Rings of Power -- all opinions and spoilers welcome thread.

[Parmandur]

I dunno... 450 million is A LOT of money. I'm pretty sure at this point that there's a lot of embezzlement going on in Hollywood. Still, they spent a lot on it, that's for sure.

Adjusted for inflation, Jackson's whole trilogy had a $471 million budget for the same runtime.

 

[Parmandur]

Probably figure $50M-$100M on the advertising budget. Then how much did they burn on the IP?

Marketing and licensing were what brought the number to $1 billion. The Season itself cost $450 million, or about $50-55 million per hour (since they are slightly longer than an hour per episode).

 

[Parmandur]

As a point of comparison, consider the below in light of the fact that they did as much as they could with practical effects: sets, costumes, props, stunts, etc., which add up in terms of $$$:

"At 9,500, The Rings of Power has more VFX shots than Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame combined, both of which feature between 2,500 and 3,000 shots each. Of course, it's not necessarily surprising that Amazon's upcoming The Lord of the Rings show is VFX-heavy, especially considering its vast fantasy setting and the fact that it consists of 8 episodes, roughly an hour each, but 9,500 is still a staggering number. For comparison, Jackson estimates that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King features around 1,500 VFX shots in total, with that film being the most VFX-heavy of the three."

LOTR: Rings of Power Has A HUGE Amount of VFX Shots

More than three times that of Avengers: Endgame!

screenrant.com

 

[Mercurius]

@Henadic Theologian specifically speculated that embezzlement was the only explanation they could conceive of for where the $450 million budget for the season went...but it clearly went up on screen.

Oh, my mistake - I must have missed that upthread.

 

[Maxperson]

There was a middle ground which I mentioned in the other thread.

 

[Maxperson]

Yeah, uh, hard disagree with literally all of this. This doesn't jive with the brilliant piece of art thst I watched, at all.

Other than the dwarves and hobbits, there's nothing Tolkien about the series other than the name. The Numenoreans had some nice architecture, but were depicted more as low men than high men. The elves aren't even close to be Tolkien's elves.

It was a pretty good fantasy story, but the Tolkien names marred that since it was so far from Tolkien's vision.

 

[Mercurius]

There was a middle ground which I mentioned in the other thread.

Despite my harsh post above, I can actually get down with this...to a point. I'd replace "awesome" with "Good enough to watch, considering that I'm a big fantasy nerd, and bad Middle-earth is better than no Middle-earth."

 

[Maxperson]

Despite my harsh post above, I can actually get down with this...to a point. I'd replace "awesome" with "Good enough to watch, considering that I'm a big fantasy nerd, and bad Middle-earth is better than no Middle-earth."

What I would have wanted to see was the 100 years or so that it took to forge the rings condenses down in time. Sauron comes and fools the elves. Rings get made. Sauron flees and attacks Eregion. Numenor comes and kicks his heiny. You could have repeat characters. Most would be new, some would be from the books. Lots of action and drama, without destroying the timeline such that it might as well not even exist.

Later seasons could have been the downfall of Numenor or other 2nd age events, or even completely new ones that will now have an audience from prior seasons.

 

[Parmandur]

Other than the dwarves and hobbits, there's nothing Tolkien about the series other than the name. The Numenoreans had some nice architecture, but were depicted more as low men than high men. The elves aren't even close to be Tolkien's elves.

It was a pretty good fantasy story, but the Tolkien names marred that since it was so far from Tolkien's vision.

They nailed all of Tolkien's major themes, which frankly shocked me. Friendship, providence, free choice, the internal struggle with darkness while seeking the light, recapitulation, Fall...these writers get Tolkien, and pulled it off with abplomb. The details are not as important as the themes.

 

[Maxperson]

They nailed all of Tolkien's major themes, which frankly shocked me. Friendship, providence, free choice, the internal struggle with darkness while seeking the light, recapitulation, Fall...these writers get Tolkien, and pulled it off with abplomb. The details are not as important as the themes.

The details are far more important than the themes, which run in pretty much every fantasy story by any author. HOW Tolkien achieved the friendship, providence, etc. is what makes his version of those themes Tolkien, and which is why the show which completely neglects Tolkien's style fails to be Tolkien in most instances.