Do you like it?
only 2 episodes in, its ok
its no LOTR tho
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No known actors as well
I wouldn't say thats a problem - I actually support it if actors are less known. That usually gives a lot better performance from them. If we are looking at your typical blockboster hollywood actors, its always the same performance in every role. Its more to do whether the actors are actually good at their job. Which usually they are not unfortunately. But that is in general as I havent and highly doubt I will watch this one.
But wanted to bring up one issue I have with these new shows..... They just feel too "clean". All of the settings, armor, clothes... everything that is not CGI is very low quality prop... Almost like something from your local theater.. and it went for Witcher as well - I really enjoyed the series, but the scenes where so cheap looking. Armor, weapons, even floors.. everything is clean, new... I mean we are talking about a setting in middle ages.. there has to be some authenticity in all of that that is not immediately throwing you out of immersion
And I just wonder what is the problem there.. I can only imagine having very incompetent staff working there setting up the sets and everything.. But yeah - really off putting and its already very visablie in LoTR trailer, that the scenes and armor and everything looks cheap despite having enormous budget
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^^^^ I actually support it if actors are less known. That usually gives a lot better performance from them.
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Well, i suppose it is good to have at least one actor that is well known who can "lift" the show a bit. At least in this case.
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Yes. So?
I won't watch the series due to other reasons I wont go into here as those are irrelevant.
But as far as what I pointed out about having ridiculous and off-putting setting in the series, that is already evident in the trailer. After all trailer is made to showcase what can we expect from the show and I already can see the approach they use is something I dislike.
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I won't watch the series due to other reasons I wont go into here as those are irrelevant.
Sure. Although it's not as if the thread for the actual discussion of the show so you can go ahead and do your hating here.
After all trailer is made to showcase what can we expect from the show
It's made for publicity, nothing else. In fact it's an easily demonstrated fact that trailers that make the most noise are the ones that get the most hatred, as most people seem to have nothing better to do than spend their time commenting on and taking down what they don't want to see than what they do see.
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"hAtInG"
Oh cmon, stop being butt hurt. As much as you are free to like what you want, I am free to dislike stuff. And I don't want to get into reasons why I personally don't like something due to the simple reason that fans like you get so butt hurt so easily there simply is no point.
And the trailer LITERALLY shows the setting from many different scenes. Seriously - what's your problem? I don't like how they make fantasy series these days. You act like I've offended your whole lineage here.
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i just looked up the cast and the only person i know is lenny Henry - funny guy but still not enough
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Lenny Henry? If there's no fart scene it is a crime against humanity.
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I wanted to like it but the script is so bad and most of characters are so badly written... It makes me sad that 750 million dollars were wasted like these... I will finish season 1 because I wanna know how it ends but I'm not sure I'll be down for season 2... It is so boring I end up pausing it a few times per episode to look at my phone...
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Big actors do not offer better acting ability (in most cases), they are more expensive mostly because of their recognizability and therefore marketing value, so it would not make a show better, or at least not likely.
The place where big studios should stop saving money is the writers department as most shows fail at that stage more often than not and it's also the one major flaw of the series, everything else is top notch.
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Amazon has one good TV series to my knowledge-Too Old To Die Young. And I guess The Grand Tour is ok. Heard good things about Undone though.
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Undone is quite amazing, unlike in the Lotr series, the script is actually what carries it.
The Boys is great too, that's also from Amazon, I think.
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Patriot is underrated or maybe not underrated, but somehow forgotten.
It's such a weirdly good series. It's like Burn After Reading The TV Series.
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Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is one of the best shows in this century.
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The Boys, Mrs Maisel, Patriot, Good Omens, first seasons of The Man in High Castle, Upload, Tales from The Loop, ZeroZeroZero, Mozart in the jungle, Invincible, Fleabag - all really good shows imo
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Don't forget The Expanse, one of the best show I ever watched.
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I'm a LoTR fan, so I may watch it at some point. I'm hoping to like it.
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Fun fact:
IMDB is owned by Amazon.
The Rings of Power is rated 6.9/10.
Episodes are rated 7.1-7.4.
Filmweb is one of largest film databases globally. It's Polish, has huge userbase.
The Rings of Power is rated 4.7/10.
Episodes are rated 5.2-5.8.
RottenTomatoes average audience score is 39%.
I don't know what does the huge budget go towards, but definitely not writing, and it shows.
Come on, one of the episodes was written by the guy who wrote the worst episode of Stranger Things (The Lost Sister).
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The fact it got reviewed bomb for other reasons than quality is kinda well known by now so I don't know what you think this means.
IMDB has been removing accounts from review bombers giving only 1 ratings and using fake reviews for a while now. That explains the normal ratings. And a Polish site giving it low ratings is a shocker lol
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People never seem to mention the perfect score review manipulation that goes on with these things too.
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It doesn't. Everyone knows that IMDB scores don't mean anything anymore for a reason: the trolls actually believe they are doing something with their lives by review bombing anything they don't like.
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Considering that Amazon has been outed as having people on payroll on twitter acting as normal people, praising amazon, I don't consider IMDB trustworthy anyway. Besides, there is a HUGE conflict of interest of having a review site reviewing a tv series of the same company.
I actually would consider best small websites, like filmweb, or filmaffinity, more trustworthy. They are not big enough for review bombing, and people have been complaining for a while about that series https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2022/09/18/the-rings-of-power-has-inexplicably-terrible-writing/ .
If it were a new series, it would probably have a better ranking. But if you are taking the name of Tolkien, you better have a DAMN good series, or fans are going to see many mistakes.
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I actually don't really care about what other people think or pretend to think about shows or movies. I check for directors and writers I like, for plots I'm interested in. Sometimes I watch trailers (although I have seen a lot of great shows and movies with lousy trailers and vice versa so i don't really trust those either). I pick favorites and try them. Then I make my own opinion and move on to the next one.
The internet is full of agendas, corporate or ideological. I never relied on anyone else to make my opinions, even before the internet told me I should ;)
If it were a new series, it would probably have a better ranking. But if you are taking the name of Tolkien, you better have a DAMN good series, or fans are going to see many mistakes.
Or look for them, aggressively. Or make them up because black people! Women with swords! Jeff Bezos! or whatever.
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"Women with swords" Nobody complained about Éowyn, who took down the Witch King. I feel that's basically taking the opposite stance, that EVERYBODY that criticises the show, it's because it's woke, or whatever. I just gave you a link that criticises very strongly the show and the character of Galadriel, and it's not because "women with swords"
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Nobody complained about Éowyn
To be fair... EVERYBODY complained about Éowyn killing the Witch King and rightfully so... but that wasn't because she's a woman but rather because of that cringey can't be killed by any man - "I am no man." line and her taking off her helmet just for that line in a pitched battle.
If she had kept her mouth shut and simply done it nobody would have cared.
Just as bad as that
M: Valar morghulis.
D: Yes, all men must die. But we are not men.
scene between Missandei and Daenerys in GoT 😅
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Well, yeah, you have a point there.
Besides, Valar morghulis just was not gender conflict, It's just a reminder about mortality
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Valar morghulis was not gender conflict
Yeah. And Daenerys knows all too well what that saying actually means that why I always hated that part soo much.
It's not humorous. It's not clever or quick-witted, nor does it help influence Missandei's decicion. It simply adds nothing to the scene.
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To be honest "But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter." is not a very cinematic line.
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I completely agree with you there.
Well... Tolkien wasn't a professional writer. He was a philologist who also happened to write 4 extremely sucessful novels.
I would have probably liked it best if they didn't telegraph it so bluntly like using a sky-writer at all.
It's been a while since I last watched it but I'm pretty sure we see Éowyn getting battle ready before the fight and even with her wearing an helmet it's pretty obvious it's her just from the eyes alone... so I think they should have let it be one of those small things that people either notice or they don't. Something that seperates the casual viewer from those who dive a bit deeper into the world.
In my opinion the way they did it was just cringy.
Sorry, for responding and necroing this almost a month later. I know it's a bit odd but while I often read the site on my phone I'm not logged in as often as I used to be 😅
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Not a problem at all. A good reply is welcome at any time.
And you're right, sometimes they do telephone things that really are self explanatory.
In this case, we don't really see her getting ready for battle although we do see Aragorn noticing her weapon when she is "accompanying" the men to the encampment.
If there was any doubt that Eowyn could pass for a grown fighter dude in the book though, there was absolutely no way they could make that half believable in the movie though so it probably would have been better if they didn't show her at all until she reveals herself to the Witchking.
Coincidentally it seems that most of the extras who were riding horses in that battle scene were actually women wearing beards and padded gear because they couldn't find enough male riders... and it seems Vigo Mortensen didn't notice until the end of the shoot that he had been palling around with girls this whole time lol
so maybe if Eowyn had worn a beard... ;)
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Nobody complained about Éowyn, who took down the Witch King
Oh yes they did. Also that was way way back before the internet became a breeding ground for toxic masculinity
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I have been looking. I can't find anything, in those times and internet in 2003 was already a thing. I can't find anybody complaining about it today, either. And I find easily articles complaining about how "problematic" are movies from the 80's and 90's.
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Heh where have you been looking? I know the internet was already a thing. Reddit, Twitter and Facebook were not around but Yahoo Groups was a thing. BBS were too.
I was in discussion groups where the rage was on (about that and also about Arwen being a "warrior princess").
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Arwen being a warrior princess was not canon. I understood it, because introducing Glorfindel would be too complicated, for a side character
But Éowyn killing the Witch King was straight from the books
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If you used IMDb, you'd also know that it has a pretty high average for ratings while RottenTomatoes is way lower with a pretty terrible system for averages since it's a binary system.
Especially knowing that IMDb's scores for House of Dragon and Cyberpunk are way higher, neither being an Amazon production and both being highly popular and killer-shows for their platforms coming out at similar times.
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From my observation on the net I don't believe a lot of people are aware of how IMDB's rating system works.
The FAQ is linked below and hopefully it will help people to better understand it.
https://help.imdb.com/article/imdb/track-movies-tv/ratings-faq/G67Y87TFYYP6TWAV#
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So you are opening a thread.... to say you hated it and will stop watching... Mkay.
Keep us posted on things you don't watch... I guess?
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I like the books. I've read LoTR 7 times, and Hobbit 4 times I think. These are my comfort books.
I enjoyed the LoTR movies a lot. I still enjoy them. They are well written and well made.
Hobbit films were ok, I accepted them for what they were. Nice production design, good story with a few changes and additions. Some of these were uncalled for (Evangeline Lilly romance subplot). But ok, it was watchable.
The Rings of Power though... The production design is beautiful, and that's it. Casting is okayish, writing is between okayish and mediocre, pacing is uneven. Run of the mill 5/10 forgettable fantasy.
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Most of the main cast is about young characters, represented by young actors. Pretty normal that these are rarely big names already. Such series is how they gain their fame, few seasons later.
And it's also pretty normal for studios to prefer less well-known actors, as their payment skyrockets anyway in later seasons.
About the series itself ... it's getting better. It's rather normal that the first introducing episodes don't offer the best storytelling.
Something that annoys me though is that the events rush forward way too fast for my taste. They should have made way more episodes per season, giving characters and events more time and opportunity to develop.
But that's a pain in the ass limitation for most modern series.
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It's rather normal that the first introducing episodes don't offer the best storytelling.
I liked the first two episodes but I get that they were not fast paced enough for some. It's like judging a movie on the first 30 seconds really but that's the world we live in now.
Something that annoys me though is that the events rush forward way too fast for my taste. They should have made way more episodes per season
People would have killed themselves. They already think it's too slow lol
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Yeah but if you reflect upon it, it's really nuts. The Numenor get introduced, the Numenor leave their island after some minor events. The story between elbs and dwarves is rushed too, the tower is built instantly. The dwarves dig too deep. The orks fled and return.
And so on and so on. This all would have been major historic events by itself. And here they are all happening at the very some time, covered in few episodes with little details. A good storyteller could have made an interesting season about each of these.
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Numenorians have not left their island yet. The Queen regent is leaving to try and avoid what we already know is coming, most likely precipitating the events in the process but that's always the case with self fulfilling prophecies, isn't it?
This all would have been major historic events by itself. And here they are all happening at the very some time, covered in few episodes with little details
They have a problem with the books. They don't own the rights to the Silmarillion so there are some things they are going to have to skirt around. I was shocked to even see Numenor, tbh, as they can only cover things from LOTR, the annexes, the Hobbit, and I think Unfinished Tales. If it's not in those books, they have to go around or replace the characters.
I am guessing that did create a few hurdles along the way. This being said, I am of those who would happily watch a season out of each of those events, and more. Not sure that would be the case for everyone but us.
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The poll is missing a >Haven't seen it yet. I have to finish House of the Dragon first.< option 😄
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Only seen 3 eps so far.. and it feels like a very slow start, with a few good moments. The production and writing is definitely not worthy of the franchise though.
But.. I'll watch it for what it is. It's not horrible or anything, though some scenes carry a "If Xena / Hercules-was made in 2022 vibe"
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It's not bad, but it's not what LOTR is. Yes, it is based on Tolkiens works, but it just.. doesn't feel right? I don't know how else to describe it. But if you like imagine yourself watching an entirely new show that has nothing to do with LOTR, it's not even bad.
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Only issue I had myself was the pace, it was pretty slow but it is starting to quicken its pace, but if you think of it the original LOTRs was pretty slow as well - The hobbit trilogy was a bit more fast paced and that is probably what most people remember and that is why they complain about how slow it is.
I am so far enjoying it, almost made me go back to playing some shadow of war :)
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Right on the first 10 minutes of movie is clear that is not LOTR, as the story doesn't match the books... There are some plot holes, like why one of the most powerful elfs ever born is basically sitting doing nothing, dwarfs talking secrets litterally in the biggest room with eco that you can find in the cave.
It's not that bad if you don't put high expectations on it.
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I believe personally you can have some expectations with this series being so expensive. Being marketed as one of the most expensive series ever, if i remember correctly.
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So far is a 6/10 show. Some good material on it, some sparks of brillance, but certaintly not great. Some questionable material... albeit not awful either.
My biggest gripe honestly, it's with the outrage. I've found that this kind of toxic reception of a piece of media, really poison the enjoyment of a product.
It's like, you are about to eat something that looks edible, but you have a bunch of people shouting at you that is expired food, or maybe contaminated, or that's something fishy about it. You will be suspicious, looking for something strange, it may be even delicious and you wouldn't enjoy it at its fullest.
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That's what the producers get for messing with an established, near sacred, property. There's always a high bar and taking any liberties is a huge risk as the most ardent fans will be predisposed to not like any changes.
The "outrage" is media misdirection to help out a flawed product. There's been this huge effort to brand the source of negative reviews as racist outrage, but looking through this thread, you'll see lots of reasonable criticism unrelated to race. Even you've given it a 6/10, which is not a good rating.
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Nothing is "sacred".
It's just a fantasy series of books. A very good one, but that's it.
Every piece of human creative effort, was altered or worked upon by the next generation. It's just how creativity works. People may like it, or may not. But the outrage should be totally out of a civilised conversation (not to mention the bullying of actors, workers, creators) This is just very wrong.
It's ok to dislike something. I think that the Hobbit movies are even worse than Rings of Power (a score between 4 and 5 out of 10). Just an opinion. No need to tweet every day about it, or to make long youtube videos whining about that.
.
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What bullying? There's online debate and the occasional moron who posts publicly and directly to a specific person. Making YouTube videos ... sadly it's just the norm in today's society and it's how some people make a living. A lot of this stuff about racism and bullying is being blown up for clicks.
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Hear me out... Forget EVERYTHING you know about LOTR
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I'm still pissed off that they didn't continue with The Expanse. Best sci-fi series that I'd seen in years. Tragedy that it ended abruptly like it did, right when they were starting to really explore.
Also, they got me excited for the Shannara Chronicles and then killed it after two seasons.
Combine that with half of the movies that were in my queue now being "free with ads," and Prime is quickly falling to the bottom of my paid-TV priority list. Netflix/Disney/Hulu are all out in front of it now.
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I'm still pissed off that they didn't continue with The Expanse. Best sci-fi series that I'd seen in years.
I've just started the first novel Leviathan Wakes. I'm barely 20 pages in and I'm already hooked (again) 😄
I did watch quite a bit of the show back in the day but at some point I got sidetracked or maybe a bit bored because there were a couple episodes in a row I didn't like as much.
I think I was quite annoyed those poor Mormons didn't make it to Mars Tau Ceti. For some reason I really wanted that to happen 😅
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I liked The Rings of Power. I went in without expectations and I very much enjoyed it. I think people expect waaaay too much nowadays, or they just want to sound intellectual by bashing on this that or the other aspect of a show. The show's job was to entertain me, and it entertained. I expected it to be different from the source material since they don't have the rights to the Silmarillion. Also, the woman who plays Galadriel is a fantastic actress. (I did hate the Harfoots though. I found them amusing in the first episode and quickly grew tired of them. We're sick of Irish stereotyping that pegs us as unintelligent with big hearts. Giving them Irish accents had to be a decision inspired by those stereotypes. People here have been pissed about that. Myself included. lol)
The Shannara Chronicles was aimed primarily at teenagers and I absolutely hated it. "I don't want your sloppy seconds" was a line that pissed me off to no end. Why? It ruined the immersion. The sexual tension between characters was over the top and ridiculous, like a teen soap opera. I don't think it all worked too well for them, which is why it ended. They should have just stuck to making a really good show aimed at fans of the books and fans of fantasy in general. I don't care if a story veers off course from the source material, but do it in a way that keeps the original spirit of the world in tact.
I agree with you though. It pisses me off so much when they don't give a satisfactory ending and just shut something down without closure. Sci-fi seems to suffer from this more than other genres.
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By "Return of the Dragon", do you perhaps mean the Wheel of Time?
Because if you did, I loved that series. Got a friend and my sister to watch it, and they both are eagerly awaiting season 2.
Sure it was not book-accurate, but even though I love the book, I can admit the books were a huge mess at times.
I didn't like a lot of their choices, but overall I could feel that it was made well and the direction and acting were good.
I actually think highly of Amazon shows, based on what little I have watched even though I'm in the minority. Wheel of Time and American Gods were both great shows. I have no interest in LoTR, so I wouldn't comment on that.
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Yes, in swedish "drakens återkomst" - return of the dragon. Yeah i loved the books and even remember a lot from them, altho i barely finished the whole series, i got pretty far into them. It is probably better than the LoTR series one anyway, must watch a bit more to be able to decide. Honestly one thing i dislike of both those series are that everything looks so clean and tidy, i want them a bit darker and gritty. Even the witcher series in Netflix i found better than those two, personally. Altho if you like it i'm happy for you, and as said i would need to watch further, maybe it gets better?
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If you watched 3 episodes and didn't like it, then you probably have seen enough to know that you don't like it.
The books were good at the start.. then s drag in the middle. They had multiple books where the story did not move at all and different books covered the same time period from different POV. In fact, a lot of book fans simply tell new readers to skip certain books. But the last few books that Brandon came and finished were awesome and made it all worth it.
In short, it's a series I rate highly, but I still never actually recommend it because I understand that it's a slog to get through. The show was nice though. And yeah, I enjoy the Witcher as well. Big fan of the game and Henry Cavill as the Witcher.
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Spoiler-free :)
I'm not particularly a LoTR fan and still loved Rings of Power. Apart from the annoying Harfoot arch and the reveal in the season finale (that was just dumb btw), it's been solid story telling and fantastic cinematography. I admit I felt the lead character was forced at first but she grew on me. I'm looking forward to the Dwarven arch getting more attention next. An explanation for whatever happened with a certain character in the finale wouldn't hurt either.
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Watched whole thing, have kinda mixed feelings. It looks nice, shiny and expensive but its expected from 250 mil budget. From story arcs i liked Elrond and dwarves, actors nailed their parts, couldnt care less about Harfoots and obvious Wizard playing insane amnesia. Story of heroic town healer and Elf who is in love with her is nothing to write home about either. Also Galadriel is annoying for most part of season. Its just 8 episodes but pace painfully slow, dialogues are really bad and cheesy at times. And Sauron big reveal is really stupid and doesnt make any sense if you start to think about it.
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I personally didn't like it. It felt bland and acting wasn't top tier. No known actors as well, and i don't mean actors from LoTR but not a single face i even recognized. I got sick of it after one episode and probably won't continue watching. After this and The Return of the Dragon series (one of my old faves when it comes to fantasy books, as well as LoTR) i have lost faith in Amazon being able to produce good series.
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