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The Rings of Power

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Wed 21 Sep , 2022 2:38 am
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yovargas
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Wed 21 Sep , 2022 3:04 am
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:LMAO: :LMAO: :LMAO:


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MariaHobbit
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Wed 21 Sep , 2022 1:52 pm
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yovargas wrote: *  Tue 20 Sep , 2022 12:30 am
The black elf dude (I think he may be Hispanic actually) is as handsome as Elrond isn't. 😛
But Elrond has a personality, unlike the other guy so Elrond wins. (I assume he and his lady have a names but I have no idea what they are.)

(Also, why does Celebrimbor (sp?) look like a middle aged accountant?)
Bronwyn and Arondir. I looked it up because I was looking for the transcript so I could complain about that first episode where Arondir's friend tells him that Elf + Human is a bad idea. I thought I remembered he said it never happened... and I was going to point out that Elrond Half Elven is RIGHT THERE in the first episode too! But that's not what the script said. The friend said it never ended well- and I guess from an elven viewpoint, it never does. Aging and dying= bad news.

Anyway, with my one nit pick demolished by my own research, I'm left with whining, "But I don't like it!"


And this thought- maybe Galadriel's personality shifts a lot when she takes up the ring Nenya?


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yovargas
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Wed 21 Sep , 2022 2:01 pm
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I'm with you Maria, reeeeeaally not liking the attempt to make a romance from those two. Maybe with time they'll sell me on it but right now I think it feels really forced and unnecessary.


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Dave_LF
Post subject: The Rings of Power
Posted: Thu 29 Sep , 2022 9:32 pm
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Dave_LF wrote:
I had an Amazon box delivered today and it has the words "Rings of Power" all over the tape. I'm a little afraid to accept this gift... :help:
It gets worse…

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On the other hand, it’s a triumph of capitalism that goods once considered magical and only obtainable at immense cost by great kings of men can now simply be delivered to your door.


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Thu 29 Sep , 2022 11:53 pm
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Frelga
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Fri 30 Sep , 2022 12:43 am
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Sure, but they market it as a way to avoid annoying relatives, and before you know it, you've fallen into the shadows.

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yovargas
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Sun 09 Oct , 2022 2:09 am
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So, like, are any of y'all still watching? Anybody care?


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Sun 09 Oct , 2022 8:43 am
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I'm a few episodes behind and probably won't be able to watch until the week after next, but I'll definitely finish.

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Jude
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Sun 09 Oct , 2022 1:00 pm
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yov, are you starting to like it?

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Mon 10 Oct , 2022 12:59 am
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I keep trying to watch it and keep getting distracted.

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yovargas
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Mon 10 Oct , 2022 2:39 am
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Jude wrote: *  Sun 09 Oct , 2022 1:00 pm
yov, are you starting to like it?
I think it's just okay. It's watchable but it's rarely all that engaging. The best part are the handful of characters who are quite charming and likeable (Durin's my fav), but even those are stuck in stories that I think are poorly written and a bit dull. It does look quite nice, and the last episode was quite impressive visually, so kudos to the production team at least.


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Alatar
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Mon 10 Oct , 2022 8:41 am
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I'm still watching. Enjoying it, but not obsessively. I do find it more entertaining than House of the Dragon.

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nienna
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Tue 11 Oct , 2022 7:17 am
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I asked my Tolkien-fan son if he had been watching it, and he said he had, but wasn't sure how he felt about it!

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yovargas
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Mon 17 Oct , 2022 2:13 am
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Season finale!

The show is making so, so many story choices that I think are stupid nonsense, but I'll admit despite a lot of eye rolling on my part, I did have fun with the finale. The scene with the creepy hobbit followers was legit very cool. The most entertaining episode by a good margin, even if it mostly feels pretty dumb.


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Sun 23 Oct , 2022 10:15 pm
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Finally got to watch episode 6. Action is done so much better than in PJ-LOTR, and Arondir is way cooler than Legolas.


I'll watch 7 and 8 over the next few days. In the meantime, I'm back to hiding from spoilers.

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Estel
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Sun 08 Jan , 2023 8:49 am
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Honestly, I never watched it beyond the first three episodes. Steve and I get a very limited amount of time each week where we can watch what we want to watch (living with and caring for someone with dementia/Alzheimer’s means only watching what she wants to watch else we risk a full meltdown) so we pretty strongly curate our TV viewing these days.

Honestly, with Steve on a business trip in Curaçao right now, I don’t watch any TV at all whilst I’m by myself. It’s nice to have quiet and silence.


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Sun 08 Jan , 2023 7:12 pm
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Big hugs.

I don't think I made it past the 3rd episode either, tbh.

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Snowdog
Post subject: Review of The Rings of Power
Posted: Tue 10 Jan , 2023 12:18 am
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I wrote this summary up on Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza a while back and thought I'd also present it here. Credit to Boromir88 there for starting the review thread with these Catagories: Visuals/Special effects, Costumes/Make-up, Acting, Plot, Writing/Dialogue, Music, Themes/Motifs, and Overall.) (not) Suprisingly, very few gave a rated review there, instead it got overrun by the people who hate the show and felt the need to post that they didn't watch it. Too funny. Anyway, will use the spoiler tag...
Edit: the spoiler tag code doesn't seem to work. Oh well.


• Visuals/Special effects - A-. I think they captured the look and feel of Middle Earth in general, with Numenor and Khazad Dum the stars of the presentation. I will put this in the 'visuals' .... Charles Edwards is a wonderful actor and he is doing a great job of presenting Celebrimbor, he does not have the look of the Celebrimbor that is in my head-canon. It is one of the big negatives I have with the visuals so I mention it here. It's is along the lines of Liv Tyler not appearing as the Arwen of my head canon.

• Costumes/Make-up - B. It is weighted on an 'overall' scale as some I thought was really good, and a few things I thought was not-so-good. First some of the not-so-good. The elf-ears are a weak-link especially coupled with the short hair. The only one that it really works with is Arondir. Also, some of the armour looked rather pedestrian. On the plus side, they portrayed the Dwarves really well, especially both Durins. I liked the guild emblems of Númenor, and I liked how Galadriel, Mariel, Elendil, and Farien were portrayed. A big plus for me is the Orcs... Uruks. Much more menacing than the PJ Orcs! They captured them well. Overall, they captured the essence with most of the costuming.

• Acting - B. There are some stellar scenes, and some are doing much better than others. I think a lot of the negatives I have pertain more to the script writing than the actor's themselves. The acting standouts for me are the characters Durin III, Durin IV, Arondir, Mariel, and Elendil. Honorable mentions are Pharazon, Adar, Theo, and Galadriel. I'm fairly neutral on the rest. The actors and the acting is good, but is hindered by the scripts they are handed. I look beyond the accents used just as I look beyond the heritage of the actors.

• Plot - C. I found the plot somewhat rudderless as if the showrunners were themselves floundering with what direction to take, especially in the first few episodes. The whole of the sea scenes where Galadriel gets on board to Valinor, then jumps off far to the west is a total cringeworthy 'WTH' moment for me. I 'get' what they were trying to set up, but that was just outright bad along the lines of Arwen catching Aragorn out in the wild at unawares. Add to that Halbarad and Co out floating on wreckage without much of any explanation as to 'why' they were out there, and the who/what/why/how the 'Corsairs' were out raiding ships in the Sundering Seas, really had me shaking my head. In the end it was used to bring Galadriel and 'Halbarad' to Numenor. Also, another cringeworthy 'WTH' moment for me was/is the whole 'Mithril' being needed to 'save' the elves. I will give credit to the whole good/evil battle of the tree creating mithril as a neat fan-ficcy tale, but that whole Elf-Mithril connection storyline was a bit rough to take. Also, with the Balrog scene in the depths of Khazad-dûm, I'm really hoping that they don't bring it in too soon, which it is appearing they will do.

• Writing/Dialogue - D+. This is where a lot of it falls down for me. I could go into this rather deep, but will just say that lines like Galadriel saying to Elrond when he tells her to put up her sword 'Without it, what am I to be', and Bronwyn's whole offhanded 'I'll go with you' when Arondir says he is going off east. Another crappy portrayal was the whole "fight" with the Ice Troll. Galadriel's 'squad' looked pretty useless as they got kicked around much like Gondor's soldiers in the battle of Osgiliath in PJ's project. Galadriel comes and PJ Legolas-like, saves the day singlehandedly, complete with sword-spin when she is done, and oh look... it seems all the squad is back standing around again. I mention Peter Jackson's film projects here, because the writing of rings of Power seems to love giving hat-tips to those projects with their fancy Legoladriel footwork, dropping orc-heads in front of people, and finding a Viggo lookalike actor for Halbarand. I get they are trying to do fan service with all this, but it falls flat, and the fans of PJ will only point out that they are 'copying the master' or something. It is my hope that the showrunners give up on trying to incorporate so much fan-service and do their own thing (within the lore if not canon), for better or worse. One of the plusses is the usually-mentions of characters and moments in the Tolkien lore. Feanor and the Silmarils, Anarion (though they seem to allude that he is the 'older' brother to Isildur and Farien), and the visuals of the Two Trees of Valinor in the 1st episode.

• Music - A. I find no real flaws with it, and I did enjoy Fiona Apple's singing 'Where The Shadows Lie' at the end of the last episode very nice!

• Themes/Motifs - C-ish. Not sure which way to go with this. It sort of rolls into the whole 'visuals' thing. They done wonderfully with Númenor, though I would have liked to see it a bit 'grander' and the ships bigger and more plentiful. Since the timelines are all distorted, I would love to see their shipbuilding yards in Middle Earth (Lond Daer, etc.) and with the mention of Pelargir at the end of the last episode, there is a possibility they might allude more to this? The reason I think it would be good is to demonstrate the strengthening of Númenor, and the reason I think they won't is they seemed to have ingrained in the earlier episodes that going to Middle Earth was something Númenor didn't like doing.

• Overall - 6.5/10. I debated giving it a 7 but so much of it was quite rough. The whole 'The Sea Is Always Right' lameness cost it a half-point. You may note that I have left out the whole Harfoot story in my summary. The reason is I thought it was to me it was a bit of a sideshow to the whole telling of the rest of the tale. The whole storyline would be a wonderful story on its own, but it is a bit rough at this point merging it in with the rest of what was presented. I know the whole 'meteor man' story is incorporated into it and they are alluding to it being Gandalf, but when he was using his powers in that last episode, he had an eerie 'Christopher Lee' look to him. It is my hope that it would be Radagast as they could do more with his backstory. Saruman would be a decent choice as they could portray that he was initially good. The whole 'watcher' bit I feel was a missed opportunity for the show to show some depth in the 'wizard' storyline, but I'll get more into that another time as I digress here. Overall, I thought the show was a reasonable effort in portrayal while adhering to the restraints put on them by the limitations of source material, the setting in the 2nd Age, and the individual approvals needed from the Tolkien Estate for stretching the boundaries.



I have since watched the 8 episodes in a binge, and I have to say knowing some stuff that happens later helps understand some of the things that happens earlier (if that makes any sense). I don't think it 'works' well with the 'episode-a-week' format but I know why Amazon is presenting it this way.

The 'super-Galadriel' fight scenes with the ice troll and the Númenórean conscripts is still cheesy, the 'swim' across the Sundering Sea, and the reach done to get Galadriel to Númenor still makes me shake my head. Yes, she comes off generally rude and condescending, but I still for some reason like Morffyd's portrayal.

Anyway, I give Season 1 a C+ as an overall grade. Entertaining and awkward. Lovely sets, costumes, and excellent orcs, yet quite dumbfounding and clunky in the flow. Yeah. Will probably binge it again at some point when things are dry on my streaming services and see how it stands up before season 2 airs, which I understand won't be until sometime in 2024.

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yovargas
Post subject: Re: The Rings of Power
Posted: Tue 10 Jan , 2023 2:42 am
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Reading that, it occurs to me that I've already forgotten who those non-canon characters you referenced are. So few of the characters managed to really make much of an impression.

Though we'd probably disagree on some of the details, I would also rate it in the 6ish/C-ish range.


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