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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.
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.
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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