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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