Rings of Boring More Than Bad | ep 7 review!
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- Опубликовано: 9 окт 2022
- I really am enjoying some bits of Rings, but a lot of it is just very meh for me. READ MY PUBLISHED WORK + GET ON WRITING AND WORLDBUILDING VOL II I linktr.ee/timhickson
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I feel tired of the season. It feels thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.
Like too little source material spread over too many episodes…
I see what you did there. Almost like you know more lore than the writers of this fan fiction show.
"I need a holiday, a very long holiday. And I don't expect I shall return..."
"In fact, I mean not to."
Ha, love that Bilbo 😊
We have said the same thing and thus to brighten your spirit, we invite u to Join us for our counter ROP series, we must stop watching this even for negative publicity because it feeds the amazon rating system, Mae G'ovannen! Now the evidence is clear, and none can deny that "ROP" is not of Tolkien. Take heart and join us for our just released third installment of EXSURGE TOLKIEN that makes robustly clear the heresy of Tolkien's Canon displayed out of the showrunner's mouths and hearts. They probably know nothing of Tolkien's masterpiece, as evident from their interview in the Vanity Fair Article. For "they who proclaim to loveth Tolkien, yet understandeth, not his world view can neither hope to create a new film, show, or series of his secondary world." "Auta i lóme!" and" Aurë entuluva!"
Honestly the biggest problem I have with this show is that the dialogue is so boring. It’s not something I expect from a Tolkien adaption. Tolkien’s language is so pristine and beautiful and full of emotion but this is adaption is bland. I know it’s not fair to compare the two as Tolkien was a linguist but my mind immediately goes to the comparison naturally
The problem is that Tolkien’s language is probably not filmable except for monologues. Writing dialogue for a book and writing dialogue in screen writing are too very different animals.
Take Tim’s criticism of the episode where the Numenorean cadets shout “The sea is always right!” as their motto and suggested something more Tolkien-y and poetic. Okay. That is fine for a book. Now *film* it. You need to get your actors and fifty extras to shout that whole sentence in unison without them tripping over each other or being out of sync, or the effect is ruined. How many takes and how much daylight are you willing to spend getting that right, given it isn’t that important? It isn’t “shallow”, as he put it, it concisely tells us something about the Numenoreans and their values, is something naval cadets might actually say, and is something that is easy to shoot.
That doesn’t account for how long it would make the show. Tolkien’s writing isn’t known for being tight. The rule of thumb is one page of naturally spoken dialogue in a script corresponds to one minute of screen time. What is fine for lord of the Rings would end up being *painful* if you filmed it, because the dialogue would just go on and on on screen.
@@davidfwooldridge3430 Are you blaming Tolkien himself for what two charlatans have produced in 2022? Peter Jackson did pretty well so why is it impossible now
Yeah the trilogy has so many awesome quotes but I can't recall any from this show
@@davidfwooldridge3430 Tolkien's language is absolutely filmable. See the Peter Jackson trilogy for evidence. And again, look to House of the Dragon for people writing more poetically in a fantasy universe currently, in TV format.
It’s not even just boring it’s so unnatural too.
I found myself really distracted by how poor the storytelling was in the Southlands scenario this episode that the emotional moments just didn't land. When Theo is reunited with Bronwyn and Arondir it is supposed to be this heartfelt moment, but my immediate though was, "why weren't either of them out looking for him?"
TBF I wouldn't have been looking for any of them
I think the oddest thing to me is how they got separated. Like I would have expected Theo to sprint to Arondir and show him the hatchet before the rumbling started, but I guess not? Not even once water started bursting out of the ground?
Why did they just leave the village in the first place?
This episode was so hard for me to get through, it fell back on so many tropes and felt very Marvel-y and was honestly just a chore to watch. It makes me sad because one would think that with so much budget and a loyal fanbase, the creators could've really made something good
It is important to note that this is the first show the showrunners have ever worked on. Some of the things I (and some others) don't like might stem from inexperience on their part. I am willing to forgive first timers making mistakes, but come on Amazon! This is the most iconic fantasy series ever written, and it just feels so...half baked.
It's its own fan base really. For its own sake and little to do with canonical books and awarded adapted LotR film trilogy.
LOL. If those considerations actually meant anything thing then we wouldn't have trash DC movies, nor the dead-horse flogging Marvel movies, or any number of other movie and television adaptations (I'm not a fan, but i feel the Wheel of Time folk's pain, lol). I mean, Star Wars sequels and spin-offs, the Foundation show, even Game of Thrones (which I also am not a fan of) really suffered in the adaptation (and that's without considering the last few seasons).
No, those things are the REASON all of these properties have been trash. To much money involved "to fail" so they work very hard to please as many corners of the audience as possible (thus just making everything bland and meaningless) with the knowledge that the enormous fanbases and name recognition will allow them to recoup the enormous budgets.
Blah... going to yell at some clouds now...
@@willmangrum3686 Since this is a new show running team, I’m hoping that the next season is better.
The people I watch it with are quite casual and enjoy a lot of it, even though they agree with most of the flaws. We were all still laughing so hard at the font spelling out Mordor in the end
That’s kind of how I feel. I have pretty good knowledge of LOTR generally, but don’t know much about the appendices or Silmarillion. I’d say it’s a generally fun show as a casual viewer, just not the most amazing show ever.
Yes, non-readers are definitely enjoying it more. You have to realize the vast majority of viewers will always be non-book readers.
That final reveal of the name was cringy for casual viewers, too? Good to know, because when I saw it, I thought it was tacky as hell.
Even the most "only watched the movies once, 7 years ago"-kind of viewer must have known that the volcano was supposed to be Mt. Doom. And yet they treated it as this mind-blowing twist.
It was the most clear example of the showrunners thinking you are retarded.
It’s insane how this and HOTD released at the same time. One is gripping on the edge of your seat and it’s all dialogue and the other is flat super expensive and nothing happens.
I’m also going to disagree with the eruption part. Comparing it to getting shot isn’t a good comparison. People get shot in vital areas all the time and survive. People have been shot over 20 times in combat kept fighting and lived.
No one survives an eruption. Pompeii is an entire city frozen in time full of bodies because of an eruption.
These people falling from a plane and surviving is more believable. Because that’s happened. No one survives a volcanic eruption.
Not one person, let alone the several hundred including all the main characters except Isildur (supposedly). It far surpasses any reasonable suspension of disbelief.
I bet someone has survived a volcanic explosion, there is always that guy you know lol
HBO were savages. They knew what they were doing when they moved up the date to premiere before RoP started and finish after it ended.
regarding Halbrand, you just know that in the next episode they're going to have arrived in Lindon or wherever already. The show will elide all the traveling. Whereas, as you observed with Fellowship of the Ring, in Tolkien, how you get somewhere is sometimes the WHOLE story.
I feel like the big reveal of "Mordor" was something we knew from the beginning.
Disa became Cersie from Game of Thrones there and apparently she's responsible for Durin's Bane waking up... she told Durin to keep digging.
Weird episode. I'm in a place where I have no idea what the conclusion in episode 8 is going to be.
I think that is a dishonor to Disa, she pushed him to dig because she knew that Durin really wanted to help Elrond and might not forgive himself if he didn't try. That ending also isn't abnormal when his birthright gets taken away because of his fathers fault. Also Durins bane shouldn't wake up for several thousand years later, I am curious to see if they are already going to do something with it or if it was just a cheap few seconds 'wow' moment attempt.
I got some Lady MacBeth vibes from her! Hope they do something with it, that would be an interesting take!
Yeah she seemed to become super power hungry, like bad guy vibes at the end. We're going to dig all the mithril and have all the power and we're going to own every mountain on middle earth! Muahahaha
@@MDP1702 The whole story is ridiculous. How much mithril do the elves need? How much do the dwarves already have? Nobody bothered to find out. Exactly how is the mithril used to cure the tree (or whatever the elves need)? Do you just set a chunk of it on the stump or what? They already have a chunk of mithril. Is it enough? Did they try it? NO because everyone in the show is fg retarded.
Yeah, I feel like the " -Southlands- Mordor" reveal was kind of cheap and silly. I think it would have played better if Evil Elf had just said something like, "It shall be called Mordor, which means (insert meaning here)".
One of my biggest problems with this episode is that thay are trying for emotional uplifting moments that thay just don't deserve, nothing that has happened prior to those moments have been lead up to in the writing.
100% agreed, even the best moments in the episode are let down by the lack of any adequate development or investment. The Durin and Elrond scenes would be good if the previous episodes didn't establish that Elrond lied to and manipulated Durin this whole time and even admitted as much. Durin pleads with his father to help Elrond when he should still be pissed at him. Durin even doesn't question the contrived "All the Elves will die unless we get your Mithril" story and takes it at face value. Elrond should also technically be banished from all Dwarven lands too since he lost that challenge but the show kinda forgot about that. The reunion between Arondir, Bronwyn, and Theo is completely hollow because none of these characters have received much development and they've shared a couple of minutes of screentime at most. It's hard to care for the destruction of the Harfoot caravan when the show has established them as awful people who leave their weak behind and even contemplate actively sabotaging the Brandyfoot cart to do so. None of Galadriel's "heartfelt" moments land because she has been established as selfish, arrogant, entitled, confrontational, and manipulative. The payoffs and emotional moments they're going for just don't land properly when they're so poorly set up.
Hard disagree about the pyroclastic flow thing: literally no one forced the showrunners/writers to go with a completely invented creation of Mordor that was so ridiculously over the top and stakes annihilating. They could've had a flashy boom and some lava projectiles but no, they went with an apocalyptic tsunami of vitrifying ash that should've killed every single person in that village - at the very least every single human. One dude surviving an extreme bullet wound in an action movie isn't on par with surviving the desolation of Pompeii as far as I'm concerned.
I'm a decent Tolkien nerd whose favourite Legendarium book is The Silmarillion, my dad is a LOTR reader who adores both the book and the PJ trilogy, my mother is a complete casual, doesn't usually even like SFF but loved the LOTR PJ trilogy. All three of us basically think the show is crap. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Dwarves are my favourites as well though.
Yeah especially when Halbrand riding on a horse is seen as a point of criticism (which is absolutely justified) it seems weird to then say complaining about everyone surviving a pyroclastic flow is just searching for mistakes
It’s not like it’s an isolated case either. Galadriel should have died in the ocean but happened upon people twice. Suspension of disbelief is important in storytelling, especially fantasy, it’s not a nitpick to say this show is wrecking people’s suspension of disbelief
@@waylander9265 Exactly.
Agree, some things I can suspend belief on. This wasn't one of them. 😅
As someone who has studied geology and visited active volcanoes, I just can't... I can't suspend my belief on this part! Nope.
@@danamytereads5304 even as someone who HASNT studied any of that, it’s pretty clear that no one would survive that, especially not
people wearing metal armor that would creat a literal oven. But that’s an issue I have with the whole show. Like people that aren’t experts in these certain things (geology, physics, battle strategy, history, Tolkien lore, etc) can easily spot these issues which is a big problem in writing. And when there are SO MANY issues, that any average person can spot, it’s incredibly distracting from what the writers and creators want us to focus on. That is bad writing and storytelling, across the board. The fact that he or anyone HAS to look passed all these issues to “enjoy” the show, is a defining trait of bad storytelling. This is definitively a bad story.
The balrog reveal felt like the "sauron exists" reveal in the first episodes. There would be a better story if we didnt know that Galadriel was right about Sauron in the beginnig. And building to the balrog revealing ould have made for a more engging story as well
Yeah the Balrog shouldn't have been revealed until they wake it up when mining the mithril
and of course it's the exact same one from LOTR lol
@@guintar6661 in my head it's the balrog that makes mining the mithrill so dangerous, but that is of course not explained (hopefully yet)
@@scambammer6102 thats because it is
It was also proving Durin’s father right and removes all of the dramatic tension between the two. They should have assumed the audience knows nothing about Lord of the Rings and leave the balrog reveal to something terrifying and fantastic, like the t-rex in Jurassic Park. Or the balrog in Fellowship of the Ring
I feel like each substory should have been its own series. The Elrond/Durin storyline could have been filmed as a soap opera and I'd watch it. I was very emotionally triggered in the scene with his father.
My favorite part was when the Queen absolutely didn’t want anyone to know she was blind and then the very next time we see her she has a big red strip of cloth over her eyes… she might have fooled someone into thinking she wasn’t blind if she wasn’t wearing that but now it’s obvious lol.
To me, I can ignore changes in the lore, or rather, I can even come to enjoy them, but I get really pulled out of a story by poor writing. If I, as someone who’s just simply interested but not an expert on writing, can tell and explain a lot of the flaws, then it’s truly bad writing.
I honestly liked the first episodes better than the latter ones because they served as a set-up and raised my curiosity what might happen. But from there each plotline kind of continuesly collapsed? It’s like they didn’t really have a plan and just tried to stack one event on top of another without a proper overarching connection, without making you care about most of it. And now, so close to the season’s end, I still have hardly any idea what the overall plot is supposed to be. What the big conflict is supposed to be. There are just so many weird choices in the writing, it makes me dislike the latter episodes more than the earlier ones where I hadn’t noticed it yet. Or where it wasn’t as obvious
Right! I keep thinking where is her magic, where is the white lady and isn't she supposed to be so ethereal and beautiful that a god fell in love with her, all these mortals should be drooling over her
I think the first episode is the worst because of Galadriel. It constantly shows us how awesome she is and the plot constantly humbles everyone else instead of her.
I think Ontomo’s death was a good example of ‘write by numbers’, or multiple writers working on the same thing.
Last episode he seemed to start a PTSD arc, which would have been fascinating, but now he’s dead. Which made me think that the PTDS elements were added in edit or by another writer because they wanted to manufacture tension in that specific scene. And not because they wanted to explore PTSD themes and address the horror of war. Or because they had a kpi of addressing war as a bad thing but no need to link it to the series as a whole.
Nah, it was more of the classic "cop who's only two days away from retirement gets KIA" trope
Being ok with the pyroclastic flow scene is like being ok that everybody survived a nuke without even the thin veil of a refrigerator. If you are going to do that then at least have Galadriel the greatest sorceress in middle earth at least do a magic shield or something. It's hot enough to metal the armor to their bones.
mate, they wouldn't have any bones left. That stuff will evaporate you in nanoseconds, hence why the Pompeiian bodies were just cavities in the ash layer that they had to fill in with plaster.
@@origaminosferatu3357 "evaporate you in nanoseconds"
Bruh volcanic ash isn't from the sun
I think the scene where Elrond and Durin say bye is my favourite of the series so far.
The actors are good, dialogue is decent, and I like their dynamic a lot.
I want more of that going forward.
Elrond has done nothing to deserve Durin's servile friendship. During is supposed to be a prince of the dwarves not a simp for elves.
I almost cried in the secret name scene. WOMP lol
What ruins it is that I do study Elvish and namárie does not mean "go towards goodness". It means simply "be well" literally. They (deliberately) confuse it with márienna. Maybe they figure márienna isn't as well known, but is it worth it, sabbotaging Tolkien's language design?
The Elrond and Durin stuff has definitely been my favorite the entire season
@@eugene8498 I mean, especially when he takes the time to say what it means, no. In the same space of time, he could equally well have said "I will not say namárie, for it means merely "be well", and but dips it's toe into the river of goodwill I have for you and yours, Durin my friend."
My guess for the blinding of Miriel is that they will use that as the excuse for Pharazon to take over Numenor, rather than taking her as his wife in order to become king like in the books.
Well, we had more teleportation, Volcano survivors just wandering off together for no reason, an entire Numenorean camp springing out of nowhere (did they also carry that camp in three boats?). Halbrand with a mortal wound travelling for weeks for 'elvish medicine'. No cause or effect, no stakes, no tension, no set-up leading to no pay-off, weak dialogue. Another dumpster fire.
I was surprised the contemporary kitset fencing (purporting to be a Numenorean camp) did not feature Amazon Prime branding.
One of the big criticisms of the show has been all the forced melodrama. Characters fighting for no good reason except to create some tension in the story.
It also felt odd to see Durin cry when Elrond is leaving coz it was only few eps ago that Durin was about to throw Elrond out for not turning up to his wedding. They were even lying to Elrond not long ago about the mithril and now he's crying bcoz his friend would hv to die like any normal person?? lol
I mainly liked how a character that started the show leaving a comrade to die (one that was with her for centuries) and now, some people she met 5 minutes ago dying turning her into a motherly heroine, not too much, since she left the other dozens of injured to die without even pausing.
I think this episode mainly showed all characters getting their big change, but without earning it.
This video elucidated a lot of what i liked/disliked about the show. I'm really only invested in Elrond & Durin/Disa's story as it's the only one where I can understand their personalities rather than just characters.Durin wanting to tell Elrond his secret khuzdul name was a lovely moment as was Elrond telling him to wait. The other characters feel like pieces on a chessboard especially the Numenoreans.
I cannot forgive that they turned Disa from wise, caring and wholesome mistress of the house and loving wife to power hungry witch
The Elrond and Durin story is by far the best part of the show and it's also the most lore-friendly. I love the way we're exploring the dwarves, and I really love how we're expanding Elrond as a character. And, above all, every actor involved in that storyline is just brilliant and they play off each other amazingly.
I want to love the Harfoot storyline but it keeps breaking right as it promises to get good, and then we don't get any follow up. Fem-Frodo and Fem-Sam are engaging characters, and I'm really interested in what's going on with Gandalf the Salt-and-Pepper, but it feels like these Hobbits are just spinning their wheels and not actually going anywhere.
I really appreciate that you can give good, fair and legit criticism without tearing down the whole show and people who still enjoy watching. It’s been hard to find channels with a good faith approach and I’ll be tuning I to your videos from now on!
People who enjoy this show are probably devoid of logic
Why have a good faith approach instead of legit criticism? I don't understand people like you. This is the show that put a blindfold on miriel so that people wouldn't know she was blind. Amazon has lost the right for good faith when they approached RUclipsrs for positive reviews.
@@RespectTheSourceMaterial The problem is that some RUclipsrs are so negative that they aren’t giving legit criticism anymore. It goes beyond criticism when the RUclipsr is misrepresenting things that showrunners say or talking about conspiracies that don’t exist. This RUclipsr at least sticks to the writing, talks about the good and the bad, does not demean audience members who disagree, and does not expect a work of tv/film to recreate what he felt when reading the books. That makes a huge difference.
@@free22 exactly 👌 it’s the difference between “bUt ThE pYrOcLaStIc FlOw” and “ not loving what they’re doing here and here’s why” i definitely don’t think the shows perfect but watching an hour-long after show just shitting on it is not what im looking for in these breakdowns personally 🤷🏼♀️
Yes, they should have waited on the Balrog reveal. Absolutely
For me it feels like all the dialog is to just advance the plot...And made to be sentimental without the groundwork of normal interaction. Idk, i like seeing events from the perspective of this time period but it loses value when the attention to detail is kind of glossed over.
As a Scot, hearing you having a go at a Scottish accent is all I’ve ever needed
HBO have played a masterful hand releasing HOTD at the same time, the contrast is sharp and displays the difference between great and mediocre writing which has plagued ROP
All the mystery boxes:
1 - Who is the stranger
2 - Who is Halbrand
3 - Who is Eminem
4 - Who is Adar -- (kind revealead, i guess. The first Orc...)
5 - What's in the box? -- (Mithril)
6 - What is the sword Theo has? -- A key to create Mordor in a very divise story.
7 - Where is Sauron?
8 - Where is Celeborn?
It's just too many mistery and they are growing more than being solved. It's the end of the season and nobody spoke the word: RING! Also, after the revelation it looks like those misteries doesnt even had to be misteries to begin with. The series Lost sunk because of this.
#3: The Real Slim Shady
I just couldn’t get past the volcano survival. All these beings can be killed by an arrow but survive a massive volcanic eruption?? No, I can’t
Elrond/Durin is the only thing that makes this show worth watching, but even it seriously tries my patience with the asinine mithril subplot.
Regarding Galadriel, her development doesn't feel earned. Mt Doom was going to explode whether she was there or not, and the villagers would have been worse off if the Númenorians hadn't arrived, so if anything, this incident should have made her more angry at the orcs. This "development" didn't come about through any fault of hers, so therefore it fell completely flat.
I agree with you in almost everything, but the pyroclastic explosion bit. It does bother me that they all were engulfed by it and the main characters aren't even coughing while two steps away from them there are charred corpses. I'm fine with them surviving a very deadly disaster for the sake of the story, but the way they have done it feels so random. The queen wasn't even blinded by it, she's blinded later, when she was helping Isildur..., and Halbrand has an awful injury, but he's not burned, so it feels absolutely unrelated. Idk, even if I didn't like the whole sword puzzle shit, i'd been fine with the payoff if they had handled a little better the consequences of such a violent volcanic explosion that has even reached the harfoots.
I reallly had my hopes up but was hit with dissapointment, at least i have HOTD to look forward to each week
I think my issue with the eruption isn't that people survived it, but that it didn't seem to affect them in anyway. No one was really coughing, struggling to breathe, or rushing to get out so they can get fresh air. They just kinda wondered around. At least in the action movies when someone gets shot, they still try to act like it's causing them pain.
I think there's something to be said for shock in this moment. Galadriel was definitely disoriented. The queen is blinded, some people have been crushed and you can hear screaming in the distance. I dunno. It was fine
EXACTLY I was thinking the same. I was also kinda frustrated with the sheer number of people who survived. I’m not upset that there were survivors just that there were so many of them
I think you've helped me pin down for myself why I think it's bland beyond "dialogue is bad and characters making odd choices" - RoP is trying to cover a very wide scope and has become a series of plot points the characters march to rather than character development driving the story and creating plot points as they go. That's why you get the Sadoc dialogue, that's why Galadriel and Numenor magically knew where to go for the battle and that's why it feels like they're blowing their load early on payoffs all the time.
It feels like they want people to make theories about these huge massive unexplained pieces of the story without actually giving anything to go on. Instead of giving answers that lead to more questions they're just not explaining things and leaving a whole bunch of questions. It's a bit frustrating but mostly it's unsatisfying to even try to come up with answers because they won't give any kind of answer because they're so focused on being mysterious and having plot twists
It may just be me, but I still am not really sure what the build up is for the end of the season. I can't really point to one storyline where I can say we will have some sort of resolution. It seems like the natural ending for this season would be the creation of Mt Doom/Mordor, with the main storyline for season two the ramifications and response from Numenor. At this point, it seems like almost all of these plot threads we are following are nowhere near an ending. I was convinced that we would get the Sauron reveal at the end of this season, but now I'm not so sure. I'm really not sure where this Harfoot/Stranger/Cultist business will lead, because there hasn't been any development there. The Dwarven storyline seems like it is at a natural stopping point for the season. And I can't really see the Elven storyline coming to a natural conclusion next episode. There should be some sort of arc for the season, right? Right now, I am not really seeing it.
I am, or at least was, thinking we might get a Sauron appearance in Eregion before the season ends, being someone who offers a solution to the now-desperate Elves, now that spreading decay/evil is threatening them.
Basically, I was expecting him to show up as an elf with some ideas for magical items that can grant them protection from the evil. I think it would make sense that if he is a/the source of the evil, he could choose to prevent it from spreading somewhere if he wanted to. He would use that to get in their good graces, so that he could give them things they needed and then turn those gifts against them later on. The elven rings end up doing that, so it would make sense for them to lean into such crafts now that they are in need of such a thing.
It may not line up with the lore that Sauron would necessarily know how to make such things, as I believe he learns much of the forging of the rings from being there, but I wouldn’t be too opposed to him coming in with a more firm understanding and just taking advantage of others being there and needing what he can offer them.
It may still happen this season. But at this point, I would have expected to see more going on with Celebrimbor at the Forges in Eregion, even just experimenting with crafting various magical things. Now it’s feeling like there wouldn’t be enough time to do that or to establish an alias for Sauron that doesn’t feel super suspicious and obvious.
I agree that the show might get more criticism for its bad illogical stuff because it is more boring than other shows. But I don’t think I have a show that has so much flaws in it as this one when it comes to detail. Even in a fantasy you expect some realism or logic. Like you said about halbrand and the wound. I think the vulcano is also one of these major issues, because it is logical for everyone to die. I think it would have been better to just have a bit of smoke or fog and not a doomsday scenario or maybe Galadriel setting up some force field like Gandalf in the hobbit. This extends to so many other scenes. Galadriel jumping out a boat in the middle of nowhere and fitting 300 men and horses or relatively small ships. That the dialogue is awkward and boring are common criticism and that the writing is not that great. I think you can add that the show lacks an attention to detail. From the examples already given numenor barely having any visible ships, the weird armor design, southlands only having 2 villages with 20 houses total and a watchtower, and Elrond walking from Lindon to Moria.
Besides it is just a terrible adaptation. They are removing themselves so much from the lore that was written. Making changes is fine for an adaptation this is also something George Martin (Game of Thrones) and Philipp Pullman (His Dark Materials) mention, but this show removes itself so far from the source (they don’t have the right to) that if you replace the names of the areas and characters you wouldn’t even notice it is an adaptation or even aspired by Tolkiens work. Even that isn’t the biggest issue if the writers wouldn’t have consistently mentioned that it would be fateful and I quote “back to the book, back to the books, back to the books”.
Talking about that the marketing of this show was absolutely terrible. I think part of the reason it is so badly received is 1 they don’t keep their promises regarding how faithful the adaptation is, and 2 they have been mostly marketing on diversity. Which already drags in a lot of people that complain about the “woke political agenda”. I don’t have a big issue with diversity myself, but I think it is not immersive. In a modern film I really don’t mind, but I feel like in a medieval setting it is illogical (back to the first point), because it might reflect todays America, it doesn’t reflect medieval Europe on which it is based on. Like busy trading towns having a variety of skin tones completely fine, but a nomadic hobbit tribe that hides from everyone. Where is the logic in that. Make them all Asian for all I care it is logical because they would all be inbreeding. Or dwarves having dark skin tones while, in the real world dark skin tones are for people who spend more time in the sun. Dwarves live and work underground. There are so many things they could have done to do it more immersive, like including easterligns or maybe dwarves from the Far East. Take for example House of Dragons where they also have African people who fit right in because it makes more sense.
I think that there are several reasons this show feels boring. And bad character work is one of them.
The character work is atrocious. This isn’t a matter of a thousand little nitpicky mistakes, it’s a major flaw. For almost all of them we’re not given anything to like about them. For the most part we just don’t know enough about them to care one way or another. For quite a few what little we do know is offputting and dislikeable. Now having dislikeable characters is not an automatic problem. Like you said Walter White is an awesome character, or think of all the GoT people that we loved to hate. But here’s the crucial bit: if you’re gonna write unlikeable protagonists, you have to be honest with yourself about them being jerkasses. If you think you’re writing someone really cute and loveable, or epic heroic, and that person is actually horrible to everyone around, your script will faceplant. Two examples.
The writers think their hobbits are warm, quirky and generous. That’s why they think daddys speech about ”hearts bigger than our feet” is going to land. But the hobbits they’ve actually written have this custom of leaving people behind to die if they get stuck in a snow drift, and then jokes about it next summer feast. Us watchers think they are stone cold sociopaths. The dissonance between what the script expect us to feel, and what we actually feel is jarring and offputting.
Second example, and probably the worst one in the show: Galadriel. You think she’s finally getting some character development, confonting her own darkness and whatnot. Prepare to be disappointed. The writers think that their Galadriel is defined by her Awesomeness, her Pure Goodness, and her quest for Righteous Vengeance, in that order. That is the Galadriel they have in their heads. Meanwhile, the one they actually wrote is a selfish diva, someone who makes demands without giving arguments, someone who immediately insults and threatens violence when she doesn’t get her way, someone who uses other people without thought for their desires or safety. And how do we know that the writers are unaware of this? Because neither characters or plot are written to give Galadriel negative feedback. People love and admire her, against all reason. And the plot repeatedly goes out of its way to prove her right and give her what she wants.
So lack of stuff that makes us care is the first problem. Then the characters generally don’t evolve. They don’t change, there’s no arcs, no character development. Pick a character, any character, and tell me what they like, what they want, if there’s any conflict between what they want and what they need, or just three things about them. And then tell me how they have started to change? Arondir? Bronwyn? Papa Smurf? Poppi? Cometman? Gil-Galad? Celebrimbor? The only ones who have rudimentary personalities are Elrond, Durin Jr, Halbrand and Theo. And I’m being generous with Elrond.
They also can’t remember their motivations from episode to episode. Sometimes not from scene to scene. Instead they escalate verbal arguments like tired six-year-olds. Sure, Durin Jr an Sr has had a moment or two of good dialogue. But then they get in one conflict about what to do with the mithril and suddenly Jr is screaming ”I hate you daddy!” and Sr is going ”You’re no son of mine, I disinherit you!”
The bad character work results in absent tension: there are no stakes, because we just don’t care what happens to these people.
All the conflicts are ass too, but that’s a different post.
This whole series has been hard for me to get through. I only watch it now with my girlfriend to laugh at when the show contradicts itself. Like when the Queen of Numenor has a scene where she has gone blind and doesn't want people to know and then the next she has a large red blindfold over her eyes. Or when the harfoot tree falls and they save the person by pushing them towards the falling branch. I find myself laughing at contradictions within the story and characters for the majority of my entertainment.
it's so weird, it's almost like the series is constantly gaslighting us lol. Like the way the halflings look at the man like he's a damn monster, and the camera stops at their pained gaze for a few seconds. The series acts as if he was a misunderstood man that is fated to harm the people he does good to, but it reads more like he's just being unfairly blamed for common accidents. And it's such a massive dissonance. These kind of little inconsistencies are everywhere, i feel insane watching this series
I love that you put an Avatar reference in there. 😂 It's nice to be reminded of an actually great series. 🙂
I don't care if you are an elf, that shot of Galadriel just full-on bodying a pyroclastic surge was mental. That stuff will evaporate your eyeballs and explode your bones faster than you can say "The Balrog of Morgoth."
Having said that, it didn't really affect my enjoyment of the show, the following scene looked awesome, even if I didn't really care about anyone involved.
The bigger sins of the show are not making us give a crud about anyone besides Elrond and Durin, and the lazy plotting.
I've only read The Hobbit and Fellowship of the Ring. With that, I've seen the Peter Jackson films and this show is clearly lacking. Boring hits the mark for how I feel. I enjoy the Elrond and Durin relationship, but the usage of mithril to heal the elves? That feels wrong to me. The Southlands story is uninteresting. Arondir and Galadriel are the best of the characters, but Arondir acts almost too "Vulcan" at times and Galadriel is just hard to cheer for most of the time. The Harfoots are a questionable addition to the series. Not a fan, but I don't hate it.
This episode was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Just too many bizarre decisions and parts where I have to suspend my disbelief. The pyroclastic flow not being more destructive thing did actually annoy me. More because they simply could have not had a pyroclastic flow and achieved much of the same result than an unwillingness to suspend disbelief. It's a moment when I very simply could have not had to suspend my disbelief to such an extreme degree. I tried so hard to look past the lore changes, but at a certain point I can't look past all of them, especially since most of them have actively made stuff worse. And I agree with your overall point that most of it is just boring rather than bad. Durin and Elrond's relationship is the only part of the plot I somewhat enjoy and I have to ignore the Mithril stuff. I'll watch the next episode due to sunk cost fallacy, but I can't imagine myself coming back to the series next season (unless the finale is truly spectacular).
they love fake deaths in this show. lazy cheap writing
As much as I hate to admit but my interest towards watching ROP has significantly dwindled, but I will not be childish, I refuse to throw nasty comments against the show. I will continue to watch it and see how it goes or how it ends.
I disagree about the volcano issue. I have two points:
1. Even action movies get scrutinized when they go overboard with unnatural visual effects eg. Jurassic World outrunning a pyroclastic flow, 2012 being over the top etc. Ignoring physics can pull the audience out. We expect a certain degree of realism in our entertainment. Keeping most of your action withing somewhat logical bounds of physics makes it more believable. Only south Indian movies can throw physics out the window to this degree and get cheers. (I'm looking at you RRR).
2. It is problematic if you teach your audience, that what they are seeing does not reflect what is actually happening.
》》Pyroclastic surge that evicerates houses with a touch, with thunder in its midst《《 makes you anxious, because you can see the punch it packs. But if all that culminated into a bit of dust and a horse on fire, will you fear for your characters again when they are in peril in the next episode or will you feel silly for assuming that a knife in the heart means death? It's just a flesh wound silly!
They could have easily gone for a rockslide, an Ash cloud, anything but the over the top doomsday death flow they did. They added lightnig for gods sake.
GoT S8 had the same issue in the Battle of Winterfel. Sam is under a pile of white walkers, Jon abandons him - that implies Sam dies. A few sceens after, he is alive and well without explanation. All Dothraki die and then respawn an episode later.
Why bother watching if the things you see don’t matter and things can mean anything.
This is spectacle over substance all over again.
Love your breakdowns, greetings from Germany!
Edit: fixed spelling
Honestly, the first minutes of the episode broke my immersion so thoroughly that I just couldn't find my way back. At the end of the last episode, the Southlanders and the Numenorians got engulfed in a pyroclastic cloud, which is absolutely deadly (greetings from Pompeii). But oh, lucky us, THIS pyroclastic flow only sets building, unnecessary side characters, and poor horses ablaze. Main characters aren't even singed, just covered in ash that doesn't even impair their breathing.
After that, I couldn't take anything seriously that happened on screen, and I'm usually fine with action movies and such. But, for me, this was just too over the top. I don't know, maybe it was just the last of a whole lot of things that added up.
The problem is there is no consistancy. There are people who were in stone buildings that were severed burned and almost chared to a crisp, meanwhile Galadriel stood directly in front of and took the full force of the blast and doesn't even have a hair on her head singed. The force of the flow leveled stone buildings, charred people to a crisp, and ingnited all flammable objects such as thatch, wood, and horse hair. Meanwhile all our main characters are completely fine, not a hair singed, not a scratch. It is so immersion breaking it's ridicoulous.
Not to mention, once again, there are no consequnces for our main characters and therefore, no tension. Our characters failed and had a volcano blow up in their face and not a single one is even slightly wounded. We get one random side character who had a total of maybe 30 minutes of screentime die off screen and that's the big stakes. If a pyroclastic flow, which is impossible to survive, can't even remotely injure our characters, what stakes do we have? What should we be worried about?
I know a lot of people are saying that this episode was really boring but I honestly enjoyed it quite a bit mainly because it felt the most like a Tolkien story. I think the eruption of Mount Doom at the end of the previous episode overshadowing the events of this one really helped with this since it sets up the stakes more and even if we weren't all that invested in the Southlands there is still a looming evil that feels much more present and the characters have to deal with that. How each character dealt with this event in the Numenor storyline was very compelling because each one had different reactions, Galadriel really felt the defeat and began to reflect on where she went wrong, transitioning more from rashness to wisdom. Elendil felt the loss of his son deeply and hates everything that brought them to that place and so is even more grieved by the fact that this is just the beginning for Numenor and Tar Miriel is filled with righteous anger and finds a deeper purpose from the tragedy. It may have been a slower episode but it gave us more character development that was greatly needed hopefully they don't throw that away.
To comment on the pyroclastic flow.
I would also probably have not cared and accepted that this is just one of these trope things that someone showhow survives... But the main issue I and many seem to take is that they literally show us the sheer destructive power of it. We see it break things apart, we see the literal heat coming from it setting everything on fire even before it touches it. They set the stage on screen for how much destruction this thing can cause and set expectations. If they had just showed a cloud of ash going her way - sure. But that stuff is hot and filled with embers and most peoples brains can connect that this should kill you when you walk straight into it.
So it is less like getting shot in movies - it feels more like literally walking into an explosion just after having seen that explosion kill everyone else around the hero and destroy buildings.
Still, lovely review. ^^ Always enjoy hearing these but this one stood out for me.
I honestly couldn't finish it. I got bored, and had other things I wanted to do. But one thing I will say, that would have made this whole series more interesting: what if it all started with the first part of this episode? All we see is destruction, fire, and death. And later we learn that it's because evil has returned, and the southlands are being taken over. People tried to stop it, but it was too late. Or something along those lines.
Although I'm not entirely well versed in LOTR lore. I just couldn't help but think that the entire time I was watching. It would've been interesting to see the stakes before getting into the political mumbo jumbo in Númenor because it would have felt more meaningful.
Edit: and of course the Elrond and Durin plotline is still the best.
Honestly, if they'd actually followed the plotlines laid out even a little (because they are actually fairly thin on details), and not tried to make Galadriel the main character (just create a OC for Eru's sake) it could have easily been amazing. Númenor should have had colonies all through this area, the elves weren't acting as peace keepers (in a lot of ways the Númenorians were in that role). This would have let us explore the tensions between the colonies drifting from the "true" old ways that are still strong in the capitol while actually having the degradation of the faith of Númenor happen on screen, probably actually starting with Miriel's dad with the concept that at least 50 years are going to pass, maybe approximately 10 years between seasons or something... this would also allow us to grow into all of the conflicts and space to actually work through the growth of Eregion (which seems to not exist yet, even though it FALLS before the Last Alliance which is when Elendil and Isildur actually enter the picture). It would still be horribly condensed, but it would be less condensed and less forced that what we got.
Regardless, Adar is the best thing to come out of this show so far, change my mind.
I have got several points to make
First point -> eruption and body extremities wounds. Trained soldiers usually go for centre of mass shots since those are way easier to hit. So it is a lot more likely to get shot in the torso or more rarely, in the head. Now, depending on the context, it is less or more believable to get wounded in the body extremity. Almost all protective gear is designed to stop shots into the torso and the head as they are indeed more rare and more dangerous. So depending on a scenario it is more likely to get shot in the torso, but at the same time more likely to get wounded in the body extremity. So it is quite disanalagous. Now to the eruption, we are shown several things: 1) it severely burns anything it gets in touch with; 2) nobody tries to hide in the basement/behind the wall/in the tunnels (that are still filled with water); 3) extras are running towards the eruption 4) eruption somehow distinguishes between main characters and the extras. Under no circumstances and in no context anyone should have survived this eruption and the show asks us to believe this. It kinda interferes with stakes IMO and if they can survive that at the writer's whim, what can't they do at the writer's whim? As pointed out in many essays on the topic, just because it is fiction it does not mean regular rules can be thrown out of the window. Legolas was a big offender of said rule both in LotR movies and in Hobbit Trilogy and I think you also made that point in some of your videos, though I may be wrong. I will not writers get away with it.
Next point -> I think I know why the show seems uninteresting and falls flat. It seems the writers have bullet points of stuff that needs to happen for arbitrary reasons and they force the script around it regardless of what is already been established. And as a result it feels more like a shopping list of events and less like a story with a through line.
Next point -> I do not think the writers deserved the pay off with Galadriel understanding she is a war criminal wannabe. In her dialogue with Adar she threatens to kill him despite previous words about not killing him. Meaning that mere suggestion that she's evil pissed her off to this degree. And nothing in the dialogue or her acting to Theo's words or anyone else's suggest she is introspective about it. In the scene after interrogation Halbrand and Galadriel say "killing orcs side by side was fun, if only we could do it forever to preserve that feeling. If anything it suggests they want to continue down that path. This line is not earned.
Next point -> death by a thousand cuts. The problem is not only with loads of small mistakes and bad dialogue lines/bad writing choices. I think those problems compound and synergize to completely destroy certain events, setups or characters. Case in point: Elendil says in his encounter to Galadriel "I am obliged to deliver you to my betters". Later he is question by the queen and from his perspective he needs a good reason to justify why did he pick up an elf and following exchange happens:
Queen: Elf friends believe that those petals do not fall for no reason
Elendil: I do not look for portents or omens in life
Queen: Why did you pick her up?
Elendil: The sea has put her in my path, and the sea is always right
Queen: The sea cannot commit treason
That happens in the same episode. The queen implies that it was treason and it is against the law. Why then you would have this opening line of "I am obliged to deliver you to my betters"? His sailors hear it and nobody objects to it or raises a concern. And why would Elendil tried two contradictory lines in the same conversation if he knows he is being evaluated and questioned by the queen. Those mistakes just established that Elendil and his crew as not so smart to say the least. I can give many more examples when several small mistakes and odd writing choices create blatant plot holes.
Next point -> for someone who claims to base their work on Tolkien, the characters are surprisingly violent and war-like. I would appreciate some anti-war rhetoric and sentiment at least somewhere, yet the main protagonist is violent, aggressive, vengeful and antagonizing all the time. After the last episode I am struggling to find any good, interesting or sympathetic character. Galadriel, well, proponent of the "final solution to the orc problem", antagonizing, vengeful, violent, manipulative, ungrateful, selfish, arrogant and angry all the time. Halbrand - all edgy and moody yet we know surprisingly small about him would lie and steal his way to get what he wants, shows manipulative tendencies, openly says he's done bad things. Isildur: human equivalent of a wind vane who cannot make up what does he want. Miriel: decides to hang a kingdom on a nebulous omen despite saying herself it is too thin of a thread to hang a kingdom on (actually a good line). Elendil: makes contradicting and outright stupid choices, breaks down like a house of cards when faced with signs that his son might be alive (despite telling his son about his bond with the horse), stands there and does nothing despite failing his son and his men, cries in the corner failing all of them again. I get how he feels, but this scenes characterizes him as weak and whiny and unfit to be a leader (I felt it was contradictory to what the show established about the guy). He could ahve return with the horse, organize rescue parties, help survivors, he is a noble blood of Numenor, not a random Joe that breaks down under the circumstances, he is battle hardened and battle ready warrior. Elrond: lying, manipulative (since the very start), breaks his oath because of an odd choice and insists he did not do it, then behaves like an idiot and admits to it, which brings me to the next character Durin IV: allows himself to be manipulated, contradicts himself with motivations (is angry with Elrond for presumed manipulation, is chill with said manipulation when Elrond admits he had alterior motive that Elrond was not aware of at the time), also deceitful and manipulative (with the table, which was a bold and risky bet), but I could root for him if not for the last episode. Disa: flips from being wholesome and very likeable house mistress and smart and wise wife to greedy power hungry witch (and I felt like it was out of character for her) and so on and on and on. Also harfoots exist and I was literally cheering when their camp was on fire in this episode, they are worse than orcs, at least orcs care for their fallen and do not kill each other in the show. Adar is my favourite and I am rooting for him since he is caring, sympathetic and calls out the main character on her wrongdoing BIG TIME and proves he's right, although his plan is not the brightest. I think I got my point across.
If those mistakes were not as numerous, weren't so densely packed, weren't so contradictory to each other and to established characterization, weren't compounding into gaping plot holes, I think I could let some of those slide. But unfortunately it is not the case. And all of that is before we start talking about adherence to the lore. One might say I am being too critical, but when I apply same amount of scrutiny to something that is good, it stands to it and my enjoyment of it increases. Case in point: the fact they did not forget surgery marks in the Infinity War on doctor Strange is small yet very strong moment of consistency.
Next point -> public perception and discussion around it. It is everywhere, every major media outlet, my google news feed, my twitter feed and a lot of other stuff is filled with articles that accuse people who dislike the show of being racist, sexists, all other kinds of ists and phobes, or in a more recent example, "patently evil". I wish I could avoid it, but it is EVERYWHERE. NGL when I see messages like this combined with showering the show in shallow praise (10/10 masterpiece by IGN) it grinds my gears the wrong way and I think I get more inclined to look for critique. I still would put it on the showrunners since they are deliberately antagonizing towards a lot of people. I am not objecting to people liking it, of course, I like a lot of lousy stuff like Doctor Who or Mandalorian. But I can recognize that they are flawed creations and I will be willing to critique them openly and as objective as I can. Therefore such a tactic in marketing and public reception that immediately lashes out at anyone who says it has a lot of problems. The way showrunners responded to some legit criticism is abysmal, laced with direct lies and logical fallacies akin to 'well, Tolkien never said Galadriel did not pass through a magic wardrobe to reboot the matrix and kill all Lannisters". It is as if they antagonize people towards it deliberately and then push it on Social Media for everybody to see it. I sent hours telling twitter and YT I am not interested in all that drama yet it pops up again and again.
I would love it if you could be critical of the show and not be portrayed as a villain. I also think that by being critical we all benefit by receiving increase in quality of entertainment across the board. And NGL watching your videos made me better at writing so now some bad examples just stick out a lot more :)
Sorry for the long rant, but I tried to be as clear and as objective as possible
the problem with the volcano thing is precisely what you point out with the compounding of several similar instances where they just ignore how reality works whenever it's convenient. We have at least one of these on each episode.
I’ve been watching the show and I’m a mostly casual fan(I’ve read Lott , the hobbit and the similarilian once) and my favourite part is the Elrond/ Durin part and that was ruined for me by the magical healing mithril which is too much of a lore break. I liked your idea of it just being a ploy to obtain the mithril. The harfoots I’m enjoying more than I used to but the whole mount doom /Numenor stuff I don’t really like. In my opinion they should’ve ended the season with the cliffhanger of the eruption as now that storybeat that has been built up is finished so it’s no longer has any interest in it. I will probably finish the season and then stop as it isn’t that interesting to stick around for longer.
6:25 For me, the issue here is that the change doesn't seem earned. This should be the episode where she shows the audience that the she realises the quest for vengeance has brought out the worst in her, made her the mirror image of the enemy rather than it's opposite.
It seems far more like she leaves the sword with Theo because, I guess she can pick a new one up when she takes the horses to the horse gas station or whatever than a conscious rejection of the violence and hate that has consumed her for hundreds of years, which would be a really significant step towards making her the Galadriel of the Third Age.
The only thing keeping this show alive is the mystery of Sauron's true identity
@@D4RKM4ST3R42 Yet IF they can pull that off I'd be intrigued. I'm with you on it being pretty on the nose but I'm secretly hoping they pull a rug out and make Disa Sauron. THAT would be drama I'd watch for the sheer sake of it. Hell they could put the rest of the show in space.
@@andrewstubblefield4605 i mean they can pull off a bait and switch if they just write it as such. Now if they just make a random people sauron for the heck of it, i'd be pretty dissapointed. Don't want another 'bran the broken king' situation
You are right. I think its the same for most ppl. Thats why I dont believe they will reveal sauron's identity even next season. They will string us along with bread crumbs.
@@shinkamui Disa for Sauron 2022 🎊
@@D4RKM4ST3R42 i have not, and if that's a joke forgive me for ruining it 🙃
People keep saying things like "well the writing is bad but at least it's technically good." But I highly disagree, there are so many very weird or just plain bad choices in how they film things that just confuse the audience. That is my biggest complaint is that I am confused so often in this show. I so often pause and rewind the show because I am confused and must have missed a scene but I didn't. I can't get invested because I am so confused.
The blind queen is an example, when she has that scene where she double's down and makes this big show of "we're coming back with a bigger army and crush them" I went into that scene fully expecting her to tell Galadriel to piss off and that it was a mistake to come here and she is going back and ensure her people never work with elves again.
I have had that experience dozens of times in this show, and I have never had that happen in almost any other show, and i understand subverting expectations but they were not trying to do that, they did it accidentally many times. Where I felt like the story was leading me in one direction but they were intending to lead me in an entirely different direction and just did such a poor job that I got lost.
Another example is when Nori tells the cultists which way the stranger went, someone else said that she was lying and trying to send the cultists off in the wrong direction, I did not get that impression at all, I think she was telling the truth.
Your current title pretty much sums up how most people feel about the show in a nut shell.
There are too many moments that are deliberately trying to bring the audience back to the original LoTR and it just feels like mimicry. The orcs saying "what do you smell"; needing "Elvish medicine" (and then immediately getting on a horse); Isildur's horse sprinting after him, where in the next episode we are guaranteed to see a sweet man-horse reunion like Aragorn and Brego. The dialogue itself tries hard to echo Tolkien's aesthetic and it just feels contrived. And this is definitely death by a thousand cuts: the very enjoyable moments are overshadowed by these tiny plot holes or convenient devices that have built up episode after episode. It almost feels like they had two different writers for this show: one for the Elrond and Durin arc (which is believable and well executed in both writing and acting. Even if the mithril plot line isn't canon, it created believable conflict), and one for the Galadrial and Southlander/Numenorian arc. The latter has too many convenient plot holes/devices (out of allll the tiny villages in the Southlands, the Numenorians just knew where Adar and the Orcs were attacking? The sword was the only device that could bring the bridge down?) OH and the Harfoots. The entire tension in that plot is from the Harfoots ruthlessness in their migration...and by the end of the episode 7 that completely reverses.
Does it count as mystery box if the writers know what’s in the box?
I didn't watch RoP at all, but I am going to watch this review series until the end, to see if it is (probably not) worth my time.
The impression I'm getting is that the script is written to drag out a lot of mysteries until the 8th episode, when the stakes will suddenly change.
For example, I had been thinking Halbrand is Sauron, as in the Second Age he was in disguise, but now I'm leaning to the Stranger being Sauron. The mystics either 1) see the Stranger as a threat to their mission because he is an Istari wizard sent to thwart them, or 2) they are part of a Morgoth/Sauron cult that can restore Sauron's true identity (one of them has a staff that looks like the Tower of Barad-dur with the flaming eye). The idea that Sauron could be split apart (physically, spiritually, between seen and unseen worlds) is reinforced by the idea of the One Ring, in which he poured a lot of his identity, but not all of it. Adar said he killed Sauron by having him "split open".
If the Stranger is Sauron then the actions of the harfoots need to be re-evaluated. "Nothing is evil in the beginning" is a theme running in the background. Would the harfoots have been right to leave him behind? Are they right to try to save him?
Part of the frustration is that there are gaps in the storyline that hang over the story, but need some resolution. For example, the actions of Halbrand, Isildur, and Adar after the eruption are unknown, but I suspect that some interesting encounters and revelations have already happened among those characters. Did Isildur stab Halbrand after discovering something about him? Did Halbrand help Adar escape? Some key details are being held back from us, and it seems we don't have quite enough information to be asking the right questions.
The Celeborn situation I think does have a possible explanation in the lore. There was a character who came back from the dead at this time -- Glorfindel (a First Age hero who died fighting a balrog). Glorfindel is also a character that is replaced in film adaptations (by Legolas in the animated LOTR; by Arwen in Jackson's LOTR). Glorfindel has a history fighting the witch-king (the main Nazgul) and he was the one who said "no man" can kill him. Glorfindel was returned to Middle-Earth at the time of the forging of the One Ring as a sort of prototype for the Istari wizards -- he was sent back to thwart Sauron.
So if Celeborn and Glorfindel are combined, then there are some interesting conflicts that could be played out in the upcoming seasons, such as between Celeborn/Glorfindel and the witch-king. If Halbrand becomes the witch-king (if my Sauron theory doesn't pan out), then all kinds of interesting motivations in the upcoming conflict could be explored. The actual rings of power will introduce some interesting conflicts, as Galadriel gets one, but Sauron makes his ring to try to control the three Elven rings. I am curious as to how the show, with its many revisions, will play out these conflicts, which are conflicts over the power to address different needs (for the elves, to sustain themselves and their world; for the One Ring, to control others).
I agree with everything here. One more tiny papercut for me was actually when Durin revealed to Elrond that dwarves have secret names that they use only with family. Ok, then why couldn’t we have heard his family using his secret name in one of the many scenes where it’s just Durin and Disa, or Durin and his father? One tiny change to the script would have made this moment feel earned
My biggest issue with this episode is the Balrog. In the lore, the Dwarves “delved too deep” in their greed, and the awakening of the Balrog was a sort of karmic punishment for that greed. This accidental awakening of the Balrog while refusing to mine the mithril at all because it would risk dwarven lives loses that “poetic justice” aspect of the story of Durin’s Bane.
Even Tolkien would tear apart the miraculous survival from that volcanic eruption. It literally attacks Secondary Belief and has you do a willing suspension of disbelief which already means the primary art has failed as Tolkien writes in On Fairy-Stories.
You can't overlook these things and just wave them away.
Yeah I always thought the Balrog was in a small cavern that the dwarfs opened up and got screwed
I'm sure they will bring the Balrog into the story. They've compressed the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Ages of Middle Earth into one storyline.
Totally agree on the “death by a thousand cuts” point. People complain that I rant about “minor” problems but it’s because there are sooooo many….
Yep, I think you nitpick a little too much on your older rants about PJ's trilogy, but I completely agree with everything you say about RoP, the lack of attention to detail and the illogical events and behavior that happen all the time are really off putting.
I laughed SO hard at the "Ring, ring... Who's there?" part
Solved the Sauron mystery.
The viewer is Sauron
Change my mind
What also makes me laugh is I think the King Dwarf stole the crown off the Statue of Liberty 🤣
My issue with the Mithril = +health for elves thing is why then was Legolas not going full Boromir on Frodo as soon as he saw he had a full Mithril shirt 👀
I liked how Galadriel showed us how much of a hero she is by walking past the wounded crying out for help to meander through the ruins with Theo. So brave to ignore all those people in need.
Balrog reveal would be cooler with a small change:
Leaf slowly dwindles down, just like in the episode. When almost reaching the bottem, it starts to burn, and turns to cinder. Though we do not see how or by what, to keep the mystery.
This way the focus isn't on "Look at cool balrog" but more on the dangers of greed and 'digging too deep' .
Although, maybe the leaf should've been something else, since it might symbolize elfs (elfs burning/dying), while (i think?) it should be dwarfs burning/dying.
(Though, shouldn't the balrog be sleeping or something? So it can be 'awakened' by the dwarfs digging too deep)
"It feels like people just trying to find things to complain about at that point."
Rampant levels of plot armour is not a minor complaint. Don't get me wrong some critics have been desperate for this show to fail from the start, which is very toxic. But I also feel like some channels are so intent on 'not being toxic' that they're giving this show a much kinder run than they otherwise would. And ignoring something as gigantic as plot armour so large it shatters suspension of disbelief really makes me wonder whether or not you've gone into denial.
Not trying to insult you, I love your content.
There are some parts that get my interest, but everytime something comes up that is mildly worth paying attention to it instantly cuts to something I don't care about. There is no tension, especially because we know Galadriel isn't going to have any consequences out of anything because it's a prequel, and the other characters probably won't because it's Amazon.
I think the reveal of the Balrog allows for the possibility of some serious dramatic irony. Because Durin IV and Disa, the characters we like and are rooting for, are pushing forward on a path that, if successful, will lead to the destruction of Khazad-dum.
And I think that, while the show absolutely shouldn't expect that its audience has even read LOTR and The Hobbit, let alone has read The Silmarillion and other more obscure works of Middle Earth lore, it is fair for them to expect that a large portion of their audience has at least seen the LOTR movies. Which means that a lot of viewers would have already known that the threat in the depths of the mountain was a Balrog. And for people who are coming into this completely fresh, the reveal that it is a Balrog doesn't actually mean a lot to them. So dragging out the reveal would have made it underwhelming, in my opinion.
Instead, now we the show has hung the Balrog on the wall like Chekhov's Gun, and we the audience will be waiting for it to go off, knowing the longer it takes to go off, the more disastrous the consequences will be.
I don't know, I'm kind of excited for the scene when the Elves stand around and smoke, snort or inject some of the liquid silver.
Feels like they simultaneously tried to write a show for the lore nerds with little nods here and there, and no explanation of stuff, *and* they tried to write a generic fantasy show for those who don’t know the lore, and they failed on both counts.
Completely agree with you on all your points in this, especially this: it’s boring. I don’t care about characters who I think I’m supposed to care about. I forget about the various arcs (Numenor, Harfoots esp) when they’re not actively on screen. I don’t understand why Halbrand went from ‘I just wanna be a smith in Numenor’ to ‘I will give the Southlands back the king they yearn for’. I don’t care about Theo. The person I’m most invested in finding out more about is Adar, and also the Durin and Disa arc.
The pacing is weird - to have this as the penultimate of the series was an odd choice, but the pace of each episode feels lurching… first stodgy then rushed. If they never released the last episode I wouldn’t care, which is a shame. Despite all the covid and filming issues they had with Wheel of Time, I felt like that worked better as a fantasy show and I’m really looking forward to S2 of that.
Love your witty, fair commentary as always though. Thanks for making these videos. If I don’t watch season two, I’ll be sure to watch your take on it all the same.
I'm not sure that Mr TwotheFuture and I are watching the same series.
I spoke with my dad about the show after watching this episode. He's someone that read the Hobbit and LOTR when he was a teenager and enjoyed the Peter Jackson films.
He agreed with me that the worst thing about the show is the dialogue and this episode has the prime example of "I see. Do you?" Which was just so cringey. But otherwise he's been enjoying the show enough but thinks its just mediocre. His favourite plot is the Durin Elrond plot, he likes the Harfoots and the Stranger but thinks we've not spent enough time with them, and isn't particularly invested in the numenor Southlands plots.
Interestingly, he's fine with Galadriel because he thinks it makes sense that we don't like her because it's meant to show how suffering loss can corrupt you which wasn't really something I expected him to say.
I saw on another video someone said that based on the mythril repels evil rule that the show is going with, the Balrog can be trapped by it, meaning the mythril is its prison and later the more they dig the freer the balrog gets and knowing he’s there and waiting can become a source of tension if they decide to go this route.
Literally Dwarf Fortress.
Oh that's actually a really interesting idea. I like that.
My main conflict is that a lot of conflicts are really forced... Like in this episode, the harfoots ask the stranger to heal the tree, he does, the tree is shaking, then this little kid decides to run up to it and precisely when and where a branch decides to break off and fell... Just an accident if not entirely the kid's fault, but no, now they are all in shock and disgust and hate the stranger... It makes no sense
I took me until this episode to realize that Poppy is probably gonna be the Sam to Nori's Frodo. The whole time I was certain something bad was gonna happen to her and it'd be Nori's fault, to serve as a catalyst.
Btw this episode was very heavy handed on the links to the LotR movies
-Elendil going "where is my son?" like Theoden
-Galadriel saying " he needs elvish medicine" like Aragorn
-The orc going "what do you smell?" like the Uruk-hai
-The Balrog reveal
There were more scenes, but I can't remember them all, I just realized I was going "huh, direct reference?" a lot
First of all, I want to say thanks for your RotP videos. They are critical, but I feel like they are always fair and well-argumented. With certain other reviewers, I feel there's a lot of knee-jerk reactions based on how things differ from the lore, whereas you seem to also wish to evaluate it as a show on itself. Personally I am a huge Tolkien (lore) fan but like you said about Mithril, I want to try and see where the show goes with those bad/weird choices and also enjoy the good parts.
I think the last ep was actually my favorite. Some of my favorite characters (Elrond, Durin, Elendil) got great moments. Despite the slow pacing I was really not bored, but I think (you mentioned this in an earlier video) that things would have worked better if we got these kinds of scenes earlier in the series so that we get to know the characters before things start going down.
I'm going to say it again I don't think there are going to be resolving much of anything this season, unless next week's episode is 2 plus hours long I don't see how they could do it and do it justice
I love the movies. Watch the extended editions every single December with my husband. He doesn't care about them but he watches along with me. For the Rings of Power he falls asleep in every episode, even the Volcano episode.
It's so BAD that Boring is some weird kind of step UP😘
Frodo's wound is more forgivable than Halbrand's, by a lot. The thing that was killing him was not the wound itself, like with Halbrand, but the poison in the blade that was now seeping through his body, meaning horse riding likely would not have been as disastrous as it would be for Halbrand. Additionally, Aragorn helped Frodo out, and while it was not enough to save him, one can wrap their head around it helping Frodo out and slowing the poison down to where he could be saved, and even then he barely made it. It feels like a real close brush with death.
Agree with your sentiments on the most part, I can’t agree with you about the pyroclastic flow though.. that just didn’t make any sense at all
About Galadriel: Personally, I did not think her reflections were earned.
She has no reason to think she caused the eruption, she doesn't even know the artifact was swapped. The eruption could have been coincidental. And how does the volcano erupting change her motivation to kill all orcs? Why did an eruption force reflection and admittance of fault in this context? Her thirst for revenge did not cause this. Shouldn't she be even keener on revenge now? I understand she felt tired of everything when the eruption hit, but I don’t feel blaming herself makes sense.
She comes across as preachy, shouting genocide in one scene and telling Theo about avoiding dark deeds a couple scenes later. Her change was... jarring, abrupt and didn't feel earned. There are no consequences for her actions either. Numenor is on her side stronger than before, she has actual proof of the dark forces gathering to show the elves, she lost no one and nothing, she has no reason to repent.
If you made a video essay on why Galadriel in this show is not very likeable, I'd watch that. I think there are valuable writing lessons to be learned here.
This time I was so bored I had to stop and watch an hour long Internet Historian masterpiece Man in Cave to recover before going back to it only to discover magical mithril powers are confirmed and balrog is already awake. idk if i can make it much longer
You described my feelings exactly. It's that lack of immersion that breaks it for me.
I think you described it best with "it's like a thousand little cuts"
Little things wouldn't bother me, or heck I might not even notice little things if they weren't all over the place.
Sure, there are some things I like, but it's not enough to make me care. I'll still watch just because I love LotR, but little things stand out more and annoy me more when it's every other line or scene.
The actors are saving it for me.... barely. They're doing a fantastic job with what they've been given and definitely deserve some praise!
This ep was the only one that Galadriel wasn't irritating. Like you said, she has some great lines that are starting to sound more like her from LotR. (While I don't expect her to sound like the Galadriel we know, it has been one of the poorest written characters imo. )
I don't recall her saying Celebron died...I think she said she hasn't seen him since or that she lost him? I don't remember, but don't care enough to go back and rewatch. 😅😂
The way they revealed Mordor at the end was extremely boring to me. 🙄
I keep finding it fascinating how Tim and Daniel are finding this so much less enjoyable than I do. I don't claim for a moment that it's perfect, but every moment I'm watching I'm immersed in the show, and like being there.
Galadriel: my husband is dead
me: where is his body
Galadriel: what?
me: where is his corpse
Galadriel: they never found him
me: then his still alive if there is no body then his still alive that's how thing work around here hay Galadriel have you check the Green forest or Lothlorien
Galadriel: no
me: will good place to start
Surviving a pyroclastic flow is not like being shot in the arm and surviving.
It is more like being ground down then burned to ashes, buried 6 feet deep and surviving like nothing have happened
Happiness is a skill and a rare luxury in this stupid and cruel world. LET PEOPLE love what they can.
BUT ALSO, while we are not shaming the fans, the artists, especially artists who inherent stories, MUST honor the legacy as they are given the gift of a spotlight. You only get to stand on the shoulders of giants so long as you are kind and good for the giant.
(Besides, all my hate goes to the Star Trek Picard writers. I can't even feel annoyance at Rings of power now that I know black cold rage this deep)
It’s hard for me to divorce any particular episode from the foundation it’s been built upon. Even if the next episode or season ends up being top notch storytelling (def hasn’t happened yet), it will be stained by all the subpar episodes and unnecessary lore breaks that have come before. Galadriel still chose to swim across the ocean. Mithril is still elvish medicine. Everyone still survived the pyroclastic flow. Celeborn was still fake dead. All the cringe dialogue was still uttered.
Basically I don’t think there’s any hope I’ll like this show, and my heart is still grieving over what this show could have been.
With a few interesting exceptions (Elrond and Durin-honestly, the dwarven plot feels like a different show), the RoP is fan-fiction, not a meaningful addition to Tolkien. And I know we keep coming halfway as the writers rip up Tolkien all the way and then say “just meet us halfway” every time, but it’s a disservice to people who want to get into the Tolkien legendarium to be introduced to this show. The world is small, the feuds are petty, and the magic is almost nonexistent. Galadriel has at the time of this show been apprenticed to Melian the Maia for a thousand years or more-she should know more elven healing magic than anybody else alive! But the show runners wanted to tell the tale of an angry teenage Galadriel and her hunky bad boyfriend Halbrand, only for longtime love Celeborn to come back into the picture and now she has to choose who to go with to the prom. It’s an awful story and I liken it to Wonder Woman 1984 for character assassination.
The problems I had between episodes 6 and 7 (I know this is only about episode 7) were:
In episode 6 when Bronwyn somehow survived a massive hemorrhage from the arrow being pulled out of her. Something about it seemed off😅 and I would have been okay losing that character to be honest. And then in the same episode when they use the hilt as the key to blowing up Mt. Doom- the idea was cool. But it was bugging my brainy brain the way it was set off. Like i would have been much more satisfied if the hilt triggered a massive earthquake that then led to Mt Doom exploding (erupting, whatever). Otherwise I enjoyed the visual of the volcano catastrophically annihilating the Southlands. That was cool.
In episode 7: I did have a moment of “aww Isildur’s friend died”. And with Halbrand’s injury I was thinking as they set of riding: “he’s there dying if sepsis one minute and then the next he’s perfectly fine?”
Some of the science or logic could have been better… considered? Played with? Something?
And with the Queen having gone blind I wish they had hinted that sooner because it was “All of a sudden, Ta-Miriel couldn’t see!” Rather than her like… panicking because she can’t see. I understand wanting to be cool… but I’m sure she had a moment alone post eruption to freak out about the fact that she can’t see…..
anyhow. On to the next one. I don’t know if I want to watch the second season. We’ll see what happens