Rings of Power: Tolkien's Shambling Skinsuit

so Halbrand really was Sauron? lol the internet wins again.

j00t said:

with the exception of a few specific scenes, like the reveal of Eregion in the first episode... and the slow motion shots showing the fallout of the war of wrath... i wasn't really impressed with the visuals. especially the design decisions for pretty much everything. the stuff at khazad dum is fine but the dwarf armor is silly (beard armor means they can't turn their necks at all).

i just found myself thinking, you did JUST enough research to look at armor, but not enough to understand how pieces fit together. and pj's stuff, each culture had design decisions that made sense. horses were extremely important to the people of rohan and you can see that in their armor, their clothing, their decorations. and it is NEVER explained, but you see it and it makes sense. same with gondor, same with any of the elves.

galadriel's plate armor looks right from a glance, but on closer inspection it's basically not functional at all, with random bits of bunched up chainmail in the joins which means limited flexibility at best, getting yourself killed at worst. numenorian armor has scale mail, but... only sort of. and why? they are like pseudo roman but don't use roman armor... okay, fine... they have horses on their sword pummels but they live on an island and don't have any other horse iconography... i just can't find any through line in their stuff, none of it actually makes any sense.

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Cheers for the amount of the thought you put into the armor lol. Not joking. I was honestly more talking about the cities/environments. But I do hate stupid/unrealistic armor in fantasy and medieval shows, so I can't fault you. Nothing I hate more than "sexy chick armor." Not because it's "sexist" or any stupid shit like that, but just because it would be so impractical it would be worse than useless and no serious fighter type would ever wear it. I'll have to re- look at the armor design choices they made in RoP.

But I stand by the general visuals being first fucking rate.

Well technically, there's good stuff (some scenes, photography, some visuals) and bad stuff (some armors, sometimes very bland CGI, questionable slow motion takes).

What I think is the main problem is the writing: it doesn't really make any sense once the reveals are done, and I'm not even talking about being faithful to Tolkien works, I'm talking about the show's characters, narrative and story development. Eveything look so on rails, so "it happened because it needed to happen" it's boring.

Sauron looks like he just stumbles upon every aspect of his character's story arc, casually giving nuclear warhead capability to Celebrimbor while being very into Galadriel, being thrown to jail and then freed, wanting to stay to Numenor and then becoming king, wandering on a raft on a middle of nowhere and fishing his love interest, etc

Gandalf crashes down from the sky, doesn't remember who he is, gets chased by people who think he's totally Sauron, remembers everyone he's not Sauron, then decides to go to some very specific place for some reason. It looks like a medical ad about memory loss where the Hobbits are the symptoms.

Galadriel looks like the most unlucky character ever, chasing Sauron for centuries everywhere, being punished back to Valinor, jumps on water, being fished by Sauron himself and being given hints he's maybe Sauron everytime she seems to forget about Sauron. Then when Sauron makes a definitive point about being Sauron she just not tell anyone about it and doubles down on the nuclear capability Sauron just gave Celebrimbor.

Furry said:

He was a white male pretending to be one of the good guys, obviously nothing good can come from that.

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still pretty funny how everyone knew who he was before the show ever started. well there were some deniers on here who couldnt believe it, they said it was too obvious and stupid. they cant even admit they were wrong. good times.

I guess that Sauron and Celebrimbor kinda forgot to make the 7 and 9.

Bondurant said:

Gandalf crashes down from the sky, doesn't remember who he is, gets chased by people who think he's totally Sauron, remembers everyone he's not Sauron, then decides to go to some very specific place for some reason. It looks like a medical ad about memory loss where the Hobbits are the symptoms.

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The hobbit part made me LOL. Hobbits are a perfect explanation for brain damage. Maybe they didn't exist at all and were a figment of his imagination the whole time. All of the books really are about a mad wizard pretending to be a hobbit and not realizing it.

Chris said:

I guess that Sauron and Celebrimbor kinda forgot to make the 7 and 9.

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Well as a Tolkien show this was shit.

Viewed in a vacuum though... it was also shit.

Anyone who thinks this show is remotely good is a low iq dumb fuck.

I was going to post something earlier but as I was thinking back on the show and went to type it out I fell asleep. Now I can't remember what it was.

Penance said:

Well as a Tolkien show this was shit.

Viewed in a vacuum though... it was also shit.

Anyone who thinks this show is remotely good is a low iq dumb fuck.

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Well, that’s been true for every attempt to bring Tolkien to the screen since the 70s

Oldbased said:

I was going to post something earlier but as I was thinking back on the show and went to type it out I fell asleep. Now I can't remember what it was.

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The show fills me with rage too much to send me to sleep. My wife is confused about why I'm watching it, it's because she pays for Prime and I want to post why it's shit in detail, here.

Zweischneid said:

Well, that’s been true for every attempt to bring Tolkien to the screen since the 70s

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Zweischneid said:

Well, that’s been true for every attempt to bring Tolkien to the screen since the 70s

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Great take

The best part about the show to me was that the tryhard culture warriors that hated this show the most- the ones that were filled with rage- were the ones that couldnt seem to turn away from it. These dudes were watching the show as soon as it dropped every week, paying attention to every detail, rushing to YouTube and message boards to post about why it was so bad, even going as far as constructing charts and timelines to point out every minor anachronism.

Why are you so absorbed with a show you hate? JFC, get a life people.

Arden said:

The best part about the show to me was that the tryhard culture warriors that hated this show the most- the ones that were filled with rage- were the ones that couldnt seem to turn away from it. These dudes were watching the show as soon as it dropped every week, paying attention to every detail, rushing to YouTube and message boards to post about why it was so bad, even going as far as constructing charts and timelines to point out every minor anachronism.

Why are you so absorbed with a show you hate? JFC, get a life people.

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I feel personally attacked.

there are a million nits to pick with the episode but one that was weird to me was how Sauron just straight up admitted who he was with zero spin. When Galadriel said the Southland line of kings is broken, how hard would it have been to just say he was a bastard son and their family has endured for a thousand (?) years in secret, only with that retarded pouch as their legacy? You can spin a thousand tales, but apparently the father of lies is too bored or saw the script and realizes he's gotta get his ass to Mordor ASAP so no time to waste with dumbass Elves.

And then Galadriel just straight up is lying to the rest of the elves, you know, the guys who sent her hunting after Sauron for hundreds of years lol. What is this CW shit haha

The entire season was basically Twilight in Middle Earth, a stupid white chick gets bamboozled by a bad boy who she thinks she can fix. and every man in the show has only one desire, to win the heart and mind of Galadriel. The entire thing was a rom com in disguise lol

I mean, its only some obscure book called the Silmarillion, its not like they're buttfucking the Archetype of all Fantasy Literature live on screen or something


Personally I liked when the elf smiths helpers just reached right into the embers and pulled out the glowing pieces of metal with ungloved hands. A++