[QuickTidal]

The Tiktoker’s name is Roxy Stylez

https://www.news.com...fbb8dc1a26918bc

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 01 September 2022 - 11:22 PM

[amphibian]

Anonymous reviews were absolutely huge back in the parchment and vellum days.

There's still room for meaningful criticism, such as the Witcher initially putting Cavill in a truly bad wig and then upgrading the wig games considerably for most of their seasons.

The magazine shoot that produced this intro made the most late 1980s cheesy thing possible, which is tough to handle for a super serious super big budget project with an audience conditioned by Game of Thrones to expect utter shit at some point.

Boston Pete and the others in the spoof of the intro was worth the time waste factor of watching the original thing.

I think there's a great point in that these streaming platforms, even HBO, haven't earned the full trust of a majority of the audience. Somehow Marvel did despite turning out dreck and they're warping the industries big time around that.

[amphibian]

It's basically LotR but Too Many Cooks. How did they not see that happening?

[Malankazooie]

That's a bummer. I rarely get on TikTok because I think the end result is to turn your brain to mush. Also, just give China every bit of data about you, no biggie. But on the rare occasion I'm bored and do get on TikTok, I only seem to get videos like this.



How do you manipulate the algorithm to get the hot OnlyFans girls?

[Briar King]

Ok very pretty and pretty meh, but I did enjoy seeing names of places I’ve learned about over past few days.

[Briar King]

The little Hobbit gal is pretty awesome though so far.

[QuickTidal]

Cancelled, on 02 September 2022 - 02:49 AM, said:

Ok very pretty and pretty meh, but I did enjoy seeing names of places I’ve learned about over past few days.

Quite sumptuously shot, and the dialogue amongst the elves feels Tolkien-ish. Bear Mcreary's score is great too.

I don't like that they can only barely touch on the First Age stuff, so like Galadriel can't even call the battles what they were called, or the places what they were called (the Kinslaying at Alqualondë) and can only vaguely refer to what brings about Finrod's off-screen death. As a Tolkien nerd I could FEEL them wanting to dive into that stuff and knowing they don't have the rights to do so...and my wife was well lost for the first little bit. I kept pausing to explain things Galadriel was referring to from the 1st Age/Silmarillion. I even think the dickhead who sunk her little paper boat was PROBABLY Fëanor, but they can't say that or reference him, and that's even more glaring later when the trees are destroyed (By the spider Ungoliant, under orders from Morgoth; and Finwë is killed, and the Silmarils stolen) and they show The Oath of Fëanor (the elves in a circle picking up their blades to go after Morgoth) and can't reference what it's all really about....the show just kind of says "Oh Morgoth killed the trees in Valinor, so we went after him"....which I mean...I guess...in the broadest of senses.

But these are nitpicks. I knew going in that we would not get much, if any references to Silmarillion.

Was nice to hear at least a vague reference to Beren and Luthien from the conversation Arondir has with his fellow watchman.

So far, Galadriel is the standout performance. Morfydd Clarke is spectacular, and her opening monologue almost felt like a young Cate Blanchett.

The storyline I care most about is the Harfoots though. Very hobbit like, and as such the easiest POV for us the audience.

It was good, but felt like a lot of table setting. We shall see what the 2nd ep brings (we didn't get chance to watch it yet).

Cancelled, on 02 September 2022 - 03:49 AM, said:

The little Hobbit gal is pretty awesome though so far.

Indeed. She's really solidly great and is probably my second fave character so far after Galadriel. Also, I like that her names Elinor, but they call her Nori for short. Cute.

Also, I hate to say this but the guy playing Elrond has none of the presence of Hugo Weaving...and I mean maybe that's intentional, but it's hard to see the guy he becomes in the guy he is in this.

[Tiste Simeon]

I'm really enjoying it. I don't have as much as in depth knowledge like QT, TRB or a bunch of you others so I'm not sure what's missing, what is going on with rights and the like... Reading what QT says above makes sense to me though as it did feel like there were a few things that they just nodded to and then left. Even the mention of Feanor had me frowning as I am aware that he and Galadriel knew each other at one point and that he was a bit of a douche (to use Tolkein's phrasing... )

But overall it is a stunning show, beautifully and lovingly made and I am definitely in for the count. Now I'm just trying to remember the discussions between Aragorn and the hobbits in FOTR about Gil-Galad...

Ooh also I'm trying to work out if

Spoiler

the dude inside the meteor is Gandalf or not but surely he's already mooching around the place...?

[Tiste Simeon]

Oh forgot to ask

Spoiler

is that a goblin or an orc that attacked the woman and her kid in the human village? Kind of looked more like a goblin but it was out in the daylight hours.

Also I'm fairly sure the kid is messing with a morgul blade (sp?) and that's not going to end well!

[Cause]

I was bored, which is not good. Too much exposition perhaps.

[stone monkey]

I knew they couldn't use much, if indeed anything, from The Silmarillion, which turned out to be a shame; because a giant eagle turned into a flaming carcass by an attacking dragon, and crashing down into the midst of an army of thousands of elves fighting thousands of orcs, is a visual that is never going to get old. And the Two Trees the size of mountains was a gorgeous sight.
However... the rest was just bad. And I understand they don't want to scare off the general audience, but messing around with the timeline they way they have has made things a bit of a mess (a lot of a mess, actually). It appears as if they're going to condense about 1500 years of the 2nd Age into a few. I guess that works for your bog-standard viewer, time skips seem to confuse and scare them, but it basically loses all the grandeur and scope imo.
The acting is... soap opera stuff. Galadriel is a standout in this respect; she should be elegant, imposing, regal and dangerous, but she just comes across as a moody, entitled teenager who is really good at using a sword (at this point in history, in the original text, not only is she literally thousands of years old, she has also borne a child. She's Gil-Galad's Great Aunt ffs!). The whole affair has more than a whiff of dodgy YA films about it: "Let's gawp at the pretty people falling out with each other, having wiil-they-won't-they romances, and doing some cool stuff... with added angst!"

I did like the idea of portraying the Eldar who remained in Middle Earth after surviving the never-ending disasters of the 1st Age as essentially PTSD sufferers. And also the fact that they see themselves as the stalwart heroes of the battle against evil while studiously avoiding mentioning The Kinslaying and all the other awful stuff they got up to (this last may be something that's contractually obliged, but it is a very Noldorin way of looking at events that were, apart from the inciting incident, mostly their own fault). But apart from Galadriel having a of a bit strop about it, it seems to go no further.

The writing is full of uneccessary, manufactured conflict. I get that you literally can't have Tolkien's language (I love him, but nobody has ever actually spoken like that) coming out of peoples' mouths and have anyone take it seriously, but the character dialogue manages to either sound dumb or pretentious, and often the same charater in the same scene veers wildly between both.

It looks pretty, though. You can certainly see where the frankly ridiculous amount of money it cost was spent. So I guess it has that going for it.

I suspect that, though I will probably continue watching for now, it's probably going to turn into a hate watch as it continues given the (poor) level of acting and storytelling on display and the liberties being taken with the text (btw when the

Spoiler

sea monster

showed up, I was rather hoping they'd nicked that bit from Guy Kay's Fionavar Tapestry - if you're going to take liberties with the text, go big or go home). Maybe it will improve, maybe it won't, but currently it appears that Amazon have made an epic somewhat humdrum.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 02 September 2022 - 11:05 PM

[Macros]

With Stonkey on this one.

Very pretty, but paper thin on the first two episodes.

I was unaware they didn't have Silmarion rights, a lot of the chopping of backstory makes sense now I guess, but still I feel that could have been handled better. Hell sacrifice a bit of your budget to do a deal to at least give us a few minutes of Silmarion as set up, the true strife Morgoth caused

[Briar King]

It was pretty bad. My most invested arc by far is the Hobbit gal and the Maiar and that’s something that I think is really going to be the make or break for some fans as they can’t really imo make him one of the 5 with causing a ruckus. Rumors he might

Spoiler

become a Balrog and I think that will piss peeps off to. Surely after Morgoth’s time ends there should be no more made right?

I literally zoned out on everyone else. Galadriel was an awful teenybopper Olympic swimmer. Elrond and Prince Whine apeing Legolas and Gimli just no real sauce to me. Seems there to be there. Her human Beau is transparent from his very 1st line. Idk why they are doing this with them..

Elf Beau and his human Gal the same. Just no especially after reading how special the mixing of Luthien and Beren’s blood three times till Aragorn and Arwen is. It just seems like filler. Idk. I’m interested in her son’s Morgul blade though.

All the Dwarf gals suck. All beardless.

I will still watch this but it was a very weak, extremely boring opening.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

I'm mostly along the lines of what QT said - I've only watched the first episode thus far.

Morfyyd Clark is great as Galadriel, and I really like the Harfoots (Nori and Lenny Henry's characters stood out to me - that little scene where she pops up in front of him reading his book really made me smile).

Visually it's beautiful, I really can't knock anything on that front.

The contractually missing stuff is bothering me a lot (granted, not their fault), and is adding to the feeling of it all being rather paper thin. The timeline contraction is a choice I can understand in terms of pulling in the non-reader audience, but it really adds to the thinness feeling and it's making some of the relationships feel odd. It might be they're going to play differently from the book established ones. For instance, Galadriel is Gil-Galad's great aunt and Elrond's mother in law, and is impossible number amount of years older than them both. It doesn't seem like the marriage to Celeborn or her daughter exist in this timeline yet, and the vibe between her and Gil-Galad feels like the king treating her like a petulant teenager (I know she disobeyed orders, but it still feels really off to me). The relationship with Elrond feels a bit odd too, although the acting together is good. It felt like there was a nod to how old she is in an early line, something about still feeling the light of the Trees on her face, but it's in isolation.

Even knowing they can't touch Silmarillion that two minute race through Trees - Morgoth - war - we're in Middle Earth now felt a bit of a shock and unfortunately can't capture the true horror and misery involved. Losing the Kinslaying robs the Noldor of a lot of their depth, and the missing history of the Simarils is going to deprive a fair bit of the explanation of how Sauron as Annatar is able to convince them to forge the Rings (very much a Noldor of Eregion thing, some of the others including Gil-Galad never trusted him).

Dude in the asteroid threw me right out of it. Can't even really say why, I knew there was going to be a lot of original content included. It just threw me out in a way that the wholly new Southlands thread didn't.

I do want to keep watching, and I think there's potential for improvement once it's done setting all the threads up (still very excited to see Numenor). But I don't love it yet. It's fine - but that's all for me so far.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 03 September 2022 - 06:11 AM

[Briar King]

Yep I think he is going to be the arc most fans take issue with imo.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Morfydd Clarke's line delivery is mostly bad. Same goes for most of the other actors. Bad timing, not enough stress or inflection---they sound like they either don't know or don't care about what they're saying.

The choreography of Galadriel's sword-work was mildly impressive, though as I was watching I was imagining what the novelistic description might be. Then afterwards she seems very pleased with herself, like a child showing off---seemed out of character. Also something I generally don't care much about.

The trolls made me laugh at how silly they look. The orcs are bland.

I do like the faces on the costumes of the elves.

They seem to be largely aiming for the style of The Hobbit movies but without the high frame rate.

While I don't mind the intrusive and grandiose Wagner-Meets-Cheesy-Hollywood style of the score, it's mediocre and the execution is a bit off (particularly the timing and the timbres---though there were a few chord progressions I liked little). To be fair, I was mentally comparing it with Wagner though. It's also excessively loud in relation to the actors' voices: if I turn it up enough to hear them clearly the damn music ends up hurting my ears (I'm not going to sacrifice my ears for this show). Do I think I could do better with the virtual instruments I have? Honestly, yes. (If they pay me enough to spend the requisite time on it, that is....) Hell, the AI that's already available could probably do as well or better, at least with a little bit of training.

Wonder if they wasted money on having all the orchestral and choral or operatic elements of the score performed live. It sounded no better than commonly available virtual instruments. The song of the elves that's supposed to be the most beautiful thing ever or whatever was completely underwhelming.

The visuals of the opening segment are nice, though the music is nowhere near as memorable as GoT.

The plot doesn't seem to be going anywhere interesting. I was bored through much (possibly most) of it. Cheesy well-worn Hollywood gags or excessively obvious visual cues don't help. (It's almost as if they assume the audience will be young children... because it's fantasy?)

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 03 September 2022 - 03:43 PM

[Cause]

Second episode didn’t help. The story with Elrond and Durin was I’ll go so far as to say painful and I think Stone Monkeys description of dodgy YA fantasy fits it best.

I can’t remember, were the dwarves necessary to build a forge to fashion the rings of power?

[worry]

Thought the first episode was stiff but beautiful and the second episode was immediately better all around and I liked it a lot. Very much into it by the end of ep 2.

[Briar King]

Don’t really know how helpful or harmful it is to be blocking/deleting reviews still.

[Macros]

You know where they've went wrong?


They did it very early and very stupidly in development.

The second they didn't have all the rights, just forget about canon, throw in enough ties to link it to LotR and just freeball it in glorious middle earth. Sure us nerds will complain, but honestly, most people who gobbled up the movies and hobbit movies (tripe) have never and will never read the Silmarion or the appendixes. So why bother trying if they're aiming for mass pleasing?

There may or may not have been a Taylor Hawkins tribute concert, followed by a YouTube of a Chester Bennington tribute concert and 3 bottles of wine involved in this post

But you know I'm fucking right.

Also it is raining most heavily