Rings of Power ( No Book Spoilers) - Will I ever care about the Harfoots?

[Raja]

2 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

1. Isildur's sister: why is she suddenly anti-expedition? This came out of nowhere for me.

I imagine it's cause she's losing her father & brother to it? I was confused as well at the start but it made more sense towards the end

Will post more thoughts when I've thought about the episode a bit as I've only just seen it today

 

[Raja]

New episode absolutely slaps.

The actor playing Arondir is really good, imo and I've warmed to him

[Zorral]

Looking forward to watching it tonight.  

[Heartofice]

Before this episode my main feeling towards this show was that it was deeply average, a bit dull, but decent enough. Kind of watchable but not bad.

I thought episode was absolutely dire. 
 

Probably because it was more action focussed which really highlighted the stuff this show is really bad at, and it’s much more obvious visually. 

The directing and ending of these action sequences is absolute amateur hour it really is. It’s embarrassing.

The Galadriel training sequence last week was a bit of a red flag, this was that scene played out for an hour. 
 

I wondered whether they were trying to get a PG13 rating or something because every single blow or contact was cut away from at the last minute so you can’t see what happens. But no there is plenty of blood and the show is a 15 so it’s not that. It is probably to cover for lack of technique. That was just one small issue, but the whole episode is rammed full of amateurish framing, editing, writing and acting. It’s kind of staggering to watch.

[Caligula_K3]

I'm not saying this was at Sapochnik Hardhome or Battle of the Bastards level direction and editing, but I wouldn't call it anywhere near amateurish. This was still one of the best battles I've seen on TV. 

I also had no problems with the Galadriel training scene last week. Yeah, it was slightly cheesy. This is Lord of the Rings. Cheese is part of the DNA.

[Iskaral Pust]

Cheesy is being kind.  The 

Spoiler

Self-destructing castle trap

and the subsequent siege were like something from a TV show for kids.  Peter Jackson sacrificed all sense from his military tactics in service of heroic vignettes, but this was ridiculous for no trade-off.  And then the fawning monarchism as usual that’s almost as nauseating as the twee Irish accents and patois of the Harfoots.  The copyright must have expired for Darby O’Gill And The Little People. 

And then the 

Spoiler

volcanic eruption triggered by a dam burst

[Raja]

4 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

. This is Lord of the Rings. Cheese is part of the DNA.

It's like everyone forgot that in two towers we have 3-4 dudes on a horse charging through Helm's deep, the walkway and the battlefield outside and surviving.

[Heartofice]

I think why Jackson’s movies worked was they were able to be consciously cheesy and melodramatic, because they were also technically competent on pretty much every level.

This show however, when it does cheesy things, it’s looks like stupidity or a mistake because so much else surrounding it is lazy or workmanlike. Nothing about this show projects a sense you are watching someone with a vision putting that vision on screen, so dumb things look like it’s the creators just being dumb.

[Caligula_K3]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I think why Jackson’s movies worked was they were able to be consciously cheesy and melodramatic, because they were also technically competent on pretty much every level.

This show however, when it does cheesy things, it’s looks like stupidity or a mistake because so much else surrounding it is lazy or workmanlike. Nothing about this show projects a sense you are watching someone with a vision putting that vision on screen, so dumb things look like it’s the creators just being dumb.

I just feel like we're watching different shows. Yeah, not everything technical on this show has worked. Some of the CG animals/creatures look pretty dodgy. There's an overruse of techniques like slow motion. There's clearly a learning curve here. But this is one of the most beautiful shows I've ever watched. The set design and costuming has been incredible. And I've been very satisfied by all the orc fight scenes, this episode included (well... maybe not the Arondir slo-mo getaway from a few episodes back).

@Iskaral Pust As I posted in the other thread, an influx of water can cause a volcanic eruption. But more importantly, for me, the point of LOTR has never been to be a realistic depiction of volcanos. Mt. Doom is not a realistic volcano in either books or movies. It's meant to evoke a sense of horrific wonder and to be a symbol of natural destruction. That's what Tolkien did with it, that's what Jackson did with it, and I'd say the show more than succeeded with it in the closing of this episode.

[Raja]

@Iskaral Pust You don't need to put that in spoiler tags, btw. Spoilers from the show and the latest episodes are allowed, just not book spoilers

[Heartofice]

7 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I just feel like we're watching different shows. Yeah, not everything technical on this show has worked. Some of the CG animals/creatures look pretty dodgy. There's an overruse of techniques like slow motion. There's clearly a learning curve here. But this is one of the most beautiful shows I've ever watched. The set design and costuming has been incredible. And I've been very satisfied by all the orc fight scenes, this episode included (well... maybe not the Arondir slo-mo getaway from a few episodes back).

I think it’s a problem of comparison for me. Maybe I shouldn’t compare this show to the Jackson movies, but RoP is asking you to do that with every fibre of its being because it’s making so many references to them as well as blatantly ripping them off multiple times every episode. 
 

Then the issue is that this show is attempting to recreate elements of those movies but failing miserably.

Also as I said before, this is the most expensive show of all time, being deeply mediocre probably isn’t good enough. 
 

So it becomes very easy to benchmark what last episode did against the movies and almost every element is VASTLY inferior. Jackson might not be Terrence Malick but he knows how to create a shot, make dynamic scenes and he filmed some incredible action scenes which created tension, demonstrated movement and impact and enhanced the action on screen.

Workmanlike is a word I feel I have to keep using over and over again on this show but it’s just the most apt phrase for all of it. I’m a pretty visual person and I’m especially interested in how things are shot and filmed and I really notice when things are badly done. 
 

Last episodes village sequence was ( as mentioned in other thread) a collection of cliches and tropes stitched together to form a story. That in itself isn’t a problem, but it’s just like every single cliche that we’ve before has been done better elsewhere, everything done with the bare minimum amount of effort. Just get the job done.

Stuff like this does bother me because it’s so obviously inferior, so obviously not of high quality. Maybe you don’t see that but I do.

I do have to wonder if we are watching two separate shows though, surely it’s not up for debate that the costumes are very poor in this show? The Numenorian armour looks like it’s made from plastic. I could see the dry painting effect on Galadriels armour. This isn’t painstakingly crafted outfits that feel real and lived in, this is arts and crafts made for tv outfits. 

[Zorral]

Ep. 6, "Udûn -- which appears to mean “Doom”.

Nampat arrives with vengeance in this episode. In the Black Speech, the official language of Mordor, nampat means Death!

Nampat's the war-chant of the orcs, as they march to Sauron'sTower of Ostirith, taken over as a watchtower over the Southlands by the sylvan elves after Sauron's defeat in the First Age, where the villagers have taken refuge from the coming of Adar and his orcs. We deal with reversal after reversal, twist after twist. Halbrand, Galadriel and Arondir fight with particular skill and heroism. Yet, yes, it ends with Doom bursting upon the Númenóreans and the Southland humas. To save his mother Bronwyn’s life, Theo gives Sauron's sword hilt- key to Adar. Somehow it gets passed to traitor villager, Waldreg, who activates it. The waters of the earth above ground and subterranean are loosed through those dreadful tunnel excavated underneath the the Southland over a long stretch of time via enslaved human labor. A mountain explodes into volcano – Mt. Doom – flood, fire balls and orcs pour into the village. Galadriel is subsumed into fiery darkness. She was right. Sauron lives.  Cue episode 7.

Only two more to go, and I'm very sorry about that.

Just as old school LotR readers will likely be shocked that Galadriel can have what appear to be threshold romantic moments with not just one man, but two – Elendil and Halbrand -- how could this distant ice queen of Lothlórien, married for so long to that dull fellow, Celeborn, behave like this, any more than she does hand-to-hand combat and has a hot temper, which desires to wipe every orc off the face of the earth? They could equally have a difficulty accepting that the orcs are elves, actual beings, Adar says, “as worthy as the breath of life and just as worthy of a home.”   It was so clear cut in LotR as the Big Bad Dark and all its creatures, were unadulterated evil, and the Big Goods of the Light, the elves, etc. were unadulterated Good. But here in Rings of Power's Second Age of Middle earth, both Adar and Arondir plant alfirin seeds, which elves traditionally plant on the eve of battle so that new life can grow "in defiance of death". That Adar does this too -- is it a sign that he's potentially redeemable? Or just that he holds onto to a bit of his elven heritage despite all the evil he's committed? Arondir too plants some of the seeds in Bronwyn’s wound to help them heal after they are cauterized.  This is imaginatively involving and very different, while still, to my mind, consistent with what Tolkien created.

Hal is recognized as King of the Southlands, but Adar doesn’t recognize him at all, despite their shared past, in which he inflicted some dreadful hurt upon Hal.  Adar confirms he one of the elves who are the “sons of the dark,” the first orcs, a Uruk, a Moriandor,  made by Morgoth’s torture, and evidently Sauron's too. Adar advises Galadriel that she own her own darkness, that he isn't "the only elf alive who has been transformed by darkness.” Yet, prior to the Doom, Halbrand and Galadriel save each other from their respective urges to commit murder, in an affecting scene. While horse Berek, ridden into battle by Isildur, Isildur and his father Elendil bond. Previous to this, Galadriel speaks Words to her horse and it speeds so effectively she catches up with Adar fleeing with the Key.

At this moment the only one of this group of heroes is seemingly entirely beyond the effect of the dark, Arondir. Galadriel and Halbrand are touched by it, as is Theo, who admits how Sauron's sword hilt-key draws him by the sense of personal power he feels when holding it. This is a morally complicated world, with characters who aren’t black and white, which LotR was as well, at least in a sense, as with Boromir and his father. But the LotR's world  constantly harks back to the treasons, corruptions and destructions within various characters of the heroes legendarium of the Second Age, that brought about its fall. There's a great deal of viewing satisfaction watching this roll out, despite knowing how it will conclude.

This episode gave me shivers of doom – but then the Second Age is doomed, particularly these very Southlands.  May Queen Regent Míriel escape the flood and fire emergence of the Dark, but one fears she did not survive, so Pharazôn has his way open to rule Númenor, to institute his ambition for Númenor's domination of elves, dwarves, everyone else, and Middle Earth.

This episode was satisfying and effective; it moved the plot along swiftly, while we learned quite a bit more about some of our principal characters, including how Eledil's wife died -- drowning.  What we see and learn in this episode has been set-up in the previous ones.  The episodes are building on and out from each other.

Patience people! High Language dialog can feel forced and artificial in this wizened rhetorical age. But read aloud the same efforts in LotR, and mostly people laugh, particularly if they aren’t among the elderly who first discovered LotR back when it first became a publishing phenomenon.  So what do we want? Pseudo hipster quippage or occasions in which heroes speak in pseudo heroic rhetoric?

Again, please folks -- this is not the Peter Jackson thread or The Silmarillion thread. There is a very popular/populated thread for talking about Peter Jackson, etc and why it is vastly superior to RoP -- I don't agree with that, but never mind.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Ep. 6, "Udûn -- which appears to mean “Doom”.

Not quite. https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Udûn_(disambiguation) It means Depth. Gandalf called the Balrog in Moria The Flame of Udûn.

 

 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

It means Depth. Gandalf called the Balrog in Moria The Flame of Udûn.

You would know! i.e., we're getting deeper into the the actions and events and personalities that make Death and Doom for the Second Age?

[Corvinus85]

19 minutes ago, Zorral said:

You would know! i.e., we're getting deeper into the the actions and events and personalities that make Death and Doom for the Second Age?

No book spoilers 

[Underfoot]

So much for my theory that bronwyn and halbrand were an item

[felice]

This feels surprisingly small for such a big-budget production. The great Numenor sends a whole three ships to save one small village, and Halbrand is proclaimed king over the 17 or so survivors? Is there anything more to the Southlands than this village and the other one the orcs wiped out earlier?

[Raja]

What I will say re: scale, some of the budget goes into all the VFX & CGI that we've seen, but I'd add that scale doesn't necesarrily translate into good TV. We saw GOT get bigger in terms of scale, but the quality of the show suffered. Also, Fellowship is my favourite LOTR movie and it's the one that is probably smallest in scale compared to the other two movies.

Of course, I get if people are disappointed if they expected a show that had a larger scale to it and I think that's fair but I think it has little to do with the quality of the show.

[Ser Drewy]

IIRC the showrunners said in an interview they're basically trying to make an 8 hour show on the budget of a single Marvel movie. Which probably puts the overall season budget at around $200 million. So I suspect there's corners being cut here and there. 

[Zorral]

https://deadline.com/video/deadline-com-video-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-episode-6-after-show-spoilers-tolkien/

Again, one of the highlights of this aftershow is the composer talking about what they did in various scenes with a variety of surprising, but authentic instruments.  They use actual musicians played composed music; it isn't keyboarded digital special effects.  One can hear this difference.