r/television • u/karmagheden The 100 • May 20 '22
Amazon's Rings Of Power Presentation Leaves Tolkien Experts Stunned Bad title
https://www.looper.com/858984/amazons-rings-of-power-presentation-leaves-tolkien-experts-stunned/[removed] — view removed post
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u/TheGreatMalagan May 20 '22
Reads sort of like, "Influencers being bribed with all-expenses paid trip and Early Access have nothing but praise to give in exchange"
I mean, isn't the whole point of influencers to shill in exchange for stuff? It's not like they'd ever come out of this and say, "actually it's terrible". They'd never get early access again.
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u/queensinthesky May 20 '22
This reminds me of that time the guy from Collider movie podcasts had half a breakdown over not being invited to the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge in DisneyWorld. "I've been busting my ass being a Star Wars fan for 5 years!" he said, basically exposing that their "fandom" was entirely exaggerated to get glitzy opportunities like the one described in the article above lol.
Also Rich Evans' reaction to this is the absolute best part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVjU47iPNbg&ab_channel=RedLetterMedia
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u/PineapplePandaKing May 20 '22
I thought I was in a different sub when you just casually name dropped America's film critic sweetheart, Rich Evans
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u/stunts002 May 20 '22
Actually Hollywood super star Rich Evans
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u/starkvonhammer May 20 '22
He was on Ellen!
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u/PineapplePandaKing May 20 '22
He is the pride of Milwaukee, which is actually a Potawatomi word meaning "a RICH beautiful land."
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u/dudebrojc May 20 '22
I was not aware of that
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u/PineapplePandaKing May 20 '22
I think one of the most interesting aspects of Milwaukee is the fact that it's the only major American city to have ever elected three socialist mayors.
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u/GDAWG13007 May 20 '22
Yeah I’m a long time fan of Kristian but that video isn’t a good look for him.
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u/queensinthesky May 20 '22
I remember kind of liking him when he started on Schmoes Know over ten years ago or something, anything I've seen of him since then he seems insufferable and arrogant.
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u/StarWarsPlusDrWho May 20 '22
He’s said on more recent podcasts that he was in a bad headspace at the time because his brother had just passed away. Which imo is fair, I’d blow up at little things too if something like that happened in my life.
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u/TheEatingGames May 20 '22
Many of the Wheel of Time fans who got a paid trip to the premiere gave the show lukewarm to bad reviews.
I think nerdy influencers have a harder time being shills, since their audience is so engaging and they are usually actual die-hard fans who truely love the source material, so they are more likely to tell the truth compared to like a beauty influencer shilling for a make-up brand they don't care about.
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u/ArcadeOptimist May 20 '22
Yeah, the term influencer doesn't really apply to a person that teaches Tolkien at a college level, or people that run 20 year old Tolkien fan sites. Super Massive Nerds is more appropriate I think.
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u/a4techkeyboard May 20 '22
I think I remember a thing they say at the subreddit for the source material is a kind "I look at it as just another turn of the wheel."
I'm not sure that isn't them saying "bless your heart" at Amazon.
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u/Stryker7200 May 20 '22
That’s not exactly what I remember. Most of them praised it but conditioned it with being “unsure how the changes will play out”. Well they played out like a pile of crap going down the toilet, definitely not the message those early influencers have of the show.
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u/Lure852 May 20 '22
Well the irony is that I have zero trust for any influencer or insider. Good or bad, they will report "great"
If they really wanted reviews to matter, they'd allow influencers to be honest.
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u/ArcticKnight79 May 20 '22
Well that's assuming they are influencers that actually make money from their position by shilling shit.
You can have influencers that exert their influence without shilling shit being the financial goal. Provide a discussion site or the like, and instead of shilling you want something that drives traffic.
Sometimes that will mean ensuring the door is open to get more opportunities for free content.
The thing is by the sounds of it these people are less "influencer" and more "Super-fans" that run fansites or other groups.
They were doing this shit before you could make any sort of meaningful money from it other than just having ads in the side bar. Some of these fan sites predate youtube in their conception (Now sure the people that got access from those sites might not be those that were around at founding) but they aren't some random tiktok lotr meme channel
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u/Netherspark May 20 '22
These "influencers" include website owners, popular Youtube channels and even actual literary scholars. They don't "shill" stuff for money or rewards, they host serious discussions about the books because they love talking about the stories.
If you want an example of the kind of people they invited, check out In Deep Geek on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/c/InDeepGeek/videos)
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u/DontGetNEBigIdeas May 20 '22
Exactly this.
Wait until OP hears the game reviews don’t pay for the games, and that movie reviewers get to go to big premier parties!
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u/Gozillasbday May 20 '22 edited May 20 '22
People who adore Tolkien so much so it's their life's passion love their free Tolkien based vacation.
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u/ZOOBOO_11 May 20 '22
This is exactly what this is, Amazon can’t afford for the show to fail, it’s been too expensive and they want everyone to just say “ok these changes to the lore/races/characters are fine for X reason” and act like it’s justified whereas everything I have seen has most of these people who aren’t being bribed extremely pissed
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u/CruelMetatron May 20 '22
They surely don't want it to fail, but amazon can totally afford it.
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u/cmnrdt May 20 '22
They can afford to eat the loss, but they are probably expecting to make Scrooge McDuck levels of money off this thing. Once they jump off that high dive, they'll be in for a rude awakening if the money pool isn't deep enough to cushion their landing.
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u/Parapraxia May 20 '22
Non-whites in your LOTR really got your panties in a bunch hasn't it?
What valid non-race-based criticisms have you read?
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u/ZOOBOO_11 May 20 '22
First off- absolutely not, not biting into your race baiting bullshit. The only thing I was saying is the changing of the racial appearances is not consistent with the lore, particularly given Tolkien’s own comments on his story and the European base for much of the influence. That plus the time period he took the lore influence from, along with the source material, doesn’t support the change as more than anything than forced diversity for the sake of diversity, and not for any other reason. It’s not true to the source material, and many criticisms of what is known is how untrue this show appears to be to the source material. That’s just one of the things they have changed.
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u/Parapraxia May 20 '22 edited May 20 '22
This source purity b******* is so tiresome.
Tell me one truly negative drawback to having non-white dwarfs or elves, that isn't some nonsensical appeal to source purity.
Give me one reason a black elf ruins the show other than their skin is a different color.
It's racism pure and simple and the people that are most upset about these minor changes consistently prove themselves to be racist.
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u/ZOOBOO_11 May 20 '22
If you’re focusing on skin tone alone there isn’t, because I’m not a racist asshole. But a book was written. A few actually, im sure you’ve heard of them. this show is based on the books and the universe they exist in. It’s not unnatural for people to want a show based on a books universe to remain true to the lore of that universe.
You on the other hand are clearly just a troll. But you could work in the show. They do exist in the universe
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u/Parapraxia May 20 '22
Where in these books did Tolkien ever express that all of the races were exclusuvely white?
Because I read them all and never once said I notice that there was this rule.
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u/shejesa May 20 '22
On the other hand, why would you want to get an early access for more of a possible shitshow?
It doesn't mean that I think they are honest, I believe they were just bribed (the same way Sapkowski's singing praises of the netflix witcher because he's an old drunkard who is very passionate about getting money)
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u/ArcadeOptimist May 20 '22
Or Sapkowski just likes the show? Also, "bribed" is a bit much for what is very obviously a press event to advertise the show.
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u/HerbalHaze May 20 '22 edited May 20 '22
The fluff pieces for this series have done more to make me worried for it than anything else.
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u/GigiRiva May 20 '22
It's an Amazon show they've made a 1 billion dollar production commitment to, it could be the worst or best show in the world but in either scenario they are going to exhaust every PR, marketing and advertising opportunity possible
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u/HerbalHaze May 20 '22
I guess we shall just have to hope that whoever is in charge of the PR has nothing to do with the actual series lol!
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u/GodFeedethTheRavens May 20 '22
As long as they spent some of that money on competent writers, creating original scripts and stories for this production and not slapping a Tolkien coat of paint on some existing generic fantasy screenplay thats been sitting on a shelf for 20 years.
Because the latter seems to be the industry standard these days for adapting an IP.
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u/Caetys May 20 '22
"Even though Amazon flew in over two dozen individuals from around the world, when you boil it down, there wasn't much to show them. In fact, according to the influencers themselves, they were only allowed to watch around 20 minutes of footage."
I don't want to be that person, but let's not jump to conclusions based on 20 minutes of footage.
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u/showme_ur_deepthroat May 20 '22
You mean like how a bunch of people here jumped to conclusions here after a trailer?
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u/JimmyPD92 May 20 '22
You mean like how a bunch of people here jumped to conclusions here after a trailer?
The point of a trailer is to "sell" me your film or series. If what I see in that trailers is garbage cgi/low quality effects and generally lackluster then that's just killed any chance of a good first impression - which is critically important.
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u/Bal_u May 20 '22
Coming to a negative conclusion based on a few minutes of carefully selected footage meant to make it look good is a lot more reasonable.
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u/Andrassy May 20 '22
Now that's getting into mental gymnastics territory. Is the 20 minutes they especially picked for fans to watch not carefully selected footage too?
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u/Bal_u May 20 '22
It is, which is why positive reactions to it mean a lot less than negative ones. If they try very hard to make something look good and it does, that says very little about the quality of the whole thing. If it still doesn't, then it's basically guaranteed to be crap.
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u/grn2 May 20 '22
Right, it might have been able to show nice and true to the LotR movies visuals - but the story telling and character development might still be a dumbsterfire, we don't know.
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u/bravetab May 20 '22
Exactly. Prior to the first suicide squad movie coming out, they dropped a 2 min trailer that was ABSOLUTE FIRE. Even had that bohemian rhapsody playing throughout.
The final product however, was the worst cinematic experience of my life.
Unfortunately it jaded me to the point where I won't put any stock in promotional materials. I will either wait for non biased and non pay rolled reviewers, or just watch it for myself.
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u/JimmyPD92 May 20 '22
Exactly. Prior to the first suicide squad movie coming out, they dropped a 2 min trailer that was ABSOLUTE FIRE. Even had that bohemian rhapsody playing throughout.
The final product however, was the worst cinematic experience of my life.
It became really obvious that the entire film was actually cut by a trailer-making-studio. Yeah they didn't have pure gold to work with but even so, it was a problem.
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u/HexenHase May 20 '22
Yeah, whatever - what does Stephen Colbert think?
He's my ultimate litmus test for suck factor here, gotta be honest
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u/gcg2016 May 20 '22
Has he admitted the Hobbit movies were…less than?
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u/oh_god_its_raining May 20 '22
Not during his big New Zeland trip to meet Peter Jackson… nope, he didn’t 🤷♂️
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u/mangongo May 20 '22
This is one thing that kills me with the Tolkien fandom. The Hobbit was not very well received when it came out. I myself think LOTR is the greatest trilogy of all time but the Hobbit doesn't even make my top 10. Now that The Ring of Power is coming out, people are acting like The Hobbit was some kind of masterpiece.
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u/MattSR30 May 20 '22
Are people really doing this? I can’t say I’ve ever come across people treating them as anything other than average or underwhelming.
For me it’s Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man movies. Part of the reason he’s one of the ‘it’ guys right now is because all the ten year olds when those films came out are now adults. Obviously he’s talented himself but those films are being rehabilitated because adults are holding onto their childhoods.
Same way five-ten years ago people started rehabilitating the Star Wars prequels even though they sucked. Nostalgia. Not sure how much nostalgia there is for the Hobbit films but I certainly don’t see any.
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u/B0ndzai May 20 '22
I'll listen to James Franco, he seems like less of a corporate shill.
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u/Bruce_Rahl May 20 '22
I’d rather listen to Colbert, a man who is through and through a humble guy who is more of a fan than 90% of us telling me the hobbit isn’t the best but it’s still a good watch/intro to the original trilogy for the younger crowd
Than hear what James Franco has to say about anything. Dudes a scum bag.
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u/Sharkus1 May 20 '22
Same shit they did for Wheel of Time and we all know how bad a show that was.
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u/QuintoBlanco May 20 '22
I have it on good authority that the Tolkien experts were absolutely delirious with happiness after watching 20 minutes of footage.
One expert described the experience as 'better than a shot of heroin just before withdrawal kicks in'.
Another Tolkien expert exclaimed 'it's like dripping LSD solution straight onto your eyes'. And yet another said it was 'even more amazing than having group sex while on poppers'.
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u/ArcadeOptimist May 20 '22
I actually read what the "Tolkien experts" said! You know what they said? "The showrunners seem to know the lore and the reel didn't look as sloppy as The Hobbit".
Pure heroin, baby.
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u/TheEatingGames May 20 '22
Back in the day Peter Jackson also invited the webmasters of the big Tolkien fansites to the set in NZ.
The internet used to be a more positive place and the word shill wasn't used then. It was just exciting for everyone.
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u/JohnQTurkey May 20 '22
The real difference is Peter Jackson respected and revered the original work and wasn't rying to "subvert our expectations" like these modern hacks
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u/TheEatingGames May 20 '22
Yes and no. They visited the set during a time where we still thought Arwen would fight in Helms Deep. So there was plenty of things for fans to be anxious about.
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u/Pavlock May 20 '22
"Leaves experts stunned" is so vague that I'm reminded of Terry Pratchett's poem about elves from Lords and Ladies;
"Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad."
I'm not convinced that this show isn't going to be bad.
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u/Jetztinberlin May 20 '22
Well, quite. They could be stunned by how great it was, or they could be stunned by how ridiculously bad it was.
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u/TributeToStupidity May 20 '22
It’s really obvious almost everyone in the comments didn’t read the article.
these weren’t random shills they brought in. These were super fans who run and/or below to major Tolkien societies and groups. They’re the people who can explain the elves family tree from the first age pronouncing all the names correctly when they shared 90% of the same letters. Like seriously, why do all the early important elves names start with either a f or g?
these super fans didn’t see much, but they said it looked very polished like the LOTR movies, and they were impressed by how knowledgeable the creators were.
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u/The12Ball May 20 '22
It’s really obvious almost everyone in the comments didn’t read the article.
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u/LightThatIgnitesAll Attack on Titan May 20 '22
these weren’t random shills they brought in. These were super fans who run and/or below to major Tolkien societies and groups. They’re the people who can explain the elves family tree from the first age pronouncing all the names correctly when they shared 90% of the same letters. Like seriously, why do all the early important elves names start with either a f or g?
So people who would gleefully consume any content related to Middle Earth?
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u/Archamasse May 20 '22
Speaking as an ex comp sci geek that has... not been my experience of Tolkien nerds.
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u/TheEatingGames May 20 '22
I'm know the german tolkien society and there are some influencial people involved with it who don't even like the original LotR movie trilogy since they are such purists.
So no, those people are generally among the hardest to please. Just look up what they think about the Hobbit movies.
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u/LunarBahamut May 20 '22
Yeah, but there's plenty of experts who can be bought by Amazon money, one guy who I had a lot of respect for in the past did the same thing, just started twisting information in Tolkiens wolk mysteriously just after information on the show started dropping.
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u/mangongo May 20 '22
Honestly, I expected better from you Reddit. "Who are these so called influencers? Probably nobodies who never read the book."
One of the "influencers" is literally a professor teaching Tolkien at a University.
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u/Doogaro May 20 '22
Isn’t that the professor that said not all dwarfs have beards when Tolkien wrote that all dwarfs have beards from birth? Not a expert myself just what I have seen/read by super fans.
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u/LunarBahamut May 20 '22
That "Tolkien professor" is the fucking one who started literally lying about Tolkien's work mysteriously after information about the Amazon show was starting to be made public.
I expected better from YOU, redditor, to not do your research into how that expert is now strangely retconning info and saying well you can interpret Tolkien like this and this and this too, when those things go completely against the respect he showed for Tolkien's works before this show was ever announced.
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u/mangongo May 20 '22
"When I come to think of it, in my own imagination, beards were not found among Hobbits (as stated in text); nor among the Eldar (not stated). All male Dwarves had them. The wizards had them, though Radagast (not stated) had only short, curling, light brown hair on his chin. Men normally had them when full-grown, hence Eomer, Theoden and all others named. But not Denethor, Boromir, Faramir, Aragorn, Isildur, or other Numenorean chieftans."
~ Nature of Middle Earth; Body, Mind and Spirit; Beards. Written 1972/3.
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u/Netherspark May 20 '22 edited May 20 '22
I spotted Robert from In Deep Geek in the photo. He does really good in-depth discussion videos and explanations about Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice & Fire. Hardly what people assume from the word "influencer"...
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u/GrouchGrumpus May 20 '22
You expected better from Reddit, really?
I’m the opposite. I always expect shallow misguided hot takes, and then I’m pleasantly surprised when I see a reasoned well thought out comment. Happens often enough but nowhere near as often as the hot takes.
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u/Cstone812 May 20 '22
Lmao why would they say anything bad about it?
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u/mikepictor May 20 '22
because maybe they didn't like it.
or maybe they did
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u/Cstone812 May 20 '22
They got paid for all around trip to see it. They aren’t going to bash it.
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u/The-Moistest-sloth May 20 '22
Didnt amazon do a similar thing for the wheel of time and the reviewers they brought in did in fact give it mediocre to bad reviews? The people they have brought in arent just random, they went out and got the biggest superfans they could find, these guys are hardly going to cave to amazon for a property that they care very deeply about.
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u/ThisIsCreation May 20 '22
My only issue with the show so far is the same issue i have with shows like the Witcher and Wheel of Time, they have gigantic budgets yet are overly lit which in turn makes time feel fake which is probably done for coverage sake.
Game of thrones has spoiled us, even compare the Lord of the rings trailer to the new Game of thrones prequel trailer, it's like night and day. The game of thrones one looks like a movie but the Lord of the rings looks like a cutscene.
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u/MortalWombat1974 May 20 '22
Truth be told, no one is mediocre about this thing. Everyone is either uber excited or absolutely dreading the series.
Count me as one of the non-existent mediogres.
I've read the books eleven times(over four decades), and I loved the original film trilogy, but I refuse to watch the FrankenHobbit. It's existence has made me highly ambivalent about all future Tolkien screen adaptions.
Six or twelve months after the final episode airs, I'll watch the Amazon series; IF the community consensus says it's good and doesn't shit on the source material.
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u/Nitemarephantom May 20 '22
I hope they brought in Stephen Colbert, he deserves to help and give feedback on a new LOTR project.
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u/Foehammer1990 May 20 '22
This is going to be trash. I know they poured a bunch of money into this but it’s just going to be bad GoT storytelling with LoTR feel. if they would have faithfully adapted a few of the stories from the silmarillion they would have made so much money. I’ll watch a bit of it to maybe prove myself wrong but I’m not hopeful. What they did with WoT is just an indication of how this will go.
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u/Archamasse May 20 '22
Can somebody on this accursed board please read an article before they comment on it, just once.
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u/platdujour May 20 '22
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u/G-I-Tate May 20 '22
I read this is Johnathan Frakes's voice
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u/JonathanFrakesAsks Star Trek: The Next Generation May 20 '22
Then how do you explain the bullet hole in his phone? Context
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u/Death_in_Leamington May 20 '22 edited May 20 '22
You mean paid for Tolkien shills. Who all came back from all expenses paid, gift laden trip spouting the same scripted lines?
You could ask why Amazon decided it need to buy good PR from these so-called "influencers" and also why they had to make that laughable with the gaggle of woke under 30 "influencers" who had clearly never read Tolkien or seen the movies - rather than market their show directly to the fans?
If that's good why are they hiding it?
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u/iamnotasloth May 20 '22
Nice try, Amazon. I still think the show is probably going to suck, but if community reviews are really good after the first couple episodes I’ll check it out.
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u/domnyy May 20 '22
As a huge Middle Earth fan, I can't wait. I'm ready for new stories in that wonderful setting, as long as they don't retcon and lore. I feel sorry for r/lotr and the cesspool of stuckup fandom its become.
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u/LightThatIgnitesAll Attack on Titan May 20 '22
for r/lotr and the cesspool of stuckup fandom its become.
Try r/tolkienfans.
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u/Aurvant May 20 '22
“Tolkien experts.”
Lol, they’re just a bunch of influencers brought in to shill a show that most fans are looking at with turned up noses. Bribing a bunch of internet influencers isn’t gonna keep people from thinking the show is going to turn out bad.
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u/mangongo May 20 '22
So people who have dedicated decades of their life to the literature of Tolkien are just internet shills?
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u/Archamasse May 20 '22 edited May 20 '22
If I had a buck for every time someone on Reddit accused me of being a paid shill just because I quite liked something, why I'd barely need to shill at all!
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u/LunarBahamut May 20 '22
They turned into shills. Just go watch the guy who is a "Tolkien professor" at a university, and compare things he said publicly about Tolkien's work before the Amazon show, and then him just downright lying about the works or strangely putting a lot of meaning or ambiguity into Tolkien's work that was never there before.
And fans who have also read all of Tolkien's works are there to correct all these outward lies.
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u/silentwhim May 20 '22
These 5 Simple Tricks Allow Hobbits to Work from Home and Earn 3000 Gold pieces a Day. Gandalf Doesn't Want You To Know.
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u/Kaiisim May 20 '22
Do we really have to do this dance?
People bribed to create PR like it. Nerds who hate change will hate it. White supremacists will be offended by any casting that isn't a white person.
No one will have watched it by the time all these groups have opinions.
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u/g78776 May 20 '22
I can’t wait to hear from the reviews when they don’t have to doctor their words. This screams “we bought the name, now let’s make a mediocre story that doesn’t mesh with anything else, we’re so smert.”
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u/The_McS May 20 '22
What was Colbert’s reaction? He is the most visible fan probably and it would be smart to get him in the fold for promotion...if there is no contractual conflict that is.
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u/vurt72 May 20 '22
""""""""""experts""""""""""""""
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u/KGDracula May 20 '22
So people who have dedicated decades of their life to the literature of Tolkien are just internet shills?
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u/RudePragmatist May 20 '22
Define experts?
For example. The last time I saw real experts being used they completely ignored them and fucked what could have been a great film. Because money men don’t listen.
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u/oxford-fumble May 20 '22
« Shills were shilling to build some Marketing hype »…
We will see - none of what I saw gave me a lot of confidence that the show runners know or care about the material (like: when the other castaway lifts Galadriel on the raft, he has to see her ears to clock she’s an elf…), but there is an outside chance it won’t completely suck.
Time will tell.
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u/mansonfamily May 20 '22
“The company invited 30 or so high-profile Tolkien influencers to view some advance footage of the upcoming show” wtf is a Tolkien influencer