While I’d personally argue that the quality of the character development, writing, and storytelling in the show doesn’t even achieve the level of “fine”, you’re right in that 1) people should be allowed to enjoy things in peace and 2) RoP in particular attracts criticism which is often hyperbolic. At the same time, however, there should also be the freedom to honestly critique a piece of media without being labeled as a hater, obsessive fanboy, or a neckbeard, etc. Especially when dealing with an IP as treasured as Tolkien’s.

Whether you find this article excessive in its criticism or not, the writer makes the very valid point that the media landscape today is becoming increasingly saturated with this 'memberberries/nostalgia/callback type of storytelling, along with the constant stream of prequels and sequels based on this formula. People are growing tired of it, and Rings of Power has it deep in its bones.

For a good examination of the showrunners’ over-reliance on referencing the Jackson movie trilogy in lieu of interesting, original storytelling, I highly recommend this YouTube video. I think it really gets to the core of why so many people find RoP frustrating or disappointing as a show in its own right, let alone as a Tolkien adaptation.

Hard to argue with him about the JJ-Abramsification of all things, or the perplexing fact that modern audiences appear to lap it up.

Watching season one of RoP felt undeniably reminiscent of watching The Force Awakens and almost hearing the audible *ding as yet another callback got checked off the list. It’s not art any more; it’s just content to be consumed.

It was bad. Not sure it was quite as terrible as #3, but definitely bad.

I’m not sure that lack of jeopardy was the issue with Furiosa – after all, that’s always the case with prequels.

I also don’t think that Day One introduced enough new developments to keep things interesting. The concept of the monsters is so simple that the main characters figure out the “rules” (don’t make noise) within minutes of the first attack. And that’s pretty much it - we, the audience, are none the wiser about what they are, where they come from, or what they’re about by the end of Day One than we were by the end of the second movie. Personally, I didn’t find the character development as interesting as Furiosa, either.

Either way, i agree that the quality of the story matters and I think Furiosa succeed here, personally.

If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say the differences in the box office outcomes come down to the facts that the Mad Max franchise has more of a niche appeal than A Quiet Place, is more violent, and the movie was quite a bit longer in duration.

Its success is interesting as it doesn’t appear to have suffered as a result of prequel fatigue, unlike, say, Furiosa, depsite being noticeably weaker than the first two movies.

Ooh, Robert Eggers? Now I’m interested.

Decksandrumsandrockandroll! Good call.

That, Dig Your Own Hole and The Fat of the Land were in my heavy listening rotation back in '97-98.

Nice. This soundtrack was my introduction to techno and electronica, back in the day.

You’re buying the wrong bacon.

I’d be interested in buying a Nothing phone if they weren’t all so huge.

Right, but these new benchmarks don’t speak to that, do they?

I though G4 was supposed to bring a big improvement to the modem, or is that going to be G5?

Meh, who cares about performance benchmarks for phones?

I’m much more interested to see how power efficient Tensor 4 is, and whether or not they’ve fixed the connectivity issues.

Mastodon has a major engagement problem and I’m not sure why.

It has significantly more users than Lemmy but also manages to feel a lot less social, somehow.

And completely free of ads, microtransactions, and locked content of any description.

They make a good point. Mad Max is a relatively niche IP, compared to your usual Blockbuster action movies. Furiosa is a little overlong, and violent. All-in-all, offers a limited appeal unless you’re already a fan of Fury Road.

Sony only have themselves to blame for the collapse of their mobile division. Everyone and their dog has been saying for years that Xperia phones are too expensive and lack innovation.

Funny how that word comes tripping so easily off the tongue in some situations but not in others, innit?

Tbh they don’t even need to be ultrasonic. Samsung seem to manage good optical fingerprint sensors, but for some reason Google still can’t seem to get it right.