Rings of Power: Tolkien's Shambling Skinsuit

Finished season 1, not bad at all. I enjoyed it quite a lot. It was awesome to see how they bring pre-lotr stuff into the screen. Look forward to season 2!

Tearofsoul said:

they bring pre-lotr stuff into the screen

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I was under the pretty distinct impression that nothing of the sort happened.

Well, I am a big fan of the Middle-earth, an even bigger fan of Mine of Moria, to be able to see Khazad-dûm on screen, that's sooo cool. I am hoping there are more in upcoming seasons.

Is it faithful to the Silmarillion to the dot? Absolutely not, and I couldn't give less shit as long as this ADAPTATION makes sense in a big picture.

I want to be able to visualized those famous places/characters. Eregion/Númenor/Lindon/Pre-erupte Mount Doom? One of the 5 Istars/Durin v4/Isildur/Elrond/Galadriel when they were young? What not to like? It's like candy shop! Perhaps I get to see Angmar later as well...

I might not read the book every year anymore, but I still re-watch the 12 hours extended edition of the original trilogy every year, follow by the Hobbit.

So far, I am entertained.

Tearofsoul said:

as long as this ADAPTATION makes sense in a big picture

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Which it doesn't. Don't act like you know a fucking thing about the Second Age if you think this misbegotten pile of wretchedness is only 'slightly off the dot' of the Silmarillion.

I think this trash had to be as far off the Silmarilion as possible so they wouldn't get sued. Maybe they intentionally picked writers who had never read it so there was no chance of being influenced by it, hah.

Someday a good Silmarilion adaptation will be brought to screen. Would be nice if it's within the next 20-30 years or so so that hopefully I'm alive to see it.

I can only imagine how much the original trilogy upset some of you, let along the Hobbit lol.

You don't like it? Things don't go exactly the way you want? Well, life has been tough on you princes... Why don't you make your own if you think you can do better? I am more than happy to give you my money.

first off, we've discussed pj's trilogy. there are a lot of changes that he made and a lot of people had issues with those changes, though generally, they were upset because they didn't get to see parts of the books that they were looking forward to. but here's the thing, pj's trilogy generally understood and respected tolkien's vision of middle-earth. the problem with rings of power is that they don't. rings of power isn't even internally consistent. characters don't behave in any other way than "because that's what the script says."

The real problem is the show is boring as shit.

Tearofsoul said:

I can only imagine how much the original trilogy upset some of you, let along the Hobbit lol.

You don't like it? Things don't go exactly the way you want? Well, life has been tough on you princes... Why don't you make your own if you think you can do better? I am more than happy to give you my money.

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Tearofsoul said:

Things don't go exactly the way you want?

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Yes Sutekh, Rings of Power differs VERY SLIGHTLY from the source material and that's my only complaint.

Tearofsoul said:

I might not read the book every year anymore, but I still re-watch the 12 hours extended edition of the original trilogy every year, follow by the Hobbit.

So far, I am entertained.

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you intentionally watch 9 hours of this shit every year? lol

Yeah, Maple edit (~4 hours) or no deal.

Tearofsoul said:

I can only imagine how much the original trilogy upset some of you, let along the Hobbit lol.

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There isn't a single thing in this show that happened in the books.

Go fuck yourself corporate shill.

Ironically, the most lore-accurate part of the entire thing is the narrated few minutes of the First Age that's shown in the prologue, which they have no rights to beyond the brief references made to it in the LoTR appendices. They actually did a reasonably good job with bringing that to life while making sure to stay within the constraints of the very limited material they had to work with. There are also a bunch of brief First Age references and easter eggs scattered about the season.

Now, let's move on to the Second Age. Off the top of my head, here is everything in all 9+ hours of the show so far that was actually pulled from the books:

Some of the characters and locations that exist in the books...exist in the show.
They briefly set up the faithful versus the King's men situation in Numenor.
Tar-Palantir dies.
Sauron is in disguise and helps guide the Elven smiths, although the manner and timeframe in which this occurs is vastly different from the books.
The three elven rings are forged in Eregion by Celebrimbor (but seemingly none of the others have been made at all yet).

We're up to maybe 30 minutes of screen time now. Then there's the other ~8-1/2 hours of Galadriel wandering the world with her buddy Sauron, Mithril as magical Silmaril dust, the Elves suddenly dying because...reasons, Elves and Numenoreans battling orcs in proto-Mordor, Harfoots and not-Gandalf fighting non-binary Slim Shady wizard, magical volcano sword-key, Durin vs Durin, sailboat sabotage gone awry, Isildur "dying", Celeborn going AWOL for hundreds of years, etc. So yeah, just a few adaptorial liberties taken. No problems here.

Also there's the whole 'the forging of the rings took place over 1500 years prior to the fall of Numenor' thing.

Imagine writing a show about Earth and having a scene where the present day United States is negotiating trade terms with the goddamn Roman Empire.

If this show had actually been well-written the time compression could almost be forgiven. Tolkien himself was a bit silly with how glacially he had certain things move. Sauron as Annatar spends something like 300 years in Eregion working to forge the initial batch of rings with the Gwaith-i-Mírdain. Celebrimbor doesn't forge the three Eleven rings for another 90 years or so after that. It's not like there are many if any significant political or technological shifts that take place over the course of those 1500 years, which runs completely counter to the real world.

The show takes it to the opposite extreme, though. It seems like Sauron is in Eregion for like a day or two before he peaces out to Mordor. The pacing from beginning to end is brutally uneven, which would still be a massive weakness even if the issues of adaptation weren't there.

zignor 4 said:

Tolkien himself was a bit silly with how glacially he had certain things move.

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Man I wonder if a race of people who live FOREVER would live on a time scale that seems strange to people who rarely even make it to one hundred years old.