Gimpdiggity
Master Member
I’ll be watching tonight, but everything I’ve seen seems to echo your sentiment, so I’m really looking forward to it.
Amazon's Lord of the Rings (tv series)
- Thread starter ghostryder
- Start date
Gimpdiggity
Master Member
That was a pretty incredible hour of television.
I thought the cinematography was great.
That end really blew me away. Here we’d been thinking they’d been digging tunnels just so they could traverse during the day, but those tunnels clearly served another purpose as well.
Halbrand STILL hasn’t actually told us he’s Halbrand. He was even directly asked who he was this week, and just walked away. I’m still not 100% trusting he’s the guy everyone thinks he is…and I still think they’re handling that aspect of the show masterfully. A lot of times shows give you questions and then drip feed you clues, just to throw other clues in to get you thinking something else, and it just gets frustrating. So far in this, though, I’m actually having fun looking for little things to try to sniff out who our real bad guy is.
I can’t wait for next week. I’m guessing we’ll get a bit more relaxed episode after this, and I’m fine with that.
Really, really enjoying this show.
I thought the cinematography was great.
That end really blew me away. Here we’d been thinking they’d been digging tunnels just so they could traverse during the day, but those tunnels clearly served another purpose as well.
Halbrand STILL hasn’t actually told us he’s Halbrand. He was even directly asked who he was this week, and just walked away. I’m still not 100% trusting he’s the guy everyone thinks he is…and I still think they’re handling that aspect of the show masterfully. A lot of times shows give you questions and then drip feed you clues, just to throw other clues in to get you thinking something else, and it just gets frustrating. So far in this, though, I’m actually having fun looking for little things to try to sniff out who our real bad guy is.
I can’t wait for next week. I’m guessing we’ll get a bit more relaxed episode after this, and I’m fine with that.
Really, really enjoying this show.
Gimpdiggity
Master Member
That honestly makes the most sense…and we will close this season with Galadriel returning to Eregion after having won the battle in the Southlands temporarily, and she will be given something by Annatar…and that’s where we will be left hanging until next year.
Joek3rr
Master Member
‘The Rings of Power’ Showrunners Break Silence on Backlash, Sauron and Season 2
Two first-time showrunners who landed TV’s biggest series give THR a behind-the-scenes tour as they navigate challenges even scarier than Mordor — from "patently evil" online trolling to massive industry expectations.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
It's interesting to see that the Tolkien Estate was willing to get less money, to go with Amazon as opposed to what Netflix or HBO Max has to offer.
I'm surprised by the description of HBO's and Netflix's pitches; neither one sounds like a winning idea to me seeing as we're not even 20 years past LOTR. I remain a little skeptical of TROP (though the continued enthusiasm from folks on here may convince me to eventually give it a try), but if the choice for the Tolkien Estate was "LOTR: The Premature Remake" vs. "The Gandalf Show" / "The Aragorn Show" vs. "The Second Age," then going with Amazon seems like a no-brainer.
Also, as a minor aside, I can at least appreciate one of the showrunners properly characterizing Braveheart as believable fantasy.
Gimpdiggity
Master Member
I agree.
The idea of doing another adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings seems like a very odd idea, especially considering the fact that Jackson’s trilogy was pretty well received. I know a lot of people bemoan aspects of it today, but let’s be honest…a faithful adaptation that entailed all three books would have had an awful lot of very boring parts. Sure, I missed some aspects of the books in Jackson’s work, but at the time I was reading all of his work over and over…I was pretty well versed in all of it…and I found the films highly enjoyable.
So the idea that you’d just want to…I guess…do all that again is just…unnecessary.
I didn’t fall in love with Rings of Power immediately. I thought the first episode was pretty slow, and it took me a while to remember that elves talk like weirdos. After that, though, the show has really grown on me and I look forward to it every week.
Solo4114
Master Member
I'm enjoying the show overall, but was really displeased with two key aspects of the last episode.
1. The "Army" from Numenor apparently consists of about 100 cavalry. That's it. That's the army. For $1 gazillion per episode, I'd expect battles to large scale.
2. They did the "travel at the speed of plot" thing and I hate that.
1. The "Army" from Numenor apparently consists of about 100 cavalry. That's it. That's the army. For $1 gazillion per episode, I'd expect battles to large scale.
2. They did the "travel at the speed of plot" thing and I hate that.
Gimpdiggity
Master Member
1. I was under the impression that the forces they sent were basically volunteers, who were going not to fight Sauron and the orcs, but to facilitate the uniting of the people of the Southlands so that they could fight for themselves.
I also remember them saying they were sending 500 men, but I don’t recall if that was before or after their ship got sabotaged.
Either way, I don’t think it’s supposed to be an actual “fighting force,” but instead a group on a very specific mission.
2. I was a bit annoyed by that. They showed up exactly when the plot needed them to!
Solo4114
Master Member
I dunno. I thought it was supposed to be an "army," not "CIA Advisors," ya know?
It's not just that they show up when the plot needs them to. It's that they trivialize the geography of the world. Numenor is some 1800 miles off the coast of Middle Earth, yeah? So how fast did they sail to get there? They showed that they'd have to go up-river to the mountains, but then did not show how they'd get thru or over the mountains. And then apparently they ride all the way across the vale of what will become Gorgoroth at a full gallop, fully armed and armored -- horses, too -- to arrive in, like, an afternoon?
Their answer to this: implied magical horses. They don't say anything about how fleet of foot they are, but they suggest that the horses are simply very special and unusual and I guess we're supposed to make the leap that they can also travel at somewhere in the neighborhood of just below Mach I.
Like, I get it, it's a world of ancient magic. Maybe the Valar sent a favorable wind to speed the Numenorian ships to Middle Earth. Maybe they're of a partially Elvish design that allows them to sail at 7x the speed of a normal ship. Maybe the horses can teleport because they're My Little Blink Ponies.
But the way the show is laying things out, you have the Numenorian fleet set out the night the refugees get to the big fort, then they're on the water for another night as the refugees retreat to the village and defend it, and then the cavalry shows up the very next morning just when it looks like Ms. Prettyface and her maybe-evil kiddo are about to be slaughtered.
I get that we're used to the tropes of the cavalry arriving just in the nick of time. I get that some of this is meant to juxtapose for dramatic/thematic purpose what the characters are doing in preparation for what turned out to be a fairly middling fight with a few cool moments. But it completely took me out of the show when this happened, and reminded me of some of the worst elements of the worst portions of Game of Thrones and that is not something you want associated with your big-budget fantasy mega-adventure show.
Gimpdiggity
Master Member
Oh man…I thought that was a great follow up to last week.
We got to see quite a bit of the aftermath. Characters hurting. People missing. A queen with an axe to grind.
If we weren’t 100% positive that volcano was Mount Doom, we certainly are now.
Also…
I continue to really like the Elrond/Durin story. I don’t know…the person I consider my best friend and myself are very different…different color skin, different economic backgrounds, different sides of the city we grew up in, and today remain very different in several aspects. In a lot of ways, the fact that we are such close friends seems like it’s something that should have never happened, but it did and I’m a better person for it. I see a lot of that personal friendship in what I’m seeing with Elrond and Durin, so it’s making those characters really resonate with me.
Next week is the season finale. I’m guessing we are going to finish the season with the final scene having Galadriel and Elrond together, and they’ll be introduced to Annatar.
Can’t wait for next week.
We got to see quite a bit of the aftermath. Characters hurting. People missing. A queen with an axe to grind.
If we weren’t 100% positive that volcano was Mount Doom, we certainly are now.
Also…
BALROG!
I continue to really like the Elrond/Durin story. I don’t know…the person I consider my best friend and myself are very different…different color skin, different economic backgrounds, different sides of the city we grew up in, and today remain very different in several aspects. In a lot of ways, the fact that we are such close friends seems like it’s something that should have never happened, but it did and I’m a better person for it. I see a lot of that personal friendship in what I’m seeing with Elrond and Durin, so it’s making those characters really resonate with me.
Next week is the season finale. I’m guessing we are going to finish the season with the final scene having Galadriel and Elrond together, and they’ll be introduced to Annatar.
Can’t wait for next week.
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Lord Boron
Sr Member
Overall I enjoyed the episode except they they should all be dead From the pyroclastic flow. I’ll give them some leeway with Galadriel because being an Elf and all, but everyone else should be toast…..literally. The stuff with Elrond and Durin are definitely the high points of the series. Have to laugh a little at some of the inconsistencies. The Harfoots are all “we always stick together” but 2 episodes ago they would leave you behind to die if you stubbed your toe. Hope we get at least a few answers to the mysteries in the fanale
I just realized Young Elrond is also Young Ned Stark...it only took 7 hours.
Did not make a 1/2 hr
Darth Lars
Master Member
I've had enough of this now. Took longer than the "Wheel of Time" travesty though - which I could stand for only half an episode.
kalkamel
Master Member
Elves are immortal but they're not invincible. Many elves died throughout the legendarium from wounds in battle to falling off great heights. A pyroclastic flow at that distance should have killed everyone in that village, elf, man or orc.
I admit I don't have full context, but I just watched the eruption & aftermath scenes. So... are ALL the main characters secretly Targaryen?
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