I have no particular attachment to the show, is ok for me. But I asked for objective metrics that demonstrate the show to be a 'colossal failure', and I got a bunch of opinion piece articles, that all repeated the same 37/45% number, and one mentioned that it was the 15th most popular streaming original show of 2022.
These were the objective metrics provided. Any speculation on what a view means is just that, speculation: none of the articles you linked knew, they just speculated that 'oh, a person maybe could watch one episode for 5 minutes and then drop the show, and that maybe would count as a viewer among the 100 million'. But such conjecture is pointless. I'm sure you are very proud of your background in film, and the insight it provides is very useful, but 'in my filmically educated opinion, it's a colossal failure' is not an objective metric either.

I've written a quite long post of why many Tolkien's fans are not liking this show, explaining also why this channel (linked below) is one of the best in the topic of Tolkien's legendarium, but for some bizarre reason my post went to the void. :p (I always forget this can happen from time to time...)

Anyway... , I'd recommend this channel for you and anyone that may want to understand why so much backlash over this show. If you compare what this video explains about Galadriel and how Tolkien's vision of her is shown to be, with how the show portraits her, it helps to understand the, uh, backlash, again. I think the best way to experience Tolkien's characters is to understand his characters story and his world lore with what his texts said about them. This channel is about that. :)

While many may seem to "overreact" or indeed overreact, its true that there's an agenda of deconstruction to recreate or remake many classic figures and reconstruct them based on what those directors and writers want. Fans won't take this lightly because they're well established characters and have well known lore and personality. When someone changes or force changes in favour of some director or writer, hurting the source material, the result is obvious as we can see.

Although anyone can enjoy anything they want, it is also good to understand why and how these characters are being distorted for the sake of the writers ideology. In truth, we know the rest already, I believe, and if we don't deny what's happening with Amazon and other companies, it becomes quite obvious why these characters are being twisted.

Unfortunately, it feels like a mixture of incompetence, ideology prevalence over respect to source material and bloated productions without clear direction. Let's hope the new LOTR anime won't hurt Tolkien's lore as much as this show apparently did.

Also, to probably give an good and honest answer to that topic of "colossal failure":

In my opinion, it's not about being or not being a colossal failure or a colossal success, but about if the show respects the source material or not.
Most people that watched and enjoyed this show, most certainly did not read Tolkien's books, which means, by definition, that most people that watched and enjoyed this show are 30 years older or less, which means, Gen Millennials or below (Z, Alpha, etc).

Why is this important? It is important because a show can be a huge success in numbers but still be a failure in the vision of those who actually loved the source material. This happens because many people that do not know the source material and would not understand why someone who loved Tolkien's originals are hating this show, would still love it. That means that the public to which this show was aimed, was not the fans of Tolkien's books, but the new generation that know nothing about his books and the first movies.

And to be honest with you, I even think that if this show did something good, is it made this new generation watch Peter Jackson's trilogy, compare it and appreciate his original trilogy to then, maybe, read Tolkien's legendarium - which is awesome.

To simplify, numbers mean nothing in this case of 'why people hated it or loved it', therefore, in my opinion, they are only a statistic that can change greatly based on many factors and thus, people can say anything they want with numbers without necessarily understanding all the invisible factors such as those I listed above.

Sorry to hear about your post. It happened to me too, almost twice this past wkend. Not to speak about the forum's current behavior preventing us, well distinct gentlemen, from discussing important matters with more than 50 words per post (though you did seem to do fine on that part)

You know, i do think most people are decent humans, especially when talked to in a 1 on 1 scenario. I feel your explanation of why there is an outcry,and Kai2's sublime explanation of the matter, forget to detail one specific point.

Namely, the behaviour that is described with the 'phrase' the group is as strong as its weakest link.

Some articles on that topic :

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolefisher/2020/05/29/the-psychology-of-protests-reveals-why-americans-are-ready-for-action/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/finding-new-home/202010/the-psychology-crowds-protests-and-riots

https://therapygroupdc.com/therapist-dc-blog/why-we-snap-understanding-the-psychology-of-online-outrage/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X20300324

It's not about success. It's more about quality, and a specific one too. The general feeling I get while searching around is that it's not fit or on par or in the right mood with its original source. That's the main complaint about it, not its quality as an entertaining show

Everybody criticizing the sequel trilogy while even the prequel trilogy started weak and the original three films have great flaws even, especially Return of the Jedi, with large parts being copypasted "upgraded" versions of the first film scenes, concepts and plot points (in a similar way that Dragon Ball managed its progression. Things like "Our hero against a bad guy in an airship" -> our hero plus allies against a more evil and buffed guy with magic. In a new, giant airship")
Star Wars at launch was both a masterpiece AND a casual flick. It was conceived as a stand-alone single film, and it shows. It was also a take on classic "knights of the round" stories, mixed with WW2 imagery (I've heard there was a strong jidaigeki influence too, which kinda goes well with both, in my opinion). It's perfect as the thing it wanted to be, while it's still a sort of (intended) b-movie (the gags, the pacing, the aesthetic..) and not at all belonging to that sort of refined, highly polished and elevated kind of masterpieces). Just done exceptionally well.
Ep. 4 (so the root of the whole franchise) is pop entertainment with a strong narrative trope behind, clever touches and genuine care, almost the same way Howard said his "Conan" was consumer lit but made with real, better care (he also made the cheaper "other" ones, so he knows).
Tolkien treated LotR as an embarassing hobby but we are not sure if he was sincere or showing a massive understatement. It's a sort of "unwilling", melancholic but epic sequel to a fairy tale, so it's quite strange too to be a "classic model" for some genre. Maybe our "excellence standard" are not so flawless and "typical" as a reference as we would want them to be.

Sure, if someone talks about quality, that isn't really something that can be measured objectively in this situation, so its not something I'd question them about.

Discussion about "mood", "respect of the source material" and such are all hypothetical, so it is difficult to say one way or another. Everyone experienced the Lord of the RIngs Books, The Hobbit book, the extended texts on Middle Earth, and the early 2000s movies and the Hobbit trilogy and this series differently, so it is difficult to gauge such things. In my mind none of them match the tone of the other, and even some of Tolkien's later books don't respect the source material of the earlier ones.

Personally, while understanding the source material would be a useful skill in making an adaptation (which I guess would be the job of the script writer?), I don't think "respect" or "adherence" is really relevant- not in making a commercial or public success, nor in making a critical success or a great piece of art in its own right (not that I'm claiming the Rings of Power is that).

Maybe. Tone-wise The Hobbit movie was suppose to be more bright and lighter toned, not a prequel with the exact same look/tone as the trilogy. Nevermind the motion capture of the trolls reminded me of the TMNT movie they did and looked butt-ass ugly, enough i consider the 1977 version the definitive version.

As for respecting the material, they obviously aren't. Apparently Amazon licensed the wrong content, and are doing a lot of Rings of Power in the wrong order, and when everyone acts like an idiot or doing the wrong things to try and fill out the details of what was effectively 'historical text' and goes over with broad strokes of what happened.

I just couldn't quite get into Rings of Power series. I gave up after the 3rd episode (season one), it just didn't click with me. I may go back and give it another try after the whole thing finishes. If poeple enjoyed it, I'm happy for them.

I hate referencing The Wheel of Time TV series (or bringing any attention to it all all), but that one really had me lose a lot of faith in how Amazon releases their shows. I loved the book series, strongly disliked the TV series and it left me jaded about future shows they may release. (This thread kinda made me remember it lol)

In the modern world, everyone should have a chance to be a part of beloved stories they grew up with, regardless of who they are and many of these have inspired us at some point in our lives. So who the cast are doesn't matter to me, as long as they bring their best to that role and lets us remember why we hold these stories so close to our hearts.

What I am not a fan of (and certainly have no love for), is taking those beloved stories and crushing them into oblivion where you can't even recognize the fond memories you so cherished. It almost feels like the creators of such TV series (WoT ughh) had a grudge against the original authors. If you want to re-imagine a story, create a fresh one from scratch yourself. There is absolutely no reason to tarnish someone else story (especially when they are no longer in this world to defend against it).

Ok, now it's time to forget again, remembering such things was more painful than I thought, since I really really wanted to love seeing them brought to life on the screen. I'll avoid future seasons of these shows, better for my peace of mind.

I think I may have gone off topic a bit, sorry about that lol.

If people enjoyed these crazy shows, more power to them. I'm actually happy for them, after all, life is meant to be enjoyed. I may never understand the perspective of that enjoyment lol, but that's my problem, not theirs.
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Parroting what's popular on the interwebz like a glitching AI.

The 37% completion rate is not even an official metric. It's something The Hollywood Reporter was "hearing" from "internal sources". They reported the number in April of 2023, but gave no indication whatsoever at what point in time the number was supposed to be valid. Season 1 of Stranger Things apparently had a 36% completion rate for quite some time. And a lower percentage still has probably started reading and actually finished the Lord of the Rings books.

Some people seem to think Jeff Bezos would continue to make a show that loses him money just to spite them personally.

Good news though, Forbes dude seems to think that the Acolyte is coming back. I mean, how could he possibly be wrong? ;)

I don't know where the 37%/45% number was obtained from, but I have no issue believing it. I'd imagine if it was false, Amazon would have denied it rather than try to excuse it.

I don't doubt that it was valid at some point in time either. The questions are, at what point in time, and is the number even relevant.

Compare and contrast these ideas with an excerpt taken from an article The Hollywood Reporter published last week (I added bold font): They essentially validate the theory that less, yet more enthusiastic viewers might translate into much higher completion rates for the Season. Which according to Forbes guy (but hardly anybody else) would mean a higher level of "success". ;)

Finally, Amazon offered me a free Prime month, so I'm neck deep (4 episodes) into Season 2.

I must say, I like it a lot.
(Creature and character) spoilers in the lower half.

Season 2 is certainly at its weakest when it tries to emulate Tolkien's heavy handed and bone dry approach to mysticism like in the Silmarillion. Sometimes I really wish for the characters to just crack a joke, and I'm thankful when we return to the halflings, who sometimes even do.

Another thing that's really getting on my nerves is when they leave you on a cliffhanger and then cycle through all their parallel story threads before finally returning to the cliffhanger. But given the structure of TTT and RotK, you might even call that a tolkienism as well.

I also have a gripe with the redshirt principle here. I kind of feel like if the character isn't named by J. R. R. himself, it's a redshirt dude or dudette with a redshirt fate. The most glaringly obvious example is the elvish team that accompanies Galadriel and Elrond. These folks are lazy game master writing, which is kind of sad.

Also the music, spectacular in the first series, is repeated wayyy too much. Then again, I've listened to the first OST way too many times outside of the series.

The Rings of Power writers are definitely much better at filling in the gaps that Tolkien left than the LotR movie trilogy writers were – still, Amazon's writers have much, much larger gaps to fill and that definitely shows sometimes. Sometimes it feels like sacrilege when they build bridges over Tolkien's glaring mythologic plot holes, because it's hardly mysticism when you do explain everything, regardless of how good the explanation is.

The creature design, also, is better than WETA's. There, I said it. The troll, the barrow wights, the ents all knock Peter Jackson out of the park and are much closer to what I imagined 33 years ago (the set design, however, is not nearly as good).

Centrally, the psychological thriller element does not disappoint. Annatar's deception of Celebrimbor is quite well done (and makes up for the less than believable Anakin-Palpatine dynamic that Lucas shat out as a going away present). Jackson often portrayed the elves as a perfect race, and Rings of Power makes them flawed with pride and delusions of grandeur. Gil-galad himself is a pompous jackass, and I kind of love him.

Action scenes are seldom. You'd think it's all about Galadriel choppin' down some orcs, it isn't. It's about rings of power, what power they have over the free people of Middle earth and what powers are just attributed to them. Most of the time, the characters talk and walk, just like they do in the Lord of the Rings.

My main gripe with the series is that there are a lot of characters who are thus far unimportant to the plot who got a lot of screen time. The Stranger as he is called so far has yet to figure out anything of significance. They could have introduced him in season 3 when he finally has his act together and it wouldn't have impacted the plot at all. The only reason they didn't because they wanted to include the hobbits somehow.