Rings of Power's Problems are Structural

[@emileelynette3158]

It's so painfully obvious these writers are inexperienced and in way over their heads, and likely (evidentally) didn't solicit any professional editing or critique of their dialogue or plot. It's bad on such a fundamental level in so many ways that you could almost pity them for being allowed to tarnish their reputations permanently - if not that they probably pocketed millions of dollars for producing what plays out like a total amateur's beta draft.

[@akumakorgar]

There seems to be a lot of that lately, like the Star Wars sequels were just so clumsily put together - even withstanding the director switch, the basic failure to create a compelling story in terms of structure and plot was galling and utterly mystifying.

[@ArbitraryHarry]

Too many people say this show is good “if you ignore the lore inconsistencies”. Rings of Power’s problems run far deeper than being a bad adaptation. Can’t wait to see your coverage of S2!

[@Shenaldrac]

I would also like to point out that if an adaptation needs to have its source material ignored to be enjoyable then it's failed already. Because the whole appeal of such things being an adaptation/part of a larger work is that connection to that work! If that connection is harming it then it shouldn't have been an adaptation/prequel/whatever, it should have been its own thing. New IPs are good to have! Buuuut then big studios and companies like netflix wouldn't have millions of existing fans to profit off of.

[@jrconway3]

@@Shenaldrac They're not creative enough to create their own stories. That's why they have to write new stories within existing properties.

[@mikestanmore2614]

If they'd never paid for the IP, the show might have been better received as a generic fantasy. A very poorly written generic fantasy, but at least it wouldn't have had to contend with the ire of Tolkien fans.

[@Shenaldrac]

@@mikestanmore2614 That's what I'm saying!

[@Bustermachine]

@@mikestanmore2614 Pretty much. It 'reads' like any more or less generic fantasy show cranked out and put on a streaming service. It's not very good. But it would have been a harmless dumb show already forgotten if not for the insane budget and licensing.

[@TheLyricalCleric]

In my mind, the show would have greatly benefitted from having Celebrian, Galadriel’s daughter, be the main character. Instead of Elrond and her having a disjointed relationship, they would have a budding romance (which would turn into a three way romance arc with Sauron). Could be a great reason why Galadriel is pissed at Sauron, he tried to hit on her daughter! That way, Celebrian’s hotheaded naïveté could be explained away as being young and brash while her mom Galadriel would be distant and vague, as she always is. Plus, book-Celebrian has a tragic story anyways, so it would be a great story to put to film.

[@comraderaoul]

I’ve been thinking that since day one! It makes so much sense that it makes me suspect it was actually the showrunners’ original plan, only to be vetoed by corporate for the sake of a more “recognizable” MC.

[@alexg3434]

True, but these clowns want to rely on every character that fans remember from the Peter Jackson films. So they throw in characters who actually were up to 4,000 years apart - Celebrimbor, Isildur, the Balrog etc. "Hey if fans were positive about a character, let's throw him/her/it into our show - that will work, right?" They are just clowns.

[@Banzai51]

If you pay $250M for the rights to one of the most beloved IPs in the world, but then can only view it as a generic fantasy show, it has already failed spectacularly.

[@J14Irish]

They only have rights to the Appendices of the return of the king. They can't do it as they don't have the proper rights!

[@Veylon]

@@J14Irish They either should've paid for the proper rights or told a different story that they did have all the rights to or maybe bought the rights to an entirely different franchise that was more affordable.

[@eugene8498]

​@@J14Irish There's no "foreword" to adapt. They have the rights to all three of the Lord of the Rings books, the "Appendices" and the Hobbit. And the story is pretty much there. They never had to change this much. And they never had to innovate such a shitty story. There's no excuse. If the rights were constraining then, don't effing purchase and write their own thing.

[@kenanpalangic7539]

The story to be used was never an issue i.e. what could they actually use from Tolkien. They spent heaps of money on the rights to the story but went completely cheap on quality of the writers (and perhaps even actors, casting etc) and this is why the show is bad.

[@alexg3434]

@@J14Irish That is simply not true. Everything they need is in the appendices to the Lord of the Rings, which they purchased. I think this is an excuse that Amazon has spread in order to deflect criticism.

[@RicWalker]

Thats actually a very good point. if you change all the names in your head and think of it as some random fantasy epic, than season one was decent and season 2 just boring and stupid. But if you know the lore and see it as a Lord of the Rings prequel show, than its simply an abomination. they can say what they want to defend this crap, but behind closed doors they will be happy and saying: "See! its working. we are milking the franchise and murdering it is almost complete, so no one else will be able to restore and milk it after us!"

[@animelytical8354]

It's not even decent in those regards. The only interesting thing is the lore breaking

[@Fronzel41]

It's Swords of Legendaria, Saturdays at 1pm on the CW

[@TheAurians]

I would argue the point that even if you were to change the names, it's still not good. It is not well-written, and in fact this property worsens as some random fantasy epic (as even less of the story at all makes human sense). Like if you had a generative AI model that couldn't reason around time and distance in an extended piece of literature. Scale, time, characterization (or simply, what is a person/being), and rationality are all poorly understood and therefore poorly implemented within the Rings of Power. Season 2 is notable for being somehow worse, as if the program that was writing their story degrades the more information it has to incorporate.

[@sethlowen2303]

I haven’t watched a ton of the RoP-mostly because I actually respect Tolkien and his works-but it legitimately feels like a fantasy story I wrote in my early teens. Back then I thought it was great, but going back over it in recent years I can’t read it without turning off my computer. It’s too cringe inducing. The scene where Galadriel is so excited riding a horse across the beach gives the same feeling as one of my scenes of my MC running across an open field. The writers for RoP are as bad as I was when I was 14. And that’s saying something, because I was bad 😂

[@reginatemporis4465]

If you haven't watched why are you talking?

[@sethlowen2303]

@@reginatemporis4465 I don’t think you read my comment. I said I haven’t watched a ton. I’ve watched more than enough to throw my hat in the ring as far as opinions go, I never said I’m an expert in the show and I haven’t watched every episode. I never claimed to. All I’m saying is the RoP gave me strong first time writing vibes.

[@paxluporum4447]

To cringe is to be human.

[@mikekolokowsky]

Season 2 shows how Sauron got to be on the raft in the ocean. It didn’t seem planned. There wasn’t much reasoning. Adar tried to kill him, but he got away by being a clump of ooze. He killed a guy who drove a cart over that ooze. Then he joined a bunch of people heading out on a boat to Valinor, even though Sauron would have known the boat was doomed because the Valar don’t let humans in.

[@BattleMatt]

It's crazy really, they could easily have stuck to one plot and timeline. The Numenorian plotline literally doesn't take place until hundreds of years later. We could have just stayed with the Elves, the Dwarves and teased in Sauron and Celebrimbor in season one, and that's it. Season two, Numenor.

[@jujuplayboy]

Making a mystery over Sauron's identity was stupid, they should have made it clear to us but a mystery to the characters. Now they must deal with the knowledge of some characters about Sauron's identity while making sure this knowledge doesn't prevent Sauron from continuing to make the rings, therefore breaking Celebrimbor from Galadriel for an entire season because Sauron literally has NO ALLY. I don't know how they'll do for season 3 when he'll have to forge the One Ring.

[@Stephen64138]

Because they are utterly unable to write, that's it. I have friends that would do a better job than them at storytelling. Making 5 seasons out of the LOTR prologue is wild. They try to fill up with made up stuff. The problem is that the made up stuff is garbage and totally irrelevant to the story. Take Arondir, the black elf (Don Lemon). If you remove him entirely from the story, what's the difference? And GRandald and the NotHobbits, if you remove them from the story, what's the difference? There is none. ... At this point, just remove the show and it won't make any difference in anyone's life. It's just sad.

[@samg1879]

It'll skip to him being allies with the generic baddies all of a sudden after exposing himself for no reason. There's no depth to this series at all

[@jujuplayboy]

@@samg1879 You predicted it! OUR NEW PROPHET!!

[@samg1879]

@@jujuplayboy Ouch, that was a tough watch

[@mspointyears]

I think all the money went into the spectacle of it, instead of making sure that the fundamentals were right. If it was me, i would've wanted to hire the best and most experienced writers I could get.

[@anonmouse956]

I have a distant social connection to the show runners and really wanted them to succeed. The show runners are the problem, just not good enough.

[@lastmanstanding5423]

I'd really love to talk to them. I mean, I wouldn't try to share my opinion (that would be rude). I'd just like to ask questions in person... like... Do they know how bad they f-ed up. Or are they gas-lighting themselves?

[@Pas5afist]

Yeah, that sucks. You don't like to see people not succeed. I will tell you, I was nervously crossing my fingers that they would be competent as I was well aware of how few writing credits they had. (And the one uncredited one they had didn't leave me with a lot of confidence.) But you never know. The Expanse adaptation was fantastic and some of the showrunners didn't have a lot of experience... Cowboys & Aliens (ha)... but also Iron Man, which is a win. But then Naren Shankar was an old hand, learning the ropes on Star Trek TNG and steeped in other secondary world TV shows. I'd be far more confident with that resume.

[@SenChalcolithic]

Same! I wanted to like it, but I can’t even hate watch it anymore. I very much appreciate your thoughts on sci-fi and fantasy.

[@LaffeeTaffeeGG]

16:22 Thanks for that blast of nostalgia right to my big stupid face

[@tntori5079]

Come for the show analysis, stay for the Cain reference =)

[@LordDustyMason]

On the first point of having multiple storylines and points of view, another good example would be the early seasons (or books) of Game of Thrones. Even though the characters are separated far and wide and have various goals, plans and trials, all the plots are portrayed in a way that feels connected or at least headed in a direction that might eventually connect them. Even Daenerys and her side of the story, referenced and was referenced by those thousands of miles away even if she wouldn't directly interact with them for many seasons.

[@Pas5afist]

True. Although, at least with the books, GRRM has a very contained beginning. Except for Daenerys, all the other point of views begin in the north with the visitation of King Robert and his retinue to Lord Stark. So we have one location (ignoring Dany) as we learn the many points of view. But then, as they head south, the points of views begin splitting off and branching as they make contact with others in the game of thrones. This is a very effective way to ease your readers into a story with a zillion point of views: start small and contained and as the reader grasps the world, expand and branch out. It also helps that every chapter literally says the name of whoever is the point of view character. I do have one complaint though. I only made it about halfway through book three? (I think) before quitting, but even by then, I was feeling like Dany was too separate from everything else. I felt like she ought to have made more inroads to everyone else much sooner whereas it felt like more and more conflicts within various cities were cropping up just to keep her busy in the east. My theory when the series was supposed to be shorter, the pacing would have felt a lot better as she would connect in at a reasonable time. But as the rest of the series sprawled into more and more books, Dany's story in the east needed to be continually stretched out so she would have something to do before the rest of the plot lines get caught up to the point of the story in which she was supposed come storming in. But that's a whole lot of speculation over a series I never finished.

[@robbywilliamson4152]

And aside from Daenerys, most of the most main characters were properly introduced in the same location before gradually splintering off into their own separate storylines throughout the season.

[@GRB-tj6uj]

GoT/ASOIAF also works because you have the existential threat of the White Walkers/Others lurking in the background from the beginning. So even as the characters go their separate way, you as the viewer/reader know that everything will lead to a big confrontation between the living and the dead (the show naturally bottled it). This gives the story a coherence and purpose that's lacking in RoP. EDIT: what makes it even worse is that basically everybody knows the plot of the LOTR, and thus has a rough idea about where all the main players of RoP will end up. A big part of the fun of GoT/ASOIAF is figuring out what will happen and how it all ties together

[@IntroDuktionZ]

Another great video! I really like your idea that a prequel answers “how.” It reminds me a bit of the conflict in the first Dune book-Paul is so near to omniscient that there’s no question if he survives, but there is a question of who he is when he gets to that jihad ending and how he got there. You also reminded me of the musical Hadestown, which retells the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice but in such a way that you almost dare to hope it could turn out differently than you know it will. Excited for part two!

[@Pas5afist]

I agree. Dune is a fantastic example because of Frank's brilliant use of omniscient point of view. Easily one of the most effective uses of it that I can think of. We already know House Atriedes will be ambushed and nearly destroyed but the great art of the story is how Frank weaves the tale as we follow every move and counter move as each character heads towards their inevitable demise. Love it.

[@henryglennon3864]

That's the key to tragedy. In a good tragedy, the antagonist is fate, the concept of inevitability. The audience can know what's going to happen, and the tension is you empathizing with the characters raging against the inevitable.

[@klhaldane]

07:22 You've reminded me of a Mythbusters episode where thay laid out actual guns and ammo packs, and tried to cross the warehouse floor while picking up every item. They couldn't do it, but an actual Army Ranger was brought in and just barely managed.

[@thegoblonoid]

This show is so scared of things being spiritual or magical. Everything has to be explained. The rings can't just be magical no they have to explain it with alloys in a pseudo science way. The elves fading need to have mithril for some god awful contrived reason. Sauron losing his body and slowly regaining it in the unseen world is now so literally explained that they turned him into evil black venom goo. Any subtlety is gone and nothing is left to the imagination. This show has no awe. It feels so small and fake.

[@Singulitarian]

Another is the weakness of the enemy, both Sauron and the Uraki. In the movies, Sauron is either a giant, magical knight or a giant all seeing eye of flames. He sets the danger and the stakes. In this, we start with a wimpy union boss, killed by his members, then a comical oiled fur ball, then a whiny human, then a pissy super elf with inconsistent powers. He's not intimidating. His skills only appear when needed for the plot, so they appear random. Then the Uraki are just unwashed people with families, not pure driven evil.

[@weiSane]

The single and biggest problem of all is twisting Tolkien’s work and desecrating his work”. Once you approach any adaptation of his works like they did rings of power, you have already failed. Right from the get go

[@emmetocuana7193]

Did you drop in a Godot clip just on a whim for a conversation about plot momentum? Brilliant!

[@troo_6656]

Fundementally the biggest issue is that the characters are written nonsensically and they only have motivations as to make drama in a TV show/ decive the audience. The characters simply do not make sense, their motivations cannot be reconsiled with the actions they are taking. Which bleeds into another problem. That the plot is utterly ridiculous nonsense. When you have strong characters who take actions consequently you have a strong plot because those actions define where the story will go. When you have bad characters who's motivations aren't coherent and take actions that are completely contradictory to their motivations, you end up with a mess of a plot where nothing can be made sense off and anything can happen really at any time. That is the foundational problem. The writers didn't have a coherent cast of characters or the skill to write them consistently (likely both) and from that every single other problem can be derived. Lack of skill resulting in sloppy execution of something that could perhaps work in the hands of more skilled writers.

[@MatthewEverettGates]

Just started- interesting discussion so far: YES! Really felt like watching several movies but with no control over when I change the channel. Not to mention the final union of 2 kinda main ones of these was a dreadfully confusing battle that left me feeling like I was watching Kurosawa's Dreams again- the nuclear meltdown clouds one- and then a childish fantasy titles change of the incomprehensible geography of the place I already know well: "It's Mordor Now," brought back the feeling of watching multiple movies in multiple genres. And rejoining the intro locus with the weeklong teleport / deadman horse-ride made it so when the multiple movies connect it's mysterious how they do- I get the impression that I'm supposed to believe it since Arwen did it for Frodo, nothing more necessary to see here: BAM seawreck dude is now working on the titular rings with the folks from the first channel (oh, second; because he was the subject of the first movie, though wasn't in it with seawreck girl until she became seawreck girl, and he isn't yet connected to any of that, I've technically "forgotten" the connection).

[@alexkats30]

I enjoyed your criticism which seemed very fair and very dissimilar from all the ragebaiter content creators out there, that have flooded this platform with content milking this culture war subject for money. I can't wait for more of your videos on this, so I subscribe

[@Pas5afist]

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Though I followed it at one time, I find the all rage all the time exhausting as I've always preferred Lindsey Ellis (Nostalgia Chick) to the Nostalgia Critic. As such, I do like to bounce between analyzing what I think worked rather than only what didn't work... even if I'm cutting across the grain in some cases.

[@Bustermachine]

@@Pas5afist "You have my like!" The angry reviewer persona has been disastrous for media literacy.

[@alexkats30]

@@Pas5afist I get it. During season 1, I too watched a lot of that content, even though I disagree with most of the things they believe, because I too was very disappointed by the show and they were already at the bandwagon, as that's their job. While everyone else that was more objective, was still waiting to see some more content before coming out condemning it, so they were almost the only game out there for a while. But as other more film/writing literate and artistic creators came out with their own criticisms, I realized that they had even deeper and more substantial criticisms to offer by putting my feelings/perception of the show into words, without going as far as the culture warrior ragebaiters who many times relied on very shallow or even illegitimate criticisms and I was happy that I wasn't crazy for being disappointed and agreeing with some of the most disagreeable people out there.

[@weltraumvogel2]

@7:00 Rings of Poop is in the 2nd Age, but Gandalf came to Middle Earth around the year 1000 of the 3rd Age... So the whole Gandalf BS makes no sense

[@Modenut]

1:26, I see what you did there. Very nice. :) Also, re: prequels not having tension. There was a study made that showed that spoilers over all **increased** the enjoyment of certain media. Especially movies and books with a "twist" (like, say, Sixth Sense or Fight Club) because the one watching could actually relax and see all those wonderful and clever details and hints the creator added. Mind you - I don't know how representative the study was in terms of the general population but I know it fits me to a tee. I don't care about spoilers at all and I find the whole "mystery box" concept that Abrams concocted to be incredibly tedious.

[@Buc82]

The raft story gets even worse in season 2. Apparently someone told the writers "We need to explain HOW Sauron got there" and there was not and inch of reflection on "WHY?". He gets on the boat because... he had nothing better to do?

[@WMfin]

This show is so bad in so many levels. It's death by million paper cuts. And they learned nothing from the first episode.

[@deathwarmedover]

Rings blows. I'm hoping to one day get a genie wish and delete it from existence.

[@Saluloid]

I loved the analysis which I agree with and makes sense The thing I loved most tho was the amount of writing, pacing and story development I learnt as a filmmaker. This is going to be handy on something I`m cooking which requires multiple perspectives.

[@projimbo]

ROP is a masterclass....in how NOT to make a series. Vandalism of the professors work. Rich trying to buy art.

[@driiifter]

Yeah the story is just meh. This was confirmed for me when I realized the only thing that has remotely piqued my interest in this show was the episode where the weird lady tells Nori about the Shire or whatever and Nori starts connecting the dots. I was like okay, there is a genuine thing being built up here. Everything else I'm waiting to be destroyed: Numenor, Eregion and Khazadum. We obviously aren't getting the Balrog until the last season, if they even film it. For all we know a dwarf will emerge from rubble and go, "we fought as hard as we could Durin!!". Everything happens off screen in this show.

[@paulzrimsek9013]

14:10 We will see this fell engine again at the siege of Eregion.

[@rutessian]

Better Call Saul is an example of a prequel being at least as good as the original story.

[@simonconte7299]

Great analysis. Galadriel jumping into the ocean and happening to meet Sauron was my breaking point. Haven't watched anything past that. Love the books and LOTR movies, but everything since then (including the Hobbit movies) has been deeply unsatisfying.

[@navdhillon7912]

With such a huge budget the only thing that keeps me coming is music and actor playing Sauron

We need another video for season 2 😬

[@duckdialectics8810]

There are also problems at a level of writer formation and process philosophy. The thing is, the writing team was very inept, and it is very unlikely that the writers involved could write something without such blatant structural problems if they tried

[@GRB-tj6uj]

The "Harfoots" really show that the showrunners don't get Tolkien. The point of Hobbits is that they're anachronistic. They're a stand ins for modern day (for Tolkien) rural Englishman that are thrown into a Beowulfian mythical past. So in this way they form a bridge between the reader and Tolkien's mythological world. Frodo is relatable for a 20th or 21th century reader, but Aragorn is not. But in the show the Harfoots are a bunch of semi feral nomads, so there's no point to them, no contrasts to be made (especially in The Hobbit Tolkien uses the differences between Bilbo and the dwarves to great satirical effect). If you still want to include them (for commercial reasons) the stupidest thing to do is to push them into the same role they have in LOTR and The Hobbit, and that's exactly what they've done with off brand Frodo and Sam.

[@hatuletoh]

I knew beyond a doubt that the Star Wars prequels would be disappointing at best, and probably would suck, when we learned that C3P0 had been built by Darth Vader on the planet C3P0 escaped to when he was being chased by Darth Vader and was eventually found by Darth Vader's son and the Jedi he'd previously met while under construction by Darth Vader, the Jedi who becameDarth Vader's son teacher, of course. Having R2D2 be a mech droid on the princess's ship wasn't great, but the whole C3P0 connection badly shrank the universe for absolutely no good reason. And then Lucas kept doing it for three movies. The original films were so good at suggesting a vibrant, populated universe of huge proportions, but when Lucas finally had the money, tech, and freedom to show us that universe so much of what he did made the universe feel small, and inhabited by the same dozen people. And two droids.

[@isomeme]

Exactly. And that's where Tolkien really shines. A minor character who is in the story for three pages will give you the sense of having a complex personality and point of view. Every place you read about, however briefly, seems to echo with millennia of intricate history. It no doubt helped that he actually did have vast amounts of written lore that didn't directly appear in the books. The miracle is that he could make you feel the presence of that background lore through the glimpses appearing in the books.

[@crusader2112]

I disagree. I don’t mind having the droids in the Prequels, I also saw the Phantom Menace first, so I’m a prequel kid.

[@isomeme]

@@crusader2112 , having the same characters, or their relatives, dominate 9 movies set across something like 80 years makes the world of the story feel tiny. It's a galaxy that feels like a small apartment building.

[@crusader2112]

@@isomeme I mean, it's the Skywalker Sage. It's a family drama, so of course family members and their friends are gonna be front and center. But the beauty of the Expanded Universe is that one can get away from the movies and go thousands of years in the past, millennia even. Also, I like how in the EU the Skywalkers come to lead the Jedi Order and the Fel Empire.

[@Janx14]

I think a big problem for me in S1 is i was pretty sure Sauron was halbrand pretty quick. The other 'herrings' just felt too weak.

[@sliceofheaven3026]

The characters are also talking to each other in a way that doesnt sound natural. I think the biggest problem lies with the dialogue of elves. They talk like they are in some old storybook with the dialogue sounding like they are on stage. With the wheel of time that who is the dragon born thing is in the books also.

[@allcohoIic]

I love it how even the slower ones cant take this bog of a show.

[@Ongaliman]

The problem is also the fact, that without LotR the show doesn't work at all. All the structure is literally relying on the viewer knowing pre-existent lore to connect the stories. We NEED to know about the rings to explain the reason Sauron wants to forge the rings. We need to know about Sauron and what he would do in the future, to connect Numenor, Eregion and Mordor. We need to know about wizards and hobbits to have even a smidge of interest in their storylines. That's why dwarves and elves plot is popular. And why Sauron/Galadriel storyline worked for people. For the first one you just need to know the tropes of the genre and for the second one you just need to be into bad boys from Sarah J. Maas books. Sauron in the show is literally both Rhysand and Tamlin all in one. And Galadriel is actually Feyre. It's a badly adapted bad romantasy at this point. I love reading romantasy from time to time, but not in my Tolkien...

[@walley2637]

Rings of power has absolutely no rewatch-ability. I could barely get through watching it the 1st time, I couldn't imagine trying to do it again... unlike the LOTR movies (including the Hobbit) where i have rewatched them countless times over the years and will again.

[@ospreyy]

I think you are being generous. The structural problem was that "The Lord of the Rings" was great literature because it first had an extremely complex world with A STORY TO TELL, and then told by a master writer who DID A LOT OF WORK to tell the story effectively. The TV show "Rings of Power" set out to MAKE SOME COOL VIDEO to take advantage of the huge popularity earned by Lord of the Rings to get people to watch the cool videos. To do that, they just riffed on the cool scences in the popular Lord of the Rings movies. There was no coherant or interesting story they were trying to tell. If they did a better job eliminating stupid side stories, they would just have fewer hours of stuff to get paid for and still no story to tell.

[@maidros85]

When you said Arondir was killed, I was like "whaaat, really?? How come I don't remember that?" Sure, Adar stabs him and it's inconclusive whether he survived or not, but the very fact I had to look the scene up on KZbin after seeing the episode in question one week before speaks volumes of how utterly devoid of entertainment and memorableness the show is.

[@Pas5afist]

Oh, true. It might be a mere flesh wound. I was so done with his non-story in Season 2 that I was hoping they were trimming down the plot lines. But he might get better...

[@maidros85]

​@@Pas5afist I wish I cared as much as you do 😩

[@robbywilliamson4152]

This is how I think they should have structured the series: (Second Age spoilers) Season 1 could have nixed Numenor and the Hartfoots and focused on the dwarves, the crisis in the Southlands with Adar (Galadriel or Celebrian could get roped into this as well), and Annatar and Celebrimbor forging the rings. I think it would be okay to compress this part of the timeline down to a single generation instead of hundreds of years if one doesn’t want to recast the non-elf cast every couple episode. By the beginning of season 2, Sauron will forge the One Ring and declare war on the elves. The Numenor plot could begin here, so it doesn’t come out of nowhere when they arrive to help defeat Sauron at the end of the season. Seasons 3 and 4 could essentially be a new arc that primarily focuses on Numenor around 1,500 years later; this is the only time that it would be necessary to replace the non-elf cast. This would include the conflict between the Faithful and the King’s Men, the introduction of the Ringwraiths, Pharazon’s capture of Sauron, the degradation and corruption of Numenor, and the beginnings of Gondor, all leading up to the Akallabeth. Season 5 would naturally bring together the surviving Man and Elf cast, and focus on war once again breaking out with Sauron, the formation of the Last Alliance, the Battle of Dagorlad, and Sauron’s defeat, ending with the Gladden Fields.

[@jojobookish9529]

Yes, no proto-hobbits necessary. They should have appeared at the very tail end of the last episode of the final season as a reference. Panning over the Anduin to grassy Little hills and a smiling fellow picking up a fishing rod as off camera someone calls out, happily ,"Smeagol!" And Galadriel's voice over says something about secrets never staying buried forever.

[@kiwitealc5353]

I'm glad you're talking about it from this perspective, because all else aside, the quality is just not good. Maybe most fans wouldn't agree, but personally I could accept a show with bad lore if it were a good show. Like Ella Enchanted. Love the book, love the movie, but they have nothing to do with eachother

[@Pas5afist]

Yeah, I generally think a first time adaptation ought to err on being faithful. Whereas, if you have a hundred adaptations of Robin Hood or Sherlock Holmes, then knock yourself out. Do something nuts. However, I think it is very possible to make a great film that is very loose adaptation and yet is an excellent piece of art. Execution of the idea is absolutely everything. And that's why I generally like to wait and see where an adaptation is going, even if I see them making substantial changes. If they can follow through with their ideas in an artful way, then well-played. If they don't, I can always open fire later. But I can afford to be patient and let the story play out for a bit before making a judgment call. The Shining might be an interesting example of a non-faithful adaptation of a book that is nonetheless, an excellent story. I can't speak too much to it as I've never read Stephen King's book and even if I did, I'd be coming at it as a movie fan first, book reader second which isn't quite the same thing. However, the problem is not everyone is Stanley Kubrick but maybe too many writers/ directors think they are and so make too many changes without understanding what worked so well about the original.

[@kiwitealc5353]

@@Pas5afist That's a really good point. I think it's true of historical fiction too. People don't really care about movies like Gladiator or Braveheart being historically inaccurate, because they're good movies. (There's certainly discussion of it, but it didn't impact their success.)

[@verde5738]

The Rings of Power is a product of pure hubris, and it shows at every conceivable level.

[@Truffle_Pup]

6:35 tbf, Anthony Daniels (C3PO actor) was notoriously persistent on Lucas to include him more and more, so no wonder Lucas gave in during the prequels, just to shut the bugger up lol.

[@darkhart1275]

the writing is so bad, it would be bad even if it was a basic sitcom show. I really wanted it to be good but I couldn't get past s1 ep 2. and I tried.

[@megancao5988]

From 0:33-0:50, what is the music you used? It’s beautiful.

[@Pas5afist]

I linked in the description, but here it is: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aYCvmqyKp66Wnrc Made by my sister :)

[@drunkdave5677]

more videos from you please

[@JohnBradt-GuitarMan]

The writers seem to be about 12 years old, and have obviously never read TLOTR 🙄

[@tedarcher9120]

We need moar

[@piotrrashman6487]

"retains the aesthetic [of Peter Jackson's lord of the rings]" how about apeing, plundering and outright plagiarizing not only the aesthetic but shot composition, scene design and even word-for-word dialogue? this whole endeavour seems so utterly devoid of creativity and original thought it's baffling.

[@marshiallaw]

Ring of Power's "Who is..." are not even mysteries. For Sauron, characters just think he might be alive somewhere. For "grand elf", they don't even seem to care about what he is. So no real agency by the characters to uncover the mysteries. They are just for the viewers but isn't interesting enough. That goes for the show overall, no really agency by the character. Just pawns of the writers doing what ever to go to the next plot point. It's a story of the writers and not story of the characters/world.

[@gustavchambert7072]

Wen RoP season one came out, and literary all dialogue in episode 1 sounded like it had been both written AND directed by a 12 year old, and not a very mature or literarily gifted one, either, who had just read a fantasy book for the first time, that's when I knew the show had, let's call it "issues".

[@oscarpenagos7249]

Frankly I love the subplots of the two friends idiots who are always following the protagonists during the journey. I think they add a special extra to the story. In regard to pirates of the Caribbean 4 and 5 I was disappointed when I didn’t saw the two pirate friends.

[@Pas5afist]

I think one of my problems is that they all end up on Barbossa's crew. He starts as such a ferocious captain of a fearsome crew. And by the end of Pirates 3, his crew is composed of all the comic reliefs. Feels like a serious downgrade when you bring such a great character back from the dead. Never bothered to see Pirates 5.

[@JohnBradt-GuitarMan]

Thank you for your very Insightful Story Analysis 😎👍

[@ottolehikoinen6193]

Lore in RoP is pretty much non-existent. Even if we consider it a generic fantasy.

[@cassowary415]

fyi seventh son is also an adaptation. spook's apprentice ("last" apprentice in US, i believe). good stuff

[@technologies4learning]

I also really wanted to like RoP. I actually enjoyed season 2 a bit more... but yeah. Some things are just so bad and implausible. Galadriel jumping from the boat and meeting Sauron is the kind of idea that should have been laughed at in a writing room. Instead it's what we got. My mind really struggles to comprehend how something like this can happen... you have a billion dollars being invested in this. Are there not good writers in the US? You couldn't find one or two, really? Humanities majors, who care about stories old and new and are good at their job? None? Why is it that you can find good people to do CGI, good people to do cinematography, good people to do props (most of them, at least... Elrond and Gil-Galad's armor is atrocious and looks NOTHING like the armor from the Lindon armies in the first season). But summoning someone who knows how to write and has a critical mind is impossible? I really, really don't get it. Are the directors in charge of all screenwritting these days? So many cheesy lines, so many stupid call backs, so many incoherencies, so much idiotic foreshadowing. It's so f***ing sad.

[@justinfloyd1471]

Thanks for the analysis. I appreciate the video.

[@Daniele_1210]

I really enjoyed the first half of season 2, it was a huge step up from season 1. But the second half of S2 went downhill again.

[@rydawg8934]

I still want to say you’re too generous with this show 😂 but then we wouldn’t have this nice video. Cheers, appreciate the analysis.

[@Paromita_M]

Very good video. Balanced analysis. I'm sitting out S2 but recently my mom and I watched S1 E1 (rewatch for me) to give it a fair shot. My mom loves LOTR but she said even if one doesn't know anything, assuming S1E1 is ground zero, it makes little sense. Too many PoVs, so disjointed, nothing coming together. We DNF'd. If we now consider the books, the timelines, a lot of the dialogue and character personalities in S1 make no sense. 😭 I think the things they made up are actually better (Adar, Arondir-Bronwyn) than the things they took from the books. Anyway, very nice video.

[@Pas5afist]

Yeah, I agree. Arondir-Bronwyn was one of the positives until it got the actual battle.

[@Shenaldrac]

8:00 imo the difference between rereading a book or rewatching a movie and a prequel is that when you experience an artistic work successively you are re-experiencing it. Whereas a prequel is something that was created to explain or show something that clearly wasn't important enough to include in the original as evidenced by its absence. I can enjoy replaying and experiencing the story of, say, Halo The Video Game: Master Chief Time even though I know what's going to happen. Halo Reach however feels incredibly unsatisfying to me, feels very unnecessary, not just because I know how it'll end (Reach falls, the Covenant win, sorry not sorry for the spoiler) but because it doesn't matter. Knowing how Reach fell changes nothing about what has happened or will happen in the series. I've heard people say it's still good if you focus on the characters but like... what about that required it to be a prequel? Could you really not have had those characters, that caliber of writing and story, in its own thing? When you watch The Titanic you're not watching because you want to know what happens to the Titanic you watch because you want to know what happens to the characters, which you may not know if you're not a Titanic crew+passenger expert and have every survivor's name and life memorized. When you rewatch The Titanic you are reexperiencing something enjoyable. When you watch the metaphorical Titanic 0, showing Elizabeth's life that led up to the events of the movie, you are experiencing something that doesn't really matter in context of those far more momentous events. And if they ARE really interesting and engaging then why aren't they their own separate IP instead of leeching off an existing success? Is it money? Is money the reason? I bet it's money.

[@notYisan]

the problem with rings of power is not structural, its systemic. its much deeper than its structure because even from the idea of conception it is already corrupt. the wigs of power are created to be the largest, best, most expensive tv series ever created that will dwarf all previous series especially hbo's game of thrones series. they are more concerned with the optics rather than telling the audience a story, and that is what we got, grand visuals but hollow story with multiple holes the size of a barn door. all scenery, no substance. and they are making this a 5 season series? SHAME SHAME SHAME.

[@351cleavland]

Very lucid analysis!! However, I did feel similarly about Ace Ventura 2:When nature calls. We all know he's squeezing his way out of the Hippo's ass. The real question is HOW did he pop out of there????

[@movoo6077]

Rings of Power Problems are Many.

[@Hyper-M]

6:36 a protocol droid! To heLp mOm aroUnd thE houSe

[@mokhtaramran7041]

I mean did you need a season two to figure out it is a bad show? Season 1 was already bad and they somehow made it worse. All criticism you made applies to season 1 also. S2 is worse not primarily because they deviate from Tolkien, but they even deviated from their own lore and break their internal coherence.

[@Pas5afist]

Maybe not. But I like to give a show a lot of leeway if it's in a genre I like. I want to see if their pay-offs are worth the obvious flaws I am temporarily ignoring early on. I wanted to like Rings of Power so I gave it as much grace as I could, but Episode I of Season 2 put it firmly in the comedically incompetent camp, and I've been fairly checked out ever since. Sword of Shannara, it took me halfway through Season 1, but I still finished both seasons out of sheer bloody mindedness. Foundation, I quit halfway through season one and never returned. So it really depends.

[@mat3714]

Structure, lore, writing, character motivations, premise....just like sw, it's a cavalcade of missed opportunities. I'm watching videos like this because of some degree of morbid curiosity but I've completely checked out of both sw and lotr. The analysis of the failure is far more interesting. Watch andor....F the rest.

[@Galamoth06]

3:58 This isn't related to the video's topic, but does anyone else think this is some really bad forced perspective?

[@davecorry7723]

That was nice and clear.

[@mattslater4605]

I sadly have to agree with your assessment. I really wanted to like this show, but the storytelling is dire. Loved the Warcraft insert

[@Pas5afist]

Warcraft II is pure nostalgia for me.

[@Stephen64138]

But it's all their fault... All these contrivances and bad story lines result of their bad decisions. Why make Galadriel meet Halbrand? He don't need to be in the story and the story would be the same. Why make her go to Valinor? She never does in the book. Why make her jump in the water? Why make her go to Numenor? If she had never gone, the story would be the same. It's bad choices, bad execution and bad storytelling all over.

[@siddiqsmouse5004]

Dont come for Pintel and Ragetti like that!! 😭😭

[@Pas5afist]

I like them as characters, but outside of Pirates 1, they are pretty extraneous to the story and just sort of tag a long.

[@siddiqsmouse5004]

@@Pas5afist That's fair

[@ingwerschwensen8115]

Good video. Thanks.

[@Shiqari145]

season 1 and 2 was painful to watch

[@thebunz7]

The producers are creating amazon quality products and staying on theme. buy cheap get cheap

[@ikmor]

Setup and payoff in the same scene, over and over again. Sigh. And "cliffhangers" at the end of almost every dialogue. So bad. -_- So cheap. And such an obvious way to make characters do things (off screen) and have the show go on as if it was totally fine, even if it's really a broken mess of plot beats.

[@AlyxGlide]

it's extremely bland & none seem to know what the hell kind of story that they're telling.

[@paulolescaut5352]

The storytelling of the series is completely amateurish. All the coincidences are represented in this sequence of Galadriel swimming the ocean and falling on Sauron's raft. But, above all, the lack of a dramatic objective for which we could root deflates any tension. Galadriel, for instance, could begin the story wanting to go to Valinor and have lost this chance against her own will, and throughout her journey of discovery, her love for Middle-earth could make her overcome her idealization of the immortal lands. But, this would deflate this politically correct approach that characters who are members of minorities are infallible, do not receive orders, and must have their own agency. Curiously, in a fantasy logic, this distances them even further, makes them even less human, identifiable. almost cyborgs.

[@philswaim392]

I love rings of power

[@J14Irish]

They only have rights to the Appendices of the return of the king. They can't do it as they don't have the proper rights!

[@Pas5afist]

No, I don't really agree. Yes, you can't do everything cool from the Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales, (No Celebrimbor's corpse used as a banner over Sauron's army) but even sticking with their own ideas that they invented, you can fairly quickly come up with better ways to execute it. For instance, you can fairly easily get both Galadrial and Halbarand into Numenor without relying on a convoluted series of random events. And that's an event that occurs in none of the source materials.

[@J14Irish]

@@Pas5afist you agreeing or disagreeing is irrelevant. That's the situation.

[@jojobookish9529]

The rights issue also isn't as black and white. The writers have mentioned in interviews that they had the option to go to the Estate and ask permission for specific references outside the Appendices. That's how they got that map for Numenor that only appears in the Lost Tales that they used in the early promos. Still, they could have written a better story generally or picked a point in the timeline where they had more leeway. The Fall of Arnor was *right there*, wide open for invented characters and plots.

[@J14Irish]

@@jojobookish9529 yeah thats a great point, no matter how many rights they could or could not have got they still have to write a good story I agree! I just think they cut their nose off despite their face in a way

[@emperorlewd]

Yeah, you know all does "extremists" people saying "is woke shit"? We don't say it for whats there now, we say it cause we know whats about to come 😂

[@davekat]

I've placed about 40 channels on block recently for bad faith Rings of Power shitposting. Regardless of whether the show is good, bad, interesting or boring I can do without online outrage farming. This critique was good faith and refreshing after the swamp of negativity I had to trudge through to find it. It is possible to criticize something without outrage farming or going bad faith. Ultimately it's disappointing that the show was not as good as we had hoped for. Structural issues remain for season 2 and not helped by the departure of the actress who played Bronwyn, which really screwed the planned character arcs for several characters. Despite the flaws I still see this as a comfort show and will continue to watch it on these grounds. The worst thing that can happen to me by watching it is that I might have a good time. It's not particularly amazing but there are still interesting and endearing parts. I love everything with the dwarves and Elrond, and as an arachnophobe the Isildur vs Giant Spider scene got me good. And as a personal thing I think the most botched character in the show is Gil-Galad and not Galadriel. Morfydd Clark is a good actress and I don't dislike her portrayal based on her abilities, it's just that the story and script let her down. Gil-Galad on the other hand feels as though neither the actor or the writers understood even the first thing about the character. This Gil-Galad is wildly incompetent.

[@Pas5afist]

Yeah, I cut a more thorough analysis of Gil-Galad as I agree his portrayal is far more egregious. I don't even really mind Galadrial that much (though there are some bad writer choices). I agree the actress is quite good. I might do a stand alone on Gil-galad and just portrayal of movie Elves in general. Will be awhile before I get there as it this is a super busy time of year for me and I really burned the midnight oil to get this one out. One thing I didn't get to is I mentioned I had mixed views of Season 1, and one part of the story I generally liked was actually the Arondir and Bronwyn storyline (even though it is entirely invented)... up until we get to the actual battle and the Rube Goldberg Mount Doom. I like the idea of Orcs tunnelling under the villages and the slow reveal of the encroaching darkness. It just didn't have a very good pay-off in Season 1 and then entirely ran out of steam in Season 2. If that's all they were going to have Arondir do in Season 2, it might have been better for him to go out in a sacrificial death at the end of Season 1.

[@Twistingfergus]

Far too nuanced and intelligent. It was bad because woke

[@Ewiril]

Bro... You didnt even mentioned the dialogue... The dialogue is atrocious!

[@Pas5afist]

I try and keep my videos around the ten minute mark and I was already trying to keep it under 20!

[@Ewiril]

@@Pas5afist Well, it is true that going over every dialogue and explaining why that dialogue doesn't make sense at all would take at least twice as much time as the dialogue itself, so, yeah... Dont blame you man. Good vid in any case

[@TheGreenguy85]

trop is absolute trash... for a lotr series, for a fantasy show.. for... anything... its shit...where did the money go?? Not on talent, not on props, not for cgi... this reeks of money laundry....

[@HolgerGruber]

They just can't write!

[@gawkthimm6030]

When at the start you say; "I wanna leave aside Rings of Power as an Adeptation of Tolkiens work, that you dont want to talk about the lore of the books" -that right here makes we not want to watch your video.. that they dont respect the source materiel should be the first warning sign, then you can go further into the analysis as you do, but leaving out how they destroyed, disrespected and butchered the lore is the most hated aspect of the show and need to be address and talked about before anything else...

[@Wahba.]

His point is basically even if ROP respected the lore it will still not work because there are too many structural problems outside of the lore

[@Pas5afist]

Exactly this.

[@helenwhs]

Yes, but not everyone shares your tastes. For non-Tolkien fans who are only interested in watching a new mainstream show, analysis such as these do not bore them with hours of lore they don’t care about.

[@waynedickson6860]

Boo hoo...poor babies