Is it bad for WOT if LOTR is a huge success?

[SinisterDeath]

20 hours ago, AdamA said:

The review embargo was lifted yesterday and it debuts now in a little over two hours. Sitting at 84% positive out of 151 reviews so far on Rotten Tomatoes. For what it's worth, Wheel of Time only got 91 total reviews the entire season. I don't state that as any sort of indictment of relative quality, but just to remember how much bigger a deal in broader pop culture outside of genre nerds Lord of the Rings is. It's still the 2nd best selling book of all-time behind the Holy Bible and the first genre film to ever win a best picture Oscar. A lot of people are going to watch this.

When we were watching it on the big screen last night, Amazon said it only had "1" star. I had no option to give it any kind of "stars" on my TV.

Just now, I went to the episode on the site, and when I click "write a review" it brings me to the bottom of the page with no option to actually write a review.

 Obviously the number of reviews you mentioned were from Rotten Tomatoes, but I figured I'd mention that the system is borked on Amazon's side.

 

  

11 hours ago, Guire said:

Watched first 2 episodes.  Right now I would say RoP is better than WoT.  Slightly better than HotD.  I have warmed up to HotD  after 2nd episode.  The pacing, dialogue, and some writing felt off at times in RoP.  It probably helps that I haven't reread LoTR, Hobbit, or Silmarillion in a long long time.  Story is very fan fiction from what I have seen on Tolkien youtube channels. 

Honestly, it helps a lot of book fans, that RoP takes place during a gray-area that wasn't hugely fleshed out compared to the main novels.

Having it take place in that gray area, you can pretty much write any story you want, and as long as you don't break continuity, book fans can't gripe too much about it.

This then leads to people criticizing the show on it's own merits, rather then about it not being the books.

Also: I'm interesting if people will gripe about the costumes being too clean. 😄
 

[CaddySedai]

That right there @SinisterDeath is why I want there to be movies / series / or games based in the AoL.

 

The fact it is in a grey area would shield it from some harm and it could stand on its own merits.

 

 

[Elder_Haman]

1 hour ago, SinisterDeath said:

Having it take place in that gray area, you can pretty much write any story you want, and as long as you don't break continuity, book fans can't gripe too much about it.

I’m willing to bet that there will be griping. 

[CaddySedai]

3 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

I’m willing to bet that there will be griping. 

 

Id say the community there is both larger and passionate. 

 

The big difference between us and them is those of us here have spent so long WANTING more. 

 

Lotr fans have a hobbit cartoon, lotr cartoon, the peter jackson stuff, mmorpg, etc. 

 

We have one game, and our series, and like two tabletops lol

[Asha'man Shar'aman]

5 hours ago, CaddySedai said:

That right there @SinisterDeath is why I want there to be movies / series / or games based in the AoL.

 

The fact it is in a grey area would shield it from some harm and it could stand on its own merits.

 

 

On the one hand, I’d love that, but on the other, I know like everything canon about the AoL and it would kill me to see something not make sense. 

[DojoToad]

47 minutes ago, Asha'man Shar'aman said:

On the one hand, I’d love that, but on the other, I know like everything canon about the AoL and it would kill me to see something not make sense. 

It will be bent as needed by the creative geniuses in charge of the project.  Sorry for your luck.

 

 

[Chivalry]

I enjoyed the first episode of the Rings of Power...perhaps because I'm not as emotionally invested in these characters. And I was able to enjoy the series with my family, which is a big plus. 

[CaddySedai]

3 hours ago, Asha'man Shar'aman said:

On the one hand, I’d love that, but on the other, I know like everything canon about the AoL and it would kill me to see something not make sense. 

The AoL framework is not as fleshed out as the Third Age. There is a ton more room. And in a game setting its easier to work a player character in there and have them be relevant to the world - versus our Age where you'd break a ton of things by introducing an all powerful character. Thats why Jordan allowed the WoT game to be a PSW. Cuz the story totally breaks lore lol. 

 

And if it should be post breaking there is still a mountain of wiggle room before rand. I mean the Third Age did span 3500 years. 

 

Im sure we can put a game in there somewhere haha. 

[Asha'man Shar'aman]

15 hours ago, DojoToad said:

It will be bent as needed by the creative geniuses in charge of the project.  Sorry for your luck.

 

 

Yeah, that’s how everything is. Not exactly new. 

13 hours ago, CaddySedai said:

The AoL framework is not as fleshed out as the Third Age. There is a ton more room. And in a game setting its easier to work a player character in there and have them be relevant to the world - versus our Age where you'd break a ton of things by introducing an all powerful character. Thats why Jordan allowed the WoT game to be a PSW. Cuz the story totally breaks lore lol. 

 

And if it should be post breaking there is still a mountain of wiggle room before rand. I mean the Third Age did span 3500 years. 

 

Im sure we can put a game in there somewhere haha. 

Definitely a lot more room! I’d just hope they got what is canon right! 

[Maximillion]

LOTR series has started very well. It’s so well done. I didn’t think Amazon had it in them. It remains to be seen whether they have the budget/interest to continue with WoT. 

[CaddySedai]

See, its kinda funny. As also a J.R.R. fan I wasn't enamored with it so far. But as I said with WoT. Its content in one of my favorite universes. And content is good 🙂 maybe I can get a new LOTR game out of it since LOTRO is a little long in the tooth at this point. Tho I still play it on the regular haha.

[CaddySedai]

On 9/2/2022 at 3:16 PM, SinisterDeath said:

Just now, I went to the episode on the site, and when I click "write a review" it brings me to the bottom of the page with no option to actually write a review.

 Obviously the number of reviews you mentioned were from Rotten Tomatoes, but I figured I'd mention that the system is borked on Amazon's side.
 

 

Not Borked, turns out Amazon is throttling its reviews. They say they are doing this with all their shows now to prevent review bombing lol

[DojoToad]

1 hour ago, CaddySedai said:

 

Not Borked, turns out Amazon is throttling its reviews. They say they are doing this with all their shows now to prevent review bombing lol

This strategy could possibly backfire. The bombers will wait patiently to get their review in. And those with a more libertarian bent might choose to punish them with a lower review than initially intended to punish the ‘censorship’. I doubt many scores will go up because they had to wait to enter them. 
 

Who knows, they think it will help…

Edited September 4, 2022 by DojoToad

[VooDooNut]

I’ve only watched the first episode of ROP. Each scene individually is quite beautiful. The landscapes, lighting, and costumes are very good. Which makes it all the more surprising when there are really bad CGI-ish scenes, two in particular: when Galadriel is climbing the icicles the whole frame looks CGI’d to Shayol Ghul and back. And when they are riding the boat, the lighting is just wrong. It definitely feels like an obvious green screen effect. Outside of those two moments, though, each shot looks very good. Other than that, I feel like I’m totally lost on the story. I tried to wrap my head around the plot and just couldn’t so far. Maybe that will become clearer in future episodes. I also grew bored many times. It just didn’t keep me engaged despite the beautiful vistas. Also, for some reason, I feel like the scenes transitions are WAY too fast and choppy. It almost gives me motion sickness with how fast they jump around. I’ll check out episode 2 this evening but the boredom I’m experiencing is making the viewing quite tiresome. 

[Asha'man Shar'aman]

1 hour ago, VooDooNut said:

I also grew bored many times. It just didn’t keep me engaged despite the beautiful vistas. Also, for some reason, I feel like the scenes transitions are WAY too fast and choppy. It almost gives me motion sickness with how fast they jump around. I’ll check out episode 2 this evening but the boredom I’m experiencing is making the viewing quite tiresome. 

Was it really that boring? I’m on the fence about watching, but if it’s that boring, I might skip it. I can’t even watch more than 20 minutes of shows I’m invested in (thanks ADHD and predictable plots), so I’m not sure I’d be able to struggle through if other people think it’s boring. 

[CaddySedai]

I mean if you are a fan of J.R.R. then it is worth the watch. 

 

Its not going to crack my top 10 best series’ of all time but they did contractually sign for 5 seasons. 

 

Even GOT took a little while to find its feet. 

 

At least you know you’ve got lots of content coming hahaha. 

[VooDooNut]

6 hours ago, Asha'man Shar'aman said:

Was it really that boring? I’m on the fence about watching, but if it’s that boring, I might skip it. I can’t even watch more than 20 minutes of shows I’m invested in (thanks ADHD and predictable plots), so I’m not sure I’d be able to struggle through if other people think it’s boring. 

Yeah, I agree with @CaddySedai. I haven’t read the books, but I love the LOTR trilogy (hobbit is bleh), and I get similar vibes to that, so I’ll probably keep watching. I’d recommend at least checking out the first couple episodes. 

[DaddyFinn]

First episode was a drag. Second a bit better. I'll try to get through S1 and see if it gets interesting. So far not so good

[DojoToad]

I liked the first two episodes-other than a character trying to swim from Valinor to Middle Earth. Not best ever, but good enough to keep interest

[Harldin]

On 9/3/2022 at 4:57 AM, Jake Sykwalker said:

After watching about 16 minutes of ROP I hope it gets better.  So far it is slow and boring with cringe dialog.  Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon Galadriel vs the snow troll was epically cringe.  Watching a slight elf one hand a two handed sword like it is no big deal and use it as a platform for a mailed warrior to jump off of to wire fly was painful to watch in a fantasy show. 

 

Almost as cringe as her acting so far.  She talks like her lower jaw doesn't work and is constantly angry and berating her companions.  Don't get me started on how the elfs hold their swords, the fact that they look like they are wearing makeup, or how unnatural their armor costumes look.   They appear to be wearing gauntlets and full armor boots, but light (elven?) chain mail.

 

Almost turned it off after pouring water on an old Sauron mark and having it boil away in the middle of a frozen tundra only to then refreeze.  Props to the snowflake cgi of that scene, but it still doesn't make much sense.  If the rest of the show is this "good" we don't have to worry about it drawing people into other fantasy works.  I'll give it a chance, but the acting and writing better improve.  I don't get how you can spend millions on CGI and this is the quality of writing and acting you get for that budget?

I am not sure why you enjoy epic fantasy, Elves are not Human they are a magical, immortal race of beings that you should not compare to Humans. Did you enjoy the Jackson movies because nothing Galadriel done even remotely comes close to Legolas running up the back of a 20t Giant Elephant. If you are going to restrict them to Human level of capability, then why bother having them. They are superior to Humans in every single way, they were written that way. 

 

They also possess magic which they use in weapon and armour making, example is the chain mail given to Bilbo, it may look thin and weak but it's not. You need to either stop watching with such a critical eye for details. You are not going to enjoy ROP if you worried about little things like water boiling in the Artic, its Epic Fantasy supposed to be full of impossibilities, be boring if it wasn't. 

[notpropaganda73]

I've yet to watch the first two episodes but I found the intro to Daniel Greene's review really interesting re: studio pressure on reviewers: 

 

 

 

I saw another review of RoP from Grace at Beyond the Trailer who has never really consumed LotR outside of the Peter Jackson movies and she said it was beautiful but the writing is shoddy so far. But that she's gonna keep watching with the faith that *something* will happen, but so far she's been sort of bored. She also said Galadriel was the only character she actively disliked and highlighted the snow troll scene as plainly ridiculous. 

 

I know BTT has critics as a review channel but I know my own tastes and I like watching it because something Grace will highlight as something she dislikes might actually be something I know I'll like, just from experience of watching her reviews. So I don't agree with her often (or even the majority of the time) but find it a useful source for when I'm on the fence about something. Her review of the first episodes of House of the Dragon convinced me to give it a go for example. 

 

I'm a huge LotR fan in general and dislike the 2nd and 3rd Peter Jackson movies (less said about the Hobbit movies the better). Fellowship is the only movie I've really connected to and felt was a near-perfect adaptation considering the limits of the medium versus the book. I have not been convinced by anything about RoP so far in the build up, the trailers, or even positive reviews. I have also heard that there are some frankly shocking Irish accents in the show but I will wait to watch before passing too much judgement on that. 

 

 

[CaddySedai]

Point of order, the elves probably did not make the mithril shirt that Bilbo and Frodo wore. 

 

Thats the work of the dwarves (most armor tended to be, other things like rings and decorative arches were made by others) and they would appreciate you not attributing that to the fairer folk. While it may have been made for an elvish prince, the hands that wrought it were likely not. 

 

Hehe. 

 

[DojoToad]

4 hours ago, CaddySedai said:

Point of order, the elves probably did not make the mithril shirt that Bilbo and Frodo wore. 

 

Thats the work of the dwarves (most armor tended to be, other things like rings and decorative arches were made by others) and they would appreciate you not attributing that to the fairer folk. While it may have been made for an elvish prince, the hands that wrought it were likely not. 

 

Hehe. 

 

Dwarves mined the mithril. Due to its rarity, makes sense they would keep it all to work as they saw fit

[CaddySedai]

5 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Dwarves mined the mithril. Due to its rarity, makes sense they would keep it all to work as they saw fit

 

Actually back before it became uber rare they sold some to other races to be worked. The Noldor used mithril to create the alloy ithildin and decorated using that. 

 

the ring of power Nenya was also forged of mithril by the elves. 

 

But this is getting off topic. Ultimately I think if ROP does well it might have a stack on effect for WOT. People looking for more fantasy. 

 

[Sabio]

Yeah some of the accents are rather cringe worthy.   I agree more fantasy the better.  I do hope if LOTR is a huge success it might encourage Amazon to spend a little more on WOT and maybe buy a few more episodes a season.  I was never a huge LOTR fan but IMO so far they seem to be doing a better job with the pacing (Episode 1 did seem to drag on though), which was one of my biggest complaints with the WOT.  Where it seemed slow, then seemed rushed, then dragging, then super rushed again.  I guess my concern is if LOTR ends up bad it will discourage Amazon from investing in more fantasy.  As long as Amazon never makes a Sword of Truth series.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Sabio