The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

[DigModiFicaTion]

Episode 7 was decent. The actors felt more relaxed and authentic in their roles. Some of the characters even physically looked different. I wonder if it was filmed later? Anyway, the character development in this episode felt natural and I enjoyed seeing how the paired characters brought new dimensions to the one dimensional presentations we've had up until this point. Once again, the Harfoot are the best part and remain the most Tolkien feeling of all the characters. There's a definite feel of the LotR Trilogy hobbit kinship in this episode. If the show is like this going forward, I'll be happy. That on screen text at the end of the episode was pretty cringe though.......it was like getting hit in the face with the "did you see what we did there?" stick.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

That on screen text at the end of the episode was pretty cringe though.......it was like getting hit in the face with the "did you see what we did there?" stick.

Agree 100%.

 

[TM2YC]

a conical level.

You mean like Weathertop?

 

[henzINNIT]

Looking forward to the finale. Pacing has been quite off but I've enjoyed the show quite a bit regardless. The ground work has been laid for a much better season 2 if the creatives can step it up. Durin and Elrond have been the MVPs of this show so far. I wasn't keen on Galadriel to start with but the last couple of episodes have started challenging her and it's been more compelling.

The backlash to this series has indeed been quite tiring. Who knew there were so many Tolkien scholars on the internet? I get being frustrated by changes but this adaptation has to do a hell of a lot more invention to function as a series. The 2nd age in the text was mostly bullet points. A list of 100 Numenorian kings is not a story. It has been uneven in places but some people act like the show is actual cancer.

I hope Sauron is finally revealed before this season closes. I want the stranger to be a Blue Wizard.

 

[TM2YC]

I get being frustrated by changes but this adaptation has to do a hell of a lot more invention to function as a series. The 2nd age in the text was mostly bullet points. A list of 100 Numenorian kings is not a story.

Precisely. The makers of the show only had two options...

1. Stick rigidly to the lore and vast timescales, and therefore only dramatise a couple of paragraphs of Tolkien's LotR pre-history. So the show would be 1% Tolkien and 99% them just making things up to fill in the blank details and fill up a TV show's runtime.

e.g. From the Appendices:

"After a time Sauron made war upon the Númenoreans in Middle Earth, before they should take root. Orodruin burst once more into flame, and was named anew, Mount Doom. But Sauron struck too soon, before his own power was rebuilt, whereas the power of Gil-galad had increased in his absence; and in the Last Alliance that was made against him Sauron was overthrown and the One Ring was taken from him. So ended the Second Age."

That's the whole plot for our show, fill in the rest of the 5-7 seasons yourself guys!

2. Play fast and loose with timescales and make adjustments to the lore, in order to fit in all the LotR backstory stuff we want to see, by telescoping events and lives that took place millennia apart. So the show would be about 80% Tolkien and 20% them making up new bridging material.

Naturally they went with option 2 because 1 wasn't really an option. What would people rather see, 1% Tolkien writing, or 80%? Complain about the show's writing of the dialogue, characterisation choices, casting etc etc by all means but complaining about them not sticking to the lore rigidly is silly and redundant IMO.

---

By the way, I'm currently driving myself mad by trying to understand how the Silmarillion map, fits next to and scales with the main LotR map. Every attempt I see online seems to have it done differently and have obvious mistakes I can see.

I'm pretty confident about the vertical scale and positioning, and the join across the blue mountains in this rough overlay:

But I'm very unsure about the horizontal scale of the Beleriand map. This Tolkien map suggests that the Beleriand map is drawn 200% to big horizontally:

 

[DonKamillo]

As stated, there are valid criticisms of this show. I have many. It’s the level of criticism that makes me think there’s more going on... To me, there was more comically bad about Kenobi (...) than this show...

When Kenobi came out, the Star Wars brand had already taken quite a few hits (Sequel Trilogy, Solo, Book of Boba Fett) while RoP is put up against what many consider not only to be the best that the fantasy genre has to offer (up to this day) but the greatest movie trilogy of all time.

The higher the expectations, the greater the fall, if the show doesn't deliver.

If you lower your expectations (considerably) RoP is not a bad show.

One of the videos I watched called it a failure on the scale of The Room... That’s patently absurd.

Hey at least The Room evoked some emotions in me (mostly laughter) which I can't say for 90% of this show.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

But I mean that’s exactly what we’re talking about here. Did you really expect it to be as good as the original LotR trilogy? Despite this show’s budget it is still a TV show and it is working from far less in terms of source material. Kenobi, while not on par with RoP, still had a huge budget as well. And that show did have laughably bad scenes.

And yes, they were pointed out and laughed about. But nothing in RoP, IMO, comes close to that in terms of laughable scenes. Again, I’m not defending the show, not saying people have to like it. What I’m saying is it is a middle of the road fantasy series that is getting called one of the worst productions of all time. Is that simply fan disappointment based on outsized expectations or is there more of an agenda at play. I honestly don’t know. But it is so disproportionate that it can’t help but be noticed.

 

[DonKamillo]

Ep 8 spoiler prediction:

Reveal message

I predict when Galadriel said she was taking Halbrand away for "Elf healing" or whatever, it's going to be to Eregion, so Halbrand can offer his artisan smithy services to Celebrimbor.

Seems like they're really going the obvious route with the Sauron reveal...

My prediction for Ep.8:

Reveal message

Gilgalad to Celebrimbor: "That's all Elrond managed to obtain from the Dwarves? it's far too small to forge something of use out of it..."
Halbrand enters the scene: "How about a ring...?"

Who knew what that little token of friendship between a dwarf and an elf would become...

 

[TM2YC]

^ I think you could be on to something there.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

Seems like they're really going the obvious route with the Sauron reveal...

My prediction for Ep.8:

Reveal message

Gilgalad to Celebrimbor: "That's all Elrond managed to obtain from the Dwarves? it's far too small to forge something of use out of it..."
Halbrand enters the scene: "How about a ring...?"

Who knew what that little token of friendship between a dwarf and an elf would become...

if that happens, I may have to jump on the hate bandwagon myself.

 

[Gibichung]

I have some ideas that I hope to work on.

Essentially, I want to make 3 separate movies that also cuts down a lot of the fat, depending on how the finale pans out.

1. The Númenóreans
2. The Wandering Days of Harfoots: A Short Film
3. The Fellowship of Elrond and Lord Durin

 

[Masirimso17]

I have some ideas that I hope to work on.

Essentially, I want to make 3 separate movies that also cuts down a lot of the fat, depending on how the finale pans out.

1. The Númenóreans
2. The Wandering Days of Harfoots: A Short Film
3. The Fellowship of Elrond and Lord Durin

Had the same thought. Seems like that would be the best course of action. I would love to help and give my thoughts/feedback about structuring them.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

Yes, I think the overall season could be tightened up quite a bit. But I think a re-score with the Shore compositions would be the biggest fix for this show. I think the music has been the biggest disappointment so far. Many moments that are supposed to be dramatic and emotional actually feel less so with the existing music. The Shore music could really help to sell those moments as well as to tie it in more with the rest of the on screen world.

 

[Masirimso17]

I honestly really like the music in the show, but of course Shore music would be welcome!

 

[DigModiFicaTion]

For as much as this show frustrated me, the finale was fantastic. It finally felt like The Lord of the Rings. The payoff of the characters was strong. I was glad that they finally utilized nostalgia and rhyming of TLOTR themes. I'll admit that I don't really get the whole mithril saving the elves thing, but the way Sauron was finally revealed was powerful. I also greatly appreciated how they didn't use words to tell us anything more and let the visuals speak during the final scenes. I could care less about most of this series, but that finale makes me want to see more. The Harfoot, Nori and the Istar who is almost certainly Gandalf were hands down the best part of this series. I look forward to Nori and Istar's journey most of all.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

I felt almost the opposite. It was okay, but it left me less enthused about the future of the show than I was before this episode. I had hoped that reveals would not go the way everyone was expecting. I had made my peace with Gandalf as it wouldn’t make as much sense for him to be anyone else. No other wizard had that relationship with the Harfoots/Hobbits. But I was really hoping Sauron was not on screen this season. But what bothered me most was the lame misdirection. It just didn’t work for me at all. And it left me feeling like the actions of many characters were unearned and not believable. Stil, overall I enjoyed the season. It’s not a home run, but I liked it a lot.

 

[henzINNIT]

Count me as someone underwhelmed by the finale too. The episode itself had its moments, but the revelations were uniformly deflating to me. I enjoyed the ride for the past few weeks but now it's come to delivering on the mysteries I am far less inspired about the future. The answers provided were the most predictable ones possible. I don't mind not getting what I wanted as such, but generally I thought there were more interesting paths to take. A real bummer that has retro-actively made me think less of the show, because some of the things I thought were misdirections were actually just... well... directions. Guess I thought it was doing more than it was.

 

[DonKamillo]

While the finale was better than the previous episodes, for me it was too little, too late.

Having seen the whole season now, it felt like the writers focused on subverting our expectations with three story beats they wanted to surprise us with (The Stranger is Gandalf, Halbrand is Sauron, The Rings are made out of Mithril) and worked their way backwards from there.

They were going for Prime Shyamalan like "Look how clever we are. If you watch season one again now, you will see all the signs we hid".

The problem is that:

1. ...their plan backfired horribly because most of the revelations could be seen from miles away.
2. ...the backbone of the series (story, pacing, character development, etc.) suffered for it and was so weak that I don't plan on watching this a second time.

In hindsight it almost seems they had material for four episodes (Ep.1+2, Ep7+8) and had to stretch everything out over double the length.

Seeing as the Showrunners themselves admitted to pacing issues in Season 1, maybe they'll learn from their mistakes but I'm not holding my breath for Season 2...

PS:

^ I think you could be on to something there.

Almost called it...

 

[bionicbob]

I can honestly say, hand on heart, I LOVED this first season.

Yes, most of the final identity reveals were telegraphed since the second episode and thus were not that surprising, but the journey getting there was wonderful. And this final episode was blockbuster in scope, power and emotion.

Bring on season two!!!!

 

[TM2YC]

Called it after his first two minutes on screen : https://forums.fanedit.org/threads/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power.25708/post-400823

An excellent finale. Like the whole series, not perfect but I enjoyed it a lot and got used to looking forward to every Friday episode. The prospect of going off an adventure to somewhere entirely new with two of the most promising characters sounds like fun... plus they will surely meet two characters virtually unknown to Tolkien lore (IIRC).