The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

[Ser Drewy]

19 hours ago, Ran said:

I think the show looks pretty good visually-speaking, as it should with its budget. I don't react negatively to its use of VFX as a lot of it in this trailer seems to suggest that it's used for the big, sweeping locations and so on. It looks good to my eye, and I'm sure in 4K it'll be impressive (though I assume the CGI is rendered in 2k and then upscaled... then again, given the budget, maybe not?)

But I'm not planning to watch it, personally. The story its telling doesn't interest me. And while it looks good, it's certainly true that it's weirdly lazy in some ways. The Númenorean horsemen with horsetails on their helms look uncannily like the royal Rohirrim from LotR, and that just seems a bizarrely lazy choice.

My thing with the story is I'm wondering if the show might be overly busy. Based on the teaser, the posters and some of the leaks, it looks like they might be covering a dozen storylines, plus First Age flashbacks, with two dozen characters. It might be a bit much for 8 episodes.

[SpaceChampion]

The show might be good for watching certain scenes on youtube the day after (the Oath of Feanor for instance), but hardcore Legendarium fans will otherwise want to avoid.  I try to appreciate things for what they are so I'm waiting to see what this is before judging, but I doubt this will be recognizable as the middle-earth anyone expects.

[Isis]

On 7/8/2022 at 8:13 PM, Werthead said:

There are hardcore defenders of the show like the One Ring team - a stance as bizarre to take at this juncture as the hysterical critics - who have taken advantage of this to call all critics of the footage so far racist, which is both a lie and intellectually cowardly. 

We already lived through this once, remember. Those of us who were on TORn before the films were released had to see a continuous barrage of 'book firsters' telling anyone who would accept ANY changes to the source material in the films that they were Not A Real Fan (NARF) and that JRRT was spinning in his grave. People lost their minds about XENArwen, the elves at Helms Deep, cutting the scouring of the shire, giving dialogue from one character to another on a daily basis. Personally I cannot stand to argue with anyone who wants to shit on something they haven't even seen yet. I've done my time. 

On 7/14/2022 at 4:12 PM, The Marquis de Leech said:

I am well and truly squeeing about this one. Unlike the previous, it actually feels like Middle-earth.

I'm pretty sure 2:01 is the Oath of Feanor in all its glory, while 1:12 is either a premonition of the Downfall of Numenor - or (as I think more likely) an underwater shot of corpses at the First Kinslaying.

It really really looks like we're going to see Mad Uncle Feanor. 

 

I feel it's the kinslaying but many seem to think it's Numenor, arguing that it could be foresight (and getting pissed off about Galadriel having better foresight than Elrond as that's not canon lol). 

I'm keeping an open mind about the whole thing. But I do have one question: why TF do the Harfoots have Irish accents? Is this a comment on the rustic, uncivilised nature of the Irish? It's as if Hollywood only knows about RP and Irish. There's no other British (Isles) accents available. 

 

[Corvinus85]

I still think the scene with the drowned Elves can be the War of Wrath. Part of that tower looked underwater, too, so maybe we're seeing the sinking on Beleriand. And maybe they'll use it as a foreshadowing for Numenor.

[Slurktan]

Its only a brief shot but if that really is Finrod saving Beren as it appears, well then I am excited as I wouldn't think they would be allowed to show stuff like that. (and of course the oath of feanor)

[Clueless Northman]

On 7/14/2022 at 6:07 PM, Darryk said:

If the meteor man is Gandalf than it's such a lack of subtlety. "Look, see, this is why Gandalf likes hobbits so much, because they took care of him after he fell in the village!". No, Gandalf liked hobbits in LOTR cause he had the insight to see their inner strength when no one else would; we don't need you ruining it with some Disney Star Wars-esque unnecessary origin story.

Still that's the only hypothesis that makes sense.

 

On 7/14/2022 at 8:23 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

I'm really excited to see young Elrond.

Same issue with Galadriel, but it's even more blatant with Elrond: The prologue in Fellowship actually showed us Elrond as he appeared a couple centuries after, and he looked exactly like Hugo Weaving 3.000 years later. Same for Galadriel at an even earlier stage. Of course, most viewers won't notice or give a damn.

 

19 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Like Oedipus Rex, you know how things will end - the point is the emotions of watching the Fall.  

Alas, the fall we might be watching might actually be that of the Tolkien Estate as a respected body, which greenlit and praised that show, if it turns out as shitty as one can fear.

 

On 7/14/2022 at 11:40 PM, polishgenius said:

And that would be disappointing enough if it was a project which I thought had some kind of genuine purpose or drive behind it in other respects than visual, but I feel like the whole thing is like this... built to put lots of money up on screen to get even more money back, but without an actual aim beyond that.

This is done by Amazon. Money-making is therefore the only imperative and the only thing that truly matters.

Though if you're tired of seeing big studios coming mostly with money-making schemes without any other purpose, you might want to wait for the crash of the global economy and for uber-capitalism to die out; not going to happen before that.

[The Marquis de Leech]

1 hour ago, Slurktan said:

Its only a brief shot but if that really is Finrod saving Beren as it appears, well then I am excited as I wouldn't think they would be allowed to show stuff like that. (and of course the oath of feanor)

That's not Finrod-Beren. That's Arondir, their invented character. But yes, it is resonant with Finrod in the same way Galadriel in the Forodwaith evokes the Helcaraxe.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Clueless Northman said:

Same issue with Galadriel, but it's even more blatant with Elrond: The prologue in Fellowship actually showed us Elrond as he appeared a couple centuries after, and he looked exactly like Hugo Weaving 3.000 years later. Same for Galadriel at an even earlier stage. Of course, most viewers won't notice or give a damn.

I think everyone involved knows that Weaving and Blanchett are not playing the same roles. I don't think it's a major issue anyway, even if this was a PJ project explicitly in the same continuity as the movies. Those actors are 23 years older than when they filmed their scenes in Fellowship and 10 years older than when they filmed their scenes for the Hobbit trilogy. With the best will in the world, they can't make them look decades younger (in elven terms), unless they wanted to spend the entire budget on de-aging them in every single scene.

You might as well ask why they recast Bilbo between LotR and the Hobbit trilogies and didn't just get Ian Holm to play the role again with vfx (and recall that Holm played the younger Bilbo at the time of The Hobbit in the prologue to the first movie anyway).

Morfydd Clark looks extremely good in the role, and as a younger Cate Blanchett (although she's about the same age Blanchett was when they shot FotR) she's pretty convincing, based on limited material so far. Robert Aramayo has been pretty good in other things, but I'm less sold on him growing up to be Hugo Weaving (also, is his career going to be defined by playing younger versions of characters made famous by actors from The Fellowship of the Ring? Will his next role be playing a young Viggo Mortensen in a prequel to GI Jane?).

[Mladen]

32 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I think everyone involved knows that Weaving and Blanchett are not playing the same roles. I don't think it's a major issue anyway, even if this was a PJ project explicitly in the same continuity as the movies. Those actors are 23 years older than when they filmed their scenes in Fellowship and 10 years older than when they filmed their scenes for the Hobbit trilogy. With the best will in the world, they can't make them look decades younger (in elven terms), unless they wanted to spend the entire budget on de-aging them in every single scene.

You might as well ask why they recast Bilbo between LotR and the Hobbit trilogies and didn't just get Ian Holm to play the role again with vfx (and recall that Holm played the younger Bilbo at the time of The Hobbit in the prologue to the first movie anyway).

Morfydd Clark looks extremely good in the role, and as a younger Cate Blanchett (although she's about the same age Blanchett was when they shot FotR) she's pretty convincing, based on limited material so far. Robert Aramayo has been pretty good in other things, but I'm less sold on him growing up to be Hugo Weaving (also, is his career going to be defined by playing younger versions of characters made famous by actors from The Fellowship of the Ring? Will his next role be playing a young Viggo Mortensen in a prequel to GI Jane?).

All of these arguments are factually correct and I can't argue against them. That said, I am more affected by Ms. Clark as Galadriel than anything else. And I know that Blanchett who is 53 ATM, can't play this younger version, but that emotional side of my brain says she should have. 

Cate Blanchett as Galadriel is one of those characters for me. One of those that define certain era. I was just a kid when I watched FOTR and her gliding down those stairs as the Fellowship looked at her. I still remember the excitement, the emotional connection with this serene, out-worldly creature. It marked the beginning of my love for Ms. Blanchett and it is still strong as it was 2 decades ago.

So, yeah, I understand the arguments and they are all valid. It is just that there is part of me that would be ecstatic to have seen Ms. Blanchett as Galadriel one more time, especially in the role that gives us more grounded Galadriel. And, yes, I would totally ignore that she doesn't look like she is 25. 

Having said that, I wish Ms. Clark all the best. She has some gigantic shoes to fill and it seems she is doing just fine. 

[polishgenius]

8 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

Though if you're tired of seeing big studios coming mostly with money-making schemes without any other purpose, you might want to wait for the crash of the global economy and for uber-capitalism to die out; not going to happen before that.

 

There are lots of projects, even really big ones, that even if the backers obviously do want money out of them have people involved who are genuinely passionate about the movie or show. Everything from Dune to Fast and Furious. 

This isn't one of them. 

[Scott_N]

On 7/14/2022 at 10:56 PM, Ser Drewy said:

Well, it certainly looks expensive. You can see the money on screen. 

 

Though I agree with your statement, I also think it looks, erm, cheap. If that makes any sense. It looks like a video game; none of it looks proper or real since it is so obviously CGI.

I wish I could stay away from this thread but like some sad masochist I keep coming back for more punishment.

[Heartofice]

Just now, Scott_N said:

Though I agree with your statement, I also think it looks, erm, cheap. If that makes any sense. It looks like a video game; none of it looks proper or real since it is so obviously CGI.

I wish I could stay away from this thread but like some sad masochist I keep coming back for more punishment.

I think you are right, it’s an issue with CGI in general that’s it’s gone from this rarity, where a movie with amazing special effects was something to be marvelled at, to something very banal and commonplace as to be unremarkable. It takes real artistry to do something noticeable with special effects these days ( love death and robots for instance) but the backgrounds here are pretty cookie cutter, stuff you would expect. Meh.

 

9 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

Though if you're tired of seeing big studios coming mostly with money-making schemes without any other purpose, you might want to wait for the crash of the global economy and for uber-capitalism to die out; not going to happen before that.

If that ever happens, that wouldn’t automatically mean a return to ‘good movies’. We had periods of good movies being made ina  capitalist system before. The issue is much more about how people are watching movies.

[Clueless Northman]

17 hours ago, Heartofice said:

If that ever happens, that wouldn’t automatically mean a return to ‘good movies’. We had periods of good movies being made ina  capitalist system before. The issue is much more about how people are watching movies.

Of course. Thing is, we mostly had good movies when studios didn't assume this was a real money-making business. Once the big studios system collapsed in the 60s, you then had directors who got more freedom to choose themes, scripts, genres. Scorsese, Coppola, even Lucas and Spielberg actually did exist because movies weren't considered as a way to make a lot of $$ anymore and studios weren't pressuring their directors into making big expensive musicals and historical epic stuff. So, there's no way around it, current Hollywood really need to spiral into oblivion and major studios to actually die and disappear before we can, maybe, have good movies once again. As long as studios make tons of $$ with remakes, prequels, sequels, adaptations of preexisting franchises, we're stuck with the current unimaginative crap. And the current cycle has been going on way longer than previous ones, which is frustrating and not the most encouraging.

[Ran]

The thing that needs to change is audiences. People were making musicals because audiences were flocking to them. People made historical epics because people were flocking to them. At some point, people stopped flocking to them, and studios had to find something new. You get a bunch of stuff (some of it precursors tp the stuff being done by indies today), and then they found Jaws and The Godfather and Star Wars, and so you get a bunch of that stuff. And then eventually that gets saturated, audiences want something new, and you get some pretty great stuff in, like, mid-to-late 90s, and here were are with superheroes all over the place, and people flock to them.

So, I don't know. Audiences are the driver, studios are just trying to find what audiences want, and they tend to settle into formulas because most people just want comfort and entertainment when they go to a film.

[Corvinus85]

22 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I think you are right, it’s an issue with CGI in general that’s it’s gone from this rarity, where a movie with amazing special effects was something to be marvelled at, to something very banal and commonplace as to be unremarkable. It takes real artistry to do something noticeable with special effects these days ( love death and robots for instance) but the backgrounds here are pretty cookie cutter, stuff you would expect. Meh.

This show would not have looked like this 10 years ago. So I am still down with the visuals. The saturation isn't quite there yet for TV shows as it is for movies. 

[Zorral]

To be honest, what I've seen in the trailers -- it all looks like left overs and discards from other generic screen fantasies, particularly from game genres.

[BigFatCoward]

If its good I literally couldn't care less if the only thing linking it to Tolkien is the name of the show. 

[The Bard of Banefort]

One of the critiques I’ve heard about TROP is that there isn’t much search traffic for it on Google Trends, especially compared to HOTD, but when I took a look myself, I noticed that The Rings of Power (TV show) and rings of power (topic) are listed separately. Shouldn’t they be combined? If they should be, then there’s a lot more interest in it than people were claiming. Take a look:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now 7-d&q=%2Fm%2F0h2ts,%2Fg%2F11j0n257zd,%2Fg%2F11gh329g28

 

[Ran]

Topics are a collection of related searches, so basically would include things like "Amazon Lord of the Rings" and "Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power", and other such things that Google has realized all point to the same thing. So if there's a topic available, it should include within it the narrower TV show term, and thus you don't add them together.

[The Bard of Banefort]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Topics are a collection of related searches, so basically would include things like "Amazon Lord of the Rings" and "Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power", and other such things that Google has realized all point to the same thing. So if there's a topic available, it should include within it the narrower TV show term, and thus you don't add them together.

So the topic is more indicative of Google traffic than the show then? Is there a topic that HOTD would fall under as well?