[HATED] Adaptations done intentionally without help from the source

[u/Chill0000]

Halo TV show: Before the show came out, the writers were praising their decision to not look to the games for inspiration when making the show

God Of War TV show: Chris Judge, the actor of Kratos in the games from 2018-Now, spoke up about his dislike on the show not hiring anyone who worked on any of the previous games. One of the original creators of Kratos also spoke up about them not having faith in the adaptation.

Supergirl 2026 film: the director for the film not only said he decided to not read Woman Of Tomorrow, the comic the film is adapting, because he wanted to do his own thing, he also didn’t look at comic art for inspiration to design Lobo and instead used an AI image generator to design Lobo’s look for the film

[u/B-Z_B-S]

Rings of Power.

They had the rights to the Lord of the Rings, but not the Silmarillion, so they had to deliberately get things wrong where they could only have gotten the knowledge from the Silmarillion to avoid copyright infringement.

[u/PhinsFan17 → u/B-Z_B-S]

As someone who actually enjoys this show, I am not going to defend it. I'm sick and tired of defending media I enjoy from the Reddit horde. I've wasted too much of my time doing that.

I will only say this. The Tolkien Estate was shopping for a buyer. They heard a ton of pitches. Netflix wanted to make a Middle-Earth MCU where everyone got their own movie with a big team up. HBO just wanted to straight up remake the movies. Amazon was the only party that had an original idea and promised the estate a seat at the table and some creative control.

You were going to get some kind of new LOTR content. It was going to happen. Be glad it was this and not something you'd have hated even more. Be angry at the Tolkien Estate for net selling the rights to the Silmarillion.

The show is also totally fine. But like I said, I am done defending media I like from strangers on the Internet.

[u/NailusHunter → u/PhinsFan17]

Man, I get it, you enjoy the show. But let’s be real, it’s still slop media dressed up with a Tolkien skin. You’re out here writing about Amazon’s pitch meetings like that somehow redeems the end product. Netflix wanted a Middle-Earth MCU, HBO wanted a remake, Amazon gave us corporate fanfiction with a shiny budget. Cool, it’s the least worst option, but that doesn’t magically make it good.

You don’t have to defend it, but don’t act like people are crazy for calling it mid or boring.The movies and the books are among the best fantasy media ever created, so obviously anything that doesn’t reach that level will be considered mid and that’s exactly what the show is ,it needed to be amazing but the show ended as just "fine", At the end of the day, you’re just vibing with slop, and that’s fine , I mean I did enjoyed the Hobbit so... NVM

[u/Thelostsoulinkorea → u/NailusHunter]

The armour and most of the locations alone made the show shit. Add in the terrible changes and it was a horrendous cheap looking show that cost millions!

[u/No_Walk_Town → u/Thelostsoulinkorea]

a horrendous cheap looking show

That didn't stop Jackson's movies from raking in piles of cash, though.

[u/Thelostsoulinkorea → u/No_Walk_Town]

What? The OG lord of the Rings movies are amazing looking. The armour is great looking as well in them. The hobbit does look worse though.

[u/No_Walk_Town → u/Thelostsoulinkorea]

What? The OG lord of the Rings movies are amazing looking.

So many shots are obviously and blatantly on cheap-looking sound stages. Having tall dudes pretending to be short looks cheap. Melodramatic cheap looking slow-mo. I mean, come on, you're lying to yourself if you think those movies look good.

The armour is great looking as well in them.

It's okay. I mean, you do get shit like Gandalf having early 2000's emo sweatshirt sleeves with little thumb holes like a girl shopping at Hot Topic. The weapon design is laughable. It's overall pretty bad.

Add in the terrible changes

Come on, you're being completely dishonest if you think Jackson's changes weren't terrible. He bloats the movie's run-time with unnecessary jokes, quippy one-liners, hyper macho posturing, cheap-looking fights. I mean, you know that in the book Theoden literally just kinda stretched his back, right?

Jackson added an entirely pointless, stupid, and cheap looking fight scene where Gandalf beat the shit out of Theoden instead. Come on, you are bullshitting yourself if you think anything in RoP is as stupid as that shit. You are a liar.

Just admit you hated that there were non-white people in RoP and it infuriated you to see them on your TV. You're not fooling anyone, we all know that's what really upsets you.

[u/ReadingRainbowRocket → u/PhinsFan17]

Way better than The Hobbit movies. I enjoyed a lot of it. Not amazing, but pretty good, and I think if it weren't for die-hard fans upset about the canon, it may not have been a hit, but I don't think it would have the same taint its perceived to have now.

[u/Blazured → u/PhinsFan17]

Yeah tbh the show isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The internet made it sound like it was going to be awful so I didn't pick it up until season 2 and I was pleasantly surprised.

[u/TrueKyragos → u/Blazured]

It's seen as bad because it's supposed to be Tolkien and come within his mythos, a well-established one at that. If it was completely independent, I'm sure it would have been received far better, as something at least enjoyed by most.

[u/TrueKyragos → u/[deleted]]

It's not a self-contained story, though. Characters and events of the First Age have an impact on what come after, and some characters are even still alive. Likewise when it comes to the Second and Third Ages. That's what a mythos is here, a whole interconnected universe and story. And there was a bit more than an outline, though certainly much less than for the First Age indeed.

[u/Blazured → u/TrueKyragos]

Yeah see that's the sort of complaints I heard before I watched it. I expected a nonsense show. But then Celebrimbor's storyline of being manipulated by Sauron into forging the rings in season 2 was incredibly engaging.

I feel there's tons of people online who are hating on this show but not actually watching it. I gave it a fair chance and was honestly surprised by how much I liked it.

[u/No_Walk_Town → u/TrueKyragos]

it's supposed to be Tolkien and come within his mythos,

I mean, that didn't stop Jackson's movies from making a ton of cash.

[u/TrueKyragos → u/No_Walk_Town]

But he did have the rights and made use of them. Nothing wrong with that. Rings of Power doesn't. Coming after the movies were made didn't help either.

[u/No_Walk_Town → u/TrueKyragos]

But he did have the rights and made use of them.

Did he? His movies shit all over the source material, so did he really "make use" of the rights to those books? Shitting all over it so nobody else gets a chance to make an actually decent version of the story isn't "making use" of something - it's destroying it because you didn't get what you wanted like a child throwing a tantrum.

[u/Silly_Double408 → u/PhinsFan17]

because its indefenseable and your tired of losing? I get it.

[u/Elavia_ → u/PhinsFan17]

Probably gonna get lynched for this, but I find the RoP lore more interesting than the original.

[u/MisterTamborineMan → u/PhinsFan17]

I wasn't really a fan of the show, but I do understand how tiring it can be to be on the less popular side of an internet argument.