Not gonna lie, so far, I feel like the new LOTR is straight-up horrible.

But I REALLY enjoyed the two episodes of the new Game of Thrones so far. I even love that they brought back the theme song though some people complained about that. Hands-down, I think new GOT wins. I struggled to get through the first 2 episodes of the new LOTR. It doesn't even feel like Lord of the Rings. It feels like fan fiction.

Not sure why the internet keeps comparing the two. Lot of articles popping up with "Which one is better?!" Maybe it's a time management thing, people only want to dedicate their time to one thing.

Frankly, I thought the LOTR trailers looked like dogshit. Just super generic, no plot points revealed, just generalized dialog and trying to bait wonderment. Look how preetty!! No, tell me a damn story.
I'm still going to watch it. It's not on my chosen streaming service yet.

I'm teetering back and forth with House of Dragons. Feels like they're playing everything too safe, like they're too afraid to run into the Season 8 problem again. But there have been some decent moments. I liked the standoff in Dragonstone. I like Otto as a conniving politician. I liked Littlefinger but I think Otto is playing it a bit more cleaner. At least so far.

I'm a bit slow and outdated... still digesting The Boys S3.

They are two different stories. 

There's no need to compare, especially at the very start. Go watch what you like, both, or neither.

I'll be starting with Tolkien. 

I haven’t watched the LOTR yet, but I’ve enjoyed the new House of Dragons.  

Tbh I didn’t even know it was out.  I’ll go back under my rock now.

C) none of the above

Haven't watch the new Lord of the Rings, and I think I won't, I'll just see what my friend overall concessus is. Though I think I'll watch the Anime one.

But hot damn am I loving the House of the Dragon, as the damn Masterful Dialogues are back baby! God... I love that part of the early Game of Thrones, just people sparing with their words and giving everything about themselves on how they talk, whether its intimate or full on a political battle, it's wonderful to see it back again and not to hear balls and cocks all the time.

Obligatory, FUCK YOU DnD! Bunch of hacks.

Haven't seen the new Lord of the rings series yet (will here in about an hour), but I've seen the new GoT series Dance of the Dragons.

I was really worried Dance of the Dragons would be the same dumpster fire the last season of GoT was and that it wouldn't be entertaining considering there's so much spoilers out there about how it will likely end, but I was pleasantly surprised. I'm enjoying the characters so far and I'm always a sucker for dragons. It very much feels like a GoT series should.

That being said, I'm very worried about Amazon's Lord of the Ring series. Lord of the Rings has always had a different feel to it then GoT. For me, it always felt more like it was about good vs evil, rather then GoT's more realistic/greyish/blurred lines story telling. Both are good ways of story telling in their own ways, but I'm really hoping they didn't make the Lord of the Ring series at all like GoT. I'm also concerned that they might've went overboard in a bad way trying to be politically correct. Just, everything I've seen in the Lord of the Ring's trailers is very, very concerning. If I want to watch GoT I'll go watch GoT, and if I want to watch Lord of the Rings, I want to watch something that is Lord of the Rings.

I'm just hoping they didn't ruin it. Guess I'll be finding out soon though.

Edit to say: Just got around to watching the first Lotr episodes. It's not too bad. Sometimes feels like I'm just watching cosplayers roleplay as elves, but so far show isn't a dumpster fire. Depends on how the rest of the episodes are from here on I guess.

Honestly, I'm skipping both for now. GoT really burned me on fantasy television and prestige TV more broadly. I'm sure I'm missing out with these new series; I just need some more time to heal lol

Parogar Wrote: House of Dragons vs. new Lord of the Rings#1

Both of them are great epics in their own right. Lord of the Rings is a bit older, and the writing style is just different. Game of Thrones appeals to the more concurrent taste of readers. Just how it is... 

I'm not watching either of them.

I am over spin-offs, sequels, and prequels at the moment. I have no more attention to give them. I no energy for it. I will continue to look at my bookshelf baffled why some of the series I've read will never be given a chance or why film and TV believe that no story is worth telling if it isn't part of a trend. 

I'm still finishing buffy... 

After the final season of GoT, I won't watch either of them until they're over. I hope and want to believe that HBO learned from that final season, but I'll wait for the review of the final episode before investing my time and rising chortisol levels in it. 

Same with the lotr series. If the reception of the first few episodes are ok, I'll likely watch it before the series is over, but... yeah, I just have other series I'd rather watch first. 

Admittedly, I was more willing to give House of the Dragon a chance because I don't necessarily blame HBO for what happened. The network offered Benioff and Weiss twelve seasons to tell their story, but after they were offered Star Wars, they were like, "Nah, let's wrap this up now." Of course, this completely backfired, and they deservedly lost their Star Wars deal. I found the trailer for House of the Dragon intriguing, plus I do like Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, and Rhys Ifans. I still went in with low expectations, but I was pleasantly surprised. I wouldn't say it's on par with Game of Thrones (maybe it will be in time), but it was pretty good. My only major issue is that aside from Daemon, none of the characters are particularly memorable. I see the potential in Otto Hightower and Rhaenyra, but I still feel they lack charisma overall. Even in those early episodes of Game of Thrones, we were introduced to several interesting characters with distinct personalities and interpersonal dynamics between characters. Time will tell if this ends up living up to its predecessor. 

The trailer for Rings of Power made it look like some cheap knock-off, but I decided to give it a shot because I don't like to offer criticism until I've given something a chance. It was even worse than I thought it would be. The cinematography, costumes, and soundtrack were good. Everything else? Not so much. The story has no real stakes or conflict. The dialogue sounds like it was written by a middle schooler who is trying to sound smart. Galadriel manages to be a Karen and a Mary Sue simultaneously. The pacing was way off. Characters were standing around having meaningless conversations. The whole thing resembles terrible fanfiction. Amazon spent a fortune on this so-called adaptation, and it was a wasted effort. 

I couldn't finish the first episode of Rings of Power. I just found it too boring.

Just finished the first two episodes of ROP. Honestly the trailers were still dogshit but the show itself was fine. I'm genuinely interested in seeing where it goes.

It's not without flaws. Episode 1 felt more of a prologue, introducing characters in ways that episode 2 just did better. Episode 1 was a lot of "hey look at this plucky hobbit, this is what she's all about! She's an adventurer!" But it seemed unnecessary.
Every dwarf scene was good.
Celimbrimbor looks too old.

Lot of other itty bitty nitpicks but nothing game breaking. It's... fine.

RoP isn't awesome.

But I think it could grow to be. Definitely enjoyed some scenes. So I will at least see it out to the end of the season.

Edit: House of the Dragon is pretty good too. First episode over the second though.

Ser Wrote: RoP isn't awesome.

But I think it could grow to be. Definitely enjoyed some scenes. So I will at least see it out till the end of the series.

Yeah, I just watched the first episode last night.  Overall, I prefer HoD over RoP.

However, RoP had a cool fight scene that reminded me of souls game mechanics (don't want to spoil anything for those that haven't watched)

B.G. Wrote: However, RoP had a cool fight scene that reminded me of souls game mechanics

My fave RoP scene was actually in the second episode. Still, humming the music from that one scene. The show still needs to improve on a lot of things though, before I can actively recommend it.