Flaming shitshow

[flamingsword]

uh … nobody had high hopes for the Rings of Power Amazon series, right?

https://mobile.twitter.com/whatkolya/status/1493726041566695425?t=rBro7L3QRI0b-Hvcdb2zBw&s=19

😂😂😂 Bezos is going to get eaten alive by rabid fans. And THAT is something I’d pay to see.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

???

I am actually looking forward to it and hoping for the best. I could be proved wrong, but if it's as good as The Wheel of Time show I will be delighted. There's actually plenty of material in the Appendices to Return of the King, IMHO.

But if people enjoy hating on it -- I hope they have fun! To each his own.

[flamingsword]

The appendices for ROTK were very long and full of interesting things, and there is, narratively, a lot that you can do with them. These are very true things.

I just utterly don't trust Bezos or his team of J.J.Abrams-approved choices to run the show in a way that gets right the tone and themes of Middle-Earth, especially without exploring the Silmarillion's storylines. I don't trust a tyrant of digital capitalism to produce a credible world where technology's role in dehumanizing and exploiting people is at the forefront of a lot of the original storytelling. I also don't trust Bezos' motives for buying the LOTR and Hobbit books, but not buying the rest of Tolkien's works about Middle Earth, because it's not like he didn't have the money. It feels to me like this will be one more adaptation of something beloved by fans for its working class roots remade from a privileged viewpoint. If, by the end, it turns into a shameless cash grab with Sexy!Galadriel and lots of special effects where character and plot should go, I will be disappointed but not surprised.

[ex_flameandsong751]

IIRC Tolkien's estate will not sell the rights to the Silmarillion for any amount of money, because the Silmarillion was THE crux of Tolkien's worldbuilding and they don't want to see someone make a hash of it the way LOTR and the Hobbit already got fucked to hell and back. [I liked those movies, but they were closer to fanfic than canon. Not that there's anything wrong with AU fic -gestures to my whole-ass AO3 account- just. Yanno.]

[princessofgeeks]

These are very valid fears.

FYI The Silmarillion, as I understand it, was not for sale and was not part of the possible deal.

I'm just going to wait and see, but if it's as good as the Wheel of Time show I will be so happy.

I am concerned that the showrunners were recommended by Abrams -- everything he touches turns to shit as far as I'm concerned, but then people were just that worried about Peter Jackson back in the day.

here's my serious Fëanor icon

[ex_flameandsong751]

As soon as I heard Celebrimbor was going to be in it I knew they were going to fuck that up somehow [and technically Celebrimbor is also a Milli Vanilli Silmarillion character, so I'm surprised they'd gotten away with including him] but... yeah, I expect this to be worse than the LOTR movies. [I like the LOTR movies but I also have some bones to pick.]

I'm not watching it anyway, because I'm not paying for Amazon's streaming service just to watch this one show that I know I'm gonna MST3K to death and it won't even be fun to do.

[ex_flameandsong751]

Aaaaaaaand now my brain is like "Oh look! A plotbunny! Jeff Bezos wearing a Ring of Power!" [Mike Pence has one in one of my universes, which he found at a Porto-Potty at a carnival in Indiana just before Donald Trump picked him as running mate, and the fly is a sign of Sauron's approval.]

[flamingsword]

I can believe it. Maybe Bezos was at one point a normal human with an average composition of character deficits and beneficial traits. But something sure added a force multiplier to his dark triad traits, because he is actively making the world he live in worse, knows this, and does nothing about it, choosing instead to make it worse faster. If he turns into a Nazgul some day I will say, "Oh snap vidicated!" and then start working on my sword work.