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

[Dausuul]

It's actually quite simple: it's a 5 star show, amd it hasn't hit quite right for some people, while there are trolls posting 1 star reviews. Any 1 star review can be immediately dismissed as a troll.

It's a 1-star show, and any 5-star review can be immediately dismissed as a blind fanboy. Or, in the case of critics, a paid shill.

See how infuriating that is?

You love it. You've made that very clear. That's great. Other people don't feel as you do. They are not trolls for that and their opinions are valid. Myself, I can't understand how anyone can listen to the dialogue without wincing, or watch the "elves are coming for our jobs" speech without wanting to bang their head on the wall. At 46 I'm too jaded to get really mad about it, but if you put this show in front of me at 17, you bet it'd get one star from me.

The whole fabricated love triangle with Eowyn. Guess Faramir was her rebound?

That was in the book. Aragorn talks about it to Eomer after the Pelennor Fields, and Eowyn brings it up with Faramir in the Houses of Healing.

 

[RuinousPowers]

It's a 1-star show, and any 5-star review can be immediately dismissed as a blind fanboy. Or, in the case of critics, a paid shill.

See how infuriating that is?

You love it. You've made that very clear. That's great. Other people don't feel as you do. They are not trolls for that and their opinions are valid. Myself, I can't understand how anyone can listen to the dialogue without wincing, or watch the "elves are coming for our jobs" speech without wanting to bang their head on the wall. At 46 I'm too jaded to get really mad about it, but if you put this show in front of me at 17, you bet it'd get one star from me.


That was in the book. Aragorn talks about it to Eomer after the Pelennor Fields, and Eowyn brings it up with Faramir in the Houses of Healing.

But PJ played up the possibility that Aragorn might fall for her, and the whole Arwen leaving ME, but having visions of her children. Eowyn might have been enamored of Aragorn, but it was never hinted it was returned.

 

[billd91]

Observation suggests that the 1 star camp is not operating in good faith. Simple as that, I have concluded that they can safely be ignored and dismissed. It may be that they are genuinely angry about the show, but the reasons lie not in quality of the show itself.

Observation does no such thing because it cannot determine that there is a single "1 star camp". I'd agree that there are people simply review bombing it like a Yelp Karen. But they aren't coordinated - they're just dog-piling like the usual reactionary goons they are. But they are almost certainly not everyone giving out 1 star reviews. One might expect, for your typical show, that there will be people with extreme reactions just because of differing tastes. Some of them are bound to show up as well and don't deserve to be painted with the broad brush you're flailing around.

 

[Maxperson]

To be honest, this thread is basically a Tolkien version of "Your playing D&D wrong, and here's why/how it is wrong."

This is a pretty large False Equivalence. An IP of this nature is not even close to the same as playing an RPG. It's not wrong to adapt an RPG to your style. It's a pretty large blunder to "adapt" an IP of this nature to the point of almost completely losing the author's flavor.

 

[Parmandur]

I tend to think the "review bombing" phenomena is less about supposed armies of trolls actually review bombing for some sort of malicious ideological agenda (again, towards what end? What ideology?), and more about big corporations blaming fans for shoddy products, and using so-called review bombing as a shield. "Our show is amazing - anyone who dislikes it must be a troll."

So yeah, I tend to be more sympathetic towards disappointed/angry fans, even if I don't feel the same degree of personal betrayal--than I do mega-corporations like Amazon. Especially when I agree with a lot of what the so-called "angry fans" say.

The reviewer I've actually linked to is Erik Kain of Forbes, who hardly qualifies as a troll and isn't all that angry. Yet most of what he has said is echoed in a lot of the one-star reviews, so I'm led to believe that such views of the show are rather common, and the 39% Audience Score on RT is roughly representative of viewers (either plus or minus the actual reception of the total fan-base).

Forbes is a click bait farm thst bought the name of an old magazine. Pure trollage.

Now, it is true that big cross lije Amazon and Disney do seem to be weaponizing diversity as a hedge against criticism. However, since this is a 5 star show that is enormously respectful of the source material (speaking as a huge fan thst is deeply knowledgeable about Tolkien), in this case the trollage fully explains the review bombing, which is apparent when you consider the numbers from the verified critics.

 

[Dausuul]

But PJ played up the possibility that Aragorn might fall for her, and the whole Arwen leaving ME, but having visions of her children. Eowyn might have been enamored of Aragorn, but it was never hinted it was returned.

Fair point. I do think the book hints that Aragorn might have returned Eowyn's affection if not for Arwen; but that's obviously debatable, and the book certainly never gave any suggestion that Arwen was planning to sail west, nor that Aragorn would ever for a moment have considered leaving her for Eowyn.

There's no denying the movie changed the portrayal of most of the major characters. I quite like the movie's take on Aragorn (also Boromir, who I feel got a raw deal in the books), but he's definitely not book Aragorn. Much less fond of movie Gimli and Denethor. As for Faramir, I don't really like either take; the book makes him too perfect and the movie makes him too needy. I applaud the movie's decision to let the Ring get its hooks into him a bit, but not the implementation.

 

[Parmandur]

Oh, brother. This is wild conjecture. What proof do you have of this?

Again, this is a rather easy card that mega-corporations play in an attempt to defend their product. It is a fail-proof way to inoculate yourself against actual criticism. "If you don't like it, you are a troll."

I've said this several times, but you just don't want to hear it: Reasonable people, people who love fantasy and Tolkien, hate this show. Not everyone, but quite a few. To me all you're really saying, and doubling and tripling down on, is if someone feels different about this than you do, they must be crazy or, even worse, some kind of secret troll.

No, just the 1 stars. That is clearly a campaign, as can be found on the various clickbait sites that promote this garbage.

Reasonable minds can differ on a lot, but putting a 5 star show down as 1 star means there is something else at work...particularly when the audience numbers look like the critic numbers if you ignore the review bombing campaign.

 

[Parmandur]

My wife holds the same view. I just get up and go with no need for any coffee, so she's pretty sure I'm an alien.

Not an addict, at any rate.

 

[Maxperson]

The Aragorn who declared himself "Isildur's heir" to Eomer would not even recognize the conflicted movie Aragorn. They are completely different characters.

Yes! One of the huge failures of the movie. We have been saying that the movie did a better job at achieving Tolkien's vision. Not that the movie was good at it. Yes the movie had several failures. It also had several successes and kept the flavor of Tolkien much better than the show. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.

The whole fabricated love triangle with Eowyn. Guess Faramir was her rebound?

Don't get me started how Jackson butchered Faramir.

Guess they had to rename the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. The elves showing up to fight is pretty contrary to everything Tolkien wrote about the elves.

Did you mean Helm's Deep with that last one?

 

[Parmandur]

It's a 1-star show, and any 5-star review can be immediately dismissed as a blind fanboy. Or, in the case of critics, a paid shill.

See how infuriating that is?

You love it. You've made that very clear. That's great. Other people don't feel as you do. They are not trolls for that and their opinions are valid. Myself, I can't understand how anyone can listen to the dialogue without wincing, or watch the "elves are coming for our jobs" speech without wanting to bang their head on the wall. At 46 I'm too jaded to get really mad about it, but if you put this show in front of me at 17, you bet it'd get one star from me.


That was in the book. Aragorn talks about it to Eomer after the Pelennor Fields, and Eowyn brings it up with Faramir in the Houses of Healing.

People have legitimate frustrations and concerns, but not 1 star ones. That's just trollage.