Bilbo

It sounds like they’ve done to Indy what so many fans hated about the ST.

I try not to 

It sounds like they’ve done to Indy what so many fans hated about the ST.

It sounds like they’ve done to Indy what so many fans hated about the ST.

Bernard Hill 😂

Bernard Hill 😂

Bernard Hill 😂

Me too, it's so shitty

Yeah, major Rise of Skywalker vibes here.
 
 

It wouldn’t have happened if Christopher was still alive.
 
I think Simon is very keen on this stuff but his father or grandfather he is not.

Mystery box ☑️ 
Style over substance ☑️ 
Bad writing ☑️ 
Talking a good game to try and fool your audience ☑️ 
 
I’d say they were grown from the leftovers of one of JJ’s tissues or something.

Christopher was still alive at the very early stages of development, I'm told. He made his distaste for the project known, but didn't try to stop it. 

Mystery box ☑️ 
Style over substance ☑️ 
Bad writing ☑️ 
Talking a good game to try and fool your audience ☑️ 
 
I’d say they were grown from the leftovers of one of JJ’s tissues or something.

Mystery box ☑️ 
Style over substance ☑️ 
Bad writing ☑️ 
Talking a good game to try and fool your audience ☑️ 
 
I’d say they were grown from the leftovers of one of JJ’s tissues or something.

Gil-Galad is an awful w⚓️
 
The writing is the show’s biggest flaw (aside from the costumes). The show runners and writers… you would wonder how these people with limited experience or success got these jobs in the first place. I’m still not willing to rule out the whole thing being a money laundering exercise!
 

Gil-Galad is an awful w⚓️
 
The writing is the show’s biggest flaw (aside from the costumes). The show runners and writers… you would wonder how these people with limited experience or success got these jobs in the first place. I’m still not willing to rule out the whole thing being a money laundering exercise!
 

To a certain extent every major character in ROP has the same template...i.e. the "misunderstood outsider" who is smarter and more courageous than the rest of their people, who thinks differently and transcends their culture's “limited” thinking, whose notions draw deep scepticism, only to be ultimately proven correct.  
 
Galadriel...misunderstood outsider.
Nori...misunderstood outsider.
Elrond...misunderstood outsider.
Arondir...misunderstood outsider.
Durin IV...misunderstood outsider.
Bronwyn...misunderstood outsider.
 
Did I miss anyone? Every one of these individuals is at some point rejected, separated or ostracised from their own people because of their supposedly rebellious or unconventional nature. I think in some ways you could apply this to Isildur and his smarter-than-everyone-else sister as well.
 
It's embarrassing...lazy writers who haven't experienced any of life projecting their own sense of self onto their characters. These characters reflect the sensibilities of the writers and "creators" of this show more than they do anything Tolkien ever wrote.  I wonder if they even realize the degree to which they've done this.

I love it!  What's the Leaves of Lorien brooch from again?

Nice!

Yeah. I think that’s why he’s so cheap! 
 
I got the DVDs as they came out but the gift sets were too expensive for 11/12/13 years old so it’s nice to get them now. Tracked down still sealed sets too. 
 
This is how I’m displaying them 

The TTT:SE OST is the only one that actually has different music.  Not only does it include the "Farewell to Lorien" track, but it also shortens two tracks ("The Uruk-Hai" and "The Black Gate Is Closed") to make room for it.

It's a combo track that starts with the EE version of the gift-giving music, circles back to repeat a portion of that again, then ends with the "Gilraen's Memorial" cue.
 
None of this music was on the FOTR OST album and couldn't have been; None of this music was recorded until 2002, to go into the EE cut of the film.
 
And yes, all of it appears on the Complete Recordings set:
0:00-3:07 = TCR 3-04 "The Fighting Uruk-hai" [2:28-6:06] 0:00-3:07 = tracked repeat of TCR 3-04 "The Fighting Uruk-hai" [4:15-4:34] 0:00-3:07 = TCR 2-09 "Gilraen's Memorial" [0:00-1:09]  
 
 
The theatrical version of the gift-giving scene is on the original FOTR OST album, in the track "The Great River" from 0:00-0:50
 
 
 
The whole point of the bonus track they put on the TTT:SE album was to put music that wasn't on the FOTR OST album.  The FOTR OST album had the gift-giving music that was in the film, so for a bonus track for this new special album, they likely were motivated to pick a big standout cue that was recorded in 2002 for the EE cut of the film.  So for that purpose, the gift giving scene sure makes sense to me!  It's very different from the theatrical version, over 3 times longer, and full of choir.   And it was probably Shore's idea to include "Gilraen's Memorial" cue in the same track, since it has a similar sound (more choir!), and fixes the issue of the ending;  The EE gift-giving music was written to segue into a cue that was already on the FOTR OST, so segueing to "Gilraen's Memorial" instead concludes things nicely without repeating anything already released.

as is all the Harfoot stuff, from their Harry Potter-ish names (nary a Deagol in sight!) to their adorbs derpiness, to the fact that basically nothing happens in their storylines until the last 90 minutes of the season and how its in a bubble all by itself compared to the other storylines. Also, its by far the storyline that relies most on magic - The Stranger cast more spells this season than all the magic in all the six Jackson films combined - and the one most intent on bottling the "LOTR-feels" in terms of the outdoors-iness of it, and the "look, four Hobbits setting out on a quest!"
 
And while I actually think its very well performed, the degree to which Nori is wide-eyed and curious adds to the cloying nature of the Harfoot storyline. I've never seen a reluctant hero who spent more time talking about how she's a reluctant hero (I could swear Nori said something to the effect of "I'm just a little Harfoot" a good five times).
 
These Harfoots are basically Middle Earth Ewoks, in a way that the Hobbits of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were not.

Making a list would be fun. I'll start with what I can think of off the top of my head and update it as I go along:
 
The overall aesthetic is as close to Jackson's as the filmmakers legally could do. Beginning with a prologue with vocals (of Galadriel's no less) over black and aethereal choir. Middle Earth is filled "with strange creatures beyond count" Many of the designs - Balrog, Fell Beast, Sauron in armour, Narsil, Aeglos - are as close to Jackson as Amazon could do without getting sued. Others like Lindon or Durnost come across as the two-dime versions of other Jackson designs like Lorien and Barad Dur. The pains of the First Age "passed out of thought and mind" "What delivry is this?" - "What is this new devliry?" Some shots and sequences of shots are quite similar: surely more than one Middle Earth-themed propery can have a fight with a Troll, but in the course of the fight here, there's a POV shot from one of the Elves on the ground as the Troll is about to stomp him just like Sam in The Fellowship of the Ring. Both Galadriel and Arondir inherit the Legolas Superhero MomentsTM I'd say the timbral resemblences Bear went for with his score count, as well. A lot of filming locations from the films reappear as other places in Middle Earth: the entrance to Moria is now at the High Fells, and there's a whole travel montage of the Harfoots that seems to go from the Plains of Rohan, through Rhudaur, Midgewater Marshes, and finally the Woods of Ithilien. Greenwood is now Trollshaws. All the Harfoot stuff is one big throwback, replete with cute English names (nary a Deagol to be found!) and all imbued with a kind of saccharine, derpy cutsiness. Nori, in particular, is a kind of cross of Bilbo with Luke Skywalker. Elrond sitting in the tree branches recreates the way we meet Frodo in Fellowship of the Ring. Magic Fireworks in Lindon The basic premise: one outgoing character fears Sauron's return while the others are complacent, is exactly the same as An Unexpected Journey. "You will linger here, an outcast, poisoned in dark whispers and dreams" as compared to "here you will dwell, bound to your grief." The iconography of Rohan has been dispersed between the Southlanders and the Numenoreans, replete with horse-head sword hilts and a deep connection between Isildur and a horse who will invariably come to his aid, Brego-like. Requisite mortal-and-immortal romance. "She had passed beyond my sight" The Elf ship's approach to Valinor is very much a visualization of Gandalf's "The Grey rain curtain of this world rolls back [...] and then you see it: White shores." Speaking of Gandalf...  "Able to birth a flame [...] as pure as starlight" (you mean, like the Gems of Lasgalen, Celebrimbor?) Elrond and Durin's dynamic very much plays on Gimli and Legolas "Salted pork and enough malt beer to fill the Anduin." Even though its ultimately a hoax, Halbrand is played as an Aragorn-type, and Ostirith as Helm's Deep. The prow of the ship at the front of the Numenorean palace. The beacon that's lit when Elendil's ship enters Numenore reminds me of Amon Din. Sadoc opens his speech almost exactly like Bilbo's Farewell Party Speech. Halbrand's people "are scattered. Leaderless." "Keept it. Token of our friendship." The Palantir. The creation of Mordor is someone's idea of the reverse of the destruction of the Ring. The Palantir "show many visions. Some that will never come to pass." Okay, this one is really stretching it, but Elrond's story of how he saved Durin FROM THREE TROLLS... In remarking of the Numenorean cadets' swordmanship skills, Galadriel manages to both namedrop the Stone Giants AND have the same kind of "talking in Elvish over the head of the warriors" that Legolas and Aragorn do at Helm's Deep. Although the prospect of a siege at Ostirith in the style of Helm's Deep proves to be a red herring, the battle at Tirharad still has many of the visual cues of Helm's Deep, replete with cutaways to worried women and children indoors. Also, the Numenorean cavarly charge REALLY wants to be the ride of the rohirrim. Bronwyn gives Theo a speech along the lines of Sam's peroration at the end of The Two Towers. "Noro lim" to the rescue! Galadriel recounts the backstory of the Orcs along the same lines as Saruman did. "the Secret Fire" is mentioned Galadriel and Theo hides from Orcs under a tree stump bringing to mind the same shot composition as Jackson (and Bakshi). While they're at it, Galadriel gives Theo a speech very much along the lines that Gandalf gives Frodo in Moria. THAT BALROG! Four Hobbits set out on the quest to help Gandalf... When Gandalf banishes the Mystics, they managed to call-back both to the imagery of the Moth AND the Ringwraiths. Even the magic itself reminds me of Gandalf's fight with the Necromancer. When Sauron tries to convince Galadriel to join him (and probably bump uglies along the way) he tells her he'll make her "stronger than the foundations of the earth." "We can save this Middle Earth" is a mirror of "We shall rule this Middle Earth." "Always follow your nose"

I actually did sit down and watch this show this week to give it a fair shot. And man, my initial reactions were wrong. It’s actually worse than it looked. 
 
There’s very very little salvageable in those 9 or so hours of TV. It’s an absolute mess. For the sake of the writers I can only hope that it was butchered in the edit. There just seems to be bits missing all over the place. The pacing goes from super fast to boringly slow in places. 
 
I will say the Elrond and non canon Durin stuff was the most well done stuff but Galadriel… Christ. She bears no resemblance to anything in Tolkien or Jackson. And the show doesn’t know whether it wants to be Tolkien or Jackson. It’s schizophrenic. 
 
The money isn’t up on the screen anyway. You get a big wide vista and then cut to the corner of a room. The costumes are awful. Celebrimbor is wearing curtains and the hairstyles look they were inspired by Michael Bolton.
 
Galadriel, Elrond, Arondir, Nori, and girl Anarion all basically have the same basic character arc of “young upstarts challenge the status quo”. But the Arondir/Bronwyn storyline managed to fit every cliche in. And the Harfoot stuff was painful. It killed the momentum every time the story switched to them. And why do they have stage Irish accents? Is cringe worthy.
 
also the three mystery box characters. Adar wasn’t too bad to be fair but Sauron was painfully obvious and Gandalf is obviously Gandalf.
 
But it takes pointless liberties for no reason. It’s all squished time wise but 
 
Celeborn and Anarion are already dead? So how does Galadriel have Celebrian who in turn marries Elrond and produces Arwen and the twins.
 
Gil-Galad is also a total arsehole. He’s supposed to be a hero of reknown but he’s a total knob. 
 
But Galadriel is the worst thing about the show. For some reason the actress doesn’t move a single face muscle aside from in that awful slow motion horse ride. Another thing the show over uses is slow mo. Cheesy as hell. And Arondir’s slow mo video game stuff made was awful.
 
And it doesn’t matter that the show left New Zealand because so much of the landscape is just covered in cgi anyway. 
 
The Mordor PowerPoint thing was hilarious as fuck though. But the forging of the rings was anticlimactic. 
 
If it wasn’t Tolkien related it wouldn’t get a second season. It’s just a bad generic fantasy show that has the license to use Tolkien names. 
 
if someone didn’t make this nobody would want it to be made.