Will there be steaming piles?

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Shadow Reaper

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He always makes me laugh:

View: https://youtu.be/2TQB-7ddAJk


This one is more serious:

View: https://youtu.be/B38F291Wix4


To be frank, it feels like these guys are objecting too early to what they have already decided will fail. I'm sympathetic. We're all still scratching at the gnats left from when Disney shat upon our beloved Luke. However, I spy no shat yet, and that matters. I just think if this is honest complaint, it is at best honestly complaining of what they fear, much more than what they have reason to object to.

Tolkien wrote amazingly strong female characters for his time, and from what I recall of the Silmarilion, and Galadriel, I think he'd be onboard with making her a total kick ass.

I think what these guys are really reacting to is Kathene Kennedy esque assaults upon men for the sake of women--crazy third wave man-hating feminism run amok. We ain't seen that yet, but if we do we can expect audiences to walk away and Bezos to take the tumble.

OTOH, there seem to me a million ways for this to all go right, if it isn't perrverted by modern amoral sensibilities. Guess we'll have to wait and see. If. This. Will. Be. A. Steaming. Pile.
 

Brictoria

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Well, they had been discussing this for some time, indicating where it appeared the source material was being ignored...
and

I'd guess that if the product matches the source material, they (and most fans of the original books) will be in favor of the final product, but the problem is that the show is being advertised as though it doesn't take part in the "original" world (as created and described by J.R.R. Tolkein in his writings), but instead in some "multiverse" version of Middle Earth where changes have been made to suit the modern writer's desires.

I'm just hoping this series doesn't end up being to J.R.R. Tolkein's Middle Earth what "The Watch" series was to Terry Pratchett's Discworld - Taking character names and plot points from the source material, then altering the world in which they exist\take place to be something other than what the author intended\described.
 

Shadow Reaper

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Well, one can only hope Amazon takes a hint from what has happened to the Star Wars and Star Trek properties. Both have tanked. You can try to force feed the public your novel values but as both these reviewers note, they don't swallow what they don't like.

Tolkien and his friend Lewis were both very "old fashioned" in their own time and they both said this of themselves. If Amazon tries to force feed people something else, of course the fans will walk.
 

Brictoria

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The problem seems to stem from writers\creators having 2 reasonable options:
Create a new story\franchise from the ground up, earning a loyal audience who like the type of stories that you wish to tell
or
Write for an existing franchise in a way that the existing fanbase will appreicate\shows respect for the existing lore\background of the franchise.

The first option requires hard work and dedication (with no guarantee of success), whilst the latter option may require a writer\creator to work outside their personal belief system.

Unfortunately, there is a simpler\easier option that tends to be taken which is to pick up an existing franchise with a large fanbase who are loyal to its history\lore and to ignore that lore\reason the fanbase are so passionate about it in favor of twisting it to suit what the writers\creators want it to be. This results in a large audience to begin with, as existing fans of the franchise will have a look at it to see whether it may be something that fits the existing franchise lore\their expectations, and newcomers to the franchise who feel that something in the promotional material "speaks to them", but which quickly tends to fall off as many of the original fans abandon it as not being "true" to the franchise's lore, while the new audience will drop off as token attempts to wedge it into the existing lore run against what they wish\expect to see, which in the worst case can entirely kill off a once highly succesful franchise.

One of my favourite series went through something similar recently: Doctor Who replaced a character who had been male since the 1960's with a female (and gave the same treatment to another recurring character from the 1970's) and inserted an entirely new backstory to help justify this, rewriting the entire lore and removing the "first" doctor from that position. Had they instead looked at the series history, there were a number of characters they could instead have brought back (Susan, Romana, or Jenny, for example) to the storyline alongside the traditional doctor or introduced a completely new character within the existing lore to introduce them to the audience, then branched off to create their own story in spin-off series (which could have crossed into the each other's storylines) that would not have alienated the large existing fanbase, and had the potential for being at least as good as the existing male doctor's series (I'd have loved to have seen a series based around the master as well).

I guess it all comes down to how the writers\creators\producers understand the phrase "giving the audience what they want": Is the "they" in the phrase interpreted as being the existing audience\fanbase, or is it instead the writers\creators\producers?
 

Patrick Spaceman

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I grew up with Tom Baker (4th Doctor). Many years later they had the opportunity to be sitting on a literal gold mine of bringing old fans back, who had long left following the franchise. Could have brought back an incarnation of the 4th Doctor in a younger body. Alan Davis (see below) would have been perfect...but no it went to shit. Tenant, Smith, Eccleston and Capaldi did great jobs, but Baker was the man with the jelly babies. This line of current thinking is exactly why comic book writer Eric July is swimming in cash for Rippaverse...people are sick of it all.

Tom baker and Alan Davis:

goldmine.png
 

Brictoria

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I grew up watching the shows from that same era, but having gone back through the entire back catalogue (at least that which survives), I prefer William Hartnell's doctor (who was "brought back to life" by David Bradley for a 50th anniversary special) as the "best" portayal of the character.


I'd say all the actors up to the 12th incarnation (13th if you include the war doctor) who have played the role have been good, although Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Jon Pertwee, and Matt Smith would be my least favoured actors in the role (whether due to the writing of their character or the way they portrayed the doctor)... I'd love to have seen more of Paul McGann in the role, and John Hurt could have had a very interesting storyline as well.

And who knows: Maybe we'll see some of these introduced into the loot tables in this game one day as a way of honoring that series:
 

Brictoria

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Oh yeah McGann was good. Also as far as villains go, Michelle Gomez was great.
View attachment 23220View attachment 23220
She was certainly good in the role, but I'd have preferred to have seen her play a new\different character, rather than act as a wedge to allow the future switch of the doctor from male to female... It's already lore that there are female "timelords" (There was one in the original series alongside the first doctor - His grand-daughter), so there was no reason they couldn't have brought her in as a new timelord, although without backstory\known history, her introduction would have required more work.
 

Lorddarthvik

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To answer the title of the thread, yes there will be. But will it matter?
I don't think so. I absolutely agree that there will be lots of disappointed fans and tons of videos analyzing and explaining why Amazons lowd of the rangs is trash, and low ratings all around and whatnot...
Doesn't matter.
Ppl will still remain subscribed, or even sub to see what all the fuss is about, normies will make their prime trial account and forget to cancel it in time and so on.

Disney+ with Star Wars has proven that it doesn't matter how shit your shows are ( Boba fat, obi none) , as long as you have the big franchise with some old beloved characters/world and you jangle the keys loud enough, people will come and pay to see what's up.
And when all the political types will be shouting about how their favorite world got turned into a badly written mouthpiece for the opposition, Amazon will just go "hey, you guys know we got shows for you as well like The Terminal List, maybe watch that too?" and the money keeps flowing in.
BTW I do recommend watching that, pretty damn good drama.

Anyways, I'm off to finish the show with that old spaniel getting drunk in Italy, so I can cancel my prime in protest when rings drops hahaha
 

Montoya

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Well, that's kinda true save that Disney's stock is now about half what it was, down hovering around 95 when it was at 201 just over a year ago. Go woke, go broke.

People are fed up and cancelling their subscriptions.
Sorry, but that is incorrect.

The fact is that good stocks can be overbought and undersold.

Bad stocks can be overbought and undersold.

DIS stock was catching the tail end of a bull market, Star Wars hype and exciting new shows along with a risk-on environment for streaming services during COVID was sending the stock to overbought territory.

We can take a look at subscription trends to see if people are truly cancelling because this data is public:

1658160226028.png


Warning: Politics ahead! If I see incorrect information, I feel a need to correct it.

The whole "Dont say gay" opposition that Disney was involved in, and the subsequent claim by conservative media that Disney + was losing 350,000 subscribers was made up.

Even if that 350K number was real, which is was not, because it was made up, it would only account for 0.2% of the total subscribers and in no way have that sort of effect in the price of the stock.

The price action of DIS did get hit hard, but so did other streaming services like Netflix and Roku in the exact same time period, and none of them had anything to do with wokeness at Disney.

1658160919651.png


The bottom line is that Disney did not get woke and go broke as conservative media is claiming. The worst part is that the pundits on the right who have interns, analysts and writers all know this and have access to the same information I just posted above, yet they choose to mislead their audience.

Sorry for getting political, as per our rules we try to avoid these topics in here, but I feel this forum would be doing a massive disservices to its readers if incorrect information was permitted to go unchallenged.

TLDR: All streaming services were overbought during COVID and corrected hard with the recent bear market and inflationary environment. DIS stock did not drop because of a fabricated drop in 0.2% of subscriptions.
 

Bambooza

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To answer the title of the thread, yes there will be. But will it matter?
I don't think so. I absolutely agree that there will be lots of disappointed fans and tons of videos analyzing and explaining why Amazons lowd of the rangs is trash, and low ratings all around and whatnot...
Doesn't matter.
Ppl will still remain subscribed, or even sub to see what all the fuss is about, normies will make their prime trial account and forget to cancel it in time and so on.

Disney+ with Star Wars has proven that it doesn't matter how shit your shows are ( Boba fat, obi none) , as long as you have the big franchise with some old beloved characters/world and you jangle the keys loud enough, people will come and pay to see what's up.
And when all the political types will be shouting about how their favorite world got turned into a badly written mouthpiece for the opposition, Amazon will just go "hey, you guys know we got shows for you as well like The Terminal List, maybe watch that too?" and the money keeps flowing in.
BTW I do recommend watching that, pretty damn good drama.

Anyways, I'm off to finish the show with that old spaniel getting drunk in Italy, so I can cancel my prime in protest when rings drops hahaha

Not sure I would put Amazon in with the others while it is not verifiable it looks like the vast majority of Amazon Prime subscribers do so for the shopping and not for the Video content. For me personally, it's just a perk and not the main attraction and so am not bothered by the content of their shows as I am with Disney+ and Netflix. The same with AT&T offering free HBO for the fiber network connection and I am not bothered that its been 4 months since I checked out what HBO has to offer. I am sure these companies do pay attention to who and how many view their shows and adjust things accordingly but as to it effecting Amazon's bottom line putting out a show that flops will only impact the show and those involved with it.
 

Lorddarthvik

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Not sure I would put Amazon in with the others while it is not verifiable it looks like the vast majority of Amazon Prime subscribers do so for the shopping and not for the Video content. For me personally, it's just a perk and not the main attraction and so am not bothered by the content of their shows as I am with Disney+ and Netflix. The same with AT&T offering free HBO for the fiber network connection and I am not bothered that its been 4 months since I checked out what HBO has to offer. I am sure these companies do pay attention to who and how many view their shows and adjust things accordingly but as to it effecting Amazon's bottom line putting out a show that flops will only impact the show and those involved with it.
I might be speaking from a rather unique position here when it comes to Amazon streaming. I do have access to Prime, but I only benefit from the Digital content, and even that is limited to what's available on German prime. I do not have access to one day shipping, free prime shipping or any of the physical benefits. To me, Prime is like any other media streaming subscription, but I know I'm in the minority here. SO yeah it won't affect them the same way as it would affect Netflix or other Streaming services, but with such a huge name and such a huge budget as well, it might make some ripples if it fails. I don't mean with Amazon the online shop, but with their content creation side.

I subbed for the latest TGT and some other content from those guys like Clarksons Farm, and later found The Boys (it's so fun, especially when I see how 'muricans think that it's woke/anti-woke and they start arguing about it. It's both, you are all idiots!! that's the point!!) and the Terminal List (good drama, mid/decent action). I'll be unsubbing until the next TGT or Farm drops, cos the content is very very limited here, it's basically a few very odd modern Russian made war movies with Ru audio and German subs, some German war movies, some random German shows, and some Amazon original content I don't care about. Oh and ofc they got some classic shows that Netflix has as well like Friends. Nothing I care to watch. I watched a season of the Tick as background noise and watched Invincible, but both got boring real fast. That's it, the complete list of content I find watchable on Amazon. As you can see, it isn't very long.

I subbed because a certain franchise moved to Amazon, and for nothing else. Before that, I just had to sail to get my content (thanks BBC), but with Amazon I had the convenience of doing it easily and legally. I won't re-sub for LOTR, I watched and read the original trilogy and that's enough for me. I got better things to do with my time. This led me to believe others might do the same and sub for Rings of Powaaah, and if they found it bad, they would leave and not re-sub.

I don't pay for any other streaming services except for Netflix, I do pay the highest rate cos I share with my extended family. TLDR is, they got Hungarian dubs now, and not having to play tech support for the family is something you can't put a price on, but Netflix managed to do so, and it's low enough that I'm willing to pay for it despite some of their content.


@ the rest of the crowd here regarding the politics which we tried to dance around so nicely:

FFS, you made me do this again, its like 6+ pages:

Untitled-1.jpg

But I'll try to condense it down:

D+ is doing great. I'm guessing that is in part cos it's the only source for Marvel and SW, and in no small part cos of kids shows.
Disney stock isn't doing super great overall because they don't see Endgame levels of God money coming in anymore, yet they keep spending like crazy on new shows and movies and expectations are still too high. They also got carried away by the illusion that filming on the led screen sets is oh so cheap and as it turns out it isn't, but that's a topic for another time.
I do get the daily movements as a notification every day, and it's nothing to jump at but not bad either.

Politicking, if @Montoya permits:

Get woke go broke does exist, but I don't see it being the thing with the entertainment industry giants (with small fish yes, for example CW went bankrupt) , no matter how many times someone tells me that it's happening. The real world numbers tell me something that I experienced myself: no one gives a shit! People just want their entertainment served and they will eat it up. End of. No one cares what happens afterwards!

Youtubers praising and hating and analyzing and explaining, reddit threads, twitter spats, corporations attacking fans, fans attacking actors... it's all just background noise to the masses which they can't even hear over all the other noise generated by facebook posts and friends and family and all the other sources from where they get influenced by.
These pundits or critics or creators, regardless of political leaning, don't create change, they are not originators of anything, they are just more things for you to enjoy and interact with, their own tiny little bubbles in which you can belong, all living in their own little worlds, and Do Not represent the big picture by any means. It's all just part of the entertainment. More things to consume.

Your average consumer won't have the interest to dive deep into 3 guys' 40+ minute video about a movie they just watched, just like they won't read a 5 page essay on why they are a bad person if they don't watch that particularly politicized episode of a certain show. It's just not a thing.
It's called entertainment, and escapism, the whole point is that you escape all the mundane bullshit surrounding it, and people do actually do that! They watch a movie when they feel like it, or don't if they don't feel like it! Not when The Mouse says on twitter that they must or else they are a natzee, not when Cracklord "Felon" StreetShitter (AKA Nerdrotic) says on youtube that they shouldn't cos it breaks the lore, and oh it's woke as shit!
It makes no difference. People recognize the name LOTR, and they will watch it. Just like how they watched Obi on D+ despite it being dumb and boring and lore breaking at best, and woke garbage at worst.

The numbers in the end tell it all, according to all my favorite so called movie critics, Marvel should have gone bankrupt 5 minutes after Endgame stopped screening, yet they made money on ALL movies they released since then. It's the power of franchise.
Change is coming, superhero movies are starting to fail, it's inevitable, but it's not what you think. I bet that you guys are old enough to remember when all that was released was Westerns, and then Cop/Detective movies, then Action movies... those times come and gone as well. Those movies were called politicized, badly written, anti this good thing, pro that bad thing, and so on. They still made money, and then they didn't. Same things happening again. You can blame it on get woke go broke, I wish it was true and viewers realized they are being fed more and more twisted moralities and bad lessons, but I simply blame it on ppl just being bored of them. I'm willing to bet you a large case of cheap Polish lager that I'm right.
End of politics.



Question, how will it actually affect Amazon if Rangs bombs? How will we know? As @Bambooza pointed out, the majority of subscribers are probably already subbed for shopping reasons. I don't really expect an exoduse en masse if it turns out to be a bad show for whatever reason. Theoretically they could just pull a GoT season8 at the last episode of season 1 of Rings, it doesn't even have to be a political reason why it flops.
How will they make money on it if the vast majority of the audience is already subbed? Merch sold on Amazon?
 

Shadow Reaper

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Sorry, but that is incorrect.

Warning: Politics ahead! If I see incorrect information, I feel a need to correct it.

The whole "Dont say gay" opposition that Disney was involved in, and the subsequent claim by conservative media that Disney + was losing 350,000 subscribers was made up.

TLDR: All streaming services were overbought during COVID and corrected hard with the recent bear market and inflationary environment. DIS stock did not drop because of a fabricated drop in 0.2% of subscriptions.
I don't mind being corrected, but I didn't say anything about "Don't say gay", Gina Carano, or any of the other things you note. I said people were cancelling their subscriptions and they are. I noted their stock is less that half what it was 15 month ago and fact is, a LOT of people have had it with the Kathleen Kennedy esque perversion of their cherished franchises. People are pissed that Kennedy shat all over Luke in order to make her hero seem somehow better by comparison, and it didn't work. Luke is still noted as the greatest of all Jedi in official cannon, and specifically by George Lucas himself. No big surprise--Lucas named Luke after himself. Kennedy did not consult with Lucas when she made the decisions for the last trilogy. Lesson learned. Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau work very closely with Lucas and Mando came out excellent as result. They put a lid on Kennedy after her demotion at Disney so we hopefully won't see any more of her piles.

We could argue the points of cause of the huge decline in Disney's stocks. I like the analysis you're offering except that comparing to Amazon can't work until you control for the influence of woke there, and a lot of other things.

Certainly what we know is, most fans are fed up with what was done to Star Trek, and no longer watch it for 3 series now. Star Wars took heavy hits, and now fans are worried what will happen to the LOTR franchise. As I said, I don't see a problem YET, and i think these vids are more based upon fear of what may happen than any complaint they actually have right now. Tolkien would have firmly embraced the Tauriel-Kili love interest injected into Jackson's The Hobbit, but he would roll over in his grave at a cross dressing hero in his setting. That's what people seem to be afraid of.

But FYI, I did see some analysis of the Carano firing, and the fans were PISSED, about that entire thing. No official word ever surfaced whether she was again offered the job (when Kennedy was demoted, Filoni and Faveraeu took over and said they wanted Carano back) nor whether if she was if she'd take it. All fans really know is she is a kind, gentle, cheerful, supportive soul that all the crew and cast liked, who was fired for posting something the psycho-Left decided to object to, but which was not in itself in any way objectionable. Disney needs to get its shit together. Say what you want about stocks, but having to pay hundreds of millions of dollars a year in taxes because they pissed in Florida's lemonaid is way bad for the company. Carano's character, Cara Dune; was supposed to be the main lead in Rangers of the Republic, and now it looks like that series will never be made. We're all the poorer for it, since Cara Dune totally ROCKED. (She looks so much like my martial artist niece I may be biased.)

BTW, I read the entire "don't say gay" bill and it does not mention gay at all. It says the public schools cannot indoctrinate children ages 5-8 with materials that are inappropriate due to their sexual content and bias. Look it up. The entire bill is only 7 pages long and only includes one sentence explaining what was banned. Disney jumped on that band wagon because some exceedingly perverse people pressured them to, and Disney already knows it was a mistake. Sexualizing young children, and grooming children to accept sexual perversion as normal is not going to continue to be accepted by this country. We have had enough. Every time some 12 year old child has doctors chemically castrate them, or cut off their dick, balls or tits, the country grows more ready to explode. If you haven't figured it out, you may be asking the wrong questions. Instead of asking "why should 6 year-old kids go to school or the library to watch a drag queen perform?" ask yourself "Why should drag queens want to perform for 6 year-olds?"
 
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Shadow Reaper

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Apparently with over a million views now, and 3/4 of the 300k+ comments entirely negative, there has never been a fan base so critical of something like a trailer. I will note again that despite this guy agrees with the low appraisal and notion that Amazon is going to trash the franchise, he fails to note even a single reason for this found in the trailer. So just saying again, this seems more fear of what can go wrong more than response to something actually going wrong, as result of so many other franchises being trashed by woke/intersectional ideology. The narrator here mentions intersectionality, but provides no instances of it.

View: https://youtu.be/k68VRjvsE40
 

Shadow Reaper

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Apparently a wash. Plenty enough episodes in to see what we see, and only about 1/3 of viewers like it. Most have stopped watching already. One Billion Dollars flushed down the toilet for the sake of the shitty writing of a pair of newb showrunners. So terribly sad, as this franchise could have lived for decades on the small screen given this extraordinary level of fan and financial support.

View: https://youtu.be/416vFlu595Q
 
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