My impression of these shows is that they aren't in trouble at all. For House of the Dragon, the "scandal" with George Martin complaining about plot changes has certainly created a buzz and...
My impression of these shows is that they aren't in trouble at all. For House of the Dragon, the "scandal" with George Martin complaining about plot changes has certainly created a buzz and probably more people watched than would have otherwise. For "Rings of Power", it's the kind of show that will have legs for years even though it isn't very good. It's certainly better than 80% of the shows that were ever on TV before "prestige" TV became a thing after the Sopranos.
Now just an aside about how much people love/hate shows now. I've made a comment about this before. I'm often very nitpicky about shows as I watch them. It's fun to point out logical problems and plot holes. But usually when I watch House of the Dragon and Rings of Power, my brain is mostly off for some reason and I just enjoy the show. Then later I'll watch a review video where all the problems are pointed out. And I have to laugh because this kind of criticism is very entertaining and the points are often valid. I think the epic takedown of the Star Wars prequels by Red Letter Media was the first video of this type that I saw, but now there are literally hundreds for every show you could watch.
It's unfortunate if the creators of these shows watch these criticisms and feel terrible afterward, unless maybe it teaches them to make better shows.
Back when House of the Dragon and Rings of Power season 1 came out, people were arguing about why HotD was better, but one commenter took a moment to appreciate how the two biggest shows at that...
Back when House of the Dragon and Rings of Power season 1 came out, people were arguing about why HotD was better, but one commenter took a moment to appreciate how the two biggest shows at that time were fantasy epics. Not only that, one was about the lore of Game of Thrones hundreds of years prior which focuses more on the dragons, and the other was a second age Lord of the Rings prequel about freaking Numenor. This is some nerdy stuff to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on. It's fantastic that either of these shows exist, let alone that there's massive interest in both of them.
People will nitpick these shows for getting the nerdy details wrong, the showrunners will make difficult decisions that will come back to haunt them later, and the shows won't be perfect. And that's all fine. Ideally people wouldn't get too nasty with their rants and the showrunners would be able to take some criticism. In the article, one of the showrunners says "And those who watch every episode and [negatively] write about it on social media and make YouTube videos, we’re happy to have you guys, too. It wouldn’t be a journey through Middle-earth without some trolls along the way", so it doesn't seem like it's bothering them too much.
I'm the exact same way and this reminds of a reply to a review of a book I once saw which went something like this "I agree with your criticisms but those things just didn't bother me all that...
But usually when I watch House of the Dragon and Rings of Power, my brain is mostly off for some reason and I just enjoy the show. Then later I'll watch a review video where all the problems are pointed out. And I have to laugh because this kind of criticism is very entertaining and the points are often valid.
I'm the exact same way and this reminds of a reply to a review of a book I once saw which went something like this "I agree with your criticisms but those things just didn't bother me all that much". I can kinda shrug off minor plot holes and less-than-great scenes as long as the rest of the show/story holds up - things like the too clean clothes on characters in The Wheel of Time comes to mind as well. Yeah, it's a valid criticism that people in this small village wouldn't have flawless embroidered collars on their shirts, but it's such a small thing for me that I completely forget about it when actually watching the show, engaging and immersing myself in it
I haven't watched the latest season of The Boys because I can't stand the random ads Amazon is injecting into everything on Prime. Even movies aren't safe from mid-roll ads. I paid for a year of...
I haven't watched the latest season of The Boys because I can't stand the random ads Amazon is injecting into everything on Prime. Even movies aren't safe from mid-roll ads. I paid for a year of prime a few weeks before they announced advertising; would've thought I'd be grandfathered in... I'm pretty bitter about it. I think I'll wait until my last month and pay their $3, watch everything then dip. Fuck ads.
Having grown up where anime just wasn't available unless we sail the high seas, I basically have the notion that "shows I want to watch" are never actually available otherwise. It must feel really...
Having grown up where anime just wasn't available unless we sail the high seas, I basically have the notion that "shows I want to watch" are never actually available otherwise.
It must feel really really bad to pay money to watch ads. Free streaming with ads I can at least grudgingly understand. For me it's either gotta be free or else a box set or paid no ads streaming service.
I actually unsubscribed from Prime entirely specifically because of the ads. I’m not willing to pay $100+ per year and still get ads. If I pay, I don’t want ads. It’s been a few months and there...
I actually unsubscribed from Prime entirely specifically because of the ads. I’m not willing to pay $100+ per year and still get ads. If I pay, I don’t want ads.
It’s been a few months and there hasn’t been a single time I’ve been unable to watch something I actually wanted to watch.
The fact they changed the subscription everyone had to feature ads will forever infuriate me. It would be one thing to add a new, cheaper tier with ads, but they deliberately worsened the "base"...
The fact they changed the subscription everyone had to feature ads will forever infuriate me. It would be one thing to add a new, cheaper tier with ads, but they deliberately worsened the "base" experience to push existing subscribers to pay more for the same experience they already had prior to the change.
And I hate that it's working enough that they have no incentive to undo it.
I've been thinking about this for a few months now. Initially, I decided that Amazon were complete jackasses for not following the same practice they've used for years with their Kindle devices-...
I've been thinking about this for a few months now. Initially, I decided that Amazon were complete jackasses for not following the same practice they've used for years with their Kindle devices- buy the Kindle outright for $x or buy your Kindle + Special Offers for a discount. So why didn't Amazon offer Prime + Special Offers for the old price and raise the price of Prime $15-20/year, a couple years in a row? I think they wanted to see what the percentage of their customers they had fully captured was. Bend them over now, see who let's you get away with it and proceed to even greater fuckery in the future. I will not renew my subscription next year.
I agree 100%, I hate ads so much. In retrospect I can't believe how I could stand watching any show when I was younger before Tivo and then streaming without ads was available. One thing about...
I agree 100%, I hate ads so much. In retrospect I can't believe how I could stand watching any show when I was younger before Tivo and then streaming without ads was available.
One thing about Amazon is that you can't be sure how many ads you are going to see. I watched the latest season of the Boys and I'm pretty sure that there were no ads sometimes, and just one at the beginning other times. For Rings of Power, there has only been one 30 second ad at the beginning.
At these levels, I will continue to watch shows and in fact I just mute the commercial or whatever.
I also watched a couple of very old 1970s movies and there were no ads at all.
But when I watched "Tales from the Loop", which is probably slightly popular content produced by Amazon, there were ads every 10 or 15 minutes. I stopped watching the show because of this and will not watch any show with this many ads.
By the way, the Amazon prime UI is just a horrendous mess (except for the xray thing that tells you who the actors are when you pause). There is no way that a company with this much money can accidentally make something this bad. It must be on purpose in a way that the shittiness covers up something or makes them more money in some unexpected way.
My impression of these shows is that they aren't in trouble at all. For House of the Dragon, the "scandal" with George Martin complaining about plot changes has certainly created a buzz and probably more people watched than would have otherwise. For "Rings of Power", it's the kind of show that will have legs for years even though it isn't very good. It's certainly better than 80% of the shows that were ever on TV before "prestige" TV became a thing after the Sopranos.
Now just an aside about how much people love/hate shows now. I've made a comment about this before. I'm often very nitpicky about shows as I watch them. It's fun to point out logical problems and plot holes. But usually when I watch House of the Dragon and Rings of Power, my brain is mostly off for some reason and I just enjoy the show. Then later I'll watch a review video where all the problems are pointed out. And I have to laugh because this kind of criticism is very entertaining and the points are often valid. I think the epic takedown of the Star Wars prequels by Red Letter Media was the first video of this type that I saw, but now there are literally hundreds for every show you could watch.
It's unfortunate if the creators of these shows watch these criticisms and feel terrible afterward, unless maybe it teaches them to make better shows.
Back when House of the Dragon and Rings of Power season 1 came out, people were arguing about why HotD was better, but one commenter took a moment to appreciate how the two biggest shows at that time were fantasy epics. Not only that, one was about the lore of Game of Thrones hundreds of years prior which focuses more on the dragons, and the other was a second age Lord of the Rings prequel about freaking Numenor. This is some nerdy stuff to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on. It's fantastic that either of these shows exist, let alone that there's massive interest in both of them.
People will nitpick these shows for getting the nerdy details wrong, the showrunners will make difficult decisions that will come back to haunt them later, and the shows won't be perfect. And that's all fine. Ideally people wouldn't get too nasty with their rants and the showrunners would be able to take some criticism. In the article, one of the showrunners says "And those who watch every episode and [negatively] write about it on social media and make YouTube videos, we’re happy to have you guys, too. It wouldn’t be a journey through Middle-earth without some trolls along the way", so it doesn't seem like it's bothering them too much.
I'm the exact same way and this reminds of a reply to a review of a book I once saw which went something like this "I agree with your criticisms but those things just didn't bother me all that much". I can kinda shrug off minor plot holes and less-than-great scenes as long as the rest of the show/story holds up - things like the too clean clothes on characters in The Wheel of Time comes to mind as well. Yeah, it's a valid criticism that people in this small village wouldn't have flawless embroidered collars on their shirts, but it's such a small thing for me that I completely forget about it when actually watching the show, engaging and immersing myself in it
I haven't watched the latest season of The Boys because I can't stand the random ads Amazon is injecting into everything on Prime. Even movies aren't safe from mid-roll ads. I paid for a year of prime a few weeks before they announced advertising; would've thought I'd be grandfathered in... I'm pretty bitter about it. I think I'll wait until my last month and pay their $3, watch everything then dip. Fuck ads.
Have you considered... simply pirating it?
Having grown up where anime just wasn't available unless we sail the high seas, I basically have the notion that "shows I want to watch" are never actually available otherwise.
It must feel really really bad to pay money to watch ads. Free streaming with ads I can at least grudgingly understand. For me it's either gotta be free or else a box set or paid no ads streaming service.
I actually unsubscribed from Prime entirely specifically because of the ads. I’m not willing to pay $100+ per year and still get ads. If I pay, I don’t want ads.
It’s been a few months and there hasn’t been a single time I’ve been unable to watch something I actually wanted to watch.
The fact they changed the subscription everyone had to feature ads will forever infuriate me. It would be one thing to add a new, cheaper tier with ads, but they deliberately worsened the "base" experience to push existing subscribers to pay more for the same experience they already had prior to the change.
And I hate that it's working enough that they have no incentive to undo it.
I've been thinking about this for a few months now. Initially, I decided that Amazon were complete jackasses for not following the same practice they've used for years with their Kindle devices- buy the Kindle outright for $x or buy your Kindle + Special Offers for a discount. So why didn't Amazon offer Prime + Special Offers for the old price and raise the price of Prime $15-20/year, a couple years in a row? I think they wanted to see what the percentage of their customers they had fully captured was. Bend them over now, see who let's you get away with it and proceed to even greater fuckery in the future. I will not renew my subscription next year.
I agree 100%, I hate ads so much. In retrospect I can't believe how I could stand watching any show when I was younger before Tivo and then streaming without ads was available.
One thing about Amazon is that you can't be sure how many ads you are going to see. I watched the latest season of the Boys and I'm pretty sure that there were no ads sometimes, and just one at the beginning other times. For Rings of Power, there has only been one 30 second ad at the beginning.
At these levels, I will continue to watch shows and in fact I just mute the commercial or whatever.
I also watched a couple of very old 1970s movies and there were no ads at all.
But when I watched "Tales from the Loop", which is probably slightly popular content produced by Amazon, there were ads every 10 or 15 minutes. I stopped watching the show because of this and will not watch any show with this many ads.
By the way, the Amazon prime UI is just a horrendous mess (except for the xray thing that tells you who the actors are when you pause). There is no way that a company with this much money can accidentally make something this bad. It must be on purpose in a way that the shittiness covers up something or makes them more money in some unexpected way.