Some of you make me laugh. It’s like you refuse to acknowledge the complete derision Hollywood now showers on any white male character. Diversity in casting isn’t the issue. I bet no one here really cares if an elf is black, brown, red, yellow, or whatever. When there are no strong white characters and the only sensible strong characters are of color and women that is woke. Pretend not to see it but didn’t mean it’s not there.

As for jhe’s comment about enjoying it for what it is, well for fucks sake this isn’t a dime store novel. If you take the Bible and just reinvent it you are going to get pushback. There are certain books that carry a similar weight and respect. Tolkien certainly is one of those. While you can play hell with it, you probably shouldn’t.

I have watched the first two episodes and enjoyed them. I have never read any Tolkien, and only watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy last week. I am glad I don't have any reason to pick it apart.

The funny part about the Tolkien followers is most don't realize that he basically stole all his stories directly from Norse Mythology. I gave a book away just recently with much of this in it and as I was reading it a few years ago was thinking, wait a minute I've read this stuff before.....

First thing I did notice about the show - where was Galadriel and her party of Elves when they fought the troll? Utumno? Angband? Weren't both of these fortresses utterly destroyed by the Valar in the War of Wrath?

quote:

Originally posted by Blume9mm:
The funny part about the Tolkien followers is most don't realize that he basically stole all his stories directly from Norse Mythology. I gave a book away just recently with much of this in it and as I was reading it a few years ago was thinking, wait a minute I've read this stuff before.....

Didn’t learn from taking a dump in the Glock threads, huh? No, I would say we pretty well have a handle on what his influences were. He sought to create a mythology for England, because it had none, borrowing familiar archetypes from mythology all over Europe. He’s known for it. They’ve taught college courses on this man and his influences for decades. But if you’d like to explain to us in detail how it’s all stolen directly from Norse mythology, I’d like to invite you to go ahead and do that. In another thread.

quote:

Originally posted by Dzozer:
First thing I did notice about the show - where was Galadriel and her party of Elves when they fought the troll? Utumno? Angband? Weren't both of these fortresses utterly destroyed by the Valar in the War of Wrath?

Yeah, I think you’re right, it’s supposed to be Angband. I’m rusty, so I checked the wiki. By this point in the timeline, it’s been utterly destroyed, which… Amazon doesn’t care about.

Third episode is a bit better. Still, black queen of Numenor, leading all the white people. Apparently, there’s no other black people in Numenor, or at least none that I saw. Another inexplicable single black character in a ruling position. Galadriel is so one-dimensional and angry, I really don’t care for this character. Nice to see Elendil isn’t a hapless nitwit. I don’t remember the Numenoreans being racists in the source literature.

One of my posts that got wiped in the forum reset, I did say before and I will say again: for the problems I do have with the show, it is visually beautiful. Some off the sets and locales (both digital and real) are pretty epic in scope and design. Numenorean dress and styling is pretty consistent with the little bit they showed in Peter Jackson’s works. It was kind of neat to see anything at all in any material about how Elendil came to own Narsil, but disappointing that one of the named blades forged by Telchar was unceremoniously handed over without any explanation whatsoever. Bad writing. And yes, it appears it was Narsil, and that they tried to make it at least familiar, but could not use the same designs as Peter Jackson’s films.

If they couldn’t acquire the rights to those designs and likenesses, I have to have a glimmer of hope that Jackson’s retained them in order to use them….

I will admit it has been a loooooooong time since I picked up the Silmarillion. And I just recently found the Unfinished Tales. It is on my pile of books to be read. I do think one of the things that has hamstrung bringing Middle Earth to screen has been there are different groups holding chunks of the intellectual property and no one is willing to share. I remember reading an article outlining where in Peter Jackson's Hobbit Trilogy who had the Elvish and Dwarf's Rings of Power and when they were shown on the actors fingers, but because P.J. didn't have the rights to those items he couldn't say here they are, even when shown on screen. The Arkan Stone was a substitution for one of the Dwarf's rings to show the corrupting influence.

In some ways I do feel that viewing Rings of Power without a recent reading of Silmarillion is either a hindrance or an advantage. Not sure if either/or or both. Right now I am taking that this is a slow story building with the writers holding back key info to keep some suspense.

Well, IIRC, the events occurring simultaneously in the show so far really occur around SA 1000, SA 1600, and SA 3200.
And Queen Miriel - she tried to continue the policies of her father Tar-Palantir, and reconcile with the Elves and bring Numenor back to the old ways. She loved the Elves...
I guess I'm picky, but I thought the original direction of the show was to stay away from already well developed characters and changing existing cannon. And I guess I knew it would turn out like this.
Oh, and WTH is meteor man? Will the Vulcan's now show up in a space ship to make first contact?

Yep, and she was basically forced to marry Ar-Pharazon and be his queen against her will, while he ruled. But in Amazon’s version, he’s just a peon, subservient to the black queen.

Irishwind, it’s probably both, and how it works out depends heavily on the person. I think they’re relying on most of the viewership not having read any of the source material and being open to whatever they come up with.

Doomcock joked in his last video that we’re three hours into this saga and not one of the characters is someone the viewer should care about yet, and by the time Fellowship of the Ring was three hours into it’s story, it had been finished… for an hour. In that time, Peter Jackson and company had managed to introduce us to a few dozen characters, build an entire world with history, explain that history, thrill the audience, and take them along for a roller coaster ride. Three hours into Rings of Power, and I’m wondering how long they’re going to drag this out.


Dzozer, someone else guessed it and I agree that meteor man is probably Gandalf.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Dzozer, someone else guessed it and I agree that meteor man is probably Gandalf.

Would explain his fondness for the Hobbits.

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Dzozer, someone else guessed it and I agree that meteor man is probably Gandalf.

Would explain his fondness for the Hobbits.

Or Radagast.

Possibly, but comet guy is wearing gray, not brown. It’s possible, but I think it unlikely.

Ah, I see...
So they forget Gandalf's boat ride over to Middle Earth, and receiving a Ring of Power from Cirdan... Okee Dokee! Lol

quote:

Originally posted by Blume9mm:
The funny part about the Tolkien followers is most don't realize that he basically stole all his stories directly from Norse Mythology. I gave a book away just recently with much of this in it and as I was reading it a few years ago was thinking, wait a minute I've read this stuff before.....

Stole?
Before Rings and Hobbit, Tolkien was known as for being the preeminent English scholar to translate and interpret Beowulf, which was written in Old English. News flash, British lore and history has a giant dose of Viking, along with French-Norman, German Saxons, German-Danish Angles, migratory Celtics and a host of other groups, all of which weave into an interesting cultural tapestry of the UK.

As for the show.....its slow, its not good, the Mary Sueing of Galadriel is awful. I'm sure the season finale will feature a Balrog, Durian's Bane getting woken-up by the Dwarves.

I read another article today about how RoP is allowed to only to use certain parts of the Tolkien works. The Peter Jackson movies should even considered to be in an alternate universe and cannot be used/referenced. Which will be weird since I assume (and it is just me spitballing) the plan for this series is to end with the huge battle/fall of Sauron that was the opening of the Fellowship of the Ring. But it will explain how RoP's Elrond is different from the Agent Smith Elrond we saw in the LOTR/Hobbit movies.

quote:

Originally posted by Dzozer:
Ah, I see...
So they forget Gandalf's boat ride over to Middle Earth, and receiving a Ring of Power from Cirdan... Okee Dokee! Lol

Hey, they’ve blasted the canon to shit in 90% of this show. Gandalf’s entrance and mute romp around middle earth with the proto-hobbits makes for better screen time if it begins with him crashing to earth in a comet and setting everything on fire, right?

So far it is often visually stunning.

That's about it, and I say that as someone that has never read the book, nor wants to from the descriptions of it in this thread.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Three hours into Rings of Power, and I’m wondering how long they’re going to drag this out

Amazon has said that they're planning for 50 total hours of episodes, spread out over 5 seasons.

Remember what happened when they took the 300 pages of The Hobbit and tried to stretch it out to a 9 hour film trilogy?

Take that, and crank it up to 11.

You are spot on P220 Smudge.

Tolkien created entire languages for Cs-sake.

His world building is still being studied.

I'm a Tolkien fan and have been for 50+ years. I've read the Silmarillion a number of times and P220 Smudge is spot on.

I wasn't happy with the changes made by PJ in his movies but at least he stuck with the majority of the story. I've only watched the first two episodes of this series, and other than the names of some of the people and places, there's not much here that is close to the original book