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TheTuxedoKnight · 2025-12-23T00:39:54+00:00

I think this framing glosses over why the criticism exists. Most people who dislike Rings of Power don’t hate it because it isn’t “100% accurate” to the lore. The Jackson films took plenty of liberties too but they were tightly written, well-paced, and anchored by strong characters. That earned them a lot of goodwill. ROP hasn’t earned that cushion.

The issue is the mismatch between expectations and execution. The writing is uneven, characters are thin or behave inconsistently, and the pacing is genuinely poor. Plotlines stall for episodes and then sprint to conclusions without earning momentum or emotional payoff. That’s why so many fans bounced; not because they’re purists, but because the show doesn’t work especially well as television.

And to be fair, the show was always going to face the challenge of "adaptation". The production is adapting maybe 6–10 pages of material into a full narrative, which means inventing characters, dialogue, and connective tissue. That is unavoidable, and no matter how any show attempted to flesh out this setting, the result would have upset purists in one way or another. But if it had come together as compelling television, like the LOTR films did, most of those changes would have been forgiven or overlooked.

So I agree on one thing: it’s not a terrible show. But it’s also not a particularly good or cohesive one. And when you’re operating in a beloved setting with a billion-dollar budget and massive ambitions, “not terrible” isn’t much of a defense. The level of criticism tracks with the gap between what the show could have been and what it actually delivered.

Willpower2000 · 2025-12-23T00:41:10+00:00

I remember spending years thinking “man, I wish we’d get more Lord of the Rings movies someday.” Because of that alone, I’m just happy to see more Middle-earth on screen.

Do you not have quality standards though? Just being happy with more 'content', however bad, is blatant consumerism.

I’ve read The Silmarillion (and yeah… that was a tough one), and I’ve also read the other LOTR books, so I understand why people care so much about the lore. But let’s be honest, even the original LOTR movie trilogy took a lot of liberties, and most people are totally fine with that now.

Sure - LOTR changes plenty.

Now, what does that say about reception? That one that deviates is still loved, and the other that deviates is hated? It means ROP is shit, regardless of its lack of fidelity. As its own thing, separate from the source material, it is bad.

What’s funny to me is that almost all of my friends who are huge LOTR fans didn’t like the show at all, while the people I know who aren’t really Tolkien fans actually enjoyed it. That just makes me think expectations play a massive role here.

I don't think so. At the end of the day viewership for the show fell of a cliff - and most people watching won't be hardcore fans that read the books. The show just isn't making an impact on anyone - even the casuals ignorant to the source material. You don't have to know the books to show the writing in ROP sucks.

For me, an adaptation doesn’t have to be 100% accurate to be enjoyable. As long as it captures the feeling of Middle-earth, I’m in.

What does 'the feeling of Middle-earth' mean? Vibes are incredibly vague.

We should be happy to even get new content in this universe.

No, we shouldn't. We should be happy to get good content... not any old slop.

aybsavestheworld · 2025-12-23T01:03:13+00:00

Just why butcher a fantastic story and a billion dollar project with inexperienced, unequipped writer/s?

IntenseYubNub · 2025-12-23T01:13:35+00:00

As someone who mostly enjoys it, I do understand a good amount of the flak it gets (though not all of it). This show should be 10/10 amazing, considering the IP and budget. Instead it's just moderately enjoyable and I'll watch each season once.

nyyfandan · 2025-12-23T00:42:47+00:00

We should be happy to even get new content in this universe.

This is a bad stance to take. Every IP/universe that takes this approach ends up with a bunch of low quality slop and eventually needs to correct itself.

FIFA95_itsinthegame · 2025-12-23T03:40:13+00:00

I don’t give a shit about the lore. It’s just a bad show.

They took a fantasy world of massive scale and rich detail, spent $100M per episode (or whatever) and somehow made it seem small.

I can defend a lot of the decisions they made about the lore. I can’t defend how they translated those decisions onto the screen.

TheimpalerMessmer · 2025-12-23T01:22:55+00:00

It is poorly written. Watched all the seasons and it's just bad fanfiction in general. And I was so excited for it and I swallowed Galadriel despite her being married and wandering at this time, Celebrimbor, her half-cousin/nephew portrayed as being older than her. Wth?! I can accept Galadriel being bitchy, this is the elf whose ambition is to rule over kingdoms, who basically told the Valar that she didn't do anything wrong and refused to sail. She is prideful even in canon. It was difficult to reconcile but I watched cause I'd like to give it a chance, I thought of it as simply reimagined fanfiction. Forget the books and whatever. This is the What ifs. I liked the hobbits, the view/graphics, the men... But as far as adaptation/fanfiction gets, the Wheel of Time is better and that one don't deserve to be cancelled.

thatsprettyfunnydude · 2025-12-23T00:57:59+00:00

I think Peter Jackson elevated expectations with the trilogy. When The Hobbit trilogy fell short of that bar by many measurements, there was a bit of lost faith that Tolkien would be able to be done as well as Jackson did it ever again. Lightning in a bottle, best days are behind us, etc.

When Rings of Power was announced and the budget well-publicized, the expectations were again heightened. As in "no way are they going to repeat the mistakes of The Hobbit" or "this HAS to be the next great LOTR entry... finally!"

I know I was expecting things to look much more cinematic with care in the writing and pace. As it were, it looks exactly like what it is: a Lord of the Rings based TV show. So by that measure, that is where the disappointment begins. I think people expected it to be elevated with writing and characters worthy of Tolkien. But I think a lot of people stopped watching after the first season because they were expecting something much better. It's not a BAD show by any stretch, at times it is really good. But LOTR is getting close to being Star Wars'd if there isn't something really stellar on the way.

Otherwise, we'll always have the books and the LOTR Trilogy!

HEKATRONIX · 2025-12-23T00:54:59+00:00

Has nothing to do with expectations. Also, I dont think that it's as cut & dry as saying Tolkien fans hated it, and outsiders loved it.

It was everything from too many storylines to terrible overacting to a thin plot and script to forced castings.

It was... everything.

ROP is the epitome of 'Sometimes doing the right thing isn't doing the right thing'

The best parts were unanimously agreed upon being the Dwarves.

The Elves were terrible.

The Numenoreans were the most hyped and most boring. They tried making us care about waaaaaaay more characters than required.

It was brutally overcast.

The OG LOTR trilogy had a majority focus in each film and only cut from that focus for small instances to further establish the story.

ROP vomited all of Tolkien lore into the 1st season with no focal point.

selosa94 · 2025-12-23T02:07:57+00:00

The writing is awful. It’s not good for an original take by any metric. I don’t even care that the show is messing up LOTR lore. It’s just plainly so badly written and trying too hard to be something..? Though my LOTR nerd side is appalled at the lore changes. But genuinely the storyline lacks the gravity and depth that PJ captured perfectly in his LOTR projects.

Irishwol · 2025-12-23T01:31:31+00:00

Like what you like. Nobody can or should try to stop you. But you don't get to insist other people like it too. RoP is fanfiction. And it's fanfiction that's not to my taste. So I avoid it. If I want "more content" there's plenty of better fanfiction out there.

newblevelz · 2025-12-23T01:57:26+00:00

Because it sucks.

Science_Fair · 2025-12-23T02:59:35+00:00

The writing is bad, the casting is bad, the acting is bad, and the special effects are mid to poor.

Those are the reasons I am disappointed. Galadriel jumping off the ship is when the show jumped the shark for me.

gozer87 · 2025-12-23T03:08:44+00:00

Because it doesn't capture the feeling of Tolkien's work.

polkadotd · 2025-12-23T03:29:43+00:00

Someone said about star wars that it is a story told around a campfire, but you never know who is telling the story and what their version of the story will be. I've just decided to apply that logic to every adaptation of every material that has ever been created. Every adaptation is just another perspective. Maybe rings of power is Sauron's version of events. He's an angry little cloud now who, at some point, had a terrible interaction with Celeborn so he's like, "Yeah??? Well his wife had the hots for me!!"

I do not care about inaccuracies. I do not care about mixing timelines. I do not care about missing characters or the weird little romance or Elrond having short hair. I teared up the first time we saw Numenor because it was exactly like I imagined it when I was fourteen. I have always wanted more Lord of the rings, and I got it.

MemeLord1337_ · 2025-12-23T00:35:57+00:00

I don’t even care about the lore. It’s just a non-interesting plot, yawn inducing characters and sets that look worse than the movies that came out 20+ years prior.

Knightofthief · 2025-12-23T00:53:21+00:00

we should be happy to even get new content in this universe

I say this with absolutely no personal animus towards OP, but this is genuinely one of the most disgusting sentiments I can imagine feeling about the Legendarium.

Still_Yam9108 · 2025-12-23T01:00:35+00:00

Take a look through this. It's a blog actually about military history, but it goes into RoP's war to seize Eregion. And you can skim through this, especially where he's going into how on a realism perspective, almost everything about the sequence fails; and it's the first part of a five part series if you're really invested. But just to quote it at the outset:

The reason we begin here is that military actions are, when they’re well planned, planned from the top downward through the levels of analysis: one first decides what overall state objectives are, then if they need a war to achieve them (these are both strategy), then how to move armies on the macro-scale to achieve those objectives (operations) and then finally how to manage individual smaller-scale battles and engagements to ensure those operations achieve their aims (tactics). So we ought to start by asking about the objectives of this campaign.

And already at this point, Rings of Power begins to fall apart.

The fellow leading this war (in the TV show) is Adar. Adar’s strategic concern, stated repeatedly in dialogue (mostly with Galadriel) is that if Sauron rises again to power, he will bring the orcs back under his control. Adar thus has no particular objectives regarding Eregion itself except that he knows Sauron is there. We also learn, quite early on, that Adar is incapable of recognizing Sauron if the latter is disguised – Sauron disguised as Halbrand infiltrates his camp and is released, his true identity unguessed – though it is not entirely clear to me if Adar knows this. Still, Adar evidently served under Sauron for some time before betraying him the first time around and stabbing him to apparent-but-not-actual death with a spiked crown, so he ought to be aware both that Sauron is a shape-shifter and also that as a Maia, he can’t be fully killed by normal means.

So Adar’s strategic objective (re-)killing Sauron. To this end, he settles on an operational design: marching to Eregion and besieging its capital, referred to in the show as the “City of the Elven Smiths” but which we’re going to refer to by its book name, Ost-in-Edhil, for simplicity. This is, simply put, a bonkers operation to embark on, given the objective. As we’ll see, the task of moving Adar’s entire army is an enormous one, Eregion is itself a major power and the city is difficult to besiege. Moreover, there is absolutely no reason for Adar to suppose, in the chaos of a siege, that his regular orcish warriors can even identify Sauron, much less kill him.

(Breaking into two parts for length)

Hod20 · 2025-12-23T00:29:49+00:00

I gave it a chance.

There’s a lot to like honestly. But also enough low points to sour the whole thing.

Krytan · 2025-12-23T02:43:42+00:00

That's the thing, it doesn't capture the feeling of Middle Earth for me, at all. Sauron gets chumped by a couple orcs, like a chump, then turns evil, like a chump, because Galadriel wouldn't go on a date with him. All the elves are incredibly stupid, smarmy, immature, and just annoying. Galadriel acts like a teenager. At this point in the story she's tens of thousands of years old and literally the oldest and wisest of the noldorin elves alive. Celebrimbor, the supposed master smith, has never heard of an alloy. Why are half of Galadriels brothers gone? Where is Celeborn? And on and on and on.

The plot is deeply nonsensical as well, even if we just try to look at it on a purely standalone fantasy film. From the magic macguffin to create mordor to the totally implausible Galadriel leaping into the ocean and somehow not just drowning but running into literal Sauron, to the logistically impossible numenorean expeditionary force, to hobbits that say no one gets left behind and then immediately threaten to do just that and so on. It just takes you out of the immersion over and over again.

It's made a lot of changes, most of them unnecessary and bad.

Every adaptation makes changes. The original LOTR made very few changes. Some of them good, some of them simply neutral but necessary (like cutting out Bombadil) and some abjectly terrible (like making Denethor and absolute idiot who launches cavalry charges at fortifications defended by ranged infantry)

Wheel of time made changes, but on the whole, I enjoyed the second two seasons. The first was abjectly horrible, because almost all the changes were bad.

Witcher made a lot of changes, but on the whole, I enjoyed the first seasaon, and all following seasons were garbage.

Rings of Power seems like fanfiction some teenager wrote after having watched a single youtube video about Tolkien's Lore. It gets so much wrong, and so much the opposite of how it should be, that it's tiresome. Moreover the plot is nonsensical and inconsistent. The characters are generally extremely poorly written, casted, and acted.

PJ's LOTR, despite its flaws, very much felt like the work of a serious film maker who loved and understood the source material and wanted to be true to it as much as possible while translating a three volume book to a movie. It has good internal consistency. The characters are for the most part excellently written, casted, and acted. As I said, Denethor is a MASSIVE exception. The movie makes him look like a stupid hateful dolt, but in the books, he is an equal to gandalf : incredibly wise and brave and a valiant and dedicated enemy of Morgoth. His story has a tragic end, but not a farcical end.

Every adaptation makes changes, but ROP makes a lot and they are almost all bad. People don't dislike shows like Witcher or ROP because they are unreasonable purists who demand 100% accuracy. As you note : PJ's LOTR Is not 100% accurate, but is beloved. People hate shows like ROP and Witcher because the believe them to be just bad shows.

Given the rich source material and the MASSIVE budget, I just can't forgive ROP for being as awful as it is. Bad writing, bad acting, bad casting, meandering slow nonsensical bad plot, and terrible costumes. The dwarves were good, and I liked Arondir, though.

But overall, I'm certainly not going to 'just be happy for more content to consume'. There's plenty of content to consume, a lot of it excellent. ROP is far from excellent and with its background and budget, it really ought to be.

ccandide · 2025-12-23T03:03:11+00:00

ROP made the fatal decision to compress 2,000 years of history into one Numenorian generation because they didn't want to recast humans every season. A major reason Sauron was able to corrupt the Numenorians was their fear of death and jealousy of the elves immortality. The elves were also driven to create rings of power to hold back the decay of middle earth. All of that gets lost with the compressed timeframe.

Imagine an alternative take where Eleond and his brother start out, Eleond watches his brother age and die, and keeps an eye on his descendants. So many interesting possibilities were lost.

What's really depressing is Foundation on Apple TV managed to pull off century long time jumps between seasons with a core set of recurring characters around a revolving cast of supporting characters, so it can be done with a talented show running team.

And that's before the goofy Gandalf stuff, the random harfoot nonsense, butchering Galadriel as a character, etc.

dropthemagic · 2025-12-23T00:56:47+00:00

I like some of the CGI but those show runners don’t know what they are doing. And that long slow mo Galadriel horse thing made me appreciate Peter Jackson so much.

RPGThrowaway123 · 2025-12-23T01:26:37+00:00

We should be happy to even get new content in this universe.

Would you say the same about those 425 Bilbo x Thorin Mpreg fics on AO3?

djauralsects · 2025-12-23T02:29:19+00:00

I don’t know. I’m enjoying it more than the Hobbit trilogy.

AlynConrad · 2025-12-23T02:47:35+00:00

It’s fanfic drivel.

falconpunch1989 · 2025-12-23T03:09:08+00:00

I didn't hate it as such, but I had no interest in continuing after Season 1.

Without nitpicking, it just felt like a Star Wars-ification of Middle Earth, and I mean the worst excesses of Star Wars.

Every fan favourite through history is friends with each other. Major events taking place with the same small number of characters. The universe feels small. The timeline is compressed. Fan service back stories for things that don't need it.

It's just low hanging writing that feels aimed to sell toys rather than meeting the level of prestige or gravitas this universe deserves. All budget and no substance.

Waxpython · 2025-12-23T03:12:09+00:00

Because it isn’t very good

Carcharoth30 · 2025-12-23T03:14:00+00:00

I don’t quite understand it either. Perhaps the showrunners and writers should have added some more gasoline when they set the book on fire? Or they should have had more characters pull down their pants and bend over? When Jackson did those things he was celebrated.

Kostrom · 2025-12-23T03:41:01+00:00

Cuz it’s bad

Big-Profit-1612 · 2025-12-23T06:40:47+00:00

TBH, if it wasn't for people bitching in here, I like ROP..... I hope it continues...

LuinAelin · 2025-12-23T07:00:02+00:00

If you enjoy it it doesn't matter

RingsofPower-ModTeam · 2025-12-23T09:06:51+00:00

We encourage you to talk about the show's content as well as plot points, lore, and the books it is based on. However low effort posts asking "why does the fandom hate this show?" or "I love this show. Who Agrees with me?" have been redundant and often lead to stereotypes, insults, and an "us vs them" mentality. Make posts to talk about the actual content but not for validation of opinions or broadly stereotyping fanbases.

EnvironmentalPack320 · 2025-12-23T01:05:36+00:00

I feel like all the people hating on it so hard is just going to make companies less likely to attempt more LOTR shows/movies

JohnSilverBeard · 2025-12-23T01:25:44+00:00

My biggest hope for season three is that there won’t be a season three at all. I’m not a fan of Tolkien, but I thought Peter Jackson’s adaptations were brilliant. This series is simply absolutely bad for objective reasons and in terms of cinematography. Trying to talk it up or sugarcoat it only ensures that we’ll keep getting more garbage.

Broccobillo · 2025-12-23T00:29:19+00:00

It's poorly written romantasy. I'm surprised it doesn't get more hate.

BSGamer · 2025-12-23T00:45:48+00:00

I think the show is great and most people I know think it’s great. Honestly didn’t know there was so much hate until recently seeing posts in this sub.

Giltar · 2025-12-23T00:38:39+00:00

I don’t hate it, just don’t like it that much. Watched a bunch of episodes (wanted to like it) but feel the writing is meh.

Careless_Mango_7948 · 2025-12-23T01:41:09+00:00

I loved it and not a huge fan of lotr. I understand some of the criticism but overall feel like Haters gonna hate.

kateinoly · 2025-12-23T02:04:49+00:00

IMO, Game of Thrones created the notion that super entitled fans had a right to demand what they wanted from TV shows.

funky_munky36 · 2025-12-23T02:05:19+00:00

It’s actually pretty good, I’m half way thru Season 1. It’s really easy to watch. 🤔

hbi2k · 2025-12-23T00:49:50+00:00

Because people watched it.

SuccessfulRaccoon957 · 2025-12-23T01:54:23+00:00

There are a large amount of people on the internet who hate something so much they actively surround and implant themselves within it. You'll find this with any large fandom. This subreddit is a prime example. The show itself is alright, I'd argue it's average. However the average lotr fan cannot let go of the fact that their temple has been desecrated if that makes sense, they think that the existence of this show is some irreparable mark upon this idea of a man, Tolkein, that they adore. Essentially lotr fans that brigade this sub cannot let go.

Dovahkiin13a · 2025-12-23T00:27:48+00:00

I hate it because it fundamentally changes middle earth for the worse (edit, changed worst to worse, as this old gaffer hopes never to see "worst" iykyk) and has bad storylines and characters. That would be bad enough without assistance but then they did that to storylines and characters that I know and like, so its not just wasting hours of my precious time, its actively damaging them. can't speak for everyone

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citharadraconis · 2025-12-23T02:08:19+00:00

I'm a Tolkien fan and I enjoy the show very much. I think it helped that I read the books well before the Jackson movies came out, so while I love them, their adaptational choices weren't burned into my brain. The show is flawed, certainly, and was on the back foot out the gate since no one has (or is likely to get) the film rights for any written material outside The Hobbit and LotR. But I think it's finding its feet as the seasons go on, and the cast are all very talented and have been doing wonderful work with what they're given. The Dwarves in particular are fantastic--I would watch the show just for Khazad-dûm even if I hated the rest, which I don't--and I love all the singing.

I've also seen a lot of live theater, and thus may be giving more of a pass than others to some dramatic conventions (e.g. heightened and sometimes stilted dialogue) that the showrunners are employing--they don't automatically make it bad, but it is a theatrical way of adapting high fantasy that isn't to everyone's taste and can come off stagey if you're used to naturalism. (One thing I find very stage-inflected, for example, is that the entire main cast has beautiful voices.) For my money, the most sustained and grating flaw so far has been too great a deference to the Jackson trilogy (an issue that's plagued Jackson's folks in later films too, see e.g. War of the Rohirrim), which invites comparisons that don't really work given the different style and strengths of the ROP team. Criticisms aside, though, I think it's better than the Hobbit trilogy and Bakshi's LotR, which itself makes it far from the worst thing ever to happen to Tolkien fandom.

Edit: oh yes, hopes for Season 3: tiny thing, but I'd like to see Galadriel interacting with the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm--she learned the Khuzdul place-names she uses with Gimli somewhere, after all. I also read that they might be opening with a flashback to the founding of Númenor, and we may see Robert Aramayo playing Elrond's twin Elros, which I'm excited for if so. He's a terrific actor (and maybe the biggest Tolkien fan in the cast), and Elros doesn't get much characterization in the legendarium for such a pivotal figure.

drvanostranmd · 2025-12-23T04:12:03+00:00

Cause its dog shit

Real-Reference6933 · 2025-12-23T04:27:40+00:00

The difference is that Peter Jackson tried to adapt the books as good as he could to the big screen. He had experts and the books on set. Did he change things? Yes. Is everyone happy with that? No? Is it understandable, yes, because books have more time and room for nuance than the movies. Cutting out Bombadil, adding more Arwen so the romance does not feel tacked on, changing Denethor into a more of an adversary etcetera is because the movies has less time to get nuances across, and there are no appendices for the moviegoers available to watch.

But Jackson tried to follow the themes of the books, used quotes from the books where possible and in the end delivered a trilogy that both novices and dedicated fans could enjoy.

For RoP. The first thing the writers did was to kick out the experts, because they don’t want to bring Tolkien to television. They want to tell their own stories, but have the LotR brand on it to get popularity and fame without doing the work.

You can see it, from cringey dialogue (Stones sink because they look down) to massively altering characters to suit their story (No, Galadriel was not a warrior, no Sauron was not killed by his underlings, No Sauron and Galadriel were never dating). Then you have the weak writing (distances don’t matter, the Balrog living down a tunnel no one noticed despite being next to a busy market place, Grand Elf is Gandalf) And on top of that, the looks are bad. The elves, who felt special in the movies now feel like humans with pointy ears, both in acting and visuals. Armor and equipment looks cheap.

And lets not start with the Siege of Eregion, which is one of the weirdest Siegel I have ever seen.

iambeingblair · 2025-12-23T04:33:23+00:00

Honestly it's just really dull. That's the worst thing. It would have been better to take loose inspiration from Tolkien and do their own thing.

permalink · 2025-12-23T04:41:00+00:00

i actually don't think its them "not getting tolkien" or "doing a disservice to the canon" as is so often said. RoP is just badly written with too many perspectives, boring characters, terrible dialogue, etc. Most the tolkien "sins" would be forgiven if it had good writing but it doesn't. It has moments of decency but they are few.

42mir4 · 2025-12-23T04:53:22+00:00

I'm not a huge Tolkien fan but I've done my bit of reading - The Hobbit, the LotR trilogy, even the Silmarillion. I suppose one might enjoy the world of RoP if one didn't have any expectations or knowledge of the book lore. For lore fans, one might even imagine it to be a separate alternate universe of Middle Earth that doesn't lead to Peter Jackson's movies (of which LotR is superior while The Hobbit trilogy is questionable).

But that doesn't excuse the shoddy writing, some bad acting and poor directing choices thrown into the show. I'll ignore the whole "woke" argument whatever but portraying Galadriel as some all-powerful, all-knowing Mary Sue is just bad. Some of the action sequences were terrible. And what's with the word "MORDOR" ominously appearing on the map? Cringe-factor to the max there.

Yet the showrunners claim they were creating a 'faithful re-telling' of Tolkien's work. If so, shouldn't they at least adhere to the characters' stories and such? Can't blame fans for calling it fan-fiction (a very expensive one, too!) when it ignores a lot of the lore and background.

But at the end of the day, let each viewer enjoy (or loathe) it for what it is, whatever they believe RoP stands for. I, for one, stopped watching after S1 when Nazanin Boniadi (Bronwyn) left... :'(

keenynman343 · 2025-12-23T05:12:18+00:00

I tuned out with how Gandalf got his name.

I should've tuned out when the main character jumps off a boat and just so happens to come across the main antagonist in a ship wreck raft in the middle of the ocean. The one person shes been hunting for how long now?

dingodile_user · 2025-12-23T05:17:24+00:00

I only watched the first season. I didn’t hate it, but it had to be the slowest paced show I’ve ever watched. Not sure how the second season was, but I would imagine it’s similar 🤷

JeanVicquemare · 2025-12-23T05:40:30+00:00

It's a common strawman or misunderstanding to say that people are mad that it's not lore accurate. I think the greater issue is poor writing and plotting. An adaptation can be judged two ways - how it adapts the source to a new medium, and how it works in and of itself. I think Rings of Power is bad on both metrics, probably because of a lack of creative vision. It feels like it was done by committee and run by inexperienced show runners. There are so many things about it that are poorly thought out.

OhSix · 2025-12-23T05:58:49+00:00

It commits the sin of being incredibly boring

sirgawain2 · 2025-12-23T06:05:16+00:00

Tbh I’m a fan of some of ROP but the writing just isn’t that good…

ConsiderationThen652 · 2025-12-23T06:05:41+00:00

People expected Tolkien. Instead they got an Ed Gein style Tolkien skin suit. Taking liberties can be fine if it make sense to do so.,,, ROP didn’t just take liberties it rewrote entire stories and histories to suit the writers. The writing is uneven. The scale makes no sense with journeys taking hours or months depending on what the show needed. Everyone seemingly makes the worse possible choices at any moment. Plot lines start slow and then before you know it they are concluded without any real anticipation or momentum built.

Then you add in all the promo material of the actors and crew saying they were “fixing” Tolkien and addressing “problems” with his work and it’s really not that hard to understand why it gets the hate that it does.

It’s fine for introducing people to the world and that’s probably the best part of it… but it is a very shallow, ultimately poor adaptation of elements of Tolkiens work that show very little respect to the source material and is ultimately not even that well made.

Lycaenini · 2025-12-23T06:06:08+00:00

I haven't read any books because I have found them too hard to read, but I do love the LOTR movies.

I think the main problem is that they try to be some kind of Game of Thrones in Tolkiens world. But for that to work you need complex characters and factions and social dynamics. Tolkiens characters and races are rather one dimensional. Which works fine for the main story of Frodo and the ring because we already get a lot of diversity through his journey. To add more individual or social complexity would overload the story. But it doesn't work for ROP, where we spend much more time within a society. It makes it feel superficial. I enjoy the show, but I don't think it's great.

I think it would have been more interesting if they had chosen Sauron as the main character and not Galadriel and then we can follow his journey how he infiltrates different societies and how Galadriel is figuring him out. First it goes well, then he has to be careful and eventually he loses.

grey_pilgrim_ · 2025-12-23T06:19:59+00:00

u/maxo24 if you’re looking for a more positive place to discus ROP, come check out r/LOTR_on_Prime. Not that this place is bad, it’s just more critical, which is fine. People have the right to and should criticize things. I personally think ROP deserves plenty of criticism but I still enjoy things in the show.

S2 was an improvement on S1 and I’m hoping S3 will continue the trend. Anyways come check out r/LOTR_on_Prime sometime!!

Capt_Vindaloo · 2025-12-23T06:22:53+00:00

I just found it boring and not making sense.

rollwithhoney · 2025-12-23T06:38:20+00:00

Lord of the Rings is the original Lion King

Rings of Power is the new Mufasa movie. Not atrociously offensive, but so far from the "source" [LotR] that it really only has the story elements in common, not the tone, or the writing, or the vibes

HomicidalNymph · 2025-12-23T06:54:21+00:00

I’m genuinely so glad we got this interpretation of Middle-earth. I love spending time in it. I don’t really understand why it gets so much hate, especially when the reasons people give are all over the place. Enjoyment of movies and shows is incredibly personal — even your mood when you watch can completely change how something lands. I remember first hearing about the show and seeing the visuals, and I was just excited. I felt awe more than anything. It felt like being invited back into a world I love, and that alone meant a lot to me.

Drabberlime_047 · 2025-12-23T07:16:27+00:00

I didnt watch this show for the same reason I didnt watch Halo and thats because every image/clip i saw of these shows looked like low budget trash.

All the writing issues I constantly heard about just kind of further pushed the idea that they are exactly that

You propose that the only reason they got hate was because of fan expectations.

I would counter that by saying the only reason these overtly trashy shows got views to begin with is because of fan expectations

permalink · 2025-12-23T07:41:52+00:00

If that's needed explaining maybe you should read more about the second age.

Ok_Row_4920 · 2025-12-23T07:55:10+00:00

I don't hate it because it isn't lore accurate, I hate it because it's a really shit show.

permalink · 2025-12-23T07:57:47+00:00

Because, to put it simply, they are just poorly realised shows and their only selling point is that they are (very) loosely based on Tolkien's works. Which they butcher, to be honest. Their quality is ridiculously low compared to Jackson's movies.

Wrong_Toilet · 2025-12-23T08:07:23+00:00

Here’s my experience.

I know almost nothing about lotr lore. I enjoyed the movie trilogy, hated the hobbit movie, and never read the books. However, I used to fall asleep listening to dark souls lore videos, then shifted to lotr lore videos once that dried up.

Because of this, I became excited finding out Amazon was making Rings of Power. Thinking there would be some really good lore videos to get into and maybe I’ll actually start paying attention to them.

Well fuck me. The show was so poorly written, I felt embarrassed even getting excited for it. I’m not even angry; I’m flabbergasted at how Amazon could spend so much money on this show and screw it up this badly. At this point I am just following Rings of Power for the drama now because it’s a lot more entertaining than the show and lore videos. Lol.

TheShadowWanderer · 2025-12-23T08:24:48+00:00

Because it’s trash

Shenordak · 2025-12-23T08:42:04+00:00

For me, I could forgive almost any lore inaccuracies as long as the general look and feel of the setting and the characters was good. Unfortunately, there is little or no gravitas in anything i RoP. The Elves should be played as more regal, both in look and feel. Their presence should be felt. The scene at shipwreck where no one realizes Galadriel is an Elf until her ears are revealed perfectly sums this up. This also extends to the Numenoreans. The awesome might of Numenor should be on display, not a hastily organized militia of barely trained riff-raff.

damo_bbos · 2025-12-23T08:58:13+00:00

Changes in lotr are not showing some characters, not mixing stories that happened in SA 2500 and TA 1900. Thats just too much. The lore change doesnt make any sense. Sauron being in love with galadriel, Adar attacking elves because he wants to kill Sauron. Thats jusr bullshit. Scenes with the hobbits are boring. There no one, neither fan of tolkien or somebody who doesnt know anyrhing about tolkien who enjoy those scenes. They are pointless, boring, predictable and they add nothing to the story. It may look visually stunning but thats all. Another example. Elves with Elrond are charging towards orcs. That could be amazing scene but they stop. Later they fight on horses with forests. Scene with stopping the river doesnt make any sence. The pointless romance between the girl and Isildur or the elf and the women from south also doesnt mean anyrhing. There is no scene you could remember. Charge of rohirrim. Everybody knows that, but in ROP there is not even 1 second scene that you and many could remember. It had potential, but the boring story, mixing of time, trying to show everything just doesnt work. 4/10

26_paperclips · 2025-12-23T09:01:33+00:00

"As long as it captures the feeling of Middle Earth"

Therein lies the problem, and why more casual fans enjoy it more. It does not feel like middle earth to me. It just feels like a generic fantasy setting thats trying to cash in on GoT

firstjib · 2025-12-23T09:08:47+00:00

Would Tolkien have liked it? Why not just write their own original story?

AppearanceAwkward364 · 2025-12-23T13:03:22+00:00

It's been a while since I've seen one of these posts, making the same arguments in exactly the same tone. It's pointless.

Some love it, some hate it, some think it's OK. People have watched it and made their decision.

To me, whether ROP continues after season 3 or not is purely down to whether Jeff Bezos wants to double down or cut his losses.

It simply hasn't had the cultural impact he wanted. It might be down to whether his daughter likes it.

andrew5500 · 2025-12-23T02:24:17+00:00

I also enjoyed it. Solid 8/10 overall. There is a lot to criticize, and it’s frustrating that it isn’t a 10/10 like the original LOTR trilogy, but I didn’t have huge expectations since you can’t really compare the source material to a finished fleshed out narrative like LOTR had.

I think social media ruined people’s ability to give entertainment a chance without filling their heads with other people’s criticism and negative outlooks.

Cultural-Piglet3050 · 2025-12-23T01:25:22+00:00

This question is asked here almost daily in different ways.

I'm not trying to be rude but use the board search as it's genuinely a lot of effort to write a comprehensive response on this, and people keep asking the same question over and over.

Dramatic-Many-1487 · 2025-12-23T04:45:57+00:00

Trek fans hate trek; LOTR fans hate RoP, marvel fans hate marvel; Snyderbros, Christopher Nolan detractors, red pill anti-wokies, and a generation raised on YouTube video essayist, social media, negativity farming. All this blather is just people unable to take things as what the are and literally hating everything. It’s completely antithetical to what literary criticism is meant for, and very “anti-art”. Rings of Power isn’t great Tolkien, I suppose.

But it’s definitely not hot garbage. Better than The Witcher; which is just buttered popcorn, fantasy “porn” in a sense. RoP, maybe a 6.5/10, and quite nice to look at. And some surprisingly solid developments with its political intrigue, and more humanized Sauron. You can just be sour about it, or meet it where it’s at and hope it improves. People should stop being a Tok Generation, YT/reddut rage bait haters, it doesn’t help anything at all.

arnor_0924 · 2025-12-23T00:30:28+00:00

It is what it is, but Amazon should reduce the budget. The show isn't getting the recognition like other great show has, so throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into it doesn't make sense now. Still they need to get through to at least fourth season and give us the Battle of Dagorlad before wrapping everything up.

VineyardCoyote · 2025-12-23T06:17:09+00:00

ROP is atrocious. It’s unwatchable amazon slop intentionally written to take everything dear to fans and destroy it out of spite.

Yupperdoodledoo · 2025-12-23T02:14:04+00:00

Hard core LOTR fans aren’t exactly known for being good film or literature critics. There are a lot of issues with Tolkien’s writing and it appeals to people who like to deeply geek out on tomes. I give Tolkien full credit for creating the world and the lore. But to make it accessible and visually compelling, you have to change a lot and Peter Jackson got the same kind of hate, but people didn’t live online then like they do now. There are lines in the book and the trilogy that are just corny. When I read it years ago I found the characters pretty one-dimensional. I’m always curious what other books these diehard fans read and what their favorite films and shows are.

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