How do!

It’s release day. And I’ve just watched the first episode of the new season. And it was pretty good. As someone only familiar with LOTR from the movies, I can’t and won’t say if liberties were taken with the source material, but this was a perfectly enjoyable episode.

There is of course a fair amount of recapping, but that’s not unexpected.

I would dive into episode two, and indeed I tried to. But seems there’s no sound. Nice one, Amazon! The Amazon ident has sound. But not the show. Guess I’ll have to go do work instead.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dropped into episode 3, and same issue.

Sound issue now fixed! I had to select “play from beginning”, so perhaps I was stuck on the audio less file

Can we not and just say we did?

If you don’t wanna watch it, don’t watch it?

I thought Season 1 was decent. Though judging from the backlash online I got the impression that Amazon would have cancelled the show if they hadn’t paid silly money to get the rights, have to make the most of it now.

I will watch season 2, once all the episodes have been released.

Had some time before work, and got up to :



The opening sequence of :

So far in my brief viewing, its more of the same of season 1 really. Beautiful but still looks cheap in places, deep themes hampered by stilted dialogue, and boring.

First episode was pretty solid for me, helped by the fact I now know who everyone is, even if I don’t know the pre-ordained fate of each.

This has lead to a far less confusing experience.

Production values remain superb of course, with a solid cast and amazing visuals. “Coming this season” bit at the end was also exciting for me.

Waldreg is back babyyyyyy. Literally nothing else matters, he's back for round two.

I watched the first season and enjoyed it. I like the build up to Gandalf and Sauron. I am watching the second season and so far I like that too. Interesting to see Sauron's manipulations. Arriving with open hands. Never actually lying. Letting those he manipulates convince themselves.

First series was alright, hoping the second is better. Planning to watch it soon.

Now that we know who Sauron is, I’m really enjoying paying attention to his dialogue and how he never technically lies to anyone.

El Torro wrote:
I thought Season 1 was decent. Though judging from the backlash online I got the impression that Amazon would have cancelled the show if they hadn’t paid silly money to get the rights, have to make the most of it now.

It is my understanding that the viewership of Season 1 completely eclipsed the online rage around it and I assume the same will be true for Season 2.

So far I like Season 2 more than the first one, it feels less exposition-heavy yet still focused on character-development instead of CGI action.

Not tried it yet as massively underwhelmed by Season1 - especially compared to the stunning Fallout show or far more enjoyable Wheel of Time (as someone who really got bored by the books)

Sounds like the production values have improved - I honestly could not see where they spent the vast budget in Season 1 - especially in terms of battles - it was like a Hercules or Xena battle where they kept running round behind the camera to make it look like they had more than 4 extras. Oh here is the great fleet - well 3crappy ships - I mean come on guys....

I really enjoyed Elrond and Dwarf king - best thing in the show. I also enjoyed the Elf ranger guy and his story. They still in it?

Galadriel was cute but written dreadfully in every scene I watched (also why is she so short ) - is she any better in S2? Not just a spoilt dumb princess who has no relation to anything that makes Galadriel what she is.?
Any sign of her husband?

The Whole "not Halfings" plot was just something I had no interest in.

Might try it again and see it recaptures my attention - at least it does not have show ruining Fething bards like Witcher

On Season One’s budget?

I suspect a lot went into costumes and the design thereof. Stuff which will continue, barring inevitable repairs and eventual replacement, remain good to go for future seasons, freeing up a chunk of the budget, especially the initial design work. And would likely include the armoury, from hero props to stunt props to “yes I know it’s a stick painted silver, but you’re way in the background and no one will be able to tell” props.

There's a lot of CGI in there as well, and it's mostly pretty solid (which also generally means expensive). And while some of that is establishing shots that can be reused, there's enough ongoing stuff to make a sizeable dent in the budget.

There are some misses with the visuals in season 1 (the numenorean costumes are not very good looking) but mostly it's big budget film level of quality. My problem with the show isn't the way it looks or the ethnicity of the actors, but the writing and the plot choices they've made.

I'm a massive Tolkien fan. So obviously I'm going to be disappointed when they drastically change what happened in the story he wrote for cheap mystery box plotting designed to build hype online. I think they got Galadriel and Gil Galad and Celebrimbor's characters totally wrong, based on what we know about them from Tolkien's writing. And I just don't see the point of that at all. Why make an adaptation and totally ignore what you are adapting? The only thing I can think is that it's a cynical branding exercise.

I did watch the first season and it has obviously had a lot of work and artistry put into the visuals and the actors are almost all doing a great job. The music also mostly of high quality. As a pure sensory experience it's quite lovely. All the problems I have come from the script (I think the dialogue is poor) and the plot (I think Tolkien's plot was better).

I'm glad people enjoy the show anyway. I think it's probably easier to enjoy if you're not a hardcore fan like I am. I don't even really enjoy the Peter Jackson movies any more, because of the changes they made to the characters, and that is much more faithful than RoP. So I know I'm a weirdo outlier.

This isn't an attempt to thread-crap or anything. It's just hard to ignore a show about my favourite stories completely. I might even end up watching Season 2, even though with the start that Season 1 gave them I just don't see how they can do anything like the actual plot of the story from the books. And that will bother me a lot.

Also explains why I may be more favourable. I’m not familiar with the source material at all. So when they’ve taken liberties or outright changed stuff, I’m blissfully unaware, allowing me to just enjoy what’s there, and not experience frustration of what should’ve been there.

Season 2 does seem a little easier to tolerate. Maybe it’s because this is ‘where we are’ so the clash with the source material has already been absorbed so we can sit back and enjoy it for what it is.

For me, the chief sticking point is Celebrimbor. I feel he has been miscast and comes across as a Finance Director at a UK biscuit factory.

Yeah, he should be young and strong and charismatic. Really confident too.

Gil Galad also is badly miscast.

For me, the chief sticking point is Celebrimbor. I feel he has been miscast and comes across as a Finance Director at a UK biscuit factory.

Not for the whole of Jacobs!

I have to admit, I am enjoying Season 2 a lot more than Season 1, but that's not a high bar.

My housemate however, never watched Season 1 but has seen the LoTR movies and was intrigued enough by Season 2's first 3 episodes I had on to want to go back and watch Season 1. So, maybe, if you're not a huge Tolkien fan it's actually a better watch.

It definitely felt much better in terms of dialogue, visually felt more impressive and did seem to contain far less exposition.

My biggest issue with the entire concept of the show is that Amazon only have the rights to the appendices, nothing else. I am surprised it's as coherent as it is tbh, writing using only the appendices must be an absolute nightmare. However, the best decision might have been to not bother and just wait until they could secure the rights to the books themselves?

To quote a swamp dweller "Like that's ever gonna happen" *Allstar by Smashmouth ensues*

In all seriousness, the people managing Tolkien estate know its worth and know that redoing the LotR trilogy wouldn't be a good investment.
But they also know there have to be some recognisable characters for any show to be worth it so the likes of Children of Hurin (which is a good story) are out.
Ergo appendices where the likes of Galadriel, Sauron, Gandalf, and other marketable plushies show up.

If I was doing a TV series based on the Appendices to the LOTR, I would 100% do the Adventures of Young Aragorn.

You get to have Aragorn travelling around Middle Earth helping out in the different kingdoms - he spends time in Arnor, in Rohan, in Rivendell, in Lorien and in Gondor, as well as travelling into Harad and Rhun (if you want more diverse casting). He enters Moria and makes it out the other side. He gets really popular in Gondor under a secret identity and ends up in a rivalry with young Denethor. He meets young Theoden.

And the whole thing is a love story between him and Arwen, who he meets (IIRC) in Lothlorien, so Galadriel is also involved. As are Elrond and both his sons. He fights pirates and everything!

It absolutely blows my mind that this is not the show they made! Everyone loves Aragorn, and his adventures are perfect for episodic or short season based storytelling. And there's loads of room to add stuff or make stuff up without contradicting anything written.

Edit: The best thing about RoP is getting to see Moria when it is in full swing, which you wouldn't get to see in an Aragorn focused story.

 Esmer wrote:
It is my understanding that the viewership of Season 1 completely eclipsed the online rage around it and I assume the same will be true for Season 2.

I believe its more to do with the fact that the show was contracted for 5 seasons for roundabouts $1 Billion from the Tolkien Estate.

In terms of viewership of the first season, Hollywood Reporter ran some numbers and found that only 37% actually finished the season. Below 50% is usually a death sentence for a streaming show, but when you are Amazon you can afford to stay the course.

 Da Boss wrote:
Why make an adaptation and totally ignore what you are adapting?

They haven't 'totally ignored' what they are adapting, they've adapted it. Because that's what an adaption is. It's not a 1:1 recreation. Adaptions rarely are, for all sorts of reasons.

I can't help thinking that people (in general, not specifically aimed at you) would enjoy TV or movie adaptions of books more if they stop expecting them to be perfect recreations of the source material, and look at them instead as a different interpretation of the story.

I suppose I draw the line in a different place to you when it comes to what I consider adaptation. I am fine with cutting Tom Bombadil from adaptations of LOTR for example, but not okay with changing main characters so that they are essentially entirely different people.

 insaniak wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Why make an adaptation and totally ignore what you are adapting?

They haven't 'totally ignored' what they are adapting, they've adapted it. Because that's what an adaption is. It's not a 1:1 recreation. Adaptions rarely are, for all sorts of reasons.

I mean, there is a literal answer and it's that Amazon only has rights to Lord of the Rings. They don't have the rights to the Silmarillion.

They kind of had to do it differently, since all they can work with is the appendixes in the back of the trilogy.

There is a difference in adaptation because one cannot recreate the book and changing the core theme of said book
(not talking about stuff they left out because it did not add much to the story within a movie, like Tom Bombandil despite this is always coming up as argument, but the motivation of the different characters on why they are doing what they do, eg Arwen already decided to become mortal and stay with Aragorn long before the Fellowship and this is the only reason why he is doing everything he does in the first place)

and the Appendix of the books covers the events between the Silmarilion and Lord of the Rings with enough details to bring the theme on the screen, no changes needed to make it work

but the show fits better with the movies which are already different to the book, which works if one only know the movies

while other people who expected that a new show is going back to the original are disappointed as expanding on the movies still does not bring the theme of the books on the screen

 Da Boss wrote:
I suppose I draw the line in a different place to you when it comes to what I consider adaptation. I am fine with cutting Tom Bombadil from adaptations of LOTR for example, but not okay with changing main characters so that they are essentially entirely different people.

I'm not convinced there's actually a place to draw that line. If you take an existing piece of written material and base a movie on it, then that's an adaption. As in, you're literally adapting the written story into a movie story. How much you change things along the way has no real bearing on that... whether you recreate the book absolutely 1:1 (which would be essentially impossible for the vast majority of books, if not all of them) or just take the names of a few characters and the general gist of the plot, what you have created is still an adaption of the written story. Disney's 'Little Mermaid' is an adaption of the fairy tale, even though it leaves out the nastier bits like walking on razors and the whole dying at the end thing. 'The Watch' is an adaption of Pratchett's Discworld setting, even if it's one that most Discworld fans find completely unappealing. And the Rings of Power is an adaption of Tolkien, even though it changes some characters and events for brevity and to work around the limitations of their licensing.

I can absolutely see how people can be disappointed when they expect an adaption to be closer to the original than it is... but ultimately, that's an issue of your expectations, rather than something intrinsically wrong with an adaption changing things from the written text.

As Kodos says, for a generation that grew up with more familiarity of the movies than the books, or for those of us who just found the books a bit of a slog, I think the changes here are going to be much less of an issue.

think this might just be a language problem
as "inpired by" "based on" or "adaptation" might mean different things in different regions

Adaptation in general means that it is reworked/changed specially for literature while for movies most people see this as based on, rather than inspired by

a movie just taking the names and the basic idea would be an adaptation (take Jurrasic Park as an example) without being based on the book


For Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Rings of Power, those are nice/good fantasy movies/shows inspired by the book of the same name
but they are missing the point of the book for the most part (and 99% of the plot holes of the movies are because of that) which of course is a problem for those liking the book

Books also leave more open to interpretation. We the reader add voices to the characters, sometimes informed by descriptions. We visualise stuff differently to one another.

Heck, to use Discworld as a theme? The cover artists for the majority drew central characters very differently to how they’re described, and how PTerry envisaged them.

For instance, Granny Weatherwax has notoriously great skin, smooth and unblemished much to her chagrin. On the covers? Warts and all. Vimes? Typically drawn as a Clint Eastwoodalike. But PTerry is on record saying he’s more Pete Postlethwaite. Just an Everyman, not the chiselled chin type.

I guess there is a further line, and that would be ‘Inspired By’.

The Watch is less an adaptation of Discworld Night Watch stories, and more “inspired by”. Significant changes are made to character backgrounds, the feel of Ankh Morpork and like the Stallone Judge Dredd movie took various bits and bobs from across those novels and blended them up into a newish thing.

And whilst I think The Watch is a dreadful take on its source material? As a show, viewed purely in its own context? It’s actually completely fine, possibly a smidge better than merely average.

So whilst I’m in the possibly enviable position of only being able to see The Rings of Power stand or fall on its own merits, The Watch is what I need to recall when readers have criticism of this show.

Yeah, it still might be an adaptation but if it veers too much from the source material then I consider it a bad adaptation. And if the source material means a lot to me I won't tolerate a bad adaptation, even if it is otherwise good.

 Da Boss wrote:
I suppose I draw the line in a different place to you when it comes to what I consider adaptation. I am fine with cutting Tom Bombadil from adaptations of LOTR for example, but not okay with changing main characters so that they are essentially entirely different people.

I mean... that is what Peter Jackson's LotR did. Both things. Tom never showed (fine). But Aragorn is an entirely different person. As are Legolis and Gimli and Gandalf the White (who somehow got more serious than the Gray when in the books after he returns as the White he doesn't seem to take ANYTHING seriously anymore).

Yeah I can't enjoy those films any more either. Peter Jackson's LOTR fails for me because it coarsens and worsens many of the characters. The most serious one from my POV is Frodo, but yeah pretty much every character except maybe Boromir is changed for the worse compared to the books. Some of those changes were needed to do the adaptation, others are just egregious in my view.

I'm slowly but surely recovering from the dreaded corona virus but managed to catch the three episodes they put out all at once with a friend. May go into deeper analysis later, but so far I like what I saw.

I don't neccesarily think it means we can be confident in the quality of the rest of the show this season - I think season 1 started rather strong and got weaker as the episodes got progressively more focus groupy, but a good start is a good start.

Once again the highlight of the show is that score by Bear McCreary and its use of leimotif throughout. I'll go more in depth on individual episodes later when I find the energy, but as it stands right now, the broader elf/Suaron story is naturally taking center stage, Numenor continues to feel like an unpleasant diversion, and I continue to love Nori and Young Gandalf's excellent adventure.

So far though, the dwarves have been the scene stealers. They're more or less exactly the same as the first season: different flavours of short, stubborn, grumpy hillfolk with hearts of gold.

 AduroT wrote:
Now that we know who Sauron is, I’m really enjoying paying attention to his dialogue and how he never technically lies to anyone.

Imma disagree with you on this one, there's at least one major scene where Sauron seems to be trying to chain combo lies by omission, but those are still lies too. Despite this, most of the time he uses regular every day lies.

On the broader subject of 'inspiration' vs 'adaptation' I think we've been well outside the latter for a while now. We've known that the Tolkien estate shopped the ideas around and that Silmarillion content was explicitly unavailable due to its wonky licensing situation so a number of the 'hard facts' of this story are already contradicting the books themselves (notably, the Three Elven Rings in the book were created last after Sauron's deception was discovered, whereas here they were created first, but Sauron didn't have a chance to corrupt them) and the overall feel of the show is that they're approaching the story in broad strokes like one would do when adapting something like a myth. It may, potentially, be serviceable as a prequel to the movies' version of events, but personally I think they'll be different in the same way you can have five different movies about Hercules or Robin Hood and they can kinda fit together, but don't really.

Yeah, he lies more in the later episodes, but they first one he was rather quite honest and just left it for the other to misinterpret.

 Lance845 wrote:


I mean... that is what Peter Jackson's LotR did. Both things. Tom never showed (fine). But Aragorn is an entirely different person. As are Legolis and Gimli and Gandalf the White (who somehow got more serious than the Gray when in the books after he returns as the White he doesn't seem to take ANYTHING seriously anymore).

While I'm not a fan of some of the narrative methods of illustrating his journey, about halfway through the trilogy film Aragorn arrives at the point where book Aragorn starts his journey. That's a far cry from being an entirely different person. I'm also not sure which version of the Lord of the Rings has stoner Gandalf the White.

I'll give you Legolas and Gimli being reduced to comedic relief and minor exposition vehicles, a major and oft repeated criticism of Jackson's adaptation.

On the creation of the three, I think this version actually makes more sense. When they found out who Anatar was I imagine their reaction would have been much like Elrond’s. Presented with the decision of “what to do with this suspicious and incredibly powerful technology given to us in secret by our deadliest enemy, a being known for his lies and deception?” I just can’t see how the logical answer would be to double down and make our own rings, with blackjack and hookers.

The half an episode I suffered through of season 2 was enough to re-assure me that it remains the same quality as season 1.

It’s just terrible, and 99% of that is due to the fan fic level writing.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:


I mean... that is what Peter Jackson's LotR did. Both things. Tom never showed (fine). But Aragorn is an entirely different person. As are Legolis and Gimli and Gandalf the White (who somehow got more serious than the Gray when in the books after he returns as the White he doesn't seem to take ANYTHING seriously anymore).

While I'm not a fan of some of the narrative methods of illustrating his journey, about halfway through the trilogy film Aragorn arrives at the point where book Aragorn starts his journey. That's a far cry from being an entirely different person. I'm also not sure which version of the Lord of the Rings has stoner Gandalf the White.

I'll give you Legolas and Gimli being reduced to comedic relief and minor exposition vehicles, a major and oft repeated criticism of Jackson's adaptation.

Honestly, I think making Aragorn more of a reluctant king and moving his acceptance of Anduril to later in the story are improvements to Tolkien's storytelling.

And that's why I'd personally never worry about complete fidelity to Tolkien's writing in other mediums, and can't understand those who seem to demand it. LotR is a singular and hugely influential work...but hardly literary perfection. It's really not even hard to criticize aspects of his writing and poke holes in some of the storytelling.

 gorgon wrote:

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:


I mean... that is what Peter Jackson's LotR did. Both things. Tom never showed (fine). But Aragorn is an entirely different person. As are Legolis and Gimli and Gandalf the White (who somehow got more serious than the Gray when in the books after he returns as the White he doesn't seem to take ANYTHING seriously anymore).

While I'm not a fan of some of the narrative methods of illustrating his journey, about halfway through the trilogy film Aragorn arrives at the point where book Aragorn starts his journey. That's a far cry from being an entirely different person. I'm also not sure which version of the Lord of the Rings has stoner Gandalf the White.

I'll give you Legolas and Gimli being reduced to comedic relief and minor exposition vehicles, a major and oft repeated criticism of Jackson's adaptation.

Honestly, I think making Aragorn more of a reluctant king and moving his acceptance of Anduril to later in the story are improvements to Tolkien's storytelling.

And that's why I'd personally never worry about complete fidelity to Tolkien's writing in other mediums, and can't understand those who seem to demand it. LotR is a singular and hugely influential work...but hardly literary perfection. It's really not even hard to criticize aspects of his writing and poke holes in some of the storytelling.

I don't disagree. Aragorn in the books is a pretty unlikable ass hole for the majority of the trilogy. Making the character more sympathetic from the time they leave the Prancing Pony forward took someone who was a pretty miserable sad sack in the books into a fan favorite character in the movies. It was not a bad change.

I do with Gandalf the White was more silly though. It says a lot about how powerful he is that the entire army of Mordor is out there laying siege and he's like "Hahaha! Pranks!".

Episode 4 :

-Ents looked good, arguably better than the movies.
-Barrow-Wights looked good as well, though they did feth all. There was zero tension or sense of urgency.
-Tom Bombadil was pretty disappointing. Also why does dude have a fire burning in a brick house in the desert? I know it can get cold, but that would be an absolute sauna.
-Cirian Hinds as evil wizard is all I’m looking forward to. Dude forever has good credit with me for his Julius Caesar portrayal in HBO’s Rome.
-Galadriel is back to being insufferable.
-“There are nameless things in the deep places of the world” Lets eat it, after it just tried to eat us.
-Orcs have been the best thing in this show, but the random arrow hitting the elf was goofy.

Probably the best episode so far this season, but still cringe af.

Also:

Viewership is way down from season 1, according to a few sources cited in this article :

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2024/09/05/very-bad-news-for-rings-of-power-season-3-as-season-2-viewership-plummets/

I keep getting Saruman vibes from the “Dark Wizard”, but that would then be very difficult to justify his position in the White Council.

I'm enjoying it more. The ents were pretty good, with some nice direction of their silhouettes in the half-light of the nighttime forest. and I don't mind Galadriel.
My pick for the evil sorcerer is that he is Khamûl, and while it would be depressing predictable that the Harfoots Big Friend is Gandalf I think it would be cool if he was Saruman.

I found season 1 painful to watch. Season 2, so far, has at least been an interesting, if not riveting, curiousity. Or maybe I've just lowered my expectations.

I didn't care for Peter Jackson's movies, but I don't think I'm impossible to please when it comes to Tolkien interpretations. I generally found the Shadow of Mordor / Shadow of War games' story and characters more interesting, better acted, and better written than those in the movies and Amazon series - and those game stories were essentially filler rather than an adaptation. The "Shadow" stories definitely weren't perfect, but there's no comparison between the excellent portrayal of Celebrimbor from those games and the just OK one from Amazon's series.

Season 2 is certainly seeming more to the point.

Season 1 was beautiful to watch, but I do remember a lot of “wait, who are you and why are you important”.

Which isn’t a criticism of the actors, who are all fine. It’s just not a story I was previously aware of. Season 2 is starting to provide context to a lot of stuff in Season 1 though.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Season 2 is certainly seeming more to the point.

Season 1 was beautiful to watch, but I do remember a lot of “wait, who are you and why are you important”.

Which isn’t a criticism of the actors, who are all fine. It’s just not a story I was previously aware of. Season 2 is starting to provide context to a lot of stuff in Season 1 though.

I mean. Thats the simirilian in a nut shell. Who are you? Lets begin every chapter with an ever growing list of lineage and deeds so you know who we are talking about. That list eventually growing to a page + long.

I have to assume you’re accurate there, as I’ve not read any Tolkien

This image I found is the start of one of the chapters in the book. Just read the first 2 paragraphs of that total nonsense and you will get an idea of what reading the silmarillion is like. haha



Also this...

I've tried to read The Silmarillion twice. On the second attempt I made it to page 8.

 Lance845 wrote:
This image I found is the start of one of the chapters in the book. Just read the first 2 paragraphs of that total nonsense and you will get an idea of what reading the silmarillion is like. haha



Also this...

What's meant to be difficult to read about this?

I guess he doesn't like genealogies in his fantasy?

The Hobbit book is plenty of people's intro to Tolkien and Tolkien's cultural osmosis makes criticism from people exposed to it who don't care for it inevitable.

No i LIKE the Silmarilion.

But just because i like something doesn't mean i cannot give it fair criticisms. When the Rings of Power is criticized for doing what the Silmarillion does (bunches of characters that kind of blend into each other with very similar names with long family histories) people get lost and lose interest.

Difference is, Silmarillion was never was never meant to be published, especially in raw form. You want to read the actual stories, you read the ones Chris expanded on and published.

Rings of Power has writers who seem like the only time they've touched a pen is when they drew a picture book.

Factually untrue. Silmarililon was pitched along with TLotR and was rejected by publishers. Tolkien continued work on it all the way up to his death but he definitely tended to publish it.

If it was only notes for his own history then that paragraph of cousins could have been more easily recorded as a flow chart.

It was unfinished, so it was never meant to be published. So, yes true.

I had the displeasure of being convinced by one of the friends I was visiting to watch the first few episodes of Rings of Power S2, so we could roast it on how bad it was and ummmm, yeah we ended up skimming it halfway through the second episode.

I don't get how we got from "Meat's back on the menu boys!" to "Please don't send me off into battle! Me wife's got eee a wee baby!" (Probably because the crazy people online saw Tolkien Orcs as black-coded for some reason?).

Then we have stellar dialogue like "He played me like a harp, but the melody was not one of my choosing", top tier writing right there. You would think that they would have went with something like “he played me like a harp, but the melody was to my benefit” or something to make it different from from pure manipulation/trickery, but nope instead they implied that “played me like a harp” is normally to the benefit of the one being tricked. If you are the harp being played, then of course the melody is not of your choosing. There's no "but" required. Did they get Tommy Wisseau to help them on the writing team?

Now like a chipmunk searching for his nut, I must continue to look for a good TV show elsewhere.

The greatest sin of all though was how boring it was to watch through, a slog where it wasn't worth the energy to keep roasting several dumb scenes we went through.

Lol I saw that orc wife and child scene on youtube and that was about enough to convince me to not watch it. I watched all of season 1 and didn't particularly care for it. And if the viewership drop off is that bad I can't imagine it being renewed for a 3rd season. It felt like big budget fan fiction.

I quit watching this show after having watched S2 E4, I just cannot take anymore of the horrible writing and acting.
Didn't realise there were threads on dakka for the show, I did enjoy S1 mind you but this season has been so cringe I just have to draw the line, when you no longer enjoy a show its time to move on.

The cliche's to the script were worse enough (bad guy/creature looming over someone and is killed by a backstab type stuff that has you pull out so much hair you end up looking like uncle fester within a single screening) but things like the multicultural paradise of chinese, indian and african hobbits living in a canonical ARABIAN setting (which it should've been portrayed as) is irredeemable, and putting together an elven party under galadriel the obnoxious' overvoicing elrond bad' which sports a single drow which is ofcourse the first to die is another thing that had me nearly flip my chair into my laptop, and no I don't care about drows being in this series no, its just the absurd cliche.

Besides that most characters are beyond unlikable, loathable even.. and that Orcs are now being portrayed as unwilling to pillage instead of being -THE- reprobable evil that the entirity of the realm is incited against (as they are meant to be the very force of anti-nature)..

(I am aware of all the coping concerning the so called orc family, which ISNT canon because of tolkien saying that they reproduce like all other races, as reproducing doesn't mean the same as having a family, the evil of orcs is that they pillage and abuse races (women included yes) against their will, you know the word I mean to use but won't because its probably a banned word' but that is the reprobate aspect of Orcs which invokes terror and disgust proccing man, dwarves and elves to do away with that -unnatural species-.
Removing this aspect of the Orc removes the entire reason for the fellowship, it has nothing to do with Sauron's ambitions but with the manifestation of it channeled through the horde's relentless, uncaring endeavor of destruction.

I could write a book about all the insufferability of this series concerning but will leave it at this.. really had to get it off my chest.
I hope this series dies quickly, gets canceled so hard that the next attempt to write a tolkien' inspired series it actually hires writers that care about it.

edit: actually let me rephrase that into: writers that aren't chatgpt as the "writers" of this shows script clearly is.

Tbf Tolkien gave multiple different origins for orcs and never really settled on one.

 Da Boss wrote:
Tbf Tolkien gave multiple different origins for orcs and never really settled on one.

This is true, but he did settle on them being a -metaphor- of the threat on which the response of the fellowship hinges.
As I just explained' that threat is nullified if Orcs have any form of unwillingness to evil.

One thing Tolkin always kept up was that no one is born good or evil
and yes it was a big problem for him that he needed endless evil hordes to get the story working, but saw the problem with it and wanted to find a way around

that we get the origin of the Orks we have now is simply because it was on the top when material for Silmarilion was collected

the big threat is that power corrupts, always and the more someone seeks power the faster it happens

 kodos wrote:
One thing Tolkin always kept up was that no one is born good or evil
and yes it was a big problem for him that he needed endless evil hordes to get the story working, but saw the problem with it and wanted to find a way around

that we get the origin of the Orks we have now is simply because it was on the top when material for Silmarilion was collected

the big threat is that power corrupts, always and the more someone seeks power the faster it happens

The rings of power is the last part of the silmarillion though, so I can understand the..let's call it leniency of interpetations and though it is true that at the end of his life Tolkien practically was incapable of coherency to his writ (which is mostly due to the process of writing, I am also familiar with' to which when you conclude a story you go back and check wether it all connects properly which was something Tolkien wasn't yet comitted to concerning) when it comes to the Silmarillion, one could say two things here therefor; the Silmarillion was a poor source to build a series on and it deviates hugely from the greater canon causing problems from the get go by default.

All in all, it is a recipe that -can only result in disaster- no matter the cook.

This is probably the bedrock for why this series is being experienced as amateuristic or fan fiction, while also ofcourse being -abused- as an enviroment within which (chatgpt? or..) "actual" writers unload their personal activism and inexperience with real world human logic as to the "social dynamics and its interactions" as much as immense logical fallacies almost every single scene.

Orcs work as the manifestation of evil, not as a lesser evil or as a potential evil..
That manifestation is represented by the Orcish disregard for all life, art and beauty, peace and calm, pursuit of happiness, love, friendship. These are not Orcish traits, Orcs embody the opposite and are thereby the threat that must be dealt with against all odds.

I agree that that is what the orcs are under Morgoth and under Sauron. But the orcs WERE elves. Morgoth twisted and tortured them into their corrupted forms.

Whats the orcs represent is what all peoples would be if they fell under the control of evil. Not that they themselves are inherently and irrevocably evil. But that they have been under evils sway for so long. And right now they are not under Sauron or Morgoths sway. Right now they are barely, in the smallest ways, trying to dig out their own community after huge losses under Morgoth and still they are burning and destroying to do it.

One of Tolkien's major themes/points was that evil cannot create. It can only corrupt. The orcs are not Morgoths creation. A manifestation of pure evil by pure evil. They are the end result of Morgoth's influence on something that was once good.

 Lance845 wrote:
I agree that that is what the orcs are under Morgoth and under Sauron. But the orcs WERE elves. Morgoth twisted and tortured them into their corrupted forms.

Tolkien himself stated that he didn't like that idea and likely would've changed it if the Silmarillion had actually been completed, Tolkien said that this caused a problem with the idea of elven souls always returning, ultimately Orcs are an entirely different species, which is also explained as that they are unrecognicable, so at best perhaps they are -based- on elves and not literally elves that have been changed.

Whats the orcs represent is what all peoples would be if they fell under the control of evil. Not that they themselves are inherently and irrevocably evil.

but this IS what the Orcs represent; inherent evil', often compared to that they have no soul(voice) of their own and their speech is like that of parrots while having no thoughts and say for themselves

But that they have been under evils sway for so long. And right now they are not under Sauron or Morgoths sway. Right now they are barely, in the smallest ways, trying to dig out their own community after huge losses under Morgoth and still they are burning and destroying to do it.

This is exactly the wrong idea about what Orcs are, Orcs have no community.. they are singleminded; obedient to the voice in their head that comes from Morgoth/Melkor

One of Tolkien's major themes/points was that evil cannot create. It can only corrupt. The orcs are not Morgoths creation. A manifestation of pure evil by pure evil. They are the end result of Morgoth's influence on something that was once good.

Nowhere does Tolkien even suggest in the slightest that Orcs were once good. Perhaps you derrive this from the "avari arc" but Tolkien stated that this was only what -THE ELVES BELIEVE- and not that it was the real origin of the Orcs.
edit: if anything, the Orcs -if they are bred from elves- were bred from tortured to evil' elves and therefor -inherently evil-.

You are making a RAI vs RAW argument.

Morgoth found the elves first, sent spirits to corrupt and influence them, and a dark rider stole away elves who wandered too far. All evidence suggests Morgoth did exactly as the elves believe.

If Tolkien finished or made a "second edition" it might be some other case. But with the books as published we have the theme of evil only corrupts and that Morgoth didn't create his own people he only twisted the people that existed.

Your preferred interpretation being all well and good for what it is, a straight reading of the text says otherwise.

 Lance845 wrote:
You are making a RAI vs RAW argument.

Morgoth found the elves first, sent spirits to corrupt and influence them, and a dark rider stole away elves who wandered too far. All evidence suggests Morgoth did exactly as the elves believe.

If Tolkien finished or made a "second edition" it might be some other case. But with the books as published we have the theme of evil only corrupts and that Morgoth didn't create his own people he only twisted the people that existed.

Your preferred interpretation being all well and good for what it is, a straight reading of the text says otherwise.

Well, again (and one last time) Tolkien himself said that it was what the elves believe not that he set it in stone. So the histories on the wikis are from the perspective of the elves and not what Tolkien had in mind the actual origin to be.
Secondly, again (and one last time) even if being created from tortured to evil elves it does not mean Orcs are elves and it is very clear that they are not of Elven culture therefor -not originally good- considering -evil elves- are not good nor is anything of Elven nature in Orcs which is explicitly stated; "Orcs are not Elvish".

That is not my opinion but that of Tolkien.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgoth%27s_Ring

Also, for the record.. Orcs were created before elves even had a concept of good to begin with so one could easily argue that the idea of Orcs once having ever been good doesn't connect anyway.

As to my personal opinion, I percieve the work of Tolkien to be heavily based on real world mythology surrounding esoteric subjects such as doggerland, the neo-hittite state migrations (as to the Orcs), but also hallstatt celt roaming peoples such as the Saka (often misinterpeted as a static, isolated "scythia") which included Avars, Alans, Ari, Tigraxauda(dahae), Geta (including Massageta) and such outstretches into as far as lower Asia' while also connecting with Thrace and Phrygian branches.
The ideas surrounding Melkor clearly have a gnostic aire to them as to the vilification of the ancient deity of creation being a jealous usurper that entrapped the light' within an opaque layer of matter/charcoal/carbon/oil etc.
He didn't make much of a secret of lending from antique european mythology (which is concerned with such earthwide culture through its seafaring prowess (see the sea peoples era etc) and so the fictional aspect runs rather thin.
He also stated in a letter that he wanted to make a better mythology for europe than religion caused to its (europe's) mind, also indirectly referring to the lebor gabala ereinn being warped by christianity.

Alas, Orcs are clearly influenced by the histories and fear of' the mongol hordes as much as the preceding Hittite empire, no question about it. The name itself alludes to it as the Turkic (anatolia among previously the hittite empire also called anti-taurus) comes from Uruk (warqa) which means as much as that which dwells in the earth' (UR= city' by itself) (Turkiye meaning something the same as dwelling(living) city ur+iye, Istanbul for one refers to the bull of Estan (a name for the creator (the sun)

You also have the Uruk being Sumer naturally which is connected (see also the magyar(hungary) language connection with sumerian, orszag (country) cognate with urasag (city warrior).

But this is a subject that warrants its own book.

Tolkien agonized over and ultimately rejected the idea of any being possessing an absolutely irredeemable nature.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
You are making a RAI vs RAW argument.

Morgoth found the elves first, sent spirits to corrupt and influence them, and a dark rider stole away elves who wandered too far. All evidence suggests Morgoth did exactly as the elves believe.

If Tolkien finished or made a "second edition" it might be some other case. But with the books as published we have the theme of evil only corrupts and that Morgoth didn't create his own people he only twisted the people that existed.

Your preferred interpretation being all well and good for what it is, a straight reading of the text says otherwise.

Well, again (and one last time) Tolkien himself said that it was what the elves believe not that he set it in stone. So the histories on the wikis are from the perspective of the elves and not what Tolkien had in mind the actual origin to be.

And again. A RAI argument. https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Orcs/Origin#Bred_from_stone

Even in tolkiens latest revisions, notes, and essays the elves are involved.

And again, to quote the actual published text.

But of those hapless who were snared by Melkor little is known of a certainty. [...] Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa: that all those of the Quendi that came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty and wickedness were corrupted and enslaved. Thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orkor in envy and mockery of the Eldar, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orkor had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance thereof, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindalë before the Beginning: so say the wise. And deep in their dark hearts the Orkor loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery. This maybe was the vilest deed of Melkor and the most hateful to Eru.[10]

Regardless of ever changing RAI over the years, this is what is written.

Secondly, again (and one last time) even if being created from tortured to evil elves it does not mean Orcs are elves and it is very clear that they are not of Elven culture therefor -not originally good- considering -evil elves- are not good nor is anything of Elven nature in Orcs which is explicitly stated; "Orcs are not Elvish".

That is not my opinion but that of Tolkien.

Agree with this point. The orcs are not elves. I never said they were, now, still elves. Or that there was any real redemption for them. I said their origin was elves. What was once an elf is now an orc. A different awful thing.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Tbf Tolkien gave multiple different origins for orcs and never really settled on one.

This is true, but he did settle on them being a -metaphor- of the threat on which the response of the fellowship hinges.
As I just explained' that threat is nullified if Orcs have any form of unwillingness to evil.

Where there’s a whip there’s a way.

I think it helps if you don't expect it to be good, take bad writing as a given, forget canon, and just watch it as a very expensive spectacle / folly.

Something I find interesting is how differently Rings of Power and Game of Thrones do crowd scenes filled with extras. I watched the entire GoT series, and with the pointed exception of the terrible Dothraki* scenes, I was rarely jerked out of the story by bad ad-libbing and awkward cheers from extras in crowd scenes when a hero made a speech. But every single crowd scene in RoT is awful, feeling like bad community theater, with people overacting and ad-libbing their "Yeah!" "He's right!" "That's what I heard!" etc. in hammy ways like second rate amateurs, and the crowd generally responding to speakers in obviously forced and stilted fashion. It's done so poorly in RoP that if I hadn't seen other, better directed and acted fantasy series pull them off, I might have assumed that crowd scenes in fantasy shows were just naturally and inevitably terrible.

I think part of the reason is that in GoT, crowds in crowd scenes were generally truly massive. Crowds in RoP, even in contexts where they should be huge like the island city, feel smaller, and I wonder if the community theater feeling they have is due to directors asking the extras to make more noise, ad lib louder, and be more expressive to give the impression of a larger crowd. If so, it isn't working, it just looks cartoonish. It's forgivable on stage, but not in a lavish tentpole teleseries like this.

*Yeah, I'm sorry, but those Dothraki group scenes, like the dances where they started having sex in the middle of them, were painfully bad. In bad taste and cartoonishly stereotyping historical nomadic cultures, yes, but mostly just spectacularly dumb, unconvincing, and badly written.

Because Tolkien never settled on this in his writing, I am fine with other interpretations than 'ruined elves'. Lesser maiar possessing artificial bodies is a fine interpretation too. I think Orcs as an evil force of destruction is vastly more interesting than them being basically ugly humans with families they love etc, because that role is already filled by ... humans. The Orcs being something wholly supernatural and other is much more interesting.

 Da Boss wrote:
Because Tolkien never settled on this in his writing, I am fine with other interpretations than 'ruined elves'. Lesser maiar possessing artificial bodies is a fine interpretation too. I think Orcs as an evil force of destruction is vastly more interesting than them being basically ugly humans with families they love etc, because that role is already filled by ... humans. The Orcs being something wholly supernatural and other is much more interesting.

Agreed, and I think it helps contrast against the other forces of Sauron like the Easterlings and the Harad who are only corrupted in part, compared to the orcs who are fully in thrall to Sauron, which is almost seen as the "ideal" type of society that Sauron and his ilk wants the rest of Middle Earth to look like after they've forced them under his banner.

 Scrabb wrote:
Tolkien agonized over and ultimately rejected the idea of any being possessing an absolutely irredeemable nature.

Orcs do not have nature, they are the anti-natural force.
Nature equates to creation, Orks are destroyers.

Nature used in this way does not mean the same as nature as in the natural world, it's more like their innate approach to life, their innate qualities.

@Leopold, does substituting essence for nature remove your objection?

Well the main issue here is how "multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar" is interpeted, wrongly' that is.. as to mean "having families and jolly lives in peace", the word used is multiplied' not "had culture" or "made a life for themselves". So as I explained in my first post; Orcs pillaged to destroy and (bad word) R'ed women to offspring (Uruk-hai are generally considered halfbreed) as this is what the manifestation of the evil Orcs represent and entails to cause for the resonating response of man, elves and dwarves to -want to campaign Orcs out of existence-. Any insert of "Orcs have families derp" annuls the evil that they represent.

The idea that Orcs -as Orcs- have a culture other than acting with violence whenever the words of Melkor command them to do so in their heads' is acanonical. When the 'essence' of Orcs is concerned, Tolkien was clear that they have none as they are unrecognicable from whatever origin they had, one could speculate wether that means Orcs are a sort of golem, an empty husk that merely responds according to a derrivative of hating all that lives, including their own kind.

 Da Boss wrote:
Because Tolkien never settled on this in his writing, I am fine with other interpretations than 'ruined elves'. Lesser maiar possessing artificial bodies is a fine interpretation too. I think Orcs as an evil force of destruction is vastly more interesting than them being basically ugly humans with families they love etc, because that role is already filled by ... humans. The Orcs being something wholly supernatural and other is much more interesting.

Morgoth and Sauron already have a bunch of those guys in their forces. Balrogs, spirits, things like Shelob who were descendant from those spirit monsters. Wholly Supernatural terrible things.

If the enemies forces are primarily made up of supernatural ghosts and monstrosities with normal mortal creatures as the occasional slave then you end up with a situation where mortals are not really at any risk of falling to the side of darkness. You just have to stop the ghosts and ghouls from taking over by force. The Orcs being a mortal race is a greater threat. Yeah. Some men fell under Morgoth and Sauron. But the Orcs is what would become of them over time. The orcs is a look into the future of anyone who truly falls to evil. The fact that they are a mortal race says so much more and worse about evils potential influence on everyone else. You are not simply fighting an external force. You are actively trying to maintain good so that you and yours do not become THAT.

I think 'becoming orcs' is also a good way to go, though I feel to be consistent with Tolkien's worldview as I understand it, it would have to be by choice (or lots of little evil choices over time) and I don't see them having children.

But orcs as people with children IS supported by some of what tolkien wrote.

It smacks of the what Star Trek did way way too much - make very bad guys into a misunderstood good guy who just needs to be saved and become a good federation clone...

I agree even Tolkien did not really decide what Orcs where/how they reproduced etc but having a different Kultur and being inhuman rather than just ugly humans is too me at least much more interesting.

In LOTR, in the big battles, men are at least as prominent as Orcs I'd say. Dunlendings at Helm's Deep, Haradrim and Easterlings at Pelenor.

So I am fine with orcs fulfilling a different fictional niche. There's only one shelob and balrog in the third age, after all.

That said I did the 'sympathetic orcs' thing for years in my rpgs, and I've always been fascinated by them since I first came across the concept of a goblin as a small child. Just these days I lean more toward fully supernatural orcs, probably created in some pit or couldron.

My less high-brow view of S2 so far:

The SFX budget feels like it's doing a bit more.

As a die-hard Elfophile even I cringe at the Elf-fu.

The dialogue just seems stilted.

Oh, and one of the more interesting characters (the Healer) apparently died off screen..

I started watch The Sky At Night on iPlayer.

 Souleater wrote:

Oh, and one of the more interesting characters (the Healer) apparently died off screen..

Yeah, the actress chose not to return and instead is campaigning for women's rights in Iran, I believe.

 Mr Morden wrote:
It smacks of the what Star Trek did way way too much - make very bad guys into a misunderstood good guy who just needs to be saved and become a good federation clone....

Thing is, '[Insert Race Here] is inherently evil and so will always do the evil thing' ultimately makes for less interesting and much more 2-dimensional storytelling than 'No race is inherently evil, but anyone can be corrupted by evil leaders'...

I have been part of several discussions over the years. About whether if you took an Orc as an infant, and raised it among one of the "good" races, would it become different than "normal" Orcs? Could you civilize an Orc?

I think with RoP having Adar around that the Orcs are still developing as a race, evolving from ruined Elves to what they will eventually become. It’s one of the more interesting bits of the series to me.

On “good” Orcs, one of the best things Christopher Paolini did in the later Inheritance books is develop the Urgals from just straight Orc stand-ins to being this much more complex barbarian race (somewhat Klingon influenced, admittedly). They still were very aggressive and dangerous, but it made them a much more interesting part of the books than just “horde of NPCs to get in your way”.

 insaniak wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
It smacks of the what Star Trek did way way too much - make very bad guys into a misunderstood good guy who just needs to be saved and become a good federation clone....

Thing is, '[Insert Race Here] is inherently evil and so will always do the evil thing' ultimately makes for less interesting and much more 2-dimensional storytelling than 'No race is inherently evil, but anyone can be corrupted by evil leaders'...

I think there is room for character development and story telling without having the "everyone is good really.... and they just need to be more like us" trekisms. A "Evil" race can have their own culture, religion, etc but they don't have to be just different looking humans who need to be saved by the "good guys".

Well, the orcs aren't good and nobody is really trying to redeem or save them. When the good guys see and orc they know its trouble and those monsters are going to do awful things to them.

That the evil orcs try to go home and rest after a day of pillaging and burning doesn't make them less monsters.

 insaniak wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
It smacks of the what Star Trek did way way too much - make very bad guys into a misunderstood good guy who just needs to be saved and become a good federation clone....

Thing is, '[Insert Race Here] is inherently evil and so will always do the evil thing' ultimately makes for less interesting and much more 2-dimensional storytelling than 'No race is inherently evil, but anyone can be corrupted by evil leaders'...

I dunno, I think you're wrong about that. No species or kindred being inherently evil is of course more realistic, and allows for something more like the real world in terms of politics and relations between people.

But is that what I always, in every situation, want for my fantasy stories? I don't think so. I think having an inherently evil "people" is quite interesting, not least because it forces you to grapple with the concept of evil without retreating into relativism. You've got to put yourself out there and say "This is what I think is evil, this is what it means to me, and it's represented in the behaviours of these beings."

I think Tolkien's Orcs do a good job of showing what he thinks is evil behaviour and evil values. And I've always been fascinated with his orcs, far more than with other representations (even those I did myself!) which try to make them into green humans with tusks.

I am fine with other interpretations, though. Like I'm fine with ROP showing Orc children. I think it's also interesting in a way. But it does bring a whole new set of problems to Middle Earth. Like the Sun is literally in the sky in Middle Earth to torment and discomfit the Orcs. The Valar have done that specifically to make their lives worse and drive them underground. I think that's something Series 1 showed really well, better than I've seen in other Tolkien adaptations. And so the idea of Adar as trying to carve them out a place in the world where they are shielded from the genocidal hatred of the Valar is interesting. I've thought about that A LOT, and how to maybe use that in a game with Orc protagonists at war with the Gods.

But it isn't really what Tolkien was about, and doesn't jive very well with his themes. And I think is a misreading and misunderstanding of what his Orcs are.

 Da Boss wrote:
]Like the Sun is literally in the sky in Middle Earth to torment and discomfit the Orcs. The Valar have done that specifically to make their lives worse and drive them underground.

This is one of the more important aspects Tolkien took from real world mythology emphasising the -inherent evil- that Orcs 'do represent.
You have for one the mythology of trol, the mythology of tengu and the mythology of kallikantzaroi.
The first refers to hunched over people that live in mountain caves and raid villages stealing children, they are described as having 'esoteric knowledge'.
The second refers to birdbeaked or long nosed people that live in mountain caves and raid villages stealing children to make them into ninja, it is practically identical to the first. The first have an all-mother called gryla' the second have an all-mother called Amanozaku. Both are thought to come from a black meteorite. The trol turn to stone from the sun, the tengu have been burned by the sun (which is why they have red skin in depictions)

Then there are the Kallikantzaroi who are goblinesque depicted, they have gone underground and very much fear the sun aswell, they saw at the roots of the world-tree trying to destroy creation. Their boss is called goatfoot but is referred to as "mother".
https://greekerthanthegreeks.com/greek-christmas-customs-traditions-2/

Goblins are clearly derrived from these, and hob-goblins are likely somewhat derrived from sea peoples who were used as mercenaries in the areas surrounding the aegean sea.

There are ancient tribal conflicts at the root of such mythological creature from which Tolkien then built the Orcs. (as explained, coming from the word Uruk (warqa) - of the potamias) It all has one distinct aspect in common; these are beholden to the Sun as adversarious, somewhat rooted in the zoroastrian doctrine that ahura mazda (the creator) emenated himself as the first light (spenta mainyu) to discern genuity from ingenuity (angra mainyu)

 Da Boss wrote:
I've thought about that A LOT, and how to maybe use that in a game with Orc protagonists at war with the Gods.

.

Ork! The Roleplaying game held that as one of it's ultimate goals. Have your ork kill the sun. Of course, eating broccoli also caused you to explode, so it was slightly less serious than ROP.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Ork! The Roleplaying game held that as one of it's ultimate goals. Have your ork kill the sun. Of course, eating broccoli also caused you to explode, so it was slightly less serious than ROP.

I mean, we haven't seen an orc eat broccoli in RoP yet, so can't rule it out.

Sooo took a deep breath and watched S2 Ep 1 with Mother....

Good
First bit with Sauron - esp liked the thing that remained - although thought for a moment it was going to become the Watcher in the Water - which I don't think anyone really knows what it is?
It looked good for the most part (although see below)
Gandalf and the not Hobbit was quite fun.
The ship part I liked.

Bad
The Elves - my fav race in LOR and oh dear....the outfits - esp the armour, the plain stupidity of every single one of them, the dialogue....ye gods it is bad - hmm I guess the bit at the end with the Tree looked... good.
No Dwarves :(

?
Why did the Father of Orcs release the prisoners when their king seemed to care for them - proper evil guys note this and torture them to make the stoic hero talk...

S2 E5

Hey look, it’s The Actor Kevin Eldon, King of Hobbies! Though his weak lemon drink is conspicuously absent.

As ever, haven’t and probably won’t read any Tolkien, so opinion solely informed by this show.

And I am enjoying that the nature of the Rings is a big deal. Give the “Good Races” pretty geegaws which grant them ways to make their lives better, and presumably the One Ring allows Sauron to influence the bearers of the others, who having been given free reign have the respect and adoration of their peoples will be followed down darker routes.

Still very much an improvement on the “who are you, and why should I care” of Season 1.

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
This image I found is the start of one of the chapters in the book. Just read the first 2 paragraphs of that total nonsense and you will get an idea of what reading the silmarillion is like. haha

snip...

Also this...

snip...

What's meant to be difficult to read about this?

I like to joke the only thing Catholic School prepared me for was being able to read stuff like this comfortably. Both the Silmarillion and the Lord of the Rings are roundly criticized for being 'dry' but its almost always referring to this kind of long elaboration in backgrounds that draws heavily from the kind of layouts you see in the Bible and mythological texts.

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:Difference is, Silmarillion was never was never meant to be published, especially in raw form. You want to read the actual stories, you read the ones Chris expanded on and published.

Rings of Power has writers who seem like the only time they've touched a pen is when they drew a picture book.

Lance845 wrote:Factually untrue. Silmarililon was pitched along with TLotR and was rejected by publishers. Tolkien continued work on it all the way up to his death but he definitely tended to publish it.

If it was only notes for his own history then that paragraph of cousins could have been more easily recorded as a flow chart.

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:It was unfinished, so it was never meant to be published. So, yes true.

While the Silmarillion we got (with its annotations and footnotes in the margins being notes by Chris outlining that this or that inconsistency is because the paragraphs in question were written decades apart instead of some in-universe explanation) is almost certainly not what JRRT would have ultimately published if he'd lived to see it done, it's not unreasonable to guess that a lot of its broad stroke revelations regarding the orcs are probably close.

Leopold Helveine wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
]Like the Sun is literally in the sky in Middle Earth to torment and discomfit the Orcs. The Valar have done that specifically to make their lives worse and drive them underground.

This is one of the more important aspects Tolkien took from real world mythology emphasising the -inherent evil- that Orcs 'do represent.
You have for one the mythology of trol, the mythology of tengu and the mythology of kallikantzaroi.
The first refers to hunched over people that live in mountain caves and raid villages stealing children, they are described as having 'esoteric knowledge'.

snip...

While I like the detail you're going into here, I feel like you may be missing the forest for the trees.

Yes. Tolkien's orcs draw from mythological sources and these creatures from which he draws are, as presented, irredeemably evil. The problem is, the crux of Tolkien's dilemma about the orcs is that while these mythologies allow for irredeemably evil creatures that think and speak and possess intelligence, Tolkien's Christian philosophy does not, and that philosophy is front and center in his work. Tolkien's orcs speak, think, have a concept of right and wrong (and express all three in the text of his work) and he was conflicted because he believed they must obviously be redeemable, but couldn't reconcile that with how he'd depicted them thus far.

That's the crux of Tolkien's moral dilemma about the orcs, it's also the crux of pretty much every good guy orc story from Warcraft 3 to TNG's Klingons.

RoP is actively poking at this sore spot, it seems to be one of its central ideas. The scene with the orc child touches on one side of the dilemma, and for some reason everyone is forgetting the scene in season one with the water ration or any of the many, many others that touch on the other side of it. He'll, Galadriel and Adar have exactly one scene together in which she says orcs have no right to exist and he replies that only God gets to decide that and here they are lol.

 Captain Joystick wrote:

While I like the detail you're going into here, I feel like you may be missing the forest for the trees.

Yes. Tolkien's orcs draw from mythological sources and these creatures from which he draws are, as presented, irredeemably evil. The problem is, the crux of Tolkien's dilemma about the orcs is that while these mythologies allow for irredeemably evil creatures that think and speak and possess intelligence, Tolkien's Christian philosophy does not, and that philosophy is front and center in his work. Tolkien's orcs speak, think, have a concept of right and wrong (and express all three in the text of his work) and he was conflicted because he believed they must obviously be redeemable, but couldn't reconcile that with how he'd depicted them thus far.

That's the crux of Tolkien's moral dilemma about the orcs, it's also the crux of pretty much every good guy orc story from Warcraft 3 to TNG's Klingons.

RoP is actively poking at this sore spot, it seems to be one of its central ideas. The scene with the orc child touches on one side of the dilemma, and for some reason everyone is forgetting the scene in season one with the water ration or any of the many, many others that touch on the other side of it. He'll, Galadriel and Adar have exactly one scene together in which she says orcs have no right to exist and he replies that only God gets to decide that and here they are lol.

Well, this is (no offence) where you're dead wrong, Tolkien exactly commented on the fact how christianity had muddied the water concerning the mythology of albion and erin as much as the greater gaelic world' (including the saka roaming branches as much as sea peoples that went all over the earth) and was rightfully keeping it out of his written world. Tolkien did not write from a christian philosophy, he wrote again rightfully from a pagan (this word means of the countryside) and heretical (this word means 'able to choose') philosophy.

The christian philosophy is indeed rooted in the good vs evil paradigm, which is relatively modern and originating of the gnostics who demoted the ancient and antique creator deity as a jealous usurper who stole the light of a new higher god known as el elyon/barbelo/sophia. The creator was vilified and made into the "evil" or adversarious contrasting entity; a fallen' deity to be transcended from.

The preceding pagan worldview revered the creator entity, we know today as the Sun' which was symbolized and allegorized many times as much as had many titles and names corresponding with the alchemy of creation and its aspects, such as associations with spring and rebirth as much as with its light or in some cases named after the people who revered the creator themselves, for instance ariel which means god(el) of the ari'. etc.
Sometimes he was simply called the good god (dag-An'/Dag-da(nu) or the lord of the mountain (ela-gabalus) if not just associated with such in illustrations ( such as the (T)horagalles, Tharapita, horselord deities such as Iu(dieus)pater(father) and so on and on)

It is this Solar' creator mythology that Tolkien drew from, -not- the christian one, but I understand that the series lacks the ration for this subject, and its writers especially are limited to simpler concepts.

Episode 5 was an absolute slog, even by this shows standard.

Its making me appreciate the more boring episodes of season 2 of HotD much more. At least they had witty/intelligent dialogue delivered by fine actors.

So got to episode 5

To my great surprise I was actually quite enjoying but the Elves get worse and worse...Dumb, dumb dumb... also did they only have the one horse that the show could use.

Wizard looking for his stick and halflings are greatly tedious.

Numenor is just odd.

I do like the black Legolas

I actually am enjoying it but they are stretching out the wizard-quest thing. Once they reveal his name it's going to be tedious, whether it's Gandalf or not.

Starting to spot some Star Wars type dialog turning up. Tom's 'help them or complete your training' moment and Galadriel said "escape is not his plan".

Its weird - some bits could have done with time jumps - easily done as except for the halflings everyone lives for centuries at least but instead we have the Dwarf rings acting instantly to corrupt the Dwarves....

"I have lost my stick and my name " is tedious

How do the Dwarf rings corrupt them? Because Tolkien explicitly says that Dwarves cannot be dominated by the rings like men were, and that they do not become Wraiths for that reason. The rings just increased their already present greed.

 Da Boss wrote:
How do the Dwarf rings corrupt them? Because Tolkien explicitly says that Dwarves cannot be dominated by the rings like men were, and that they do not become Wraiths for that reason. The rings just increased their already present greed.

That is how it is corrupting them. The dwarven king who was first given the rings refuses to share them with anyone else. He is digging deeper for more and becoming paranoid of others taking or wanting what is his.

The One Ring has not been forged yet. There has been no attempt to dominate with the rings yet.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
How do the Dwarf rings corrupt them? Because Tolkien explicitly says that Dwarves cannot be dominated by the rings like men were, and that they do not become Wraiths for that reason. The rings just increased their already present greed.

That is how it is corrupting them. The dwarven king who was first given the rings refuses to share them with anyone else. He is digging deeper for more and becoming paranoid of others taking or wanting what is his.

The One Ring has not been forged yet. There has been no attempt to dominate with the rings yet.

Yep - but I wish it would have taken more than 10 seconds to work - time jump would have worked well...

Episode 7.

Now we’re getting somewhere! The battles were fun, and easy to follow. But, perhaps a smidgen too easy? Certainly odd to see Elves not fighting in a well ordered phalanx type thing, so maybe that’s colouring my opinion.

Gods above that episode was bad......

I assume they are ignoring the whole Galadriel's husband and daughter - who marries Elrond....cos otherwise this is going to get a bit icky.

Battles were just a mess and not in a good way, oh we need an archer - oh for some reason she gets shot by a load of orcs but no one else - like what?

Galadriel lets a tortured old smith go off to fight Sauron with some guards who have trouble fighting orcs... I mean its not dumber than everything else she does in the show, every week.

Only mercy was no Wizard looking for a stick

I didn't find so bad. Some how I can enjoy while being aware of some negatives.

Kudos for trying to evoke the feeling of Helm's Deep and Pelennor Fields, but if your going to introduce a hot archer who dies making the crucial shot then take an episode or two to build her up - not three scenes and one line of dialogue.

Celebrimbor and the City Guard realise it's Sauron and confront him. Cool - but then it turns into The Life of Brian.

And I'm getting a little tired of Adar, the ex-elf Super-Orc, and the writers having it both ways with the orcs as unsavable brutal thugs and as a people with hope, dreams and families.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Episode 7.

Now we’re getting somewhere! The battles were fun, and easy to follow. But, perhaps a smidgen too easy? Certainly odd to see Elves not fighting in a well ordered phalanx type thing, so maybe that’s colouring my opinion.

You serious though, the battles fun and easy to follow?
They were completely illogical in every way, manner, shape and form.

I probably forgot 100 things but these should do..

And that’s Season 2.

Overall I’ve enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to S3.

However, pacing. I feel like S1 and S2 could’ve been condensed down.

So the awful mess of a season ending in a awful mess of nonsense where plots and timelines were allover the place and made little sense.

Trying to think of something that was good or made sense.....er... there was some pretty cgi places....er.....

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And that’s Season 2.

Overall I’ve enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to S3.

However, pacing. I feel like S1 and S2 could’ve been condensed down.

I'm also very happy this smoldering pile of elven bones is over and I can with the best of luck forget this series exists come when S3 starts and ignore it wholly.

At the watching of the season finale I had so little interest in any character that I completely zoned out of everything that happened and probably missed all the logical fallacies concerning because it was like watching an ep of scooby doo while multitasking computerwork or something..

g(R)andalf in particular is like a cardboard character in this series, and whoever made his finding of his name be oblivious to the fact that gandalf means WAND-ELF in ancient english (gandr-alf) (also equates to wind-elf btw) to begin with should be fired from film making for life.

despite being zoned out I still wasn't blind to the atrocious laziness in this series, but what really made me exhale all creatures of pandoras box from my vocal chords was the moment the drow elf pranced around the screen entirely peak healthy as could be while he

No, nothing about this series was fun or good or anywhere near a proper standard to art and expressing a story, my lord what a ridiculous, ridiculous, RIDICULOUS waste of money it is. The single good moment in this finale was

Anyone that wants to start breathing nitrogen (and some oxygen particles) again can start watching the new batman series Penguin' and experience the immense contrast in quality.

It was a big pile of Gak - mainly watching it as my 80 yr old mother enjoys fantasy with a good bit of violence but she was shaking her head at some of the nonsense and going but.. why did or how come....?

Lowlights:


Penguin seems very good and there are plenty of well written shows out there.. Compare Fallout to Rings of Power....

 Leopold Helveine wrote:
despite being zoned out I still wasn't blind to the atrocious laziness in this series, but what really made me exhale all creatures of pandoras box from my vocal chords was the moment the drow elf pranced around the screen entirely peak healthy as could be while he

Spoiler:

had JUST BEEN KILLED IN THE PREV EP..

...

 Mr Morden wrote:
It was a big pile of Gak - mainly watching it as my 80 yr old mother enjoys fantasy with a good bit of violence but she was shaking her head at some of the nonsense and going but.. why did or how come....?

Lowlights:

Spoiler:

* The Dwarves going oh look a Balrog - lets immediately teleport to the siege....because...we can somehow..
* Orcs being noted as frenzied killing machines in the same episode but happy to chat to Glad and let the five elves she rescued flee - probably - unless they butched them off screen which would have made more sense.
* Glads magic ring being super good healing - except when it wasn't ....but then was again....
* the entire Numenor story - Ughhh I mean WTF
* Gandalf wandering looking for a stick or the plot or a decent script
* The stupid masked people - what do they do - "Die immediately"
* Saurons motivations veering wildly from sentence to sentence

Penguin seems very good and there are plenty of well written shows out there.. Compare Fallout to Rings of Power....

Oh yeah completely forgot about that 2nd point scene..

 insaniak wrote:

 Leopold Helveine wrote:
despite being zoned out I still wasn't blind to the atrocious laziness in this series, but what really made me exhale all creatures of pandoras box from my vocal chords was the moment the drow elf pranced around the screen entirely peak healthy as could be while he

Spoiler:

had JUST BEEN KILLED IN THE PREV EP..

Spoiler:

Assuming you mean Arondir (who is not a drow, since those aren't a thing in LorR), he was still alive when Adar walked off.

...

The dwarfs being resistant to the magic of the rings prevented them from being enslaved to Sauron's will, but amplified their greed and pride. So that much the series got right, they just condensed the timeline to fit it into the series.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

Spoiler:

He was ran through twice lethally and went deathstare to the ground, and in the next ep walks around and fights 100% fine as if he just had a bowl of soup and a chickenleg instead.

 insaniak wrote:
The dwarfs being resistant to the magic of the rings prevented them from being enslaved to Sauron's will, but amplified their greed and pride. So that much the series got right, they just condensed the timeline to fit it into the series.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

Spoiler:

He was ran through twice lethally and went deathstare to the ground, and in the next ep walks around and fights 100% fine as if he just had a bowl of soup and a chickenleg instead.

Spoiler:

The wounded guy being magically healed of his wounds while hanging out with another guy possessing a magical healing ring isn't really that much of a leap.

It would admittedly have been better if they had actually shown the healing, but there was a lot to fit into that last episode as it was.

The ring that got taken off him and he refused to use?

No, Gil-Galad.

The mindbending people go through to still support the horrific writing of this thankfully ended season (and hopefully soon to be canceled series) is amazing..

I'm curious, Leopold - are you able to post without insulting those who might hold a different POV to you?

 Leopold Helveine wrote:
The mindbending people go through to still support the horrific writing of this thankfully ended season (and hopefully soon to be canceled series) is amazing..

The what, now? It's not really that much of stretch to assume that the guy with the magical healing power might have used it to heal some folk.

The thing is, even if finding that explanation did take more than 3 and a half seconds thought, the way I see it is: if I'm watching a show, I have the choice of ignoring its flaws and just enjoying the ride, or picking it apart and not enjoying the time spent watching it. That second option just feels like a complete waste of time and energy, so if I can't enjoy the show for what it is, I'll just watch something else. I don't see the point in continuing to watch a show if I don't find something positive in it, and I find the idea of people hate watching a whole series just to complain about it more than a little bizarre, honestly. But you do you.

 insaniak wrote:

 Leopold Helveine wrote:
The mindbending people go through to still support the horrific writing of this thankfully ended season (and hopefully soon to be canceled series) is amazing..

The what, now? It's not really that much of stretch to assume that the guy with the magical healing power might have used it to heal some folk.

The thing is, even if finding that explanation did take more than 3 and a half seconds thought, the way I see it is: if I'm watching a show, I have the choice of ignoring its flaws and just enjoying the ride, or picking it apart and not enjoying the time spent watching it. That second option just feels like a complete waste of time and energy, so if I can't enjoy the show for what it is, I'll just watch something else. I don't see the point in continuing to watch a show if I don't find something positive in it, and I find the idea of people hate watching a whole series just to complain about it more than a little bizarre, honestly. But you do you.

I am mainly watching it cos mother wants to see it when I go round otherwise I would drop it - like I did "Last of Us"

My fav bits of 1st series where Elrond and Durin - but no interactions to speak off....

Fair point on Gil-Galad - but not sure when that would have happened as they were all captured pretty quickly....

Quick question?

Where abouts does this fall in the timeline?

I’m aware Elendil and Isildur featured in the prologue of Fellowship, and alongside the Elves saw Sauron defeated, and the One Ring lost.

But what does that mean for Gondor and Rohan? Were they founded at that point, or in the relative peace that came after Sauron’s major setback?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Quick question?

Where abouts does this fall in the timeline?

I’m aware Elendil and Isildur featured in the prologue of Fellowship, and alongside the Elves saw Sauron defeated, and the One Ring lost.

But what does that mean for Gondor and Rohan? Were they founded at that point, or in the relative peace that came after Sauron’s major setback?

Rohan was founded in the 3rd Age, some 2,500 years after the Battle of the Last Alliance, and just over 100 years before the War of the Ring.

Gondor was founded a bit over 100 years before the Battle of the Last Alliance, by Elendil and the Faithful, so we should see that during RoP.

So I’m guessing Elendil and Isildue are Dunedin, like Aragorn and live for yonks?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So I’m guessing Elendil and Isildue are Dunedin, like Aragorn and live for yonks?

yes they have elf blood so long lived.

Cool. Helps me place events in RoP into better context.

I’m guessing the Balrog won’t be set properly loose for a few thousand years then?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Cool. Helps me place events in RoP into better context.

I’m guessing the Balrog won’t be set properly loose for a few thousand years then?

its not supposed to have been disturbed until the 3rd age so who knows...guessing its supposed to just go back to sleep now....

The timeline of events and the facts of the events have been dramatically changed from what was in the books, so putting in context based off of that is probably pointless.

Like the Wizards did not arrive until the Third Age, after the battle of the Last Alliance.

The waking of the Balrog in Moria happened in the Third Age not the second.

The fall of Numenor happened completely differently in the books.

The forging of the rings was in a different order - the three rings of the elves were explicitly the last ones to be forged.

Not to mention the changing of characters - many are completely different to how they are described in the books.

And some stuff is entirely invented, like the nonsense from S1 with the big tree somehow representing the fading of the elves and how they have to get mithril to stop it, and how the mithril is created in the first place.

I don't really know why they wanted to "adapt" this stuff when they didn't really pay any attention to what's being adapted. So it's best, if you don't know much about Tolkien, to just enjoy it for what it is and certainly not to look for consistency with his work because there really isn't any.

I’m definitely in that lucky camp, that for me the show is just another big budget fantasy show, albeit in a setting I’m mildly familiar with from the films.

Never read the books, and probably never will.

 Da Boss wrote:
The timeline of events and the facts of the events have been dramatically changed from what was in the books, so putting in context based off of that is probably pointless.

Like the Wizards did not arrive until the Third Age, after the battle of the Last Alliance.

The waking of the Balrog in Moria happened in the Third Age not the second.

The fall of Numenor happened completely differently in the books.

The forging of the rings was in a different order - the three rings of the elves were explicitly the last ones to be forged.

Not to mention the changing of characters - many are completely different to how they are described in the books.

And some stuff is entirely invented, like the nonsense from S1 with the big tree somehow representing the fading of the elves and how they have to get mithril to stop it, and how the mithril is created in the first place.

I don't really know why they wanted to "adapt" this stuff when they didn't really pay any attention to what's being adapted. So it's best, if you don't know much about Tolkien, to just enjoy it for what it is and certainly not to look for consistency with his work because there really isn't any.

Yeah that's fair - whilst I fully understand that book adaptions need changes but many of them done here don;t seem to have made the story flow better or make sense - to me at least

 Da Boss wrote:


I don't really know why they wanted to "adapt" this stuff when they didn't really pay any attention to what's being adapted. So it's best, if you don't know much about Tolkien, to just enjoy it for what it is and certainly not to look for consistency with his work because there really isn't any.

You see this a lot lately in the industry having been dried up of -actual writers- and resupplied with -adapters-, and it's one of the reasons I am still to this day very reluctant to publish my own fantasy novels (still working on the 2nd book of the eponymous 'leopold helveine' which is a fantasy story about a journalist dwarf getting caught up in the political maelstrom of two regions consequently, including all the friends he makes along the way.., its grim and doesn't depend on tropes or cliche's, focusses mainly on tensions and impossible choices with their far reaching consequences that ripple out.)

So what happens is companies aquire existing art/writing and use it as a template' like how most videogames these days are made from succesful templates rather than what you see in the independen/indy scene coming up with hits and misses, gambling along new approaches'.. because it's not about the art/writing but about ensuring returns trying to make money, while ironically losing money as people are turning away enmasse from this approach and result.

But.. we still have a lot of untalented and inexperienced, sloppy, overpraised and overpayed writers that live in a massive bubble thinking that their style of plagiary and boring personal lives hanging by a thin thread of political activism inserted into their scripts' is worth an audience.. and it is exactly such "writers" that are the 1: cheapest labor force and 2: most reliable to meet deadlines' so the most attractive to the industry.
Afterall a good writer may require many years to write a single book (I know I have) and make it crystaline in terms of everything that happens in it connected, and interesting/impressionate to the reader.

Another (main) problem is that there are generally too many cooks in screenwriters-land', this is called writer-rooms in which 10+ people all chime in with their "ideas" or rather conditioned nonsense' and emotional exaggeration to make of it a soup with a hundred flavors that tastes like nothing particular and therefor is to noones taste. This is a known issue that many good writers are talking about these days, but the industry has the money, the good writers do not.. so what you end up is the same prismatic soup dish regardless.

Best course of action is to simply not watch such shows and pray to the Sun that they get canceled (or rather first put shame where its due and then get canceled) for better writers and crew that keeps a canon' to succeed.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

You see this a lot lately in the industry...

There's no 'lately' about it. Film adaptations of books have always had varying degrees of faithfulness to the original material. Disney was criticised for changing stories with their early fairly tale adaptions. The Wizard of Oz was a hugely influential movie that made significant changes to the source material. The Neverending Story scarred a whole generation of kids in the 80s, and was so, so different from the book. The Shining is held up as a pinnacle of it's genre despite once again being significantly different to the book.

The goal of an adaptation isn't always to directly copy the source, nor should it be. A story teller should always have some creative freedom to tell the story their way. If you personally prefer more accurate adaptations, that's entirely your choice... But that doesn't make it a failing of the show's makers if it doesn't meet your arbitrary requirements.

 insaniak wrote:

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

You see this a lot lately in the industry...

There's no 'lately' about it. Film adaptations of books have always had varying degrees of faithfulness to the original material. Disney was criticised for changing stories with their early fairly tale adaptions. The Wizard of Oz was a hugely influential movie that made significant changes to the source material. The Neverending Story scarred a whole generation of kids in the 80s, and was so, so different from the book. The Shining is held up as a pinnacle of it's genre despite once again being significantly different to the book.

The goal of an adaptation isn't always to directly copy the source, nor should it be. A story teller should always have some creative freedom to tell the story their way. If you personally prefer more accurate adaptations, that's entirely your choice... But that doesn't make it a failing of the show's makers if it doesn't meet your arbitrary requirements.

Not only this. But here is Leopold in another thread praising this exact thing...

 Leopold Helveine wrote:
Still have to watch ep3 (will when I get at home) but so far, 2 eps in this show has been absolute gold.
Even though you know that nothing can happen to penguin (atleast nothing can kill him) in this show.. you're still constantly at the edge of your seat when he gets in trouble and that is an acting-effort as much as really, really good writing.

This show blows most if not all other shows out of the water and into the firmament, hopefully through it' to never be seen again.
Seriously, when you watch this show you'll feel like canceling most other shows is the right thing to do.

Singing the praises of both "Oz Cobb" and Sofia Falcone despite both characters being massive departures from their source material.

I think the expectation that an adaptation will be somewhat similar to the source material is not an arbitrary or unreasonable expectation.

There are changes I don't mind, especially cutting stuff.

But changing characters completely is something that really bugs me, it's why I don't like the PJ LOTR any more, because all of the characters are coarsened and made lesser by the adaptation, and especially Frodo is changed practically beyond recognition. And I'm not talking about superficial things like appearance here, but the internal nature of the character.

The Dune movies for example cut a lot of the stuff about ecology that I really liked from the book to focus on the social and religious elements more. I thought it was a fine choice and a good adaptation, despite leaving out my personal favourite parts of the book, because it also didn't change them or say they weren't happening or important, and they communicated the character of the main characters well for the medium.

I don't feel that RoP represents existing characters well at all. Their best characters are the ones they invented whole cloth, and I'm not annoyed when they are on screen because there isn't the sense of disrespect to the original work to the same extent.

And yeah, I do use disrespect intentionally here. People doing adaptations are taking the name of someone else's work to make money for themselves. It's an exercise in branding. This is already kinda disgusting imo, but then to change it and alter the meaning of the original work in the pursuit of your money using someone else's work is really awful and hubristic.
Just make your own original story and sell me on THAT. It'd probably be more enjoyable for me. And no whining about how original stories don't get noticed - Tolkien's work was an original story at one point, somehow he managed it.

 insaniak wrote:

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

You see this a lot lately in the industry...

There's no 'lately' about it. Film adaptations of books have always had varying degrees of faithfulness to the original material. Disney was criticised for changing stories with their early fairly tale adaptions. The Wizard of Oz was a hugely influential movie that made significant changes to the source material. The Neverending Story scarred a whole generation of kids in the 80s, and was so, so different from the book. The Shining is held up as a pinnacle of it's genre despite once again being significantly different to the book.

The goal of an adaptation isn't always to directly copy the source, nor should it be. A story teller should always have some creative freedom to tell the story their way. If you personally prefer more accurate adaptations, that's entirely your choice... But that doesn't make it a failing of the show's makers if it doesn't meet your arbitrary requirements.

The point wasn't adaptation, the point was using succesful writings as a template because writers lack imagination and talent and are selected mainly for their ability to meet deadlines (because they lack imagination and talent).

 Lance845 wrote:


Not only this. But here is Leopold in another thread praising this exact thing...

Singing the praises of both "Oz Cobb" and Sofia Falcone despite both characters being massive departures from their source material.

Ah another one that ignores the context of my statements I see.
Again, the context is quality of writ, not wether something is canon even though I would enjoy canon over adaptation, which is irrelevant to my point.

Well your post doesn't come across that way at all. You kind of go on a rant about "adapters" instead of writers being hired into bloated writing rooms to produce adaptations of preexisting stories as opposed to creating something new.

You call it plagiary and even throw in politics for some reason.

Mostly it reads as you being bitter that writers get hired to do what amounts to a commission job by a studio instead of doing their passion projects and sitting in obscurity with some other day job.

I’m gonna repeat what I hope is a balanced opinion I gave much earlier in the thread, involving an adaptation of a fantasy world I’m very familiar with. The Watch.

Like those who have a love for Tolkien? I have a love for Pratchett, his writing, his politics and his ability to use silly fantasy tropes as a lens fo criticise stupidity in the real world. Pterry was a Sir. Pterry was a satirist. Pterry was a genius. But most of all? Pterry was bloody furious.

Now sadly, like Tolkien, Pterry has been gone for far longer than I’d like to admit. And like Tolkien? His works have had adaptations. And, like Tolkien? Pterry’s estate is in the hands of his child, Rhianna.

And so, to get back to my point? The Watch eventually came to be. A single series made by BBC America.

It’s not Discworld. It’s the loosest possible adaptation I think you could get away with and still claim to be a descendant of Pterry’s Masterworks. And it upset a lot of people, because it was so, so far from what fans of Discworld hoped for.

It was, by any measure? A Bloody Awful Adaptation. A waste of a license.

BUT

Let’s try to strip away my expectations as someone who’s read all but one Discworld novel (I’m saving that for my deathbed). Let’s strip away my literary prejudice.

And I have to admit…The Watch is not without its merits. And is in fact pretty good fun. Still a waste of a license like, but of its own curious merit,

Which brings me back to Rings of Power.

I’m Joe Public here. And whilst not perfect? I still consider it superior teevee, and happily entertaining.

Now, that doesn’t mean “therefore everyone else am STFU”. I genuinely and honestly respect your opinion, and all the factors that inform said opinion, of the show. But please. Respect my opinion, informed as it is by a single source, in turn.

I thought it was weird Lance noticed praise from Leopold for an adaptation in a different thread and used that against him in this thread while still refusing to acknowledge Leopold doesn't automatically impugn adaptations.

Respect my opinion, informed as it is by a single source, in turn.

Rings of Power does not provide material to have an opinion on Tolkien. If we can agree to separate RoP from Tolkien you and I can get along just fine. But if you want to talk about the symbolism of Sauron having 7 rings made for Dwarf Lords I'm just not even there for said conversation. (16 lesser rings were forged, from which they refined their skill in ring making and set to various lesser stations which remain unspecified. All originally purposed for Elves by Elves. That 9 of these lesser rings went to men and 7 to dwarves was not determined before they were made.)

Edit: Fun fact, Galadriel was actually the one person Sauron had to run out of town to gain his way with the elves under his benevolent disguise as she saw right through him from the start. The show squandered a ton of goodwill by deciding to use Galadriel, one of the most famous and important elves in the stories as their pow character for entanglement with Sauron. They would have done much better simply giving her character arc to a new character.

It'd be like making Carrot a blowhard who leaned on rank and was insecure.

I think you misunderstood my point.

I used The Watch as an example of a show which, on its own merits, is actually not that bad at all. But, still stands as an exceptionally poor Discworld adaptation.

One can enjoy The Watch entirely on its own merits.

That doesn’t mean you then have an opinion on Discworld. Only on The Watch. Because they’re kinda two different things.

It’d be like saying you know me, because you’ve met my cousin’s eldest kid. Sure, we share a modicum of DNA, but we’re not even remotely the same person.

 Lance845 wrote:
Well your post doesn't come across that way at all. You kind of go on a rant about "adapters" instead of writers being hired into bloated writing rooms to produce adaptations of preexisting stories as opposed to creating something new.

You call it plagiary and even throw in politics for some reason.

Mostly it reads as you being bitter that writers get hired to do what amounts to a commission job by a studio instead of doing their passion projects and sitting in obscurity with some other day job.

You're reading things into my post that aren't there, that is the only thing I can say here because it will be pointless to discuss your interpetation.

That some kind of political activism (DEI) is present in writer-rooms is established, that such is driven by subsidies is also known, this may be the bedrock of what empowers bad writers, but that is all again beside the point that the driving force is simply a commercial interest in profit which favors short term gains over stability, a well written show becomes a trademark, a badly written show becomes a money laundering operation.

Regardless, again; succesful writ is used as template, if good writers did that noone would cringe, everyone would praise it.
We all know what is going on with ROP.

I think you communicated perfectly and I demonstrated understanding.

 Scrabb wrote:
If we can agree to separate RoP from Tolkien you and I can get along just fine.

We agreed. I then continued to opine.

As Is Tradition!

I just want to shout out to the board that I love how we collectively just enjoy these silly Pitch Meeting videos for every pop culture release XD

Yeah, for all these recent very bad media projects, I don’t have to search out the channel because I know it’ll pop up here.

I don’t search em out, I’m subscribed.