Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

According to the wiki it is planned for 5 seasons… so longer than I was originally expecting. Plenty of time yet for Celeborn to be introduced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Rings_of_Power

 Mr Morden wrote:

Ah interesting - it would be somewhat odd for Eldrond to have a relationship with her and then marry her daughter.....but then if you have people who live for thousands of years I guess stranger things happen.

If you're a fan of WB Yeats don't read his biography, and especially not the bits about Maud Gonne and her daughter. It'll seriously put you off him. Well, that and the crypto-fascist leanings at the end of his life, but hey.

As an ex-teenage Tolkien fan, and someone who's into his fifth decade of loving the books, the first two episodes have been brilliant - actors and acting are amazing, the premise and scope of the show, the look and fee including costumes and CGl, the bits they inevitably have to chop and change to accommodate the much less information-dense screen medium being palatable, all of them hit just the right note. They even got a similar-looking actor to play Gil-Galad!

If you'd told me any time between 1980 and 2020 or so that I'd be watching the Two Trees and the city of Tirion in a TV show, I wouldn't have believed you.

It's a pity that they couldn't get the rights and stick to the actual lore though, especially considering the vast budget behind it.

I wonder to what degree their lack of rights to the Silmarillion caused all those incongruencies in the first episodes. It seems like they had to squeeze well established characters in completely different roles and alter their relationships to get their plot going.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I thought he was in it?

You might be thinking of the shipwright Celebrimbor.

Given that Celebron is from Eregion and they show that off in episode 2, he's probably on the way and he and Elrond will meet.

 BertBert wrote:
It's a pity that they couldn't get the rights and stick to the actual lore though, especially considering the vast budget behind it.

I wonder to what degree their lack of rights to the Silmarillion caused all those incongruencies in the first episodes. It seems like they had to squeeze well established characters in completely different roles and alter their relationships to get their plot going.

I think anyone who thinks this is labouring under a misapprehension somewhat.

This show may end up costing a billion dollars to make. All three Jackson films didn't cost anything like that much. Consequently the implications of failure are stunning, even Bezos may notice a sum like that going down the drain.

They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.

The idea that they wouldn't have changed any number of things regardless of access to other material to make it easier to understand, visually more impressive or just more palatable to a modern, widespread audience is a flawed one IMO.

Perhaps access to more of Tolkien's work would have changed what and how things were altered, but I guarantee you that things would have deviated just as much in different areas to suit the show's objectives. The best that can be done is to hope for no more barrel chases.

 Olthannon wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I thought he was in it?

You might be thinking of the shipwright Celebrimbor.

Given that Celebron is from Eregion and they show that off in episode 2, he's probably on the way and he and Elrond will meet.

The Shipwright is Cirdan I believe. Celebrimbor is the Smith (of the Rings) unless I am mistaken. Rumor has it Stephen Colbert may play Cirdan in season 2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Rings_of_Power

As far as I can find at this point there has been no announcement of Celebron having been cast.

Accurate representation of Galadriel swimming back to Middle-Earth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em9C1DZknxo

 Grumpy Gnome wrote:

 Olthannon wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I thought he was in it?

You might be thinking of the shipwright Celebrimbor.

Given that Celebron is from Eregion and they show that off in episode 2, he's probably on the way and he and Elrond will meet.

The Shipwright is Cirdan I believe. Celebrimbor is the Smith (of the Rings) unless I am mistaken. Rumor has it Stephen Colbert may play Cirdan in season 2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Rings_of_Power

As far as I can find at this point there has been no announcement of Celebron having been cast.

you are right, too many bloody characters.

Yep, that’s who I’m thinking about!

 BertBert wrote:


I wonder to what degree their lack of rights to the Silmarillion caused all those incongruencies in the first episodes.

What they did to Galadriel's character, they did because they could, not because they had to. Same with the rest of the "reimagining" they seem to be doing.

Like the whole "going to Valinor as a reward" thing. They didn't need the rights to the Silimarillion to NOT put that crap in.

I do think the scope of the licence will make them want to push Third Age events into the show. If you've seen what's currently available, you can probably guess which ones.

 Azreal13 wrote:


They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.

The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:


They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.

The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.

Yeah, I never got that argument. LoTR got its start from having great world building based upon Tolkien's knowledge of mythology and a solid story with a well developed roster of characters. It feels like a very weak argument to say that to move away from that would somehow make it better, especially when they're setting this up as a prequel with existing characters that people know from the movies, so it's not like they're even trying to enter an unknown space of LoTR to carve their own story. If you try to appeal to everyone, you end up pleasing nobody.

I am utterly shocked that I like this show. Everything about the marketing prepared me to hate it. And the first 20 or so minutes of the first episode seemed to confirm that I would indeed hate it.

I thought the opening scene with Child Galadriel was horrendously written for any number of reasons. Then the “First Age in a nutshell” montage was totally underwhelming (the kindest way I can put it), especially in contrast to Galadriel’s prologue in PJ’s trilogy. Next, the sequence of Galadriel going to icy ends of Middle-earth hunting for Sauron somehow managed to be boring and incoherent.

The episode started to win me over with the introduction of the Harfoots. And then the introduction of Arondir’s subplot drew me in even more deeply. These two elements were the components I anticipated hating the most — imagine my astonishment when this turned out to be the most interesting and well-executed content! Finally, Galadriel’s subplot was rehabilitated by her scenes with Elrond (which still suffered from some pretty dreadful dialogue) and especially the fascinating idea that Gil-Galad’s reward had the flavor of rebuke and exile.

From start to finish, I LOVED the second episode. The was executed flawlessly. The scenes with Elrond and Durin were revelatory and fascinating. Galadriel is by far and away my favorite character but Nori and Arondir are not that far behind. I cannot wait to see the next episode. My only criticism is I don’t care for what appear to be intentional misdirections regarding the Stranger.

 Grimskul wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:


They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.

The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.

Yeah, I never got that argument. LoTR got its start from having great world building based upon Tolkien's knowledge of mythology and a solid story with a well developed roster of characters. It feels like a very weak argument to say that to move away from that would somehow make it better, especially when they're setting this up as a prequel with existing characters that people know from the movies, so it's not like they're even trying to enter an unknown space of LoTR to carve their own story. If you try to appeal to everyone, you end up pleasing nobody.

I dunno, maybe I'm jaded? I've seen good movies that are terrible adaptations (the Shining, off the top of my head), I've seen good movies that have completely disregarded their own lore (Terminator 2), and I certainly remember book fans swearing that Jackson was a hack and his movies wouldn't make their budget back because they were upset by some lore breaking scene here or terrible action hero line there.

I see the argument that it's not faithful to the lore when it otherwise could have been - and we can probably agree on that point in a couple of instances, but for now we don't really know how much any of those changes are going to matter in the upcoming narrative, we might come out the other end of this thinking there's no other way they could have done it. More importantly though, I've never really considered Tolkien lore as a 'set in stone' kind of thing. I was always under the impression that he was operating under this kind of meta narrative about all these books having been translated by him from manuscripts written in elvish by Frodo, Bilbo and whomever else?

All that said though, we need to wait and see. They're bragging about the number of unique viewers on the first day, it's a marketing gimmick I'm not fond of but if they can retain it that would bode well for the show's future. For my part, I've shown it to a couple of friends from my Pathfinder group who aren't Tolkien fans, and it went over pretty well with them. They had a number of questions about the broader setting that I filled in with half-remembered Tolkien lore (which I'm pretty sure I got wrong plenty of times since I haven't read the Silmarillion since High School and my main refresher on its stuff is from Blind Guardian! ) and seem to be on board with it.

The lore was changing throughout his life. I recently read the Fall of Gondolin book, and in one draft the elves were gnomes.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:


They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.

The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.

Sorry, no. Not for Tolkien at least. Tolkien deserves all the plaudits for the creation and world building, but his actual writing is dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose. I dread to think what a "faithful" LOTR trilogy would have looked like, assuming it ever made it to screens and didn't just collapse under the strain during production.

I'm not knocking anyone for liking the books, but for modern screen audiences there's a necessity to take a different approach. If fidelity to the books is important to you, you either acknowledge that going in or you end up disappointed. Even if you don't agree with the where and how of the changes, somebody somewhere has found it necessary for creative or practical reasons, and those reasons are unlikely to be all that closely aligned to that of a hardcore fan.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

When people raise these issues, what's the response?

"You're right, that character really did have some problems."

I have almost never seen people responding to legitimate criticism of characters/stories/etc with "BUT UR RACIST". I'm sure it has happened because people say stupid stuff all the time, but most of the time when things like "you hate Finn because he's black" it's a response to people who very clearly are objecting to the character's race.

Did you seriously manage to miss the entire backlash against The Last Jedi... and then KK and RJ lashing out at 'toxic' fans being 'racist' and 'misogynist'? Not just the ones who genuinely WERE toxic, misogynist, and racist, ALL the fans who criticized the movie for ANY reason. For a good year if you were a Star Wars fan you couldn't get away from it.

If you did manage to miss it, more power to you. You're probably better off for not caring about Star Wars, Star Trek, MCU, or any other franchise at this point. I know I am.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:


They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.

The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.

Sorry, no. Not for Tolkien at least. Tolkien deserves all the plaudits for the creation and world building, but his actual writing is dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose. I dread to think what a "faithful" LOTR trilogy would have looked like, assuming it ever made it to screens and didn't just collapse under the strain during production.

I'm not knocking anyone for liking the books, but for modern screen audiences there's a necessity to take a different approach. If fidelity to the books is important to you, you either acknowledge that going in or you end up disappointed. Even if you don't agree with the where and how of the changes, somebody somewhere has found it necessary for creative or practical reasons, and those reasons are unlikely to be all that closely aligned to that of a hardcore fan.

Thing is a lot of the verbose is descriptive and visual so when you bring it into a cinema medium that huge description can be summarised with a few seconds of screen time. Granted if you want to do some of the scenes justice you have to dedicate more than a few seconds and some scenes would be an exercise in a lot of work to show (models and CGI and all). That said a lot of the bulk can be cut out just by the medium of cinema. The real issue is trying to make the story fit into cinema timeframes. Fellowship of the Ring covers quite a long period of time compared to the rest of the books and moves at a slower, steadier if more quaint pace. It's almost a mini-adventure in itself until you hit what many consider the "main" adventure starting out from Bree.

Similar to how the main adventure happens and then they all come back to the Scouring of the Shire. Which again is a mini-adventure and event in its own right. With its own heroes and battles and evil lord and everything.


Squishing it into just 3 films was a major feat in itself and many respect that in doing so they had to cut and change things here and there. The actual story is longer than 3 films

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:


They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.

The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.

Sorry, no. Not for Tolkien at least. Tolkien deserves all the plaudits for the creation and world building, but his actual writing is dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose. I dread to think what a "faithful" LOTR trilogy would have looked like, assuming it ever made it to screens and didn't just collapse under the strain during production.

I'm not knocking anyone for liking the books, but for modern screen audiences there's a necessity to take a different approach. If fidelity to the books is important to you, you either acknowledge that going in or you end up disappointed. Even if you don't agree with the where and how of the changes, somebody somewhere has found it necessary for creative or practical reasons, and those reasons are unlikely to be all that closely aligned to that of a hardcore fan.

There are a few problems with adhering to the lore absolutely in this adaptation:


1- Tolkien's notes weren't even an outline for a reasonable novel. Tolkien's timeline is bonkers stupid for storytelling fiction. Hundreds of years pass between events- often the same immortal characters are present for the next event that happens a century later (and of course they haven't changed in the mean time). Clearly you can do that really well.

2- Tolkien made sh*t up as he went along. He fiddled around and never had a finished version. Ultimately only the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were canonical in his lifetime (and he did a little George Lucasing). The rest of it is pieced together from notes that sometimes conflict with one another and often with barebones detailing.

3- He does sometimes do some really self indulgent things that undermine his storytelling.



- My assessment of this show so far is that it is quite good. There are a few things that bother me- the biggest is that I think Elrond is moving around the world quite fast, and I think they should at least show him on a horse travelling between cities and the like. For all the talk about Elves and Dwarves hating one another, Elrond has always been pretty okay with the dwarves (both in the books and films).

 Azreal13 wrote:


Sorry, no. Not for Tolkien at least. Tolkien deserves all the plaudits for the creation and world building, but his actual writing is dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose. I dread to think what a "faithful" LOTR trilogy would have looked like, assuming it ever made it to screens and didn't just collapse under the strain during production.

I'm not knocking anyone for liking the books, but for modern screen audiences there's a necessity to take a different approach. If fidelity to the books is important to you, you either acknowledge that going in or you end up disappointed. Even if you don't agree with the where and how of the changes, somebody somewhere has found it necessary for creative or practical reasons, and those reasons are unlikely to be all that closely aligned to that of a hardcore fan.

It's a good thing no one expects direction and cinematography to imitate "dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose" prose.

An adaptation to a different narrative language lives and dies by its adherence to the theme and tone of the source material. When a supposed co-protagonist of the story acts in a manner befitting an orc, you know no one on the writing team gives half a damn about the fundamentals of Tolkien's work. And that's giving them credit and assuming they aren't simply incompetent, which I find just as likely.

 odinsgrandson wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:


They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.

The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.

Sorry, no. Not for Tolkien at least. Tolkien deserves all the plaudits for the creation and world building, but his actual writing is dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose. I dread to think what a "faithful" LOTR trilogy would have looked like, assuming it ever made it to screens and didn't just collapse under the strain during production.

I'm not knocking anyone for liking the books, but for modern screen audiences there's a necessity to take a different approach. If fidelity to the books is important to you, you either acknowledge that going in or you end up disappointed. Even if you don't agree with the where and how of the changes, somebody somewhere has found it necessary for creative or practical reasons, and those reasons are unlikely to be all that closely aligned to that of a hardcore fan.

There are a few problems with adhering to the lore absolutely in this adaptation:


1- Tolkien's notes weren't even an outline for a reasonable novel. Tolkien's timeline is bonkers stupid for storytelling fiction. Hundreds of years pass between events- often the same immortal characters are present for the next event that happens a century later (and of course they haven't changed in the mean time). Clearly you can do that really well.

2- Tolkien made sh*t up as he went along. He fiddled around and never had a finished version. Ultimately only the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were canonical in his lifetime (and he did a little George Lucasing). The rest of it is pieced together from notes that sometimes conflict with one another and often with barebones detailing.

3- He does sometimes do some really self indulgent things that undermine his storytelling.



- My assessment of this show so far is that it is quite good. There are a few things that bother me- the biggest is that I think Elrond is moving around the world quite fast, and I think they should at least show him on a horse travelling between cities and the like. For all the talk about Elves and Dwarves hating one another, Elrond has always been pretty okay with the dwarves (both in the books and films).

This is absolutely true. The reason he started writing the Hobbit down is because when he was telling it to his kids as a bedtime story, details kept changing and they kept calling him on it.

There's a saying that an adaptation can be beautiful or faithful, but never both. There are parts of the Fellowship that never saw the screen, and for good reason. Imagine trying to keep anything like a serious or epic tone when you have to spend a week with Tom Bombadillo, or hear all about both sides of the Buckland hobbit/Shire hobbit rivalry. And the songs! Andy Serkis does a great job with it, but the audio version is difficult to listen to at times. Sam and Gollum both have tons of musical numbers. I definitely regret the loss of detail of the magical barrow blades the hobbits carried and their role in slaying the Witch King, but an extra 30 minutes of Tom Bombadil singing about his yellow boots would not be worth it.

You know, the horse thing is a really good call- we did not see much mounted movement in Rings of Power.

I think Tom is one of the few parts that's both a shame to lose and yet also something that would be insanely difficult to film just right. To capture his whimsical nature without having him appear like a fool. Especially, dare I say it, for the Hollywood film machine that I think tends to overplay such elements into the really foolish

I have been bothered about movement - we know they move around and it takes some time but I have never seen the need to show it on screen. When people said about it in Game of Thrones I shrugged - as long as they don't say a time it took or have a time limit.

On the other hand the "Run to the wall and fetch Dany" scene in the dire last season was laughably bad, mainly because there was a time frame involved

This was one of things I liked about the Wheel of Time series - it was not the tedious travelogue that put me off the books.

I agree on the point about horses and sense of movement/time/scale. That has definitely been something that seems to be relying too much on just the broad, sweeping background landscape shots and maps. Which is fine, in that it is better than nothing, but it lacks the attention to detail with things like showing what is entailed with Elrond and Celebrimbor visiting Khazad-Dum. And so far the ocean based travel has also been problematic in regards to expressing distances and time.

It could be argued I suppose that they are aiming for a sense of grand mythological storytelling over detail focused simulation but I‘d like more details to help suspend my disbelief.

I can not say exactly why but the prologue scene of all the Elven helmets just piled up into a great heap struck me as rather “non-Elven” in tone but that is purely my own take on Elves I suppose.

By the command of Morgoth the Orcs with great labour gathered all the bodies of those who had fallen in the great battle, and all their harness and weapons, and piled them in a great mound in the midst of Anfauglith; and it was like a hill that could be seen from afar. Haudh-en-Ndengin the Elves named it, the Hill of Slain, and Haudh-en-Nirnaeth, the Hill of Tears. But grass came there and grew again long and green upon that hill, alone in all the desert that Morgoth made; and no creature of Morgoth trod thereafter upon the earth beneath which the swords of the Eldar and the Edain crumbled into rust.

Is how it's described in the Silmarillion. I took that scene to be not the Elves having done that themselves, but rather dealing with the aftermath and Galadriel placing the helm is not saying the Elves made it, simply she is adding it to that pile almost in recognition of the destruction wrought upon them.

That cannot be the Hill of Tears, as I believe that only features in Silmarillion.

It might be an attempt at referencing it, while dodging the licencing issues, but the way it's presented doesn't evoke anything important about the Hill of Tears, so I think that's just general big-battle-many-dead visual key.

I agree it doesn't mesh particularly well with elvish culture.

 Olthannon wrote:

By the command of Morgoth the Orcs with great labour gathered all the bodies of those who had fallen in the great battle, and all their harness and weapons, and piled them in a great mound in the midst of Anfauglith; and it was like a hill that could be seen from afar. Haudh-en-Ndengin the Elves named it, the Hill of Slain, and Haudh-en-Nirnaeth, the Hill of Tears. But grass came there and grew again long and green upon that hill, alone in all the desert that Morgoth made; and no creature of Morgoth trod thereafter upon the earth beneath which the swords of the Eldar and the Edain crumbled into rust.

Is how it's described in the Silmarillion. I took that scene to be not the Elves having done that themselves, but rather dealing with the aftermath and Galadriel placing the helm is not saying the Elves made it, simply she is adding it to that pile almost in recognition of the destruction wrought upon them.

I have to admit that I have not read the Silmarillion but with that quote now that scene makes a lot more sense to me. Thanks for that. For me at least, the more I learn about Tolkien and his lore the better the show is doing as it challenges some of my incorrect preconceived notions of Tolkien and Middle Earth.

Edit: Even if it is not the Hill of Tears now I can see the scene happening as Olthannon suggests possible. And that is why I continue to participate in these online discussions even when so many other comments are somewhat… disheartening. I am all for constructive criticism but the negativity around this show, as with several other big IPs is a bit exhausting.

 His Master's Voice wrote:


It's a good thing no one expects direction and cinematography to imitate "dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose" prose.

An adaptation to a different narrative language lives and dies by its adherence to the theme and tone of the source material.

No it doesn't, it lives or dies by its reception by its audience. Sometimes divergence will kill a property, other times it'll be what makes it. Adaptations are precisely that, adapted, and it's probably a score draw between those that have succeeded by sticking closely to the source and those that have taken their own path.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 His Master's Voice wrote:


It's a good thing no one expects direction and cinematography to imitate "dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose" prose.

An adaptation to a different narrative language lives and dies by its adherence to the theme and tone of the source material.

No it doesn't, it lives or dies by its reception by its audience. Sometimes divergence will kill a property, other times it'll be what makes it. Adaptations are precisely that, adapted, and it's probably a score draw between those that have succeeded by sticking closely to the source and those that have taken their own path.

A big part of that can also be how well the source material is known before the film comes out. Heck a lot of films have books behind them directly or indirectly and yet many times the film is the first instance where a person encounters the material. So the film gets to be the first impression and, many times, the source book isn't even all that heavily marketed. Actually in many cases it seems to be a REALLY bad deal for an author because their book is almost never mentioned at times. You don't see the film edition in the gift shop; you don't see the book pushed hard by book shops or a set of them sold with your film tickets or anything.

Sometimes there is, eg Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings; but many times there's just nothing to even tell you there's a book

Most of the adaptations that are better than the books they’re based on succeed because they diverge so much from the book. Look at Die Hard and The Princess Bride. The Godfather works as a movie because it cuts out about 60% of the book (some of which ends up in The Godfather 2), including most of the schlock.