The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power - Amazon Prime

[billfromlaketravis 11467]

Episode 3 this Friday? 

[atomheartbevo 89659]

1 hour ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Episode 3 this Friday? 

Thursday.

 

[Hozz 1017]

So I read a ton of negative stuff from very butt hurt Tolkien purists and was expecting to not like this.  Not that I am a Tolkien purist but I do prefer adaptations to stay faithful to source material.  I watched both of them back to back this afternoon and probably would have gone another two rounds if they had four episodes out.

The pacing was great, it never felt slow to me and in fact the time flew by.  The sets and CGI are top notch.  I thought they laid on the girl power a little too thick especially the Galadriel ninja vs troll scene and it was not super believable that the village healer and her bastard son could take an orc down.

I thought the casting was pretty solid for the most part.  The male elves annoyed me, Elrond and his buddy look too similar and they just walk across the continent to show up at a dwarf door?  No mounts, no party, just two dudes with what they have in their pockets taking in the countryside.

I was very worried there were going to be some Witcher or worse, Wheel of Time, level diversity hires that took away from the show, but there weren't.  

The dwarf wife was the only real casting miss IMO and after the initial 'what' from seeing her, she held her own in the scene IMO.

[ztejas 43425]

2 minutes ago, Hozz said:

So I read a ton of negative stuff from very butt hurt Tolkien purists and was expecting to not like this.  Not that I am a Tolkien purist but I do prefer adaptations to stay faithful to source material.  I watched both of them back to back this afternoon and probably would have gone another two rounds if they had four episodes out.

The pacing was great, it never felt slow to me and in fact the time flew by.  The sets and CGI are top notch.  I thought they laid on the girl power a little too thick especially the Galadriel ninja vs troll scene and it was not super believable that the village healer and her bastard son could take an orc down.

I thought the casting was pretty solid for the most part.  The male elves annoyed me, Elrond and his buddy look too similar and they just walk across the continent to show up at a dwarf door?  No mounts, no party, just two dudes with what they have in their pockets taking in the countryside.

I was very worried there were going to be some Witcher or worse, Wheel of Time, level diversity hires that took away from the show, but there weren't.  

The dwarf wife was the only real casting miss IMO and after the initial 'what' from seeing her, she held her own in the scene IMO.

Agree with most of this. Elrond and the smith just waltzing over there seemed a little silly. 

Killing the troll seemed a liiiiittle too easy for Galadriel but it has nothing to do with her being a woman. I get she's supposed to be a badass but she made it look like chopping an onion - can't really remember anything as over the top from LOTR (even the crazy Legolas stuff they made seem more strenuous and/or dangerous). Guess they needed Galadriel in Moria when a similar troll almost fucked up the entire party that included fucking Aragorn and Gandalf. (nerd rant over)

Canonically - hobbits are pretty good at fighting orcs so I didn't think it was all that wild that the mom and son came out on top (and he especially got roughed up pretty good). I feel like he's a little badass in the making - and I'm assuming his dad is the elf guard so he's got some nice genes. 

The affirmative action casting or whatever you want to call it didn't really bother me at all and isn't distracting AFAIC. I did maybe half roll my eyes at Durin's wife being "black" (whatever you want to call it - it seems like they're going for a kind of racially ambiguous fantasy universe) but like you said she's a good actress and character. 

I only even bring it up because the "why aren't there black people in LOTR?" issue is fucking stupid and was hoping they wouldn't go overboard with it. It seems like they dialed it in pretty perfectly. 

And like I said in my first post - none of this is really worth nitpicking. It's just fun to do sometimes 😁

[Pato del Muerto 52494]

So watched and enjoyed the episodes. Is this story all based on writing?  A new story?  Mix of both?  Don’t know yet?

[atomheartbevo 89659]

20 minutes ago, Hozz said:

Not that I am a Tolkien purist but I do prefer adaptations to stay faithful to source material.

There wasn’t much source material that hasn’t already been seen in the movies - it comes down to the LOTR books and their appendices and The Hobbit. Most of the bitching concerns characters and subplots created for the series, but either the show runners invent those characters and subplots so we get 50 hours of shows, or we get maybe a dozen hours of disjointed stories and segments from the appendices

I think that the people claiming to be upset, would still be upset even if they had the rights to the Similarian and all of his (originally) unpublished works and made faithful adaptions of them.   I looked through the channels of a few of the hardcore types who were upset, and they were upset with the original teaser and have not been happy since.

[Hozz 1017]

7 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

There wasn’t much source material that hasn’t already been seen in the movies - it comes down to the LOTR books and their appendices and The Hobbit. Most of the bitching concerns characters and subplots created for the series, but either the show runners invent those characters and subplots so we get 50 hours of shows, or we get maybe a dozen hours of disjointed stories and segments from the appendices

I think that the people claiming to be upset, would still be upset even if they had the rights to the Similarian and all of his (originally) unpublished works and made faithful adaptions of them.   I looked through the channels of a few of the hardcore types who were upset, and they were upset with the original teaser and have not been happy since.

The people upset seem REALLY fucking upset and there must be a fuck ton of them out there.  The RT audience score is like 39 and Amazon has the reviews blacked out for this on their site.  You can leave one but the show page shows 0 reviews and no score.

[kevwun 15784]

Remember Legolas taking down the war elephant?  He made that look pretty easy.

[atomheartbevo 89659]

19 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

So watched and enjoyed the episodes. Is this story all based on writing?  A new story?  Mix of both?  Don’t know yet?

A mix of both.  Amazon only has the rights to the LOTR books, their appendices (basically some historical stuff Tolkien provided for context and I’m oversimplifying) and The Hobbit book.   Some stuff in the appendices are also in his other works, but the show runners are only able to talk about things if they are in those four books or the appendices.  They can mention a character that’s in those appendices for instance, but if in The Unfinished Tales, that character does a certain thing or marries a certain person that’s not in the appendices, they cannot mention that thing or that person.

Basically, they are not allowed to touch characters/stories that are only mentioned in Tolkien’s other works (Similarian, Unfinished Tales, etc.).  

Look at this list, and anything that isn’t in The Hobbit or the LOTR Books, cannot be used:

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Legendarium

Ironically, the rights for some of the other books/etc. recently came up for sale, and Amazon didn’t bother (they are already into season two anyways).

[ztejas 43425]

1 minute ago, kevwun said:

Remember Legolas taking down the war elephant?  He made that look pretty easy.

Yeah that's the best example but by that time his prowess had been thoroughly established and like I said it still felt more strenuous/challenging. He had to climb up the side of it - fight off some guys on top - cut the rope - use it to get himself a top then finally shoot it in the back of the head. They made it seem like a feat and a half. And that was like maybe the most badass takedown in a 10 hour film series and it was in the third film. Not the first glimpse of a character in combat halfway into the first episode of a show where the takeaway is "oh yeah just another ice troll, yawn".

It's not a big deal if she's consistently that incredible - but you can set yourself up for some weird moments later on where if you're trying to show a moment of vulnerability or struggle it could be less believable. It's the reason why it's really difficult to make a good Superman movie. 

 

[ztejas 43425]

And I'm not hating on it - I thought it was badass hahaha. Just like I thought the Legolas scene(s) was badass. It doesn't have to affect my enjoyment of the show for me to admit it was maybe a little silly.

The main issue is if you're wanting to keep it consistent with the LOTR film cannon. And I think they're entitled to do their own thing, so if things don't line up 100% all the time then it isn't a big deal. 

Edited September 5, 2022 by ztejas

[Michael Knight 12977]

7 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

A mix of both.  Amazon only has the rights to the LOTR books, their appendices (basically some historical stuff Tolkien provided for context and I’m oversimplifying) and The Hobbit book.   Some stuff in the appendices are also in his other works, but the show runners are only able to talk about things if they are in those four books or the appendices.  They can mention a character that’s in those appendices for instance, but if in The Unfinished Tales, that character does a certain thing or marries a certain person that’s not in the appendices, they cannot mention that thing or that person.

Basically, they are not allowed to touch characters/stories that are only mentioned in Tolkien’s other works (Similarian, Unfinished Tales, etc.).  

Look at this list, and anything that isn’t in The Hobbit or the LOTR Books, cannot be used:

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Legendarium

Ironically, the rights for some of the other books/etc. recently came up for sale, and Amazon didn’t bother (they are already into season two anyways).

The Tolkien nerd in me got a little annoyed they just glossed over the 1st age, sure Finrod was killed by Sauron but there's way more backstory there. But I get they have constraints with story telling and rights to certain things so I got over it. If this show does well maybe we'll get an actual Silmarillion series, would also like to see a Turin show 

[atomheartbevo 89659]

16 minutes ago, Hozz said:

The people upset seem REALLY fucking upset and there must be a fuck ton of them out there.  The RT audience score is like 39 and Amazon has the reviews blacked out for this on their site.  You can leave one but the show page shows 0 reviews and no score.

From reading social media and Reddit, I feel like it’s mostly a small group of racists trying to fuck with things, based on the language they are using.  Some of them are also pissed that Galadriel is swinging a sword, even though Tolkien literally described her in her younger years as an Amazonian and a warrior and a leader.  They can only picture Cate Blanchett’s version of a wise and stately elf.

There are some Tolkien purists as well, who are maybe pissed about the Hobbit movies, and pissed that they aren’t doing The Similarian and some of the other stuff, or pissed that Jackson isn’t in charge of this.

36 minutes ago, ztejas said:

Canonically - hobbits are pretty good at fighting orcs so I didn't think it was all that wild that the mom and son came out on top (and he especially got roughed up pretty good). I feel like he's a little badass in the making - and I'm assuming his dad is the elf guard so he's got some nice genes. 

I’ve wondered about his father and the connection to the broken sword he has.  But yeah, they had a helluva time dispatching that orc.

36 minutes ago, ztejas said:

I only even bring it up because the "why aren't there black people in LOTR?" issue is fucking stupid and was hoping they wouldn't go overboard with it. It seems like they dialed it in pretty perfectly. 

1234.   I don’t think they changed the races of any of the pre-existing main characters, and unless I missed a pre-existing minor character, I don’t think they changed any of them either.  I think the only black characters are ones that were made up for the Amazon series, so there really isn’t any reason for all of the fucking angst over black people being in the show.  It’s fucking stupid and annoying.

[atomheartbevo 89659]

1 minute ago, Michael Knight said:

The Tolkien nerd in me got a little annoyed they just glossed over the 1st age, sure Finrod was killed by Sauron but there's way more backstory there. But I get they have constraints with story telling and rights to certain things so I got over it. If this show does well maybe we'll get an actual Silmarillion series, would also like to see a Turin show 

Yeah, and I’m annoyed that they didn’t mention that Galadriel actually lost three brothers to Sauron since that provides even more motivation, but somebody said those brothers were not mentioned in the material they have access to, so I dunno.

I’m kind of pissed that Amazon didn’t scoop up the rights for the other stuff when they came up last month (a video game company spent a few hundred million acquiring them).

This whole thing is extremely reminiscent of the Marvel Comics/MCU thing with Sony having Spider-Man and Fox having X-Men and Fantastic Four, and Universal having Hulk.

[ztejas 43425]

6 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I’ve wondered about his father and the connection to the broken sword he has.  But yeah, they had a helluva time dispatching that orc.

It may be a red herring because it seems a little too obvious for it to be his kid. Maybe Emperor Palpatine impregnated her using the force. 

Then again... it seems a little too obvious for the stranger to be Gandalf but I think that's where they're taking it. 

[atomheartbevo 89659]

2 minutes ago, ztejas said:

It may be a red herring because it seems a little too obvious for it to be his kid. Maybe Emperor Palpatine impregnated her using the force. 

Then again... it seems a little too obvious for the stranger to be Gandalf but I think that's where they're taking it. 

Probably a red herring, and the kid is just a nobody, and the sword is what really matters.

I think it’s too early to bring in Gandalf, and I don’t think he’d be looking like that.    But it would explain Gandalf ‘s affinity for hobbits.  It just feels too on the nose, but I don’t know.

[Michael Knight 12977]

Gandalf came in a boat and it was clearly the 3rd age, he came last so maybe the others came in the 2nd age but I doubt it

[elfenix 34238]

2 minutes ago, Michael Knight said:

Gandalf came in a boat and it was clearly the 3rd age, he came last so maybe the others came in the 2nd age but I doubt it

[ztejas 43425]

7 minutes ago, Michael Knight said:

Gandalf came in a boat and it was clearly the 3rd age, he came last so maybe the others came in the 2nd age but I doubt it

Good point. Just did some wikiing. They all came well into the TA. So either they're messing with the timeline or it's some unrelated wizard-like character. 

[ztejas 43425]

Well hell guess I'm going to go to half price now and find a copy of the Silmarillion. 

[Buzzrock 14920]

Remember Legolas taking down the war elephant?  He made that look pretty easy.

Legolas’ increasing superhero powers was one of my gripes from those films. It took a room full of people to take down a cave troll and then he takes an olyphant solo no problem.

So far I like HOT D better than RoP. It’s just kinda boring and they introduced all the characters at once and I don’t know who anyone is or why they are important (with a couple exceptions). It does look amazing. I hope it gets better but for now it feels more like D&D than Tolkien.

[Buzzrock 14920]

Well hell guess I'm going to go to half price now and find a copy of the Silmarillion. 

It’s not an easy read. I never could finish it. But it’s very dense with Tolkien lore.

[ztejas 43425]

3 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

It’s not an easy read. I never could finish it. But it’s very dense with Tolkien lore.

Same. I haven't picked it up in 10-15 years. Maybe the piqued interest from the show will help. 

[Buzzrock 14920]

I actually really like searching for John Howe and Alan Lee’s artwork and then following that up with some wiki searches to get the basic info. I’ve always been fascinated by Ungloiant, Morgoth, and the rest of the Balrogs. There’s some great stuff that could be mined from there.

[F250 28772]

I wasn't really looking forward to this series and didn't have high expectations when I started watching yesterday evening but by the end of episode 1...

[Sandman 3403]

I watched Ep 1 and I thought it was boring as fuck. No hate on casting or any nerd shit, I just wasn't feeling it. I'm sad, FOTR is one of my top 5 films of all time and I wanted to love this. I don't have any desire to watch Ep 2. 

[Biff Tannen 45682]

40 minutes ago, Sandman said:

I watched Ep 1 and I thought it was boring as fuck. No hate on casting or any nerd shit, I just wasn't feeling it. I'm sad, FOTR is one of my top 5 films of all time and I wanted to love this. I don't have any desire to watch Ep 2. 

I think I may see the problem here.

[Dahobbs 17534]

I watched the first two episodes. I thought it was well done, with generally good pacing. I really don't understand the hate of this show at all. I'm not a huge Tolkien nerd, but I read the Hobbit and LOR series as a kid. Given that they are writing in a bit of blank space, what on earth could the issue be? The tone of the show feels Tolkien enough. The elves act like elves. The dwarves act like dwarves. We barely have the characters established at this point, so I don't know how someone could conclude they are shallow. There is mystery and suspense building with just a smidge of action. The acting is good. Are people really that upset that the primary protagonist is female and badass? Wasn't Galadriel established by Tolkien as one of the most powerful elves?   

[Dutchrudder 11139]

3 hours ago, Sandman said:

I watched Ep 1 and I thought it was boring as fuck. No hate on casting or any nerd shit, I just wasn't feeling it. I'm sad, FOTR is one of my top 5 films of all time and I wanted to love this. I don't have any desire to watch Ep 2. 

I also found the first episode kind of boring, but the second one was a lot better in comparison. I would recommend watching both before bailing.

[Pato del Muerto 52494]

Quick question- the hobbits appear to be presented as nomadic/migratory in this series. 
 

later on they are obviously not, as they live in the shire. Is this change something that is in Tolkien’s writing?

[HouTex 1867]

7 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Quick question- the hobbits appear to be presented as nomadic/migratory in this series. 
 

later on they are obviously not, as they live in the shire. Is this change something that is in Tolkien’s writing?

The Harfoot (sp?) are similar to hobbits but not exactly the same.  Just a guess but maybe they are hobbits’ ancestors.  

[Hate 20108]

Didn’t we hear the last name of the “hobbit” girl that finds the wizard and wasn’t it similar to one of Bilbo’s ancestors? Brandy something?

[Js1 85325]

15 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Quick question- the hobbits appear to be presented as nomadic/migratory in this series. 
 

later on they are obviously not, as they live in the shire. Is this change something that is in Tolkien’s writing?

'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power': How Harfoots Relate to Hobbits (newsweek.com)

[ztejas 43425]

3 minutes ago, Hate said:

Didn’t we hear the last name of the “hobbit” girl that finds the wizard and wasn’t it similar to one of Bilbo’s ancestors? Brandy something?

Yeah it was Hobbitesque but not the same as any of the names from LOTR. 

"Brandyfoot" so it's a portmanteau of a couple of the names from LOTR. 

Edited September 6, 2022 by ztejas

[The Original Greaser Bob 2831]

I was being bored yet again by one of the LOTR movies last night (wife watches all of them a few times a year, it seems) and I was thinking I wouldn't mind seeing a series of episodes that might concentrate on literate orcs and half orcs who are sort of like Comanches who develop some sort of ethical code and who terrorize all the other insufferable characters-types.

 

But I thought this series is well done, if a bit hard to follow.

[Biff Tannen 45682]

Yeah, I'm thinking the Harfoots are nomadic and will eventually put down roots in the Shire and become the Hobbits that we know in the 3rd Age.  No idea how that follows Tolkien canon.

[gyroprotagonist 2592]

yeah, fucking butthurt nerds can go and somehow get the rights to Tolkien's early stuff and write their own version.  I am very gruntled with the first 2 episodes.  I mean, what do people expect when they cannot lift the story to use?

[Neonmoon 38129]

38 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Yeah, I'm thinking the Harfoots are nomadic and will eventually put down roots in the Shire and become the Hobbits that we know in the 3rd Age.  No idea how that follows Tolkien canon.

[Buzzrock 14920]

I watched the first two episodes. I thought it was well done, with generally good pacing. I really don't understand the hate of this show at all. I'm not a huge Tolkien nerd, but I read the Hobbit and LOR series as a kid. Given that they are writing in a bit of blank space, what on earth could the issue be? The tone of the show feels Tolkien enough. The elves act like elves. The dwarves act like dwarves. We barely have the characters established at this point, so I don't know how someone could conclude they are shallow. There is mystery and suspense building with just a smidge of action. The acting is good. Are people really that upset that the primary protagonist is female and badass? Wasn't Galadriel established by Tolkien as one of the most powerful elves?   

Making her commander of the army apparently breaks canon, I don’t know, as I said I could never get through Silmarillion. I just think she comes across as a pill. Blanchett did a better job of capturing her warmth AND her power. Maybe she matures a bit in the next 3,000 years.

[alincoln 2371]

3 hours ago, HouTex said:

The Harfoot (sp?) are similar to hobbits but not exactly the same.  Just a guess but maybe they are hobbits’ ancestors.  

All Harfoots (Harfeet) are hobbits but not all hobbits are Harfoots.  The show's treatment of them isn't inconsistent with lore, although Tolkien barely addresses the existence of hobbits before the Third Age.  

[atomheartbevo 89659]

3 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Quick question- the hobbits appear to be presented as nomadic/migratory in this series. 

later on they are obviously not, as they live in the shire. Is this change something that is in Tolkien’s writing?

3 hours ago, HouTex said:

The Harfoot (sp?) are similar to hobbits but not exactly the same.  Just a guess but maybe they are hobbits’ ancestors.  

In responses to some discussions with Neil Gaiman about race (some trolls were claiming hobbits only tanned), somebody posted some relevant pages that mentioned Harfoots were somewhat well-traveled and even hung out with dwarves.  This could be setting up one of Bilbo’s/Frodo’s ancestors as being a wondering/wandering type, so of course Frodo and Bilbo would have that trait.  My guess is we won’t see the actual Shire either, but maybe the beginnings of it.

Edited September 6, 2022 by atomheartbevo

[atomheartbevo 89659]

2 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

No idea how that follows Tolkien canon.

2 hours ago, gyroprotagonist said:

I mean, what do people expect when they cannot lift the story to use?

I was looking for something that wasn’t  a two-hour deep dive to explain to my kid what they used, and this pretty much fits the bill - a short 8-minute video that touches on what they can and can’t use and what’s canon.  You can leave this running in the background and just listen.

She mentions they even ran with some plot points that were literally a single sentence in Tolkien’s work.

 This makes you wish they could have spent an episode on Finrod’s death, but they couldn’t for legal reasons.

Some  major potential spoilers

 

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by atomheartbevo

[alincoln 2371]

The Shire comes much later so it shouldn't featured in the show at all.

[Michael Knight 12977]

3 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Quick question- the hobbits appear to be presented as nomadic/migratory in this series. 
 

later on they are obviously not, as they live in the shire. Is this change something that is in Tolkien’s writing?

This is set about 6000 years before the Lord of the Rings and like 3000 years before Hobbits migrated west of the Misty Mountains

Edited September 6, 2022 by Michael Knight

[atomheartbevo 89659]

6 minutes ago, alincoln said:

The Shire comes much later so it shouldn't featured in the show at all.

It does, but we don’t know how long they will take the series through, and I could see them showing the beginnings of it later in the series out of sheer fan service.  Like some hobbit digging into a hillside, proclaiming this is their new home and wondering what they should name it.

I’m hoping they keep them mobile, like little gypsies.

Edited September 6, 2022 by atomheartbevo

[alincoln 2371]

1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

It does, but we don’t know how long they will take the series through, and I could see them showing the beginnings of it later in the series out of sheer fan service.  Like some hobbit digging into a hillside, proclaiming this is their new home and wondering what they should name it.

The hobbits didn't arrive there until over 1500 years into the Third Age

[atomheartbevo 89659]

10 minutes ago, alincoln said:

The hobbits didn't arrive there until over 1500 years into the Third Age

They have 42 more hours to fill after this season and a lot of gaps to fill in without referencing certain works and it feels like one of those things they’ll do with a nod and a wink.  We will probably get the Harfoots crossing the Misty Mountains out of fear of what’s going on.

Edit: I just think they are going to be jumping ahead a lot, based on what they do and do not have the rights to.

Edited September 6, 2022 by atomheartbevo

[Buzzrock 14920]

They literally can’t even use the word Hobbit is my understanding. They don’t have rights to it.

[Biff Tannen 45682]

1 hour ago, Buzzrock said:

They literally can’t even use the word Hobbit is my understanding. They don’t have rights to it.

They have the rights to the book.  So I would hope they can use the word.

[HouTex 1867]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

It does, but we don’t know how long they will take the series through, and I could see them showing the beginnings of it later in the series out of sheer fan service.  Like some hobbit digging into a hillside, proclaiming this is their new home and wondering what they should name it.

I’m hoping they keep them mobile, like little gypsies.

I’m hoping they can find a bath.