I understand what you infer there but tbh in the last couple of years I've been more distrusting of negative reviews than of positive ones esp. when it comes to the users. There's always this agenda attached to those negative ones. I was seeing that with the movie "Prey" negative user reviews/youtube reviews (anyone can guess the agenda there). Same thing I'm seeing with TROP, most of the negative reviews I've seen on youtube are from ones who've had already decided to hate the show for a while due to reasons like "too woke", "trashing Tolkien-ian legacy", "different Galadriel" etc etc. The neutral non-Tolkien-ian reviewers and Tolkien-ian youtubers have been positive citing a couple of things they're unsure about just from the first couple of episodes. Though with everything, I'll need to watch it first to make my mind about it and I've been cautiously positive about it for a while.But how many of those positive reviews were brought by the showrunners? The user reviews will be a more accurate description.
Hollywood seems to be in a slump in terms of creativity these days, so I'm keeping my expectations in check for Rings of Power. Something halfway consumable will be fine
Hopefully it can at least compete with House of the Dragon which has been good so far.
Television The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
- Thread starter DWelbz19
- Start date
Critic reviews > user reviews.
That's not always the case. The more high-profile something is, the less true it is sometimes. Watchmen has a 56% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, but I guess that's because the protagonist is a black woman and (some of) the antagonists are white supremacists. But wasn't there already some drama about black people being cast as elves and dwarves? LotR might be too big for that to matter, but there's no accounting for internet racists.
First episode felt grandiose, and cinematic. I think it did a really good job diving right into the plot and getting us back into Middle earth geography meeting a lot of the main characters in a natural way that flowed pretty well. I don't know a lot of this particular lore so for me I think it was an A opening. I'll watch the second episode tomorrow.
I liked the characters for who they are I don't mind adding diverse casting, it didn't come off as any agenda all the actors so far were strong for what they showed. I thought the music was great and it looked and sounded like hundreds of millions Amazon invested.
I liked the characters for who they are I don't mind adding diverse casting, it didn't come off as any agenda all the actors so far were strong for what they showed. I thought the music was great and it looked and sounded like hundreds of millions Amazon invested.
It’s astounding how much people get their panties in a bunch over skin colour. From English language comment sections to Norwegian language comment sections, it’s a fecking constant. It’s the same as with people getting worked up by, say, gay representation, as if it’s forced upon them. And then they cloak it all behind being Tolkien purists, as if the skin colour was a crucial aspect of a real historical account.
White heterosexuals = normal. Black homosexual? Blatant agenda! These people have no clue what it feels like to almost never have your existence acknowledged, except as some sort of weird and different presence that needs explaining. Shows how much work remains in normalizing things.
To be fair though, I never fully realized just how much of a point this was until a friend of mine from Africa told me he tries to make sure he mainly watches shows where he feels represented, because he started to realize the toll it took on him. Really hard for a member of the status quo default groups to get.
Amen.
As others have already said. That’s bullshit. Users will downvote just because a show has replaced a white character with a black actor and call it too woke, it happens so much. Or simply because it doesn’t follow the book like they thought it would. User reviews are the most unreliable medium of them all.But how many of those positive reviews were brought by the showrunners? The user reviews will be a more accurate description.
Hollywood seems to be in a slump in terms of creativity these days, so I'm keeping my expectations in check for Rings of Power. Something halfway consumable will be fine
Hopefully it can at least compete with House of the Dragon which has been good so far.
critics reviews are generally a good gauge when it comes to tv shows at least these days. They can get them wrong but I’ve found 90% of shows that have a good approval to be at least a semi good watch, which hopefully this will be.
The reason I'll always favour the people - and when I say people, I'm referring to the everyday working man who gives zero shits for which side is elected president of the US, including the majority of US citizens - is that we have no agenda one way or another. We merely want to see a good movie/TV show, play a good video game or listen to good music we enjoy, and our feelings will absolutely reflect that when it comes to rating them on the likes of IMDB, Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, etc. I truly believe that.
You have to look past the bullshitters, though, because, as you correctly point out, the haters will do everything in their power to compromise the rating to further their agenda, but if you dive into those user reviews, actually read what people have to say about the product, you can separate the genuine reviews from the false ones with little difficulty. The self-professed "experts of the entertainment industry" are far less trustworthy, in my honest-to-God opinion, as they've given us fake reviews for decades because they've been paid to do so. We all know they do it, lads/lasses. Let's not pretend otherwise.
User reviews all the way. You, me, the silent majority. We are the shit
(Minor rant alert)
That we're having this discussion on a sub-forum of another forum dedicated to a football team based in the NW of England speaks volumes to the influence of American politics in society today. Mainly in Western civilization, but its influence is felt the world over through the numerous social media and mass-media platforms designed to perpetuate it. feck American politics and feck social media. Like, painfully. And totally without lubricant.
(Rant ceased)
That we're having this discussion on a sub-forum of another forum dedicated to a football team based in the NW of England speaks volumes to the influence of American politics in society today. Mainly in Western civilization, but its influence is felt the world over through the numerous social media and mass-media platforms designed to perpetuate it. feck American politics and feck social media. Like, painfully. And totally without lubricant.
(Rant ceased)
I thought it was overall a great start.
Visually it was on a par, in fact better than most high budget films out there. Absolutely stunning.
All 3 story paths were interesting, even the half foots whom I thought may just be a filler to the series. The characters are well done too.
I predicted before both series came out that I would enjoy this more than HotD, and from seeing both now this has started off better for me
Visually it was on a par, in fact better than most high budget films out there. Absolutely stunning.
All 3 story paths were interesting, even the half foots whom I thought may just be a filler to the series. The characters are well done too.
I predicted before both series came out that I would enjoy this more than HotD, and from seeing both now this has started off better for me
Can't wait to start this. Guess it's also a weekly episode and not a whole season?
Yeah. First two dropped today, then once a week on Fridays.
Alright, so who is
meteorite man? He’s got to be one of the…Mayars(?) or whatever it is that Gandalf is. So maybe it is he, or will it be Saruman in a twist?
Looks very good and high quality production. Much better than house of dragon.
Rings of power? More like Rings of Boredom
I think Maiar too. It looked like he came from the direction of Valinor, as Gil-Galad first saw him coming from the Sundering Seas.
*wagging finger* Oh no he di'nt!
i don't think this is a good standard any more. critics are easily bought and there's a trend where a new show might enter with low ratings but be revised as user engagement goes up and enter in its second season with ratings far above the first despite no discernible difference in quality.
the best gauge is to combine each. also, critics share a narrow, or niche, cultural capital which praises certain things and despises others. that is often at odds with the majority of people who watch television and film. critics, generally, are incredibly liberal, and i don't mean left wing, whereas the audience is rarely so liberal as your average critic, and i don't mean they're racist, or sexist, or anything else, either, just that they're not pretentious cnuts who see meaning in symbolic nonsense by virtue of a degree in film studies.
in my experience, look for a 15-20 point difference between critic and audience, either way, and it usually means one group has a minor problem with the ideological value but generally likes the work whilst the other likes both the work and ideological value.
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Oh dear. I think I'll be giving this one a miss
Rings of Power: The new hobbits are filthy, hungry simpletons with stage-Irish accents. That’s $1bn well spent
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/...ith-stage-irish-accents-thats-1bn-well-spent/
Rings of Power: The new hobbits are filthy, hungry simpletons with stage-Irish accents. That’s $1bn well spent
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/...ith-stage-irish-accents-thats-1bn-well-spent/
Only seen the 1st episode so far, but Im in Loving it.
Loving it.Seen the first two and I am enjoying more than house of dragon.
Seeing the whole range of opinions on this from shite, boring, decent to great. Curious to see what I make of it now.
Toneally feels right and looks great.
Seeing Lenny Henry pop up is funny.
Seeing Lenny Henry pop up is funny.
I watched the first two episodes and it's actually a good start, enjoying all the storylines so far and I think the strange old man is...
Gandalf
The explanation they gave is that they didn't go for a direct Irish accent, but instead went for an accent that sounded familiar but also just slightly different enough so you wouldn't just think "Irish". I've not watched it yet, but does sound like they're being a little butthurt with that article. From what i've seen in the promo material, they're actually pretty smart nomads that hide from 'men' using camouflage, hence their 'dirty' appearance. It's meant to make them blend in with the foliage.
If an Irish person tells you it's that awful American stage Irish shite then that's what it is. He's also watched some of it.
It's not that bad at all, actually quite interesting and unique.
Are you Irish though? I don't suppose other nationalities would really notice or care too much.
It just makes me crazy why huge companies do this. I know, it's for the market name and that name alone will get viewers, but it's temporary and the end result will be a disappointment.
I'm not going to say that it's crap or that it's a joke if you go in with Lord of the Rings expectation. I will say that that reason TLoTR was so incredibly good, just like Game of Thrones, was because the writers of those stories and characters, were superb, world class level story tellers.
It just seems so fecking obvious that if you try to compete with an actual writer, a by now classic one, you will fecking fail. So why do it? Why not create a new Universe, a new story. Why expose yourself as a mediocre non talented corporate agenda driven hack? I just don't get it.
The visuals are good.
I'm not going to say that it's crap or that it's a joke if you go in with Lord of the Rings expectation. I will say that that reason TLoTR was so incredibly good, just like Game of Thrones, was because the writers of those stories and characters, were superb, world class level story tellers.
It just seems so fecking obvious that if you try to compete with an actual writer, a by now classic one, you will fecking fail. So why do it? Why not create a new Universe, a new story. Why expose yourself as a mediocre non talented corporate agenda driven hack? I just don't get it.
The visuals are good.
No but I have family on my Mums side that are Irish, and I know a lot of Irish people. Don't think they'd be arsed and don't think these accents are that bad.
For the most part I enjoyed it. I found the Harfoots and the Dwarves cringe as feck and I kept been pulled out of the emersion every time they were on the screen. I found the Dwarves worse than the Harfoots as I actually liked the character of Nori but all the others were awful.
Really enjoyed the first two episodes. I’m not going to compare with GOT as it’s just very different but for me personally I’ll enjoy both.
Solid start.
Galadriel and Elrond both portrayed strongly. Hope it survives the court of public opinion.
Galadriel and Elrond both portrayed strongly. Hope it survives the court of public opinion.
Overall, it was decent enough I guess but there are some concerns. The fight with the snow troll was cringe; like we get that Galadriel is a tough warrior but you don’t have to turn her into a gloomy version of Legolas.
The badass elf soldier in love with the hot brunette mum is the early favorite to be…my favorite. I am feeling more excited about Hot D (the show) and I still trust HBO more, but kudos to Amazon for dropping two episodes at the start which I think is nice for a new show.
The badass elf soldier in love with the hot brunette mum is the early favorite to be…my favorite. I am feeling more excited about Hot D (the show) and I still trust HBO more, but kudos to Amazon for dropping two episodes at the start which I think is nice for a new show.
it's most likely yeah. I recall he was "of light and fire", so it's a safe bet
Did the weird range in Hobbit accents bother you in the LOTR adaptation? Just curious.
I do like that character arc seeing where they take will be interesting.
It’s terrible to be honest and ruined the 2 episodes for me, it’s akin to Pitt’s attempt at an Irish accent in terms of how bad it was.
Each to their own, honestly didn't bother me one bit.
I didn’t even notice, but then again I was the guy who said a shit southern US accent ruined Knives Out for me so I don’t have room to argue.
Going in tonight. Can someone let me know if they are doing the Marvel/Whedon quippy humour thing? I am so done with that style, and I can't think of a worse fit for Tolkien so hoping not.