Quote (Goomshill @ Sep 20 2022 11:23pm)
I know little and care less about middle earth lore, I can't tell you if the show diverges. I'd expect that plot lines are cut or streamlined, that's fair. Shoving as much social justice pandering and blackwashing as you can into a show is at best disgusting hollywood pandering and at worst cynical manipulation of controversy knowing their product sucks. But truly none of that matters compared to the fact the show is just garbage. Unbelievably bad writing in places, generally bad structure and direction. Scenes that miss all their beats and fail to build tension and suspend disbelief.
The show can't "diverge" because there's no story to diverge from. 99.9% of the material Amazon wanted to cover is under copyright, so they fabricated a story and plot and tried to place it in something that vaguely resembles Tolkien's world. The awkward dialogue and non-existent plot are both a reflection of show writers muddling through a world they don't understand. It comes across as bad because it is bad, the writers can't write Tolkien. Galadriel is an action queen because they needed action as a substitute for everything else that their story lacks.
While Jackson deserves credit for the Lord of the Rings, the credit he's due is mostly for sticking to the material he was given to work with. A large chunk of the dialogue is taken verbatim, or with minor alterations, from the book. Aside from a few cheesy moments (e.g. green ghosties), and weirdly undercutting the ents, it's a pretty faithful adaption.