This entire show is the equivalent of letting kindergarteners fingerpaint all over the Mona Lisa

Simon Tolkien really emphasises that talent isn't hereditary.

After the first episode of Rings of Power, I understand why Saron wanted to destroy everything.

It's fun when directors talk about actors as "tough". Like fighting air or a stunt double makes you "tough". Jackie-Chan is "tough". Fighting air that's supposed to be a troll doesn't make one "tough".

Too faithful to the work of one of the most legendary fantasy authors of all time is bad?

She's just so good at searching for Sauron that after a thousand years she finally finds him randomly in the middle of the ocean.

Cate Blanchetts intro in the Fellowship is somehow more comprehensive in its 5 minutes than the whole series.

The saddest part of all of this is i know that, out there....somewhere, is a comment section full of people who absolutely loved this show, talking to each other about how great it was and how awesome the actors are etc. etc.

I love how they go against "Toxic Masculinity" all the time. Letting "Toxic Femininity" not only go unchecked, but basically rule everything these days.

"Rings of Power announces an all-female slate of directors for season two." They really can't help themselves, can they?

They were not standing on Tolkien's shoulder but pissing on his grave. Everyone involved in the show, mainly the tops ie. the execs, writers, producers, director deserves every hate, dislike, criticism, etc. coming to them. I doubt any of them even read the books.

Sometimes when I hear actors speaking about the amazingness of their roles in these sh*t projects, whether film or tv, I often wonder, 'do you ACTUALLY believe what you're saying, or can you feel your soul dying since this is a contractual obligation??'

No show deserves to fail more.

It's actually impressive how much effort went into making this the worst possible experience created in media.

It’s really scary how few people have so much power over IP’s, and can do so much harm to IP’s. It’s such a disservice. Theirs so many artists out there who can tell great stories, direct great cinema, and stay true to the source.

That Tolkien's grandson, Simon, criticizes Peter Jackson for putting too much of his grandfather's books into The Lord of the Rings movies tells you all you really need to know. "Hey, let's make a show based on the world my grandfather created, but let's change everything and only use the names of the people and places, mmm-kay?"

Amazon's one billion dollar TV show got bumped off the streaming top ten by reruns of the Gilmore Girls, a show that ended fifteen years ago. You can't make excuses for that.

It's actually horrifying that they had all the elements for a great show set up. Massive budget, lore expert, good head, and they got rid of all of it to make... this. Absolutely abysmal.

It would have been great to see Galadriel use her powerful magic in the series since she was a mage and all...not a sword wielding armor wearing warrior.

Wow, they really put some quality craftsmanship into those rings, looks like something you get inside a kinder-surprise egg

The only reason the writers and producers of this show went "back to the book" was to see what NOT to include in it.

It says something that every time they write a "strong" female character she's always narcissistic and gets everyone around her killed, like a villain but without the competence.

Most unforgettable scene for me is the “you have not seen what I have seen” scene 😂

I'm so glad that Christopher never had to see this butchery of his father's work. He held the breach against defiling of the lore like a King. Right down to whose voices could be used for audiobooks.

My wife asked why I was laughing so hard. I said a character in the story spent a thousand years looking for someone then finally decided to check a map.

Alternative title “How to blow one billion dollars on a universally loved franchise.”

In the name of diversity and inclusivity i demand Amazon to reboot the serie and create a new one just for Tolkien fans.

"You can't buy your way into the Tolkien fandom" That's exactly how Tolkien fans are.We care about quality,not the money..I hate the Billion dollar RoP but love the 20k budget "Born of Hope" fan made film about the birth of Aragorn.

Jackson was too faithful for Simon Tolkien? What the hell is wrong with Simon?

"Very capable swordsperson" I literally died.

I just convinced my girlfrined, who never watched/read anyithing about lotr, to watch the original trilogy and she really enjoyed it, we watched the full 10+hrs in the matter of days. Now we are watching The hobbit and she starts to point out how the mood is not the same and it's way less immersive, but we are slowly getting through it. I don't have the strenght to also show her the series :(

My first introduction to Fantasy was The Lord of rings movies I was blown away. I immediately got the BIG RED all in one Lord of the Rings book and I was hooked for life on Tolkien & Fantasy. The way with series played out was heartbreaking 💔 I did not watch 1 second of it & I never will ! Let's just hope sometime in the Future when WOKE is DEAD ☠️ someone with a love for the Magic of Tolkien will have the ability to inspire the next generation of Tolkien Nuts . Amazon has let down an entire generation 😢

We won't "consume" their drivel, and they despise us. I'm cool with that arrangement

1000 years of searching just to find everything she needed in months. Then to fail epically the moment she does.

Peter Jackson's adaptation may not be perfect, but by god, his passion for the lore and the story is undeniable. He didn't push any agenda or message, he just told the story. It is a far stretch to call this series an "adapatation" as very little from the book has truly been adapted. Oh, and I think Simon needs to do a DNA test - how is he a TOLKIEN?!

The streaming format, used sensibly, could have enabled an episodic approach well-suited to telling stories from the Silmarillion in a way that feature cinema could not. Instead there is this.

“Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made.”

Your tireless battle against this monstrous abomination of a series is honorable. Watching your videos is like a catharsis. Thanks

How just about everyone survived a 2000 degree volcanic lahar traveling a couple 100 mph is beyond my imaginations capabilities.

"there's nothing you can do to make three rings look magic" Peter Jackson with one ring: hold my beer 😂😂

This show keeps entertaining me and I haven't watched a single episode

So she was chasing Sauron for more than 1,000 years, but then it became so urgent even though Sauron was nowhere near, that she had to kill some of her elven crew because of her panic.

I keep thinking about that part in The Return of the King, when Eowyn fights in the the battle of Minastirith disguised as a man. When she is about to kill a Nazgul he says "no man has ever defeated me" and then she reveals her face and says "I am not a man" and kills him. That alone is more badass that anything that this cheap version of Galadriel has ever done. And also, I don't understand how have they decided to take a cruel and cold character such as Galadriel, who has massacred her own people in cold blood, and turn her into the main strong woman character that you are supposed to love and support.

Its funny that Tolkien made middle Earth On a 0 pound budget and now Amazone makes a shit version of it for a couple of bilion dollars

The Hobbit looks like a masterpiece now.

One of the main reasons why Amazon Prime membership has spiked recently is due to the new Amazon "Prime Share" feature, that let's you share your Amazon prime account with non-prime members, essentially upgrading non-prime accounts to "Prime subscribers" without the corresponding increase in membership fees. It's all smoke and mirrors over at Amazon HQ 💁‍♂️

When i first saw “halburt” i was like what that’s supposed to be suron an elf literally described as “taller than any of men in numeneor but not gigantic” this dude is like 5’8 how is that bigger than anyone in numeneor also suron is an elf specifically ainur so how could this dude fit the bill

Amazon should just go full send and have Kathyleen Kenedy make season 2 of "Rings of Wokeness" while wearing a shirt that says "I spit on your grave" with Tolkien's headstone on it.

Just the idea that people even enjoyed watching The Rings of Power is a fantasy.

Tom cruise jumps across 400ft gaps hangs on the sides of planes while taking off, and jumps motorcycles off of cliffs then pulls his shoot, Meanwhile she is fighting an imaginary troll and she should be praised for that? 🤣🤣🤣

The problem of "creative" people and studio execs thinking they know better and "deserve" to be able to capitalize on the creations of others is the tale as old as time. Nothing like trying to create a movie/show for a fictional property, get everything that the fans of that property like about it completely wrong, and then trying to act like it is the fanbase that is the problem when they don't like it.

The worst part is they paid these people a small fortune to be this bad.

“Cast it into the fire…destroy it,” is the perfect ending to these videos. As usual, spot on analysis!

Are there no carniverous creatures in the ocean in Tolkien's world? Pretty surprising that Galadriel did not encounter any deadly creatures during her long, long swim in the ocean.

"Stupid is as stupid does." ~Forrest Payne and Patrick Gump

It's a very simple show, meant for very simple people. It wasn't made for people that read the books. But remember guys, in a few years this will all be forgotten, but the books will still be there, forever.

Thank the maker for people like Gary and Critical Drinker for these videos. They are far more entertaining than the actual show/movies that are rife with identity politics.

Too faithful to the book. Needed more character. One glance by Aragorn spoke of the whole history and nobility of Gondor. A tear from Sam told of the burden of the fight against evil, of loyalty and love and loss. No need to say "There is a tempest in me!"

It's really impressive how they managed to make every aspect of this series look second-rate: acting, costumes, makeup, 'script', sets, stunts, editing, and effects. I do quite like that green dress Mary Sueladriel is wearing though.

Too faithful to anything is never, in itself, a fault. There's no such thing as too faithful to your wife, or too faithful to God, or your friends, or what you believe in. What an insane thing for that man to say.

They had to make the Orcs as white as possible lol

Only the fact the rings had different colours took me out of emersion and sidetracked the magic of the rings. Combined with the fact that the Eleven rings were not made first

I just finished watching Return of the King and finished the entire set again this season , still a masterpiece, what Amazon has done is nothing less than vandalism!!!

Never in the field of human culture was so much, loved by so many, destroyed by so few with so little talent. If human culture were to last another thousand years, people would still say, this was their shitest hour.

you really should save superlatives like "disaster" for things like Willow, Blood Origins, The Watch, etc.

8:08 Women doing the most basic of choreography is apparently now a topic of intersectional preening. All I can think of is Carrie Ann Moss and the ridiculously elaborate choreography for The Matrix, including all the wire work to run sideways on the walls. Generic girl-boss swings a stick and she gets admiration. The bar is truly very very low.

One of the most successful film franchises ever, Simon Tolkien wants to explain to us how it was a failure. Just wow.

Since Halbrand's actor had no idea that his character was Sauron at first I feel like even the writers did not know until writing the scripts and finally just threw a dart at a random character and it just happened to land on him.

The best thing the 3 Ring Circus of Carnival Power gave us, was the wonderful increase in content from such great sites as Nerdrotic and others. Thanks for all your hard work Gary (and others) keeping the light shone on the hilarity of fail this pit of refuse provided. Of note: the uptick in Prime Subscribers just prior to Christmas is common every year, for the opportunity to SHOP online and has zero to do with their streaming service. I suspect by now, the majority of those subscribers have since left. heh heh.

If this show were popular, I would start my physics lecture on buoyancy by asking the students why a ship floats but a rock cannot. But obviously no one in the room of a 100+ students would get the reference.

I can't think of two words that describe the (real) character of Galadriel less than "scrappy" and "reckless"

The thing that blows me away the most was when he said he had no idea how they were going to write into this already-written story how the rings were supposed to be "magic" so he just hoped that the audience would just assume they were so. They literally named the entire show after these rings, and they had literally NO PLAN on how they were going to incorporate them. I just. It's... WHATTTT?????

I like every words of your explanation I’m absolute fan of Tolkien books, world, Jackson movies BUT never ever I want to try to see a minute of this B.P.O.S Happy new year from Paris

Yes, let’s actively try to avoid discussing the series with the man that brought to life the most successful and acclaimed fantasy series for the big screen, and reached near equal amounts of success and acclaim.

Two things I think add to this: Christopher Tolkien basically disinherited his son Simon during the making of the Jackson films, kicking him out of the Estate, though in later years they reconciled and Simon obviously became the head of the Estate. According to Simon himself this was over Simon initially shilling for the Jackson films despite orders from Christopher that he didn't want any Estate members involved directly in the films. Christopher didn't want LOTR adapted (he thought it was impossible to adapt faithfully) and thought Jackson was turning them into basic action films (there is also the fact that his father was basically forced to sell the rights in the 60s due to financial problems and there was likely resentment in the way attempted adaptations were handled after that). Simon thought the family should try and make money off the Jackson films by attaching themselves to the films in some way and he disobeyed his father's orders. Christopher himself denied that this was the reason for the estrangement and Simon later admitted that there were other unstated reasons on top of the Jackson stuff. I believe, with not much hard evidence, that Simon allowed Amazon to make a mess of ROP for the "consultant" title he had and possibly more money. All that ties into the second thing: In that Shippey article he gave what I thought was very positive news at the time. He essentially said that the production was supposed to use what Tolkien wrote on the Second Age as canon material for their show, enforced through the Estate (with Simon being the head of that, remember) but were allowed to fill in the blanks to get from point to point along the timeline as long as the "facts" remained intact. He also mentioned that in the production teaser that had just come out that a name was missing. I believe he said the guy that was missing was a writer or director for the whole project and that something must have changed. I don't know if that was one of the names Gary mentioned or not. But given what we got with the actual show, what he said about having to stick to Tolkien as canon clearly changed and that missing name was likely a casualty of the change. Unbeknownst to him, Shippey would be another casualty. As I said, I think Simon changed the initial stipulation to be faithful to Tolkien and likely got something in return. Shippey messed things up for the production by repeating the initial plan which was now out, and Simon got what I believe was the sole "consultant" credit on the show.

I laughed so hard at the "Numenoreans" depicted in the show. In a real Numenor, exactly zero would be black, oriental, polynesian, persian, indian, hispanic, or anything else except an idealized _northwestern european_ ethnicity. And the Numenoreans were very protective of their literally blessed bloodline. And, as for size and strength, think someone built like Chris Evans as Captain America as an AVERAGE Numenorean warrior. And a Chris Hemsworth would not be rare. They were powerful, large men. Not like those skinny, small idiots in the show (and their fake Tar-Miriel).

As others have highlighted. The worst aspect of all of this is the amount of money these bandits made out with. 2 weeks and some well read individuals could make a better story even if they didn’t know the lore.

I was never really a LOTR fan but I feel the fandom’s pain as a former Star Wars fan who’s watched as one of their beloved franchises was destroyed by woke activists and corporate suits.

"LOTR: Ratioed Into Oblivion" is actually a perfect name for this series.

Guyladriel displayed no elvish wisdom, womanly grace, or magic power in this entire series. She was literally an idiot that ran around swinging a sword and didn’t know where the Fortress of Angbad was (despite it being very well-known). I’m still not even sure what was so enlightening about the sign she revealed in the fortress. All the elves knew Sauron had escaped and was still lurking around, they just weren’t sure what his capabilities were or who he was trying to influence. I think the worst thing the writers did was screw up the storyline so bad there is no way to work in the deceit of Anatar, the forging of the other rings, the destruction of Numenor, the building of Gondor, the fall of Eregion, etc. I still can’t believe they did this to Tolkien.

Hey guys first time subscriber here. Just wanted to say that I am a big Tolkien fan, he's taught us a lot about imagination and how we should be happy to be ourselves. As I writer he's inspired me. I must say... Rings of power simply put... The series I never asked for and liked it half as much as I asked for it and cared very little for it in its entirety. They should've just made a new fantasy. They need better writers.

Why does the story have to try and mirror reality?? I wanna watch it coz I don't wanna be in THIS world for a couple of hours🤦🏻‍♂🤦🏻‍♂

The sentence "You can't buy your way into the Tolkien fandom" made me happier than it should have. :)

I feel like complaining that the LOTR movies are too faithful to the books is like complaining to the chef that your meal was too good and that next time he should see about including some hair and undercooked poultry in it.

"Ey yo Mr. Sauron..." and "Jessie, we have to cook the one ring!" Are clearly missing in this masterpiece.

So she is floating around on a raft in the middle of the ocean with the guy she has been looking for for 1,000 years, and she doesn't know it? Gilligans' Island had more believable plot lines.

After 1,000 years she finally looked at a map. Omg, that was good. Lol

"one of the biggest reveals of the show was a font change" perfectly put

What do your elf eyes see, Legolas? "Uhm, a big fkn trench..."

I wish someone would make their own version of this but care about the source material and have it be amazing

After a thousand years of being stalked across Middle Earth by a crazy elven lady called Guyladriel. Sauron decides to put a RING on her finger and make an honest villain out of her! - Almost literally the Amazon script for Rings Of Power. Am I wrong?🤔😵‍💫😭

Never watched even 1 minute of that Amazon garbage series!! However, I never miss a Nerdrotic video!!!

In a nutshell: ideology over lore.

So Peter Jackson created a masterpiece, sure he was not 100% true on the books. But his changes fitted very well. They wanted nothing to do with his creation. When incompetence and arrogance come together...

Haven't seen Rings of Power and never will for the simple reason that I actually love LOTR

This is like those soccer clips where it looks hard to miss a completely open goal from a few yards out but they still manage to sky it. Truly head-shaking how they managed to fail against overwhelming odds of success.

Obviously we need ten more seasons of the fake medieval grrl boss show.

The funniest part of this is I can't find a single person who likes this show, INCLUDING WOMEN. My mum, sister and girlfriend all hate it. They hate Warrior Guyladriel the most. My mum wanted to see the long flowing hair and silk dresses, my sister wanted to see the magic and the ethereal-ness, my girlfriend is just a MASSIVE LOTR fan. She watches the full Extended Trilogy at least once a month and she wouldn't even watch past the first episode, she just refused. When woke Hollywood has such an incredibly niche target audience and even THEY don't all like it, you know you really fked up

The Tolkien Estate is becoming the root of all (Tolkien) evil things, like the King's Men in Numenor being completely lost to the Valar.

Hide ya kids, hide ya wife, and hide ya husband cuz they ruining every story out here.