I knew it. Bring on the cooking and cleaning scenes!
Television The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
- Thread starter DWelbz19
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Yeah they should have got tolkien to write this show. How stupid of them
Amazon hired a very well known and respected Tolkien scholar called Tom Shippey to work on the scripts to make sure they were consistent with the books because this is what the Tolkien estate had mandated. But then Amazon sacked him in April 2020 and he's now under an NDA. Christopher Tolkien, the eldest son, who spent a lifetime in charge of the estate and was co-author of the Silmarillion, died in January 2020. Basically his kids took the money and ran.
I'm not qualified to discuss Tolkien as I haven't read his books, so I'll concede any points you make in reference to them. Plus, there is no way I'm getting into it with a Tolkien enthusiast, you lot scare me.
My comparison comes from Peter Jackson's portrayal of Galadriel in his movies. I found her to be infinitely more relatable and feminine, with a dark undertone that, in my opinion anyway, made her the most powerful character in the movie. And she didn't need to slay a troll entirely unassisted to promote that message. One look in her eyes was more than enough. That's skilled writing in every sense of the word, I'm sure a Tolkien person such as yourself could appreciate it.
I literally just got it from the Galadriel wikipedia page so you're probably fine.
Good, maybe it'll give the show writers the freedom to produce a good storyline without worrying about the paragraph in a half finished, skeleton of a history published years after Tolkiens death. I dont even think this show contradicts the Silmarillion in any meaningful way. It probably contradicts some throw away line in a letter he wrote to his mistress in between the 10 pages of fart porn fetish he wrote in 1953 but i can get over that.
My preference would be to produce an original show in a different universe but that wouldn't have gotten a billion dollar budget. Recycling a few character names and places seems a pretty minor cost to get a fantasy show of this scale produced.
I have a new favorite theory:
No idea how viable anything is mind, as I am not really read into this lore, but that’s what I’m running with for now.
it is one of the Blue Wizards, because there were actually two meteors that we saw (maybe someone can run a flight tracker on that) and what The Stranger is trying to find is perhaps the other Blue Wizard.
That's all fine and good but if you like the themes and tone of actual Tolkien then this show is just painful to watch. On the other hand the Silmarillion is probably one of the most tumescent books ever written so at least it's faithful in that respect if no other. But this show isn't based on the Silmarillion, which was about the First Age. It's based on the Lord of the Rings Appendices, which are mainly just timelines and plot outlines.
Only because the left Tom out of the movies.
I think it's going to be Amazon Gandalf because they would want Amazon Gandalf in it hanging out with Amazon hobbits. But Tolkien Gandalf (or any of the five Wizards) don't come to Middle Earth till thousands of years later and they don't fly around on meteors. So fek knows.
They would be so much fun if in control of creating shows of their own. Would be like Comic-Con on the big screen.
This Galadriel argument is a little like people going granular over Boba Fett. I like this show. I like returning to Middle Earth. I'd rather have the show loosely aligned with what I remember of the books and movies than to have them try some Expanded Cinematic Universe thing, or worse, do what Disney has done with the endless Star Wars spinoffs. This show was done with craft and care, they spent a fortune to make it look good, and I'm enjoying it. There were some parts of the movies that I thought were stupid in otherwise brilliant films, why would this show be expected to be any different?
It has always been my impression power in Middle earth does not come from physical strength or even magical strength. It comes from charisma, leadership and ability to nfluence others and get them to do your bidding. How many times do we see powerful figures seriously challenged or bested by lesser creatures.
Melkor the most powerful of Valar (probably the most powerful creature besides Iluvatar) would be defeated by Ungoliath had not his balrogs came to save him.
Melkor was also challenged by Fingolfin and gave a serious fight even wounding him for life. Thorondor the eagle then scarred and mangled Melkor's as he came to rescue Fingolfin's body.
Isildur took severed Sauron's finger and took his ring.
Witchking of Angmar defeated by a woman and a hobbit.
Saruman or Sharkey was at the end
Even Gandalf, one of the wisest creatures and a Maia was trapped by a pack of worgs.
I mean what are the greatest feats of strength that we see in the books? Probably Hurin killing 70 trolls of Gothmog, single handedly.
What are the greatest feats of magic? Luthien putting everybody to sleep with her dancing and singing? There are different instances of clairvoyance and prophecies given out. We can assume some healing abilities from Elrond. There is a lot of talk about power in LOTR and Silmarillion, but there is very little of it to see, besides leadership and ability to create stuff (rings, diamonds, creatures).
And yes Galadriel is powerful, she has one of the three rings if I recall. But my guess is most of her power comes from her beauty, authority, decision making, wisdom and leadership over elves. She is the daughter of Finarfin who himself is the son of Finwe. Basically she has the most noble blood in Middle Earth is one of the oldest creatures and most knowledgeable.
So my question is what is power in Middle Earth. How different is to power in real life?
Finally, Legolas is hardly run of the mill character, he himself is a prince of elves. Also what we see in the movies hardly matches the books and AFAIK the show does not have anything to do with movies. I don''t think you could watch the movies and then this show and believe they are the same thing. For good or the ill.
Disclaimer: I still haven't watched the show. I expect I won't love it. I just find most of the hollywood incompetent hacks without a single bone of creativity in their bodies.
If we are going to judge this show as a prequel to the movies I don't think it has a chance in hell. I mean just how ridiculously uniformed all the elves are in the movies. The same clothing style, the same hairstyle and of course everybody is white which simply can not happen in today's filmmaking. Unfortunately some of the things (diversity) and writing patterns in Hollywood are directly at odds with Tolkien's world. I'd prefer the writers just created a new IP or adapted something that is more diverse. More modern.
I don't even particularly like Tolkien he is just too archaic for me, his characters one dimensional, but the idea of modernizing it abhors me. If you are going to adapt something, you need to let your ego out of it, your opinions out of it and try to present the authors vision as accurately as possible. Unfortunately, Tolkien's vision is old. But hey, that's what they bought. The idea that you are going to change this vision and "modernize it" without backlash is silly.
My guess is that eventually that show will go on for some time on name recognition, but eventually weak writing and alienating the significant portion of fanbase of both books and movies (which may or may not be due to racist tendencies of those fans) will lead it to failling. Wouldn't be surprised if we never see season 3.
I'll try not to watch it as LOTR show at all, but rather another fantasy and hope it will be watcheable. I do expect I will quit before S1 ends. From the little I've seen of trailers I don't expect much. Maybe I'll binge it with GF and she forces me to finish. I'm interested in her reaction. She loves the movies and has read books but isn't as knowlegeable as I am nor is she as fan of Tolkien as much as I was (but am not anymore).
Edit: Dammit this is waay too long of a post.
TLDR: I don't think power in middle earth is much different to concept of power in real life. And I expect the show to be bad as I don't trust hollywood writers.
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Just honing in on this part as I strongly disagree.
The only way you can get or should expect to get Tolkien's unaltered vision is in his own work. Any adaptation of that work will by neccessity deviate from that vision, to a greater or lesser extent, as indicated by term "adaptation" itself which implies alteration and change.
The idea that the creative scope of an adaptation should be limited to re-creating the original author's vision as accurately as possible is fundamentally anti-creative. Any adaptation is its own work, formed by the vision of the people actually making it. If they feel their work is best served creatively by deviating from the vision of the source they're drawing from then that's entirely their perogative.
I feel like I am going to be hearing parts of this on the 6 o'clock news after an atrocity.
Bernard Hill just has most of the best scenes in the movies, that and of course the untouchable Ride Of the Rohirrim, which is probably peak cinema that Marvel have spent years trying to match.
It’s been alright. I didn’t like any part of Galadriel at sea. All seemed like it didn’t make much sense and it was a bit all over the place and random.
For some reason she thinks she can swim hundreds of miles. That or she's suicidal. Or an idiot. Anyway Tolkien Galadriel is off being a Queen, wife and mother at this point so don't know who this person is supposed to be.
You keep saying this like it actually means anything. I support pointing out how stupid some of her stuff has been so far, but "that's not what she did in the original writing" is only relevant to people who are invested in deep Tolkien lore.
It's an adaptation based on very little actual writing, obviously they're going to change a lot.
You’re going to have to come to terms with the version of Galadriel that we have - I agree it’s a shame we’ve already diverted so much from the source material but I am happy the series is being made. I’m trying to enjoy it for what it is.
Agree re the decision to have her swim back though, that was ludicrously bad by the writers. Amazon know how much heat this show is going to get and so they decided to have the protagonist jump off a boat hundreds of miles from the shore, swim back only to encounter a sea monster and shipwreck, purely so she could chance upon Halbrand. Surely there was a better way to introduce them to each other that didn’t eat up so much of an episode.
The only problem I have with this show is that I found it incredibly boring after the first 30 minutes. The mightiest elf ever killing a troll, or her not having had a daughter already is ok for me. It is an adaptation, so of course it will be different, same as any adaptation ever did.
I hope it starts getting a bit more interesting, there is definitely some high potential there.
I hope it starts getting a bit more interesting, there is definitely some high potential there.
I literally just got it from the Galadriel wikipedia page so you're probably fine.
Thank feck for that.
This whole time I've been worried the Tolkien crazies were gonna hunt me down.
The movies was quite different to the books also, but people seems pretty ok with that?
Elon Musk's complaint about the show just tell me he's not watched it at all. The descriptions of the characters that he's done is not like them at all.
Elon Musk doesn't like it? Well, I guess I have to like it then.
It's the best show on TV.
It's the best show on TV.
It's not just that she did different things - she's a totally different character. Overall it really doesn't feel like Tolkien at all, just some incoherent fan fiction thrown together by two b list Hollywood hacks. The Tolkien element seems just to exist to bait in the LOTR fans so it seems pretty cynical.
Even more stupid if, as expected, Halbrand turns out to be
Sauron
He's not going to praise an Amazon show because Bezos
Of course he doesn't, it's a Jeff Bezos show.
The movies were as close adaptations as it gets. Just that they removed Tom
Bombadil (who actually is more like Tolkien’s avatar) and Glorfindiel, but still they are really loyal adaptations. I would say that they even stayed closer to the source material than Game of Thrones seasons 1-4 which themselves were close to the source material.
Did she really decide to swim hundreds of miles, or more like she was quite confused and had a brain freeze and then the next moment the portal got closed? Which meant that her only chance of surviving was trying to swim hundreds of miles.
I refuse to believe they are that bad at writing to have that be him.
I meant the show decided to have her do that. As in that was their choice when writing the plot and it seems a lot of people found the whole sea sequence it boring and a bit unnecessary.
Caractherwise, yes maybe. But there is lots of things that happens very different in the book than on screen. I dont have a problem with it btw, i love both the books and the films, but main plots and parts are either altered or even completly removed from the book to the film.
Btw, what is a Tolkien scholar? Someone who has read those 5 or so books many many times?
I can understand the Star Wars ‘scholars’ pre-Disney, cause there were 200-300 books in addition to dozens of comics and video games, and someone was paid whose job was to ensure some consistency there. But when it comes to Tolkien, it is essentially 5 fantasy books, right?
I can understand the Star Wars ‘scholars’ pre-Disney, cause there were 200-300 books in addition to dozens of comics and video games, and someone was paid whose job was to ensure some consistency there. But when it comes to Tolkien, it is essentially 5 fantasy books, right?
This Galadriel definitely feels like she could be a younger emo phase version of the Blanchett character. She's headstrong, overwhelmed by her grief, stubborn and selfish, prone to making rash decisions but bright, fierce determined, captivating. That her character is partly informed by her experiences makes her relatable. She is the best.
The Hobbit book and The trilogy books don't even synch. Bakshi in many ways was far more loyal to Tolkienverse than Peter Jackson ever was but these fecking losers would never admit it.
The Hobbit book and The trilogy books don't even synch. Bakshi in many ways was far more loyal to Tolkienverse than Peter Jackson ever was but these fecking losers would never admit it.
And 12 volumes of the History of Middle Earth. And Tolkien''s letters. And the languages. And a few other things. It was basically his life's work and his son's. There's a lot.
Jeez. Did this Tolkien fella write any books that weren't Lord of the Rings related?
Nope. Did do a lot of poetry though?
My only criticism is the first episode literally felt like an hour long montage the way it recapped so much history whilst setting the scene in every part of the kingdom at such an insane pace . Other than that, loved everything about it so far. Characters have grown on me and the scenery is spectacular. Some of the mini shire stuff is abit hammy but no more so than the original LOTR and Hobbit movies.