Lord of the Rings

[Cool Chris]

I get where people are coming from in general with a film/series being "necessary" but I try not to get caught up in that. Since I am a SW geek and not a LotR one, I have to switch franchises for a minute. Rogue One wasn't necessary; it didn't inform my enjoyment or experience with the original SW films in any way. It's just a well-crafted, engaging, fun film. To a lesser extent this applies to Solo as well. I didn't need any further material with Han Solo, but it was a fun movie and didn't spoil everything I knew about the character up till then. Somewhere there is a tipping point - Kenobi crossed it, for example. I only ever saw the 3 LotR films, so cannot comment on where this franchise is going.

[hefdaddy42]

I get where people are coming from in general with a film/series being "necessary" but I try not to get caught up in that. Since I am a SW geek and not a LotR one, I have to switch franchises for a minute. Rogue One wasn't necessary; it didn't inform my enjoyment or experience with the original SW films in any way. It's just a well-crafted, engaging, fun film. To a lesser extent this applies to Solo as well. I didn't need any further material with Han Solo, but it was a fun movie and didn't spoil everything I knew about the character up till then. Somewhere there is a tipping point - Kenobi crossed it, for example. I only ever saw the 3 LotR films, so cannot comment on where this franchise is going.

Yes, but the difference is that Star Wars isn't based on any pre-existing material.  It was always a movie first, so more movies make sense, regardless of what anyone thinks about them.

LOTR is based on the books, and they filmed the books.  They are done.  This new film would be basically made up out of whole cloth, using one or two paragraphs from a novel as inspiration.  I'm not saying they can't make a good film out of such a thing, but whatever they craft won't really be Tolkein.

[cramx3]

Necessary may not be the right word, even if I kind of feel that way.

To me, they made the movies, great movies.  Then they did the Hobbit, which was good, but not great.  And now out of source material, doing something more feels unnecessary because they have a great and epic story already done.  Adding more to it, is going to likely water down the whole product. To go along with Star Wars, they basically killed it by watering down the product already with too many movies and tv shows that have diminishing returns IMO. Marvel has done the same thing.  Now they'll milk LotR universe. 

[XJDenton]

The current capitalist climate forces EVERY ip to be a multi-billion dollar franchise regardless of the quality or whether the setting or source material can support it. It's depressing really.

[cramx3]

The current capitalist climate forces EVERY ip to be a multi-billion dollar franchise regardless of the quality or whether the setting or source material can support it. It's depressing really.

Well, it seems only old IP really.  All the stuff marketed to me as a kid is back now marketed to me as an adult.  It's quite annoying.  I'd love for new universes and new works of art to be created again.  They are, but it's not nearly as much.  Like last week alone I saw they were making sequels or re-hashed versions of 3 different movies from my childhood (Happy Gilmore 2, Lethal Weapon, Dodgeball 2, .... i actually think there were more, but I cant recall them atm).  I can't recall any of these recent types of sequels or re-makes that I've seen, being better than the original or even arguable worth making.  I'm sure it has to do with capitalism, I'm not going to argue that, but why do people continue to eat this stuff up then? I'm not sure I'd put this new LOTR movie into the category I just mentioned because it doesn't seem like a similar movie to those, but I think the concept remains.

[faizoff]

With regards to the Rings of Power show, I think the issue IMO is handing the reigns of showrunner to two unknown first timers. The acting is good, the scenery is good, there are good story beats, etc.. but all of them tied together just isn't very exciting. There are scenes that are great and some good setups but overall the viewing experience seems like a slog.

As for the new movies, if they can make it entertaining, I'm all for it.

[cramx3]

As for the new movies, if they can make it entertaining, I'm all for it.

At the end of the day, this is what matters.  I can bitch all I want about ruining franchises and movie universes, but if they actually make a good movie, all that criticism kind of gets thrown out the window.  I think the movie can likely be entertaining, but I'm skeptical if it will be a good movie overall, something worth making.

[BlackInk]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCwmXY_f-e0&pp=ygUbdGhlIHJpbmdzIG9mIHBvd2VyIHNlYXNvbiAy

Trailer for season 2 of RoP. Honestly, I'm pretty excited. I know at this point it won't be perfect or as good as it could be, but I'm just sort of hyped for this anyway.

[cramx3]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCwmXY_f-e0&pp=ygUbdGhlIHJpbmdzIG9mIHBvd2VyIHNlYXNvbiAy

Trailer for season 2 of RoP. Honestly, I'm pretty excited. I know at this point it won't be perfect or as good as it could be, but I'm just sort of hyped for this anyway.

Looks good to me, but they just need to keep up the pacing on where it left off after the slow start.  The potential for this season to elevate the show is there.

[hefdaddy42]

Looks good to me.  Looking forward to it.

[ErHaO]

I liked the first season to be honest. Thought it was way above average for fantasy shows (The Witcher, Wheel of Time, later GoT are all less engaging to me).

Not perfect by any means and the weird "we only have the rights to some things" stuff is a bit weird. But on it's own I felt it was well done.

[cramx3]

I liked the first season to be honest. Thought it was way above average for fantasy shows (The Witcher, Wheel of Time, later GoT are all less engaging to me).

Thought it was better than The Witcher and Wheel of Time as well.  And felt it compared fairly well to those shows, a bit more than GoT.  It's funny how House of Dragon and RoP are basically competing against each other.  Their first seasons aired at the same time and now both their trailers for season 2 came out together.  I liked both shows so this is quite fun for me to get these two going head to head again. 

[BlackInk]

I'm just excited to actually get to see Sauron doing his thing. He's one of the most interesting characters from Tolkien's entire world. You never really get a sense of Sauron as a character in LotR or The Hobbit, so I'm just pumped to see that.