Television The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

First of all, best show on tv, possibly ever, in terms of production quality. Its basically a massive bugdet movie on the small screen. Second, it did capture the feeling of the Jackson's LOTR adaption both the good and the bad. The good: you get the sense of the epicness of the world both in terms of the visuals as well as the story is building up; the soundtrack is great; the Harfoots who I thought would irritate me, actually gives it a charm that the LOTR movies had with the hobbits; (more I still have to process it). The bad: the dialogues at some places is a bit clunky (some dialogues between the Silvan elves, the "proper" "prudish" Elvish dialogues were hit and miss); same as LOTR adaption sometimes the Harfoots are sometimes a bit too much (not sure how to explain that), and again the same as LOTR the first two episodes have used the Dwarves as just the comic relief which I'm hoping its not the case in the further episodes; couple of lore things I'm unsure about and where its hindered cause of having rights to only a small bit of the lore (though I did like them hinting to the lore they didn't have rights to).

Its good, I still need to watch it again by myself to process it properly. I sorta made a mistake thinking I was expecting a GOT style series (Idk why it was in my head) when I started it. But, I'm excited to see how the series goes. If I'm giving the HOTD first two episodes 9/10 then this would be 8/10 for me for now.
 
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SuperiorXI said:
I watched the first two episodes and it's actually a good start, enjoying all the storylines so far and I think the strange old man is...

Gandalf
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and Halbrand, who looked a bit shifty, probably is Sauron.
 
Amarsdd said:
First of all, best show on tv, possibly ever, in terms of production quality. Its basically a massive bugdet movie on the small screen. Second, it did capture the feeling of the Jackson's LOTR adaption both the good and the bad. The good: you get the sense of the epicness of the world both in terms of the visuals as well as the story is building up; the soundtrack is great; the Harfoots who I thought would irritate me, actually gives it a charm that the LOTR movies had with the hobbits; (more I still have to process it). The bad: the dialogues at some places is a bit clunky (some dialogues between the Silvan elves, the "proper" "prudish" Elvish dialogues were hit and miss); same as LOTR adaption sometimes the Harfoots are sometimes a bit too much (not sure how to explain that), and again the same as LOTR the first two episodes have used the Dwarves as just the comic relief which I'm hoping its not the case in the further episodes; couple of lore things I'm unsure about.

Its good, I still need to watch it again by myself to process it properly. I sorta made a mistake thinking I was expecting a GOT style series (Idk why it was in my head) when I started it. But, I'm excited to see how the series goes. If I'm giving the HOTD first two episodes 9/10 then this would be 8/10 for me for now.
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To me it wasn't just that they were comic relief, it was that the comedy was bad. It was like they were trying to make the Dwarves comic relief but just weren't very good at writing comedy.
 
Well, that was poop.

Yeah, it looked pretty, I guess, but the whole time I felt like I was watching a children's pantomime show in a theatre. It's hard to explain. The writing was juvenile at best and the acting was average, especially the hobbits. Not the worst show in existence, but I struggle to see how it cost a billion dollars to make. It doesn't add up.

A generous 5 / 10 for me.

At least House of Dragon is off to a good start. One out of two ain't bad :)
 
Decent watch so far...the po facedness was always going to be a bit grating in the YOOL 2022, will have to look past that.

Why did Nori say one hundred and eleven in the beginning. It's fecking eleventy one!
 
Pacing is ..... glacial, which if the characters were a little more interesting might not be so bad and a contrast to the break neck speed of so many other genre shows.
 
Solid start. If you like LOTR, there wasn't much to complain about here... obviously not as gripping as LOTR or as brilliant as peak GOT but not much to complain about. Pace is slightly slow but that is Tolkien and there was enough progress to feel like the various stories were picking up momentum and all seemed linked.
 
I enjoyed the first episode, awful Irish accents aside. It’s basically what I expected a LotR show to be. But I’m far from a hardcore fan and I doubt it was ever going to please them.
 
I guess people will have to explain to me why HotD is better than this show. There doesn't seem to be much between the two shows at the moment except for the fact that the production quality of rings of power is the best I've ever seen for a TV show while HotD is ugly to look at (on my 4k TV that is).

With that said, having read many reviews now it's pretty clear that the lack of rights to the Silmarillion is going to cost the TV show support from diehard Tolkien fans as they will understandably have to bend the story to stay within the bounds of what the show has rights to.
 
Well I can't for the life of me understand where the bad reviews are coming from. I am very impressed so far. The only people who seem to be knocking it are the same ones who were complaining about it a year before it was even released.
 
It is actually decent. Promising enough start, if a little slow, and as I hoped a pretty huge step forward from their abysmal WOT offering.

Looks great, maybe a little too much comedy relief stuff with the Harfoots and Dwarves. Woman playing Galadriel is not bad, never going to match Cate Blanchett for presence and it is a bit of a one note role so far. Elrond and Gil-Galad are the worst part, they looks like extras from some shitty Sci-Fi channel rubbish. Hope they can improve and it is not just the Galadriel show. Elves feel too human.

Autocorrect on my phone almost tried to change Elrond to Elflord, that was weird.

6/10
 
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Very good start.

The production is very impressive for a TV series. Visually it’s stunning. Amazon finally adding Dolby Vision support made a big difference to the HDR quality for me.
 
I enjoyed it, and it feels like it will get better and better. The first episode was definitely better than the second though. Galadriel and Elrond are portrayed well. I wasn't keen on the harfoots at the start but their charm grew on me. Love how good it looks and love the soundtrack.

Not sure why people are saying it's slow. It needs to be so that we spend a good amount of time letting the characters, story and world building breathe, and in any case it seemed to move swiftly to me.

I was concerned Galadriel was just going to swim back to ME with ease, which would've been really fake, but in the end, she was actually adrift for far longer I thought, so perhaps I could agree with people that that part dragged a bit.
 
Watching the first episode now and the editing at the beginning feels a bit jarring. It's going through so much and few scenes seem last more than a few seconds. hope it calms down a bit as it goes on.

Edit - it got better towards the end
 
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I enjoyed it. They seemed to take care weaving this Age with what we know from the existing content to "anchor" this world in our imagination. I think that was well done.

I wasn't so keen on the dwarves being comical, but I guess that followed on from the Hobbit films, and if they were surly all the time it'd get pretty dull. The actors certainly didn't have the gravitas of the top names from the films, but that's to be expected.

And, yes, I kicked myself for not working out earlier who the old chap is likely to be.

Oh, and I think they tried to mix mainly Irish with other accents (Devonian/Cornish) to avoid it being obviously one "countryside" accent. It didn't bother me, apart from trying to place it before giving up and letting it be generic.
 
I don’t really know what I think - I’m relived it’s not awful but I don’t think it’s particularly good. Need to rewatch it.

It looks stupendous but there is some strange casting (Gil-Galad in particular was a weird one) and I don’t get why the dwarves have been reduced to this hurly burly almost comical people. The general feel was a bit all over the place but I guess they are weaving multiple storylines together and it’s early days.

Biggest positive surprise for me is the storyline I’m most interested/invested in is the harfoot/stranger one (which I though I’d hate).
 
tomaldinho1 said:
It looks stupendous but there is some strange casting (Gil-Galad in particular was a weird one) and I don’t get why the dwarves have been reduced to this hurly burly almost comical people.
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Gimli was that in the LOTR films and there was loads of dumb dwarf stuff in the Hobbit films.

I agree its a shame the Dwarves are silly comic relief but that's not something different in this tv show.
 
duffer said:
Gimli was that in the LOTR films and there was loads of dumb dwarf stuff in the Hobbit films.

I agree its a shame the Dwarves are silly comic relief but that's not something different in this tv show.
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Gimli wasn’t on the same level though, albeit it’s easier to write for him as he’s a single character. It’s a balancing act and I do think they’ve gone too far with them.

Hobbit might as well have never existed for me, it was woeful. This series is already 10 x better than that.
 
Oh, so I had seen Elrond before. That was lingering in the back of my mind but I couldn’t place him: it was
Young Ned from the Tower of Joy flashback.
 
Organic Potatoes said:
Oh, so I had seen Elrond before. That was lingering in the back of my mind but I couldn’t place him: it was
Young Ned from the Tower of Joy flashback.
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Correct. He's an excellent actor.
 
I think they've done about as good a job as possible at simplifying the fallout from the war with Morgoth. I'm genuinely impressed. Meteor man must be
gandalf, the appendices state the Istari come across the sea but I'm not sure if they mention by ship? The cold fire gives it away.
 
On the subject of user reviews:



65% of reviews on imdb are either 1/10 or 10/10.
Both are completely and utterly dumb, hyperbolic scores. I used to use imdb as a guide for whether to watch films but its become useless in recent years. The fanboys and haters have basically broken the scoring metric. Is it weird that the source i find most reliable for reviews is on this site? Theres probably half a dozen posters on this site basically dictating if im bothered watching something these days.

Kind of wish you could get a rating with 1/10 and 10/10 excluded. Might bring some meaning back to it. Maybe just shadowban them as a quality control measure.
 
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Two episodes in and this show has started seriously strong. It's dramatic, tense, funny, touching, scary. The characters are well drawn and there is a rich texture to the interactions. The dramatic tone is well balanced and the pacing feels deliberate and considered in a way that almost all tv and movies rarely are these days. Above all it's actually fun to watch. An eerie Medusa raft scene that cuts into a rowdy Dwarfs cutting into rock scene, then Halflings training their California Man, and what's under the floorboards. Every strand is interesting and balanced against whatever else is happening.

Also it feels like a fantasy show that isn't ashamed of its genre trappings, and not just another war simulator dragging the audience from one battlefield to another.

I love Galadriel and the sense that she's a bit of a prick, twisted up by the grief of her brother. It's so nice to be past Legolas and his lego block performances. I love the Oirish halfwits, with their grubby faces and raggedy dress - even Lenny is good. Love the dwarfs being comically grumpy yet spirited and principled. I laughed aloud at Peter Mullan; I wasn't expecting that. So far it's a brilliant refresh after the tumescent crud Peter Jackson began wanking out halfway through his middling earth series.

I don't even like Tolkien that much outside of the original Hobbit book and the films became increasingly unwatchable for me. I don't have a dog in the fight but House of Dragons feels vastly inferior. Not that I hate HOD (yet) but every area of that show, from the visuals to the pacing, characterisations, tonal balance etc. feels like a shit tip next to this Rings thing.

Early days but love it so far. I certainly wasn't expecting to.
 
Salt Bailly said:
I think they've done about as good a job as possible at simplifying the fallout from the war with Morgoth. I'm genuinely impressed. Meteor man must be
gandalf, the appendices state the Istari come across the sea but I'm not sure if they mention by ship? The cold fire gives it away.
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I totally agree regarding the war of Morgoth. Given the lack of rights, they did well to retell those events.
I wouldn’t mind the meteor man being Gandalf. But I hope it is one of the Blue wizards. I think it will be better cause the writers won’t be hindered by the already existing and very known persona of Gandalf and would allow them to do different things (maybe both good and grey) with him.
 
I really feel like all of the characters so far haven’t been anything more than mere plot devices. Really bland and predictable.

edit: it felt like I was playing an RPG with prolonged cut scenes

The visuals though :drool: to be fair, I mostly enjoyed it, the production quality overshadows every negative so far.
 
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