Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

When streaming media enters the blockbuster era, the time has come to fight for strength.

Amazon and HBO are "fighting" these days, but the audience has entered an unprecedented carnival.

Amazon's heavily funded classic IP Lord of the Rings: the Rings of Power and HBO's Game of Thrones prequel, the Family of Dragons, officially met on streaming in September, triggering a showdown between the world's two magical epic IP pinnacle.

Apart from the collision between the two episodes, they also have a lot in common, such as large-scale magic epics, prequels to the two major IP series, new developments to the original worldview, annual trumps of the two platforms and burning their most money.

The previous mass production and spectacle of the eight-part series of Game of Power is almost the ceiling of the fantasy series. Amazon's Lord of the Rings seems to be even more ambitious than Game of the Rings: the Family of Dragons spent $200 million on the first season of 10 episodes, while Lord of the Rings: the Rings of Power spent $465 million on eight episodes. powerfully surpass the power game series to set the record for the most expensive series in history.

On the one hand, Netflix, which is recently thinking about selling money by introducing advertising, and the deep-pocketed Amazon on the other, as the content war between streaming platforms is getting fiercer and fiercer, many people can't help sighing that it seems that the end of the streaming universe still depends on "fighting dads".

A comparison between the Ring of Power and the Family of Dragons, pictured on the MARKETWATCH website

With a $1 billion march into the Middle Earth, fans quarreled that Amazon Guan commented that the "Lord of the Rings" film series adapted from the 1954 novel Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, a British literature professor, is undoubtedly a lot of youthful memories and classics of the post-80s and 90s. Since the first film Lord of the Rings: the Messenger of the Rings in 2001, the six-part series of the Lord of the Rings has opened the door to the magic world for countless fans. as a milestone in special effects films, the film series has won a total of 351 international awards. including 17 Academy Awards.

The Lord of the Rings film series has left many classic images and characters to the world film history, such as Gandalf, Prince Legolas, Frodo the Hobbit, Prince Aragorn and so on. At the same time, the Lord of the Rings IP has been turned into a walking "printing press".

As the Lord of the Rings has secured its position as the number one magical epic, its IP value has also risen. If you want to enjoy the heat of the Lord of the Rings, you must first afford to pay sky-high royalties. Of course, this small amount of money is not a big deal in the eyes of Amazon.

From the Lord of the Rings movie

Amazon, which is weak in series, has been trying to win big votes since the launch of Prime Video and the Oscars for original films. Seeing the great success of the right game next door to HBO, Amazon turned its attention to the "ancestor" of the power game series, the Lord of the Rings. In 2017, Amazon stole the rights to the Lord of the Rings from Warner for $250 million and ordered five seasons in one breath.

The first film, Lord of the Rings: the Lord of the Rings, is set in the second era, thousands of years before the movie versions of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, and tells the story of the forging period of the Lord of the Rings in the Middle Earth. including the rise of Lord of the Rings Soren and the final alliance between elves and humans.

At present, the first two episodes of "the Ring of Power" have been broadcast on Amazon Prime Video, but the reaction of moviegoers is seriously divided and quarrelled.

In the IMDb score of 6.7, you can see that almost all users focus on the score of 10 and 1, and the two camps are neck-and-neck. Rotten tomato index 84%, popcorn index 37%, Douban score 7.5. On the whole, it is an order of magnitude lower than the opening word-of-mouth of Quan you.

Those who stood on the Ring of Power felt that Amazon was sincere this time, and that the two episodes were all about the look and feel of the movie and the money was not spent indiscriminately. Indeed, from the perspective of the picture, the Ring of Power must be a first-class work in American TV series, with magnificent scenes, excellent special effects and exquisite details, and you can feel the crazy burning of funds in a picture.

It is understood that Amazon used a large number of live scenes, specially went to New Zealand, where the Lord of the Rings was filmed, and even the lava, cast iron and title at the beginning of the film were actually filmed.

Behind the scenes at the beginning of "Ring of Power", the video is from the official Prime Video.

But in addition to the good scenes, the Ring of Power has been complained by a large number of original fans and ring fans in the plot.

First of all, there are some magic changes to the original plot. For example, the original silver-haired, snow-white elves have added black elf characters, such as letting the elf queen and her son-in-law Elrond cuddle, and forcibly joining the Numenor to form a CP, and so on.

The picture is from the Lord of the Rings movie and the Ring of Power.

In addition, the plot of the advance and rhythm of the control has a lot of hard wound. From the content spread to the narrative can not achieve a fascinating effect, some of the plot even to the point of boredom. Perhaps because the Ring of Power is located throughout the year, similar to a "Family Carnival" series, it is childish and stereotyped in characterization, such as the elven queen's revenge for her brother and the "Love and Kill" between the dwarves and elves. all make people feel nothing new and difficult to sympathize with, and the dialogue is a little stiff in many places.

The first two episodes feel like watching a magic drama for teenagers, more like a Disney production, a far cry from the epic of the Lord of the Rings film series and the power tour series. It is said that the production team of "Ring of Power" can be called "divine", and the creator comes from the behind-the-scenes teams of "Game of Thrones", "Breaking Bad", "Strange things", "Sopranos" and so on. But after reading it, I would like to ask, is everyone serious?

In response to these plot and narrative problems, netizens have also opened the mode of crazy complaints. One netizen commented: "in the Prime volcano, Lord Bezos secretly forged a bad play. He poured his money, greed and desire to conquer all the movies into the show, in a vain attempt to destroy all the achievements of his predecessors with an episode and deconstruction of Tolkien."

Amazon's Prime video page has closed its comment section overnight, and viewers haven't been able to score it yet.

From Amazon Prime Video

With the return of "authentic" Quan you riding Dragon, tens of millions of fans have packed the server. Compared with the "Ring of Power", which is currently in the forefront of word-of-mouth, the response of "the Family of Dragons", which aired on HBO two weeks earlier, is much more stable.

For the series of games of power, many viewers are still in the PTSD of the final chapter of season 8, which makes people feel on pins and needles and throats in their throats. The eighth season, known as the epic end, directly pulled the 9-point level of the Quan you series to 6 points. But as we all know, the content of the eighth season was not written by George Martin, but mainly by the devil-like screenwriter D.B brothers.

Because of this, everyone has higher expectations based on "Fire and Blood" written by George Martin himself. After all, he was blind for a whole season three years ago, and now everyone wants to see the authentic power games wash their eyes. The Family of Dragons, set 200 years before the story of Game of Thrones, tells the story of the power struggle within the Targaryen family.

On the night of the launch of the Dragon Family, nearly 10 million power fans around the world stayed in front of the TV, which immediately burst the HBO Max server. On the same day, it not only set a new record for the premiere of HBO's original series, but also set the highest online viewing record in the United States, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and other regions.

The picture is from Twitter

At present, "the Family of Dragons" has a score of 8.8 on IMDb, with more than 55% of viewers giving a high score of 10, and more than 30% of people with a score of more than 8, with only 4.9% of viewers playing one star, popcorn index as high as 84% and Douban score of 8.7, which can be said to have temporarily completed the "Ring of Power" in word-of-mouth.

Judging from the current broadcast of several episodes, the feeling of the old power tour has really come back. The first episode gives a smooth account of the characteristics of important people and the relationship between them, as well as the subtle contradictions between father and daughter, brothers and cabinet. From the skill of the screenwriter, it has to be said that it is indeed hanging next door.

Compared with the golden costume of the Ring of Power next door, the whole picture and production also continue the "dark" style before Quan you, the character modeling is still the cold wind of the past, and the advanced version of the Iron Throne also makes people instantly "Ye Qing back". Especially interesting are Targaryen's dragons and dragon knights.

More than next door, but compared with their own, the "Dragon Family" can only be said to be less than satisfactory. Among them, what is complained most is that the appearance of the main actor is not consistent with the description in the original work, and that the overall narrative is not as grand as Quan you's previous work, and so on.

Under the content-burning black hole, the end of streaming media still depends on "fighting Dad". Of course, "the Ring of Power" and "the Family of Dragons" are still being updated, and the contest between the two has not really been decided yet. However, the strong confrontation between the two IP also marks the content war of streaming media platform has entered a white-hot stage.

Since the giants began to set foot in the field of streaming media, the trend of blockbuster TV series production has become more and more obvious. Especially in the last year or two, in order to rob users, everyone began to spend money on content. In 2022, Netflix expects to spend $17 billion on original content, Disney expects to spend $11 billion on streaming accounting for more than half of all movies and television, Amazon spent more than 13 billion in 2021 and Paramount spent 14.7 billion in 2021.

Unlike the screenwriters who used to squeeze their heads into Hollywood, the original content of the streaming platform now has a situation in which a hundred schools of thought contend, and at the same time, the flavor of "daddy" is getting stronger and stronger.

For example, Amazon can win the copyright of the Lord of the Rings this time, in addition to the money, Amazon's previous position in the book publishing industry has also helped a lot. Disney, which holds the Marvel Universe and Princess series IP, squeezed into the first camp of streaming media in the shortest possible time.

When the profit and cash flow of the streaming media platform are quickly eroded by content development, the different situations between the platforms will be revealed. Financiers like Apple and Amazon naturally have a lot of confidence, while those with a wide range of businesses like Disney have started to link online and offline. These two days also said that they will release a multi-business membership plan, including theme parks, streaming media, resorts, cruise ships, and so on, with a view to deeply binding users.

Disney's latest membership program

On the contrary, the situation of the former "streaming media boss" Netflix is now unspeakably bleak, not only continuous layoffs and price increases, but also have to put down their posture and introduce advertising to survive.

So have everyone watched the Ring of Power and the Family of Dragons these two days? which show do you think is better? Welcome to leave a message for discussion!

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Silicon Man (ID:guixingren123), author: Juny

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