Rings of Power: Tolkien's Shambling Skinsuit

Chukzombi said:

Mythbusters proved that it was possible.

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Go watch that episode again, what they actually proved is exactly what I said. Yes, two people could fit atop the door but their weight swamps it. The only reason Rose survives long enough to be rescued by a lifeboat is because Jack staying in the water keeps her completely out of it.

rose still is a shit character for so many reasons

as her brain shuts down and she enters hell, she dreams of a dude she fucked for 5 days on a ship and abandoned. SHE WAS MARRIED FOR LIKE 50 YEARS AND HAD KIDS. WTF bro
she threw away into the sea a priceless antique and told no one. Bitch, it belongs in a museum at the least, not the bottom of the sea. Or you know, maybe your kids need some money? What a selfish cunt.
She had sex before marriage in someone ELSEs car (wtf?!?), haram


no shock titanic is the favorite movie of so many 90s chicks though, it embodies the female POV: take no responsibilities for your actions.

Arden said:

Yeah I'm not talking about those people actually. Financial profit is a pretty pure motive, as far as I'm concerned. But if you're devoting all this time and (for some reason) emotional energy into something you're claiming to hate, week in and week out in this case, and you're not getting paid a dime to do it, I gotta ask- wtf are you doing with your life?

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It's fun to shit on things when they suck. I definitely don't lose sleep on a TV show being bad.

Except GOT season 8. That one haunts me.

"There may well be viewers who are like, 'This is the story we were hoping to get in season one!,'" McKay told The Hollywood Reporter. "In season two, we're giving it to them."

McKay compared seasons one and two to "Batman Begins" and its sequel "The Dark Knight," respectively.

"Sauron can now just be Sauron, like Tony Soprano or Walter White," McKay said. He's evil, but complexly evil. We felt like if we did that in season one, he'd overshadow everything else. So the first season is like 'Batman Begins,' and 'The Dark Knight' is the next movie, with Sauron maneuvering out in the open."

lurkingdirk said:

That's fair enough, but the expectations for the audience would dictate to me that it can only be Gandalf.

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Everyone is clearly wrong about this. The Wizard/stranger is Saruman. Nori is Gandalf. Like the Doctor her first life was as a woman. Nori is going to die at somepoint and be reborn as Gandolf the Grey.

Goatface said:

'The Rings of Power' creators promise that if you were disappointed with season 1, you'll like the second season | Business Insider India

In a new interview, "The Rings of Power" creators compared the first two seasons to "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight."

www.businessinsider.in

"There may well be viewers who are like, 'This is the story we were hoping to get in season one!,'" McKay told The Hollywood Reporter. "In season two, we're giving it to them."

McKay compared seasons one and two to "Batman Begins" and its sequel "The Dark Knight," respectively.

"Sauron can now just be Sauron, like Tony Soprano or Walter White," McKay said. He's evil, but complexly evil. We felt like if we did that in season one, he'd overshadow everything else. So the first season is like 'Batman Begins,' and 'The Dark Knight' is the next movie, with Sauron maneuvering out in the open."

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ah yes as if their hubris couldn't get any worse, now they're comparing themselves to one of the most visionary directors of the modern era.

Gavinmad said:

ah yes as if their hubris couldn't get any worse, now they're comparing themselves to one of the most visionary directors of the modern era.

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To be fair, they're correct in the sense that this was basically Sauron's "origin story" (not really his actual origins, but showing how he was/acted before he was the Lord of the Rings.). Now that his duplicity has been shown, he'll soon gain enough power to not need ruses and schemes to get what he wants.

I find the semi-comparison to Nolan funny too because most of his films (especially these days) are overhyped as fuck and mostly saved by neat visuals, while the story is needlessly convoluted and everyone nowadays is just looking for the twist or big reveal (not unlike Shyamalan back when he did things). In that sense, this show and Nolan movies are quite similar, neat visuals and the nerds trying to guess who or what the twist will be since the trailers before the first episode, but in the end little of substance.

Runnen said:

To be fair, they're correct in the sense that this was basically Sauron's "origin story" (not really his actual origins, but showing how he was/acted before he was the Lord of the Rings.). Now that his duplicity has been shown, he'll soon gain enough power to not need ruses and schemes to get what he wants.

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I'm not sure what exactly we gained from all this in terms of understanding him better?

Was he just hanging out on rafts outside Valinor hoping that something interesting would happen?

He very much seems like an opportunist who chanced upon a guy wanting to make magic items.

In the books they were making lesser magic rings a long time before the 20 greater rings, really they should have shown Halbrand finding a lesser ring on the body of an elf slain by an orc in The Southlands and getting some ideas.

Chris said:

I'm not sure what exactly we gained from all this in terms of understanding him better?

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The community in these forums and this thread in particular is hardly the target demographic to "learn more about Sauron" from a fucking TV series. We already read the books and several here, myself inluded, have read the books based on the letters written about sticky notes crumped in J.R.R's paper bin.

But for most people, Sauron is this evil fiery eye or big badass dark knight in spiky armor, and they don't know anything about how he actually deceived the elves or got to where he was before the battle in the prologue of the movies. It also showed he can use great cunning and manipulation even without his sorcerous powers and he's not just a giant dude swinging a giant mace.

While I lament that they don't have the rights to the actual juicy bits of the story, I ended up liking most of the season because it's just nice to see more stuff in that world, the scenery is beautiful, I enjoyed the visuals and the music, most of the acting was fine (except that Theo kid who felt out of place for most of the season). Even the token minorities mostly didn't bother me because it didn't feel like they were trying to convey some woke ass message about their skin colors, there's just dark people because reasons.

I liked that they're trying to fill in some more obsure things such as Gandalf/Istari origins, the books have like two lines about how they showed up as old men but we don't know really anything about how it took place. I'd like to know more about the wraiths in that cult too, so that's not an unwelcome addition for me. I liked Adar and the origins of the orcs, I don't recall reading about the Mordorion elves in the books but it was cool invention of the series if such was the case. Halbrand replacing Annatar is apparently due to legal shenanigans, so it had to be done I guess; well it didn't HAVE to be Halbrand but it couldn't be Annatar either so they just made up something, it worked even if it got obvious pretty early on.

It was great to see Valinor in live action even briefly, that shot with the shadow of Morgoth over the trees was epic. I liked the origin given to mithril, linking it to the Balrog somewhat. I also liked how the elven rings required sacrifice from both Elrond and Galadriel, the mithril dropping into the burning metal looking like the Eye of Sauron was a bit on the nose but it was cute.

This is certainly not the best LOTR content we have available, but I didn't feel absolutely offended by anything I saw either.

the nonsense about amazon not having the rights just... doesn't make sense to me. from what i understand, tolkien's estate approached amazon (well, netflix first, but they said no), not the other way around. so how can amazon NOT have the rights? did they say, sure we're going to agree to make a show for you, and we're going to spend a billion dollars on it, but we're not going to spend a billion and 1 million in order to get ALL the rights... did amazon just start ala cart'ing what rights they thought they could get away with? instead of just buying the exact rights they needed in order to tell the correct story

i mean, if they decided against using annatar as a characater because everyone would recognize him as sauron immediately (and those that didn't recognize him would be spoiled by all the youtubers that did) that makes sense... but just straight up NOT having the rights to use annatar? how? how do you have the rights to the 2nd age, but not annatar? how do they mention the war of wrath if they don't have the rights to that? if they bought the rights to that to use in just a small part of episode 1, how do they not buy the rights to annatar? i just don't get it.

j00t said:

the nonsense about amazon not having the rights just... doesn't make sense to me. from what i understand, tolkien's estate approached amazon (well, netflix first, but they said no), not the other way around. so how can amazon NOT have the rights? did they say, sure we're going to agree to make a show for you, and we're going to spend a billion dollars on it, but we're not going to spend a billion and 1 million in order to get ALL the rights... did amazon just start ala cart'ing what rights they thought they could get away with? instead of just buying the exact rights they needed in order to tell the correct story

i mean, if they decided against using annatar as a characater because everyone would recognize him as sauron immediately (and those that didn't recognize him would be spoiled by all the youtubers that did) that makes sense... but just straight up NOT having the rights to use annatar? how? how do you have the rights to the 2nd age, but not annatar? how do they mention the war of wrath if they don't have the rights to that? if they bought the rights to that to use in just a small part of episode 1, how do they not buy the rights to annatar? i just don't get it.

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Amazon approached the Tolkien Estate, Christopher said go pound sand, the rest of the family just wanted to get paid and presumably argued with him, Christopher said fuck it im too old for this shit and resigned as director of the estate, letting his disappointment of a son take charge, and within a few months Simon and Amazon had reached an agreement.

As for the rights, yeah it doesn't make any fucking sense but they didn't pay for the rights to The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales, so they only things they have access to are the little bits and pieces mentioned in in the appendices at the end of Return of the King. So there are brief tidbits about Celebrimbor and the forging of the rings, and maybe even the destruction of Eregion, but the full details about Sauron infiltrating Eregion in the guise of Annatar, getting Celebrimbor to lead a rebellion against Celeborn and Galadriel to take control of Eregion, and eventually being captured and tortured to death for the locations of the nine and seven are in works they don't have the rights to.

Which is why Rings of Power is basically just a shitty fanfic that constantly contradicts the actual story of the Second Age.

Gavinmad said:

Amazon approached the Tolkien Estate, Christopher said go pound sand, the rest of the family just wanted to get paid and presumably argued with him, Christopher said fuck it im too old for this shit and resigned as director of the estate, letting his disappointment of a son take charge, and within a few months Simon and Amazon had reached an agreement.

As for the rights, yeah it doesn't make any fucking sense but they didn't pay for the rights to The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales, so they only things they have access to are the little bits and pieces mentioned in in the appendices at the end of Return of the King. So there are brief tidbits about Celebrimbor and the forging of the rings, and maybe even the destruction of Eregion, but the full details about Sauron infiltrating Eregion in the guise of Annatar, getting Celebrimbor to lead a rebellion against Celeborn and Galadriel to take control of Eregion, and eventually being captured and tortured to death for the locations of the nine and seven are in works they don't have the rights to.

Which is why Rings of Power is basically just a shitty fanfic that constantly contradicts the actual story of the Second Age.

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I thought it was a dumb decision but the top comment here makes it sounds like the rights in general are a cluster fuck. The thread was before Embracer bought the film rights, but I imagine they inherited the first look for the Silmarillion

The claim that the estate approached Amazon doesn't make sense. The deal didn't go through until Christopher stepped down, so why would the guy who opposed the deal have gone looking for one?

Gavinmad said:

Amazon approached the Tolkien Estate, Christopher said go pound sand, the rest of the family just wanted to get paid and presumably argued with him, Christopher said fuck it im too old for this shit and resigned as director of the estate, letting his disappointment of a son take charge, and within a few months Simon and Amazon had reached an agreement.

As for the rights, yeah it doesn't make any fucking sense but they didn't pay for the rights to The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales, so they only things they have access to are the little bits and pieces mentioned in in the appendices at the end of Return of the King. So there are brief tidbits about Celebrimbor and the forging of the rings, and maybe even the destruction of Eregion, but the full details about Sauron infiltrating Eregion in the guise of Annatar, getting Celebrimbor to lead a rebellion against Celeborn and Galadriel to take control of Eregion, and eventually being captured and tortured to death for the locations of the nine and seven are in works they don't have the rights to.

Which is why Rings of Power is basically just a shitty fanfic that constantly contradicts the actual story of the Second Age.

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Huh? I don't recall anything being mentioned about Sauron getting Celebrimbor to start a rebellion agains Celeborn and Galadriel in Eregion. Pretty sure Celebrimbor didn't trust Annatar at first sight (just going off memories of Silmarillion / Unfinished Tales).

Zindan said:

Huh? I don't recall anything being mentioned about Sauron getting Celebrimbor to start a rebellion agains Celeborn and Galadriel in Eregion. Pretty sure Celebrimbor didn't trust Annatar at first sight (just going off memories of Silmarillion / Unfinished Tales).

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Therefore, Celebrimbor and his followers (under the influence of Sauron) rebelled against Galadriel and Celeborn,[note 3] and, sometime between S.A. 1350 and 1400, Galadriel withdrew from Eregion and went to Lórinand (which would later be known as Lórien), via Khazad-dûm, and took up rule there. However, Celeborn, owing to his distrust of the Dwarves, remained in Eregion "disregarded by Celebrimbor".

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Perhaps in direct contrast to this, in an early version of the story, also given in Unfinished Tales, Celebrimbor leads a revolt against the rule of Galadriel and Celeborn in Eregion. This rebellion was encouraged by Sauron, posing as Annatar, and then deep in the confidences of Celebrimbor. As the story developed and changed, however, this element never appeared again.

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From SA 1350, the Gwaith-i-Mírdain under Celebrimbor, the last of the House of Fëanor left in Middle-earth, ruled Eregion.

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So I guess Tolkien left that part out of the story later and Galadriel just abandons Eregion for no particular reason to go live in Lorien, and Celeborn just silently abdicates in favor of Celebrimbor but continues to live in Eregion until Sauron destroys it.

j00t said:

the nonsense about amazon not having the rights just... doesn't make sense to me. from what i understand, tolkien's estate approached amazon (well, netflix first, but they said no), not the other way around. so how can amazon NOT have the rights? did they say, sure we're going to agree to make a show for you, and we're going to spend a billion dollars on it, but we're not going to spend a billion and 1 million in order to get ALL the rights... did amazon just start ala cart'ing what rights they thought they could get away with? instead of just buying the exact rights they needed in order to tell the correct story

i mean, if they decided against using annatar as a characater because everyone would recognize him as sauron immediately (and those that didn't recognize him would be spoiled by all the youtubers that did) that makes sense... but just straight up NOT having the rights to use annatar? how? how do you have the rights to the 2nd age, but not annatar? how do they mention the war of wrath if they don't have the rights to that? if they bought the rights to that to use in just a small part of episode 1, how do they not buy the rights to annatar? i just don't get it.

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They didn’t buy The Silmarillion rights because they aren’t worth anything. Only 1 in 1000 viewers of this show will know who Annatar is, or when Durin’s bane actually awoke, or when the first wizard arrived in Middle Earth. Even fewer will actually care.

LOTR is a far richer story with much more recognizable intellectual property to produce content from. It’s vastly more valuable than The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales.

Buying the rights to those so some online dorks don’t sperg out over lore inconsistencies would be a totally retarded business decision. Not to mention, they’d sperg out anyway.

according to the wiki, and i have no idea how accurate it is... but in 2017 the estate starting offering the rights to amazon, netflix and hbo. but that lines up with what i've seen.

that first comment on the linked reddit thread suggests that they didn't sell the rights to the other stuff because legally they couldn't. or rather, if they sold them, the Saul Zaentz company (who initially had the rights back in the 60's i guess? i've never heard of them) would get first dibs and they didn't want to sell to them...

but that comment also suggested that the estate didn't want to sell the rights to all the extra stuff, whereas LOTR, the hobbit and the appendices were already out there. it's possible that despite christopher stepping down, they wanted to keep that stuff out of pop culture as a good faith move with christopher, but who knows. that, at least, makes more sense than anything else.

Goatface said:

'The Rings of Power' creators promise that if you were disappointed with season 1, you'll like the second season | Business Insider India

In a new interview, "The Rings of Power" creators compared the first two seasons to "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight."

www.businessinsider.in

"There may well be viewers who are like, 'This is the story we were hoping to get in season one!,'" McKay told The Hollywood Reporter. "In season two, we're giving it to them."

McKay compared seasons one and two to "Batman Begins" and its sequel "The Dark Knight," respectively.

"Sauron can now just be Sauron, like Tony Soprano or Walter White," McKay said. He's evil, but complexly evil. We felt like if we did that in season one, he'd overshadow everything else. So the first season is like 'Batman Begins,' and 'The Dark Knight' is the next movie, with Sauron maneuvering out in the open."

Click to expand...

None of those people were evil. If they think Tony or Walter are evil these fucks live in a different dimension. Are they bad people who did good things, or good people that did bad things? The writers of those shows crafted master pieces of character design that let the audience decide and actually discuss the characters in depth. So many motives, backdrops and circumstances that led to these rich complex characters. Suaron is just some dumb fuck who happened to find Galadriel in an open sea. Why was he there? Nobody knows. Why does he have beef with the dark elves? Find out in next episode of Lordball Z.

While I'm not saying that approach for the former is good for LOTR, in crafting Sauron to be some relatable character (Tolkien was very much a Dark vs Light kind of guy), what they've done wasn't at all compelling, interesting, or even sensical.

Runnen said:

But for most people, Sauron is this evil fiery eye or big badass dark knight in spiky armor, and they don't know anything about how he actually deceived the elves or got to where he was before the battle in the prologue of the movies. It also showed he can use great cunning and manipulation even without his sorcerous powers and he's not just a giant dude swinging a giant mace.

While I lament that they don't have the rights to the actual juicy bits of the story, I ended up liking most of the season because it's just nice to see more stuff in that world, the scenery is beautiful, I enjoyed the visuals and the music, most of the acting was fine (except that Theo kid who felt out of place for most of the season). Even the token minorities mostly didn't bother me because it didn't feel like they were trying to convey some woke ass message about their skin colors, there's just dark people because reasons.

I liked that they're trying to fill in some more obsure things such as Gandalf/Istari origins, the books have like two lines about how they showed up as old men but we don't know really anything about how it took place. I'd like to know more about the wraiths in that cult too, so that's not an unwelcome addition for me. I liked Adar and the origins of the orcs, I don't recall reading about the Mordorion elves in the books but it was cool invention of the series if such was the case. Halbrand replacing Annatar is apparently due to legal shenanigans, so it had to be done I guess; well it didn't HAVE to be Halbrand but it couldn't be Annatar either so they just made up something, it worked even if it got obvious pretty early on.

It was great to see Valinor in live action even briefly, that shot with the shadow of Morgoth over the trees was epic. I liked the origin given to mithril, linking it to the Balrog somewhat. I also liked how the elven rings required sacrifice from both Elrond and Galadriel, the mithril dropping into the burning metal looking like the Eye of Sauron was a bit on the nose but it was cute.

This is certainly not the best LOTR content we have available, but I didn't feel absolutely offended by anything I saw either.

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I mean viewed in a bubble its still pretty lame.

I'll give you the lore and world building aspects. They have been the only interesting things in the show. I also liked how they showed Valinor and the Trees. I wish they had gone more into depth about those.

I can't really remember the connection between the Mithril and the Balrog. I think they are making Mithril some sort of Silmaril? Because they can't actually use those I thought the Mithril captured the light of the trees? Either way I'm not too mad about them taking the lore and making it their own. Its one of the things I don't agree about Tolkien fans bashing on the show. I'm looking at it from a vacuum with compelling characters, plot, story and good acting and directing. Its utter garbage. It feels like they gave a bunch of amateur play writes reigns to the kingdom and it shows.

Caliane said:

Everyone is clearly wrong about this. The Wizard/stranger is Saruman. Nori is Gandalf. Like the Doctor her first life was as a woman. Nori is going to die at somepoint and be reborn as Gandolf the Grey.

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No joke I actually was thinking it could be Saruman and would actually be an interesting route... meaning its not and its definitely Not-Gandalf.