kensei

Happy to be proven wrong on it

Some nicely coordinated action but this is still plot by stupid First Age Balrogs

It's less about the cliff hangers - that's just to show that significant stuff is happening and the fact the narrative has life. There's a bit of intrigue and mystery here which they are layering on but not much seems to have actually happened and particularly with Galadriel it feels like plot happens to walk her about the map. GoT has a lot of quite compelling minor characters and I don't think there are anywhere near as many here. Ar Pharazon is the only one that has really grabbed me. I think Tolkien's writing gets a bad wrap. It can be slow - and LoTR starts pretty slowly, but it can also.be quite compelling. Here's him reading the Ride of the Rohirrim Lord of the Rings picks up as it goes. Just saying this needs to as well. So many shows spend a lot of time setting up intrigue and are wrecked by no payoff.

First five episodes of GoT The first season of GoT is insanely good. Stuff happens every episode. There are multiple interesting threads. There are tons of really compelling characters. This isn't terrible and has a bit of intrigue but GoT season 1 is lightyears ahead of this.

I would kill for this to be as good as a Star Trek The Next Generation conference meeting. I don't know why they are making Gil Galad a dick, he's meant to be a heroic character and has a song and everything.

You know when people accused the show of being fan fiction, this is fan fiction and it's not even particularly good fan fiction. It's so bad it almost violates the "can't contradict established lore" rule it apparently has As a TV show as opposed to a Tolkien thing, it needs to pull some of these threads together and pick the pace somewhat if it's going to get away from 6/10. Also it needs to stop annoying tropes

Feanor himself is fairly unique among the elves for a variety of reasons, and the driving force of both him and his sons is the oath. Even then at the end they have a kind of repentance though. But ignore Tolkien, because this largely does. You have a bunch of characters that are immortal and have already lived a huge amount of time. It just seems like a huge waste that they don't really seem any different to the mortal characters. There's a wee hint in Needed just a touch more Thrones-like politicking in this. It's worth remembering that GRRM was directly inspired by Tolkien. He just decided than getting the divine right of kings, it was more realistic that the virtuous get absolutely shafted.

My money is on: RIngs of Power. "Nine for mortal men doomed to die" The show has to be setting up some candidates to get one of the Nine, because their subjugation by the ring is too good a plotline to pass up, and Tolkien is explicit that some people took the ring with good intentions and that's what determines how long it took them to corrupt. They've completely screwed the timeline, so my assumption is that Galadriel isn't married yet despite it really not fitting. Celebrian marries Elrond (and they are parents to Arwen). But Elrond only refers to Galadriel as "my friend" and if he was into her hot daughter, you'd think he'd give a hint. Avoiding Tolkien related rants, this has a common problem of people doing stupid things to advance plot In general, the Elves are too human

Right I'll stop. Someone said rant away. So I did.

You've not seen what I've seen

Aaaaaaaaarrrrgh

Where is Sauron hiding!?

Right ten minutes in and they've fucked it in Tolkien terms. Explaining why will sound like the ravings of a madman but briefly It's startlingly pretty and it may well be a good story. But I'm just going to pretend this is generic fantasy and not meant to be Tolkien, or I'll go mad.

Wait what

I assume I am well in the minority here. But fuck it, 1 hour of Tom Bombadil or GTFO.

Ack-tually

Tolkien wrote some great female characters. Just not many. And the entire social order was different when he conceived and write the thing so "good" has changed. Take out the malicious fuckers driving hate for clicks and a lot of this sort of controversy is "How invested are you in this?". If you aren't invested you don't care. If you have spent a lot of time with other versions then you tend to be like "I just wanted what's in my head". That's okay and normal human reaction. Just don't be a dick. Elrond does look weird.

Galadriel is a significant character but not a lot of stuff makes it into the Silmarillion proper. Pretty sure the refusal to give Feanor any of her hair is from unfinished things. Hunting orcs on the borders of Doriath must be seen in the context of the the first age. She's not at any of the major battles. Her brother Finrod is. He has has life saved by Barahir and the ring he gives ultimately ends up with Beren. Who Finrod then saves from Sauron. Her other brothers were killed when Morogoroth broke the Siege of Angband. Her uncle went toe to toe with Morogoroth himself. And so on. Second Age she moves about and establishes kingdoms but Gil Galad's is high king. Those kingdoms are involved in wars but she's not mentioned in battles. She's wary of Sauron as Annatar but so are all the major elves. She's the one that suggests hiding the rings. She's sets up the White Council. Like basically all of Tolkien, her powers are all enigmatic. In the Third Age it's mostly the Ring. Before that she's still powerful in typical Tolkien handwavey seen the light of the Two Trees, mighty among the elves, no one actually knows what it means until someone needs to turn into a wolf or something. Though maybe it's just the trailer giving the wrong impression and 10,000 incels on the internet making noise. We'll know tomorrow.

As with everything Silmarillion, there are multiple versions. If anything, Tolkien was moving away from Galadriel being quite so prideful and initially asking for permission to go to Middle Earth, because once again Tolkien was super Catholic and hated his "good" characters outright defying God. The First Age is essentially one long battle. The notable thing about Galadriel is that she doesn't get involved, viewing it as hopeless without the Valar. Her brothers fight and die. In the Second Age, she wanders about a bit and established her own fiefdom but there's no record that she fought in any battles, nor that she was at the Last Alliance. Who is there a record of? Elrond, as Gil Galad's herald. If Galadriel had fought in big battles, Tolkien would have written a twee and somewhat irritating ballad about it. This seems 100% certain. She's powerful but probably more in a "Luthien unleashed her power and the walls fell down" kind of way. I dislike the Hobbit films but that is probably closer. But it's not just Galadriel in armour. There's knock on effects and odd choices. Why would Elrond dismiss Galadriel's concerns? Galadriel would have been one of the greatest left on Middle Earth, having seen the two trees. Elves and men in a relationship. Non bearded dwarf ladies. Compressing literally thousands of years in a short space of time (yes, TV, but anthologies are a thing and you've a load of immortal characters to cut across it) You can go - well nothing contradicts the text and it'll likely be true because of legality if nothing else. But you can do that and still have something that feels wrong. About a million years ago, I ranted extensively on the Edge forums about the shitness of the Lord of The Rings films because how they changed Aragon and a bunch of other things. And indeed, 90% of Jackson's changes are pure shite. But I have loosened up a bit since because adaptations have to adapt and what works on the page might not work well on screen. Treat them as different animals. It's still speculating on trailers. But given reviews have said "Tolkien nerds won't like it but..." I feel this may challenge my zen. Anduril was reforged immediately after the Council of Elrond, dammit, and I mean how the fuck would Elrond go all that way in a war just to give it Aragon anyway, and the scouring of the shite is like important and I don't care about your moans about multiple endings.

Last One

Actually no, I've more. It remains painfully uneven Probably nudges up to 3.5/5 overall for me. I'd still like to see a Season 2.

I have only one thing to say

I wondered if there were subtle way of having it, like it sometimes being there that isn't overt. I understand the reasons why they didn't do it. But I think then they should be taking opportunities when they can - there's a fair number of close up panels in the comics that do it. Just seemed like a good time to do it The stars are rare, but Dream's eyes are almost always in shadow or pure black in the comic.

I am aware, which is why I didn't say "like the comic". He's a lot more generic CW show here than in the comic and if I was adapting it would have been a good chance to throw in the star eyes etc. Think it looks pretty naff regardless. Just slightly comical.