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Comment by isbvhodnvemrwvn | Hacker News Reader

Don't you think that 2 episodes is a bit too little to judge the entire series like that? The show covers A LOT more time than LOtR did, there's plenty of space for character development. Galadriel was not exactly likeable when she participated in the first kinslaying, or when she ran away from the war of wrath.

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> The show covers A LOT more time than LOtR did, there's plenty of space for character development.

The first two episodes of TRoP are 90 minutes each, for a total run time of three hours.

Three hours is about the run time of the first LoTR movie (Fellowship): how much story were they able to tell in those three hours?

Further, the other epic fantasy series, House of Dragons, also has released two episodes: how much story have they been able to tell? What are the reviews of that franchise?

The TRoP series may not end up sucking after the first eight episodes, but having the first two (allegedly: haven't seen it myself) suck seems to be a waste of everyone's time/effort/money.

If I exclude the credits both episodes are almost exactly 60 minutes long. And the credits are ~5 minutes or so, so the displayed runtime is 1 hour and a few minutes. I have no idea where you get the 90 minutes from, that is simply not true.

I have watched both Rings of Power and The House of the Dragon, and both are essentially setting up the story in the first two episodes. There is plot in those episodes of course, but a lot is setting up characters and places and the world in general.

> have no idea where you get the 90 minutes from

>> but having the first two (allegedly: haven't seen it myself)

Not watching something that you critique, and instead basing it on what you saw on Reddit, HN or YouTube, seems de rigueur these days.

I did watch it. Enjoyed it. And will hold my final opinion until I've seen the last episode.

> Not watching something that you critique, and instead basing it on what you saw on Reddit, HN or YouTube, seems de rigueur these days.

Movie and television reviews have been around for decades. There are only so many hours in a day/week, and everyone has to decide how to spend their finite amount of time, so "pre-judging" a show by early episodes is nothing new. But if you want to try to watch everything as a completionist, start to finish, go right ahead.

But as the GP of this sub-thread, I'm was not so much "critiquing" and simply observing that there's a lot ways for people to spend their time, so if a show "wastes" 2 out of 8 episodes with a lot of what folks consider non-plot, then why should I spend my time watching it?

Again, I haven't watched it, and I'll wait until the season is over and see what the consensus is after the full season. But even if it does turn out to be good as whole, why did the show runners seemingly not do much with the plot for a quarter of the season?

The Expanse took about four episodes to really 'set' the universe, but even the first two episodes had quite a bit that happened ("Remember the Cant!").

How does a show producer worth their salt not know that you have to give juicy bits early in a show's run?

I'm not suggesting critique without completion is invalid: I am suggesting critique without viewing is invalid.

Since BBSs and Usenet there has been plenty of commentary of ongoing series.

But the difference now seems to be people having an opinion, sharing that opinion... and then calling out that they haven't even watched the part of the show that is out.

Which boggles my mind.

I probably wouldn't opine publicly on Sidney Poitier or Katharine Hepburn as actors if I'd never seen anything they were in...

Watched only the first episode of Dragons, but I am not convinced. What is the point of this show? We know that the real fight between dead and living is happening 200 years later. We know that all of the dragons will be dead at some point. The characters itself are pretty boring, compared to what Thrones had to offer. It is technically well made, but it is boring.

For me, I like the political intrigue. It's also a reminder that the quest for power is never ending, and even when one wins, it's never lasting.

But, to your point, it's not that dissimilar from other quest for power dramas. I told a friend the new GoT is a bit like Succession with dragons. The quest for power is part of the human condition, which is why I think so many enjoy the stories in whatever form they are told.

> For me, I like the political intrigue.

Have you watched The Expanse? If you like faction-y stuff, it's worth checking out.

Yep, can recommend The Expanse as well. I find the end somewhat unsatisfying though. There is potential for a sequel, 500 years later or so.

Of course, and read many of the books :)

I really like Succession, but sorry, Dragons is nothing like that. There is no political intrigue, just people in costumes making fairly obvious moves.

They both seem fairly obvious, yet still enjoyable. The one thing a GoT based show has going for it though, is they have historically not been afraid to kill off major characters. That willingness to kill characters keeps the audience a bit on their toes.

Now that you mention it, I have to admit obviousness is not the distinction between Succession and Dragon. I guess the dragon characters just seem dull to me, and I don't really care about what they are up to.

I disagree. Not every narrative has to be one over some apocalyptic threat. I actually prefer the more grounded (for fantasy I suppose) story over the zombie apocalypse-adjacent White Walker stuff.

If I want to watch a history lesson, I can do that, there are some great documentaries out there. Probably produced for less money. And I would actually learn something.

But of course, there are many interesting narratives that don't involve the apocalypse. The Wire has a great one. Bladerunner is superb. The recent Black Bird was captivating, too.

Dragons though? Just boring.

I recently binge watched a series (Irma Vep) that, very tongue in cheek, addressed the malaise of "platforms" affecting film/cinema. It's a very complex work (in terms of multiple layers of readings) spanning the director's closure over his lost love (see Irma Vep 1996), a hat tip to Truffaut's Day for Night, and a very explicitly expressed concern of characters of how "content platforms" have killed cinema and mutated it to "TV" and "series". Naturally all this was said, to wrap up the irony train, on HBO's platform.

Irma Vep (2022): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13649314

Have to check it out. Not sure about the 2022 show, but the 1996 movie sounds intriguing. Don't remember anything about Day for Night, just that I found it similarly confusing as Fellini's 8 1/2. I do remember that I really liked Jules et Jim by Truffaut, but then again, it has Jeanne Moreau. I can recommend her movie Bay of Angels. It's a simple but great movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056846/

I really liked the 2022 -- there is a lot to chew on if you are a film buff as it is very self-referential in context of French Cinema -- but it's likely not everyone's cup of tea at the surface level. Technically, like (or surpassing) his Carlos miniseries, it is exceptional. Great acting as well. Lars Eidinger's was quite excellent imho, as was Vincent Macaigne's. (Plan to revisit the 1996, for Maggie Cheung. /g)

I'm not saying it's of the same caliber as the trilogy, but it's definitely not garbage which deserves one star. It's already better than the hobbit, however low of a bar that is.

If it was worse than everyone has said it was, it’d still be better than Hobbit 3.

I haven't watched the show yet, but is it not generally understood that plot and character development in television proceeds at a slower pace than in film? It's arguably one of the main reasons to chose one medium over the other. You cite House of Dragons, but I hardly think you can argue that the first two episodes of that show could make a movie.

I am not opposed to that being her prospective character arc but she’s not portrayed that way. There’s nothing to make us like her and from the storytelling and craft perspective there should be. We should at least see her questioning herself. She’s not presented as a cautionary tale. She’s presented as a strong woman who has to deal with domineering men. Even that would be a compelling story line. But again we don’t have any way to sympathize with her. She treats every other character except her brother in the intro with contempt. All she does is try to prove to the haters that they don’t understand her and she’s gonna do what she knows is right regardless of any warnings.

Isn’t this just because we, the viewers, know that she is right given the whole Sauron is the big bad in Lord of the Rings? We are suppose to appreciate her focus and refusal to give up given that we know she will be ultimately vindicated.

Story should make no assumptions about what audience knows, it should be fully contained.

If 2 episodes is a bit too little to judge that a series is bad, then it is also a bit too little to judge that a series is good.

If it's too early to review, then scrap all reviews including the good ones, and if reviews are expected, then selective deletion is just creating false advertising.

I would generally translate reviews based only on the first few episodes of a new series as "shows promise" or not. You really can't say more than that at this point.

My beef is that there isn't much in terms of character development. The first episode was an atrocious formulaic mess that tried to stack as many memorable LotR style moments on top of each other as possible. So far they haven't taken the opportunity to use the format to their advantage at all. Visually appealing, but bland is how I'd summarize things so far.

> My beef is that there isn't much in terms of character development.

In just two episodes? Yeah there won’t be.

Story tellers need to do their job to give us compelling characters. We don’t owe them watching an unspecified number of episodes - hours of screen time - to give them a chance to give us something to like about the characters. I liked every character in the LotR trilogy within five minutes of their introduction.

> We don’t owe them watching an unspecified number of episodes - hours of screen time - to give them a chance to give us something to like about the characters.

Nobody thinks you owe the authors anything - of course you don’t have to watch it at all.

But if you wanted to try it how few episodes or chapters are you will to give a creative work time to reach a character development?

What's the point of a character development in the first couple of episodes or chapters? That's just churn - they aren't genuinely developing in that time because you won't have given them any time to establish something to develop from. And where do they go from there? Just keep having major developments every episode? That'd be exhausting.

In two hours. Yes they could have fit in some character development along with backstory. Want an example? Just look at pretty much every movie ever with run times less than two hours.

How faithful was that storyline to the Tolkein lore? Did he really write a book where a commander driven literally insane by zeal is vindicated, saves the lives of the men in her company like a mary sue, only to be mutinied and sprung by her king for being right? It makes everyone look repulsive. The only win scenario in that situation is if they'd all just sat on their hands and done nothing.

Probably about as faithful as Icon of Sin.

For a show where you spend 300M just for the rights, you are showing your best effort in those first couple of hours to hook people. At least that's what I've experienced with the many HBO shows I've watched and loved. Maybe the task is more difficult when you're building on an existing story, associated characters and lore that people have expectations of.

I managed 2 episodes of Amazon's butchering of the WoT series and judged it to be absolutely crap.

I was a huge fan of the books and frankly I think the book series itself went off the rails at some point. I'm still not even done with book 9 and don't really plan to finish it. I still enjoyed the Amazon series, but I will admit it wasn't perfect. I was surprised to see that so many people seem to vehemently hate it.

I do recall seeing a lot of one star reviews on Amazon having to do with what the actors looked like, and I observe the same thing in the reviews for Tom Clancy's Without Remorse, which I also enjoyed.

Are Amazon productions perfect, on the level of other established studios? No, they're still finding their stride I think, but there is a definite trend of review bombing and I think that's why people are probably assuming it's happening here.

WIT was genuinely awful, no argument there. I just think while ROP isn’t everything I’d have wished for, it’s nowhere near as unwatchable as all that.

I've watched one episode of TRoP and don't mind it. I attempted long ago to read the silmarillon but got bored so I've no vested interest in the book/base material.

I dont care whether a white character in a book or comic is played by a black/brown person, or the other way round really.

But I am baffled by the reactions they get. You always get the same reaction, people with the same coloured skin as the fictional character complain while the people of the same coloured skin as the actor don't see a problem.

But it does only seem to be racist for white people to complain about white fictional characters not being played by white actors, and racist for white actors to play non-white fictional characters. (I'm not talking about stuff like blackface here)

Admittedly I have limited knowledge about why this is the case, and obviously risk being labelled a racist for stating these observations. But genuinely I'm confused by it all.

Off topic, no one here is complaining about skin colour,

Are we reading the same thread?

> A LOT more time than LOtR did

they compressed 3 thousands years in a ~10 years story "so the mortal characters didn't have to die" (writers' words)

So no, there's not much time to cover.

Galadriel tried to stop the Kinslaying - it's the reason she had to cross the Arctic rather than ride on ships[1] - and she didn't "run away" from the War of Wrath. As for her general character, though she was proud and wanted to be "free" in her own lands, she was described as wise, understanding, and merciful from her earliest years. [2]

I am never going to watch the series because the movies were bad enough, and I find it cringe-inducing how people talk about "the lore" and act as though adaptation can occur 1:1 from books to video, but I have found people seem to be spreading and repeating a lot of misinformation apparently in an attempt to make the show look better, which will inevitably be repugnant to Tolkien regardless.

Which is the reason I'm not watching it. I don't believe in watching a series that would deeply hurt and grieve the author had he lived to see its production.

[1] > Even after the merciless assault upon the Teleri and the rape of their ships, though she fought fiercely against Fĕanor in defence of her mother's kin, she did not turn back.

[2] > Galadriel was the greatest of the Noldor, except Fĕ'anor maybe, though she was wiser than he, and her wisdom increased with the long years. [...] From her earliest years she had a marvellous gift of insight into the minds of others, but judged them with mercy and understanding, and she withheld her goodwill from none save only Fĕanor.

There’s propaganda on both sides. You’re quite right about Galadriel in the earlier ages, but those complaining about her being a Mary Sue in the show are also missing the mark. She fought, she had ambition. Tolkien Elves are generally ridiculously OP compared to humans.

If you didn’t like the films, you won’t like the show. I’m ok with it so far, it’s exceeded my initially very low expectations, and as fantasy fan fic it’s fine IMHO.

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