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THE COUCH - TV Chat Thread

The RoP thread on Whirlpool starts with 50+ pages of people bitching about wokeness, political correctness, etc. spanning many, many months before yesterday's release. So many people with shitty opinions. And guaranteed, when you click on the profile for members sharing those opinions their "aura" is almost always "pervasively low". Actually that goes for WP member with shitty opinions on pretty much anything, really.

Just think about the sort of person that would be hardcore into fantasy lore. They're almost certainly detailed focused and on the spectrum.

I honestly can't blame them for being upset that someone comes across and adapts something they adore and love. Something they've spent their lives obsessing over the details. Then the adaption pays no attention to the details and drastically changes things. I myself dislike how the Star Wars sequels shat all over the original trilogies.

I actually find the dislike somewhat fascinating. I watched and enjoyed The Wheel of Time series. Yet was fascinated watching youtube channels of people going over how bad the adaptation was, how little knowledge the writers of the show had and how it completely broke the stories told in later novels with needless changes.

The opening summary of past events in the RoP is significantly different from the events of Tolkien. Characters are not the same. It's an unfaithful adaptation of the material. Regardless of if it is entertaining or not. I don't know the lore, never read it. So it doesn't bother me. I can completely understand why someone who was familiar would be annoyed.

Regardless of if one thinks it is good or not. It is a bad adaption of Tolkien. Which doesn't mean it is a bad show.

As for woke, PC and that crap. It's an easy label to understand why some changes are made. It's not untrue when you see the comments those making the show have said. We do currently live in an era where bad writing and characterisation is done in part due to political agendas. We can't pretend it's not happening.

An issue is the way different people discuss some things is different to how other people understand how it is discussed. So it's easy to misunderstand what people are saying or complaining about. The term "woke" for instance is used by different groups with different meanings. No one ever tries to understand the meaning another group is using when complaining about their usage of it.

There certainly is a lack of variety and obvious choices that keep happening in bad writing these days when "woke" is influencing it, because it always leads to the same choices and the same tropes playing out. Where it is boring. RoP does suffer from that. It's almost an auto-pilot way of writing and you can see it a mile away. It's bad writing when you can see these choices because it's predictable.
 
The opening summary of past events in the RoP is significantly different from the events of Tolkien. Characters are not the same. It's an unfaithful adaptation of the material. Regardless of if it is entertaining or not. I don't know the lore, never read it. So it doesn't bother me. I can completely understand why someone who was familiar would be annoyed.
It comes down to the rights they acquired. I don't fully understand the details - but basically they are essentially left with a prequel story crafted from/inspired by Tolkien's work. They can and can't use certain characters, that kind of thing. So purists could hate it for many reasons, but female dwarves and black elves and harfoots... really, they should just get over it. The whole story is fantasy. Literally anything is possible. Enjoy the ride.

Having said that I watched the first ep and started losing interest, second-screening etc, and by the end I couldn't give you a summary of anything that had happened. Not sure I want to commit to a second attempt, tbh.
 
I don't get how anyone looks at the Lord of the Rings films and thinks "yes, but they need to be longer".

Not my thing I'm afraid and I'm getting tired of TV and film studios constantly rehashing the same source material.
While deciding whether to watch 2022 GOT & LOTR, I found The Sandman.
This is different & I enjoyed it (crushing a bit on naked Tom Sturridge (why yes, I am that shallow lol)
 
It comes down to the rights they acquired. I don't fully understand the details - but basically they are essentially left with a prequel story crafted from/inspired by Tolkien's work. They can and can't use certain characters, that kind of thing. So purists could hate it for many reasons, but female dwarves and black elves and harfoots... really, they should just get over it. The whole story is fantasy. Literally anything is possible. Enjoy the ride.

Having said that I watched the first ep and started losing interest, second-screening etc, and by the end I couldn't give you a summary of anything that had happened. Not sure I want to commit to a second attempt, tbh.

I think the core issue is that the inexperienced writers who were somehow given this show have come up with the plot of a movie and stretched it over many hours more of run time. Instead of a story that requires that run time. It's something that constantly happens these days with these 8-10 episode seasons. There the story moves slow, getting distracted by scenes that are unnecessary and motivated by the writers wanted to have certain moments or agendas. Which lose sight of the larger story.

Like the Snow troll. They decide it needs to be a Gladrial bad ass moment. Do the typical bad writing trope of not being confident they can convey that without establishing other characters as been bad compared to her. Rendering her squad of Elf special forces useless. While the troll isn't at all a threat or issue to her.

I enjoyed the episodes, but it is hilarious how bad the writing is. They even forgot that wood floats.
 
Ok what the hell is wrong with y'all? 1970s, feminism, penises... and not one of you has mentioned Minx on Stan.

Seriously, get on it!

 
Ok what the hell is wrong with y'all? 1970s, feminism, penises... and not one of you has mentioned Minx on Stan.

Seriously, get on it!

why yes, wouldn't mind looking at some male nudity--all in the name of equality hahahaha
Cast memebers describing their characters
 
I think the core issue is that the inexperienced writers who were somehow given this show have come up with the plot of a movie and stretched it over many hours more of run time. Instead of a story that requires that run time. It's something that constantly happenswere these days with these 8-10 episode seasons. There the story moves slow, getting distracted by scenes that are unnecessary and motivated by the writers wanted to have certain moments or agendas. Which lose sight of the larger story.

Like the Snow troll. They decide it needs to be a Gladrial bad ass moment. Do the typical bad writing trope of not being confident they can convey that without establishing other characters as been bad compared to her. Rendering her squad of Elf special forces useless. While the troll isn't at all a threat or issue to her.

I enjoyed the episodes, but it is hilarious how bad the writing is. They even forgot that wood floats.
(blush) While youse guyse were talking about the LOTR series, I've been watching House of Dragons
(spoiler) Episode 4 has Rhaneyra um enjoying the company of Ser Cristen Cole
(note: age restricted & must be watched on youtube)
 
(blush) While youse guyse were talking about the LOTR series, I've been watching House of Dragons
(spoiler) Episode 4 has Rhaneyra um enjoying the company of Ser Cristen Cole

I am enjoying HoD more than RoP but there's just something off with the show. They are handling the time jumps poorly. You have character drama that is unresolved. Then a time jump happens and you're trying to figure out what has happened in the years since the last episode. Yet for all the stuff that has happened, which you would have liked to have seen. Most of the character drama just picks up from the previous episode. It's very disjointed.

RoP is so laughably dumb at this stage. It's so incompetently handled. It's clearly another example where the "racism"narrative was just a marketing strategy to try and deflect from the low quality of the series.
 
I am enjoying HoD more than RoP but there's just something off with the show. They are handling the time jumps poorly. You have character drama that is unresolved. Then a time jump happens and you're trying to figure out what has happened in the years since the last episode. Yet for all the stuff that has happened, which you would have liked to have seen. Most of the character drama just picks up from the previous episode. It's very disjointed.

RoP is so laughably dumb at this stage. It's so incompetently handled. It's clearly another example where the "racism"narrative was just a marketing strategy to try and deflect from the low quality of the series.
I concur...snicker on HoD, gave up on RoP
Waiting for the episodes to conclude so I can binge them all.
Happily binging on US Survivor, Amazing Race & the insanity of MAFs UK
(how I wish we Yanks would use the MAFs AU formula)
 
Rob McKnight was one of the 'experts' on Sunrise this morning (where they have a panel of media people giving their opinions).
 
Feels like there has been zero chatter about that since it launched. A bit more traction with House of the Dragon but it's as dull as the shows lighting.
 
Look, I never made it past the first episode of RoP, but apparently it's taken six hours to get to a good bit, so I feel vindicated:


These headlines are interesting. It's admitting that the show hasn't been good for the first 5 hours and they were lying when they said it was. They are also still lying.

All that happened is that there was some action and the episode was focused mainly on one plotline and it converged with another in a contrived way.

The action made little sense at all. The direction and execution was far below what would be considered mediocre in Game of Thrones. It was very much TV, not cinematic on TV. It was poorer than most action scenes in premium TV shows these days. What the characters were doing made no sense at all.

They don't know how to make the Orc's a threat. They're goofy and easily defeated by untrained people. Although sometimes they're not. There's an apothecary lady who meets the first Orc in the show and kills it in a fight. Despite no training. So where is the threat? In fact, she is very good at killing Orcs and doesn't meet one she can't kill. I assume, girl power reasons in the writing room.

Then the trained soldier Elf, gets in a horribly choreographed fight with an Orc. He gets thrown around as the coordinator doesn't know any fighting styles. Then of course the random apothecary lady kills the Orc. Everything is just so random and not thought out.

Remember how Middle Earth is meant to be a giant world? Well, an army that doesn't know the battle is happening. Teleports across the world to save the day. How they got there so quickly or knew where to go? Who knows!

There was some excitement in the episode, but it was not good.

What is good though, I'm rewatching Gangs of London because the new season starts soon. So fucking good!
 
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