"LOTR: The Rings of Power" - first teaser trailer

{{ Looks like another major change, though they maybe will correct it for series 2. But seems for series 1 at least Ar-Pharazon will be plain Pharazon and rather than forcing his cousin Miriel to marry him in order to steal her throne instead she is Queen and he is her adviser and will 'defer to her seniority'. }}

https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/01/20/lord-of-the-rings-rings-of-power-rumor-details-another-significant-change-from-tolkiens-beloved-and-established-lore/

“In season 1 he will be Miriel’s chief advisor and will unexpectedly defer to Miriel’s seniority, but for the most part he acted like he was in charge- but NOT king,” the outlet claimed."

How original.
Ar-Pharazon sounds like Jafar if he had succeeded. Perhaps they worried about copyright issues?

Actually I don't see much of a contradiction.  In both book and show Miriel is Queen before he marries her.  The only thing changed is making him advisor, but it's not really a change because the book never said what role he played before forcing her to marry him.  It's implied in the book that he forced the marriage immediately, but only via omission of anything she did as queen.

Tolkien writes, “And it came to pass that Tar-Palantir grew weary of grief and died. He had no son, but a daughter only, whom he named Míriel in the Eleven-tongue; and to her now by right and the laws of the Númenóreans came the sceptre.”

“But Pharazôn took her to wife against her will, doing evil in this and evil also in that the laws of Númenor did not permit the marriage, even in the royal house, of those more nearly akin than cousins in the second degree,” he continued.

And when they were wedded, he seized the sceptre into his own hand, taking the title of Ar-Pharazôn (Tar-Calion in the Elven-tongue); and the name of his queen he changed to Ar-Zimraphel,” Tolkien wrote.

Edit: I would guess the writers struggled to figure out a way for him to force a marriage to a member of the royal family.  Tolkien is mute.  They probably figured a gradual approach worked best, though in my mind a quick move on a young woman struggling with sudden grief and a new role would be more likely to succeed and more in character.

{ I always took the impression from that text she never was Queen (or if so not for that long, but I dont have Tale of Years at hand to check, if we have dates for her of course). Only that Tolkien is first just informing us what the rights of succession were in Numenor in regard a daughter, so when he then tells us instead Pharazon took her against her will into marriage and seized the throne we get the gravity of it and how much of a total bastard he is, which Tolkien then compounds by pointing out that their closeness of kin was also considered illegal, and quite probably culturally immoral.

I also got the impression by the time Pharazon did this he was already very well placed, probably with personal and political followers, and if not already advisor then close to it in the court.

Its portrayed to me as a swift and brutal act that meant he most probably had that military and political power already well established and placed to get away with it. It says a lot about him by implication, I think.

And its a far cry sounding from someone who lets her be Queen and 'defers to her seniority.'

He's a complete bastard. And all getting the throne does is let him be an even bigger bastard than he was before. I dont see why not to follow Tolkien and portray him as such from the off.

Worse of course is the concern that its been done for some sort of make the women look stronger, we can't allow her to be 'taken against her will' thing, so in the current way of doing that it seems, he has to be reduced in stature in the telling in order to elevate the woman higher. A crude and by now tedious and quite offensively lazy device. Will they play him instead as being truly in love with her and caring but she has rejected him, then over the course of series one she will finally fall for him but he will seize the throne and she will be betrayed and overthrown by the male patriarchy of Numenor? Or just as bad (or even worse possibly) they just Thrones it and Red Wedding it.

I hope they don't. I hope they have well thought out, good, solid, narrative and character reasons for their alterations, but I still fear the worse on all this.}}

Teaser trailer on Sundays super bowl apparently.

https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2022/02/07/111973-official-lotr-trailer-watch-party-for-prime-videos-rings-of-power-to-be-hosted-by-torn/

Advisors often have lots of power, especially if the sovereign if very young.

I suspect the super bowl ad will not reveal much.

Technically this is also the first teaser trailer and should go here.

Maybe deserving of its own thread, idk?

I have logged in simply to say uh oh. That trailer was really bad.

Nah let's slap 'em both in here.

I liked, um... the shot of the seaport at the beginning. That was nice.

Its generic fantasy with what sounds like a girl with an American accent and Elrond boy band hair. I find it meh.

Hi Ally!  Yeah, we've got to choose which thread to go with now.

Another point: Narnia Galadriel looks too much like a college kid.  That was okay back in the first age, but by SA she's been through the War of Wrath (though she's never mentioned), lost her brother, etc etc she's no longer a wide-eyed kid.  She's got street cred.  I've got no problem watching sweet little elves prancing around as background, hell give'em some trees to sing in; but that's not Galadriel.

{{ If memory serves Galadriel is several thousand years old by this point. So yeah she shouldn't look like a kid.

And yeah think we have 3 threads now all for same thing really. Maybe should amalgamate them or something?

As to my mimicking Pj's style- look at the shot revealing the hobbits form about 7 seconds in- its almost identical to the reveal of the Fellowship shot after they leave Rivendell, it even looks like it was shot in a very similar, if not the same location. The stupid leap attack at 48 seconds as well as the cgi monster, the arrow catching elf, and the blue filtering on every 'night' shot all are reminiscent of PJ's films, his Hobbit ones in particular unfortunately.}}

Another realization - it's clear why Tom Shippey didn't last long with the writing crew: he was very much into timelines. Once they made their big decision, he was out. Probably as much his decision as theirs.

Hm... Perhaps. He did have a lamenting sort of tone in that interview that got him fired, but I don't think he would have left voluntarily.

As to which thread to use, I say that trailer-specific talk should happen in this one.

Pfft, stupid:

wowzer Youtube on on fire, Amazon prime trailer is getting roasted from all over the world.

Wish they had roasted with an actual quote, instead of that garbled version that spread like a virus.

{{ Oddly, and perhaps interestingly, it seems to have begun among Russian folk, and the quote was in Russian, presumably from the Russian edition. I'd guess lazy folk rather than looking up the original quote in English simply slapped the Russian one into google translate and now this weird garbled version is turning up everywhere. }}

Ahhh, that explains much.

What quote are you talking about?

Oh was it, "Evil cannot create, only corrupt." Not too garbled.

In another vein, judging from the accent this guy is African American, and he's absolutely roasting the show for having black characters. "If this show doesn't totally suck, it will have exceeded my expectations."

That wasn't the quote going around on the day. It was precisely this: "Evil cannot create anything new, they can only destroy good forces have invented or created."

What is "they" referring back to? Where is the "what" article? A horde of midwits copy-pasted it and were spamming it all over.

Even the Russian version is a false quote, unless they got a different version of Tolkien's writing.

More railing against the diversity casting, from what might be an unexpected source. A little annoying in the first few minutes but then he gets down to business saying much of what has been said here.

Just Googled Don Lemon.  yep thats him. However I think the Elf guy looks more like Gary Dourdan from CSI TV show.

halfwise wrote:More railing against the diversity casting, from what might be an unexpected source.  A little annoying in the first few minutes but then he gets down to business saying much of what has been said here.

Yep, definitely annoying but the basis of his criticism is petty much on point.