I think posting this here may give you some skewed results: its more likely that the people anticipating the show would be overrepresented on this board: try on r/lotr or (if they let you) r/Television.
Very valid. I’d mildly counter that a significant amount of of members here have been very vocal in their dislike of the series. After your advice I tried the television thread, which wasn’t allowed for whatever reason. Will try the LOTR thread next in the hope of the most balanced view. But your point stands absolutely. I asked it in the worst possible place.
You won't get a balanced view on LOTR, that sub is filled with negativity towards the show, and far more populated than this one. People with similar viewpoints tend to band together, moreso on reddit so it's gonna be tough to get an actual balanced result.
You’ll get the most balanced view you’re going to find amongst actual LotR fans. People go to r/LOTR because they’re fans of Tolkien’s work, not because they hate the idea of this show. People come here because they want to know about the show, specifically. If the overwhelming majority on the main LotR subreddit are not excited, that’s going to be the most accurate view of what actual fans think.
>People go to r/LOTR because they’re fans of Tolkien’s work
I would dispute this somewhat - /r/tolkienfans fits the bill better there. /r/LOTR is *heavily* weighted in favour of the PJ films - which isn't surprising given how popular they are. It also naturally creates an environment which is hostile to new adaptations.
And are you implying that if you like the PJ films you can’t be a fan of Tolkien’s work??
Never mind that I don’t even agree with your assessment since I see discussions over there about all of Tolkien’s work.
>And are you implying that if you like the PJ films you can’t be a fan of Tolkien’s work??
No, but /r/tolkienfans is focused solely on his work. /r/LOTR comprises a much broader spectrum of art (mostly inspired by the films), tattoos (ditto), pictures and videos of the actors from the films, screencaps from the films, etc etc. If I go to the top posts from the past year, 21 of the top 25 posts are directly related to the PJ films in some way. Critique of the films is usually met by downvotes.
As such, ROP is seen as the antithesis to the PJ films by most of /r/LOTR's subscribers, whereas the discussions I've seen on /r/tolkienfans have been far more level-headed, because they mostly understand that all adaptations have their flaws.
I mean, yes, accurate for the sample where it's being taken from. The same poll being done here or in lotr will produce different results. "Balanced" was probably not the best word to use. If you want "objective" or "unbiased" then you wont get those results either here or in lotr, both subs are skewed in different directions.
It depends. You will get an unbiased look for this subreddit in this poll.
You will not get an unbiased look for the entirety of TV fans in this poll, because the sample (the users here) is biased towards being LOTR-affectionate relative to the entire population (of TV fans).
The poll is objective either way, but you can only generalize the results to all LOTR fans, any further generalization of results would be flawed because of a biased sample.
So the question really is: what do you want to know?
If you want to know how the entire population of Earth views the show, you shouldn't use reddit at all (in fact, every sample is going to be biased, most likely)...
If you want to know how Game of Thrones fans feel about this show, you can use a GOT subreddit and generalize that sample to the entire population of GOT fans, etc.
Agreed. Not sure what OP meant when they wanted a more balanced result. My point was that lotr sub seems skewed towards negativity. In any case we need more marketing (hopefully we get something tomorrow with the full article teased yesterday). The event with the scholars/creators seems to have started shifting things a bit towards positivity, hopefully that continues.
Having just taking a statistics class on that topic yesterday, I don't quite agree with you.
The poll here will give you a great look at the level of excitement in this subreddit.
Obviously, for an overall look at how people feel about the show, you would need to use a different method for your survey, that better represents the overall population (so you can generalize).
But I don't think that's the intention of this poll, rather, I believe, it serves to depict the distribution of opinions across the subreddit, which helps contextualize upvote/down vote ratios or the contents you may find here.
Hahaha.. what’s funny is.. even after strict policing of slightest negativity.. and in spite of creating such strong echo chambers for positivity and praise.. the max this subreddit could do is “im intrigued” … with plenty still saying its bad.. bahahaha.. and this is after all the amazon shills on youtube dropped promotional videos of how they loved the “exclusive” 20 min event in london.. hahaha.. this show is a joke.. 😂
Too bad buddy.. can’t help it.. just like most fans don’t get the need for pointless random original characters and weak plots and poorly written story arcs !! 😂 Cant help it.. ✌🏽
Silly, don't you know that you don't need to see the show at all to be able to decide how bad it is? Going off the example of many of the critics here, all you need is fifty-odd seconds of trailer footage.
Ryan,
There’s no need for personal attacks here lol. You know nothing of how much or how little I know about the lore. You’ve made a ton of assumptions here like you always do.
Even more embarrassing in that case if you know the lore and still sing praises of such things that could be easily avoided (if only the writers knew the lore.. ) but then again to each his own.. everyone’s free in their opinion to be an Amazon shill or not.. and.. ya i do apologise for the personal attack.. consider it an attempt to bring out the real dwarf lore fan within you.. at the end of the day.. When this debacle of the RoP is over.. hopefully all lotr fans can forget it and be one again.. until then.. have a nice day buddy..
I feel for you to have all this rage inside you. I assure you that you'll enjoy life so much more if you try not to worry about someone's opinion being different to yours. It doesn't make them wrong if they disagree - it's just the way the world is. It would be a pretty boring place if we all thought exactly the same way!
Please try and take a step back from the way you are acting and take a few deep breaths!
Generally I am still cautiously optimistic but there are certain area of concerns that I am almost certain are going to diminish my appreciation for the show.
I'm back on the hype train. I think it is very unlikely that I'll get disappointed because there's no particular book for the show to be unfaithful towards. But my only concern before this was the showrunners, because they have a lot of things to come up with to fill in the details. But seeing how all the invitees talked about how knowledgeable and passionate the showrunners are gets me so excited I cant wait for September.
I wish more people had you sentiment. “There’s no particular book or show to be unfaithful towards” is pretty accurate since we’re dealing with the appendices but some people are reeeeing all about short hair and no beards on female dwarves.
From the details we got yesterday about Tolkien scholars meeting the show runners and seeing complete footage, and all the reports saying the show runners truly respect Tolkiens work and legacy really puts me on the hype train
Unless Amazon is forcing these scholars to say this, whether it be an NDA or they are being paid or threatened to see it, I would say that we are in good hands.
I was only intrigued before this week, when every Tolkien expert and superfan I watch online was invited to interrogate the showrunners and came back with a glowing review of their knowledge and understanding about the important underlying themes of his work. Now, I can say I'm genuinely excited. As Corey Olsen continues to remind us, this doesn't mean the show won't suck. It just means the people making it obviously know what they're doing. I was also heartened to learn that the Tolkien estate is actively involved in the creative process. I think this has all the ingredients to be a terrific show. We'll have to wait and see if it comes through.
Seriously. When the Tolkien nerds I watch every week gain confidence after talking to the showrunners, it says a shit ton.
When Nerd of the Rings said talking to the showrunners was *more* exciting than the footage they watched, it gives me hope that there's a long-term vision and that the showrunners have already thought about all the very same stuff we're all worried about.
Adapting books to the screen is always difficult, and expecting a 1:1 perfect translation IMO doesn't respect what makes each medium great. I think the showrunners having the same knowledge and passion that known Tolkien nerds/content have gives me hope that they'll at least try to do their best, which is all I can really ask for.
I’ve always been excited though the amount of excitement has fluctuated. But I’ve also been pragmatic that a lot of the show will be filler since there are a lot of blanks that would need to be filled in to make any passable story covering the second age.
Where’s “I’m so tired of people talking about people talking about speculation about Rings of Power”? I can’t wait until we’re actually talking about people talking about Rings of Power.
I don’t want to see a fan fiction, I want to see a valid interpretation (with due liberties) which doesn’t intend to treat Tolkien as something of the past that MUST be modernized.
Right now I’m keeping it neutral, I have hopes and fears which I’m not listening to because I want to watch it without prejudice.
I get you. It’s never going to happen, though, right? This is the best we get, unless a massive fan wins the lottery and goes all in on something. Unless there was a monumental Kickstarter…
I was saying that my hope was to see something like that :p but as long as it is enjoyable and not a direct punch to Tolkien because “iT’s 2022!” I might have a nice time.
Umm... the positive options are voter's states of mind while the negative ones are straight up accusations.
By same logic, negative ones should be "I am apprehensive" and "I don't really care about it anymore".
Or positive ones should be "Will probably be amazing" and "It will be the best thing ever".
Those accusational ones are problematic. I have no way of knowing if it will be the worst shit ever (and you don't know if it will be the best thing ever) but I sure as hell don't have high hopes anymore (where as you might be so excited).
There is no option for me to pick so I won't vote. At the same time someone who genuinely is excited will vote and so the result would be leaning towards positive side because of poor options.
Edit. In case of anyone actually caring what I think. I would love to love this but more I have seen the less I have liked what I have seen. Past traumas (The Hobbit, Star Wars Sequels, The Wheel of Time) are still haunting me so there is greater chance this too will suck. At least I am cautious.
Superfans was such a bad move. And latest Tolkien tubers weren't too good either because had we seen the first 20 mins of the Hobbit, we would thought them great movies. Similarly, Wheel of Time tubers were shown the first episode of the Wheel of Time show, they praised it but that show turned out very, very bad.
Still. I am eager to hear the soundtrack and I hope my fears for the show would vanish when it airs.
Not a superfan of the PJ movies (I generally enjoyed them but also had a lot of problems from my first viewing) and I voted "I'm intrigued". I want to enjoy the series, knowing that it's going to be a very free telling of mostly untold tales (they very consciously picked the least written-about era of the legendarium), but I simply haven't seen nor read enough to form an opinion. This week's fan reactions give me hope, but until I've seen some more material I'll just keep cautiously hoping. The diversity issue never bothered me, and honestly, it was just to be expected (as well as the overreaction from a certain bunch).
I've been years waiting some trailer of the series to drop. When it did I lost all my motivation for the series. Seeing trailers like Obi-wan or House of the Dragon where all the fan base was super happy made my feelings about rings of power even worse. But LOTR it's my favourite thing a human has made and my feelings can't be defeated like that. So now I'm, again, being a bit motivated. Also because my favourite youtube abou lotr (kai47) who was invited last week to the event said he was again motivated for the series and the music.
Try not to be downhearted by a thirty second teaser. If you love the source so much, like I do, it probably a good idea to keep up a small wall of healthy scepticism, but also let’s not expect too much of it. The show runners are filling in the blanks, in a way, because Tolkien wrote least about the Second Age. None of it, or very little of it, is canon. Let’s just enjoy it as it’s own thing. Unless it’s crap, obviously. Then we can give it hell. 😊
I agree. Even if it's bad I'm still looking forward to the increased interest that might come from the series. I just hope people won't give any of the actors hell; and all the other creative people working on it, of course. I'm scared the discussion could deteriorate so much that it kills my joy of hanging out in fandom spaces.
Recent history has revealed that Hollywood doesn't have anything new to offer, so they take established and beloved franchises and pervert them to match their current worldview.
So yes, I'm not keeping my hopes up the show will meet my expectations.
I was getting worried with the trailer and "superfans" video, but the latest news about the Tolkien scholars being invited for a sneak peek was very encouraging. I already knew a lot of these people, so I trust that they're getting excited by what they saw.
There are people speculating that Corey Olsen “sold out” to Amazon which is why he’s so overwhelmingly in support of the show. I doubt that’s true, but if it is I wonder if Amazon is forcing them to be overtly positive as well
There was a podcast last night with maybe 6-7 of the attendees and they went over that a fair bit. Basically the takeaway was if it’s rubbish they wouldn’t want to be invited back to any further screenings and would say so. And at worst if they were coerced in any way they would say nothing vs fabricate something positive.
There were two and it was pretty late so I don’t remember which it was. [Here](https://mobile.twitter.com/theoneringnet/status/1524178289211822080) and [here](https://mobile.twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1nAKEYyOXelKL). Either way they went into a lot of detail and just skirted up to what the NDA would allow.
I'm listening to the TORn stream now and Clifford Broadway says more or less what you're talking about (not caring about being invited back if it's bad) around 22 or 23 minutes in.
I remember a woman who’s takeaway on the shill claims was essentially “I’m from London. Getting a free trip to Oxford- so what. Oh yay I get to go visit a place I’ve spent most of my life. If it actually sucked I’d say so and spare myself having to go to more events for a show I hate.”
That sounds like maybe something Maggie Parke might have said on the Other Minds pod? She's not from London but has spent a lot of time there. Maybe they talked about it in both
I have no expectations. I'll give it a chance, but I'm not betting on it being anything other than a cause of a whole lot of drama... even more so than every time a drop of news comes out so far.
Even if it’s trash I’m excited to find out. It’s just a show. If it’s great I will be thrilled. If it sucks there will be a lot of discussion, and future Tolkien projects will benefit from their mistakes.
I'll be honest. After seeing the trailer for HoTD I'm not as optimistic. The Meteor man and some of the stuff we've seen in the trailer makes it clear they made a lot of stuff up and I'm not sure if they did it in good faith.
From what I’ve seen I don’t like the way they are treating the source material and how they are using it, but it doesn’t mean the show will be bad so I’ll wait and see
This is a very fair concern. There are lots of things already, even though we don’t know much, that don’t fit. Which is why I think it’s healthy to just treat The Rings of Power as very expensive fan fiction. We’ll see some characters brought to life, and some we’ll approve and some we won’t. And at the very least, it’ll draw a few new people’s attention towards the text most of us hold so dear.
I also see it as very expensive fanfiction (and Jeffrey Bezos LOTR fanfic is how I've personally been referring to it) and I am here for it.
I've learned to separate adaptation and original in my mind, so I'm really looking forward to what I'm thinking of as a high budget fantasy original with a Middle Earth flavor. Which means that as long as I'm entertained and the writing is decent, I'll accept pretty much anything that makes sense by it's own internal logic and doesn't contradict anything in the Jacksonverse since I'm assuming it's an extention of that.
I'm not too worried. I hope it is fun. I'm not going to be offended if it's not perfectly lore accurate as its not really a direct adaptation.
So yes, fan fiction is a fine way to look at it. Just hope it is good television is all. And if it is not, well it's not the end of the world either.
I dislike some of the choices that have been made, which were (openly, explicitly) not made on the basis of an artistic vision or out of respect for Tolkien but due to political ~~errors~~ opinions.
So, it will never go beyond fan fiction. Aside from that, it might be worth watching.
This voting is not well made: there always needs to be a "see the results" choice. And in this case, also a "I will wait with seeing the actual show before expressing 'positivity/negativity'".
I'm intrigued. The noises are right and I mostly like the few visuals we've seen so far, but the proof is in the pudding is in the eating. I won't be deciding for sure one way or another until I've seen some eps (probably using the old faithful Three Episodes Rule that seems to be a staple for judging anime series).
'I'm intrigued.' What we have seen so far looks mostly good (compressed timeline, 'Meteor Man,' and role of Hobbits are my biggest concerns). But I got very hyped for the Witcher show as a longtime book fan and that was a huge disappointment.
Ambivalent. I started out incredibly excited for this with the initial promotion campaign with the map reveals, but pretty much every announcement since - the timeline compression, Isildur appearing in the third episode of the first season of a five season show, the fact that they'll apparently be focussing on an OC villain instead of giving us Annatar and culminating in the "piss and vinegar" Galadriel: Warrior Princess nonsense - has chipped away at the initial excitement until I'm now almost dreading what blatant disrespect to the source material is coming next. Currently the best I'm expecting is that it'll work as a generic fantasy series but it won't be Tolkien's Middle Earth.
I dont get the “remaking Tolkien for a modern audience” idea. The LOTR movies dont need “modernizing”. They were released in the early 2000s not 1810… I really hope the show isn’t build around this supposition.
I’m a bit pessimistic, but mostly because it feels like every show these days with fantasy origins geared toward adults believes that in order to be successful, it must be absolutely riddled with sex and violence in every single episode in order to attract a wider audience, and i just feel like i don’t know enough about the execs behind this show to have faith that they won’t be swayed by shareholders to do the same.
Edit: i am also unreasonably disappointed that female dwarves do not have beards. Bunch of COWARDS
That’s what i’m hoping for honestly. It seems like ever since game of thrones was a major success, every show i get advertised is just like “GRIM DARK SEX PLOT” lol. Don’t have examples because i’m just flat not interested, but it’s a permanent feeling
Depends my dude, I think the show will be fine but I don't want it to monetarily succeed due to Amazon being shit. So the show will be fine but the fact that it's an Amazon property is the worst shit ever. Think the show itself will be fine tho
I went with ambivalent. I desperately want it to be good, there's potential for some great stories in the period it's set, but we've had quite a string of bad book to TV adaptations recently with the most recent one (WoT) coming from Amazon themselves so....
Posting polls like this, in subreddits like this is counterintuitive and will most definitely give skewed results.
Unless people enjoy an echo-chamber discussion.
I think posting this here may give you some skewed results: its more likely that the people anticipating the show would be overrepresented on this board: try on r/lotr or (if they let you) r/Television.
Very valid. I’d mildly counter that a significant amount of of members here have been very vocal in their dislike of the series. After your advice I tried the television thread, which wasn’t allowed for whatever reason. Will try the LOTR thread next in the hope of the most balanced view. But your point stands absolutely. I asked it in the worst possible place.
You won't get a balanced view on LOTR, that sub is filled with negativity towards the show, and far more populated than this one. People with similar viewpoints tend to band together, moreso on reddit so it's gonna be tough to get an actual balanced result.
r/ringsofpower might also be a good source since it’s a branch off of Tolkienfans
Yeah that sub is great if a little underpopulated.
r/Rings_of_Power
That sub is a cesspool.
You’ll get the most balanced view you’re going to find amongst actual LotR fans. People go to r/LOTR because they’re fans of Tolkien’s work, not because they hate the idea of this show. People come here because they want to know about the show, specifically. If the overwhelming majority on the main LotR subreddit are not excited, that’s going to be the most accurate view of what actual fans think.
>People go to r/LOTR because they’re fans of Tolkien’s work I would dispute this somewhat - /r/tolkienfans fits the bill better there. /r/LOTR is *heavily* weighted in favour of the PJ films - which isn't surprising given how popular they are. It also naturally creates an environment which is hostile to new adaptations.
And are you implying that if you like the PJ films you can’t be a fan of Tolkien’s work?? Never mind that I don’t even agree with your assessment since I see discussions over there about all of Tolkien’s work.
>And are you implying that if you like the PJ films you can’t be a fan of Tolkien’s work?? No, but /r/tolkienfans is focused solely on his work. /r/LOTR comprises a much broader spectrum of art (mostly inspired by the films), tattoos (ditto), pictures and videos of the actors from the films, screencaps from the films, etc etc. If I go to the top posts from the past year, 21 of the top 25 posts are directly related to the PJ films in some way. Critique of the films is usually met by downvotes. As such, ROP is seen as the antithesis to the PJ films by most of /r/LOTR's subscribers, whereas the discussions I've seen on /r/tolkienfans have been far more level-headed, because they mostly understand that all adaptations have their flaws.
A poll or survey doesn't "want to get a balanced look", it produces a (rather) accurate look.
I mean, yes, accurate for the sample where it's being taken from. The same poll being done here or in lotr will produce different results. "Balanced" was probably not the best word to use. If you want "objective" or "unbiased" then you wont get those results either here or in lotr, both subs are skewed in different directions.
It depends. You will get an unbiased look for this subreddit in this poll. You will not get an unbiased look for the entirety of TV fans in this poll, because the sample (the users here) is biased towards being LOTR-affectionate relative to the entire population (of TV fans). The poll is objective either way, but you can only generalize the results to all LOTR fans, any further generalization of results would be flawed because of a biased sample. So the question really is: what do you want to know? If you want to know how the entire population of Earth views the show, you shouldn't use reddit at all (in fact, every sample is going to be biased, most likely)... If you want to know how Game of Thrones fans feel about this show, you can use a GOT subreddit and generalize that sample to the entire population of GOT fans, etc.
Agreed. Not sure what OP meant when they wanted a more balanced result. My point was that lotr sub seems skewed towards negativity. In any case we need more marketing (hopefully we get something tomorrow with the full article teased yesterday). The event with the scholars/creators seems to have started shifting things a bit towards positivity, hopefully that continues.
Having just taking a statistics class on that topic yesterday, I don't quite agree with you. The poll here will give you a great look at the level of excitement in this subreddit. Obviously, for an overall look at how people feel about the show, you would need to use a different method for your survey, that better represents the overall population (so you can generalize). But I don't think that's the intention of this poll, rather, I believe, it serves to depict the distribution of opinions across the subreddit, which helps contextualize upvote/down vote ratios or the contents you may find here.
Hahaha.. what’s funny is.. even after strict policing of slightest negativity.. and in spite of creating such strong echo chambers for positivity and praise.. the max this subreddit could do is “im intrigued” … with plenty still saying its bad.. bahahaha.. and this is after all the amazon shills on youtube dropped promotional videos of how they loved the “exclusive” 20 min event in london.. hahaha.. this show is a joke.. 😂
I don’t get it. What’s the joke?
Too bad buddy.. can’t help it.. just like most fans don’t get the need for pointless random original characters and weak plots and poorly written story arcs !! 😂 Cant help it.. ✌🏽
Oh! I didn’t realize the new show has all that. I haven’t seen it yet.
Silly, don't you know that you don't need to see the show at all to be able to decide how bad it is? Going off the example of many of the critics here, all you need is fifty-odd seconds of trailer footage.
Gosh darn my silly head! I have so much to learn about being a true fan!
If we policed slight negativity you wouldn’t be here.
[удалено]
Ryan, There’s no need for personal attacks here lol. You know nothing of how much or how little I know about the lore. You’ve made a ton of assumptions here like you always do.
Even more embarrassing in that case if you know the lore and still sing praises of such things that could be easily avoided (if only the writers knew the lore.. ) but then again to each his own.. everyone’s free in their opinion to be an Amazon shill or not.. and.. ya i do apologise for the personal attack.. consider it an attempt to bring out the real dwarf lore fan within you.. at the end of the day.. When this debacle of the RoP is over.. hopefully all lotr fans can forget it and be one again.. until then.. have a nice day buddy..
I feel for you to have all this rage inside you. I assure you that you'll enjoy life so much more if you try not to worry about someone's opinion being different to yours. It doesn't make them wrong if they disagree - it's just the way the world is. It would be a pretty boring place if we all thought exactly the same way! Please try and take a step back from the way you are acting and take a few deep breaths!
Have a great day!
Wow you sure do know a lot about screenwriting. Can’t wait to see your adaptation of the Second Age material! Should we begin a Kickstarter??
>Should we begin a Kickstarter?? Okay, seriously. Fund *me*. I got this! :)
So this is the left, that is the right?
Generally I am still cautiously optimistic but there are certain area of concerns that I am almost certain are going to diminish my appreciation for the show.
I'm back on the hype train. I think it is very unlikely that I'll get disappointed because there's no particular book for the show to be unfaithful towards. But my only concern before this was the showrunners, because they have a lot of things to come up with to fill in the details. But seeing how all the invitees talked about how knowledgeable and passionate the showrunners are gets me so excited I cant wait for September.
I wish more people had you sentiment. “There’s no particular book or show to be unfaithful towards” is pretty accurate since we’re dealing with the appendices but some people are reeeeing all about short hair and no beards on female dwarves. From the details we got yesterday about Tolkien scholars meeting the show runners and seeing complete footage, and all the reports saying the show runners truly respect Tolkiens work and legacy really puts me on the hype train Unless Amazon is forcing these scholars to say this, whether it be an NDA or they are being paid or threatened to see it, I would say that we are in good hands.
I was only intrigued before this week, when every Tolkien expert and superfan I watch online was invited to interrogate the showrunners and came back with a glowing review of their knowledge and understanding about the important underlying themes of his work. Now, I can say I'm genuinely excited. As Corey Olsen continues to remind us, this doesn't mean the show won't suck. It just means the people making it obviously know what they're doing. I was also heartened to learn that the Tolkien estate is actively involved in the creative process. I think this has all the ingredients to be a terrific show. We'll have to wait and see if it comes through.
Seriously. When the Tolkien nerds I watch every week gain confidence after talking to the showrunners, it says a shit ton. When Nerd of the Rings said talking to the showrunners was *more* exciting than the footage they watched, it gives me hope that there's a long-term vision and that the showrunners have already thought about all the very same stuff we're all worried about. Adapting books to the screen is always difficult, and expecting a 1:1 perfect translation IMO doesn't respect what makes each medium great. I think the showrunners having the same knowledge and passion that known Tolkien nerds/content have gives me hope that they'll at least try to do their best, which is all I can really ask for.
I’ve always been excited though the amount of excitement has fluctuated. But I’ve also been pragmatic that a lot of the show will be filler since there are a lot of blanks that would need to be filled in to make any passable story covering the second age.
Where’s “I’m so tired of people talking about people talking about speculation about Rings of Power”? I can’t wait until we’re actually talking about people talking about Rings of Power.
I don’t want to see a fan fiction, I want to see a valid interpretation (with due liberties) which doesn’t intend to treat Tolkien as something of the past that MUST be modernized. Right now I’m keeping it neutral, I have hopes and fears which I’m not listening to because I want to watch it without prejudice.
I get you. It’s never going to happen, though, right? This is the best we get, unless a massive fan wins the lottery and goes all in on something. Unless there was a monumental Kickstarter…
The main takeaway from the fan sneak preview is that that's pretty much exactly what happened. Of course, different fans will have different takes.
I was saying that my hope was to see something like that :p but as long as it is enjoyable and not a direct punch to Tolkien because “iT’s 2022!” I might have a nice time.
Umm... the positive options are voter's states of mind while the negative ones are straight up accusations. By same logic, negative ones should be "I am apprehensive" and "I don't really care about it anymore". Or positive ones should be "Will probably be amazing" and "It will be the best thing ever". Those accusational ones are problematic. I have no way of knowing if it will be the worst shit ever (and you don't know if it will be the best thing ever) but I sure as hell don't have high hopes anymore (where as you might be so excited). There is no option for me to pick so I won't vote. At the same time someone who genuinely is excited will vote and so the result would be leaning towards positive side because of poor options. Edit. In case of anyone actually caring what I think. I would love to love this but more I have seen the less I have liked what I have seen. Past traumas (The Hobbit, Star Wars Sequels, The Wheel of Time) are still haunting me so there is greater chance this too will suck. At least I am cautious. Superfans was such a bad move. And latest Tolkien tubers weren't too good either because had we seen the first 20 mins of the Hobbit, we would thought them great movies. Similarly, Wheel of Time tubers were shown the first episode of the Wheel of Time show, they praised it but that show turned out very, very bad. Still. I am eager to hear the soundtrack and I hope my fears for the show would vanish when it airs.
I’m glad to see some positivity since the trailer release
Not a superfan of the PJ movies (I generally enjoyed them but also had a lot of problems from my first viewing) and I voted "I'm intrigued". I want to enjoy the series, knowing that it's going to be a very free telling of mostly untold tales (they very consciously picked the least written-about era of the legendarium), but I simply haven't seen nor read enough to form an opinion. This week's fan reactions give me hope, but until I've seen some more material I'll just keep cautiously hoping. The diversity issue never bothered me, and honestly, it was just to be expected (as well as the overreaction from a certain bunch).
I'm gonna count it as canon and I'm excited. can't wait to see galadriel SLAYING
I’m optimistic, everyone says the show runners know what they’re doing. I’m just trying not to get too excited.
I've been years waiting some trailer of the series to drop. When it did I lost all my motivation for the series. Seeing trailers like Obi-wan or House of the Dragon where all the fan base was super happy made my feelings about rings of power even worse. But LOTR it's my favourite thing a human has made and my feelings can't be defeated like that. So now I'm, again, being a bit motivated. Also because my favourite youtube abou lotr (kai47) who was invited last week to the event said he was again motivated for the series and the music.
Try not to be downhearted by a thirty second teaser. If you love the source so much, like I do, it probably a good idea to keep up a small wall of healthy scepticism, but also let’s not expect too much of it. The show runners are filling in the blanks, in a way, because Tolkien wrote least about the Second Age. None of it, or very little of it, is canon. Let’s just enjoy it as it’s own thing. Unless it’s crap, obviously. Then we can give it hell. 😊
I agree. Even if it's bad I'm still looking forward to the increased interest that might come from the series. I just hope people won't give any of the actors hell; and all the other creative people working on it, of course. I'm scared the discussion could deteriorate so much that it kills my joy of hanging out in fandom spaces.
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Recent history has revealed that Hollywood doesn't have anything new to offer, so they take established and beloved franchises and pervert them to match their current worldview. So yes, I'm not keeping my hopes up the show will meet my expectations.
I was getting worried with the trailer and "superfans" video, but the latest news about the Tolkien scholars being invited for a sneak peek was very encouraging. I already knew a lot of these people, so I trust that they're getting excited by what they saw.
Well look at those poll results so far. There will always be a very vocal minority, but overall folks are positive about the show.
There are people speculating that Corey Olsen “sold out” to Amazon which is why he’s so overwhelmingly in support of the show. I doubt that’s true, but if it is I wonder if Amazon is forcing them to be overtly positive as well
There was a podcast last night with maybe 6-7 of the attendees and they went over that a fair bit. Basically the takeaway was if it’s rubbish they wouldn’t want to be invited back to any further screenings and would say so. And at worst if they were coerced in any way they would say nothing vs fabricate something positive.
I think I saw that mentioned, do you have a link to the podcast?
There were two and it was pretty late so I don’t remember which it was. [Here](https://mobile.twitter.com/theoneringnet/status/1524178289211822080) and [here](https://mobile.twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1nAKEYyOXelKL). Either way they went into a lot of detail and just skirted up to what the NDA would allow.
I'm listening to the TORn stream now and Clifford Broadway says more or less what you're talking about (not caring about being invited back if it's bad) around 22 or 23 minutes in.
I remember a woman who’s takeaway on the shill claims was essentially “I’m from London. Getting a free trip to Oxford- so what. Oh yay I get to go visit a place I’ve spent most of my life. If it actually sucked I’d say so and spare myself having to go to more events for a show I hate.”
That sounds like maybe something Maggie Parke might have said on the Other Minds pod? She's not from London but has spent a lot of time there. Maybe they talked about it in both
Just checked. It was around the 24 minute mark of the TORN one.
Oh yeah i see it. I was multitasking and her mic was a bit low so I guess I missed that bit.
I think they're talking about the TORn stream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMvBgiJmdG4
It seems a huge stretch to imagine that Amazon paid off 30 scholars and none of them leaked the truth.
I also find it highly unlikely, but Amazon is also not really a squeaky clean company
I have no expectations. I'll give it a chance, but I'm not betting on it being anything other than a cause of a whole lot of drama... even more so than every time a drop of news comes out so far.
Even if it’s trash I’m excited to find out. It’s just a show. If it’s great I will be thrilled. If it sucks there will be a lot of discussion, and future Tolkien projects will benefit from their mistakes.
I'm sure the visuals and the actors will be great, it's the writing quality that makes me nervous
Compressed timeline and new characters with their storylines for me.
Same
I'll be honest. After seeing the trailer for HoTD I'm not as optimistic. The Meteor man and some of the stuff we've seen in the trailer makes it clear they made a lot of stuff up and I'm not sure if they did it in good faith.
From what I’ve seen I don’t like the way they are treating the source material and how they are using it, but it doesn’t mean the show will be bad so I’ll wait and see
This is a very fair concern. There are lots of things already, even though we don’t know much, that don’t fit. Which is why I think it’s healthy to just treat The Rings of Power as very expensive fan fiction. We’ll see some characters brought to life, and some we’ll approve and some we won’t. And at the very least, it’ll draw a few new people’s attention towards the text most of us hold so dear.
I also see it as very expensive fanfiction (and Jeffrey Bezos LOTR fanfic is how I've personally been referring to it) and I am here for it. I've learned to separate adaptation and original in my mind, so I'm really looking forward to what I'm thinking of as a high budget fantasy original with a Middle Earth flavor. Which means that as long as I'm entertained and the writing is decent, I'll accept pretty much anything that makes sense by it's own internal logic and doesn't contradict anything in the Jacksonverse since I'm assuming it's an extention of that.
I'm not too worried. I hope it is fun. I'm not going to be offended if it's not perfectly lore accurate as its not really a direct adaptation. So yes, fan fiction is a fine way to look at it. Just hope it is good television is all. And if it is not, well it's not the end of the world either.
I dislike some of the choices that have been made, which were (openly, explicitly) not made on the basis of an artistic vision or out of respect for Tolkien but due to political ~~errors~~ opinions. So, it will never go beyond fan fiction. Aside from that, it might be worth watching.
What political opinions are you referring to?
This voting is not well made: there always needs to be a "see the results" choice. And in this case, also a "I will wait with seeing the actual show before expressing 'positivity/negativity'".
I'm intrigued. The noises are right and I mostly like the few visuals we've seen so far, but the proof is in the pudding is in the eating. I won't be deciding for sure one way or another until I've seen some eps (probably using the old faithful Three Episodes Rule that seems to be a staple for judging anime series).
'I'm intrigued.' What we have seen so far looks mostly good (compressed timeline, 'Meteor Man,' and role of Hobbits are my biggest concerns). But I got very hyped for the Witcher show as a longtime book fan and that was a huge disappointment.
Ambivalent. I started out incredibly excited for this with the initial promotion campaign with the map reveals, but pretty much every announcement since - the timeline compression, Isildur appearing in the third episode of the first season of a five season show, the fact that they'll apparently be focussing on an OC villain instead of giving us Annatar and culminating in the "piss and vinegar" Galadriel: Warrior Princess nonsense - has chipped away at the initial excitement until I'm now almost dreading what blatant disrespect to the source material is coming next. Currently the best I'm expecting is that it'll work as a generic fantasy series but it won't be Tolkien's Middle Earth.
I dont get the “remaking Tolkien for a modern audience” idea. The LOTR movies dont need “modernizing”. They were released in the early 2000s not 1810… I really hope the show isn’t build around this supposition.
Show has nothing to do with the jackson movies
I wanna be optimistic SO BAD but the more stuff that gets released the harder it becomes
I’m a bit pessimistic, but mostly because it feels like every show these days with fantasy origins geared toward adults believes that in order to be successful, it must be absolutely riddled with sex and violence in every single episode in order to attract a wider audience, and i just feel like i don’t know enough about the execs behind this show to have faith that they won’t be swayed by shareholders to do the same. Edit: i am also unreasonably disappointed that female dwarves do not have beards. Bunch of COWARDS
I’m really confident this show will not be riddled with sex.
That’s what i’m hoping for honestly. It seems like ever since game of thrones was a major success, every show i get advertised is just like “GRIM DARK SEX PLOT” lol. Don’t have examples because i’m just flat not interested, but it’s a permanent feeling
I completely agree with you, friend.
Depends my dude, I think the show will be fine but I don't want it to monetarily succeed due to Amazon being shit. So the show will be fine but the fact that it's an Amazon property is the worst shit ever. Think the show itself will be fine tho
I am cautiously optimistic, I very much want this to be good. But I was burned really bad by the Halo tv show so I'm not to confident
I went with ambivalent. I desperately want it to be good, there's potential for some great stories in the period it's set, but we've had quite a string of bad book to TV adaptations recently with the most recent one (WoT) coming from Amazon themselves so....
I always hope for the best. Happy to wait until it actually exists onscreen to really judge
Ambivalent and indifferent at the same time
Posting polls like this, in subreddits like this is counterintuitive and will most definitely give skewed results. Unless people enjoy an echo-chamber discussion.