Personally, my issue with the elves having short hair was less that it was unrealistic or not lore accurate and more that there was less to visually distinguish them from men.
Elves and men having similar hair wouldn't matter so much if the elves looked younger and more beautiful than mortals, but a lot of the elves looked plainer and more grizzled than many of the humans.
I have to disagree with you on hair. Whenever I see Elrond or Celebrimbor, I can almost hear the hair spray ad in the background. Realistically speaking, yes, it would make sense for some elves to just have short hair, but I think from a movie standpoint it's more important to present a unified look. Like, when you look at a character, you need to be able to tell where they are from. And the modern, heavily styled hair in a period/fantasy film just throws me right out of the experience.
The hairstyle guide to Middle-earth :). "Elwë himself had indeed long and beautiful hair of silver hue" - Description of Thingol, History of Middle Earth "...and the hair of the Lord Celeborn was of silver long and bright" - Description of Celeborn, Fellowship of the Ring "[the Wood Elves] gleaming hair was twined with flowers" - Description of the Wood elves, The Hobbit "She put forth her arts of enchantment, and caused her hair to grow to great length..." - Description of Luthien, from the Silmarillion "...his long dark hair in great plaits braided with gold" - Description of Fingon, The People of Middle Earth Tolkien's drawings. While Tolkien seldom attempted to illustrate his characters, we do have a drawing of Beleg that indicates he has long hair. The Shibboleth of Feanor may also provide some additional support in favor of long haired Elves, though it's debatable whether it's relevant to all the Quendi: "All the Eldar had beautiful hair (and were especially attracted by hair of exceptional loveliness), but the Noldor were not specially remarkable in this respect, and there is no reference to Finwe as having had hair of exceptional length, abundance, or beauty beyond the measure of his people. Contextual clues via objects. The bow gifted to Legolas in Lothlorien is described as being 'strung with a string of elf-hair', which implis it must have been LONG hair, unless we're talking about pathethically small tiny bow, but the bow of Galadhrim is said to be "longer and stouter than the bows of Mirkwood". "The rider’s cloak streamed behind him, and his hood was thrown back; his golden hair flowed shimmering in the wind of his speed. To Frodo it appeared that a white light was shining through the form and raiment of the rider, as if through a thin veil." (Glorfindel - FOTR) ... "the Elven-stars as jewels white amid their branching hair." ... Aegnor's "strong and stiff, rising upon his head like flames", Nimrodel: "Her hair was long, her limbs were white, And fair she was and free;" Olwe: "The hair of Olwe was long and white," The more recently published writings in The Nature of Middle-earth contain this note: "Ingwë had curling golden hair. Finwë (and Míriel) had long dark hair, so had Fëanor and all the Noldor, save by intermarriage which did not often take place between clans, except among the chieftains, and then only after settlement in Aman. Only Finwë's second son by Indis had fair hair, and this remained generally characteristic of his descendants, notably Finrod. Elwë and Olwë had very pale hair, almost white. Melian was dark, and so was Lúthien." The Nature of Middle-earth - "Hair" But more seriously...if they wanted to have some sort of stylization...the braiding, the sort of various different tricks, have different ways for Elves to keep their hair depending on situation :), binding them, tying up when they are doing something that the loose hair would be obstacle etc. something like that!
Yes, their coiffed locks were oddly perfectly in place for a world that in theory does not have hair spray or gel. (Or...does it? Maybe Tolkien had fifteen different words for hair spray like he did for everything else.) I can buy Elves' hair hanging preturnaturally perfectly long and straight - they are magical beings after all - but not styled like a boy band.
I just hated the elf hair so much. It was like an 80's televangelist and an 80's business woman fell asleep leaning on each other on a plane, their hair got up to some mischief, and then a few months later, one of them gave birth to the Rings of Power elf hair. What the hell did I just write? I'm going to bed.
"In all my millennia of elvenhood I have never seen such deviant and defiant haircut. Tell me Baracriel, how do you call... that? A mohawk, lord Elrond"
The saddest thing is this show could of been one of the best ever... Just missing a person that actually liked Tolkiens work to be involved with decisions.
Just with the elves hair thing, I personally loved how PJ portrayed them with long, graceful almost perfect hair. Gives them that larger than life, ethereal look. And then when its dishevelled, its also visual to let you know they're uncomfortable for whatever reason (hurt, in a battle, struggling etc) I think it helps with the fantasy and the whole point of escapism in the Tolkien world. If the designs are too realistic or relatable, you kinda loose that fantasy feel
exactly! For film especially it's not easy to portray etherealness...ROP took away one of only two things that make elves look ethereal. Now they are half as ethereal, and they didn't come up with something to replace it. In fact, they made them look more disheveled, and modern-day barbered, which takes away and doesn't add. The hair definitely matters.
@@JJ_6036100% 🙌🏽 when I first saw the elves in PJs movie! Even with a lot of beings in the lore being fantastical or strange, elves still stood out to the others because of how ethereal they were. The long luscious hair was part of that look. I’ve heard people say it’s an outdated trope - but it’s set in around medieval Europe! Just give them a skin fade and a zoomer perm then (can’t wait for this comment to age)
A hair style guide for Middle-earth :). "Elwë himself had indeed long and beautiful hair of silver hue" - Description of Thingol, History of Middle Earth "...and the hair of the Lord Celeborn was of silver long and bright" - Description of Celeborn, Fellowship of the Ring "[the Wood Elves] gleaming hair was twined with flowers" - Description of the Wood elves, The Hobbit "She put forth her arts of enchantment, and caused her hair to grow to great length..." - Description of Luthien, from the Silmarillion "...his long dark hair in great plaits braided with gold" - Description of Fingon, The People of Middle Earth Tolkien's drawings. While Tolkien seldom attempted to illustrate his characters, we do have a drawing of Beleg that indicates he has long hair. The Shibboleth of Feanor may also provide some additional support in favor of long haired Elves, though it's debatable whether it's relevant to all the Quendi: "All the Eldar had beautiful hair (and were especially attracted by hair of exceptional loveliness), but the Noldor were not specially remarkable in this respect, and there is no reference to Finwe as having had hair of exceptional length, abundance, or beauty beyond the measure of his people. Contextual clues via objects. The bow gifted to Legolas in Lothlorien is described as being 'strung with a string of elf-hair', which implis it must have been LONG hair, unless we're talking about pathethically small tiny bow, but the bow of Galadhrim is said to be "longer and stouter than the bows of Mirkwood". "The rider’s cloak streamed behind him, and his hood was thrown back; his golden hair flowed shimmering in the wind of his speed. To Frodo it appeared that a white light was shining through the form and raiment of the rider, as if through a thin veil." (Glorfindel - FOTR) ... "the Elven-stars as jewels white amid their branching hair." ... Aegnor's "strong and stiff, rising upon his head like flames", Nimrodel: "Her hair was long, her limbs were white, And fair she was and free;" Olwe: "The hair of Olwe was long and white," The more recently published writings in The Nature of Middle-earth contain this note: "Ingwë had curling golden hair. Finwë (and Míriel) had long dark hair, so had Fëanor and all the Noldor, save by intermarriage which did not often take place between clans, except among the chieftains, and then only after settlement in Aman. Only Finwë's second son by Indis had fair hair, and this remained generally characteristic of his descendants, notably Finrod. Elwë and Olwë had very pale hair, almost white. Melian was dark, and so was Lúthien." The Nature of Middle-earth - "Hair"
@@fantasywind3923 some people argue that the elves are so many and so long-lived, that they should all have different hairstyles and be very diverse, however based on the evidence, hair seems to be pretty engrained in lore for them and it seems a bit more like a permanent defining feature like hobbit's big feet, dwarves' beards, or Wizard's "Old Man" visage. Plus, imagine all the diverse hairstyles you can do with longer hair. You can include ornaments, flowers, braids, sunbeams, and like a millions styles. When cut short, it's much more limited, and often looks simply barber-shop fade, or shaggy from scooby do!
I enjoy that they tried to make Numenor more maritime themed, but I think they also missed a trick by not sticking with the themes of wings and birds as is the canonical case with the Numenorean-descended men, especially because I think people forget that Elros was Elwing and Earendil's child too, so themes of birds and stars would probably be likely. Hopefully maybe they're just saving those themes for the Faithful to differentiate them from the King's Men. That would be interesting to see.
Weird, considering Wings and Stars already align pretty well with Maritime themes (Seagulls being a sign of when you're approaching land and navigating by the stars)
Not just Maritime, but Antiquity era maritime... They attempt to make Numenor look like something out of the classical antiquity Mediterranean.. Which gives you a sense of this stuff happening a long time before Peter Jacksons medieval and 15th century armoured'ish Gondorian culture
@@EmilReiko Antiquity era maritime is fine, but part of me wishes that they had opted for a Steampunk Numenor. There are some hints in Tolkien's writings that Numenor had advanced to the point of having dirigibles and steampower. They definitely had some kind of flying ships, and later on, under Sauron's influence, they had ugly metal ships with engines that meant they did not depend on the wind to sail anymore.
Honestly, the idea of a woman heir to the throne being usurped by a golden liar has so very many parallels to our current time that it truly feels like was afraid of being too relevant. The backdrop of two warring political ideologies that they represent almost makes it feel like the akkalabeth was prophetic. @@magister343
@@minedantaken1684 bad things deserve to be discussed as such. False positively rewards the vultures who pick the corpses clean and expect to be praised for their shit
@@DeepCFisher”bad” is, however, subjective. Take things as their own individual merits and you get a much more balanced view on them instead of trying to just fit them into good and bad. Looking at the positives is just as valid as looking at the negatives, they’re parts of the same pie.
About the fact that some of the elf’s have short hair: - Arondir has a buzz cut, fine, but he also has FADES. They are EXTREMELY high maintenance. He would have had to maintain it at least once a week by someone else. That’s a very impractical haircut to have on a soldier and therefore doesn’t make any sense. - One of the characteristics of elf’s in Tolkiens world is long hair (though some characters hairdo are not mentioned) . It’s a great symbol for longevity and also, if we look into old history, long hair was a sign of strength. They could have taken another approach and made the elf’s wear their hair up, braided or anything that wouldn’t have changed their characteristic too much but still be creative and respectful to the story. ROP is not a NEW story, it’s based on a much loved world and I feel they did not take that into consideration and instead took their own opinions and views and rewrote an already beautiful world. On another note, I loved the beards on the dwarfs.
On that note I would also add is that Elves are both "perfect" beings and very much in sync with nature, short hair constantly requires you FIGHT nature. Letting their hair grow to its natural length and then change the style from that base makes far more sense. The only painting we have from Tolkien shows about shoulder length hair for a male so we also know what he means when he says "long hair". She is also is treating the elven mentality as if its the same as human (her wanting to change her hair all the time), which I view as a mistake.
I had a fade in the 80s, and it wasn't so hard to maintain short weekly. If you had scissors, it could be done. Even in the field, if they wanted, with a knife. These guys were military, but they were also pretty much at base except for routine patrols.
The problem with short hair on elves for me is that it's TEDIOUS. When I wore my hair short with a fade I had to do pretty regular touch ups, at least every few weeks. How am I expected to believe that the majority of IMMORTAL beings would subject themselves to a haircut every month or so. That would be like getting your hair trimmed every 2 days for a human. Sure, I could believe one or two people committing themselves to it, but almost every male elf has short hair. There is no way in hell that's realistically viable.
@@TootsyBootsyyeah she never really mentions that elves also have magic in their hair. Their hair is a major cultural aspect of elves in the universe. Amazon completely doesn’t care about that stuff. It’s why they had elven children fighting in valinor to open to story. They just don’t care.
You make the point of "human hubris" when talking about how rediculous it is to think that nobody washed more than once a month unitl the 1950's and I agree competely, however I use the phrase "modern arrogance" as I find it more accurately describes modern people's illusions of grandure that they are SO MUCH smarter than their dirty peasant ancestor despite most of said people having a breakdown after spending 5 minutes trying to tie a simple knot.
I do think that Galadriel should have had more than one dress in Numenor. Actually her character is very hauty and opinionated...I don't see her wearing the same dress for a week or two. They could have added a cape or shawl or something. Gil-galad and celabrimbor's costumes look absolutely awful. Gaudy and almost feminine? And what is up with PRINTED armor? That's almost unforgivable on a show that should have had the budget for actual chainmail
I definitely agree that Galadriel is quite opinionated, but she seems more practical and not so vain to insist on new clothing when she's a guest. She's certainly flawed, but I think she's too preoccupied with bigger issues like bullying her way onto a ship to Middle Earth. Although, It may have been nice to see the designers Flex a little more and come up with some new looks for her. And I agree, I didn't love their costumes. Gil-Galad especially looked very costume-y. I didn't hate the cut on Celebrimbor's, but I think a lot of the elegance of the elven look comes from the materials used and the way they drape, etc, which the RoP designers did not pull off imo. As for the printed armor, I agree it definitely looked cheap, and I hope they can invest a little more into the budget for little details later on. It's those little details that make movies like PJ'S Lotr trilogy work. As for the budget, I find it difficult to use that in this argument. When you break it down, this season alone is the length of multiple feature length films, and with the costs of everything rising, I doubt they truly had a lot of extra capital floating around. I think they should have toned down the ambition on some aspects in order to allot their budget to the things that people have an eye out for: such as little armor details. Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
Celebrimbor and the other Gwaith-i-Mírdain really shouldn't have been wearing robes at all, or at least not often. It is not practical attire for a smith at his forge. While leather armor tends not to make a lot of sense, the most logical option for a smith are leather work clothes.
If she did have to only wear the one dress, I feel like the various different episodes would have been an opportunity to see the costume evolve and improve as 'galadriel' starts to put more of her personality into it. Its quite normal to see girls that have to wear a uniform, (nurses, catholic school girls) learn over time ways to make tiny highlights or adjustments that make is to that they stick out
I have no problem with the printed costume because somehow it shows numenors have certain avant-garde technology. But I have problem with them purely aesthetically. The actors in those costumes are just not flattering at all. The fit is weird. And I don’t think those haughty high humans want to dress like in uniforms from some socialist dystopian. Feels that they dress the same and want to match with each other. What??😅
I think all having long, shining hair is a neat way of visualizing their long life and essence. Contrasting that with Men whose hair is of varying lengths, and differing levels of unkemptness. It’s a little way of signifying the difference between the two.
So what did you think after seeing the whole first season? As a PJ movie and original book fan, I really really wanted to like it. But a lot of the stuff you pointed out here are related to the main reasons why people hate the show. The Harfoot culture felt like a weird, creepy cult. The big sweeping images of Numenor went from being beautiful and grand, to talking heads on tiny sets from a low budget fantasy TV show. The character arcs were confusing for so many characters, especially Halbrand. The actor playing him didn't even know for the first few episodes that he would turn out to be 'you know who'. Galadriel jumping off a ship in the middle of the ocean? She has such a 'boss bitch' persona, which is nothing like her book and movie character. I just can't. With the 1 billion dollar budget, they should have done better. I will still watch season 2 hoping they tweak a few things in response to the fan reaction. It feels like they spent the whole first season setting things up to finally reveal the *rings of power* in the FINAL episode. They could have done so much more with season 1, but it was badly paced and felt like it was wasting a lot of time.
The fact that the elves lack sideburns is even worse than not having long hair for most of them, it makes it look wrong. And ironically, Adar made me think of an elf the most while technically being a proto-orc
On the subject of Elrond, do you think the feather-y motif on his epaulettes is a nod to the fact that his mom's a bird in the same way that the star pin represents his dad? Also, congratulations on hitting 1K!
It absolutely did! I actually had something about the feather details in my notes, but hadn't drawn that connection, so thanks for figuring that out for me, lol. And thanks so much!!
Everything about Rings of Power was horribly hysterically bad. But that’s actually kind of good because now I would never confuse it with Tolkien, which means it has nothing to do with Lord or the Rings and so it doesn’t bother me. Those people who say it ruined Tolkien are taking it way too seriously. I saw an armorer laughing about the cloth “armor” with like metal scales dyed into it. But it wasn’t just short hair, it was MODERN short hair. Real humans did not have hairstyles like that in the middle mages. They didn’t even try and used way too much gel lol
the overwhelming vibe I got from RoP was one of "I see what you were going for, and points for effort, but they fixed things that weren't broken, and when it came to things where they had complete freedom to be creative (numenor & the dwarves) they seemed to panic and default to like one or two tropes/icons & nothing else for fear we'd forget who was on screen"
So while I don't disagree on the hair thing, you're a human. Elves are ancient, nearly unchanging beings. The whole reason they're called to leave middle earth is that the ephemeral does not suit them. Change does not suit them. Solidity, certainty, constancy, these are the things which suit them.
They should have tried to dress Galadriel to look like she was 6'4", or if that was impossible when the actress is 5'3" then cast a different actress and maybe use her for Celebrian instead. A romance between Celebrian and Elrond would make more sense in this time period than everything they wrote.
Yes! I've ranted about this before to my friends! Tolkien never wrote much about Celebrían, but even with what little we know of her, she would have been a much better fit for the character they wrote in the show than "Galadriel". Celebrían got captured and tortured by orcs (although that happened after her and Elrond's three children were already born) and it would make more sense for her to become someone who hunts evil everywhere. Or maybe that's where her hunt lead her to, which broke her enough that she had to sail West. Like you said, litetally anything anyone else comes up with makes more sense than every aspect of the show we ended up getting.
Also with what they've decided to do with Elrond, Galadriel and Celeborn being presumed dead for some bizarre reason, it's going to make Elrond falling in love with Galadriel's daughter feel really uncomfortable. We are being told that Elrond and Galadriel are very close friends (them interacting on screen doesn't really give that impression) and Celebrían hasn't even been born yet because they wanted to "kill" Celeborn for dramatic effect that only falls flat. So Elrond is going to witness Galadriel and Celeborn reuniting, Galadriel giving birth to Celebrían, and watch her grow up to full physical maturity in a span of a 100+ years (who knows how that will work with how they already compressed the timeline by thousands of years) and then marry her. With the dynamic they've tried to establish on screen it's going to be WEIRD.
@@No_Relation_666 absolutely. Any old perspective trick or body double could have worked. With the practically unlimited budget they had it should have been alright. Instead we got whatever excrement we ended up getting
@@Edward-WThese are my thoughts exactly. They could still introduce Celebrían and have Galadriel just be like ‘oh BTW I have a daughter’ but the way they have it set up is still weird. I think Galadriel was absolutely miscast, but they should have kept the actress and made her Celebrían. Then we could have had Galadriel as a background character that we occasionally get the treat of interacting with (which also maintains her mysterious, other worldly quality) and be played by a proper Gwendolyn Christie type. (Can’t remember her name, but the actress who played the younger version of Gwendolyn’s character in Wednesday would have been perfect).
As a guy with past shoulder length hair, yeah its down sometimes, but not at work or exercising. I wonder, growing up with 70/80s martial arts films, the long hair in battle could be more from that as an aestetic.
To put it bluntly: the costumes were not great. I hated the scales printed on shirts the Numenoreans wore (couldn't they have edited out the obvious fabric faulds?). The Elves were fine, not great. The dwarves looked good. The plate armour throughout looked 3d-printed, more post-processing would have gone a long way (it is possible to make plastic armour appear like metal). The mail armour looked very badly fitted, it would also be impractical. Some costumes looked like a collection of old rags they had lying around, particularly the Harfoots. Ugh. My problem with the show: the majority of the costumes looked fine, just a little too similar to what we already have seen. For such a high-budget show, maybe they should have let the costume designer a little more free rein.
I totally get people feeling middle of the road with them. While I think there were some good moments, there were missing details and logical disconnects galore. I feel it's hard to judge if budget was a constraint or not though. These episodes are long and make up the run time of multiple feature length films. When you throw in the increasing cost of materials, shooting on location in NZ, and covid complications, I could see how even a big budget production like this could run out fast. Going forward, I hope that the designers are able to reevaluate, and wisely invest time and attention into the little details that count like properly finishing armor or making sure underlayers aren't visible. Thanks so much for the comment and for watching!
@@Jess_of_the_Shire Yes, that may be a possibility. But I just rewatched the lighting of the beacons from the real LOTR. It brought tears to my eyes. This series just holds not even a candle story-wise. You have to imagine far too much in your mind and bridge glaring gaps. Thus, not even the most fancy and well-made costumes (which, let's face it, these not really are) cannot patch up. Good storytelling is the basis for a good movie or series, and this is just not it.
@@Jess_of_the_Shire I could understand budget concerns except that this show it the most expensive show ever made. EACH episode's budget is higher than that of Braveheart; over $60 MILLION per 1-hour episode, Quadruple the budget for Game of Thrones episodes. Compare it to it's competitor, House of the Dragon (also under the same inflationary constraints) and it just doesn't hold water. Love your analysis though - first time viewer. Hope this come across as simple disagreement and adding some perspective, that's all.
@@DRiveraNat20 I appreciate this breakdown! And I agree to an extent. I think that they had enough budget to do what they needed to, and used it in the wrong areas. Maybe a few less dramatic, pretty CGI shots per episode would have left sufficient budgetary wiggle room for real armor. I'm hoping that in future seasons they'll get a better sense of what ought to be prioritized. I think that's definitely an advantage that the GoT franchise has--knowing what their audience wants to see. Really appreciate the thorough comment, thanks for sharing!
The only known female Dwarf name is Dis, not Disa. Disa would be a masculine name in Tolkien's languages. She really should have had a beard and if they were going to have her played by an actress who is clearly a different race than the actors playing the other dwarves of Durin's Folk then they should have established that she came from one of the other Seven Dwarven Clans, such as the Stonefoots, Firebeards, Ironfists, Stiffbeards, Broadbeams, or Blacklocks. Having less of a beard would also be more excusable if she were not from the Longbeard clan.
Honestly I think it’s strange how pale the dwarves in any film adaptation are considering most folklore that Tolkien drew from had dwarves with a darker skin tone. They just went for that “token black” nonsense to make themselves look inclusive when we all know the show is coming from Amazon which breaks labor laws left and right lol
I mean, in the 2nd Age Khazad-dûm was inhabited not only by the Longbeards, but also many, many refugees from Nogrod and Belegost. No need to tell that to actual fans, though. I have a lot of issues with this glorified fanfic, but that one minor char's origin is not one of them.
16:09 I know you're talking about the show, which completely screws up timelines. However, Galadriel should be much older than Elrond and probably older than Celebrimbor.
Your college education makes you special. No one else has taken the combination of classes that you've chosen. Medieval people with little to no education may have been as intelligent but without the experience of a higher level education. It helps. It makes a difference.
Personally, I really disliked the sports bra appearance of Bronwyn s costume. Other Southlanders are wearing heavy jackets ... isn't she cold? Lack of attention to details was so obvious in parts of the show. Thanks for the great discussion of fantasy hair styles! I loved the (limited) first view of Galadriel in her chain mail without flowing locks of hair
I didn’t like that she was so random girlbossy and the entire Southlands seemed to be a village of about 100 people. I still can’t figure out where that $715 million went!
Out of all the disappointment around the costumes, for me the worse was the Númenóreans. I feel like the show totally bungled the opportunity to showcase a culture and people that haven't been depicted before. The white leather fish scale armor and Grecian-inspired clothing just totally took me out of the fantasy setting. It felt so heavy-handed . The Númenóreans are supposed to be the most fearsome military force in Middle Earth at this point, but the fish scale armor just makes them look ridiculous.
And they had no culture. They were supposed to be this extremely tall race of warriors, and even NYT called them out for being too diverse lol, a tiny island nation as diverse as a New York subway and almost as many women in the army as men. House if the Dragon was diversity done right and with gravity, but RoP didn’t care everything was paper thin shallow.
What point is this supposed to be though? The Rings of Power were made more than a thousand years before any of the Numenoreans named on this show ere even born. There were already Ringwraiths fighting for Sauron before this generation was born. In some of Tolkien's notes, Numenor already had airships and would soon acquire ironclad steampowered vessels under Sauron's influence. Personally I would have preferred a Steampunk Numenor.
I can only agree with what others have said. While elves having long hair isn't theoretically required, it just helps so much bringing across their otherworldly, ageless, refined nature. Despite having Hugo "oldmanface" Weaving as a Elrond, his design manages to capture the ageless elves so much better than any of the designs in this show. And this also links into galadriel having her hair done up early in the show. I can't agree with you applauding it. Actually, it says more about how they absolutely didn't get elven designs. Yes, it's impractical to have your hair down in every day life, let alone combat. And I don't like it either when female character designs are focused on being hot, while only men get practical designs. But if there's one case in which the impression of one's style should be put over practically, then it's elves.
To each their own. I love your vibe and this channel, but thought ROP was a slap in the face to the professor's work and memory. Though watching this video would not turn me into a lunatic, I'm still clicking away. Look forward to the next upload.
The plain white garments that the elves wear in the undying lands are also reminiscent of traditional baptismal garments that symbolize purity, innocence, & dedication to good…going along with the heavenly imagery, I suppose.
Oooh, interesting point! That reminds me of the scene where Galadriel is returning to Valinor and the skies open up and there's that sort of golden rain. The skies opening is reminiscent of Jesus' baptism, and the rain, as well as the ocean are both some degree of baptismal symbolism...super interesting
My issue with the short hair wasn’t that the elves had short hair, but that it felt Pointlessly Gendered(tm). Celebrimbor having it, too, really seems to negate any idea that it’s generational or military, as does the lack of any of the women having short hair. (To be clear, I haven’t seen the whole show, I’d love to be wrong about this). Same problem with the beardless lady dwarves. It felt less like stylistic or worldbuilding choices and more like our world gender expectations. Also Arondir’s breastplate is reminiscent of the green man, I hadn’t thought of comparing it to ents, that’s a cool idea
At 9:52, when you say the armor looks like it's made out of plastic, you're right, it was. Another awful shortcut costume-wise was that instead of banded armor, they wore tee-shirts with the "armor" printed on.
The idea that an elf would have the same idea as to "What do I want to do with my hair today is flawed in understanding the elves. They were a people wo did not apricate change. The undying lands was a place where things didn't change. That was the nature of the elves, they liked consistency over every other thing. The idea that an elf would keep the same hair style over the course of there entire exitance would not only be normal, but the opposite would incredible strange. Elves, unlike humans do not enjoy change for change's sake. They in fact abhor it. And if that sounds wrong or boring to you that's because your human. They are not.
At that point in her life, Galdriel was long finished with fighting ir any need of Armor. Centuries before shed hung up that side of herself, permanently.
Bronwyn looked too rich because they wanted her to be attractive. Waldreg could be disgusting because he was supposed to be a creep, but I agree with you on the whole about the Southlanders. Yes, they were oppressed, but they looked unrealistic. Most of them should look better and Bronwyn should look poorer.
I was watching the Numenor scenes and thinking, for most tv shows, these costumes would be great. Stargate-SG1 and the like got away with pretty ridiculous things sometimes. We forgive them, tv budgets are what they are, they clearly did put some thought into the costumes. But this show had 50 million dollars per hour of screentime. That is too much money for, "we put some thought into it, but didn't sweat the details." Originally the budget was set to be much less. Supposedly in the neighborhood of 10 - 15 million dollars per episode. But they hired inexperienced people who didn't know what they were doing. And when they mismanaged their budget Amazon didn't say "figure it out," they threw more money at them. So that is supposed to be why the show looks so cheap and costs so much.
One of my big issues that a friend pointed out to me actually, and now i can't see it is that EVERYONE wears shoulder capes. Dwarves, Elves, humans, even orcs wear them. It's so dominant. Instead of being something that distinguishes one group from another, it becomes ubiquitous and makes every group feel less distinct.
All I need to do to enjoy rings of power is just replace galadriel with Celebrian and Replace Sauron with the witch king. Then the show just makes way more sense
Id still love to know how galadriel got her armour whilst a runaway on a foreign island amongst a people who detested her kind. Did she have an amazon delivery interdimensional portal? Can she fast travel to n from her personal stash point? Does she carry an rpg style backpack filled with everything? As for short haired elves, theres absolutely no feeling of etheral, eternal type being in practical or militaristic hair cuts. They just looked like humans. Tbh they rarely came across as anything other than humans in every way they were presented.
I haven't watched the show yet, but honestly the lack of a beard on a female dwarf is just so wrong. Also personally i dont like the short hair on elves made me think they were humans, i was watching the trailer and thought they were literally humans, i didn't know they were evles until today so thats kinda my problem with their designs. I also can't really see them as the elves they grow up to be. The hobbits/horror foots look great though.
only got half though this one, I got completely different impressions from about half of you analysis so far. For example the nomad's cloth looked to me like mass produced loose weave, typically used when trying to appear poor. It was what I expected from a 20K budget movie. Also I didn't see a pic of the hair you were talking about in the video, I would recommend keeping up the image your referencing in the corner of the screen the whole time you talk about it. If for legal reasons that is not possible then show it at the start of the discussion and before you summarize your thoughts on the garment.
Rings of Power show is abysmal... the costumes and hairstyles of the elves super abysmal. The whole blasted thing from start to finish is abysmal. Waste of time. Better for focus on things that matter - like the books and Peter Jackson movies because the vast majority of Tolkien Lord of the Rings fans have no interest in this Amazonian woke garbage.
I agree on the oddness of people thinking prehistoric or even medieval people were dirty, finds certainly contradict that. I used to record finds for Portable Antiquities, and have excavated many sites. Combs, tweezers, nail cleaning accessories, razors, and dress accessories such as chapes (lace ends), buckles and brooches are fairly common from Roman to medieval peoples in Britain. In the Bronze Age, grooming accessories such as mirrors, tweezers, make-up spoons, pigments and pallets and razors seem to be a very essential thing for the dead (Male and Female) to have with them in graves, or carvings of grave assemblages on stelae, (I have only studied what were presumably wealthy graves in South-West Iberia, France and Egypt from that period). In fact even the 'everyday' accessories I have processed from metal detector finds are very ornate, with exquisite detail, I think people cared as much, if not more, about their appearance and cleanliness as it communicated information about status and respectability, just like it does now ! :)
Most of ROP costumes looked like elaborate cosplay. The portral of Galadriel as a battle maid was hardly Tolkien's character, as he himself depicted her battles were more like quarrels. She does not even play a significant role in the battle of the jewels. Another ROP failure.
I have never seen Rings of Power but the intricately designed armor that Arondir(not sure of name) wore would have been pretty dificult to do in heavy steel armor it would have had to be either a very soft material or very thin to create that detail- neither of which you would want in real armor even with modern technology that would be very diffiicult in armor strong and thick enough to be useful one could have engraved intricate designs on the surface of the armor. It was probably molded plastic in the show. I also have trouble with Galadriel fighting like a common warrior she must have had some of her magical power even at that time she would have been valuable for her intellectual and planning abilities not wasted as a soldier, so I have trouble accepting the way Galadriel was depicted in Rings of Power. That is why I have no desire to watch that show depicting characters in to me very unlikely and somewhat insulting roles. Leather armor particularly from a tough skin animal would be light and better than nothing paricularly a couple of layers.
As far as the harfoots, and Hobbits and men in the lotr movies, I would think there would be more pelts and animal skins. Easier and faster than knitting or making other types or materials for clothing. Plus, if they are hunting animals for food, why would they waste the skins/hides?
Sindarin elf integrating with Sylvan elves. Galadriels power came from the fact that she was related to ALL the main eleven houses, Teleri, Noldor and Vanyar.
Great review! A lot of interesting points covered that I would never have thought of! I do agree the amount of details are staggering. The amount of planning and care that have gone into this is amazing. Sadly i feel like most of it gets overshadowed by other failures in production. I don't remember Elronds costume when he speaks with Galadriel, i remember wondering why they decided to only fill 1/4 of the screen with the actors and the rest with yellow, only for the next cut to have the entire screen filled with actor and nothing else, then cut to a super wide shot of nothing but scenery. The cinematography and editing just left me to bewildered to take it all in. And this is a theme throughout the show so far, the details are there! You pause anywhere in an episode and it just screams quality. But when it all comes together it just doesn't feel right. Like you commented on with the harfoots, the costumes are great, but the hair pulls your attention away from it.
I think they were trying to go for a more stylized show than a lot of stuff that's on streaming services right now. And I think some of the bold directing and cinematography choices they made really paid off and made for a more interesting show! And then some of them definitely just looked off and were distracting. I'm hoping that in later seasons they can continue making bold choices but learn to be a bit more discerning about which to make. On one hand I'm glad they made the choices rather than letting it be generic, but on the other, I can definitely see how it would turn people off. Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
@@Jess_of_the_Shire I really hope they take some of the criticism to heart and put out a really strong season 2. Maybe tone down the amount of homage to P.J while they are at it as well. After rewatching the scene i described earlier i see why it's filmed as it is, it just doesn't work in that context. While doing that i also thought of a question. You mentioned you like the costume of the orcs. How do you think they work in relation to one of the main threads in the show, namely light vs dark, good vs evil? I'm thinking back to the scenes in episode 3 with the captives wearing predominantly dark colors.
@@DenDodde I hadn't thought a lot about that to be honest, but that's a great point. Having them in the bone masks is an interesting thing because its not the traditional dark "orc" colors. And then, as you pointed out, putting the prisoners in dark colors. My current thought is maybe that is the orcs imposing their morality onto the prisoners. Because these orcs are a more, like, formed, cohesive society, with a set of beliefs given to them by Adar, they are capable of judging themselves as "righteous" and thus put themselves in White, while the "evil" prisoners are in black. That's just my spur of the moment thoughts though, I'd love you know what you were thinking!
Elfs have to be different than human now they humans whit pointy ears, Tolkien said directly that elf have long hair because they different than humans
Stuff about patched clothing reminded me of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - There is an old lady who seems to be a general dogsbody in the main castle full of lords and warriors etc, but she is not what she seems and wears an extraordinary dress with hundreds of random patches of material. The heroine does not know what to make of her and neither do the occupants of the Keep - she is always just *there* - anyway, there is a need for the heroine to travel back in time several thousand years, and the simple act of sewing another (meaningful) piece of material onto the old lady's dress is enough to whisk them back through time. It is an extreme plot device which is described amazingly by Steven Donaldson and still resonates with me as the most amazing cloth-related thing that I have ever read in fiction... This series is not an easy one though, so be warned! The hero is a leper, and by turns both heroic and frightened, plagued with self-doubt and capable of vile misdeeds. He is wracked with guilt because pretty much everyone he meets sacrifices everything for him, and the turmoil in his real wold is just as chaotic as the land he is transported into. It is just as compelling as Tolkien (just an opinion) and the 'Land' is populated with fantastical people and beasts too. The descriptive power is epic and any story that has Giants sailing ships made of granite is worth visiting for that alone....
Thank you for all the insight! Just stopping by from Hello Future Me, and absolutely loved it. Will be digging around your channel further. Sorry to be late to the party, but one question (and sorry if it has been asked before. Is there a way to search through comments?): What are you thoughts on Halbrand's costume narrative (rags to armour to rags) in light of his reveal in the eigth episode? Need to go back and do a study myself, but were there any costuming notes or elements that foreshadowed or lent insight to his character? Anything that caught your eye? Thanks again!
My problem with the Elves having short hair is entirely practical. It's part of the silhouette. Long hair, especially with the sidelocks, provides the optical illusion that the signature tall, powerful slenderness of Tolkien's Elves also extends to the actors' faces. The short poufs make TROP's actors just look like delicate, pointy-featured pixies. Galadriel's men would not have looked out of place with irridescent dragonfly wings on the set of Ella Enchanted. My problem with most of the costumes is that most of their self-vaunted "detail" was obvious superficial detail. The result was many costumes where my eyes told me "this cloth choice is fine" while my lizard brain told me "THIS IS A COSTUME!!!" And the Elves hairstyles didn't help with that, either. The Southern Elves' breastplates struck me as an outright anachronism. The overall silhouette and character setting declared "We are Roman centurions, policing the far-flung lands we've conquered!" (And, despite being one of the few long-haired Elves... *without* slimming sidelocks, Caesar Gilgalad was still wearing a laurel wreath🫣) Which does not belong in Middle Earth. The design on the breastplates also immediately screamed "Green Man!" to me more than "Ent," and, English though he may be, the Green Man also does not belong in Middle Earth. Trying to see it as an Ent doesn't help simply because it *does* appear to be made of wood. This further broke immersion later, when those same Elves refused to take down a tree simply because it's a tree. 1) The Elves don't know what the trench is for, so they have no basis to ensure going around the tree won't harm the purpose the orcs are going for, so don't even try telling me they were just objecting to wanton destruction. 2) If felling a tree was truly a problem for them, where were they hypocritical enough to get wood for their breastplates? Any tree that died and fell naturally would not provide enough sound wood for breastplates. It's as if the costume designers were given general outlines of what the ahow-runners wanted rather than scripts, with the result that the world-building costumes that some characters wear directly contradict the world-building and character-establishing dialogue those characters speak. Too much of the show just struck me as a lot of really talented people suddenly becoming weirdly slapdash and self-contradictory.
Hi Jess, looking forward to another vid for season 2 but it would be much appreciated if you left and costume photos up longer, even during the entirety of you discussing the piece
With the numenoreans I imagined darker colors like a deep blues, blacks, and shimmering silver like the stars. They were described as proud and tall, and followed stars and had grey-blue eyes like the sea (if I remember correctly). Which for some reason brought to my mind regal coats, coats like Bard the Bowman wears only upgraded, and it'd be cool if they looked kinda intimidating but handsome/beautiful in dark colors coats and fabrics. I dunno, woulda been refreshing. Everything doesn't need to be tiaras and fish scales and grecian togas. How bout some crisp clean coats for the humans who are more military-minded and practical, and not ethereal beings like the elves.
Just a comment on how you thought celebrimbors short hair wasn't consistent. I think he may have short hair due to the fact that hes a blacksmith and all the fire and other dangerous things he works around.
As a a woman with long hair I agree with you. I always have a my hair up most of the time. I find a bit wired when characters don’t wear their hair up in battle and don’t get stuck. 🙄
I think Galadriel's blue/teal dress in Numenor is an allusion to Eowyn's dress like you said, but also the moment in fellowship of the ring when Galadriel is offered the ring by Frodo and she goes all spooky.
I must say I have to disagree with how the orcs costumes are made....I would say that they come off as too primitive while indeed Orcs should be doing a lot with metal, skulls for decorating sure why not....but armor would be armor they make themselves too! It's not merely them scavenging stuff from other peoples....Orcs are supposed to be metalworkers themselves...not to mention the artistic choice of giving them....white -ish cloaks hah....Orcs would be dirty all the damn time! They also prefer dark....why the heck they would use white as color? Hahaha...they should be wearing black ;).
But from all we know Elrond fits into elven society perfectly. That would make the costume misleading which is worse than Bad. And about Galadriel: It's nice when costumes are used repeatedly but Not with hers. Her Dress Looks neither good nor practical, her 'golden' Armour Looks Like Cardboard and her other Armour Looks Like Something a cheap footsoldier would wear with torn Chainmail hanging from places where it has really No Business. Overall her costumes make her Look Like some broke Wannabe noble. Dwarves are fine but Disa not having a beard is unforgiveable. Oh and for the short haired elves: i get that they would Experiment around but elves have eyes. They should See how ridiculous they Look and it's Not believeable that they all try short hair at the same time. Damn, i forgot about how terribly unsightly the Numenorian armour is. Why did you remind me? Why?!?
...not a word about the screen printed Numenor t-shirt armor? You showed three images of it... *edit* love the critiques, both good and bad. I was EXTREMELY disappointed with RoP, but the costomes were pretty good, especially Durin, I think he was my favorite character in this disaster...I mean series, sorry.
The *costumes* were actually decent in this trainwreck. Yes, they could have done better, especially considering the amount of money sunk into it, but it was mostly stylistically fine. The *armour* , however, was mostly bad with some being atrocious. Bad from both realistic functional point of view (that "mail" suit is not armour, it can be punched through with a dull spoon) and from visual quality (what in Eru's name was that Elven "plate mail", it bloody looked like badly painted cheap plastic from some kids store).
My issue was she is wearing plate armor….on a boat………but I guess she was planning to swim across a giant gap of ocean, so perhaps she won’t sink in plate armor. Idk.🤷♀️. Also, to be fair, it does not matter what they do, they will be compared to PJ as will anyone who does this franchise. Not a fan of RoP, I have a lot of issues with it. But the costuming is good.
Ok, first, while my opinions on the ROP as a whole are admittedly based on cursory clips and the opinions of family and critics, so should rightfully be seen as somewhat suspect, I have seen the costumes in question for myself and can at least opine honestly on them. For the Elves, I find that the Valinor style is pretty generic; as you say, an echo of heavenly or angelic white from classical art, so not really bad. But I would submit that the Elves and the Maiar and the Valar would have revelled in a riot of colors and plant based fabrics, with laces and embroidery. Essentially, my headcanon is Peter Jackson with Chinese influence (I don't see anyone standing up for Asian representation - but I digress), but I wouldn't go too far away from Jackson's vision here. Mainly because the deal Amazon struck with the Estate was that could not change or contradict anything that had already been established or made canon. IMHO, that would include more than the lore or plot points, it would include many style choices as well. Elves are creatives, they are artists, but the Elves of Middle -earth are split between the rustic, less learned Teleri and the Valorean Noldor Exiles ... The Wood Elves would hew to more basic, practical styles, while the Exiles try to recreate the world and lives they had in Valinor. So sticking closely to what PJ established as the norm is no fault in my eyes. Having said that, I do like Elrond's look, except for the short hair. Agree with the armor...the stuff looks like plastic Halloween costumes from Party City, and I've seen folks at Comicon and Nerd Camp with better. I will skip comment on the rest, as I have to get off my phone, but I must add that I don't like Disa's costume, because to my eyes it looks much too Egyptian. Dwarvish men and women dress much alike, specifically for journeying, but they are not Men or Elves, and it's not unlikely that they would dress practically at home too. Dwarf women are craftsmen in their own right and would dress accordingly. And yes. Beards are a must!
Maybe this has already been pointed out in the last...year, but Adar's armor has the same pattern as what Gil-galad was wearing when meeting with Durin. Episode 5? I wonder if the similarity was a deliberate nod to Adar's elven heritage, though it could also just be lazy reuse. I doubt the elves had sophisticated smithing techniques at the time the orcs were first made, so presumably this is not something he has had since then. But we might speculate that he either made it deliberately to imitate elven designs, or he simply took it from another elf because it was good for its purpose. The pattern reminds me of the very edge of a wave as it diminishes on a sandy beach.
Gods above the costumes in ROP are absolutely HORRID! There's the same strange motif repeated in so many of them. The armor looks so bad as to be unworkable! The Elves looked like they were going to a 70s disco.
What the heck is your day job? Do you move boxes? You look like you move boxes. Do you ever move bags? Do you have to stack the boxes too? How come you never talk about your job stacking boxes and bags? Are you embarrassed cause you just move them and stack them, but don't do other things too like counting? You really shouldn't! don't have a job and I'd be really proud to work with boxes. Will you make a vide on the other jobs you do besides medieval talk? I'm a big fan of this channel cause I'm not good at reading so I can learn about all these books, but I'd like to learn about the other things too.
I really liked the show and the costumes were fine. The armor looked really cheap not just compared to the movie (not really a fair comparison) but to other similar fantasy shows like Game of Thrones.
31:45 -- RE: Numenorean, ".... it reads as Atlantean..."; Sure! And whether this meets with your tastes or mine, that was done intentionally because to some degree they were *inferring* a mythical connection between Numenor and Atlantis. So yeah, there are other words for "the Look": pre-Mycenean, Minoan, Aegean, and sometimes Phoenician, proceeding perhaps from the assumption that these would all be *post* Atlantis and related by descent and/or imitation.
Leather armor is actually more prevalent in medieval armor because leather unlike metal was easy to get. You could literally hunt for new armor and get a meal as a bonus. Celabrimbor is the one who put the password on the door to Moria. I do have to agree that the costumes were good in the show. As to the rest of it🤢
Jokes aside, I admire your video. In regards to armor, I have a few observations. Although Galadriel is wearing a non boob breatplate, it is far too long to her hips. Practical breastplates ended near the waist / belly button to facilitate bending during melee. Faulds, tassets, and mail skirts protected lower. Even cloth gambeson or leather would suffice. Counterpoint there were historic longer torso protection, example generals and commanders for status. In other words, those who didn't need to bend. When Galadriel wears the ceremonial armor, they have haute pieces on the pauldrons. The question thus raised, WHY is aware of a technological advantage as haute pieces are they never seen again? Term I use is BTN armor (better than nothing). Cloth gambeson or thin leather trumps a bare breast. Curaisses were oft worn with little to no arm armor to protect only the organs, keeping legs and arms less fatigued. Lastly, lack of helmets and open armpits, and generally bare arms are a Hollywood necesary evil. However THOU ARE NOT A MANNEQUIN. If an adversary swings, your reflexes will duck, dodge, and dip.
When you go back in history In Engeland the people looked down at the Vikings because the wash themselves every day or few days, the most people in 10th century or earlier were bushy and the people who lived in the forest where flowers or nature artifacts as jewelry.
Yeah, I agree that there's nothing "lore-breaking" about the elves not all having long hair in TROP. But I do think that the long, flowing hair they had in Peter Jackson's films helped to make them feel ethereal and graceful, in the same way that their flowing robes made them feel ethereal and graceful. And the short hair in TROP loses some of that quality.
A culture that can make good plate armour will quit using mail except for armpits, back of the knees, inside the elbows and the like. Case in point, once their metalurgy was up to it, the Romans replaced mail lorica with the Lorica Segmenta made of small plates; it was much less labour intensive than mail. That being said, almost all the armour that Tolkien described was mail. Of the terms he uses, well Bilbo's mithril shirt is definitely mail, as is Gimli's "short corslet". Hauberk exclusively refers to mail (if not modified with another descriptor) Harness can apply to any armour, including mail.
Adar is my favorite character. He is such an inspiring anti-hero. I could almost follow him, and I was definitely rooting for him during the chase through the forest on horseback.
![FendiDa Rappa - Clock Dat ft. Shamar Marco [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3NBU8KHdxYY/mqdefault.jpg)
Personally, my issue with the elves having short hair was less that it was unrealistic or not lore accurate and more that there was less to visually distinguish them from men.
Interesting point! My hope is that they would be able to do that with costume design alone, but the hair makes a good distinguishing mark.
Elves and men having similar hair wouldn't matter so much if the elves looked younger and more beautiful than mortals, but a lot of the elves looked plainer and more grizzled than many of the humans.
Yes especially the men! They found the most average dudebro mandellows they could lol
And it wasn’t “some” of the male elves had short hair. It was most of them
And what about they looking like 80's people
I have to disagree with you on hair. Whenever I see Elrond or Celebrimbor, I can almost hear the hair spray ad in the background.
Realistically speaking, yes, it would make sense for some elves to just have short hair, but I think from a movie standpoint it's more important to present a unified look. Like, when you look at a character, you need to be able to tell where they are from. And the modern, heavily styled hair in a period/fantasy film just throws me right out of the experience.
The hairstyle guide to Middle-earth :).
"Elwë himself had indeed long and beautiful hair of silver hue" - Description of Thingol, History of Middle Earth
"...and the hair of the Lord Celeborn was of silver long and bright" - Description of Celeborn, Fellowship of the Ring
"[the Wood Elves] gleaming hair was twined with flowers" - Description of the Wood elves, The Hobbit
"She put forth her arts of enchantment, and caused her hair to grow to great length..." - Description of Luthien, from the Silmarillion
"...his long dark hair in great plaits braided with gold" - Description of Fingon, The People of Middle Earth
Tolkien's drawings. While Tolkien seldom attempted to illustrate his characters, we do have a drawing of Beleg that indicates he has long hair.
The Shibboleth of Feanor may also provide some additional support in favor of long haired Elves, though it's debatable whether it's relevant to all the Quendi:
"All the Eldar had beautiful hair (and were especially attracted by hair of exceptional loveliness), but the Noldor were not specially remarkable in this respect, and there is no reference to Finwe as having had hair of exceptional length, abundance, or beauty beyond the measure of his people.
Contextual clues via objects. The bow gifted to Legolas in Lothlorien is described as being 'strung with a string of elf-hair', which implis it must have been LONG hair, unless we're talking about pathethically small tiny bow, but the bow of Galadhrim is said to be "longer and stouter than the bows of Mirkwood".
"The rider’s cloak streamed behind him, and his hood was thrown back; his golden hair flowed shimmering in the wind of his speed. To Frodo it appeared that a white light was shining through the form and raiment of the rider, as if through a thin veil." (Glorfindel - FOTR)
...
"the Elven-stars as jewels white
amid their branching hair."
...
Aegnor's "strong and stiff, rising upon his head like flames",
Nimrodel: "Her hair was long, her limbs were white, And fair she was and free;"
Olwe: "The hair of Olwe was long and white,"
The more recently published writings in The Nature of Middle-earth contain this note:
"Ingwë had curling golden hair. Finwë (and Míriel) had long dark hair, so had Fëanor and all the Noldor, save by intermarriage which did not often take place between clans, except among the chieftains, and then only after settlement in Aman. Only Finwë's second son by Indis had fair hair, and this remained generally characteristic of his descendants, notably Finrod. Elwë and Olwë had very pale hair, almost white. Melian was dark, and so was Lúthien."
The Nature of Middle-earth - "Hair"
But more seriously...if they wanted to have some sort of stylization...the braiding, the sort of various different tricks, have different ways for Elves to keep their hair depending on situation :), binding them, tying up when they are doing something that the loose hair would be obstacle etc. something like that!
Yes, their coiffed locks were oddly perfectly in place for a world that in theory does not have hair spray or gel. (Or...does it? Maybe Tolkien had fifteen different words for hair spray like he did for everything else.)
I can buy Elves' hair hanging preturnaturally perfectly long and straight - they are magical beings after all - but not styled like a boy band.
I just hated the elf hair so much. It was like an 80's televangelist and an 80's business woman fell asleep leaning on each other on a plane, their hair got up to some mischief, and then a few months later, one of them gave birth to the Rings of Power elf hair.
What the hell did I just write? I'm going to bed.
"In all my millennia of elvenhood I have never seen such deviant and defiant haircut. Tell me Baracriel, how do you call... that?
A mohawk, lord Elrond"
The costumes reflected the show: one moment, they're almost good and enjoyable, the next moment the costumes are terrible.
The saddest thing is this show could of been one of the best ever...
Just missing a person that actually liked Tolkiens work to be involved with decisions.
Just with the elves hair thing, I personally loved how PJ portrayed them with long, graceful almost perfect hair. Gives them that larger than life, ethereal look. And then when its dishevelled, its also visual to let you know they're uncomfortable for whatever reason (hurt, in a battle, struggling etc)
I think it helps with the fantasy and the whole point of escapism in the Tolkien world. If the designs are too realistic or relatable, you kinda loose that fantasy feel
exactly! For film especially it's not easy to portray etherealness...ROP took away one of only two things that make elves look ethereal. Now they are half as ethereal, and they didn't come up with something to replace it. In fact, they made them look more disheveled, and modern-day barbered, which takes away and doesn't add. The hair definitely matters.
@@JJ_6036100% 🙌🏽 when I first saw the elves in PJs movie! Even with a lot of beings in the lore being fantastical or strange, elves still stood out to the others because of how ethereal they were. The long luscious hair was part of that look. I’ve heard people say it’s an outdated trope - but it’s set in around medieval Europe! Just give them a skin fade and a zoomer perm then (can’t wait for this comment to age)
A hair style guide for Middle-earth :).
"Elwë himself had indeed long and beautiful hair of silver hue" - Description of Thingol, History of Middle Earth
"...and the hair of the Lord Celeborn was of silver long and bright" - Description of Celeborn, Fellowship of the Ring
"[the Wood Elves] gleaming hair was twined with flowers" - Description of the Wood elves, The Hobbit
"She put forth her arts of enchantment, and caused her hair to grow to great length..." - Description of Luthien, from the Silmarillion
"...his long dark hair in great plaits braided with gold" - Description of Fingon, The People of Middle Earth
Tolkien's drawings. While Tolkien seldom attempted to illustrate his characters, we do have a drawing of Beleg that indicates he has long hair.
The Shibboleth of Feanor may also provide some additional support in favor of long haired Elves, though it's debatable whether it's relevant to all the Quendi:
"All the Eldar had beautiful hair (and were especially attracted by hair of exceptional loveliness), but the Noldor were not specially remarkable in this respect, and there is no reference to Finwe as having had hair of exceptional length, abundance, or beauty beyond the measure of his people.
Contextual clues via objects. The bow gifted to Legolas in Lothlorien is described as being 'strung with a string of elf-hair', which implis it must have been LONG hair, unless we're talking about pathethically small tiny bow, but the bow of Galadhrim is said to be "longer and stouter than the bows of Mirkwood".
"The rider’s cloak streamed behind him, and his hood was thrown back; his golden hair flowed shimmering in the wind of his speed. To Frodo it appeared that a white light was shining through the form and raiment of the rider, as if through a thin veil." (Glorfindel - FOTR)
...
"the Elven-stars as jewels white
amid their branching hair."
...
Aegnor's "strong and stiff, rising upon his head like flames",
Nimrodel: "Her hair was long, her limbs were white, And fair she was and free;"
Olwe: "The hair of Olwe was long and white,"
The more recently published writings in The Nature of Middle-earth contain this note:
"Ingwë had curling golden hair. Finwë (and Míriel) had long dark hair, so had Fëanor and all the Noldor, save by intermarriage which did not often take place between clans, except among the chieftains, and then only after settlement in Aman. Only Finwë's second son by Indis had fair hair, and this remained generally characteristic of his descendants, notably Finrod. Elwë and Olwë had very pale hair, almost white. Melian was dark, and so was Lúthien."
The Nature of Middle-earth - "Hair"
@@fantasywind3923 omg this is awesome!
@@fantasywind3923 some people argue that the elves are so many and so long-lived, that they should all have different hairstyles and be very diverse, however based on the evidence, hair seems to be pretty engrained in lore for them and it seems a bit more like a permanent defining feature like hobbit's big feet, dwarves' beards, or Wizard's "Old Man" visage.
Plus, imagine all the diverse hairstyles you can do with longer hair. You can include ornaments, flowers, braids, sunbeams, and like a millions styles. When cut short, it's much more limited, and often looks simply barber-shop fade, or shaggy from scooby do!
I enjoy that they tried to make Numenor more maritime themed, but I think they also missed a trick by not sticking with the themes of wings and birds as is the canonical case with the Numenorean-descended men, especially because I think people forget that Elros was Elwing and Earendil's child too, so themes of birds and stars would probably be likely. Hopefully maybe they're just saving those themes for the Faithful to differentiate them from the King's Men. That would be interesting to see.
Oh, I hope they do take advantage of that! I think the wing motif could be super interesting
Weird, considering Wings and Stars already align pretty well with Maritime themes (Seagulls being a sign of when you're approaching land and navigating by the stars)
Not just Maritime, but Antiquity era maritime... They attempt to make Numenor look like something out of the classical antiquity Mediterranean.. Which gives you a sense of this stuff happening a long time before Peter Jacksons medieval and 15th century armoured'ish Gondorian culture
@@EmilReiko Antiquity era maritime is fine, but part of me wishes that they had opted for a Steampunk Numenor. There are some hints in Tolkien's writings that Numenor had advanced to the point of having dirigibles and steampower. They definitely had some kind of flying ships, and later on, under Sauron's influence, they had ugly metal ships with engines that meant they did not depend on the wind to sail anymore.
Honestly, the idea of a woman heir to the throne being usurped by a golden liar has so very many parallels to our current time that it truly feels like was afraid of being too relevant. The backdrop of two warring political ideologies that they represent almost makes it feel like the akkalabeth was prophetic. @@magister343
It feels like you are trying your hardest to be positive about the show.
What's wrong about that? People are doing the opposite too
@@minedantaken1684 bad things deserve to be discussed as such. False positively rewards the vultures who pick the corpses clean and expect to be praised for their shit
@@DeepCFisher”bad” is, however, subjective. Take things as their own individual merits and you get a much more balanced view on them instead of trying to just fit them into good and bad. Looking at the positives is just as valid as looking at the negatives, they’re parts of the same pie.
She gives reasons for liking what she likes, though. You need to make your peace with everybody not hating this thing as entirely as you do?
About the fact that some of the elf’s have short hair:
- Arondir has a buzz cut, fine, but he also has FADES. They are EXTREMELY high maintenance. He would have had to maintain it at least once a week by someone else. That’s a very impractical haircut to have on a soldier and therefore doesn’t make any sense.
- One of the characteristics of elf’s in Tolkiens world is long hair (though some characters hairdo are not mentioned) . It’s a great symbol for longevity and also, if we look into old history, long hair was a sign of strength. They could have taken another approach and made the elf’s wear their hair up, braided or anything that wouldn’t have changed their characteristic too much but still be creative and respectful to the story.
ROP is not a NEW story, it’s based on a much loved world and I feel they did not take that into consideration and instead took their own opinions and views and rewrote an already beautiful world.
On another note, I loved the beards on the dwarfs.
On that note I would also add is that Elves are both "perfect" beings and very much in sync with nature, short hair constantly requires you FIGHT nature. Letting their hair grow to its natural length and then change the style from that base makes far more sense. The only painting we have from Tolkien shows about shoulder length hair for a male so we also know what he means when he says "long hair". She is also is treating the elven mentality as if its the same as human (her wanting to change her hair all the time), which I view as a mistake.
I had a fade in the 80s, and it wasn't so hard to maintain short weekly. If you had scissors, it could be done. Even in the field, if they wanted, with a knife. These guys were military, but they were also pretty much at base except for routine patrols.
The problem with short hair on elves for me is that it's TEDIOUS. When I wore my hair short with a fade I had to do pretty regular touch ups, at least every few weeks. How am I expected to believe that the majority of IMMORTAL beings would subject themselves to a haircut every month or so. That would be like getting your hair trimmed every 2 days for a human. Sure, I could believe one or two people committing themselves to it, but almost every male elf has short hair. There is no way in hell that's realistically viable.
WE COULD'VE HAD ARONDIR WITH LONG DREADS BUT NO THEY STICK WITH THE STEREOTYPES 🗿
@@TootsyBootsyyeah she never really mentions that elves also have magic in their hair. Their hair is a major cultural aspect of elves in the universe. Amazon completely doesn’t care about that stuff. It’s why they had elven children fighting in valinor to open to story. They just don’t care.
You make the point of "human hubris" when talking about how rediculous it is to think that nobody washed more than once a month unitl the 1950's and I agree competely, however I use the phrase "modern arrogance" as I find it more accurately describes modern people's illusions of grandure that they are SO MUCH smarter than their dirty peasant ancestor despite most of said people having a breakdown after spending 5 minutes trying to tie a simple knot.
I do think that Galadriel should have had more than one dress in Numenor. Actually her character is very hauty and opinionated...I don't see her wearing the same dress for a week or two. They could have added a cape or shawl or something. Gil-galad and celabrimbor's costumes look absolutely awful. Gaudy and almost feminine? And what is up with PRINTED armor? That's almost unforgivable on a show that should have had the budget for actual chainmail
I definitely agree that Galadriel is quite opinionated, but she seems more practical and not so vain to insist on new clothing when she's a guest. She's certainly flawed, but I think she's too preoccupied with bigger issues like bullying her way onto a ship to Middle Earth. Although, It may have been nice to see the designers Flex a little more and come up with some new looks for her.
And I agree, I didn't love their costumes. Gil-Galad especially looked very costume-y. I didn't hate the cut on Celebrimbor's, but I think a lot of the elegance of the elven look comes from the materials used and the way they drape, etc, which the RoP designers did not pull off imo.
As for the printed armor, I agree it definitely looked cheap, and I hope they can invest a little more into the budget for little details later on. It's those little details that make movies like PJ'S Lotr trilogy work.
As for the budget, I find it difficult to use that in this argument. When you break it down, this season alone is the length of multiple feature length films, and with the costs of everything rising, I doubt they truly had a lot of extra capital floating around.
I think they should have toned down the ambition on some aspects in order to allot their budget to the things that people have an eye out for: such as little armor details.
Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
Celebrimbor and the other Gwaith-i-Mírdain really shouldn't have been wearing robes at all, or at least not often. It is not practical attire for a smith at his forge. While leather armor tends not to make a lot of sense, the most logical option for a smith are leather work clothes.
If she did have to only wear the one dress, I feel like the various different episodes would have been an opportunity to see the costume evolve and improve as 'galadriel' starts to put more of her personality into it. Its quite normal to see girls that have to wear a uniform, (nurses, catholic school girls) learn over time ways to make tiny highlights or adjustments that make is to that they stick out
I have no problem with the printed costume because somehow it shows numenors have certain avant-garde technology. But I have problem with them purely aesthetically. The actors in those costumes are just not flattering at all. The fit is weird. And I don’t think those haughty high humans want to dress like in uniforms from some socialist dystopian. Feels that they dress the same and want to match with each other. What??😅
I think all having long, shining hair is a neat way of visualizing their long life and essence. Contrasting that with Men whose hair is of varying lengths, and differing levels of unkemptness. It’s a little way of signifying the difference between the two.
So what did you think after seeing the whole first season? As a PJ movie and original book fan, I really really wanted to like it. But a lot of the stuff you pointed out here are related to the main reasons why people hate the show. The Harfoot culture felt like a weird, creepy cult. The big sweeping images of Numenor went from being beautiful and grand, to talking heads on tiny sets from a low budget fantasy TV show. The character arcs were confusing for so many characters, especially Halbrand. The actor playing him didn't even know for the first few episodes that he would turn out to be 'you know who'. Galadriel jumping off a ship in the middle of the ocean? She has such a 'boss bitch' persona, which is nothing like her book and movie character. I just can't. With the 1 billion dollar budget, they should have done better. I will still watch season 2 hoping they tweak a few things in response to the fan reaction. It feels like they spent the whole first season setting things up to finally reveal the *rings of power* in the FINAL episode. They could have done so much more with season 1, but it was badly paced and felt like it was wasting a lot of time.
👌🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Her crown makes her look like an axolotl!
The fact that the elves lack sideburns is even worse than not having long hair for most of them, it makes it look wrong. And ironically, Adar made me think of an elf the most while technically being a proto-orc
On the subject of Elrond, do you think the feather-y motif on his epaulettes is a nod to the fact that his mom's a bird in the same way that the star pin represents his dad? Also, congratulations on hitting 1K!
It absolutely did! I actually had something about the feather details in my notes, but hadn't drawn that connection, so thanks for figuring that out for me, lol. And thanks so much!!
He doesn't even know that afaik.
Everything about Rings of Power was horribly hysterically bad. But that’s actually kind of good because now I would never confuse it with Tolkien, which means it has nothing to do with Lord or the Rings and so it doesn’t bother me. Those people who say it ruined Tolkien are taking it way too seriously. I saw an armorer laughing about the cloth “armor” with like metal scales dyed into it.
But it wasn’t just short hair, it was MODERN short hair. Real humans did not have hairstyles like that in the middle mages. They didn’t even try and used way too much gel lol
the overwhelming vibe I got from RoP was one of "I see what you were going for, and points for effort, but they fixed things that weren't broken, and when it came to things where they had complete freedom to be creative (numenor & the dwarves) they seemed to panic and default to like one or two tropes/icons & nothing else for fear we'd forget who was on screen"
When you mentioned the hair up it is good but she also had chain mail touching her face.... while climbing an ice cliff
It bothers be that some male characters have a permanent 4-day scruff. Give the men full beards! Use beards to show change of time!
So while I don't disagree on the hair thing, you're a human. Elves are ancient, nearly unchanging beings. The whole reason they're called to leave middle earth is that the ephemeral does not suit them. Change does not suit them. Solidity, certainty, constancy, these are the things which suit them.
They should have tried to dress Galadriel to look like she was 6'4", or if that was impossible when the actress is 5'3" then cast a different actress and maybe use her for Celebrian instead. A romance between Celebrian and Elrond would make more sense in this time period than everything they wrote.
Yes! I've ranted about this before to my friends! Tolkien never wrote much about Celebrían, but even with what little we know of her, she would have been a much better fit for the character they wrote in the show than "Galadriel". Celebrían got captured and tortured by orcs (although that happened after her and Elrond's three children were already born) and it would make more sense for her to become someone who hunts evil everywhere. Or maybe that's where her hunt lead her to, which broke her enough that she had to sail West.
Like you said, litetally anything anyone else comes up with makes more sense than every aspect of the show we ended up getting.
Also with what they've decided to do with Elrond, Galadriel and Celeborn being presumed dead for some bizarre reason, it's going to make Elrond falling in love with Galadriel's daughter feel really uncomfortable. We are being told that Elrond and Galadriel are very close friends (them interacting on screen doesn't really give that impression) and Celebrían hasn't even been born yet because they wanted to "kill" Celeborn for dramatic effect that only falls flat. So Elrond is going to witness Galadriel and Celeborn reuniting, Galadriel giving birth to Celebrían, and watch her grow up to full physical maturity in a span of a 100+ years (who knows how that will work with how they already compressed the timeline by thousands of years) and then marry her. With the dynamic they've tried to establish on screen it's going to be WEIRD.
Lord of the rings is no stranger to making tall people look short and short people look tall.
@@No_Relation_666 absolutely. Any old perspective trick or body double could have worked. With the practically unlimited budget they had it should have been alright. Instead we got whatever excrement we ended up getting
@@Edward-WThese are my thoughts exactly. They could still introduce Celebrían and have Galadriel just be like ‘oh BTW I have a daughter’ but the way they have it set up is still weird. I think Galadriel was absolutely miscast, but they should have kept the actress and made her Celebrían. Then we could have had Galadriel as a background character that we occasionally get the treat of interacting with (which also maintains her mysterious, other worldly quality) and be played by a proper Gwendolyn Christie type. (Can’t remember her name, but the actress who played the younger version of Gwendolyn’s character in Wednesday would have been perfect).
As a guy with past shoulder length hair, yeah its down sometimes, but not at work or exercising. I wonder, growing up with 70/80s martial arts films, the long hair in battle could be more from that as an aestetic.
To put it bluntly: the costumes were not great. I hated the scales printed on shirts the Numenoreans wore (couldn't they have edited out the obvious fabric faulds?). The Elves were fine, not great. The dwarves looked good. The plate armour throughout looked 3d-printed, more post-processing would have gone a long way (it is possible to make plastic armour appear like metal). The mail armour looked very badly fitted, it would also be impractical.
Some costumes looked like a collection of old rags they had lying around, particularly the Harfoots. Ugh.
My problem with the show: the majority of the costumes looked fine, just a little too similar to what we already have seen. For such a high-budget show, maybe they should have let the costume designer a little more free rein.
I totally get people feeling middle of the road with them. While I think there were some good moments, there were missing details and logical disconnects galore.
I feel it's hard to judge if budget was a constraint or not though. These episodes are long and make up the run time of multiple feature length films. When you throw in the increasing cost of materials, shooting on location in NZ, and covid complications, I could see how even a big budget production like this could run out fast.
Going forward, I hope that the designers are able to reevaluate, and wisely invest time and attention into the little details that count like properly finishing armor or making sure underlayers aren't visible.
Thanks so much for the comment and for watching!
@@Jess_of_the_Shire Yes, that may be a possibility. But I just rewatched the lighting of the beacons from the real LOTR. It brought tears to my eyes. This series just holds not even a candle story-wise. You have to imagine far too much in your mind and bridge glaring gaps. Thus, not even the most fancy and well-made costumes (which, let's face it, these not really are) cannot patch up. Good storytelling is the basis for a good movie or series, and this is just not it.
@@Jess_of_the_Shire I could understand budget concerns except that this show it the most expensive show ever made. EACH episode's budget is higher than that of Braveheart; over $60 MILLION per 1-hour episode, Quadruple the budget for Game of Thrones episodes. Compare it to it's competitor, House of the Dragon (also under the same inflationary constraints) and it just doesn't hold water.
Love your analysis though - first time viewer. Hope this come across as simple disagreement and adding some perspective, that's all.
@@DRiveraNat20 I appreciate this breakdown! And I agree to an extent. I think that they had enough budget to do what they needed to, and used it in the wrong areas. Maybe a few less dramatic, pretty CGI shots per episode would have left sufficient budgetary wiggle room for real armor. I'm hoping that in future seasons they'll get a better sense of what ought to be prioritized. I think that's definitely an advantage that the GoT franchise has--knowing what their audience wants to see.
Really appreciate the thorough comment, thanks for sharing!
You'ed think they'ed have been able to get real platemail for the prices they paid...
The only known female Dwarf name is Dis, not Disa. Disa would be a masculine name in Tolkien's languages. She really should have had a beard and if they were going to have her played by an actress who is clearly a different race than the actors playing the other dwarves of Durin's Folk then they should have established that she came from one of the other Seven Dwarven Clans, such as the Stonefoots, Firebeards, Ironfists, Stiffbeards, Broadbeams, or Blacklocks. Having less of a beard would also be more excusable if she were not from the Longbeard clan.
Honestly I think it’s strange how pale the dwarves in any film adaptation are considering most folklore that Tolkien drew from had dwarves with a darker skin tone. They just went for that “token black” nonsense to make themselves look inclusive when we all know the show is coming from Amazon which breaks labor laws left and right lol
To add to my other comment… I raged when I saw the lack of beard
I mean, in the 2nd Age Khazad-dûm was inhabited not only by the Longbeards, but also many, many refugees from Nogrod and Belegost. No need to tell that to actual fans, though.
I have a lot of issues with this glorified fanfic, but that one minor char's origin is not one of them.
@@kmeckafronta Yeah, that is definitely a minor detail, and a good point to consider.
16:09 I know you're talking about the show, which completely screws up timelines. However, Galadriel should be much older than Elrond and probably older than Celebrimbor.
And yet Celebrimbor looks like her grandpa.
Your college education makes you special. No one else has taken the combination of classes that you've chosen. Medieval people with little to no education may have been as intelligent but without the experience of a higher level education. It helps. It makes a difference.
"I'm glad they avoided boob armor trope"
@
32:10 * an actual moob armor on the screen *
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😐
I’m not a fan of the short hair on the elves, and I would like to see more facial hair on the female dwarves.
Personally, I really disliked the sports bra appearance of Bronwyn s costume. Other Southlanders are wearing heavy jackets ... isn't she cold? Lack of attention to details was so obvious in parts of the show. Thanks for the great discussion of fantasy hair styles! I loved the (limited) first view of Galadriel in her chain mail without flowing locks of hair
I didn’t like that she was so random girlbossy and the entire Southlands seemed to be a village of about 100 people. I still can’t figure out where that $715 million went!
Out of all the disappointment around the costumes, for me the worse was the Númenóreans. I feel like the show totally bungled the opportunity to showcase a culture and people that haven't been depicted before. The white leather fish scale armor and Grecian-inspired clothing just totally took me out of the fantasy setting. It felt so heavy-handed . The Númenóreans are supposed to be the most fearsome military force in Middle Earth at this point, but the fish scale armor just makes them look ridiculous.
And they had no culture. They were supposed to be this extremely tall race of warriors, and even NYT called them out for being too diverse lol, a tiny island nation as diverse as a New York subway and almost as many women in the army as men. House if the Dragon was diversity done right and with gravity, but RoP didn’t care everything was paper thin shallow.
What point is this supposed to be though? The Rings of Power were made more than a thousand years before any of the Numenoreans named on this show ere even born. There were already Ringwraiths fighting for Sauron before this generation was born. In some of Tolkien's notes, Numenor already had airships and would soon acquire ironclad steampowered vessels under Sauron's influence.
Personally I would have preferred a Steampunk Numenor.
I can only agree with what others have said. While elves having long hair isn't theoretically required, it just helps so much bringing across their otherworldly, ageless, refined nature. Despite having Hugo "oldmanface" Weaving as a Elrond, his design manages to capture the ageless elves so much better than any of the designs in this show.
And this also links into galadriel having her hair done up early in the show. I can't agree with you applauding it. Actually, it says more about how they absolutely didn't get elven designs. Yes, it's impractical to have your hair down in every day life, let alone combat. And I don't like it either when female character designs are focused on being hot, while only men get practical designs. But if there's one case in which the impression of one's style should be put over practically, then it's elves.
To each their own. I love your vibe and this channel, but thought ROP was a slap in the face to the professor's work and memory. Though watching this video would not turn me into a lunatic, I'm still clicking away. Look forward to the next upload.
I really can't think of any RoP costumes that I actually liked. The Númenoreans were the worst, though.
The plain white garments that the elves wear in the undying lands are also reminiscent of traditional baptismal garments that symbolize purity, innocence, & dedication to good…going along with the heavenly imagery, I suppose.
Oooh, interesting point! That reminds me of the scene where Galadriel is returning to Valinor and the skies open up and there's that sort of golden rain. The skies opening is reminiscent of Jesus' baptism, and the rain, as well as the ocean are both some degree of baptismal symbolism...super interesting
Traditional baptismal garments? A really traditional baptism would be completely nude.
It would make sense if they weren't portrayed as violent bullies in the show itself.
@@magister343 nope, they used white dresses, even for little children in most of baptism ceremonies
In the 19th and early 20th century, sure. In the first few centuries of the church it was done nude. @@MarinaMontserrat
My issue with the short hair wasn’t that the elves had short hair, but that it felt Pointlessly Gendered(tm). Celebrimbor having it, too, really seems to negate any idea that it’s generational or military, as does the lack of any of the women having short hair. (To be clear, I haven’t seen the whole show, I’d love to be wrong about this). Same problem with the beardless lady dwarves. It felt less like stylistic or worldbuilding choices and more like our world gender expectations.
Also Arondir’s breastplate is reminiscent of the green man, I hadn’t thought of comparing it to ents, that’s a cool idea
At 9:52, when you say the armor looks like it's made out of plastic, you're right, it was. Another awful shortcut costume-wise was that instead of banded armor, they wore tee-shirts with the "armor" printed on.
To me, it looked like spray-painted cardboard.
The idea that an elf would have the same idea as to "What do I want to do with my hair today is flawed in understanding the elves. They were a people wo did not apricate change. The undying lands was a place where things didn't change. That was the nature of the elves, they liked consistency over every other thing. The idea that an elf would keep the same hair style over the course of there entire exitance would not only be normal, but the opposite would incredible strange. Elves, unlike humans do not enjoy change for change's sake. They in fact abhor it. And if that sounds wrong or boring to you that's because your human. They are not.
Thank you.. Totally agree 😊
At that point in her life, Galdriel was long finished with fighting ir any need of Armor. Centuries before shed hung up that side of herself, permanently.
Bronwyn looked too rich because they wanted her to be attractive. Waldreg could be disgusting because he was supposed to be a creep, but I agree with you on the whole about the Southlanders. Yes, they were oppressed, but they looked unrealistic. Most of them should look better and Bronwyn should look poorer.
I was watching the Numenor scenes and thinking, for most tv shows, these costumes would be great. Stargate-SG1 and the like got away with pretty ridiculous things sometimes. We forgive them, tv budgets are what they are, they clearly did put some thought into the costumes. But this show had 50 million dollars per hour of screentime. That is too much money for, "we put some thought into it, but didn't sweat the details."
Originally the budget was set to be much less. Supposedly in the neighborhood of 10 - 15 million dollars per episode. But they hired inexperienced people who didn't know what they were doing. And when they mismanaged their budget Amazon didn't say "figure it out," they threw more money at them. So that is supposed to be why the show looks so cheap and costs so much.
The thing I disliked most was her wearing metal armour climbing an ice cliff face? Can anyone say frostbite?!
One of my big issues that a friend pointed out to me actually, and now i can't see it is that EVERYONE wears shoulder capes. Dwarves, Elves, humans, even orcs wear them. It's so dominant. Instead of being something that distinguishes one group from another, it becomes ubiquitous and makes every group feel less distinct.
All I need to do to enjoy rings of power is just replace galadriel with Celebrian and Replace Sauron with the witch king. Then the show just makes way more sense
Id still love to know how galadriel got her armour whilst a runaway on a foreign island amongst a people who detested her kind. Did she have an amazon delivery interdimensional portal? Can she fast travel to n from her personal stash point? Does she carry an rpg style backpack filled with everything?
As for short haired elves, theres absolutely no feeling of etheral, eternal type being in practical or militaristic hair cuts. They just looked like humans. Tbh they rarely came across as anything other than humans in every way they were presented.
I want to meet your pet rats. Rats are so cool and smart. I have adopted a rodent myself--a flying squirrel.
I haven't watched the show yet, but honestly the lack of a beard on a female dwarf is just so wrong. Also personally i dont like the short hair on elves made me think they were humans, i was watching the trailer and thought they were literally humans, i didn't know they were evles until today so thats kinda my problem with their designs. I also can't really see them as the elves they grow up to be. The hobbits/horror foots look great though.
"Part-time hobbit." - The most elf looking elf who has ever elfed XD
Galadriel was child in the bright lands, her mode of dress could have been a school uniform.
To avoid being too negative I can't comment on the RoP, so I'll just say love your deer skull necklace and glad you kept your long hair, impressive!
only got half though this one, I got completely different impressions from about half of you analysis so far. For example the nomad's cloth looked to me like mass produced loose weave, typically used when trying to appear poor. It was what I expected from a 20K budget movie. Also I didn't see a pic of the hair you were talking about in the video, I would recommend keeping up the image your referencing in the corner of the screen the whole time you talk about it. If for legal reasons that is not possible then show it at the start of the discussion and before you summarize your thoughts on the garment.
Rings of Power show is abysmal... the costumes and hairstyles of the elves super abysmal. The whole blasted thing from start to finish is abysmal. Waste of time. Better for focus on things that matter - like the books and Peter Jackson movies because the vast majority of Tolkien Lord of the Rings fans have no interest in this Amazonian woke garbage.
I agree on the oddness of people thinking prehistoric or even medieval people were dirty, finds certainly contradict that. I used to record finds for Portable Antiquities, and have excavated many sites. Combs, tweezers, nail cleaning accessories, razors, and dress accessories such as chapes (lace ends), buckles and brooches are fairly common from Roman to medieval peoples in Britain. In the Bronze Age, grooming accessories such as mirrors, tweezers, make-up spoons, pigments and pallets and razors seem to be a very essential thing for the dead (Male and Female) to have with them in graves, or carvings of grave assemblages on stelae, (I have only studied what were presumably wealthy graves in South-West Iberia, France and Egypt from that period). In fact even the 'everyday' accessories I have processed from metal detector finds are very ornate, with exquisite detail, I think people cared as much, if not more, about their appearance and cleanliness as it communicated information about status and respectability, just like it does now ! :)
Most of ROP costumes looked like elaborate cosplay.
The portral of Galadriel as a battle maid was hardly Tolkien's character, as he himself depicted her battles were more like quarrels. She does not even play a significant role in the battle of the jewels.
Another ROP failure.
I have never seen Rings of Power but the intricately designed armor that Arondir(not sure of name) wore would have been pretty dificult to do in heavy steel armor it would have had to be either a very soft material or very thin to create that detail- neither of which you would want in real armor even with modern technology that would be very diffiicult in armor strong and thick enough to be useful one could have engraved intricate designs on the surface of the armor. It was probably molded plastic in the show. I also have trouble with Galadriel fighting like a common warrior she must have had some of her magical power even at that time she would have been valuable for her intellectual and planning abilities not wasted as a soldier, so I have trouble accepting the way Galadriel was depicted in Rings of Power. That is why I have no desire to watch that show depicting characters in to me very unlikely and somewhat insulting roles. Leather armor particularly from a tough skin animal would be light and better than nothing paricularly a couple of layers.
As far as the harfoots, and Hobbits and men in the lotr movies, I would think there would be more pelts and animal skins. Easier and faster than knitting or making other types or materials for clothing. Plus, if they are hunting animals for food, why would they waste the skins/hides?
Sindarin elf integrating with Sylvan elves. Galadriels power came from the fact that she was related to ALL the main eleven houses, Teleri, Noldor and Vanyar.
Great review! A lot of interesting points covered that I would never have thought of! I do agree the amount of details are staggering. The amount of planning and care that have gone into this is amazing. Sadly i feel like most of it gets overshadowed by other failures in production. I don't remember Elronds costume when he speaks with Galadriel, i remember wondering why they decided to only fill 1/4 of the screen with the actors and the rest with yellow, only for the next cut to have the entire screen filled with actor and nothing else, then cut to a super wide shot of nothing but scenery. The cinematography and editing just left me to bewildered to take it all in. And this is a theme throughout the show so far, the details are there! You pause anywhere in an episode and it just screams quality. But when it all comes together it just doesn't feel right. Like you commented on with the harfoots, the costumes are great, but the hair pulls your attention away from it.
I think they were trying to go for a more stylized show than a lot of stuff that's on streaming services right now. And I think some of the bold directing and cinematography choices they made really paid off and made for a more interesting show!
And then some of them definitely just looked off and were distracting.
I'm hoping that in later seasons they can continue making bold choices but learn to be a bit more discerning about which to make. On one hand I'm glad they made the choices rather than letting it be generic, but on the other, I can definitely see how it would turn people off.
Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
@@Jess_of_the_Shire I really hope they take some of the criticism to heart and put out a really strong season 2. Maybe tone down the amount of homage to P.J while they are at it as well. After rewatching the scene i described earlier i see why it's filmed as it is, it just doesn't work in that context.
While doing that i also thought of a question. You mentioned you like the costume of the orcs. How do you think they work in relation to one of the main threads in the show, namely light vs dark, good vs evil? I'm thinking back to the scenes in episode 3 with the captives wearing predominantly dark colors.
@@DenDodde I hadn't thought a lot about that to be honest, but that's a great point. Having them in the bone masks is an interesting thing because its not the traditional dark "orc" colors. And then, as you pointed out, putting the prisoners in dark colors.
My current thought is maybe that is the orcs imposing their morality onto the prisoners. Because these orcs are a more, like, formed, cohesive society, with a set of beliefs given to them by Adar, they are capable of judging themselves as "righteous" and thus put themselves in White, while the "evil" prisoners are in black.
That's just my spur of the moment thoughts though, I'd love you know what you were thinking!
Elfs have to be different than human now they humans whit pointy ears, Tolkien said directly that elf have long hair because they different than humans
Gambesons keep you warm, too. Which is a big thing on campaign when sleeping in the open, on the cold ground around the campfire.
1:54
(to the lady in the picture box)
Hello.
My name is Iñigo Montoya.
You killed my father.
Prepare to die.
Stuff about patched clothing reminded me of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - There is an old lady who seems to be a general dogsbody in the main castle full of lords and warriors etc, but she is not what she seems and wears an extraordinary dress with hundreds of random patches of material. The heroine does not know what to make of her and neither do the occupants of the Keep - she is always just *there* - anyway, there is a need for the heroine to travel back in time several thousand years, and the simple act of sewing another (meaningful) piece of material onto the old lady's dress is enough to whisk them back through time.
It is an extreme plot device which is described amazingly by Steven Donaldson and still resonates with me as the most amazing cloth-related thing that I have ever read in fiction...
This series is not an easy one though, so be warned! The hero is a leper, and by turns both heroic and frightened, plagued with self-doubt and capable of vile misdeeds. He is wracked with guilt because pretty much everyone he meets sacrifices everything for him, and the turmoil in his real wold is just as chaotic as the land he is transported into.
It is just as compelling as Tolkien (just an opinion) and the 'Land' is populated with fantastical people and beasts too. The descriptive power is epic and any story that has Giants sailing ships made of granite is worth visiting for that alone....
Thank you for all the insight! Just stopping by from Hello Future Me, and absolutely loved it. Will be digging around your channel further.
Sorry to be late to the party, but one question (and sorry if it has been asked before. Is there a way to search through comments?):
What are you thoughts on Halbrand's costume narrative (rags to armour to rags) in light of his reveal in the eigth episode? Need to go back and do a study myself, but were there any costuming notes or elements that foreshadowed or lent insight to his character? Anything that caught your eye?
Thanks again!
My problem with the Elves having short hair is entirely practical. It's part of the silhouette. Long hair, especially with the sidelocks, provides the optical illusion that the signature tall, powerful slenderness of Tolkien's Elves also extends to the actors' faces. The short poufs make TROP's actors just look like delicate, pointy-featured pixies. Galadriel's men would not have looked out of place with irridescent dragonfly wings on the set of Ella Enchanted.
My problem with most of the costumes is that most of their self-vaunted "detail" was obvious superficial detail. The result was many costumes where my eyes told me "this cloth choice is fine" while my lizard brain told me "THIS IS A COSTUME!!!" And the Elves hairstyles didn't help with that, either.
The Southern Elves' breastplates struck me as an outright anachronism. The overall silhouette and character setting declared "We are Roman centurions, policing the far-flung lands we've conquered!" (And, despite being one of the few long-haired Elves... *without* slimming sidelocks, Caesar Gilgalad was still wearing a laurel wreath🫣) Which does not belong in Middle Earth. The design on the breastplates also immediately screamed "Green Man!" to me more than "Ent," and, English though he may be, the Green Man also does not belong in Middle Earth. Trying to see it as an Ent doesn't help simply because it *does* appear to be made of wood. This further broke immersion later, when those same Elves refused to take down a tree simply because it's a tree. 1) The Elves don't know what the trench is for, so they have no basis to ensure going around the tree won't harm the purpose the orcs are going for, so don't even try telling me they were just objecting to wanton destruction. 2) If felling a tree was truly a problem for them, where were they hypocritical enough to get wood for their breastplates? Any tree that died and fell naturally would not provide enough sound wood for breastplates.
It's as if the costume designers were given general outlines of what the ahow-runners wanted rather than scripts, with the result that the world-building costumes that some characters wear directly contradict the world-building and character-establishing dialogue those characters speak. Too much of the show just struck me as a lot of really talented people suddenly becoming weirdly slapdash and self-contradictory.
Hi Jess, looking forward to another vid for season 2 but it would be much appreciated if you left and costume photos up longer, even during the entirety of you discussing the piece
With the numenoreans I imagined darker colors like a deep blues, blacks, and shimmering silver like the stars. They were described as proud and tall, and followed stars and had grey-blue eyes like the sea (if I remember correctly). Which for some reason brought to my mind regal coats, coats like Bard the Bowman wears only upgraded, and it'd be cool if they looked kinda intimidating but handsome/beautiful in dark colors coats and fabrics. I dunno, woulda been refreshing. Everything doesn't need to be tiaras and fish scales and grecian togas. How bout some crisp clean coats for the humans who are more military-minded and practical, and not ethereal beings like the elves.
Just a comment on how you thought celebrimbors short hair wasn't consistent. I think he may have short hair due to the fact that hes a blacksmith and all the fire and other dangerous things he works around.
As a a woman with long hair I agree with you. I always have a my hair up most of the time. I find a bit wired when characters don’t wear their hair up in battle and don’t get stuck. 🙄
As a guy with long hair i only tie it back when i need too. Tho my headphones might resolve that problem most of the time
I think Galadriel's blue/teal dress in Numenor is an allusion to Eowyn's dress like you said, but also the moment in fellowship of the ring when Galadriel is offered the ring by Frodo and she goes all spooky.
I must say I have to disagree with how the orcs costumes are made....I would say that they come off as too primitive while indeed Orcs should be doing a lot with metal, skulls for decorating sure why not....but armor would be armor they make themselves too! It's not merely them scavenging stuff from other peoples....Orcs are supposed to be metalworkers themselves...not to mention the artistic choice of giving them....white -ish cloaks hah....Orcs would be dirty all the damn time! They also prefer dark....why the heck they would use white as color? Hahaha...they should be wearing black ;).
But from all we know Elrond fits into elven society perfectly. That would make the costume misleading which is worse than Bad.
And about Galadriel: It's nice when costumes are used repeatedly but Not with hers. Her Dress Looks neither good nor practical, her 'golden' Armour Looks Like Cardboard and her other Armour Looks Like Something a cheap footsoldier would wear with torn Chainmail hanging from places where it has really No Business. Overall her costumes make her Look Like some broke Wannabe noble.
Dwarves are fine but Disa not having a beard is unforgiveable.
Oh and for the short haired elves: i get that they would Experiment around but elves have eyes. They should See how ridiculous they Look and it's Not believeable that they all try short hair at the same time.
Damn, i forgot about how terribly unsightly the Numenorian armour is. Why did you remind me? Why?!?
...not a word about the screen printed Numenor t-shirt armor? You showed three images of it...
*edit* love the critiques, both good and bad. I was EXTREMELY disappointed with RoP, but the costomes were pretty good, especially Durin, I think he was my favorite character in this disaster...I mean series, sorry.
The *costumes* were actually decent in this trainwreck. Yes, they could have done better, especially considering the amount of money sunk into it, but it was mostly stylistically fine.
The *armour* , however, was mostly bad with some being atrocious. Bad from both realistic functional point of view (that "mail" suit is not armour, it can be punched through with a dull spoon) and from visual quality (what in Eru's name was that Elven "plate mail", it bloody looked like badly painted cheap plastic from some kids store).
My issue was she is wearing plate armor….on a boat………but I guess she was planning to swim across a giant gap of ocean, so perhaps she won’t sink in plate armor. Idk.🤷♀️.
Also, to be fair, it does not matter what they do, they will be compared to PJ as will anyone who does this franchise. Not a fan of RoP, I have a lot of issues with it. But the costuming is good.
Ok, first, while my opinions on the ROP as a whole are admittedly based on cursory clips and the opinions of family and critics, so should rightfully be seen as somewhat suspect, I have seen the costumes in question for myself and can at least opine honestly on them.
For the Elves, I find that the Valinor style is pretty generic; as you say, an echo of heavenly or angelic white from classical art, so not really bad. But I would submit that the Elves and the Maiar and the Valar would have revelled in a riot of colors and plant based fabrics, with laces and embroidery. Essentially, my headcanon is Peter Jackson with Chinese influence (I don't see anyone standing up for Asian representation - but I digress), but I wouldn't go too far away from Jackson's vision here. Mainly because the deal Amazon struck with the Estate was that could not change or contradict anything that had already been established or made canon. IMHO, that would include more than the lore or plot points, it would include many style choices as well.
Elves are creatives, they are artists, but the Elves of Middle -earth are split between the rustic, less learned Teleri and the Valorean Noldor Exiles ... The Wood Elves would hew to more basic, practical styles, while the Exiles try to recreate the world and lives they had in Valinor. So sticking closely to what PJ established as the norm is no fault in my eyes. Having said that, I do like Elrond's look, except for the short hair.
Agree with the armor...the stuff looks like plastic Halloween costumes from Party City, and I've seen folks at Comicon and Nerd Camp with better.
I will skip comment on the rest, as I have to get off my phone, but I must add that I don't like Disa's costume, because to my eyes it looks much too Egyptian. Dwarvish men and women dress much alike, specifically for journeying, but they are not Men or Elves, and it's not unlikely that they would dress practically at home too. Dwarf women are craftsmen in their own right and would dress accordingly. And yes. Beards are a must!
Maybe this has already been pointed out in the last...year, but Adar's armor has the same pattern as what Gil-galad was wearing when meeting with Durin. Episode 5? I wonder if the similarity was a deliberate nod to Adar's elven heritage, though it could also just be lazy reuse. I doubt the elves had sophisticated smithing techniques at the time the orcs were first made, so presumably this is not something he has had since then. But we might speculate that he either made it deliberately to imitate elven designs, or he simply took it from another elf because it was good for its purpose. The pattern reminds me of the very edge of a wave as it diminishes on a sandy beach.
Gods above the costumes in ROP are absolutely HORRID! There's the same strange motif repeated in so many of them. The armor looks so bad as to be unworkable! The Elves looked like they were going to a 70s disco.
What the heck is your day job? Do you move boxes? You look like you move boxes. Do you ever move bags? Do you have to stack the boxes too? How come you never talk about your job stacking boxes and bags? Are you embarrassed cause you just move them and stack them, but don't do other things too like counting? You really shouldn't! don't have a job and I'd be really proud to work with boxes. Will you make a vide on the other jobs you do besides medieval talk? I'm a big fan of this channel cause I'm not good at reading so I can learn about all these books, but I'd like to learn about the other things too.
I can accept everything about this series except what they did to my boy Celebrimbor. Shadow of war / Mordor fans know what I mean...
You should collaborate with Jill Bearup and discuss issues of long hair and fighting in movies. It would make my nerdy heart glad.
I really liked the show and the costumes were fine. The armor looked really cheap not just compared to the movie (not really a fair comparison) but to other similar fantasy shows like Game of Thrones.
31:45 -- RE: Numenorean, ".... it reads as Atlantean..."; Sure! And whether this meets with your tastes or mine, that was done intentionally because to some degree they were *inferring* a mythical connection between Numenor and Atlantis.
So yeah, there are other words for "the Look": pre-Mycenean, Minoan, Aegean, and sometimes Phoenician, proceeding perhaps from the assumption that these would all be *post* Atlantis and related by descent and/or imitation.
You could definitely pull off short hair. Your face shape is suited to a pixie cut. Not saying do it, but you do you.
Leather armor is actually more prevalent in medieval armor because leather unlike metal was easy to get. You could literally hunt for new armor and get a meal as a bonus. Celabrimbor is the one who put the password on the door to Moria. I do have to agree that the costumes were good in the show. As to the rest of it🤢
Rings of glower su🎉cks compared tho espec with costume and character design 😢
I prefer hair down because it looks better. If I want realism I'll watch something other than fantasy.
If Rohan could have horses on freaking everything, Numenor can have their fishies.
The costuming and cinematography of the show were fine. If only they spent more time writing a better script
Don't chop it! Please. Ok I like a bald head ... but don't. Ok if you want to ... do it. Rather not.
01:24 -- "Your blood pressure will thank you" 🤣💀🤣
My MD doctor wants to thanks you for your great comment 🩺 you literally save my life 🥳
🥳
Strongly disagree with needing to tie your hair back to kick ass.
Mithrandir *drops mic *
Jokes aside,
I admire your video.
In regards to armor, I have a few observations.
Although Galadriel is wearing a non boob breatplate, it is far too long to her hips. Practical breastplates ended near the waist / belly button to facilitate bending during melee. Faulds, tassets, and mail skirts protected lower. Even cloth gambeson or leather would suffice.
Counterpoint there were historic longer torso protection, example generals and commanders for status. In other words, those who didn't need to bend.
When Galadriel wears the ceremonial armor, they have haute pieces on the pauldrons.
The question thus raised, WHY is aware of a technological advantage as haute pieces are they never seen again?
Term I use is BTN armor (better than nothing). Cloth gambeson or thin leather trumps a bare breast. Curaisses were oft worn with little to no arm armor to protect only the organs, keeping legs and arms less fatigued.
Lastly, lack of helmets and open armpits, and generally bare arms are a Hollywood necesary evil.
However THOU ARE NOT A MANNEQUIN. If an adversary swings, your reflexes will duck, dodge, and dip.
Not every leading actor needs to be pretty?. But isn’t good looks how Danny DeVito gets all of his parts?
When you go back in history In Engeland the people looked down at the Vikings because the wash themselves every day or few days, the most people in 10th century or earlier were bushy and the people who lived in the forest where flowers or nature artifacts as jewelry.
Yeah, I agree that there's nothing "lore-breaking" about the elves not all having long hair in TROP.
But I do think that the long, flowing hair they had in Peter Jackson's films helped to make them feel ethereal and graceful, in the same way that their flowing robes made them feel ethereal and graceful. And the short hair in TROP loses some of that quality.
Great video but can you please keep the pictures up longer?
A culture that can make good plate armour will quit using mail except for armpits, back of the knees, inside the elbows and the like. Case in point, once their metalurgy was up to it, the Romans replaced mail lorica with the Lorica Segmenta made of small plates; it was much less labour intensive than mail.
That being said, almost all the armour that Tolkien described was mail. Of the terms he uses, well Bilbo's mithril shirt is definitely mail, as is Gimli's "short corslet". Hauberk exclusively refers to mail (if not modified with another descriptor) Harness can apply to any armour, including mail.
"Atlantean" look - great point! You nailed it there! I appreciate your knowledgeable historical approach to clothing, cleanliness, etc.
never cut your hair
Adar is my favorite character. He is such an inspiring anti-hero. I could almost follow him, and I was definitely rooting for him during the chase through the forest on horseback.