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Comment by WastingMyTime89 | Hacker News Reader

Because it’s not the core audience.

People who care about the lore and source material are insignificant compared to the amount of people who just enjoy a lavish production in a medieval fantasy setting.

Clearly Amazon is targeting the people who enjoyed the movies and want a similar experience in a TV show format. Most don’t really care that it conforms to what Tolkien wrote. Heck, I’m probably unusual compared to the average watcher in that I have actually read LotR and the Silmarillion as a teenager and I don’t care about fidelity to the source material.

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I hate to do the "pull out the dictionary" thing, but those people are precisely the core audience for LoTR media (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/core-...):

> the type of people who are most likely to buy a particular product, watch a particular TV programme, etc.

The Tolkien fans don't need a dozen Amazon Prime adverts to watch a new LoTR show, they seek out new LoTR content on their own.

To give my perspective, I also read LoTR as a teenager, but did not finish the Silmarillion, and enjoyed the Peter Jackson trilogy. It doesn't take a LoTR lore researcher fluent in Elvish to realize that Jackson set the bar high, and the new show appears to be falling significantly short. That's just the reality of trying to adapt a beloved franchise with excellent predecessors. The 1/10 reviews might be hyperbolic, but it's ridiculous for Amazon to be removing them while leaving the equally hyperbolic 10/10s.

I think that even by your definition the core audience is people who enjoyed the movies and watch prestige TV shows especially when you consider the marketing campaign. That’s the people Amazon is targeting. Fans of LotR as a universe are a very small subsection of that.

It does not look like prestige though.

Call it like you want. I meant that it’s a TV show with a production budget of 60 millions dollars an episode without counting the rights purchase. It can’t really be compared to a traditional show.

This season is going to cost twice as much as the original three movies. That’s completely insane.

It's entertainment and the entertainment factor is what gets measured.

Fargo had 10x less budget and was much more entertaining.

Then why spend the money to get the rights to a known series at all? Make up a new IP in Generic Medieval Fantasy Land with lavish production values. No licensing or contract renewal fees, and you don't upset any existing audience.

Because the movie trilogy was extremely successful and is associated with great production value by a whole generation?

Don’t get me wrong I wish Amazon had the courage to just put 500 millions of dollar on completely new IP but that’s just not how American entertainment companies work.

For Lord of the rings, it's also wise generational timing (akin to Star Wars episodes 1 and 7).

The Fellowship of the Ring (film, 2001) is just over 20 years old, which creates, now, 25-45 year olds significant childhood nostalgia, just in time for them to be able to show their ~5-15 year old children (in their most formative years)

Have I watched this new LotR show and their WoT show? Yes. Because I've enjoyed the books.

Would I watch a generic IP they invented? No. At least not until it got huge and I got it recommended by others.

Is that really true? If I saw any fantasy or sci-fi series that didn't derive from a book or comic series I'd take off work to binge it. I'm so tired of regurgitation. A known writer's name attached would me me run rather than walk to the remote.

It's really true. How often do you hear about Upload, an ongoing non-adaptation scifi series run by the guy who produced The Office and Parks and Rec? Or The Orville, a non-adaptation space exploration show from the Family Guy guy?

Upload is brilliant! I talk about it at work, but I confess no one has ever spoken to me about it. You may have a point. Is it a sunk cost thing, where having spent the money on IP they market it heavier? The Norwegian thor on netflix was really good too. But its low buget so I figured they just don't push it as hard? Why do people really care that much about name recognition?

Upload got good numbers. Stranger Things was extremely successful. I remember a period when everyone was talking about Dark a few years ago. Original stories can be extremely well received with the right marketing push.

The problem with changing the world that was created by a writer is that the world had become so popular for a good reason.

I didn't read Dune nor Brave New World, but I loved the Dune movie and didn't enjoy Brave New World series, because it just didn't make sense. I love exact book adaptations even if I hadn't read the book.

Another issue is that whoever they're hiring to write these adaptations either have no clue how to write, or are hamstrung by committee direction. You can make, quite effectively in fact, a story set in the same universe (cue all the Star Wars material that exists as books in the fandom) that has nothing to do with the original story. But it needs skill. Skill that they cannot seem to find.

From that perspective, it’s a small step to start considering anyone who doesn’t enjoy the show as “not the target audience”.

Best to just let all reviews stay, it opens up a massive can of worms if you don’t (never mind the conflict of interest in why LotT gets a different treatment than, say, HBO’s shows).

If that were true then why buy the LotR franchise rights?

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