Amazon hiding The Rings of Power massive failure & why I did not like it

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A new rumour claims that Prime Video will be completely rebooting The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power following the creatively bankrupt first season.

We will only know of it only when the second season is live.

But one thing is for sure,

Tolkien’s fans are definitely not happy with how the first season turned out.

While it has been much discussed and debated as to why the LOTR fans were upset-

The prime reason is producers not staying true to Tolkien’s writings. 

They’ve taken his characters and themes and reinvented them to match their own vision.

Today, I discuss my take on one of the most important aspects of the show that has not been much pondered over-

To find out more continue reading-

Here is what you would be reading today-

• Weekly box office chart

• What happened in the media & entertainment space last week, and

• Amazon hiding The Rings of Power massive failure and why I did not like it.

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Let's begin

What occurred in media and entertainment this week?

1. Lionsgate India inks exclusive deal with PVR for 2023 theatrical releases- 

Hollywood studio Lionsgate India has inked an exclusive deal with PVR Pictures for all its theatrical releases in 2023. The deal includes films like John Wick: Chapter 4, Golda, Plane, Bricklayer, About My Father, White Bird: A Wonder Story, and The Hunger Games – The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.

2. Media and entertainment sector may clock ₹1.6 L cr in revenues in FY24: Crisil

The country's media and entertainment (M&E) industry is projected to report revenues of ₹1.6 lakh crore in 2023-24 with television and print media expected to see a strong recovery in advertising revenues, Crisil said on Thursday.

The TV industry is expected to hit ₹73,500 crore in revenue in FY24, followed by print media at ₹29,300 crore and digital at ₹28,700 crore, the credit rating agency said in a report.

3. Radio City's scheme for NCRPS gets NCLT approval

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has approved Radio City parent Music Broadcast Ltd's (MBL) scheme of arrangement for the issuance of non-convertible non-cumulative redeemable preference shares (NCRPS) on a preferential basis by way of bonus to its non-promoter shareholders.

4. Henry Cavill To Join Marvel's MCU As Captain Britain After Being Ousted As DC’s Superman: Reports

According to reports, Henry Cavill is all set to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe after quitting the DC. The American star, who was recently named as the ‘Most Handsome Face of 2022’ will reportedly play the role of Captain Britain in an upcoming MCU project. If the reports turn out to be true, Henry Cavill will become the first actor to play the iconic Marvel character on the big screen.

5. Avatar The Way of Water box office collection day 18: James Cameron's film is an all-time blockbuster

Avatar: The Way of Water had a great start at the box office in India as it earned Rs 40.50 crore. The film was released in the country on December 16. This makes Avatar 2 the second-highest box office opener in the Indian market after Avengers: Endgame(2019) which had earned Rs 53.10 crore on its opening day. Avatar 2 managed to mint around Rs 7 crore approx on January 2, 2023. It is a huge feat considering the film is still minting money even after 18 days.

 And in the story of the week, we will now discuss the trending news of this year in media & entertainment-

Amazon hiding The Rings of Power massive failure and why I did not like the series.

Why Rings of Power series may be headed for a total reboot

With all due respect to Christopher Tolkien, I must say that Jackson’s trilogy has made Lord of the Rings’ fame “immortal”.

It is my favourite of all time.

However, there had been a total panic at Amazon Prime over Lord of Rings: Rings of Power 

What is Amazon panicked about?

 Before I tell you that, let me mention that

Amazon’s Rings of Power series is the most expensive show ever made with a budget of over $1 billion. 

And you are supposed to panic when the show doesn’t work like it should have. 

People didn't like the series that Amazon spent a billion of dollars making.

They gave it to a couple of producers that were not really experienced showrunners.

Basically, they let them do whatever they wanted. 

Obviously, Amazon wanted to have a show on Prime that would be really high profile that would attract people to the service; would cause them to do all the cross-selling and all their additional subscriptions with Prime.

But you can't attract high profile content and then undermine the brand.

But if you are a Tolkien fan - you will not like this

People REALLY care about the history and character when it comes to shows made from book adaptations. People cared about Spider Man too but when it comes to literature, it's a little bit different. 

On review sites, people leaving negative reviews said–

"The Rings of Power" was a break from the spirit of Tolkien's work.

"Cover your eyes, lest this filth of a show taint your love of Tolkien," one Rotten Tomatoes reviewer, who gave the series half a star, wrote.

One hardcore Tolkien fan echoed those comments on Twitter: "Tolkien is turning in his grave," Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote.

Though critics have praised the series' scope and ambition, "The Rings of Power" has rankled with audiences, who gave the show a 39% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. (By contrast, Peter Jackson's early 2000s Lord of the Rings trilogy earned audience scores of between 86-95% on Rotten Tomatoes.) Even on Amazon-owned IMDb, audiences rated "The Rings of Power" an anaemic 6.8/10.

Amazon paused viewer reviews amid potential 'review bombing'

Negative user reviews signal a "greater than zero" risk that some Prime members could cancel their subscriptions. Part of Amazon's strategy with big-budget streaming video content is to entice more people to subscribe to Prime because they often end up buying many other products and services from the company.

On its own Prime Video platform, Amazon disabled viewers' ability to review "The Rings of Power," to protect the series from an onslaught of incendiary reviews.

Even if it was well-meaning, turning off reviews was a bad look.

But thankfully Prime won’t lose subscribers. according to analysts it is highly unlikely that Prime members would cancel over disappointment with a single TV show. Prime subscribers rarely cancel as per experts.  

This was not a surprise for Amazon 

Head of Amazon Studios, Jennifer Salke anticipated that Rings of Power would be met with scepticism upon its release given the online criticism even before the show aired. "There were no surprises; we all saw it coming," Salke said.

So despite stating the obvious..this is what happened..

The viewership of the series broke all records on the first day. 

On the first day more than 25 million people watched it in comparison to 10.2 million people who watched HBO's "Game of Thrones" spinoff, "House of the Dragon.” 

However, the viewership saw a sharp decline after that.

What does the numbers say about Indian viewership? 

According to Shailesh Kapoor, co-founder and chief executive officer, Ormax Media, nearly 7.3 million people from India tuned in to watch the show between Friday and Sunday. This translates into three million accounts since two-three people typically watch OTT shows via one account.

All things aside, here is what I thought of the series-

As a writing enthusiast, the first thing I noticed while watching the Rings of Power is -

Writers of the show are mindlessly checking off boxes on their character without thinking much about the consequences. 

Let me bring to you the reasons that the writer in me disliked the most- 

As naive it may sound, the show failed because of-

THE LACK OF LOVE

Allow me to explain with the help of a few scenes-

SCENE 1

In this scene, we see Arondir walking by two people playing chess and calls mate in three.

You can almost see the screenwriter jumping in ecstasy- 

“Hey, just like my writing 101 textbook suggested, I showed and did not tell that the character is intelligent. Intelligence- check.”

Unfortunately, though in an act of delicious cosmic irony the very scene that shows their character can calculate three steps ahead also shows that the writer themselves cannot even calculate even one step ahead.

Yes, it shows intelligence, GREAT 

but 

WHO ON EARTH would pass two people playing chess and would ruin the game by giving them the best move ?? 

Who does that?

What if the characters were playing for money now they have to start from scratch.

But who would feel the need to showcase their intellectual superiority to two random people. 

So through this incredible feat of writing efficiency we have established 3 things at once-

• Arondir is an insecure, conceited & intelligent moron. 

Nobody in the production team thought through Arondir’s motivation because nobody cares about him. We care about boxes and those have been checked.

SCENE 2

Look at the characters' hands here in this scene, almost touching as if to show a romantic gesture but when you watch the show you realise they are standing quite far from each other, they are not even close. 

This is a sloppy cut which the producers didn't care to reshoot.

These are not some extras in the background. They are the main characters.

I think the producers were so enthralled by the grandeur of the vision that they forgot about the small things that mattered. 

SCENE 3

What is Galadriel doing here?

In this scene, Galadriel is just tugging at the rope for no reason at all. 

Nobody bothered about what would actually be a useful thing to do with the rope. 

Imagine how much better the scene would be if while talking to Halbrand, Galadriel would have competently tied an actual note. 

You don't have to play epic music or show how extremely cool it is.

Just show the audience that in her thousands of years in Middle Earth, the lady is competent. Unfortunately in the Rings of Power, we never see that. 

Everything is either a big deal or nothing at all

Comparing it with the original trilogy-

Viggo Mortensen insisted that his character would be  the type to repair his own clothes and everybody agreed with it even though it was completely unnecessary. 

This wasn't a big deal. We never got a huge shot of Aragorn repairing his clothes with epic music . It's just the subtle detail that he added out of love and appreciation for what he was doing.

SCENE 4

In this scene where the captives escape– at the crux of the scene we have a bunch of people just goofing around while the wolf takes them one by one. Until Arondir comes to save the day.

Now let's look at Hano who was previously Arondir’s superior.

So when you watch closely Hano gets free and as he is escaping, he throws away his only weapon, the axe and runs away.

Why?

Why would anybody in their right frame of mind escape the enemy controlled territory leaving behind the only weapon of protection he has?

I can tell you why.

It's because we need Hano to be helpless so that when Arondir escapes, he can save Hano and yet another checkbox.

I have a feeling that we have a specific writer who is attached to Arondir and fond of checkboxing.

Paraphrasing Alice in Wonderland– 

In writing, the direct path is almost never the best one. 

If you just bash the audience over the head about how awesome Arondir is, we as viewers would just won't believe it.

If you ever listen to Tolkien's old interviews or George RR Martin's interviews when they ask about what characters may do in the next book, the answer is often

“I’m not sure what they’ll do, they haven’t decided”. 

That’s because-

Good fantasy writers can build a world, lore, build characters, and then imagine what would play out with the given characters. 

No checking boxes, just real action and real reactions based on their character and backstory. That’s why good fantasy feels real, because it’s made from the reality of a great writers imagination!!!

And this is why the new rumour claims that Rings of Power may be up for a reboot.

A new rumour claims that Prime Video will be completely rebooting The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power following the creatively bankrupt first season, which chose to throw out Tolkien.

This new rumour comes from YouTuber Gary Buechler of Nerdrotic who says, “We have heard the rumours from, Chris Gore, that the showrunners might end up being fall guys and we might have to wait till after award season to see if that actually happens.”

What do you think of Rings of Power? 

Which characters you’d love to see in the future season? Share your thoughts with me.

That's all for today!

And if you've got a moment, I’d love to hear what you thought of this edition of the newsletter. 

-Vipul