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

[Monoverantus 363]

16 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

Seeing as how they forged the three this episode (WTF?!) and McPayne said next season climaxes with an "epic, two-episode battle", I think Celebrimbor is not long with us.

 

I must think the thought process was to put more emphasis on the events of the late second age - the fall of Numenore and the events people know from the prologue to Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring - over Celebrimbor's Faustian situation. Shame.

I’ve heard that there were some trouble with the casting (the first actor left, leaving little time to re-shoot the new one's), but I don’t think that even matters. His whole character/plotline could’ve been severly improved with one small change: Robert Aramayo as Celebrimbor.

Consider it:

Ep 1: He is introduced as Galadriel’s old friend and has the chat with her about not being able to go to Valinor (as he does in Tolkien's writings)

Ep 2: He travels home to Eregion and then to Khazad-dûm and has all the same scenes with Durin (as a masterful smith, he stands toe-to-toe with a dwarf in the rock-smashing challenge)

Ep 4: He names mithril and swears the same oath. He reminisces not of his father Eärendil, but his grandfather Fëanor.

Ep 5: He goes to Lindon, where Gil-Galad tells him of a corruption that they don’t know how to battle. Celebrimbor himself deduces that the mithril would work and is torn between revealing what he’s learned and keeping his oath.

Ep 7: Same scenes, he and Durin fail to convince the King, but their bond grows stronger (also closer to Tolkien)

Ep 8: He uses his own ingenuity and Halbrand’s suggestions to craft the Rings.

 

This is far from ideal, but working with what we have, a vast improvement IMO. This Celebrimbor would be conflicted yet endearing. This would be a Celebrimbor that we a) learn to understand and like, b) want to succeed, and c) will cry bitter tears to see fail and die. Elrond is a character people already have a connection to, and he will not do something significant until the founding of Rivendell. Celebrimbor is a character we need to start liking now, if his death is supposed to have any catharsis.

[Chen G. 3,941]

1 minute ago, mstrox said:

Out of curiosity, why in the Tolkienverse is forging the the three elven rings at this point a WTF moment?

 

I just think they should have taken their time with it: not put it as an afterthought in the coda of the season.

[mstrox 6,637]

It did seem like, after the leisurely pacing of the season (which I liked!), a whole lot of Plot happened in the last few episodes.

[Chen G. 3,941]

Its very oddly structured. Whereas normally the setup takes less than a third of the overall runtime, here its like 60% setup, 15% conflict and 25% climax.

[JohnTheBaptist 57]

.

[Pellaeon 593]

4 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Season Two: The War of Sauron and the Elves

 

The War Epic Battle of Sauron and the Elves

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/rings-of-power-sauron-season-2-lotr-1235240809/

 

Not gonna lie, they say some cringe things here (it’s Breaking Bad! it’s The Sopranos! it’s Batman!), but, “Season two has a canonical story… This is the story [you] were hoping to get in season one” honestly makes me think about giving S2 a chance.

[mstrox 6,637]

11 minutes ago, Pellaeon said:

 This is the story [you] were hoping to get in season one”

FINALLY!!!!!!!! Tauriel

[A. A. Ron 1,736]

So what do y’all think — are they really gonna tell a story next season or nah?

[Monoverantus 363]

36 minutes ago, A. A. Ron said:

So what do y’all think — are they really gonna tell a story next season or nah?

Per my previous point about how most shows (no matter how good) tend to have rocky starts, I'm sure we will see an improvement from now on, but I pray that they drop the "mystery box" approach immediately. At some point I started to keep track of how many mysteries they introduced, and this is ridiculous.

Ep 1: What is the sigil? What is the sword? Who is The Stranger?

Ep 2: Who is Halbrand? What’s in the pouch? What’s in the box? What are The Stranger’s symbols?

Ep 3: Who is Adar? What are the Orcs after? Who is Isildur hearing? What is the “real Númenor”? What is Míriel so afraid of?

Ep 4: What are the lies Adar speak of? What is Waldreg’s deal?

Ep 5: What are the Mystics, and what do they want with The Stranger? What’s up with the Sauron/sword statue?

Ep 6: What is the history of Adar and Halbrand? Has Adar killed Sauron?

Ep 7: What happened to Isildur? What happened to Celebrimbor? Did the balrog just awake?

Ep 8: No seriously, what’s in the pouch???

[JohnTheBaptist 57]

I mean, you're interpreting every introduction of a new character as a "mystery box", which I don't think is a standard that would be applied to other shows. How is Adar a "mystery box" any more than, say, Gus Fring?

[Nick1Ø66 4,687]

14 hours ago, Pellaeon said:

This is the story [you] were hoping to get in season one” honestly makes me think about giving S2 a chance.

 

 

 

[rough cut 1,714]

S01E09

 

It was good, all the threads tied up nicely. It doesn’t forgive the fact that the writers have made up their own plots and deviations from Tolkien’s writings, but as a wrap up for a slow and sometimes boring TV-show it was good.
 

The ”slow” pacing of the show makes perfect sense from a business perspective.

 

Of course the forging of the three elven rings is the climax of S1, if you want to drag this out into several seasons. Which, why not. Money, right? It doesn’t make for a whole lot of sense from a story-telling perspective, but from a business perspective it makes all the sense.

[crocodile 7,974]

It was probably the best episode so far. And I enjoyed the entire season with some minor reservations, mostly pacing-related. I get an impression that they wanted to include all the elements people expect from Middle-earth right off the bat and didn't know what to do with half of them. Perhaps it would be good to save some stuff for future seasons. Sometimes narrower focus works better as you won't please everyone anyway. Everything considered, I had a good time. I don't quite understand the backlash, it's definitely stronger than the majority of Disney+ content. The music was quite wonderful in the finale and I was surprised the entire final stretch was carried by Bear's score. Looking forward to season 2 and, hopefully, more balanced plotting.

 

Karol

[Monoverantus 363]

8 hours ago, JohnTheBaptist said:

I mean, you're interpreting every introduction of a new character as a "mystery box",

This is incorrect. After the first episodes with Míriel and Pharazôn, we know very little about them, but those are not "mystery" characters. All examples of "Who is.."  are characters where the mystery of their identity is the primary reason for why we should care about them.

 

8 hours ago, JohnTheBaptist said:

How is Adar a "mystery box" any more than, say, Gus Fring?

I wouldn't be half as annoyed by the Adar mystery if they hadn't cut to black just before we got a good look at him. That's literally "Tune in next week to find out!" mentality.

But really, it's about quantity. Any show, like Breaking Bad, can have a couple of mysteries without relying on the mystery format for why we should continue to watch. If Adar was one of say 2 or 3 mysteries in the show, I wouldn't mind as much.

[Nick1Ø66 4,687]

1 hour ago, Monoverantus said:

This is incorrect.

 

Indeed.

[JohnTheBaptist 57]

I don't even know what "mystery box" is supposed to mean anymore. A character with an unknown past is a "mystery box"? I don't see how Adar is any more mysterious than Pharazôn, we arguably know more about the former at this point.

[crocodile 7,974]

I suppose the whole point of Adar was just to establish the link between orcs and elves and blur the lines between good and evil to further enhance Galadriel's character arc? At least that was my impression. I never thought it needed further explaining.

 

Karol

[Nick1Ø66 4,687]

18 minutes ago, crocodile said:

I suppose the whole point of Adar was just to establish the link between orcs and elves and blur the lines between good and evil to further enhance Galadriel's character arc? At least that was my impression. I never thought it needed further explaining.

 

Karol

 

The point of Adar is that they needed an antagonist for the first season, given that they were holding off on their big Sauron reveal.

[crocodile 7,974]

That too. I didn't mind him though. Think it was an interesting, if somewhat underdeveloped, character.

 

Karol

[Monoverantus 363]

27 minutes ago, JohnTheBaptist said:

I don't even know what "mystery box" is supposed to mean anymore. A character with an unknown past is a "mystery box"? I don't see how Adar is any more mysterious than Pharazôn, we arguably know more about the former at this point.

 

24 minutes ago, crocodile said:

I suppose the whole point of Adar was just to establish the link between orcs and elves and blur the lines between good and evil to further enhance Galadriel's character arc? At least that was my impression. I never thought it needed further explaining.

I mean, we don't necessarily have to agree. If you were entertained by the Adar mystery, all the more power to you. It's not like I want people to dislike the show if they don't already. But if I must define "mystery box" in one cohesive sentence, it's when the mystery is the only reason you care about something. If we had learned about Adar being a Moriondor in the first episode he appears in, I would arguably be more intrigued by his character than by the shallow "Is he Sauron?" question that the show itself plants in our heads.

[Nick1Ø66 4,687]

I think there's a difference between a mystery and a "mystery box". I think of a mystery box as tool used by writers and showrunners in the era of serialised TV (and popularised by LOST), used to string the audience along so they'll continue to tune in week to week.  Good, character driven drama doesn't need mystery boxes, because you're watching for the compelling characters (which is also what makes a show rewatchable, IMO) and not to just find out what happens next.

 

Done well, and with thought, and by writers who know what they're doing and where they want to take the story, mystery boxes can sometimes be effective. But when used by lesser, lazier writers (like the kind on ROP), it's just cheap and annoying.

[Chen G. 3,941]

Cheap is the word.

 

So many of the storytelling choices in this season - perhaps none more than Sauron's "join me, and together we can rule the Gala Middle Earth as hubby and Elf-wife!" - are cheap.

[JohnTheBaptist 57]

I don't know what "cheap" is supposed to mean either. That approach is certainly more interesting than the standard Tolkien "Good guys are perfect and beautiful and bad guys are pure evil and look hideous and disgusting". That's the kind of storytelling I would call cheap.

[Incanus 5,713]

1 hour ago, JohnTheBaptist said:

I don't know what "cheap" is supposed to mean either. That approach is certainly more interesting than the standard Tolkien "Good guys are perfect and beautiful and bad guys are pure evil and look hideous and disgusting". That's the kind of storytelling I would call cheap.

Well in this show Galadriel is an awful, awful amoral, manipulative, entitled, whiny, self-centered, self-important, empty poxy pseudo-wisdom spouting character who does not care for anything or anyone but her revenge and can't answer a single question with a straight answer (problem with so many other characters in this show as well), so I guess they turned that on its head.  Looks fair but feels foul. Which I guess could be said about the whole show. What a disaster.

 

 

[Holko 9,491]

1 hour ago, JohnTheBaptist said:

That approach is certainly more interesting than the standard Tolkien "Good guys are perfect and beautiful and bad guys are pure evil and look hideous and disgusting". That's the kind of storytelling I would call cheap.

Well yeah if you ignore a whole buncha characters and stories

[Faleel 5,326]

2:27

[Chen G. 3,941]

3 hours ago, Incanus said:

can't answer a single question with a straight answer (problem with so many other characters in this show as well)

 

That's the other thing too: I had trepidations going into this show, but the two things I wasn't particularly concerned about were dialogue (which almost never bothers me in movies and shows) and pacing. They turned out to be two of the show's biggest issues.

 

There was a hillarious comment over one the reviews for The Guardian about Rings of Power dialogue: "Oi, Galadriel, what do you fancy for breakfest" - "'twas, in the days of old, it it said, that..." So many of the lines not only try too hard to sound old-timey, but also do that fantasy dialogue thing of using lots of random namedrops and lots of "worldbuilding" stories. "Why", says Celebrimbor to illustrate a point, "The sun started as something no bigger than the palm of my hand." Or how the great and delightful Peter Mullan has to tell this long story about Aule crafting the Dwarves instead of just, you know, saying what he means to say.

 

There isn't a ton of that in the movies. Little bits to give flavour like "not some blockheaded Bracegirdle from Hardbottle." Otherwise, the characters mostly just...say what they mean to say. Fancy that.

 

But, really, the bigger issue is the pace and the emphasis on creation myths.

[DarthDementous 1,059]

34 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

That's the other thing too: I had trepidations going into this show, but the two things I wasn't particularly concerned about were dialogue (which almost never bothers me in movies and shows) and pacing. They turned out to be two of the show's biggest issues.

 

There was a hillarious comment over one the reviews for The Guardian about Rings of Power dialogue: "Oi, Galadriel, what do you fancy for breakfest" - "'twas, in the days of old, it it said, that..." So many of the lines not only try too hard to sound old-timey, but also do that fantasy dialogue thing of using lots of random namedrops and lots of "worldbuilding" stories. "Why", says Celebrimbor to illustrate a point, "The sun started as something no bigger than the palm of my hand." Or how the great and delightful Peter Mullan has to tell this long story about Aule crafting the Dwarves instead of just, you know, saying what he means to say.

 

There isn't a ton of that in the movies. Little bits to give flavour like "not some blockheaded Bracegirdle from Hardbottle." Otherwise, the characters mostly just...say what they mean to say. Fancy that.

 

But, really, the bigger issue is the pace and the emphasis on creation myths.

Funniest example is when Elendil is asked about what happened to Isildur’s mother and he goes on this long rant about the stars and the ocean, then finishes it by saying “she drowned” and walking away

[Bofur01 245]

The Sea is always right!

[crocodile 7,974]

13 hours ago, Incanus said:

Well in this show Galadriel is an awful, awful amoral, manipulative, entitled, whiny, self-centered, self-important, empty poxy pseudo-wisdom spouting character who does not care for anything or anyone but her revenge and can't answer a single question with a straight answer (problem with so many other characters in this show as well), so I guess they turned that on its head.  Looks fair but feels foul. Which I guess could be said about the whole show. What a disaster.

 

 

Oh that's a shame. I sort of assumed Galadriel will have to go on a journey to become the character we know. There is an element of dread to her in the book as well, isn't there?

 

Are you enjoying at least any of the music? I know you like Bear's God of War.

 

Karol

[Nick1Ø66 4,687]

8 hours ago, Bofur01 said:

The Sea is always right!

 

Only if land is on your left.

[rough cut 1,714]

After reading up a bit on the lore of Tolkien, I have to say I am more disappointed in this in retrospect than during watching it.

 

The Istari shouldn’t appear until about a thousand years after the Battle of Dagorlad - when Isildur cut the One Ring from Sauron’s hand. (And then there’s another 2 000 years until LOTR.)

But now they appear even before the forging of the rings of power?

 

This “oversight” feels sacrilegious towards Tolkien’s writings. In lack of a better analogy, it’d be as if they’d made a Spider-Man movie but he doesn’t climb walls, he flies. The average viewer might say ‘who cares’, and maybe they’re right, but it’s disrespectful to the creator(s) and the fan base. In the case of Middle Earth, especially sad as Tolkien was nothing but meticulous about the history of Middle Earth. And the stories are crafted to make sense within its own mythology.

 

(Tolkien published four books about Middle  Earth + some books about the poetry, but there are over 30 books about the history based on his writings, many of which were edited by his son and based on unpublished works and manuscripts.)

 

If Gandalf appears now, doesn’t it render his presence pointless? Why wasn’t he able to help at all during (or before) the Battle of Dagorlad?

 

Why did Amazon do this (and how did they get away with it)?

 

Also, Galadriel should’ve been at home in a tree, being married, having kids. She never went to war anywhere.

[Jay 37,259]

The Galadriel problem could have easily been solved by just having Clark's character be a different elf

[JohnTheBaptist 57]

The more it pisses off the fanbase, the better. I love watching the creepy lore nerds lose their minds.

[Bilbo 3,709]

[jpmatlack 29]

4 hours ago, rough cut said:

Also, Galadriel should’ve been at home in a tree, being married, having kids. She never went to war anywhere.

…

 

😂😂😂 I thought your post was serious until that paragraph. Nicely trolled!

[Barnald 365]

On 15/10/2022 at 5:24 PM, JohnTheBaptist said:

I don't know what "cheap" is supposed to mean either. That approach is certainly more interesting than the standard Tolkien "Good guys are perfect and beautiful and bad guys are pure evil and look hideous and disgusting". That's the kind of storytelling I would call cheap.

 

7 hours ago, JohnTheBaptist said:

The more it pisses off the fanbase, the better. I love watching the creepy lore nerds lose their minds.

 

That your defence of the show often entails criticism of Tolkien (and disregard for his lore) kind of speaks volumes, no?

[JohnTheBaptist 57]

Tolkien I could take or leave, but his cultists are downright insane.

[Marian Schedenig 8,153]

Well, I finally caught up with this and watched eps 5 & 6 yesterday and 7 & 8 tonight. Episode 6 was easily the show's low point, and I had little hope left for it after that, but in the end I suppose it turned out as well as it possibly still could.

 

There are three things that I find problematic with a series like this:

 

1) Unfaithfulness to relevant lore. Especially when it's Tolkien, who was all about lore and struggled his whole life with trying to make it consistent. I have no problem with newly invented consistent subplots and characters, but the rules of the world, and its chronological main events, must remain. Otherwise it's like making a historic drama based on true events and adding some little green men from Mars influencing major plot points just to make things more dramatic. In this show, there a plenty of instances of this, the main one probably being the idea that Elves can't survive in Middle-earth on their own and need Mithril pronto. Granted, that's more or less an extension of PJ deciding that Elrond should send Arwen to Valinor, and that she should fall ill and die if Aragorn doesn't marry her, but it's blown up even more here.

 

2) The insistence that film adaptations must focus on individual main characters and as a result the necessity to make every major plot point the result of one of those character's actions, and the condensation of hundreds of years of history into a few days or weeks. This isn't based on a novel, it never was a "traditionally" told story, and never was meant to be. But putting it all on the shoulders of a few Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and (most importantly) Men, you suddenly have to make sure that everything happens within a fraction of human life. As a result, you get battles like in episode 6, where Bronwyn and Arondir are single-handedly responsible for everything that happens until the Numenorean army arrives out of nowhere after crossing the Atlantic and going straight to the one little village in the Southlands where our main characters are.

 

3) The insistence of showing (almost) everything, and especially the perceived need to not only *show* almost every metaphor, but actually present it as literal fact. I'm perfectly fine with showing Valinor (Tolkien does, lots of times, in his non-LOTR writings). But showing a magical wall of light is a very far stretch considering Valinor is just a continent (although a "blessed" one populated by lesser gods and angels) with tricky waters, islands, and weather to make it a little harder to find (the world is still flat in the second age). I don't mind origin stories, and I don't mind setup - in the end, the entire Rings of Power story is just the origin story for LOTR, so the whole series is by definition setup - but it's one thing to show the gradual transformation of Mordor into the land of darkness, and another to turn some dark Indiana Jonesy MacGuffin key to blow up the Orodruin and create Mordor in a day (cue Dr McCoy).

 

That said, it seems clear that there was no way for the creators of the series to win. Just looking at this thread, half the people criticise things that others count among the show's strenghts, and vice-versa - and sometimes even posts by one and the same person.

 

There are plenty of things that worked for me, and plenty of things that tie reasonably well into the fixed plot points of the source material. When "Halbrand" enters Celebrimbor's workshop and turns his charm up to 11, I very much saw Tolkien's Sauron who manages to fool everyone but Galadriel. That her doubt comes so late (and therefore doesn't last much longer than that of the others) is a bit annoying, but aside from that, how these events ultimately unfold doesn't seem to contradict the source material all that much, as far as I remember it. The three Rings are still forged without Sauron's direct involvement, and he's still going to forge the Master Ring in secret (I actually expected that to end this season). The reasoning for making three Rings is actually inspired, I thought - and the "science" of making the Rings is kept minimal enough so as not to demystify it. I don't have a problem with Mithril being an ingredient, or with it being the key component to preserve the world (the one single key to Tolkien's Elves and all his core writings, to me). The problem is that in the series, the Elves are going to start dying almost immediately, when in Tolkien's version they just get weary of decay and loss.

 

In the end, they key moments still worked for me, and the last 5 minutes or so were among the most gripping I've seen on screen in a long time. The shame is that besides these highlights, the series is filled with not just often mediocre writing, but with many blunders (relating to my three points above), almost all of which could have easily been avoided without affecting the outcome. I even feel I understand *why* they did some of those things, just as PJ came dangerously close to have a face to face fight between Aragorn and Sauron (because some people actually complained about book Sauron never having a dogmatic showdown) - but that doesn't make them any less wrong.

 

I still think the "Galadriel problem" is blown out of proportion. Yes, her characterisation so far is somewhat overblown and one dimensional, but being more impulsive, stubborn, and less ultimately wise than a few thousand years later are very much character traits that I expected from Tolkien's very limited writings on her earlier years. And she didn't completely overcome that until near the end of FOTR. Given that she's stubborn and sour in 90% of her scenes, I think Morfydd Clark does an admirable job. That I noticed halfway through she reminds me of Liz Truss and can't fully get that association out of my head anymore isn't hear fault. (Disregarding the one inexcusable scene where she threatens Adar with genocide, making arguments that Tolkien himself actually struggled with in his later years when he realised that by his own beliefs, not even Orcs could be considered irredeemably evil. The illusion works only as long as you don't start drawing attention to it).

 

Robert Aramayo's Elrond is very fine as well, although I find it curious to read so much praise for him by the same people endlessly complaining about Galadriel - when this show's Galadriel *looks* very much like PJ's (Elrond doesn't look like PJ's in the slightest), and his character doesn't feel like the Elrond I know at all (but Tolkien wrote even less about young Elrond than about youngish Galadriel).

 

In general, the casting is excellent - the Dwarves and Halflings are uniformly first rate. Other personal highlights are Celebrimbor (who reminded me of Ian Holm a few times) and Elendil (basso profundo Bradley Cooper).

 

The music is excellent and among the best for screen I've heard in a long time. I don't think there are many besides McCreary (and team, I suppose) who could have done as well, and I certainly don't think Shore could (or would) have, or would have wanted to. His LOTR scores, excellent as they are in context, contain lots of filler material, and I don't see how he would have filled eight 1+ hour episodes with new music.

 

I do wonder how they're planning to deal with this over 5 seasons. People may complain about nothing (supposedly) happening, but in fact they've already used up quite a bit of the major story. The only remaining things that come to mind immediately are of course Sauron's capture by and the resulting Downfall of Numenor; Sauron distributing 9 Rings and harvesting Nazgul (probably depicated as happening within a few days…); and the Last Alliance. Numenor can easily fill a season of its own (and they've set up their share of characters to handle it), but the rest is rather spotty.

On 26/09/2022 at 12:16 AM, Jay said:

Anyways, also: What's up with the title sequence?  Shore's music is cool, but what is the imagery?  Pebbles of sand forming various images of some kind, then dark sand representing Sauron coming in and changing things?

 

https://www.polygon.com/23365021/rings-of-power-opening-credits-sequence-explainer-how

[Score 770]

7 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

I still think the "Galadriel problem" is blown out of proportion. Yes, her characterisation so far is somewhat overblown and one dimensional, but being more impulsive, stubborn, and less ultimately wise than a few thousand years later are very much character traits that I expected from Tolkien's very limited writings on her earlier years. And she didn't completely overcome that until near the end of FOTR. Given that she's stubborn and sour in 90% of her scenes, I think Morfydd Clark does an admirable job. That I noticed halfway through she reminds me of Liz Truss and can't fully get that association out of my head anymore isn't hear fault. (Disregarding the one inexcusable scene where she threatens Adar with genocide, making arguments that Tolkien himself actually struggled with in his later years when he realised that by his own beliefs, not even Orcs could be considered irredeemably evil. The illusion works only as long as you don't start drawing attention to it).

 

 

I agree with almost everything you wrote. Regarding this point, I think the quite shocking dialogue between Galadriel and Adar can be explained by the fact that, as confirmed in the last episode, Galadriel had already spent a fair amount of time in strict contact with disguised Sauron, and his influence on her mind (of which is clearly capable, as in episode 8) has put evil in her. Adar nearly says as much in his reaction ("It seems I'm not the only elf who has been in contact with darkness" and "your search for Sauron's successor should probably end in your mirror", or whatever was the original phrasing). When I saw the scene, I actually thought that was the definitive hint that Halbrand was Sauron, although there had been many others.

 

Totally agree that Morfydd Clark did a great performance with the material that was given to her.   

 

[crocodile 7,974]

9 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

 

The music is excellent and among the best for screen I've heard in a long time. I don't think there are many

besides McCreary (and team, I suppose).

Actually, it looks like it was just him this time.

 

Karol

[Chen G. 3,941]

20 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

3) The insistence of showing (almost) everything, and especially the perceived need to not only *show* almost every metaphor, but actually present it as literal fact. I'm perfectly fine with showing Valinor (Tolkien does, lots of times, in his non-LOTR writings). But showing a magical wall of light is a very far stretch considering Valinor is just a continent (although a "blessed" one populated by lesser gods and angels) with tricky waters, islands, and weather to make it a little harder to find (the world is still flat in the second age). I don't mind origin stories, and I don't mind setup - in the end, the entire Rings of Power story is just the origin story for LOTR, so the whole series is by definition setup - but it's one thing to show the gradual transformation of Mordor into the land of darkness, and another to turn some dark Indiana Jonesy MacGuffin key to blow up the Orodruin and create Mordor in a day (cue Dr McCoy).

 

Right. I can't off the top of my head think of prequels that do that very much: The Star prequels don't particularly do creation myths - we don't see the Jedi order being formed, or the proto-genesis of the Force, or the arcane history of the Sith. The Hobbit certainly doesn't do anything of the kind.

 

I dunno, maybe Prometheus?

 

Its just such a doomed endeavour to go into things like this: it can only disappoint.

[Jay 37,259]

16 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

The music is excellent and among the best for screen I've heard in a long time. I don't think there are many besides McCreary (and team, I suppose) who could have done as well

 

While Bear uses a large amount of (credited) additional composers on a number of his projects (especially television), he wrote every single note of all 9 hours of this score himself, and he explains why in his 3rd blog post:

 

https://bearmccreary.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-appendices-part-3/

[Marian Schedenig 8,153]

10 hours ago, Score said:

I agree with almost everything you wrote. Regarding this point, I think the quite shocking dialogue between Galadriel and Adar can be explained by the fact that, as confirmed in the last episode, Galadriel had already spent a fair amount of time in strict contact with disguised Sauron, and his influence on her mind (of which is clearly capable, as in episode 8) has put evil in her. Adar nearly says as much in his reaction ("It seems I'm not the only elf who has been in contact with darkness" and "your search for Sauron's successor should probably end in your mirror", or whatever was the original phrasing). When I saw the scene, I actually thought that was the definitive hint that Halbrand was Sauron, although there had been many others.

 

Perhaps. Good point in any case, although Sauron's mind control powers over the Noldor don't sit too well with me. Tolkien certainly grants him an at least potentially supernatural ability to charm them, but as far as I know he never implies that he did in any way, even partially, corrupt them.

 

In any case, bringing up a point in sub creation that so clearly bothered Tolkien himself in real life is hardly a good idea.

 

8 hours ago, Chen G. said:

I can't off the top of my head think of prequels that do that very much: The Star prequels don't particularly do creation myths - we don't see the Jedi order being formed, or the proto-genesis of the Force, or the arcane history of the Sith. The Hobbit certainly doesn't do anything of the kind.

 

I don't think I said or implied that it's a regular thing among prequels, although you could certainly argue that the entire SW prequel trilogy is just a big origin story for the Empire, and specifically Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine.

 

Part of the charm of going backwards from LOTR to Tolkien's writings on the Second and First Age (and before) is uncovering the origin stories of so many things that have already become familiar. And while many of these stories are very much self-sustaining (partially because they predate LOTR by decades, partially because they have been integrated so well and revised so many times), you can hardly argue that the origin story aspect is entirely beside the point - after all, the Silmarillion (in the published book) is preceded by the Ainulindalë, which is the ultimate origin story in Tolkien's whole sub-creation.

 

Intentionally framing some aspects as origin stories therefore doesn't bother me as such. The problem is that some of them are poorly executed (and at least often unnecessarily so).

 

2 hours ago, Jay said:

While Bear uses a large amount of (credited) additional composers on a number of his projects (especially television), he wrote every single note of all 9 hours of this score himself, and he explains why in his 3rd blog post:

 

https://bearmccreary.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-appendices-part-3/

 

Well, that *is* remarkable. And undermines my conviction that Shore likely couldn't, and probably wouldn't have brought half as much to the table for this project as McCreary has. On the other hand, it also raises the question of how the scoring of future seasons will be organised (but perhaps McCreary has already blogged about that as well, I'm clearly behind in these matters).

[Jay 37,259]

The 4 blog posts are well worth reading - they are very interesting.  And they are not that long either; They seem like they are, but there's actually a lot of pictures in them that inflate the scroll size

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

I have both shown immense moderation in my response to the show, praising aspects I like while making known reservations I have.

 

 I’ll point out this - I am disappointed in one fundamental thesis that the writers have - that it can only be interesting if there is a surprise - hence the mystery box construction of the show.

 

well shit. That ain’t true at all. At all. At all. That basically means any book adaptation is uninteresting to fans because they already know everything. But that is literally the opposite of truth. Since the conception of cinema they have been doing book adaptations. 

 

the trick is to do them well, not make them surprising. The writers explicitly claim them invented the mystery box structure so that Tolkien readers were not 6 or 7 episodes ahead of casual viewers. This is a ridiculous way to go about writing a show. 
 

I will say this again and again, and I am a screenwriter too so take it for all that’s it’s worth - interest derives from good compelling drama and conflict and characters and dialog - not shocks and twists.

 

 Why not give drama a try - make a straight 2nd age show - without shock reveals - and see if it interests the audiences. It’s like they don’t trust Tolkien’s material, that is why they deviated so far from it. 
 

my argument is the material is very compelling and dramatic on its own - just do a straight show and it would be just as good or even better. 
 

i feel what I am missing is a sense of awe inspiring immensity that I should feel. These are god like larger than life characters- Tolkien’s tales are one of nations and civilizations and enormous transformative cataclysmic events that should stun and awe the viewers with their scale and sweep and scope. 
 

i just don’t feel that. I felt that honestly to a degree in the Jackson films. It felt like something really enormous was set in motion, the stakes felt galactic. But for some reason I am missing that feel here. This makes the show feel small despite the large budget.

 

i want a show about really powerful and wise and foresighted people making enormous consequential choices. That is what drama is. 
 

maybe we’ll still see that in subsequent seasons. But we definitely didn’t see it in season 1. 
 

it has actually made my wary about a silmarrillion or first age show. Will it ever feel as jaw droppingly immense as Tolkien’s words do? We don’t know.

[JohnTheBaptist 57]

14 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

It felt like something really enormous was set in motion, the stakes felt galactic.

Then you fall into the same trap Star Wars did. When every movie is trying to top the spectacle and up the stakes, eventually it gets boring. And if they took that approach, I think you'd be here complaining about them copying Jackson.

[Chen G. 3,941]

22 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

I don't think I said or implied that it's a regular thing among prequels, although you could certainly argue that the entire SW prequel trilogy is just a big origin story for the Empire, and specifically Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine.

 

I didn't imply you did.

 

I'm just saying: all prequels by definition do origin stories. Very few prequels that I can think of actaully do creation myths.

 

I think its a flawed approach, to try and "depict the undepictable."

[Monoverantus 363]

23 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 I’ll point out this - I am disappointed in one fundamental thesis that the writers have - that it can only be interesting if there is a surprise - hence the mystery box construction of the show.

 

well shit. That ain’t true at all. At all. At all. That basically means any book adaptation is uninteresting to fans because they already know everything. But that is literally the opposite of truth. Since the conception of cinema they have been doing book adaptations. 
...

I will say this again and again, and I am a screenwriter too so take it for all that’s it’s worth - interest derives from good compelling drama and conflict and characters and dialog - not shocks and twists.

...

my argument is the material is very compelling and dramatic on its own - just do a straight show and it would be just as good or even better. 

I concur completely. They don't have confidence in the drama of the plots and characters, or their audience. They introduce new mysteries in every episode as if they’re afraid we won’t return unless they keep us hooked with shallow intrigue.

 

I can't help making comparisons to House of the Dragon. In the first episodes, I noticed that there were quite a few shots of rats, and realized that it’s a visual metaphor for the kingdom being rotten and in decay. Nice.

But then I watched an Alt-Shift-X video, where he revealed a theory that Larys Strong is a warg who spies on the royal family through the rats, and suddenly there's a cool new layer to it.

See what I mean? Even if the rats are foreshadowing of a mystery, they already have a function in the story. Hot D works no matter if there's some eventual greater significance to the rats or not. Whereas in TRoP, I feel like most mysteries just stall for time until the reveals.

[A24 4,325]

It's over. Finally! The goodbye scene of Nori (who is about to go on a journey with the giant) is one the worst things I've seen on TV in years. God, I hated these forest people!