Same for me, the other storylines don't do much for me
Television The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
- Thread starter DWelbz19
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Gonna spell this out for some people berating the deviation from Tolkien, the show does not have the rights to the Silmarillion. That means they are going to have to change a lot of the plot relative to what we know. Makes me annoyed with the criticism from YT, especially Men of the West, who all preface their ideal show would be based on all the works including the Silmarillion. Well if Jeff Bezos of all people can't buy the rights, some random clown on YT won't be able to either, so don't criticize the show not following canon unless you can come up with a better story while adhering to the same restraints.
She's not going to sleep with you pal
Ya I agree in that it's the only storyline apart from the Southlands that is driving the plot forward. I think the fact that Morfydd Clark is not Cate Blanchett is driving a lot of the criticism unfortunately. Although that horse scene was cringe, I think we can all agree on that.
Not if I had that attitude, yeah
Just got to the part with Adar. It's been an enjoyable episode so far
eyre's king lear, 2018, and iannucci's copperfield, 2019, are perfect examples of a colour blind casting premise. it works particularly well in eyre's lear because edmund is a bastard in the original text which you can, given the time, derive a "legitimate" reason for the casting choice. but it goes unnoticed by all involved and it works without any problems.
if the acting is good, and you can achieve consistency, then i don't care who plays who. it's theatre, or film, the point is to mess around with convention. will piss off purists but that's always been the case.
wasn't a fan of the coen version of macbeth but having a black actor in the lead role wasn't the reason why. washington did fine. there's a great history of non-white stage actors playing shakespearian leads, not just othello, and no one has ever really complained. it works because good theatre and good film, good drama in general, is good because of dialogue. it's about how well you can act. that's all there is to it. you could easily cast a black ahab in a moby dick adaptation for example, it wouldn't be a problem if the actor could play the role.
there are examples, which i can't think of directly right now, where certain films and tv shows bend over backwards to be politically correct for the sake of it, forcing it upon you more to make a statement about ideology than to compliment the film or series, but i don't think this or hod, or any of the above, are such examples. it's mostly just people overreacting and the entire thing being amplified beyond its relevancy in the first place.
Last edited:
To be accurate they could go in sunlight they just hated it. For example the Uruk-hai forced the Mordor orcs to run throughout the day when Aragorn and co were chasing them.
I don’t mind the series ramping up their reaction to being like vampires as it gives more credence to the tunnel plot (however unhidden those tunnels turned out to be!). I did laugh when it looked like we’d get an elves vs orcs tug of war of light vs dark but luckily that ended quickly.
Yeah, but why not just make an actual tunnel? There's no sunlight in a tunnel. They're already half-way there, and they're using slave labour anyway.
It could be explained by orcs being stupid, but that's one of my worries with this show. They need to make orcs scary and threatening, not just buffoons. So far they've done an okay job at it.
Always thought the regular orcs were scarier due to their numbers but the reality is that even in the 1st age, Morgoth needed to created the worms/flying dragons once he realized that orcs were insufficient to defeat the elves (see Dagor Bragollach). So they aren't supposed to be that scary in and of themselves.
What makes the second age scary are the rings themselves, which is Sauron's ploy to get mastery over all the races. The orcs holding Arondir I expect will be defeated fairly easily, it's the deception to watch out for. That's why I think this show has a lot of potential, if done right it should subvert a lot of casual viewers expectations over time because deception is what Sauron is all about and something you can never truly appreciate in the 3rd age films as much (although the Hobbit films try to get at this to some degree but fall short a bit at). Will be interesting to see the type of personality the Sauron in this show ends up having as he should end up being quite good with persuading and fooling others.
Dude this is completely wrong. They don't have the rights to tell those stories, only the ones in the second age, but they were originally obliged to keep everything consistent with Tolkien's writing. The series has already referenced lots of Silmarillion events from the first age
I agree 99.9% of shows it doesn't matter if you colour blind cast. There are a very few where it does matter - like you wouldn't colourblind cast a white Wakandan or a black guy in the KKK or as a Nazi. Arguably a Tolkien elf could be one of those examples but a non-Tolkien elf like in this case definitely isn't.
I agree that hers is the best, but mostly because I'm basically in love with the actress playing Galadriel now.
Re: the other storylines, this show has 5 series planned from the start so I think they're in no rush to do anything. Unfortunately that makes it rather dull to most people.
Hahah I'm aware - in fact I was referencing. But that wasn't colour blind casting. That was the whole joke.
Also this
I'm enjoying it, think it's getting better with each episode. Unlike HotD I don't know the plot lines aside from the characters that show up in the movies, so am enjoying the sense of suspense in this one.
The halfoot people storyline really needs to get a move on though, because it's incredibly tedious.
The halfoot people storyline really needs to get a move on though, because it's incredibly tedious.
I read that they only have the rights to the movies and the appendices of the Hobbit and LOTR books, which is pretty mind-blowing for a prequel. But they spent $250m or so for those rights, the full rights to everything was held by the Zaents company and apparently they wanted $2b for that. There must be some good stuff in the appendices given what they're showing. Or are they simply just changing everything? I haven't read the books so don't really care either way.
Have you ever been in a skin head pub? They're scary but not very bright in much the same way.
Enjoying it, just needs a 'skip hobbits' button like it does with the intro.
Yeah Halbrand is definitely Sauron.
I'm fairly sure nori is sauron
Yeah or her mate. One of them.
I'm Sauron. So's my wife.
So's your mum
Speculation
Re Hallbrand or Adar being Sauron: I wasn't expecting Sauron to show up in the first season. Or to be doing a thanos and show up for 5 seconds at the end of the season. I kind of expect Hallbrand to be around for a while as a morally ambiguous dude who's side swaps back and forth. And people can speculate about him possibly being one of 10 characters for the 5 season length. Adar will be a big orc
Re Hallbrand or Adar being Sauron: I wasn't expecting Sauron to show up in the first season. Or to be doing a thanos and show up for 5 seconds at the end of the season. I kind of expect Hallbrand to be around for a while as a morally ambiguous dude who's side swaps back and forth. And people can speculate about him possibly being one of 10 characters for the 5 season length. Adar will be a big orc
It's the Southland story line for me. Everything else feels very slow and boring so far
I thought episode 2 was the best so far but 3 wasn't far behind it.Strange, thought the 3rd episode was the best so far. Come on here and everyone hates it
I think we already know Adar is
played by the same guy who is uncle Benjin in GOT and he’s some kind of elf, we’ve seen him in already released footage
The dead king who Aragorn summons to fight in return of the king, I agree on Sauron - he could really be anyone with how much they’re altering things but given Isildur is already a young man, there isn’t much time for him to stay hidden - I wonder if to make it a big reveal they’ll just make him Celebrimbor or something a bit random like that
I just assumed it was to do with speed - digging and stabilising tunnels would be a lot slower than hacking through above ground and erecting tents. Doubt we'll get an explanation though.
Nimic is right though, they have dug a shallow ditch and are pretending it is part of some extensive tunnel system allowing the orcs to range across middle earth unseen. Add that to the swimming from Valinor to Middle Earth genius and Nori's family being left behind because her Father broke his ankle. Such a lovely community, dozens of people walking along the caravan with nothing to push but could one of them give that family a hand? No, just leave them to death, vicious mercenary little shits. Have to find a way to bring meteor man along, but I am hoping he fireflies that whole community.
I guess I was tentatively and hopefully more or less on board after the first two episodes, but I feel less convinced after the third. It gets harder not to think about it as what it is: A couple of screenplay writers writing a story within the broad confines of a Tolkien meta story that leaves mostly blanks to fill in. Which we somehow expect to be what it isn't, ie, a Tolkien story. This can hardly be expected to be a lot better than mediocre, and so far it isn't.
I really don't envy the writers - the sort of characters they have to deal with are writ large, on the scale of myth - and a myth a lot of viewers are already familiar with. They have to have the necessary gravitas, and fulfil their functions in the grand scheme of things. At the same time, they have to be intelligible and relatable to viewers who are more or less unfamiliar with this part of the Tolkien universe, and very complex things have to be put across very clearly. The result is an odd mixture of often embarassingly stilted speech and one-dimensionality in characters, and what feels like a lack of substance in the action and plotlines: Things.....just happen. That might of course be addressed over time, as events gain in a significance that isn't immediately clear, but what is worse is that quite a lot of it seems to be there in the first place because of transparent narrative needs. For instance, how Galadriels shipwreck companion is obviously set up to be Aragorn Mk II. The whole Numenor/Elves falling out just comes across as unintelligible, as related here. So does the whole Orc digging expedition. One thing that did pick up positively for me though was the Harfoots (Harfeet?). I think that makes for an enjoyable story of Hobbit ancestry, and they are really not doing a bad job fleshing out who and what they are. I'm also able to sustain suspension of disbelief concerning the mysterious stranger, for the present.
I really don't envy the writers - the sort of characters they have to deal with are writ large, on the scale of myth - and a myth a lot of viewers are already familiar with. They have to have the necessary gravitas, and fulfil their functions in the grand scheme of things. At the same time, they have to be intelligible and relatable to viewers who are more or less unfamiliar with this part of the Tolkien universe, and very complex things have to be put across very clearly. The result is an odd mixture of often embarassingly stilted speech and one-dimensionality in characters, and what feels like a lack of substance in the action and plotlines: Things.....just happen. That might of course be addressed over time, as events gain in a significance that isn't immediately clear, but what is worse is that quite a lot of it seems to be there in the first place because of transparent narrative needs. For instance, how Galadriels shipwreck companion is obviously set up to be Aragorn Mk II. The whole Numenor/Elves falling out just comes across as unintelligible, as related here. So does the whole Orc digging expedition. One thing that did pick up positively for me though was the Harfoots (Harfeet?). I think that makes for an enjoyable story of Hobbit ancestry, and they are really not doing a bad job fleshing out who and what they are. I'm also able to sustain suspension of disbelief concerning the mysterious stranger, for the present.
That seems to be the latest theory. But a silver tongued Halbrand behind bars in Numenor during Ar Pharazon's presence leads me to believe it's Sauron. That said, his appearance is different to the bloke who travelled to Numenor. Then again, it's an adaptation. So who knows.
Are we discounting the theory that the horse might be sauron ?
It could be Sauron.
I'm an expert because of YouTube.
I'm an expert because of YouTube.
Galadriel is Sauron
Everyone knows she is played by Cate Blanchett
Everyone knows she is played by Cate Blanchett
Last edited:
Spoiler that mah gawd!
Shit sorry I hope I don't get banned
He is a shapeshifter. That slo-mo could well be a very sinister scene in hidsight.
One Episode to Middle Earth?
This looks like several seasons until she gets to Middle Earth.
It would explain that evil grin from Galadriel
So, where's Celeborn at?
The werewolf could've been Sauron.
:tapsnose:
:tapsnose: