Last November, YouTube made the decision to hide dislikes on videos, and before we go any further, can I just say: good call. Maybe there are some videos where dislikes are useful, but in the case of the kinds of videos we’re gonna talk about — videos where people made good faith efforts to put something out into the world only to get dog piled — dislikes can f**k off. Honestly, I don’t know why YouTube has a Dislike button at all anymore; just have a Like button and end it. At least then the only hate people would get would be in the comments.
However, if you want to, you can still see how many dislikes a video has gotten; there’s a browser extension you can install that reveals them. And according to Forbes, the ratio of likes to dislikes on the new trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is very stark: 56,000 likes to 159,000 dislikes. That’s not great for Amazon, which is putting hundreds of millions of dollars into this series.
Lord of the Rings fans repurpose J.R.R. Tolkien quotes to tear into The Rings of Power
And speaking of hate in the comments, there’s a fair amount here, although most of it takes the form of quotes from The Lord of the Rings or author J.R.R. Tolkien repurposed to imply that Amazon is some kind of Sauron-like interloper who hopes to use this beloved series to establish itself in the streaming space and make a jillion dollars…which, y’know, a broken clock is right two times a day and all that.
- “But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Ilúvatar; for he sought therein to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself.” — The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
- “I do earnestly hope that in the assignment of actual speeches to the characters they will be represented as I have presented them: in style and sentiment. I should resent perversion of the characters” — J.R.R. Tolkien
- “But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.” — Sam Gamgee
While I kind of enjoy the ironic repurposing of old quotes and I’m no lover of Amazon, I’m willing to watch the show before condemning it. There are things I like in the trailer; I’m not made of stone such that I’m not intrigued at the idea of seeing famous Tolkien characters like Celebrimbor and Gil-galad doing their thing, and you can see the money Amazon invested in this thing onscreen. Plus I like that lilting song at the end.
So who knows? Maybe The Rings of Power will surprise us. We’ll find out when it premieres on Amazon Prime Video on September 2.
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