The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Ser Drewy said:

Some are claiming that figure is not Sauron now, but may be a Sauron Cultist.  There's also claims that Morgoth destroying the Trees was seen in an extended look at the show. 

There's some poor-quality video links that show the Two Trees being loomed over by a shadow or outline (that very vaguely looks more like Sauron's Last Alliance form from the movies) before being destroyed, so we might not "see" Morgoth as a physical entity but more of an inferred presence.

[Clueless Northman]

22 hours ago, Trebla said:

It's very possible that the "Sauron" theme will only play when he is finally revealed for who he really is.  Do we know if he's going to be disguised as "Annatar: Lord of Gifts"? I suspect if he is he will have a much nobler theme.

Obviously, the only real way of doing it right is only to have rumors of that big bad Sauron, and having at the same time that Annatar dude around, with his true identity being revealed only when he actually forges The One - so not before the end of Season 1 at earliest.

 

18 hours ago, Ser Drewy said:

.... Why does Sauron look like the Satan from Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ?

Lesser odds of being called out for racism if your Big Bad is a blonde blue-eyed dude? Still not a reason to have him cast such angry or devious looks - Annatar is supposed to be a friend to Middle-Earth people who's here to help them improve their lots, and should look the part. I hope that's just one stupid shot and they don't make Annatar look that shady as a rule. The guy was supposed to be extremely good-looking, pleasing, nice, massively charismatic, and able to fool most people except a few elven lords like Galadriel. I mean, he should look like Obama at the top of his game or a young Mr Rogers, not like some thug down on his luck.

 

Damn, this whole thing looks more and more like mediocre fan-fiction. They might as well have hired D/D for that. Fan-fiction with a metric ton of money for top of the world production values, obviously (design, music and the like, just like the LOTR trilogy).

 

  

55 minutes ago, Werthead said:

 the Two Trees being loomed over by a shadow or outline (that very vaguely looks more like Sauron's Last Alliance form from the movies) 

Last Alliance's Sauron look was very close to Howe's picture of Morgoth and Ungoliant killing the trees, so that makes a lot of sense.

[Calibandar]

3 hours ago, Ser Drewy said:

Some are claiming that figure is not Sauron now, but may be a Sauron Cultist.  There's also claims that Morgoth destroying the Trees was seen in an extended look at the show. 

 

Was also reading that some in the hall claim that the Balrog is from the First Age prologue.

Hope thats not the case as I actually like the idea of us seeing how the Mithril delving unearths a Balrog. But I guess if that happened early in the show they would have such a massive problem in their hands that plotwise it doesnt make sense yet.

[Clueless Northman]

If they bother about having Celebrimbor's kingdom at Hollin, close to Moria, they might want to have both kingdoms destroyed at the same time, Hollin by Sauron's armies and Moria by the balrog. Makse cinematic sense in a way, but it also butchers the storyline and would cause massive trouble if some studio ever wants to do 3rd Age stuff.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

15 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

If they bother about having Celebrimbor's kingdom at Hollin, close to Moria, they might want to have both kingdoms destroyed at the same time, Hollin by Sauron's armies and Moria by the balrog. Makse cinematic sense in a way, but it also butchers the storyline and would cause massive trouble if some studio ever wants to do 3rd Age stuff.

The Kingdom of Khazâd-dum lasted Millennia longer than Eregion… weren’t you complaining about “fanfiction” above?

[DMC]

Perhaps Annatar's identity is revealed to the viewer but not the characters.  After all, it's been awhile, but I don't recall his identity being presented as a mystery to the reader.

[Isis]

16 hours ago, Werthead said:

There was a good analysis that the House of the Dragon trailer actually works as a trailer, laying out the stakes, what's going on, who the protagonists are etc. Rings of Power so far has instead relied heavily on name recognition from the Jackson trilogy (Elrond, Galadriel, Sauron, Isildur). There isn't really a strong sense of the story they're telling in the trailers. Tolkien fans can work it out, sure, but the casual audience seems to be fairly unmoved so far.

Conversely, I'm not interested in The House of the Dragon so I haven't seen the trailer. Perhaps I will watch it in order to look at the comparison of the two shows.

The scope for ROP is massive though and we are seeing wildly different places, different races (some of those 'angelic' beings) and (potenially) apocalyptic events events. The other thing which makes it seem more confusing is that fans of Tolkien's books are likely trying to fit the events and chatacters we know about into this trailer alongside all the new stuff, and that makes it seem busier.

It looks to me as if Galadriel (whom casual film watchers will recollect as an important person from LOTR) is going to be a main character or central cog of the narrative. It helps that she provides the literal narration too, which is familiar from the films. People watching the trailer will know that it's a fantastical story of the rise of evil, which many different peoples will need to stand together against - much like in LOTR. So if people enjoyed the LOTR films they might well be interested in more of that sort of thing.

16 hours ago, Ser Drewy said:

That's kind of what I've been wondering about the show in general for awhile now. With all these plots, characters and flashbacks, it seems to be there's a risk of this being really overstuffed with material. 

I feel that this is because people think they know what is going to be in the show, they are expecting to see certain events that are familiar to them, plus a bunch of new stuff on top of that. But we don't actually know yet.

15 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

About that, how much buzz is there for ROP online so far?

For Tolkien fans? Absolutely loads. 

13 hours ago, Calibandar said:

That Balrog scene at the end is very interesting, that has to be a new one appearing in the series surely since presumably there is zero reason to just copy paste that from the LoTR films. Quite exciting

I've seen people say that they are allowed to use the Balrog as is from PJ's films because of John Howe. But, even if it it was John Howe's design and he is cool with it, I don't suppose that he was 100% responsible for bringing it on to the screen. I don't know? Goodwill gesture?

For anyone who wanted to see: Image of the two trees with Morgoth's shadow

I've just seen this utter dross from the Guardian piece about the SDCC panel:

Quote

But a darkness rises as elvish queen Galadriel, played by Morfydd Clark – a Swedish-born Welsh actor – places her hand on a globe and causes carnage to ensue.

I sincerely hope that the author of this (Harry Taylor) was not actually sent to SDCC to watch the panel and then wrote this nonsense as a result? 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

14 minutes ago, Isis said:

The scope for ROP is massive though and we are seeing wildly different places, different races (some of those 'angelic' beings) and (potenially) apocalyptic events events

Yet… the time compression of more than two millennia into mere decades (if that) necessarily reduces the “massive” scope of the story.  Part of what makes it “epic” is the length of time it takes for the story to play out.

For the record I disliked the apparent time compression in the LotR films too.  In the books there are 17 years between the “long expected party” and Gandalf’s confirmation of Frodo’s possession of the One Ring and further months of planning between that confirmation and Frodo leaving the Shire.  That time compression makes Middle-Earth seem much smaller.

[Werthead]

25 minutes ago, Isis said:

I've seen people say that they are allowed to use the Balrog as is from PJ's films because of John Howe. But, even if it it was John Howe's design and he is cool with it, I don't suppose that he was 100% responsible for bringing it on to the screen. I don't know? Goodwill gesture?

I don't think that's true. Any work Howe did for the Jackson movies would have automatically become the property of New Line Cinema.

I suspect what they mean is that if the Jackson movies used something that Howe and Lee had created prior to the movies, that would still be fair game as that might belong to the artists (or HarperCollins, or the Tolkien Estate). But whilst some of Howe and Lee's pre-movie designs did crop up in the movies (like Isengard, which is literally just taken straight from Howe's book covers), the balrog did not. Howe's images of the balrog are different from Jackson's interpretation.

However, and this is something that was established with the original news of the project in 2017, New Line and Warner Brothers did sign an agreement with Amazon for the making of this show, and that does apparently allow for them to use stuff from the New Line/WB movies if they wish. The assumption was that Amazon had merely chosen to go in a different direction rather than they had to.

Having the same balrog but a different, well, almost everything else, is interesting.

[Isis]

42 minutes ago, Werthead said:

However, and this is something that was established with the original news of the project in 2017, New Line and Warner Brothers did sign an agreement with Amazon for the making of this show, and that does apparently allow for them to use stuff from the New Line/WB movies if they wish. The assumption was that Amazon had merely chosen to go in a different direction rather than they had to.

Having the same balrog but a different, well, almost everything else, is interesting.

Yeah, it was a little bit weird as it came right at the end of the trailer where there was thematical similarity between PJ's M-E and the Amazon show but nothing that was exactly the same and then the jolly old Balrog from FOTR is just like: HERE I AM, EVERYONE, I WAS JUST STANDING QUIETLY IN THE SHADOWS ALL ALONG. A la Frodo after he accidentally puts on the Ring when he falls off the table at the Prancing Pony. 

I kinda like how they are fucking with people ever so slightly, like with the, "Is that Sauron?" stuff. I'm here for it.

[Slurktan]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The Kingdom of Khazâd-dum lasted Millennia longer than Eregion… weren’t you complaining about “fanfiction” above?

Everything in this is fan fiction. However they seemingly have the right to throw in shit that looks like stuff from the silmarillion. Say for example galadriel next to the pile of bodies is Rian at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad or the new characters playing finrod and beren in the last trailer.

We are likely never going to get a silmarillion show/movie so I will take what I can get to see stuff that's only been in my head.

[Corvinus85]

2 hours ago, Isis said:

For anyone who wanted to see: Image of the two trees with Morgoth's shadow

I've just seen this utter dross from the Guardian piece about the SDCC panel:

I sincerely hope that the author of this (Harry Taylor) was not actually sent to SDCC to watch the panel and then wrote this nonsense as a result? 

Your link is broken or blocked.

I can't believe the writer of that piece doesn't even know the palantir, an object that appeared in all of the LOTR movies.

[Darryk]

Trailer was just a bunch of pretty visuals with no substance.

One cliched line after another with no context to them.

[Clueless Northman]

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The Kingdom of Khazâd-dum lasted Millennia longer than Eregion… weren’t you complaining about “fanfiction” above?

Yup. I suspect they're going to cut them down at the same time, which makes only sense if you take Rings of Power as an independent story and never intends to do anything with the 3rd Age - and of course if you don't give a fuck about Tolkien's work, which seems to be blatantly the case here.

[ASOIAFrelatedusername]

4 hours ago, DMC said:

Perhaps Annatar's identity is revealed to the viewer but not the characters.  After all, it's been awhile, but I don't recall his identity being presented as a mystery to the reader.

Nah. They are going to choose the stupid option of introducting a bunch of red herrings for the Sauron position and as a result they will utterly fail to develop the relationship between Annatar and the Elves of Eregion. That is why we have seen nothing of "Annatar" yet. It is not like "Annatar" was operating in secret, so as soon as he introduces himself, the audience will know and all the secrecy will be pointless.

 

[Rhom]

2 hours ago, Darryk said:

Trailer was just a bunch of pretty visuals with no substance.

One cliched line after another with no context to them.

Isn’t that what trailers are?

[Darryk]

32 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Isn’t that what trailers are?

You can usually get some idea of what the story and plot is going to be.

Also the way this one was just one cliched line after another like

"The darkness is coming" "

"the light must rise"

"The end is coming"

"we will fight"

"I am ready to fight"

"the great battle is coming"

blablablablsa

 

[Calibandar]

Pretty cool touch how the Arondir character is clearly grabbed by an Ent at the end of the trailer and apparently Entwives are definitely in it.

Not so cool? The look of Celebrimbor, why is he so old and human looking, looks extremely far from how I imagined the character. The short and weird hairstyles of some male Elves is doing the show no service.

[Durckad]

Celebrimbor definitely does not look like how I pictured him either. But, on the other hand, I remember Hugo Weaving being very much NOT how I pictured Elrond back before the Jackson films came out. He did make it work so hopefully the same is true for this Celebrimbor.

[Isis]

17 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

Yup. I suspect they're going to cut them down at the same time, which makes only sense if you take Rings of Power as an independent story and never intends to do anything with the 3rd Age - and of course if you don't give a fuck about Tolkien's work, which seems to be blatantly the case here.

This type of comment, about not giving a fuck about Tolkien's work is ridiculous.

By all means say that you are not interested in watching a show based on Tolkien's work which will have non-canon events and characters. I totally understand and respect that stance. 

Anyone commenting with 'it looks awful', 'it's just bad fan fic' 'they don't give a fuck about Tolkien's work' - is being lazy and dishonest. The majority of people haven't even seen any of the show apart from trailers so I don't know how they can tell any of this anyway. Audiences are obviously free to critique the quality and value of the show once they have actually watched it.

Having now watched the ROP panel at SDCC, the idea that the creators of the show do not care about Tolkien's work just makes no sense.

If the idea of someone creating something 'new' within Tolkien's world is so offensive, simply do not watch the show when it comes out and do not trouble yourselves to moan about it continuously.