The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Prime)

I really don’t get “the sets and costumes are rubbish” comments.

Can someone post a few screen shots and point out exactly what’s wrong with them?

Someone said earlier that the armour looked like cardboard or something - since then I’ve been looking out for this cardboard armour but haven’t noticed it (shrugs).

E: There’s plenty of valid criticism of TRoP, I just don’t see the sets and costumes as one of them.

Go and look at the costumes and armour in LOTR and compare them to the ones in ROP and then get back to me.
 
These days these shows just don't give you a great deal of feel for where you are on the world map. It's the same diverse collection of people wherever you go. There's no sense of world building. People flit from one side of the world to the other in half an episode.
 
These days these shows just don't give you a great deal of feel for where you are on the world map. It's the same diverse collection of people wherever you go. There's no sense of world building. People flit from one side of the world to the other in half an episode.
To be fair, Robert Jordan employed at least four methods, encountered so far, in the WOT books. First of all you got the ways and waygates. Then you got the stones scattered about the place which could open a portal and take you elsewhere. Rand discovered how to create portals himself for fast travel. Oh and one of the girls discovered the simple expedient of falling asleep and fast travelling in a dream could teleport you to the final location, when they were trying to reach Salidar. At least Tolkien only ever used the Mines Of Moria in LOTR and then it was the same distance mile, for mile.
 
To be fair, Robert Jordan employed at least four methods, encountered so far, in the WOT books. First of all you got the ways and waygates. Then you got the stones scattered about the place which could open a portal and take you elsewhere. Rand discovered how to create portals himself for fast travel. Oh and one of the girls discovered the simple expedient of falling asleep and fast travelling in a dream could teleport you to the final location, when they were trying to reach Salidar. At least Tolkien only ever used the Mines Of Moria in LOTR and then it was the same distance mile, for mile.
Well the waygates were used very sparingly due to machin shin and the main characters inability to control their power for 5 odd books iirc, same with portals - travelling, ditto dreamwalking etc.

Anyway, Ivan does have a valid point in that theres no sense of how much time is passing by and of course, everywhere looks the same when its the same paint by numbers 'diversity quota' regardless of where you are in the world.
 
Look at how good they did it, in the PJ movies - take the Uruk army from Isengard, they show them leaving, then they show them marching on that Aragorn see's from when he fell off the cliff (which seemed to be purely to show the approaching army) and then them marching at the gates. It (to me at least) really showed that it was some time that they marched to make it there.
 
66% of those who started season 1, did not finish it.

We know season one had issues, but season 2 seems to be doing well. 40 million viewers in 11 days and a higher rotten tomatoes score then house of the dragon. It really does seem that the hardcore fans hate it, but people who only have a mild/passing interest are enjoying it. Lets see what the last few episodes of the season bring.
 
We know season one had issues, but season 2 seems to be doing well. 40 million viewers in 11 days and a higher rotten tomatoes score then house of the dragon. It really does seem that the hardcore fans hate it, but people who only have a mild/passing interest are enjoying it. Lets see what the last few episodes of the season bring.
Well amazon are a bit sneaky with the view numbers, but as a comparison Fallout had 65 million.

Places like samba who track viewer numbers in the US had the opening under a million.
 
Really really tried to like the show, which I still do I guess, like not actively hating it.

But watching episode 6 I was asking myself why the hell, nearing the end of season 2, do we still know so little about this wizard. How can you drag this storyline out for 2 seasons. It’s a few episodes at best, there’s nothing riveting there that needs 2 seasons to drag out at a snails pace. I found myself browsing the phone during half of the wizard scenes. The ****** still doesn’t know his own name or where his staff is, 2 seasons!

Hoping the last two episodes are bangers. But I got a feeling they are going to end with the wizard remembering his name and finding his staff, or just the staff as some sort of killer ending.
 
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We know season one had issues, but season 2 seems to be doing well. 40 million viewers in 11 days and a higher rotten tomatoes score then house of the dragon. It really does seem that the hardcore fans hate it, but people who only have a mild/passing interest are enjoying it. Lets see what the last few episodes of the season bring.

Viewing figures are way down on S1, so who is enjoying it exactly?


That 40 million views is 11 days, which means access to 4 episodes, whereas Amazon themselves reported that day one of S1 had 25 million views, that's a catacylismic dropoff, it was beaten last week by a show about Mormon Housewives...

:cry:
 
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But watching episode 6 I was asking myself why the hell, nearing the end of season 2, do we still know so little about this wizard. How can you drag this storyline out for 2 seasons. It’s a few episodes at best, there’s nothing riveting there that needs 2 seasons to drag out at a snails pace. I found myself browsing the phone during half of the wizard scenes. The ****** still doesn’t know his own name or where his staff is, 2 seasons!

Hoping the last two episodes are bangers. But I got a feeling they are going to end with the wizard remembering his name and finding his staff, or just the staff as some sort of killer ending.

Wouldn't get your hopes up - season 3 has the go ahead and they've scheduled 5 seasons in total... so probably going to drag it out for at least a couple more seasons yet :s
 
It's a vanity project at this point, no-one cares, and there's no saving it. I mean they could see sense after S2 and kill it, but from we've all seen of huge companies is that do not like admitting they're wrong, see Disney, and if they do admit they're wrong (internally anyway) they just blame "toxic white males" publicly...

Entertainment isn't Amazon's core business it is but a small slice of their pie, so they could easily justify continuing.

More than likely they will hubristically plough on regardless until the bitter and tragic end. You have to wonder if the some of the actors are thinking "This is killing my career"...I hope all the Oxford shills are thinking "I sold my soul to Amazon and sold out JRR Tolkien into the bargain, for this?"

Yeah, burn in the fires of Mount Doom shills.
 
Viewing numbers good?

No no they are not. Massive drop off from season 1 backing up the numbers from Nelson.

An increase in Christmas prime subs on the way to give them something to grasp at

Show will get a 3rd season but probably one of those long seasons cut into two to finish it off.

Or just into the bin. Some publications already hinting at that.

As for normies. That’s a no also. Normies is what makes up the huge veiwing numbers. They tuned out also.
 
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I haven’t seen this new series but maybe it’s informed by modern film techniques and filters.

When the first Hobbit film came out, I saw the 48 fps version (double frame rate compared to the norm) and the costumes looked super cheap and ridiculous, like from a CBBC show!

Grain and filters can help the ridiculous look more cinematic… ‘improving’ the visuals can actually make it look more goofy. Especially with the fantasy genre.

Just an idea.

That could explain it. It ties in with C Kent’s comments about it looking ‘too clean’:

It suffers from the same thing that a lot of amazon produced fantasy shows do in that the world is largely to clean, it doesn't feel lived in.

Netflix had the same problem with some of the Witcher.

I just watched E6 last night. I can’t say I particularly noticed this and I was looking for it after your comment.

If I had to be picky, then it could sometimes apply to the the Elves and the people of Númenor… but then they’re meant to be a bit special.

It wasn’t so out of place that it distracted me from the world-building.

What I found more strange was:
At the trial by sea monster, when the queen comes back out of the sea, there’s only about 20 people on the rocks. I would have expected an event like that to have been more of a spectacle with a much bigger audience.

I’ve noticed this a few times in TRoP (and HoTD for that matter). In other series like GoT they seemed to do a better job of scale when it comes to crowds - even if it’s CGI to save on the budget for extras.
 
It wasn’t so out of place that it distracted me from the world-building.


World building?

What world building?

Everything they have done is wrong. More like world destroying actually.

:D
 
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