've all seen the first season...
What I love about the adaptation is its rich, beautiful portrayal of the landscapes and cultures of Middle Earth. We finally get to see Lindon, Eregion, and the dwarf kingdom of Khazad-dum in all their glory. Something only hinted at in LoTR, where most of that world lies in ruins. It's a visual masterpiece.
Of course, the music isn't up to Howard Shore's standard. That was great music. This is good music. It makes a huge difference in the atmosphere and enjoyment of the story, especially the setting.
What I didn't appreciate is alterations to the characters and their own histories. Peter Jackson's revisionings were perhaps understandable, given that he was trying to fit a thousand pages of material into a 13-hour film. But I don't think that applies here. They could have been more faithful to the character arcs established by both Tolkien and Jackson. Rather than going for drama and thrills. I don't approve of it at all. Especially in Galadriel's case. To my mind she's practically sacred. It'd be like spraying graffiti on a statue of the Virgin Mary.
A pretty picture with disgusting characters in the foreground. Kind of like a lot of Gainsborough with Ren and Stimpy played out before it.
Had a class called Man the Mythmaker, it was a study on the commonality of stories throughout history and cultures.
First, let me just say, this was an eloquent, professional video essay to rival ANY college thesis! I stayed because it drew me in by these elements, even though I knew I would generally not agree with your conclusion most likely. And yes, unfortunately that means my mind was made up before I began, putting your essay at an (unfair) disadvantage. But even so, to complement it even more, I kept listening. I have to say, it was very close to swaying me toward the part where you went back in history to all the great stories of the past that have amalgamated into our modern stories today. So close! Like this close: ( )
Unfortunately, the big kicker for me on the ROP show ultimately was I just didn’t think the writing was all that great. I think I could have totally gotten on board with the “It’s an adaptation” bandwagon if it would have been an interesting story with clever twists and turns and compelling characters with dramatic arcs and everything we love about a good story. But for all the money they spent, it sure seems like they could have hired at least a better writer…you know? Not even saying a top tier amazing person, but just a decent writer who cared enough to at least explain their plot holes or come up with a *slightly* better way to create Mordor than…pulling a lever… would have been nice. Does that make sense?
If you are going to try to avoid the “it’s all a cash grab” argument, then you should focus on putting in some quality to your script, some love into character arcs, and some time into immersive world building so that things don’t seem too much like obvious short cuts.
It just falls into the same Rise of Skywalker category otherwise. Yeah it’s an adaptation and continuation of a story… but for gawds sake, couldn’t you have just spent ONE more afternoon on the Script before putting out “Somehow Palpatine has returned” into movie theaters the world over?
So, those are my thoughts. Your SUPERB video essay is just fighting an uphill battle on this one, methinks. I hope you see this for how it is meant, as I genuinely admired it and you in this work.
This is how I feel about adaptations and how original works change over time. Great video.
I just want to pop by and thank you for using "Adaptation" instead of adaption. That is one of my greatest pet peeves. Glory to you and your house. Carry on.
I really didn't like the show at first until my sister said she did like it. That's when I realized that since my sister hasn't read the silmarillion she wasn't aware how inaccurate the story was. I decided to try to watch the show, rather than analyze it and I found myself enjoying it more. It still has problems like anarion being a girl and galadriel being an angry little brat but I found myself letting go of that and just watching the show. All in all I would give it a five out of ten.
I do not have high hopes for it tbh PJ set the bar very high and judging by the trailers they aren't even trying to do Tolkien justice. The trailers looks pretty bad overall, in fact I think it'll crash and burn like Gollum vainly clinging to the one ring lol 🤷🏼♂️
I guess it comes down to differences in taste then! There were certainly elements of the trailers that I didn't love, but I'll definitely have to see the real show to make a final judgement. Thanks for watching!
Tolkien is still making Burpees in his grave, but i move to another video from you for your honesty XD
Love the fairness in exploring new adaptations! I understand that feeling of being 'protective' of stories that we come to love SO much that we feel like we have a sort of ownership of it.
And its especially easy with the Legendarium to fall into this nitpicky criticism of anything that comes from it because of HOW they are written. Tolkien presents his stories as a literal history and we as fans have fun treating them as such- citing sources and and 'researching' Middle Earth as if we were history buffs. So the 'umm actually' reactions are so so easy to slip into.
But in the end, like you said, the source material is always there. If I wanted the perfect LOTR or Silmarillion... I'll just read it lmao. When it comes to adaptations, I still get excited to see what new things people can come up with based on what Tolkien left us. I WANT to see some original stuff too and see how they might stick the landing or totally flop. Considering the insane amount of fanfiction Ive read, I would be a hypocrite to complain if its not 1000% accurate.
I DO have to say, I do feel SOOOOOO happy that we FINALLLY get more dwarves that are treated with SERIOUSNESS. In most every adaptation, dwarves have been put aside and turned into jokes or reduced or ignored (even in the movies that are SUPPOSED to be about THEM- GAHHHH). What is so fun in the fandom is that there is less info about the dwarrow compared to the elves because they are so secretive. Some of my favorite parts of fanartists and writers is how they can play in the space and come up with so much beautiful culture for the dwarrow that feel in line with what Tolkien wrote. Lets not forget that from the few scraps of Khuzdul that Tolkien left the Dwarrow Scholar created an entire conlang called Neo-Khuzdul- to the happiness of every dwarf fanatic out there.
YES i am protective of the image IVE created of dwarves in my head but I acknowledge that I dont own 'dwarves'. I do have to fight the urge to cry when i see a lack of a beard but.... am i willing to look past cosmetic choices in exchange for stone song and Kazad-dum and dwarves that LOOK like dwarves and beautiful friendships and acknowledgement of their secret names and CULTURE... abso-fucking-lutely.
In fact, Orcs are adaptation of Elves, and Melkor was only inspired by Iluvatar.
Interesting video with some good points. I don't get all of the groaning and moaning from a lot of the folks on the internet who are intent on being fed-up with the show before it has even arrived. I for one would love to see more explored around the 2nd Age which is essentially just notes and smaller stories in Tolkien's writings - hopefully this does that and has fun with the idea, giving us more Tolkien-based stuff to enjoy on the screen.
As someone who watched the Peter Jackson films and absolutely loves them, I can't see it being any more/less wild when it comes to tinkering with the canon established story. SO much of Jackson's LotR was changed from the books and altered to make it work on film and so obviously things have to be changed, tweaked and added to make a TV show about the 2nd Age too.
I've read the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings and love them. I have equally watched the old Bakshi movies, small fan projects, played Shadows Of Mordor/Shadows Of War and loved all of them. More Middle-earth is a good thing.
What I hope that Rings Of Power does is entertains and enthralls viewers as a show in its own merit and gets people to WANT to read the books and find out more. Fingers crossed anyway and I can't wait to see the show. If Nerd Of The Rings as a massive Tolkien nerd can watch the first two episodes and say they enjoyed it - I reckon I am going to have a good time.
I really do think a lot of the internet distress comes from a place of loving Tolkien and wanting to see it respected, but I definitely agree. I wish people had more patience with the showrunners (especially since the show hasn't come out yet)
The Peter Jackson point is really great too. I think a lot of people forget how much he changed the source material when he made the movies. Especially since the second age has even less to work with, I don't find it at all surprising that major changes have been made.
I also am just excited for more Middle Earth! Even if I don't love every Adaptation, it's just so fascinating to see these different visions being realized by different artists. Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I hope you enjoy the show tomorrow!
A Wizard of Earthsea has held a dear place in my heart since I discovered it at 18. (I was introduced to Tolkien at 12.) Maybe you could devote a video to it sometime; I'm having trouble thinking of anything it has in common with LOTR, apart from genre tropes. There's no ancient evil, no fellowship of adventurers, no elves or dwarves (or dwarfs). It's a coming of age story, whose stakes are largely limited to the main character. There are barely any other characters who appear in more than one scene. And it's fundamentally atheistic, lacking a good/evil dichotomy or sense of any agency guiding the world.
I only found your channel a couple of days ago, but I'm hooked! Your level of knowledge is excellent, and your presentation is great.
With regards to adaptations, it's understandable that some things need to change when adapting to different media. I understand some of the changes made to Lord of the Rings are necessary.
Where I take issue is some adaptations, particularly modern, that have little resemblance to the original stories. Foundation is one that comes to mind. Of course, this is not a new phenomenon. I am also a fan of James Bond novels and movies. The first of the movies were fairly true to the text. By the time Moonraker arrived, all that was shared was character names and a loose connection with rockets.
I believe an adaptation should at least share some story elements and themes, changed as necessary. Otherwise, it's a reimagining, as per the 2004 Battlestar Galactica. If it shares no story elements and simply has characters and not much else, this is a new story. Going back to James Bond, the Daniel Craig movies, Casino Royale excepted which is pretty accurate including the chair scene, aren't based on novels but the character. As long as those new movies remain faithful to how James Bond would be in the setting, then they are faithful to the original. An example would be if someone writes a new story perhaps detailing events between Hobbit and Fellowship, and remained true to the intent and characters, this would be faithful in my view.
I haven't yet watched the Rings of Power and am looking forward to seeing what you have to say about them. Keep up the excellent work!
Thank you!
Would you please to review the whole LotR: RoP? I think that the issue is things are changed too much, specifically the personalities.
I always enjoyed the adaptation that Terry Brooks penned in his Shannara series. Yes, it borrows heavily from Tolkien, but it’s set in future earth after a nuclear holocost (he wrote a prequel series for current events before the holocost). It’s a very enjoyable read.
Ooof. Shannara books were some of my first reading loves in grade school. But they are NOT acknowledged adaptations. They are hackneyed rip-offs of Tolkien. And not well-written, either.
yeah, it totally sucked... It's as if Disney took over the IP... oh wait..
My issue is with the show runners saying the show won’t drag in contemporary politics, and the actors saying it’s all about bringing in contemporary politics. It is that the cast, at least, feel empowered to “tell the story Tolkien couldn’t “ and tell it their way, but call it a Tolkien story. It may be a good series, but it sure doesn’t look like a Tolkien story. Additionally the attention to detail that the PJ movies
paid to every aspect seems missing here; swords that can’t be drawn easily, polyester fabric with gold foil rather than layers of embroidery, the substitute of shiny for depth of craftsmanship. The trailers are supposed to showcase the show, as commercials are supposed to sell a product. I am not seeing very much of Tolkien. I am not impressed with the details. Might it be a cinematically, visually beautiful show? Sure. But Tolkiens Middle Earth? Not so much. Call it a Tolkienesque show. Call it a fanfic. Don’t call it an adaptation of Tolkien. It needs more than character and place names in common to be that. And don’t tell me it will be better than anything Tolkien did because you made it “relevant “. It’s popularity throughout the world, throughout the different populations, different religions, different nationalities, proves that a specious statement.
I don't care if people make their own version of an existing tale.
I don't like any of the adaptations except maybe Bakshi's one and listening to the Swedish Radio theater one from 1995.
But I don't hate anyone for making their own twist and it is good that people use their fantasy and create something new, that others may like even if I don't.
Anyway what I do hate is people that don't let others have their own opinion, and especially when large companies are blocking reviews and stuff because of backlash. That is a horrible behaviour to try and silence others. People today cannot accept that others don't agree with them and that is causing so much diversion among groups and people these days.
Anyway thanks for an interesting channel.
The thing about hamlet why it still resonates is the message of kinslaying is bad. And if you seek vengeance always dig 2 graves.
I mostly agree but whilst it undoubtedly changed it irrevocably I really don't think we can say that Rowling birthed the YA genre, there was a whole heck ton of it long before she released anything.
For example the Redwall series, the pern chronicles, all the point fantasy books and many others. It was a huge influence for sure but saying she created the genre erases a rich body of literature that preceded and may well have inspired her.
Have we read Joseph Campbell? “The Hero With A Thousand Faces”?
I really like your open-minded perspective on story inspirations and portrayals.
Since you mention a similar pattern with the King Arthur legend, I wonder whether you've ever read the adaptation that Gerald Morris created under the title "The Squire's Tale"?! That ten volume YA series has so many wonderful characters in it and the humor manages to be amazingly lighthearted in the midst of the dramatic material. It was both incredible and quite logical to me to discover that the author was a Christian pastor. I've reread his series multiple times, and yet I was still able to appreciate the very different approach of Marion Bradley in her much darker and more 'history' oriented "Mists of Avalon".
Looking forward to your review of the upcoming release 💍▶✳
I haven't gotten to read those yet! I'll definitely have to check them out, they sound super interesting
So here we are a year on from your excellent video and Rings Of Power season 2 isn't too far away. The idea of the second age of middle earth being made into TV series is really cool. I can't image a Tolkien fan who wouldn't be excited. The first Age is very, very tragic and not really my cup of tea. Good triumphs in the end but lots of nice elves, dwarfs and humans die before the Valar finally decide to get their finger out and sort out Morgoth. It would lose viewers as their favourite characters get stamped on by Balrogs. The second age does have a "happy ending" and lots of adventure and Sauron seducing the mighty race of Numenor by feeding their pride. So, did I enjoy Season 1 of rings of power? ...I prefer it to Bily Connolly riding a goat while the sand worms from Dune somehow appear in the wrong movie. I didn't mind season 1. It was a bit slow, but This Wondering Day was sweet enough to get on a couple if my spotify playlists. I like that song and Tolkien liked his songs too. I did find myself reaching for the tablet while Rings of power was on though. It didn't engross me. The production was amazing but the plot wasn't up to Game of Thrones. Rings isnt even as pacey as The Witcher and that plot is glacial. However, we know season 2 is going to be punchier, so let's give it a go. My last thought is that I used to be a star wars fan, but there are so many spin offs that I'm just over it. Disney did the same thing with Marvel, death by spin off. Let's hope that never ever happens to LOTRs.
A 7 for me. Regarding RoP. I enjoyed it. But I always had the feeling it missed something. I would have liked more time for sauron as annatar. Or will that come in season 2 somehow.
Also adapting this show was doomed to be challenging because the creators only had the rights to the appendix.
And before people claim I am not a real fan. I have read, lived in and enoyed the world of Tolkien since I was 10 :)
Now that the show is closer to its end (well, the 1st season at least) than the beginning, how do you feel about it now?
I'll definitely release a full review once it's all out, but I'm enjoying it! It's definitely not perfect, the timeline mashing gets a little confusing, there are some pacing issues (sometimes too slow sometimes too fast) and iffy writing here or there, but I look forward to watching it every week, which is good enough for me!
On another note. Have you seen House of the Dragon yet? Interested in your opinion.
I have! The first episode anyway.
Incidentally, I haven't actually gotten to watch Game of Thrones yet, (that segment of this video was largely helped by Dillon haha) but I really enjoyed House of the Dragon. Solid design, good writing, and I was able to keep up with it, despite my GoT ignorance.
My only nitpick may be that they used a few instances of extreme violence in the first episode alone. The way I see it, graphic violence is a great tool to raise the stakes of a story, but when you have it happening multiple times in the first episode alone, it begins to lose its punch. Then again, if you find graphic violence fun, I could totally see it being cool, so its probably just a matter of taste.
Have you seen it?
I just watched the second episode and so far I’m really enjoying it. It might be good that you haven’t seen GoT when watching it. I’m having a hard time of separating the two in my mind and analyzing all the differences.
I didn’t necessarily mind the violence in the first episode, but it did seem unnecessary and the context was kind of odd. Having essentially a gladiatorial fight to the death during a medieval tourney threw me off a little bit. One could argue they are trying to show the Westeros culture’s comfort with violence, but I think it was more likely the show runners letting the audience know that it’s going to be gritty like GoT was.
Well, this video did not age well. The 1st season has come and gone, and it was as bad or worse than many (myself included) had feared. Just one example; the character Galadriel was utterly unlikable, sharing nothing with Tolkien's description of Galadriel except her name. The RoP Galadriel behaved like a stroppy teenager, imperious and demanding.
The writing was sophomoric and decision-making dumb; who thought it was a good idea for Galadriel to jump ship 2000 miles from the nearest land?
Like most viewers (internationally, only 38% of viewers watched all 8 episodes), I'll not waste my time on season 2. I hope they follow Disney's lead with Snow White and deep-six the Rings of Power.
I recently read that Time-Warner bought the film rights to make other Tolkien films; here's hoping they do as good a job with these as they did with the original LotR.
"In fact, we can find an almost mirror image of the Star Wars story in Hidden Fortress."
Well, I see you haven't actually watched it, then.
Girl, if your opinion on the show is a positive one, you are not alone!!! Something that had been interesting to follow along was that even before s1 premiered there was such a negativity towards it (do people now hate Tolkien or fantasy?) yet as time went on and actual fans and fantasy lovers got a chance to actually watch the show, more and more voices began to praise it. Idk why this project in particular became target to so much critic when there were far more worthy contestants for disappointment in the past (The Hobbit trilogy anyone? The Percy Jackson movies? GoT s8? Dragonball Evolution? The Last Airbander movie???). Even the so beloved LotR trilogy had to do a ton of changes when being adapted for the big screen, yet it is universally praised today.
Having young Elrond with short hair or female dwarfs without beards does NOT take away from the fact that so far we’ve seen Valinor, The Two Trees, the Oath of Feanor, Finrod, Galadriel in her young warrior days, NUMENOR in its glory, freaking Khazad-dûm, the creation of Mordor, and much much more.
🤮
8:58 Like clinging to the ancient msyticisms of the Force? 😏 - Hm, no, that's different, right?
Well, you recorded this before the show aired, so while part of the outrage might have been 'fandom autism', it might also have been intelligent foreseeing, reading the signs, understanding the big picture, sensing a tarnishing of the essence. (Which really didn't take much deep insight in the existing overt societal context.)
Great Content Jess
I really appreciate you giving some more context about adaptations and inviting dialogue rather than complaints. I’m of the opinion that you shouldn’t form judgements about something before you’ve given it a fair chance. Watching a 2 minute trailer for a multi-hour television series does not count as a fair chance in my mind…even if it’s not a perfect show, I hope it at least tells a good story that can stand on its own merit! If it doesn’t, I’ll just pretend it doesn’t exist, haha.
Going to go watch your first impressions vid before making a comment.
Thanks!
I have to demur on the idea that Harry Potter established the YA genre. Madeleine L'Engle's Time Trilogy predates it by 30 years.
Curious: are you familiar with the theory of the ‘Monomyth?’
In an ideal world, it would have been better if they had had the rights to THE SILMARILLION and just adapted it. Once it became clear that wasn't legally possible, then it wasn't worth making a show at all. At that point, they'd have been better off just creating an original fantasy series that was an homage to Tolkien but stood on its own.
I've seen this claim made, but nobody ever explains the reasoning. You don't NEED the Silmarillion to tell stories from the Second Age. They did just fine without it. And the Silmarillion would be WAAAAAAY harder to adapt than filling in color on what are essentially timeline events from the Second Age.
@@hawkname1234 The reason it's better to have access to adapting THE SILMARILLION is it gives you more freedom to tell something closer to canon. Imagine, in comparison, if you were a filmmaker who was adapting HARRY POTTER, but you only had the legal rights to half the books. That means you'd have to adapt part of the story, but then be forced to spend the other half making up brand new things that can't ever veer too close to what was in those books you don't have the rights to. Even if what you write is really good, it's still going to feel like oddly-constructed fan-fiction and the book fans will invariably compare it to the source material.
ROP is fine, personally, I like it and I enjoy the rare pair of Saruglad.
So, when you saw it, what did you think? This is long after it faded and the riot has settled but will resume when it plays its second season. I know you have found the silly foreign adaptations to be cute. From what I could see, they at least tried to keep to canon. ROP didn't even try. And I do wonder how anyone could find Guyladriel to be anything but annoying, regardless of the relation of the character to anything Tolkien wrote in any of the versions of her story. Thing is, those of us who were expecting something to at least fit reasonably into the long Tale were thinking that they would respect the actual characters and if they had an urge to depart from his tale as told, that they would make up new characters to populat that version. That would have been disappointing, but honest. What they did was steal known characters and, pace their haircuts, utterly revise them inside. That was the problem. These were not the characters Tolkien wrote. He didn't write any characters like these. So it's IP theft and I for one am not going to approve of it.
Your perception that wizard of Earthsea is underrated and unknown has got to be a generational thing. I am Gen X and wizard of Earthsea was almost as well known as Tolkien. It makes me feel old to hear that that is no longer so.
I really enjoyed it as well! I couldn't believe people hated it.
Wow. I also DIDN'T hate The Rings of Power. And I will say that Jess is very brave to say that in the midst of all the fandom mania and groupthink around The Rings of Power. People were absolutely MINDLESS in their hate for that show, and they were so low integrity they didn't even care when they contradicted themselves in their desperation to conform to what all the influencers were saying. So, regardless of the particulars, kudos to Jess for having the mindset and courage to think for herself. Pretty rare.
Yeah, it has a ton of problems, but it also did some things that I loved. Overall, I found it disappointing, but I also think it's something they can improve and I'm HOPEFUL that they will heed the valid critiques and the next 4 seasons will build to something truly incredible.
Could you please do a video on some of George rr martins works. M'lady.
I was really excited when I first heard about it lol then I saw the trailers and…idk it just doesn’t feel like the Lord of the Rings movies (︶‸︶)
I love the fanmade Hunt for Gollum and Born of Hope they just feels like the actual movies to me lol I write Lord of the Rings fanfics my myself lol rings of power does feel more like Game of Thrones I suppose and we know how that ended up 7:28 :/ Alas…I will just have to wait and see it for myself I suppose *fingers crossed* ^~^
We'll have to see!
Honestly, I kind of wished that they had taken it in a fully different direction than PJ'S movies, so that we could see a new vision of Middle Earth. If they try to replicate his vision, it's highly likely that it may fall into a sort of "uncanny valley" where it's almost like it, but not quite.
I hope you're able to get something out of it if you do watch it though! Thanks so much for watching and taking the time to comment!
It's funny how history repeated itself. With the success of the LOTR films in 2001-2003, big companies tried to capitalize on the revitalization of the fantasy genre and we saw a lot of decent shows and movies and some terrible knock offs. It extended to the video game space too. But by the late 2000s, it already started dying off and people were sick of the "chosen one"/"save the world from ancient evil" fantasy. GOT came in just in time in 2011 to put a different spin on fantasy and take a more grimdark approach and then the same thing happened. We got shows, movies and video games that are knock offs of GOT. But more than 10 years later, I think people are getting sick of this grimdark fantasy. Let's see what the next cultural phenomenon will be in the fantast genre.
Really not pleased with this show.
I don't like how Elves, the most awesome, are made to be clueless and annoying. They should have just made every character up.
Overall, a great video essay. Every example you included applies to your thesis. The problem is Rings of Power. It is not in any way the same type of inspired story that you were describing. It's a thinly veiled attempt at an IP cash-grab being produced by people who do not know or respect the material. It lacks the authenticity which made the Jackson trilogy so beloved, and is practically sacrilegious when it comes to the lore. It isn't trying to adapt Tolkien's stories and themes, it's doing the opposite: using the name, whilst subverting and discarding the stories and themes.
On top of that, it's just incompetently done.
Hello Jess, I just subscribed to you. I love your videos and your personality. I absolutely love your passion for Tolkien. However, I have to differ with you on this. It is precisely the King Arthur analogy that I don't want for Lord of the Rings. I grew up loving Earth Sea, King Arthur, Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, Harry Potter, Star Wars, The Never Ending Story, ect... and so on. (The fact that I like King Arthur doesn't validate Rings of Power. If you are going to tell a story, you should stay as true to it as possible. I'd prefer to have the true story over the fiction.) A good story is one that doesn't change. Details are what make for a great story. Once details become jumbled, the story begins to turn and ferment. Until what you are left with is a pale imitation of the original. I am still trying to "like" Rings of Power, and I'm in the middle of my second watch now. Sadly, I feel I might have to settle for "tolerate" Rings of Power. The main issues with Rings of Power are that they try to push their agendas instead of focusing on the story. The swordsmanship and dialog were both trash. The plot was lousy. The costumes were... ok. The only thing I liked was the scenery and the nostalgia.
Tolkien is rolling in his grave.
Tolkien is doing burpees in his grave.
I agree with everything you say here regarding adaptation and making anew. I do wonder if your opinion of rings of power is still positive after watching. In my opinion it suffered from poor writing more than any stylistic choices, but that’s just my opinion. I’m sure lots of people enjoyed it, my tolkien brain just couldn’t turn off I was watching events that were supposed to take place thousands of years apart 😂
I love the vision of Professor Tolkien doing burpees in his grave. Thank you so much for putting in my mind. 👍
This video did NOT age well.
And yes, Tolkien is probably doing burpees in his grave, whatever those are.
"I didn't watch the show but i love it"
Dumb 🤦♂️👎
It’s a well made, entertaining series built into (sort of) Tolkien’s middle earth so, what the heck, I’m just going to enjoy it and not bother getting on my high horse about it. Love your videos PTH!
I thought the first two episodes were great. They immediately made we want to see more. I am looking forward to the return to Middle Earth with this story.
I love your take on this, and the caldron analogy you use, for me the threads that are woven between different franchises and stories make them relatable, nothing is sadder than when a world ends, the author dies or runs out of inspiration and you know that this magical place where you have lived for a while will never change or grow again . Those little nods back to those worlds make new worlds safer, or more welcoming to explore, and I never understand this notion that many people seem to have, that you can only love one genre or franchise, or that they should rival , replace or be constantly judged by another franchise, to me they are flowers in a border, different, but adding to a greater whole, I neither loved nor hated rings of power, and thought it was very brave to even try it, they got some things 'wrong' (according to my personal taste) but at other times I was just happy to be back in Middle Earth,. I feel that George Lucas would acknowledge an influence from Tolkien and does so by naming his forest moon 'Endor', also you gave a brilliant summery of Star War's origins, I would only add to it by throwing in street car racing, which he is a huge fan of and based the rebel fighters on the idea of modded, souped up hotrods, and the very uniform Empire ships on the patrol cars chasing them, you can really see how he evolves some ideas from the earlier THX and American Graffiti movies in the trench run and other scenes.
What is this, reasonableness? Miss, do you realize you’re on the internet?
Anyways, when you were talking about SW and LOTR it really sounded like you were talking about the Hero’s Journey. You might be interested in something like The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
What is a "pus cut?"
Wow, Having recently listened to a podcast on Tolkein's essay On Fairie Tales, my entry level perspective tells me you are digging deep. Great use of the cauldron of story. Good work. Thanks.
When first I caught your Channel I figured you had experience in broadcasting or training in broadcasting. You are that smooth and practiced in front of the camera.
I guess I move on, but only for this video. I write this long after the first season ended. I would like to say something, though, about how arrogant, smug people want to play silly games after a writer is deceased. I'm trying to write a set of novels that has been gestating in my mind, heart and spirit since the early 1980s. I have no idea if it is worth anyone's time. I've written a great deal of it. There is a lot of effort that goes into such a creation. I would like to self publish before I die. I am very much a woman of my time and have a poor education. Again, I am not sure it is worth anyone's time. BUT, and again, BUT... if my novels ever became as popular as Tolkien's or Rowling's and some fool of a Hollywood producer dared touch a hair on William de Landenlas' head... or a gown that Mellisa Mennorey wore, and do both without any respect for my years of creative hard work... and, I was deceased, I would find a way to come back to earth and haunt them so horribly that they would fall to their knees and beg me for mercy. (and I could be a very cruel ghost!)
They would have to beg God to pull me back, destroy their their obscene and disrespectful show and promise never to do anything that daft and evil again. I write what I write because that is the story.
Of course, I will never be that popular, but, if I WAS....
soooo...... semantics
I’m sorry but I politely disagree. There are just too many red flags for me to fully embrace this adaptation, though I must admit that I am curious enough about it to give it a watch. But from the cheap-looking costumes, to the show runners and cast contradicting themselves on multiple occasions (e.g. first female dwarf ever), to the creators not even being able to answer questions about lore despite vehemently saying they poured over the source material. I must say it doesn’t look to bode well.
It seems that this is more of a cash grab than anything else. Also, I personally took offense to them changing Galadriel’s character and arc for what seems to be an effort to appeal to modern masses (she’s one of my favorite characters in any sort of media). I mean, the source material is considered timeless by many and therefore should not have to be altered to this degree. Also, changing the paths that important characters take may cause big changes to the story later on, which could be irredeemable for the die-hard fans and could cause confusion for potential newcomers.
It also feels as if no heart was put into this series; though I fully agree that I could be proven wrong. But the Jackson films were made with such love and care, and Peter Jackson insinuated several times that he disliked diverting from the text on several occasions. Also, overuse of cgi does not a movie make; plus it just doesn’t stand up to physical objects that are actually in front of the camera (e.g. actors in makeup/costume and miniatures/sets).
Lastly, this is touted as the most expensive television show of all time. Completely eclipsing the budget for the hobbit films and the original trilogy. Where on earth did all that money go? Certainly not on the costumes and props. Nor on engaging or memorable designs for characters.
P.s. Despite my outlook for this show, I enjoyed your video/optimism and found it very engaging.
As well as "where did that money go?", it might be worth asking "where did that money come from?"
I am a big fan of the books, read them a few times each. And I loved the Rings of Power. Not perfect, but the last couple of episodes are masterful and i felt really touched.
Rings of Power is an abomination.
Were you any prettier, I would not be able to take it.
Rings of power is a terrible show. As terrible as wheel of time. Get hired to help these friggin amateurs
Corporate profit-chasing ruins most things. Rings of Power, original GoT, Star Wars becoming more and more watered down (no, I don't mean "GiRlS bAd").... sigh.
"Westerns took a great deal of inspiration from samurai films"
Akira Korusawa was a giant in the field, but you'd have to provide a bit more evidence to generalize the connection to Westerns generally rather than just "The Magnificent Seven" specifically.
The tv show butchered the mythos in so many respects I felt like I was watching it out of obligation because I definitely wasn't enjoying it.
Maybe they should have bought the rights to "The Silmarillion" if they wanted to tell a Second Age saga.
Had high hopes from the show.. but The show turned out to be such senseless garbage.