"the lord of the rings: the rings of power" is out on amazon

[Kaido]

Gandalf development was interesting, the Sauron and Galadriel relationship was brilliant, the highlight of the series for me. I skipped through several sections, too frequently the hobbits (and dwarves to a lesser extent) are inaccurately portrayed as fops in the movies and in this series. The grandeur of Númenor was completely lacking. Overall it was 7/10 for this Tolkien fan.

Yup, totally Sixth Sense'd me. Both for who the wizard was & for Halbrand. I really like that it's non-canonical & that the character was created for the show because then you get nice twists & surprises like that! As soon as we figured it out, we paused the show & went back from their very first meeting and were like OH SNAP IT'S BEEN THERE THE WHOLE TIME! M. Knight Shyamalan-style!!

My question is, did Father know who Halbrand was when he was chained up in the barn??

 

[Kaido]

Wait...they made more than one of those abominations?

I love & watch every single F&F movie. The Fiero in space was so over the top ridiculous, I absolutely loved it lol. Give me more silly popcorn movies any day of the week!!

 

[sactoking]

Re: pacing

I'd argue that the comments on slow/poor pacing (I've made them myself!) don't necessarily reflect a desire for more action. Dialogue is perfectly acceptable if it leads somewhere. The Rings of Power decided to lean so heavily into the "mystery box" format of storytelling that the dialogue often felt pointless because you couldn't tell that it was leading to any sort of material development.

This is true for the LotR/RoP vs GoT debate as well. GoT season 1 wasn't super action-packed but it was full of political intrigue and backstabbing. You could tell that the dialogue often had some purpose. That's why it had better pacing as wasn't viewed as so slow to develop.

 

[zinfamous]

Re: pacing

I'd argue that the comments on slow/poor pacing (I've made them myself!) don't necessarily reflect a desire for more action. Dialogue is perfectly acceptable if it leads somewhere. The Rings of Power decided to lean so heavily into the "mystery box" format of storytelling that the dialogue often felt pointless because you couldn't tell that it was leading to any sort of material development.

This is true for the LotR/RoP vs GoT debate as well. GoT season 1 wasn't super action-packed but it was full of political intrigue and backstabbing. You could tell that the dialogue often had some purpose. That's why it had better pacing as wasn't viewed as so slow to develop.

This is a good point, and apt.

The way I look at it is that you have to remember that Tolkien is a stodgy, old-world literary academic mired in mythology and tied to language in a way that you won't find in any modern fantasy/popular fiction series. His purpose with creating this whole world is vastly different than the general culture of today, which pretty much only became exposed to this stuff when the movies came out. (OG LoTR fans are very much a different type than those created after the films, I'd say. I think they "got" Tolkien, if they stuck with the lore after the say, 12-15 year old age that those books seem to cater to). Jackson was very serious about maintaining this veiled, purposeful language that has as much intent to convey an "elevated, gentried" history of what Tolkien actually thought should become the adopted popular mythology of GB (he believed that none such thing existed in the culture, which is why he created LoTR with the Hobbit being a testbed; and which is also weird because they already have Beowulf and it had already been long-recognized for what Tolkien believed didn't exist, but I digress)

Anyway, it's maybe important to understand in context, that Tolkien was hanging out with and ostensibly writing for his colleagues in the literature departments at Cambridge and Oxford and the like and he wanted this to be adopted into that canon of high literature (I recall there being rather mixed reviews from his colleagues, in the end), and so that influences the language of the text and how you expect these characters to behave--you're supposed to be reading something that is more familiar to the standards of the 10th century than any modern or contemporary era. Jackson kept this going and this series does it quite ably, as well.

So, it's going to have mixed reviews from a general, modern audience that has either zero interest in high literature or just outright hates it, lol. ...And to me, I wouldn't say LoTR really achieved that (The Silmarillion really is the best example of this, because the structure is more akin to the episodic "fable-telling" that is common with the earliest versions of myth/fiction that Tolkien was recreating, and I think was primarily written to satisfy "his people" into the understanding that his project here really had a higher purpose than simple, popular fiction for the plebs). As for me, I sit on either side of that as to whether or not I feel that it works here or if I prefer the LoTR style of the GoT style, if we are to use two contrasting examples of what High Fantasy can be.

I think outside of whether or not you like the result, most *can probably* appreciate how well this is adopted here and the showrunners absolutely stick to the formula.

 

[MrSquished]

This is a good point, and apt.

The way I look at it is that you have to remember that Tolkien is a stodgy, old-world literary academic mired in mythology and tied to language in a way that you won't find in any modern fantasy/popular fiction series. His purpose with creating this whole world is vastly different than the general culture of today, which pretty much only became exposed to this stuff when the movies came out. (OG LoTR fans are very much a different type than those created after the films, I'd say. I think they "got" Tolkien, if they stuck with the lore after the say, 12-15 year old age that those books seem to cater to). Jackson was very serious about maintaining this veiled, purposeful language that has as much intent to convey an "elevated, gentried" history of what Tolkien actually thought should become the adopted popular mythology of GB (he believed that none such thing existed in the culture, which is why he created LoTR with the Hobbit being a testbed; and which is also weird because they already have Beowulf and it had already been long-recognized for what Tolkien believed didn't exist, but I digress)

Anyway, it's maybe important to understand in context, that Tolkien was hanging out with and ostensibly writing for his colleagues in the literature departments at Cambridge and Oxford and the like and he wanted this to be adopted into that canon of high literature (I recall there being rather mixed reviews from his colleagues, in the end), and so that influences the language of the text and how you expect these characters to behave--you're supposed to be reading something that is more familiar to the standards of the 10th century than any modern or contemporary era. Jackson kept this going and this series does it quite ably, as well.

So, it's going to have mixed reviews from a general, modern audience that has either zero interest in high literature or just outright hates it, lol. ...And to me, I wouldn't say LoTR really achieved that (The Silmarillion really is the best example of this, because the structure is more akin to the episodic "fable-telling" that is common with the earliest versions of myth/fiction that Tolkien was recreating, and I think was primarily written to satisfy "his people" into the understanding that his project here really had a higher purpose than simple, popular fiction for the plebs). As for me, I sit on either side of that as to whether or not I feel that it works here or if I prefer the LoTR style of the GoT style, if we are to use two contrasting examples of what High Fantasy can be.

I think outside of whether or not you like the result, most *can probably* appreciate how well this is adopted here and the showrunners absolutely stick to the formula.

I enjoy both the GoOT and the LoTR styles. Loving both shows this season and can't wait for season 2 of both of them. I read LoTR when I was a kid, saw the movies a bunch, and I feel RoP is carrying the torch well.