The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series

"This author was a serious fucking nerd."

*views season finale*

*throws hands in air*

Christ on a bike.

STOKED FOR THE PUKELMEN

celebrimbor just baffled by the smallest amount of smith-science, "an alloy you say, what an intriguing suggestion"

*wildly googling "eloi"*

"those words, HAIL THE NEW FLESH -- where did you hear them?"

time to fuck sauron

it'll need to be something… smaller (hobbit-sized)

really darth mauled the cool-looking non-canon character there

That was...frequently hilarious.

its a comedy like breaking bad

i'm good!

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0879/7592/files/breaking-bad-heisenberg-drawing.jpg

i haven't been posting in here too much because i don't want to be too negative and i do think that in some ways the show is a good time.

but episode 5 took me _three_ different attempts to get through. this giant's storyline is unintentionally hilarious. the galadriel scene where she trains the soldiers was tedious (in that you can predict how the entire scene goes, before it happens) and a weird obvious nod toward getting a some sort of fighting choreography emmy, with the playful music in sync with the swordplay. i watched all of the hobbit trilogy on an airplane. i feel like that when i am watching this show.

not that imdb knows anything, but it had episode 5 as the worst and episode 6 as the best of the season (this was before the finale was up). a friend told me that if i didn't like episode 6, i could just give up. i'm just trying to get through episode 6. but i have the feeling ep. 6 is the best because there's more CGI / big battles? my hopes are low. but i know that hope is the very last thing to go, before the darkness, and the very first thing to return..

I myself have been equivocating but I think I'm ready to admit this show is... really not good

By which I mean that I don't desire to see more of it

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