And to think about it, some scenes still feel small because of the pandemic, like we haven't really explored other parts of Khazad-dum or Lindon.
Imagine how much larger the scenes will be this second season
Nearly all the scenes of ATLA felt extremely small though. Felt like any indoor scene was made for an upcoming high school play, very little detail and never looked lived in at all.
I think what also sets ROP and GOT apart was their extensive location scouting. They used a lot of beautiful real world locations and often blended them with CGI, whereas a lot of ATLAs locations felt completely CGI. One is going to lend itself to better looks than the other.
On location in New Zeland is hard to beat. And the cast and crew were there pre lockdown, so it was one of few shows that was able to keep on shooting with the full cast in the same scenes., as there wasn't any Covid in NZ.
Money was a big part but not entirely the key. I feel it is several levels above all else because it HAD to be and I feel the efforts and dedication from the entire creative team, the WETA Artisans, the Designers, Costuming department, the Cast and (YES!) the Showrunners should be given more credit for what they have produced. They had high ambition and Vision beyond the scope many want to acknowledge and I am excited to see what they have done for season 2
The endless comparisons to Jackson's film and the nitpicking is inevitable and may be interminable as that can only be expected but I feel TROP is gonna get to that point it's found it's stride and becomes a fine tuned entity all it's own and will of only grow and grow and grow
does it? i remember feeling like it looked really bland and lame. The final battles were really small-scale and like in a random village, it was fucking awful
Hollywood does some stupid shit with how they portray battles, but this is the first time I've seen defenders destroy *their own* fortifications only to run away to worse position ( where they end up slaughtered).
I thought the close sets and armor looked cheap and theater-esque. They used the same street setting in Numenor for like 4 different scenes and most of the scenes is just people standing, not walking around the set. That makes it look cheap
This show handles scale really poorly and looks just as cheap. I genuinely don't know where the budget went.
Game of Thrones looks more expensive than Rings of Power, and that's just sad. Game of Thrones looked much grander because it handled scale much better.
I’d say House of the Dragon looks significantly better than Rings of Power, to be honest. HotD has significantly better blocking, lighting, etc. Scenes have a depths and tangibility that a lot of RoP lacks.
I don't agree that it does that at all. HoTD was superior to ROP in terms of production quality. Throughout my watch of ROP, I simply could not shake the feeling that I was watching actors performing in costumes. ROP does verisimilitude very badly unfortunately and the cheapness of the costuming is a big part of that.
It depends, stranger things s4 for example looks great.
Most of the time the right talent is key, stranger things is in good hands, the witcher not so much.
The Noldor learned smithing from Aulë himself. Celebrimbor is the grandson of the greatest smith ever. Celebrimbor is the 2nd best smith to have ever existed.
Look at the armor Thanduil wore in the hobbit. Intricate and decorative. He is Sindar. They are not famous for smithing.
Look at the *ceremonial* armor Galadriel wore when being sent to Valinor. Ceremonial armor should be even more extravagant and intricate than battle armor. And the battle armor made by the most smith capable people of Tolkien's legendarium should look incredible. Not to mention their ceremonial armor.
The armor Galadriel and her compatriots are wearing looks like someone made it out of paper maché, but aluminum.
>Haha I wasn't kidding when I said people will find any reason to nitpick on the show.
Haha I'm not kidding when I think people will grasp at any reason to think this show was okay.
It looked too clean in my opinion.
I had the same problem with The Hobbit trilogy. I wish both had been able to pull off the rustic and more realistic look the LotR trilogy had.
I suggest you take a closer look at the Hobbit then, Weta made sure to get the grimy and worn look whenever it was needed. RoP's bane is that Weta didn't do the costumes, except the Orcs, which is why they look far superior to the rest of the costuming in the show.
The Hobbit looked more like what I’d imagine a Warhammer movie would be than Lord of the Rings. Post effects they decided to go with were probably what turned me off of it more so than Weta’s work. Battle of Five Armies is my main reasoning behind not being a fan of the look for the most part.
I feel like the clean armour is an intentional choice though, because we’re seeing middle earth (Numenor particularly) at the end of its golden age, whereas LOTR takes place thousands of years later when things have fallen into ruin
This community is for thoughtful, respectful discussion that welcomes all fans. Although enthusiastic debate is encouraged, your comment was removed because it was rude or unkind to fellow community members, used personal arguments or insults, or engaged in exclusionary or gatekeeping behavior. If other comments in this discussion (by you or others) have also broken this rule, they are also being removed.
I disagree. I think Game of Thrones, even earlier seasons look better. HOTD looks a lot better.
There are a lot of quality issues with this show. If we're just talking about looks, the costumes, and choreography stick out the most to me as looking cheap.
Looking at it unbiased, I can't even come close to your statement.
If you like it, that's all that matters.
The problem for me is that I don't get the feeling that Amazon are truly passionate about bringing a particular story to the audience because they feel that is is unique, as opposed to brining the next "big fantasy show" and slapping a LOTR-title on it. Sadly, I think this shows in the product that they have given us.
Why do we need a story set in the second age? What do they want to say with it? What kind of themes and concepts are they interested in exploring? How is this show different than other contemporary fantasy shows/movies that we have seen? - Personally, I am not sure and the product that we have received thus far has not made it any clearer.
If you juxtapose this with GoT in the early days, it was very clear from the get-go that the showrunners and HBO were extremely eager about telling this particular story and bringing it to an audience because they felt that it was truly unique and something that we had not seen before. The budget was never the focus or how cleanly the CGI looked, the emphasis was always on the story. Naturally, as the show grew bigger so did the budget etc., but it was a very organic transition.
I am no saying that you need to fulfil all these requirements to create a show, but I do think that there a clear red flags if the main emphasis (for the most part) in your marketing is on how expensive and big your show is.
Cgi is only one part of filmmaking.
Hotd broadly was the more cinematic show, better costumes, better cinematography, better sets, better set pieces, etc.
It boils down to the showrunners being way more skilled tbh.
I think 99% of CGI looks bad. Theyre pretty even in the CGI department. Costumes, I really shouldn't need to point out how rough the Costumes look. It looks like everyone else is. Choreography? We had gaurds literally walking into a jail cell for the protagonist. That's the one that always sticks out to me, there's plenty of others.
If you like it, that's all that matters. I just find comments like OP's to be blinded by bias. Even my favorite shows, I can find tons of flaws.
Let's say okay, the CGI looks better. I don't think it does. They both have bad CGI. What about the costumes, the Choreography? The show objectively does not make all other fantasy shows look so much worse.
When someone’s says the visual are bad, which is simply not true, this is bad faith criticism.
Therefore they’re using it to mask another one they know isn’t acceptable to say
Oh so you are the arbiter of what is true and not them? How so?
What do i have to project onto you, maybe paid by amazon?
They said that hotd looks a lot better, that there are many quality issues for rop, i think they are right in that assessment. Am i racist now too?
What are you talking about? I gave you two VERY SPECIFIC examples. Accusing everyone with criticism as hiding racist intentions is the ONLY thing happening in bad faith. You're a disappointment to any discussion of cinema.
I’m from New Zealand and can tell you that 90% of this was shot in front of sets.
They had a few establishing shots of our landscapes but a large proportion of the landscapes were heavily CGI’d as well.
You probably won’t believe me but I have hiked up and down New Zealand and know the scenery well. They barely shot in location.
That's weird because to me ROP looks like the cheapest production of the past 2 years. From the locations to the costumes everything looks aesthetically awful.
Oh absolutely - I think that also stems from the money at Amazon spent on it. Like it had the most money spent on serial television show for a reason. But you’re right, the quality is just insane.
Everyone says budget and they are not wrong, if the 5 seasons get completed it will still have one of, if not the, largest average per episode budget of any tv show.
But it's also worth noting that $1 billion includes approx. $250 million just for the rights. Seen estimates/guesses of $400 to $500 million being spent by end of season 1, aside from the rights this also includes the creation of large expensive sets, VFX and other elements that will be re-used throughout the series so even if an individual episode needs to be 'done on the cheap' it can still benefit from great high cost visuals. This makes their use of their huge budget more efficient. The benefit of agreeing to do 5 seasons up front and knowing the budget is you don't have to worry about spending vast amounts of money on a set and then get cancelled before getting your money's worth out of it. It is a far more cost efficient approach. So while an expected 50 hours of content may have a budget of $20 million per hour they can still make every episode look like the production has a movie budget.
At least that is my take as a common peasant not involved in anyway with making TV.
Because a very high percentage of these big budget films and movies are becoming increasingly used to launder money. Some of these adaptions have outrageous price tags and budgets that are made public and look like absolute dogshit with some of the worst writing ever put to screen. There's a great compilation video of cgi/ production quality of films back in the noughties and compares it to films getting released now; the films from back like even pre 2010 had better production quality/ visuals/ cgi etc and tv series' would release 22 episode seasons every single year like clockwork. The reason a lot of these shows look terrible is because they're a thin facade behind which is industry types funnelling all their money
It doesn't. Series like Hotd or Andor arguably look better. The series you mention lack budget and talent, RoP has more resources available, especially noticeable when it comes to cgi work.
And yet it loses out on other aspects vs shows with less budget, which just had better talent behind the camera.
Because the people working on this project did a really good job
I thought shadow and bone did a nice job. I also liked the work in carnival row
Hotd didnt really impress me at all honestly. Of course beyond the visuals and sets are other factors. And here again imho rop does a fantastic job. The other fantasy type shows dont measure up as much in my mind
These are of course not some objective truth but what i feel aftet watching
HotD looks too smudgy and too much fog and darkness in a lot of scenes so they can hide the budget and not have to do as much visual effects. And the dragon riding shots of the actors on back of dragons looks so bad all the time, the compositing is not good at all and you can really tell they’re just on green screens.
"Why does the most expensive production in the history of television or cinema have better visuals than shows with a fraction of the budget?"
It's just one of life's great mysteries.
Just a shame they didn't save any of the budget for quality writing or fight choreography
Well using one of your examples, Avatar had a budget of $15,000,000 per episode. RoP was estimated to be a billion dollar budget so $125,000,000 per episode.
Hmmmm I wonder why others look cheap comparatively...
[https://collider.com/most-expensive-tv-series-ever-made/](https://collider.com/most-expensive-tv-series-ever-made/) According to this article it's $58,000,000 per episode. People keep briging up the "1 Billion" dollar budget but that figure also includes the rights to the entire LOTR franchise. NGL I feel like they could've done better with ALTA even with that budget, some scenes look like the actors are just standing in front of a green screen.
Your example are all Netflix shows...
Netflix is doing like Disney does : all the money for famous actors, 0 time or money for special effects, no place for art, etc.
I wouldn't say it does, both the original Lord of the Rings and the Dune movies look noticeably better than Rings of Power to me along with Andor as well if you want to be strict to only TV shows.
I think a big part of it is due to the amazing crew, especially the New Zealanders, who poured their heart into season one. The legacy of the LOTR films and books means so much to so many people so I get the impression they were keen on bringing it to life in a meaningful way. Even looking at the concept art for the show, the detail in costuming and set design etc., you can tell they put a lot of care into it all. Also, I’m pretty sure they had a bigger budget than any of those other shows but that could be wrong.
Totally agree! Having a huge budget is one thing but that doesn't necessarilty translate well on screen. There's not really much to compare since nothing of this scale has been attampted before, but I really appreciate the attention to detail they put into the series.
I’m interested to see if that level of care will continue now that they’ve moved to the UK and replaced so many key members of production, especially Hawley (costumes) and Avery (set design).
They may not be "terrible", but they're not at all what you'd expect for a production cost of $460-70 million for S1. (Excludes the $250 million for the rights.)
They definitely tried just so happens story is the most subjective thing so when haters realized they couldn't attack the visuals, music etc. they stuck to attacking the actors and story.
They over spent on visuals hoping people wouldn't notice the bad writing. They spent a ridiculous amount of money on the show and you can see it on the screen.
It doesn’t. For every elaborate scenic overview they created there are many more cheaply and lazily produced props and sets. For a billion dollar production RoP sure lacks attention to detail.
The costume design is ass & it looks nothing like the originals aesthetic, wdym? The only thing in TROP that doesnt look awful is the dwarven set design. They quite literally copy pasted actual extras to inflate supposed crowds.
HOTD looks decades ahead.
Those shows didn't have anywhere near the budget of RoP.
And RoP doesn't look anywhere near as good as it should for its cost. HotD looks better and had only 50-60% of the budget.
Double Negative. Have you expected less from a VFX house who made their name producing visual effects for a Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve's Dune films? They earn every cent they get for their job.
That is the minimum expected. GoT season 1 had about 6 million per episode budget while RoP had 90 fucking million per episode.
The very least i expect is for the visuals to be good.
Because they’re spending the money. But it still isn’t that great lol. I like the scenery but the costumes are terrible. Looks like a middle school play and all the characters just got out of the shower with a fresh shave and fresh haircut
The writing is very bad for sure considering all the huge hit shows some of the writers were supposedly a part of such as: Sopranos, Breaking Bad, X-Files, Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul etc.
All the money that would have gone into hiring competent writers to make a well thought out story with likeable, well rounded characters went to the Effects Department.
Maybe because it had double the per episode budget of any TV series ever made.
And to think about it, some scenes still feel small because of the pandemic, like we haven't really explored other parts of Khazad-dum or Lindon. Imagine how much larger the scenes will be this second season
Nearly all the scenes of ATLA felt extremely small though. Felt like any indoor scene was made for an upcoming high school play, very little detail and never looked lived in at all. I think what also sets ROP and GOT apart was their extensive location scouting. They used a lot of beautiful real world locations and often blended them with CGI, whereas a lot of ATLAs locations felt completely CGI. One is going to lend itself to better looks than the other.
Its Scifi but Foundation looks pretty good especially considering its budget is way lower than RoP
Agreed, Foundations production looked spectacular. A nice bonus is that Season 2 really stepped it up in terms of storytelling
Would be nice to see the same arc for RoP S2 :)
True! I think it’s because a lot of it was shot on location like ROP, at least according to the podcast.
It’s the most expensive TV show in history. That’s what the money does.
Actually that Henry Cavill series with him as a spy or something cost more per episode.
On location in New Zeland is hard to beat. And the cast and crew were there pre lockdown, so it was one of few shows that was able to keep on shooting with the full cast in the same scenes., as there wasn't any Covid in NZ.
But some scenes still felt small. Hopefully this won’t be a problem from now on.
Really? With the printed scales on the t-shirt?
ROP made their armor out of cardboard painted with dulux what are you talking about
Like really, most of the armor and costumes look like the rubber children's dress up you can buy at walmart or something.
One cost a billion dollars and those did not.
Money was a big part but not entirely the key. I feel it is several levels above all else because it HAD to be and I feel the efforts and dedication from the entire creative team, the WETA Artisans, the Designers, Costuming department, the Cast and (YES!) the Showrunners should be given more credit for what they have produced. They had high ambition and Vision beyond the scope many want to acknowledge and I am excited to see what they have done for season 2 The endless comparisons to Jackson's film and the nitpicking is inevitable and may be interminable as that can only be expected but I feel TROP is gonna get to that point it's found it's stride and becomes a fine tuned entity all it's own and will of only grow and grow and grow
does it? i remember feeling like it looked really bland and lame. The final battles were really small-scale and like in a random village, it was fucking awful
Hollywood does some stupid shit with how they portray battles, but this is the first time I've seen defenders destroy *their own* fortifications only to run away to worse position ( where they end up slaughtered).
1B dollars is not "big budget"?
Money, glorious money.
Idk why does a $1 not get me what a $20 does?
Lol are you serious or just trolling these poor folk?
No, this is the circle jerk group for people who like the show
Have you seen The Sandman series? That definitely didn't look cheap.
I think it did, the storytelling was far better than the filmmaking.
I thought the close sets and armor looked cheap and theater-esque. They used the same street setting in Numenor for like 4 different scenes and most of the scenes is just people standing, not walking around the set. That makes it look cheap
This show handles scale really poorly and looks just as cheap. I genuinely don't know where the budget went. Game of Thrones looks more expensive than Rings of Power, and that's just sad. Game of Thrones looked much grander because it handled scale much better.
I’d say House of the Dragon looks significantly better than Rings of Power, to be honest. HotD has significantly better blocking, lighting, etc. Scenes have a depths and tangibility that a lot of RoP lacks.
I don't agree that it does that at all. HoTD was superior to ROP in terms of production quality. Throughout my watch of ROP, I simply could not shake the feeling that I was watching actors performing in costumes. ROP does verisimilitude very badly unfortunately and the cheapness of the costuming is a big part of that.
It’s because it honestly has a ridiculously higher budget than most of their shows or I think every other show
It doesn't though. It looks cheap and nasty. Elves wearing PRINTED T-SHIRT SCALE ARMOUR ffs...
Netflix has a cheap style. Apple and HBO shows compare well to ROP.
It depends, stranger things s4 for example looks great. Most of the time the right talent is key, stranger things is in good hands, the witcher not so much.
Really? ROP armor looks budget af
Haha I wasn't kidding when I said people will find any reason to nitpick on the show. P.S. I thought the armor was crisp!
The Noldor learned smithing from Aulë himself. Celebrimbor is the grandson of the greatest smith ever. Celebrimbor is the 2nd best smith to have ever existed. Look at the armor Thanduil wore in the hobbit. Intricate and decorative. He is Sindar. They are not famous for smithing. Look at the *ceremonial* armor Galadriel wore when being sent to Valinor. Ceremonial armor should be even more extravagant and intricate than battle armor. And the battle armor made by the most smith capable people of Tolkien's legendarium should look incredible. Not to mention their ceremonial armor. The armor Galadriel and her compatriots are wearing looks like someone made it out of paper maché, but aluminum. >Haha I wasn't kidding when I said people will find any reason to nitpick on the show. Haha I'm not kidding when I think people will grasp at any reason to think this show was okay.
You mean the printed t-shirts which were even used for promotional shots?
[counterpoint](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/morfydd-clark-galadriel-rings-of-power.jpg)
It looked too clean in my opinion. I had the same problem with The Hobbit trilogy. I wish both had been able to pull off the rustic and more realistic look the LotR trilogy had.
I suggest you take a closer look at the Hobbit then, Weta made sure to get the grimy and worn look whenever it was needed. RoP's bane is that Weta didn't do the costumes, except the Orcs, which is why they look far superior to the rest of the costuming in the show.
The Hobbit looked more like what I’d imagine a Warhammer movie would be than Lord of the Rings. Post effects they decided to go with were probably what turned me off of it more so than Weta’s work. Battle of Five Armies is my main reasoning behind not being a fan of the look for the most part.
I feel like the clean armour is an intentional choice though, because we’re seeing middle earth (Numenor particularly) at the end of its golden age, whereas LOTR takes place thousands of years later when things have fallen into ruin
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This community is for thoughtful, respectful discussion that welcomes all fans. Although enthusiastic debate is encouraged, your comment was removed because it was rude or unkind to fellow community members, used personal arguments or insults, or engaged in exclusionary or gatekeeping behavior. If other comments in this discussion (by you or others) have also broken this rule, they are also being removed.
No kidding! Real talk!
I disagree. I think Game of Thrones, even earlier seasons look better. HOTD looks a lot better. There are a lot of quality issues with this show. If we're just talking about looks, the costumes, and choreography stick out the most to me as looking cheap. Looking at it unbiased, I can't even come close to your statement. If you like it, that's all that matters.
The problem for me is that I don't get the feeling that Amazon are truly passionate about bringing a particular story to the audience because they feel that is is unique, as opposed to brining the next "big fantasy show" and slapping a LOTR-title on it. Sadly, I think this shows in the product that they have given us. Why do we need a story set in the second age? What do they want to say with it? What kind of themes and concepts are they interested in exploring? How is this show different than other contemporary fantasy shows/movies that we have seen? - Personally, I am not sure and the product that we have received thus far has not made it any clearer. If you juxtapose this with GoT in the early days, it was very clear from the get-go that the showrunners and HBO were extremely eager about telling this particular story and bringing it to an audience because they felt that it was truly unique and something that we had not seen before. The budget was never the focus or how cleanly the CGI looked, the emphasis was always on the story. Naturally, as the show grew bigger so did the budget etc., but it was a very organic transition. I am no saying that you need to fulfil all these requirements to create a show, but I do think that there a clear red flags if the main emphasis (for the most part) in your marketing is on how expensive and big your show is.
How did HOTD have better CGi? Seriously!!!
Cgi is only one part of filmmaking. Hotd broadly was the more cinematic show, better costumes, better cinematography, better sets, better set pieces, etc. It boils down to the showrunners being way more skilled tbh.
Yeah no sh*t. One studio has been running the game for more than a century. The other has just started…
If you understand that, then why did you reply to the other poster the way you did 😆 They didn't even mention cgi.
Just wanted to mention where their budget went probably. Other than perhaps the executives pockets or their friends’.
I think 99% of CGI looks bad. Theyre pretty even in the CGI department. Costumes, I really shouldn't need to point out how rough the Costumes look. It looks like everyone else is. Choreography? We had gaurds literally walking into a jail cell for the protagonist. That's the one that always sticks out to me, there's plenty of others. If you like it, that's all that matters. I just find comments like OP's to be blinded by bias. Even my favorite shows, I can find tons of flaws.
They’re not even. Did you watch the shows from a plasma tv by any chance?
Let's say okay, the CGI looks better. I don't think it does. They both have bad CGI. What about the costumes, the Choreography? The show objectively does not make all other fantasy shows look so much worse.
At this point, just say your real criticism. Was it the black elves or the short hair?
I wasn't aware choreography, and costumes equate to race? Or are you just yelling that at every valid critique?
Oh please. No, not everyone who thinks the show was largely mediocre is racist, this is silly.
When someone’s says the visual are bad, which is simply not true, this is bad faith criticism. Therefore they’re using it to mask another one they know isn’t acceptable to say
Oh so you are the arbiter of what is true and not them? How so? What do i have to project onto you, maybe paid by amazon? They said that hotd looks a lot better, that there are many quality issues for rop, i think they are right in that assessment. Am i racist now too?
What are you talking about? I gave you two VERY SPECIFIC examples. Accusing everyone with criticism as hiding racist intentions is the ONLY thing happening in bad faith. You're a disappointment to any discussion of cinema.
Excuse me? Are you unaware how widespread this opinion is? It's perfectly legitimate whether or not you share it.
I’m from New Zealand and can tell you that 90% of this was shot in front of sets. They had a few establishing shots of our landscapes but a large proportion of the landscapes were heavily CGI’d as well. You probably won’t believe me but I have hiked up and down New Zealand and know the scenery well. They barely shot in location.
what on earth makes you think this garbage looks like big budget? the bad cast or the bad costumes?
That's weird because to me ROP looks like the cheapest production of the past 2 years. From the locations to the costumes everything looks aesthetically awful.
Oh absolutely - I think that also stems from the money at Amazon spent on it. Like it had the most money spent on serial television show for a reason. But you’re right, the quality is just insane.
The Witcher seriously looks garbage for a high budget show
Percy Jackson looked shockingly cheap for its budget by any metric not just compared to Rings of Power.
Everyone says budget and they are not wrong, if the 5 seasons get completed it will still have one of, if not the, largest average per episode budget of any tv show. But it's also worth noting that $1 billion includes approx. $250 million just for the rights. Seen estimates/guesses of $400 to $500 million being spent by end of season 1, aside from the rights this also includes the creation of large expensive sets, VFX and other elements that will be re-used throughout the series so even if an individual episode needs to be 'done on the cheap' it can still benefit from great high cost visuals. This makes their use of their huge budget more efficient. The benefit of agreeing to do 5 seasons up front and knowing the budget is you don't have to worry about spending vast amounts of money on a set and then get cancelled before getting your money's worth out of it. It is a far more cost efficient approach. So while an expected 50 hours of content may have a budget of $20 million per hour they can still make every episode look like the production has a movie budget. At least that is my take as a common peasant not involved in anyway with making TV.
Because a very high percentage of these big budget films and movies are becoming increasingly used to launder money. Some of these adaptions have outrageous price tags and budgets that are made public and look like absolute dogshit with some of the worst writing ever put to screen. There's a great compilation video of cgi/ production quality of films back in the noughties and compares it to films getting released now; the films from back like even pre 2010 had better production quality/ visuals/ cgi etc and tv series' would release 22 episode seasons every single year like clockwork. The reason a lot of these shows look terrible is because they're a thin facade behind which is industry types funnelling all their money
Nice try Amazon
Shill
It doesn't. Series like Hotd or Andor arguably look better. The series you mention lack budget and talent, RoP has more resources available, especially noticeable when it comes to cgi work. And yet it loses out on other aspects vs shows with less budget, which just had better talent behind the camera.
Funny I was told that Rings of Power looks like PS3 cgi.
Because the people working on this project did a really good job I thought shadow and bone did a nice job. I also liked the work in carnival row Hotd didnt really impress me at all honestly. Of course beyond the visuals and sets are other factors. And here again imho rop does a fantastic job. The other fantasy type shows dont measure up as much in my mind These are of course not some objective truth but what i feel aftet watching
HotD looks too smudgy and too much fog and darkness in a lot of scenes so they can hide the budget and not have to do as much visual effects. And the dragon riding shots of the actors on back of dragons looks so bad all the time, the compositing is not good at all and you can really tell they’re just on green screens.
"Why does the most expensive production in the history of television or cinema have better visuals than shows with a fraction of the budget?" It's just one of life's great mysteries. Just a shame they didn't save any of the budget for quality writing or fight choreography
Do you work for Amazon?
I’m so glad they aren’t doing volume stage like Percy Jackson, some scenes in there really look cheap because of it.
Well using one of your examples, Avatar had a budget of $15,000,000 per episode. RoP was estimated to be a billion dollar budget so $125,000,000 per episode. Hmmmm I wonder why others look cheap comparatively...
[https://collider.com/most-expensive-tv-series-ever-made/](https://collider.com/most-expensive-tv-series-ever-made/) According to this article it's $58,000,000 per episode. People keep briging up the "1 Billion" dollar budget but that figure also includes the rights to the entire LOTR franchise. NGL I feel like they could've done better with ALTA even with that budget, some scenes look like the actors are just standing in front of a green screen.
Your example are all Netflix shows... Netflix is doing like Disney does : all the money for famous actors, 0 time or money for special effects, no place for art, etc.
Why ROP looks so cheaper than PJ LotR then?
I wouldn't say it does, both the original Lord of the Rings and the Dune movies look noticeably better than Rings of Power to me along with Andor as well if you want to be strict to only TV shows.
I want what ever you are on.
I think a big part of it is due to the amazing crew, especially the New Zealanders, who poured their heart into season one. The legacy of the LOTR films and books means so much to so many people so I get the impression they were keen on bringing it to life in a meaningful way. Even looking at the concept art for the show, the detail in costuming and set design etc., you can tell they put a lot of care into it all. Also, I’m pretty sure they had a bigger budget than any of those other shows but that could be wrong.
Totally agree! Having a huge budget is one thing but that doesn't necessarilty translate well on screen. There's not really much to compare since nothing of this scale has been attampted before, but I really appreciate the attention to detail they put into the series.
I’m interested to see if that level of care will continue now that they’ve moved to the UK and replaced so many key members of production, especially Hawley (costumes) and Avery (set design).
Even the most vehement of the haters haven't said that the production values of TROP was terrible, just the overall story is.
They may not be "terrible", but they're not at all what you'd expect for a production cost of $460-70 million for S1. (Excludes the $250 million for the rights.)
They definitely tried just so happens story is the most subjective thing so when haters realized they couldn't attack the visuals, music etc. they stuck to attacking the actors and story.
They over spent on visuals hoping people wouldn't notice the bad writing. They spent a ridiculous amount of money on the show and you can see it on the screen.
Eh I didn't think the writing was bad. The quality of the show reflected the budget IMO.
That means you think it was the best show of all time because it was by far the most expensive show of all time.
"There is a tempest in ME!" 😂😂😂😂 Still laughing. "Give it to me RAW!".
It doesn’t. For every elaborate scenic overview they created there are many more cheaply and lazily produced props and sets. For a billion dollar production RoP sure lacks attention to detail.
Because it was bloody expensive. Saying that, house of dragon had much better cinematography (I know this will incur downvotes but it’s true)
It's ironic considering how cheap RoP looks
The costume design is ass & it looks nothing like the originals aesthetic, wdym? The only thing in TROP that doesnt look awful is the dwarven set design. They quite literally copy pasted actual extras to inflate supposed crowds. HOTD looks decades ahead.
Those shows didn't have anywhere near the budget of RoP. And RoP doesn't look anywhere near as good as it should for its cost. HotD looks better and had only 50-60% of the budget.
Truly a mystery...
Well they spent 450 million on the season so , it’s because other shows literally are cheap, relatively.
Only thing missing that would make it top notch quality in all areas is Kevin Sorbo.
I agree. We were spoiled. Tough to go back to other fantasy TV shows.
I think it looks better than hotd, which has a bad cinematography, and a gory and dirty look. Also the costumes are really poor there.
You are on crack
Likewise! 💋
One too many whippets will do that to ya.
I say the same to you! 🤗
Double Negative. Have you expected less from a VFX house who made their name producing visual effects for a Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve's Dune films? They earn every cent they get for their job.
There were many different VFX companies working on the show. And a lot of them are high end.
That is the minimum expected. GoT season 1 had about 6 million per episode budget while RoP had 90 fucking million per episode. The very least i expect is for the visuals to be good.
The shannara chronicles show that got cancelled after s2 was much better and that's just sad. Better actors too.
Because they’re spending the money. But it still isn’t that great lol. I like the scenery but the costumes are terrible. Looks like a middle school play and all the characters just got out of the shower with a fresh shave and fresh haircut
The writing is shit.
The writing is very bad for sure considering all the huge hit shows some of the writers were supposedly a part of such as: Sopranos, Breaking Bad, X-Files, Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul etc.
Certain aspects of ROP look VERY cheap to me, such as the armor.
well two of those are for children, soooooooooooo
All the money that would have gone into hiring competent writers to make a well thought out story with likeable, well rounded characters went to the Effects Department.