It's pretty hard to rescue it at this point due to how much lore they threw in a blender. If it wasn't based on Lord of the Rings, it'd be far easier to fix, but they've written themselves into a dead end with this now. Either they keep going and ignore lore, which won't go well with fans, or they try to track back as much as possible to lore-friendly ground, which honestly I don't think they have the writing chops to untangle that knot without making the show then seem more disjointed than it is.
@@Rekaert You might be right. Maybe they can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Even if it could be done, it would take some seriously talented writers to pull off.
I would've explored the Easterling peoples and the mission of the Blue Wizards. Tolkien left it vague so it's easy to tell a new story that ultimately ties into the old lore, and it could be set in a multicultural society based on sea trade so there's no issues with cast diversity.
@@mastafull 100%. Anything really east of Gondor is mostly virgin ground for storytelling, with both of the Blue wizards only barely mentioned by Tolkien and the cultures of Rhun, the Variags of Khand and the Haradrim almost entirely untouched. What could be more attractive to a writer? The only slight issue there is the society that way doesn't seem any more multicultural than say , Gondor or Rohan. The coin is just flipped so it'd seem strange for a bunch of Easterlings to be blonde haired with white skin and blue eyes. But it would certainly allow for more racially diverse casting if the story was around that cultural/racial interaction border between Middle Earth and the east. I honestly thought this is what they would do before the show aired, and details began to emerge. Considering the modern compulsion to present even fantasy medieval societies as multi-ethnic, I figured anything less would either confine them into a writing corner they didn't want, or make their casting choices really conspicuous. Ahh well. Missed chance. Some skilled writers and they could have produced something original and interesting, yet congruent with Tolkien's world.
You, sir, are a gem of optimism. You give credit where there's simply no one to know what to do with credits. These are not the writers or executives for which this advise is of value, but thank you for the good video anyway
It feels awful watching something you love get mistreated, and it's difficult to stay optimistic in the context of big money IP. But sometimes strange things happen, so even if I personally can't maintain your hope, I'm very glad that at least you do, for us. I'm nervous to watch S02, and am waiting for the season to complete. Hope to hear your followup eventually. Great work.
Hey man, I came across your channel in my home screen, and I am simply taken by your beautiful ways of speaking and interesting editing and everything you have to say is meaningful. +1❤
It’s certainly a monumental task for anyone trying to adapt Tolkien’s stories. I myself enjoyed the opportunity to see more of Middle-earth in Rings of Power season 1 and for the most part I liked the main characters that they gave us, however, the writing and storytelling was definitely lacking depth. In Peter Jackson’s LOTR movies the One Ring was such an effective object because it is the central focus for the story’s themes and all our characters motivations. I think there might be an opportunity in Rings of Power season 2 for the newly forged rings of power to really test our main characters and focus the story a bit. I would be highly in favor of your idea to develop Galadriel’s revenge plot into that more tragic storyline.
The thing about TV shows is that every season (and arguably every episode) is kind of a self contained story, and should be evaluated on its own merits. So I DO think there's a possibility for something good to come out of season 2, even if it's just some parts here and there. Guess we'll see.
I just found your channel, and wow: 1. Your channel is very underrated. I was expecting to see something closer to 300k subscribers. I *do* believe you'll be adding zeros to that figure before too long though. 2. I never liked my English classes very much, but this channel feels like an enjoyable and engaging English class. Great vibe. 3. I'd consider myself a big fan of Lord of the Rings, but every video of yours I've watched on the topic has shown me multiple new things about the books and movies. Like, how did I not notice that the Ring only burned in the lava when Frodo made the choice to grab Sam's hand??? That blew my mind.
Hey, thanks so much for your kind words. This is the kind of encouragement that keeps me going. The channel is still very new, and I'm still figuring out this whole TH-cam thing, so it's great to hear that the stuff I'm putting out is actually interesting to people. I'll definitely be making more LOTR stuff in the future, as there's lots to say, and we have a new movie coming soon (The Hunt For Gollum). Very curious to see if any future Tolkien stuff will live up to Jackson's films. Thanks for watching!
I spent a bit of time thinking about how to salvage and repurpose the things they did in season 1. First the obvious. Lock the showrunners out of the writing room and fill it with actual professionals, people who can write worth a damn. Then give the writing team time to construct a season arc, a plan for coming seasons, and then more time write and re-write each episode so that the whole things hangs together coherently. That will automatically improve the painful dialogue, the broken world building and make sure that dramatic conflicts have setups, escalation, setbacks, darkest hours, crisis, resolution and consequences, like they should in a working piece of fiction. Characters will experience character development. There will be no more pointless filler scenes that doesn't do anything to either plot och characters. With improvement in the basic scriptwriting, we will care more about the protagonists and won't find it as difficult to watch a whole episode without falling asleep or going on FB. Then we get to repairing or mitigating the damage Season 1 did to plot and characters. First and foremost: Galadriel. They have turned her into almost a villain protagonist. We all hate her. I believe that is partly because of the dissonance between what RoP shows about her, and what the music and plot seem to expect we'll be feeling. They tried to write a girlboss whom everybody will love, and instead they made a Jerkass Sue who is constantly awful to everybody and still gets all the love and admiration and is always proven right by the plot. So, what to do? I think they should have revealed that she actually found Sauron in that icy fortress in episode 1, in that time when she was separated from her minions. They had a confrontation in which Sauron went into her mind and changed stuff around, making her not think about her husband, planting various malware and tracking suproutines and so on, and then making her forget the whole thing. So the Galadriel we see in Season 1 is the mind-effed version. That's why she jumps off a ship in the middle of the ocean, that's why she's so obsessed and angry all the time. And so on. At the final confrontation in the last episode he mind-wipes her again, but less successfully. This would have explained why she didn't tell the others who Halbrand actually was. It would give her a strong feeling that something is wrong with her mind, and set her on a personal quest to reclaim the lost bits. Talking about her lost husband might have been a good starting point. It would give her an excuse for some of her shitty behaviour earlier on and a huge potential for character development. Tracking down and rescuing her true love Celeborn might be part of it, and he might also play a crucial role in her inner journey back to her true self. The dwarves are basically okay, they just need better workmanship. There's a brewing civil war between Durin Sr and Durin Jr, and then the Balrog might awaken in the middle of it and make everything even more terrible. (Yeah I know, he's not supposed to awaken for another couple of thousand years, but they've already shown him: damage done.) Something happens that makes the dwarves close their doors and cut off relationship to the surface world. The elves need a lot of work, because right now they are mostly unsympathetic. When Gil-Galad dies the final epic fight scene with Sauron we should feel sad: right now we wouldn't care one bit. Elrond needs to be actually kind and wise rather than slimy and untrustworthy. Celebrimbor needs an actual relationship of his own with the dwarves. The numenoreans need much more fleshing out. Why are there two factions, or even two ethnicities, living toghether on the island? Why do they either despise or revere elves? What's going on with the politics and culture? I don't know what to do with the proto-hobbits and not-Gandalf though. They need something to do that somehow ties toghether with the rest of the plot, at least thematically. Cheers
how to fix it? delete it from existence problem solved. it’s disgusting that they have been allowed to butcher tolkien’s work with a blunt knife like this
Out of curiosity, what is it that you don't like about the show? What about Tolkien's work did you feel was disrespected? I'm not disagreeing but I'm interested in your take.
@@theartofstorytelling1 I'm not the guy you were responding to, but since he didn't reply I'll offer my own guess: 1. Most importantly, the show doesn't live up to the quality of original books or the Peter Jackson LOTR movies. By not meeting the gold standard, it's a slap in the face to the original works (and the fans). 2. The volume of "new" stuff. When your adaptation is as well received as something like PJ's LOTR trilogy, we can forgive the odd creative liberty. But when the quality is not as high, fans get angry when creative liberties are taken. The well of fan forgiveness runs dry when your movie sucks. 3. Issues with the demographics of the characters. I think a lot of people have issues with the race of the characters considering this is supposed to be an adaptation of an English mythology. 4. Issues with Amazon. It's a bit ironic that a company that Tolkien would absolutely *despise* is making the show.
@@theartofstorytelling1 To add to what the other guy was saying, I have highkey read better fanfiction than this show. Characters who are meant to be ancient and wise, like Galadriel, are idiots, while the actual young ones, like Celebrimbor were old and useless. The set pieces and designs are bad, and entire character dynamics are invented for no reason other than the writers wanting to make it "better" and "mordern".
Of course I'm seeing this after season 2 had started, i quit season one after the third episode. The thing that made me bounce off is how mean everyone is all the time, there is a distinct lack of friendship and love between the characters on screen. Everyone looks down on or despises the person they're talking to, or at least that's the impression I got.
As a fan of Tolkien, I find ROP very far removed from his work and only borrows his name and characters despite having little to do with the characters in the book. When filming The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson expressed the difficulty that it is mythology, but he wanted to film it like history. This meant that he had to give the elves a mysterious and otherworldly appearance to show their longevity, their experience, and extreme wisdom in the case of Galadriel. The figures in ROP seem like people with pointy ears. The 17th through 19th centuries saw slow, incremental changes compared to the rapid technological advances of the 20th and 21st centuries. In Tolkien's mythology, this tension between the ancient and modern, especially regarding power and industrialisation, is central to the narrative conflict. Morgoth and Sauron can be seen as agents of this shift, attempting to control the natural world and transform it into something mechanised, unnatural, and industrialised, for which the Orcs serve as mechanised beings, which explains why they are not so much evil as cogs in a machine. Morgoth's original rebellion against the divine order (the "Music of the Ainur") is interpreted as an effort to impose his own vision-a world dominated by power and subjugation. This is mirrored in Sauron's later ambitions, particularly his creation of the One Ring, a symbol of total control over the free peoples of Middle-Earth. The rise of machines in Middle Earth is often connected with corruption, destruction, and the loss of natural harmony. Sauron's industrialisation of Mordor and Saruman's deforestation of Isengard to fuel his war machine reflect this. In contrast, the Elves, Hobbits, and other free peoples embody a more harmonious relationship with nature, representing an older, more stable way of life that resists the pressures of industrialisation and centralisation of power. The comparison between the gradual changes over centuries and Tolkien’s world highlights a broader theme for many Tolkien fans: the tension between the old, cyclical ways of life and the forces that seek to accelerate change, often at the cost of freedom and balance. It's a timeless concern about the nature of power and progress. So, you might understand why the ROP falls very short of expectancies. Nobody would have complained if Amazon wanted to film a fantasy without Tolkien’s name and characters. However, statements by the showrunners and actors have indicated that they wanted their agendas to be carried by the series, and in some ways, criticise Tolkien for not including them in his story. Tolkien’s legendarium wasn’t designed to serve as a vessel for modern politics or social critique directly but rather as a reflection on human nature, history, and the eternal struggle between good and evil. When showrunners or actors suggest that Tolkien’s work needs to be "updated" or "corrected" to reflect modern sensibilities, it is a fundamental misunderstanding of what his stories represent.
I'm firmly in the camp that sees the show as unfixable. However, if they're really committed to continuing it, they desperately need to incorporate everything you said if they intend to make it appealing to anyone at all. Needless to say, my hype for it is absolute zero. I'm just not interested in Middle-earth fan-fiction. (I will make a plug for an INCREDIBLE outline for a Second Age show by the brilliant Rainbow Dave at the Tolkien Untangled channel. His story outline is just so good, and is 99% consistent with Tolkien lore. I don't know how he did it, but it is well worth watching---even repeatedly as I have done!)
To echo another commenter in here. Galadriel has an arc - her pride and wish to wield power got best of her. After Morgoths defeat she was unprecedented OP character knowledgeable, masterful, warrior and healer. But her Noldorian pride was always in the way of her being complete and contempt. (As it is written by Tolkien in one versions of her story) Unfortunately writers attempt at creating this arc creating lots of problems around Galadriel. One minute she is bad ass unstoppable machine, another she is fumbling around as teenager and throwing tantrums. People think that she is more of Peter Parker, but she is Tony Stark.
They can throw all the money in the world at it but if they don't get the story right it'll never work. I have NO interest in watching season 2 of a Lord of the Rings show and that's just sad.
Hey! I recently discovered your videos and I really appreciate your detailed breakdowns on these fantastic (and less fantastic) stories. They really help me get a better understanding of them and how a good story is made. I was wondering if you have watched Avatar the Last Airbender. If so, I’d love to hear your take on it and break it down if you feel like you have anything to say on it. It’s my favorite story next to Lord of the Rings, so I would love to hear a breakdown of yours about it. Cheers :)
Galadriel needs to be written better. She's the main character. If the MC doesn't work, nothing else does. A mediocre show with a great main character will always work better than a great show with a bad main.
To me Galadriel was shown to be a flawed character from episode 1. While some people conflate how powerful a person is with “Character”, I really understood how tormented Galadriel was after loosing her brother. She holds a very relatable grudge and grief without a means of extinguishing it; and thus, carries an unyielding pain and anger that both motivates her to do good and blinds her to the evil lurking right under her nose. ACTUAL Mary Sues are perfect (and thus boring) characters, never lose, never make mistakes, never feel bad! Galadriel is undoubtedly a phenomenal warrior, but she’s not so great of a listener. Hunting Sauron has given her tunnel vision and she makes mistakes, some quite disastrous, From which she must learn and grow.
Imagine if they'd produced an anthology of well written shorts based in middle earth. Tolkien's entire canon is just the setting, fan service is you recognise moments from tolkien's stories in passing. A 25 minute episode based on the bartender's wife at bree, and how the night that the hobbits came through affected their standing in the community. The guy who Gandalf buys the material from to make his fireworks. Folks rebuilding their lives after the desolation of smaug.
Well, The first five episodes of Season 2 are now out. I think it’s officially “too late” (3:53) to have any hope of this series being fixable at this point in time.
Great analysis! I criticize the show a lot, but not for the reasons that are mostly heard. I don't mind the inclusion of every ethnicity of modern day metropolitan areas in every setting, and I don't mind the diverging from Tolkien's work. Both are sometimes badly done and sometimes just seem unnecessary, but ok. What I really dislike is the lack of care, of continuity and of what seem to me to be beginner cinematography mistakes. I get no feel of time or space. Everything happens randomly and somewhere.... Characters travel in no time and with no "side effects" or further consequences from one corner of Middle Earth to the other. There is notion of age and finite vs. infinite life times. This is one of the main topics of the second age, yet we don't see the difference between a millenia old being vs. a mortal one with the experience of a few decades. And finally, so many details just don't make sense! Why does Celebrimbor even listen to Annatar, when he saw Sauron transform to him before his very eyes? Why is there no punishment for subjects disobeying or even attacking royals? Why is it such a big deal for dwarfs to create new light tunnels? I watch it because I just love Tolkien's world so much, but it's hard sometimes....
I gave up on the series around episode 3 or 4 of season 1. It does indeed look great, but to no perceivable purpose. We know too much going in, and there didn't seem to be any dramatic tension possible. They certainly didn't find it. From what I hear about season 2 so far, it doesn't sound any better.
The issue that Tolkien fans have with the lore change isn't the fact that it is compressed in time. We expected that and we were fine with it. The issue is that they changed the entire lore for no reason and replaced it with nonsense : the elven rings were the last rings to be forged, after the nine, the seven and the One. Plus they were the only rings that weren't forged with Sauron. They created random explanation for the elves to want to create rings and then Sauron randomly stumbled among the elves and help them do so. This is not what happens in the book. The rings were Sauron plan to deceive the free races and take control of Middle Earth, he disguised himself in the purpose of infiltrating the elves and use Celebrinbor's insecurities regarding his smithing skills compared to his grandfather's (Feanör). This was compelling enough, they didn't need to add anything else. Same with all the other storylines, they replaced perfectly coherent lore with nonesense. That's something they can't fix in season 2
@noscar3557 100%. Everything you said is spot on. There are other more subtle issues. e.g. I saw an interview with the showrunners where one of them said, "You can't Imagine a Middle Earth show without hobbits". What he doesn't get is that in Tolkien's lore Hobbits literally have no role in the events up until Bilbo and Frodo. They were truly, truly exceptional. By shoving in some Harfoot with a role to play in the forging of the rings, you are massively diluting Frod, Bolbo and Sam's contribution. And of course the endless litany of breaches of the lore. Galadriel was not involved with a hunt for Sauron,. She did not command an army for Gil-Galad. Mithril is rare but it's not like there is only 1 nugget. Bilbo literally had an entire shirt made from it. So, so, so many more breaches. I have no intention of watching any more of this crap show.
What I find bizarre about the focus on Galadriel is that she is not supposed to be remotely the same person we meet in the 3rd age. In the past she was arrogant, dismissive, and power hungry. And much younger. I have no idea how she became the focus of critiques. The characters have problematic arcs because the writers are trying to do the Silmarillion and they arent allowed to. So they are dancing around things instead of doing things. They should have done an unexplored time or a time from that age which is mentioned in the main trilogy of movies, which they do have rights to, that occurs long in the past, bypassing the red tape.
That's something I hadn't really considered - the challenge that the writers have to work with in terms of rights and licensing of Tolkien's world, which I'm sure is very complex. Maybe you're right that they should have just done their own thing. But then I'm sure they heard the studio telling them to capitalize on the LOTR nostalgia. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Lol that seems to be the general opinion. I wonder how much this season will "continue" season one, and how much they'll kind of "re-boot" to tell a new self contained story. But even if they do, I guess they're stuck with the characters they've established.
Rangs of Amazon is about as far away from the works of Tolkien as you can get. It's the worst kind of fan fiction and they spent a billion dollars to produce this insult.
interesting point about the traditional form of "revenge = tragedy." i wonder when we started to abandon that ethos in storytelling and turn vengeance into a virtue. it's particularly striking in these ostensibly progressive female-led stories, which -- in a rush to define their heroines as tough, strong, brave, and capable -- have lost the ability to honor storytelling's function as a mirror for morality. the transformation of brutal vengeance into a virtue for male heroes might have been a historical mistake; rather than choosing to uphold a different, more genuinely virtuous (perhaps -- gasp! -- more feminine, in the traditional sense) set of values, the creators of this reductive, regressive, "woke" content are tripping over themselves to prove that women can be just as violent, brutal, and unfeeling as men -- and calling it progress. "Furiosa" comes to mind as another recent example.
The writers and the directors need to hear from Tolkien fans. Leave out the cheesy love interests. Don't try so hard to create unnecessary drama. First scene is too violent. Don't lose the integrity of the characters.
The first season encountered an enormous on-line campaign against it by racists and bigots of various camps. Not just in the English-speaking world, but in posts in Russian, Turkish, etc. One really needs to explore how Tolkien's own _racialism_ feeds the outright bigots (even if JRR himself would have been offended by them.)
No, respectfully. The racism though unfortunate but is not the only criticism in online forums. The biggest one is the sheer colossal disregard for the source material.
The damage has already been done to fans of Tolkien’s works all they can do now is try and produce a good story characters plot and writing which isn’t impossible but it’s highly unlikely.
the show is an abomination and an insult to Tolkien and his characters, most egregious is the use of allegory in the series which Tolkien hated. If Bezos wanted to create his own insane fantasy story fine but no need to drag the LOTR IP into the mud with him.
@@theartofstorytelling1 its a vanity project, pure and simple. It just goes to show you that throwing all the money in the world at a project wont make it better.
What is there to "fix"? By "fix" do you mean you want to change it to what *you want* ? It is what it is: an attempt by Amazon to capitalize on the LOTR name. I don't expect these things to be great works of literature or even groundbreaking TV. I found the first season to be beautiful to watch and aurally also beautiful. Yet the story doesn't compel me to re-watch it. So many of the Amazon Prime productions suffer the same fate: high production quality, meh story.
I suppose in a ways, yes by "fix" I'm referring to what I "want" to see in the show. But there isn't necessarily any specific thing I want changed, except to see more character depth, better writing, etc. Especially for the show's protagonist, who really ought to carry the show.
@@theartofstorytelling1 the problem is two Americans thinking they can re-write professor Tolkien, its pure insanity. Not to mention they never ran any show before this one.
I want to see a stronger protagonist. How would YOU improve the show?
It's pretty hard to rescue it at this point due to how much lore they threw in a blender. If it wasn't based on Lord of the Rings, it'd be far easier to fix, but they've written themselves into a dead end with this now.
Either they keep going and ignore lore, which won't go well with fans, or they try to track back as much as possible to lore-friendly ground, which honestly I don't think they have the writing chops to untangle that knot without making the show then seem more disjointed than it is.
@@Rekaert You might be right. Maybe they can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Even if it could be done, it would take some seriously talented writers to pull off.
But remember, Galadriel is an infallible girl boss - protagonists can't get stronger than that, right?
I would've explored the Easterling peoples and the mission of the Blue Wizards. Tolkien left it vague so it's easy to tell a new story that ultimately ties into the old lore, and it could be set in a multicultural society based on sea trade so there's no issues with cast diversity.
@@mastafull 100%. Anything really east of Gondor is mostly virgin ground for storytelling, with both of the Blue wizards only barely mentioned by Tolkien and the cultures of Rhun, the Variags of Khand and the Haradrim almost entirely untouched. What could be more attractive to a writer?
The only slight issue there is the society that way doesn't seem any more multicultural than say , Gondor or Rohan. The coin is just flipped so it'd seem strange for a bunch of Easterlings to be blonde haired with white skin and blue eyes. But it would certainly allow for more racially diverse casting if the story was around that cultural/racial interaction border between Middle Earth and the east.
I honestly thought this is what they would do before the show aired, and details began to emerge. Considering the modern compulsion to present even fantasy medieval societies as multi-ethnic, I figured anything less would either confine them into a writing corner they didn't want, or make their casting choices really conspicuous.
Ahh well. Missed chance. Some skilled writers and they could have produced something original and interesting, yet congruent with Tolkien's world.
"There is always hope."
Good, well-considered thoughts, as always. Your take on the first season is spot-on.
You, sir, are a gem of optimism.
You give credit where there's simply no one to know what to do with credits.
These are not the writers or executives for which this advise is of value, but thank you for the good video anyway
It feels awful watching something you love get mistreated, and it's difficult to stay optimistic in the context of big money IP. But sometimes strange things happen, so even if I personally can't maintain your hope, I'm very glad that at least you do, for us. I'm nervous to watch S02, and am waiting for the season to complete. Hope to hear your followup eventually. Great work.
but RoP's Galadriel is already flawed - she is irreparably stupid and self-centered... how much more flawed do you need her to be?
Hey man, I came across your channel in my home screen, and I am simply taken by your beautiful ways of speaking and interesting editing and everything you have to say is meaningful. +1❤
Your channel is so underrated
Thanks for saying so! Nice to hear that people out there are enjoying the channel.
It’s certainly a monumental task for anyone trying to adapt Tolkien’s stories. I myself enjoyed the opportunity to see more of Middle-earth in Rings of Power season 1 and for the most part I liked the main characters that they gave us, however, the writing and storytelling was definitely lacking depth.
In Peter Jackson’s LOTR movies the One Ring was such an effective object because it is the central focus for the story’s themes and all our characters motivations. I think there might be an opportunity in Rings of Power season 2 for the newly forged rings of power to really test our main characters and focus the story a bit.
I would be highly in favor of your idea to develop Galadriel’s revenge plot into that more tragic storyline.
The thing about TV shows is that every season (and arguably every episode) is kind of a self contained story, and should be evaluated on its own merits. So I DO think there's a possibility for something good to come out of season 2, even if it's just some parts here and there. Guess we'll see.
Love the point about moral logic \ moral context to make a case against violence for spectacle's sake
I just found your channel, and wow:
1. Your channel is very underrated. I was expecting to see something closer to 300k subscribers. I *do* believe you'll be adding zeros to that figure before too long though.
2. I never liked my English classes very much, but this channel feels like an enjoyable and engaging English class. Great vibe.
3. I'd consider myself a big fan of Lord of the Rings, but every video of yours I've watched on the topic has shown me multiple new things about the books and movies. Like, how did I not notice that the Ring only burned in the lava when Frodo made the choice to grab Sam's hand??? That blew my mind.
Hey, thanks so much for your kind words. This is the kind of encouragement that keeps me going. The channel is still very new, and I'm still figuring out this whole TH-cam thing, so it's great to hear that the stuff I'm putting out is actually interesting to people. I'll definitely be making more LOTR stuff in the future, as there's lots to say, and we have a new movie coming soon (The Hunt For Gollum). Very curious to see if any future Tolkien stuff will live up to Jackson's films. Thanks for watching!
I spent a bit of time thinking about how to salvage and repurpose the things they did in season 1.
First the obvious. Lock the showrunners out of the writing room and fill it with actual professionals, people who can write worth a damn.
Then give the writing team time to construct a season arc, a plan for coming seasons, and then more time write and re-write each episode so that the whole things hangs together coherently. That will automatically improve the painful dialogue, the broken world building and make sure that dramatic conflicts have setups, escalation, setbacks, darkest hours, crisis, resolution and consequences, like they should in a working piece of fiction. Characters will experience character development. There will be no more pointless filler scenes that doesn't do anything to either plot och characters. With improvement in the basic scriptwriting, we will care more about the protagonists and won't find it as difficult to watch a whole episode without falling asleep or going on FB.
Then we get to repairing or mitigating the damage Season 1 did to plot and characters.
First and foremost: Galadriel. They have turned her into almost a villain protagonist. We all hate her. I believe that is partly because of the dissonance between what RoP shows about her, and what the music and plot seem to expect we'll be feeling. They tried to write a girlboss whom everybody will love, and instead they made a Jerkass Sue who is constantly awful to everybody and still gets all the love and admiration and is always proven right by the plot. So, what to do?
I think they should have revealed that she actually found Sauron in that icy fortress in episode 1, in that time when she was separated from her minions. They had a confrontation in which Sauron went into her mind and changed stuff around, making her not think about her husband, planting various malware and tracking suproutines and so on, and then making her forget the whole thing. So the Galadriel we see in Season 1 is the mind-effed version. That's why she jumps off a ship in the middle of the ocean, that's why she's so obsessed and angry all the time. And so on. At the final confrontation in the last episode he mind-wipes her again, but less successfully.
This would have explained why she didn't tell the others who Halbrand actually was. It would give her a strong feeling that something is wrong with her mind, and set her on a personal quest to reclaim the lost bits. Talking about her lost husband might have been a good starting point. It would give her an excuse for some of her shitty behaviour earlier on and a huge potential for character development. Tracking down and rescuing her true love Celeborn might be part of it, and he might also play a crucial role in her inner journey back to her true self.
The dwarves are basically okay, they just need better workmanship. There's a brewing civil war between Durin Sr and Durin Jr, and then the Balrog might awaken in the middle of it and make everything even more terrible. (Yeah I know, he's not supposed to awaken for another couple of thousand years, but they've already shown him: damage done.) Something happens that makes the dwarves close their doors and cut off relationship to the surface world.
The elves need a lot of work, because right now they are mostly unsympathetic. When Gil-Galad dies the final epic fight scene with Sauron we should feel sad: right now we wouldn't care one bit. Elrond needs to be actually kind and wise rather than slimy and untrustworthy. Celebrimbor needs an actual relationship of his own with the dwarves.
The numenoreans need much more fleshing out. Why are there two factions, or even two ethnicities, living toghether on the island? Why do they either despise or revere elves? What's going on with the politics and culture?
I don't know what to do with the proto-hobbits and not-Gandalf though. They need something to do that somehow ties toghether with the rest of the plot, at least thematically.
Cheers
how to fix it? delete it from existence problem solved. it’s disgusting that they have been allowed to butcher tolkien’s work with a blunt knife like this
Out of curiosity, what is it that you don't like about the show? What about Tolkien's work did you feel was disrespected? I'm not disagreeing but I'm interested in your take.
@@theartofstorytelling1 I'm not the guy you were responding to, but since he didn't reply I'll offer my own guess:
1. Most importantly, the show doesn't live up to the quality of original books or the Peter Jackson LOTR movies. By not meeting the gold standard, it's a slap in the face to the original works (and the fans).
2. The volume of "new" stuff. When your adaptation is as well received as something like PJ's LOTR trilogy, we can forgive the odd creative liberty. But when the quality is not as high, fans get angry when creative liberties are taken. The well of fan forgiveness runs dry when your movie sucks.
3. Issues with the demographics of the characters. I think a lot of people have issues with the race of the characters considering this is supposed to be an adaptation of an English mythology.
4. Issues with Amazon. It's a bit ironic that a company that Tolkien would absolutely *despise* is making the show.
@@theartofstorytelling1 To add to what the other guy was saying, I have highkey read better fanfiction than this show. Characters who are meant to be ancient and wise, like Galadriel, are idiots, while the actual young ones, like Celebrimbor were old and useless. The set pieces and designs are bad, and entire character dynamics are invented for no reason other than the writers wanting to make it "better" and "mordern".
Of course I'm seeing this after season 2 had started, i quit season one after the third episode. The thing that made me bounce off is how mean everyone is all the time, there is a distinct lack of friendship and love between the characters on screen. Everyone looks down on or despises the person they're talking to, or at least that's the impression I got.
As a fan of Tolkien, I find ROP very far removed from his work and only borrows his name and characters despite having little to do with the characters in the book. When filming The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson expressed the difficulty that it is mythology, but he wanted to film it like history. This meant that he had to give the elves a mysterious and otherworldly appearance to show their longevity, their experience, and extreme wisdom in the case of Galadriel. The figures in ROP seem like people with pointy ears.
The 17th through 19th centuries saw slow, incremental changes compared to the rapid technological advances of the 20th and 21st centuries. In Tolkien's mythology, this tension between the ancient and modern, especially regarding power and industrialisation, is central to the narrative conflict. Morgoth and Sauron can be seen as agents of this shift, attempting to control the natural world and transform it into something mechanised, unnatural, and industrialised, for which the Orcs serve as mechanised beings, which explains why they are not so much evil as cogs in a machine. Morgoth's original rebellion against the divine order (the "Music of the Ainur") is interpreted as an effort to impose his own vision-a world dominated by power and subjugation. This is mirrored in Sauron's later ambitions, particularly his creation of the One Ring, a symbol of total control over the free peoples of Middle-Earth.
The rise of machines in Middle Earth is often connected with corruption, destruction, and the loss of natural harmony. Sauron's industrialisation of Mordor and Saruman's deforestation of Isengard to fuel his war machine reflect this. In contrast, the Elves, Hobbits, and other free peoples embody a more harmonious relationship with nature, representing an older, more stable way of life that resists the pressures of industrialisation and centralisation of power.
The comparison between the gradual changes over centuries and Tolkien’s world highlights a broader theme for many Tolkien fans: the tension between the old, cyclical ways of life and the forces that seek to accelerate change, often at the cost of freedom and balance. It's a timeless concern about the nature of power and progress. So, you might understand why the ROP falls very short of expectancies. Nobody would have complained if Amazon wanted to film a fantasy without Tolkien’s name and characters. However, statements by the showrunners and actors have indicated that they wanted their agendas to be carried by the series, and in some ways, criticise Tolkien for not including them in his story.
Tolkien’s legendarium wasn’t designed to serve as a vessel for modern politics or social critique directly but rather as a reflection on human nature, history, and the eternal struggle between good and evil. When showrunners or actors suggest that Tolkien’s work needs to be "updated" or "corrected" to reflect modern sensibilities, it is a fundamental misunderstanding of what his stories represent.
“Kirkland-brand Aragorn” is pretty funny. The whole show, perhaps?
Halbrand looking like Aragorn felt like a "studio note" to me. Like "people liked Aragorn, make him look like that". So lame.
I'm firmly in the camp that sees the show as unfixable. However, if they're really committed to continuing it, they desperately need to incorporate everything you said if they intend to make it appealing to anyone at all.
Needless to say, my hype for it is absolute zero. I'm just not interested in Middle-earth fan-fiction.
(I will make a plug for an INCREDIBLE outline for a Second Age show by the brilliant Rainbow Dave at the Tolkien Untangled channel. His story outline is just so good, and is 99% consistent with Tolkien lore. I don't know how he did it, but it is well worth watching---even repeatedly as I have done!)
Interesting, I'll check it out! Very interested to see if there able to turn it around on season 2, but I agree it might already be too late.
To echo another commenter in here. Galadriel has an arc - her pride and wish to wield power got best of her. After Morgoths defeat she was unprecedented OP character knowledgeable, masterful, warrior and healer. But her Noldorian pride was always in the way of her being complete and contempt. (As it is written by Tolkien in one versions of her story)
Unfortunately writers attempt at creating this arc creating lots of problems around Galadriel. One minute she is bad ass unstoppable machine, another she is fumbling around as teenager and throwing tantrums.
People think that she is more of Peter Parker, but she is Tony Stark.
I feel like “more Tolkien and less Michael Bay” is an insult to Michael Bay.
They can throw all the money in the world at it but if they don't get the story right it'll never work. I have NO interest in watching season 2 of a Lord of the Rings show and that's just sad.
Hey! I recently discovered your videos and I really appreciate your detailed breakdowns on these fantastic (and less fantastic) stories. They really help me get a better understanding of them and how a good story is made. I was wondering if you have watched Avatar the Last Airbender. If so, I’d love to hear your take on it and break it down if you feel like you have anything to say on it. It’s my favorite story next to Lord of the Rings, so I would love to hear a breakdown of yours about it. Cheers :)
Galadriel needs to be written better. She's the main character. If the MC doesn't work, nothing else does. A mediocre show with a great main character will always work better than a great show with a bad main.
To me Galadriel was shown to be a flawed character from episode 1. While some people conflate how powerful a person is with “Character”, I really understood how tormented Galadriel was after loosing her brother. She holds a very relatable grudge and grief without a means of extinguishing it; and thus, carries an unyielding pain and anger that both motivates her to do good and blinds her to the evil lurking right under her nose. ACTUAL Mary Sues are perfect (and thus boring) characters, never lose, never make mistakes, never feel bad! Galadriel is undoubtedly a phenomenal warrior, but she’s not so great of a listener. Hunting Sauron has given her tunnel vision and she makes mistakes, some quite disastrous, From which she must learn and grow.
Imagine if they'd produced an anthology of well written shorts based in middle earth. Tolkien's entire canon is just the setting, fan service is you recognise moments from tolkien's stories in passing. A 25 minute episode based on the bartender's wife at bree, and how the night that the hobbits came through affected their standing in the community. The guy who Gandalf buys the material from to make his fireworks. Folks rebuilding their lives after the desolation of smaug.
Well, The first five episodes of Season 2 are now out. I think it’s officially “too late” (3:53) to have any hope of this series being fixable at this point in time.
i had my issues with the first season, but I'm pretty hyped!
its trash.
@@purefoldnz3070 sure 😊
Great analysis! I criticize the show a lot, but not for the reasons that are mostly heard. I don't mind the inclusion of every ethnicity of modern day metropolitan areas in every setting, and I don't mind the diverging from Tolkien's work. Both are sometimes badly done and sometimes just seem unnecessary, but ok.
What I really dislike is the lack of care, of continuity and of what seem to me to be beginner cinematography mistakes.
I get no feel of time or space. Everything happens randomly and somewhere.... Characters travel in no time and with no "side effects" or further consequences from one corner of Middle Earth to the other.
There is notion of age and finite vs. infinite life times. This is one of the main topics of the second age, yet we don't see the difference between a millenia old being vs. a mortal one with the experience of a few decades.
And finally, so many details just don't make sense! Why does Celebrimbor even listen to Annatar, when he saw Sauron transform to him before his very eyes? Why is there no punishment for subjects disobeying or even attacking royals? Why is it such a big deal for dwarfs to create new light tunnels?
I watch it because I just love Tolkien's world so much, but it's hard sometimes....
I gave up on the series around episode 3 or 4 of season 1. It does indeed look great, but to no perceivable purpose. We know too much going in, and there didn't seem to be any dramatic tension possible. They certainly didn't find it. From what I hear about season 2 so far, it doesn't sound any better.
Referring to Frieren was genius!
The issue that Tolkien fans have with the lore change isn't the fact that it is compressed in time. We expected that and we were fine with it. The issue is that they changed the entire lore for no reason and replaced it with nonsense : the elven rings were the last rings to be forged, after the nine, the seven and the One. Plus they were the only rings that weren't forged with Sauron. They created random explanation for the elves to want to create rings and then Sauron randomly stumbled among the elves and help them do so. This is not what happens in the book. The rings were Sauron plan to deceive the free races and take control of Middle Earth, he disguised himself in the purpose of infiltrating the elves and use Celebrinbor's insecurities regarding his smithing skills compared to his grandfather's (Feanör). This was compelling enough, they didn't need to add anything else. Same with all the other storylines, they replaced perfectly coherent lore with nonesense. That's something they can't fix in season 2
I see your point - the lore is already so fundamentally wrong that the show is maybe just unsalvageable. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
@noscar3557 100%. Everything you said is spot on. There are other more subtle issues. e.g. I saw an interview with the showrunners where one of them said, "You can't Imagine a Middle Earth show without hobbits". What he doesn't get is that in Tolkien's lore Hobbits literally have no role in the events up until Bilbo and Frodo. They were truly, truly exceptional. By shoving in some Harfoot with a role to play in the forging of the rings, you are massively diluting Frod, Bolbo and Sam's contribution. And of course the endless litany of breaches of the lore. Galadriel was not involved with a hunt for Sauron,. She did not command an army for Gil-Galad. Mithril is rare but it's not like there is only 1 nugget. Bilbo literally had an entire shirt made from it. So, so, so many more breaches. I have no intention of watching any more of this crap show.
What I find bizarre about the focus on Galadriel is that she is not supposed to be remotely the same person we meet in the 3rd age. In the past she was arrogant, dismissive, and power hungry. And much younger.
I have no idea how she became the focus of critiques. The characters have problematic arcs because the writers are trying to do the Silmarillion and they arent allowed to. So they are dancing around things instead of doing things. They should have done an unexplored time or a time from that age which is mentioned in the main trilogy of movies, which they do have rights to, that occurs long in the past, bypassing the red tape.
That's something I hadn't really considered - the challenge that the writers have to work with in terms of rights and licensing of Tolkien's world, which I'm sure is very complex. Maybe you're right that they should have just done their own thing. But then I'm sure they heard the studio telling them to capitalize on the LOTR nostalgia. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
With all due respect I think its already too late lol 3:40
Lol that seems to be the general opinion. I wonder how much this season will "continue" season one, and how much they'll kind of "re-boot" to tell a new self contained story. But even if they do, I guess they're stuck with the characters they've established.
Rangs of Amazon is about as far away from the works of Tolkien as you can get. It's the worst kind of fan fiction and they spent a billion dollars to produce this insult.
what didn't you like about it?
100%
interesting point about the traditional form of "revenge = tragedy." i wonder when we started to abandon that ethos in storytelling and turn vengeance into a virtue. it's particularly striking in these ostensibly progressive female-led stories, which -- in a rush to define their heroines as tough, strong, brave, and capable -- have lost the ability to honor storytelling's function as a mirror for morality. the transformation of brutal vengeance into a virtue for male heroes might have been a historical mistake; rather than choosing to uphold a different, more genuinely virtuous (perhaps -- gasp! -- more feminine, in the traditional sense) set of values, the creators of this reductive, regressive, "woke" content are tripping over themselves to prove that women can be just as violent, brutal, and unfeeling as men -- and calling it progress. "Furiosa" comes to mind as another recent example.
The writers and the directors need to hear from Tolkien fans. Leave out the cheesy love interests. Don't try so hard to create unnecessary drama.
First scene is too violent. Don't lose the integrity of the characters.
The first season encountered an enormous on-line campaign against it by racists and bigots of various camps. Not just in the English-speaking world, but in posts in Russian, Turkish, etc. One really needs to explore how Tolkien's own _racialism_ feeds the outright bigots (even if JRR himself would have been offended by them.)
No, respectfully. The racism though unfortunate but is not the only criticism in online forums. The biggest one is the sheer colossal disregard for the source material.
The damage has already been done to fans of Tolkien’s works all they can do now is try and produce a good story characters plot and writing which isn’t impossible but it’s highly unlikely.
Hopefully they don't ruin Tom Bombadil at least lol
the show is an abomination and an insult to Tolkien and his characters, most egregious is the use of allegory in the series which Tolkien hated. If Bezos wanted to create his own insane fantasy story fine but no need to drag the LOTR IP into the mud with him.
A valid perspective. I've always wondered how much of Bezos's ego is wrapped up in the success of this show.
@@theartofstorytelling1 its a vanity project, pure and simple. It just goes to show you that throwing all the money in the world at a project wont make it better.
it would have been nice to mention that this video kind of spoilers season two.
this video was out before season 2
What is there to "fix"? By "fix" do you mean you want to change it to what *you want* ? It is what it is: an attempt by Amazon to capitalize on the LOTR name. I don't expect these things to be great works of literature or even groundbreaking TV. I found the first season to be beautiful to watch and aurally also beautiful. Yet the story doesn't compel me to re-watch it. So many of the Amazon Prime productions suffer the same fate: high production quality, meh story.
Well, the channel is called The Art of Storytelling, so he’s focusing on the storytelling, which was not strong in season 1
the show is an insult to Tolkien and his works and thats being kind.
I suppose in a ways, yes by "fix" I'm referring to what I "want" to see in the show. But there isn't necessarily any specific thing I want changed, except to see more character depth, better writing, etc. Especially for the show's protagonist, who really ought to carry the show.
@@theartofstorytelling1 the problem is two Americans thinking they can re-write professor Tolkien, its pure insanity. Not to mention they never ran any show before this one.
Cancel it
No way the stranger is Saruman, because Saruman is already in the trailer - you show him at 0:49
(not saruman)
Interesting! I hadn't considered that theory.
My guess is that The Stranger and the new Ciaran Hinds character will end up being the two blue wizards.
@@TheNimbleMarmoset I'd love to see the blue wizards included because we know so little about them!