The Rings of Power Post-watch Discussion (Spoilers)

Lorient Avandi wrote:Eh, call me easy to please, a normie, or whatever, but I quite enjoyed the season. Took a few episodes for me to get invested though.

What of the faults in the show? What of the... alterations.

Also hey, long time no see.

Good to see you back, Lorient!  But I do hope you are in a feisty mood, for you are swimming against the torrent around here.   Other than how it looks nobody in these parts is happy with the thing.

Even if I forget that this thing is supposed to be based on Tolkien, the weak character motivations and shallow writing dismay me.  But since I know this is supposed to be Tolkien, I am in despair.

However it has managed to bring a few folks passing back through Forumshire, so we have that at least!

{{ Lorient! Great to see you about thebplace again. Im going to take the 'quite' in 'quite enjoyed' to mean 'it was a steaming pile of badly written, terribly characterised completely made up pish and diahorea excreteted from the arse of a herd of flatulent oliphaunts'- yes, now your post makes sense in the context of Rings of Power }}

Happy to see you again, Lorient!

What a disappointment.
Half of the members on here didn't even watch it, understandably so, and the ones who did can barely bring themselves to talk about it now that it's out.

{{ If you watched it there is is not a lot to say, its poorly written on its own merits and as an adaptation its laughably bad, it doesnt deserve more being spoken of it than that really. And since it finished about the only thing of interest is that publications that lauded it when it began now say it wasnt very good afterall and rumours, and only rumours of a reboot of sorts for the second series with a return to Tolkien lore- but I doubt that given where they have left it and suspect its merely damage control and spin. }}

I trust these rumours as far as I can throw a cow.

time to stir up the crabbit a bit. Amazon has posted some "deep-dive" film clips. Trying to wrap my head around how such shallow 3 to 4 minutes clips get off being called deep, but it is what it is.

https://www.indiewire.com/deep-dive/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-making-of-1234787040/

This more than anything needs to be sent to Amazon.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:

https://acoup.blog/2022/12/16/collections-why-rings-of-powers-middle-earth-feels-flat/

"In the aftermath of that disappointment, once one looks beyond the depressingly predictable efforts to make culture war hay out of it, I found that many people understood that they were disappointed but not always why."

Well, no I'm absolutely certain that one of my disappointments was the effort on the part of the producers to forcibly change the culture with their odiously modern portrait of Middle-earth, you limp-wristed hack.

Apart from that bullshit line I think there is some value in this article.

Changing the culture to me was close to the least of their sins.  The biggest one is simply bad writing.  I can forgive a lot if the writing is otherwise good.  The second of their sins was writing that clearly wasn't what Tolkien intended: yes they often did for PC reasons, but it's already bad enough without that excuse.  Converting the seductive Annatar into the cryptic Halbrand happened for no reason except that they wanted to make Galadriel a more central character, so they ditched the idea that she didn't trust him on sight.  Then they make her swing a sword for grrrl power and there was no hope left at all.

And then mithril...what the hell?

{{ The problem was sewn in the stupidity of the concept; to adapt the tale of Numenor and the forging of the rings without the necessary rights to the stories required to tell it.
The reason for Halbrand is simply because nowhere in the Appendix that they do have the rights to does it use the name Annatar, they didnt have the rights to do it, just as they didnt have the rights to the Fall of Numenor in Silmarillion or the bits of Unfinished Tales that would have been neccessary to make this work in the first place.

As soon as the idea of making a show based in the 2nd age without those rights was greenlit the whole thing was doomed from concept. I will never understand why this was given the go ahead instead of taking something from the appendix that is more fleshed out- say the founding of Rohan culminating in the Rohirim's first Ride to the rescue and ending on the swearing of the oath between Gondor and Rohan. There is material that could be used, whilst not ideal, but better than doing Numenors saga which falls well outside the bounds of the appendix and the rights they paid so much for. It makes no sense.}}

Hm...the tale of years has the fall of Numenor, and it's described in the annals of kings and rulers in some detail. Annatar and the distrust of Galadriel is not, though the time from Sauron's first instruction to the forging of the rings of power is supposed to be 90 years.

If they need to bring in her Ladyship for the sake of ratings, they must know they are in trouble.

{{ well I supose there is some tiny book lore behind it, we know Sauron became aware of Shelobs presence there, and opted to leave her alone as an effective guarding on his border, but theyd have to stretch that premise out a fair bit to make it into a reason for drama in a tv show.

Apprently they are finishing filmingof series two with no showrunners and no wirters due to the wirters strike in the US. So it might actually be better as a result!}}

No writers = give actors the appendices and cut them loose to riff off it. That can only be an improvement over what we got.

So maybe once a month my mind gets trapped thinking about the Rings of Power - not unlike tripping over some dog poo someone didn't think to extirpate - and I thought to look up if the next season had been released, and if not, when.

We seem to be looking at 2025. hmm, I wonder if they figured out how much work they'd need to do to dig themselves out the hole of hate they'd dug for themselves. Can this thing possibly be redeemed?

{{ I don't see how it can be saved, they don't have the rights to the story they are telling, so whatever they do it's still going to be completely made up- and we've seen how well they make stuff up from the first series. It's just an awful mess with no real relationship to Tolkien's works than using his names for things.
I am willing to bet a barrel of buckie now that it will be another steaming pile of shite.   }}

{{ Sounds like more of the same to me }}

Well of course it's bloody well more of the same. The first season was trash, as will the next, and the next.

{{ Surely it wont get to a third season? Please no. }}