The elves having long hair is really important. They had names based on nice hair. They made bow strings out of hair. You can't make a bow string out of 2 inches of fade.
Guyladriel goes from being bullied to defeating her bully in 5 seconds flat. The first of many attempts by the writers to add vulnerability and emotional depth to an infallible, invincible girl-boss.
Agreed, punching on a friend/relative because they have been a jerk and sunk your paper boat is not a particularly good personality trait. Guyladriel comes off as a potential crim in that scene.
Why are they evdn teasing her..a princess..lol never explained..they just wanted a reason for her to be a 'bad bitch'..and ego motivated wanker more like
I have a big problem with Galadriel being motivated by vengeance. When we do see vengeance in elves it’s by the ‘fallen’ elves. Like Feanor and sons. Come to think of it, it’s hard to come up with another instance of vengeful elves in all of his works. I’m sure I’m forgetting something. So it’s not impossible, but vengeance is a decidedly unelvish trait…emotion…motivation? Whatever it is. Galadriel saw, early on, traits like pride and conceit in Feanor that she did not like. Galadriel was set up as Feanor’s foil. That becomes more true with every revision by Tolkien to their storylines. And there were many revisions. After the Kinslaying, Galadriel’s impression of Feanor crystallized. She always intended to go to Middle Earth to rule. But after the Kinslaying that motivation changed in that she wanted to go to Middle Earth to steer her kin away from the destructive bent of Feanor. One of Feanor’s destructive traits was vengeance. Galadriel saw this in Feanor. Galadriel was Feanor’s counter. So I can’t see in any fashion how Galadriel would give in to such things like vengeance when she was vehemently opposed to them and recognized their destructive power in Feanor as manifested in the Kinslaying. Galadriel would’ve recognized the folly of vengeance. She was perhaps the wisest of all elves or near to it. She was amazingly intuitive to the point of almost possessing prescience. That is, she couldn’t see the future per se, but she could read peoples’ hearts and minds to the extent that she could predict their demise. So no, not in the First, Second or Third Ages was Galadriel ever filled with vengeance to any significant degree and certainly never to the point where it consumed her into a one dimensional pursuit of it. Imbuing Galadriel with vengeance at any point was never what Tolkien intended. I don’t need a ouija board to know that because it’s very apparent in the texts. Tolkien attributed so much wisdom to Galadriel largely because of her aversion to war. Tolkien built her up as a preserver of things. A guardian. That’s exactly what Nenya was used for. She also possessed deep and steadfast self control. And Tolkien always mentions the power of will in his works. Galadriel possessed an almost indomitable will. As far as we know, it was unbending. A character’s power in Tolkien’s works was largely tied to their will. It was an almost tangible thing…’The will of Sauron’ Giving in to vengeance is a lack of self control. Precisely because you know it’s a path to destruction. It’s giving in to baser instinct. Your desire to inflict pain and suffering on another based on your own suffering. It’s quite literally a form of sadism. So no. Galadriel was not vengeful. Not to say she never had stirrings. But she had the wisdom to see vengeance for what it was, the path to destruction. And she had the self will to restrain herself from this path. No vengeance for Galadriel. By virtue of her seeing the same destructive path of Feanor, her foil. I really have a hard time seeing how someone who has read the works could see it any other way. How can they justify Galadriel as being vengeful? It’s an important point, because the series is being built entirely on this fallacy. I generally agree with most all your points. Sometimes I have a difference of opinion. But this is a point that is demonstrably not supported by the books. Galadriel would not have been vengeful. At most it may have been an inner monologue within herself that she would’ve ultimately rejected. On top of being wise Galadriel was a careful thinker. Seeing steps through like a chess game. That’s partly a function of being a long lived immortal, you see patterns played through repeatedly to the extent that you have a good handle on where things are going. It’s very similar to Paul and Leto II, who had other memory as a substitute for lived experience. On top of that, elves as a general rule weren’t rash. Certainly Feanor was. But that’s more a function of his own hubris that precipitated his rashness. But in a one of the greatest elven leaders you would certainly not expect rashness. Even Thranduil, who is a sort of atypical elf wasnt rash. And again, indulging in vengeance is a selfish pursuit. At this time Galadriel was intent on leadership. So even if for that reason alone, she would not have discarded her desire to lead- which was a strong desire in the texts as that desire is predominantly why she rejected the call to Valinor, for the self indulgence of vengeance. Vengeance would be a terrible trait in any lord, king or Lady, and it would be almost nonexistent in elvish lords.
This is a *huge* point. Folk fail to appreciate the very anti-war elements in LOTR, exemplified by Galadriel managing to be immensely powerful & commanding *without* leading battles or slaying trolls. It is anti-war not in that violence is never necessary, but that there is no glory in it. To have Galadriel as a kickass warrior is profoundly disrespectful to that aspect of Tolkien's themes. As another wise Tolkien character said: "I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."
@@alharron2145 I agree whole heartedly. This is not just wrong, it’s the antithesis of how Tolkien has written Galadriel. Its ‘Antitruth’. It’s also strange, because it’s the merging of a protagonist and antagonist. Both in character and in story arcs. Which makes it just weird. How do they conflate the two and preserve any semblance to the story? It deconstructs the story. I mean I’ve seen characters merged into a singular character before. But they certainly weren’t protagonist and antagonist. If I didn’t know better, it’s like someone read the cliff notes cursorily and got even the main storylines and characters all mixed up into one. The more I see from this show, the more convinced I am that the showrunners and writers were never familiar with Tolkien’s works at all. They bought the cliff notes and still managed to desecrate the cliff notes.
Tolkien himself was averse to war. Averse to discord and conflict. The writers of this show are the polar opposite of that. They seek out conflict and force others to bend to their will. Their characters are a reflection of their own dark impulses. There is more of Feanor than Galadriel in this warrior elf that shares her name.
A beautifully written comment. They tried to portray Galadriel as an antihero in this show. (Also if she wants to see her brother so much, she can go to Valinor, and wait for him to "reincarnate".)
The guys comment on how the writers don’t know how to write metaphors, which is true, but what is even worse is that the writer’s don’t seem to understand the purpose of metaphors. The purpose of a metaphor is to convey meaning through imagery. In the case of the stone and boat it is used to teach that being negative will draw you in and drown you, but being positive will let you rise above the negativity and float. They convey this message by saying a stone looks down and a boat looks up. Thing is the direction these objects face has zero impact on their buoyancy. Stones don’t have a direction and many boats can still float upside down. The rock sinks because it’s heavy and the boat because it’s hollow. There is no logical through line between the lesson they wish to teach and the images conjured. This makes the metaphor nonsensical and the lesson harder to understand. It does nothing for the scene, which it means it should be cut from the scene. This suggests the writing team either don’t fully understand the purpose of metaphor or are too lazy to check their work and correct it
@Tracchofyre they spent a lot of money on New World too. What's the player base looking like of that game now? World of Warcraft launch in line 2004. WoW classic almost certainly has a larger daily player count than New World, a game that at launch less than a year ago was topping a million players a day. MMO's are supposed to BUILD their player base as they go on, by adding new things and improving. New World was such a jank fest at launch that they had to devote all the resources they had into fixing the problems that it had. My point being that Jeff Bezos does not understand artistic mediums at all. He throws tons of money at them but hires total hacks who will do whatever the corporates want them to do. The corporates wanted an SJW contemporary Game of Thrones take on Middle Earth. In fact, Middle Earth was the least important part of what they wanted, that's why anything even remotely related to Tolkien is superficial and trivial. It's a costume. They wanted the built in audience and respect that Tolkien's work holds without having to do anything of the work to receive it. It is Tolkien in name only, much like Wheel of Time.
The reason why throwing money at a production never produces good writing is because the single most important resource quality writing needs is TIME. Time is something money can never buy.
I think expecting good writing and logic from these show runners and their writers is a bar way too high for them...let alone the sheer disrespect for Tolkien and his life's works.
That point there made about the writers of the episodes not having read any classical literature and philosophy was so apt. It actually really explains so much, the bad writing, the abysmal fortune-cookie-wisdom dialogues... Thanks for the great analysis, guys. I am really looking forward to your future videos!
The people who wrote this garbage are utterly unequipped with the proper context to understand the reasoning behind Tolkien's works and it shows. Not only that but they were biased against Tolkien and his ideas from the outset and believe they're somehow "fixing" his works.
Elvish hair being long has mythological roots that Tolkein knew about and incorporated, involving long hair enhancing magical and spiritual power. Which is why Galadriel giving Gimli her hair was so profound.
I wouldn't describe us as nitpicking when a lot of character motivations, dialogue and more make no sense. Even people who know nothing of the lore don't even understand what the hell is happening. Like if you look at the prologue of this show. It has huge problems with setting up how things happened or going. Does anyone know how her brother actually died in this show? We see him fighting and presumably losing? But we don't see Sauron catch him or torture him. He's just dead in the next scene with Sauron's mark. Fast forward to the fortress scene and we randomly get a random piece of dialogue from Galadriel saying that it's a mark to guide orcs... Where in the hell did she get that from? Does that make her brother a mark for orcs to follow? Did we miss a bunch of scenes? Was something cut? There's no set up for that. It's just randomly thrown in there to make her look smart. That's just one story problem out of many that I could talk about.
I think they've known this show is a dumpster fire for some time and that lots of editing of their garbage occurred. Elvish hair is not nit picking, Tolkien describes elvish hair in such detail on numerous occasions that it can't possibly be insignificant.
When they said this is the story Tolkien never wrote, they really meant that this is the story Tolkien will never EVER even THINK of writing. What a billion-dollar meme, this show.
Also, isn't it silly to be so focused on revenge for someone who is immediately reincarnated in Valinor, and she can see him when she eventually goes back there?
elf are more like to be ethernal than immortal, also this expleins why feanor is more concerned with the silmarils steal than by the death of is father
Not to mention that Tolkien, being a devout Catholic, hated revenge. Practically every revenge-story he included in his books ended badly for the protagonist.
First thing that struck me, first few second in this show is Galadriel being bullied by other elf children... it's Valinor, it's Heaven, they're elves - bullying, really?
Somehow, trivial as it may be, I have a hard time with Elves just standing on a ship wearing armor. Why wear armor? It would be very cold, heavy and any rocking of the ship would upset their balance. Why not just sit down and be comfortable. Besides, the salt water spray would rust the armor in the worst way.
Soldier: "Captain, why must we wear such armor?" Captain: "Because Lord Bezos spent one billion dollars on this story, and gosh darnit we're using every bit of that budget"
@@Trewq79 I wish those armor looked liked something from a billion dollar budget tv show. It looked very cheap, almost plastic like in my opinion. Also if you re-watch Elron, and Durin's stone breaking competition, in some of the shots Elrond looks like he's wearing rags.... T_T
It might be petty, but I take great issue to the Elf-Man romance in this show because it "diminishes" the significance of it. If everyone is doing it, then it ceases to become a special occurence. There were only three instances of Elf-Man union in the entire history of Arda. All of them were a result of great feats and they were of great consequence to the legendarium. - Beren & Luthien's quest for the Silmarils - Tuor & Idril bore Earendil, the hero (I daresay saviour) of the War of Wrath - Aragorn quest of claiming the throne to be with Arwen and restore the united kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor. Note: I also had the same issue of the Elf-Dwarf romance in the Hobbit trilogy.
It’s also not a coincidence that all the great feats had to be - at least conjointly - done by a human male to win the hand of a female elf of higher station. Tolkien’s personal love life providing the inspiration. Having a male elf interested in a human female Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman doesn’t really fit the lore does it?
There were more unions of Elfs and Men, but these one had special weight because of the royal blood of the elven maidens. Both Lúthien and Arwen were pricesses and their fathers didn't want to see their daughters living in squalor so, in the case of Thingol he sent Beren on a suicide mission (as medieval kings often did in popular tales), and Elrond helped Aragorn to reclaim the Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor. When it was about individuals of a "lower" class, it was more a concern that one would outlive the other and they wouldn't see each other ever again, until the end of the world. But in the kindgom of Dol-Amroth there was elven blood in those Men, because their forefathers had taken elven maidens as wives. Either way, it's exactly as you say, that thise particular romance should have no drama whatsoever, but the showrunners wanted their own soap opera for teenagers.
You forgot Eärendil & Elwing but I approve of your point, these were major events and stories passed down for generations. Nobody remembers the Elf-Man relationship between Paper & Cardboard.
The cock-up is strong with RoP. Take Finrod. Actually, just take Finrod's ring. Finrod's ring is the ring Aragorn wears and gives to Arwen. Finrod gave it to Barahir, Beren's father. It is older than Sauron's ring, older than Aragorn's sword and probably the oldest artefact in Middle Earth in the LOTR. The story of Beren and Luthien is the love story Aragorn recounts on the trip to Rivendell in the LOTR. That ring alone could have been used to tie the entire saga together, just as Tolkien wrote.
About Galadriel as an elf-child being bullied by English schoolboy elves in Valinor. I choose to read that as their allegory of The Patriarchy: even the supposedly blissful heavenly home of the Elves was tainted by male chauvinism and victimized women. I could go further and perceive an accusing finger that they're pointing at Tolkien himself: "Your mythology is founded on a Victorian imperialist system that oppressed women and people of color. Therefore we're stealing Galadriel from you so that we can wake her up - she's an Ophelia that we can revive and set on a warpath to 'redress the balance' within your world and topple your smug English Imperialist White Supremacist Patriarchal worldview." You can call that paranoid if you like, but so far all I've seen and heard points to such an attitude on their part, or something close enough to be a big problem. When people set out to "adapt" a work from a perspective of such radical antagonism, I reserve the right to regard the whole enterprise as corrupt beyond redemption, no matter how pretty they make some of its details.
Absolutely f*cking brilliant. Based af. This comment made my day, I hope you don’t think you’re paranoid yourself because from my eyes I agree that’s exactly what’s going on.
Just to comment on the elven hair. What bugs me even more is that the showrunners decided to respect lore enough to not give them facial hair, which in turn gives them no sideburns, but with the short hair it makes them all look super goofy.
Finrod's hair - 90s boyband member haircut, Elrond's hair - Steve Harrington haircut, Arondir's hair - Jarhead haircut, Celebrimbor's hair - Blanche Devereaux haircut, Gil-Galad's hair - I like that one but without the caesar's crown.
Strangely, it also reinforces gender stereotypes - according to ROP, men have short hair (apart from Gil-Galad) and women have long...no, wait, women are actually veiled (unless they're Galadriel, of course)...shouldn't Amazon be beyond that?!
They may have respected the lore enough to not give any of the elves facial hair, but to their great shame they *didn't* respect it enough to do what must be done on that subject when it came to dwarves
I was a well-known regular on the TORC message boards 20 years ago, and I'll say that the imagined fears that people had back then of "Hollywood" screwing up Tolkien were nothing compared to what Amazon is actually delivering. I was in the camp that Jackson's films were mostly great (with minor misgivings I can overlook) and the very best we could expect from any film that could have realistically been made. So I was on the opposite side of many of the purists there. But this Amazon stuff is so illogical it almost makes the old joke we had over there about "B-52s over Mordor" seem plausible.
The funny thing about that rock/ship “metaphor” is that I honest couldn’t tell, upon first viewing, whether they were intending to communicate that it was in fact a metaphor, or if it was a statement of what the elves of that time believed literally governed the difference between the objects’ behaviors, in some weirdo archaic metaphysical sense.😂🤣
A Ship floats in the way a Stone does not. Callback to Douglas Adams and the whale. He could write that and get away with it because Hitch Hikers Guide was a satire. These guys are trying to be straight up deep and it’s laughable in all the wrong ways.
Probably because the boat is a witch.. y'see witches weight the same as duck. Duck floats just like wood and ship is made from wood. therefore witches = duck = wood = boat. The reason this phrase is so confusing is because you can also make bridge with stone instead of wood.. stroke of genius on writer part I dare say
@@JeSt4m well that makes Galadriel a duck, right? This show looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck. And by duck I mean a steaming pile of fecal matter.
The scene from the "Office" with Steve is exactly how I felt. Actually, I was screaming at the screen just like that. Thanks for the continued content.
I felt that way from the opening scene when delightful little elf kids attack Galadriel’s paper boat for no reason. Are elves really that anti-social?!?
Hugo weaving has become more beloved as Elrond than Agent Smith. Smith is epic meme-status, but Elrond is legendary status. The Matrix doesn't hold a candle to LoTR.
You guys remember the new Matrix? Most don't it's been forgotten less than a year later while the original is still fondly remembered. I hope the same fate befalls this piece of garbage series.
@@Thor-Orion The fourth Matrix was made bad on purpose, of this I am certain. The director didn’t want to make it, but Warner Bros would make it without him/her/whatever as they saw fit unless he/she was on board. This talk is actually remade in the movie where the company-man tells Neo to make a new Matrix-game. The laughable effects and everything just adds to this, it was made without love, checked the boxes the company wanted checked and it was terrible.
A thought occurred to me. It's almost as though the changed Elrond and Galadriel. The things that Galadriel is doing are the things that Elrond would have done. Meanwhile, in the booms, Galadriel was more of a politician than a warrior.
@@Timasion I'm with you in your comparison. Its Elrond who is supposed to be Gil-Galad's Herald/Lieutenant/Commander, not Galadriel. Also, Galadriel is the one that is supposed to be venturing toward Eregion and possibly developing a relationship with the dwarves. Their plotlines are completely flipped! Why??
@@cmccoy793 because they wanted a girrrrrrrl power Galadriel. And as we know, women are only powerful to these hacks when they occupy traditionally male roles. Plus the inversion is intentional disrespect to Tolkien. It's a classical (sigh... i hate that this word is overused, but I promise I'm using it accurately here) satanist philosophical concept; the inversion of the original source as a way to "counter" it.
All the elves of middle earth go to smaug salon where for 2 gold coins smaug will singe your hair to a salon perfect degree . Come to smaug salon located at the lonely mountain just past Lake Town on route 2
Finrod: Do you know why a ship floats and a stone cannot? Saladriel: Cos it’s made of … wood?! Finrod: How do you tell if a ship is made out of wood? Saladriel: Build a bridge out o’ her? Finrod: Aaah - but can you not also make bridges out of stone? Saladriel: Aaah-yeah … Finrod: Does a boat sink in water? Saladriel: No … No …NO! It floats! Throw it into the pond! Finrod: What also floats in water? Saladriel: Bread? Apples? Very small rocks? Cider? Grape gravy?. Cherries? Mum? Churches, churches! Lead, lead! Finrod: A DUCK! Saladriel: …. Finrod: So - logically …? Saladriel: If … a ship … weighs … the same as a duck …. Its made of wood? Finrod: And therefore …? Saladriel: SHE’S A SHIP!!!! Finrod: We shall use my largest budgetary scales!
i mean i think you are missing the point of his story and so did the guys making the video....he isn't actually talking about a ship and a stone, he uses what happened to her ship as a metaphor, he's trying to teach her to be a better person and to not give in to her dark side, its so freaking obvious yet even the guys that made the video completely missed the fucking point while making fun of it
@@HupeOz147 It's not hard to understand the intention behind Finrod's words, people are making fun of the terrible script writing. This dialogue is a prime example what happens when someone tries to write deeply profound and wise sounding words without having the style and intellect for it.
Imagine choosing to pursue one of the most beloved, and critically analyzed universes of all time with the understanding that if you make a GOOD series that you will literally print mountains of money and praise….. Now imagine that you attempted to melt GoT and Marvel movie tropes into a series that’s unclear who it even appeals to….traditionalists hate it, new viewers aren’t enthralled by it, and I don’t think anyone is specifically paying for prime just to watch it. What a literal dumpster fire
Interesting point about Prime, as you say, I seriously doubt any or many people are going out of there way to sub to Prime just for this show. Curious to see the numbers moving forward
If the people at HBO were given a billion dollars and this franchise, we would all, in all likelihood, be talking about how amazing it is and be looking forward every week to the next episode. Unreal how badly Amazon screwed this whole thing up.
@@--Brushy-- My foot. The watch parties on social media, bar gatherings around the world to watch each episode during season 8 were massive. Those seasons might not have been as good as the first three seasons, no doubt. It doesn't matter. It's only an example of the high bar those seasons set. The show was extremely popular right through the end. People were tuning in.
@18:57 The blood splatter on the lens bothered me more that it probably should have. It is a completely uncessessary fourth-wall break. My initial reaction was: "This is Lord of the Rings not Starship Troopers. What the hell are you doing?!"
The gown Galadriel wears when she's stacking the helmets after the battle, is exactly the same design as she wears at the start when she's being 'bullied'.
They think the audience is stupid - we see a grown female elf with long blond hair minutes after seeing a little girl elf with long blond hair, unless they're wearing the same clothes we'd all be going "wait, who's that again?"
Sons of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!
this series is too damn easy to poke holes in, but i'm also thinking of what could have been easily done better. at 11:07 the series could have opened with a total bang! not a scene with kids and orgami boat and rocks looking down: imagine this: the opening titles, and then fade into a sword fight between Galadriel and her brother. they are training in some beautiful space in a elven castle, big courtyard etc. It's hard training, not friendly sparring. they are turning each other into the best warrior possible, as they must defend their family and their race. So...then intersperse the training with scenes of the battle in which the brother is killed. Every 5 seconds, switch between the sword training , then to the battle scenes. We'd get to see more of his face and his expressions, and the war-forged bond between brother and sister. That only needs to go on for a minute, then the brother is heroically killed and galadriel holds him as he dies. 1) we get to know the brother , and we can't mourn him if we don' t know him. 2) we get to see, not hear, what galadriel saw that day, the horror of his death. she could wail and cry as the battle rages around them. 3)we get a justification for galadriels skill w sword,seeing that she *earned it* by training hard Boom! in 120 seconds i have fixed the opening of the show. If you are a rock band, you better open your album with a banger. In a sword epic, you better have a powerful opening where you have character's introduced with strong memorable scenes
There's one possible way out of the vengeful Galadriel hole. The idea might be to show that she has some darkness within her at this point in time. Which could be something that draws Sauron to her (assuming the guy on the raft is Sauron), hoping she can be a powerful ally. Galadriel's hero's journey in the series could be moving from this unsympathetic, vengeful person to the enlightened, wise Elven lady we know from the books. But are the writers able to think in more than one dimension?
Blue Wizards were sent in later version around S.A 1600 I think, around the time Sauron forged the One Ring. The other Istari "belong solely to the Third Age"
I think they went with short-hair elves because they didn’t know what to do with the black guy’s hair- giant Afro? Dreadlocks? Corn rows? If the black dude was the only one with a fade, he would have been even more difficult to explain!
Finrod's "Boat and Stone" analogy absolutely made no sense for me. If I had to describe my reaction the first time watching that part, I was like Kevin Hart's "What?...What?...What?!" 🤣
I think Galadriel drowned and she is just having a near death experience. She'll be reincarnated and sent back to Middle Earth to finish her task as a wise otherworldly sorcerer. Well, we can hope so at any rate. I had my apprehensions but there was always the hope it prove us wrong and we'd have a great Tolkien inspired show. So far this ain't it. I'm shocked at how bad the story and dialogue is. The Hobbit comes off more competent than this mess.
Its crazy that the 2 people in charge of this show are literally amateurs with almost no industry experience at all. How does this even happen? Where are they getting these people from? This is a pattern I keep seeing in the industry. People who have done nothing or done only a handful of terrible things getting the reigns of huge tentpole franchises. Its like everyone in the entertainment industry has completely lost their mind at the same time. This is basically like hiring some random cashier at wal-mart to be the CEO of your new retail company. Nobody involved in any of these new shows has any idea how to write a script, has any idea how to set up characters, or layout a story arc. Even the writers they brought in to help out have only ever worked on a few random, mid season episodes of shows that other people created. There is literally not 1 person involved in this that has any idea how to create a complete story from start to finish.
Back in the day, IMDb had an amazing LOTR community in the movie message boards. Lots of knowledgeable Tolkien fans, constantly sharing their insight into his works, mixed with more casual fans like myself who aren't as deeply familiar with the lore. These were people from all walks of life, some rich some poor, city dwellers and rural farmers, from many different nations, all genders, colours and sexualities. Nothing about their personal lives stood in the way of being a fan of the work, and over time those boards became like a miniature library of Tolkien material covering everything from his books and letters to the various aspects of competent screenwriting, cinematography, music composition, and adaptation for different media. We also had a lot of fun and there was even a batch of fan fiction. There was a mass of creative output there, from essays to comedy skits, to whole fantasy novels. I therefore find it especially ironic that the host of that service somehow ended up producing such an abysmal non-Tolkien show which doesn't even come close to matching the quality of even the fan fiction found there. On another note. This is the place that was the inspiration for the scene in Clerks 2, as we were constantly trolled by Star Wars fans who were at the time defending the prequels and felt somehow that LOTR was encroaching on their fantasy world. These people spent years berating each other yet it was never truly nasty. There was an underlying respect and much of the trolling was ultimately done in good spirits and many were "frenemies" throughout the process. Even the Star Wars trolls ultimately showed less disdain for Tolkien than Amazon has with this abomination.
Excellent analysis! Feel free to show more emotions and stronger opinions in your next video though. You guys are more polite and respectful than Amazon deserves. Thanks a lot for the video!
10:30 That's the problem with these modern "adaptations", the people who do that don't understand what made the original interesting, like Disney Star Wars, "they had a Death Star? We have an even bigger one, they had Super Star Destroyers? We have a bigger one" without realizing that what made the original interesting rather than this bigger version, was due to the nuances of the Worldbuilding that made it believable and admirable, I mean, how a backward faction, the First Order, remnant of the Empire, was able to create something bigger and more powerful, without the same access to resources that the previous higher order had? This is the same problem that I see here, these people want to use the themes and elements of what came before and make something better and bigger than what was done, but as they are unable to understand these themes and elements, the result is what we see in this image and in all these recent "adaptations".
The Blue Wizards went into the South and the East, but nothing more is known about them. Tolkien theorized that they may have completed their mission and went back to Valinor, or they may have been corrupted and turned to the dark side. Either way they are of no consequence, if they did ANYTHING of consequence in the second age it would have been known at least by the elves. Also, real bright move to wear full plate armor on the boat trip... What happens if someone falls overboard, they just sink like a rock (looking down)? lol
It took Gandalf, Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir, Gimli and 4 Hobbits to take down a cave troll but JUST Gayladriel takes out a snow troll? Oh yeah, nice job...thank you so f* much.
Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas chase after merry and pippin for over 120 miles in the Two Towers. Meanwhile, Galadriel can't be bothered to wait for member of her company who has fallen a few steps behind. Strong and brave I tell you.
Okay, the Blue Wizards. When Tolkien wrote that they were sent to distant lands, those lands are still part of Middle-earth, just not the north-west region(s) that we are familiar with. Middle-earth isn't just the map that extends from Lindon to the Sea of Rhun and from Forodwaith to Umbar.Arda had other landmasses to the East and South of Middle-earth, but those were allegedly uninhabited during the period of Numenorean exploration. I'm surprised you don't seem to know this stuff already.
I think that maybe they just haven't read it recently. They clearly know what happened, they're just mistaken about the areas that encompass middle earth.
The ship transporting the elves to Valinor was running at some speed, but the only sail on the ship was fluttering gently in the wind. How was it being powered?
You nailed it; for me; toward the end of this video. Amazon hasn't given us anything to look forward to, anything to be excited about. In comparison, for GoT; every week; everyone I know would be talking about it. I'm really enjoying House Of Dragons too. Regarding Peter Jackson's films and vision, please don't overlook Phillipa Boyens' contributions. I believe she had a huge impact on the vision of those films. Her love and knowledge for LOTR was evident. And then there were all the talented people of WETA. The artists, the craftspeople, the choreographers, Richard Taylor, Dan Hennah, Ngila Dickson, GOD, these people actually cared about Tolkien's writing, and cared about the project.
For the Elrond and Gil-galad talk about Galadriel where he says that fire spread thing I didn't think he was referring to he finding evil, I thought he was implying she could cause rebellion by making people have to choose to follow her and then a butterfly effect.
31:50 This place appears on the map and is in Mordor, and man... I have to ask this, someone please can tell me why on goddamn earth, Mordor looks like a f*cking green paradise? A land so cursed and haunted, even before Sauron came, Shelob even got there before him. Some sources even say that it was named "Mordor" even before Sauron, because of Orodruin, not by chance that he chose it as his abode.
@@spacejunk2186 Yes, but in the series, forests are shown on the map and these cities appear in Gorgoroth, it's even possible to see Mount Doom in one scene and even though Nurn is more fertile than the north of Mordor, I don't imagine it as a green paradise, even like it is shown in Shadows of Mordor, but a semi-arid place with more fertile parts near the rivers that flow into the Sea of Nurnen, as shown in Karen Wynn Fonstad's map.
The hair CUTS I'm perfectly fine with. They could certainly have some kind of grooming shears. But I don't even wanna know what they're using for product.
The more I reflect the angrier I get. How long did the say Morgothbhad been vanguished? Hundreds of years? Elros lived 410 years but we have a fully fleshed out line of Numenor already. Just ridiculous. I can't handle it.
I'm glad I watched this 4 episodes later because you picked up on what I thought in the very first episode. We're told that the Elves have no concept of death, that they know only joy, that evil isn't born and they've not experienced a sun rise. Within seconds we're then shown acts of bullying and revenge and her brother saying he won't always be around. Then, a Morgoth (what that?) kills the tree's of light and the Elves go to war with him (and I'm guessing) learn about the sudden onset of death. The writers write all the races as human adjacent, so Gilgalad is motivated by politics rather than the truth and Galdriel, where nothing but vengence rules her heart. The Numerians are racist against Elves (weren't they a superior branch of man - or at least Aragorn was descended from them?) because they might take their jobs?!? it just gets more and more stupid as the episodes go on...
Guys, this criticism was NOT about Americans' complicated view of "diversity" or lack thereof (lots of people outside the USA dislike the new show also), people on both sides are using this as some kind of weird deflection from the MAIN POINT -- the entire prequel seems like a failed fan fiction effort, not something in the highly complex and immersive universe of Tolkien and Jackson, quite honestly. Those two gave us a timeless and glorious masterpiece, but this new failure of a show has tainted and ruined the entire franchise... Elrond and Galadriel's actors were at best average, and that is being VERY generous to both of them, and failed to seem very likable or engaging from the beginning to the end. The elves seemed so plastic, superficial and one-dimensional, lacking in both genuine gravitas and otherworldly mysticism and poise, and I was not impressed by Galadriel's failed Arctic mission or that weird half-naked giant crash-landing in front of two bickering female Hobbits. Is this what was supposed to grip millions of people from around the world? Besides, if nine elves were nearly killed by a single troll, what the heck was Galadriel planning to do to Sauron even if she did "find" him? And how did that Elven king grant them access to Valinor at whim, I thought only the Valar had that authority?? ***Almost NOTHING about this show was okay, guys.*** o_O
I absolutely agree about the CGI even though most people think that it was good in this. The problem I think was it looked too CGI and too polished almost it seemed. I couldn't put my finger on it at first but then I compared Lindon in this show with Rivendell from Peter Jackson movies and then it hit me. Maybe it was because those were miniature models and literally "real" but more than that they looked like they were lived in and they had elements of variation, function and infrastructure and the cinematography made it much more better by showing all the details in the environments. Not just a wide spectacular shot as opposed to this show. So it felt like a part of the world rather than a spectacular set piece that was just there to be looked at.
Huge Tolkien fan, and i gave it a chance. The first episode was boring, jumping all over the place with no direction, casting was probably the worst ive ever seen in my life. The elves looked like humans cosplaying elves, the harfoots and their horrible forced accents, Galadriel was about as far from the truth of who she was as you could possibly go. It honestly made me very sad to watch this and i hope i can forget what i just watched.
The pile (10:00)- I mean, aren't materials kinda scarce at the time? Wouldn't it be more efficient to melt down most of that armor, instead of a kinda ugly pile? Unless that's disrespectful- but a lot less so than a giant fugly pile of helmets...
If I had turned in that pretentious bullshit masquerading as so-called "philosophy" about the "difference between a stone and a ship" to my English 101 professor, not only would she had given me a "0%", but she would have further advised me to consider a different elective for my degree.
One of my small gripes is that they added in post the sound of foot steps for the elves. They're supposed to be light on their feet especially in nature and yet in the snow in the forests everywhere there's an elf on scene. You can hear them coming and it's a small nitpick that, Just like the hair does, break the immersion for me. (Also, ahoy fellow pirates here's to not paying Jeff Bezos for this steaming pile of CG!)
And they sleep with their eyes open. I'm sure they don't know what Elves are, they just put people with eccentric clothes and weird ears, and that's it.
While the trol fight I could only think in the Fellowship of the Ring, the fight with the troll there in Moria. It was hard and they had some of the best fighters in that world, including Gandalf. This Galadriel took the trol down in a few seconds.
Well said gentleman, all valid points. This is the end result when Bezos assigned this epic to a bunch of amateurs with no proper experience, vision and understanding of Tolkien.
The mark of Sauron - the mark which all of the Elvish scholars could not figure out 🙄...sooo, the Elvish scholars own no maps?? It's clearly Mordor 🤦♂. And why was Finrod basically wetting his pants - crying and screaming - during the battle scene?!
8:35 "While questing once in noble wood of gray medieval pine, I came upon a tomb, rain-slicked, rubbed cool, ethereal; its inscription long vanished, yet still within its melancholy fissures-" - The Grand Budapest NOW thats good writing
Thx for this great video. I love to hear, what Tolkien really wrote and how it should have been showed in rings of power. Talking about show, dont tell: Look for example at house of dragon episode 3 and Daemons acting there. He barely said one sentence but the episode gave us a lot about him. This is the complete opposite to rings of power.
In terms of a proper adaptation, yes, the second age is Bare Bones and you will have to add things in but if you add stuff it should just be expanding on what he's already written
I'm pretty sure they are trying to use Gurthang as inspiration for the broken black sword, can't be sure but it sounds like it. Guess they tried to shoehorn in something that is actually from the lore lol. The sword [...] answered with this word: "Why should I not eat what I like not eat guilty flesh not drink blood that is to blame? I'll eat even guiltless flesh I'll drink blameless blood".
I feel bad for the Troll. Galadriel is the equivalent of hunting an elephant using an M1 Abrams tank. It was probably an endangered species defending it’s young (hiding somewhere in the cave).
Anyone notice this series has a bunch of Tolkien elements they aren’t allowed to use? Elf Human Romance - 1st and 3rd Age, (Beren and Luthien and Aragorn and Arwen.) Revenge Plot bringing the elves to Middle Earth - 1st Age (Fëanor and his sons) The Wizards - 1st Age (possibly 2nd for the blues) Broken Blade - 3rd Age (Narsil)
If I remember correctly, while yes it does say that Saruman and the blue Wizards arrived to the world in the second age, it is certain that not a single one of them flew down in a meteorite. Each and every one of them arrived through the port of the gray Havens on a ship😂
It's worse that they bring bullying into Valinor because right before that the voice over literally says there is nothing is evil to begin with. Valinor also does not harbour evil, so where do the children get it from? Or maybe all those nameless elven kids represented Feanor and his followers. Maybe this is another example of movie and series now taking the traits of one character and putting it on others for whatever crazy reason. There was tension between Feanor and Galadriel pretty much from the start, but I guess they have no rights to any of that earlier story? They still refer to Feanor later anyway though so still confusing. The rock and paper thing from Finrod reminds me of The Holy Grail where they say if a person weighs the same as a duck they are a witch. If that movie hadn't been made nearly 50 years ago it could have been deliberately made to parody Finrod's little story. Actually I think Gil-galad is saying here that he thinks Galadriel will go over to the dark side if she keeps seeking it. Sort of a foreshadowing of her wanting the One Ring when Frodo offers it to her. But as you say these story writers just seem to make the message so unclear that there can easily be many interpretations of what he's saying that could seem equally valid.
So the cool conclusion I'm ending up at after watching this video and reading many comments is: I want to go finish reading the Silmarillion. The detail and effort which this fandom puts in to say how wrong this show is, with references to the original material, just reveal how magnificent and meaningful Tolkien 's work was. How much it meant to all of you and how much weight it has had in your lives. My own deepest qualm from the beginning, since I don't know the lore well, was really that the culture (and thus essence) of Tolkien 's world would be violated. When modern social values are transposed onto a story which was built with fundamentally different materials, it becomes a lie - an internally inconsistent system, and ultimately a vile attempt to manipulate the offerings of the past to support a thesis that the present is so much better.
I liked that Michael was able to keep the roasting somewhat in check and focus more on explaining the actual problems. You don't get as much of that as you should in modern reviews There was a good balance here
The Mark of Sauron is literally just a map of Mordor and Minas Tirith. Check it out on a map of Middle Earth - literally the map of that region turned around. ::EDIT:: Arondir+Bronwyn --> it's not believable because they just "say" they're in love. We don't see them fall in love -- they just say I'm in love. It's a forbidden love, but totally unearned.
Well said, ill be tuning in for The rest of your thoughts as I couldn't get past the 15 minute mark myself. The silmarillion Is one of my favorite works of Tolkien And this show hasn't represented any of that history faithfully. I understand that they don't have the rights but I don't get why it has to be warped.
Lord of the Idioms and Tautology. For a soldier that has just died in battle, Finrod has the cleanest, most beautifully manicured, unscathed and reposed hands I have ever seen on a 'working mans' corpse.
Thanks guys for being a space to share thoughts on this show freely. I really liked The Tolkien Society FB group, I had great conversations there. But I have now been banned twice because I said the show is not well done. So many covnersations have been stopped because people did not like the show in the comments. I understand the need to keep the group civil, but people weren´t nasty. I had to leave. It seemed like any criticism was just shut down and it´s sad. So much of the criticism of the show is just that the writing is very subpar.
The elves having long hair is really important. They had names based on nice hair. They made bow strings out of hair. You can't make a bow string out of 2 inches of fade.
Finrod : what is the difference between a boat and a stone?
Feanor just like: seriously? Stones do not burn
But both get stolen)
Someone needs to repurpose the ‘boats and hoes’ music video from the film Stepbrothers into boats and stones.
I mean, if I had to endure metaphors like that for the rest of eternity, rebellion sounds a lot more appealing.
That scene was like a bad Monty Python take.
What also floats in water? A duck!
Cattily amusing, that remark!
Guyladriel goes from being bullied to defeating her bully in 5 seconds flat. The first of many attempts by the writers to add vulnerability and emotional depth to an infallible, invincible girl-boss.
Pointless drama too, as we all know she is in the 3rd Age.
In Valinor no less. The perfect realm, the undying lands basically elf heaven....there is bullying and fistfights 😒
Agreed, punching on a friend/relative because they have been a jerk and sunk your paper boat is not a particularly good personality trait. Guyladriel comes off as a potential crim in that scene.
Why are they evdn teasing her..a princess..lol never explained..they just wanted a reason for her to be a 'bad bitch'..and ego motivated wanker more like
This is the kind of fantasy that will get real girls beat up in the real world when they try this.
The “Mark of Sauron” is only there so they can do flash cuts of it like Jackson did with the Eye of Sauron.
I have a big problem with Galadriel being motivated by vengeance.
When we do see vengeance in elves it’s by the ‘fallen’ elves. Like Feanor and sons.
Come to think of it, it’s hard to come up with another instance of vengeful elves in all of his works. I’m sure I’m forgetting something.
So it’s not impossible, but vengeance is a decidedly unelvish trait…emotion…motivation? Whatever it is.
Galadriel saw, early on, traits like pride and conceit in Feanor that she did not like.
Galadriel was set up as Feanor’s foil.
That becomes more true with every revision by Tolkien to their storylines. And there were many revisions.
After the Kinslaying, Galadriel’s impression of Feanor crystallized.
She always intended to go to Middle Earth to rule.
But after the Kinslaying that motivation changed in that she wanted to go to Middle Earth to steer her kin away from the destructive bent of Feanor.
One of Feanor’s destructive traits was vengeance.
Galadriel saw this in Feanor.
Galadriel was Feanor’s counter.
So I can’t see in any fashion how Galadriel would give in to such things like vengeance when she was vehemently opposed to them and recognized their destructive power in Feanor as manifested in the Kinslaying.
Galadriel would’ve recognized the folly of vengeance. She was perhaps the wisest of all elves or near to it.
She was amazingly intuitive to the point of almost possessing prescience.
That is, she couldn’t see the future per se, but she could read peoples’ hearts and minds to the extent that she could predict their demise.
So no, not in the First, Second or Third Ages was Galadriel ever filled with vengeance to any significant degree and certainly never to the point where it consumed her into a one dimensional pursuit of it.
Imbuing Galadriel with vengeance at any point was never what Tolkien intended. I don’t need a ouija board to know that because it’s very apparent in the texts.
Tolkien attributed so much wisdom to Galadriel largely because of her aversion to war. Tolkien built her up as a preserver of things. A guardian. That’s exactly what Nenya was used for.
She also possessed deep and steadfast self control. And Tolkien always mentions the power of will in his works. Galadriel possessed an almost indomitable will. As far as we know, it was unbending. A character’s power in Tolkien’s works was largely tied to their will. It was an almost tangible thing…’The will of Sauron’
Giving in to vengeance is a lack of self control.
Precisely because you know it’s a path to destruction. It’s giving in to baser instinct. Your desire to inflict pain and suffering on another based on your own suffering.
It’s quite literally a form of sadism.
So no. Galadriel was not vengeful. Not to say she never had stirrings. But she had the wisdom to see vengeance for what it was, the path to destruction. And she had the self will to restrain herself from this path.
No vengeance for Galadriel. By virtue of her seeing the same destructive path of Feanor, her foil.
I really have a hard time seeing how someone who has read the works could see it any other way.
How can they justify Galadriel as being vengeful?
It’s an important point, because the series is being built entirely on this fallacy.
I generally agree with most all your points.
Sometimes I have a difference of opinion.
But this is a point that is demonstrably not supported by the books.
Galadriel would not have been vengeful. At most it may have been an inner monologue within herself that she would’ve ultimately rejected.
On top of being wise Galadriel was a careful thinker. Seeing steps through like a chess game.
That’s partly a function of being a long lived immortal, you see patterns played through repeatedly to the extent that you have a good handle on where things are going.
It’s very similar to Paul and Leto II, who had other memory as a substitute for lived experience.
On top of that, elves as a general rule weren’t rash. Certainly Feanor was. But that’s more a function of his own hubris that precipitated his rashness.
But in a one of the greatest elven leaders you would certainly not expect rashness.
Even Thranduil, who is a sort of atypical elf wasnt rash.
And again, indulging in vengeance is a selfish pursuit.
At this time Galadriel was intent on leadership.
So even if for that reason alone, she would not have discarded her desire to lead- which was a strong desire in the texts as that desire is predominantly why she rejected the call to Valinor, for the self indulgence of vengeance.
Vengeance would be a terrible trait in any lord, king or Lady, and it would be almost nonexistent in elvish lords.
This is a *huge* point. Folk fail to appreciate the very anti-war elements in LOTR, exemplified by Galadriel managing to be immensely powerful & commanding *without* leading battles or slaying trolls. It is anti-war not in that violence is never necessary, but that there is no glory in it. To have Galadriel as a kickass warrior is profoundly disrespectful to that aspect of Tolkien's themes.
As another wise Tolkien character said: "I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."
@@alharron2145 I agree whole heartedly.
This is not just wrong, it’s the antithesis of how Tolkien has written Galadriel.
Its ‘Antitruth’.
It’s also strange, because it’s the merging of a protagonist and antagonist. Both in character and in story arcs.
Which makes it just weird. How do they conflate the two and preserve any semblance to the story?
It deconstructs the story.
I mean I’ve seen characters merged into a singular character before. But they certainly weren’t protagonist and antagonist.
If I didn’t know better, it’s like someone read the cliff notes cursorily and got even the main storylines and characters all mixed up into one.
The more I see from this show, the more convinced I am that the showrunners and writers were never familiar with Tolkien’s works at all.
They bought the cliff notes and still managed to desecrate the cliff notes.
Tolkien himself was averse to war. Averse to discord and conflict. The writers of this show are the polar opposite of that. They seek out conflict and force others to bend to their will. Their characters are a reflection of their own dark impulses. There is more of Feanor than Galadriel in this warrior elf that shares her name.
A beautifully written comment. They tried to portray Galadriel as an antihero in this show. (Also if she wants to see her brother so much, she can go to Valinor, and wait for him to "reincarnate".)
Tolkien hated the typical stories of vengeance. He only did it with the bad characters because of their dark impulses.
The guys comment on how the writers don’t know how to write metaphors, which is true, but what is even worse is that the writer’s don’t seem to understand the purpose of metaphors.
The purpose of a metaphor is to convey meaning through imagery. In the case of the stone and boat it is used to teach that being negative will draw you in and drown you, but being positive will let you rise above the negativity and float. They convey this message by saying a stone looks down and a boat looks up. Thing is the direction these objects face has zero impact on their buoyancy. Stones don’t have a direction and many boats can still float upside down. The rock sinks because it’s heavy and the boat because it’s hollow. There is no logical through line between the lesson they wish to teach and the images conjured. This makes the metaphor nonsensical and the lesson harder to understand. It does nothing for the scene, which it means it should be cut from the scene. This suggests the writing team either don’t fully understand the purpose of metaphor or are too lazy to check their work and correct it
@Tracchofyre they spent a lot of money on New World too. What's the player base looking like of that game now? World of Warcraft launch in line 2004. WoW classic almost certainly has a larger daily player count than New World, a game that at launch less than a year ago was topping a million players a day. MMO's are supposed to BUILD their player base as they go on, by adding new things and improving. New World was such a jank fest at launch that they had to devote all the resources they had into fixing the problems that it had.
My point being that Jeff Bezos does not understand artistic mediums at all. He throws tons of money at them but hires total hacks who will do whatever the corporates want them to do. The corporates wanted an SJW contemporary Game of Thrones take on Middle Earth. In fact, Middle Earth was the least important part of what they wanted, that's why anything even remotely related to Tolkien is superficial and trivial. It's a costume. They wanted the built in audience and respect that Tolkien's work holds without having to do anything of the work to receive it. It is Tolkien in name only, much like Wheel of Time.
The reason why throwing money at a production never produces good writing is because the single most important resource quality writing needs is TIME. Time is something money can never buy.
@@Thor-Orion I agree. Let's go watch Conan, instead.
@@Lennis01 I think the most important factor in making good writing is passion. Passion is also something money can never buy.
I think expecting good writing and logic from these show runners and their writers is a bar way too high for them...let alone the sheer disrespect for Tolkien and his life's works.
That point there made about the writers of the episodes not having read any classical literature and philosophy was so apt. It actually really explains so much, the bad writing, the abysmal fortune-cookie-wisdom dialogues...
Thanks for the great analysis, guys. I am really looking forward to your future videos!
that's the description I was looking for. Fortune cookie wisdom. I settled on a 10 yr old who glanced at philosophy wiki. 😂
The people who wrote this garbage are utterly unequipped with the proper context to understand the reasoning behind Tolkien's works and it shows. Not only that but they were biased against Tolkien and his ideas from the outset and believe they're somehow "fixing" his works.
Elvish hair being long has mythological roots that Tolkein knew about and incorporated, involving long hair enhancing magical and spiritual power. Which is why Galadriel giving Gimli her hair was so profound.
I wouldn't describe us as nitpicking when a lot of character motivations, dialogue and more make no sense. Even people who know nothing of the lore don't even understand what the hell is happening. Like if you look at the prologue of this show. It has huge problems with setting up how things happened or going. Does anyone know how her brother actually died in this show? We see him fighting and presumably losing? But we don't see Sauron catch him or torture him. He's just dead in the next scene with Sauron's mark. Fast forward to the fortress scene and we randomly get a random piece of dialogue from Galadriel saying that it's a mark to guide orcs... Where in the hell did she get that from? Does that make her brother a mark for orcs to follow? Did we miss a bunch of scenes? Was something cut? There's no set up for that. It's just randomly thrown in there to make her look smart. That's just one story problem out of many that I could talk about.
I think they've known this show is a dumpster fire for some time and that lots of editing of their garbage occurred. Elvish hair is not nit picking, Tolkien describes elvish hair in such detail on numerous occasions that it can't possibly be insignificant.
It's because they have the rights to so little they must leave everything as vague as possible.
Welcome to the world of JJ Abrams ‘mystery box’ storytelling. The show-runners have learned well from the Destroyer of Franchises.
@@FlyfishermanMike that and they lack talent and skill, so....
When they said this is the story Tolkien never wrote, they really meant that this is the story Tolkien will never EVER even THINK of writing. What a billion-dollar meme, this show.
JRR Tolkien would react to Amazon's series like Michael did when he saw Toby is back
"Welcome to Zion, Mr. Baggins."
New World (Amazon game studios MMO video game) of television shows.
@@kulman4295
Or Saavedro when he finds himself trapped between the shields in Myst III: Exile.
Also, isn't it silly to be so focused on revenge for someone who is immediately reincarnated in Valinor, and she can see him when she eventually goes back there?
I was about to say that!!
Yes, and she was like 10 seconds away from seeing him but bounces to fulfill her prideful and selfish vendetta
elf are more like to be ethernal than immortal, also this expleins why feanor is more concerned with the silmarils steal than by the death of is father
Dude thank you so much for pointing this out
Not to mention that Tolkien, being a devout Catholic, hated revenge. Practically every revenge-story he included in his books ended badly for the protagonist.
First thing that struck me, first few second in this show is Galadriel being bullied by other elf children... it's Valinor, it's Heaven, they're elves - bullying, really?
right after they told us it was a place of peace and joy. Did they not even watch their own show?
Somehow, trivial as it may be, I have a hard time with Elves just standing on a ship wearing armor. Why wear armor? It would be very cold, heavy and any rocking of the ship would upset their balance. Why not just sit down and be comfortable. Besides, the salt water spray would rust the armor in the worst way.
Soldier: "Captain, why must we wear such armor?"
Captain: "Because Lord Bezos spent one billion dollars on this story, and gosh darnit we're using every bit of that budget"
it also suggests as if they expect there will be combat, but against who?
@@Trewq79 I wish those armor looked liked something from a billion dollar budget tv show. It looked very cheap, almost plastic like in my opinion. Also if you re-watch Elron, and Durin's stone breaking competition, in some of the shots Elrond looks like he's wearing rags.... T_T
seems weird but maybe just ceremonial, it was removed from them by the others and elves do have good balance unless that was just legolas
Because it's clearly plastic "armor".
It might be petty, but I take great issue to the Elf-Man romance in this show because it "diminishes" the significance of it.
If everyone is doing it, then it ceases to become a special occurence.
There were only three instances of Elf-Man union in the entire history of Arda. All of them were a result of great feats and they were of great consequence to the legendarium.
- Beren & Luthien's quest for the Silmarils
- Tuor & Idril bore Earendil, the hero (I daresay saviour) of the War of Wrath
- Aragorn quest of claiming the throne to be with Arwen and restore the united kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor.
Note: I also had the same issue of the Elf-Dwarf romance in the Hobbit trilogy.
It’s also not a coincidence that all the great feats had to be - at least conjointly - done by a human male to win the hand of a female elf of higher station. Tolkien’s personal love life providing the inspiration. Having a male elf interested in a human female Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman doesn’t really fit the lore does it?
It’s all about forbidden love, dontcha know. 😉
If they wanted a forbidden romance, and add some different races (which I have NO issues with btw), they could’ve used a Harad and a Numenorean
There were more unions of Elfs and Men, but these one had special weight because of the royal blood of the elven maidens. Both Lúthien and Arwen were pricesses and their fathers didn't want to see their daughters living in squalor so, in the case of Thingol he sent Beren on a suicide mission (as medieval kings often did in popular tales), and Elrond helped Aragorn to reclaim the Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor.
When it was about individuals of a "lower" class, it was more a concern that one would outlive the other and they wouldn't see each other ever again, until the end of the world. But in the kindgom of Dol-Amroth there was elven blood in those Men, because their forefathers had taken elven maidens as wives.
Either way, it's exactly as you say, that thise particular romance should have no drama whatsoever, but the showrunners wanted their own soap opera for teenagers.
You forgot Eärendil & Elwing but I approve of your point, these were major events and stories passed down for generations. Nobody remembers the Elf-Man relationship between Paper & Cardboard.
The cock-up is strong with RoP.
Take Finrod. Actually, just take Finrod's ring.
Finrod's ring is the ring Aragorn wears and gives to Arwen. Finrod gave it to Barahir, Beren's father.
It is older than Sauron's ring, older than Aragorn's sword and probably the oldest artefact in Middle Earth in the LOTR. The story of Beren and Luthien is the love story Aragorn recounts on the trip to Rivendell in the LOTR.
That ring alone could have been used to tie the entire saga together, just as Tolkien wrote.
One can argue the Palantir is older.
@@spacejunk2186 Yes, excellent point.
And why does Ereinion-in-Name-Only send Galadriel-in-Name-Only away? It's Neville Chamberlain reasoning, where combatting evil only reinforces it.
About Galadriel as an elf-child being bullied by English schoolboy elves in Valinor.
I choose to read that as their allegory of The Patriarchy: even the supposedly blissful heavenly home of the Elves was tainted by male chauvinism and victimized women. I could go further and perceive an accusing finger that they're pointing at Tolkien himself: "Your mythology is founded on a Victorian imperialist system that oppressed women and people of color. Therefore we're stealing Galadriel from you so that we can wake her up - she's an Ophelia that we can revive and set on a warpath to 'redress the balance' within your world and topple your smug English Imperialist White Supremacist Patriarchal worldview." You can call that paranoid if you like, but so far all I've seen and heard points to such an attitude on their part, or something close enough to be a big problem.
When people set out to "adapt" a work from a perspective of such radical antagonism, I reserve the right to regard the whole enterprise as corrupt beyond redemption, no matter how pretty they make some of its details.
Absolutely f*cking brilliant. Based af. This comment made my day, I hope you don’t think you’re paranoid yourself because from my eyes I agree that’s exactly what’s going on.
I though this video made a lot of similar interesting points ruclips.net/video/dMnuuuKVGKU/видео.html
There are also girls bullying her….
@@aldeventos Yes, but correct me if I'm wrong: their ringleader is a boy.
@@aldeventos internalized misogyny, obviously!
Just to comment on the elven hair. What bugs me even more is that the showrunners decided to respect lore enough to not give them facial hair, which in turn gives them no sideburns, but with the short hair it makes them all look super goofy.
Finrod's hair - 90s boyband member haircut,
Elrond's hair - Steve Harrington haircut,
Arondir's hair - Jarhead haircut,
Celebrimbor's hair - Blanche Devereaux haircut,
Gil-Galad's hair - I like that one but without the caesar's crown.
Strangely, it also reinforces gender stereotypes - according to ROP, men have short hair (apart from Gil-Galad) and women have long...no, wait, women are actually veiled (unless they're Galadriel, of course)...shouldn't Amazon be beyond that?!
I’ve been saying that. Wtf is up with their hair??? I can’t take them seriously
Elven hair is described in tremendous detail utilizing extensive text by Tolkien. That makes it an important detail, not at all nitpicking.
They may have respected the lore enough to not give any of the elves facial hair, but to their great shame they *didn't* respect it enough to do what must be done on that subject when it came to dwarves
I was a well-known regular on the TORC message boards 20 years ago, and I'll say that the imagined fears that people had back then of "Hollywood" screwing up Tolkien were nothing compared to what Amazon is actually delivering. I was in the camp that Jackson's films were mostly great (with minor misgivings I can overlook) and the very best we could expect from any film that could have realistically been made. So I was on the opposite side of many of the purists there. But this Amazon stuff is so illogical it almost makes the old joke we had over there about "B-52s over Mordor" seem plausible.
My criticisms of FOTR look like folly now, certainly...
Who were you there?
@@Tar-Elenion I believe I used "Kingasaurus"
@@peteg475 The name is familiar. Though I am old enough not to recall specifics.
@@Tar-Elenion A few tussles with Kellanar. lol I saw Fellowship with Leonidas* in Boston. Good times.
The funny thing about that rock/ship “metaphor” is that I honest couldn’t tell, upon first viewing, whether they were intending to communicate that it was in fact a metaphor, or if it was a statement of what the elves of that time believed literally governed the difference between the objects’ behaviors, in some weirdo archaic metaphysical sense.😂🤣
No it's clearly a deep references to Monthy Python. A genius stroke on the writer side
I thought it was to communicate how the writers of this show believe the modern world functions...
A Ship floats in the way a Stone does not. Callback to Douglas Adams and the whale. He could write that and get away with it because Hitch Hikers Guide was a satire. These guys are trying to be straight up deep and it’s laughable in all the wrong ways.
The writers sound like flat earthers.
@@ETM2024 funnily, middle earth in the second age was flat...
I need a full video breakdown of the difference between a ship and a stone
Probably because the boat is a witch..
y'see witches weight the same as duck. Duck floats just like wood and ship is made from wood. therefore witches = duck = wood = boat.
The reason this phrase is so confusing is because you can also make bridge with stone instead of wood.. stroke of genius on writer part I dare say
@@JeSt4m well that makes Galadriel a duck, right? This show looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck. And by duck I mean a steaming pile of fecal matter.
@@JeSt4m
Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science?
The scene from the "Office" with Steve is exactly how I felt. Actually, I was screaming at the screen just like that. Thanks for the continued content.
Hurry my friend, thank you for watching my videò, hit me up I have something great for you 🎮🎮🎉📦
wait you actually watched it!?!?!...... umm why?
@@TheFloorface Obscene curiosity. And believe me when I say, I payed for it!😁
I felt that way from the opening scene when delightful little elf kids attack Galadriel’s paper boat for no reason. Are elves really that anti-social?!?
Hugo weaving has become more beloved as Elrond than Agent Smith. Smith is epic meme-status, but Elrond is legendary status. The Matrix doesn't hold a candle to LoTR.
certainly not after the sequels
You guys remember the new Matrix? Most don't it's been forgotten less than a year later while the original is still fondly remembered. I hope the same fate befalls this piece of garbage series.
@@Thor-Orion The fourth Matrix was made bad on purpose, of this I am certain. The director didn’t want to make it, but Warner Bros would make it without him/her/whatever as they saw fit unless he/she was on board. This talk is actually remade in the movie where the company-man tells Neo to make a new Matrix-game.
The laughable effects and everything just adds to this, it was made without love, checked the boxes the company wanted checked and it was terrible.
@@henrikaugustsson4041 I completely agree, I actually said the same thing to someone else in a different comments section.
A thought occurred to me. It's almost as though the changed Elrond and Galadriel. The things that Galadriel is doing are the things that Elrond would have done. Meanwhile, in the booms, Galadriel was more of a politician than a warrior.
It's more like they changed Galardiel and Gil Galad.
@@spacejunk2186 Either/or. I picked thought Elrond because he was acting like a politician but wasn't the king.
@@Timasion I'm with you in your
comparison. Its Elrond who is supposed to be Gil-Galad's Herald/Lieutenant/Commander, not Galadriel. Also, Galadriel is the one that is supposed to be venturing toward Eregion and possibly developing a relationship with the dwarves. Their plotlines are completely flipped! Why??
@@cmccoy793 because they wanted a girrrrrrrl power Galadriel. And as we know, women are only powerful to these hacks when they occupy traditionally male roles. Plus the inversion is intentional disrespect to Tolkien. It's a classical (sigh... i hate that this word is overused, but I promise I'm using it accurately here) satanist philosophical concept; the inversion of the original source as a way to "counter" it.
All the elves of middle earth go to smaug salon where for 2 gold coins smaug will singe your hair to a salon perfect degree . Come to smaug salon located at the lonely mountain just past Lake Town on route 2
Finrod: Do you know why a ship floats and a stone cannot?
Saladriel: Cos it’s made of … wood?!
Finrod: How do you tell if a ship is made out of wood?
Saladriel: Build a bridge out o’ her?
Finrod: Aaah - but can you not also make bridges out of stone?
Saladriel: Aaah-yeah …
Finrod: Does a boat sink in water?
Saladriel: No … No …NO! It floats! Throw it into the pond!
Finrod: What also floats in water?
Saladriel: Bread? Apples? Very small rocks? Cider? Grape gravy?. Cherries? Mum? Churches, churches! Lead, lead!
Finrod: A DUCK!
Saladriel: ….
Finrod: So - logically …?
Saladriel: If … a ship … weighs … the same as a duck …. Its made of wood?
Finrod: And therefore …?
Saladriel: SHE’S A SHIP!!!!
Finrod: We shall use my largest budgetary scales!
Hahahahah I remembered this part as I was reading made my day 😅
You should have been asked to write the script for GoP :)
i mean i think you are missing the point of his story and so did the guys making the video....he isn't actually talking about a ship and a stone, he uses what happened to her ship as a metaphor, he's trying to teach her to be a better person and to not give in to her dark side, its so freaking obvious yet even the guys that made the video completely missed the fucking point while making fun of it
@@HupeOz147 because that she brace the dark side ? This is garbage
@@HupeOz147 It's not hard to understand the intention behind Finrod's words, people are making fun of the terrible script writing. This dialogue is a prime example what happens when someone tries to write deeply profound and wise sounding words without having the style and intellect for it.
Thank you for the brilliant, knowledgeable takes you have been providing on this train wreck of a show
Imagine choosing to pursue one of the most beloved, and critically analyzed universes of all time with the understanding that if you make a GOOD series that you will literally print mountains of money and praise…..
Now imagine that you attempted to melt GoT and Marvel movie tropes into a series that’s unclear who it even appeals to….traditionalists hate it, new viewers aren’t enthralled by it, and I don’t think anyone is specifically paying for prime just to watch it.
What a literal dumpster fire
Interesting point about Prime, as you say, I seriously doubt any or many people are going out of there way to sub to Prime just for this show. Curious to see the numbers moving forward
If the people at HBO were given a billion dollars and this franchise, we would all, in all likelihood, be talking about how amazing it is and be looking forward every week to the next episode. Unreal how badly Amazon screwed this whole thing up.
We'd would also get elf boobs and lots of blood.
Not interested. If it doesn't look directly like the prequel to LOTR exactly as Jackson's world I'm not interested. I'm out.
Nah… I think HBO would sex it up and up the gore too. They’re the ones behind GoT, after all.
Game of Thrones seasons 5-8 seem to indicate that statement isn't entirely true....
@@--Brushy-- My foot. The watch parties on social media, bar gatherings around the world to watch each episode during season 8 were massive. Those seasons might not have been as good as the first three seasons, no doubt. It doesn't matter. It's only an example of the high bar those seasons set. The show was extremely popular right through the end. People were tuning in.
After watching this silly show I’m starting to think maybe Morgoth was right 🤔😂
In this alternate universe of Amazon? Hell yeah. I'd side with him in a minute.
He was just misunderstood 🤣
I'm basically rooting for the orcs and Adar in this show.
Morgoth knew they were a bunch of shit weasels.
@18:57 The blood splatter on the lens bothered me more that it probably should have. It is a completely uncessessary fourth-wall break.
My initial reaction was: "This is Lord of the Rings not Starship Troopers. What the hell are you doing?!"
Same. Very strange choice.
The gown Galadriel wears when she's stacking the helmets after the battle, is exactly the same design as she wears at the start when she's being 'bullied'.
They think the audience is stupid - we see a grown female elf with long blond hair minutes after seeing a little girl elf with long blond hair, unless they're wearing the same clothes we'd all be going "wait, who's that again?"
@@gwenivercall I think it would have been much more impactful for her to be in armor, as a sort of "look at how everything changed" throughline.
Sons of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!
this series is too damn easy to poke holes in, but i'm also thinking of what could have been easily done better. at 11:07 the series could have opened with a total bang! not a scene with kids and orgami boat and rocks looking down: imagine this:
the opening titles, and then fade into a sword fight between Galadriel and her brother. they are training in some beautiful space in a elven castle, big courtyard etc. It's hard training, not friendly sparring. they are turning each other into the best warrior possible, as they must defend their family and their race. So...then intersperse the training with scenes of the battle in which the brother is killed. Every 5 seconds, switch between the sword training , then to the battle scenes. We'd get to see more of his face and his expressions, and the war-forged bond between brother and sister.
That only needs to go on for a minute, then the brother is heroically killed and galadriel holds him as he dies. 1) we get to know the brother , and we can't mourn him if we don' t know him. 2) we get to see, not hear, what galadriel saw that day, the horror of his death. she could wail and cry as the battle rages around them. 3)we get a justification for galadriels skill w sword,seeing that she *earned it* by training hard
Boom! in 120 seconds i have fixed the opening of the show. If you are a rock band, you better open your album with a banger. In a sword epic, you better have a powerful opening where you have character's introduced with strong memorable scenes
Is it just me or is the wet paper on Finrod's knife really obviously CGI? It casts no shadow on the blade.
You guys nailed it! He who would be an excellent writer must first be exceptionally well read. These writers clearly are not.
There's one possible way out of the vengeful Galadriel hole.
The idea might be to show that she has some darkness within her at this point in time. Which could be something that draws Sauron to her (assuming the guy on the raft is Sauron), hoping she can be a powerful ally.
Galadriel's hero's journey in the series could be moving from this unsympathetic, vengeful person to the enlightened, wise Elven lady we know from the books.
But are the writers able to think in more than one dimension?
Blue Wizards were sent in later version around S.A 1600 I think, around the time Sauron forged the One Ring. The other Istari "belong solely to the Third Age"
Funny if they could use that, when it’s not in the appendices, but not show Beleriand, or Finrods True death, etc, etc, etc.
I think they went with short-hair elves because they didn’t know what to do with the black guy’s hair- giant Afro? Dreadlocks? Corn rows?
If the black dude was the only one with a fade, he would have been even more difficult to explain!
Finrod's "Boat and Stone" analogy absolutely made no sense for me.
If I had to describe my reaction the first time watching that part, I was like Kevin Hart's "What?...What?...What?!"
🤣
It's so stupid, that it's actually hard to describe. As if they knew if they created an opaque metaphor people would just accept it.
It was so dumb my brain just checked out in this momemt and I did not even remember it happening.
Thank you for this lads .they have butchered Tolkien’s work for the sake of inclusion and diversity 🙃 cheers from Dublin Ireland 🇮🇪
I think Galadriel drowned and she is just having a near death experience. She'll be reincarnated and sent back to Middle Earth to finish her task as a wise otherworldly sorcerer. Well, we can hope so at any rate. I had my apprehensions but there was always the hope it prove us wrong and we'd have a great Tolkien inspired show. So far this ain't it. I'm shocked at how bad the story and dialogue is. The Hobbit comes off more competent than this mess.
The Hobbit is Citizen Kane meets North by Northwest compared to this steaming toxic septic tank of a show.
The more i see of these elves, the more i think Thranduil nailed it
Its crazy that the 2 people in charge of this show are literally amateurs with almost no industry experience at all. How does this even happen? Where are they getting these people from? This is a pattern I keep seeing in the industry. People who have done nothing or done only a handful of terrible things getting the reigns of huge tentpole franchises. Its like everyone in the entertainment industry has completely lost their mind at the same time. This is basically like hiring some random cashier at wal-mart to be the CEO of your new retail company. Nobody involved in any of these new shows has any idea how to write a script, has any idea how to set up characters, or layout a story arc. Even the writers they brought in to help out have only ever worked on a few random, mid season episodes of shows that other people created. There is literally not 1 person involved in this that has any idea how to create a complete story from start to finish.
I very much enjoy the measured, informed responses you provide in your vids. When we all have reason to scream and curse. Plus one subscriber!
Thank you for this in-depth look. Please continue and do more for each episode.
I can't get over the bullying scene. It drives me crazy.
Back in the day, IMDb had an amazing LOTR community in the movie message boards. Lots of knowledgeable Tolkien fans, constantly sharing their insight into his works, mixed with more casual fans like myself who aren't as deeply familiar with the lore. These were people from all walks of life, some rich some poor, city dwellers and rural farmers, from many different nations, all genders, colours and sexualities. Nothing about their personal lives stood in the way of being a fan of the work, and over time those boards became like a miniature library of Tolkien material covering everything from his books and letters to the various aspects of competent screenwriting, cinematography, music composition, and adaptation for different media. We also had a lot of fun and there was even a batch of fan fiction. There was a mass of creative output there, from essays to comedy skits, to whole fantasy novels.
I therefore find it especially ironic that the host of that service somehow ended up producing such an abysmal non-Tolkien show which doesn't even come close to matching the quality of even the fan fiction found there.
On another note. This is the place that was the inspiration for the scene in Clerks 2, as we were constantly trolled by Star Wars fans who were at the time defending the prequels and felt somehow that LOTR was encroaching on their fantasy world. These people spent years berating each other yet it was never truly nasty. There was an underlying respect and much of the trolling was ultimately done in good spirits and many were "frenemies" throughout the process. Even the Star Wars trolls ultimately showed less disdain for Tolkien than Amazon has with this abomination.
Excellent analysis! Feel free to show more emotions and stronger opinions in your next video though. You guys are more polite and respectful than Amazon deserves.
Thanks a lot for the video!
10:30
That's the problem with these modern "adaptations", the people who do that don't understand what made the original interesting, like Disney Star Wars, "they had a Death Star? We have an even bigger one, they had Super Star Destroyers? We have a bigger one" without realizing that what made the original interesting rather than this bigger version, was due to the nuances of the Worldbuilding that made it believable and admirable, I mean, how a backward faction, the First Order, remnant of the Empire, was able to create something bigger and more powerful, without the same access to resources that the previous higher order had?
This is the same problem that I see here, these people want to use the themes and elements of what came before and make something better and bigger than what was done, but as they are unable to understand these themes and elements, the result is what we see in this image and in all these recent "adaptations".
I wonder what happened to all the black elves, dwarves and hobbits before the third age.
They went to a Black Lives Matter rally in the north, just before Bilbo went on an adventure.
Expelled to Haradrim
Galadirel killed tham all.
Really the perfect response to "why are you nitpicking" is like you guys said: "it takes you out of the exprrience, it's immersion breaking"
The Blue Wizards went into the South and the East, but nothing more is known about them. Tolkien theorized that they may have completed their mission and went back to Valinor, or they may have been corrupted and turned to the dark side. Either way they are of no consequence, if they did ANYTHING of consequence in the second age it would have been known at least by the elves.
Also, real bright move to wear full plate armor on the boat trip... What happens if someone falls overboard, they just sink like a rock (looking down)? lol
It took Gandalf, Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir, Gimli and 4 Hobbits to take down a cave troll but JUST Gayladriel takes out a snow troll? Oh yeah, nice job...thank you so f* much.
👍100% correct...
That wasn't exactly a huge snow troll. Check the behemoths they have in the Hobbit, 30-foot tall.
Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas chase after merry and pippin for over 120 miles in the Two Towers. Meanwhile, Galadriel can't be bothered to wait for member of her company who has fallen a few steps behind. Strong and brave I tell you.
Okay, the Blue Wizards. When Tolkien wrote that they were sent to distant lands, those lands are still part of Middle-earth, just not the north-west region(s) that we are familiar with. Middle-earth isn't just the map that extends from Lindon to the Sea of Rhun and from Forodwaith to Umbar.Arda had other landmasses to the East and South of Middle-earth, but those were allegedly uninhabited during the period of Numenorean exploration. I'm surprised you don't seem to know this stuff already.
I think that maybe they just haven't read it recently. They clearly know what happened, they're just mistaken about the areas that encompass middle earth.
Just found your channel! Glad to be among fellow Tolkien fans and admirers.
Awesome, thank you!
Elf kids in elf heaven bullying and punching each other...just...wow....
The ship transporting the elves to Valinor was running at some speed, but the only sail on the ship was fluttering gently in the wind. How was it being powered?
You nailed it; for me; toward the end of this video. Amazon hasn't given us anything to look forward to, anything to be excited about. In comparison, for GoT; every week; everyone I know would be talking about it. I'm really enjoying House Of Dragons too. Regarding Peter Jackson's films and vision, please don't overlook Phillipa Boyens' contributions. I believe she had a huge impact on the vision of those films. Her love and knowledge for LOTR was evident. And then there were all the talented people of WETA. The artists, the craftspeople, the choreographers, Richard Taylor, Dan Hennah, Ngila Dickson, GOD, these people actually cared about Tolkien's writing, and cared about the project.
For the Elrond and Gil-galad talk about Galadriel where he says that fire spread thing I didn't think he was referring to he finding evil, I thought he was implying she could cause rebellion by making people have to choose to follow her and then a butterfly effect.
31:50
This place appears on the map and is in Mordor, and man... I have to ask this, someone please can tell me why on goddamn earth, Mordor looks like a f*cking green paradise? A land so cursed and haunted, even before Sauron came, Shelob even got there before him. Some sources even say that it was named "Mordor" even before Sauron, because of Orodruin, not by chance that he chose it as his abode.
There is the Nurn lake area that should support greenery.
@@spacejunk2186 Yes, but in the series, forests are shown on the map and these cities appear in Gorgoroth, it's even possible to see Mount Doom in one scene and even though Nurn is more fertile than the north of Mordor, I don't imagine it as a green paradise, even like it is shown in Shadows of Mordor, but a semi-arid place with more fertile parts near the rivers that flow into the Sea of Nurnen, as shown in Karen Wynn Fonstad's map.
The hair CUTS I'm perfectly fine with. They could certainly have some kind of grooming shears.
But I don't even wanna know what they're using for product.
The more I reflect the angrier I get. How long did the say Morgothbhad been vanguished? Hundreds of years? Elros lived 410 years but we have a fully fleshed out line of Numenor already. Just ridiculous. I can't handle it.
I'm glad I watched this 4 episodes later because you picked up on what I thought in the very first episode. We're told that the Elves have no concept of death, that they know only joy, that evil isn't born and they've not experienced a sun rise. Within seconds we're then shown acts of bullying and revenge and her brother saying he won't always be around. Then, a Morgoth (what that?) kills the tree's of light and the Elves go to war with him (and I'm guessing) learn about the sudden onset of death.
The writers write all the races as human adjacent, so Gilgalad is motivated by politics rather than the truth and Galdriel, where nothing but vengence rules her heart. The Numerians are racist against Elves (weren't they a superior branch of man - or at least Aragorn was descended from them?) because they might take their jobs?!? it just gets more and more stupid as the episodes go on...
Loved the video, great discussion
Guys, this criticism was NOT about Americans' complicated view of "diversity" or lack thereof (lots of people outside the USA dislike the new show also), people on both sides are using this as some kind of weird deflection from the MAIN POINT -- the entire prequel seems like a failed fan fiction effort, not something in the highly complex and immersive universe of Tolkien and Jackson, quite honestly. Those two gave us a timeless and glorious masterpiece, but this new failure of a show has tainted and ruined the entire franchise...
Elrond and Galadriel's actors were at best average, and that is being VERY generous to both of them, and failed to seem very likable or engaging from the beginning to the end. The elves seemed so plastic, superficial and one-dimensional, lacking in both genuine gravitas and otherworldly mysticism and poise, and I was not impressed by Galadriel's failed Arctic mission or that weird half-naked giant crash-landing in front of two bickering female Hobbits. Is this what was supposed to grip millions of people from around the world? Besides, if nine elves were nearly killed by a single troll, what the heck was Galadriel planning to do to Sauron even if she did "find" him? And how did that Elven king grant them access to Valinor at whim, I thought only the Valar had that authority?? ***Almost NOTHING about this show was okay, guys.*** o_O
I've read far better fanfics. Some are masterpieces. This is... not a good script.
@@Olivia-W I've seen some really good SW fan fiction that makes ROP look awful in comparison considering the budget.
They heard Elves were supposed to fade and misunderstood. lol
I absolutely agree about the CGI even though most people think that it was good in this. The problem I think was it looked too CGI and too polished almost it seemed. I couldn't put my finger on it at first but then I compared Lindon in this show with Rivendell from Peter Jackson movies and then it hit me. Maybe it was because those were miniature models and literally "real" but more than that they looked like they were lived in and they had elements of variation, function and infrastructure and the cinematography made it much more better by showing all the details in the environments. Not just a wide spectacular shot as opposed to this show. So it felt like a part of the world rather than a spectacular set piece that was just there to be looked at.
There's a level of writing that goes beyond "show, don't tell" and that's "feel, don't show" and that's really what's completely absent from ROP.
Huge Tolkien fan, and i gave it a chance. The first episode was boring, jumping all over the place with no direction, casting was probably the worst ive ever seen in my life. The elves looked like humans cosplaying elves, the harfoots and their horrible forced accents, Galadriel was about as far from the truth of who she was as you could possibly go. It honestly made me very sad to watch this and i hope i can forget what i just watched.
The pile (10:00)- I mean, aren't materials kinda scarce at the time? Wouldn't it be more efficient to melt down most of that armor, instead of a kinda ugly pile?
Unless that's disrespectful- but a lot less so than a giant fugly pile of helmets...
Great video, love your insight and honesty. It’s sad that Amazon screwed this up so bad.
"Do you know why a ship floats but a stone cannot? Because, the stone sees only downward..."
Showruiners JD PAIN and P MICKEY
I couldn’t put my finger on it, but you hit the nail on the head. Yes the elves look like something out of Star Wars.
If I had turned in that pretentious bullshit masquerading as so-called "philosophy" about the "difference between a stone and a ship" to my English 101 professor, not only would she had given me a "0%", but she would have further advised me to consider a different elective for my degree.
I must say, I didn’t expect to hear Rip Wheeler mentioned in comparison to Galadriel.
One of my small gripes is that they added in post the sound of foot steps for the elves. They're supposed to be light on their feet especially in nature and yet in the snow in the forests everywhere there's an elf on scene. You can hear them coming and it's a small nitpick that, Just like the hair does, break the immersion for me.
(Also, ahoy fellow pirates here's to not paying Jeff Bezos for this steaming pile of CG!)
And they sleep with their eyes open. I'm sure they don't know what Elves are, they just put people with eccentric clothes and weird ears, and that's it.
I'm not gonna watch the show, but I'll make sure to watch these reviews. Very entertaining :)
While the trol fight I could only think in the Fellowship of the Ring, the fight with the troll there in Moria. It was hard and they had some of the best fighters in that world, including Gandalf. This Galadriel took the trol down in a few seconds.
Calebrimbor entrance is hilarious.exactly like tv soap character intro.
Well said gentleman, all valid points. This is the end result when Bezos assigned this epic to a bunch of amateurs with no proper experience, vision and understanding of Tolkien.
The mark of Sauron - the mark which all of the Elvish scholars could not figure out 🙄...sooo, the Elvish scholars own no maps?? It's clearly Mordor 🤦♂. And why was Finrod basically wetting his pants - crying and screaming - during the battle scene?!
Radagast sauramon and gandolf all came on ships in the 3rd age. The 2 blue wizards are assumed to be 2nd age from what I've heard
8:35 "While questing once in noble wood of gray medieval pine, I came upon a tomb, rain-slicked, rubbed cool, ethereal; its inscription long vanished, yet still within its melancholy fissures-"
- The Grand Budapest
NOW thats good writing
Thx for this great video. I love to hear, what Tolkien really wrote and how it should have been showed in rings of power.
Talking about show, dont tell: Look for example at house of dragon episode 3 and Daemons acting there. He barely said one sentence but the episode gave us a lot about him. This is the complete opposite to rings of power.
In terms of a proper adaptation, yes, the second age is Bare Bones and you will have to add things in but if you add stuff it should just be expanding on what he's already written
I'm pretty sure they are trying to use Gurthang as inspiration for the broken black sword, can't be sure but it sounds like it. Guess they tried to shoehorn in something that is actually from the lore lol.
The sword [...]
answered with this word: "Why
should I not eat what I like
not eat guilty flesh
not drink blood that is to blame?
I'll eat even guiltless flesh
I'll drink blameless blood".
"Rocks look down and boats look up" is gonna go down in the annals of history as a top 10 most nonsense line of all time.
It's destined for memedom.
The Rings of Power appears to have been created by a team who's entire research effort was watching a 25 second LoTR TikTok video
I feel bad for the Troll. Galadriel is the equivalent of hunting an elephant using an M1 Abrams tank. It was probably an endangered species defending it’s young (hiding somewhere in the cave).
Anyone notice this series has a bunch of Tolkien elements they aren’t allowed to use?
Elf Human Romance - 1st and 3rd Age, (Beren and Luthien and Aragorn and Arwen.)
Revenge Plot bringing the elves to Middle Earth - 1st Age (Fëanor and his sons)
The Wizards - 1st Age (possibly 2nd for the blues)
Broken Blade - 3rd Age (Narsil)
If I remember correctly, while yes it does say that Saruman and the blue Wizards arrived to the world in the second age, it is certain that not a single one of them flew down in a meteorite. Each and every one of them arrived through the port of the gray Havens on a ship😂
It's worse that they bring bullying into Valinor because right before that the voice over literally says there is nothing is evil to begin with. Valinor also does not harbour evil, so where do the children get it from? Or maybe all those nameless elven kids represented Feanor and his followers. Maybe this is another example of movie and series now taking the traits of one character and putting it on others for whatever crazy reason. There was tension between Feanor and Galadriel pretty much from the start, but I guess they have no rights to any of that earlier story? They still refer to Feanor later anyway though so still confusing.
The rock and paper thing from Finrod reminds me of The Holy Grail where they say if a person weighs the same as a duck they are a witch. If that movie hadn't been made nearly 50 years ago it could have been deliberately made to parody Finrod's little story.
Actually I think Gil-galad is saying here that he thinks Galadriel will go over to the dark side if she keeps seeking it. Sort of a foreshadowing of her wanting the One Ring when Frodo offers it to her. But as you say these story writers just seem to make the message so unclear that there can easily be many interpretations of what he's saying that could seem equally valid.
So the cool conclusion I'm ending up at after watching this video and reading many comments is: I want to go finish reading the Silmarillion. The detail and effort which this fandom puts in to say how wrong this show is, with references to the original material, just reveal how magnificent and meaningful Tolkien 's work was. How much it meant to all of you and how much weight it has had in your lives. My own deepest qualm from the beginning, since I don't know the lore well, was really that the culture (and thus essence) of Tolkien 's world would be violated. When modern social values are transposed onto a story which was built with fundamentally different materials, it becomes a lie - an internally inconsistent system, and ultimately a vile attempt to manipulate the offerings of the past to support a thesis that the present is so much better.
I just found your channel and love this video! ☀️
plus the fact that Galadriel never saw Finrod's body in order to steal his dagger off his dead body. Basically robbing his grave.
I liked that Michael was able to keep the roasting somewhat in check and focus more on explaining the actual problems. You don't get as much of that as you should in modern reviews
There was a good balance here
The Mark of Sauron is literally just a map of Mordor and Minas Tirith. Check it out on a map of Middle Earth - literally the map of that region turned around.
::EDIT::
Arondir+Bronwyn --> it's not believable because they just "say" they're in love. We don't see them fall in love -- they just say I'm in love. It's a forbidden love, but totally unearned.
Well said, ill be tuning in for The rest of your thoughts as I couldn't get past the 15 minute mark myself. The silmarillion Is one of my favorite works of Tolkien And this show hasn't represented any of that history faithfully. I understand that they don't have the rights but I don't get why it has to be warped.
Lord of the Idioms and Tautology.
For a soldier that has just died in battle, Finrod has the cleanest, most beautifully manicured, unscathed and reposed hands I have ever seen on a 'working mans' corpse.
Thanks guys for being a space to share thoughts on this show freely. I really liked The Tolkien Society FB group, I had great conversations there. But I have now been banned twice because I said the show is not well done. So many covnersations have been stopped because people did not like the show in the comments. I understand the need to keep the group civil, but people weren´t nasty. I had to leave. It seemed like any criticism was just shut down and it´s sad. So much of the criticism of the show is just that the writing is very subpar.