Television The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Wait no Howard Shore - wtf?

Last trailer was very good. I'll probably view it as separate to the movies to be honest. Very separate. It's a completely different aesthetic and vibe.
 
The trailers look good tbf, at least in terms of the production value.

And if the content ends up annoying some of the more toxic internet nerds then that'll be a happy bonus.

Plus we also have The Hobbit films to compare it to, which were shite.
 
altodevil said:
Wait no Howard Shore - wtf?

Last trailer was very good. I'll probably view it as separate to the movies to be honest. Very separate. It's a completely different aesthetic and vibe.
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It's an odd hybrid of new and old; things like the balrog and the mark of Sauron, for example, are identical.

Shore is composing the main title theme, McCreary the series score.
 
Salt Bailly said:
It's an odd hybrid of new and old; things like the balrog and the mark of Sauron, for example, are identical.

Shore is composing the main title theme, McCreary the series score.
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Yeah I've just read he's a musical director on it. That's good. It's ok to be fresh, and in the grand scheme of things it is probably best to be distinct rather than half-arse it.
 
Amarsdd said:
From what I've seen, the hardcore Tolkien nerds have mostly been cautiously optimistic about this and more than willing to give it a chance. Its more the hardcore LOTR movie fans mixed in with this weird "i want to hate everything that's a franchise"/ "i hate everything that even appears to be a slight bit woke" crowd that seems to have made up their minds.
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I think Tolkien fandom is quite split. If it turns out to be empty spectacle I'm sure many will be out. It's hard to imagine any of this fitting in with Tolkien's vision because these stories were always supposed to be legends that played as world building backdrop to a fading rustic era, not fully fleshed out stories in their own right. The Hobbit movies showed how easy it was for Middle Earth to lose its charm when being strip mined by a franchise. I will give it a go but the bar is high.
 
Red Shorts said:
Holy shit, what on earth did I just watch...

I am now convinced they are going to absolutely knock this out the park. 1000% on the hype train for this (even though I already was when they first announced it).

Also, that scene with Galadriel in the water and the tail behind surely means Ancalagon is in it???
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Washing machines live longer with him.
 
glazed said:
I think Tolkien fandom is quite split. If it turns out to be empty spectacle I'm sure many will be out. It's hard to imagine any of this fitting in with Tolkien's vision because these stories were always supposed to be legends that played as world building backdrop to a fading rustic era, not fully fleshed out stories in their own right. The Hobbit movies showed how easy it was for Middle Earth to lose its charm when being strip mined by a franchise. I will give it a go but the bar is high.
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Majority of fans are hyped about the visuals but as any sensible person would be is hesitant about the writing. GoT showed that with poor writing a show can become pretty terrible. The good thing is that at least there's a clear framework for the plot to follow. That should help the show, but the dialogue and writing scene by scene is what will make or break this show as the visuals are clearly going to be amazing.

There will always be extreme members of fandom that goes both directions of thinking it's amazing or thinking its terrible. Best to ignore what both say and stick on the "wait and see" brigade. I'm excited at the potential the show could have if the writing is solid. The 2nd Age is my favourite personally.
 
glazed said:
I think Tolkien fandom is quite split. If it turns out to be empty spectacle I'm sure many will be out. It's hard to imagine any of this fitting in with Tolkien's vision because these stories were always supposed to be legends that played as world building backdrop to a fading rustic era, not fully fleshed out stories in their own right. The Hobbit movies showed how easy it was for Middle Earth to lose its charm when being strip mined by a franchise. I will give it a go but the bar is high.
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If anything the Hobbit’s probably lowered the bar for me. Absolutely atrocious adaptation, and overrun with shitty CGI.
 
RedSky said:
Majority of fans are hyped about the visuals but as any sensible person would be is hesitant about the writing. GoT showed that with poor writing a show can become pretty terrible. The good thing is that at least there's a clear framework for the plot to follow. That should help the show, but the dialogue and writing scene by scene is what will make or break this show as the visuals are clearly going to be amazing.
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It was very striking and much commented upon how badly GoT fell away once it lost the source material to keep it honest. I suspect this is how Rings of Power will also go but I will certainly give it a try.
 
glazed said:
It was very striking and much commented upon how badly GoT fell away once it lost the source material to keep it honest. I suspect this is how Rings of Power will also go but I will certainly give it a try.
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I don't think it has a lot of source material to base their story on in the first place. It all depends on how good the show writers are at this point. I've thought most of the teasers and whatnot have been fine so far, this is looking better though imo. I'll definitely be tuning in and adjust my expectations accordingly as I watch. We've all enjoyed some mid shows in the past I'm sure so I'll be tuning in either way but of course I hope they smash it out of the park. The more good fantasy shows the better.
 
)_( said:
I don't think it has a lot of source material to base their story on in the first place.
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Well that is the the problem. The reason the MCU and Lord of the Rings movies and early GoT are all good is because of rich source material. The reason The Hobbit movies and late GoT are bad is because of lack of quality source material. What replaces is it usually empty spectacle and franchise tropes. That's what this smells of.
 
glazed said:
Well that is the the problem. The reason the MCU and Lord of the Rings movies and early GoT are all good is because of rich source material. The reason The Hobbit movies and late GoT are bad is because of lack of quality source material. What replaces is it usually empty spectacle and franchise tropes. That's what this smells of.
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I think the problem with the Hobbit was more that they wanted to make it something it's not (saying this not having watched it or read the Hobbit). It's a story he wrote to tell his kids. The problem is that the Tolkien estate only allowed them to buy the appendix of the Silmarillion or the lost tales or something?? I dont even know. So it takes a lot to make that into a story and in general Tolkien's stories aren't rich in dialogue or really stories that would translate well onto screen. They have the rich history of the world (though again only a small part of it in the form of the appendix) but they have to fill in the rest. I'm happy if its a good fantasy story, Tolkien's name attachment is what makes it hard because people have all kinds of expectations rather than judging it on its merits.
 
)_( said:
Tolkien's stories aren't rich in dialogue or really stories that would translate well onto screen
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..except Lord of the Rings. Exactly my point.
 
Donaldo said:
Jackson's LOTR depiction was cool nerd. We've gone past cool nerd.

Expect this to cater to a wider audience with little faithfulness to Tolkien's vision. Even Jackson screwed it up with the Hobbit when given more ambit.
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Don't think you can blame the Hobbit films on just that. That was just a mess all over the production.
 
)_( said:
I think the problem with the Hobbit was more that they wanted to make it something it's not (saying this not having watched it or read the Hobbit). It's a story he wrote to tell his kids. The problem is that the Tolkien estate only allowed them to buy the appendix of the Silmarillion or the lost tales or something?? I dont even know. So it takes a lot to make that into a story and in general Tolkien's stories aren't rich in dialogue or really stories that would translate well onto screen. They have the rich history of the world (though again only a small part of it in the form of the appendix) but they have to fill in the rest. I'm happy if its a good fantasy story, Tolkien's name attachment is what makes it hard because people have all kinds of expectations rather than judging it on its merits.
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There was no issue with morphing the Hobbit to better fit the tone of LOTR. Tolkien himself did so and had begun another rewrite, although unfinished.

The problems were production hell resulting in Jackson taking over late in the game and not having the time to properly plan (it's borderline improvised). Jackson also struggles to reign in his excesses at the best if times and us a fecking nightmare with a big CGI budget. The production team collectively lost their shit.
 
glazed said:
I think Tolkien fandom is quite split. If it turns out to be empty spectacle I'm sure many will be out. It's hard to imagine any of this fitting in with Tolkien's vision because these stories were always supposed to be legends that played as world building backdrop to a fading rustic era, not fully fleshed out stories in their own right. The Hobbit movies showed how easy it was for Middle Earth to lose its charm when being strip mined by a franchise. I will give it a go but the bar is high.
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Whilst you may well be correct about this show (although I'll certainly give it a fair shot and the last trailer is highly encouraging), the legends, as you describe them, were very much not just background for LOTR. They were, in their majority, in existence prior to the "Hobbit sequel" and whilst not edited or ready for publication they are very much fleshed out albeit lacking the dialogue or character elements that modern fiction requires.

And yes, the Hobbit movies are terrible.
 
sullydnl said:
The trailers look good tbf, at least in terms of the production value.

And if the content ends up annoying some of the more toxic internet nerds then that'll be a happy bonus.

Plus we also have The Hobbit films to compare it to, which were shite.
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They are already annoyed, “omg diversity”.
 
Fingeredmouse said:
They were, in their majority, in existence prior to the "Hobbit sequel" and whilst not edited or ready for publication they are very much fleshed out albeit lacking the dialogue or character elements that modern fiction requires.
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It's true Tolkien cared as much about his world building (if not more) as he did about his character led stories. That's kind of what made the latter work so well. But do the former stand alone as stories? I'm not sure they will. Without Tolkien's beats and dialogue keeping the story honest, we are at the mercy of what looks suspiciously like a pair of Bad Robot hacks.
 
glazed said:
It's true Tolkien cared as much about his world building (if not more) as he did about his character led stories. That's kind of what made the latter work so well. But do the former stand alone as stories? I'm not sure they will. Without Tolkien's beats and dialogue keeping the story honest, we are at the mercy of what looks suspiciously like a pair of Bad Robot hacks.
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Oh yeah, the risks of pseudo-Tolkien dialogue carnage are high indeed.
 
Fingeredmouse said:
Oh yeah, the risks of pseudo-Tolkien dialogue carnage are high indeed.
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Indeed. The risk of CGI spectacle over coherent character is ever higher. I would actually be amazed if this was any good but then for me Tolkien has a high bar.
 
Any idea why this is a 16+ on Amazon? Are they going full tits and arse like GoT or is it just cos of the fighting, blood, etc?
 
glazed said:
Indeed. The risk of CGI spectacle over coherent character is ever higher. I would actually be amazed if this was any good but then for me Tolkien has a high bar.
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What have they released so far that tells us its a CGI spectacle though? It looks completely the opposite to me, they've gone back to practical effects. The set for the Numenor City for example is said to be gigantic, several city blocks including the wharf. The shot of the calvary charge for example is incredible. Compare that shot to the shite we got in the Hobbit, the difference is night and day.

Obviously parts of this is going to have to rely on CGI just like LOTR needed CGI too, but the Hobbit took far too many liberties with CGI while based on the footage we've seen so far this seems not to be.

@Big Andy - There were calls for nudity casting which panicked a lot of people, but the showrunners confirmed that this was for specific scenes related to torture and it'd be brief. So my guess is that due to the show being fairly dark at times they're going for the 16+ age range.
 
So Amazon are increasing their prime membership costs for the first time in eight years. Don't think it's a coincidence that it is at the exact time this monstrosity comes out.
 
TheNewEra said:
Really hated the Hobbit, if anything it should serve the Amazon series a reminder of what not to do.
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The hobbit should have been Ian Holm (Bilbo), reading "there and back again" to Sean Austin (Sams) children.
 
Red Shorts said:
Holy shit, what on earth did I just watch...

I am now convinced they are going to absolutely knock this out the park. 1000% on the hype train for this (even though I already was when they first announced it).

Also, that scene with Galadriel in the water and the tail behind surely means Ancalagon is in it???
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No I think it's just a deep sea creature that Tolkien alludes to in other writings. Unless this is part of the prologue (which I don't think it is, as she meets the OC character Halbrand after being shipwrecked), Ancagalon would be long dead by this stage.
 
Big Andy said:
Any idea why this is a 16+ on Amazon? Are they going full tits and arse like GoT or is it just cos of the fighting, blood, etc?
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A serious answer for you: no. I would be shocked if there is any sexualised nudity in this story. But the events and themes from the source material are quite dark and complex, i would say thats the reason for the rating. If you are curious as to what I'll spoiler tag it for you.
 
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As a person who read every single book and watched all movies dozen times, i am so underwhelmed with reviews and trailers. I am worried that this will be a disaster.
I doubt that we will see powerful story and powerful scenes like.......this

 
Andycoleno9 said:
As a person who read every single book and watched all movies dozen times, i am so underwhelmed with reviews and trailers. I am worried that this will be a disaster.
I doubt that we will see powerful story and powerful scenes like.......this

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How about just watching it with an open mind?
 
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