I refer to it as "The Female Heroes Journey," and it is almost the inverse of the Traditional. Instead of sacrifice, you learn that power shouldnt require sacrifice. Instead of earning power, you are just given it. Instead of training and developing you simply learn to ignore your doubts.
It began with the forging of the great films. Threads were given by Tolkien, wisest and fairest of them all. Rights were then given to Jackson; great miner and craftsman of the mountain of lore. And nine, nine hours were gifted to the race of men, who above all else, desired quality. But they were all of them deceived, for another show was made. In the land of Amazon, in the fires of Mount Prime, the Dark Lord Bezos forged in secret a master flop. And into this show he poured his malice, his greed and his will to dominate all film. One show to ruin them all Edit: stole this from Alexander Mandelin
The main difference between this show and Tolkien is that Tolkien wrote with love and knowledge for everything he admired. Amazon in the other hand is only vandalizing Tolkien's work with lack of knowledge, writing capabilities and woke BS.
Do you hear yourself??? Woke??? Sounds as if you heard some racist screaming woke and without using your brain decided to join the crowd!!! have you actually read Tolkien to even post a stupid comment as such ... Tolkien himself was incredibly woke to start with ... there were lots of diversity and woke-ness in his writing to start with! Do you even understand what woke means because all Tolkien's main characters are woke and politically correct, and just as the fairy-tale characters have no shades of gray ....From Aragorn, Frodo, Galadriel, and Legolas all the way to Elrond everyone is extremely moral and good.... and Evil characters are only evil ... Tolkien himself has given many examples in his writing about species evolving and mixing hence Elrond himself is half Elf ... who do you think are his parents ??? and yes there were black and dark-skinned people in middle earth too ... so if you refer to the dark-skinned elf they cast in the Rings of Power as woke than you are just an idiot and racist ... because as easily as elves fucked with white-skinned people they could have easily fucked with black people far in the north and produced a dark skinned Elf ... based on English culture and folklore just as English fucked all around Africa and India ! not being woke would mean not being Tolkien...so grow up!
This is the best commentary Ive heard on this anywhere online... this man is criminally under subscribed. Thank you good sir for sharing your insights with us.
@@lethalninjaskills Galadriel was already a strong female lead in LOTR. People disliking butchering the character for woke points doesn't mean people don't like "strong female leads," and it's really pathetic that you think a female character can only be "strong" if she's some kind of unlikable warrior with a permanent scowl on her face.
Nicely summed up. It can be difficult to interpret how something just feels....OFF. When something is just not right. This show is full of that feeling in every aspect I can think bar some of the music. Even the stunning visuals just feel empty, flat, mere backdrops instead of a real world with character as Tolkien so superbly portrayed and Jackson managed to capture pretty well. Tolkien's landscape descriptions were endlessly inventive, never repetitive, they were characters in themselves with moods, intentions and agency. The Payne & McKay interpretation of "epic" revolves around CGI depictions of pretty but ultimately 'dead' composites with your characters often completely absent from them. I'm saying that when the visuals are perhaps the strongest element of this show, everything else (bar some of the music again) in just plain awful, shockingly clumsy and amateurish.
Reminds me of that tower Arondir stood on with the other elf. We don´t know where it is, we don´t know what is the significance of the place, it´s nothing to us really. It looks great as a picture, but there is no story to it. Why should I care about it?
we can only measure things through perspective. we need some kind of context, of scale. when we watch something, it's just a series of images and sounds coming from a screen. for something to be epic, grand, wonderful, we need to be drawn to that perspective, to that "fictional reality", I would say. in other words, if I just show you, let us say, a photo of a tractor, without any context or clue, you may not be able to even realize if it is big or small. depending on the angle, composition and etc it could be a toy tractor or one of those gargantuan, mine-specific tractors. you could only realize it if I put something, like a regular car aside it, for you to have... perspective! what corporative media do is just fit one of those gargantuan trucks in a screen and tell you "be amazed!", but even if we realize how big it is, it is still irrelevant. because we don't care. I were watching some scenes from PJ's adaptation, and one that really caught my attention was the one where frodo offers galadriel the ring, and she shows the power of her temptation. this scene is CHILLING. but if you try to "see it for what it is", if you try to imagine what a normal person would think of that knowing absolutely NO context... it's kinda lame. the effects didn't age that well, and it's SUPER dramatic. it works in the movie because we are immersed on the characters and the world, we care. we have a sense of urgency, we care about the fate of those characters. this gives us a perspective, a "scale" to interpret galadriel's outburst. and suddenly it becomes amazingly terrifying. as a last example, you can take the original SW trilogy. if you go back to it you'll realize how dated and kinda stupid almost all of it looks. and it felt and feels epic because the overall aesthetic serves the narrative, not the contrary. I don't care how many millions those sets and costumes and effects cost. I care about the characters and their struggle. I didn't read the books, but I have heard many times that tolkien took a LOT of care, I mean, an UNBELIAVABLY LOT of care to build his world, cultures and characters. and the story begins as small as it can be, as banal and mundane, and the odds, sense of danger and scale of action grows slowly, but steadily. wich means that he goes from the smallest small to the biggest of big. THIS is why it feels so epic. it reminds me of how "saving the world" is so stupid and boring when you don't give a s**t about the world. the scale size isn't that important, it's how invested you are in those characters, in that world.
@@gustavogoesgomes1863 And that´s why all the description and exposition in Tolkien matter. It makes you care about the world they are trying to save. You want to protect it too.
Best critique I've read thus far. Strong women characters with flaws and growth - be they positive or negative - has been a theme of literature throughout the centuries despite the current crop of woke writers who are ignorant of this fact and believe only today can women (and people of color) be truly represented via their story lines. What hubris! Mary Sue characters like Rey "Skywalker", Captain Marvel and Amazon's Galadriel, plus characters who are defined solely by their skin color, not content of character (apologies for paraphrasing the late Martin Luther King who understood human nature and wanted to unite NOT divide people of all races) have reaped a whirlwind of poor story telling and bad reviews. So sad to see a grand work of literature reduced to this mediocre series.
Just one little nit pick. You mention Tolkien's landscape descriptions and say "never repetitive". I loved the books very much, BUT, just exactly how many pages do you remember reading about woods that were a million different variations of dark and spooky. Good lord, pages and pages and PAGES of dark and spooky woods. As I said, I loved the books, BUT, as for repetitive, I did get a bit tired of so many pages of so many ways to describe dark and spooky woods. ....... lol
The worst part is she already was a “Strong Female Character”. They horribly diminished her. The nice part is Kate Blanchett looks that much more awesome by comparison.
Cate Blanchett's Galadriel had gravitas, auctoritas and most of all dignitas. She was a prince amongst princely beings. The way she spoke to and looked upon other characters would simultaneously shame and pacify them, stunted by her inescapable feminine grace. We also feared the unseen power she held. She was a person that one would not wish to be adversarial with. In contrast Morfydd Clark's Galadriel is a caricature of a strong woman, one that tries to mimic masculinity and comes off as nothing but laughably strange. One that needlessly quarrels with those she would call friends and allies. But really this describes the show perfectly nothing but laughably strange, a caricature of Tolkien and needlessly quarrels with the fans of Lord of the Rings.
To modernise a popular quote - Tolkien fans ! 30 centuries of European culture are contemplating you from the heavens ! :) Hold the line my brothers ! And fear no darkness ! :) ua-cam.com/video/FRd7RG2GQ_0/v-deo.html
Um...maybe Galadriel had to learn to be what she becomes? You know, like how normal people age, mature, and grow wise? You people are desperate to complain about anything.
@@MSgt_0699 How can we not complain, here we had a true character, a tower of a woman. A woman who left her lessers in awe, who comforted, who respected those below her station. Then made her a violent, irreverent child and called it a triumph, and you eat it up MSgt because you don't know any better you'll eat whatever slop they'll give you and you'll chastise us for not eating with you. Sorry but you won't shame us into accepting mediocrity. We will complain, we deserve for the legacy of Tolkien to be respected, no will demand it. Even if you call us entitled and you would not be wrong, because we who love and respect Tolkien's works are entitled for those works to be preserved and its characters to be respected. If you don't like this go somewhere else, you are welcomed to leave.
@@sebastianprimomija8375 Because what you are describing is an older and wiser Galadriel, who apparently was supposed to have been born that way. The funny thing is that you people behave as if this show has simply obliterated all Tolkien books from existence. Read your books. I promise you all of what you love is still there. I think, like those who whined about Man of Steel not giving them "their" Superman, this show has just left you people feeling cheated. In the meantime, the show is doing extremely well.
Look, this is my example of the heart of the matter, what happened to all this:. I will compare Professor Tolkien's work with an ancient Greek building, the Parthenon for example, years have passed but we all recognize the magnitude and weight of that architectural work, no matter your nationality or your age, right? And of course no one would dare to think that this work should be improved, on the contrary, we all agree that it should be preserved at all costs as it is. But suddenly a group of rich people and rich intellectuals who want to buy this building, the Parthenon, appear and stand in front of it and say "It is a magnificent work but we have to make some arrangements to make it conform to the standards of today ... the materials and knowledge of today, and that every race and creed and condition feel identified, because it is already an obsolete work that is wonderful but requires a re interpretation" then all people who value that work as it is, made by Greek people who are also of a certain race. ..we begin to defend the work against any cause, we end up being branded as racists, sexist, and my barbarities more because we do not agree.... of course there will be some people who say "well I do not dislike the truth, that the Parthenon is painted in colors, that they put current technologies, and current materials" in short that is what has happened gentlemen.
I just watched the first two episodes. Nothing could have prepared me for the turgid effluvium that came forth from a clearly and infinitely superior source. The acting was dire, the story was inconsistent, confusing and irreverent and the actors were unable to either flow with the story or present any skill to the roles that they were assigned to. The hubris of these modern corporations has become so cliched that any deviance is wholly welcome and unexpected. Pander the minority, suffer the majority.
I really don't think the actors can be blamed. I haven't seen one bad performance yet, to my unlimited surprise. They've been miscast, badly directed, given woeful dialogue in green screen sets acting out a bewilderingly bad script and I've been utterly amazed that they've all put in solid work. I'd even go as far as to say the diversity hire's acting were pretty much the only nice surprise I got from the first two episodes. The elf was a bit wooden but otherwise carried it off, the dwarf was good and Lenny Henry, barring the awful accent, did alright.
I'm a massive Tolkien fan and I enjoyed it, I watched this with someone who is not a fan and they liked it too. It obviously has deviations from the source material but so do the Jackson films. The show visually looks amazing, I was quite impressed with the dialogue in some scenes. I just don't understand all the hate.
@@neutronstarpilot4393 Really? The dialogue was probably the worst I have seen in anything, except maybe some highschool plays. Especially the pseudo-philosophical stuff. One of the very first scenes (the boat stone thing) made me cringe probably more then the office ever did. Do the elves not understand buoyancy or something? It's shallow dialogue disguised as being deep. Other problems are that Galadriel and Durin IV (who I guess is a time traveller) act like petulant (and dumb) children. Did swimming from Aman to middle earth really seem feasible to Galadriel? And while I do think most of it did look good, there are some notable exeptions. The armor the elves were wearing on the ship the Valinor was very cheap and plastic looking. There was some very obvious styrofoam scenery in Khazad-Dum (and those plastic hammers Elrond and Durin were using didn't help). The troll fight scene is marvel superhero level of unbelievable. Remember seeing Legolas riding that shield down the stairs at helmsdeep and thinking "that's a bit ridiculous". This is that times ten. While the wide landscape shots with the elven cities were mostly fine, they basically look the same. In Peter Jackson's LOTR Lothlorien and Rivendell was architecturally totaly different. You could tell both were elven cities, but they were distinct. Thats not the case here. As for the changes to the lore, the difference is that in the LOTR movies the changes didn't really impact the main story of the books. Tom Bombadil is great, but in the end he doesn't really do anything of note in the books either, so omitting was understandable and fine. The first two episodes of rings of power alone make major changes to the history second age that actively break the story described in the Silmarillion and appendices. From the first 2 episodes alone we can assume: The doom of the Noldor is not a thing here, the kinslaying never happened, dwarves have short lives, Eärendil does either not exist, or Elrond does not descend from him, Sauron is a graffiti artist placing his tags all over middle earth, Galadriel is both really dumb and a bad leader. And this is just the important stuff for the history of middle earth. There are all kinds of smaller things that directly contradict Tolkien. The depiction of the elves also bothered me a lot, it's like they are just pointy eared humans. A buzz cut, really? As for the Harfoot scenes, they redefined the meaning of boring for me. It was like math-class in highschool, only less useful.
@@slome815 The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater. That could be from the show or Tolkien. Jackson streamlined his story to be of Frodo and the ring, he removed any parts of the story or characters not relevant. If the purpose of the show is the forging of the rings then I would want to see all the episodes to see how well it tells the story. I think people are inconsistent with critisisng how the show makes changes but let the Jackson films off the hook, Jackson didn't include Glorfindel, he removed the scouring of the Shire, Denathor could not have made it to the edge of minas tirith (on fire) from where he was in time. Ect I understand why you need to make changes adapting literature for film. I had a conversation with someone who doesn't like the Jackson films because of the deviations from the source material, and they have a similar view of the show, That I understand, we had a fairly amicable conversation and I explained I like both, (books and film's mainly the extended versions of the films) So far the show is good, I'll keep watching and judge it fairly.
@@neutronstarpilot4393 Yeah, I thought it was awesome. I'm a big Tolkien fan and I've waited decades for someone to have the balls and money to cover some of the first and second age material. People should just do what they used to do and switch the channel when they don't like the show. It's funny reading people's hyperbolic comments about dialogue when they've obviously never written anything in their life.
Excellent assessment. Particularly around language! If people read Tolkeins works theyd see his love and focus on language, It was the cornerstone of story. IF they just got the linguistics and language and meaning right this might (might! nah not really) almost pass! But language is probably the very weakest element here. I admit to being a little surprised that the actors they got - all seemingly english-acting school trained? (honestly not sure) - just werent either able to deliver or werent given reasonable language direction or dialogue. These actors, should all have had enough exposure to Shakespeare and the depth of the english language that it brings... they SHOULD have been able to do it... so Ill put it down to the writers! Very dissappointing.
I thought exactly the same while watching the 4th episode of star trek yesterday ... one with Gorn, it looked cheap, and poorly acted. The lines were cheesy and awful ... yet no one out there is making videos about it trying to rail up the audience and get the series canceled! Why??? ... because the start trek community is happy to be getting any content at all, they understand not everyone can be as original Kirk, and not every season is going to be glorious and equal to the original writings ... they understand what it means to be an adaptation and just extra content! People need to calm down... I have seen both Rings of power episodes and as I am concerned it is far better than most shows out there at the moment ... The story is set between 2 books covering a time Tolkien did not write about, except for a few references and glossaries! ... so writers had to make their own lines because there is no Tolkien book out there to be adopted that covers this particular age of middle earth... I am the first in line who really digs this particular period and I am extremely curious about events in this age that led to the Lord of the rings hence I am very happy they made a series set in age just before rings are made! I am not looking for perfection nor Tolkien quality of writings... just a decent show! I particularly enjoyed 2nd episode ... and enjoyed it way more than House of Dragon that I find at the moment extremely boring even though well produced ... I agree with some that at the moment Galadriel's storyline is not that good but I really enjoyed Elrond and Nori storylines! and sets were epic! As a special effect artist myself, I was blown away by some sets and visuals in the Rings of Power ... Sets are huge and spacious and tracking is spotless, there was no jittering ever, and the resolution was high and felt like 8K, the details of effect such as particles extremely well done and don't even start me on color grading, it was stunning!!! ...not cheap and poor like the effects we have seen in the wheel of time ... The Ring of Powers probably has one of the best SFX I have ever seen in the TV and even Film industry! for that alone, I will keep watching it! From what I have seen it seems all these bad reviews are done by a few you tubers who have made themself loud as thousands they seem not to have any other purpose in life but have made their life mission to sabotage the show by printing and publishing bad reviews about Rings of Power on dayly bases! Objectivity is gone out of the windows!
@@Berndr "a few references and glossaries" What? Did you miss the Akallabêth and Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age in the silmarillion (I know Christopher Tolkien compiled it, it's still JRR Tolkiens work), or the appendices in LOTR? And that dialogue, it's like it's a high school play or something. God that pseudo-philosophical BS. You know what, I'll just copy my other comment, because I'm lazy like that. Galadriel and Durin IV (who I guess is a time traveller) act like petulant (and dumb) children. Did swimming from Aman to middle earth really seem feasible to Galadriel? And while I do think most of it did look good, there are some notable exeptions. The armor the elves were wearing on the ship the Valinor was very cheap and plastic looking. There was some very obvious styrofoam scenery in Khazad-Dum (and those plastic hammers Elrond and Durin were using didn't help). The troll fight scene is marvel superhero level of unbelievable. Remember seeing Legolas riding that shield down the stairs at helmsdeep and thinking "that's a bit ridiculous". This is that times ten. While the wide landscape shots with the elven cities were mostly fine, they basically all look the same. In Peter Jackson's LOTR Lothlorien and Rivendell was architecturally totaly different. You could tell both were elven cities, but they were distinct. Thats not the case here. As for the changes to the lore, the difference is that in the LOTR movies the changes didn't really impact the main story of the books. Tom Bombadil is great, but in the end he doesn't really do anything of note in the books either, so omitting was understandable and fine. The first two episodes of rings of power alone make major changes to the history second age that actively break the story described in the Silmarillion and appendices. From the first 2 episodes alone we can assume: The doom of the Noldor is not a thing here, the kinslaying never happened, dwarves have short lives, Eärendil does either not exist, or Elrond does not descend from him, Sauron is a graffiti artist placing his tags all over middle earth, Galadriel is both really dumb and a bad leader. And this is just the important stuff for the history of middle earth. There are all kinds of smaller things that directly contradict Tolkien.
@@thevillageyid true as a digital and SFX artist myself I was literally stunned by how good the visuals were ... no jitter, high res, spotless footage tracking, and great particle effects as well as lighting! But when talking about truly boring and pointless that's what myself and all my friends thought about the house of the dragon, well produced but it's going nowhere, felt like a boring period drama but without any drama to keep it interesting and with few dragons thrown in to make it feel like the old game of thrones... and as major villain some silly crab guy no one knows anything about to even care! But the Rings of power kept us all awake! We did not like much Galadriel Storyline but all the rest we found very intriguing, particularly Elrond's story with Durin and Nori finding a stranger ... we are invested
My issues are: - It’s trying to be game of thrones style, including featuring many different places and characters from the first episode beginning, telling a bunch of stories which really don’t work when one minute it’s about how the elves watch over the men in case they join evil again, creating tension between the immortal elves and the men who are not like their ancestors, the next it’s about Frodo 2.0 and her dumb friends trying to nick blackberries and falling over into mud.Or having a lot of gore, such as with the orc, as well as featuring much less fantastical places and mundane talk that doesn’t seem at all like the medieval high fantasy world of middle earth. -Galadriel is made into a Arya Stark style character, messy, full of vengeance and very callous towards others. -The elves don’t look like elves at all, no long flowing hair or youthful faces, no angel beings instead it’s short hair, plain clothes, and visibly old appearance which elves don’t have since they are immortal. -They are trying to make morally grey characters, something that GOT does not LOTR, having Galadriel want to leave behind her fellow elves in the blizzard just to try and find any signs of Sauron, or the human guy character who ditches his friends to be eaten.
The Harfoots dont make any sense. They are clearly a race of farmers but are constantly on the move. Where do they get all their food from? Galadriel being the only person competent while the men are trying to hold her back. How will they reconcile her not even being a part of the War of the Last Alliance? I shudder to think.
Great video! I agree to all of what you said. It's sad that so many films and series have become almost dependent on cgi. Old "camera tricks", optical illusions, masks, make up and animatronics is hard to beat when done right, and especially when combined with cgi (when needed). This show seems to be immersion-breaking at every second. Or like you said, without magic.
Wow, cant believe you only have 2.4k subs. Thats s video was probably as close to perfection as you can come. Sophisticated but not verbose. Detailed but straight to the point. Mild manered but hard hitting. Knowledgeable but simple to take in. Excellent work. I am quite impressed. Have a sub, good Sir.
Very well put, It makes me wonder if all the money was spent on just buying companies out to remove any negative review tbh. Like how mine got deleted from both imbd and rotten tomatoes despite not having any profanity or aiming to be nasty. If they didn't put all the social politics and garbage before actual content and did there homework this series could have been great, even with the lack of material they had to base it on. The acting is stiff, the writing is laughable & all you can read between the lines is woke garbage instead of focussing on compelling story telling. I was willing to give this dumpster fire a chance and i fell asleep on the first quarter of episode 2. Honestly the most disappointing thing I have watched in years.
It has a 39% audience rating on rotten tomatoes and you think they are paying to remove bad reviews? Send me your dealers info he must have some good shit
Great video essay. 😁 Peter Jackson's (and J.R.R. Tolkien's) Galadriel is fallible, which makes her much more realistic and relatable. When she is tempted by the Ring, she says: "And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!" Galadriel is feminine, powerful and formidable, but she's not above temptation. She realizes that with the ring, she would basically reign as a beautiful, dreadful, terrible and fair queen/quasi-goddess, comparing herself to the might and power of nature itself if that were to come to pass. And yet, in front of all that power and temptation, she chooses to do the right thing, which is way harder. That's how strong she is, and that's the Galadriel we know and love. Not the angry Mary Sue who knows better than everyone else, waving her sword left and right with a scowl for centuries in hope of avenging her brother.
Of course but you refer to the final stage Galadriel who has already evolved and learned her shit ... Galadriel is not Gandalf... who has arrived on this plane as an old wise soul and in a shape of an old man ... she has actually been a child and teenager and had to grow up ... I think presenting an early Galadriel 3000 years before Isildur same as what we know her to be in the Lord of the rings would be just bad writing! I don't have an issue with how she was presented it is rather that her storyline was a bit boring, I excepted more exciting things from here!!!
@@Berndr It would indeed be bad writing, just like presenting an early Galadriel who is diametrically opposed to the one we know in LOTR and The Hobbit. No one wants the "young" Galadriel to be EXACTLY like the older one; of course we want her to evolve as a character. But did you notice the quotes I put around the word "young"? That's because she is *supposed* to be around 5,000 years old in the show. She's ALREADY super old. And yet, she's acting like a moody teenager out for revenge. That's what bothers me and a lot of people who were expecting more from a billion-dollar production. 🤔
@@Berndr early galadriel? Dude she's thousands of years old in the second age.. she can't be acting like a total teenager forcing everyone to follow her searching a needle in a haystack.. it would be more interesting if instead of a hotheaded woman warrior, she is potrayed as an early mage learning to unleashed and control her magical power and working alongside other elf character to perseve the world peace and FAILED which leads to the rise of sauron to power and the war started.. if the elves are this incompetent race that hate humans becoz of their alliances to the dark lord hundreds of years ago, then they deserve to perish.. why should we as the audience care about them when the only one who cares about sauron's existence is Galadriel because she's right to do so? Really, even after seeing the proof of the mark of sauron, not one elf is going to believe her? It doesn't make sense that they are willing to watch the humans but refuse to see that magical Adolf Hitler is still out there, plotting their demise.. she's the only one who sees it only so that she's proven to be right, and all the men should listen to her from the beginning.. that's a textbook definition of a marrie sue and that ain't Galadriel...
Rings of Power tried to be epic and continent spanning, yet managed to feel small. The epic power of Numenor was 3 ships (5 before the epic explosion), the epic conclusive battle was 50 rag tag orcs, 30 plucky villagers and 100 dashing cavalry, the epic King of the Southlands ruled over 2 villages (1 of which had been burnt to the ground). There was no scale or grandeur to accompany it's other flaws.
6) The cgi backgrounds looked good on their own but when the characters were placed in front of them they looked like the local news weatherman standing in front of a green screen. It looks like they did no post production integration or cleanup. 7) The armor is plastic. It has no color gradations nor does it look like it's cumbersome in any way. It looks like cheap halloween costumes. Once again, no post touch up/cleanup. 8) Ridiculously large swords that once again are clearly plastic. They are way to big to be casually twirled around in one hand, no matter how empowered a character may be. 9) All the different storylines so far have been set up to give the female characters in them the lead. Apparently only women in this world are capable of accomplishing anything. You can have female heroes in a show that work beside,and even lead, male heroes. The men don't have to be portrayed as idiots to make the women look smart. Anyone can look smart next to a moron. To make the woman look smart there needs to be other smart people she can outwit. 10) A follow up to 9 and to use the showrunners' and actors' rational: because there are no strong male characters I can 'identify' with I am unable to enjoy the show. I don't mind a story with a female lead just don't dumb down the men and make them cowards to make the woman seem smart or brave. Part of a woman being strong and brave is doing something that she is afraid of, just like a man.
@@kamion53 And they could have gotten it practically for free, probably less than they paid a prop dept. to make that crap plastic stuff. I've seen better homemade armor worn by LARPers.
Welcome to my world. Who was I supposed to identify with in other fantasy movies and series for most of my life of 53 years? For example, for many many years, there were only male video game avatars. I had to put up with it -- I think you can probably tough it out. Also, give it a chance ... No male characters have been dumbed down. (it's not WoT (yet)) All I'm saying is that it comes across as really spoiled that you expect to always be represented.
@@stevnated I don't expect to be represented, I don't have a problem w/ strong female characters. I'm throwing the 'need to see myself on screen to be able to identify' argument back at the actors. I really enjoyed the character of Eowen in the books and the movies. She is an example of a strong female, doing something that she knows will probably result in her death but going through with it anyway. That's real strength of character. And what about Princess Leia? She was my 1st real example that I can remember of a princess, being 6 when I saw the movie for the 1st time in 1977. I was always disappointed by the portrayal of princesses afterwords, always waiting around to be saved. In my 50 years I've come to appreciate her character more, and for the last 10 have come to realize she was the true hero of the entire SW saga. Like I said, I don't have a problem w/ actual strong women, my mother was one, but they can still act like a woman. But I do find it funny that those that rail against the 'patriarchy' and 'toxic masculinity' feel that they have to give those very traits they profess to hate to their female characters to see them as strong. And the so called Elven warriors were made to be whiny little bitches, and incompetent to boot, to make Galadriel seem strong. Them getting their asses handed to them by a troll that she took out in ten seconds was trite. It took the whole fellowship to barely take one out. And Elrond has definitely been dumbed down. Not having male leads is not why I don't enjoy ROP. It's simply bad.
Both sides of the complicated "diversity" debate are using this as some kind of weird deflection from the MAIN POINT -- the entire prequel seems like a failed fan fiction effort, not something in the highly complex and immersive universe of Tolkien and Jackson, quite honestly. Those two gave us a timeless and glorious masterpiece, but this new failure of a show has tainted and ruined the entire franchise... Elrond and Galadriel's actors were at best average, and that is being VERY generous to both of them, and failed to seem very likable or engaging from the beginning to the end. The elves seemed so plastic, superficial and one-dimensional, lacking in both genuine gravitas and otherworldly mysticism and poise, and I was not impressed by Galadriel's failed Arctic mission or that weird half-naked giant crash-landing in front of two bickering female Hobbits. Is this what was supposed to grip millions of people from around the world? Besides, if nine elves were nearly killed by a single troll, what the heck was Galadriel planning to do to Sauron even if she did "find" him? And how did that Elven king grant them access to Valinor at whim, I thought only the Valar had that authority?? ***Almost NOTHING about this show was okay, guys.*** o_O
Exactly, a few shallow, and well-paid amateurs are no substitute for the work of a great expert in language, a man of moral depth, and working out of love.
Brilliant summation. I mean, how difficult would it have been to see Galadriel initially doubting herself, and then an adult mentor/warrior builds her confidence and gets her to truly believe in herself and work hard to achieve her goals. A minute or so of backstory screen time. A bit rudimentary, I know, but at least then a viewer might have empathised if they thought she truly worked for and deserved the qualities they instilled in her. Too difficult for those hack writers, it seems.
@@B88-h6n Let's call what it is: she is a bully and a bitch. There is a big difference being being a leader and playing boss, the last mostly cause by lack of inner strenght. what I've seen so far is someone playing boss.
Fair review, with well laid out and argued points. Subscribed. I could have forgiven them a lot but the careless altering of fundamental lore plus the constant denials meant that unlike PJ, they were not owning or defending the reasons for their alterations. Instead they preferred semantics, gaslighting and a campaign of name-calling against the fans. They can keep their forked tongues behind their teeth.
Suilaid, mellon nin... Two things drew me here: the subject matter, and your clever screenname. Coming here, I was quite pleased to see things laid out in an even-handed rational stream of thought. You have earned a subscriber this day!
but it fails in the most important thing ... to explain the purpose of an adaptation, extra content, and purpose of entertainment that keeps the community alive... god knows how many bad Star trek series were.... yet the community was grateful for extra content and did not tray to sabotage the show ... they were happy someone actually bothered to give them more of content from that universe ... this particular show is set in an age I find extremely intriguing and sadly Tolkien did not write a book about this age when rings were actually forged ... he only left references and glossaries ... so of course producers have no book to get a dialog from ... and Tolkien was a linguist no way any writer can much that .. I am glad we got anything and people should stop whining and realize books will be always there and this is just an adaptation, another angle, and extra content! The only thing these idiots that calling themself Tolkien's so-called super fun are doing is scaring anyone from ever trying to make another adaptation of any other Toliens book ever ...
Great review, fully agree. After seeing 3 episodes, I can only say this is a poorly done show in all aspects, even music, composed and produced well, is sometimes too excessive as they are desperatly using it to convey something they could not convey visually - the entire show looks as if it was planned, written, acted and executed by some junior crew from university of arts. I can't see any show like this NOT being cancelled, but of course, this is Amazon's huge project and they will keep on pouring money into it regardless of the poor reception. For all of the people saying this should be seen in 4k, visuals are amazing etc, what exactly looks so great, tell me one scene? Literally every "big scene" has so many problems, be that location, camera, architecture, CGI... and just play few seconds of this vs. Jackson's movies (these had problems of their own, but it is a masterpiece comparing to this bleak fail), ignore the poor acting here, just look at the camera - is it just me or RoP look worse camera/lense vise compared to the LOTR triology, that is more than 20 years old??? Fellowship of the ring immediately look like an expensive movie, captivating and immersing you into the fantasy. Rings of Power can't do that. So many bad things can be said about this show, and we haven't even mentioned the butchering of the well established lore writen by one of the most prolific fiction writters of all times and most certainly the father of the epic fantasy genre.
I've said it many times but what Amazon committed is called Stolen Valor, both metaphorically and literally. "Stolen Valor" is a term applied to the phenomenon of people falsely claiming military awards or medals they did not earn, service they did not perform, Prisoner of War experiences that never happened, and other tales of military actions that exist only in their minds. This is exactly what they turned Galadriel into. A Karen spouting off war heroics she was never part of. Then there is the rest. None of which it true in the books or even hinted at, everything twisted and a parody there of. It is exactly what they said it would be... Tolkiens world destroyed and redressed.
@@bsa45acp There is no way that an early Galadriel who lived through the Morgoth and Sauron devastation, lost people, and unlike Gandalf who arrived on this plane as an old soul was an actual child and teenager once, is exactly the same as in Lord of the Rings! presenting Galadriel at this stage fully evolved as the way we see her 4000 years later in the Lord of the Rings, at the top of her power and grace would have been extremely bad writing! the presentation was fine ... but her story sadly was not as exciting as I expected! Seeing characters grow and evolve into what we know them to see is a good way to write!!
I'm glad to be seeing reviews like this that go beyond what is shown on the screen and into STORYTELLING. A big production budget can only take a film or TV show so far; if the story and the storytelling sucks, then they pull the rest downwards.
1) Galadriel is unlikable. 2) The dialogue sucks, tries to hard and it takes ages for the actors to say anything. 3) The things spoken often make nonsense. 4) Four seperate plot lines in the first episodes are too much. 5) Thus almost nothing happens. 6) The characters are uniteresting with unclear traits. 7) Plot suffers from "And than this happaned" syndrome. 8) The CGI sucks. 9) The hooks at the end fall flat because we don't know what their relevance is. 10) Characters make stupid choices that should kill them but the writers save them with plot. 11) Generic world building that relies too much on the knowledge of the audience. The opening was far too generic for that kind of revenge plot the show wants to depict.
I agree with everything you said, except the identity politics part. Plenty of male characters have been written the way you describe, and indeed have been countered by powerful women. Bad writing is bad writing and bad characterisation is bad characterisation.
The Identity Politics part mainly comes from interviews and the actor/actresses constantly spamming the phrase "Diversity" and "Inclusion" and constantly trying to make it out that Tolkien and his fans are Racist/sexist/homophobic etc etc which is just bonkers on their part. They keep playing the "You can't relate to it unless you are the Gender/Skin colour of the race on screen" which is just hugely cringy on their part. Even trying to go into this with an open mind I couldn't brush off certain bits of writing as their agenda is kind of well known.
I can only hope that after this, Amazon will try to give up capitalizing on well-loved epics. I didn’t make it through a whole episode of Wheel of Time. I only lasted for the first 5 minutes of this.
MaReySu is no Skywalker, no matter how much Darth Kennedy and JarJar Abrums insist otherwise. I identify as the rightful dictator of this planet. That does not make is so. This show claims relation to Tolkien’s work, the claim does not make it so.
Well said. If I could add one more… There is an imbued weave of vainglorious self-importance to the whole thing - as if this show’s entire existence was ‘ordained’ to occur. That it MUST be made… and beloved… and championed - precisely because the foundation is Tolkien’s world and was ‘made’ to be crafted, the show-runners were also ‘made’ to exist precisely at the right moment that Amazon was willing to spend the money, and the actors and actresses were ‘made’ to exist precisely at the correct modern moment to bring existing (and non-existing) characters to life. None of this is actually true. The show might be better were it to take itself less seriously, the writers take a more humble tack, and the players look at themselves as custodians of fleshed out characters in no need of a modern take. Alas - the pride and stylized, but vapid, magnanimity creates a hollow shell. Unlike Frodo inheriting the Ring from Bilbo, none of this was ‘made’ to occur and give us an encouraging thought.
Galadriel’s infallibility is boring because there is no tension/release in her story. You know she will be fine no matter what she faces: opposition from fellow elves, an ice mountain, the open ocean, a giant ice troll, a toxic relationship with Saurbrand. After showing us all that is barely an inconvenience for her, how are they going to make us care she’s in any “danger.” They can’t, because she’s already handily dealt with all those things. Any “danger” she’s in won’t make any sense. And we know she makes it through the second age and third ages so where are the stakes? Btw, if she’s such a badass warrior and huntress of Sauron, where is she in the War of the Last Alliance? Why isn’t she there to save Gil-Galad and Elendil in the prologue of LOTR?
Im glad I’ve already seen “the journeys of Galadriel” on Nerd of the rings. Though I agree with you on several points, there are things/imagery/emotions etc that you’ll get only from reading the source material that unfortunately cannot be depicted well enough on a screen. Same thing happened for Harry Porter readers. You might think the movies are actually trash after reading the books; Nonetheless great commentary 👍🏾
So well said the key is to make the hero relatable or human and do you accomplish with making the character having flaws. It's one thing every human or person can relate to. I mean even Superman has flaws and can "win" against most superheroes but he has flaws which makes him able to relate to the viewer. And it's not about what type of flaws that has little to do with it. Anyway there is so much to complain about but one thing that stands out also is scenes or actions that don't make sense. And one scene is where Galadriel jumps off the boat in the middle of the ocean. I mean sure she don't want to go to that place but to jump into the sea far far far away from shore don't make any sense at all. I am no expert in Tolkien lore but are elves swimmers with infinite amount of stamina?
I understand where you are coming from ... But Tolkien himself on purpose made characters too Woke fairy tales - like to distinguish evil from good, after the war in our actual world he felt that was needed, there was no place for the confusion ... that's why is funny that people complain that the show is woke ... Not one of his main characters has a true flaw... Legolas, Frodo, Gandalf, Elrond , Galadriel, Gimly , Eowyn ... you name it ... they are all moral and politically correct with no shades of gray, and most importantly they always chose to do the right thing ( The only character who comes close to having shades of gray is Gollum, even Boromir is presented as actually good but succumbed and even he at the end choose to do the right thing he gives his life for the Hobbits ) ... and yet on other hands all enemies characters are truly evil! If a little flimsy hobbit can march with a ring all the way to Mordor ( as Boromir said not a whole army can ) and survive the month with no food nor experience or training, I am sure Galadriel as an immortal elf who just spent 2 centuries chasing enemies across the world and fighting can swim and float in the water for a day!
yeh, they really don't know how to write elves, nor do they understand Galadriel. They actually cucked her....and I am not sure if I should laugh or cry at the irony.
You could write a novel just on all the things Amazon did wrong with ROP. They make elves look like humans with pointy ears. They’re supposed to look almost angelic. There is so much wrong with ROP it’s hard to tell where to start. Your average Tolkien fan could have done a better job than those two clown show runners. I could hear Gollum saying in that gargley voice “youzz ruined it”. I think Amazon and those two show runners did this with malicious intent and a secret disliking of Tolkien and his fans. They didn’t like Tolkiens world so they did to his work what Morgoth did to some of the elves when he turned them into orcs. They underestimated Tolkien fans thinking they would get away with it.
To put it simply - you preaching to the choir, brother! So, thank you. As I have stated elsewhere, I couldn't get past the first twenty minutes of episode 1. I was going nope, nope and at the twenty minute mark. I went, "Oh, Hell no!". And that is when I re-watched "House of the Dragon" again. So, I write here, to Hell with Amazon's "The Whore of the Rings: The Rings of Wokeness".
This review was perfect. I watched the first two episodes and was left feeling 50/50 but i couldnt put my finger on it. I didnt know if i enjoyed it or not. Something felt off and after watching this video it clarified my thoughts.
Why are there old looking elves? They dont age!!! Where are the horses? or any animals for that matter so far we've had 1 cow and 1 warg. People seen travelling the world, not a single backpack to be seen. 1 black elf in a race of white elves does not make your show diverse. It does kind of show you are a bit racist in casting extras.
Everything the The Lord of the Rings was, The Rings of Power is not. It has no soul. Nothing is relatable or familiar. Spectacle without substance. Your summation is spot on.
" It's just that awful modern thing: content": 1oo% point on. I'm politically very far left, and agree with every point of your (very engaging and cleverly constructed) analysis of the failures of this show. House of the Dragon may not be Games of Thrones season 1, but at least it escapes many of the loopholes you listed.
It's really amazing to see someone so kind, intelligent, and open minded. Goes to show everyone, we should never generalize or judge someone according to the political ideology they subscribe too. Very cool, thank you!
It stuns me that Galadriel is can even be viewed as a bereft, OP, Mary Sue warrior, my mind cannot allow for that analysis. I wanted so much to see the actual OP Galadriel character meet a challenge capable of humbling her, a fall of sorts. Her journey would be in growing to overcome such an unexpectedly worthy foe, perhaps with the aid of her ring that she has a hand in creating. Sorry, I am going all fan fiction on what ifs.
Just from what I saw in this video, I would point out one glaring problem. I assume it's Galadriel who gets into a fistfight as a child. As an elven child. No different than a human child. Someone does not understand Tolkien's elves.
Showing Galadrial and other elves as kids was such a huuuuge mistake! Galarial, in fact all elves are supposed to be unfathomable, in wisdom and power. They're prob gonna show Sauron as a yong boy playing with sticks next.
The beginning bit with the kids was just naff. Young elf bullies is ridiculous, and the child actors were very wooden. If they wanted to show a child-Galadriel, how about have her make her swan-boat...and have it destroyed by something that has some relevance to future events. A dark crow or raven, such as one of the crebain...even just a shadowy figure fleeting on the wind. Not a freakin' brat throwing stones ending in elf-brat punch-up...
Just look at that troll killing. She flashes the sword around with some kind of theatrical display, not a hair out of place, no sweat, heavy breathing, dishevelled or dirty. It's a joke. Then look at Aragorn and Boromir when they fought....much more realistic. Its just a children series, not even Tolkien. The Hobbit, a children's book, was more realistic.
You forgot a big one- 6. A need to push "the message" and ram far left idea's down peoples throats. (but then thats pretty much EVERY movie or tv show these days, so maybe at this point that's just a given)
...and this is what does not make sense, because Galadriel already has rank and status. She was the grandaughter of the High King of the Noldor, Finwe. Two of her Uncles were Kings. In terms of her being overpowered, I totally agree. I'm already seeing people saying that she could take down Sauron in a one on one fight. Sauron is a Maia, a fallen angel. Even Gandalf, who was also a Maia, struggled against the Balrog, and every other Elf in the Legendarium who ever killed a Balrog died in attempt. But no, apaprently Galadriel could defeat Sauron himself. No problem.
Something that jumped out at me was how flat the background was! And just all the sets feel green screen and I assume that's because they are but I've not noticed it on any other example
I had trouble following it. I couldn't figure out why "hobbit" was verboten but "Khazad-Dum" wasn't. The naval CGI was pretty badly done. I'm guessing there was no nautical advisor. :(
Simple, unscientific fact about TROP: I haven't spoken to one neighbor, family member, co-worker, or friend who liked it and was looking forward to future episodes.
It actually is simple then that...Mae g’ovannen! By Canon Those that accept Rings of Power are corrupted Those that claim to be phans must have judgement! This show is heresy. we just released our UA-cam audio production on this matter. We called this heresy Jan 21, and declared it 25 March 22. Hope is kindled though, keep up the fight! "Exsurge Tolkien" is Novus Renaissances's Official Encyclical in defense of Professor J.R.R Tolkien's Legendary Middle Earth Mythology. It is one of the comprehensive responses against ROP Heresy.
We both know that's not true... otherwise, you would have stopped watching it after the first episode... nor would you have even bothered to come over here and comment ... It is the middle earth and you know it ... even though not the middle earth you and I wanted, but honestly any true fun would take whatever we are given ... just another chance to experience middle earth again even if it is not as perfect... maybe it will be the only other adaptation we ever get in our lifetimes... so I will take it! I am aware Tolkien did not write a book that covers this age just before making the rings except mentioned in glossaries ... so why expect perfection when they had no book they could follow ... Yet Jackson actually had a detailed book and still could not do it ... and as result, we never got Old forest, Old Oak, Bombadil, Goldberry, then he even replaced Glorfindel with Arwen, messed up characters like Faramir ... and then the worst he completely changed ending with Saruman in the Shire ... Then what he did with Hobbit was an atrocity, a theme park ride that had little to do with the actual book, a money milking cash cow for Tolkien suckers spread across 3 movies .... so let's be objective here ...
We KNOW Galadriel is going to survive. What we learn of her is that she's just so wonderful! How can the others there not recognize this? Particularly the MEN who traveled with her in the search for Sauron FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS. Those losers completely failed against a mere troll! Can't say much for their centuries of martial training under her.
I refer to it as "The Female Heroes Journey," and it is almost the inverse of the Traditional. Instead of sacrifice, you learn that power shouldnt require sacrifice. Instead of earning power, you are just given it. Instead of training and developing you simply learn to ignore your doubts.
Write a book on this
@@titancloud I've thought about it. Lord knows there's enough material.
Stoicism is replaced with emotional whining and its a very unlikeable trait
It began with the forging of the great films. Threads were given by Tolkien, wisest and fairest of them all. Rights were then given to Jackson; great miner and craftsman of the mountain of lore. And nine, nine hours were gifted to the race of men, who above all else, desired quality. But they were all of them deceived, for another show was made. In the land of Amazon, in the fires of Mount Prime, the Dark Lord Bezos forged in secret a master flop. And into this show he poured his malice, his greed and his will to dominate all film. One show to ruin them all
Edit: stole this from Alexander Mandelin
The main difference between this show and Tolkien is that Tolkien wrote with love and knowledge for everything he admired. Amazon in the other hand is only vandalizing Tolkien's work with lack of knowledge, writing capabilities and woke BS.
Do you hear yourself??? Woke??? Sounds as if you heard some racist screaming woke and without using your brain decided to join the crowd!!! have you actually read Tolkien to even post a stupid comment as such ... Tolkien himself was incredibly woke to start with ... there were lots of diversity and woke-ness in his writing to start with! Do you even understand what woke means because all Tolkien's main characters are woke and politically correct, and just as the fairy-tale characters have no shades of gray ....From Aragorn, Frodo, Galadriel, and Legolas all the way to Elrond everyone is extremely moral and good.... and Evil characters are only evil ... Tolkien himself has given many examples in his writing about species evolving and mixing hence Elrond himself is half Elf ... who do you think are his parents ??? and yes there were black and dark-skinned people in middle earth too ... so if you refer to the dark-skinned elf they cast in the Rings of Power as woke than you are just an idiot and racist ... because as easily as elves fucked with white-skinned people they could have easily fucked with black people far in the north and produced a dark skinned Elf ... based on English culture and folklore just as English fucked all around Africa and India ! not being woke would mean not being Tolkien...so grow up!
You almost had something there, then you killed it.
@@TheKillaShow I don't need to prove anything. It's not my intention. Not trying to be super smart or anything there. Just pointing my opinion.
Love and knowledge, I'd add talent and inspiration.
The show is such a let down.
@@TheKillaShow , he did.
When some words make it into a comment, it's almost enough for me to dismiss it entirely.
This is the best commentary Ive heard on this anywhere online... this man is criminally under subscribed. Thank you good sir for sharing your insights with us.
Thank you, Sir!
Fact
No one is subscribing because there aren’t many who are so terrified of a strong female lead.
@@lethalninjaskills did you even watch the video or do you enjoy showing your stupidity to the world
@@lethalninjaskills Galadriel was already a strong female lead in LOTR. People disliking butchering the character for woke points doesn't mean people don't like "strong female leads," and it's really pathetic that you think a female character can only be "strong" if she's some kind of unlikable warrior with a permanent scowl on her face.
Nicely summed up. It can be difficult to interpret how something just feels....OFF. When something is just not right. This show is full of that feeling in every aspect I can think bar some of the music. Even the stunning visuals just feel empty, flat, mere backdrops instead of a real world with character as Tolkien so superbly portrayed and Jackson managed to capture pretty well. Tolkien's landscape descriptions were endlessly inventive, never repetitive, they were characters in themselves with moods, intentions and agency. The Payne & McKay interpretation of "epic" revolves around CGI depictions of pretty but ultimately 'dead' composites with your characters often completely absent from them. I'm saying that when the visuals are perhaps the strongest element of this show, everything else (bar some of the music again) in just plain awful, shockingly clumsy and amateurish.
Reminds me of that tower Arondir stood on with the other elf. We don´t know where it is, we don´t know what is the significance of the place, it´s nothing to us really. It looks great as a picture, but there is no story to it. Why should I care about it?
we can only measure things through perspective. we need some kind of context, of scale. when we watch something, it's just a series of images and sounds coming from a screen. for something to be epic, grand, wonderful, we need to be drawn to that perspective, to that "fictional reality", I would say. in other words, if I just show you, let us say, a photo of a tractor, without any context or clue, you may not be able to even realize if it is big or small. depending on the angle, composition and etc it could be a toy tractor or one of those gargantuan, mine-specific tractors. you could only realize it if I put something, like a regular car aside it, for you to have... perspective!
what corporative media do is just fit one of those gargantuan trucks in a screen and tell you "be amazed!", but even if we realize how big it is, it is still irrelevant. because we don't care. I were watching some scenes from PJ's adaptation, and one that really caught my attention was the one where frodo offers galadriel the ring, and she shows the power of her temptation. this scene is CHILLING. but if you try to "see it for what it is", if you try to imagine what a normal person would think of that knowing absolutely NO context... it's kinda lame. the effects didn't age that well, and it's SUPER dramatic. it works in the movie because we are immersed on the characters and the world, we care. we have a sense of urgency, we care about the fate of those characters. this gives us a perspective, a "scale" to interpret galadriel's outburst. and suddenly it becomes amazingly terrifying. as a last example, you can take the original SW trilogy. if you go back to it you'll realize how dated and kinda stupid almost all of it looks. and it felt and feels epic because the overall aesthetic serves the narrative, not the contrary. I don't care how many millions those sets and costumes and effects cost. I care about the characters and their struggle.
I didn't read the books, but I have heard many times that tolkien took a LOT of care, I mean, an UNBELIAVABLY LOT of care to build his world, cultures and characters. and the story begins as small as it can be, as banal and mundane, and the odds, sense of danger and scale of action grows slowly, but steadily. wich means that he goes from the smallest small to the biggest of big. THIS is why it feels so epic. it reminds me of how "saving the world" is so stupid and boring when you don't give a s**t about the world. the scale size isn't that important, it's how invested you are in those characters, in that world.
@@gustavogoesgomes1863 And that´s why all the description and exposition in Tolkien matter. It makes you care about the world they are trying to save. You want to protect it too.
Best critique I've read thus far. Strong women characters with flaws and growth - be they positive or negative - has been a theme of literature throughout the centuries despite the current crop of woke writers who are ignorant of this fact and believe only today can women (and people of color) be truly represented via their story lines. What hubris! Mary Sue characters like Rey "Skywalker", Captain Marvel and Amazon's Galadriel, plus characters who are defined solely by their skin color, not content of character (apologies for paraphrasing the late Martin Luther King who understood human nature and wanted to unite NOT divide people of all races) have reaped a whirlwind of poor story telling and bad reviews. So sad to see a grand work of literature reduced to this mediocre series.
Just one little nit pick. You mention Tolkien's landscape descriptions and say "never repetitive". I loved the books very much, BUT, just exactly how many pages do you remember reading about woods that were a million different variations of dark and spooky. Good lord, pages and pages and PAGES of dark and spooky woods. As I said, I loved the books, BUT, as for repetitive, I did get a bit tired of so many pages of so many ways to describe dark and spooky woods. ....... lol
Tolkien would never allow Galadriel to be a mere warrior.
I like the way you said this
Warrior princess is a goddamn downgrade
@@kp-legacy-5477 It's just a MaRey Sue
More importantly: he would not have allowed her to be this toxic.
I don't mind if she was a good leader in a war but not a fricking warrior with swords and armor.......
The worst part is she already was a “Strong Female Character”. They horribly diminished her. The nice part is Kate Blanchett looks that much more awesome by comparison.
"More projections of ideas than people you can root for" - nicely said. 👌
"Its just that awful, modern thing: content."
Brutal and beautiful. Subscribed.
Thanks!
Cate Blanchett's Galadriel had gravitas, auctoritas and most of all dignitas. She was a prince amongst princely beings. The way she spoke to and looked upon other characters would simultaneously shame and pacify them, stunted by her inescapable feminine grace. We also feared the unseen power she held. She was a person that one would not wish to be adversarial with.
In contrast Morfydd Clark's Galadriel is a caricature of a strong woman, one that tries to mimic masculinity and comes off as nothing but laughably strange. One that needlessly quarrels with those she would call friends and allies.
But really this describes the show perfectly nothing but laughably strange, a caricature of Tolkien and needlessly quarrels with the fans of Lord of the Rings.
That is one beautiful description of Blanchett's Galadriel!
To modernise a popular quote -
Tolkien fans ! 30 centuries of European culture are contemplating you from the heavens ! :)
Hold the line my brothers ! And fear no darkness ! :)
ua-cam.com/video/FRd7RG2GQ_0/v-deo.html
Um...maybe Galadriel had to learn to be what she becomes? You know, like how normal people age, mature, and grow wise? You people are desperate to complain about anything.
@@MSgt_0699 How can we not complain, here we had a true character, a tower of a woman. A woman who left her lessers in awe, who comforted, who respected those below her station.
Then made her a violent, irreverent child and called it a triumph, and you eat it up MSgt because you don't know any better you'll eat whatever slop they'll give you and you'll chastise us for not eating with you. Sorry but you won't shame us into accepting mediocrity. We will complain, we deserve for the legacy of Tolkien to be respected, no will demand it. Even if you call us entitled and you would not be wrong, because we who love and respect Tolkien's works are entitled for those works to be preserved and its characters to be respected. If you don't like this go somewhere else, you are welcomed to leave.
@@sebastianprimomija8375 Because what you are describing is an older and wiser Galadriel, who apparently was supposed to have been born that way.
The funny thing is that you people behave as if this show has simply obliterated all Tolkien books from existence. Read your books. I promise you all of what you love is still there. I think, like those who whined about Man of Steel not giving them "their" Superman, this show has just left you people feeling cheated. In the meantime, the show is doing extremely well.
Look, this is my example of the heart of the matter, what happened to all this:.
I will compare Professor Tolkien's work with an ancient Greek building, the Parthenon for example, years have passed but we all recognize the magnitude and weight of that architectural work, no matter your nationality or your age, right? And of course no one would dare to think that this work should be improved, on the contrary, we all agree that it should be preserved at all costs as it is. But suddenly a group of rich people and rich intellectuals who want to buy this building, the Parthenon, appear and stand in front of it and say "It is a magnificent work but we have to make some arrangements to make it conform to the standards of today ... the materials and knowledge of today, and that every race and creed and condition feel identified, because it is already an obsolete work that is wonderful but requires a re interpretation" then all people who value that work as it is, made by Greek people who are also of a certain race. ..we begin to defend the work against any cause, we end up being branded as racists, sexist, and my barbarities more because we do not agree.... of course there will be some people who say "well I do not dislike the truth, that the Parthenon is painted in colors, that they put current technologies, and current materials" in short that is what has happened gentlemen.
I just watched the first two episodes. Nothing could have prepared me for the turgid effluvium that came forth from a clearly and infinitely superior source. The acting was dire, the story was inconsistent, confusing and irreverent and the actors were unable to either flow with the story or present any skill to the roles that they were assigned to. The hubris of these modern corporations has become so cliched that any deviance is wholly welcome and unexpected. Pander the minority, suffer the majority.
I really don't think the actors can be blamed. I haven't seen one bad performance yet, to my unlimited surprise. They've been miscast, badly directed, given woeful dialogue in green screen sets acting out a bewilderingly bad script and I've been utterly amazed that they've all put in solid work. I'd even go as far as to say the diversity hire's acting were pretty much the only nice surprise I got from the first two episodes. The elf was a bit wooden but otherwise carried it off, the dwarf was good and Lenny Henry, barring the awful accent, did alright.
I'm a massive Tolkien fan and I enjoyed it, I watched this with someone who is not a fan and they liked it too.
It obviously has deviations from the source material but so do the Jackson films.
The show visually looks amazing, I was quite impressed with the dialogue in some scenes.
I just don't understand all the hate.
@@neutronstarpilot4393 Really? The dialogue was probably the worst I have seen in anything, except maybe some highschool plays. Especially the pseudo-philosophical stuff. One of the very first scenes (the boat stone thing) made me cringe probably more then the office ever did. Do the elves not understand buoyancy or something? It's shallow dialogue disguised as being deep.
Other problems are that Galadriel and Durin IV (who I guess is a time traveller) act like petulant (and dumb) children. Did swimming from Aman to middle earth really seem feasible to Galadriel?
And while I do think most of it did look good, there are some notable exeptions. The armor the elves were wearing on the ship the Valinor was very cheap and plastic looking. There was some very obvious styrofoam scenery in Khazad-Dum (and those plastic hammers Elrond and Durin were using didn't help).
The troll fight scene is marvel superhero level of unbelievable.
Remember seeing Legolas riding that shield down the stairs at helmsdeep and thinking "that's a bit ridiculous". This is that times ten.
While the wide landscape shots with the elven cities were mostly fine, they basically look the same. In Peter Jackson's LOTR Lothlorien and Rivendell was architecturally totaly different. You could tell both were elven cities, but they were distinct. Thats not the case here.
As for the changes to the lore, the difference is that in the LOTR movies the changes didn't really impact the main story of the books. Tom Bombadil is great, but in the end he doesn't really do anything of note in the books either, so omitting was understandable and fine. The first two episodes of rings of power alone make major changes to the history second age that actively break the story described in the Silmarillion and appendices.
From the first 2 episodes alone we can assume: The doom of the Noldor is not a thing here, the kinslaying never happened, dwarves have short lives, Eärendil does either not exist, or Elrond does not descend from him, Sauron is a graffiti artist placing his tags all over middle earth, Galadriel is both really dumb and a bad leader.
And this is just the important stuff for the history of middle earth. There are all kinds of smaller things that directly contradict Tolkien.
The depiction of the elves also bothered me a lot, it's like they are just pointy eared humans. A buzz cut, really?
As for the Harfoot scenes, they redefined the meaning of boring for me. It was like math-class in highschool, only less useful.
@@slome815 The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.
That could be from the show or Tolkien.
Jackson streamlined his story to be of Frodo and the ring, he removed any parts of the story or characters not relevant.
If the purpose of the show is the forging of the rings then I would want to see all the episodes to see how well it tells the story.
I think people are inconsistent with critisisng how the show makes changes but let the Jackson films off the hook,
Jackson didn't include Glorfindel, he removed the scouring of the Shire, Denathor could not have made it to the edge of minas tirith (on fire) from where he was in time.
Ect
I understand why you need to make changes adapting literature for film.
I had a conversation with someone who doesn't like the Jackson films because of the deviations from the source material, and they have a similar view of the show,
That I understand, we had a fairly amicable conversation and I explained I like both, (books and film's mainly the extended versions of the films)
So far the show is good, I'll keep watching and judge it fairly.
@@neutronstarpilot4393 Yeah, I thought it was awesome. I'm a big Tolkien fan and I've waited decades for someone to have the balls and money to cover some of the first and second age material. People should just do what they used to do and switch the channel when they don't like the show. It's funny reading people's hyperbolic comments about dialogue when they've obviously never written anything in their life.
Excellent assessment. Particularly around language! If people read Tolkeins works theyd see his love and focus on language, It was the cornerstone of story. IF they just got the linguistics and language and meaning right this might (might! nah not really) almost pass! But language is probably the very weakest element here.
I admit to being a little surprised that the actors they got - all seemingly english-acting school trained? (honestly not sure) - just werent either able to deliver or werent given reasonable language direction or dialogue. These actors, should all have had enough exposure to Shakespeare and the depth of the english language that it brings... they SHOULD have been able to do it... so Ill put it down to the writers! Very dissappointing.
I thought exactly the same while watching the 4th episode of star trek yesterday ... one with Gorn, it looked cheap, and poorly acted. The lines were cheesy and awful ... yet no one out there is making videos about it trying to rail up the audience and get the series canceled! Why??? ... because the start trek community is happy to be getting any content at all, they understand not everyone can be as original Kirk, and not every season is going to be glorious and equal to the original writings ... they understand what it means to be an adaptation and just extra content!
People need to calm down... I have seen both Rings of power episodes and as I am concerned it is far better than most shows out there at the moment ...
The story is set between 2 books covering a time Tolkien did not write about, except for a few references and glossaries! ... so writers had to make their own lines because there is no Tolkien book out there to be adopted that covers this particular age of middle earth...
I am the first in line who really digs this particular period and I am extremely curious about events in this age that led to the Lord of the rings hence I am very happy they made a series set in age just before rings are made!
I am not looking for perfection nor Tolkien quality of writings... just a decent show!
I particularly enjoyed 2nd episode ... and enjoyed it way more than House of Dragon that I find at the moment extremely boring even though well produced ... I agree with some that at the moment Galadriel's storyline is not that good but I really enjoyed Elrond and Nori storylines! and sets were epic!
As a special effect artist myself, I was blown away by some sets and visuals in the Rings of Power ... Sets are huge and spacious and tracking is spotless, there was no jittering ever, and the resolution was high and felt like 8K, the details of effect such as particles extremely well done and don't even start me on color grading, it was stunning!!! ...not cheap and poor like the effects we have seen in the wheel of time ...
The Ring of Powers probably has one of the best SFX I have ever seen in the TV and even Film industry! for that alone, I will keep watching it!
From what I have seen it seems all these bad reviews are done by a few you tubers who have made themself loud as thousands they seem not to have any other purpose in life but have made their life mission to sabotage the show by printing and publishing bad reviews about Rings of Power on dayly bases! Objectivity is gone out of the windows!
@@Berndr "a few references and glossaries" What? Did you miss the Akallabêth and Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age in the silmarillion (I know Christopher Tolkien compiled it, it's still JRR Tolkiens work), or the appendices in LOTR? And that dialogue, it's like it's a high school play or something. God that pseudo-philosophical BS.
You know what, I'll just copy my other comment, because I'm lazy like that.
Galadriel and Durin IV (who I guess is a time traveller) act like petulant (and dumb) children. Did swimming from Aman to middle earth really seem feasible to Galadriel?
And while I do think most of it did look good, there are some notable exeptions. The armor the elves were wearing on the ship the Valinor was very cheap and plastic looking. There was some very obvious styrofoam scenery in Khazad-Dum (and those plastic hammers Elrond and Durin were using didn't help).
The troll fight scene is marvel superhero level of unbelievable.
Remember seeing Legolas riding that shield down the stairs at helmsdeep and thinking "that's a bit ridiculous". This is that times ten.
While the wide landscape shots with the elven cities were mostly fine, they basically all look the same. In Peter Jackson's LOTR Lothlorien and Rivendell was architecturally totaly different. You could tell both were elven cities, but they were distinct. Thats not the case here.
As for the changes to the lore, the difference is that in the LOTR movies the changes didn't really impact the main story of the books. Tom Bombadil is great, but in the end he doesn't really do anything of note in the books either, so omitting was understandable and fine. The first two episodes of rings of power alone make major changes to the history second age that actively break the story described in the Silmarillion and appendices.
From the first 2 episodes alone we can assume: The doom of the Noldor is not a thing here, the kinslaying never happened, dwarves have short lives, Eärendil does either not exist, or Elrond does not descend from him, Sauron is a graffiti artist placing his tags all over middle earth, Galadriel is both really dumb and a bad leader.
And this is just the important stuff for the history of middle earth. There are all kinds of smaller things that directly contradict Tolkien.
@@Berndr No. The first 2 eps were boring, and the pacing was all over the place. You were probably too wowed by the "visuals" to care.
@@thevillageyid true as a digital and SFX artist myself I was literally stunned by how good the visuals were ... no jitter, high res, spotless footage tracking, and great particle effects as well as lighting!
But when talking about truly boring and pointless that's what myself and all my friends thought about the house of the dragon, well produced but it's going nowhere, felt like a boring period drama but without any drama to keep it interesting and with few dragons thrown in to make it feel like the old game of thrones... and as major villain some silly crab guy no one knows anything about to even care!
But the Rings of power kept us all awake! We did not like much Galadriel Storyline but all the rest we found very intriguing, particularly Elrond's story with Durin and Nori finding a stranger ... we are invested
My issues are:
- It’s trying to be game of thrones style, including featuring many different places and characters from the first episode beginning, telling a bunch of stories which really don’t work when one minute it’s about how the elves watch over the men in case they join evil again, creating tension between the immortal elves and the men who are not like their ancestors, the next it’s about Frodo 2.0 and her dumb friends trying to nick blackberries and falling over into mud.Or having a lot of gore, such as with the orc, as well as featuring much less fantastical places and mundane talk that doesn’t seem at all like the medieval high fantasy world of middle earth.
-Galadriel is made into a Arya Stark style character, messy, full of vengeance and very callous towards others.
-The elves don’t look like elves at all, no long flowing hair or youthful faces, no angel beings instead it’s short hair, plain clothes, and visibly old appearance which elves don’t have since they are immortal.
-They are trying to make morally grey characters, something that GOT does not LOTR, having Galadriel want to leave behind her fellow elves in the blizzard just to try and find any signs of Sauron, or the human guy character who ditches his friends to be eaten.
When Galadriel almost left that person behind I was just left gaping at the screen.
The morally grey should be the latter kings of Numenor. Why the show doesn't start with this, I'll never understand
The Harfoots dont make any sense. They are clearly a race of farmers but are constantly on the move. Where do they get all their food from? Galadriel being the only person competent while the men are trying to hold her back. How will they reconcile her not even being a part of the War of the Last Alliance? I shudder to think.
Great video!
I agree to all of what you said.
It's sad that so many films and series have become almost dependent on cgi. Old "camera tricks", optical illusions, masks, make up and animatronics is hard to beat when done right, and especially when combined with cgi (when needed).
This show seems to be immersion-breaking at every second. Or like you said, without magic.
Wow, cant believe you only have 2.4k subs.
Thats s video was probably as close to perfection as you can come.
Sophisticated but not verbose.
Detailed but straight to the point.
Mild manered but hard hitting.
Knowledgeable but simple to take in.
Excellent work.
I am quite impressed.
Have a sub, good Sir.
Thanks! I'm tempted to put your second paragraph on a T shirt.
Everyone’s writing this series off, but I don’t think that’s fair. After seeing the first two episodes I give it a 💩💩💩💩💩 out of 💩💩💩💩💩 ! 🤣
An excellent highly knowledgeable, rather academic oriented, and objectively focused commentary. Subscribed.
Thanks and welcome
Ditto
Very well put, It makes me wonder if all the money was spent on just buying companies out to remove any negative review tbh. Like how mine got deleted from both imbd and rotten tomatoes despite not having any profanity or aiming to be nasty.
If they didn't put all the social politics and garbage before actual content and did there homework this series could have been great, even with the lack of material they had to base it on. The acting is stiff, the writing is laughable & all you can read between the lines is woke garbage instead of focussing on compelling story telling. I was willing to give this dumpster fire a chance and i fell asleep on the first quarter of episode 2. Honestly the most disappointing thing I have watched in years.
How does that particular team win?
They cheat, and the remaining referees and coaches are terrorized of them.
There was plenty of material to base it on, and there were true Tolkien; LOTR lore experts at the ready; but they were simply ignored.
It has a 39% audience rating on rotten tomatoes and you think they are paying to remove bad reviews? Send me your dealers info he must have some good shit
@@rickbick2206 youve not heard? All negativereviews got deleted. And at least the first 3or so days nobody was allowed to review it.
Great video essay. 😁
Peter Jackson's (and J.R.R. Tolkien's) Galadriel is fallible, which makes her much more realistic and relatable. When she is tempted by the Ring, she says:
"And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!" Galadriel is feminine, powerful and formidable, but she's not above temptation. She realizes that with the ring, she would basically reign as a beautiful, dreadful, terrible and fair queen/quasi-goddess, comparing herself to the might and power of nature itself if that were to come to pass.
And yet, in front of all that power and temptation, she chooses to do the right thing, which is way harder. That's how strong she is, and that's the Galadriel we know and love. Not the angry Mary Sue who knows better than everyone else, waving her sword left and right with a scowl for centuries in hope of avenging her brother.
Of course but you refer to the final stage Galadriel who has already evolved and learned her shit ... Galadriel is not Gandalf... who has arrived on this plane as an old wise soul and in a shape of an old man ... she has actually been a child and teenager and had to grow up ... I think presenting an early Galadriel 3000 years before Isildur same as what we know her to be in the Lord of the rings would be just bad writing! I don't have an issue with how she was presented it is rather that her storyline was a bit boring, I excepted more exciting things from here!!!
@@Berndr It would indeed be bad writing, just like presenting an early Galadriel who is diametrically opposed to the one we know in LOTR and The Hobbit. No one wants the "young" Galadriel to be EXACTLY like the older one; of course we want her to evolve as a character. But did you notice the quotes I put around the word "young"? That's because she is *supposed* to be around 5,000 years old in the show. She's ALREADY super old. And yet, she's acting like a moody teenager out for revenge. That's what bothers me and a lot of people who were expecting more from a billion-dollar production. 🤔
@@Berndr early galadriel? Dude she's thousands of years old in the second age.. she can't be acting like a total teenager forcing everyone to follow her searching a needle in a haystack.. it would be more interesting if instead of a hotheaded woman warrior, she is potrayed as an early mage learning to unleashed and control her magical power and working alongside other elf character to perseve the world peace and FAILED which leads to the rise of sauron to power and the war started.. if the elves are this incompetent race that hate humans becoz of their alliances to the dark lord hundreds of years ago, then they deserve to perish.. why should we as the audience care about them when the only one who cares about sauron's existence is Galadriel because she's right to do so? Really, even after seeing the proof of the mark of sauron, not one elf is going to believe her? It doesn't make sense that they are willing to watch the humans but refuse to see that magical Adolf Hitler is still out there, plotting their demise.. she's the only one who sees it only so that she's proven to be right, and all the men should listen to her from the beginning.. that's a textbook definition of a marrie sue and that ain't Galadriel...
But PJ Galadriel has not seen what Amazon Galadriel has seen!!! 😆😆😆
@@catothecensor 😂😂😂
Imagine going into a project that delivers a huge audience before you shoot one scene, and alienating them by creating a mockery.
Rings of Power tried to be epic and continent spanning, yet managed to feel small. The epic power of Numenor was 3 ships (5 before the epic explosion), the epic conclusive battle was 50 rag tag orcs, 30 plucky villagers and 100 dashing cavalry, the epic King of the Southlands ruled over 2 villages (1 of which had been burnt to the ground). There was no scale or grandeur to accompany it's other flaws.
6) The cgi backgrounds looked good on their own but when the characters were placed in front of them they looked like the local news weatherman standing in front of a green screen. It looks like they did no post production integration or cleanup.
7) The armor is plastic. It has no color gradations nor does it look like it's cumbersome in any way. It looks like cheap halloween costumes. Once again, no post touch up/cleanup.
8) Ridiculously large swords that once again are clearly plastic. They are way to big to be casually twirled around in one hand, no matter how empowered a character may be.
9) All the different storylines so far have been set up to give the female characters in them the lead. Apparently only women in this world are capable of accomplishing anything. You can have female heroes in a show that work beside,and even lead, male heroes. The men don't have to be portrayed as idiots to make the women look smart. Anyone can look smart next to a moron. To make the woman look smart there needs to be other smart people she can outwit.
10) A follow up to 9 and to use the showrunners' and actors' rational: because there are no strong male characters I can 'identify' with I am unable to enjoy the show. I don't mind a story with a female lead just don't dumb down the men and make them cowards to make the woman seem smart or brave. Part of a woman being strong and brave is doing something that she is afraid of, just like a man.
Amazon sells more convincing chainmail on their own site, than what they wanted to pas for chainmail in this movie.
@@kamion53 And they could have gotten it practically for free, probably less than they paid a prop dept. to make that crap plastic stuff. I've seen better homemade armor worn by LARPers.
Welcome to my world. Who was I supposed to identify with in other fantasy movies and series for most of my life of 53 years? For example, for many many years, there were only male video game avatars. I had to put up with it -- I think you can probably tough it out. Also, give it a chance ... No male characters have been dumbed down. (it's not WoT (yet))
All I'm saying is that it comes across as really spoiled that you expect to always be represented.
@@robo5013 At least crap plastic 'armor' doesn't rust when you stand on a ships deck being sprayed with salt water.
@@stevnated I don't expect to be represented, I don't have a problem w/ strong female characters. I'm throwing the 'need to see myself on screen to be able to identify' argument back at the actors. I really enjoyed the character of Eowen in the books and the movies. She is an example of a strong female, doing something that she knows will probably result in her death but going through with it anyway. That's real strength of character. And what about Princess Leia? She was my 1st real example that I can remember of a princess, being 6 when I saw the movie for the 1st time in 1977. I was always disappointed by the portrayal of princesses afterwords, always waiting around to be saved. In my 50 years I've come to appreciate her character more, and for the last 10 have come to realize she was the true hero of the entire SW saga. Like I said, I don't have a problem w/ actual strong women, my mother was one, but they can still act like a woman. But I do find it funny that those that rail against the 'patriarchy' and 'toxic masculinity' feel that they have to give those very traits they profess to hate to their female characters to see them as strong.
And the so called Elven warriors were made to be whiny little bitches, and incompetent to boot, to make Galadriel seem strong. Them getting their asses handed to them by a troll that she took out in ten seconds was trite. It took the whole fellowship to barely take one out. And Elrond has definitely been dumbed down. Not having male leads is not why I don't enjoy ROP. It's simply bad.
Both sides of the complicated "diversity" debate are using this as some kind of weird deflection from the MAIN POINT -- the entire prequel seems like a failed fan fiction effort, not something in the highly complex and immersive universe of Tolkien and Jackson, quite honestly. Those two gave us a timeless and glorious masterpiece, but this new failure of a show has tainted and ruined the entire franchise...
Elrond and Galadriel's actors were at best average, and that is being VERY generous to both of them, and failed to seem very likable or engaging from the beginning to the end. The elves seemed so plastic, superficial and one-dimensional, lacking in both genuine gravitas and otherworldly mysticism and poise, and I was not impressed by Galadriel's failed Arctic mission or that weird half-naked giant crash-landing in front of two bickering female Hobbits. Is this what was supposed to grip millions of people from around the world? Besides, if nine elves were nearly killed by a single troll, what the heck was Galadriel planning to do to Sauron even if she did "find" him? And how did that Elven king grant them access to Valinor at whim, I thought only the Valar had that authority?? ***Almost NOTHING about this show was okay, guys.*** o_O
It's only a matter of time until Galadriel is twerking to a Cardi B song...
Just to bring Tolkien's work into the "modern age."
Galadriel opening onlyfans account and Aragorn simping for her would be just that.
Exactly, a few shallow, and well-paid amateurs are no substitute for the work of a great expert in language, a man of moral depth, and working out of love.
Brilliant summation. I mean, how difficult would it have been to see Galadriel initially doubting herself, and then an adult mentor/warrior builds her confidence and gets her to truly believe in herself and work hard to achieve her goals. A minute or so of backstory screen time. A bit rudimentary, I know, but at least then a viewer might have empathised if they thought she truly worked for and deserved the qualities they instilled in her. Too difficult for those hack writers, it seems.
Impossible, you see, she was outsmarting everyone since age 7
@@B88-h6n Let's call what it is: she is a bully and a bitch.
There is a big difference being being a leader and playing boss, the last mostly cause by lack of inner strenght.
what I've seen so far is someone playing boss.
It is a little weird that there is no character-building -- I am hoping it is because the first two episodes are setting us up for the real story.
Fair review, with well laid out and argued points. Subscribed.
I could have forgiven them a lot but the careless altering of fundamental lore plus the constant denials meant that unlike PJ, they were not owning or defending the reasons for their alterations.
Instead they preferred semantics, gaslighting and a campaign of name-calling against the fans.
They can keep their forked tongues behind their teeth.
Suilaid, mellon nin...
Two things drew me here: the subject matter, and your clever screenname. Coming here, I was quite pleased to see things laid out in an even-handed rational stream of thought.
You have earned a subscriber this day!
but it fails in the most important thing ... to explain the purpose of an adaptation, extra content, and purpose of entertainment that keeps the community alive... god knows how many bad Star trek series were.... yet the community was grateful for extra content and did not tray to sabotage the show ... they were happy someone actually bothered to give them more of content from that universe ... this particular show is set in an age I find extremely intriguing and sadly Tolkien did not write a book about this age when rings were actually forged ... he only left references and glossaries ... so of course producers have no book to get a dialog from ... and Tolkien was a linguist no way any writer can much that .. I am glad we got anything and people should stop whining and realize books will be always there and this is just an adaptation, another angle, and extra content! The only thing these idiots that calling themself Tolkien's so-called super fun are doing is scaring anyone from ever trying to make another adaptation of any other Toliens book ever ...
Great review, fully agree. After seeing 3 episodes, I can only say this is a poorly done show in all aspects, even music, composed and produced well, is sometimes too excessive as they are desperatly using it to convey something they could not convey visually - the entire show looks as if it was planned, written, acted and executed by some junior crew from university of arts. I can't see any show like this NOT being cancelled, but of course, this is Amazon's huge project and they will keep on pouring money into it regardless of the poor reception. For all of the people saying this should be seen in 4k, visuals are amazing etc, what exactly looks so great, tell me one scene? Literally every "big scene" has so many problems, be that location, camera, architecture, CGI... and just play few seconds of this vs. Jackson's movies (these had problems of their own, but it is a masterpiece comparing to this bleak fail), ignore the poor acting here, just look at the camera - is it just me or RoP look worse camera/lense vise compared to the LOTR triology, that is more than 20 years old??? Fellowship of the ring immediately look like an expensive movie, captivating and immersing you into the fantasy. Rings of Power can't do that. So many bad things can be said about this show, and we haven't even mentioned the butchering of the well established lore writen by one of the most prolific fiction writters of all times and most certainly the father of the epic fantasy genre.
I've said it many times but what Amazon committed is called Stolen Valor, both metaphorically and literally.
"Stolen Valor" is a term applied to the phenomenon of people falsely claiming military awards or medals they did not earn, service they did not perform, Prisoner of War experiences that never happened, and other tales of military actions that exist only in their minds.
This is exactly what they turned Galadriel into. A Karen spouting off war heroics she was never part of.
Then there is the rest. None of which it true in the books or even hinted at, everything twisted and a parody there of.
It is exactly what they said it would be... Tolkiens world destroyed and redressed.
That is an interesting perspective new to me. Well done!
@@bsa45acp There is no way that an early Galadriel who lived through the Morgoth and Sauron devastation, lost people, and unlike Gandalf who arrived on this plane as an old soul was an actual child and teenager once, is exactly the same as in Lord of the Rings! presenting Galadriel at this stage fully evolved as the way we see her 4000 years later in the Lord of the Rings, at the top of her power and grace would have been extremely bad writing! the presentation was fine ... but her story sadly was not as exciting as I expected! Seeing characters grow and evolve into what we know them to see is a good way to write!!
I felt that emptiness each time I watched one of the Star Wars sequels.
My favourite part was when Galadriel (a really likeable character and no way a Mary Sue Karen) shouted "Get to da Choppa".
I'm glad to be seeing reviews like this that go beyond what is shown on the screen and into STORYTELLING. A big production budget can only take a film or TV show so far; if the story and the storytelling sucks, then they pull the rest downwards.
The diversity IS the story. Sadly.
For me biggest concern is the writing. That ship and rock analogy makes zero sense and show is full of dialogues which feel out of place
1) Galadriel is unlikable.
2) The dialogue sucks, tries to hard and it takes ages for the actors to say anything.
3) The things spoken often make nonsense.
4) Four seperate plot lines in the first episodes are too much.
5) Thus almost nothing happens.
6) The characters are uniteresting with unclear traits.
7) Plot suffers from "And than this happaned" syndrome.
8) The CGI sucks.
9) The hooks at the end fall flat because we don't know what their relevance is.
10) Characters make stupid choices that should kill them but the writers save them with plot.
11) Generic world building that relies too much on the knowledge of the audience. The opening was far too generic for that kind of revenge plot the show wants to depict.
I agree with everything you said, except the identity politics part. Plenty of male characters have been written the way you describe, and indeed have been countered by powerful women. Bad writing is bad writing and bad characterisation is bad characterisation.
The Identity Politics part mainly comes from interviews and the actor/actresses constantly spamming the phrase "Diversity" and "Inclusion" and constantly trying to make it out that Tolkien and his fans are Racist/sexist/homophobic etc etc which is just bonkers on their part. They keep playing the "You can't relate to it unless you are the Gender/Skin colour of the race on screen" which is just hugely cringy on their part. Even trying to go into this with an open mind I couldn't brush off certain bits of writing as their agenda is kind of well known.
I can only hope that after this, Amazon will try to give up capitalizing on well-loved epics. I didn’t make it through a whole episode of Wheel of Time. I only lasted for the first 5 minutes of this.
MaReySu is no Skywalker, no matter how much Darth Kennedy and JarJar Abrums insist otherwise. I identify as the rightful dictator of this planet. That does not make is so.
This show claims relation to Tolkien’s work, the claim does not make it so.
Well said.
If I could add one more…
There is an imbued weave of vainglorious self-importance to the whole thing - as if this show’s entire existence was ‘ordained’ to occur. That it MUST be made… and beloved… and championed - precisely because the foundation is Tolkien’s world and was ‘made’ to be crafted, the show-runners were also ‘made’ to exist precisely at the right moment that Amazon was willing to spend the money, and the actors and actresses were ‘made’ to exist precisely at the correct modern moment to bring existing (and non-existing) characters to life.
None of this is actually true. The show might be better were it to take itself less seriously, the writers take a more humble tack, and the players look at themselves as custodians of fleshed out characters in no need of a modern take. Alas - the pride and stylized, but vapid, magnanimity creates a hollow shell.
Unlike Frodo inheriting the Ring from Bilbo, none of this was ‘made’ to occur and give us an encouraging thought.
Galadriel’s infallibility is boring because there is no tension/release in her story. You know she will be fine no matter what she faces: opposition from fellow elves, an ice mountain, the open ocean, a giant ice troll, a toxic relationship with Saurbrand. After showing us all that is barely an inconvenience for her, how are they going to make us care she’s in any “danger.” They can’t, because she’s already handily dealt with all those things. Any “danger” she’s in won’t make any sense. And we know she makes it through the second age and third ages so where are the stakes?
Btw, if she’s such a badass warrior and huntress of Sauron, where is she in the War of the Last Alliance? Why isn’t she there to save Gil-Galad and Elendil in the prologue of LOTR?
Nice vid! Congrats on the subscribers!
Im glad I’ve already seen “the journeys of Galadriel” on Nerd of the rings. Though I agree with you on several points, there are things/imagery/emotions etc that you’ll get only from reading the source material that unfortunately cannot be depicted well enough on a screen.
Same thing happened for Harry Porter readers. You might think the movies are actually trash after reading the books; Nonetheless great commentary 👍🏾
I also think this is the best commentary I've heard. You have my sub.
So well said the key is to make the hero relatable or human and do you accomplish with making the character having flaws. It's one thing every human or person can relate to.
I mean even Superman has flaws and can "win" against most superheroes but he has flaws which makes him able to relate to the viewer. And it's not about what type of flaws that has little to do with it. Anyway there is so much to complain about but one thing that stands out also is scenes or actions that don't make sense. And one scene is where Galadriel jumps off the boat in the middle of the ocean. I mean sure she don't want to go to that place but to jump into the sea far far far away from shore don't make any sense at all. I am no expert in Tolkien lore but are elves swimmers with infinite amount of stamina?
I understand where you are coming from ... But Tolkien himself on purpose made characters too Woke fairy tales - like to distinguish evil from good, after the war in our actual world he felt that was needed, there was no place for the confusion ... that's why is funny that people complain that the show is woke ... Not one of his main characters has a true flaw... Legolas, Frodo, Gandalf, Elrond , Galadriel, Gimly , Eowyn ... you name it ... they are all moral and politically correct with no shades of gray, and most importantly they always chose to do the right thing ( The only character who comes close to having shades of gray is Gollum, even Boromir is presented as actually good but succumbed and even he at the end choose to do the right thing he gives his life for the Hobbits ) ... and yet on other hands all enemies characters are truly evil!
If a little flimsy hobbit can march with a ring all the way to Mordor ( as Boromir said not a whole army can ) and survive the month with no food nor experience or training, I am sure Galadriel as an immortal elf who just spent 2 centuries chasing enemies across the world and fighting can swim and float in the water for a day!
Part of the problem is also the fact those older men are in fact much younger than Galadriel is in the lore yet she acts like a spoiled brat.
yeh, they really don't know how to write elves, nor do they understand Galadriel.
They actually cucked her....and I am not sure if I should laugh or cry at the irony.
You could write a novel just on all the things Amazon did wrong with ROP. They make elves look like humans with pointy ears. They’re supposed to look almost angelic. There is so much wrong with ROP it’s hard to tell where to start. Your average Tolkien fan could have done a better job than those two clown show runners. I could hear Gollum saying in that gargley voice “youzz ruined it”. I think Amazon and those two show runners did this with malicious intent and a secret disliking of Tolkien and his fans. They didn’t like Tolkiens world so they did to his work what Morgoth did to some of the elves when he turned them into orcs. They underestimated Tolkien fans thinking they would get away with it.
Tolkien meant to create a proper western mythology. This rings of power is a bunch of people trying to play identity politics. It's ridiculous.
This show is totally disaster.
I don’t know where I’ve to start explaining how disgusting this show is, to much ! 🤮🤮🤮🤬🤬🤬
This lad deserves a subscription!
Bro - you just got a subscriber because of how well you executed your analysis of the show.
This show is like watching someone pretenting to be of your beloved relatives or friends that have long passed away.
The most accurate and entertaining autopsy I have ever watched.
Happy to dissect the warm corpse for your pleasure!
To put it simply - you preaching to the choir, brother! So, thank you. As I have stated elsewhere, I couldn't get past the first twenty minutes of episode 1. I was going nope, nope and at the twenty minute mark. I went, "Oh, Hell no!". And that is when I re-watched "House of the Dragon" again. So, I write here, to Hell with Amazon's "The Whore of the Rings: The Rings of Wokeness".
This review was perfect. I watched the first two episodes and was left feeling 50/50 but i couldnt put my finger on it. I didnt know if i enjoyed it or not. Something felt off and after watching this video it clarified my thoughts.
Then change the channel and stop watching.
@@coegj i did haha so youre comment is shit
Why are there old looking elves? They dont age!!!
Where are the horses? or any animals for that matter so far we've had 1 cow and 1 warg.
People seen travelling the world, not a single backpack to be seen.
1 black elf in a race of white elves does not make your show diverse. It does kind of show you are a bit racist in casting extras.
Celebrimbor (the oldest looking elf) is supposed to be younger then Galadriel. The whole thing is so bizzare.
They put the token black in a Tolkien story
@@mr.miyagi5474 whatever. They all get old at 50. So none should look older except compared to those recently borned.
Children grow up, so how can there not be older elves?
@@georgepatton6195 you mean the Tolkien Black 😉
Everything the The Lord of the Rings was, The Rings of Power is not. It has no soul. Nothing is relatable or familiar. Spectacle without substance. Your summation is spot on.
Well thought out, you communicated what the issues were very clearly. Frustrating that it has turned out so poorly
The bullying scene didn't make any sense... she's like Elven royalty.
" It's just that awful modern thing: content": 1oo% point on.
I'm politically very far left, and agree with every point of your (very engaging and cleverly constructed) analysis of the failures of this show.
House of the Dragon may not be Games of Thrones season 1, but at least it escapes many of the loopholes you listed.
It's really amazing to see someone so kind, intelligent, and open minded.
Goes to show everyone, we should never generalize or judge someone according to the political ideology they subscribe too.
Very cool, thank you!
It stuns me that Galadriel is can even be viewed as a bereft, OP, Mary Sue warrior, my mind cannot allow for that analysis. I wanted so much to see the actual OP Galadriel character meet a challenge capable of humbling her, a fall of sorts. Her journey would be in growing to overcome such an unexpectedly worthy foe, perhaps with the aid of her ring that she has a hand in creating. Sorry, I am going all fan fiction on what ifs.
"There is a tempest in me..." epic dialogue, when doing business on the throne. Truly I will use it all the time from now onwards.
Can you imagine . The heroine of rings of power easily dethroned brie larson without breaking a sweat 💪
Just from what I saw in this video, I would point out one glaring problem. I assume it's Galadriel who gets into a fistfight as a child. As an elven child. No different than a human child. Someone does not understand Tolkien's elves.
UA-cam suggested your channel. I watched and listened and I subscribed.
When it comes to dialogues they all spoke in allegories at community theater quality level.
I really appreciate this analisys, simple but straight to the heart of the matter. You deserve a subscription.
Thanks so much.
A terrific essay. You're right - it's everything we feared.
Showing Galadrial and other elves as kids was such a huuuuge mistake! Galarial, in fact all elves are supposed to be unfathomable, in wisdom and power. They're prob gonna show Sauron as a yong boy playing with sticks next.
We find out Sauron is acutally Kylo ren when he takes his mask off.
The beginning bit with the kids was just naff. Young elf bullies is ridiculous, and the child actors were very wooden. If they wanted to show a child-Galadriel, how about have her make her swan-boat...and have it destroyed by something that has some relevance to future events. A dark crow or raven, such as one of the crebain...even just a shadowy figure fleeting on the wind. Not a freakin' brat throwing stones ending in elf-brat punch-up...
This analysis put all the right words on the impressions these two episodes left on the back of my mind.
Eloquent and accurate. This is THE very best critique I have heard to date. Thank you!!!
Thanks, man, really appreciate it.
Amazon has managed to rediscover the lost art of alchemy. Sadly they have taken gold and presented the target audience with a lesser metal.
Just look at that troll killing. She flashes the sword around with some kind of theatrical display, not a hair out of place, no sweat, heavy breathing, dishevelled or dirty. It's a joke.
Then look at Aragorn and Boromir when they fought....much more realistic.
Its just a children series, not even Tolkien. The Hobbit, a children's book, was more realistic.
Absolutely loved your commentary about this series. With my blessing, may you gain a lot more subscribers and find huge success.
Thank you so much!
You forgot a big one-
6. A need to push "the message" and ram far left idea's down peoples throats. (but then thats pretty much EVERY movie or tv show these days, so maybe at this point that's just a given)
Yet, it is not failing. These Channels are funny.
Well said. This could convince most viewers who have an open mind.
Pretty much spot on video.....well spoken and worth the watch.
"Do you know why a shit floats and a stone cannot?"
fibre
SOooo well put, Subscribed.
Do tell more Sir.
The dialogue was so cringe that it was like playing a bad Dungeons and Dragons game.
...and this is what does not make sense, because Galadriel already has rank and status. She was the grandaughter of the High King of the Noldor, Finwe. Two of her Uncles were Kings.
In terms of her being overpowered, I totally agree. I'm already seeing people saying that she could take down Sauron in a one on one fight. Sauron is a Maia, a fallen angel. Even Gandalf, who was also a Maia, struggled against the Balrog, and every other Elf in the Legendarium who ever killed a Balrog died in attempt.
But no, apaprently Galadriel could defeat Sauron himself. No problem.
Nonsense! The best part of the series was when Galadriel looked down and said "you know NOTHING, Jon Snow".
Excellent video. You’re opinions are brilliant.
The Harfoots are nomads who can read and write? Why on Earth would nomadic people need to read and write?
I am not that well spoken. So I will just say it sucks.
Something that jumped out at me was how flat the background was! And just all the sets feel green screen and I assume that's because they are but I've not noticed it on any other example
Some of the best analysis I’ve seen so far. And I’ve watched most of UA-cam.
I can not, & most certainly will never watch this show. I refuse to have my memories of an epic story ruined.. fudat🤬
Great video btw🙂👍
and yet plenty of us are enjoying it, despite what this video might infer.
Beautiful review 👍🏻 cheers from Egypt 🇪🇬
I had trouble following it. I couldn't figure out why "hobbit" was verboten but "Khazad-Dum" wasn't. The naval CGI was pretty badly done. I'm guessing there was no nautical advisor. :(
Simple, unscientific fact about TROP: I haven't spoken to one neighbor, family member, co-worker, or friend who liked it and was looking forward to future episodes.
4:10-5:00- basically the world, including your video.
Honestly the reason why it so bad is because it looks down therefore it doesn’t float…
Wonderful, well-explained, points. As soon as you said vainglorious, I clicked SUBSCRIBE.
It actually is simple then that...Mae g’ovannen! By Canon Those that accept Rings of Power are corrupted Those that claim to be phans must have judgement! This show is heresy. we just released our UA-cam audio production on this matter. We called this heresy Jan 21, and declared it 25 March 22. Hope is kindled though, keep up the fight! "Exsurge Tolkien" is Novus Renaissances's Official Encyclical in defense of Professor J.R.R Tolkien's Legendary Middle Earth Mythology. It is one of the comprehensive responses against ROP Heresy.
They got me to watch through 2 episodes, I won’t give them any more of my time
We both know that's not true... otherwise, you would have stopped watching it after the first episode... nor would you have even bothered to come over here and comment ... It is the middle earth and you know it ... even though not the middle earth you and I wanted, but honestly any true fun would take whatever we are given ... just another chance to experience middle earth again even if it is not as perfect... maybe it will be the only other adaptation we ever get in our lifetimes...
so I will take it!
I am aware Tolkien did not write a book that covers this age just before making the rings except mentioned in glossaries ... so why expect perfection when they had no book they could follow ... Yet Jackson actually had a detailed book and still could not do it ... and as result, we never got Old forest, Old Oak, Bombadil, Goldberry, then he even replaced Glorfindel with Arwen, messed up characters like Faramir ... and then the worst he completely changed ending with Saruman in the Shire ... Then what he did with Hobbit was an atrocity, a theme park ride that had little to do with the actual book, a money milking cash cow for Tolkien suckers spread across 3 movies .... so let's be objective here ...
I as a woman want to see a feminine woman who is strong from within and not constantly on edge.
We’re 2 episodes in. Relax.
They should cancel it.
We KNOW Galadriel is going to survive. What we learn of her is that she's just so wonderful! How can the others there not recognize this? Particularly the MEN who traveled with her in the search for Sauron FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS. Those losers completely failed against a mere troll! Can't say much for their centuries of martial training under her.