Why are you like this?

@@remortisgaming why not

And when she said to Elrond , "" I need your boot , your clothes and your bike''.

@@karlsweeney2328 Still not as stale as the Rings of Power.

@@karlsweeney2328 It's getting close, but there are almost infinite combinations yet to be explored.

Greatest movies of all time.

Thank you.

Thank you for your service. I mean this statement for a chuckle and also genuinely mean it.

Thank you!

wow, how cool must that have been! i love those movies! 💚

It even took many years for Morgoth to sway even Fëanor, who at least started unhappy because of the death of Miriel. I can't imagine elf kids bullying each other. Heck, I can't imagine elf kids bullying each other in Beleriand, much less in Valinor before Morgoth.

Yup - literally the opening scene of the show is absolute bullshit showing you just how little these clowns know about Tolkiens work.

You are more or less correct. There are many examples of Elves not being so "perfect" as you seem to imply, like Fäenor. The idea that just because they are bathed in divine light makes them perfect is completely opposite to what Tolkien implies, which they still have their own faults and distinctions from each other, which is how Melkor was able to manipulate the Noldor easier than the other factions. We don't have any timeframe here, because they cannot use Silmarillion, but it is completely possible that Melkor was already released at this point and if so then his corruption of the Noldor could already be happening in some small aspects. It also would make sense that children growing up would still have many children-like attitudes, including throwing rocks at a paper object because it's just one of those "stupid" children attitudes that is not really bullying. What I found was a kinda bad was Galadriel's immediate resort to violence (and not for first time) with Findor just casually scolding her...Elf on Elf violence should be almost taboo, something that never happened. Even if they are children, still learning, I think it would have been handled much harsher; but then again, they wanted to show Findor - Galadriel connection being a deep one, where he taught with love instead of being hard. Honestly, I don't understand half the problems people have with the show...

@@tiagomagalhaes7032 Of course you don't understand... you didn't grow up as a geek/nerd but only joined the bandwagon when it was made popular due to the advent of CGI in shows that made it "mainstream". Let me help you with just one part of it - Elves live for thousands of years. Their idea of life for them differs a lot from humans. Especially when growing up. Imagine being a "child" for decades... then hundreds of years as a young adult. Tolkien's depiction clearly demarcates the differences of the races so don't try to rationalize elven children to behave like human children.

@@mouselim72 I read Tolkien 29 years ago (I am 38 now), reading the Hobbit for the first time is one of the major points in my life that I can remember clearly as if it was yesterday; I read the entire trilogy in less than a week because I could simply not stop reading it. I read the Silmarillion before the movies came out, I have every single book he wrote and the compilations of his short stories and notes that his son released, like Tom Bombadill; I even have his Farmer Giles of Ham book, so maybe you should not make assupmtions without knowing? Also, that arrogance of "I liked it before it was cool" is literally the thing that only stupid sad geeks like you do...I know people who only started watching Star Wars movies with the latest trilogy that have a deep love for the original ones, it does not make them any less of a fan than me. Stop trying to be a geek gatekeeper, especially when you are not even a good one at that...seriously, are you at that point in your life that you need to push "geek credentials"? You are just as sad as those idiots who used to make fun of geeks for things they did not understand... Tolkien clearly describes human traits like arrogance, prideful, shame, ambition and such in many of the Elven characters BEFORE Morgoth release. He also very clearly wrote about Morgoth having an easier time manipulating the Noldor because of their failings, like Faenor being prepared to kill Fingolfin just because Morgoth manipulated him, and he was not the only one. The entire point of the story is that it does not matter if Elves are immortal and children take decades to grow up, they are not perfect beings, they have feelings of jealousy, pride, arrogance, etc etc. Those children might have just been jealous that Galadriel was able to create that; the only part that I consider bad is Galadriel being ready to hit the other child, when Elf on Elf violence was supposed to be unthinkable...however, they are still just children who need to learn to be better. Did I help you know more or are you going to keep being a dumbass? :)

Raz0rfist did a great version of this.

Dang dude! That was coooool and hilarious

Hobbit movies were kinda shit

GENIUS!

Now i could watch that and actually like it

Someone really should have told the directors to use scenes with the hair and makeup on...

In Lord of the Rings (the book and the real movies, made by Peter Jackson) Elves dont feel cold. That's why Legolas effortlessly walks on top of the snow in light clothing while the rest of the Fellowship struggle during the pass of Caradhras sequence. But zero fucks were given by any writers here.

Yes. The elves are supposrd to be immortal beings who have very few children, very far in between. They aren't an post-industrial-revolution society that goes to work and leaves it's children to their own devices either. A scene where a bunch of elven children play without any supervision should thus be impossible. Nobody sat down and had a think; "ok, these are immortal creatures who live for hundreds, thousands of years. How would they work? What would a hunt that lasted several hundred years LOOK like?"

@@RRTNZ Something about Mr Underhill's Elvish typewrite?

Humans with comic book pointy ears

The games have more story

Maybe, but maybe not. I know nothing of the 1st and 2nd age of Middle Earth save what was mentioned in the other movies. I enjoyed it just the same. Everyone over thinks everything.

I enjoyed it. I am a Tolkien fan.

Tolkien fan here, liking the show a lot. But then I am not trying to find reasons to hate it.

@@jeremyanderson3819 Hate is a strong a word,but reasons to dislike it are not at all hard to find kinda right up front

They even redefine what morality is

"Then I think of all my criticisms of it, they are all based in this pretending to be Tolkien but sneeringly not being Tolkien at the same time. " Changing to a different, or brand new IP doesn't resolve this. Because there's a reason they didn't manage to stay within the outlines of Tolkien's universe, and had to break its rules from the very beginning. We've seen it plenty of times now - design by committee cannot stick to the rules of *any* universe, because it's always more important to get the committee members' "great" scenes into the script, and tick a couple boxes from a list, than to have a coherent narrative. The ticking of the boxes is a big tell for that kind of writing style, and is why many who are not at all homophobe, sexist, or racist react poorly when they see yet another IP where the marketing focuses on telling us how ticked all the politically correct boxes are, yet fails to deliver any reason to believe the story is actually going to be coherent. The story will not be coherent. It never is.

@@Peter-jl4ki Right, but if they made up an entirely new universe, then they at least decide what the characters and rules of the universe are. If it is 100% Leftist Paradise, it could exist and I would not give the tiniest crap about it, it likely wouldn't be on our radar at all. The people who liked that sort of thing would like that sort of thing and the people who didn't wouldn't. I never watched "Modern Family," I always assumed that was what it was about. Even if it wasn't, you could easily imagine something like that.

@@Irys1997 honestly i hate anything overly-PC, but i liked modern family. yes there are a few bits which grind my gears, but the characters are very entertaining and some of the things they say definitely wouldn't be allowed today. i'd say give it a try - it's not all leftist garbage.

@@eduj Thanks, like I said I never saw it, i just flung the title out there as a theoretical example of a world depicted in a tv show that lives entirely by leftist rules. If Modern Family wasn't really that, just insert something in its place, in this hypothetical

For that mountain of money they could have collaborated with Bethesda Softworks and brought the Elder Scrolls to the small screen. A fantasy with built in multiracial diversity, elves, orcs, dwarfs (kinda) and a global fan base of millions.

The interesting part is they're making Galadriel go through Faenor's fall story, which was what lead to her being involved in war because he turned on the elves in his pursuit of vengeance against Morgoth. Yet you get people saying "It's so true to the lore", no they've just entirely inverted her character realising the folly of vengeance against greater beings from having to slay her own kin. ie the pursuit of power turns you into a being that parallels a dark lord

They are simply racists, fascists trying to destroy western culture. And then they insulted the fans who realized their scheme, because thats all they can do when exposed.

TRUE. Vilifying fans is not a good strategy.

@Robert False . It's called Racial Exploitation. And it's actually the Worst form of Bigotry and Racism that exists in the entertainment industry. It's basically: Selling people of color, for profit, 158 years after Slavery was supposed to be abolished.

@@brittonholdaway5730 It didn't help, but that's not the driving force. The driving force is the disrespect to Tolkien's work and the lore. We just realized early that they were trying to blow smoke up our rears. Cheato is correct that had they said the truth, we wouldn't be reacting like we did and would have given it a different view. They chose to tell us it was faithful to Tolkien when they knew it wasn't. They wanted the massive worldwide fanbase of the books and movies to bring in initial big numbers and pull a bait and switch. We saw through it far earlier than they anticipated and the marketing just started going all over the place after that.

We made it, as to what we felt, was the most popular formula... according to current "tastes". Yeah... now that's twice...

You will like new, no, you will LOVE new coke!!

Great points, although I would add that I don't think Galadriel was guilty of kinslaying itself. But she was "guilty by association", she knew what happened and covered for her kind, refusing to come clean to her non-Noldor hosts who had welcomed and protected her in Doriath. Another aspect of her character is that she followed the other Noldor to Middle-Earth due to pride and ambition because she wanted to have a kingdom for herself where she could remake things as she saw fit. So she had a real "noldorian" personality that would be interesting for a TV show to explore, but it's less woke than being a righteous warrior who sticks it to the patriarchs.

They care nothing about Tolkien's works, so long as there is a message to push first, while using his name. It's why they had a black dwarf experience '(white red neck lookin') human to elf racism' and show no other examples with white 'knife-ears' suffering it. Thus, they can say "white people don't experience racism". It's why they had Don Lemon elf be kidnapped, so his suddenly battle hardened inn keeper girlfriend could behead the orc, so we could see her slam the head on the table to convince the white mansplainers to leave the town.

K

I agree - that's why Star Wars' Rey flopped very badly for "real" Star Wars fans. It was too easy for her. Just too easy.

I’m going to disagree strongly, Lucy Lawless is gorgeous and Ms Clark is plain at best. She isn’t a pretty Xena with pointy ears, she’s a cheap unconvincing knock off with pointy ears.

The writers are a diverse group of LGBTQ and POC talentless hacks, as opposed to just straight white male hacks.

Agree! Pride comes before the fall.

@@DimitriNosarev im a troon.. and even i know pride is an deadly sin..

Don't forget they're deleting/hiding reviews on both Rotten and IMDb.

yep, they might have gotten away with this if they had just gone with honesty "we're making a fan fiction series..."

Oh the 'breathy speech" is there alright, but man do I nonetheless agree. You said elves in RoP look like humans? Rather like aged Hobbits. Easy trick for the cast agencies: For playing elves, hire the same actors as those who do the vampires in vampire shows. ;-)

@@brittonholdaway5730 I have long forgotten where the scene came from, but i think it captured "elf" to the T. An guy visits an elven town and sees an pottery maker (elf) smash pot who are by human standards perfection. Asked why he does so he plain states that he discard the faulty products. I think Amazon should have modeled elves that way. Instead we have "elfs" who run around in armor that an human would think twice wearing.... you dressed to impress on medival battlefields...

You cannot have a Feminist Fan Fic without short hair. I am not even going to watch it to see if anyone has shaved heads.

The worst IMO is the attempt at a very flowery language which really needs a writer with a degree of linguistic equilibrism to pull off - if it is to be believable (and tolerable) in the long run. And it also requires decent actors who knows who to deliver it. This show has neither.

@@pouncepounce7417 I think I know the scene you're talking about. Or one much like it. It's from a book, in the Obsidian Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey. The elves craft these beautiful porcelain cups, and they drink from them once before going on a mission, or undertaking some great purpose, then they destroy them. But it wasn't because they find fault, it is because the beautiful thing was precious, and would serve as a distraction, a grief to come. (or something along those lines) the human in the scene was very confused by the whole thing. I don't have a problem with the elves prioritizing beauty, that is kind of their thing. The thing that makes them exceptional, is that they can do so while also making things that are incredibly high quality and suit their purpose. My problem on that front is really a lack of sense of character and purpose to the items. The wood elves green man armour, it looks neat. But who is it meant to represent? Why does that guy wear that? I don't think they know, it just looks foresty. Why are the elves returning to Valinor doing so under arms, garbed for war (and why does the armour in that scene look like such shit compared to the very nice stuff they actually wear to war. {I know the reason, it's because the first set was more practical and based on real armour, which means it was harder to get out of, and they wanted the whole being stripped and shriven thing so they made shittier prop armour, but in the world it makes little sense}.) People who wore armour did dress to impress, and elves would do that without hesitation, but there would be meaning to what they wore, and that requires craft and care that seems to be in short supply in some regards of this show. (Surprisingly, the Harfoots, who shouldn't even be in this story, felt more thought out and full to me in almost every way.)

And that is not the showrunners fault at least. It is the fault of Amazon, and I believe in this case the man Jeff Bezos himself, who were hellbent on having their own "GoT style" fantasy show to cash on. But the only thing they had at the time was the rights to LOTR. Not anything else Tolkien wrote. I don't know whether they even seriously tried to get the rights to the rest, and were simply turned down, or if they thought that would be enough. But instead of realizing that they had nothing to go on, they stubbornly insisted on going ahead and try to milk something out of what they had. This show was doomed from the start to be nothing more than very expensive fan-fiction, that contradicts and ignores what Tolkien really wrote at every instance.

@@Quotenwagnerianer You think so? I disagree. The "little/unlikely hero" isn't a Tolkien IP. The balance of the genders isn't a Tolkien IP. I believe the writers just want to "woke up" the show. EDIT: The actors/actresses as well as the writers of the show clearly mentioned in their interviews that the original LoTR was too "conservative", "backward", "racist". Those are their own words.

@@mouselim72 I agree with you on that , in fact i agree with what Quotenwagnerianer said above also except for the "not the showrunners fault " statement , the showrunners hates Tolkein too because i'm sure that no true fan out there is going to even try to mess with the characteristics of Tolkein's characters at least ,out of respect to their favourite author , but it is so obviously clear that these fuckers despise Tolkein and their mission is to shit on his legacy and his fandom from the start as they took this one in a life time opportunity to do the exact opposite of what he described in his novels and what he intended to pass through his writings ,choosing to ride the wave of wokism instead & hiring usless activists as actors for the sole purpose of passing their propaganda and reaching out to every fan flipping the bird in their faces

I have watched/listened to A LOT of reviews... Your post made the shape I needed, Thanks

I think it's nice to see new faces. The money is distributed to less known actors, and we get to discover them. I get very tired of the constant need for the familiar as well as from the concept itself of bankable actors.

err that seems fine though? lots of tv shows don't have stars in them and they do really well? like GoT's biggest star was sean bean and they killed him off in first season. still the biggest show ever? so i don't get that criticism at all. You may find from a british perspective there's tonnes of stars in these amazon and netflix show 'cos they seem to use a lot of actors successful on british tv.

@@hybridh9702 That's actually exactly my point: Game of Thrones started off with Sean Bean. He's a widely-known and well-respected actor, and lampooned for (almost) always dying in a movie/show. I don't have a problem with unknowns or newly-established actors filling out and/or leading a project (i.e. Christian Bale in Batman Begins), but to have a show of this scale and budget not have a single broadly recognizable star in the cast is something I find quite odd and somewhat risky, and I still contend you'll be hard-pressed to name a movie or show of this size that doesn't.

@@ironcladnomad5639 i'm not sure anyone actually cares as long as the acting is good. other than people who care in the way you care. i feel like it's just looking for things to complain about.

after watching rings of power. i just wanna say. how are people not in love with the actor who plays galadriel, she's so good. like the black elf dude, not so good but it passes for a stiff soldier an i get the feeling he's probably dead already. all the other acting in the show has really been top notch. super impressed with a shining leading role of galadriel and the half-foots and dwarfs are particularly good too. they really capture those english working class vibes.

Agree, am-dram all around. I just couldnt get past how bad "elrond" was on every level. Not in any way like the actual character, and perfromed by someone who couldn't look LESS like an elf. Christ, just go to ANY LOTR convention and they would have found some who looked more the part. I couldn't get past his wonky face and skipped his scenes.

You mean Teal'c?

@@livache66 ymmd 🤣

@@livache66 I miss those days, loved Teal’C.

He tasks me, he tasks me, and I will have him!

I loved that scene too.

I like the show, so I wouldn't say they crapped all over it, but besides that, I agree. There are so many great books, of all genres, waiting to be adapted - and so many great writers that could cross over to the small screen and produce greatness. But the TV networks just think completely differently. They think commercially and sensationalist, and aren't generally very concerned with actual quality, besides what they know can make money, such a visual spectacle and name actors. By and large, there is huge room for improvement in the world of TV.

@@TueSorensen tv is mostly for idiots, so authors and book fans gain nothing but cash and I guess normy approval respectively. Seems pointless.

@@TueSorensen maybe you liked the show, but it has nothing to do with what Tolkien wrote about the second age. So why could those people not have picked a underground fantasy novel and put it on Screen? Right, because they needed the label thE rIngS oF poWeR, suggesting to the average, unsuspecting Streamingservice user, that he should watch it, because the title resembles lotr.

I participated in the program they used to have for new script writers and they would assess your script then develop a small portion of the scripts they liked. Wish they still did that, I would support those shows

They did this on purpose, it's maliciousness not incompetence.

Average Trilogy Enjoyer: Doomer Exquisite Silmarillion Aficionado: Chad

Agreed!

they should have buy dungeons and dragons and just go with it.

@@JM-mh1pp That is an excellent idea. Bezos, bring my barbarian bikini armored babes to life! D&D is an "endless quest" with unlimited story telling to be done.

They don't have the rights to The Silmarillion. They are basing the show on The Appendices of The Return of the King. They can't use anything that isn't in LotR.

I've been saying this too! All their initial problems would've disappeared if they just removed lotr from the title. If this was a completely new setting and story, not one person would've cared about continuity or honoring the lore.

They treated Tolkien just like any other brand, making it something generic rather than honoring it as the lifework of love and devotion, the product of personally crafting a world informed by a passion for history, mythology, and fairytales. Instead they treated it like some sort of marvel franchise. The only thought they put into it was basically just, "Brand. Must have brand."

Wire fighting isn't stupid if done right. China has been doing it for years for their live action martial arts fantasy epics. This production team is just sabotaging the art (and technique) of it at this point. Edit: we'd better just go way back and rewatch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or STORM RIDER again before diving further into xianxia movies etc than supporting this abomination. But if you genuinely think wire fighting is stupid no matter what then it's only your personal opinion and taste.

@@MollyHJohns it's not that it's stupid, rather than it doesn't really belong to lotr. I mean... Even Gandalf don't really use magic. It is supposed to be fairly grounded and magic is subtle. Legolas shouldn't be able to surf on a Mumakil for ex 🤨 I understand the fact that it have to be adapted to the big screen, but God damn I would have loved to see a lotr where prince Imrahil organize the défense of Minas Tirith and stuff like that. They have the time for those thing in the series, but will definitely not use them

@@mattt2277 It's still would adhere to the modern trope of having a girl be the best warrior, the most intelligent etc etc. surrounded by male ciphers

That wasn't Luke's hand - it was Harry's hand. I know, I know, it LOOKED like Luke, but that was a poor edit. It was really Harry's hand that got cut off.

@@thatotherguy8138 WHAT! DUDE, that’s a great theory!

I liked when she scowled and said I don’t need no man…I’m the greatest warrior ever and scratched her balls.

@@rbu2136 And the moment when they all stood in Khaza-Dun, looked at the mithrial shirt for the elf king and Elront said: "This shirt is litteral perfection." And Galariel said: "It will be. When it fits a woman." So stunning. So brave

@@thatotherguy8138 Harry who, though? Hari Seldon?

If Christopher would have just lived forever we wouldn't be in this situation

Because she's the hero of legend they are not

Thank your smart son.

No, we're raising a generation of young people who believe this type of writing comes from talent. See: the movie Idiocracy.

We've seen this so-called "millennial writing" in so many movies and TV shows lately. They want to be great writers but all they do is just copy other writers without bringing anything of their own to the table, and then think they amde something great. They don't know how to write good material and they don't know how to be original. It's all full of clichés, copy-cat crap, and identity politics.

@@WolfHeathen they basically have the mindset of if it ain't broke don't fix it

It's been about "who you know" for generations, in Hollywood--by more than one definition.

@@WolfHeathen I believe it's... 2 things: one, the social acceptance of fanfiction as an art form. I mean no, I don't hate it, I write it myself - but the people got so used to it, it's become fiully acceptable to take someone else's work, do whatever with it, call it your own, and even call yourself an artist for it. People even got published, paid, and their work got canonized. I mean, some 30 years ago if you came out with fanfiction, actual WRITERS would laugh you off the... where ever you came out. Couldn't show your face even with original works IF you got associated with fan fiction. Now, EVERYTHING seems to be just fan fiction. Two, the movies are not coming from an artistic but purely a financtial drive. Yes big movies were always a business, but like Lucas said, they used to hire an artist, give him the money and hope it turns out fine. Nobody had any warranties SW, ST, Alien, Predator, The Thing, Shawshanck Redemption, Mad Max... are going to be successess, but the artists had those ideas and really wanted to show them to the audiences. Today, a writer is hired and given an assigment to fulfill the producers wishes of writing a fanfiction story in this particular franchise with X characters of these specific ages, races and genders and in Y of these specific locations and there have to be Z big fights and N small fights and M love scenes. And the numbers are chewed out by the statistics bots following online reactions. That's not ART, that's PROGRAMMING. Incidentally, if you're a creative, can you honestly say you COULD produce something GOOD like that? I... I know I couldn't. I'm also sure Tolkien couldn't write a good episode of Star Trek. They're trying to treat art like business. But it doesn't WORK that way.

He didn't mind taking the money though

@@robo5013 That’s a nothing argument. What was he gonna do? Not take the money? He can’t just let somebody adapt the work that belongs to him and his father, and let them keep whatever profit they make from it. He got to take a cut of the money in any case because the intellectual property belonged to him, and without the property, none of these adaptations would exist. He’s also still allowed to have his free opinion and criticize said adaptation after it comes out if, from his perspective, it’s not faithful.

PJ made a good story based from the original books. You have to acknowledge the books are very descriptive and to turn them into a movie would be difficult.

@@greenarrow219 In spite of what our host said, Bakshi did an astounding job of putting "The Books" on screen, And I have absolutely no doubt, That if he had Jackson's budget, We would have gotten Tolkien's Story complete and much truer to Tolkien's written word and intentions than Jackson's films; which at MANY points, did in fact draw Strong Emotions from me: Wonder and delight at the Backgrounds Set designs and Costumes, And total disgust at the character Portrayal (Or should I say Character Betrayal) and astounding plot deviations.

To be honest, I didn't really understand his criticism on the LOTR movies. Of course, he had the right to defend his father's work but saying that they used the books to make action movies for 15 to 25 years old wasn't really accurate.

You could go further, and say Eastern Europeans are represented less than other minorities in western entertainment, less than east Asians, less than African Americans, less than Indians, less than Latin American or indigenous peoples -- heck, even less than Polynesians! Disney made a movie with a Polynesian heroine, but where's there one about someone from Poland? Or anywhere in Eastern Europe? (Okay, Anastasia, but that was 25 years ago.)

@@tiggergolah sadly sjw etc see white people as one blob. Being white to them means you have no culture etc. Ironically it is the opposite and a french man and a german couldn't be more different.

@@tiggergolah Not quite so. At least, not in the way you'd want. Eastern Europeans are always the villains in movies and TV. How many villains have we seen be Russian, Belarusian, etc? In terms of their culture? No, they're never represented.

Something I hate is that gingers are never seen anymore. I know we don't number many, but in terms of genetic minority, we're one of the smallest. I'm not going to demand representation, of course, but I also don't like that the few roles we do have usually get race swapped.

@@windsoboreas6073 it's like a big red target saying "come change me. I'm white but not quite right."

What is beauty and who decides that?

@@m0-m0597 whatever beautiful than poorly attached elf ears prosthetic, wax long hair wig, 3D printed plastic armor, poorly designed armor unfit for immortal-level craftsmanship, excessive gold jewelry when they could go with Art Noveau designs. And elven kids bullying. Or huge lots of elven kids bullying a freaking elven princess when they should have philosophical talks even at that young age. "The Eldar wedded for the most part in their youth and soon after their fiftieth year. They had few children, but these were very dear to them. Their families, or houses, were held together by love and a deep feeling for kinship in mind and body; "and the children needed little governing or teaching." - Morgoth's Ring, Laws and Customs of the Eldar I got lots to complain. But let's start with those above, surely that's universal enough??

@@m0-m0597 It's a good question! Beauty is a mixture of sensory aesthetic and weighted psychological archetypal themes, such as the dualistic nature of the universe, such as a beautiful sunrise or supernova. Put simply, beauty is that thing that stops our thinking mind in its tracks and forces us into the present moment. Thus in spiritual terms, beauty is that thing that fundamentally places us in the presence of God aka the Universe, instead of being trapped in our heads. So ultimately you could see it as, the Universe "decided" what is beautiful and we are the Universe experiencing itself through itself in order to experience that beauty. Duaism / Buddhism / Hinduism (the vedic tradition) are good examples of how spiritualism tends to the notion that the Universe is fundamentally balanced, and how that balancing force is a fundamental part of its beauty. Political activism, identity politics, intersectional feminism, critical race theory, socialism and non-spiritual ideology as a whole; are all good examples of subscribing to the notion that the Universe is fundamentally unbalanced, non dualistic (non binary) and devoid of that fundamental beauty. These people don't bask in the beauty of the Universe, they pro-actively hide from its beauty, deny its beauty and distort its beauty into ugliness; in order to avoid the collapse of the egoic mind into the present moment, and the collapse of their post-modern act of being - that they are their own Gods of their own Universe, and that all beauty and all justice must come from them; from their subjective perspective. (hence the modern obsession with non-objective beauty, and non-objective justice)

@@FlynLatif thank you for sharing that. Great view

@Flyn S. Latif What’s the link between the desire for a better standard of living (socialism) and the lack of appreciation of beauty?

This has been a problem with movies for decades. We will cut you a lot of slack if your story is good, etc., but at some point there needs to be a certain amount of realism. The world needs to have rules.

I agree with the prey remark, but at least she didnt go all out mary sue, she had some kind of character growth right? And her brother died helping her, the final fight was stupid though.

???? You say it like the whole conversation of fantasy, despite not being real, still generating its own sets of rules that should be followed, was never a thing. This has been said to hell and back, and it even became a hugely popular topic on KZfaq about 3 or so years ago with the Game of Thrones Season 8 situation. Pretty much every single content creator criticizing GoT was talking about this. Of course, for many people this has been a given since forever. Point is, this is hardly an original thought that deserves the "two people have arrived at the same destination" treatment, and more than likely you have also heard it many times before in some shape or form but couldn't remember.

well said!!

Yes, the lone wolf mentality is for suffocatingly austere and drearily archaic.

Another reviewer discussed this and explained quite succinctly. The original articles were sponsored; the scathing article stems from a reviewer who covers numerous properties, therefore he won't his job if he goes against the sponsors, and it'll bring more clicks.

I'm suddenly encouraged by all the love tossed the way of DVD Extras.

They have pointy ears. Is this not enough? (No.)

There might be a "parody" made where she gets the piercing made somewhere else. ;-)

So stunning . . . So brave indeed. I also loved the bit where Amazon did a wet-fart and then threw it's actors under it after season 1. Wow, so brave and inclusive my nipples got hard.

Don't give them any ideas

@@poiuyt975 reminded me one perverted girl from school , she had put piercing there and she was showing it to every guy lol

Half pink and half blue🤷 is way to go...

And Henry Cavil is a total Nerd and fan of the Witcher games. He 100% understands the character he's playing. It's so lucky for them they have Henry on the show.

The IP is rock solid, problem is when you usurp it and reinvent it which renders it a liability as loss of the IPs fans is inevitable. People who dont like LOTR wont watch it, people who do like LOTR wont watch it so why spent $250 million on the IP? I agree with you that they should have made their own stuff but these people are hacks.

The problem is that this isn't about the money really. The point is to subvert and deconstruct Tolkien's work.

@@tiberius8390 Henry Cavil was the only reason why I finished season 1, but even his fine physique wasn't enough to get me through season 2. Yet, compared to RoP, even that seems relatively decent :D

It's a lot more common than you think, just look at the Metaverse...

And saved themselves millions of dollars in licensing fees to boot. The inability of entertainment industry executives to engage in logical thinking never ceases to amaze me. All of this was predictable.

They go after these IPs because it's already popular, not that they really care about the fanbase. They just need something popular they can use to send out their leftist agenda while destroying the IP at the same time.

@@randyjones3050 Its funny to me: I would have watched this if it wasn’t LOTR and I would have had no real expectations of it, might have even enjoyed it. As a “reimagined” version of Tolkien’s world, I’ll just pass on it.

They did it because rhey want to destroy Tolkiens work

@@johanstinson Sophia Nomvete, pretty much said Exactly That !

but you’ll watch game of thrones I bet as they do the same thing 😂

@@6ixallah GoT is a political drama in a fantasy setting. It makes more sense that it would have a lot of discussion and plotting about events as they unfold across the world.

@@6ixallah Jokes on you bc i won't.

It gets better in the second episode. It was good enough to make me want to see episode 3.

@@6ixallah _Game of Thrones_ was still pretty good until the second-last season. In the last season, though, it seemed to me they forgot what they wanted all the characters to do, and even forgot what they could do. It's an unfortunate problem to have. _RWBY_ developed the same issue, and worse, forgot their world's lore.

It should go the way of Bat woman

"Star Trek 2009" was probably the worst screenplay I've ever seen filmed. Of course, I haven't seen "Thor: Love And Thunder".

@@brittonholdaway5730 100%

@@brittonholdaway5730 I haven not seen that, either. I take it you have?

From the idiot writers' perpective, she IS an unlikely hero, because even though she is one of the most powerful beings in Tolkien's universe, for all practical purposes a demi-god, she is female and therefore "oppressed". The introduction to her has her creating something beautiful and bullies try to destroy it. That's the opening statement of the show. They were handed 1 billion dollars and told to do that Tolkien thing, and that is what they came up with, is that Galadriel is a bullied and oppressed downtrodden emo girl, who no one will let sit at their table in the junior high cafeteria

@Irys1997 i couldn't fucking agree more. and i assure you ,as a woman, that no woman with any self respect enjoys this trope. because women aren't born perfect, you don't just become amazing warriors and smarter than everyone around you, it's fucking earned through blood sweat and tears. but the way these morons portray it, it's like the only think holding back these amazing born magical women is?.....you guessed it! The *PATRIARCHY* . Not the fact that that woman doesn't seemed to have practiced honing her skills a single day of her fucking life. no. iT's MeN.

I agree with you but in all fairness the Silmarillions main characters have their flaws but I wouldn't call them unlikely heroes. I guess if they made up their own characters which the show does but the characters are kind of boring and out of place. I didnt like the first episode at all btw.

I'm sorry but I can not remember the name of the character in the LoTR, young woman that stabbed the wrath. You know, "no man can kill me, I am no man". Her story was going off to war dressed as a man with no idea eventually gaining skills along the way. That scene where she kills the wrath, epic every time. Good writing. Something missing from most shows now.

@@greenarrow219 that was eowyn. And exactly,she honed her skills over time and didn't virtue signal anyone and preach how much better she was than men, or even other women who didn't know combat. She just felt trapped and wanted to fight too, and she did it her way on her terms. And she wasn't just born as a brilliant fighter, she put blood sweat and tears into it

You guys should be writing cross-over fan-fiction.

Thanks. Yes, have fantastical creatures and landscapes but they shouldn’t defy the laws of nature.

Seconded.

"with sublime acting that hasn't been paralleled" I wouldn't go that far, even though I do like it much more than this guy does. "and maybe the second most prestigious cast for an animated film" Martin Rosen's Watership Down (1978) had the best cast in an animated film if I were casting my 2 cents on it. Ironically the casts of both films feature John Hurt as a main character - my boi was going through a golden time in the late 70s when you add in Alien too, it has to be said. I don't know most of the voice actors for Bakshi's LOTR besides Hurt as Aragorn so I couldn't comment on their prestige.

@@mnomadvfx You guessed my first pick for most illustrious cast. ;) That's a non-stop who's who. OK, I may have over-egged the pudding with my tuppence on LotR being no.2. Stuff I love from PJ's version; all the hobbits but Frodo especially, Sméagol obvs, and Treebeard. I'm open to other opinions on great casts for cartoon films.

@@Halbared Andy Serkis is the greatest mocap actor of all time. He's incredible in everything he does. His starting role as Caesar in the Planet of the Apes trilogy is the single greatest mocap character work of all time, and he probably has the second and third best work as well.

🎵The wearer of the ring, the bearer of the ring, the sheer unholy terror of the ring🎶

@@Halbared If I were to choose the two most amazing casts for an animated film, I'd have a damn hard time choosing between The Hobbit and Watership Down. Those were both dream castings! AFA The Hobbit, it definitely crossed that gap with me. While I did enjoy Jackson's Hobbit trilogy (that should have been 1, or at most, 2 films), IMO, Bakshi's The Hobbit is definitely the superior version.

Here here my thoughts exactly. It's the 'cultural appropriation' the weirdo white American marxists have been crying about for the last 10 years except this time it's ok because the target are the English. I'm sick and tired of all this homoglobo nonsense and I think a lot of normies are too but they can't quite put their finger on why.

Great post. As a fellow Englishman I couldn't agree more.

Some might say our true history was covered up as well, replaced with a Germanic story by the monarchy. History and records of King Arthur and his lineage covered up, maybe they fear the true history of the British Isles??

This is what infuriates me about this one in particular. this one is a direct attack on as you said, English Mythology. the setting of LoTR is a key basis of all modern fiction, and THIS is what it gets?! it's beyond disgusting.

Not just the English, man. Practically any culture from which the people's ethnicities are white is disregarded and disrespected by the modern entertainment industry, all the while being profited upon despite being seen as problematic. The Witcher TV show is one prime example of Polish culture being disregarded and forcefully altered for the showrunners' political views, despite the East Europeans being less represented or privileged compared to the Western Europeans.

There was nothing Woke about the show. I actually liked Disa and the Hispanic elf. However, the rest of the show was boring. The writers are to blame. I cannot stand why they picked Galadriel....she absolutely sucked.

@@easyislander I understand your point. My point of view is: As soon as you change the original version of the author using the excuse of diversity. If Amazon wanted a Game of Throne / LotR stye series filled with what they see as diversity they have the money to creat it. Same as what Disney with Star Wars, Marvel and all the damage they have done to the stories of the Brothers Grimm.

@@majingunplero8472 I actually liked Disa and the hispanic elf guy. I didn't care for Galadriel. What a boring lead character and ruined the original Galadriel. I wanted Elrond to be the lead. None of this boring ass woman warrior crap. What I found disturbing was there was so much useless dialog and scenes. We didn't need the Harfoots. I find it a waste of time. There was lack of battle scenes. And the ones that they showed the Elves losing devalued the true nature of the Elves as great fighters. That troll scene ruined it for me. In fact, the entire first scene of their group looking for Sauron reeks of amateurism. They should not have added that into the show at all.

If only you worked for Amazon, no joke, you would have brought better ideas.

Does anyone remember Azeem from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves? Not only did they create a good story reason for a black Moorish character to come to medieval England but he was an extremely well written and memorable character and they made it clear that he wasn't there as Robin Hood's sidekick and was a very capable character with his own agency and beliefs. The people who came up with him could've written circles around the lazy and contemptible hacks who wrote The Rings of Power.

@@Strideo1 Agreed. While Azeem wasn't in the original Robin Hood tales, that movie's writers made him believable.

@@gs7828 Thank you! Honestly, I think anyone who's actually read Tolkien's work could come up with such ideas. Middle Earth's such a complete world, it offers lots of opportunities for new tales. For instance, Amazon could have had an opportunity to show off Galadriel's true power by showing viewers what was happening in her realm during the War of the Ring. Tolkien said that she was so powerful, she could hold off any attack against Lorien. Sauron himself would have to come.

Funny watching the tolkien community go through the exact same shit that the Wheel of Time community did a little while ago after Amazon released their abomination of that loved series.

Considering how into "diversity" these folks claim to be they don't seem very good with it in the ideas and originality departments. Why does everything have to be a rework of prior art? Krull isn't mind blowing but it is original and enjoyable. Amazon could easily have done something similar, but alas they chose to reimagine a famous work and piss off half their audience before they even started. Oddly that's a workable strategy in 2022.

Dude i love Krull

A part of me wants to assume you were looking for ways to insert the word "buzz" into your comment as much as possible, while I was imagining the sound of the Glaive cutting through a wall.

@@613harbinger316 "BUzzzzzzzzzzz!" :)

The idea of collaborative effort to overcome a foe is an anathema to current Western writers, instead we always have to look to the individual superhero to save our world. It seems embedded in the culture, perhaps as a ward against collectivism but also to disempower the ordinary person.

Slap cgi on it and call it a day, the peasants won't notice

Happened the same to me.

Yeah it's amazing watching them continue to burn money over something that is DOA.

I would imagine same fate will probably wait Rings of Power unless Amazon forcibly keeps it alive to suck out all the imagination Tolkien poured into creating his mythos.

@@pyorre2441 amazon is investing a billion into this. They will not let it fail, even if it is shit.

It was so bad they butchered Tolkien's works to make us forget it existed.....Oh shit, what are they gonna ruin to make us forget this new nonsense?

...one issiue being, they don't care about their source material.

@@leone.6190 No, they most certainly do not. It would have been better for them to just admit this up front: that they were making a totally original story in this universe. But instead they tried to lie their way through by claiming they were respecting the source material. This was a mistake; it made the current situation worse.

@@brianstacey2679 indeed. But I like that they screwed themselfes over, even more. Tolkien would have been appalled by them even using the Name "rings of power".

When people say a faithful adaptation of The Silmarilion is impossible I always point to The Bible: In the Beginning directed by John Huston as a brilliant example how to adapt such a serious and sweeping subject matter with an epic time scale.

@@Strideo1 It surely would be very costly, but it would worth a shot.

@@Strideo1 I always imagined an adaptation to be animated. At least when I read the simarillion when I was a child it was animated in my head