Rings of Power: Tolkien's Shambling Skinsuit

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Gavinmad

Gavinmad

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So Galadriel mourning Finrod was a flashback right? She didn't go straight from his bier to running around after Sauron?
 
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zignor 4

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I think he's referring to the scene where she's mourning over Finrod's corpse, in which case that was part of the First Age prologue, which is set long before the timeframe of the main narrative.
 
lgarthy

lgarthy

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spronk said:
Andor is top 10 TV 2022 (assuming it stays good, 6 episodes left). Peacemaker is the other 2022 show you should definitely watch before anything else, along with Reacher, The Bear and Boys season 3.

House of Dragons is decent, the first 5 episodes are kinda mediocre with some good bits but it gets better. It makes Rings of Power look like kids shit. HoTD season finale is next sunday so good time to binge it out.
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I disagree- I watched the last episode of HoTD and can barely remember any of it-- it's like an endurance sport getting through an episode.

Not that I love Rings of Power. And yes, everyone is probably spot on about it being too derivative of it's source material and its writers just being lame trash. But the show is moving in a more entertaining direction as of the last 2 episodes. But no matter what direction they go with Sauron and Gandalf or Gandalf-to-be, it's just going to piss everyone off who had any reverence for the text or prior films.

So, you have to take the - this was based on something extraordinary and it's (at best) ordinary. But it is passable as entertainment. I really liked the last 2 episodes despite thinking "damn, the geniuses on FoH figured out the (really stupid) Sauron reveal 2 months ago!"

Christ, I like Smallville and Donner's Superman. I put up with USA's "Being Human" and "Life on Mars." The thing-in-itself cannot always live up to the original but sometimes all I need is decent entertainment. Rings of Power provides that at the very least.

The massive amount of trash, stupid, fed-to-the-masses entertainment on TV is far more stupid than this show ever will be. Pick a random sci-fi or fantasy genre show airing now and see what I mean. You'll end up watching "Stitchers" or something mostly terrible. I wish there were two more episodes for this season at this point. It's fun to watch. It's fun to pick out the stupidities and it's getting better.
 
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Gavinmad

Gavinmad

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zignor 4 said:
I think he's referring to the scene where she's mourning over Finrod's corpse, in which case that was part of the First Age prologue, which is set long before the timeframe of the main narrative.
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Ok so they're only mashing about 1500 years together into a single short sequence of events instead of the entire Second Age. A relief I suppose.

Weird that she wasn't all that torn up about Aegnor and Angrod dying but the death of the brother who was rewarded by the Valar by being brought back to life in Valinor makes her abandon her husband and daughter to spend centuries pursuing vengeance for him.
 
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Burns

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lgarthy said:
The massive amount of trash, stupid, fed-to-the-masses entertainment on TV is far more stupid than this show ever will be. Pick a random sci-fi or fantasy genre show airing now and see what I mean. You'll end up watching "Stitchers" or something mostly terrible. I wish there were two more episodes for this season at this point. It's fun to watch. It's fun to pick out the stupidities and it's getting better.
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So your argument here is that you should go ahead and eat a dirt sandwiches because alternative options in current production are shit sandwiches? The only thing about that is you have pallets, of still good, Hostess products in the Garage.

I would rather rewatch the 1000s of hours of old TV and movies than watch a current show I dislike. Furthermore, there are plenty of other activities to do; you don't have to watch any current TV shows just because that's all that Hollywood is making.

Some shows like Loki and Rings of Power are just adequate enough to keep me around for one season, but I doubt I will watch a second. Other shows like Kenobi and Scarlet Witch sound like they don't suit my tastes at all, and I will never watch them.

Hell, even my elderly parents (nondiscerning viewers) mostly stopped watching current trash tier network TV and put on reruns of shows they like, then play games on their tablets/phones, or surf the internet (Facebook). I guess it's lucky for them they like 10+ year old cop shows (before they had to meet their trans issues quota), because they can find NCIS, Law & Order, and other various similar shit on repeat, somewhere.
 
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lgarthy

lgarthy

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Burns said:
So your argument here is that you should go ahead and eat a dirt sandwiches because alternative options in current production are shit sandwiches? The only thing about that is you have pallets, of still good, Hostess products in the Garage.

I would rather rewatch the 1000s of hours of old TV and movies than watch a current show I dislike. Furthermore, there are plenty of other activities to do; you don't have to watch any current TV shows just because that's all that Hollywood is making.

Some shows like Loki and Rings of Power are just adequate enough to keep me around for one season, but I doubt I will watch a second. Other shows like Kenobi and Scarlet Witch sound like they don't suit my tastes at all, and I will never watch them.

Hell, even my elderly parents (nondiscerning viewers) mostly stopped watching current trash tier network TV and put on reruns of shows they like, then play games on their tablets/phones, or surf the internet (Facebook). I guess it's lucky for them they like 10+ year old cop shows (before they had to meet their trans issues quota), because they can find NCIS, Law & Order, and other various similar shit on repeat, somewhere.
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More like eating McDonalds for a snack. My body and mind know better, but it happens.

What you said-- just adequate enough. Personally, I found "Brand New Cherry Flavor" far more entertaining. I can't even imagine what the cost/entertainment value ratio would be in comparison! Looking forward to "His Dark Materials," S3 too.

I think someone on the board said something to the effect that many people use these shows as background entertainment while they play on Steam, etc. I don't do that with Rings of Power. But I do sometimes with House of the Dragon (House of the Drags On...). Don't do it with "Strange New Worlds," or "Lower Decks." I was taking NOTES during season 1 and 2 of Dark. I was as mindful for that show as I would be for a post-graduate course in physics. But with Stranger Things Season 4, I HAD to find distraction or just give up; especially through most of the Russia bullshit. And, quite frankly, I am PAYING for Stranger Things!

So, yeah, there is a difference between active and passive involvement in entertainment. Most of us LOVE being intellectually engaged in entertainment. I was fully focused for every second of "Dune" when I saw it in the theater. Christ, watching almost any episode of "Secrets of the Dead" when it airs (rarely) has me fully engaged. Not all entertainment achieves that. Rings of Power should have me fully engaged-- I'm it's demographic, I think. Instead, it has me, at times, driven to distraction away from it. Less so than HoTD though...

This level of TV should not be background noise... but, at times, it descends into that.
 
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j00t

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I was watching a video of Matt colvilles... He was talking about rings of power and coming from the perspective of a HUGE Tolkien fan, but also someone who generally hates TV as it's basically disposable by design. With a movie you can spend significant time tuning the script but with a TV show you get a week. This explains a lot of why rings of power's writers seems to be knowledgeable one minute, then hackneyed and cliched the next.

He also reminded me that later on on his life, Tolkien INTENDED for others to take his world and fill in the blanks.

He's a very atypical writer in that he wasn't REALLY a writer in today's sense It was a side hobby of his. He wrote the hobbit for his kid(s) and it wasnt initially even connected to lord of the rings. He did the same with Tom bonbadil. He wrote a couple short stories where Tom was around, sometimes he was the main character, sometimes he was just briefly mentioned by other characters. But he liked him enough that he added him to fellowship.

He never released any other books besides lotr, hobbit, and the silmarillion (which it's main criticism is that's it's super boring. Lots of cool things happened but it was more a history book than a story book) BECAUSE he's not really a writer. He needed some money towards the end of his life and instead of putting a book together he sold the movie rights.

Thats not to take away from Tolkien, in fact I think it means he deserves even more credit for creating such a masterful work of art with the intention of letting other people live in that world as creators right along with him. It shows an incredible sense of hope and faith in your fellow man. Personally I'm too jaded to think that was a good idea, but I respect the man for his faith.

But that wraps around to rings of power... I think it's obvious that I adore Tolkien's work, and I gobble up all the lore I can. But I register that that is just Tolkien's vision, his interpretation of Arda. There are definitely people who consider it apocryphal to do anything other than just quote Tolkien word for word, but I understand that there are different lenses to look through. My issue with rings of power isn't that they changed things (though I admit, sometimes it does cause a knee jerk reaction).

My issue is that the storytelling is just poorly done. If you want to show the world how you view things differently, by all means, go for it. Just... Don't compare yourself to brilliantly written characters and stories if you can't compete.
 
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zignor 4

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Gavinmad said:
Ok so they're only mashing about 1500 years together into a single short sequence of events instead of the entire Second Age. A relief I suppose.

Weird that she wasn't all that torn up about Aegnor and Angrod dying but the death of the brother who was rewarded by the Valar by being brought back to life in Valinor makes her abandon her husband and daughter to spend centuries pursuing vengeance for him.
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That could partially go back to rights issues, as Finrod is mentioned in LoTR, but I'm not sure if the other brothers are.

Also, Aegnor and Angrod are killed while battling Morgoth's forces. Morgoth is gone by the Second Age so there's no longer need nor means to take vengeance for them. Finrod was was captured by Sauron and mauled to death by his werewolf, so it was a much more personal killing. Plus Galadriel knows he escaped the ruin of Beleriand and hid himself in Middle Earth somewhere after Morgoth was defeated, so he's still at large.

Celebrian isn't mentioned in the show at all and apparently Celeborn went MIA during some First Age battle. It sounds like he'll be showing up in a future season.
 
Burns

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lgarthy said:
PS- For you, Burns, I highly recommend the COMET app on your TV.
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Their website only lists 4 TV shows? I haven't seen Buffy before, and it's supposed to be good, but if it has commercials, I wont watch it, regardless. I will put on Netflix, Prime, or even PBS Nature/NOVA instead. Eighteen minutes of commercials per hour feels like a waste of time when I don't actively watch much TV these days (maybe 10 hours a week). I would rather load up a game instead. I don't count having a TV on in the background as watching TV.

Currently have access to Disney+ and HBO accounts so been rewatching stuff on them. Just finished Generation Kill for the 6th time, last week, and now going to try to rewatch Clone Wars in chronological order, but kinda not feeling it. Haven't seen Big Love in a while, and with the talk of Mormon writers on this show, it made me want to switch over to that.
 
Angerz

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Gavinmad said:
Is that what you think these showrunners are doing, filling in the blanks?
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yes, because they dont have the rights to the Silmarillion, so they get to fill in the blanks of the little bit they have from the appendices and make up their own second age where all the cool shit happens at once
 
j00t

j00t

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Gavinmad said:
Is that what you think these showrunners are doing, filling in the blanks?
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i mean... to some degree, yes. tolkien didn't give much information to what a lot of these characters where doing in the 2nd age. he gave information about specific events, but not much more.

and that comment about filling in the blanks is specifically from tolkien. that's what he wanted. i'm not trying to harp on the lore of the show. there are a lot of head scratching moments the show focuses on, but there are other things that i quite enjoy their take on; Adar and his orcs being one of them.

again, it's not the "fan fiction" part that i don't like... hmm... let me rework that statement... conceptually, i don't have a problem with the idea of fan fiction. it's the execution of it all that i take umbrage with.
 
lgarthy

lgarthy

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Burns said:
Their website only lists 4 TV shows? I haven't seen Buffy before, and it's supposed to be good, but if it has commercials, I wont watch it, regardless. I will put on Netflix, Prime, or even PBS Nature/NOVA instead. Eighteen minutes of commercials per hour feels like a waste of time when I don't actively watch much TV these days (maybe 10 hours a week). I would rather load up a game instead. I don't count having a TV on in the background as watching TV.

Currently have access to Disney+ and HBO accounts so been rewatching stuff on them. Just finished Generation Kill for the 6th time, last week, and now going to try to rewatch Clone Wars in chronological order, but kinda not feeling it. Haven't seen Big Love in a while, and with the talk of Mormon writers on this show, it made me want to switch over to that.
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I think that is a good barometer of worth.

I put up with commercials for Evil and for Lower Decks and it’s worth it.
 
Falstaff

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Watching this made me remember I haven’t watched the extended editions in a long time. In fact I don’t even know if I ever watched extended Return of the King. It’s almost 5 hours long! I noticed that the credits for these seems to be like 30 minutes for each movie but god damn that’s still a long one.
 
Mahes

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Falstaff said:
Watching this made me remember I haven’t watched the extended editions in a long time. In fact I don’t even know if I ever watched extended Return of the King. It’s almost 5 hours long! I noticed that the credits for these seems to be like 30 minutes for each movie but god damn that’s still a long one.
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3 hours of it will be the ending.
 
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Gavinmad

Gavinmad

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Mahes said:
3 hours of it will be the ending.
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Ironically I don't think a single extended scene is part of the ending sequence. They didn't leave out anything from the ending in the theatrical cut other than the Scouring and obviously they never had any plans to film that in the first place.
 
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