The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Amazon Prime, Sept. 2, 2022) TV Show • Page 4

Given that all elves descended from the ones created at Cuiviénen, and Tolkien went out of his way to describe their physiological differences, it'd be an atypical omission to point out a line of dark-skinned elves. If you want to delve further into the biology of it, it'd also make no sense to have dark skin when there is no sun.

But I'm sure you'll find a way to justify the absolute butchery of the lore going on here.

I think diversity among the human cast would be a good decision, and it would be accurate. Some of the Hobbits are described by having darker skin if I recall correctly. The House of Beör, and Hador in the First Age are also described as swarthy or having darker skin in the Silmarillion. Both the House of Beör and Hador are a part of the Edain which became the Numenorians, so it would still make sense for some of the Numenorians to be darker skinned without it being “lore breaking” or “woke”. And we also have the Easterlings and the people from Harad.

 

Still need to know more about it to have a substantial reaction, but aside from no iconic score it's tough to not feel hyped imo - the passion for the source material is clearly felt and there's definitely several blockbuster films with worse cinematography and vfx than what's shown there. The abundance of Cgi instead of practical is a bummer, but also expected. Right now I'm cautiously optimistic.

 

A refreshing optimistic outlook. In the same boat in that I'm waiting to watch the show, would very much like this to be great.

 

It's a one minute teaser, I have no idea if this is going to be good or bad and will be reserving judgement until it actually reaches screens.

 

I can’t remember the last time a teaser didn’t properly represent a film for me. Usually if I don’t like the teaser then I don’t like the film/show, vice versa. Having said that I’ll still watch it and give it a chance.

The main disappointment is no film score. I don’t really care that the dwarf queen doesn’t have a beard like many people on Twitter seem to be upset at.

My hopes were only moderately high to begin with. The Hobbit films were not worth a admission price. Jackson really caught lightning in a bottle with the first three films and rewatching them are really all I can ask for out of the franchise.

 

I think the trailer looks pretty awesome. The only thing that makes me a little bit hesitant is that I have absolutely no idea what story they are telling or who any of these characters are. Not necessarily a bad thing really, just not something I am used to with Tolkien adaptations.

The complaints about CGI strike me as a little bit silly. For one thing, it's 2022 and this is a TV show about all sorts of crazy fantasy creatures set in a magical fantasy world - there was a 0% chance that the production wasn't going to utilize a lot of CGI bringing these visuals to the screen. 0% chance. Also, it's early still and there's plenty of time to finesse the FX before the show comes out. I don't really like a lot of CGI either but I think you have to have your expectations in check with a show like this in this day and age.

I don't even want to respond to any of the complaints about casting or the skin color of elves in a made up fantasy world because I honestly don't think those arguments should even be dignified with a response or given even the slightest bit of oxygen. Even if you take all of the very serious real-world implications and ramifications out of the equation regarding that conversation - which you obviously cannot and should not do - the argument is over something as arbitrary and silly as whether Legolas' hair is "golden" or "dark".

All of that aside, I think it is absolutely insane that anybody would spend a BILLION dollars on a show and commit to that many seasons before it's known whether enough of an audience even wants to watch this thing. Yeah, there are a bunch of reasons why this could be a big hit, but there are also A LOT of reasons why this may crash and burn hard and be a huge embarrassment. I was going to say that I'm glad that I'm not paying for it, but then I remembered that Amazon just bumped up the cost of Prime so I guess my dumb ass is paying for it.

It's gotta be a little bit frustrating to be on the Wheel of Time production team where they were constantly cutting budgets and dropping episode counts and seeing them throw A BILLION DOLLARS AND 87 SEASONS at this thing before a single person even watched a second of it.

 

The main focus seems to be the Fall of Numenor, which is pretty gnarly. To think we’re actually getting a live-action adaptation of it is mind blowing.

Over the course of 5 seasons it will 100% be up to the talent of the writers in how well it is handled and spread-out. I’m sure we will get a few side plots but I’m not really sure which, at least from the trailer.

The writers, however, were chosen at the recommendation of JJ Abrams, so we’ll see.

 

10 Burning Questions About Amazon’s ‘The Rings of Power’

It was revealed that Howard Shore is returning to score the show! Casually warming back up to the hype train.

now…

 

They are shrinking the entire second age from the Fall of Numenor to the forging of the rings into 5 seasons. So instead of a few thousand years, they're combining them into a more streamlined narrative. At least that's the vibe I got from the Vanity Fair article.

 

teaser stoked my hype. yeah the orc looked like it was from The Hobbit, but the character design was not the worst part of those films.

color me still excited for this.

might be time to finally reread the Silmarillion. and maybe the Appendices.

 

An example of how much better Howard Shore’s presence can make this

https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comme...urce=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

 

As I said earlier, the “no beard” doesn’t bother me, but these images do make the characters look more “Tolkien” - especially young Elrond.

 

There are few fan groups worse than fantasy book fans when it comes to adaptations. And I say that as a massive fantasy fan.

 

I think it’s due to nature of fantasy books/films capturing the imagination. Fantasy is magical storytelling because we each can add our own individual sense of grandeur to it as our imagination deems fit. There’s also a certain set of “logic” that comes with each individual that exists in the way they experience the fantasy book/film.

Very easy for one to become attached to their own vision of said fantasy story.

 

Checking in, I'm in on this series. I'm a pretty big Tolkien nerd, read the Silmarillion multiple times plus ancillary stuff like Unfinished Tales, lost tales series, etc. But I think I'm still going to be able to enjoy this for what it is.

It was always going to be them making a lot of stuff up and filling in gaps so I really don't care how much it deviates from what's spelled out in those sources and the appendices. It is weird how they don't have rights to some things (e.g. Beren and Luthien story so they're just gonna make up their own version with an elf-human romance?) But in a way it being so different from the "canon" I think will help me accept the series more on its own terms. For example I appreciate them being upfront about massively compressing the Second Age timeline and I think that's a smart move, gives us nerds more time to adjust and accept reality before the series drops. If I could come around to enjoying The Hobbit movies for what they are even with all their failings, which I have (only part that still pisses me off is that they invented Tauriel just to have her be a love interest; make up a female character sure I don't care but don't then typecast her lol) then I'm sure I'll be able to enjoy this series.

And hey even if the series sucks watching racist neckbeards flip shit about people of color being cast in the series is entertainment enough imo!

 

Twitter is a cesspool for the “but muh lore doesn’t have dark skinned people” takes. It’s so ironic to have these “super fans” trying to argue over purity of the work because Tolkien never explicitly stated that other races don’t or can’t exist. Whenever it’s brought up their goalpost changes to “but it’s based off of Anglo folklore” but that doesn’t mean anything.

A large percentage of these people NEVER posted about LOTR prior to this, so that’s pretty cringe on it’s own.

 

That still is dripping in style and looks incredible.

 

Please for the love of god order potatoes very loudly and make no other reference to the movies.

 

PO

 

TA

 

TO