It seems to upset a lot of Tolkien fans as it doesn't adhere strictly to the lore but as a show I like it. Apparently the thing upsetting the fans in S2 is the orcs have families
I think S1 improved as it progressed - and I enjoyed it. Two episodes into season 2 and enjoying it. Not enough of a Tolkien nerd to be bothered about perceived transgressions of lore
I'm enjoying it. I'm enough of a Tolkien fan to realise it deviates from the canon, but not enough to be bothered by it. It's entertaining TV inspired by Tolkien, nothing more. I needed to watch the season 1 recap as there are a lot of strands to follow. The first 3 episodes are promising and better than series 1 imo. We will carry on watching it.
Haha! Just started watching and my wife walked through and said 'Oh yeh, I'm sure Sauron did ****ing motivational speaking' with a look of disgust lol!
I'm a Tolkien nerd, disliked series 1 because not only did it smash up the setting needlessly, it made the unforgivable error of being shite. However, that said, series 2 got off to a great start and have quite liked it so far. Giving the Orcs agency, families and children is a fantastic plot twist.
I'm all for Adar starting an Orc Liberation Front and being a chaotic neutral force in the forthcoming war between Sauron, the elves and Numenoreans. So much for canon...
I'm quite neutral with this stuff, but Rings of Power is a hard watch, it just doesn't know what it wants to do, so many splintered storylines that don't seem to link up or make sense, so many annoying characters, it feels like they tried to do something but failed miserably, like the not hobbit irish hobbits, the not gandalf stranger and so on, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but this just tries too hard to imitate instead of going its own way.
Not sure it'll last much more than 2 seasons, unless there's a dramatic turnaround, which i'm not seeing, and struggling to keep watching, they spent so much time on the elves and sauron, that i actually forgot some of the other plot strands were still active!
The writing is terrible as is the acting. I just keep watching to see how much worse it will get. Hands.up, I'm a bit of a nerd and scoffed at lady and baby Orcs. Also gave a big sigh at the terrible job of shoehorning Tom Bombadill in to it. I wouldn't mind but the writers were pretty much given a broad outline and have chosen to ignore it in favour of some weird and far less interesting stuff.
Bowl cut boy and sad elf. Fake peril with Isildur that is there for no reason given who he is. Blind queen lady with a political plot thinner than the one in the Star Wars prequels. Angry teenaged Galadriel who's already pretty ancient at this point. Elrond as Mr pouty pants. Ooh quick a scene with Ents and Entwives, tick it off the list.
plot thinner than the one in the Star Wars prequels
Ohhph! harsh words, hahah!
I thought this was a thread about myopia.
I think Tolkien did hint somewhere that Orcs reproduced in the usual way (so Orc females/children not necessarily 'off-canon'), but he did tend to revise his ideas over the years.
My main issue with RoP is the tragic missed opportunity to make something amazing (given the massive budget). Better writing could have produced something with the epic feel of LotR, with that sense of deep history driving current events. Instead what we have is a lightweight parody with good visuals but terrible plot & script. Come on Bezos, you can do better than this!
better ending than the Game of Thrones crew.
I thought GoT ended quite well. And they actually ended it.
Not unlike the book. Poor show from Martin, but it's his bag and that's that.
I think Tolkien did hint somewhere that Orcs reproduced in the usual way (so Orc females/children not necessarily ‘off-canon’),
The whole bloody thing is off-canon, to the point where they might as well not bother having it attached to the novels and appendixes at all. God I'm a geek but here goes!
Not Gandalf - doesn't appear untill the third age and has never been to the east.
Galadriel - Wise and magical. Almost the opposite of how she is portrayed. Also doesn't have a teenaged love/hate thing with Sauron and where is her husband?
Elrond - Where to start?
I'm really hoping that evil moth wizard isn't Saruman. Also sort of hoping he is so I can add it to my terrible things that the writers have done in RoP bingo card.
Is it any better than S1?
Tolkien nerd here. Enjoyed season 1 season 2 is better IMHO.
Well I'm watching it because visually it's stunningly good but the acting is doing nothing for me, this may mostly be because the dialogue is so poor and explain why so far the best performance has been from Isuldur's horse. I'm also finding the plot to be incoherent, I'm thinking 'what is going on' most of the time.
Tolkien nerd here. Enjoyed season 1 season 2 is better IMHO.
Lets be honest, it would be really hard to make it worse.
Has anyone complained about how dark some of the filming is? I tried to watch some at lunch today and there were bits (Barrow Downs for example) where I had no idea wtf was going on. Couldn't see a thing. Will have to try again once it's dark out.
I was coming in to do so. Tried to watch it in daylight earlier, basically just a black screen.
I was coming in to do so. Tried to watch it in daylight earlier, basically just a black screen.
If you are watching a pirate stream on a cheap telly that would explain it. It needs to be watched on an OLED 4k screen, with HDR, really.
I thought season 1 was pretty ropey, with bad acting*. Season two is snowballing into a pretty gripping and epic story. I'm especially enjoying the characters/performances of Celebrimbor, Galadriel, Sauron and Dwarf King**
*The Queen (regent) of Luminor was a terrible actor in season 1, but seems fine in season 2. Her acting style is conducive to blindness it seems.
**What a way to go
A series of drawn out plot lines all culminating in a finale that sets up further seasons. As I think had been mentioned before, the total lack of jeopardy when we know the main protagonists futures does take away from the experience. This second season has certainly been better than the first though.
I knew not Gandalf would end up being Gandalf but still hoped he wouldn't be. Some decent set pieces but not much of an improvement on the first series. Just a bit bland and badly acted with a ropey script. Not sure I'll watch the next series if it gets one. It's a shame because with a good script and not shoehorning in popular characters it could've been rather good.
I'm enjoying it, up to ep.six so far. I used to consider myself a Tolkien nerd many years ago when it was still slightly fashionable to be a Tolkien nerd but I've probably forgotten most of what the true nerds remember. So for me it captures the spirit of Tolkien's work and seems to have most of the characters in mostly the right place at mostly the right time. I'm not bothered if it isn't truely accurate.
OH(who hasn't read any of it) keeps asking why I know who all newly introduced characters are.
Not sure the mountain troll deserved the Meshuggah-lite soundtrack, he didn't really live up to his hype.
It's writing by spreadsheet, but that's what they're bound to. Introduce anything non-canon and people complain, stick rigidly to the template and people call it predictable. There's far worse writing in current film and tv, excepting the now standard "people travelling vast distances across an epic landscape seem to bump into one another surprisingly often" as perfected in the dragons and boobs show. A decent cover version of the original Peter Jackson films.
where are all the people?
