Trailer didn't show anything of note apart from Annatar. Looks like Vickers will continue being one of the good things about the show.
Television The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
- Thread starter DWelbz19
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Also just noticed he's not wearing the one ring when he's found out, so they seem to have changed that too.
Galadriel just irritates me in this
Awful and generic. Shame it exists honestly. It stains the original trilogy‘s legacy.
I'd still watch
Love Elronds armour design. So beautiful, lovely pre cursor to the armour used in Fellowship prologue.
It looks like the same old Marvel/CGI Blockbuster rubbish. They really missed the point on what makes cinema good.
Spoiler: Leaked dialogue scene with Celembribor and Annatar, presumably at Eregion, showing Celembribor is suspicious Annatar is Sauron
The comment section under the trailer is brutal.
Not surprised, it's the same shite 'fans' that shit all over Star Wars content too. I actually think the trailer looks decent, they've certainly raised the bar in scale which is good.
All down to the writing though and nobody can tell if that's improved until it airs.
People are angry though because they've just leveraged Tolkien/LOTR name to get momentum when ultimately the characters are not lore friendly and the atmosphere isn't correct.
This, if it was called something else, and the characters were all called other things, would be a fantastic TV show. But it's just not Lord of the Rings/Silmarillion/Tolkien.
I can appreciate, the costume, quality of production, but the writing/retconning of characters just seriously butchers it for me.
Galadriel, who spent thousands of years studying under the Valar, who was then a pupil of Melian the Maia for hundreds more, one who could speak words so powerful an entire fortress falls, who has seen the light of the two trees and whose power and radiance shined so brightly that Feanor himself begged her three times for just a single piece of her hair. In this she is running around angry waving a sword around.
Elrond, son of Earendil the mariner, grandson of Tuor, Idril, Nimloth of Doriath, Dior, great grandson of Luthien, Turgon, Beren, whose line consists of Elu Thingol, Melian and Fingolfin, reduced to a plucky Elvish underdog who isn't allowed to go to council meetings because his lineage isnt great enough.
Gandalf being a 10ft giant who loses his memory...which is not how the Istar were sent to middle earth.
Celembrimbor, the last of the Feanorians, the greatest smith of the age who ruled the realm of Eregion, is a gaity, carefree, late middle aged man despite his age being in the same ballpark as Elrond.
None of this makes sense in any context
This, if it was called something else, and the characters were all called other things, would be a fantastic TV show. But it's just not Lord of the Rings/Silmarillion/Tolkien.
I can appreciate, the costume, quality of production, but the writing/retconning of characters just seriously butchers it for me.
Galadriel, who spent thousands of years studying under the Valar, who was then a pupil of Melian the Maia for hundreds more, one who could speak words so powerful an entire fortress falls, who has seen the light of the two trees and whose power and radiance shined so brightly that Feanor himself begged her three times for just a single piece of her hair. In this she is running around angry waving a sword around.
Elrond, son of Earendil the mariner, grandson of Tuor, Idril, Nimloth of Doriath, Dior, great grandson of Luthien, Turgon, Beren, whose line consists of Elu Thingol, Melian and Fingolfin, reduced to a plucky Elvish underdog who isn't allowed to go to council meetings because his lineage isnt great enough.
Gandalf being a 10ft giant who loses his memory...which is not how the Istar were sent to middle earth.
Celembrimbor, the last of the Feanorians, the greatest smith of the age who ruled the realm of Eregion, is a gaity, carefree, late middle aged man despite his age being in the same ballpark as Elrond.
None of this makes sense in any context
People are angry though because they've just leveraged Tolkien/LOTR name to get momentum when ultimately the characters are not lore friendly and the atmosphere isn't correct.
This, if it was called something else, and the characters were all called other things, would be a fantastic TV show. But it's just not Lord of the Rings/Silmarillion/Tolkien.
I can appreciate, the costume, quality of production, but the writing/retconning of characters just seriously butchers it for me.
Galadriel, who spent thousands of years studying under the Valar, who was then a pupil of Melian the Maia for hundreds more, one who could speak words so powerful an entire fortress falls, who has seen the light of the two trees and whose power and radiance shined so brightly that Feanor himself begged her three times for just a single piece of her hair. In this she is running around angry waving a sword around.
Elrond, son of Earendil the mariner, grandson of Tuor, Idril, Nimloth of Doriath, Dior, great grandson of Luthien, Turgon, Beren, whose line consists of Elu Thingol, Melian and Fingolfin, reduced to a plucky Elvish underdog who isn't allowed to go to council meetings because his lineage isnt great enough.
Gandalf being a 10ft giant who loses his memory...which is not how the Istar were sent to middle earth.
Celembrimbor, the last of the Feanorians, the greatest smith of the age who ruled the realm of Eregion, is a gaity, carefree, late middle aged man despite his age being in the same ballpark as Elrond.
None of this makes sense in any context
Overall you're right, they have a goldmine IP, and tens of characters that fans want to see in live-action (Glorfindel, Cirdan etc) and very good storylines to tell , and they hugely mistreat the existing lore.
Only correction is that Celembribor is probably way older than Elrond, as Curufin's wife never went to Beleriand, meaning that Celembribor was born in Aman and is a high elf.
Oooo, I thought Celembrimbor was born in Beleriand and he was born after the kinstrife. Don't know why I thought that!
Was he mentioned in the kinstrife of Aqualonde? Why wasn't he put in the same category of Maglor, Maedhros, Curufin etc etc?
Even so, the only "aged" elf we get described by tolkien is Cirdan the Shipwright, who is quite literally one of the firstborn, the awoken, who is 11,000 years old.
Feanor was described as looking the same age as his sons, and neither of them look middle aged. Makes no sense to have Celebrimbor be that old.
It's never mentioned Celebrimbor saw the light of the two trees which Galadriel did, so either way it makes no sense for him to be double Galadriels age.
Nope. It would've been an expensively made complete mess of a story. And story is — and always was — the most important part of any good show.
Celembribor is one of the characters that underwent a lot of changes, hence why his birth is not really mentioned. But because we know that Curufin's wife didn't make it to Beleriand, and that elves only mate once in their life(with notable exceptions to the rule), it's safe to say that Celembribor was born in Aman and followed Feanor and his father to Beleriand.
As you say, Cirdan is the only elf that has shown signs of age, and Tolkien was very careful of reiterating that, for example it is mentioned that Imrahil and his kin, who all have part elf blood, do not grow facial hair.
That's actually something that I think is a case of Tolkien contradicting himself.
So, on paper the biggest exception is Finwe and Mirriel, right? And even then it was a very unique situation, and in the book Christopher published about Elves and their general sexual characteristics, it is explicitly stated that Elves "know" who their life partner is and they indeed only love once in their entire life. And Finwe only remarried not purely out of immediately loving someone else but more a case of loneliness and political pressure as his wife refused to be rebodied.
So then, how was it possible, Finduillas was clearly in love and married to Gwindor, but also simulatenously in love with Turin Turambar at the same time?
I can't keep up with the nerdery. I was a tolkien nerd when i was 15 which is over 2 decades ago. Back then i could even speak a bit of Quenya which ensured i had to unlearn that to lose my virginity.
So, when you were 15 you learnt the Latin equivalent of a fictional language,
A lost language nobody speaks anymore based on a fictional world?
It's okay, I tried to learn Sindarin once. Gave up after my girlfriend gave me funny looks.
I always kind of thought Sindarin was for Nazis. Blue eyes and blond hair and all that shit.
Exactly. I feel for the writers in some ways due to the completely unnecessary restrictions put in place by the Tolkien Estate but at the same time dear god did they make a mess of Season 1. Which is a shame as the visuals and music by and large were terrific.
I still think they can turn it around in S2. A fools hope.
I'm similarly hopeful. But i wont be touching this with a barge poll until there's a lot of positive reviews
I don't think it's the Tolkien Estate, the writers had to pitch a story based on the rights Amazon had already bought and they chose the Second Age. They made their bed and have to lie in it, in that respect. I do have some sympathy though as Amazon almost certainly put demands on them in terms of things they had to include, eg Hobbits and Gandalf.
The point is that we can't overly complain about lore etc when the writers aren't actually allowed to use some of it due to licensing. Tolkien Estate are rather greedy with their licensing. They must be absolutely minted by now and yet they still have heavy restrictions.
I'm glad they decided to do a 2nd Age project, but feck me is it frustrating that they didn't have access to all of the glorious material and instead restricted to the appendices. Just so damn frustrating.
I was under the impression the estate didn't want to licence it in general and the only reason they have the appendices is because they were included in the movie deal.
What's that based on?
Quenya was the ancient language of Valinor, but even the Noldor spoke Sindarin in Middle earth.
The line of Elu all spoke Sindar and they all had gray eyes and black hair
They've not wanted to sell rights to any writing published posthumously, which seems fair enough to me. I imagine that'll change in time but you can't really accuse them of having milked it, the Amazon deal is the only time rights have been sold after Tolkien's death. The writers chose to actively avoid lore elements from the rights they have, so again I can't really blame the Estate here. It will be interesting actually whether "Annatar" is actually mentioned, because that would have to be given permission for.
I always thought the blondes spoke sindarin and the black haired spoke Quenya. Anyway im outnerded.
Edit: Doing a bit nerding I was thinking about the Vanyar.
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Look at what Amazon did to Wheel of Time.. I don't think the Tolkien estate are to be blamed for this show's garbage tier writing
Apparently the 2nd season was much better.
The main issue is that they're not adapting a story, just some vague appendices Tolkien wrote to pad out the history of Middle-Earth and set up the events that unfold in TLOTR. It was always going to be difficult to tell a compelling, interesting story here.
Having said that the show should not look as cheap and lifeless as it does, that's on Amazon.
Having said that the show should not look as cheap and lifeless as it does, that's on Amazon.
But this whole era was summed up very well in the Akallabeth, the timing coherency just doesn't make sense.
All they had to do was take the overall plot points of Akallabeth and build around it, but they couldn't even do that.
If they wanted to focus on Galadriel, you could have focused on her time as fief-lord under Gil-galad in Lindon, the birth of her daughter Celebrian and don't retcon Celeborn as having "disappeared".
Then, she went and founded Eregion and she was the one who established trade relations and friendship with the dwarves of Khazard Dhum and it was through the mines that she travelled to reach Lorien at the middle of the SA.
Then when she left Celembrimbor took over Eregion and when Annatar arrived, she was the one they consulted and thats when she met Sauron and did not trust him.
The first cutscene made no sense too, she didn't take part in the Great Host of Valinor, because she was already there -> She went with the Feanorians but after Fingolfin was left behind she went with her family across the Helcaraxe.
Isildur and Elendil weren't even alive for another 1500 years after the fall of Eregion ffs.
You could have literally wrote about Tar-Minastir of Numenor, and not Ar-pharazon or Elendil, because he was also a fleshed out character.
You have have had a subplot about how the faithful were usurpsed and the Tar-Minyatur dynasty of Tar, in reverence of the valar was changed to Ar- in defiance.
But no, they completely butchered everything.
You and I are not the same. Id have breakfast with her.
You have not seen what I have seen.
I'm really not sure how I feel after watching that trailer. Seems to be a lot of pretty/epic shots again, but nothing in it gives me faith that they have fixed the horrible writing from the first season. I really hope I'm wrong and they focus much more on a story that actually makes sense.
I'm shocked they're bringing this back. I just assumed it had been canned after the poor reception to the first one.
I'll still watch it for some light fun. I can see why it rubbed fans the wrong way, but I thought as long as you watched it while somewhat knowing what you were getting into, it wasn't the worst thing in the world. The "I am good" moment though...feck me that was pathetic. I burst out laughing at the time and it still makes me laugh now.
I'll still watch it for some light fun. I can see why it rubbed fans the wrong way, but I thought as long as you watched it while somewhat knowing what you were getting into, it wasn't the worst thing in the world. The "I am good" moment though...feck me that was pathetic. I burst out laughing at the time and it still makes me laugh now.
It'll get the full five seasons, people will just watch because it's Middle-earth stuff (the Hobbit films made about as much money as Lord of the Rings) and Amazon only really care about views.I'm shocked they're bringing this back. I just assumed it had been canned after the poor reception to the first one.
I'll still watch it for some light fun. I can see why it rubbed fans the wrong way, but I thought as long as you watched it while somewhat knowing what you were getting into, it wasn't the worst thing in the world. The "I am good" moment though...feck me that was pathetic. I burst out laughing at the time and it still makes me laugh now.
Poor reception maybe but people watchedI'm shocked they're bringing this back. I just assumed it had been canned after the poor reception to the first one.
I'll still watch it for some light fun. I can see why it rubbed fans the wrong way, but I thought as long as you watched it while somewhat knowing what you were getting into, it wasn't the worst thing in the world. The "I am good" moment though...feck me that was pathetic. I burst out laughing at the time and it still makes me laugh now.
But the numbers dropped during the runtime... so probably the more interesting question is: How many people will watch the second season? And how many just had enough?
Will depend on the reviews I imagine. Plenty of shows recover after a crap opening season. Plenty also get cancelled.