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I'm still wondering what got Amazon hooked to a billion dollar disaster. After all initial (imo misplaced) optimism, analysts are finally coming out and saying the quiet part out loud: it is not the ground breaking masterpiece they need it to be. Even HoD is performing better and is better received. Both are prequels to very popular IPs, but Rings of Power should be pulling enormous numbers given how expensive it is, and how extensive its marketing was. Despite worsening performance with every episode, they just renewed it for season 2. This wasn't a small and calculated risk, they literally staked the future of their whole studio on this show. What made them think hiring subpar writers, rewriting lore, rewriting characters of one of the most popular fantasy IPs while simultaneously drafting off of the brand was a good idea? It feels like the motive isn't even to make money but solely to push an agenda, but who would do that? Given the sheer scale of the project, I just cannot believe any studio would be so careless as to commit such a serious misfire.
Just for fun I turned on episode 6 and noted why I think the show is crappy
->5:30 Boring shot of orcs with torches. Nothing interesting. Orc speaker is not interesting. The shot isn’t interesting. It’s all black in background whereas Peter Jackson would have fleshed out the fantasy background. Music drowns out the resonance of the orc speaker.
->5:35 aspect ratio of tower shot makes it look like Disney World ie fake proportions. Again, background is too dark, nothing interesting to entertain the eye (compare with shots of original series, or GoT)
->5:38 is a decent shot
->8:15 Elf actor is boring, he looks like the default character in a video game. Compare to interesting appearance and beauty of an Aragorn or Legolas, who were heart throbs
->8:45 shot is too dark. Female lead is, again, a basic human female with nothing interesting to capture attention.
->10:00 boring dude looking boring on boring with boring sea
->10:15 the first beautiful actor/actress, caked on in too much makeup and slightly too old to be the beautiful lead
I’m going to compare this, for no reason at all, to Squid Game. Attractive, interesting actors with strong expressions who we emotionally relate to. A background that is more often colorful and varied. Young attractive female actresses. A better example is obviously GoT. Each location had a color theme and the themes switched every 5-10min for variety. Nearly all main actors/actresses were attractive, which simply put people want to watch. Lots of shots dwelling on facial expressions.
Did Squid Game really have that many attractive actors? I thought the one North Korean defector was very attractive (IIRC the actor is a model), but I found the others pretty average, possibly even below average by major-production-actor standards. There's the undercover cop too, I suppose, though he's barely a major character.
Yeah, if there's one negative comparison of American TV it's not that people aren't attractive. If anything TV - network TV especially - leans so far towards blandly attractive people that it can legitimately be distracting
I've seen it referred to as "CW casting" (in reference to a channel that pumps out mostly teen soap operas). Just blandly generic handsome people
This is one of the main things that kills a show for me. One of the most egregious examples I can think of recently was the new Wheel of Time series.
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My personal feeling is that American media of all types really lacks charisma and drive. It's less that the actor's are attractive or not or whatever, but there's a charisma and flair there that I think that is lacking from most modern American productions. And I do think while it's not driven by politics it's linked to politics. People just got more important things to think about than art. Better and easier ways to gain status and be successful.
I watched Hot Fuzz again last night. And it's a shame that we don't get more things like THAT. Everything coming out of America just seems so stale these days. I don't think it's always been this way. I think there was a time where pushing the boundaries creatively was seen as a more respectable thing to do. And I don't like talking about it that much because it just feels harsh...but I also absolutely believe it, and I don't think it's just getting older. I do like newer things. Just I tend to not like things that come out of the US. I think it's a stale culture culturally. Movies, TV, Games, Music, all of it.
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I too was very surprised to hear Squid Game actors called attractive. The lead has traditional leading man qualities, but most of the rest border on or are downright ugly.
Which was not bad! They were all very distinctive and as a white dude watching wall-to-wall Koreans I was happy to be able to tell them all apart easily. The ugliness even lent itself to the desperation of the characters and fit the mood.
I remember when Squid Game came out there was a lot of kerfuffle on Twitter over how attractive the man in the business suit who slaps the leading man a bunch of times in the subway was. I do think that he along with the Pakistani, the leading man, and the North Korean defector are both fairly attractive. I agree with you that the rest are on the uglier side.
However, I think that each character has a flair to them that makes them 'emotionally attractive', or maybe 'emotionally engaging' is a better word for it. When I think of Rings of Power, I think of blandness and of an odd uniformity. The Squid Game characters are more vivid, more engaging, more 'real', and I suppose that would make them more 'attractive to watch' in comparison.
The slapping man and the Front Man are both major movie stars in Korea (the Front Man has even crossed over to major Hollywood productions) essentially making cameo appearances in the show, so it's not surprising so many people found the former so attractive. I'll admit I found the protagonist fairly homely, especially by leading man standards, so I'm surprised to read a couple people say he was attractive.
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I'm convinced Amazon broke something in the Prime Video app around HDR. I recently started rewatching Season 1 of the Expanse on my phone and could barely make out anything unless I set my phone on maximum brightness. I got an LG OLED TV and noticed the same thing, when I watch certain things on Prime that enable the TV's HDR mode, these same programs (all Amazon originals) are almost unwatchably dark. I don't remember the Expanse looking like that on my old TV, and it was a plasma that couldn't get anywhere near as bright. However, HDR movies like Oblivion or Batman have looked fine. Online, it seems like lots of people have similar issues, that the programs are not just dark in production, but dark to the point of being unable to see almost anything at all.
It's not just Amazon, for instance you see this with the night scene on the beach in the latest episode (Ep. 7) of House of the Dragon on HBO Max. Technically this is a feature, not a bug.
Modern consumer TVs will generally boost non-HDR content, which is nominally supposed to have a peak brightness of 100 nits, to more like 250-350 nits, so this is what people are used to. HDR provides creators with more explicit control over brightness, and some choose to grade dark scenes well below 250-350, to create more contrast with bright scenes. In theory there's nothing wrong with this; it's how HDR is supposed to be used, really. And it's a cool effect if you're viewing in a blacked-out room. It just doesn't hold up well to brighter viewing environments.
You're more likely to see this with made-for-streaming content because with movies, the initial grading pass for theatrical release (non-HDR, because cinema projectors aren't bright enough for it) is likely to be done with the primary creative talent in the room, but the HDR pass will often be done later, by a colorist working without them there. Same thing for TV content old enough that it wasn't initially graded for HDR. A colorist working alone like this will usually aim for something that won't draw complaints, rather than pushing boundaries the way the primary creatives will.
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I get this sort of thing from a few video+streaming sites these days. Tweaking video gamma settings with https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-image-control-new-g/mdoelcifdkcimkdbfkjjnedabmjlkokc fixes it on my web browser, but I'm not sure what you'd do about it if you're using an app on a (already properly adjusted) TV.
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