Rings of Power The Rings of Power show discussion - spoilers allowed for all aired episodes

[Chen G. 3,949]

I don't for one moment believe its a made-up story. They go into waaaaay too much detail for it to just be a canard. I think some fans just like the idea that its a canard because they, as of yet, refuse to believe these writers could seriously suggest something so stupid. Well...

 

And remember, next episode the land of milk and honey gets turned into Mordor via an explosion because something something magical sword hilt...

 

Oh boy! This is fun!! 

[Barnald 365]

I'm also intrigued to know about this apparently solitary tree flourishing atop of the Misty Mountains.

[Chen G. 3,949]

[Pellaeon 593]

It’s the tree from The Last Jedi.

[Chen G. 3,949]

To me it felt more like something from The Rise of Skywalker, but okay.

[Incanus 5,714]

[Chen G. 3,949]

Why all the long faces? If you watch it mildly inebriated, its a friggin' hoot! 

[Incanus 5,714]

The mere descriptions found on the internet of this shows various travesties to Tolkien's writings is enough to deter me even further away from it. It just seems to sink to whole new levels of awfulness in terms of how unfaithful is it to the source material. And how horribly written it is in general.

[Chen G. 3,949]

I have to say, to me episode 3 and certain aspects of episode 4 and episode 5 weren't all that bad at all.

 

But yeah, now the show has jumped the shark, and I feel like its gearing-up to double-down next week. But hey, at least now it went from just being middling to being a hoot! I laughed so much courtesy of that Mithril creation myth malarky!!

[Richard Penna 3,684]

At least we have some cool battle sequences coming up

[Chen G. 3,949]

...that invariably coalesce with that hilt somehow being used to make a big explosion et voilà, InstaMordor!

 

Did I mention jumping the shark a second time?

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I'm not watching this show, but you're someone who doesn't find the dragon sickness sequence in BOTFA to be inadvertently hilarious so...

 

Anyway, I have seen very serious Tolkien devotees on the internet that like the show quite a bit, so there is at least a variety of reactions out there.

[Incanus 5,714]

11 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

I have to say, to me episode 3 and certain aspects of episode 4 and episode 5 weren't all that bad at all.

 

But yeah, now the show has jumped the shark, and I feel like its gearing-up to double-down next week. But hey, at least now it went from just being middling to being a hoot! I laughed so much courtesy of that Mithril creation myth malarky!!

I expect there to be a full explanation of how these "Mithrilchlorians" bind the whole universe and all beings together and how the elves can best hear their will and enact it.

 

"Did you ever hear the tragedy of Myth-Elf The Wise? I thought not. It’s not a story the Elves would tell you. It’s a Dark Lord legend. Myth-Elf was a Dark Lord, so powerful and so wise he could use Middle-Earth's Power to influence the Mithrilchlorians to create life… He had such a knowledge of the Power that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. The dark side of the Mithrilchlorians is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful… the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself."

[Holko 9,519]

22 minutes ago, Incanus said:

It just seems to sink to whole new levels of awfulness in terms of how unfaithful is it to the source material.

"Unfaithful"? It seems to be getting closer and closer to "offensive" to the source material.

[Incanus 5,714]

53 minutes ago, Holko said:

"Unfaithful"? It seems to be getting closer and closer to "offensive" to the source material.

It already isn't?

 

But the sea is always right!

[TolkienSS 407]

2 hours ago, Incanus said:

The mere descriptions found on the internet of this shows various travesties to Tolkien's writings is enough to deter me even further away from it. It just seems to sink to whole new levels of awfulness in terms of how unfaithful is it to the source material. And how horribly written it is in general.

 

The fact that every video or picture I see of Galadriel is her with constant bitch-face, makes me not want to watch.

Because I always picture Cate Blanchett smiling at Frodo and how Nuanced she was.

2 hours ago, Holko said:

"Unfaithful"? It seems to be getting closer and closer to "offensive" to the source material.

 

The new batch of filmmakers do these shows and films of classic material because they want to change them according to how they think they should be.

There is no faithfulness. The whole point of a show like this is unfaithfulness.

[Chen G. 3,949]

3 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

you're someone who doesn't find the dragon sickness sequence in BOTFA to be inadvertently hilarious so...

 

The dragon sickness is like the love potion in Tristan: its not real. Thorin just thinks he single-handedly set Smaug loose on his own heirs and is left with nothing but the gold, and so his depression causes him to go mad and attach a lot of importance to the gold. Certainly the insomnia doesn't help.

 

All the traits he exhibits under scourge of the supposed "dragon sickness" are ones he already exhibits earlier down the line: self-delusion, bad temper, pride, isolationism, neuroticism, etc..

 

At any rate, the Dragon Sickness thing is set-up much more thoroughly than this whole Mithril malarky.

[TheUlyssesian 2,478]

The mithril story is truly outrageous. I was like - how on earth did they come up with that?

 

It better be explained away as Gil and Celly's deceit otherwise that's a truly ludicrous backstory for mithril. 

[Jay 37,346]

The Rings of Power 1x03 Adar

 

Woof, the change in directors from JA Bayona (who did a fine job in the first 2 episodes, I thought) to whoever did this one was quite noticeable!  The plot developments throughout this episode are all well and good enough, but the way so many things were executed left A LOT to be desired.  

 

No Elrond and Durin this week!?  Are they only going to be in even-numbered episodes?  No Bronwyn and Theo either... I guess with a cast as large as they created for this show this had to happen....

 

 

Galadriel - I don't understand why she plays every second of every scene like she's incredibly pissed off.  It's almost like she's bringing urgency to a plot that the show itself is fine with developing quite slowly.  It's weird.  She seems to have no intelligence for how to deal with people, which you'd think she'd be an expert on at this point?  Like she just gets herself in more trouble at Numenor instead of deftly negotiating her way out.  S'weird.  But still, once she got to the library with Elendil and realizes the "mark of Sauron" is actually a map of the Southlands, that was pretty cool.

 

Halbrand - so he's not some random dude, but the king of the Southlands, descendent of a dude who united various random Southlands tribes together (to fight FOR Morgoth, or against him? The episode wasn't clear, or I just missed it).  His fight with the random dudes was kinda boring, I'm not sure why I'm really supposed to care about this guy yet

 

Numenor - This place was awesome, I really liked it.  Gorgeous establishing shots showing the massive city, nice production design all around, and great music.  But, I don't like they are setting up yet another mystery with the former king who is now alone in a tower, and the current queen going up to see him at the end, but we don't see him or understand why it's important to them that there's an Elf on their island.  It reminded me of having Durin IV and Durin III opening a chest at the end of episode 2 and not revealing its contents (not even in this episode either!)

 

Elendil, Isildur, and Eärien - Holy cow, Eärien was HOT!  I'll be watching this actress's career with great interest... I thought Elendil was really interesting - the actor had a awesome deep voice, and seems to have a lot more going on that has been revealed as of yet.  Isildur seemed like a bit of bore so far, but at least we know where his life will eventually end up by the final episode.....

 

Nori, The Stranger, and the Harfoots - Hmmm, I like the characters of Nori and whatever her friend's name is, and The Stranger does intrigue me, but man, his story is moving at a snail's pace.  I thought it was interesting that the Harfeet have this migration ritual, which makes perfect sense, but didn't really understand why they weren't willing to help out the Brandyfoot at all since the dad has the injured ankle, like WTF? That's not how a small village works.  Especially after they all kept chanting "we wait for you", it made no sense.  This storyline really needs to get more interesting soon

 

Arondir - All the time spent with him in the trenches was by far the least interesting and compelling part of the episode.  What felt like half an hour of screen time to reveal they are digging tunnels to avoid sunlight (which: isn't that how they've always operated?), and and turning The Southlands into a wasteland (which was already revealed in the Numenor scenes).  Plus, the chain fight was really bad with bad CGI, and the warg was even worse, with terrible CGI (those eyes looked WEIRD man).  The ending where he gets brought to Adar, but once again we don't see his face and end of a "cliffhanger" was yet another annoyance

 

 

Here's hoping the pace picks up a bit soon - we need a big inciting event to really kick things off now, instead of all these mini-reveals

[Faleel 5,346]

16 minutes ago, Jay said:

The Rings of Power 1x03 Adar

 

the warg was....terrible CGI (those eyes looked WEIRD man). 

Some have speculated that images like this were the inspiration for the design

[Jay 37,346]

[Chen G. 3,949]

Its been christened the Chihuahuarg.

[Jay 37,346]

Oh, and something that effects the pacing is all these episodes are 66-67 minutes long!  When only 30-40 minutes of interesting stuff happens in them, there's a lot of tightening up they could have done.

 

The music is great though, there's a certain pleasure that comes from watching a new show with awesome new original film music throughout, even when the events of the show itself aren't always compelling, the music makes it all watchable

[Servant of Morgoth 20]

I have lost any hope for this season after the last episode

I really hope the entire writing room will start to take things more seriously when they'll write the scripts for the next seasons about the forging of the rings, the war of Elves and Sauron, the downfall of Numenor and the Last Alliance, the canonical events of the Second Age.

This show has two big problem: first as a fantasy tv show is only likeable and very far for being unforgettable despite the insane budget they have poured on it. As an adaptation of Tolkien it is a dumpster fire with the only exception of some references to characters like Feanor or Earendil..

[Richard Penna 3,684]

Given we have only 3 episodes to go, I can see where the money's gone - shitloads of visual effects (no doubt more to come in that dept) and an absolutely massive cast.

 

However my issue is that of all the story strands, I'm not very invested in the Elrond/Durin and Bronwyn/Arondir plots. I'm more curious with whatever trouble Galadriel/Halbrand are currently in, and the Harfoots' movements. My attention throughout an episode tends to go up and down a bit as a result.

[Faleel 5,346]

2 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

Given we have only 3 episodes to go, I can see where the money's gone - shitloads of visual effects (no doubt more to come in that dept) and an absolutely massive cast.

 

However my issue is that of all the story strands, I'm not very invested in the Elrond/Durin and Bronwyn/Arondir plots. I'm more curious with whatever trouble Galadriel/Halbrand are currently in, and the Harfoots' movements. My attention throughout an episode tends to go up and down a bit as a result.

Funny, I am pretty much the opposite, G and H aside, I like the Durin/Elrond Operation Ring Forge stuff (stupid Mithril origin aside) and couldn’t care less about about the Harfoot stuff.

 

Agree on B/A though

[Pellaeon 593]

7 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

The mithril story is truly outrageous. I was like - how on earth did they come up with that?

 

I mean, you can kind of imagine an early version of this going something like this:

 

Maehdros’ Silmaril ended up in the earth, and Maglor’s Silmaril ended up in the sea.

What are the two places where Mithril is found? Khazad-dûm and Númenor.

Coincidence??

Maybe the light and magic of the two Silmarils … spilled… and infused the local metals or sth.

So is Maedhros the Balrog? Or he trapped the Balrog… in the mithril?

Galadriel’s ring is made of mithril… what can we do with that?

 

Sort of a weird fan theory that just gets weirder from there.

[Holko 9,519]

Someone in a local Tolkien group says the only explanation for Gil-Galad's behaviour is that he's Sauron and the real G-G is tied up in his own basement. How accurate is this?

[Nick1Ø66 4,711]

12 hours ago, Jay said:

Holy cow, Eärien was HOT!  I'll be watching this actress's career with great interest...

She is hot. The actress who portrays her, Ema Horvath, is Harvard educated.

[Chen G. 3,949]

Ema Horvath is a big fan favourite, yes. She lurks around on Reddit and she's got none of the airs and graces that so many of the other cast members (motioning in the direct of Benjamin Walker) do.

[TolkienSS 407]

20 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

She is hot. The actress who portrays her, Ema Horvath, is Harvard educated.

 

That makes her considerably less hot.

[rough cut 1,714]

S01E05 - It’s not very good, is it. Not from a Tolkien-point of view nor a “just try to enjoy the show/story”-point of view.

[jpmatlack 29]

53 minutes ago, rough cut said:

S01E05 - It’s not very good, is it. Not from a Tolkien-point of view nor a “just try to enjoy the show/story”-point of view.

I enjoyed it except the mithril nonsense. I finally joined the army of cringers…

[Servant of Morgoth 20]

The only thing that I liked more of this episode compared to the previous four was the pacing. 

The storyline of the southlands and Adar(or if you prefer the Discount Dark Lord of the first season)were decent or quite good. Elrond and Durin are carrying the show and the chemistry between the actors is very good. The rest was not ok. Sometimes even a damn dumpster fire

[A. A. Ron 1,742]

My big problem is that this show has now had more screen time than any one of the movies and yet, I still don’t give a damn about most of the characters. While I don’t consider the series as boring as some do, I also don’t understand why the showrunners seem to have wasted an entire season on setup.

 

On a semi-unrelated note, the fan reactions to everything even slightly related to The Rings of Power have given me cancer. Yesterday I even saw some bozo on Reddit describing McCreary’s score as “generic” which I guess just proves that even the best aspects of a project will be mercilessly shat upon these days.

[Jay 37,346]

4 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Ema Horvath is a big fan favourite, yes. She lurks around on Reddit and she's got none of the airs and graces that so many of the other cast members (motioning in the direct of Benjamin Walker) do.

 

I don't know what the second half of what you said means but hopefully this gig gets her more worked cause I looked up what she's already been in and it was nothing I'd heard of or seemed interesting 

[blondheim 1,157]

1 hour ago, A. A. Ron said:

My big problem is that this show has now had more screen time than any one of the movies and yet, I still don’t give a damn about most of the characters. While I don’t consider the series as boring as some do, I also don’t understand why the showrunners seem to have wasted an entire season on setup.

 

On a semi-unrelated note, the fan reactions to everything even slightly related to The Rings of Power have given me cancer. Yesterday I even saw some bozo on Reddit describing McCreary’s score as “generic” which I guess just proves that even the best aspects of a project will be mercilessly shat upon these days.

Idk, I find it pretty generic as well. I would definitely not call it “the greatest” anything.

 

My cancer is seeing the endless praise this score is getting. Someone compared the Galadriel track to Joe Hisaishi and I felt like I had fallen through a rift in time and space…

[A. A. Ron 1,742]

I’ve never heard anyone call this score “the greatest” anything, but it is definitely head and shoulders above most other TV scoring and definitely better than an RCP approach to Middle Earth would be.

[Jay 37,346]

15 minutes ago, A. A. Ron said:

 it is definitely head and shoulders above most other TV scoring and definitely better than an RCP approach to Middle Earth would be.

 

Exactly how I feel

[Chen G. 3,949]

I think its a very lovely score, but the Shore titles and the fact that Shore's colours are used: so, men for Dwarves, women for Elves, celtic instruments for Hobbits, and even the Hardinfelle - all make me ache for a Howard Shore score or at least for some of his themes.

 

Its sad to think the downfall of Numenore won't be scored with a version of the main nature theme: think how powerful it would have been that this theme we associate with the Eagles and the Moth and the Rohirrim coming to the rescue would also be attached to the great cataclysm of Numenore.

[Score 770]

Having reached the 5th episode, I still don't find McCreary's scores for this series to be inferior (musically speaking) to Shore's scores for the movies. Of course, the plot of the series is inferior to the plot of the movies, and the movies' characters were more closely related to Tolkien's poetics than the series' characters; the dialogues in the movies, as far as I know, were taken in a significant part from the books. The authors of the series had to invent most of the dialogues and situations, just to make the whole thing doable - and surely they are not Tolkien. Therefore, inevitably the marriage of Shore's music + the movies (which are still the greatest fantasy movies ever done) has a much powerful and long-lasting impact on the viewer compared to the marriage of McCreary's music + the series. But if I judge the music alone, McCreary's work is definitely deserving of praise.

 

IMHO, of course.      

[KK 3,307]

I made it through two episodes. And about 10 minutes into the third one (with the introduction of Numenor), I gave up.

 

I tried, I really did. It's just so...vanilla. There's no character, personality or even vision to this thing. Tolkien or not. Everything looks, feels and sounds like a plastic knock-off. It also feels very TV...meandering plot lines and contrived Hollywood beats that feel like they were designed by an algorithm of mass fantasy interests.

 

From what I've seen, it feels like a colossal waste of $4 billion.

 

House of Dragons has surprisingly ended up being far more interesting. I'll stick to that!

[A. A. Ron 1,742]

I appreciate that McCreary is coming at this world with less of a horror approach, but I wish the show would give him more action scenes to score. I imagine Season 2 will give us more of that and more opportunities for the different themes to interact with each other.

[KK 3,307]

The key difference that I'm able to discern from both scores, is that Shore's music feels so distinctly like it's built a sonic and imaginative world of its own. It's not just about how many themes and different instruments one has used. But look at the way those scores have orchestrated, the way it's been recorded, the modal style of the writing, the sparsity and tact with which soloists are incorporated...it all feels so deliberate and hence feels like music of another time and place. Yes, it benefits from being attached to the films and its original hyper-surge in popularity, but the music was clearly trying to do something that was just not being done in films at the time (whether you like it or not).

 

McCreary's score is mostly just drawing from existing modern film music tropes and conventions (even if it uses everything but the kitchen sink in instrumentation), and while it might have some pleasant moments, it ultimately feels as vanilla as the show itself. And at the risk of sounding terribly pretentious, it has no real point of view to offer.

[WampaRat 1,105]

28 minutes ago, KK said:

McCreary's score is mostly just drawing from existing modern film music tropes and conventions

I can see this point. I feel it’s typical of most current film/television composers. Some of the best ones working today reverence, Williams, Goldsmith, Shore etc. and you can here some of that in their work. But those Masters I feel were more inspired by classical music and contemporary jazz of their era rather than other film composers. So we find ourselves in that “photocopy of a photocopy” predicament that’s been brought up a time or too. 

That being said. I think McCreary has a vast amount of musical knowledge outside of just film scores that influence his work. He leans more into rock and roll rather than jazz obviously. But He's such an overall music fanatic and I love how passionate he is! I admit, that somehow makes me appreciate his work on these RoP scores more. 

[ChrisAfonso 186]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

Its sad to think the downfall of Numenore won't be scored with a version of the main nature theme: think how powerful it would have been that this theme we associate with the Eagles and the Moth and the Rohirrim coming to the rescue would also be attached to the great cataclysm of Numenore.

 

Those two go really well together, actually:

 

 

(thanks for the idea ;))

[Nick1Ø66 4,711]

18 hours ago, Score said:

Having reached the 5th episode, I still don't find McCreary's scores for this series to be inferior (musically speaking) to Shore's scores for the movies. Of course, the plot of the series is inferior to the plot of the movies, and the movies' characters were more closely related to Tolkien's poetics than the series' characters; the dialogues in the movies, as far as I know, were taken in a significant part from the books. The authors of the series had to invent most of the dialogues and situations, just to make the whole thing doable - and surely they are not Tolkien. Therefore, inevitably the marriage of Shore's music + the movies (which are still the greatest fantasy movies ever done) has a much powerful and long-lasting impact on the viewer compared to the marriage of McCreary's music + the series. But if I judge the music alone, McCreary's work is definitely deserving of praise.

 

IMHO, of course.      

 

Er, while I absolutely agree Bear's score is worthy of praise (it's one of the better TV scores going right now), and certainly superior to the show it's scored for, there's no way (in my opinion) it's in the same league as Shore's work. There's just no comparison. Simply the fact that it's so derivative of what Shore did makes it inferior.

 

That doesn't mean it's not a good score, it is. But equal to Shore's work? No. Not in any world.

[Jay 37,346]

Am I the only one who just listens to and enjoys this music literally without ever comparing it to Shore's or any one else's music? 

[Holko 9,519]

Nope.

[Score 770]

 

1 hour ago, KK said:

The key difference that I'm able to discern from both scores, is that Shore's music feels so distinctly like it's built a sonic and imaginative world of its own. It's not just about how many themes and different instruments one has used. But look at the way those scores have orchestrated, the way it's been recorded, the modal style of the writing, the sparsity and tact with which soloists are incorporated...it all feels so deliberate and hence feels like music of another time and place. Yes, it benefits from being attached to the films and its original hyper-surge in popularity, but the music was clearly trying to do something that was just not being done in films at the time (whether you like it or not).

 

19 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

Er, while I absolutely agree Bear's score is worthy of praise (it's probably the best TV score going right now), and certainly superior to the show it's scored for, there's no way (in my opinion) that it's not inferior to Shore's work. There's just no comparison. Simply the fact that it's so derivative of what Shore did makes it inferior.

 

That doesn't mean it's not a good score, it is. But equal to Shore's work? No. Not in any world.

 

I agree that Shore was doing something that was new for the movies at that time, and extremely effective. But the way he realized this new approach did not consist in *inventing* a new advanced musical language - something that is almost impossible to expect from film music after all. What he did was to use, in the vast majority of the LOTR scores, a musical language that was hyper-simplified in many aspects. For example, there are long chunks of those scores which consist of only major and minor chords (and their inversions), often realized literally as close triads in the strings or the brass, accompanying fully diatonic melodies (and sometimes, one hears just "breathing" chords and nothing else). So, the composer achieved a novel film music style by making the choice of renouncing to more advanced techniques, which are (and were) commonly used in film scoring: it was a work of subtraction. The intent is clear: in this way, the music certainly feels more naturally integrated in those particular movies, but that is due in large part (in my opinion) to the particular nature and presence of the movies, with their atmosphere of antiquity and anti-artificiality. Remove the movies, and the musical writing - not always, but in several important points - sounds simplistic.         

 

Then, of course Shore's music works perfectly in those movies, it made history and nobody denies it. On the other hand, I can fully understand if another composer, such as McCreary, decides to make a different choice and to use a more complex compositional palette, which is what he did with considerable skill, from what I've heard up to now. Considering that the series (so far) does not seem to have the same atmosphere and cultural aspects of the movies, my impression is that Shore's approach might not have worked as effectively. This is the reason why I don't think McCreary's approach is inferior, given the differences between his task and Shore's task. Compositionally speaking, what I've heard from McCreary is more "difficult to do", which does not necessarily equal "better", but might equal "more interesting" at times.

 

I'm saying this only because McCreary has been bashed a bit above in the thread for not following the same line as Shore, and I think his choice can be explained in the terms I mentioned.