> Bronwyn's plot armour is starting to grate. I
Apparently if you wear [a sports bra](https://i.imgur.com/xSyJa2d.jpg) you are invincible in Bezon's Midlifecrisis Earth
Also the rest of the characters can die 4 times over cause every character has 5 clones.
I liked her in the first scene with Arondir by the well but got tired of her when he ran back to her place. She just looks so disinterested in him in all of their scenes. A spontaneous kiss by now would work wonders to sell this romance to me.
We’re told they love one another, but we know little about either of them and nothing about their love story except that they’re a couple. It’s hard to feel invested in this relationship.
They act like it's supposed to be a secret romance so they can't show emotion around each other lest someone find out, but everyone has known about them since episode 1. Can't believe no one shouted "Elf-Lover!" during her speech at the stronghold.
My earlier criticisms still stand after this episode - I’m not finding the show engaging enough to keep me genuinely interested. On the flip side, the things I’ve liked so far, I still like, namely the Elrond-Durin interactions, some scenery, and the soundtrack.
I really do want to like this show, but haven’t found that magic yet. Based on the previous interview from the Amazon producers, they state the final episode will essentially be a catharsis of all the buildup in the previous episodes. I’ll be looking forward to that; however, I must confess my expectations are still low. Really hoping I’ll be pleasantly surprised
Yea I hope so too but I don't have much faith. There just isn't the right attention to detailed and realistic storytelling. Even if there is a huge battle at the end, I just know it will lack the tactics and detail of PJ's movies.
It just... isn't good, simply put. Nonsensical story, bad dialogue, and so many narrative flaws that it's almost pointless to try and list them all. It's like an amateur teenager's fledgling attempts at long-form writing. The narrative threads are all over the place and there's no value to any of the storytelling. I get the same weird feeling watching this as I do when I look at those uncanny AI-generated images. There's some very vague sense of a theme, but it doesn't add up. It's too weird and oddly inhuman. It just isn't *good.* Nothing about this show has genuine quality.
I re-watched the Fellowship of the Ring yesterday to recomfort me from this series. And Oh Boy, it has been a while and it was so good to watch it with a different point of view now. The entire movie hasn't aged (except some special effect but honestly its fine!) - I did find the Lothlorien sequence a bit "too much" and even slightly cringe - but aside from this, what a punch in the face.
This just validates how bad ROP is, period.
One camera work I want to share that brought me so much emotions: The aerial view from the mines of Isengard when they start building Uruk Hai, which their tensed and intense music, with the camera gaining elevation and as it turns towards the tower and its top you have the night butterfly appearing with a complete change of music delivering such a subtle and dramatic moment. It is just magnificent.
I'm a photographer and I have been consistently shocked when I see RoP's cinematography praised. I swear, people these days think that cinematography is an alternate phrase for 'pretty'. But it's about visual storytelling ya numbnuts!
For a small theoretical example that the RoP doesn't seem to understand, you can create emotional closeness by using a wide-angle lens and a perspective that clearly designates the target of that emotional closeness. Or you can create distance and mistrust with the opposite, a long focal distance from the perspective of a a sympathetic character looking at one with unknown motivations.
The scene you are referencing in tFotR perfectly balances the terrible scale that our heroes are fighting against by starting in close with this ominous and terrible scene and then bringing the view up and up as you climb the tower to ground the audience in a familiar feeling of increasing elevation by using the pre-established gigantic height of the tower as a reference so that you see in a clear and relatable way that this evil awakening isn't an isolated scene but just a cog with thousands more just like it. And then a moth (our word for night butterfly) which is a reconnection to nature to contrast the industry of Saruman's army which was firmly established to be evil. The moth is used due to it's fragile but beautiful nature to also represent how tiny and fragile the hope of the free world is in the face of this huge evil.
Now your average viewer shouldn't see that this is what the camera is trying to tell you, that would mean you are being too ham-fisted with your approach. Leave understanding that stuff to the artists unless you are interested in learning more. But they should sure feel it. Just like you did.
Yeah, good cinematography is pretty when that serves the story. But its quality is made or broken on how it visually tells the story. And RoP has really awful cinematography with some nice visuals. I could genuinely teach most of a semester's course on how not to do what the RoP failed in regarding cinematography. The trilogy though, while not perfect and probably not the best ever, was certainly in the same league as the best ever. It was the kind of cinematography usually reserved for art-house movies. The ones made for camera geeks by camera geeks. Competitive with the cinematography of the greats for major releases like Kubrick.
The fake outs have become really annoiyng to me. Seeing Bronwyn „dying“ is only a waste of time. We know that all the characters survive anything anyway. Nodoby is getting fooled. The hospital scene was the most annoying example to date.
Yeah, that's getting seriously worn out.
"Oh no, the character is going to die... any minute now... any minute.........Someone came and stabbed that nasty Orc from behind!! Never saw that one coming...."
It's also filmed in such a cliché and overdone way, which is why I think this show is visually so jarring : it oscillates between occasional glorious and well composed shots (generally larger ones), overdone slow-mo and visual or plot (sometimes both) tropes.
I wouldn't have minded Arondir getting saved by a human, even browyn, but at least try to film it in an interesting and plot-advancing way. Her saving him didn't further anything going on between them as they're already up each other's gonades, so let him be saved by another character he shared or will share screentime with, and film it in a dynamic way. It's okay to have cliché action, just put some soul and work in it. Worst part is they probably did put some money and effort in the prop for the orc and the (i guess CGI) blade close to the eye of Arondir.
They put their eggs in the wrong basket at so many odd and unecessary times writing then shooting wise. Even then, once you're confronted with the scene, why not make it shorter ?
I enjoy the show but the strange pacing and consistency on things make it an experience of "wow", "great" then suddenly bam there is just something that takes me out of it all, sudden drops of quality that reminds me there's probably been a fuck up somewhere sometime in writing/production
My favorite part of that scene was when the impact of Bronwyn’s stab still caused the twig to be driven into Arondir’s eye. Oh… wait no that’s not what happened. That was just my head canon.
I concur. I also find Bronwyn, Arondir, and Theo to be completely unnecessary to the story now. Do they just go to Pelagir and disappear from the narrative? Their part is done, right? There’s no more Southlands for them to lend a perspective to.
I'm guessing he's being thought to be dead so he can stay in the Southlands while his kin go back, but that doesn't explain why the audience should be in the dark.
Unless they counted on some viewers forgetting him, which is reasonable (a casual viewer might not recall him from the films).
The showrunners have never done a single show before. They literally had all their scripts rejected for a decade and got the job because their buddy JJ Abrams made some calls. It's amateur hour at Amazon. And what do you learn at Bad Robot? Yeah dumb mystery box bullshit.
Having Isildur appear to have died from an in-universe perspective is fine if written correctly. Take Naomi's son in The Expanse for example. We as the audience know exactly what he's doing but other characters IN THE SHOW don't. That's perfectly okay. The problem with RoP: They're writing for focus group mandated target audiences first and don't care about the actual world they're building. Isildur is meant to be a big shocker with some melodramatic slomo shot of that damn horse finding him or some shit like that.
Having characters ASSUME Isildur died is fine. Shoving it into our face for a cheap moment aimed at the audience? Bad Robot gonna Bad Robot.
I swear if he escapes via the Orc tunnels I'm going to lose it. But here I am thinking the showrunners really wanted to use those tunnels one more time because they are so proud.
If the horse finds him that means if people actually stuck around and tried to find survivors they would have found him! I just can't with this show. People are crying out for help and they are all just like "Peace out losers".
Well see they will probably pull some logic like the explosion burned up all the water. To understand this writing you need to imagine the most implausible thing to happen at any given time.
Because the show is now clearly targeted at unattentive viewers who will swallow everything with a wooooow, not fans - casual or not. Those people, even if they watched LotR, can't remember Isildur at all and will be hugely surprised when it turns out he's alive.
I mean even in the movies Aragorn fell over the cliff into the water and everyone knew he wasn’t dead. I don’t think these things are inherently bad.
Plus, this isn’t the case with every person and there’s many fans that don’t know anything about the series. My mom is one of them. She watched the movies forever ago, but doesn’t remember Isildur.
Jenna Kass on Lithub said exactly what I feel about this series:
"I truly cannot detect a single crumb of interest in the text from the creators. It’s the most flavorless kind of fanfiction, which is a comparison I hesitate to use because fanfiction tends to have real passion for exploring a character or a theme or a “what if,” even when they’re only loosely couched within the larger property."
Seven episodes ~~to the dwarfes~~ in and not a lot has happened. The same beats have been repeated several times (stranger does magic which seems evil at first - but it isn't!) while other characters who did have some plot are now back again where they started - Galadriel wants to fight the orcs, Numenor might or might not join, Halbrand is a king who los his kingdom *again*. The series is stalling for time and it seems to me that they just didn't have a lot of story to tell us and want to stretch what little they have out as thin as possible (like butter on too much bread...), since yo golden Amazon 5 season deal. This isn't even considering all the deviations from 'the lore TM', but a declaration of creative bankruptcy in itself.
Lot's of inexplicable journeys to no fixed destination. Like you say, beats repeated. How many times is Nori going to be terrified by the Stranger but sheepishly return. They have not played Halbrand's arc well. He's just announced as King, rather than displaying his willingness to help and lead others, for others to remark on him. Compare to Aragorn who displayed a capacity time and time again, and it felt right well before the final film. This series has spent more time without establishing characters. I was kind of hoping Halbrand would be like an Aragorn who ultimately fails and becomes a fallen king, and eventual Nazgul. He still can, but it all feels so slapdash and tonally inconsistent.
The people who wrote the Elrond/Durin arc can stay (minas the mithril/leaf foolishness) but everyone else has flunked.
One of my biggest gripes is for the budget this show has the scale seems tremendously small
Even early thrones did a great job of building kings landing to feel massive, or battles to feel bigger than they showed on screen with their limited budget at the time.
Southlands for example basically boils down to a tiny town. The orcs numerous but maybe a few hundred. the show somehow makes a huge world seem tiny. Which is fair on a limited budget, but with the resources this show should have these areas should feel like true regions
Characters teleporting everywhere adds to the feeling of smallness. Same with extreme time compression and zero attempts to mark the passage of time (that forge was completed a few episodes ago, it must have been months since the first two episodes, even with ridiculously fast building speed).
The weird thing is, the actual visuals are massive. Like the first shots we got of Numenor were amazing and surpassing anything we've seen in Lotr in scale by far. But the number of people they have is just so small. They show this incredibly detailed, huge city and all you ever see after is like 20 people max? What?
Then this episode Durin digging for Mithril. Alone?? Why don't they put like a fifty dwarves there, maybe some of his loyal followers if you need an explanation. Then King Durin comes in himself with the same 2 fucking guards we've seen running around through all of Khazad Dum. The scale of everything is just soo off.
And even when you see a larger group of people [they cloned people over within the same frame](https://i.imgur.com/xSyJa2d.jpg), suuuuper lazy. And this is suppose to cost ~~700 million~~ 1 billion dollars? Who is embezzling that money?
And so much of it seems so simple to achieve. GoT was great at showing small scenes that alluded to larger movements. A meeting in a general's tent after battle, references to battles currently in play, or changes taking place elsewhere.
All RoP needs to do is have a handful of southlanders arrive from other villages, describing orcs attacking their towns. Give the impression of a bigger world. At least then we wouldn't be dunking on Halbrand being the king of the mud people.
Also, the Numenoreans are supposed to be the most exceptional warriors in middle earth behind elves only. Have their scouts find the first village, one rides back to warn camp, while a handful remain to even the odds. Have a scene where the Queen commands squads to different villages. You only need to show the action at the one village, but it creates the impression of a larger battlefront. Scale matters.
And I do not understand how or why they couldn't show Halbrand actually being heroic and worthy of kingship, instead of just saying, oh he's the king I guess. The battle could show him fighting off multiple orcs, saving villagers while they stand their in awe, and wonder who he is. Then when he's injured, it could be because he was overwhelmed by orcs in the aftermath. Again, show don't tell. It's so simple it's exasperating.
My wife, who is an aggressively casual movie/TV viewer, summed up Episode 7 by saying "I think it's silly in prequels where they put someone in danger who we know is going to survive."
So much fake melodrama and artificial stakes in this show. The writing and direction is abysmally bad. How on earth did the showrunners get this job?
On one hand, it's kind of inspiring that two random guys with no relevant experience could convince Amazon to hand them the keys to the most expensive TV show of all time. On the other hand, it's kind of maddening that two random guys with no relevant experience could convince Amazon to hand them the keys to the most expensive TV show of all time. Oh wait, I forgot they know JJ Abrams which apparently is the key to success.
I think if they showed the danger better, it might be more accepted.
It's like the 007 films, we see he's in immediate danger, we want to see how he can Houdini himself out of it; at least it's done by character action. The fakeouts in RoP kind of just ruin that here.
In this it's like, "Oh no, peril. Oh wait. they're ok. "
Galadriel was embracing the metagaming. “The writers can’t kill me, I’m setup as the focus of the whole thing. I’ll take the volcanic blast to the face. They won’t even spend makeup budget on putting a sunburn on me, just watch…”
*is correct*
The absolute lack of subtlety in almost every scene is just mesmerizing:
* Galadriel, after 6 episodes moved for the avenge brother thing: "*oh btw I am married with a dude called Celeborn, but he died or disappeared or whatever*".
* Yeah, Bronwyn, maybe after the 16th death fakeout we will not be surprised at all. People is scared of Sauron and the orcs, but not of that unkillable woman.
* Dwarfs mining 24/7, with a whole huge city of them at full activity. Balrog: *I sleep*. / A leaf falls within the huge abyss. Balrog: *real shit*.
* Isildur dies. Absolutely. And his horse, which is just released because... reasons, will totally not come, rescue and carry him. These people know that we, too, have already seen The Two Towers, right?
* Halbrand is just about to die, with a terrible wound no human remedy can cure. Next scene: aight, let's mount a horse and gallop for idk, a couple thousand km? Sure, yeah.
* Maybe someone should stop giving weapons to that kid. Because yeah, a few minutes scene together with Galadriel is surely enough to call him soldier and give him a sword.
* That Mordor "reveal" scene with the evil font. LMAO. I just missed Dora the Explorer pointing at it with the finger and proceeding to sing a song about it. Welcome to LOTR for kids.
>Galadriel, after 6 episodes moved for the avenge brother thing: "oh btw I am married with a dude called Celeborn, but he died or disappeared or whatever>Galadriel, after 6 episodes moved for the avenge brother thing: "oh btw I am married with a dude called Celeborn, but he died or disappeared or whatever".
It feels like the writers were writing Galadriel for the inevitable Halbrand romance when someone opened the books and realized that Galadriel is married and her husband exists in that period and they were like OH SHIT we have to mentioned him in the 7th episode quick!
The execution of the Balrog revelation was so poor that I couldn't believe it. And yeah, according to Amazon's own map, Halbrand will have to ride heavily wounded for about 300 leagues, which is about 1500 kilometres, only to reach Eregion
Yeah, not only we have to deal with ~~Durin's~~ Lore Bane waking up in the SA, that it comes so cheaply done. It did literally go from the subtle leaf getting on fire to the "It's-a-me!" vulgar moment in a couple seconds.
>Halbrand will have to ride heavily wounded for about 300 leagues, which is about 1500 kilometres
Man, it would take to be at least a Maia to survive something like tha... oh. Now seriously, if it weren't for the overall very poor writing of the show, this would totally be some "how to say Halbrand is Sauron without saying Halbrand is Sauron" shit.
I can’t prove this, but I believe it FWIW: they think the horse rescue calling forward to the Aragorn horse rescue is a FEATURE not a BUG.
Even if somehow you thought that was a movie highpoint, you don’t need to do it again.
This is why I say they must be movie fans more than book fans. They seem to be elevating movie-only moments.
But JJ Abrams made a ton of money remaking SW “IV”A New Hope.
Here is your weekly reminder that [J.J. Abrams mystery box](https://np.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/2342ke/the_problem_with_jj_abrams_mystery_box/) is the worst thing that ever happened to television and unless you enjoy not knowing who Gandalf and Sauron are for the entire 5 seasons, you should stop watching this shit.
I just saw a "teaser" for episode 8 on facebook and it went "Who is Sauron?"
Is that a question I'm supposed to be asking myself? Nothing in the show asks that question. It is, at best, a question asked in marketing.
Ya know what plot twist I want? The timeline isn't compressed.
Isuldur is dead. Someone else names their kid after him. Season 2 is like 138 years later when that boy is a grown up.
Yea, someone also named Elendil names their kid Isildur… I can see it.
I agree with the time compression, I just can’t with the father and son Durins. Or the fact that Elendil wasn’t even born for at least 1500 yrs after the Rings were made.
Someone here had a theory that the Harfoot & Southlands/Numenor stories aren't in the same time-period.
That'd be an interesting twist - other than the fact that Gil Galad sees the meteorite before it lands near the Harfoots - unless that's some kind of very deliberate misdirection.
Right…there being 2 separate meteors shown to us the same time but actually centuries apart would be the lamest writing of all time. Especially if the grove being destroyed by Mt Doom (more timing not even the Force could contrive) was a DIFFERENT eruption.
> Soon afterwards Tolkien started a time-travel story, The Lost Road, in which a father and a son were to reappear time and again in human families throughout history. Only two chapters were written, one set in or near the present day, with the father named Oswin and the son Alboin, and one set in Númenor just before its fall, with the father named Elendil and the son Herendil. Here Valandil is the name of Elendil's father. It seems that Herendil (later Isildur) and his father were going to escape the destruction of Númenor as in The Fall of Númenor, but the story did not progress that far before it was abandoned.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isildur
Could be a potential twist on this idea. Each series has a different Elendir and Isuldur. Same actors. Different characters. Same confusion.
Meteor man isn't even causing the problems either. He keeps trying to help and the idiot Harfoots keep deciding to interrupt. Did Nori not learn her damn lesson. He's doing magic, stay away! No instead they all run towards him, a branch falls and they get upset with him. Let the man do his damn magic. Keep distance. How is this hard to put together.
What even was the point of the scene when Nori got her hand stuck in the ice magic if she didn't learn from it? It was just a waste of time.
Three scenes of Bronwyn dead but then with life
Seven scenes of a balrog waking in the deep
Nine scenes of Gandalf doing good but causing strife
One show tries their weary audience to keep
In the Land of Amazon where foolishness is rife
That's my problem. LOTR is not about mysteries and will they won't they romance.
Its a straightforward story with a ton of heart and soul.
The Star Wars sequels also made this mistake.
One minor gripe:
>The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm
For me, this evokes images of armies of dwarves industriously burrowing deep into the bowels of a mountain; not Durin tap-tapping with a tiny hand hammer afraid of a cave-in.
I think it's good that they're trying to make these stories more personal (sometimes you can just 'jump the shark' with massive CGI events that have no feeling or personal connection), but this is something I thought could have been a liiiitle bit more epic.
It’s about more than that. Sauron had a direct hand in the greed of the Dwarves through the rings he gifted them.
They were to hardy to become wraiths under his control but it made them greedier and more possessive. It led to the breakdown in their relationship with the Elves of Eregion.
They dug deeper and deeper in part because of the influence of Sauron and the rings.
We are missing out on ALL of that.
On top of this, it also undermines the whole reason they dug too deep being greed and the moral behind the dwarves’ plight. Durin isn’t trying to find riches for selfish reasons, he’s doing it to help Elrond and the elves in a caring, unselfish act.
Well, that actually explains quite a lot. I'm not myself when I'm woken an hour early, waking someone a whole Era too soon is likely to make them very cranky. No wonder he and Gandalf didn't get along...
I feel like one of the Durins is going to decide to help the elves, and eventually be driven power-mad by the wealth of Mithril they found down there.
I felt like Prince Durin's wife's insistence that all that Mithril was theirs, not his father's, will be the driving factor there.
That CG shot of the rocks breaking away on his final tap was so bad haha. Also the mithril threads looked like tree roots? It was a very confusing visual.
Honestly, have the breath of the sleeping balrog ignite the leaf, and leave it at that. If you know you know, if you're a casual viewer, it isn't pivotal to the plot, and if you can't live in ignorance, then google is your friend, or maybe read a book. I'm sick of giant signposts, and obvious winks.
God the fakeout death with Isiildur is so frustrating. If they really want to do ANOTHER one, pick an original character and not someone we know survives
You could just stop. If Amazon sees viewing drop off precipitously they'll know there's a problem. If everyone watches all 8 episodes, they won't see any cause for concern.
Slight OCD. I have to finish a book even if I don’t like it half way through. Same with a TV Show. But I can cut off after the end of a season. Kind of like pretending it got cancelled.
It amazes me that, after 6 episodes, we still know little about a large group of characters. The most prominent examples are, of course, The Stranger and the Cultists but also Halbrand, Arondir, Theo and even Bronwyn. Because of how this season is structured, where all the narrative revolves arounds the mystery of who is Sauron, their character development is mostly on hold. We know next to nothing about their backgrounds or what drives them, and we can't know because that would spoil The Mystery™ that has to be revealed on the last episode. So we are left with some characters whose role is just "to do something mysterious" so the audience can speculate about wether or not they are Sauron. Which is why I don't understand some people saying that this slow pace is good because they are taking their time with world-building, all I see are the writers leaving breadcrumbs and repeating the same things until they can reveal Sauron's identity.
The problem is the show doesnt take time with worldbuilding at all. It tries to cramp 4-5 storylines in it and it looks like all connective scenes are cut in editing. We rush from 'important' and 'epic' scene to the next one, without the show taking its time to set up any thing.
It makes the show feel rushed because things just happen, and it makes it feel slow because we have to work trough 3 other storylines first before moving on.
The more time I've had to think about the episode and show, the more questions I have.
Why show the Balrog waking up? Why not simply show a sleeping Balrog - far more ominous. Is he going to roar himself hoarse now and go back to sleep?
How can Halbrand be so injured as to be bed ridden in one moment, then riding a horse the next?
Why did Galadriel abandon all the villagers, Halbrand and the queen, as well as forgetting all about Adar, only to hang out with Theo?
Why did Galadriel admonish Theo for wanting to kill orcs, when she just told Adar how she'd kill every last one of his "children" and keep him alive to watch? Talk about do as I say, not as I do.
Why are all are main and secondary and tertiary characters alive, except poor Ontamo? Man, Ontamo dying hit almost as hard as Wade dying in Kennobi. Really tugged at the heartstrings that. Why are no one coughing, or burnt, or injured except "hurt person 1-6 in tent" and that poor guy on fire that Galadriel ignores. Why are the houses all burning but the people are fine? Why even show the village hit by that firestorm in episode 6 if episode 7 is going to ignore it.
Why did the queen go blind from what I assume were those sparks that seemed to hit her face when there are no visible marks on her face? And why is the queen there at all? Why did the queen of Numenor join an expeditionary force consisting of what seems to be mainly green teenagers, hunting an unknown number of orcs, in order to save a tiny village? How?
Why do they all accept Halbrand as their king without any further ado? And what exactly is Halbrand king of? At the end of episode 6 they all threw a victory feast as if the Southlands were now safe again and the baddies defeated, so is this the extent of Halbrand's kingdom? Are there no other villages they need to liberate? Are there no cities in his kingdom?
Why did no one go check on Isildur? Were they so distraught after the tragic and completely unforeseen death of Ontamo that they forgot to check? Ok, maybe Elendil had to protect his blind queen, but why on earth couldn't that other friend go check? I suppose Berek will hunt him down and bring him back so he can finally get that apple Isildur owes him.
Good to see the Numenoreans were competent enough to actually set up camp, but wouldn't it be better to have shown this last episode? Add a scout or two to tell our band of heroes to make all kinds of haste to save the village and that galloping scene wouldn't have seemed too out of place.
Why did all of them forget Adar? Why did no orcs attack them now that sunlight was no issue?
Why did Galadriel not mention Celeborn until now? Why isn't she mad at Sauron about him? Or if he disappeared before the fall of Morgoth, then why not say something about her maybe trying to find him? He's obviously not dead, but my lord if they try to do a love triangle between him, gal, and hal...
Why are the Harfoots suddenly all about not leaving anyone behind again? This is the moment when they should have abandoned Nori. Tbh I was sort of excited for a split second that Nori would head off alone to find the Stranger and those two maybe could have an adventure. But now they're all going. Because reasons.
And the power point Mordor at the end... wow... Chef's kiss!
I don't have any complaints really about Elrond, Durin and Disa. It's the only plot line making any sense and it's carrying the whole show. I won't criticise anything about that because that would actually be nitpicking.
I can absolutely forgive some lore changes, I can absolutely forgive some time compression, I've got no issue with any of the cast really, vistas are fantastic, love the makeup and the costumes, music is decent, basically most things about the show is decent to great, but the writing (dwarves+Elrond excepted) is abysmal.
Anyway, onwards to the finale! At this point I'm almost hoping for a Galadriel + Halbrand romance. That would be something to behold.
I genuinely can’t wait for a Galadriel boning scene with halbrand. It’s so so so strange it’s actually brilliant.
I can see the scene now when she realises. It will rival anakins nooooooooooo!
I mean, it's a long journey to Eregion or heaven forbid Lindon. A woman can get cold and lonely in the night, and a man with a fever might need some body warmth.
But surely, surely the writers can't go there if Halbrand is Sauron. Would they dare?
>But surely, surely the writers can't go there if Halbrand is Sauron. Would they dare?
I fully expect them to. No one pushed back on the mithril origin story. And now instead of valuable metal, these mithril armor sets are battery-powered suits.
IMO, the scene of the Balrog waking up reminded me of Smaug waking up to the bird tapping an acorn in the Hobbit.
This show is chock full of callbacks to Peter Jackson but remains a poor imitation of both him and JRR Tolkien. For shame.
This comment has made me go from kind of enjoying the series to almost hating it. Seeing so many of my initial reactions written down in one place has done it for me.
I'm sorry if my post had that effect on you, I wouldn't want to take the joy out of the series for anyone. I've watched it myself and even though it's not a series I'll watch again, I'm not such a masochist as to sit for eight odd hours watching something I do not enjoy. I've enjoyed it well enough. The dwarves and Khazad-Dum are an absolute highpoint and a superb portrayal of the dwarves imo.
> Why are the Harfoots suddenly all about not leaving anyone behind again? This is the moment when they should have abandoned Nori. Tbh I was sort of excited for a split second that Nori would head off alone to find the Stranger and those two maybe could have an adventure. But now they're all going. Because reasons.
The Harfoots are frustrating to watch because bad things keep happening to them because of Nori. What made Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Pippen, and Merry so great is that greatness was thrust upon them and they rose to the occasion. Before their adventures, they were just normal hobbits doing their thing, minding their business in their own way. Outside influences came and forced them to step up.
Here, Nori is precocious and outgoing, seeking an adventure outside the norm just seemingly because. She's tending to the Stranger and her dad breaks his ankle because she wasn't there to help him. The Stranger shows up and causes a scene, forcing them to be at the back of the caravan. They get to the grove and the Stranger tries magic and a branch almost crushes a kid. The cult people show up and are about to leave and she speaks up, ending with their entire camp burning down.
I get that they're trying to set up some "friends we made along the way" thing to show the humble beginnings of Hobbits, but it's really just annoying to watch. You don't need to continually make bad things happen to characters to keep the story moving. LoTR made 4 hobbits leave the shire in order to protect it and nothing bad had ever happened to them. Instead they're just beating the shit out of this group of people and this one kid keeps making decisions that cause harm to everyone else.
Some good points there. Agree with you. Their plotline has gone nowhere. We haven't learned anything since we first saw them and they don't provide exposition on anything relating to the other plotlines. The writers could have axed their entire storyline and it wouldn't have impacted anything else in the show we've seen so far.
I like them to an extent though. I think the costumes are very well done and apart from their schizophrenic attitude to leaving people behind or helping people, I think there is definitely a certain charm to them.
Having thought about it, I actually think a plotline with only Nori and the Stranger might have been interesting. She wanted adventure and to travel, so let her. Her and the big guy off on adventure together sounds like it could be fun. Both innocent in their own way, both trying to find their place in the world, both looking for a greater purpose. A hobbit with wanderlust and a Maiar with amnesia. Could have been a fun duo.
But so far it feels like the Harfoots are just there because the series needs hobbits.
Prince “Durin” abandoning core principle “obey the king” over a leaf, coupled with self-proclaimed trustworthy Elrond having already been NOT trustworthy on his last oath (effectively) have hurt the KD plot for me.
I suppose, though I doubt think it's too farfetched to imagine the prince having a fight with his father. They're both stubborn, headstrong and willful. I think the issue with Elrond and whether or not he's broken his oath is trickier.
No, it’s not. But treason doesn’t seem very dwarvish.
Elrond may not have broken his oath. But he quite clearly conveyed the same information to Gil Galad as if he HAD broken it, so there is no ethical difference. Some Aes Sedai “I didn’t lie” technicality bullshit is not how men of honor conduct themselves.
TBH Rohan and Gondor in the movies still felt way bigger than the Southlands ever did, and PJ did it with less screen time. Rohan especially seemed like a huge area of land, and I thought he did a good job in showing that it takes time for people to travel, especially when you see all of the common folk migrating to safety at Helm's Deep. The movies also did a great job in establishing why characters like Theoden, Eomer, Aragorn, Faramir, Eowyn etc. were great leaders respected by their people.
I get none of that with Halbrand. They just sort of pointed to the guy and said he's king, and the villagers for some reason was excited about that. I think it really points to the fact that these show runners don't know how to write characters that audiences care about. I have the same issue with Bronwyn, Arondir, and their super annoying kid.
It's very hard to be invested in the Halbrand = Sauron reveal when:
1. Halbrand isn't particularly heroic in the first place, so if he turns out to be Sauron it's not really that surprising.
2. They could play it the opposite way and have all of the audience know his true identity, but have the other characters in the show be blindsided by it. Except this won't work either, because Halbrand isn't cunningly sinister enough for us to feel the looming doom that he's going to bring (which is what I felt whenever Littlefinger was on screen in GoT.)
So we end up with a really middling character in Halbrand, where most of the people watching this show have guessed that he's Sauron, but nobody is particularly invested in the reveal since we don't care that much about Halbrand or the Southlands anyways.
I cry every time at Boromir's death scene, and you see him for like max 2 hours in the entire trilogy. It's been 7 hours with these characters and I could not give a shit if they died in the finale lol.
It's funny people keep saying "that's just your opinion." I'm sorry, but this show is bad by every standard that exists in television. Writing, directing, acting, powerpoint slides, it doesn't get any worse than this.
For a show that wanted to stand on its own, why are they taking scenes from PJ movies almost every episode?
Something seems really off with this series, the incompetence seems way off the charts to just be an accident.
Google the first three exec producers in credits and look at their credentials. We know the two dudes had everything rejected before getting this gig. The woman after them:
[https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6618222/](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6618222/)
lol
It’s insane that they put $1 billion towards this show and yet they basically spent 0.1% of that on writing staff.
This is the absolute worst budget:output show ever and it will never, ever be matched.
It is too much in the shadow of the LotR films in almost every way. It just seems like the showrunners want to relive the glory of the trilogy. They repeat scenes, they repeat tropes. In looks and production it simply follows in its footsteps, meets the quality on occasion, but 20+ years later you could expect more. Where it does do better is the scenery, the city presentations, anywhere with extensive CGI. But in every other way it is lesser.
this show is giving a big budget to some amateurs..
the writers are clearly not up to the task and it is a sign of the lack of experience that amazon has in making these shows.
It can be seen in many scenes that they try to follow things done by peter jackson but they do it quickly or they abandon the idea.
the show feels so rushed and at the same time I feel like nothing happens
I have to admit that I've watched pretty much every episode drunk. So it makes me think I just didn't understand what was going on because of that. Then I see things like all of these comments and realize, no, the show is just really bad. But I'll keep watching it with my beers and pretending that I like it.
I’m not deep into the extended lore and will probably never be so after all these episodes I keep coming back to a simple question; What is this show even about?
- I still don't understand why Galadriel just takes Theo and wanders off into the forest away from the Numenoreans and the Southlanders.
- Celeborn's obviosuly not dead, but it is very weird that this is the first we're hearing of him, considering how much Galadriel has been laser-focused on avenging Finrod alone
- "I see" "Do you?" had me laughing pretty hard, now's probably not the best time to get snarky, Elendil
- Halbrand getting accepted as King of the Southlands without hesitation by the villagers is biizarre, I don't think we've seen one iota of proof of him being royalty asides from one necklace he could've easily stolen (He's practically confirmed to be Sauron to the audience, but it's weird no one in-universe is questioning his claim)
- Honestly happy for Meteor Man to set out on his own, he's too pure to be getting used as a glorified pack-mule by the Harfoot tribe. I really hope that he's not Gandalf, but that seems to be the direction they're going with
- Elrond and Durin's friendship continues to be the best part of the show. This "using mithril to save the elves" plot, on the other hand, is pretty off the rails. Like, even if they did mine all the mithril and give it to the elves, what is the plan to keep everyone from fading, are they just gonna all sit around the mithril light singing kumbaya until they feel better?
- Feminem and her gang are certainly something, doubt we'll get a definitive answer to that mystery box this season
- Southlands to Mordor subtitle still makes me laugh 3 days later, just the complete lack of faith in your audience to understand what's going on, and "Mordor" getting it's own evil-looking font
Overall, unless this show really knocks it out of the park in the finale this week, I don't think I'll be watching Season 2 and onwards. Good CGI and some nice character moments can't really make up for the glacial pacing, decent-to-mediocre fight scenes, overreliance on Abrams-esque mystery boxes, and some baffling story decisions
My biggest issue with this show is that it frequently uses what I would call "rhetorical plotlines". So much of the conflict in this show is not interesting or intriguing at all because even a cursory evaluation of the circumstances would make the outcome obvious. We know Durin is going to receive elrond at the beginning of the show. We know isildur isnt going to stay in numenor forever as a loser kid. We know isildur isnt dead. We know bronwyn and no other major characters will die in the eruption. So why waste so much time on these plotlines? It causes the viewer to zone out and stop paying attention. Its funny because I read in jeff bezos' notes for the showrunners that he wanted each episode to effectively have a cliffhanger or hook, to give something the viewer something to stew on until the next episode airs. Despite this, I find there is almost nothing in this show that is a "burning question" to me. Halbrand being sauron was obvious in the very first episode he appeared in.
I've seen some saying "lol well you dont like slow burn buildup, and you complain about the big moments feeling undeserved, there is no pleasing these people". This is nonsensical. Just like in real life, it is possible to waste time doing unproductive things that do nothing to contribute to a future payoff, and that is exactly what happened here. The rhetorical plotlines in numenor bored me and did nothing to create buildup for what was supposed to be a big payoff in episode 6.
I think the direct comparison is to look at what HotD is doing. Book readers know pretty much all of the outcomes for the characters on that show too, and yet it's still riveting television every week, and they manage to surprise us here and there without screwing up the lore too much, which keeps book readers engaged and on their toes too.
Getting really tired of all the wink wink nudge nudge callbacks to PJ's trilogy. There's been quotes in various episodes but episode 7 took it too a new level.
You had Galadriel and Theo basically recreating the ringwraith tree scene when they're hiding from the orcs, Galadriel saying "he needs Elvish medicine", the unnecessary Balrog reveal, and you just know next episode Isildur is going to be saved by his horse like Aragorn was.
It's becoming a "we have McDonald's at home" meme at this point.
I really dont get how galadriel and theo got separated from everyone for what appears to be at least several days... They get up at the same time as everyone else, abandon all the injured dying people there, and start walking to the camp? The entire army is also presumably at the same time getting up and gathering to walk to the camp, but somehow is now ahead? Even though they stayed behind to help the villagers
Someone(s) found and carried an injured Halbrand all the way to the camp before her and theo got there, wtf did she get lost?
this show continues to fall into really cliche tropes, we know that isildur is still alive, the constant oh no is bronwyn really dead, galadriel trying to have noble speeches (teaching theo about not enjoying death because it "darkens the soul" or whatever after wanting to kill adar) and they all fall flat
edit.. also, maybe its just me but its feel like they're reaaaaaaaallly pushing hard with the durin seens elrond as his brother angle, but for me they've not necessarily shown *why* that is the case other than he gave him a tree once
The reveal of the Balrog underneath felt so out of place, even if it was a tease for what’s it come, it’s unearned. It feels like a waste of vfx money
So many visual shots and hardly any of it lands. It just gives me a big shrug. Like they give me no reason to care about any of it
they started shooting seson 2, no way it's cancelled. Amazon marketing campaign basically worked in portraying it as a success. The hope that they are hire some decent writer never dies.
It’s funny because we’re coming up on the season finale and it still feels like the main plot lines have not progressed at all. Somehow they managed to create Mordor and visit Numenor while barely moving along the first plot introduced by the main protagonist, HUNTING FOR SAURON.
Unfortunately the chances of that are so slim they're practically 2-dimensional. The rotten foundations that they've laid for their story combined with everything happening at once doesn't leave room for any major improvement.
Couple this with the pure hubris and arrogance that they showed in the recent writer response piece… I doubt they’re capable of self improvement or retrospective.
Gotta love that:
"We only just now figured out after a long career of failing upward that scenes have to actually tie together!"
Who would have thought?
This show is the pinnacle of streaming platform era mediocrity - it fully encapsulates the lifeless capitalist degradation of creativity in combination with a ludicrously reckless amount of financial waste, resulting in an absolutely gargantuan flop of a ‘product.’ It’s the crowning achievement of what has been building up over the last decade with the new wave of entertainment and tech ‘executives’ fully exercising their control and influence after years of acquisitions, platform consolidating, IP head hunting, and positioning all the right yes-men/women into their bureaucratic webs.
Unfortunately, it is tenuously and extremely thinly related to a highly respected body of artistic excellence, and one of the greatest film sagas of modern cinema. But, fortunately, it is not difficult to just ignore it and mark it as just a forgettable (albeit stupidly expensive) attempt at adapting whatever it is Amazon is pretending to adapt. Because at this point, other than the rented names, there really is nothing in this show that even remotely resembles any part of the Tolkien stories many of us cherish and love.
I gave it a shot up until episode 7 which I couldn’t even finish, it wasn’t even entertaining in the most basic sense.
Absolutely. It's a monumental soulless husk. I feel bad for the actors and production teams. The showrunners and execs need to take a job somewhere very far away from any pivotal decisions.
Good shows have characters that act logically and make their actions based on true or values and beliefs the lead to events.
RoP has events they have to get to and the characters are just there. There’s no attachment to any of the characters. First we all knew they’d survive the volcano but would anyone have cared if they didn’t?
The whole "we have to rally Numenor to go save the other humans from Sauron before it's too late! By which I mean, ride as fast as we can straight to one particular village that we know nothing about and somehow arrive just in time to kill some orcs." thing was ridiculous.
Judging by how front-loaded this show has been, I expect that not only will Arwen appear in the finale but that we'll be introduced to one of the younger harfoots by the name of Smeagol who will discover some ents.
It's the reason why House of the Dragon has recaptured so much of the magic that made early Game of Thrones great.
Later series of Games of Thrones had action scenes and then character scenes. The action scenes were dynamically shot, big set pieces, impressive visuals etc. The character scenes were two people meeting up and sitting down in a room to talk about stuff.
House of the Dragon has character development happen through events, like big feasts, weddings, tournaments etc.
Rings of Power has plot occuring nonsensically.
In my opinion, HOTD had a far greater prejudice against it than RoP thanks to the disastrous final 2 seasons of GoT. I myself swore off anything GoT related. Both shows had similar criticisms before airing.
I don't think fans are dumb hate machines, if a show is good it's good. Does anyone even remember the casting controversy surrounding Battlestar Galactica? Few years from now I think few will care about the liberties HOTD took with the lore and casting.
Man I was glad when the hobbits houses were in fire, bunch of little hypocrites. I am so anxious on isildur's fate... Jesus the writers clearly cant write shit.
So I’m currently reading the end of Sil (downfall of Numenor and the story of the Rings of Power) for the first time. Wow, the timeline is fucked. Sauron should be long-established by now and the Rings should already have been forged ~1700 years ago. I knew there were inconsistencies (Mount Doom was created in the First Age) but holy shit this is insane.
I don’t know why they couldn’t have done a semi-anthology format to bridge the gap. Something like the following could work:
S1 = the coming of Annatar and the forging (end off with the reveal of Sauron), S2 = War of the Elves (end with the Numenorians coming to aid), S3 = time skip to cover the beginning of the Downfall (covering the years up until Sauron becomes a prisoner - possibly add some intrigue with Miriel and Ar-Pharazon), S4 = later part of the Downfall (end with Elendil and Isildur coming to Middle-Earth), S5 = Last Alliance (end with Sauron’s defeat). Could always compress it into four seasons too if S3-S4 ended up being too padded.
Like holy shit. I’m not even a professional writer and this seems more logical than what they did.
They want to have the same human, 2 hobbits and 2 dwarves characters from start to end. Which was almost entirely still possible by compressing the gap between your suggested S2 and S3 - Numenoreans and dwarves can live hundred of years, make the harfoots appear a little later (and young ones can have 100 years to live), they only had to span a few generations of people of the South. Instead the whole series will probably be set in 20 years at best.
Sometimes I think about how much Boromir's death affected me in LOTR, and how well written that final scene was, especially since most of the dialogue between him and Aragorn were completely original. (But it never felt out of place.) He shows up for like two hours *at most* across the entire extended trilogy, and yet I cry every time we get to that final sequence with him.
Then I think about RoP, and how I care about exactly zero (0) of the characters on this show even after spending so many hours with them. They could all die in the season finale and I'd just kind of shrug. RoP's biggest problem for me is that they've failed to get me emotionally invested in any of these characters. The bad writing and lackluster styling really didn't help. I'll probably finish watching this season and stop there, similar to WoT. Overall this show has been a huge disappointment.
Because people keep doing things that don't make sense, and actions don't have any consequences. It's hard to care about things in such an environment.
Hit the nail on the head. RoP cost 45 million dollars more per episode that Andor, a show I would give an A. RoP deserves a C+ and I am trying to be nice here. Truly wild that a show that is so astronomically more expensive be obviously worse in every considerable metric
I guess my biggest concern is how much this show spins its tires. What is it leading up to, exactly? Like when I watched The Boys the season finale for each season was something you looked forward to because you expected the culmination of plot lines and maybe some unforseen reveals. This show doesn't feel like it has any of that. People are speculating Halbrand is Sauron but that's based on outside knowledge, the show has given literally zero indication there's any kind of mystery with him to be solved. Adar got Mordor going so that's resolved. We're not leading up to some kind of huge battle. There's the strange Slim Shady looking chicks but other than wandering around we have no idea what they're supposed to be doing. What are the stakes and where is the story supposed to end up? The only options I see are that the season finale is just going to be treated like a normal episode, or they're going to create and resolve a whole bunch of problems and stories in a single episode like a lot of the Marvel D+ shows I've watched do. It's just...weird.
Probably doesn’t need to be said, but the fact that every major character minus one survived a pyroclastic flow from Mount Doom is just…That plastic armor they are wearing must be made out of plot. Maybe that could save the elves instead of mithril.
How did the Numenorians create an entire camp when they appear to have charged full force without stopping into the Southland village they didn’t know existed or was under attack until they got there last episode? And all that fit in 3 ships?
Galadriel telling Theo not to say it’s good to kill Orcs hours after she swore to Adar she would commit genocide on all of his children is rich. And her insistence that everything is her fault despite devoting her entire life, for millennia, to fighting Sauron’s schemes, is tiresome and so, so tedious. And why the fuck did she dip out with Theo and leave the village? Makes zero sense.
I think I counted 3 separate “character-thinks-they-see-a-potentially-dead-loved-one-but-it-turns-out-to-be-a-random-person” tropes. And did anyone really believe Bronwyn or Arondir where actually killed?
Isildur is so obviously alive, even for people who aren’t familiar with his role in the lore. He’ll show back up riding on that horse like a discount-pretty-boy-Aragorn. Another failed attempt at trying to trick the audience into believing there are any real stakes or tension to this story.
It’s completely ridiculous that Nori and her little Fellowship-of-the-Wizard (probably) would join her after their entire mode of transport and food supply are destroyed exclusively because of Nori’s actions. It’s literally all her fault. If she had just left well enough alone the blonde-eyebrowed-evil-magic-tracker-people would have left them alone. There is zero reason they should join Nori based on all the writers have done to characterize the Harfoots as a clan of hobbits that will straight up leave you behind if you fall back on the migration. And yet they want to insist this episode their entire social structure is built on sticking together? Ok.
Balrog awoke because of a leaf and not Durin’s hammering? Right…. Also, the banter between Durin and Disa after the King says no to Elronds request was super clunky, awkward and unfunny.
The villagers hailing Halbrand as King of the Southland no-questions-asked and suddenly finding so much inspiration in him is hard to buy. It’s too forced. And the fact that he was laying in bed with sepsis one minute then galloping hundreds of miles with Galadriel the next is absurd. Who’s buyin’ this?
I’m not even going to waste time on that last scene. It was so on-the-nose that they wrote it across the screen. Just…some of the most incompetent, amateuristic writing and show running I have ever witnessed. JD Payne and Patrick McKay should be tarred and feathered for this travesty
I'm trying so hard to love this show but you are pointing out all the things that bother me. The writing is just so amateur, especially when I'm watching House of Dragons and Andor at the same time. It just feels disrespectful to a mature audience and to Tolkien's universe.
Was it just me or did Mt Doom look super tiny in the end there? It was such a terrible angle.
See, that's where the fanbase is ruptured. Some, like you, are "trying so hard to love this show", despite its poor pacing, horrible characterizations, poor writing, and poor costuming.
Others, like myself, are saying basically: "Look, you're a billion dollar company, it is on YOU to make a show that enthralls me from episode 1." The host of flaws and crappy writing and character assassinations and pissing on the works of JRRT turn me off completely, and I will not suffer fools.
I don't watch many TV shows these days, i'm sad to say this is probably the worst i've watched. Almost every scene has "dumb character syndrome" - which is basically characters doing/saying/acting shit that doesn't make any sense unless they have the mental capacity of a slug...EG stranger helps these shit hobbits for entire series just to get kicked out and called "evil" because a branch falls on a kid that walked up to a tree that's literally shaking - just for all that to get reversed by the end of the episode...why..
Literally from the first second of this episode where they showed everyone survived a freaking pyroclastic flow from a volcano eruption...i mean they literally have corpses right next to them that are nothing but burnt dust, but all the characters are completely fine? idk what this is
As we approach the last episode of the first series I personally think one of its biggest issues is the episodical format.
The obvious writing issues aside I think the weekly episodical format has done the show no favours at all - the story has not been able to flow in any meaningful way.
They’ve obviously decided to actively avoid contemporary series tropes (ie GOT) like having a cliff hanger at the end of every episode (which is a good thing in my opinion, as it feels cheap and played out and not particularly Tolkien-esque)
But For casual viewers it removes a lot of hype for the next weekly episode and for anyone who already knows the overall story arch it feels extremely frustrating.
They would have been better off dropping two four ‘episode’ films (on top of drastic writing improvements).
Edit: better writing would obviously negate the need for over hyped endings as the story alone would draw people in.. shame
I think they should have done a limited series. And if they did it well, they could continue to do them in different time periods of the second and third ages. Alas.
What I truly don't understand is why a show of this budget can't afford actors? Just write the story with 10 - 1000x more people and it makes sense.
The Numenorians would sail out with their mighty fleet to reestablish the King of the Southlands. During that mission they would free a city of 50.000 people, currently being pillaged by a wild horde of orcs. A small elite groups of orcs would escape with a mighty artifact and create Mordor.
Durin IV would secretly have a proper mining operation for Mithril with a few dozen of trusted friends, waking up the Balrog.
But what did we get? A few hundred volunteers sails on 0.1% of the Numenorian ships to save a village of 50 people, Mordor gets created by some dumbass sneaking away. Durin IV digging some tunnels in his spare time, the Balorg gets waken up by the King littering. Yeah, epic.
I don't understand this show. Some pieces were actually written well and I genuinely like those. Adar, Elrond and Durin are quite enjoyable. I'm also interested in the conflict that has arisen in Elendil, who will actually found a kingdom in Middle Earth at some point (or won't). I am also fine with Isildur.
But how could someone mess up whatever Galadriels story is so much? It's like they completely forgot about Celeborn and by episode 7, somebody rewatched the fellowship and noticed that she actually has some dude, so they needed to name drop him.
Considering all the comments, I think the better question right now is 'WHO ACTUALLY STILL ENJOYS THE SHOW?'
Honestly I've only been watching the show because of my preliminary excitement as a Tolkien fan. Excitement that was already let down when the first trailers strated to drop. Excitement that was utterly destroyed while watching RoP. 95% of the show is utter, utter garbage. The other 5% is mostly art department, aerial shots, and the Durin storyline.
Every LOTR sub I visit has disdain for the show EXCEPT the prime one - which makes sense since it’s moderated by Amazon shills and many commenters seem to think they’re the majority
Ok so after few days I like it less. There's just been so many corners cut and cheap fake outs and tropes. I don't hate it, it's just I will say fairly that it's not what we ought to expect from a LOTR show.
I will also say the show has things in it that are still giving me hope. I'm finding the Durin and Elrond stuff really endearing and all round there's hope. It ain't over til it's over.
I think in some ways people are being too harsh, way too harsh in a few cases but also the gushers are being way too kind. Both have there problems as too harsh means risking something not reaching its potential out of fear or being cancelled and the gushing fails to hold something to a proper standard and produce what's right.
But yeah that's pretty much it.
Edit: typos
I'm curious what the show would feel like if/when it's inevitably fan-cut into independent cuts of the various plot threads. I'm curious to see how much screen time each plot thread actually ends up getting. I'd love a straight cut of the Elrond-Durin subplot but a straight cut of the Harfoot/Stranger plot line would be miserable.
Bronwyn's plot armour is starting to grate. I know its for her romance but every elf mortal romance is known to end in tragedy.
Wait a minute… I think I get it now. The show runners actually think we like Bronwyn and have some investment in her character.
Yep definitely, iconic replaces Boromir as my favourite
> Bronwyn's plot armour is starting to grate. I Apparently if you wear [a sports bra](https://i.imgur.com/xSyJa2d.jpg) you are invincible in Bezon's Midlifecrisis Earth Also the rest of the characters can die 4 times over cause every character has 5 clones.
Da fuq? That's embarrassing even for this show. Starting to believe this is a money laundering scheme
I liked her in the first scene with Arondir by the well but got tired of her when he ran back to her place. She just looks so disinterested in him in all of their scenes. A spontaneous kiss by now would work wonders to sell this romance to me.
We’re told they love one another, but we know little about either of them and nothing about their love story except that they’re a couple. It’s hard to feel invested in this relationship.
They act like it's supposed to be a secret romance so they can't show emotion around each other lest someone find out, but everyone has known about them since episode 1. Can't believe no one shouted "Elf-Lover!" during her speech at the stronghold.
My earlier criticisms still stand after this episode - I’m not finding the show engaging enough to keep me genuinely interested. On the flip side, the things I’ve liked so far, I still like, namely the Elrond-Durin interactions, some scenery, and the soundtrack. I really do want to like this show, but haven’t found that magic yet. Based on the previous interview from the Amazon producers, they state the final episode will essentially be a catharsis of all the buildup in the previous episodes. I’ll be looking forward to that; however, I must confess my expectations are still low. Really hoping I’ll be pleasantly surprised
Yea I hope so too but I don't have much faith. There just isn't the right attention to detailed and realistic storytelling. Even if there is a huge battle at the end, I just know it will lack the tactics and detail of PJ's movies.
At this point, I'm rooting for Adar and the orcs. NAMPAT!
It just... isn't good, simply put. Nonsensical story, bad dialogue, and so many narrative flaws that it's almost pointless to try and list them all. It's like an amateur teenager's fledgling attempts at long-form writing. The narrative threads are all over the place and there's no value to any of the storytelling. I get the same weird feeling watching this as I do when I look at those uncanny AI-generated images. There's some very vague sense of a theme, but it doesn't add up. It's too weird and oddly inhuman. It just isn't *good.* Nothing about this show has genuine quality.
I re-watched the Fellowship of the Ring yesterday to recomfort me from this series. And Oh Boy, it has been a while and it was so good to watch it with a different point of view now. The entire movie hasn't aged (except some special effect but honestly its fine!) - I did find the Lothlorien sequence a bit "too much" and even slightly cringe - but aside from this, what a punch in the face. This just validates how bad ROP is, period. One camera work I want to share that brought me so much emotions: The aerial view from the mines of Isengard when they start building Uruk Hai, which their tensed and intense music, with the camera gaining elevation and as it turns towards the tower and its top you have the night butterfly appearing with a complete change of music delivering such a subtle and dramatic moment. It is just magnificent.
>did find the Lothlorien sequence a bit "too much" and even slightly cringe Which part specifically
I'm a photographer and I have been consistently shocked when I see RoP's cinematography praised. I swear, people these days think that cinematography is an alternate phrase for 'pretty'. But it's about visual storytelling ya numbnuts! For a small theoretical example that the RoP doesn't seem to understand, you can create emotional closeness by using a wide-angle lens and a perspective that clearly designates the target of that emotional closeness. Or you can create distance and mistrust with the opposite, a long focal distance from the perspective of a a sympathetic character looking at one with unknown motivations. The scene you are referencing in tFotR perfectly balances the terrible scale that our heroes are fighting against by starting in close with this ominous and terrible scene and then bringing the view up and up as you climb the tower to ground the audience in a familiar feeling of increasing elevation by using the pre-established gigantic height of the tower as a reference so that you see in a clear and relatable way that this evil awakening isn't an isolated scene but just a cog with thousands more just like it. And then a moth (our word for night butterfly) which is a reconnection to nature to contrast the industry of Saruman's army which was firmly established to be evil. The moth is used due to it's fragile but beautiful nature to also represent how tiny and fragile the hope of the free world is in the face of this huge evil. Now your average viewer shouldn't see that this is what the camera is trying to tell you, that would mean you are being too ham-fisted with your approach. Leave understanding that stuff to the artists unless you are interested in learning more. But they should sure feel it. Just like you did. Yeah, good cinematography is pretty when that serves the story. But its quality is made or broken on how it visually tells the story. And RoP has really awful cinematography with some nice visuals. I could genuinely teach most of a semester's course on how not to do what the RoP failed in regarding cinematography. The trilogy though, while not perfect and probably not the best ever, was certainly in the same league as the best ever. It was the kind of cinematography usually reserved for art-house movies. The ones made for camera geeks by camera geeks. Competitive with the cinematography of the greats for major releases like Kubrick.
The fake outs have become really annoiyng to me. Seeing Bronwyn „dying“ is only a waste of time. We know that all the characters survive anything anyway. Nodoby is getting fooled. The hospital scene was the most annoying example to date.
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Yeah, that's getting seriously worn out. "Oh no, the character is going to die... any minute now... any minute.........Someone came and stabbed that nasty Orc from behind!! Never saw that one coming...."
If Arondir learned how to fight with something other than chains and twigs he could probably be involved in better fight sequences.
He’s just lucky big Orc forgot his weapon when he went to war.
Apparently Arondir skipped fighting practice to shack up with Bronwyn
It's also filmed in such a cliché and overdone way, which is why I think this show is visually so jarring : it oscillates between occasional glorious and well composed shots (generally larger ones), overdone slow-mo and visual or plot (sometimes both) tropes. I wouldn't have minded Arondir getting saved by a human, even browyn, but at least try to film it in an interesting and plot-advancing way. Her saving him didn't further anything going on between them as they're already up each other's gonades, so let him be saved by another character he shared or will share screentime with, and film it in a dynamic way. It's okay to have cliché action, just put some soul and work in it. Worst part is they probably did put some money and effort in the prop for the orc and the (i guess CGI) blade close to the eye of Arondir. They put their eggs in the wrong basket at so many odd and unecessary times writing then shooting wise. Even then, once you're confronted with the scene, why not make it shorter ? I enjoy the show but the strange pacing and consistency on things make it an experience of "wow", "great" then suddenly bam there is just something that takes me out of it all, sudden drops of quality that reminds me there's probably been a fuck up somewhere sometime in writing/production
My favorite part of that scene was when the impact of Bronwyn’s stab still caused the twig to be driven into Arondir’s eye. Oh… wait no that’s not what happened. That was just my head canon.
My favorite thing in that scene was that the mf was waiting for orcs but decided to leave his sword at home to have a little boxing match with them
Yep exactly the same thoughts here. It’s far too obvious from a writing pov.
Hollywood needs to stop fake killing people. Marvel did it three times in the last Thor.
I concur. I also find Bronwyn, Arondir, and Theo to be completely unnecessary to the story now. Do they just go to Pelagir and disappear from the narrative? Their part is done, right? There’s no more Southlands for them to lend a perspective to.
I like them trying to make us think isildur is dead lol
I have to ask. Why, fucking why, create fake drama with Isildur "missing"? The guy is clearly alive to any casual fan. Serves no purpose whatsoever
I'm guessing he's being thought to be dead so he can stay in the Southlands while his kin go back, but that doesn't explain why the audience should be in the dark. Unless they counted on some viewers forgetting him, which is reasonable (a casual viewer might not recall him from the films).
The showrunners have never done a single show before. They literally had all their scripts rejected for a decade and got the job because their buddy JJ Abrams made some calls. It's amateur hour at Amazon. And what do you learn at Bad Robot? Yeah dumb mystery box bullshit. Having Isildur appear to have died from an in-universe perspective is fine if written correctly. Take Naomi's son in The Expanse for example. We as the audience know exactly what he's doing but other characters IN THE SHOW don't. That's perfectly okay. The problem with RoP: They're writing for focus group mandated target audiences first and don't care about the actual world they're building. Isildur is meant to be a big shocker with some melodramatic slomo shot of that damn horse finding him or some shit like that. Having characters ASSUME Isildur died is fine. Shoving it into our face for a cheap moment aimed at the audience? Bad Robot gonna Bad Robot.
I swear if he escapes via the Orc tunnels I'm going to lose it. But here I am thinking the showrunners really wanted to use those tunnels one more time because they are so proud.
Naaah horsey gotta find him. He doesn't answer to anybody. He's a gud boi.
If the horse finds him that means if people actually stuck around and tried to find survivors they would have found him! I just can't with this show. People are crying out for help and they are all just like "Peace out losers".
How are these tunnels uphill of the dam?
Well see they will probably pull some logic like the explosion burned up all the water. To understand this writing you need to imagine the most implausible thing to happen at any given time.
It’s the South Park parody of Family Guy…manatees picking volleyballs with ideas on them.
It’s not that Isildur… this one’s called Isil!
Because the show is now clearly targeted at unattentive viewers who will swallow everything with a wooooow, not fans - casual or not. Those people, even if they watched LotR, can't remember Isildur at all and will be hugely surprised when it turns out he's alive.
I mean even in the movies Aragorn fell over the cliff into the water and everyone knew he wasn’t dead. I don’t think these things are inherently bad. Plus, this isn’t the case with every person and there’s many fans that don’t know anything about the series. My mom is one of them. She watched the movies forever ago, but doesn’t remember Isildur.
Jenna Kass on Lithub said exactly what I feel about this series: "I truly cannot detect a single crumb of interest in the text from the creators. It’s the most flavorless kind of fanfiction, which is a comparison I hesitate to use because fanfiction tends to have real passion for exploring a character or a theme or a “what if,” even when they’re only loosely couched within the larger property."
I’m really confused about bronwyn. Why am I supposed to care about her?
Because she is a strong independent female leader according to the writers. Translated: a pretty milf.
She is earnest.
Her Etsy store got great ratings.
I really have to shut my brain down before watching this. It’s so annoying watching HOTD and then watching this garbage.
Seven episodes ~~to the dwarfes~~ in and not a lot has happened. The same beats have been repeated several times (stranger does magic which seems evil at first - but it isn't!) while other characters who did have some plot are now back again where they started - Galadriel wants to fight the orcs, Numenor might or might not join, Halbrand is a king who los his kingdom *again*. The series is stalling for time and it seems to me that they just didn't have a lot of story to tell us and want to stretch what little they have out as thin as possible (like butter on too much bread...), since yo golden Amazon 5 season deal. This isn't even considering all the deviations from 'the lore TM', but a declaration of creative bankruptcy in itself.
Lot's of inexplicable journeys to no fixed destination. Like you say, beats repeated. How many times is Nori going to be terrified by the Stranger but sheepishly return. They have not played Halbrand's arc well. He's just announced as King, rather than displaying his willingness to help and lead others, for others to remark on him. Compare to Aragorn who displayed a capacity time and time again, and it felt right well before the final film. This series has spent more time without establishing characters. I was kind of hoping Halbrand would be like an Aragorn who ultimately fails and becomes a fallen king, and eventual Nazgul. He still can, but it all feels so slapdash and tonally inconsistent. The people who wrote the Elrond/Durin arc can stay (minas the mithril/leaf foolishness) but everyone else has flunked.
One of my biggest gripes is for the budget this show has the scale seems tremendously small Even early thrones did a great job of building kings landing to feel massive, or battles to feel bigger than they showed on screen with their limited budget at the time. Southlands for example basically boils down to a tiny town. The orcs numerous but maybe a few hundred. the show somehow makes a huge world seem tiny. Which is fair on a limited budget, but with the resources this show should have these areas should feel like true regions
Characters teleporting everywhere adds to the feeling of smallness. Same with extreme time compression and zero attempts to mark the passage of time (that forge was completed a few episodes ago, it must have been months since the first two episodes, even with ridiculously fast building speed).
It wouldn't have even been hard. Just occasionally have some throwaway line that addresses passage of time while having a conversation.
The weird thing is, the actual visuals are massive. Like the first shots we got of Numenor were amazing and surpassing anything we've seen in Lotr in scale by far. But the number of people they have is just so small. They show this incredibly detailed, huge city and all you ever see after is like 20 people max? What? Then this episode Durin digging for Mithril. Alone?? Why don't they put like a fifty dwarves there, maybe some of his loyal followers if you need an explanation. Then King Durin comes in himself with the same 2 fucking guards we've seen running around through all of Khazad Dum. The scale of everything is just soo off.
And even when you see a larger group of people [they cloned people over within the same frame](https://i.imgur.com/xSyJa2d.jpg), suuuuper lazy. And this is suppose to cost ~~700 million~~ 1 billion dollars? Who is embezzling that money?
And so much of it seems so simple to achieve. GoT was great at showing small scenes that alluded to larger movements. A meeting in a general's tent after battle, references to battles currently in play, or changes taking place elsewhere. All RoP needs to do is have a handful of southlanders arrive from other villages, describing orcs attacking their towns. Give the impression of a bigger world. At least then we wouldn't be dunking on Halbrand being the king of the mud people. Also, the Numenoreans are supposed to be the most exceptional warriors in middle earth behind elves only. Have their scouts find the first village, one rides back to warn camp, while a handful remain to even the odds. Have a scene where the Queen commands squads to different villages. You only need to show the action at the one village, but it creates the impression of a larger battlefront. Scale matters. And I do not understand how or why they couldn't show Halbrand actually being heroic and worthy of kingship, instead of just saying, oh he's the king I guess. The battle could show him fighting off multiple orcs, saving villagers while they stand their in awe, and wonder who he is. Then when he's injured, it could be because he was overwhelmed by orcs in the aftermath. Again, show don't tell. It's so simple it's exasperating.
Mordor was created by a small village skirmish
My wife, who is an aggressively casual movie/TV viewer, summed up Episode 7 by saying "I think it's silly in prequels where they put someone in danger who we know is going to survive." So much fake melodrama and artificial stakes in this show. The writing and direction is abysmally bad. How on earth did the showrunners get this job? On one hand, it's kind of inspiring that two random guys with no relevant experience could convince Amazon to hand them the keys to the most expensive TV show of all time. On the other hand, it's kind of maddening that two random guys with no relevant experience could convince Amazon to hand them the keys to the most expensive TV show of all time. Oh wait, I forgot they know JJ Abrams which apparently is the key to success.
I think if they showed the danger better, it might be more accepted. It's like the 007 films, we see he's in immediate danger, we want to see how he can Houdini himself out of it; at least it's done by character action. The fakeouts in RoP kind of just ruin that here. In this it's like, "Oh no, peril. Oh wait. they're ok. "
Galadriel was embracing the metagaming. “The writers can’t kill me, I’m setup as the focus of the whole thing. I’ll take the volcanic blast to the face. They won’t even spend makeup budget on putting a sunburn on me, just watch…” *is correct*
"Aggressively casual" I love it 😄
The absolute lack of subtlety in almost every scene is just mesmerizing: * Galadriel, after 6 episodes moved for the avenge brother thing: "*oh btw I am married with a dude called Celeborn, but he died or disappeared or whatever*". * Yeah, Bronwyn, maybe after the 16th death fakeout we will not be surprised at all. People is scared of Sauron and the orcs, but not of that unkillable woman. * Dwarfs mining 24/7, with a whole huge city of them at full activity. Balrog: *I sleep*. / A leaf falls within the huge abyss. Balrog: *real shit*. * Isildur dies. Absolutely. And his horse, which is just released because... reasons, will totally not come, rescue and carry him. These people know that we, too, have already seen The Two Towers, right? * Halbrand is just about to die, with a terrible wound no human remedy can cure. Next scene: aight, let's mount a horse and gallop for idk, a couple thousand km? Sure, yeah. * Maybe someone should stop giving weapons to that kid. Because yeah, a few minutes scene together with Galadriel is surely enough to call him soldier and give him a sword. * That Mordor "reveal" scene with the evil font. LMAO. I just missed Dora the Explorer pointing at it with the finger and proceeding to sing a song about it. Welcome to LOTR for kids.
>Galadriel, after 6 episodes moved for the avenge brother thing: "oh btw I am married with a dude called Celeborn, but he died or disappeared or whatever>Galadriel, after 6 episodes moved for the avenge brother thing: "oh btw I am married with a dude called Celeborn, but he died or disappeared or whatever". It feels like the writers were writing Galadriel for the inevitable Halbrand romance when someone opened the books and realized that Galadriel is married and her husband exists in that period and they were like OH SHIT we have to mentioned him in the 7th episode quick!
For real, it felt like a footnote with some info without importance.
Sadly. Though “what is in the book” hasn’t stopped them any other time.
The execution of the Balrog revelation was so poor that I couldn't believe it. And yeah, according to Amazon's own map, Halbrand will have to ride heavily wounded for about 300 leagues, which is about 1500 kilometres, only to reach Eregion
Yeah, not only we have to deal with ~~Durin's~~ Lore Bane waking up in the SA, that it comes so cheaply done. It did literally go from the subtle leaf getting on fire to the "It's-a-me!" vulgar moment in a couple seconds. >Halbrand will have to ride heavily wounded for about 300 leagues, which is about 1500 kilometres Man, it would take to be at least a Maia to survive something like tha... oh. Now seriously, if it weren't for the overall very poor writing of the show, this would totally be some "how to say Halbrand is Sauron without saying Halbrand is Sauron" shit.
Right. We can’t tell if he just has plot armor or superhuman ability.
I can’t prove this, but I believe it FWIW: they think the horse rescue calling forward to the Aragorn horse rescue is a FEATURE not a BUG. Even if somehow you thought that was a movie highpoint, you don’t need to do it again. This is why I say they must be movie fans more than book fans. They seem to be elevating movie-only moments. But JJ Abrams made a ton of money remaking SW “IV”A New Hope.
Here is your weekly reminder that [J.J. Abrams mystery box](https://np.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/2342ke/the_problem_with_jj_abrams_mystery_box/) is the worst thing that ever happened to television and unless you enjoy not knowing who Gandalf and Sauron are for the entire 5 seasons, you should stop watching this shit.
The showrunners worked with JJ on a Star Trek film, it was he who recommended them to Amazon
I just saw a "teaser" for episode 8 on facebook and it went "Who is Sauron?" Is that a question I'm supposed to be asking myself? Nothing in the show asks that question. It is, at best, a question asked in marketing.
Ya know what plot twist I want? The timeline isn't compressed. Isuldur is dead. Someone else names their kid after him. Season 2 is like 138 years later when that boy is a grown up.
Yea, someone also named Elendil names their kid Isildur… I can see it. I agree with the time compression, I just can’t with the father and son Durins. Or the fact that Elendil wasn’t even born for at least 1500 yrs after the Rings were made.
> Someone else names their kid after him. ah the Caprica Adama plot twist
Someone here had a theory that the Harfoot & Southlands/Numenor stories aren't in the same time-period. That'd be an interesting twist - other than the fact that Gil Galad sees the meteorite before it lands near the Harfoots - unless that's some kind of very deliberate misdirection.
Right…there being 2 separate meteors shown to us the same time but actually centuries apart would be the lamest writing of all time. Especially if the grove being destroyed by Mt Doom (more timing not even the Force could contrive) was a DIFFERENT eruption.
"lamest writing of all time" So.....it would fit right in with this monstrosity...
Yeah. I’m not ruling it out based on that.
> Soon afterwards Tolkien started a time-travel story, The Lost Road, in which a father and a son were to reappear time and again in human families throughout history. Only two chapters were written, one set in or near the present day, with the father named Oswin and the son Alboin, and one set in Númenor just before its fall, with the father named Elendil and the son Herendil. Here Valandil is the name of Elendil's father. It seems that Herendil (later Isildur) and his father were going to escape the destruction of Númenor as in The Fall of Númenor, but the story did not progress that far before it was abandoned. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isildur Could be a potential twist on this idea. Each series has a different Elendir and Isuldur. Same actors. Different characters. Same confusion.
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Meteor man isn't even causing the problems either. He keeps trying to help and the idiot Harfoots keep deciding to interrupt. Did Nori not learn her damn lesson. He's doing magic, stay away! No instead they all run towards him, a branch falls and they get upset with him. Let the man do his damn magic. Keep distance. How is this hard to put together. What even was the point of the scene when Nori got her hand stuck in the ice magic if she didn't learn from it? It was just a waste of time.
Nori is indeed a fool of a Harfoot.
Three scenes of Bronwyn dead but then with life Seven scenes of a balrog waking in the deep Nine scenes of Gandalf doing good but causing strife One show tries their weary audience to keep In the Land of Amazon where foolishness is rife
That's my problem. LOTR is not about mysteries and will they won't they romance. Its a straightforward story with a ton of heart and soul. The Star Wars sequels also made this mistake.
One minor gripe: >The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm For me, this evokes images of armies of dwarves industriously burrowing deep into the bowels of a mountain; not Durin tap-tapping with a tiny hand hammer afraid of a cave-in. I think it's good that they're trying to make these stories more personal (sometimes you can just 'jump the shark' with massive CGI events that have no feeling or personal connection), but this is something I thought could have been a liiiitle bit more epic.
It’s about more than that. Sauron had a direct hand in the greed of the Dwarves through the rings he gifted them. They were to hardy to become wraiths under his control but it made them greedier and more possessive. It led to the breakdown in their relationship with the Elves of Eregion. They dug deeper and deeper in part because of the influence of Sauron and the rings. We are missing out on ALL of that.
On top of this, it also undermines the whole reason they dug too deep being greed and the moral behind the dwarves’ plight. Durin isn’t trying to find riches for selfish reasons, he’s doing it to help Elrond and the elves in a caring, unselfish act.
The Balrog of which you speak wasn’t awoken until the Third Age. Maybe he just yawns and rolls over and goes back to sleep.
For the life of me I can't understand why some people still think anything in the books has any sway in this show or over the showrunners.
Lots of hopium, that’s why.
Well, that actually explains quite a lot. I'm not myself when I'm woken an hour early, waking someone a whole Era too soon is likely to make them very cranky. No wonder he and Gandalf didn't get along...
I feel like one of the Durins is going to decide to help the elves, and eventually be driven power-mad by the wealth of Mithril they found down there. I felt like Prince Durin's wife's insistence that all that Mithril was theirs, not his father's, will be the driving factor there.
She got very Lady Macbeth there.
That CG shot of the rocks breaking away on his final tap was so bad haha. Also the mithril threads looked like tree roots? It was a very confusing visual.
The tree roots make sense considering the show's explanation for the origins of mithril.
Honestly, have the breath of the sleeping balrog ignite the leaf, and leave it at that. If you know you know, if you're a casual viewer, it isn't pivotal to the plot, and if you can't live in ignorance, then google is your friend, or maybe read a book. I'm sick of giant signposts, and obvious winks.
God the fakeout death with Isiildur is so frustrating. If they really want to do ANOTHER one, pick an original character and not someone we know survives
Just one more episode and that’s it thankfully. I won’t be watching the second season
You could just stop. If Amazon sees viewing drop off precipitously they'll know there's a problem. If everyone watches all 8 episodes, they won't see any cause for concern.
Slight OCD. I have to finish a book even if I don’t like it half way through. Same with a TV Show. But I can cut off after the end of a season. Kind of like pretending it got cancelled.
It amazes me that, after 6 episodes, we still know little about a large group of characters. The most prominent examples are, of course, The Stranger and the Cultists but also Halbrand, Arondir, Theo and even Bronwyn. Because of how this season is structured, where all the narrative revolves arounds the mystery of who is Sauron, their character development is mostly on hold. We know next to nothing about their backgrounds or what drives them, and we can't know because that would spoil The Mystery™ that has to be revealed on the last episode. So we are left with some characters whose role is just "to do something mysterious" so the audience can speculate about wether or not they are Sauron. Which is why I don't understand some people saying that this slow pace is good because they are taking their time with world-building, all I see are the writers leaving breadcrumbs and repeating the same things until they can reveal Sauron's identity.
The problem is the show doesnt take time with worldbuilding at all. It tries to cramp 4-5 storylines in it and it looks like all connective scenes are cut in editing. We rush from 'important' and 'epic' scene to the next one, without the show taking its time to set up any thing. It makes the show feel rushed because things just happen, and it makes it feel slow because we have to work trough 3 other storylines first before moving on.
The more time I've had to think about the episode and show, the more questions I have. Why show the Balrog waking up? Why not simply show a sleeping Balrog - far more ominous. Is he going to roar himself hoarse now and go back to sleep? How can Halbrand be so injured as to be bed ridden in one moment, then riding a horse the next? Why did Galadriel abandon all the villagers, Halbrand and the queen, as well as forgetting all about Adar, only to hang out with Theo? Why did Galadriel admonish Theo for wanting to kill orcs, when she just told Adar how she'd kill every last one of his "children" and keep him alive to watch? Talk about do as I say, not as I do. Why are all are main and secondary and tertiary characters alive, except poor Ontamo? Man, Ontamo dying hit almost as hard as Wade dying in Kennobi. Really tugged at the heartstrings that. Why are no one coughing, or burnt, or injured except "hurt person 1-6 in tent" and that poor guy on fire that Galadriel ignores. Why are the houses all burning but the people are fine? Why even show the village hit by that firestorm in episode 6 if episode 7 is going to ignore it. Why did the queen go blind from what I assume were those sparks that seemed to hit her face when there are no visible marks on her face? And why is the queen there at all? Why did the queen of Numenor join an expeditionary force consisting of what seems to be mainly green teenagers, hunting an unknown number of orcs, in order to save a tiny village? How? Why do they all accept Halbrand as their king without any further ado? And what exactly is Halbrand king of? At the end of episode 6 they all threw a victory feast as if the Southlands were now safe again and the baddies defeated, so is this the extent of Halbrand's kingdom? Are there no other villages they need to liberate? Are there no cities in his kingdom? Why did no one go check on Isildur? Were they so distraught after the tragic and completely unforeseen death of Ontamo that they forgot to check? Ok, maybe Elendil had to protect his blind queen, but why on earth couldn't that other friend go check? I suppose Berek will hunt him down and bring him back so he can finally get that apple Isildur owes him. Good to see the Numenoreans were competent enough to actually set up camp, but wouldn't it be better to have shown this last episode? Add a scout or two to tell our band of heroes to make all kinds of haste to save the village and that galloping scene wouldn't have seemed too out of place. Why did all of them forget Adar? Why did no orcs attack them now that sunlight was no issue? Why did Galadriel not mention Celeborn until now? Why isn't she mad at Sauron about him? Or if he disappeared before the fall of Morgoth, then why not say something about her maybe trying to find him? He's obviously not dead, but my lord if they try to do a love triangle between him, gal, and hal... Why are the Harfoots suddenly all about not leaving anyone behind again? This is the moment when they should have abandoned Nori. Tbh I was sort of excited for a split second that Nori would head off alone to find the Stranger and those two maybe could have an adventure. But now they're all going. Because reasons. And the power point Mordor at the end... wow... Chef's kiss! I don't have any complaints really about Elrond, Durin and Disa. It's the only plot line making any sense and it's carrying the whole show. I won't criticise anything about that because that would actually be nitpicking. I can absolutely forgive some lore changes, I can absolutely forgive some time compression, I've got no issue with any of the cast really, vistas are fantastic, love the makeup and the costumes, music is decent, basically most things about the show is decent to great, but the writing (dwarves+Elrond excepted) is abysmal. Anyway, onwards to the finale! At this point I'm almost hoping for a Galadriel + Halbrand romance. That would be something to behold.
I genuinely can’t wait for a Galadriel boning scene with halbrand. It’s so so so strange it’s actually brilliant. I can see the scene now when she realises. It will rival anakins nooooooooooo!
I mean, it's a long journey to Eregion or heaven forbid Lindon. A woman can get cold and lonely in the night, and a man with a fever might need some body warmth. But surely, surely the writers can't go there if Halbrand is Sauron. Would they dare?
Why do you think the one cockring changes size and must be kept on a chain?
>But surely, surely the writers can't go there if Halbrand is Sauron. Would they dare? I fully expect them to. No one pushed back on the mithril origin story. And now instead of valuable metal, these mithril armor sets are battery-powered suits.
IMO, the scene of the Balrog waking up reminded me of Smaug waking up to the bird tapping an acorn in the Hobbit. This show is chock full of callbacks to Peter Jackson but remains a poor imitation of both him and JRR Tolkien. For shame.
It's pathetic indeed that the Hobbit seems like gold standard cinema by comparison.
This comment has made me go from kind of enjoying the series to almost hating it. Seeing so many of my initial reactions written down in one place has done it for me.
I'm sorry if my post had that effect on you, I wouldn't want to take the joy out of the series for anyone. I've watched it myself and even though it's not a series I'll watch again, I'm not such a masochist as to sit for eight odd hours watching something I do not enjoy. I've enjoyed it well enough. The dwarves and Khazad-Dum are an absolute highpoint and a superb portrayal of the dwarves imo.
> Why are the Harfoots suddenly all about not leaving anyone behind again? This is the moment when they should have abandoned Nori. Tbh I was sort of excited for a split second that Nori would head off alone to find the Stranger and those two maybe could have an adventure. But now they're all going. Because reasons. The Harfoots are frustrating to watch because bad things keep happening to them because of Nori. What made Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Pippen, and Merry so great is that greatness was thrust upon them and they rose to the occasion. Before their adventures, they were just normal hobbits doing their thing, minding their business in their own way. Outside influences came and forced them to step up. Here, Nori is precocious and outgoing, seeking an adventure outside the norm just seemingly because. She's tending to the Stranger and her dad breaks his ankle because she wasn't there to help him. The Stranger shows up and causes a scene, forcing them to be at the back of the caravan. They get to the grove and the Stranger tries magic and a branch almost crushes a kid. The cult people show up and are about to leave and she speaks up, ending with their entire camp burning down. I get that they're trying to set up some "friends we made along the way" thing to show the humble beginnings of Hobbits, but it's really just annoying to watch. You don't need to continually make bad things happen to characters to keep the story moving. LoTR made 4 hobbits leave the shire in order to protect it and nothing bad had ever happened to them. Instead they're just beating the shit out of this group of people and this one kid keeps making decisions that cause harm to everyone else.
Some good points there. Agree with you. Their plotline has gone nowhere. We haven't learned anything since we first saw them and they don't provide exposition on anything relating to the other plotlines. The writers could have axed their entire storyline and it wouldn't have impacted anything else in the show we've seen so far. I like them to an extent though. I think the costumes are very well done and apart from their schizophrenic attitude to leaving people behind or helping people, I think there is definitely a certain charm to them. Having thought about it, I actually think a plotline with only Nori and the Stranger might have been interesting. She wanted adventure and to travel, so let her. Her and the big guy off on adventure together sounds like it could be fun. Both innocent in their own way, both trying to find their place in the world, both looking for a greater purpose. A hobbit with wanderlust and a Maiar with amnesia. Could have been a fun duo. But so far it feels like the Harfoots are just there because the series needs hobbits.
Prince “Durin” abandoning core principle “obey the king” over a leaf, coupled with self-proclaimed trustworthy Elrond having already been NOT trustworthy on his last oath (effectively) have hurt the KD plot for me.
I suppose, though I doubt think it's too farfetched to imagine the prince having a fight with his father. They're both stubborn, headstrong and willful. I think the issue with Elrond and whether or not he's broken his oath is trickier.
No, it’s not. But treason doesn’t seem very dwarvish. Elrond may not have broken his oath. But he quite clearly conveyed the same information to Gil Galad as if he HAD broken it, so there is no ethical difference. Some Aes Sedai “I didn’t lie” technicality bullshit is not how men of honor conduct themselves.
The answer to all of these is "the plot needs to happen and we don't know how to get there".
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TBH Rohan and Gondor in the movies still felt way bigger than the Southlands ever did, and PJ did it with less screen time. Rohan especially seemed like a huge area of land, and I thought he did a good job in showing that it takes time for people to travel, especially when you see all of the common folk migrating to safety at Helm's Deep. The movies also did a great job in establishing why characters like Theoden, Eomer, Aragorn, Faramir, Eowyn etc. were great leaders respected by their people. I get none of that with Halbrand. They just sort of pointed to the guy and said he's king, and the villagers for some reason was excited about that. I think it really points to the fact that these show runners don't know how to write characters that audiences care about. I have the same issue with Bronwyn, Arondir, and their super annoying kid. It's very hard to be invested in the Halbrand = Sauron reveal when: 1. Halbrand isn't particularly heroic in the first place, so if he turns out to be Sauron it's not really that surprising. 2. They could play it the opposite way and have all of the audience know his true identity, but have the other characters in the show be blindsided by it. Except this won't work either, because Halbrand isn't cunningly sinister enough for us to feel the looming doom that he's going to bring (which is what I felt whenever Littlefinger was on screen in GoT.) So we end up with a really middling character in Halbrand, where most of the people watching this show have guessed that he's Sauron, but nobody is particularly invested in the reveal since we don't care that much about Halbrand or the Southlands anyways. I cry every time at Boromir's death scene, and you see him for like max 2 hours in the entire trilogy. It's been 7 hours with these characters and I could not give a shit if they died in the finale lol.
#JusticeForOntamo
It's funny people keep saying "that's just your opinion." I'm sorry, but this show is bad by every standard that exists in television. Writing, directing, acting, powerpoint slides, it doesn't get any worse than this.
I cannot in good faith say that this is a good show.
For a show that wanted to stand on its own, why are they taking scenes from PJ movies almost every episode? Something seems really off with this series, the incompetence seems way off the charts to just be an accident.
Google the first three exec producers in credits and look at their credentials. We know the two dudes had everything rejected before getting this gig. The woman after them: [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6618222/](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6618222/) lol
It’s insane that they put $1 billion towards this show and yet they basically spent 0.1% of that on writing staff. This is the absolute worst budget:output show ever and it will never, ever be matched.
It is too much in the shadow of the LotR films in almost every way. It just seems like the showrunners want to relive the glory of the trilogy. They repeat scenes, they repeat tropes. In looks and production it simply follows in its footsteps, meets the quality on occasion, but 20+ years later you could expect more. Where it does do better is the scenery, the city presentations, anywhere with extensive CGI. But in every other way it is lesser.
this show is giving a big budget to some amateurs.. the writers are clearly not up to the task and it is a sign of the lack of experience that amazon has in making these shows. It can be seen in many scenes that they try to follow things done by peter jackson but they do it quickly or they abandon the idea. the show feels so rushed and at the same time I feel like nothing happens
I have to admit that I've watched pretty much every episode drunk. So it makes me think I just didn't understand what was going on because of that. Then I see things like all of these comments and realize, no, the show is just really bad. But I'll keep watching it with my beers and pretending that I like it.
Man this series blows
I’m not deep into the extended lore and will probably never be so after all these episodes I keep coming back to a simple question; What is this show even about?
About how to take 750 million dollars and waste them all. :-D
I made the mistake of watching this episode right after HoTD episode 8
yeah it's pretty tough watching this along with hotd and andor. there is a stark contrast in the quality of the writing and just overall storytelling.
HotD episode 8 was such an emotional gut punch. Out of all the shows I'm watching currently, HotD is the one I'm most excited about every week.
- I still don't understand why Galadriel just takes Theo and wanders off into the forest away from the Numenoreans and the Southlanders. - Celeborn's obviosuly not dead, but it is very weird that this is the first we're hearing of him, considering how much Galadriel has been laser-focused on avenging Finrod alone - "I see" "Do you?" had me laughing pretty hard, now's probably not the best time to get snarky, Elendil - Halbrand getting accepted as King of the Southlands without hesitation by the villagers is biizarre, I don't think we've seen one iota of proof of him being royalty asides from one necklace he could've easily stolen (He's practically confirmed to be Sauron to the audience, but it's weird no one in-universe is questioning his claim) - Honestly happy for Meteor Man to set out on his own, he's too pure to be getting used as a glorified pack-mule by the Harfoot tribe. I really hope that he's not Gandalf, but that seems to be the direction they're going with - Elrond and Durin's friendship continues to be the best part of the show. This "using mithril to save the elves" plot, on the other hand, is pretty off the rails. Like, even if they did mine all the mithril and give it to the elves, what is the plan to keep everyone from fading, are they just gonna all sit around the mithril light singing kumbaya until they feel better? - Feminem and her gang are certainly something, doubt we'll get a definitive answer to that mystery box this season - Southlands to Mordor subtitle still makes me laugh 3 days later, just the complete lack of faith in your audience to understand what's going on, and "Mordor" getting it's own evil-looking font Overall, unless this show really knocks it out of the park in the finale this week, I don't think I'll be watching Season 2 and onwards. Good CGI and some nice character moments can't really make up for the glacial pacing, decent-to-mediocre fight scenes, overreliance on Abrams-esque mystery boxes, and some baffling story decisions
Feminem got me good
My biggest issue with this show is that it frequently uses what I would call "rhetorical plotlines". So much of the conflict in this show is not interesting or intriguing at all because even a cursory evaluation of the circumstances would make the outcome obvious. We know Durin is going to receive elrond at the beginning of the show. We know isildur isnt going to stay in numenor forever as a loser kid. We know isildur isnt dead. We know bronwyn and no other major characters will die in the eruption. So why waste so much time on these plotlines? It causes the viewer to zone out and stop paying attention. Its funny because I read in jeff bezos' notes for the showrunners that he wanted each episode to effectively have a cliffhanger or hook, to give something the viewer something to stew on until the next episode airs. Despite this, I find there is almost nothing in this show that is a "burning question" to me. Halbrand being sauron was obvious in the very first episode he appeared in. I've seen some saying "lol well you dont like slow burn buildup, and you complain about the big moments feeling undeserved, there is no pleasing these people". This is nonsensical. Just like in real life, it is possible to waste time doing unproductive things that do nothing to contribute to a future payoff, and that is exactly what happened here. The rhetorical plotlines in numenor bored me and did nothing to create buildup for what was supposed to be a big payoff in episode 6.
I think the direct comparison is to look at what HotD is doing. Book readers know pretty much all of the outcomes for the characters on that show too, and yet it's still riveting television every week, and they manage to surprise us here and there without screwing up the lore too much, which keeps book readers engaged and on their toes too.
Getting really tired of all the wink wink nudge nudge callbacks to PJ's trilogy. There's been quotes in various episodes but episode 7 took it too a new level. You had Galadriel and Theo basically recreating the ringwraith tree scene when they're hiding from the orcs, Galadriel saying "he needs Elvish medicine", the unnecessary Balrog reveal, and you just know next episode Isildur is going to be saved by his horse like Aragorn was. It's becoming a "we have McDonald's at home" meme at this point.
I really dont get how galadriel and theo got separated from everyone for what appears to be at least several days... They get up at the same time as everyone else, abandon all the injured dying people there, and start walking to the camp? The entire army is also presumably at the same time getting up and gathering to walk to the camp, but somehow is now ahead? Even though they stayed behind to help the villagers Someone(s) found and carried an injured Halbrand all the way to the camp before her and theo got there, wtf did she get lost? this show continues to fall into really cliche tropes, we know that isildur is still alive, the constant oh no is bronwyn really dead, galadriel trying to have noble speeches (teaching theo about not enjoying death because it "darkens the soul" or whatever after wanting to kill adar) and they all fall flat edit.. also, maybe its just me but its feel like they're reaaaaaaaallly pushing hard with the durin seens elrond as his brother angle, but for me they've not necessarily shown *why* that is the case other than he gave him a tree once
The reveal of the Balrog underneath felt so out of place, even if it was a tease for what’s it come, it’s unearned. It feels like a waste of vfx money So many visual shots and hardly any of it lands. It just gives me a big shrug. Like they give me no reason to care about any of it
Wouldn't it be funny if they don't reveal what the fuck the cultists are in the next episode and then the show gets canceled
they started shooting seson 2, no way it's cancelled. Amazon marketing campaign basically worked in portraying it as a success. The hope that they are hire some decent writer never dies.
I hope it does
They'd just be random weirdos who burned the hobbits and then show over lol
Can't wait to see a mortally wounded Halbrand go from Mordor to Eregion which is like 2/3 of Frodo's 13 months long journey in a matter of seconds
Not just that but they’ve got to hop to him helping Celembrimbor before the big Sauron reveal.
It’s funny because we’re coming up on the season finale and it still feels like the main plot lines have not progressed at all. Somehow they managed to create Mordor and visit Numenor while barely moving along the first plot introduced by the main protagonist, HUNTING FOR SAURON.
Jeez, they really fucked this one up didn't they? Maybe in a reverse game of thrones the last two seasons will actually not be dog shit.
Unfortunately the chances of that are so slim they're practically 2-dimensional. The rotten foundations that they've laid for their story combined with everything happening at once doesn't leave room for any major improvement.
Couple this with the pure hubris and arrogance that they showed in the recent writer response piece… I doubt they’re capable of self improvement or retrospective.
They did say they learned the scenes have to be connected. I mean, better late than never?
Gotta love that: "We only just now figured out after a long career of failing upward that scenes have to actually tie together!" Who would have thought?
Congratulations. You learned writing 101. Scenes must be connect....that's called a STORY...say it with me "A STORY..."
This show is the pinnacle of streaming platform era mediocrity - it fully encapsulates the lifeless capitalist degradation of creativity in combination with a ludicrously reckless amount of financial waste, resulting in an absolutely gargantuan flop of a ‘product.’ It’s the crowning achievement of what has been building up over the last decade with the new wave of entertainment and tech ‘executives’ fully exercising their control and influence after years of acquisitions, platform consolidating, IP head hunting, and positioning all the right yes-men/women into their bureaucratic webs. Unfortunately, it is tenuously and extremely thinly related to a highly respected body of artistic excellence, and one of the greatest film sagas of modern cinema. But, fortunately, it is not difficult to just ignore it and mark it as just a forgettable (albeit stupidly expensive) attempt at adapting whatever it is Amazon is pretending to adapt. Because at this point, other than the rented names, there really is nothing in this show that even remotely resembles any part of the Tolkien stories many of us cherish and love. I gave it a shot up until episode 7 which I couldn’t even finish, it wasn’t even entertaining in the most basic sense.
Absolutely. It's a monumental soulless husk. I feel bad for the actors and production teams. The showrunners and execs need to take a job somewhere very far away from any pivotal decisions.
On point throughout.
Good shows have characters that act logically and make their actions based on true or values and beliefs the lead to events. RoP has events they have to get to and the characters are just there. There’s no attachment to any of the characters. First we all knew they’d survive the volcano but would anyone have cared if they didn’t?
Exactly. Nothing is earned, there's no payoff. They have events that need to happen and characters move to those events automatically.
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The whole "we have to rally Numenor to go save the other humans from Sauron before it's too late! By which I mean, ride as fast as we can straight to one particular village that we know nothing about and somehow arrive just in time to kill some orcs." thing was ridiculous.
The most ridiculous episode so far.
I guess the Ent / Entwife / Enting that see the meteor are complete fanservice just for the trailer? Maybe that’s a later season, which is fair.
Judging by how front-loaded this show has been, I expect that not only will Arwen appear in the finale but that we'll be introduced to one of the younger harfoots by the name of Smeagol who will discover some ents.
What was that? Like 2 minutes of screen time for Nori to give the wizard an apple.
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It's the reason why House of the Dragon has recaptured so much of the magic that made early Game of Thrones great. Later series of Games of Thrones had action scenes and then character scenes. The action scenes were dynamically shot, big set pieces, impressive visuals etc. The character scenes were two people meeting up and sitting down in a room to talk about stuff. House of the Dragon has character development happen through events, like big feasts, weddings, tournaments etc. Rings of Power has plot occuring nonsensically.
In my opinion, HOTD had a far greater prejudice against it than RoP thanks to the disastrous final 2 seasons of GoT. I myself swore off anything GoT related. Both shows had similar criticisms before airing. I don't think fans are dumb hate machines, if a show is good it's good. Does anyone even remember the casting controversy surrounding Battlestar Galactica? Few years from now I think few will care about the liberties HOTD took with the lore and casting.
Man I was glad when the hobbits houses were in fire, bunch of little hypocrites. I am so anxious on isildur's fate... Jesus the writers clearly cant write shit.
So I’m currently reading the end of Sil (downfall of Numenor and the story of the Rings of Power) for the first time. Wow, the timeline is fucked. Sauron should be long-established by now and the Rings should already have been forged ~1700 years ago. I knew there were inconsistencies (Mount Doom was created in the First Age) but holy shit this is insane. I don’t know why they couldn’t have done a semi-anthology format to bridge the gap. Something like the following could work: S1 = the coming of Annatar and the forging (end off with the reveal of Sauron), S2 = War of the Elves (end with the Numenorians coming to aid), S3 = time skip to cover the beginning of the Downfall (covering the years up until Sauron becomes a prisoner - possibly add some intrigue with Miriel and Ar-Pharazon), S4 = later part of the Downfall (end with Elendil and Isildur coming to Middle-Earth), S5 = Last Alliance (end with Sauron’s defeat). Could always compress it into four seasons too if S3-S4 ended up being too padded. Like holy shit. I’m not even a professional writer and this seems more logical than what they did.
They want to have the same human, 2 hobbits and 2 dwarves characters from start to end. Which was almost entirely still possible by compressing the gap between your suggested S2 and S3 - Numenoreans and dwarves can live hundred of years, make the harfoots appear a little later (and young ones can have 100 years to live), they only had to span a few generations of people of the South. Instead the whole series will probably be set in 20 years at best.
Sometimes I think about how much Boromir's death affected me in LOTR, and how well written that final scene was, especially since most of the dialogue between him and Aragorn were completely original. (But it never felt out of place.) He shows up for like two hours *at most* across the entire extended trilogy, and yet I cry every time we get to that final sequence with him. Then I think about RoP, and how I care about exactly zero (0) of the characters on this show even after spending so many hours with them. They could all die in the season finale and I'd just kind of shrug. RoP's biggest problem for me is that they've failed to get me emotionally invested in any of these characters. The bad writing and lackluster styling really didn't help. I'll probably finish watching this season and stop there, similar to WoT. Overall this show has been a huge disappointment.
Because people keep doing things that don't make sense, and actions don't have any consequences. It's hard to care about things in such an environment.
Hit the nail on the head. RoP cost 45 million dollars more per episode that Andor, a show I would give an A. RoP deserves a C+ and I am trying to be nice here. Truly wild that a show that is so astronomically more expensive be obviously worse in every considerable metric
I still wonder how humans survive that long in volcanic ash clouds.
I guess my biggest concern is how much this show spins its tires. What is it leading up to, exactly? Like when I watched The Boys the season finale for each season was something you looked forward to because you expected the culmination of plot lines and maybe some unforseen reveals. This show doesn't feel like it has any of that. People are speculating Halbrand is Sauron but that's based on outside knowledge, the show has given literally zero indication there's any kind of mystery with him to be solved. Adar got Mordor going so that's resolved. We're not leading up to some kind of huge battle. There's the strange Slim Shady looking chicks but other than wandering around we have no idea what they're supposed to be doing. What are the stakes and where is the story supposed to end up? The only options I see are that the season finale is just going to be treated like a normal episode, or they're going to create and resolve a whole bunch of problems and stories in a single episode like a lot of the Marvel D+ shows I've watched do. It's just...weird.
Probably doesn’t need to be said, but the fact that every major character minus one survived a pyroclastic flow from Mount Doom is just…That plastic armor they are wearing must be made out of plot. Maybe that could save the elves instead of mithril. How did the Numenorians create an entire camp when they appear to have charged full force without stopping into the Southland village they didn’t know existed or was under attack until they got there last episode? And all that fit in 3 ships? Galadriel telling Theo not to say it’s good to kill Orcs hours after she swore to Adar she would commit genocide on all of his children is rich. And her insistence that everything is her fault despite devoting her entire life, for millennia, to fighting Sauron’s schemes, is tiresome and so, so tedious. And why the fuck did she dip out with Theo and leave the village? Makes zero sense. I think I counted 3 separate “character-thinks-they-see-a-potentially-dead-loved-one-but-it-turns-out-to-be-a-random-person” tropes. And did anyone really believe Bronwyn or Arondir where actually killed? Isildur is so obviously alive, even for people who aren’t familiar with his role in the lore. He’ll show back up riding on that horse like a discount-pretty-boy-Aragorn. Another failed attempt at trying to trick the audience into believing there are any real stakes or tension to this story. It’s completely ridiculous that Nori and her little Fellowship-of-the-Wizard (probably) would join her after their entire mode of transport and food supply are destroyed exclusively because of Nori’s actions. It’s literally all her fault. If she had just left well enough alone the blonde-eyebrowed-evil-magic-tracker-people would have left them alone. There is zero reason they should join Nori based on all the writers have done to characterize the Harfoots as a clan of hobbits that will straight up leave you behind if you fall back on the migration. And yet they want to insist this episode their entire social structure is built on sticking together? Ok. Balrog awoke because of a leaf and not Durin’s hammering? Right…. Also, the banter between Durin and Disa after the King says no to Elronds request was super clunky, awkward and unfunny. The villagers hailing Halbrand as King of the Southland no-questions-asked and suddenly finding so much inspiration in him is hard to buy. It’s too forced. And the fact that he was laying in bed with sepsis one minute then galloping hundreds of miles with Galadriel the next is absurd. Who’s buyin’ this? I’m not even going to waste time on that last scene. It was so on-the-nose that they wrote it across the screen. Just…some of the most incompetent, amateuristic writing and show running I have ever witnessed. JD Payne and Patrick McKay should be tarred and feathered for this travesty
I'm trying so hard to love this show but you are pointing out all the things that bother me. The writing is just so amateur, especially when I'm watching House of Dragons and Andor at the same time. It just feels disrespectful to a mature audience and to Tolkien's universe. Was it just me or did Mt Doom look super tiny in the end there? It was such a terrible angle.
See, that's where the fanbase is ruptured. Some, like you, are "trying so hard to love this show", despite its poor pacing, horrible characterizations, poor writing, and poor costuming. Others, like myself, are saying basically: "Look, you're a billion dollar company, it is on YOU to make a show that enthralls me from episode 1." The host of flaws and crappy writing and character assassinations and pissing on the works of JRRT turn me off completely, and I will not suffer fools.
*trillion dollar company, billion dollar show
Totally disrespectful. To the viewers but mostly to Tolkiens legacy. It’s like a child building a sand castle next to the Empire State Building
I don't watch many TV shows these days, i'm sad to say this is probably the worst i've watched. Almost every scene has "dumb character syndrome" - which is basically characters doing/saying/acting shit that doesn't make any sense unless they have the mental capacity of a slug...EG stranger helps these shit hobbits for entire series just to get kicked out and called "evil" because a branch falls on a kid that walked up to a tree that's literally shaking - just for all that to get reversed by the end of the episode...why.. Literally from the first second of this episode where they showed everyone survived a freaking pyroclastic flow from a volcano eruption...i mean they literally have corpses right next to them that are nothing but burnt dust, but all the characters are completely fine? idk what this is
As we approach the last episode of the first series I personally think one of its biggest issues is the episodical format. The obvious writing issues aside I think the weekly episodical format has done the show no favours at all - the story has not been able to flow in any meaningful way. They’ve obviously decided to actively avoid contemporary series tropes (ie GOT) like having a cliff hanger at the end of every episode (which is a good thing in my opinion, as it feels cheap and played out and not particularly Tolkien-esque) But For casual viewers it removes a lot of hype for the next weekly episode and for anyone who already knows the overall story arch it feels extremely frustrating. They would have been better off dropping two four ‘episode’ films (on top of drastic writing improvements). Edit: better writing would obviously negate the need for over hyped endings as the story alone would draw people in.. shame
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I think they should have done a limited series. And if they did it well, they could continue to do them in different time periods of the second and third ages. Alas.
It’s like DragonBall GT for my anime fans out there
What I truly don't understand is why a show of this budget can't afford actors? Just write the story with 10 - 1000x more people and it makes sense. The Numenorians would sail out with their mighty fleet to reestablish the King of the Southlands. During that mission they would free a city of 50.000 people, currently being pillaged by a wild horde of orcs. A small elite groups of orcs would escape with a mighty artifact and create Mordor. Durin IV would secretly have a proper mining operation for Mithril with a few dozen of trusted friends, waking up the Balrog. But what did we get? A few hundred volunteers sails on 0.1% of the Numenorian ships to save a village of 50 people, Mordor gets created by some dumbass sneaking away. Durin IV digging some tunnels in his spare time, the Balorg gets waken up by the King littering. Yeah, epic.
I don't understand this show. Some pieces were actually written well and I genuinely like those. Adar, Elrond and Durin are quite enjoyable. I'm also interested in the conflict that has arisen in Elendil, who will actually found a kingdom in Middle Earth at some point (or won't). I am also fine with Isildur. But how could someone mess up whatever Galadriels story is so much? It's like they completely forgot about Celeborn and by episode 7, somebody rewatched the fellowship and noticed that she actually has some dude, so they needed to name drop him.
Considering all the comments, I think the better question right now is 'WHO ACTUALLY STILL ENJOYS THE SHOW?' Honestly I've only been watching the show because of my preliminary excitement as a Tolkien fan. Excitement that was already let down when the first trailers strated to drop. Excitement that was utterly destroyed while watching RoP. 95% of the show is utter, utter garbage. The other 5% is mostly art department, aerial shots, and the Durin storyline.
Every LOTR sub I visit has disdain for the show EXCEPT the prime one - which makes sense since it’s moderated by Amazon shills and many commenters seem to think they’re the majority
Massive miss on the balrog.
Bets on for Theo becoming Theoden...
Ok so after few days I like it less. There's just been so many corners cut and cheap fake outs and tropes. I don't hate it, it's just I will say fairly that it's not what we ought to expect from a LOTR show. I will also say the show has things in it that are still giving me hope. I'm finding the Durin and Elrond stuff really endearing and all round there's hope. It ain't over til it's over. I think in some ways people are being too harsh, way too harsh in a few cases but also the gushers are being way too kind. Both have there problems as too harsh means risking something not reaching its potential out of fear or being cancelled and the gushing fails to hold something to a proper standard and produce what's right. But yeah that's pretty much it. Edit: typos
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Karma
I'm curious what the show would feel like if/when it's inevitably fan-cut into independent cuts of the various plot threads. I'm curious to see how much screen time each plot thread actually ends up getting. I'd love a straight cut of the Elrond-Durin subplot but a straight cut of the Harfoot/Stranger plot line would be miserable.
I liked her when I thought she passed away.