We know Amazon just replaced all the writers of S2 with new ones.

With luck the show will be cancelled as it’s a horrible mess with no coherence or observation to the lore.

Changing the writers will make no difference if the show continues.

I hope the actors get to do other work rather have to carry on with this thing. They are doing their best with what they’ve been given.

But is it doing that badly? Are enough people watching it or am I hoping against that not enough people are?

I don’t know anyone that is watching it and then wanting to talk about it. So I don’t believe it’s a huge success.

I don’t mean to upset fans of the show, but it’s so far from anything JRRT set out, let alone wrote, that it deserves to end early.

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If you don't like it, don't watch, and leave it for those of us who do. I remember this same kind of post twenty-some years ago about Jackson's movies. Those had some serious flaws, but were stil enjoyable.

But is it doing that badly? Are enough people watching it or am I hoping against that not enough people are?

If you don't like it, don't watch, and leave it for those of us who do. I remember this same kind of post twenty-some years ago about Jackson's movies. Those had some serious flaws, but were stil enjoyable.

I think we all agree with you DGH. What some of us have an issue with is the "I hope it gets cancelled" crowd.

I don’t mean to upset fans of the show, but it’s so far from anything JRRT set out, let alone wrote, that it deserves to end early.

Then he turns into a pile black gloop and gets run over by a horse and cart and gets stuck to a wheel!!!

As for Mr Jackson, I didn’t like Hobbit movies either, and this proves that when these people have a lot of material to work with, as in LOTR movies, they do a good job. But when they don’t have much to work with, you get Rings of Power. But Jackson would still have done RoP better than these people.

Enjoy it if you must - I’m just a negative opinion - but we all know it’s a bad job and could have been much better.

None of this is surprising. Tolkien's writings are as good as they are because they weren't influenced by "corporate think". I love Jackson's movies and Rings of Power, but bean counters are gonna bean count. And most bean counters don't really understand great art. Especially those high up in corporations. I never understood why they had multiple writers in the first place. It's a recipe for lack of continuity.

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Tolkien at times wrote in terribly vague and abstract terms. It is difficult to represent the ethereal or spiritual in a visual medium without looking silly; your complaint. I think Tolkien writes specifically about shadows and something vague in the wind. And that's all you get to work with. What do you do - literally play Dust in the Wind by Kansas over a scene with a dust devil? There is simply nothing grounded, nothing concrete for a screenplay writer to grab onto. Nothing will satisfy and it will usually look unimaginatively literal. Writers of original material for this kind of thing really could do better. They might say "I wanted to leave it open to the reader's [or viewer's] own interpretation." When I hear that, I hear cop-out.

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This might not be a very good example as it is not based in anything that Tolkien wrote. Sauron was never assassinated by an underling, much less by one using the crown of Morgoth. He never resurrected his physical form by absorbing the mass and life-force of other creatures. This is entirely made up for the show with no basis on the legendarium. It is pure fanfic. Unfortunately, the same can be said for much of Rings of Power. However, I could say much the same thing for the much of the material added to Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, particularly the Legolas/Tauriel/Kili triangle, and the tombs in the High Fells (an alteration that plays havoc with the history of Gondor and the end of its line of Kings).

Sauron appears in the form of a werewolf, is defeated by a lesser spirit and flees as a bat.

I wonder O-S how many people would say that is nothing like the death and rebirth of Sauron in S2.

He passes back to Mordor on the wind after the fall of Numenor and reassembles as what? I agree with Carpenter on this.

Sometimes fans, and i know you do not do this, use their encyclopaedic knowledge to whip Sir Peter and the showrunners of ROP to show how little the latter really know about Tolkien.

I am of the opinion, based on listening to them, the ROP showrunners know the text well and if they choose to ignore it, then it is deliberate, good bad or indifferent. Their presentation on the forging of the rings works better than the appendices which lacks the intensity of scrutiny of full blown storytelling.

On the question of Sauron's beginnings being Fanfic I would say two things :-

1) Simon the professors grandson did not give permission to use the source. Carpenters point often made.

2) As a consequence a writer needs to find a solution. Is it fanfic if it is bad, or simply because it is different.

That I have been reading your posts for fifteen years is helpful I know your reservations about the Hobbit, mine are entirely different, but ironically I am probably much more negative on it than you are. On the basis of story telling, tone and action for actions sake, as well as the matters you mention.