The Rings of Power (the LoTR TV show)

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

The more amazon moves it to the front of my continue watching, the less it makes me want to watch it. I'll see you at the end of the season Rings of Power, you're not the Legend of Vox Machina, I wont be tuning in once a week just for you. You're plucky, and its kind of adorable to watch you try so hard to fall so short, you should have been an original setting and story. It doesnt make you hacky to have your own magic ring fantasy series, the 80's and 90's were full of you. But if you want to be THE fantasy magic ring series, you gotta do at least as good as Saga of the Volsungs, and Tolkien, glorious nerd that he was, put int the work. You need to put in the work ROP, THEN you might take priority in my continue watching list, cutting in line like that. That's what Jade would do in From. Its tacky and sad.

Tom Bombadil, tho. You know, he's a merry fellow?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Maybe they'll do the Blue Wizards. If so, I might have to watch it.

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[The Cat]

View attachment 31453

Him and all the other dead writers having to endure this kind of thing.

 

[Totenkindly]

So I watched half of S2E1 "Elven Kings Under the Sky."

I have to say, if this was NOT attached at all to Tolkien (and thus coming off as a terrible inaccurate bastardization on almost every level), it would actually be a kind of cool, trashy fantasy show. Just think -- if they had modified the names slightly in order to spoof Tolkien rather than telling "real stories" in Tolkien's world, I would actually think it great... kind of like the "Unreal" (which spoofs reality TV) version of fantasy worlds.

But no, they had to try to make it look authentic in keeping the names and basic lore, so now it's just trashy.

The opening twenty minutes:

is the backstory of Sauron getting in the ocean, which no one asked for. I was laughing imagining this well-dressed noble dude pontificating t to a horde of disgusting looking orcs, as if he were talking to a bunch of court nobles. Of course they murder him, led by Adar -- so somehow his dying body NUKES the entire surrounding countryside and mountains with frost. Yet no one dies. And somehow Sauron's blood trickling down through the rocks (rather than being frozen from being in proximity to the frost nuke) somehow turns into a tar pit monster, crawls to the light a la The Descent, eating shit along the way and murdering people until he looks human again, gets on a boat, and heads out to sea, where he eventually hooks up with Galadriel when she leaps into the middle of the ocean rather than going to heaven, like all the other good little elves. And Now You Know The Rest of the Story.

Would Sauron have tried to woo orcs with fancy words? Would he have trusted Adar at all? Would his physical body have been so easily destroyed? Would he...? Would he...? Would he....? Yeah, this guy doesn't seem very much like "the most powerful Maiar in existence," does he?

But if it hadn't been so anchored to Tolkien and just a generic fantasy show, it would have been rather spectacular. Maybe I am looking at this in the wrong light. Maybe I should just divorce it completely from Tolkien in my head and embrace the fan fic.

The next segment with Galadriel riding frantically after Elrond, to take the elf rings before he can deliver them to Gil-Galad:

The horse chase is kind of dumb, as characters riding in straight lines to allow the other person to steal something is bad strategy. Then Elrond seemingly teleports him and his horse to safety -- do these people know logistics at all?

Galadriel runs to Gil-Galad who is convenient standing over a waterfall, where Elrond has just finked on his bestie. Galadriel refuses to give up the dark lord's name for a bit, until Gil-Galad STRENUOUSLY objects, and finally she admits that the dude she's been crushing hard on was actually Morgoth's squire all along. Gil-Galad is aghast, until he says, "Welp, give me the rings because otherwise the elves will be forced to leave Middle Earth and leave all these puny humans to die under Sauron's hand," whereupon it's Elrond's turn to look aghast. He says no. Gil-Galad pulls rank and actually says the line, "These kinds of decisions are above your prestige for you to make" (and I swear to god, with this writing, I REALLY thought he was gonna say "Pay grade").... so Elrond feeling like a whistleblower with no relief from HR hurls himself clutching the ring bag into the cataract to disappear while Gil-Galad is barking, "FIND HIM.")

So again -- what a terrible bastardization of Tolkien's characterizations for these people. They share a name but almost nothing of what's already been established in lore and in the LOTR films. (There's also a deplorable lack of awareness of common-world physics and cause-effect. Like, blood not freezing when hit by a frost NUKE. Or a horse someone managing to rear up in its withers and somehow evenly break off the yoke from the cart it was pulling. And... And... And... I mean, we saw last season how a volcano was born somehow by a steam explosion underground. WTF. It goes on and on...)

But if it is a trashy non-Tolkien fantasy adventure? With broken physics? All about passion and crazy plot twists and betrayal and violence? yeah, it kinda rocks! They coulda just done a riff on it all, so hard, and I'd be enjoying it far more.

 

[The Cat]

yup

 

[Totenkindly]

yup

I was laughing because I was recently watching a series of YouTube videos called "Good Fights vs Bad Fights in Film". The guy makes a ton of videos, but this particular thread of vids, he has 5-6 out.

Usually he gives a decently longer explanation of why a fight is good or bad.

IN one of the last, he briefly cuts to RoP where that village fight was in the volcano episode, and an orc hurls a spear at Galadriel who is riding, and somehow she rolls to the side/underbelly of her horse to dodge the spear (although she looks more like she's falling), then it cuts to the orc's head flying off as she blurs through the shot.

And all the guy says is something like, "Okay, exactly WTF is this supposed to be?!" and pretty much just cuts to the next example without bothering to waste time on it. And he's right. They edit/cut past all the actual important moments of that shot, because presumably they couldn't get the cast to that level of proficiency, and blur it so you can't actually discern how it works, and they are shaky camming the whole thing, I think.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Him and all the other dead writers having to endure this kind of thing.

I wonder if Shakespeare's ghost liked Ten Things I Hate About You. Maybe he met Heath Ledger in the spirit realm who changed his mind on the whole thing.

I also wonder if he wished he could have sued Disney's ass for The Lion King and taking Hamlet and adding a happy ending.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I watched this show, and it was better than I thought. Less goofy/boring. I'll start with the goofy moments:

• ]Umm, Sauron, if you're seeking to be crowned by an untrustworthy minion who wants to rule in his own right, maybe don't have your crown made with razor sharp iron spikes? The bit where Adar dramatically turned the crown over to the stabby side was so funny to me. I feel like Sauron should have seen that coming.
  
  
• Sauron's spirit wandering around after death reminded me of the carpet monster from The Creeping Terror. Also, Sigmund the Sea Monster came to mind.
  
  
• Elrond hanging out under the bridge with his sack of rings was a hilarious shot.
  
  New theory about Elrond: he's a half-Elf who wants to be a Bridge Troll.
  
  Elrond under the bridge realizes that he's really enjoying this moment, and that the knowledge of this fact has changed him forever, although he must wait, eons upon eons. At the end of LOTR, he leaps off the boat to Valinor, just like Galadriel. The time, however, is still not right. Elrond, still, must wait, before he can become who he longs to be. Age after age passes, and Elrond finally decides to travel across the sea, although all seas are now bent. Valinor is no longer attainable, but Elrond finds himself across the sea on different shores. He finds himself in a city that's strange to him. It's no Tirion, but Elrond is beginning to feel that this city of Philadelphia is the perfect place to him. But with a new land, Elrond knows one thing is in order; he must assume a new name: Frank Reynolds.
  
  Now some mysteries reveal themselves to us. We know why Frank is so excited at the prospect of hanging out under the bridge, and believes it "could be cool". We also know why Frank Reynolds is so delighted at the prospect of playing a Troll.
  
  You see, Elrond leapt off the boat to the undying lands because he had a vision of becoming Frank Reynolds, and that was close enough to a Bridge Troll to satisfy his soul/hole.
  
  There it is folks, the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia/Lord of the Rings crossover that you didn't know you wanted. The universes were linked the whole time and we never would have been able to see it without Rings of Power.

The boring:

• This business with Sauron trying to con Adar isn't as interesting or "Breaking Bad" as you think it is, showrunners. Why should Adar even think Sauron is dead for good? Wouldn't an Elf like him know about the Maiar? I suppose he wouldn't if he was an Avari, but is this stated anywhere?

In the middle:

• Gandalf using his magic to get beetles out of a tree. I know people on Earth eat things like this when they can't find anything else, so I'm not bothered by that part, but it's not that much of a payoff. This sequence goes on too long, although I like the song of the Harfoots acting as a set of directions telling them the right way to go. I also think the aspect of Gandalf being afraid of his power and what he could do with it is very on brand for him.

Things I liked:

• I feel like the point of Adar is to show how an elf is corrupted to an orc, which isn't something we've ever seen. Some of the elves in Silmarillion (Feanor and some of his sons) are complete assholes and might be susceptible to this kind of thing if they didn't hate Morgoth so much for stealing the Silmarils. Eol was also not a good guy. I read Tolkien never really settled on that explanation for orcs, but it was in the films, so that's what I suppose they would go with. I thought it was interesting to show a corrupted elf like this, because we haven't really read about that. I wonder if as elves do more and more wicked deeds, their physical appearance changes.
  
  
• There is a moment on the boat with the men of the Southlands where it seems like Sauron wants to repent and change his ways, but then decides that he's in too deep. There is a moment like this that os mentioned in the Silmarillion, although that's with the Valar. I thought that was an interesting detail and I liked seeing something similar to it.
  
  
• Sometimes I have to give a series or a movie or a series credit simply for making something visually beautiful or stunning. This takes effort, too, on the part of the filmmakers, just as much as acting or writing does. Gil-galad's realm was gorgeous, I loved all the autumn hues of the trees and it called to mind the autumn colors associated with the elven realms we see in Fellowship of the Ring. I thought this drove home the idea that the time of the Elves was already ending, even in the beginning of the Second Age, and the three rings simply delayed it. We're getting that same sense in Fellowship; this makes me wonder if perhaps even then the Rings are weakening against time.
  
  That's something I find compelling about Tolkien, this underlying theme, that the effects of time are inescapable. Especially in the books, it's clear that nothing ever goes back to the way it was; the trees chopped down in the Shire will never grow back in spite of the bit of Elven magic Sam carries with him. Attempts to stop or slow the effects of time always fail and sometimes bring disaster, like with the Numenoreans. And of course, Frodo can never go back to his earlier innocence, he's been through too much for that, which is why it is fortunate that he is granted a place in Valinor.
  
  
• The moment where the finally put on the three rings is quite nice, and I thought it was beautifully done. This was combined with sadness because we know from the Lord of the Rings that the attempt to preserve all things unstained cannot last forever, and with the destruction of the One, so fades the power of the Three.
  
  
• By the way, I liked seeing Cirdan put on the Ring of Fire; it made me do an internal fist pump. The Appendix mentions that he gave this to Gandalf when he arrived in Middle Earth (I don't know how that's supposed to work on this show, though), to "rekindle hope in a world gone chill" and I've always been fascinated by this. The capabilities of the Ring of Fire probably include physical powers like shooting out rays of light from the staff, starting a fire, making elaborate fireworks, but I think it also includes mental powers.
  
  I'm reminded of the Battle of Minas Tirith where he faces off against the Nazgul and nonetheless inspires the Men of Gondor to hold strong and not break ranks, despite terror and what must have seemed like the near-certainty of defeat. That's powerful stuff.
  
  It is worth noting that the fact that Gandalf got the Ring of Fire made Saruman extremely jealous. I wonder if this show will include Saruman. There's supposed to be a dark wizard this season, but it would be extremely dumb if they made it Saruman, because he should not be tipping people off this early. It might be one of the Blue, perhaps in Rhun, and as a consequence will come into conflict with Gandalf. The Blue Wizards are said to have traveled East in the very little info we have on them.

Things I missed

• I would have liked to have seen Numenoreans, or especially Dwarves. I must admit I want to see what they do with the seven rings for the Dwarves, or the nine rings for mortal Men. This may motivate me to watch more episodes.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

What cracks me up about it is...this game took a while to make. So throughout the whole process, there was at least one dude with enough power to give the note: "Why not turn the big spider from the movies into a babe, and show off her feet." And it happened. The elevator rides with that guy must have been awkward to the max.

I guess Quentin Tarantino was involved. Maybe since his Star Trek failed, he wanted to do LOTR instead.

 

[The Cat]

I guess Quentin Tarantino was involved. Maybe since his Star Trek failed, he wanted to do LOTR instead.

More than just Quentin are into feet. Quentin is just honest about it. Its why he can make such good movies. But yeah foot stuff is everywhere in pop culture. Once you can see it, you can see its everywhere.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

More than just Quentin are into feet. Quentin is just honest about it. Its why he can make such good movies. But yeah foot stuff is everywhere in pop culture. Once you can see it, you can see its everywhere.

Feet are interesting because they are like shitty hands.

Skeletons are fascinating because it seems that vertebrates often have essentially same basic plan, but the shape and size of the bones is different. IIIRC a bird's wing is a forearm, hand bones, and finger bones.

 

[The Cat]

I watched this show, and it was better than I thought. Less goofy/boring. I'll start with the goofy moments:

Yeah that's what we mean, it could be great as its own thing, with original characters, or even as a bit of a spoof/parody hell even if you just set it in generic fantasy land from old school D&D games before they got big enough to have an official setting, but even if you set it in forgotten realms at some point in the history, you have a fun wire fu fantasy romp with comedy and some sexy thrown in for good measure. But for a Tolkien joint, like Totenkindly said, its just a sad bastardization that doesnt respect the source material, or the fans, or the audience enough to give them Tolkien.

Originality used to be the thing that got your work published or made into a movie or show. It could be as close to anything else as you wanted to make it, but it still had to be unique from what already existed or else why waste money to publish what everyone else is already doing or did better? Now the mentality seems to be, slop out content, rake in profit because everyone is just so desperate for escapism they'll take what we feed them and love it. But of course it doesnt really work that way, in practice, much to many a show runner's chagrin.

I'll never watch RoP and think. Wow, its so cool to see what happened in Middle Earth during the second age. I can only see it as, wow, look at these 5e nerds trying to play a railroad campaign when the dm planned for a sand box. Every peaceful encounter the DM tries to put out there, his players keep trying to murder hobo for truth light and justice, ignoring every dungeon in the wilderness, unless theres some meta connection to the BBEG that the characters dont know about, but the players do, and even though "no one is meta gaming, technically" everyone is totally meta gaming. The "player logic" is why the characters act out so much, and rather than actually role playing the combat, they keep saying miss and hit, while the dm tries to keep emersion going by narrating nat 20's and critical misses, but not going into too much or even accurate detail, because combat is a slog, and the players want to level up, and when can we start having magical items? Meanwhile, the dm is still waiting for the 16 page backstory's that some of the characters swear they have written and thats why they can do this that and the other at level 1, and do I get a point of inspiration for that? *sigh* yes, you can roll to seduce. No, you can't cast haste on yourself and get a swimming speed because you can kick your legs really fast. ...a five foot cone, is gonna have different area of effect than a 5 ft cube. And so on and on, and dispite all of the silly and the suck and the slog, you have a fun time, with a fun game, but you could never get it published as a LOTR book. Rings of Power is that but a show. And it did get made. But it still is what it is, and never will be what it wants to be.

 

[The Cat]

Feet are interesting because they are like shitty hands.

Skeletons are fascinating because it seems that vertebrates often have essentially same basic plan, but the shape and size of the bones is different. IIIRC a bird's wing is a forearm, hand bones, and finger bones.

Depends on the feet, but lets not get into that here.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Rings of Power: Season 2, Episode 2

The goofy/stupid:

• Every time I see the name Nori come up in Closed Captions, I'm reminded of those inexplicably satisfying sheets of seaweed.
• Is the argument between Disa and the Durin's son supposed to be funny? I didn't really find it to be that, but it did remind me of Frank and Estelle Costanza arguing on Seinfeld (which was actually funny). I probably should not be thinking of Frank and Estelle arguing about the width of ties during a Lord of the Rings show.
• I haven't seen the first season and am still able to follow along reasonably well. I've seen in recaps for both of these episodes a scene of Galadriel warning everyone not to treat with Halbrand. I don't think she mentions that he's Sauron in the clips I've seen. Perhaps there is footage I have not seen that explains this, but why doesn't she explicitly identify him as Sauron? Presumably that scene happens after the scene she is made aware of his identity (a scene which I have watched on YouTube).
• There is a scene where Galadriel is being confronted about how she fell victim to Sauron's manipulations, and there is a a 5-15 second flashback that evoked one of those YouTube shipper videos. You know, the ones that have a lot of scenes of characters glancing at each other (combined with scenes that aren't terribly romantic) that play over some rather awful music? The music is always terrible; there's so much good romantic music out there that I don't understand why the people making videos always use such terrible songs. Anyway, we get this with Galadriel and Sauron all-too-briefly, and I wish they'd gone all in and made a full-length ship video. If nothing else it would have generated more attention for the show due to memes.

The cool:

• I actually think this series is pretty good at taking something interesting that's alluded to in the books and fleshing it out. Gandalf, I believe, rebukes a character for describing Khazad-Dum as a foul, dank hole, and instead mentioned that it was once a beautiful place full of wonder and joy. In this episode, I got to see that. I saw how the dwarves illuminated their dwellings through the use of mirrors; meaning that there's actually a reasonable amount of light, like what you might see at the bottom of one of those cenotes in Mexicio. This is also how they grow crops, which explains how the dwarves eat.

The mysterious:

• What's the story with this Dark Wizard? I think he's one of the Blue Wizards, even though though we see no blue present in his scene. Tolkien often never settled on a final explanation for the more mysterious corners of his universe, and that's the case with the Blue Wizards. He did mention once that they started secret cults and magic traditions in the east of Middle Earth (like Rhun). I'm getting the vibe that the (human?) sorcerers and sorceresses that the dark wizard surrounds himself with seem to treat him with a kind of religious reverence. He also cautions his underlings not to underestimate the Istar. The respect for the power of an Istar would make sense coming from another Istar. He knows how easy it is for an Istar to wipe the floor with the inhabitants of Middle Earth because this is something he did himself.

The good:

• The "Breaking Bad" scene with Sauron are a lot more satisfying in this episode because we're not dealing with characters who should probably know better (it's not Celebrimbor's fault Galadriel never told him the key piece of information; not good writing, but it didn't impact my enjoyment of these scenes). And then, at the end, that scene where Sauron reveals himself as Annatar, well, I confess that I enjoyed that scene. It seemed demonic (which is appropriate, because that is what Sauron is). I liked how this being looks benevolent on the surface, but we get the sense that behind it all, there's something off. The sequence had these seductive Satanic overtones to it which I felt was perfect (even though I'm aware that strictly speaking Morgoth fits the Satan mold better).
  
  I admit, I'm looking forward to seeing how the nine rings for mortal men are created. Celebrimbor doesn't seem keen on the idea because he thinks Men are too corruptible (he's right, IMO). But, you know, we need our Nazgul somehow, so something's got to give, somewhere.

The tangential:

• I also watched the South Park Lord of the Rings episode, which features sixth graders on bikes playing the role of Nazgul and Butters becoming a Gollum-like figure. It's still great.
• As a reviewer of films and television, I'm relatively gentle. Occasionally something will come along that really angers me, but that's rare. Nothing about this series has angered me; I was bored by parts of the first episode this season since I think it failed at trying to be more like prestige TV. It was certainly no early-period Game of Thrones. That didn't make me angry, though.

 

[Totenkindly]

Apparently viewer / time watched is less than 50% of comparable Season 1 even with an additional episode dropping in the initial rollout.

‘Rings Of Power’ Viewership Indicates Perhaps Amazon Shouldn’t Commit To Five Seasons

When it was first reported that Rings of Power was in the works, there was this idea that a five-year run for the show was already mapped out.

www.forbes.com

 

[The Cat]

Apparently viewer / time watched is less than 50% of comparable Season 1 even with an additional episode dropping in the initial rollout.

‘Rings Of Power’ Viewership Indicates Perhaps Amazon Shouldn’t Commit To Five Seasons

When it was first reported that Rings of Power was in the works, there was this idea that a five-year run for the show was already mapped out.

www.forbes.com

If they want more viewership after years of people binging shows, they should drop the season all at once and Id likely watch rn, but i dont have an inclination to wait on the edge of my seat for a week because everything ends in a cliff hanger now.

 

[Vendrah]

I am watching season 2 and I have a perception that it is slightly better than season 1. I agree with @Julius_Van_Der_Beak about a bunch of points, specially as Adar, one of the few or maybe the only forced addition that seems to worth it. That other istar that doesn't seem to be any of the Tolkien's istar, doesn't look good.

But if it hadn't been so anchored to Tolkien and just a generic fantasy show, it would have been rather spectacular. Maybe I am looking at this in the wrong light. Maybe I should just divorce it completely from Tolkien in my head and embrace the fan fic.

So again -- what a terrible bastardization of Tolkien's characterizations for these people. They share a name but almost nothing of what's already been established in lore and in the LOTR films.

I agree. Even as someone who had not read the books and only know some resumes of the story before that, lots of things seem weird, misplaced, doesn't seem to make sense. I wonder how someone who do not know even the resumes thinks about it in general, if they get the same feeling. I mean, that 'gandalf' isn't convincing, the hobbits aren't either, the way elves are portrayed seem completely lack characterization, etc...

Still fun to watch and the scenario is doing good. But its still a mere shadow behind what the 6 films - hobbits films included - once were. Maybe its because it isn't a film but rather a series so it won't look epic as the films were. In a way, LOTR original 3 movies are the elf, and The Rings of Power is the Adar decayed elf version of LOTR.

 

[Vendrah]

Here we are, the last episode!

Looks like that guy is Gandalf.
I like the Balrog appearence.
I like the effects, the battle, etc...

This looks more convincing than season 1 at least... even though that fall of Galadriel and her survivorship

 

[Totenkindly]

What a great photo of Morfydd.