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Message: <blockquote data-quote="OB1" data-source="post: 8815500" data-attributes="member: 6796241">Didn't glean any insight from this article (I've gotten far more in this thread).  He seems to confuse bad writing with his not personally liking the choices made by the creators.  Anytime a reviewer starts going on at length about how they could have done better, I take their critique with a massive grain of salt.  It's quite easy to write a paragraph or two outlining a 'better' story idea, and quite difficult to flesh that out into 40 episodes of dramatic storytelling that engages tens of millions of people.  Honestly, his critique of the coincidences at the start of the story shows that the reviewer doesn't understand storytelling at a basic level.  Coincidence is often (maybe almost always) what starts a story.  No one complains that the droids ended up at Luke's farm, or that Obi-wan happened to be wandering the desert when Luke was attacked by sand people.  And that's because those are the events that set the story in motion.  Conversely, at the end of a story, you have to have established reason behind the end happening as it does.  Gollum appearing in Mount Doom to 'save' Frodo only works because of everything that had been established between Frodo, Gollum and the Ring up to that point.  As I've discussed earlier in this thread, the writer also doesn't seem to understand what a 'mystery-box' is, or the difference between a compelling use of one and a poor use.  Sauron hiding his identity from Galadriel and the audience makes sense for him as a deceiver.  The Stranger's identity being a mystery makes sense because he doesn't know who he is.  These are mysteries that the characters and the audience are attempting to work out, and are important to the characters in the story.  A bad mystery box typically doesn't have an answer to what's inside when it is conceived or is only important to the audience, and is put in only to invite speculation.  Anyhow, just want to say that I've been enjoying the discussion in this thread.  As a non Tolkien reader, much of the discussion has served to illuminate my feelings on the story, which, while I enjoy, I can also understand how some may not, given the changes it has made to the source material.</blockquote>

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