The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Prime Video)

[Velorath]

New Trailer up.

[Samwise]

I'm reminded of how obvious it was in the PJ movies when they were using Tolkien's dialogue vs when they wrote it themselves; every line in that trailer sounded like it was out of a CW fantasy show.  I'm sure there are still people around who can write dialogue for grown-ups (or intelligent children) but you'd never get any of their work past a focus group.

That obligatory griping aside, it looks pretty.

[Ashamanchill]

I'm reminded of how obvious it was in the PJ movies when they were using Tolkien's dialogue vs when they wrote it themselves; every line in that trailer sounded like it was out of a CW fantasy show.  I'm sure there are still people around who can write dialogue for grown-ups (or intelligent children) but you'd never get any of their work past a focus group.

That obligatory griping aside, it looks pretty.

Thank you for saying what I was thinking. This is increasingly, looking fun, but empty. That is just based of trailers of course. There could be intriguing things going on that marketing does deem worthy of showing, it's been known to happen. A lot of it is going to hinge on how they do Sauron for me. He really better not be these skinny ass Slim Shady look-a-likes, because that is going to be hard to take seriously.

And if the brother she is referencing is Finrod Felagund, I am going to cry my face off if they do that properly (he's my favourite Tolkien character).

[Trippy]

YT: An Introduction to The Rings of Power

A primer on the time period (the Second Age) covered by the show(s).

[Trippy]

Critics reviews have been, shall we say, "mixed". I didn't realize until reading some of them that the two Showrunners had no show running or producing experience and the only credits for them that show up in IMDB previous to this show are as uncredited writers on Star Trek Beyond. Not sure why Amazon entrusted a literal 1 BILLION DOLLARS* to these two guys but here we are. Not sure we're going to make it all the way to Season 5.


* ~$500 million to buy the rights and another  ~$500 million to produce the show

[Khaldun]

Yeah.

What worries me a bit in the reviews so far is that they say that basically no effort whatsoever to catch the sort of formality and cadence of Tolkien's dialogue or language has been made--that everybody just talks 21st Century English in a pretty normal way. I think that's missing a major beat. I don't pretend that it's easy to do when you don't have any of Tolkien's writing to work from--it could be easy to be ridiculously stilted, it would take some really talented writers to hit the mark just right. But fuck if you're going to spend a billion on making it look good, push out a bit of money for the word-smithing too, eh?

[Samwise]

I mean, it's to be expected.  But it's also the fundamental problem with trying to do a mass-market Tolkien adaptation on the screen -- the language is literally the entire point.  If you don't have the flowery language and the poetry and the songs and all that, what you're left with is a big-budget D&D: The Movie.

[Khaldun]

Pretty much, yeah. The language, the mood, the lore. I mean, that's the thing with the Second Age that they kind of have to understand--it's not quite living in the shadow of oh-fuck-everything-sucks-Men-will-rule-the-world. This is the *best time* in some ways in Middle-Earth's history. It's like 1962: material abundance, cool people are having a lot of sex that the squares haven't really gotten mad about yet, you can fly anywhere pretty cheaply and the flights are fucking fun, and so on. Melkor's out in the outer darkness, the elves and dwarves have built the coolest shit ever, there are no fucking Balrogs everywhere, there's Numenor before they get the Bad Ideas, and people are messing around with nuclear weapons ringlore before they know it's gonna blow up everything and that sexy nuclear engineer is actually Roy Cohn. There aren't ruins, really--sure, everybody knows the Beren and Luthien story and all that but most of what was built in the First Age isn't around as a ruin, it's fucking destroyed utterly and just a memory. All the shit that the Third Agers look at and say oh man back in the day that was amazing IS AMAZING.

[Velorath]

This shit is a mess.

[Setanta]

I fell asleep half-way through. It's just terrible. They just don't seem to understand the adage: Show, don't tell.

[Velorath]

They don’t actually have anything to show. There’s about 25 minutes of story so far padded out to 2 hours. Even the people making the show seem to understand how dull it is because they feel the need to shoehorn in Galadriel action sequences to each episode.

[Khaldun]

It's boring. They spent all the money on visuals (and just imitated Jackson's aesthetic: there wasn't an original visual idea in the whole thing except maybe Ice Station Darklord) and no money on screenwriting, plotting, etc.

They bought the rights to LOTR and decided to make Wheel of Time or some other generic fantasy. I think they didn't really grasp how awash we are now in films and TV shows that are based on somebody's D&D campaign or somebody's knock-off Tolkien books.

They had to do at least one of three things: get the 'sound' of Tolkien's world right; craft a visual aesthetic that was unfamiliar and not just Jackson Redux that was appropriate to the Second Age; understand the setting and create a grand and distinctive plotline and characterization plan. So far they done fucked up on all of that. It's just possible that they'll grow into #3 but #1 and #2 were "get it right at the start or you never will" goals.

[Velorath]

They had to do at least one of three things: get the 'sound' of Tolkien's world right; craft a visual aesthetic that was unfamiliar and not just Jackson Redux that was appropriate to the Second Age; understand the setting and create a grand and distinctive plotline and characterization plan. So far they done fucked up on all of that. It's just possible that they'll grow into #3 but #1 and #2 were "get it right at the start or you never will" goals.

You're coming at it from the perspective of someone who is a fan of the books, and they're targeting people who like the movies. I think #3 is the only thing they had to do. They just didn't.

[Ashamanchill]

They bought the rights to LOTR and decided to make Wheel of Time

My man, they couldn't even make Wheel of Time with the rights to Wheel of Time. Same issue too. A fresh show runner who doesn't care at all about the world his benefactor purchased for him.

[Samwise]

Hey, less than 30 years until LOTR is public domain and anyone can take a crack at it.  Decent CGI will be super cheap and within reach of indy filmmakers by then too.  There are bound to be a number of attempts by people who actually like the books, and although most of them will inevitably be bad, with any luck I'll live long enough to see the one that turns out to be watchable.

[Ashamanchill]

I had a discussion about something similar with my friends, that basically amounts to: What actually makes this Tolkien? What makes this part of his world? That Jeff Bezos decided to purchase this, and not just buying Malawi outright? I don't understand how this company can spend so much money on this, and WoT, but neglect to hire any actual writers to put even the shambling semblance of a soul into it.

[Khaldun]

Purchasing Malawi comes next. We're already on the cusp of it--Larry Ellison basically bought Lanai and it's pretty clear that anyone living there is living at his sufferance. I wonder how long it is before some zillionaire buys a country and then clears people out so he can do elaborate ARGs/LARPs there in the shadow of his Xanadu. Not long.

Anyway, this is a lot of money blown on something forgettable. It contributes to the sense that we live in a time of ennui: we have so much culture and it all makes the same dumb fucking mistakes. I guess it keeps some people employed, so good for that.

[MahrinSkel]

I'm gonna be contrary and say: I didn't hate it. It had pacing and character issues, but it wasn't bad. I think the Stranger is Radagast, who got very short shrift in LotR and The Hobbit. He's a Maiar, time he got some respect. He deserved better than some comic relief sight gags.

--Dave

[HaemishM]

Only watched the first episode and it's messy and about as subtle as a ton of bricks being dropped from a great height. Clearly the dude in the smoking crater is Radagast, the dude Elrond gets paired with is Sauron, and the elf ranger and hot healer woman made a baby half-elf. This is Peter Jackson LOTR fan fic cosplay.

[Ashamanchill]

Yeah this thing is a lifeless turd. The weird part is how shit the CGI was. Where did this 500 mil go?

[Threash]

Where did this 500 mil go?

The trailer.

[Khaldun]

The strangeness of paying that much for the appendices, when you really need the rights to the Silmarillion (or some qualified version thereof) to really get Galadriel and Elrond right.

The most grating bad decision so far is "mean elf kids in Valinor picking on Galadriel", which is just WTF if you're going to even lightly trespass into the narrative space of The Silmarillion.

[HaemishM]

The most grating bad decision so far is "mean elf kids in Valinor picking on Galadriel", which is just WTF if you're going to even lightly trespass into the narrative space of The Silmarillion.

That was such an incredibly bad scene. As was her dive off the boat - just really weird, stupid and unnecessary scenes.

[Khaldun]

I mean, have her dive off the boat just out of the harbor at the Havens. Works fine.

Could even have had a scene with Cirdan questioning her about whether she should go, since he's her actual contemporary, more or less. (He's older, actually? I think? And has a really different history.)

[Ashamanchill]

What's weird to me is how much little shit they dropped the ball on. Ok fine, you didn't the Galadriel in the books who stays in Doriath the whole time with her boyfriend Celeborn, and her best friend Melian, and from her "learned great lore and wisdom concerning Middle-earth". Ok, you wanted ton instead make Katniss Everdeen, doing sick kick flips to chop up ice trolls (I guess climate change hit Middle-earth as well, as they didn't make it to the Third Age). Alright, you don't have the rights to the Silmarillion, so instead of the complex and nuanced way the Noldor depart Valinor, you say they all hit the accept join party button and headed to Middle-earth. Sure, there is Hobbits in the Second Age now, and two living Durins, and Elrond is not an elven lord despite his lineage (I want to know who the fuck else was at that council lol). You know what, I can get past all that, with only a few grumbles, and it doesn't matter the smallest fuck to people who aren't as into the lore as people like me.

But go google images of Finrod and Gil-Gilad from the the show. Why the fuck does Finrod have such a sick line up and fade? They had clippers in Valinor did they? Why does Gil-Gilad look like Liam Neeson with a mullet?

[Tebonas]

So, did i drop the ball because I never read anything but the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings? Because I liked it, the visuals were absolutely gorgeous and I don't know enough about the Simarillion to feel offended about the adaption. Hell, if you compare it to the abortion that was the Hobbit movies its basically art.

I give your the "The elves are basically in elf heaven, so how can they be dicks to each other" point. That really was a WTF that almost killed my immersion once and for all. And the "Hey, we can top that Legolas shield skateboard scene with a Galadriel sword trampoline scene. Look how radical elves are". I guess this is the reason why everbody hates Elves in RPG campaigns, because they are always that darn perfect (and can obviously even swim in stormy waters for days). But I found it solid and endearing otherwise, even the Protohalfings that weren't supposed to exist yet worked for me because they were charming and gave the series a lightness that House of the Dragon lacks (which I also love, but definitely for completely different reasons).

Is this a "They ruined Lord of the Rings, there is no Tom Bombadil" moment (aka, somethings you have to adapt so that it works for a different medium), or a "Hey, lets make a video game tie in and call it The Hobbit" thing?

[Trippy]

The Second Age, which is the period the show covers, is only a very small part of The Silmarillion, focusing on Númenor and not the forging of the Rings. The major events of the Second Age are listed in one of the appendices of The Return of the King but it's literally just a timeline.

Since Tolkein didn't write much about the Second Age the show is having to make up stuff to fill in the gaps between the major events. I haven't watched the show yet but based on the comments above what they've made up so far doesn't even reach the levels of bad fan fiction.

[Ashamanchill]

Is this a "They ruined Lord of the Rings, there is no Tom Bombadil" moment (aka, somethings you have to adapt so that it works for a different medium), or a "Hey, lets make a video game tie in and call it The Hobbit" thing?

I think it's just about in the middle. I dont hate the Hobbits at all, in fact they are next to the only part where I felt any human emotion coming from the actors, and their diagolue isn't stilted like the rest.

I just think this thing is boring, even without being a LotR piece of media. Maybe the story picks right up, but I'm kind of worried that we've already seen about 95 percent of what was shown in the trailers.

[Khaldun]

The only reason to do proto-hobbits in this is to give viewers something they know and expect. Or to have the mysterious stranger be Radagast, way before the rest of the Istari, who aren't supposed to show up until the Third Age, way after all this shit. Or something else. It's just kind of unimaginative. If you really must do something new, Arondir is closer to the mark, in that he and Bronwyn can offer a look into the South and the East.

(Though all that stuff about how her people were loyal to the Great Enemy and all that--I don't think there's any reason in the legendarium to think that the place that gets called Mordor was part of Morgoth's rule in First Age Middle-Earth, he mostly hung out in the North (much of it ending up destroyed in the War of Wrath). I guess you could say that the volcanos are his fault, but that's about it. Sauron doesn't start hanging out there until...well, about this point in the Second Age, and then only part-time while the rest of the time he's doing groovy ringlore lessons up in Eregion.

[HaemishM]

At times, it doesn't just feel like fan fiction, it feels like cosplay of fan fiction. Just something so far removed from the original yet trying so hard to hit all the beats that are familiar to audiences. I don't particularly mind the Harfoots - it's pretty blatant that they intend to make the daddy Harfoot's broken foot the cause of the Shire being founded or something. Radagast falling from the night sky as a meteor feels like "we need a Gandalf character and some people might like this one!"

Every story beat they have seems to be telegraphed from orbit, and most of them feel like a bullet point list of things that a prequel to the Hobbit must have to make audiences feel like it's part of the series.

[Tebonas]

Ah, I knew they made up the Harfoots, I didn't know almost everything else is made up as well. So its basically a superfan DM using the original characters for his custom made LotR RPG campaign.

[Khaldun]

If that is Radagast, then they more than made it up, they're actively violating one of the more concrete things in Tolkien's legendarium--the wizards don't get sent until the Third Age.

[Samwise]

If that is Radagast, then they more than made it up, they're actively violating one of the more concrete things in Tolkien's legendarium--the wizards don't get sent until the Third Age.

I think it's safe to assume that they don't give a fuck and just want to make the closest thing to a Hobbit prequel they can make within the bounds of what they have the legal rights to.

[Khaldun]

Yeah. It's just going to be kind of stupid if it is him, though I suppose there needs to be some explanation for why the proto-hobbits pick up and head for The Shire, since most of them were living closer to Greenwood and the Anduin Vale at this point. There's some hint in Tolkien that it's because Sauron gets up to some nasty bullshit in Greenwood around Dol Guldur, which is why Greenwood becomes Mirkwood, and the proto-hobbits leave. I guess it would be fine if it turns out that there's someone who helps them do that; maybe Aiwendil (R's Maiar name) gets sent in a kind of Navy Seal mode by Yavanna for that purpose alone, because the Valar have a foresight that hobbits will be important to the Music of the Ainur or some such. And then he evacs out to Valinor after he gets them there; maybe he's freaked out enough by Sauron that he says on his next deployment that he really just wants to hang out with animals.

[Ashamanchill]

I know this is dumb, and very Very VERY probably not correct, but I had this brief inkling that the Stranger is Sauron. Yes I know Haemish is right, but here me out, here's how I would have done it. He's back, in whatever form, but golly gee whiz his memory is wiped (like my bulldog's memory when I point to the pee stain on the carpet), and he could have been left to "die"*, but he is nursed back to health by the Hobbity-ness of hobbits. He then helps them found the Shire, and it is that very Hobbity-ness that, and the secluded looked over nature of the Shire that is responsible for his downfall. yeah, he would have to forget the Shire again, but cmon man, he has a lot on his plate in the interim. Anyways he gets nursed back to health, the Hobbits rub off on him and he wants to help ME, which is how Annatar enters the picture. Ehhhh...ehhhhhhhhhh.....And yes, my only "evidence" for this is that the fire he fell in was cold to the touch, same as the One Ring after being put through anything less than Orodruin level fire.

And yes, he probably is Mr Cele-man towers sure are cool-brim-oh and let's put a forge in it, a really kickass forge-bor. I'm just riffing here.

*Remember this adaption already doesn't really care about being true to the lore, so Maia can die now.