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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.
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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