The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series

If we can't be glad because Amazon spent a billion or so dollars giving us an amazing extension of the Middle Earth story to enjoy, then we can at least be glad that Amazon wasted a billion or so dollars making something we can easily walk away from and ignore while we find better things to do with our time.

i will never find better things to do with my time

I was uncertain why it made such a thing about Elrond finding the scroll in the water, when all it tells him is that Halbrand isn't who he says?

I guess it's supposed to be Portentous in terms of Future Events and Internal Conflict. Thrilling.

its a comedy like breaking bad

Well now it's funny you should say that:

“Season one opens with: Who is Galadriel? Where did she come from? What did she suffer? Why is she driven?” says Payne. “We’re doing the same thing with Sauron in season two. We’ll fill in all the missing pieces.”
“Sauron can now just be Sauron,” McKay adds. “Like Tony Soprano or Walter White. He’s evil, but complexly evil. We felt like if we did that in season one, he’d overshadow everything else. So the first season is like Batman Begins, and the The Dark Knight is the next movie, with Sauron maneuvering out in the open.”

(I want to hurt these people.)

I appreciate the tartness here:

That’s not to say there haven’t been highlights in Rings of Power’s debut. It and its characters have often stalled on repeating the Tolkienesque themes of hope in the face of despair over and over, with what has essentially just been increasing amounts of despair—but as simple that it is, there’s still something charming about it. And, of course, it has continued to be a ridiculously pretty show, gleaming with the millions upon millions of dollars at its disposal. “Alloyed” carries this on much the same, but in a madcap 70 minutes that both feels like too much and not enough is going on. It does, however, actually take a step forward in the long narrative of the Second Age it reveals to us, for all that aesthetic glimmer, what we’ve experienced every week for the past few months was both incredibly obvious and, at the heart of it, quite empty.

I was going along with it, enjoyed ep 6 a lot, but this final episode. oh no. oh no no no

Truly. (And Episode 6 was the best and also stupid as fuck, per my comment earlier.)

yeah I was going along with it, this will all work out in the end. just tweaking the story to make it a viable TV show. all the obvious and completely stupid plots will just be misdirection etc. whoops

CelebrimBORING, amirite

what if instead of swords we made something smaller…
yes…
three…salmon forks.

quite a flurry of naff shoehorning, kinda ruined the dull yet beautiful vibe of the rest of the series imo

all i know is i still have a slight outside chance that the bob odenkirk wizard is going to turn out to be tom bombadill (private theory)

Looks like a number of torrent sites had the South park LOTR video quest episode upped as the LOTR series episode 8 yesterday.,
I hadn't seen it before, not sure how much of South park I have seen though.

Rhys Ifans wizard, call him by his name.

"It would be... smaller.. than previously imagined" was prime Palin-channelling.

I suppose that the next series will start with what Eärien saw?

I have completely forgotten in which state we left Theo and his blended family, and it is bliss.

All in all though, this wasn't significantly worse than any of the other episodes except 6, unless, I suppose, you're viewing it as a mystery?

https://lathamgreen.blogspot.com/2022/10/bilbo-and-gandalf-tale-from-undying.html

theo is sauron ✅

(the rings have to be small than previously imagined since only hobbits or harfoots or stoors ever wear them <-- canon)

This show is victim to the same problems Picard has. The special effects overwhelm the plot/acting and steal focus. They are visually amazing and plottastically sad. It woul dhave been better if they made a big online virtual environment you could play characters in rather than this dirge of a mythos

"a big online virtual environment you could play characters in" is always the worst possible idea, though.

But thats what life is

as with the hobbit movies i don't think it's that hard to backform the rationale for some of the (v bad) decisions made here: they had to arrive at a specific fairly dynamic moment (or i guess a set of overlapping dynamic situations) where the actual stand-off AT that moment could not be more known by the vast majority of their viewers

(sauron BAD I TELL YOU, gandalf GOOD I TELL YOU, 3 + 7 + 9 + 1 rings already in the mail and we know what they do, numenor in its pomp teetering on the rim of self-delivered catastrophe)

drama-wise it's a huge pre-spoilered no-spoilers issue

some of the solutions have been good! potentially! yes they were! shut up!
• = moria as a towering and gleaming subterranean marvel (this was an excellently thought-thru feature in the hobbit movies)
• = the elves are mainly smug dicks who need a good slapping SITO but im right
• also their assumption that their solutions to the world-historical problem of evil and death is good not bad (it's bad)
• = also the smouldering sexual tension between galadriel and [redacted but we knew it was sauron] is objectively funny, again SITO but it is
• = hobbits already present but no one except gandalf is aware of them (thanks to a mini-culture of secretive woodcraft and funny twig hats)
• = from-beneath-you-it-devours (it = mordor) began promisingly!

however!
• making the hobbits racist-fake-irish was v v v bad and the secretive woodcraft mini-culture is played way too much for laughs
• there was way too much trudging around mordor so that the link between the tunnels and the volcano and the caldera etc was blurred to non-existence
• numenor at large is already dislikeable (even worse art than the elves) and not redeemed by the v boring elendil and the v bratty isildur
• the sea stuff was promising! earendil was a mariner! master and commander is right there to raid! but after the first scenes they fucked it
• the additional evil blue-wizard-threesome plot fake-out is a darth maul level of "fuck you this intriguing non-canon element actually means nothing"
• in general non-canon ppl are thrown away way too casually and we don't care! (we shd be made to care)
• given the constraints they are necessary and inevitable! build them fully in and make their newly invented loss felt when we reread even smith of wootton major
• it is just woefully badly written

as for the SAURON ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS solution i feel this was potentially an AMAZING SPOILER-UPENDING idea (i can totally see why the writers' room went "YES!") which was in the end delivered VERY CRAPPILY INDEED (the writers' room was not filled with amazing writers? this bit i don't get, unless it's just that with a glut of streaming drama the good dramatic skills are spread p thin at the moment?)

we need -- for dramatic purposes -- to be in doubt how things are going to end up and who is good and who is not! the idea that a wizard might be a peril for harfoots is worth exploring! the rings being born of complacent elvish dunderheadness and self-admiration totally makes sense! elves suck! lean into this!

in conclusion: "it's always time to fuck sauron"

A well-thought analysis. And I am hopeful for the impreovements described

what is SITO

"sorry if this offends"

sauron the hobbit has it written inside his teeny-weeny little ring

https://i.imgur.com/oP9Yqaf.png

Didn’t really understand the promise referred to between Elrond and Galadriel. What was that about?

i thought it was referencing elrond’s promise to trust her

evil blue-wizard-threesome

For the moment I saw them I saw their clear filmic inspiration:

http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7621/580/320/892870/superman2.jpg

Trust her about what? Something specific or in general? Sorry I don’t remember it seems like so many apples and snails ago.

trust her to KICK ASS

iirc when she asked him to promise to trust her it was just in general sense but when she reminds him of his promise it was in regards to “i know you just fished me out of the river and i won’t explain how i got there but anyway, don’t trust halbrand, and don’t ask me to explain why because y’all already think i’m too paranoid about sauron so it’ll be really awkward to talk about the fact that i saved him”

i think that’s how it was anyway, don’t make me watch it again pls

"trust me when i say it's time to fuck sauron"

Living in Numenor in this show would be like being trapped in an Alma-Tadema painting forever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIIU2JvoMX4

sorry about spoilers, but durin's secret name is....

Timmy

the trick to winning over a horse is to speak very clear english directly into its eyeballs

https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.ae55f6d71ce774237fc4905f6c846100?rik=eYLqq%2fFRaiesVA&riu=http%3a%2f%2fimages.memes.com%2fmeme%2f693715&ehk=QtilqIzMMaUubrxeszRaMr0Xp9xlJgs6NEdpUsqb3YY%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0

• = also the smouldering sexual tension between galadriel and [redacted but we knew it was sauron] is objectively funny, again SITO but it is

What we think is his helm is actually his hair, he's always greasing it down just before Galadriel appears - that's why he disappears so quickly when she's in the forge.

I don't hate the idea that "all will love me and despair" isn't the first time she's been tempted with world-ruling power, I hope that this isn't "and then she wasn't a fascist any more" - if there's 4 more seasons then they'll probably have a few more set-pieces.

"They stripped down naked, as was custom for duels among hobbits, and prepared to fight. The battle was fierce, but eventually Bilbo emerged victorious after landing a lucky punch on Frodo's nose. He celebrated his victory by eating the last piece of cake himself while poor Frodo looked on in defeat."

A billion dollars and you still can't make it look like Galadriel and dudeface are actually on the sea.

It was all fine, but at every point I wished I was watching The Two Towers instead.

A billion dollars also doesn’t buy convincing day for night filming.

I wonder if someone told the creators that people liked the Morrrrrrdor pronunciation and asked if we could have more of that.

About that.

Many BrE speakers are pretty non-rhotic. Of course Morfydd Clark is Welsh and has deep access to some of the linguistic roots, but it is... sometimes offputting.

The trilled "r" is, I think, technically a voiced alveolar consonant. To American ears it sounds basically like a "d."

The other actors try to get there too, with varying results. It comes out most strongly in the proper nouns: Morrrdorrr, Numenorrr, Saurrron, Morrrgoth.

But I idly wonder if she has to talk like that all the time. "Hey Morrrgan, would you like to go to Starrrbucks?" "Can you please pass the sugarrr? I need it for my yoghurrrt."

I have a private theory that one of the reasons Galadrrriel and Elrrrond can't be together is that they would simply get exhausted saying one another's names.

sometimes offputting? it's the elvish way

I have a private theory that one of the reasons Galadrrriel and Elrrrond can't be together is that they would simply get exhausted saying one another's names.

Eh, what else have they got to do with all that long life?

Someone upthread (or maybe somewhere else) lamented the fact that you don't really get any sense from this show of the long lives of elves, but I suppose when it's all done and you can watch all eight-six hours of content in chronological order, you'll get some insight into just how boring it must be to be an elf.

they suck!

So much soft, draping fabric. Ugh.

10% Beautiful CGI vistas
5% OTT special effects
5% Atrocious accents
20% A main character hatches a brilliant plan to save civilisation but for no apparent reason their superior expressly forbids them from carrying it out
10% People looking into the middle distance / each other's eyes / hugging and crying for way too long while uttering eye-glazingly sentimental platitudes about "never giving up the fight" or something
5% Morfydd Clark being totes adorbs
10% the character you thought was one person turns out to be someone else - GOTCHA!
5% they haven't worked out how to not make the dwarves look ridiculous all the time even when they're trying to be sincere
10% God this is a long episode innit?
10% Commoners are unequivocally a mindless mass of sheep-like simpletons who all stand around being clueless until they're told what to do by one of the main characters
10% that's not how ships work

i'm into some of those percentages but i feel very alienated by the one thing that seems to unite everyone about this show, which is "well at least the CGI is great"

man, i hate this CGI shit

yeah, huillet-straub that shit

im probably not even joking, new zealand is pretty

Also seems like they spent a shit ton of money building these elaborate sets but it just looks like they're wandering round Disneyland half the time xp

When I say "beautiful cgi vistas", I mean, they're beautiful in the way Limgrave or Leyndell are beautiful in Elden Ring, but that there's a video game and this isn't