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[Spoilers]Rings of Power 3: Tolkien’s actual writing… who needs that?


Ser Scot A Ellison

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50 minutes ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

This is actually pretty surprising coming from the Guardian, which has been hyping ROP all season and slagging HOTD (Forbes did the reverse). I’m also surprised they praised Morfydd’s performance, since she’s the one who I’ve seen receive the most criticism of the cast. 

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I refused to even hate watch it on my Prime account. I have better things to do than either be bored to absolute tears or screaming in rage at my computer screen over all the inane ways they drekked all over Tolkien's works. I've had more fun watching stuff like Chato and Chris Gore talking about Rings of Power than whatever little enjoyment I might have derived from the show (which wouldn't have been much as I found almost all the changes Jackson made to be egregious, especially with The Two Towers, The Return of the King and the entire trilogy of The Hobbit). 

Chato (of The Frantics comedy troupe of "Boot to the Head" fame for you oldsters that remember The Dr. Demento Show) absolutely roasted the series in the funniest way possible (NSFW: cussing)
 

 

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6 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Some people are really irrational about this. I mean ok you dislike it but it has some insanely good special effects.

 

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3 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

The linked article mentions that it looks like a cheap British soap opera(I googled it). That is just irrational and nothing else. ;) It is one of the best LOOKING TV series ever.

It has some beautiful wide shots, but the sets look cheap, like the three hovels in the Southlands or the one or two streets in Númenor or the marketplace.

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This is a fair and balanced critique from a writer and Tolkein scholar.  Apparently Amazon approached him offering money to review the episodes and he told them that they would have no say in what he said... and they ghosted him.  LOL!

He promises a more in depth autopsy at a future date.  It's not a glowing review but neither does he hate everything about it.  Amazon should have been taking crib notes if they want to improve season two.

He also does an interesting review of HotD.

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32 minutes ago, The hairy bear said:

This review from Forbes is also very interesting.

 

 

Oof. I enjoyed moments of the show on a superficial, "inspired by Tolkien" level, but most of the criticisms are justified if delivered a little harshly. Absolutely Annatar in the show should have been a two season arc, with him showing up in glory, gaining Celebrimbor's trust, not gaining Gil-Galad, Galadriel and Elrond's trust, and experimenting with ring making, several "essays in the craft" and then the nine, the seven, and not till later, the three. Not pressed into ten minutes at the end of the last ep.

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48 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

The linked article mentions that it looks like a cheap British soap opera(I googled it). That is just irrational and nothing else. ;) It is one of the best LOOKING TV series ever.

Is it good looking? I'm really confused when people say this. Do they not see the sets? The green screen? The poor looking costuming, the bland colourisation. When people say it's 'good looking' I'm assuming they only pay attention to the handful of shots that seem to have had a lot of thought and work put into them, not the majority of shots which really do look like they came out of a BBC kids tv show.

Other than that, the Guardian article is harsh but kind of nails it, the quality is so all over the place especially when it comes to acting performances. I got a lot of pushback saying there are some absolutely soap quality acting performances going on in this show, so it's nice to see a mainstream outlet agreeing with me.

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I'm doing a re-read of LOTR and one thing that immediately stands out after ROP is that elves are cool again. Tolkien immerses you in elf-love from the start.

I walked away from ROP not liking elves at all, they seemed creepy and bad-tempered, apart from Elrond, who seemed too good for them. Basically Vulcans, and Elrond is Spock.

(Also I ran across lots of quotes where Tolkien said elf men had long hair, that was missing, too. Here's one: "the hair of the Lord Celeborn was of silver long and bright.")

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1 hour ago, Cashless Society said:

Among the many problems with this show, this one points out some micro-level problems that permeate throughout the series

Good video!

They copied so many moments from the LOTR movies, and not to good effect. It's like saying bet you wish you were watching that instead. I wonder if anyone has done a video of all the copied moments.

It looks like he made this video before the finale. The season as a whole is like this. There's no real progression to this season other than "fooled ya!" and the result is "well, we'll be doing all of this again later."

If Mount Doom had already been created, as in the source material, they could have spent more time on the real story. And when Numenor comes to middle earth again, well, been there, done that already.

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2 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

I walked away from ROP not liking elves at all, they seemed creepy and bad-tempered, apart from Elrond, who seemed too good for them. Basically Vulcans, and Elrond is Spock.

I think the writers of the show made the mistake of thinking that since there were plenty of Elves doing pretty shitty things in the Silmarillion, it makes sense to show them as superpowered but more or less Human like in behavior and appearance, and not engage at all with their immortality. Which is exactly how Marvel handles its immortal characters also, so its not hard to see why Amazon chose to follow. 

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Galadriel is abrasive, socially inept, ungrateful, revenge-driven, generally off-putting... She's lost all the magical feeling and wisdom... I think the Galadriel should have been what is called an iconic character. Iconic characters such as for example Gandalf don't need those typical petty human flaws.

When they experience character growth, we don't want to see them learn how to handle their emotions or how to talk politely and not be an asshole. It should be something much more grand and awe-inspiring like Gandalf's fight with balrog, his self-sacrifice, his near death and then rebirth.

Adding another video that talks about checkboxes, too:

 

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Good lord, that sounds awful.

There's a reason Gandalf isn't the lead character. He doesn't work as one. 'Iconic' characters don't. That conflict with the Balrog is cool and all, but it isn't character growth.

If Galadriel was written as this guy prefers, she would have to be a supporting character, not the lead. Jackson-Galadriel could never be a lead character. All that serenity and wisdom is great but contemporary audiences would find it too far from the storytelling they understand. So would the writers, in all probability.

Just because you have an idea doesn't mean you have a workable story.

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