arianna-exe Reviews

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022– )

This is probably not the show you were hoping for but maybe it's not a complete failure.

[6/10 · 15 September 2022]

Honestly I could never be disappointed in this show, because for something to let down your expectations you'd have to have had any in the first place.

I watched this just out of curiosity, I knew beforehand it wasn't going to be anything remarkable simply because it's how these remakes work. I turned it off during the second episode, when Durin was having dinner with his wife and Elrond. There was just nothing Tolkien about that.

I think we've got to accept that the way they make these shows is they try to get as many people as they can interested. These streaming platforms take a big name franchise that can lure as many people in and then they put it in a blender with easy writing, huge budgets, dull characters, amazing cgi; then they serve it to you on a golden plate and say "open wide".

I don't want to come on here and spit on people's work or say what everyone else already said. The show itself is not inherently bad. Some of the places do feel like the Middle Earth. I don't mind a little artistic license.

But then the elves don't feel like elves, the atmosphere, it's just not there; and fine, I've only seen the first two episodes, but I doubt a whole series could make me root for this young Galadriel like I did for Aragorn from the very first moment I saw him, or hope for the true Good to triumph over evil like I did when Frodo carried the destiny of the whole world around his neck.

It's just not the same, but it will never be. And I'm okay with that. Maybe this show could even get new people to discover the beauty of the Lord of the Rings and that is as much as I can ask for from a show that was essentially produced to make more money than it cost.

If you don't care about the books or the original trilogy, give it a try, there may be something in it for you.

Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes (2022)

Netflix doesn't want to get its hands dirty

[7/10 · 4 July 2022]

The coverage was great and the events reconstructed in depth but I feel it wasn't as shocking as it should've been. I've watched the episodes about Ted Bundy from the same creators and I remember feeling disgusted and upset about the way he killed and tortured his victims. Now, I know there are certain things you can't say on tv but in a 3 hours documentary not once it was mentioned (they never dared to even say the word) what he did to his victims before he killed them. There were really slight allusions to tortures in the last minutes but overall it made it seem like he "just" killed his underage victims and it's just not acceptable that a documentary about a "man" like Gacy tries to sugarcoat his crimes. I'm not saying it should've contained gory descriptions and details to the point it becomes morbid and in no way I am one of those sickos who like hearing about stuff like that, but to me these documentaries should be about raising awareness and turning the general public's interest away from this type of individuals; they're doing the opposite, and if Netflix wants to turn serial killers into easily digestible mass-consumable entertainment it should stick to its shows about imaginary ones.