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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.
Hey, hey, this is my jam!
What I'm finding interesting is the reviewers who first came out in favour of it, based on episodes one/two, then changed their minds. Like Eric Kain who started out all bright-eyed optimism, and then - well, he looked down towards the darkness like a stone which is why he won't float, didn't he? He explains his change of mind in this video, and how some people are giving him grief for deciding no actually, this is not premium Belgian chocolate mousse, it is dogshit.
Me, I am doing backstrokes in the Schadenfreude like Scrooge McDuck in his money vault 😁
The problem is J.J. Abrams, and I'm serious about that. For whatever reason, he managed to convince Amazon to put these two totally inexperienced guys in charge of Amazon's big project which was going to make or break Amazon Studios as a serious player in content creation and streaming services. They are so dumb, they spill all the beans in this interview.
First, that they have a ten-year track record of being losers:
Gosh, guys, did you ever consider that the mystery around why your scripts never got made is that you are terrible writers?
Second, that it was nepotism that got them the gig:
You should read the full interview, it explains so much.
The big mystery is how the hell Abrams still has so much pull in Hollywood. Was it because of "Lost" that Amazon thought "oh yeah, we get two Bad Robot guys to do a fantasy TV show for us, we'll be farting through silk!"
Apparently season two is greenlighted. Unless it hugely improves, this show is dead in the water. And by God, I have moved from "well it's a dumpster fire but it's entertaining in a black humour way how they are fucking up Middle-earth and the established lore" to becoming the human version of the Seven Kill Stele. Because fuck me, fuck you, fuck them and fuck everyone, they've HUGE SPOILER ALERT LOOK AWAY NOW
.... LOOK AWAY
....OKAY IF STILL READING, SPOILER AHEAD
They've killed off Celeborn. Yes, now Warrior Galadriel is young, free and single, ready and able to mingle, and get down'n'dirty with Halbrand a.k.a. 'is he Sauron'?
Okay, now I want to re-open the pits of Utumno and put Payne and McKay through a crash course in genuine canon, hands-on experience of the lore they are using to wipe their backsides with.
Eru give me strength.
I actually think it will be a big missed opportunity if Galadriel doesn't fuck Sauron. Like if this is going to be shitty Tolkien fanfic, push all the chips into the centre of the table. Let's get crazy!
Apart from it being absolutely contrary to the lore, because Tolkien world-built his sexual morality based on Catholic theology and so no nookie unless you put a ring on it, and if she's not sure that her husband is dead she isn't going to marry another guy?
Yeah, I see the appeal to make this even worse because it's already so bad, there's no way to go but down! So let's dig deeper and see if we can hit a Balrog, boys!
But even by their own internal 'logic' (and I scarequote that because I don't think you can call what they're doing logical or coherent), this makes her jumping off the ship before she could get into Valinor even more stupid than it already was. If she thinks her husband is dead, then he's going to be in the Halls of Mandos at the very least, and a good chance he has been re-embodied, so this is her opportunity to meet him again. As well as her dead brother!
It's almost like she doesn't really care about her dead 'loved ones', that they're only an excuse?
Maybe she's not sure Celeborn is dead and she's really on the Roaring Rampage Of Revenge to see if he's a prisoner held by the Orcs and Sauron, which makes her treatment of Adar even worse because, you know, this is what could be happening to Celeborn right now.
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