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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power - Season 1

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
“Certified Fresh” 😂

I'll tell ya, before this show I was one of those people who were largely positive towards critics - with some ambivalent caveats given the work being reviewed. I just accepted that some critics are genuine while others are in it for the notoriety and clickbait. I reasoned that it all balanced out in the end.

But after this show I am not sure if I'll ever trust the critical consensus for a TV show ever again. Too many critics who I largely agreed with in the past heaped what seemed like honest praise upon this show early on, but in highsight it feels like I watched a different show than they did.
 

OsirisBlack

Banned
Agreed. A toast, to Rings of Power Season 2. May it exceed the first in every respect.

Xwlgiwk.gif
A two year break is probably the best thing for this show at the moment. Hopefully they revise or at least polish the script for season 2.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
A two year break is probably the best thing for this show at the moment. Hopefully they revise or at least polish the script for season 2.
Well, I think they are filming right now so I'd expect minimal ability to react. Substantial changes won't happen till S3 when the show runners depart "for other creative vistas" and new showrunners come in to "expound upon the wonderful foundation laid down for us" PR nonsense.
 

NecrosaroIII

Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
Let's reminisce on a time before Rings of Power, before the Jackson movies, when you were a kid, reading the books for the first time, constantly listening to this:


I prefer this version.



Its funny that in your version they call the Dwarves Gnomes. Since Gnome was a term Tolkien used in early drafts for the Noldoli
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
Well, they put about as pretty a bow on this season as they could. I gotta admit I can see what they were trying with the Halbrand thing and it's kinda cool but the execution....ugh. Galadriel is back to lamenting her brother but NOT A GODDAMN TEAR for her hubby? That dude, if he ever appears, is gonna be a wife-beater shirt wearing redneck elf no doubt.

The Gandal....er, rando Istar thing is just trash though. The white witches were pointless, the Harfoots beyond annoying.

The ring forging thing was dope though. As ridiculous as it is, that's kinda how I expect elf shit to be. EVERYTHING is hand-crafted, overly ornate, and just pompous as all get out because these guys got all the time in the world for even the smallest of things.

My son has been asking about this show so I might give it 6 months or so, see if I can get him to sit through all the films, then revisit this show. We've read most of the Hobbit together, gotta get back to that as well.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Let's reminisce on a time before Rings of Power, before the Jackson movies, when you were a kid, reading the books for the first time, constantly listening to this:
I prefer this version.


Its funny that in your version they call the Dwarves Gnomes. Since Gnome was a term Tolkien used in early drafts for the Noldoli
Also of course their entire Nightfall in Middle-Earth album too, based on The Silmarillion.

 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
Just watched the finale again. It was better upon a rewatch. Especially on the TV instead of my OnePlus 9 Pro.

I think I was right... Halbrand/Sauron was emotionally manipulating Galadriel... Just as he did with Celebrimbor. Using their feelings of defeat to bring them to his cause. Remember, Sauron isn't someone cares about love. He cares about his plans and power. And bringing others under his spell (figuratively, not literally). Just as he did with Saruman.

I appreciate that they moved Galadriel away from her Elven Karen form. She seemed more in line with the movie version.

Elrond, as always, was a cool mofo. Not yet the warrior he'll be in the Last Alliance. Also, glad Elendil realized he has to stand with the Elves and not against him. That was his grief talking.

I'm looking forward to the next season BUT the wait ... SMH...

A video of mostly fluff and just recounting the episode. Only to be watched by casuals who liked the show.

It's a breakdown. Nerd of the Rings has been critical of the show ... They also have very informative videos about the histories of Valinor, the Aulé, Istari, Mordor, Morgoth, Sauron, The First Age, etc. It's kinda like the Tolkien version of Comics Explained.

ETA: I think the mysteries of Halbrand and the Stranger were needed. If he was just Annatar, there'd be so many nerds just spoiling it to lay-folk. I'm glad they included the mysteries because it gave us something to speculate about... Theorize about. And they WERE revealed at the finale... Unlike the Abrams crap which is never revealed in Lost.
 
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BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Yea, Nerd of the Rings is cool, for my money the best, most succinct LotR lore YouTubers out there. He's also not one to be loudly critical and is the opposite of outrage. He's just a chill, nice guy.
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
Yea, Nerd of the Rings is cool, for my money the best, most succinct LotR lore YouTubers out there. He's also not one to be loudly critical and is the opposite of outrage. He's just a chill, nice guy.

Exactly. There's a difference between being critical and being OVERLY critical to the point of meltdowns and saying everything is "endless trash".
 

NecrosaroIII

Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
Also of course their entire Nightfall in Middle-Earth album too, based on The Silmarillion.


Absolutely. One of my favorite albums. My favorite is Blood Tears, but that's because i find Maedhros pretty interesting
 
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To be absolutely fair, Sauron could absolutely provide tips for Celebrimbor. Sauron the Maiar was the apprentice of Aulë the Smithing Valar.

But in saying that you’re dead right: Celebrimbor should have been “WTF mofo! How does a greasy piece of shit like you possess such intimate knowledge of the workings and substances of Arda? There must be more to you than meets the eye! [a few notes from the Transformer theme surfaces as an easter egg] Guards! Seize him!” [cue Benny Hill theme]

Well it's not the fact that Sauron gives him advice on how to forge the rings (that is in line with Tolkien), but the fact that he is lecturing Celebrimbor on alloys. That's like lecturing a car mechanic on changing oil. Also, mastercraft smiths should know that you need flux to melt metal objects such as Galadriel's dagger.

They also completely subverted the role of Mithril in Tolkien's lore. For Tolkien, Mithril represents the greed of the dwarves who are digging too deep into the mountain in order to increase their wealth. This greed is literally their own downfall. In the show however, they dig for Mithril in order to help, which makes no sense at all really. Because the writers decided to make a McGuffin out of Mithril, Elrond and Durin awaken the Balrog because they want to rescue the elves, not because the dwarves got greedy.

So in essence they get punished for wanting to help others.
 
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ETA: I think the mysteries of Halbrand and the Stranger were needed. If he was just Annatar, there'd be so many nerds just spoiling it to lay-folk. I'm glad they included the mysteries because it gave us something to speculate about... Theorize about. And they WERE revealed at the finale... Unlike the Abrams crap which is never revealed in Lost.
Or maybe they could write a good show that doesn’t rely on mystery boxes. Those mysteries are poorly done anyway - how many people have people bowed to and think that they are Sauron? Cheap writing where anyone with a brain could see through.
 
Also "Tar" and "Ar" have radically opposing meanings. Tar is an elven title, while Ar is a human title of nobility. "Ar" is exclusively used by the Númenóreans who despise the elves such as Ar-Pharazôn. The show constantly mixes up these titles, which is especially grating when even their own Númenórean Queen gets it wrong:

6z4D9EC.jpg


Inziladûn is Tar-Palantir, not Ar-Palantir. Tar-Míriel literally calls her own father a racist!

These are not mere nitpicks, they completely change the dynamic of the lore. Details such as this are so intrinsic to these characters that you just cannot get it wrong without butchering the characters. The show also completely misrepresents Tar-Palantir. Númenóreans don't go senile, they live long youthful lives and give up their lives willingly when they start to age again, like Aragorn.

The show also mixes together too many events without exploring them rightfully. There are about 2.000 years between the hybris of Numenor, the forging of the rings of power and Sauron's defeat. The show also completely ignores Isildur's brother Anárion who later on becomes the ruler of frikkin' Gondor.

Also, the Númenóreans are so badass they used literal steel bows instead of regular ones, they also completely crush Sauron even with his one ring. They are the greatest maritime force that's ever existed, yet they show nothing of it. They are arrogant but also have the prowess to back it up. They are the ones letting their blood in the wars against evil, they die while saving elves and other humans, while the elves themselves live a paradisiac everlasting live. That's what makes them interesting, they are complex characters, not just "they took er jerbs" racists!
 

Lord Panda

The Sea is Always Right
Well it's not the fact that Sauron gives him advice on how to forge the rings (that is in line with Tolkien), but the fact that he is lecturing Celebrimbor on alloys. That's like lecturing a car mechanic on changing oil. Also, mastercraft smiths should know that you need flux to melt metal objects such as Galadriel's dagger.

They also completely subverted the role of Mithril in Tolkien's lore. For Tolkien, Mithril represents the greed of the dwarves who are digging to deep into the mountain in order to increase their wealth. This greed is literally their own downfall. In the show however, they dig for Mithril in order to help, which makes no sense at all really. Because the writers decided to make a McGuffin out of Mithril, Elrond and Durin awaken the Balrog because they want to rescue the elves, not because the dwarves got greedy.

I’ve already lost my shit with the whole mithril shitfuckery earlier in this thread, and I’m now angry again. I’m annoyed that the Mithril plot contrivance is not only goddamn stupid, but also super unnecessary.

We also lost our shit with how the Numenoreans are portrayed and how there’s nothing distinguishing them from the average Joe Moron down the street, a few islands over. Thanks for the reminder that Sauron was absolutely handled by the Numenoreans, despite freaking wielding the One Ring. That his armies deserted him when they saw the might of the Numenoreans arrayed before them.
 
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jason10mm

Gold Member
ETA: I think the mysteries of Halbrand and the Stranger were needed. If he was just Annatar, there'd be so many nerds just spoiling it to lay-folk. I'm glad they included the mysteries because it gave us something to speculate about... Theorize about. And they WERE revealed at the finale... Unlike the Abrams crap which is never revealed in Lost.
TBH, I don't think this would have happened. Think back to the Red Wedding or other momentous "nerd moments". Fans WANT people to experience and enjoy this stuff, if the product is faithful and honest to the IP in the first place. How many non book readers know the ending of HotD?

So I think the writers COULD have chosen to have Annatar in all his duplicitous glory, realizing that the lure isn't "the mystery" of who he is, but how damned charming and convincing he is, how well he exploits character flaws and dangles things in front of others, how pride and hubris can make folks THINK they can manage him, etc. But these writers probably wrote the "reveal" first, and then got so enamored of it that when the flaws created by structuring the show to carry that "mystery" came to light they just bulled through.

So now we are left with a Sauron who wanted/didn't want Mount Doom to explode? Who is/isn't working with Adar? Who arranged to meet up with Galadriel in the middle of the ocean (called in a favor from a leviathan to wreck his ship and kill the other survivors I 'spose)/was running away and legit could have died at sea? Would have stayed in Numenor as a simple blacksmith/plotted to throw them to their deaths in the Southlands/could have prevented Mt Doom if not outsmarted by Adar? Was he improvising this whole time or Keyser Soze'ing it? Why did the Witch Women think the Istari was Sauron? What did the meteor have to do with anything related to Halbrand? Sauron did not appear to have ANY memory loss or impediments at the end so WTF where they going on about with Gand...er, The Stranger? I'm sure the showrunners would just wink slyly as if they knew the answer, but it certainly comes across as poorly planned to me.
 

Alex11

Member
So now we are left with a Sauron who wanted/didn't want Mount Doom to explode? Who is/isn't working with Adar? Who arranged to meet up with Galadriel in the middle of the ocean (called in a favor from a leviathan to wreck his ship and kill the other survivors I 'spose)/was running away and legit could have died at sea? Would have stayed in Numenor as a simple blacksmith/plotted to throw them to their deaths in the Southlands/could have prevented Mt Doom if not outsmarted by Adar? Was he improvising this whole time or Keyser Soze'ing it? Why did the Witch Women think the Istari was Sauron? What did the meteor have to do with anything related to Halbrand? Sauron did not appear to have ANY memory loss or impediments at the end so WTF where they going on about with Gand...er, The Stranger? I'm sure the showrunners would just wink slyly as if they knew the answer, but it certainly comes across as poorly planned to me.
Yeah that arranged meeting with Galadriel in the middle of the sea seems so far fetched, that he might as well know the ending in LOTR, that's some next level planning that even Eru is jealous of.

He even said it to Galadriel that we wanted to stay in Numenor, and that bit from him I sense it was genuine. I think that other theory you said about him running or wanting to use the Numenoreans for revenge against Adar seems more plausible.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Yeah that arranged meeting with Galadriel in the middle of the sea seems so far fetched, that he might as well know the ending in LOTR, that's some next level planning that even Eru is jealous of.

He even said it to Galadriel that we wanted to stay in Numenor, and that bit from him I sense it was genuine. I think that other theory you said about him running or wanting to use the Numenoreans for revenge against Adar seems more plausible.
The showrunners don’t seem to intend for it to be part of a master plan. To them, Sauron is just unemployed.

p8Ri96I.jpg


:goog_expressionless:
 

pramod

Banned
TBH, I don't think this would have happened. Think back to the Red Wedding or other momentous "nerd moments". Fans WANT people to experience and enjoy this stuff, if the product is faithful and honest to the IP in the first place. How many non book readers know the ending of HotD?

So I think the writers COULD have chosen to have Annatar in all his duplicitous glory, realizing that the lure isn't "the mystery" of who he is, but how damned charming and convincing he is, how well he exploits character flaws and dangles things in front of others, how pride and hubris can make folks THINK they can manage him, etc. But these writers probably wrote the "reveal" first, and then got so enamored of it that when the flaws created by structuring the show to carry that "mystery" came to light they just bulled through.
Yeah exactly. The showrunners could have decided to tell the story in hundreds of ways, but they chose this particular method for god knows what reason.
You don't want to use Annatar? Fine. Then replace him with another character, and don't spend a lot of time focusing on the deception/ring-forging itself. Which is pretty much what they did anyway.
But the showrunners decided to do it in a mystery-box way, ie spend most of the season setting up the mystery-box/Annatar, and finally reveal him in the last episode where they do the ring forging.
 

Alex11

Member
The showrunners don’t seem to intend for it to be part of a master plan. To them, Sauron is just unemployed.

p8Ri96I.jpg


:goog_expressionless:
Did he updated his resume? :messenger_beaming:

Fuck me, so he's basically given up, he ends up in Numenor out of pure chance, did I get that right? With a repentant Sauron, or at least repentant in his twisted idea of what that means for him, I'll kind of be ok with.
So is he really repentant in the Silmarillion, I mean really repentant? As far as I know, and from the "Nerd of the Rings" dude, he wasn't like that, he was hiding from the Valar hopping they would forget about him and wanted something like order in the Middle-Earth and he sees it as achieving that by controlling everyone.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
The showrunners don’t seem to intend for it to be part of a master plan. To them, Sauron is just unemployed.

p8Ri96I.jpg


:goog_expressionless:
This got my curiosity to look up just what was in the Silmarillion (because nothing like this is in the appendices.

The first is an excerpt from a letter included in the Silmarillion, the latter from the chapter discussing the Rings of Power.

RVBD3hd.jpg
HzBgyKh.jpg

So you can squint and kinda see show Sauron in there, though naturally the timeline is total bunk. Sauron spent CENTURIES tooling around Middle-Earth doing odd jobs and carried that bag 'round his neck for a THOUSAND YEARS?
 

ADiTAR

ידע זה כוח
I know it's mostly the writing, but I have a lot of issues with the costumes. Mainly, they don't change.

Only Galadriel and Sauron change outfits and that depends on where they are, otherwise they remain in the same costume for the entire time they are there. All other characters are wearing the exact same clothes. Now, this isn't like LotR when they travel so they didn't pack another set, this is where they are stationed in a city, sometimes their city like Celebrimbor (sp?). I just don't understand where they spent the money, because there weren't that many special effects.
 

DKehoe

Gold Member
The showrunners don’t seem to intend for it to be part of a master plan. To them, Sauron is just unemployed.

p8Ri96I.jpg


:goog_expressionless:
Vacancy
Smith’s apprentice
Competitive salary


Great entry level position for someone looking to repent and get their first step on the career ladder

Experience:
  • Two ages of smithing experience
  • Knowledge of alloys
  • Experience working with Valar desirable but not essential
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
https://www.vulture.com/article/rings-of-power-ending-explained.html

Tell me about the origins of Halbrand as a character. Why introduce Sauron through the form of this human disguise?

Patrick McKay: One of the earliest ideas we had for the storyline came from the moment in The Fellowship of the Ring when Galadriel is tempted by Frodo’s offer of the Ring. She talks about how well she knows and understands Sauron, and there’s a quote where she says, “I know his mind, and he gropes ever to know mine, but still the door is shut.” She clearly has a darkness — that turning down the Ring is a test she feels she has to pass to finally go West — and that the darkness in her is linked with her feelings about Sauron. Very early in the writers’ room, we talked about how she and Sauron might have come into collision in an earlier life. We know he’s a deceiver and comes in disguise. If Galadriel were to bump into him in a Tolkienian chance meeting, that would be extremely unlucky for her and very lucky for him. How might he take advantage of that stroke of luck?

Did Charlie Vickers know he would be playing Sauron when he was cast?

J.D. Payne: During the audition, we put him through the paces, reading things like monologues from Richard III. We wanted to see his range. We also wanted to lean into the relationship between him and Galadriel first, so we began filming before telling him. After filming episode two, we talked to Charlie during the pause we took because of COVID, and then episodes three through eight he was fully aware. You can watch the season again and see each interaction as watching him as Halbrand and as Sauron.

Revealing Sauron at the end of the season creates a big moment for the finale, but it also keeps the big villain of the series off the table for much of the season, which is difficult for ratcheting up tension. How did you decide on the timing of the reveal?

Patrick McKay: We felt that season one had to be about reintroducing Middle-earth. It needed to be about the heroes, about each of these peoples and what’s important to them. We didn’t want the weight and complexity of evil that Sauron will come to represent to overwhelm that. The rise of Sauron and his influence spreading across the world is an enormous part of the story of the Second Age and this show, and we felt it was important to be disciplined and not rush that. Having shared an adventure with Galadriel and these other characters in season one, it will have all the more impact now that Sauron is on the board moving into future seasons.

Sauron in the books comes to the Elves as Annatar, the “Lord of Gifts.” Halbrand is never referred to by that name, though one tell of his identity early in the episode is that Celebrimbor thanks him for his gifts. Did you decide having someone call him Annatar would be too obvious?

Patrick McKay: We were concerned about a situation where the part of the audience steeped in lore is six or seven episodes ahead of the characters. If deception is an important part of the journey, we wanted to preserve that experience for book readers too. The idea that the shadow can take many forms was part of what we were attracted to. The reference to gifts is a nod to the Annatar of it all, but also, at the end of season one, three rings have been crafted, and as you know from the song Fiona Apple sings at the end of the season, there are still seven for the dwarves, nine for the men, and one for the Dark Lord to come. There are more gifts yet to come.

The show also gives the Elves more motivation for crafting the rings. You introduce new lore that revolves around the idea that their light is fading and they need mithril to survive in Middle-earth; there’s a story about mithril containing an element of the light of Valinor, via a buried Silmaril, and that it’s thus necessary for the Elves to make artifacts containing it. I thought this could’ve been a lie planted by Sauron, but by the end of the season it seems it might be true in the show’s universe?

J.D. Payne: We knew the rings needed to have a special power to them. Some of that could be in what Sauron inculcates from the unseen world and what Celebrimbor is able to do in terms of beauty. But we thought it could be interesting to play with the kind of power they have. What if there’s a grand unification theory that could connect the light of the Two Trees of Valinor, which went into the Silmarils, to the rings? The three elven rings were at least partially made of mithril; what if there’s something in mithril that could connect to the Silmarils? What if the Silmaril that went into the earth was connected through the roots of a tree that could become mithril? It was a way to connect many parts of the canon, including the elves fading, in a way that incorporated other parts of the legendarium.

Patrick McKay: But also, we know Elrond is a lore master, and he is aware of this tale. He says in that fifth episode that it’s apocryphal. I would trust his read on a piece of lore. Mithril is unusual in Middle-earth. It’s Tolkien’s vibranium, or adamantium, or like the one in Avatar, unobtainium. We know from canon that mithril is in at least one of the rings, Galadriel’s ring. We felt there were possibilities to hint that maybe there’s a little more to it — but maybe not.

The finale reveals the Stranger is really one of the Istari, a.k.a. a wizard. Why involve a wizard in a show about the Second Age?

J.D. Payne: When we were laying out the menu, so to speak, that we felt would be in a classic Tolkienian epic, there were certain ingredients that would have to be part of it: Elves, dwarves, halflings — in the form of Harfoots. It was hard for us to think of a Middle-earth tale that did not have a wizard in it. We also found hints within the text that, while the wizards’ most prominent role was in the Third Age, some of the Istari wandered unknown among the beings of Middle-earth even earlier than that. Whether that’s one of the ones that are named, like Gandalf or Saruman, or other ones, we will leave to the series to unveil.

The story seems to be headed off to Rhûn, off in the east, which hasn’t been seen onscreen. What do you want to explore in depicting that?

Patrick McKay: In our very first conversations with Amazon about this, our aspirations were to go to the far reaches of the map. You see the northernmost wastes in the first episode. In the books, Aragorn talks about how he’s done some traveling in Rhûn and the stars are strange there. That felt like an opportunity, to have the stars the Stranger is following lead him to a continent that lovers of the lore have never visited.

Back in Númenor, Eärien, Isildur’s sister and a new character invented on the series, is the last to see the king Tar-Palantir before his death. What interested you in involving her in the succession plot that will surely play out in the second season?

Patrick McKay: She’s stumbled across the Palantir seeing stone, this ancient artifact that the queen has been taking counsel from. We loved leaving open the question of what she’s going to do with that knowledge. If you look back over her trajectory this season, it seems like she’s been pulled into the Pharazôn camp, and that could mean big things for Númenor moving forward.

J.D. Payne: Could she touch the Palantir and see why Miriel has been making the decisions she’s been making, and increase her sympathies toward the faithful? Or take issue with the idea that the queen has been using an Elven artifact and go the other way?

Are there any aspects of the audience response to the first season that you plan to incorporate into the second season?

J.D. Payne: We’re certainly listening to the critics and to our audiences. You don’t want to give any one voice too much weight, but figure out what people are responding to in the aggregate. I don’t know if I want to point to any specifics.

Patrick McKay: My immediate reaction to that question is no. Not that we aren’t paying attention to the response the show is having; I don’t know how you could shut it out. But the second season has been written for some time now, and the storytelling grows and goes in different directions. That is informed by what we learned on season one on our own. There are things that seemed to really work and others that didn’t work as well as we might have hoped. The storytelling will be different next time, not because of the response to the show, but because of the experience of making the show for us.

What specifically did you learn in making season one?

J.D. Payne: On a show, we have a lot of time to get to know the characters, to go deeper into mythology and lore. Some scenes we shot didn’t even make it into the final edit. When you put them up against the larger stakes of the world, they didn’t quite punch their weight. Even with small character scenes, you need to have a sense of how it connects to the stakes and will contribute to the whole.

Patrick McKay: In Middle-earth, everything at the end of the day is about the fate of Middle-earth. It wants to tie back to the battle of good and evil and the temptation of power. It’s a high bar for anything to clear to deserve a spot in the story. Starting this journey five years ago, J.D. and I had an idea of what that bar was. Having gone through the process, we have more specificity of what really feels like Middle-earth and what doesn’t. Hopefully we have raised the bar for the show going into season two.

The Rings of Power is leaving behind the vistas of New Zealand to film in England in season two. Production wise, does it feel like your approach will change along with that?

J.D. Payne: Not tremendously. We have different terrains and topography that are available to us here. We have an excellent crew on the ground here. We had an excellent crew on the ground in New Zealand. We brought a lot of institutional knowledge from one place to the next. In coming to England, we feel that we have brought Tolkien home.

Once the Stranger starts recovering his memories, actually, he starts speaking in what feels like a classic “British wizard accent,” like Ian McKellen’s Gandalf.

Patrick McKay: Leith McPherson is our dialect coach and she’s an important part of our fellowship. The specifics of these things matter so much. And actually, Daniel Weyman, who plays the Stranger, developed a voice with her that has a little twinge of the Irish lilt the Harfoots have. He’s talking like the folks he’s learned to talk around.

If Nori is going off with him toward Rhûn, is the show leaving the rest of the Harfoots behind?

J.D. Payne: In long-form storytelling, in the shows we admire — we talk about The Wire sometimes — you might spend a lot of time with a season-one character and the next season they are much more on the periphery, or not there at all and you pick up with them a season or two later. Every character we’ve introduced that’s still alive is on the board for possible continued storytelling. We’re excited for audiences to see how their narratives develop.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Takeaways from the above:

-They love mystery boxes, and will continue to use them centrally
-Season 2 is already written and they are explicitly ignoring all critical feedback from season 1
-They have never read any stories in the Tolkien legendarium not involving a wizard (???????)
-They're not admitting Gandalf is Gandalf, so this is probably going to be an unopened mystery box for the entirety of season 2
-Galadriel and Sauron are YA novel teenagers in their headcanon
 

Kimahri

Banned
Takeaways from the above:

-They love mystery boxes, and will continue to use them centrally
-Season 2 is already written and they are explicitly ignoring all critical feedback from season 1
-They have never read any stories in the Tolkien legendarium not involving a wizard (???????)
-They're not admitting Gandalf is Gandalf, so this is probably going to be an unopened mystery box for the entirety of season 2
-Galadriel and Sauron are YA novel teenagers in their headcanon
Their lack of ability to think outside what Tolkien did in lotr and the hobbit should be everything amazon needed to know to realize these hacks weren't up to the task.

And am I the only one who gets a twitch every time they sai "Tolkenian"?
 

nkarafo

Member
I haven't watched the show and neither i know anything about the books. All i know is the Peter Jackson Trilogy, which i liked a lot. I also didn't like the Hobbit trilogy at all.

Anyway, all i know about this show is from promotion material, trailers and short videos and reviews. But the one thing that sticks out to me, other than the diversity hire actors, is the elves. They just look completely forgettable.

In the movie trilogy and even in Hobbit, whenever a high rank elf was on screen there was this feeling of awe about it. They were elegant as fuck. I wouldn't say "attractive". Just elegant. Even the lower ranking ones had that vibe.

The elves in the Amazon series look like a bunch of homeless peasants who just got some fancy robes. I don't know if it's the bad casting, the bad hairstyles, the costumes or the direction. They just don't give the same vibe, which was the best thing about the elves in the movies.
 

HoodWinked

Member
I haven't watched the show and neither i know anything about the books. All i know is the Peter Jackson Trilogy, which i liked a lot. I also didn't like the Hobbit trilogy at all.

Anyway, all i know about this show is from promotion material, trailers and short videos and reviews. But the one thing that sticks out to me, other than the diversity hire actors, is the elves. They just look completely forgettable.

In the movie trilogy and even in Hobbit, whenever a high rank elf was on screen there was this feeling of awe about it. They were elegant as fuck. I wouldn't say "attractive". Just elegant. Even the lower ranking ones had that vibe.

The elves in the Amazon series look like a bunch of homeless peasants who just got some fancy robes. I don't know if it's the bad casting, the bad hairstyles, the costumes or the direction. They just don't give the same vibe, which was the best thing about the elves in the movies.
I think the issue is that the show looks like thier Amazon commercials. Down to the cast looking like "extras" and focus tested ratio for diversity. It's hard to explain but it also has a too clean and artificial look like a commerical.

It's kind of perfect as a soulless thing they manufactured to sell Prime memberships.
 
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BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Takeaways from the above:

-They love mystery boxes, and will continue to use them centrally
-Season 2 is already written and they are explicitly ignoring all critical feedback from season 1
-They have never read any stories in the Tolkien legendarium not involving a wizard (???????)
-They're not admitting Gandalf is Gandalf, so this is probably going to be an unopened mystery box for the entirety of season 2
-Galadriel and Sauron are YA novel teenagers in their headcanon

Jesus Christ I wish I could be that bad at my job and get paid the kind of money they are. These guys are going to end up wealthy, the kind of wealth that lasts for generations, writing what is perhaps the worst television around these past five years aside from that unfortunate Resident Evil Netflix vehicle.
 

Fbh

Member
Takeaways from the above:

-They love mystery boxes, and will continue to use them centrally
-Season 2 is already written and they are explicitly ignoring all critical feedback from season 1
-They have never read any stories in the Tolkien legendarium not involving a wizard (???????)
-They're not admitting Gandalf is Gandalf, so this is probably going to be an unopened mystery box for the entirety of season 2
-Galadriel and Sauron are YA novel teenagers in their headcanon

But did they give us any hints to know if Isildur is still alive?
Not knowing is keeping me awake at night!!!
 
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IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
I bailed on this series in Episode 3, but after hearing so much about it, the wife and I decided to catch up and finish it.

I really hated it. It's just fan fiction that pisses on the lore Tolkien created. It was like the writers got their inspiration from the Shadow of Mordor/War games.

Visually it's stunning, but that's the only good thing I can say about it.
 
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