Rings of Power: Tolkien's Shambling Skinsuit

I'm surprised how good this is.

the black dwarf chick is every bit as terrible as expected, just ludicrous, she's in full on sassy black girl mode every second she's on screen. nails on a chalkboard levels of cringe.

But she's one character. its not like all the dwarves are twerking.

Aldarion said:

I'm surprised how good this is.

the black dwarf chick is every bit as terrible as expected, just ludicrous, she's in full on sassy black girl mode every second she's on screen. nails on a chalkboard levels of cringe.

But she's one character. its not like all the dwarves are twerking.

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And she's hardly in it so its whatever. Overall the Dwarves are very well done.

Aldarion said:

the black dwarf chick is every bit as terrible as expected, just ludicrous, she's in full on sassy black girl mode every second she's on screen. nails on a chalkboard levels of cringe.

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I was expecting full levels of awfulness here but unless that's how "sassy black girl" works in the UK I do not agree with this at all. Other than HAY GUYS LOOK AT OUR BRAVE DIVERSITY HIRE (and lack of beard) she was fine. She could have been played by any number of fat ugly white actresses attempting to pull off a Scottish accent and it would have been largely the same.

Anyway, after thinking on it more my earlier concerns remain. I still don't know how they are going to sustain this over five seasons given such a scant amount of source material to draw from and the resulting choppy editing and pacing of these episodes. But, despite some wonky lore changes / omissions that remain questionable, I was pleasantly surprised at the effort they're making to stay generally respectful of Tolkien. It's obvious that they are at least legitimately trying and not just taking a big steaming dump over the mythology. Also, the acting was surprisingly solid. No one was phoning it in or giving off a vibe like they didn't want to be there. Well, maybe diversity elf and his vast range of (one) facial expression but I think that's just how they're writing him. The actress playing Galadriel has a very bright future.

Another couple of nerdy book details I noticed:

Bubbles said:

so which one is better? woke GoT or this?

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This I think based off the second episode, but HoD has the potential to be better since we know they are doing the Targ Civil War which would be lots of entertaining action when they get to it.

Both are generally good, but this has had the stronger start

Cringe and boring... Plus some ultra "Tolkien" level of writing, here is my fav so far:
Celedumb and Elrosoy take a stroll to Moria?! Really? They show up at the gate, just as if they walked to a neighbor's house.Knock knock, fuck off. So Elrosoy tells give me a few days to make it work. End of the scene. Yeah, baby. FuckTolkien, this is the next level of writing.
Not even something like "Very well, I'll order the guards to prepare for a longer stay. Good luck!"
Distance to Moria in days? Who cares. Guards/horses/food/etc? Who caes? Weapons/armor in case they get ambushed? Who cares, this cloth non-armor will do. Just wait for me here at the gate for a few days? Who cares about your top level elf ass. They are basing their 5+ seasons shit on 50-100 pages of text (not a story, text) and they couldn't have "padded" that scene with something more reasonable?
Honorary mention: Guyladriel jumping off a ship a few hundred miles away from land. Yeah, that's some top level of wisdom. Ah, wait. She's a warrior now, int stat is at a minimum.. Minor nitpick: she's not stronk enough, shoud've put the plate armor back on.
And this is supposed to be a 1bil show based on Tolkien?!? GTFO. This is shit. Call it Bazos/Amazon Magic Land, and I don't have a problem. Calling this Tolkien or LOTR, go fuck yourself.

Also, CGI is pretty and it gets one thing right: dorfs are the best race.

Having seen the second episode now I find it myself quite pleased. This is better than HoT D and a couple orders of magnitude better than the Wheel of Time.

We knew the production values would be through the roof, but I'm liking the overall character moments as well.

where did galadriel hide/carry the dagger?

amigo said:

Celedumb and Elrosoy take a stroll to Moria?! Really? They show up at the gate, just as if they walked to a neighbor's house.Knock knock, fuck off. So Elrosoy tells give me a few days to make it work. End of the scene. Yeah, baby. FuckTolkien, this is the next level of writing.
Not even something like "Very well, I'll order the guards to prepare for a longer stay. Good luck!"
Distance to Moria in days? Who cares. Guards/horses/food/etc? Who caes? Weapons/armor in case they get ambushed? Who cares, this cloth non-armor will do. Just wait for me here at the gate for a few days? Who cares about your top level elf ass.

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The high king of the Noldor had just declared all wars and violence over, welcome to utopia. They had nothing to fear in their minds, certainly not assault from the Dwarves. At worst they'd just bounce them the fuck out and shut the gate, as they did at first. As far as food, a pocket full of Lembas bread could have fed them for months.

amigo said:

They are basing their 5+ seasons shit on 50-100 pages of text (not a story, text)

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Far, far less than 50-100 pages.

amigo said:

and they couldn't have "padded" that scene with something more reasonable?

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Probably could have. The editing is a big issue, if less so in the second episode.

amigo said:

Honorary mention: Guyladriel jumping off a ship a few hundred miles away from land.

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Agreed. That was probably the worst piece of writing so far.

wonder if they will break 15m viewers

I agree. I am not the expert most of you are regarding LOTR.

They definitely spent some cash producing these. I will stick with it and see where it goes.

Aldarion said:

I'm surprised how good this is.

the black dwarf chick is every bit as terrible as expected, just ludicrous, she's in full on sassy black girl mode every second she's on screen. nails on a chalkboard levels of cringe.

But she's one character. its not like all the dwarves are twerking.

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Yea she was pretty terrible and a low point for sure.

Wow,

So that is what Wheel of Time "Could" have looked like. What a shame. I have to give props to a show that really does look good. The story does drag a bit but it is going to given the amount of time they are spending with it. The characters are good enough. The color mingling bothers me a lot less than I thought it would. Its a fantasy and so I just go with it. So far I enjoy it for the eye candy at the very least. I think it suffers due to a lack of emotion. I do not feel the pain or laugh with any of the humor. So, if I were to describe the show so far in one word, I would say dry. Hopefully once the characters are fleshed out more and the story gets deeper, that will change.

Who is going to watch Wheel of Time Season 2 after watching this???

Brahma said:

Yeah. The obvious choice is Gandalf. So ya. It's Saruman.

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My guess would be Tom Bombadil.

If they want to stay true to the lore, the wizards weren't sent to Middle Earth until the third age (according tot he wiki).

There is a good chance they just said fuck it to the lore though...