This is exactly what it feels like. I keep looking at the writing (as a writer) and recognizing all the “baby’s first novel” kind of mistakes. Which are fine, everyone starts somewhere, but they should not be in the most expensive tv show ever made
Where else do we find fools like amazon who employ brand new writers who are also the showrunners and give them a billion dollars and 5 seasons for their first big project? Especially since they worked for JJ Abrams before doing this. Whoever works with him should be an immediate red flag.
If these writers really want the audience to take there material seriously and not get compared to the movies, they need to STOP repurposing memorable lines from the trilogy. Every time they do that its a reminder that I could be watching that instead of this. They might as well have the characters break the forth wall and say "Okay, you've watched enough of this crap for us to count you as a viewer and fudge our numbers. Feel free to go watch Fellowship since its way better and we know it."
Population of Middle Earth in The Rings of Power: about 20 named characters and 50 extras who stand around in the background until the scene ends. Empty, unpopulated, pretty CGI.
'We never heard back after sending those 2 people to warn our allies about our greatest enemy's plots, I know send 5 people' 'Should we give them horses to speed things up' 'No'
@@alexp3462 And those were the first horses we saw that apparently originated somewhere other than Númenor. In the first season, all the travel between Lindon and Eregion (and between there and Khazad-dûm) was on foot, including one trip-supposedly urgent-that went at the walking speed of a group of unfortunate Elf extras who had to carry a stone tabletop because they _also_ could not use a wheeled cart! This season is _slightly_ better at its portrayal of time and distance, but not much.
They did recognize the dead messengers based on the barding (which is a term for armor worn by horses) so the first messengers must have had horses to ride.
This show is so frustrating because gave the Second Age an amazing skeleton to work with and Amazon changed so many things. I hate that the Harfoots and Gandalf are there. I hate that Elendil has such low screentime. I hate how Isildur is portrayed and casted in this and I don’t even go into the lore that’s bring changed like mithril etc. Most importantly, where are Celeborn, Celebrian (Elrond’s wife) and Anarion? We’re wasting so much time with characters like Theo but we don’t get the important ones. It’s frustrating
episode 5 has one of the most jarring cuts i've seen in my life. they flash to elrond and co running for like 2.5 seconds and i had to check to make sure my video player hadnt broken
The Peter Jackson movies at least tried to honor Tolkien's vision and spirit whereas this travesty obviously hates Tolkien and everything he stood for. Also the Jackson movies are considered some of the best works of cinema ever created so they get a pass on some of the limited creative licenses they took whereas this show is just utter garbagio.
It is curious that in a show that is so obsessed with referencing PJ's Lord of the Rings movies, they took Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-wights which were not adapted by PJ. I also wonder if they thought that they were being clever putting them both into the same episode as in the books, Tom Bombadil helps the hobbits out at the Barrow-downs. All it did was to remind me how much better the books were, and how out of place both of these events were. Also, what the heck was going on with the bottomless chasm? There is no such thing in the northern Eregion. I suspect it was their hamfisted way to reference the broken bridge of Tharbad, and to force them to detour to Tyrn Gorthad. Which, if they bothered, they could have added like less than a day and avoid completely. They are not that big.
The thing is I can't even hate watch this show. It mentally hurts me to even think about watching it. It's as if my brain is trying to reject it. You are a very brave person for having the courage to watch the show.
Isn't it weird Galadriel had to " sacrifice herself " when the the whole group could have just left? I mean its a forest at night and they are elves...whom also saw the Orcs first long before they " caught their scent "
I wonder if they will ever mention that all the royalty and many nobles of Numenor (including Elendil and Isildur) are descended from Elrond's brother? Did they forget or saving it for another of their unearned "big moments"
It's been kind of driving me crazy that they haven't. It's even odd that they introduced that culture through galadriel when Elrond is the one who presumably has an emotional connection to them.
Your points about scene transitions and flow, I'm pretty sure they are doing scrapbooking , they make multiple versions of scene and only in edit does the episode get coalesced into a whole. At the outset I doubt they even have a concrete script they are adapting , the script as well is heavily dynamic in the process. What ends up being almost random snippets of course lack natural continuity , at the time of making they simply did not know what was coming next. In short the production process is flying by the seat of its pants,. This process is also why the show costs so much and yet fails to show value for money.
To give the show runners credit this was the best representations of Ents, to my taste, anywhere. I loved the visuals, the short scene with them WAS finally a tiny bit tonally Tolkienish, and no Jacksonian comic relief elements. I even got a little verklempt seeing an Entwife for the first time. This probably got propped up by the cgi which IS usually excellent, but it kind of makes you weep at how good this series could have been if it was this good most of the time. A little glimpse, then right back to the cringe. My eyes were just rolling painfully in their sockets with all the direct Tolkien quote drops in this episode. One is fine, but this many is mockery, as if the show runners were saying, “You want Tolkien, we’ll give you Tolkien! Choke on it!” In that last scene with the orcs it had exactly the same tone as it does when I tell a spider that explored its way into my house “go back to the shadow!”
@@AlaniTheScriptMage This Entwife made me wonder if the REAL reason they separated was that their husbands could never make a decision - she was pretty “hasty” for an Ent. 🤣
I like the theory that Bombadil is a doll that Tolkiens kids had. Thats the only way he can be eldest (he would be older than Illuvatar since the doll existed before anything was written down)
Bombadil is going to lead the Hobbits back to "a great place knows", and will also decide to stay there himself in a forrest nearby , because there are some nice old trees there. Also he meets a sweet girl who lives in the forrest there ?
I believe Tolkien himself was very clear that Tom Bombadil was not Eru Illuvatar. I think the most reasonable theory is that Tom Bombadil is Imin, the very first elf, the only elf who was awakened directly by Eru Illuvatar. He may have wandered long before the found and awakened the other elves at Cuivienen. Imin was the only elf among the Minyar who refused the call to Valinor to become the Vanyar.
Thanks for showing that transition to Eriador. The map shows that the bridge is over the Baranduin, flowing south from Nenuial in the north. So where did this huge chasm come from, and how did it get filled in between now and the time the Hobbits settled the area? Anyone want to make book that when the proto-Hobbits find the Shire (Sûza), as they will, because we remember the Shire, it will be nowhere to be seen? "What are the chances?" This is one of the constant problems. What's the odds that the Dwarves found _mithril_ just when it was so urgently needed (for contrived reasons), and not a year later? How lucky that in that whole Great Sea (Belegaear), Sauron and Galadriel _and_ Elendil managed to find each other! Now, Tolkien is clear that what seems to be chance often is not (Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and _not_ by its maker), but to play that card on every trick is lazy writing that challenges the audience's Secondary Belief, and (to extend the playing-card analogy) makes one suspicious that the person playing the card is cheating. Jackson gets away with diverging from the text partly because an audience must be forgiving of liberties taken with history ('true or feigned', as Tolkien put it) in cinema, and partly because the overall structure and (usually) emotional notes are faithful to the original. But Rings of Power seemingly cares _nothing_ for Tolkien's history and apparently believes that its 'modern audience' feels the same. Events happen drastically out of order (the forging of the Three Rings, significantly). Characters are nothing like their originals. Bombadil the 'moss-gatherer' as Gandalf calls him, calls himself a 'wanderer'. Orcs lovingly care for their families. Elves are just small-minded humans with pointy ears and long lives that bring no wisdom. The Stoors, the river folk, live in a desert (and Harfoots, despite the name, do not have notably hairy feet). Númenor is an isolationist state who resent Elves for unimportant reasons. Ents are downright hasty. Eagles endorse Númenorean royalty. THINGS are nothing like the original! The 'Barrow-downs' is a wooded area and not, well, downs. Mordor has an 'origin story'-because everyone wanted to see a Mordor origin story, right?-that is absurd. _Mithril_ (with an laughably impossible origin story of its own) has mystical healing properties for a leaf, though having whole veins of it in your mountains seemingly does nothing to heal the inexplicable hurt there, until a tiny bit of it is alloyed into a Ring (a single one will do, unlike the Three, where they all have to be worn for the magic to work, because we no longer need the silly magical technobabble that led to the forging of the Three). One of the _palantíri_ of Númenor (we can only hope that somehow there will be seven of 'em) sees the future and zaps Elendil for… reasons. The Ring Nenya has powers that basically just help the bearer do random magical stuff whenever it is required. It is a constant feature of Rings of Power that none of the 'substance' of the matters portrayed is present. Frodo's excursion to Osgiliath because Faramir needs a 'character arc' is annoying (and, worse, inconsequential to Jackson's story except to introduce the audience to Osgiliath), but is as nothing compared to this stuff.
The lines about being older than the acorns and raindrops and such were directly from in the house of tom bombadil in the fellowship of the ring, I understand your point about it being stupid towards an istari and gandalf who shouldnt even be in the 2nd age My biggest complaint was his lack of behaving like himself in the book, it would be just as bad as turning gandalf unwise... oh wait they did that too lol
In the encounter with the Wights, couldn't any High-Elf (who had been in the light of the Trees in Valinor) be able to see the spirit world even without the Rings?
All elves who have lived in Aman, can see into the unseen world, even without the ring. After 2nd age, there are not many Noldor left, that lived in Aman, perhaps only Galadrield and Glorfindel. None of the Teleri we meet (grey haired/wood elves like Legolas, Celeborn and Cirdan), have been in Aman. Elrond is a Noldor, who was born in middle-earth. The only reason he still projects into the unseen world in 3. age, is that he is wearing one of the elven rings. Arwen does not appear in the unseen world, but Peter Jackson let her appear to Frodo like that, because she is replacing Glorfindel, who does.
Yes! They're building their story in editing instead of writing and directing the story they want and then editing it to keep the story in the time etc they have
The 'casting game' of course tells us more about the perceptions of the game players than about the characters-I would have loved a younger Brian Blessed in the role. Boisterous and bigger than life.
One of the many baffling things about the plot of this show is surely the absence of either Gondor or any precursor kingdom. The region should surely be quite populous but as it stands we only know of a couple of villages (one of which was destroyed already) with very few inhabitants, many of whom have already been killed as well. The way that the show is mangling the timeline, it seems inevitable that they want to end on the last alliance of elves and men. But even giving them the benefit of the doubt about how many elves there are (they seem to want us to believe that there are many without really showing it), which men exactly are going to make up the other half of that partnership? Whatever few refugees manage to get over to the mainland when Numenor falls? The show commits many crimes against the works of Tolkien but I feel that one of the bigger ones is to make his world seem small and sparsely populated.
It is pretty clear that at times they want you to believe that places are far apart, especially when they break out the map to illustrate the point. But then the apparent travelling times and coincidental rendezvous fail to support that. Even places with wildly different landscapes and climates appear so close together that they might as well be biomes in a Minecraft world. My guess with the population though is that if they get to continue it long enough, they will just conjure up people as the plot requires, with no regard for whether or not they should have been present in earlier seasons.
Some much of this episode feels like they're just doing things to be the first to do it. First onscreen depiction of Tom, first barrow wights, first Entwife, first nameless thing. Think that was what they meant when they claimed this season was gonna be closer to the books?
I couldn't figure out where Elrond and Galadriel were supposed to be when they got to the broken bridge over the deep canyon. And why, if they were going to Eregion were they so far north, since they had to go far to the south just to get to the Barrow Downs (which should not have even had barrows yet, by the way). And on top of that, if they were so far north already, why did they act like going two weeks out of their way to the north was a viable option? This show just doesn't make sense in anything it does.
You're bothered by the chances of them landing together and finding another hobbit? Really? I'm blown away by the chances they would be hurled hundreds (thousands?) of feet in the air by a tornado and they SURVIVED UNHARMED.
What are the chances they'll be blown towards the same spot WHAT ARE THE ODDS THEY WOULD HAVE SURVIVED THE FALL so well they would just STAND UP and start WALKING? ... about the same as the odds surviving pyroclastic flow to the face, that otherwise set horses and homes on fire. I admit, I didn't pick up on the odds of landing in the same place. But seriously ODDS OF SURVIVING SUCH A FALL. Who is Tom Bombadil? ... um. I am really, really, really confused as to why everybody has theories of "he is Eru Ilúvatar" or "he is Tolkien embodied in Middle-earth" or "he's a Maiar" or I DON'T GET WHY. In the Letters, doesn't Tolkien refer to him LITERALLY, word for word, as "the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside"? If he were indeed some part of the countryside, some part of the land, it would mean HE WAS INDEED THERE BEFORE THE VALAR. He was there as soon as Ilúvatar invested the Flame Imperishable into the vision. He did indeed see the first raindrops after Morgoth invested heat and cold into mixing Ulmo's water into Manwë's air.
In an interview one of the showrunners compared this Bombadil appearance to Yoda, which I think probably tells you all you need to know about their ability to adapt Bombadil. This episode in general was just a chore to watch, bad fan-service everywhere, meaningless action, contrivance-led storytelling as always. On the plus side, I found episode 5 a lot better (everything being relative).
My watch buddies also compared it to Yoda, but they also (rightly) pointed out that Yoda was only wacky and strange before he reveals his identity to Luke. After that, he is portrayed as strange, but wise and serious. It appears they are trying to repeat this switch with Tom, even though it makes little sense. For Yoda, his early wackiness was an *act*, for Tom, it's a core part of his character.
@@AlaniTheScriptMage Yeah, to me it's a kind of trivialisation, see also the "nameless thing", which in the book is supposed to evoke a kind of unimaginable horror that lurks in the darkest depths of the world, that even Gandalf doesn't like to linger on, but this episode uses for... a large generic worm thing? A 30 section action beat? It's so grating.
Thank you so much for your interest! Tragically, kindle Vella (which is where I'm publishing the chapters) is only available in the US. The good news is that once all the chapters are published there, I will then publish the full completed book to kindle unlimited which (I just checked) is available in Mexico. I apologize for the wait, but be sure to keep a look out! I'll make sure to announce it on this channel once the full novel is available:)
I watched the first season, but I don't think I will touch the 2nd. What I might do, is go and buy a copy of The Lord of the Rings. I read it over 20 years ago, so it's probably about time.
Seeing the reviews of RoP made me find a non-Amazon bookstore, not watch the actual series, then bought The Hobbit, all three of LOTR, The Silmarillion, the Unfinished Tales and get into reading them.
That is great! I am always delighted to hear that people have been getting back into the books through this dubious series. Brightens my day. Enjoy them. Their language is like nothing else.
The bit that annoyed me about this epside right and its minor but it really just aggravated me. They mention multiple times the need for urgency..... and they decide to run everywhere despite elven horses being the best ...... and that happens twice, i wont even start on Tom bombadil
luv your vids and also dont like the show, buuuut i have to admit..... i dont know why, but i cried on arondir promissing to protect the trees and the ents talking about peace scene. I do belive i was already emotional before i started watching that day, buuuuut it was the first time this show made me actually feel something. I am scared of watching the scene again only to realize that it sucks. Tom Bombadil was trash
The tree scene was easily my favorite so far. It was trying to evoke a certain emotion and I think it succeeded. The rest of the show is in desperate need of more scenes with that tone.
This show is a completely soulless, corporate cash grab whos only purpose is to strip-mine a beloved IP to as many riches as humanely possible at the expense of everything it stood for.
Everything you've explain is SPOT ON! Terrible/non-existent story. No context, lack of meaning, strange transitions. As a casual LOTR movie trilogy fan and occasional dabbler in Tolkien lore, I have almost NO CLUE whats happening in this show. I tried to understand, but it's so boring, I can't anymore. I've resorted to watching these videos to keep me up to date with the show in hopes to understand a little more about the fantasy world Tolkien created. There's just no way I'm watching hours and hours of the show.
Eh, I agree with how the TV show adapted Tom Bombadil. Even in the books his introduction is weird and his character is out of place; there isn't even a community consensus about what he even is (Tolkien was vague in his letters about Tom), which gives them room to work. Translating him directly from books to a TV show wouldn't make any sense. I like how they kept his mystery, and they took about 50% off the top of his book weirdness, which is nice.
While the pacing is better, the show is totally lacking any sense of time, scale and distances...which is important when you have created this "tension" around time with Celebrimbor getting the message that Halbrand is Sauron/Sauron needing to finish the rings before Galadriel reaches them. Of course this tension is fake from the beginning since we all know that he manages to finish the rings anwyay, so I guess it doesn't matter.
Yeah, the writers really struggle with focus and scope. They don't seem to know what forces are actually driving their plot and therefore, fail to structure the story in a way to support its central conflict.
When the writers have to make call backs to Peter Jacksons film, you know they have no talent themselves. They had room to be creative but they chose to make this? This is soap opera slop.
I'm certain that it's impossible to depict Tom Bombadil in a live performance because his playfulness, deep knowledge, power but most of all the sort of indifference he has without being negative is impossible get right as an actor, - especially when very little is known about him which enhances the mysticism of his power and agenda. In the series he is really bland and feels like a random farmer both in appearance and character. Low energy, sarcastic and dull just like like every other character in Rings of Power
The issue that I have with Tom being this hermit living in the desert is that when he appears in fellowship, he declares himself the master, which I interpreted as the master of that land, that realm. He either couldn’t, or showed no interest in leaving the woods or land that he lived in with Goldberry. He was basically god in that part of middle earth. I don’t think it makes any sense to have him appear where he has in this series, but so much of it doesn’t make sense because it is very poorly written. Episode 5 was the worst yet. It’s all really odd. The content deconstructing this nonsense is so much more interesting and entertaining than the series itself!
None of this should be happening....in the order that it is happening and in the way it is happening. My own belief has always been that Tom is Tolkien's Chaucerian self insert. His description of his origins is a riddle...👍
I liked the scene with Arondir and the ents. Entwives being more of a farm gals nonwithstanding. That actually *FELT* like Tolkien's world and as if it could fit there. The rest is about as bad as one would expect. Guyladriel girlbossing the orcs had my eyes rolling so far back I could see my brain rotting away watching this. One somewhat fitting scene does not make a show.
why people take object to flaws in some shows over others is simple, this show TWISTS the underlying characters of Tolkien into unrecognizable forms. Take bombadil for example, they made him deceitful and arrogant, which is quite the opposite of what he is in books.
The hobbit story is so ridiculous. They suddenly find a multicultural paradise with asian, african and arab hobbits in the desert. Like seriously? It's like this show doesn't even take themselves seriously. Atleast for me a lot of the fascination with lotr since I was a kid was the diversity of different races. Men, elves, dwarfes, hobbits, orcs, trolls and so on. But they removed that by just mixing all races to represent modern "america".. Ruined it for me. Could you provide your take on the casting in another vdeo of yours? Would be interesting to watch
Your 3 minutes saying not-Gandalf should find Good Saruman is better writing than this entire series. Now THAT would be interesting. So of course they don’t do it.
3:06 I am sorry, very very sorry to offend the modern sensibilities, and I know SF or wherever US/western European studio this was filmed is very much so post-racial, but... Tolkien's world is NOT post-racial. This haphazard conglomeration of ethnicities just does not make sense in a Medieval setting let alone a fantasy setting very much so centered on relationships between races (both fantastic and human). This one decision instantly disqualifies the show in terms of trying to be "Tolkienian". In general, diversity of that kind is just a reduction of diverse elements to the level of the individual. It makes every show equal to one another, and every group within a show equal to one another. The only diversity you see is between individuals, not between groups/peoples. That flies in the face of Tolkien's anthropological/historical method and subject matter.
I think it's all simplier. They check boxes. Isildur - checked, Tom - checked, famous words - checked, diversity - checked. Trents, wizards, wraiths, hobbits - checked. Just throwing in as much as possible.
The lack of basic quality of these tv series is insulting to the worldwide audience. Just that fact that the audience is expected to, what, enjoy this? Like this? Root for these characters? It is insulting that total sh1tshow is expensively packaged and here, you should be a fan of this, right. No. This does not do. This empty and meaningless tv-series shaped product selling needs to stop. This is no tv show, this is gastroenteral issues on screen.
You know one thing that came about this terrible and laughable adaptation is that I get to enjoy the break downs and reviews of this sort of jumbled mess. Anyway my question is can the blue wizard die and turn to the grey wizard like he eventually did when he became Gandalf the White?
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
Read the first ten chapters of Bonesong for free! www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B0DC3J555G
It's like we are watching the most expensive student film ever being made.
It's like we are watching a student film by students who are gonna have to repeat the subject next year.
This is exactly what it feels like. I keep looking at the writing (as a writer) and recognizing all the “baby’s first novel” kind of mistakes. Which are fine, everyone starts somewhere, but they should not be in the most expensive tv show ever made
Where else do we find fools like amazon who employ brand new writers who are also the showrunners and give them a billion dollars and 5 seasons for their first big project?
Especially since they worked for JJ Abrams before doing this. Whoever works with him should be an immediate red flag.
I think my eyes rolled into the back of my head when Galdriel hollered "Go back to shadow!" . . . Pure, contrived drivel.
If these writers really want the audience to take there material seriously and not get compared to the movies, they need to STOP repurposing memorable lines from the trilogy. Every time they do that its a reminder that I could be watching that instead of this. They might as well have the characters break the forth wall and say "Okay, you've watched enough of this crap for us to count you as a viewer and fudge our numbers. Feel free to go watch Fellowship since its way better and we know it."
Population of Middle Earth in The Rings of Power: about 20 named characters and 50 extras who stand around in the background until the scene ends. Empty, unpopulated, pretty CGI.
10 extras plus one CGI-keyboard-jockey doing lots of copy-pastes.
Tolkien is spinning in his grave so fast you could hook up an electro-magnetic generator to him and power the whole eastern seaboard.
Yawn
@@josephnott2956overdone yes. But no less true 😂
They wrote themselves into a corner by afflicting Gandalf with serious head trauma from a meteor ride.
'We never heard back after sending those 2 people to warn our allies about our greatest enemy's plots, I know send 5 people'
'Should we give them horses to speed things up'
'No'
After the season opened with Galadriel and Elrond having a literal horse chase from Eregion to Lindon, as well.
@@alexp3462 And those were the first horses we saw that apparently originated somewhere other than Númenor. In the first season, all the travel between Lindon and Eregion (and between there and Khazad-dûm) was on foot, including one trip-supposedly urgent-that went at the walking speed of a group of unfortunate Elf extras who had to carry a stone tabletop because they _also_ could not use a wheeled cart! This season is _slightly_ better at its portrayal of time and distance, but not much.
They did recognize the dead messengers based on the barding (which is a term for armor worn by horses) so the first messengers must have had horses to ride.
"You're a wizard Gandlaf."
What’s a “wizard?”
Channels like this are the jewels that I have always enjoyed RUclips for however rare or hard for me to find.
Aww thank you!
This show is so frustrating because gave the Second Age an amazing skeleton to work with and Amazon changed so many things. I hate that the Harfoots and Gandalf are there. I hate that Elendil has such low screentime. I hate how Isildur is portrayed and casted in this and I don’t even go into the lore that’s bring changed like mithril etc.
Most importantly, where are Celeborn, Celebrian (Elrond’s wife) and Anarion? We’re wasting so much time with characters like Theo but we don’t get the important ones. It’s frustrating
Omg, UNDERTONE OF ARROGANCE.
True words have never been said.
Exasperated "whatever" count: 9 Great analysis!
Love your coverage of this show, Alani. Intelligent and thorough.
It is an AI script. You can see the movies and shows they gave it to “scrape”.
"whatever, it's a scene"
episode 5 has one of the most jarring cuts i've seen in my life. they flash to elrond and co running for like 2.5 seconds and i had to check to make sure my video player hadnt broken
The Peter Jackson movies at least tried to honor Tolkien's vision and spirit whereas this travesty obviously hates Tolkien and everything he stood for. Also the Jackson movies are considered some of the best works of cinema ever created so they get a pass on some of the limited creative licenses they took whereas this show is just utter garbagio.
you articulate all the things I wish I could put into words about this show! Thank you
lol the feeling of underwhelming and consistent exasperation is simultaneously hilarious and depressing. I'm here for it!
That Evenstar pendant is very pretty.
Thank you!
6:40 Haha! I reached the same conclusion while watching your previous video and left a comment there.
It is curious that in a show that is so obsessed with referencing PJ's Lord of the Rings movies, they took Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-wights which were not adapted by PJ. I also wonder if they thought that they were being clever putting them both into the same episode as in the books, Tom Bombadil helps the hobbits out at the Barrow-downs. All it did was to remind me how much better the books were, and how out of place both of these events were.
Also, what the heck was going on with the bottomless chasm? There is no such thing in the northern Eregion. I suspect it was their hamfisted way to reference the broken bridge of Tharbad, and to force them to detour to Tyrn Gorthad. Which, if they bothered, they could have added like less than a day and avoid completely. They are not that big.
The thing is I can't even hate watch this show. It mentally hurts me to even think about watching it. It's as if my brain is trying to reject it. You are a very brave person for having the courage to watch the show.
My mom's the same. She couldn't even get past the first 5 minutes.
Isn't it weird Galadriel had to " sacrifice herself " when the the whole group could have just left? I mean its a forest at night and they are elves...whom also saw the Orcs first long before they " caught their scent "
I wonder if they will ever mention that all the royalty and many nobles of Numenor (including Elendil and Isildur) are descended from Elrond's brother? Did they forget or saving it for another of their unearned "big moments"
It's been kind of driving me crazy that they haven't. It's even odd that they introduced that culture through galadriel when Elrond is the one who presumably has an emotional connection to them.
Your points about scene transitions and flow, I'm pretty sure they are doing scrapbooking , they make multiple versions of scene and only in edit does the episode get coalesced into a whole. At the outset I doubt they even have a concrete script they are adapting , the script as well is heavily dynamic in the process. What ends up being almost random snippets of course lack natural continuity , at the time of making they simply did not know what was coming next. In short the production process is flying by the seat of its pants,. This process is also why the show costs so much and yet fails to show value for money.
That is my guess as well. It also helps explain this show's fundamental lack of cohesive vision.
To give the show runners credit this was the best representations of Ents, to my taste, anywhere. I loved the visuals, the short scene with them WAS finally a tiny bit tonally Tolkienish, and no Jacksonian comic relief elements. I even got a little verklempt seeing an Entwife for the first time. This probably got propped up by the cgi which IS usually excellent, but it kind of makes you weep at how good this series could have been if it was this good most of the time. A little glimpse, then right back to the cringe. My eyes were just rolling painfully in their sockets with all the direct Tolkien quote drops in this episode. One is fine, but this many is mockery, as if the show runners were saying, “You want Tolkien, we’ll give you Tolkien! Choke on it!” In that last scene with the orcs it had exactly the same tone as it does when I tell a spider that explored its way into my house “go back to the shadow!”
I absolutely agree. I legitimately felt awe during the ent scene. And I wished there was more of that in the show.
@@AlaniTheScriptMage This Entwife made me wonder if the REAL reason they separated was that their husbands could never make a decision - she was pretty “hasty” for an Ent. 🤣
I like the theory that Bombadil is a doll that Tolkiens kids had. Thats the only way he can be eldest (he would be older than Illuvatar since the doll existed before anything was written down)
That series would be so much more entertaining to watch with the chipmunk voices! XD
Bombadil is going to lead the Hobbits back to "a great place knows", and will also decide to stay there himself in a forrest nearby , because there are some nice old trees there. Also he meets a sweet girl who lives in the forrest there ?
I believe Tolkien himself was very clear that Tom Bombadil was not Eru Illuvatar.
I think the most reasonable theory is that Tom Bombadil is Imin, the very first elf, the only elf who was awakened directly by Eru Illuvatar. He may have wandered long before the found and awakened the other elves at Cuivienen. Imin was the only elf among the Minyar who refused the call to Valinor to become the Vanyar.
i like the theory that tom is a doll that belonged to tolkiens children. thats why he existed before (outside) the books.
Thanks for showing that transition to Eriador. The map shows that the bridge is over the Baranduin, flowing south from Nenuial in the north. So where did this huge chasm come from, and how did it get filled in between now and the time the Hobbits settled the area? Anyone want to make book that when the proto-Hobbits find the Shire (Sûza), as they will, because we remember the Shire, it will be nowhere to be seen?
"What are the chances?" This is one of the constant problems. What's the odds that the Dwarves found _mithril_ just when it was so urgently needed (for contrived reasons), and not a year later? How lucky that in that whole Great Sea (Belegaear), Sauron and Galadriel _and_ Elendil managed to find each other! Now, Tolkien is clear that what seems to be chance often is not (Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and _not_ by its maker), but to play that card on every trick is lazy writing that challenges the audience's Secondary Belief, and (to extend the playing-card analogy) makes one suspicious that the person playing the card is cheating.
Jackson gets away with diverging from the text partly because an audience must be forgiving of liberties taken with history ('true or feigned', as Tolkien put it) in cinema, and partly because the overall structure and (usually) emotional notes are faithful to the original. But Rings of Power seemingly cares _nothing_ for Tolkien's history and apparently believes that its 'modern audience' feels the same. Events happen drastically out of order (the forging of the Three Rings, significantly). Characters are nothing like their originals. Bombadil the 'moss-gatherer' as Gandalf calls him, calls himself a 'wanderer'. Orcs lovingly care for their families. Elves are just small-minded humans with pointy ears and long lives that bring no wisdom. The Stoors, the river folk, live in a desert (and Harfoots, despite the name, do not have notably hairy feet). Númenor is an isolationist state who resent Elves for unimportant reasons. Ents are downright hasty. Eagles endorse Númenorean royalty. THINGS are nothing like the original! The 'Barrow-downs' is a wooded area and not, well, downs. Mordor has an 'origin story'-because everyone wanted to see a Mordor origin story, right?-that is absurd. _Mithril_ (with an laughably impossible origin story of its own) has mystical healing properties for a leaf, though having whole veins of it in your mountains seemingly does nothing to heal the inexplicable hurt there, until a tiny bit of it is alloyed into a Ring (a single one will do, unlike the Three, where they all have to be worn for the magic to work, because we no longer need the silly magical technobabble that led to the forging of the Three). One of the _palantíri_ of Númenor (we can only hope that somehow there will be seven of 'em) sees the future and zaps Elendil for… reasons. The Ring Nenya has powers that basically just help the bearer do random magical stuff whenever it is required. It is a constant feature of Rings of Power that none of the 'substance' of the matters portrayed is present. Frodo's excursion to Osgiliath because Faramir needs a 'character arc' is annoying (and, worse, inconsequential to Jackson's story except to introduce the audience to Osgiliath), but is as nothing compared to this stuff.
Love your work, please talk about J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle earth Books, one by one
The lines about being older than the acorns and raindrops and such were directly from in the house of tom bombadil in the fellowship of the ring, I understand your point about it being stupid towards an istari and gandalf who shouldnt even be in the 2nd age
My biggest complaint was his lack of behaving like himself in the book, it would be just as bad as turning gandalf unwise... oh wait they did that too lol
There shouldn't be any barrow wights yet because there is no witch king of Angamar yet.
In the encounter with the Wights, couldn't any High-Elf (who had been in the light of the Trees in Valinor) be able to see the spirit world even without the Rings?
All elves who have lived in Aman, can see into the unseen world, even without the ring. After 2nd age, there are not many Noldor left, that lived in Aman, perhaps only Galadrield and Glorfindel. None of the Teleri we meet (grey haired/wood elves like Legolas, Celeborn and Cirdan), have been in Aman. Elrond is a Noldor, who was born in middle-earth. The only reason he still projects into the unseen world in 3. age, is that he is wearing one of the elven rings. Arwen does not appear in the unseen world, but Peter Jackson let her appear to Frodo like that, because she is replacing Glorfindel, who does.
That is of course very true. With this show's confusion over "Elvish light" though, I had no delusions of the show depicting that distinction.
Yes! They're building their story in editing instead of writing and directing the story they want and then editing it to keep the story in the time etc they have
I feel like only Robin Williams could have played Tom Bombadil, RIP.
Tom Baker would have been my choice (he even has the right first name and last initial!), but he's too old now.
The 'casting game' of course tells us more about the perceptions of the game players than about the characters-I would have loved a younger Brian Blessed in the role. Boisterous and bigger than life.
One of the many baffling things about the plot of this show is surely the absence of either Gondor or any precursor kingdom. The region should surely be quite populous but as it stands we only know of a couple of villages (one of which was destroyed already) with very few inhabitants, many of whom have already been killed as well.
The way that the show is mangling the timeline, it seems inevitable that they want to end on the last alliance of elves and men. But even giving them the benefit of the doubt about how many elves there are (they seem to want us to believe that there are many without really showing it), which men exactly are going to make up the other half of that partnership? Whatever few refugees manage to get over to the mainland when Numenor falls?
The show commits many crimes against the works of Tolkien but I feel that one of the bigger ones is to make his world seem small and sparsely populated.
That is an excellent point. The world really does feel small and empty, which is tragic waste of the setting
It is pretty clear that at times they want you to believe that places are far apart, especially when they break out the map to illustrate the point. But then the apparent travelling times and coincidental rendezvous fail to support that. Even places with wildly different landscapes and climates appear so close together that they might as well be biomes in a Minecraft world.
My guess with the population though is that if they get to continue it long enough, they will just conjure up people as the plot requires, with no regard for whether or not they should have been present in earlier seasons.
Some much of this episode feels like they're just doing things to be the first to do it. First onscreen depiction of Tom, first barrow wights, first Entwife, first nameless thing. Think that was what they meant when they claimed this season was gonna be closer to the books?
Ahh. I had not thought of that! You're probably right.
I couldn't figure out where Elrond and Galadriel were supposed to be when they got to the broken bridge over the deep canyon. And why, if they were going to Eregion were they so far north, since they had to go far to the south just to get to the Barrow Downs (which should not have even had barrows yet, by the way).
And on top of that, if they were so far north already, why did they act like going two weeks out of their way to the north was a viable option? This show just doesn't make sense in anything it does.
His accent kills me. Its such a parody performance
You're bothered by the chances of them landing together and finding another hobbit? Really? I'm blown away by the chances they would be hurled hundreds (thousands?) of feet in the air by a tornado and they SURVIVED UNHARMED.
Rings of Power has some good stuff in it, but overall never rises to the level of being the sum of its own parts.
Apart from Tom Bombadil I sort of liked this episode (more then others anyway). It felt a bit like Witcher to me
Please get together with Girl Next Gondor, The Red Book, and The Clueless Fan Girl to give ROP the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment.
What are the chances they'll be blown towards the same spot WHAT ARE THE ODDS THEY WOULD HAVE SURVIVED THE FALL so well they would just STAND UP and start WALKING?
... about the same as the odds surviving pyroclastic flow to the face, that otherwise set horses and homes on fire.
I admit, I didn't pick up on the odds of landing in the same place. But seriously ODDS OF SURVIVING SUCH A FALL.
Who is Tom Bombadil?
... um. I am really, really, really confused as to why everybody has theories of "he is Eru Ilúvatar" or "he is Tolkien embodied in Middle-earth" or "he's a Maiar" or I DON'T GET WHY.
In the Letters, doesn't Tolkien refer to him LITERALLY, word for word, as "the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside"? If he were indeed some part of the countryside, some part of the land, it would mean HE WAS INDEED THERE BEFORE THE VALAR. He was there as soon as Ilúvatar invested the Flame Imperishable into the vision. He did indeed see the first raindrops after Morgoth invested heat and cold into mixing Ulmo's water into Manwë's air.
It would make a lot more sense if what they call Stoors were called Harfoots and what they call Harfoots were called Fallowhides.
You are absolutely right. Tom Bombadil simply does not fit here. It is amazingly arrogant to include him.
Arrogant and Disrespectful. You don’t have to nice to anyone involved. They haven’t earned it.
Talking to Amazon about Tolkien's lore is like talking about differential equations to a door knob.
Useless and hopeless.
In an interview one of the showrunners compared this Bombadil appearance to Yoda, which I think probably tells you all you need to know about their ability to adapt Bombadil. This episode in general was just a chore to watch, bad fan-service everywhere, meaningless action, contrivance-led storytelling as always. On the plus side, I found episode 5 a lot better (everything being relative).
My watch buddies also compared it to Yoda, but they also (rightly) pointed out that Yoda was only wacky and strange before he reveals his identity to Luke. After that, he is portrayed as strange, but wise and serious.
It appears they are trying to repeat this switch with Tom, even though it makes little sense. For Yoda, his early wackiness was an *act*, for Tom, it's a core part of his character.
@@AlaniTheScriptMage Yeah, to me it's a kind of trivialisation, see also the "nameless thing", which in the book is supposed to evoke a kind of unimaginable horror that lurks in the darkest depths of the world, that even Gandalf doesn't like to linger on, but this episode uses for... a large generic worm thing? A 30 section action beat? It's so grating.
Alani, I'd love to read your book, but it does not appear in Mexico's Amazon page. Is there any other way I can buy it? Thanks!
Thank you so much for your interest!
Tragically, kindle Vella (which is where I'm publishing the chapters) is only available in the US. The good news is that once all the chapters are published there, I will then publish the full completed book to kindle unlimited which (I just checked) is available in Mexico.
I apologize for the wait, but be sure to keep a look out! I'll make sure to announce it on this channel once the full novel is available:)
So sweet of you to give it a watch. 😊 After season one, I was out.
Yawn so why you here in comments you waited a long time just to come on to comments and tell us you don't watch it lol you need a life
I watched the first season, but I don't think I will touch the 2nd. What I might do, is go and buy a copy of The Lord of the Rings. I read it over 20 years ago, so it's probably about time.
Seeing the reviews of RoP made me find a non-Amazon bookstore, not watch the actual series, then bought The Hobbit, all three of LOTR, The Silmarillion, the Unfinished Tales and get into reading them.
That is great! I am always delighted to hear that people have been getting back into the books through this dubious series. Brightens my day.
Enjoy them. Their language is like nothing else.
The bit that annoyed me about this epside right and its minor but it really just aggravated me. They mention multiple times the need for urgency..... and they decide to run everywhere despite elven horses being the best ...... and that happens twice, i wont even start on Tom bombadil
Also funny how there was no attempt to warn Eregion, but I guess this is not that kind of show.
luv your vids and also dont like the show, buuuut i have to admit..... i dont know why, but i cried on arondir promissing to protect the trees and the ents talking about peace scene. I do belive i was already emotional before i started watching that day, buuuuut it was the first time this show made me actually feel something. I am scared of watching the scene again only to realize that it sucks. Tom Bombadil was trash
The tree scene was easily my favorite so far. It was trying to evoke a certain emotion and I think it succeeded. The rest of the show is in desperate need of more scenes with that tone.
This show is a completely soulless, corporate cash grab whos only purpose is to strip-mine a beloved IP to as many riches as humanely possible at the expense of everything it stood for.
Everything you've explain is SPOT ON! Terrible/non-existent story. No context, lack of meaning, strange transitions. As a casual LOTR movie trilogy fan and occasional dabbler in Tolkien lore, I have almost NO CLUE whats happening in this show. I tried to understand, but it's so boring, I can't anymore. I've resorted to watching these videos to keep me up to date with the show in hopes to understand a little more about the fantasy world Tolkien created. There's just no way I'm watching hours and hours of the show.
This is indeed a general problem with the show: it is depending on the audience to 'piece out our imperfections with your thoughts'.
Eh, I agree with how the TV show adapted Tom Bombadil. Even in the books his introduction is weird and his character is out of place; there isn't even a community consensus about what he even is (Tolkien was vague in his letters about Tom), which gives them room to work. Translating him directly from books to a TV show wouldn't make any sense. I like how they kept his mystery, and they took about 50% off the top of his book weirdness, which is nice.
I think her point is that it is so impossible to come up with a good adaptation of the Tom Bombadil character that it would be better to not even try.
While the pacing is better, the show is totally lacking any sense of time, scale and distances...which is important when you have created this "tension" around time with Celebrimbor getting the message that Halbrand is Sauron/Sauron needing to finish the rings before Galadriel reaches them. Of course this tension is fake from the beginning since we all know that he manages to finish the rings anwyay, so I guess it doesn't matter.
Yeah, the writers really struggle with focus and scope. They don't seem to know what forces are actually driving their plot and therefore, fail to structure the story in a way to support its central conflict.
When the writers have to make call backs to Peter Jacksons film, you know they have no talent themselves. They had room to be creative but they chose to make this? This is soap opera slop.
I'm certain that it's impossible to depict Tom Bombadil in a live performance because his playfulness, deep knowledge, power but most of all the sort of indifference he has without being negative is impossible get right as an actor, - especially when very little is known about him which enhances the mysticism of his power and agenda.
In the series he is really bland and feels like a random farmer both in appearance and character. Low energy, sarcastic and dull just like like every other character in Rings of Power
The issue that I have with Tom being this hermit living in the desert is that when he appears in fellowship, he declares himself the master, which I interpreted as the master of that land, that realm. He either couldn’t, or showed no interest in leaving the woods or land that he lived in with Goldberry.
He was basically god in that part of middle earth.
I don’t think it makes any sense to have him appear where he has in this series, but so much of it doesn’t make sense because it is very poorly written.
Episode 5 was the worst yet. It’s all really odd. The content deconstructing this nonsense is so much more interesting and entertaining than the series itself!
None of this should be happening....in the order that it is happening and in the way it is happening.
My own belief has always been that Tom is Tolkien's Chaucerian self insert. His description of his origins is a riddle...👍
I liked the scene with Arondir and the ents. Entwives being more of a farm gals nonwithstanding. That actually *FELT* like Tolkien's world and as if it could fit there. The rest is about as bad as one would expect. Guyladriel girlbossing the orcs had my eyes rolling so far back I could see my brain rotting away watching this.
One somewhat fitting scene does not make a show.
I did as well. This show could use more of that sense of wonder and majesty.
This show has got a lot more than "some" problems
why people take object to flaws in some shows over others is simple, this show TWISTS the underlying characters of Tolkien into unrecognizable forms.
Take bombadil for example, they made him deceitful and arrogant, which is quite the opposite of what he is in books.
The hobbit story is so ridiculous. They suddenly find a multicultural paradise with asian, african and arab hobbits in the desert. Like seriously? It's like this show doesn't even take themselves seriously. Atleast for me a lot of the fascination with lotr since I was a kid was the diversity of different races. Men, elves, dwarfes, hobbits, orcs, trolls and so on. But they removed that by just mixing all races to represent modern "america".. Ruined it for me. Could you provide your take on the casting in another vdeo of yours? Would be interesting to watch
Your 3 minutes saying not-Gandalf should find Good Saruman is better writing than this entire series. Now THAT would be interesting. So of course they don’t do it.
3:06 I am sorry, very very sorry to offend the modern sensibilities, and I know SF or wherever US/western European studio this was filmed is very much so post-racial, but... Tolkien's world is NOT post-racial. This haphazard conglomeration of ethnicities just does not make sense in a Medieval setting let alone a fantasy setting very much so centered on relationships between races (both fantastic and human). This one decision instantly disqualifies the show in terms of trying to be "Tolkienian".
In general, diversity of that kind is just a reduction of diverse elements to the level of the individual. It makes every show equal to one another, and every group within a show equal to one another. The only diversity you see is between individuals, not between groups/peoples. That flies in the face of Tolkien's anthropological/historical method and subject matter.
I think it's all simplier. They check boxes. Isildur - checked, Tom - checked, famous words - checked, diversity - checked. Trents, wizards, wraiths, hobbits - checked. Just throwing in as much as possible.
The lack of basic quality of these tv series is insulting to the worldwide audience. Just that fact that the audience is expected to, what, enjoy this? Like this? Root for these characters? It is insulting that total sh1tshow is expensively packaged and here, you should be a fan of this, right. No. This does not do. This empty and meaningless tv-series shaped product selling needs to stop. This is no tv show, this is gastroenteral issues on screen.
You know one thing that came about this terrible and laughable adaptation is that I get to enjoy the break downs and reviews of this sort of jumbled mess. Anyway my question is can the blue wizard die and turn to the grey wizard like he eventually did when he became Gandalf the White?
Jackson's were at least well written, acted, and directed.
Jackson's were at least well written, acted, and directed.