this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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While this is piracy adjacent, good on Amazon and Tolkien's estate for shutting down that trash lol
lol, Amazon's LOTR was trash.
I quite liked it, personally.
I imagine saying that is going to be treated as an admission of heresy here though.
My problem is that Galadriel was treated like an impatient, naive child by other characters when in Tolkien's Lore she is already well-respected and older than most others.
Why? Because female? Bullshit, she was already strong and established by the time the events in Amazon's LotR take place. They dumbed her down and made her look like an impulsive idiot incapable of seeing evil when that's literally her whole character.
The showrunners did not give Galadriel the respect she deserved.
I wouldn't say naive, but definitely reckless. And I would 100% say they portrayed her as strong in the tv series. Hell, it begins with her on an incursion on the remains of angband, which if you know the lore I'd say it's pretty badass. Her arc in season 1 was about how she was so blinded by revenge and recklessness, that she couldn't see the evil in front of her. Which is pretty fitting for a noldor elf. It shows that even trying your hardest to make good, your actions can and will have unintended consequences, even 'evil' ones. Which perfectly sets up her eventual rejection of the one ring, during the mirror scene in fellowship of the ring. She knew then she'd have good intentions using it, but she also knew more evil will come with that
Galadriel shouldn't be blinded by revenge and recklessness, because Feanor murdered thousands of his own kin over his stolen Silmarils and Galadriel knew he would do something horrible for his own selfish reasons.
If she can see evil inside another person's soul, surely she can see the consequences of her own actions 5 minutes before she takes said actions? Like jumping out of a boat hundreds of miles from any land mass? Or maybe she would know how and why the Queen of Numenor felt about helping her, prior to getting upset and yelling?
Nothing about her character in the Rings of Power has any respect for Tolkien's work, because they dumbed her down and made her act incredibly stupid on multiple occasions, completely ignoring the power and wisdom she already possesses.
I don't mean to start a discussion here, but this is your interpretation and it's valid. But galadriel's character has contradictory history depending on your sources (even regarding the kinslaying). And it's debated even between Tolkien's scholars the extend at which she can 'sense evil'. After all, she herself was deceived by saruman after his corruption during the third age.
In your last paragraph you say 'nothing about her character in the series has any respect for Tolkien's work'. That's simply hyperbole, and arguably not true, as even a surface level reading can prove otherwise. Such words are not Tolkien's way.
Anyway, I don't want you to change your mind, just want you to be aware of the possibility of other interpretations. Take care!
I don't even like Tolkien (find his writing to be just excessive, I don't need to know the color of the buttons on the shirt of the dead character with no name), and even I have to agree, lol.
Too many re-interpretations of authors' works. Tolkien is highly detailed - not reflecting that (or worse, substituting your own details) in a movie or show is just hubris. If you're so damn good why don't you write your own shit. Oh, your name doesn't sell instantly is why.
We've seen this with the Witcher, we've seen it with GoT, we've seen it with LOTR: super artistic production teams which have their heads so deep up their own arses and are entrenched so deeply inside that weird removed-from-reality Hollywood bubble that they legitimately think they know better how to interpret the lore some world renowned author made than the author himself. Always ends in mediocre showsand hilarious interviews with said production teams where
a) everybody is wrong but them
b) bUt OuR vIsIoN
Oh God The Witcher. The production team was handed an incredibly strong female lead character who was smarter, more politically astute, and more feared/respected than almost any other character in the series. And they immediately tore her down and made her a petty whining brat while claiming it was about female empowerment. A pox on Netflix and the entire production team.
Didn't the show runner say that the dumb public was to blame for the failure of the show?
Edit: he blamed dumb Americans.
He has a point about simplifications when it comes to media and art being approachable by the masses (and I say this with no insult intended, simplification of anything will always have broader appeal). See popular music vs avante-guard jazz (i.e. Miles Davis, probably the most-approachable of the type!)
But holy cow what a condescending, arrogant, insulting pick.
Fuck him and anything he ever touches.
And we Americans complain about our own dumbing down of media to ship overseas.
I'm glad I didn't watch the show.
Thing is: They are working from the basis of media that has been successful already. So the amount of "dumbing down" neccessary to achieve a somewhat broad appeal has already been done by the author of the original, so to speak. Their argument doesn't hold any water whatsoever on no level imaginable.
Projection is a powerful drug.
There is some stuff I don't dislike about Netflix's Witcher, but god damn, I feel like they actively set out to do the worst rewriting ever with how they treated/portrayed basically the entire Lodge of Sorceresses
My hopes were so high for the stupid thing. They couldn't tell the story in front of them that was already loaded with allegorical social justice issues. They had to reinterpret the entire thing and just plain fucked it up. Just sad.
Game of Thrones is an odd one, because what they did was fuck up the characters. All of them. I don’t think a single character who survived to the end was left unscathed by shitty writing outside of a couple minor characters. It doesn’t really help that they obviously rushed the ending out, which only made it worse by making the actions of the characters make absolutely no sense.
So much money, just absolutely wasted.
The story lines they fabricated were (mostly) formulaic, the effects were (mostly) poor, and the characters were (mostly) unlikable. Apart from that I liked it! :P
It had a few moments that I enjoyed but overall it fell flat because the characters where flat.
To me, it just seemed ... dull. Like, the conversations characters were having weren't interesting. What was happening on screen wasn't interesting. I felt myself suddenly snapping back to reality several times each episode after my mind aimlessly drifted away from what I was watching. And I'm someone who doesn't need Michael Bay explosions and constant action to enjoy a tv show. Really hope they turn it around and do something interesting with it. Absolute snooze fest.
Yeah. It had a few moments of character interaction that I liked but it mostly felt forced and dull. Sad really as it could have been much more than flashy.
Holy shit is that article a heap of bigoted trash ramblings. I mean, I get that people disliked the series but this is full on Andrew Tate shit.
It was but I can’t imagine how trashy this would have been if it came to light. We don’t need fan fiction to be confused with cannon.