Spoiler Me: Your Takes on LOTR: Rings of Power

[Valandil]

Spoilers allowed - up through current episodes. Don't spoiler advance information, if you know it somehow.

[Valandil]

I watched the first two episodes last night. My thoughts:

1. I suppose they really HAVE to deviate story-wise from The Silmarillion - to avoid lawsuits from using any material there.

2. To me - it seemed disjointed. I thought they introduced too many parts of their storyline right off. We were following too many things, jumping around too much.

3. Pacing wasn't so great. Galadriel spent way too much screen time in the wreck of a boat. And maybe too much sailing before that, on a different ship.

4. Girl Power! The men... well, they're wimps, or have issues, or don't have their act together, can't face up to what's-what, etc. It's going to take the Women to save Middle Earth this time - be they Elf, Dwarf, Human or proto-Hobbit. Maybe true to happy domestic life, but not to traditional heroic literature. There are a few who haven't been introduced yet... maybe THEY will be heroic??? (please!)

A later add:

5. Elf-ears... overdone? They stick out to the sides too much. On the men, anyway. Not on Galadriel.

[brownjenkins]

Aside from the variances I think it has to be done, especially for non JRR diehards. Too much and too long of info in the second age so they are sticking to a condensed story that hits on the high points. I tell Cheryl the real stuff when we watch, but it's still all good. I just read today that season 2 may go a bit deeper into Sauron's history.

The orc forefather angle is kind of interesting as well, though I don't see him surviving too long.

I will agree that the Galadriel on the water lasted too long. I would have had her jump ship much sooner. And something hits me strange that Halberd/Sauron would be out to sea in the first place. Maybe they will go into the why.

On Galadriel I like the angle. I always pictured her as a mighty elven warrior. She's one of the original Noldor! I'm sure Celeborn will come in eventually to play one of the heroes.

[Snowdog]

Now that its been a couple weeks since the last episode aired, I don't have to worry about advance spoilers. I have also rewatched the whole season on a binge, I have some thoughts. I used the 'grading' review that was presented on another site to formulate my own thoughts. There are some overlap in the categories, and I could have added a couple more, but didn't have the spoons handy. I'll likely revisit this and make edits on occasion as I dwell more on the season some more and maybe after another rewatch...

Visuals/Special effects - A-. I think they captured the look and feel of Middle Earth in general, with Numenor and Khazad Dum the stars of the presentation. I will put this in the 'visuals' .... while Charles Edwards is a wonderful actor and he is doing a great job of presenting us Celebrimbor, he does not have the look of the Celebrimbor that is in my head-canon. It is one of the big negatives I have with the visuals so I mention it here. For me, it is along the lines of Liv Tyler not appearing as the Arwen of my head canon.

Costumes/Make-up - B. It is weighted on an 'overall' scale as some I thought was really good, and a few things I thought was not-so-good. First some of the not-so-good. In agreement with Valandil in that the elf-ears are overdone. They are a weak-link especially coupled with the short hair on most of them. for me, the only one that it really works with is Arondir. Also, some of the armour looked rather pedestrian. On the plus side, they portrayed the Dwarves really well, especially both Durins. I liked the guild emblems of Numenor, and I liked how Galadriel, Mariel, Elendil, and Farien were portrayed. A real big plus for me is the Orcs... Uruks. Much more menacing than the PJ Orcs! They captured them well. Overall, they captured the essence with most of the costuming.

Acting - B. There are some stellar scenes, and some are doing much better than others. I think a lot of the negatives I have pertain more to the script writing than the actor's themselves. The acting standouts for me are the characters Durin III, Durin IV, Arondir, Mariel, and Elendil. Honorable mentions are Pharazon, Adar, Theo, and Galadriel. I'm fairly neutral on the rest. The actors and the acting is good, but is hindered by the scripts they are handed. I look beyond the accents used just as I look beyond the heritage of the actors.

Plot - C. I found the plot somewhat rudderless as if the showrunners were themselves floundering with what direction to take, especially in the first few episodes. The whole of the sea scenes where Galadriel gets on board to Valinor, then jumps off far to the west is a total cringeworthy 'WTH' moment for me. I 'get' what they were trying to set up, but that was just outright bad along the lines of Arwen catching Aragorn out in the wild at unawares. Add to that Halbarand and Co out floating on wreckage without much of any explanation as to 'why' they were out there, and the who/what/why/how the 'Corsairs' were out raiding ships in the Sundering Seas, really had me shaking my head. In the end it was used to bring Galadriel and 'Halbarad' to Numenor. Also, another cringeworthy 'WTH' moment for me was/is the whole 'Mithril' being needed to 'save' the elves. I will give credit to the whole good/evil battle of the tree creating mithril as a neat fan-ficcy tale, but that whole Elf-Mithril connection storyline was a bit rough to take. Also, with the Balrog scene in the depths of Khazad Dum, I'm really hoping that they don't bring it in too soon, which it is appearing they will do.

Writing/Dialogue - D+. This is where a lot of it falls down for me. I could go into this rather deep, but will just say that lines like Galadriel saying to Elrond when he tells her to put up her sword 'Without it, what am I to be', and Bronwyn's whole offhanded 'I'll go with you' when Arondir says he is going off east. Another crappy portrayal was the whole "fight" with the Ice Troll. Galadriel's 'squad' looked pretty useless as they got kicked around much like Gondor's soldiers in the battle of Osgiliath in PJ's project. Galadriel comes and PJ Legolas-like, saves the day singlehandedly, complete with sword-spin when she is done, and oh look... it seems all the squad is back standing around again. I mention Peter Jackson's film projects here, because the writing of rings of Power seems to love giving hat-tips to those projects with their fancy Legoladriel footwork, dropping orc-heads in front of people, and finding a Viggo lookalike actor for Halbarand. I get they are trying to do fan service with all this, but it falls flat, and the fans of PJ will only point out that they are 'copying the master' or something. It is my hope that the showrunners give up on trying to incorporate so much fan-service and do their own thing (within the lore if not canon), for better or worse. One of the plusses is the usually-mentions of characters and moments in the Tolkien lore. Feanor and the Silmarils, Anarion (though they seem to allude that he is the 'older' brother to Isildur and Farien), and the visuals of the Two Trees of Valinor in the 1st episode.

Music - A. I find no real flaws with it, and I did enjoy Fiona Apple's singing 'Where The Shadows Lie' at the end of the last episode very nice!

Themes/Motifs - C-ish. Not sure which way to go with this. It sort of rolls into the whole 'visuals' thing. They done wonderfully with Numenor, though I would have liked to see it a bit 'grander' and the ships bigger and more plentiful. Since the timelines are all distorted, I would love to see their shipbuilding yards in Middle Earth (Lond Daer, etc.) and with the mention of Pelargir at the end of the last episode, there is a possibility they might allude more to this? The reason I think it would be good is to demonstrate the strengthening of Numenor, and the reason I think they won't is they seemed to have ingrained in the earlier episodes that going to Middle Earth was something Numenor didn't like doing.

Overall - 6.5/10. I debated giving it a 7 but so much of it was quite rough. The whole 'The Sea Is Always Right' lameness cost it a half-point. You may note that I have left out the whole Harfoot story in my summary. The reason is I thought it was to me it was a bit of a sideshow to the whole telling of the rest of the tale. The whole storyline would be a wonderful story on its own, but it is a bit rough at this point merging it in with the rest of what was presented. I know the whole 'meteor man' story is incorporated into it and they are alluding to it being Gandalf, but when he was using his powers in that last episode, he had an eerie 'Christopher Lee' look to him. It is my hope that it would be Radagast as they could do more with his backstory. Saruman would be a decent choice as they could portray that he was initially good. The whole 'watcher' bit I feel was a missed opportunity for the show to show some depth in the 'wizard' storyline, but I'll get more into that another time as I digress here. Overall, I thought the show was a reasonable effort in portrayal while adhering to the restraints put on them by the limitations of source material, the setting in the 2nd Age, and the individual approvals needed from the Tolkien Estate for stretching the boundaries.