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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

#341

Post by b112 »

hef19898 wrote: post #261
zpeti wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Storytelling, that's how. Which doesn't exist. What you'll notice is that in better storytelling, there will be an explanation of why the hobbit can beat the giant spider. Outsmarting it, being invisible with a ring, whatever. Good storytelling means you make the impossible seem possible. Now, all we have is token women who we all know are there because they are women, beating up men in ridiculously impossible ways,…

We see a ton of bad story telling, agreed. How women are protrayed is not among the reasons. Disclaimer: I have been handled pretty easily by women in BJJ and kickboxing / boxing drspite being 20 kg heavier and a head taller. And I am not un-trained. Get over it, competent and strong women do exist. Edit (because I have to get of my chest): The latest Dr. Strange is propably the best example of bad story telling I've…

So many have said that film was bad, but I just watched it.

I've seen a lot worse. Didn't seem bad here.

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

#342

Post by causi »

darrelld wrote: post #301
causi wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't necessarily agree with all of Jackon's decisions, but, in the end, I enjoyed watching the movies (and still do). The Hobbit films are a different beast, for sure. Exactly my opinion as well. What worries me is that we saw what ten years of market shift did between LotR and The Hobbit. Now it's been another ten years of it. Instead of showing bad people tearing down trees to fuel industry, we're going to have…

At the end of the day stories reflect our society and LoTR is just another story. All of the classic stories we tell kids have evolved over time and are no longer true to their original source material. We take the thing we need, ignore the things we don't need, and add what's missing from our modern eyes. If you go back to the source material for things like Snow White, Pinocchio and trace them through the ages you'…

I think there's a difference between tuning a story and misappropriating it as a vehicle for your personal goals. This can be done well by giving us more background on what was a minor character or altering dialogue to give a different perspective of events. It can be done badly, such as by introducing us to Kímli, the lesbian dwarf queen with a mithril wheelchair.

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

#343

Post by ausbah »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #315
snickerbockers wrote: post #299

This is going to be terrible. I can't imagine the SHEER FUCKING HUBRIS modern TV writers must have of they think they can write a fanfic that stands next to Tolkien's greatest work. These writers' only experience is working on a 4th film in JJ Abrams' Star Trek reboot universe which ended up getting cancelled too.

Quality doesnt matter anymore. It will get views because it has a brand attached to it and lots of people already have prime. I don't know what their break even number is but prime is fucking expensive. If this pushes 1% of people who are on the edge of buying prime and not buying prime into making that decision its a massive win for them. I don't think it will be any good. But 95% of film and tv is terrible and it k…

>I don't think it will be any good. But 95% of film and tv is terrible and it keeps getting made.

what is the most objective judge of quality if not what people are willing to watch

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

#344

Post by istjohn »

auggierose wrote: post #333
prepend wrote: post #18

Obviously, I’ll wait and see once it comes out. But it seems odd to spend so much and not have a single established creator that has put out great content. And not to involve Jackson seems off because even having him in a consulting role would be a good sign. Looking at the imdb page this seems like a corporate driven project rather than a creator driven project with lots of different directors that haven’t don’t any…

Given this other recent fantasy show on prime was just horrible, I am not surprised by this. Strangely, a lot of people liked it! Maybe it is going to be the same here. Don't even remember the name of this other show.

Wheel of Time. I enjoyed it.

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

#345

Post by smsm42 »

prepend wrote: post #18

Obviously, I’ll wait and see once it comes out. But it seems odd to spend so much and not have a single established creator that has put out great content. And not to involve Jackson seems off because even having him in a consulting role would be a good sign. Looking at the imdb page this seems like a corporate driven project rather than a creator driven project with lots of different directors that haven’t don’t any…

I don't think having the names recognizable is a sign of anything. If you look into the history of what are the iconic classic movies now, you'd see that it's not unusual to have people who are either relatively unknown or nothing special to come into one great movie and have a spectacular career afterwards. Great movie can launch an actor, but great actor alone can rarely save a bad movie.

I am much more concerned about show's creators attempts to "improve" Tolkien and turn it into a Platform(TM) for the Message(TM), instead of concentrating on telling a good story using the material Tolkien left us. That, unfortunately, is not an uncommon occurrence nowdays. If that happens, the series is doomed to mediocrity or worse, regardless of which names are attached to it or how much is spent on it.

Still, we obviously have to see it before making any judgement.

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

#346

Post by dopeboy »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #315
snickerbockers wrote: post #299

This is going to be terrible. I can't imagine the SHEER FUCKING HUBRIS modern TV writers must have of they think they can write a fanfic that stands next to Tolkien's greatest work. These writers' only experience is working on a 4th film in JJ Abrams' Star Trek reboot universe which ended up getting cancelled too.

Quality doesnt matter anymore. It will get views because it has a brand attached to it and lots of people already have prime. I don't know what their break even number is but prime is fucking expensive. If this pushes 1% of people who are on the edge of buying prime and not buying prime into making that decision its a massive win for them. I don't think it will be any good. But 95% of film and tv is terrible and it k…

As a desperate Star Wars fan, I concur. It is a canon and world I am so bought into that I will consume substandard content. I imagine the same applies to LOTR fans.

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

#347

Post by robonerd »

niek_pas wrote: post #272
tlear wrote: post #215

This will make last 2 seasons of GoT seem like War and Peace. That trailer.. Read books probably 5-6 times, read Silmarillion(!), watched the movies probably 10 times, even watched Hobbit twice(that was painful). Only tattoos I have are in Cirth.. I could have easily dumped thousands of bucks on merchandise and other crap together with my kids over the years if it looked even remotely decent. I am not subscribing to…

Claiming that this is garbage based on a single trailer seems a little premature.

That seems like an odd take. The purpose of a trailer is for the production to make their best argument to the audience about why they should see this show. If a trailer looks good, people get hyped for the show or movie and buy tickets when the time comes. If the trailers looks like crap, most people won't watch the show or movie. The whole purpose of a trailer is for people to judge whether or not to invest more of their time and money in that production.

There simply isn't enough time for people to watch everything, there is way too much media for that. And this LOTR show is going to be much longer than a typical movie, because it's a TV show. I expect 8 hours at minimum, assuming each of the 8 episodes is an hour. Expecting people to watch it before judging whether it's worth their time doesn't make any sense. Which is why trailers are made...

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

#348

Post by runarberg »

b112 wrote: post #338
runarberg wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do know that Lord of the Rings is a fiction right? It happens in a reality where literal magic exits. I mean does the story specify the skin color of every character? Does it say that every elf is white skinned? I mean this is in a magical world, for all we know hobbits skin tone changes with age like that of Chimpanzees, being light when they are young, and darker as they get older. Or maybe non-binary genders a…

Different species, not races.

Sorry, I’m used to use the word race in a fantasy setting and species in a natural setting. A race in a fantasy world is any species a character of that story can belong to.

This gets confusing e.g. in Star Trek where races exist in the fantasy sense and in a cultural sense (e.g. Being black (cultural race) is as much a part of Benjamin Sisko as being a human (biological race) is).

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

#349

Post by thaumasiotes »

subsubzero wrote: post #335
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are so many interesting tales Tolkien wrote that have not seen the screen Beorn! Completely left out of the Hobbit movies https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Beorn

Beorn was in the 1st Hobbit briefly, but he could have more screen time! I forgot about one character that never saw the light of day in any film(cartoon or movie) Tom Bombodil, he was a strange character even for Tolkien's universe and was rumored to be a demi-god. I would rather see stories about him than what amazon is sending out.

> Tom Bomb[a]dil, he was a strange character even for Tolkien's universe and was rumored to be a demi-god.

The theory is usually that he's one of the major gods, not a demigod.

I feel like there was a Maia who mated with an elf, but I don't remember with any certainty. Demigods aren't a major feature of the world.

EDIT: https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Melian is the Maia who mated with an elf. Their daughter, Luthien, is a normal elf, in much the same way that Elrond is a normal elf while Elros is a normal Numenorean. (Though Luthien doesn't seem to have been given a choice.)

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

#350

Post by workingon »

rglullis wrote: post #337
workingon wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a long history in theatre of casting people in roles who aren’t the same as the character. Notably men would often be cast in female roles. Maybe, just maybe, if seeing a brown elf ruins a show for you the problem isn’t with the show.

"Fun" fact: men would play women because acting was considered a very low class activity, and women that acted were seen as prostitutes. Anyway, you just missed the point and I am not in the mood of arguing with someone who can't understand nuance in thought. Have a good day.

Yeah, the guy who can enjoy a show with a brown person playing an elf is the one who can’t understand nuance in thought.
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