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Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

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Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#241

Post by rizzaxc »

ren_engineer wrote: post #232
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never even bothered with Season 8.

people who say only season 8 was bad are part of the problem, book readers were warning about important changes as early as season 3 and 4, GRRM left after 4 due to those changes because while not obvious at first, they would result in entire character arcs getting wrecked long term. The show started going "Hollywood" in season 5 and it was obviously declining in quality but people defended it and got what they deser…

I'm happy that there were people who think like me in this regard. I personally was very bothered by season 4/5 and didn't have much hope afterwards but everybody kept hyping the series to cloud nine; it made me very self conscious haha

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#242

Post by bakuninsbart »

cameronh90 wrote: post #160
Sebb767 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we all know how it ended once they ran out of his material. Yes, I'm still salty.

Is it possible the reason it ended so badly is the same reason they ran out of material? It's been 11 years since the last ASOIAF novel. I think GRRM may have written himself into a corner and is unsure how to tie up all the threads and satisfactorily end the series.

[Spoilers Below]

I think you are spot on about ASOIAF, but I don't think this is the reason GoT ended badly. Books and TV Show started diverting much earlier, and the show had substantially fewer storylines, which is a good thing in this context I think. I also suspect that the ending we got is based on notes GRRM left. Daenerys turning evil is heavily foreshadowed, Bran ending up on the throne kinda makes sense, and so does Jamie not cashing in his redemption after all. WW not being the final arc mirrors LotR, and GRRM has repeatedly stated that he loved that way of storytelling. The first book is called Game of Thrones, the ending is about that as well.

The problem in my opinion was just terrible execution: It was all really rushed and with terrible dialogue, so none of the story elements were developed in detail, and felt artificial and wooden.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#243

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

ren_engineer wrote: post #232
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never even bothered with Season 8.

people who say only season 8 was bad are part of the problem, book readers were warning about important changes as early as season 3 and 4, GRRM left after 4 due to those changes because while not obvious at first, they would result in entire character arcs getting wrecked long term. The show started going "Hollywood" in season 5 and it was obviously declining in quality but people defended it and got what they deser…

I pretty much agree. I watched through Season 7, but I think the thrill was gone, after 5.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#244

Post by zpeti »

treis wrote: post #234
hef19898 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they had a black Legolas in LotR and Hobbit, sure, why not. Since they didn't, well, having a black Legolas just destroys continuity. But who am I complaining about missing continuity, after all we have the latest Dr. Strange with the sole purpose of including the Fantastic 4 and X Men into the MCU without invalidating the entirety of the MCU so far.

>Since they didn't, well, having a black Legolas just destroys continuity Again it's just skin color. Little bit dramatic to call that destroying continuity.

No post body was provided.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#245

Post by ceejayoz »

freilanzer wrote: post #219
rsynnott wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the characters in LoTR weren't even _humans_, were they? It's hard to see what issue people would have with minority actors playing an elf or whatever.

If I write a (non-human, not that that matters anyway) race and describe them as being of "ivory skin" vs "ebony skin" then it matters. If it's just regular people then it doesn't. It depends on the setting.

It matters if it's a key plot point. If it's got no impact on the plot, there's no harm in changing it a little. Plenty of other things described in the books get tweaked for TV/film; it's a little sus if only skin color changes get you upset.

If you did a find/replace on LOTR for "ivory" with "ebony", zero elements of the story would be impacted.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#246

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

anshumankmr wrote: post #85
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That (and the follow-on) weren't too bad. Much better than Lynch's treatment. I must say, though, that I'm looking forward to part 2 of Villeneuve's Dune .

Haven't had the time to watch it. Working my way through the book.

It's pretty much impossible to adequately represent the books as a movie, and even a series can't really do the books justice.

The new movie does a fairly decent job of translating the books to live action.

The biggest disappointment, for me, in all of the treatments (including the movie), is the way the Fremen are represented.

I'm a bit spoiled, as I grew up in Africa, and was familiar with tribes like the Touareg, so I know what real desert-dwellers look like. I'm pretty sure that Herbert wanted them to look like that. Hard to represent, with city-dweller, millionaire actors.

Bedouin tribespeople look like dry twigs. Not much soft or fat. It would take serious self-denial to adequately represent.

Willem Dafoe would probably be able to represent Stilgar (in my mind). He'd have to go on a diet, and get a tan, though.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#247

Post by YetAnotherNick »

mabbo wrote: post #62

I suspect this will go down beside the Fire Phone. Amazon just sometimes gets this idea that if they spend enough money they're sure to win. I just wish the government would finally break them up so that AWS could keep it's profits and stop funding the rest of the unprofitable divisions.

> I just wish the government would finally break them up so that AWS could keep it's profits and stop funding the rest of the unprofitable divisions.

I really don't get this sentiment. AWS was a loss making unit once much like any other innovative idea. Amazon funds 1000s of different ideas with the intention that few will work. If government would break up companies like this, there would be no interest in pursuing ideas by big companies and no funding for stuff which has any R and D cost.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#248

Post by shusaku »

anoonmoose wrote: post #69
rb666 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, it's really unlikely this show will be worse than the Hobbit movie.

I am not so sure that your statement is obviously true. One of the issues with The Hobbit films is that they stretched one relatively short book into three movies...this time around, it looks like they're stretching some apocrypha from the appendix of a book into an 8-episode TV show. Feels like a fairly similar effort to wring blood from a stone.

I don’t get the “stretched explanation”, there was plenty of material. To me the problem was that the action sequences lacked the emotional gravitas of the LOTR trilogy. It was like watching a video game.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#249

Post by rglullis »

titzer wrote: post #151
bsaul wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

although i wouldn’t have worded it the same way, there’s definitely something true in your comment. I’m still amazed that people keep torturing stories made at different eras with different mentalities to try and promote today’s philosophy instead of coming with original materials. If you want diversity and black people on screen, why not create stories about the amazing empires that ruled the african continent in th…

> I’m still amazed that people keep torturing stories made at different eras with different mentalities to try and promote today’s philosophy instead of coming with original materials. Been happening since forever. Jesus was a dark-skinned Middle-easterner. It's funny that in nearly every story over the world of people who have claimed to seen Jesus in a miracle, he appears as their own race!

There is a difference between making projections of mythical, transcendental figures and outright retconning a character just to support a certain narrative.

We can not prove anything about Christ's appearance and Christian values do not change based on that. So it's only natural that people will represent Him as they are used to see their own people.

It is a whole other game to change the description of a character with a well-established description and a set context.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#250

Post by hef19898 »

treis wrote: post #234
hef19898 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they had a black Legolas in LotR and Hobbit, sure, why not. Since they didn't, well, having a black Legolas just destroys continuity. But who am I complaining about missing continuity, after all we have the latest Dr. Strange with the sole purpose of including the Fantastic 4 and X Men into the MCU without invalidating the entirety of the MCU so far.

>Since they didn't, well, having a black Legolas just destroys continuity Again it's just skin color. Little bit dramatic to call that destroying continuity.

Well, any actor not closely resembling Orlando Bloom would be a continuity issue for me. That has nothing to do with skin color, just with not retconning characters physical appearances. Because personally I don't like that. E.g. Heimdall in the MCU should look like Idris Elba in every movie he shows up in.
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