Corvinus85 Posted October 18, 2022 Share Posted October 18, 2022 I think I've made this comparison before, but now that it's over, comparing the full season with season 1 of The Witcher and The Wheel of Time. - Production values: RoP is superior in general visuals, VFX, costumes. I would say it has an edge over WoT in production design, and definitely above The Witcher. - Action scenes: I would give The Witcher the edge on action scenes mainly because of Henry Cavill doing his own stunts and better than the actors from RoP and WoT. In terms of battles, neither show had anything great though WoT is the worst with that terrible battle in the finale. - Music: RoP has the best music, too. I like The Witcher soundtrack as well, while WoT's title theme is fairly good and maybe one or two other themes. - Titles: WoT wins that one. - Acting: on average, they're all about the same. WoT has Rosamund Pike, while Henry Cavill embraced the Geralt role to a level few actors do. - Adaptation/capturing the spirit of an existing world: here I can't include much of The Witcher as I'm not really familiar. The Witcher did a good job with the striga story, which is one of the two stories I know. As to the others both did have some success with showcasing some of the cultures decently enough. WoT has an edge because it did get some of the core elements, like channeling for men vs women. But it also has the adaptation rights to do so. RoP was all over the place and it hasn't been able to find its voice yet. Nor does it understand a lot of Tolkien's themes. - Plot & story: they're all mediocre, but I would put WoT slightly above because it managed to produce a linear story that could be followed well by anyone, I think, and its tangents were generally tight and focused. RoP tried to do way too much with 8 episodes, introducing many characters and places, and forcing them to come together by any means without thought to logic and sense. The Witcher decided to play with timelines to show how some characters are older than others, making it feel episodic at times, and it required an astute attention to detail to avoid confusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofice Posted October 18, 2022 Share Posted October 18, 2022 39 minutes ago, Cas Stark said: It's an entirely mediocre show wrapped in the hard candy shell of very high production values. It's okay, it is often dull, sometimes for a couple of minutes it attained 'good'. The casting is not that great, the writing is not that great, sometimes veering into stupid, the story/plot is often very silly. It's a big, expensive, silly show that is okay if you don't care much about it, or have any expectation of prestige TV, which puts it on par with the Witcher. That's okay, nothing wrong with being a mediocre fantasy show, but one might be forgiven for having expected more of a billion dollar investment, and also if this is to Bezos GOT, you might have hoped it might at least have hit GOT early years quality, which it doesn't come close. In isolation the show is ok. I'm sure it would be easy to overlook a lot of the bad writing and silliness. It is always going to suffer due to comparison though and there is just so much around to compare it to. It is obviously directly being compared to Jacksons movies, and it's worse, it gets compared to the books, and it's worse. It's compared to HotD which is out at the same time.. and it's worse. The better comparison is stuff like The Witcher or WoT. Is that really the grand ambition of this show however? Btw, I listened to the show with headphones on and it really changes the music quality. Music really doesn't come across on most tin pot speakers that are built into TVs. The problem with the music however is that it is almost too good for the scene it is accompanying. Grandiose bombastic blasts of horns in front of a clearly CGI game cutscene looking view where nothing happens feels very disconnected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iskaral Pust Posted October 18, 2022 Share Posted October 18, 2022 11 hours ago, Corvinus85 said: Andor, if you like Star Wars and have Disney+. Thanks. I dropped both Boba Fett and Obi-Wan but I’ll try Andor when I next turn on Disney+. There’s not enough content there to keep it active all the time. OTOH, if you would have rec’d BF and O-W last year then we might have a different problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isis Posted October 18, 2022 Share Posted October 18, 2022 2 hours ago, Raja said: It's funny, usually I'm not a fan of McCreary at all as I think a a lot of his stuff is fairly generic sounding, but I think there are a lot of memorable tracks that are excellent. I think there is plenty of variety in the ROP music (i.e. different peoples and places sound different), whilst still feeling as if it is largely in the same family as Shore's soundtrack (they don't sound drastically different to the point where you can't see connection between the two). Did this guy call Shore's soundtrack syrupy and phoned in? I'm gonna guess not. Therefore it looks like he's talking nonsense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farerb Posted October 18, 2022 Share Posted October 18, 2022 I really wanted to like the show and was disappointed with it. It's not outright bad, more uneven, and that's also generous. My sister already doesn't plan to watch season 2, I'm still hesitant and who knows how I'll feel in two years from now, but if I have to think of it as its own thing and divorce it from Tolkien's writing then I just don't see the point, it's just like any generic fantasy out there I haven't seen Witcher or WoT. How would you compare this to Shadow and Bone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luzifer's right hand Posted October 18, 2022 Share Posted October 18, 2022 1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said: - Music: RoP has the best music, too. I like The Witcher soundtrack as well, while WoT's title theme is fairly good and maybe one or two other themes. Toss A Coin To Your Witcher is certainly the best song ever! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caligula_K3 Posted October 18, 2022 Share Posted October 18, 2022 It's Hard to say where I rank this in recent fantasy shows. Probably something like Wheel of Time < Witcher Season 1 < House of the Dragon < Witcher Season 2 = Rings of Power. Rings of Power and Witcher Season 2 were the only seasons I'd say I overall liked, despite flaws. But, frankly, none of these shows have come close to the quality level of Game of Thrones so far, including much of the later seasons. I hope that the showrunners for each of them learns from mistakes and missteps and can up their game. But I also have to remind myself that it's ok if not every one of these shows is for me- if many people think House of the Dragon is great and I'm still not feeling it partway into season 2, that's fine. It's just not for me. There's no necessity to watch everything. Thinking back to Game of Thrones, I wonder if it was in fact a blessing for D&D that they didn't start the show with an insanely high budget. Because their budget increased over time, they were able to learn gradually how to integrate spectacle and more elaborate fight scenes into the show. On the other hand, because Game of Thrones set such a high benchmark for TV spectacle, maybe a lower budget fantasy show that has a first season without much spectacle simply wouldn't do well in this day and age. Sidenote: I loved Bear McReary's score. It was probably his best, in my opinion, since Battlestar Galactica. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iskaral Pust Posted October 19, 2022 Share Posted October 19, 2022 Witcher S1 has an intriguing (possibly confusing) uncertainty about what is happening where and when. And the humor is good, the Slavic mythology is interesting, and Cavill and Yennefer commit to their roles. That off-sets the cheap & cheesy world-building. But S2 started really badly and felt too claustrophobic around the bratty kid. I dropped that quickly. WoT was cheap, cheesy and frequently cringeworthy. The only good actor left the show before the end of the season. HotD is quite good if you can accept that it’s a character-driven palace intrigue. Despite the larger budget it feels much smaller than GoT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMC Posted October 19, 2022 Share Posted October 19, 2022 4 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said: Despite the larger budget it feels much smaller than GoT. Yeah this is inherent to rarely leaving Blackwater Bay (King's Landing, Dragonstone, and Driftmark). That should change, somewhat, next season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TormundsWoman Posted October 19, 2022 Share Posted October 19, 2022 21 hours ago, Corvinus85 said: I think I've made this comparison before, but now that it's over, comparing the full season with season 1 of The Witcher and The Wheel of Time. - Production values: RoP is superior in general visuals, VFX, costumes. I would say it has an edge over WoT in production design, and definitely above The Witcher. - Action scenes: I would give The Witcher the edge on action scenes mainly because of Henry Cavill doing his own stunts and better than the actors from RoP and WoT. In terms of battles, neither show had anything great though WoT is the worst with that terrible battle in the finale. - Music: RoP has the best music, too. I like The Witcher soundtrack as well, while WoT's title theme is fairly good and maybe one or two other themes. - Titles: WoT wins that one. - Acting: on average, they're all about the same. WoT has Rosamund Pike, while Henry Cavill embraced the Geralt role to a level few actors do. - Adaptation/capturing the spirit of an existing world: here I can't include much of The Witcher as I'm not really familiar. The Witcher did a good job with the striga story, which is one of the two stories I know. As to the others both did have some success with showcasing some of the cultures decently enough. WoT has an edge because it did get some of the core elements, like channeling for men vs women. But it also has the adaptation rights to do so. RoP was all over the place and it hasn't been able to find its voice yet. Nor does it understand a lot of Tolkien's themes. - Plot & story: they're all mediocre, but I would put WoT slightly above because it managed to produce a linear story that could be followed well by anyone, I think, and its tangents were generally tight and focused. RoP tried to do way too much with 8 episodes, introducing many characters and places, and forcing them to come together by any means without thought to logic and sense. The Witcher decided to play with timelines to show how some characters are older than others, making it feel episodic at times, and it required an astute attention to detail to avoid confusion. Well then Corvinus… you know you’re in ROP thread and you must needs being the Witcher into it!!!!! Shame shame shame! I’ve watched all three myself, I can safely say that the Witcher is still the best of the three! and the Devil’s Hand is totally on point. There’s no song that matches Toss a Coin to Your Witcher. Witcher also has a totality of bitching supporting characters with awesome supporting casting from Dandelion to the Lioness of Cintra. Can’t say I enjoyed the same for the entirety of the supporting character and cast for WoT and RoP. #FightMeInRealLife! #TheWitcherFTW Gotta say though in terms of meta inclusion and diversity RoP blew everything out of the water. Good for them. I really loved the Harfoots. Happy to see the internet blowing a gasket on this issue. Probably because I’m tired of so many questions like why are there black people popping up randomly in Middle Earth. regardless that almost made me say RoP was better for the entertainment industry! So there’s that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted October 19, 2022 Share Posted October 19, 2022 1 hour ago, TormundsWoman said: Well then Corvinus… you know you’re in ROP thread and you must needs being the Witcher into it!!!!! Shame shame shame! I’ve watched all three myself, I can safely say that the Witcher is still the best of the three! and the Devil’s Hand is totally on point. There’s no song that matches Toss a Coin to Your Witcher. Witcher also has a totality of bitching supporting characters with awesome supporting casting from Dandelion to the Lioness of Cintra. Can’t say I enjoyed the same for the entirety of the supporting character and cast for WoT and RoP. #FightMeInRealLife! #TheWitcherFTW Gotta say though in terms of meta inclusion and diversity RoP blew everything out of the water. Good for them. I really loved the Harfoots. Happy to see the internet blowing a gasket on this issue. Probably because I’m tired of so many questions like why are there black people popping up randomly in Middle Earth. regardless that almost made me say RoP was better for the entertainment industry! So there’s that. ??? Others were comparing it with WoT and The Witcher so I just continued the trend. The Witcher is the most entertaining from a shlock entertainment perspective. The other two try to be serious and fail, while The Witcher writers know what it is they work on. And it has plenty of diversity, too, no? Triss Merigold anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luzifer's right hand Posted October 19, 2022 Share Posted October 19, 2022 3 hours ago, Corvinus85 said: ??? Others were comparing it with WoT and The Witcher so I just continued the trend. The Witcher is the most entertaining from a shlock entertainment perspective. The other two try to be serious and fail, while The Witcher writers know what it is they work on. And it has plenty of diversity, too, no? Triss Merigold anyone? The sources material is often not serious though when it comes to The Witcher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Anna Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 Well. I absolutely loved that final episode. I'm looking forward to season 2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IFR Posted October 20, 2022 Share Posted October 20, 2022 I've watched The Witcher, WoT, RoP and Hot D and rank them as follows: 1) Hot D 2) RoP 3)The Witcher 4) WoT I quit RoP with episode 3. It became clear very quickly that there was simply no interest by Amazon in providing good writing for the show, and it was simply a showcase for spectacle, which isn't appealing to me. It was pretty enough though. I managed to complete the entire first season of The Witcher. No mistake, the writing was dire and it really came off as a high budget CW show, but I watched it with friends and it was entertaining to trash the constant nonsense that was served with each episode. Unfortunately, I watched the second season on my own and couldn't make it past midway. I could almost feel the writers' contempt for their audience's intelligence, a sort of "shut up and enjoy what we give you" laziness that permeated everything. It was exhausting. The show is such a dramatic drop in quality from the books they pretend to adapt, it's pretty astonishing. Sadly, there have been worse attempts. Which brings us to WoT. I somehow completed the entire crucible that is season one of WoT. It was an ordeal. I rather like Jordan's books, flawed though they are, and it was sad to see this grotesque abomination emerge into this world. It bears hardly any relation to the books, and I'm pretty sure Terry Goodkind could have improved upon the writing here. Hot D far outstrips any of these shows. But it's definitely riddled with its own problems. The latter seasons of GoT are better than these shows (HoT D excepted), which I think says a lot about efforts in modern fantasy. The early seasons of GoT are vastly superior to all of these shows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 The Rings of Power Has a Troll Problem Racist fans of The Lord of the Rings are organizing online to try and sink the new series. But are they losing their power? Published 10:36, Oct. 14, 2022 https://thewalrus.ca/the-rings-of-power-has-a-troll-problem/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TormundsWoman Posted October 24, 2022 Share Posted October 24, 2022 On 10/19/2022 at 10:00 AM, Corvinus85 said: ??? Others were comparing it with WoT and The Witcher so I just continued the trend. Hah yes well, I read the thread backwards, so you got in at the ground level for me making off -topic comparison with the Witcher and I didn’t edit it afterwards sorry about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted October 24, 2022 Share Posted October 24, 2022 Judy Tarr writes more about the horses of Rings of Power, as she does of horses in Tolkien in general. https://www.tor.com/2022/10/24/some-thoughts-on-tolkiens-elf-horses/ In the times of heroes, legends and warriors, just as there are swords and other weapons of great pedigree and special power, particularly valued and given Names, so the Heroes and Warriors have special horses with pedigrees and Names. It's all there in the medieval Romances. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted October 26, 2022 Share Posted October 26, 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iskaral Pust Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 On 10/25/2022 at 10:00 PM, Tywin et al. said: Brilliant and funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofice Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 On 10/26/2022 at 3:00 AM, Tywin et al. said: Lol! So many mysterious strangers!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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