[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Okay, caught up.

I want to know how Amazon threw all the money in the world at this thing and it's still this boring.

At this point, the only bits I care about are the Harfoots and Numenor (and I'll care about Numenor more when Galadriel has stopped being a stroppy teenager in it) and I like the dwarf characters even if I'm not really feeling Elrond and Durin as a pair. The rest... eurgh. I just can't bring myself to care about any of it. I'm bored of every episode ending in introducing yet another mysterious character/weapon/location/whatever. The best way I can describe it is to compare it to George RR Martin's habit of killing off major characters. The first time, with Ned Stark, it's effective and a shock. Four books later you've stopped caring because everyone's on the chopping block so why bother? That's what I feel like with all the dangling mysteries here. The overall quality should be what brings you back the following week, not a hastily dropped "Oh look, new mystery thing!" at the end of the epsiode.

I will watch to the end of this series and see - as we said between ourselves last night, we gave Wheel of Time the grace of a ropey first series so should probably allow the same here.

However, with a fraction of the budget, at half way through the series I was significantly more invested and excited about the Wheel of Time than I am about this. If you took away the tie to a beloved property, this would just be a poorly paced and inconsistently written fantasy series. And I think one of my biggest critcisms is how on the nose the "Look, we're linked to Lord of the Rings" is:

We've got Halbrand as a king of a lost kingdom, Elrond and Durin as the elf/dwarf friendship, Arondir's archery posing during a chase, the orc dialogue and delivery being almost identical. I'm not saying it should ignore the Jackson trilogy's existence, but there are ways to gently link it in without it being so smack you in the face obvious. Might be just me but I'm finding it actively annoying.

Specific thoughts:

Spoiler

Now I've met Adar, I suspect the best theory is stone monkey's and that he's some sort of very early attempt to create an orc. As above, I wanted to be more interested in him than I am. I want to feel more interested in the evil sword Theo has and why they're looking for it, but I don't really care.

Pharazon has all the makings of being a fantastic character and I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of Numenor's story unfolds. However, the build up ("they're taking our jobs" - what, one single elf?) and his speech were just far too over the top in their real world paralells. I don't need "Make Numenor Great Again" to see a populist dictator in the making, and it felt completely out of place. I liked the moment where the petals started falling and how Miriel handled that. My prediction is she's going to die in Middle Earth in the battle with Sauron and that will be the turning point of Pharazon taking control on a completely anti-elf and anti-Valar stance, and the Fall will unfold from there. Isildur and Elendil (if he goes as well) will come back with their faith in tact and won't trust Sauron or Pharazon.

I think there's plenty to like about the dwarves, and if Durin is going to Lindon with Elrond that will hopefully mean that thread moves past Celebrimbor hovering around giving weird vibes. I do like Disa and her whole "I am done with everyone's nonsense but oh well needs must" sort of feel.

Still don't care about Halbrand. Really don't care about Arondir and his "look at me I'm Legolas" hero posing.

Meteor Man, Halbrand and Adar at this point feel like their only function is to hide who Sauron is by being potential red herrings. Partner's comment on the whole thing was that he's borred of them deliberately hiding the story and I'm inclined to agree. Numenor and the Harfoots feel like the only ones progressing and we lost the Harfoots altogether this episode.

Hopefully it'll improve, but we'll see.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 18 September 2022 - 07:22 AM

[amphibian]

I think what's missing from this series is a sense of how long it's taking to do these trips or building things.

For example, the queen regent could say "a bedraggled elf with no gear shows up on my front steps claiming to be a 3 thousand year old badass commander of the northern armies and expects me to give her the world". That would contextualize the discussion far more and be in line with the character suspicion.

The dwarves building half a city in an episode's time is dumb. Zooming us along 6-8 months in another story thread without telling us is shoddy story telling and there's been plenty of that.

They did pep up Elrond a bit with the "find the secret" part, which was nice.

The slow mo horse ride is for the rewatching experience. It's great tech and she looks great, but that's something people on the first run through won't like particularly much.

I still think this show is too Mormon and I also think that Halbrand is Sauron.

[QuickTidal]

 TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 18 September 2022 - 06:56 AM, said:

Okay, caught up.

I want to know how Amazon threw all the money in the world at this thing and it's still this boring.

Gods THIS THIS THIS.

I agree with every point you’ve made, this one ESPECIALLY. How on earth could this show look so good and fail on the writing and plotting to be so interminably boring.
Holy shit.

The wife has already checked out.

We are 1000x more invested in HOUSE OF THE DRAGON for fantasy content over this…and my wife is excited about s2 of WOT….but this…hooo boy I find dragging myself to watch this a chore.

[Malankazooie]

There's something antiseptic about this show (and to a lesser degree it was the case with WoT). It's like Bezos's implanted ML/AI procedure he had done to his brain has been applied to all of his products and content. It works efficiently, looks great, but it's oddly askew and is lacking in making human connection. Reminds me of the Star Wars docuseries I just watched where Lucas's ex-wife drove home the point that Lucas was about special effects, not storytelling. I think this suffers the same way. It just.... is? Sure, the badge wearing Tolkien nerds will get great pleasure from impressing their friends when they pick up some obscure bit and can point them to the exact page in some lesser known work by Tolkien, and ummm, yeah? fun? But does it really matter if the show is a snoozefest?

[amphibian]

The antiseptic stuff is mostly the Mormon stuff and it's worst with the elf portions of the story. The hobbits live, fuck up, have kids, sing, and do weird shit. The dwarves too.

The elf people are basically robots who host a Galadriel and all their interesting shit happens off screen.

[amphibian]

The Elves need to be basically doing palace intrigue plus having a diminished capacity to launch world wars. So far, they're standing around yawping stuffily and leaving.

These are immortal beings who do dumb shit over hundreds or thousands of years. The show runners have mostly failed to give them recognizable personalities and it's because they're Mormons and want the elves to be basically already done bishops who are waiting to go to heaven/real elf homeland.

[amphibian]

I'm not making up the Mormon thing, Payne is a devout Mormon and McKay is from the same area.

They did do Jungle Cruise, which was decent, yet had the wrong star for the story.

[Macros]

Haven't really had any desire to follow on from the first two eps we watched.
Fairly disappointed actually how I look at it

[Slow Ben]

I really want to like this, but as others have said. It’s just so damn boring. And I don’t feel invested in the characters, at all.

Except Durin. The only plot lines that are interesting are the dwarves and maybe the hobbitses, too early to tell.

[QuickTidal]

 stone monkey, on 17 September 2022 - 07:58 PM, said:

For QT:
If we're spoilering stuff

Spoiler

Adar can't be Maeglin or Maglor, they're Silmarillion (or other stuff not in contract) only. Morgoth made the orcs from elves he'd captured, tortured and warped (genetically engineered, perhaps?) My bet would be that he's one of those. Maybe even the first; which would explain why the orcs call him "Father"

While this seems true, Christopher Tolkien resigned as Tolkien Trust chair in 2017, before the deal with Amazon went through. The people in charge of the Trust now (The grandchildren I think?) are the ones that brokered the deal with Amazon and no one is entirely sure of what's included in it and it may not just be the Appendices form LOTR as we all assumed based on the old Film Deal made so many years ago with Tolkien and then with Christopher.

Not saying you're wrong, but there is some wiggle room in that we don't know the particulars of the Amazon deal and his grandkids are notoriously less beholden to the strictures of the Tolkien world as their father had been.

 amphibian, on 18 September 2022 - 10:23 PM, said:

I'm not making up the Mormon thing, Payne is a devout Mormon and McKay is from the same area.

Oh my gods, I had no idea and this makes SO MUCH SENSE as to why the elves especially are so entirely sterile, and why Galadriel's behaviour is treated as "acting out"....that's all very much in line with Mormonism. Crazyness.

 Macros, on 19 September 2022 - 08:54 PM, said:

Haven't really had any desire to follow on from the first two eps we watched.
Fairly disappointed actually how I look at it

 Slow Ben, on 19 September 2022 - 09:30 PM, said:

I really want to like this, but as others have said. It’s just so damn boring. And I don’t feel invested in the characters, at all.

Except Durin. The only plot lines that are interesting are the dwarves and maybe the hobbitses, too early to tell.

Yeah, and I mean I was excited for this show...like really excited and I liked the trailers, and it felt like it was lining up to be such a great addition to the sub-based TV lineup...and it's just stumbling for me under poor writing. The only stuff that feels at al elevated is due to the calibre of the actors...Sort of like how Ewan McGregor elevates some of the drivel writing in the SW prequels with what is a really earnest acting.

And this is an 8 episode season...so we are halfway through and NOTHING of note had occurred beyond some mysteries, and the vague notions that Numenor will fall, and the Southlands will also fall...everything else is just sort of happening but not accumulating to much.

This story needed to be told like INFINITY WAR....we needed to see this through Sauron's actual eyes (he should not have been hidden from us as a lazy set of red herrings) as he sets out to get the rings made and then make the One Ring eventually. That would at least be unique from what we've seen before.

[Cause]

They keep confusing the fact that Galadriel looks like a teenager with the fact that Galadriel would act like one.

[QuickTidal]

 Cause, on 20 September 2022 - 06:16 PM, said:

They keep confusing the fact that Galadriel looks like a teenager with the fact that Galadriel would act like one.

Yep, she's older than most of the other elves in ME, and even in the 2nd age she'd be 3.5k years old...

[amphibian]

I'm ok with her being wild. I am not ok with the other elves not being wild in other ways. I figured that they'd lean into the "if you get to live forever, you get real stubborn and want to do bonkers things like build those cities, forge those really bad ideas, try to conquer death, and so on" endeavors that only an immortal can do.

Celebrimbor is the only one besides Galadriel doing that kinda stuff. He's managed to get the dwarves to build a city sized forge in less than a year to forge the rings of power. It's a completely dumbass idea - except to an immortal and that's what makes it good for a show. The Elves should all be doing shit like that, which makes it much easier to understand why Morgoth or Sauron could hijack stuff or make their pitches.

If one can't use the Silmarillion, one certainly can use the general dumbass spirit that drove Feanor and the like to do wild, wonderful, terrible things all the time.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 20 September 2022 - 08:34 PM

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

 amphibian, on 20 September 2022 - 08:31 PM, said:

I'm ok with her being wild. I am not ok with the other elves not being wild in other ways. I figured that they'd lean into the "if you get to live forever, you get real stubborn and want to do bonkers things like build those cities, forge those really bad ideas, try to conquer death, and so on" endeavors that only an immortal can do.

Celebrimbor is the only one besides Galadriel doing that kinda stuff. He's managed to get the dwarves to build a city sized forge in less than a year to forge the rings of power. It's a completely dumbass idea - except to an immortal and that's what makes it good for a show. The Elves should all be doing shit like that, which makes it much easier to understand why Morgoth or Sauron could hijack stuff or make their pitches.

If one can't use the Silmarillion, one certainly can use the general dumbass spirit that drove Feanor and the like to do wild, wonderful, terrible things all the time.

Hadn't considered this, but I think it's an excellent point that it largely isn't working because Galadriel and Celebrimbor are completely odd ones out.

[Tiste Simeon]

And here's me just happily enjoying the show. Sure, I think they need to start moving things along quicker now but all the show has done for me is make me want to delve further into Tolkein lore. I'm having fun with it!

[QuickTidal]

Hey, if you're enjoying it, that's great! I'm not sure they'll do all 5 promised seasons of it....but you can at least expect 2 or 3.

[champ]

 Tiste Simeon, on 21 September 2022 - 05:06 PM, said:

And here's me just happily enjoying the show. Sure, I think they need to start moving things along quicker now but all the show has done for me is make me want to delve further into Tolkein lore. I'm having fun with it!

I'm with you Tiste, I quite like it.

But I'm not a massive Tolkein fan, only read Hobbit/LotR and I went in with zero expectations.

Compared to some of the fantasy shows / adaptions we've had of late, I'll take it...

Could it be better? Aye for sure but I think they've gone in with a 5 year story and we are seeing a lot of set-up.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

 Tiste Simeon, on 21 September 2022 - 05:06 PM, said:

And here's me just happily enjoying the show. Sure, I think they need to start moving things along quicker now but all the show has done for me is make me want to delve further into Tolkein lore. I'm having fun with it!

What QT said, I'm glad people are enjoying it! I just wish I was.

[QuickTidal]

I'd like to comment on a really solid new point of why I think this is failing for me.

It's a story we know the outcome/reveal of from the opening narration of LOTR. Like the end goal big event that happens during/at the end of this show series story is:

"It began with the forging of the Great Rings. Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the Dwarf-Lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of Men, who above all else desire power. For within these rings was bound the strength and the will to govern each race. But they were all of them deceived, for another ring was made. Deep in the land of Mordor, in the Fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged a master ring, and into this ring he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life.

One ring to rule them all.


There's no "reveal" to be had. Nothing to compel the audience forward towards a climax. Because we know it, we've seen it and read it. This is why hiding Sauron from us like this is such a lazy red herring...they are doing it because it's the only thing they can think of to compel us forward...adding a set of "mysteries" to be unravelled. But those mysteries are dealt with at arms length and not in POV.

Example: The Star Wars prequels. Of course we knew the outcome was "Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader" when we went in to TPM....they never tried to hide him...nor did they attempt to hide Palpatine. Because that would be uniquely stupid and lazy. So instead they did the only thing you CAN do to make the "HOW did e come Vader/HOW did the Republic fall ect." interesting...they set it from his POV and those directly around him.

So as I mentioned earlier, this show should be from Sauron's POV if the HOW is the important thing...and it is. So seeing it from the eyes of people like Galadriel, Elrond, Durin, and other touchstones to LOTR leaves us pointlessly in the dark and keeps them spinning their wheels as that touchstone...we, the audience, KNOW someone IS Sauron, and that he IS co-opting the Elves to make the rings, and we know he's co-opting others in the southland to build Baradur for him...so if the only viscera the show can offer up in half a season of episodes is "Who is Sauron"....they have failed to tell the story in a way that entertains anyone who has seen the LOTR movie prologue.

Hopefully that made sense?

I guess I hope the next few episodes do something else. If the 'Sauron reveal' occurs on the season finale....I'm checking out I think.

[Briar King]

Here we go. How many times can I laugh tonight I wonder.