The Rings Of Power Is A Lazy, Sloppy Mess
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- Опубликовано: 6 окт 2024
- Details matter. You can't say "well it's fantasy" and handwave away plot holes, contrivances and bad editing and writing. The latest episode of The Rings Of Power has been widely praised, but the devil's in the details and that's where this episode crumbles into a lazy, sloppy amateurish mess.
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I have found myself increasingly fascinated by just how bad this show is. How can writing and editing this awful even make it to screen? What was going on with this production that this could even happen?
A lot of failing upward apparently. And a deep hatred of the lore the spent $250,000,000 for. Insane 🤦
And how are seemingly so many people just shutting their brains off when watching, and somehow actually enjoying it? I feel like the poor writing is so transparent, so glaring, that anyone aught to be able to see right through it instantly. I honestly don't get it. As you insinuate, it is OBVIOUS how bad it is.
@@johnhoge2557 a lot of them are just hardcore lefties who are willing to pretend it is a masterpiece because it has their values they wish to push. doesn't matter how bad it is they will just keep rejoicing it as a masterpiece.. they never cared about scifi or fantasy to begin with either
If you work in the "professional" world you will realise there are an awful lot of imposters walking around. The same people that seek sympathy by claiming to have "imposter syndrome"... Congrats you have a good grip on reality.
its called greed
This show raises 100 questions each episode and only answers the ones no one ever asked.
This is the most accurate description of what I’ve experienced!! Well said. What a bummer.
The biggest problem with this show is the writing. The dialogue is terrible. The plot relies over, and over, and over on blind luck and instances of deus ex machina to overcome clearly stupid decisions by every character in the show. The majority of the characters have been written so as to be thoroughly unlikeable. There is no one in this show who you root for and no one you would miss if they were killed off.
Casting is terrible. There shouldn't be a Racially Diverse Group of Hobbits, or Elves.
These are homogenous groups who live isolated for thousands of years.
Fantasy, almost uniquely among genres, is founded on consistent World-building. Fantasy fans value world-building in their stories above almost all other aspects.
An author's dialogue can be iffy, their characters can be a bit one-dimensional, but if the world is not carefully created and consistent, a fantasy will not succeed.
To create a "Fantasy" show that, more than any other show in history dispenses with any notion of consistent world building, is an absolute travesty. These producers could not have chosen a more perfect way to abuse this subject matter.
To paraphrase Gandalf, "This show has abandoned reason for madness."
I know the list goes on forever, but let me add just two more.
If Gil-Galad and Celebrimbor sent Elrond to spy on the dwarves in order to find out if Mithril was real and the dwarves had found it… then how come they already knows its exact properties and Celebrimbor have been running cure Rn’D for months?
And, why does Gil-Galad pretend that all elf lives hinge on Elrond tattling or not? If he betrays Durins trust and confirm what they apparently know already, it wouldn’t change the situation. The elves would still need a really big favor from the dwarves!
The entire script reads like the raw notes from a marathon brainstorming session by teenagers in drama class. Why didn’t Amazon do some timely studio interference? Why didn’t this script go past an editor and then back for a second draft? How are these young and inexperienced showrunners gotten so free reins to make any mad decisions? Including ”we don’t need to hire any writers, we can just do it ourself!”
Yes, Gil-Galad didn't need to send Elrond. It was Celebrimbor who was friends with the Dwarves. They changed it just so they can send Elrond there to do the spying which doesn't make sense because it's BEEN spied, the show literally shows us Gil-Galad AND Celebrimbor both already knew, and they knew more than Elrond..... That's not even taking into the account the stupidity of giving Elves "elf cancer" and that mithril is the radiation therapy they need to not die by Spring. No Elf appears to have this problem in the Third Age. Their immortality isn't powered by Silmarils. They are immortal because Eru created them as such. They also don't need to do any of the things they are doing with the Harfoots. From the migration, to Nori's father breaking his foot, to them getting left behind, to any of it, because it doesn't seem to serve any particular purpose. The entire story of Galadriel on this show is much the same. There is no need for her to be looking for Sauron, and no need for random drama among her subordinates which went nowhere because she ended up boarding the ship to Valinor anyway, which itself ended up pointless since she jumped off that ship, and then a sequence of random events just happen one after another. There is no reason for them to make Numenoreans afraid of Elves taking over their jobs only to have them support an Elf on some halfbaked idea of a quest, no reason to have Halbrand seek the guild crest, make friends, steal crest, beat bullies up, get locked up, only to be freed...there is no reason for the Southlanders to leave their village to get to the Elf tower, which is a defensible position, only to destroy that tower and head back to the village that was previously burnt down and now magically decently standing to then defend their position in a completely unfortified place. It also doesn't make sense for Adar to attack the tower, or anybody, if he was only looking for the sword. All he could have done was show up, demand whoever has the sword to give it up, or else. The whole situation was a giant WTF, because his ultimate goal for being there had nothing to do with what he was doing there. It's a show made up completely of a series situations that aren't related to each another. I literally do not know how or why one scene happens and then leads to any subsequent scenes. It's baffling that you've got people, especially some famous youtube reactor channels, utterly simping for the show.
@@Ψυχήμίασμα Yep. To all of those.
I think that a lot of the time they write backwards, they have a scene or a shot they want to do, and just contrive some bs excuse for the plot to take them there. Like, they want numenorean cavalry charging against orc rabble at dawn, so everything just happens to happen so that they get to that shot.
Even more often when there’s someting baffling going on in the script I imagine a whiny annoying voice going ”But where’s the conflict? We need some conflict in this scene!” I believe that the bullies in Valinor, the kicking of Isildurs mates when he screwed up, or the weird harfoot tradition of leaving people for dead if they fall behind, and a hundred other dumb writing decisions, were made because someone in the middle of the writing process thought that this scene needed some arbitrary bs conflict to ”raise the stakes”.
@@danguillou713 Exactly, it really feels like it was written by a townhall meeting, based on a list of "boxes you need to check" and everyone was told to get into "breakout sessions" like some entry level corporate sales brainstorm exercise/writing workshop first day at uni, and no one in those breakout sessions bothered to share notes....
It really feels like the writers were doing writing workshop and going: "Yaaas. so, gimme some Setting,
Characters, Plot, Conflict, Theme, Narrative Arc. There are no wrong answerzz!!!!!"
@@Ψυχήμίασμα True. Another point is that Numenoreans did not have an issue with Elves at this period. That came almost 2,000 years later when Sauron was taken as a captive to Numenor, and used his powers to suborn the people there. At this time, Numenor was a firm ally of the elves, especially of Gil-Galad in Lindon.
@@mikem9001 exactly, but I think they are throwing lore completely out the window at this point.
Thanks Erik. I love your articles at Forbes. Surprised you've been allowed to be so critical of this show. Kudos to Forbes.
Another thing that bothers me about the show is dialogue that is so 2022. Adar addressing the Orc army as Brothers and... Sisters. The tavern being for the Wounded and Children, rather than Women and Children. Little things like that prove that the showrunners are concentrating on ticking idealogical boxes, rather than creating a coherent story.
Thanks! And yeah unfortunately those are box ticking silliness. Such a shame.
We shoukd be thankful he didnt say "sisters and brothers"...
Just one question, pleased. Why are you addressing women as weak? I have served in the army, we fight with the men and not just started doing it on 2022...Additional example are the Kurds in Syria fighting Isis. They have the YPG for men and the YPJ, which are the women's brigades, and they are feared exactly as the men's brigades.
@@michal_weis Exactly my point. Women in 2022 fight in the armed forces. Not in medieval times though, and definitely not in Tolkien. Eowyn had to disguise herself as a man to join the army.
@@jorgedacunha2676 I mostly agree, but with one nit-pick: Eowyn didn't need permission to fight. She was already a "Shield Maiden" which meant women who fought as warriors just like men. This was allowed in Rohirrim society. The reason she disguised herself to go to Gondor was because King Theodon had ordered her to remain behind to command part of the defence force of Rohan. So she was breaking a royal order by going. If she had been discovered, she probably wouldn't have been punished due to her noble blood, but she would have been forced to remain behind.
At least in the books, Eowyn shows a high level of skill with weapons - she neatly decapitates the Witch-King's fell beast (a huge monster) with one blow. Then the Witch-King smashes her shield with superhuman strength and breaks her arm, but Meriadoc hamstrings him from behind. Eowyn is almost unconscious from the pain of her broken arm but still manages to stab the Witch King full on in the face - a lethal blow. She was a practiced, skilled fighter.
No team on this production talked to any other team, at any point. You have absurd discrepancies within single scenes, often at the same moment.
For example, Elendil informing Miriel that they have three ships left, as the simultaneous CGI view over the harbour shows 6 unburnt and 2 burning.
Writers write about 500/300 warriors and horses, while the CGI team designs dinky little boats.
Often, even members of the same teams don't seem to communicate. Some writers for the the Harfoots write about community and not leaving people behind and within moments, others write scenes depicting them habitually doing exactly that. Writers spend six episodes making Galadriel a completely insufferable arrogant beotch, then others write her speaking about humility.
There just seems to be no communication between people on this production, or they're of a generation that has the attention span of a TikTok video.
TikTok 👍...... Just kidding 😄
To add another to the pile: in one episode the map shows the “Southlands” as to the southeast of Mordor, then another it shows it inside of Mordor.
Did nobody double check their geographic placement for the locations? Not to mention why the “southlands” look like northern England, rather than what one would expect: a North African or Middle Eastern climate.
@@mr.flibblessumeriantransla5417
🙂 I chose not to start listing the examples because that way madness lies. I've simply lost track and given up.
I think the producers adapted the Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" propaganda model to throw every imaginable insanity at us to force critics to give up in despair.
The bad show memes from RoP will keep the critic community happy for years
I get the sinking sense that most of the writers have never visited England or even a proper English pub, much less consulted with philologists or Tolkien experts.
Their frames of reference are so clearly other TV shows and films with a medieval aesthetic. Perhaps they skim read a Shakespeare text or two. I feel an overwhelming sense of having seen this show in its many earlier non-LotR incarnations.
Kudos Erik for being so honest about this series while writing for Forbes. I can imagine some of your colleagues must have issues with your objective takes. Most of the fans tried to keep an open mind but at one point we must face the fact this show has massive, massive issues, and a diverse cast isn't one of them to be clear. Keep up the good work!
There isn't necessarily anything wrong with diversity casting but I think there are issues to be had when it comes to the way the show promoted it, or when the diversity is inserted into places that are rather odd or don't make as much sense as them being cast elsewhere such as the Umbars or Haradrim, for instance
Thanks!
@@jspthesecond0723 Diversity is not the problem of the show, crappy writing is. A white Míriel, white Disa or white Arondir wouldn't improve this show in any way because the story still would be flat, full of plotholes and filled with boring characters. That's what they need to change, not the skin colour of their actors.
@@Lothiril I am going to be pedantic here because I didnt say it was *the* issue. As a matter of fact, out of all the issues with the show since it was released this is overshadowed by them, but I still think it is a minor one.
To clarify, there isnt necessarily anything wrong with diversity in a cast, but when the show uses identity politics to promote the shows diversity I think that can be an issue. Also, there are regions of Arda where diversity would make even more sense such as the Umbars, Haradrim, and so on instead of swapping Tar Miriel who was described differently or a dwarf living in mountains all her life.
@@Lothiril Diversity is one of its problems. Or well to be precise the way it is handled is a problem for being less than elegant, not diversity persé. Which we could already tell from the trailers, hence the criticism since the first footage that was shown.
From the not so subtle modern racism allegories to the almost randomly placed ethnicities. It's just weird.
Writers can't write material any smarter than they are. When they try the result is exactly what we are seeing with ROP. Straining to take on too much and it shows with a mess of continuity and pseudo-intellectual twaddle for dialogue. I just hope they have the courage to clean house for season 2 because clearly the showrunners are out of their depth.
Lazy is the right word.
They’ve clearly just decided which set pieces and “cool moments” they want (usually ripped lifted right from Jackson) and just worked backwards and only put a lame effort into setting them up or making them logical
There is absolutely no reason, even in their own crap story, that Galadriel and Numenor would just charge across Middle Earth
They even seem to have this sense of urgency like they know some how they need to hurry to save the day.
It’s all just an excuse to recreate the Ride of the Rohirrim
Or Helms Deep and then stick Frodo’s horse chase at the end and pray to Eru nobody questions it
“But why would,,”
“Shut up do you want last minute cavalry entrances or not !?!?!”
From the big orc that doesn’t have a weapon to the orc that explodes just because Galadriel rides within 10 meters to two arrows in and one out from Bronwyn. It’s slow and pretentious and terrible enough without rookie mistakes every two minutes
I see people getting blamed for nit-picking and ruining the show... but they forget that guys like Kubrick, Peter Jackson, Spielberg, Tolkien, etc were the biggest nit-picks ever. That's how they create an immersive and coherent fantasy story. Fantasy is indeed not a wild card to abandon logic, it's the exact opposite because you have to invent an entire world from the ground up. If something betrays the logic of the fantasy world you created, not only does the story break, but the world breaks too.
Very good point. When I was a kid I was super into a game called phantasy star online and it had lore and sort of rules for the races of the characters and their attributes. Once the later games started ignoring those rules and making it so any character could do anything it made it feel cheap to me and less "real" in my mind. On another note what you said reminded me of Lucas filming the first Star Wars. He said that if the scene with yoda in his cave was not done right it would make and break the entire movie if people couldn't take yoda (the puppet) seriously.
Yep. Fantasy is not equivalent to implausibility.
Well said
Great points.
I would actually argue that Peter Jackson created several plot holes by unnecessary changes to the story line. For example, Elrond somehow showing up in Rohan, by himself, to give Anduril to Aragorn.
It is so sad to see all these hacks messing with Tolkien's work
The writers of this show have obviously paid zero attention to making sense geologically and chronologically. Those details just don't matter to them. What's important to them is that they find a way to string together a preconceived series of scenes that they think look cool, or that reference the Peter Jackson films. Beyond that, they haven't spared a thought for how things actually work, because they don't expect their audience to care.
"Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next product!" is the prevailing attitude of modern Hollywood.
Thank you Erik. You are saying exactly what so many are thinking. I want to know why so many mainstream reviewers are still gushing over this mess. It"s like they"ve forgotten to ask "WHY?" when they watch, in much the same way as the show runners forgot to ask "Why?" Why are our characters doing this? Why does this scene work? ' 'Why'? Why? Instead it seems to have been carte blanche "why not??' There seems to have been a complete absence of critical thinking and attention to detail in the production of this show, and the result is we have a cheap land choppy, cliche and trope ridden adventure that falls so far short of our expectations. Anyway keep up the good work.
Appreciate it! And well put!
I am convinced no one with half a brain and any concept of that makes a good movie is gushing over this show. The producers are fabricating the review and ratings to save face and support their twisted ideologies. There is no other plausible explanation.
one of the incredible missing scenes is isildur touching middlearth's soil for the first time. such a grand moment, why would anyone omit it....
the less I see of ROP Isildur the better
What if… it was a drought year and the reservoir was too low… well it wasn’t, so what if the rains were too strong and they prematurely set off Mt. Doom by flooding the chamber prematurely? Or what if the writers didn’t know what they were doing? So many questions. 😅
"It's a fantasy. That doesn't mean you can just do any implausible thing."
Amen. Too many people use that excuse to justify bad writing or decisions.
Tolkien's two main books are all about characters travelling from A to B. Along the way they run into peril, conflicts... adventure... something this show utterly lacks.
Maybe I already mentioned this in a previous post... but yeah this show sparks so much debate with it's awkward jumble of disjointed story components it's hard to keep track of all the individual debates (which are super educational btw)
Hail Halbrand, king of 1 tavern and two houses!
Don't tell him that makes him Mayor.
Lmao you made spit out my drink on my laptop damn you 😂😂
13:30 Apparently they have an abundance of apples on this voyage since Isildur is happy to toss a half eaten apple into the sea when he cannot yet see land. which makes the character a careless imbecile and the journey seems short and unimportant. or the ship a magical tardis, in both capacity and ability to circumvent time and space.
My first thought as they were sailing from Numenor was “how can they have space for everything, including provisions, sailors, etc in these tiny boats?”
One of several reasons that in the actual lore, Numenorians don't go to battle or fight on horses. They're an island nation, so you'd need more than double the boats for soldiers AND horses.
Agreed. Also, the Numenoreans begin the charge from the west (presumably) at Dawn, then we cut to the village and is nighttime, IN THE EAST, before Adar gets his blade. I had to look it up just to make sure I was not crazy, but the sun does indeed rises from the east and sinks in the west on Middle-Earth. Details, people, they are important.
They are digging ditches because mystery box. The true nature of the sword hilt was a mystery box. Halbrand, Meteor man and Sauron's location are all mystery boxes. The entire show is just a series of mystery boxes. McKay and Payne are both alumni of Bad Robot so their stories will always be filled by mystery boxes.
After multiple elves and humans are killed by orcs just for the chance of sending a message to the elven armies that would wipe them out "like salt from a table" the elf guard gets released with his weapons and just sits there with a bunch of town's folk who are facing certain death or worse by the hand of orcs instead of saving everyone by alerting the elves (who somehow missed the burning blight around the huge orc tunnels.. keen are the eyes of the elves indeed..). if he was prepared to let all the villagers including his girlfriend to get killed defending the hilt-key why did he not just take it and run as far as possible?! why didn't they all run..? how did they come back to the village without getting seen and where were all the cattle carcasses from before? why did the orcs leave the village intact and did not burn it.. and where did they find food?! I recall only one wheelbarrow for that many people.. where did all the food for the feast come from..?!
What's next? Amazon buys up the Mona Lisa replaces her face with an emoji and pat themselves on the shoulder over how true they are to Leonardo?!
Great points. There are too many logical errors in this show to keep track of.
When all three ships were sailing from Numenor, I thought to myself "And all the might of Numenor has been unleashed" lol
The writers and editors just got out of film school.....that's all I can say about it at this point. I wish the writing and editing was on par with the production value...it just isn't. Whoever the head of Amazon studios is needs to get ousted. This show had so much potential. I'm just a bit spiteful..I love the whole Tolkien world so much and to see how this show has gone is just saddening.
I get a really bad feeling, that they are going to imply that Galadriel helps create sauron's turn towards evil, by friend-zoning him. I really hope not
I fear the same. Probably Halbrand is just some rando who stole the kings emblem 😄😄
How will they explain Galadriel and company surviving a pyroclastic flow to the face? I'm tempted to watch the next episode but I also don't want to the scary Harfoots will probably appear as well
Actually, this is where the Harfoots come into play. They arrived in the nick of time with their fake Gandalf in-tow. "Not-Gandalf" used his magical powers to stop the volcano just in time. Of course, even then, the Harfoots aren't needed, just "not-Gandalf", but now that they are here, they join the elves and numenoreans and southlanders, and they become one big happy family. They quickly build camps to eradicate the orcs, and become a mighty axis of power.
Plot armor, obviously
Plot armor, which obviously is expected I mean these are main characters of a 5 season tv show (plus obviously Galadriel simply cannot die). That's what makes teasing a character death with the cliffhanger is so obnoxious, because we all know she is going to be fine. Frankly they need to address why she is clearly suicidal next episode.
Only the poor Harfoots have to slog through woods, swamps, deserts or whatever. Everyone else just teleports hundreds or thousands of miles in a moment.
The failure to depict the length of travel is a more minor oversight compared to the far more serious flaws in the show,, however it is emblematic of many of the failings of the showrunners and writers.
That is, I'm speculating that this lack of synchronicity primarily results from the writers only knowing a a world in which airplane travel ensures that you can travel to spot on the globe within a day or so, max.
Tolkien however live most of his life in a world in which airline travel had not yet been the norm and of course would not have overlooked such a detail. Everything about this show screams made in 2022, but is just dressed up in a cheap Tolkien facade that is wildly incongruent
Bilbo finding the Ring wasn’t luck, it was divine intervention hinting at no lesser being than Iluvatar himself. The Ring leaving Isildur and claiming Sméagol was infernal intervention of it seeking out a wielder to dominate and eventually lead back to Sauron.
At most, Halbrand would've led them to Ostirith (he mentions the orcs must've moved south to Ostirith in the scene with Miriel and Galadriel. That's all. From there to the village would be a mighty jump in logic. They could've easily shown them arriving at Ostirith and then scouting the area but that wouldn't as enthralling. Also why are the numenoreans coming from the east with the sun rising behind them? How did travel east?
(sidenote, you can see that there's no care for the work here when they miss the golden opportunity of showing Isildur contemplanting his future kingdom for the first time).
Yeah they trade all those nice little details for am action-packed charge. It's very silly.
The precise interlace and timing of all the parallel threads in the LoR (books) is simply awesome. Everything fits well. This show, on the contrary, is simply a mess.
When I watched the most recent episode and Arondir gave the kid the bundle, and he opened it to find a hatchet - I honestly thought it was a test he was giving the kid 😅 I'm still so confused as to how the old man ended up with it and took it back to the fortress.
Game of Thrones started playing fast and loose with travel and communication in a medieval setting and that alone was enough to kill the show.
My fav was galadriel this ep. First she tells adar she's going to let him live and then 2mins later changes her mind and almost kills him when halbrand intervenes. What a great role model. So sad!
I don’t understand why the key was even needed to open the dam, if they really had to couldn’t they just have destroyed the dam without faffing around getting the key thing?
right. the sword was completely pointless. They could have sprung the dam with a lever.
With the Numenorians coming to the Southlands, they had to cross the Mountains of Shadow on horseback, a near impossible task, as proven by Frodo & Sam, yet it happened off screen.
Excellent analysis, thanks Erik. I found myself going back to Peter Jacksons films to look for things like this as an exercise. One example being the orc's giant ladders at helms deep. How did they know the length to make them? Also the physics of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense -- they would be very heavy with so many orcs dangling off them -- even for very strong orcs. But the truth is this kind of stuff never occurred to me because I was entertained and enthralled and completely taken by the story and events on screen. Rings of powers problems are two-fold in that it's not entertaining enough to make you ignore these things. And secondly, from what I can tell they just occur far more frequently (and often needlessly!)
That's a great point. I've noted this before as well that you can forgive a great deal if it's still entertaining. On the other hand, if you're jarred out of the immersion too frequently that means you can't be entertained. RoP just takes you out of the immersion constantly.
Wormtongue gave Saruman the details about Helms Deep. They at least included a scene with them discussing the fortress’s defenses.
Honestly I think helms deep is a well enough known structure to know how tall to make the ladders. After all Grima knew all about. I say it's perfectly viable (not the physics perse, just the size)
Welk, rhese are much smaller points and also they don't affect the story
Saruman had been living at Isengard for 250 years, so there's plenty of reason to think he'd know quite a lot about the surrounding area, especially landmarks like the Hornburg. As for the ladders, yeah they go up too fast, but I think the implication is that they have some kind of rope and pulley system. Saruman is after all the leading mechanical engineer in Middle-earth.
I like how the queen herself went with like 100 cavalry numenoreans, and all those cavalrymen are galloping at full speed into the village as if they had clairvoyance that something was going on and they had to get there right in the nick of time
But but but Halbrand pointed to it on the map!
Fully armored cavalry men, galloping at full speed for God know how long, and they arrived with strenght enough to go straight into battle. Even King Theoden knew he couldnt push his riders too much, or the wouldnt have enought strenght to fight the orcs in minas Tirith, he took his sweet time, not because he wanted to, but because he had to. Numenoreans were super men but, come on, were horses also dunedain horses too?
Bezos said he wanted his how game of thrones,he didnt precise he wanted season 8 quality got lmao
Now it all makes sense.
I was expecting the key to release a net full of TNT being suspended inside the volcano. Or maybe some kegs of ACME brand TNT?
meep meep
Great analysis. How could the showrunners have missed all this? Just…how???
Part of the charm of Tolkien's world was the vastness of the land experienced with gradual movement through it. The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings were in large part journey stories. It took the entire book(s) to get from one part of Middle Earth to the other. So even if you put aside the terrible dialog and the changes to characters and lore, the spirit of Tolkien is undermined by this lazy teleportation/fast travel. All the more galling because as you stated: it wasn't necessary that they do this in order to tell the (bland) story they wanted to tell. They could have used that comet to show that events in the South had occurred months before, they could have... You know, there are so many ways they could have fixed a number of things they just didn't care enough to fix. Or rather they didn't think the audience would care enough for them to put forth the effort. What's sad is that the writers just assumed that you could just duct tape scenes together and that the fans would just patch up any discrepancies with 'elven magic.'
The meteor bit is incredible. They see it in Lindon, then next shot it's in the southlands thousands of miles away to the south, then it turns around and heads north again to land near Rhoviannon lol
There's no reason all of the Numenor scenes in Episode 5 didn't take place on a ship on the way over to Middle Earth.
That would help solve 1 problem.
all six of the Jackson movies show an inordinate amount of travelling and nobody complains about it, so, yes, it can be done.
Great analysis of the terminal problems inherent in this show. And I can't overemphasize how much respect I have for you for being honest about the lack of quality of RoP. It takes serious integrity to speak up and not stick to your original reaction out of spite and ego. Well done, my friend! Got a new sub!
Thanks Mark!
Immersion breaking details: Harfoot bucket fitting a Harfoot hand magically fits also the hand of Eminem.
3:22 _"...make the show slower..."_
It seems to me they don't have much of a plot or story so they're purposely trying to "make the show slower."
4:46 _"How does Halbrand know that the orcs are going to be right there?"_
Thanks for pointing this out. How did he know exactly where the orcs would be after being gone for several months?
5:42 _"...she only recognizes him as having that sigil."_
Apparently, all it takes to be king is to have a special pouch with a sigil.
And why is the queen there at all? It would appear that she's a brilliant combat tactician, sending stable boys into battle one at a time.
8:00 _"the magical sword key..."_
The magical sword key relied entirely on someone building all those trenches and tunnels... never mind that it wasn't even required. Anyone could have simply broken the dam.
12:47 _"...how did that tower fall down with just one rope getting shot..."_
Yes, the entire tower was held up by one, very thick rope... that is completely burnt through in two seconds...
13:17 _"...weeks and weeks of travel..."_
These are obviously Dr. Who Tardis ships that are much larger inside and can bend time and space. The Numenorians were ahead of their time!
Of all the silly things in this episode, I found that the silliest! As if a solid rope as thick as your forearm could possibly burn through like that 😆 The blob of burning fuel on the arrow would have been spent loooong before even the outer few millimetres of rope were scorched through.
The sword key just breaks a dam. The dam at the watchtower that the orcs had already taken. They didn't even need a key they could have demolished it themselves.
What I don't understand is once the dam broke using the Rube Goldberg device key, and the water spills into the tunnels, how did the water flow back up into Orodruin to trigger the volcanic eruption of Mount Doom?
Orc engineering is just cool like that.
This show is classic Bad Robot-style writing: a series of visually gaudy scenes and (ostensibly) emotional character moments that aren't properly set up, established, or earned. Entertainment that's only entertaining if you're willing to not think to hard about it, and/or you're the sort of person who is really impressed by SCENES, regardless of how nonsensical within the broader STORY. The reason the insipid style of writing is failing so badly in Amazon's Lard of the Rings is because it's so.damn.slow. For the "flashy but stupid" style of writing to work,the show has to be fast-paced enough to keep the audience from thinking to hard about all the plot holes and contrivances. And it also helps to have interesting, or at least likeable characters. Since Lard of the Rings has nothing else to draw our attention, the bad high school writing class-level script is painfully obvious.
Why are they even heading to this battle in the first place??
It's lazy, sloppy, and an insult to Tolkien's legacy.
It is not just disrespectful to Tolkien but to the whole of Britian
Where were the southlanders going by sea,? Who made their ship and why didn't browin folk also thought of fleeing?
🥺 Are you the king of our 45 ppl?
Ridiculous plot armor to survive a Pompeii explosion 🌋
‘Is it true, are you the king that was promised?’
Errr what? Even Halbrand hasn’t got a clue wtf she’s talking about. Promised? Promised by who? Was there some kind of Prophesy? Is it known there’s a king out there somewhere? I don’t understand.
the horses were swimming pulling the ships... they didn't show it but I'm sure that's how they did it
not to mentioned it's essentially galadriel's fault for sauron's return to middle earth if halbrand turns out to be him
Look at it this way: We can be happy that they didn't just put a map a la Indiana Jones with their three ships and hundreds of horses swimming behind. The famed sea horses of Numenor.
But: We can all look forward to them making the connection with Breaking Bad with the elves now being Mithril junkies all of a sudden.
Honestly I'd take the map.
i had red flag about this show long before it launched. When i red in article that showrunners wihout experience claims they will write story better than Tolkien.. I was done. I dont know what this show is but it has ZERO of Tolkien.
Sauron's volcanic masterplan can be thwarted by a peasant with a pick-axe who wants more water for farming.
You got a new fan Erik. I appreciate both your and Paul Tassi's take on media. And I also love that you don't milk the toxic negativity for fans that many youtubers do. I didn't have great expectations for this show and tried to give it a chance. But it seems to replicate two of the core problems of late GOT: time & space don't matter and actions don't really have consequences. At a higher level, I think this show is missing any sort of an over-arching central tension in the world that can make character motivations more understandable. I never expected Amazon to understand Tolkien's nuanced dramatic & tragic theme of the "long defeat" which unites the story of the Noldor. But all we have are incoherent & simplistic character motivations. This might be fan fic, but I would loved to have seen someone like Indira Varma cast as Queen of the Southlands. First episode she appeals to the Elves for help against the rising menace. Elves debate, we can't really trust humans after they sided with Morgoth and they're easily corrupted. Galadriel argues to side with the humans even if they can fail. But Gil-Galad vetos that and turns the Southlands down. The Southlands then has to appeal to Numenor instead which gives rise to Ar-Pharazon's and the Queen has to make a deal with the devil so to speak. That way we have a world-wide tension with no clear answer. But then things happen later in response to earlier actions and decisions. Should the races of Middle-earth unite, can they trust each other, is the threat after Morgoth worth taking seriously? And then you can have more nuanced characters who respond to the central tension with coherent and differing views which gives depth to the show and characters.
You should have been in the writer's room.
The impressive thing with the boats is that they are mostly CGI.
There is no building cost, rendering a few big boats instead of a few small one isn't really that much more expensive if you know what you're doing.
There is no reason for them to limit the number of boats to 3, or to make the boats so small.
The show is yet again telling us something that can't be true but could have been fixed with no extra effort.
This show is written by the corporate machine to achieve maximum profit. Machines have no heart like this show. The writers have bosses ..Bezos and Simon Tolkien- a writer who has expressed resentment towards his grandfather and was estranged from Christopher Tolkien up until shortly before his death if I’m not mistaken. This show hurts my own heart.
And what's the point of the tunnel when all u have to do is give orcs hoodies, and the point of the tunnel is to reach the village where the broken sword is... pretty sure there are easier ways to get the sword, i don't like hiring 100000 human thieves to steal it with the tunnel budget.
Horses…location of the village…going thru the mountains to udun…(crossing ithilien and part of Gondor…) details for Amazon, you are right about that
I thought the same thing about moving the numenorians traveling to the south lands to episode 5. They could have even kept the same (albeit stupid) story beats…for example, Galadriel could have done that training sequence on the ship instead of the market square. And in episode 6, a few simple changes could have made the Numenorian cavalry charge showing up right in the nick of time make more sense. Perhaps when the Numenorians were getting close to the south lands they send out scouts and Isildur volunteers to go. And then, while scouting isildur stumbles upon Adar and his group, but they are spotted and all of the other scouts are killed except for Isildur and he has to escape and get back to the rest of the Numenorians to lead them to the fight. It makes the Numenorians showing up at the last minute make a little more sense, and it’s a much better heroic moment for Isildur than Miriel just telling him “go” in the battle for no reason.
OR even better, when Galadriel is getting close to the south lands with the Numenorians, she encounters a small army of elves led by Gil Galad going to investigate why the garrison of elves he had recalled from the tower in the south lands never returned home. Then Galadriel could have shared her new knowledge with him, and they all rode together with haste towards the south lands tower. It would have even made for an interesting dynamic to see how the Numenorians interacted with elves that are not Galadriel and start setting up for the future alliance between the Numenorians and the elves in the war against Sauron. But no, instead we get lazy, nonsensical garbage that is insulting to the intelligence of its viewers.
Easy fix: They get the sword hilt back, and open it. They notice it's not the blood sword. They freak out, and all main characters head out and tell the background characters (plus Bronwyn and Theo) to clean up the bodies and give them proper burials and then the NPCs can head to the Numenorian camp (lol, that shouldn't be there, but whatever) This takes the main characters out of the danger area, and leaves the NPCs in danger. Arondir tells Galadriel the key is used in the elf watchtower. The main characters ride quickly and arrive at the watchtower as the old man inserts the key. BOOM! They turn. Arondir and Galadriel, the Queen, and Elendil watch in horror as the cloud engulfs the village, knowing everyone is now dead. Galadriel now feels a real sense of defeat and horror as her brash and selfish behaviors doomed everyone to death. The ride back with the sword hilt after capturing the old man, and survey the damage. Hundreds dead. They find a few still alive, who hid in the tunnels or wells to survive. Isilidur, maybe a few more, but that's it. They regroup and swear to find Adar and avenge the dead. The ash obscures the elves' eyesight. They are not sure where to go, but they set out to toward Mt Doom. Not the best, but 100x better than what we got.
Hi Erik, maybe I missed this but have you figured out how exactly the Numenorians managed to figure out exactly which tiny village was currently under attack so they knew exactly where to go and that they had to go there at full speed?
After deciding to go back to middle earth halbrand leaves his little sack in the smithy on a table, but then a mysterious hand grabs it, who is it? Is is halbrand grabbing it? Is it Isildur? Isildurs slow friend? Pharazon? Galadriel? Sauron? Big mommy milker magoo? Who knows? But then the next episode it's just on his belt like nothing happened. I wonder if they will ever pay this off, but i doubt it.
Did you see when the orc broke in the tavern it was pretty dark outside and when the villagers surrendered (which alone was a stupid decision, on the directors' side) so when they broke in it was pretty dark outside ... but when the numenorians came .... it was day ....
I think the tunnels are supposed to be the ones Shelob takes up residence in and the watch tower will be rebuilt into Cirith Ungol.
I have been enjoying your articles for Forbes so thought I ought to check out your channel. I am glad I did. It is a refreshing change to read articles in mainstream media that are willing to point out the many failings of the show. Keep up the good work!
I have a better question Erik, why on earth does this battle even take place? I can suspend disbelief for low budget TV, but this is supposed to be the most expensive show ever made and they have set up the most contrived plot I have ever seen
The ridiculous rube goldberg machine gets even more ridiculous when you ask who built the dam. The dam thats attached to the elven watchtower.
You are not wrong but the show runners now in full damage control are blaming the fans, I hope you are not silenced for telling the truth
I'm not worried
The editing for this show is absolutely Atrocious, particularly during the battle. When the Numenoreans are riding in you see the Sun BEHIND THEM. THATS WEST, ITS SETTING AT EVENING.
this is really one the problems with Amazon RoP there is no sense of time and place, everyone just teleported from one place to another.
I don't know if you've seen the series WandaVision but I think that's exactly the plot of the Rings of Power series. And now to my theory, spoilers !
So I think Sauron is a ghost that is in the dagger of Galadriel's brother and makes Galadriel slowly insane like the later ring where also a part of Sauron is included. This explains all the illogical stuff in the episodes,
First episode Galadriel has to go into the ice fortress hits a wall and goes directly into the forge and pulls another part of the Dark Valar magic out of the anvil that's why the symbol is created! In order in the.
Second episode to contaminate the Elder tree, in the throne room of the Elvish High King. Then Galadriel is sent to Valinor and in front of the entrance in the middle of the sea the light creates pain therefore Galadriel has a tear in her eye and clings to her dagger. And jumps into the sea.
Third episode Galadriel is led by Sauron in the right direction and meets Helbrand and I think Helbrand is sympathetic to Sauron and he becomes the Witch-King of Angmar in the future.
Fifth episode Galadriel comes to Numinor where there is a prophecy that an Elbe will bring doom to Numnior. Even the artwork of Sauron Elbengestallt it is male form of Galadriel Blonde hair White robe etc..
Further there are posters to the series where directly the dagger is shown, and to make it a little bit more glamorous they also show the hands of the other actors. But not like usual the faces on the posters.
Now the 7 episode will be a review of all previous episodes with the inner thoughts of Sauron in Galadriel.
The showrunners are proteges of JJ Abrams apparently. Never mind sense or reason, bask in the hollow spectacle.
The laziness in writing is doubly insulting to film and book. The amount of detail WETA put into even with the smallest of their props shows how dedicated they were in LOTR. With Tolkien, he rewrote an entire chapter when he realized the moon in his original scene would be wrong in its appearance given the time. So when fans of the show (the dwindling few who aren't shills and bots) say don't fuss about minor details, they really miss the mark and show they have no understanding of the source material. As for the show just mucking up details I think another channel pointed out that the Numenorean charge has the sunrise behind them but they came from the West and were riding East!
Once the whole thing goes off the rails, you’re taken out of it. There’s no getting back in, because nothing makes sense. Ultimately, the show runners have no clue what they’re doing and have wasted a great deal of time and money. Both of theirs… And ours.
The Reflection of the stained glass on the guitars finish looks awesome lol. Cool room.
The plotting of this show feels like video game progression - the path is linear and only leads the character to exactly where they need to go at exactly the right time that they need to be there. None of this makes sense, and it's all strung together by constant forced contrivances that the writers have used to bulldoze their way to the next plot point on the outline without regard to any of it being sensical, believable, or consistent. This is the worst writing that I've ever seen for a big budget show. This is bad for a creative writing class. It is bad fan fiction with a billion dollar budget. All that aside, love the articles on Forbes. Looking forward to the next ones as this dumpster fire wraps up!
You are one of the very few reviewers who actually use their brains.
What about the depiction of Numenor? There's no obvious political or administrative structure we can see. Who's setting up Numenor 's Warband into the Southland's? The Queen Regent, Galadrrrriel, Elendil (a person the Queen DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT EARLIER!).. and Halbrand 😅
Mordor was the result of the first real-life Domino game.
It took me a while to realize that you wrote those Forbes articles. Good to meet you, Erik! Looking forward to more of your takes. All the best on your RUclips channel.
Keep ‘em coming!
It’s a good thing HOTD is as good as it is. It’s truly showing how flawed the writing for RoP is.
I bet the actors seeing how well HOTD is being received and seeing all the callings for numerous awards for the actors is grinding them real hard.
The "Southlands" look (ok, looked) like Scotland. That has been pissing me off since Ep1. Shouldn't there have been a more "southern" vibe to the whole landscape?
‘Switch your brain off, it’ll be fine.’
This is a story written by children. They might have adults bodies but they are still children with children naivety and dumbness. And that not cute at all especially when you spent a billion on a kindergarten production. 🤦♂️
That was a darned fine rant. Keep up the good work! It's cathartic for those of us who can only grit our teeth and snarl at the screen.
wait a minute, aren't there elves patrolling the southlands? Wouldnt they know about the orcs too?
It's just so frustrating because I'm trying to give the show every chance to be its own thing and be good on its own merit but the inconsistencies, laziness, and bizarre lack of thought to either scale or the passage of time, make it seem like they either don't know what they are doing or they don't care.
not so fun fact: the watchword of one of the showrunners when they get stuck is WWTD - What Would Tolkien Do - I kid you not!