The Rings of Power Post-watch Discussion (Spoilers)

I am not watching this garbage. But I look forward to the crabbit.

Correction: Apparently the midgets speak with varying levels of Irish accent, varying in terms of quality I mean.

Morgoth/Sauron = Trump by the way.

At least, in the minds of the people behind the show.

Lancebloke wrote:You are doing a great service Forest. I am totally not watching this as I can't be giving them the views to encourage more of this rubbish!

Mrs Figg wrote:I am not watching this garbage. But I look forward to the crabbit.

I don't think I'll be watching either...pretty sad state of affairs if hardly any of us in a long running Tolkien forum are actually excited/interested to watch the show*...I do very much look forward to Petty's crabit review though...

*As it stands I think The Hobbit films basically killed any interest I had in seeing further adaptations of the books, regardless of how faithful or not they are, I'm at the point now where I'd rather just experience Middle-earth through the books and let others argue about nd enjoy the adaptations.

*Though in fairness to the writers, I barely watch TV or streaming as it is anyway (prefer books or the 2-3 commitment of a film rather than hours and hours of a TV show), so regardless of the mixed reactions the show is getting (and my disinterest in the storyline they are telling) I probably wouldn't have bothered watching it anyway...5 seasons of a show is a big commitment to watch...especially If I end up hating it (or being too emotionally attached to the books to look at the series fairly)

Apparently 25 million+ have watched the Premiere...which is a big figure for Amazon Prime I think? Do we think spin-offs/other shows will be greenlit if the series is sucessful? I think I'm actually more interested in what this means for the franchise/Tolkien's books moving forwards than the series itself...whoever now owns the films rights to LOTR will surely be looking to cash in on the hype, and I expect we'll see further adapatations/books greenlit by the Estate...

(Though please please please leave The Silmarillion alone!)

{{ Well the deed is done. And I think best way to approach this is to view it in two different ways, firstly as an adaptation of Tolkien, and secondly as someone whose only knowledge is the PJ films or none at all.

Its quite easy to sum up my thought process watching the first episode, from the very beginning, it went like this (Ive saved you all the expletives)- “Wrong. Wrong. Completely wrong. Completely made up. Still wrong. Utterly wrong. 99.9% wrong. Oh something Tolkien actually wrote about, which they've got wrong.”

It would in fact be easier to sum up what is in fact accurate to Tolkien-

the names of people and places.


And that's' it.

In a way from a Tolkien fan perspective, there isn't one. There really isn't any Tolkien in here save as a sort of launching pad for their own flights of fancy.
They said in the build up to this they wanted to make the book Tolkien never wrote. Having seen the first two episodes I can say with some certainty that had Tolkien an infinite amount of time and an infinite amount of monkeys with typewriters he'd still never have written this.

In terms of characters we have Galadriel, who has no apparent connection to her book counterpart- here she is a warrior hell bent on revenge for the death of her brother and in finding and defeating Sauron. That is everything that so far defines her character.

Then there is elf bloke and his love story with a human. Now given elf/human relationships are super rare and sort of fated and epic, this one is, well its unspoken love for years where, based on the evidence we are given he stares at her across a room and she looks uncomfortable about it, and that's it they're in love.
Do I care? Not a jot. As the relationship, what there is of one has all happened prior to the story starting so there is absolutely no investment in their relationship, we haven't seen one.
And what is an elf doing among the humans anyway? Well, get this, it seems elves of this period were acting like sort of police, keeping an eye on men who are descended from men who allied with Morgoth, so he sort of moseys into town and gets told what's going on and everyone treats him like a dangerous but unwelcome visitor, like an unexpected fart wafted in, and its all a weak excuse to have him there and with her. Oh and she has a son who has found an evil broken sword.

Then there is Elrond, whose is a likeable and amiable enough sort of character, if bland as anything, and they are certainly playing him in the politician role, being able to use political wiles and speech in his diplomacy with dwarves. Its hard to compare to the books at any point however as nothing he does is from the books.

And of course we have the Harfoots, who are mainly Nori the inquisitive adventurous one, her rotund stout friend, the Chief and Noris' parents.
I have some basic issues with the very premise of them- we know the hobbits had some settlements especially along the Anduin, and we know that they learned the Common Tongue and some writing and other arts from men in their interactions with them.
These hobbits, sorry Harfoots however are migratory, and view men as they would any other large dangerous creature and keep themselves hidden and concealed away, but they still have writing and even start charts and speak Common.

And I suppose now is as good a time to talk about the casting- it doesn't make a lick of sense. The Harfoots are made up of people of African, Mouri, and a bunch of other ethnic types, some of them have west country accents, some of them Irish, some of them a hint of Scottish, others god knows what. Yet they are supposed to be one isolated tribe, we even get a speech from Nori's mum, whose a different race for her own daughter, about how they never leave the tribe, everyone sticks together and how cohesive and unchanging they are - yet the visuals and accents tell you the exact opposite. Its an instance where the worthiness of casting multiple races triumphs over the actual words of their own script and so undermines it.

In fact every single race is the same, they are all multicultural for no reason whatsoever, without explanation, and worse without taking into consideration the movement of peoples and cultures, and therefore language around ME that would have been Tolkien's starting point if he had wanted every race to be multicultural.

Its just sort of one of these things you have to accept is going to constantly undermine the world building, every race of people is now also mixed race. Which oddly rather than increasing a sense of diversity in the world actually reduces it by making every race somewhat similar.

The plot by the end of the two episodes is mainly on three strands- the Harfoots who encounter meteor man who remains an enigma still, but who they are certainly trying to make the viewer think is going to be Gandalf, he wears grey he looks similar if Gandalf had been ever young physically, and he does Gandalf things sometimes- such a scene where he releases the fireflies from a lamp then does a cup them in his hands whisper to them very like Gandalf with the moth. But then all the fireflies die afterwards, so ooh maybe he is evil. In fact I suspect we are going to get a somewhat tedious guessing game of who Sauron might actually be with red herrings laid for every suspect.

On the Galadriel side she goes to the frozen north for no other reason than to establish she is hunting Sauron and to kick off the episode pre title screen (an astonishing 17 minutes in) with a big and rather laughable fight scene with a snow troll. Then the High King of the Elves sends her to Valinor as a reward and to get her out the way, so all that book stuff about her being banned from returning, yeah forget that she isn't in this, she can go but only if the king says she can, or orders her too apparently. And the scene with the ship as it enters Valinor is visually very well done, except the compositing of them on the ship at times, but Galadriel decides instead to jump and swim an entire ocean back to ME.

Eventually after much swimming she finds a raft full of people shipwrecked by a giant sea serpent, cause yeah why not? and then the raft gets attacked by the serpent, then Galadriel and some bloke called Halbrand bugger off, there's a big storm so we can watch a cgi raft on huge cgi waves, then Galadriel nearly drowns when she goes overboard, but Halbrand saves her, then they pass out and wake up to what I presume will be a Numenoreon ship. Numenor so far has not had a single mention I should note.

And if everything that happens to Galadriel sounds like a contrived way to team her up with the bloke and get her to Numenor dressed up with a lot of padding, cgi and pointless action that goes nowhere and is instantly forgotten, then you'd be right.

Elrond mainly spends the first part trying to persuade Galadriel to stop fighting and then to go to Valinor, after which he is sent to work with Celebrimbor who needs a fancy forge built for his new project, and Elrond, excitingly has been made project manager. So he decides to ask the dwarves for help in Moria, where for reasons unknown there are two Durins at same time, the actual King, and his son, who Elrond is old mates with. But Durin jnr is pissed at Elrond for not visiting for 20 years and missing his wedding and birth of his sons. So challenges Elrond to a who can smash the most rocks contest.

And here we run into a PJ induced issue, dwarves always having an underlying element of being the comic relief. They are not played straight and aren't here either, Durin gets a few moments here and there, but its mainly humour based on either stereotypes of the bickering married couple, or dwarves been grumpy and stubborn. The description Disa gives of her courting of Durin would be more at home in the mouth of a Terry Prachett dwarf than Tolkiens.
Anyhow Elrond wants Durin to help build the forge, but the dwarves are concealing something from the elves, in a box, that glows and will later presumably end up in a suitcase in Pulp Fiction judging on how they film it.

And then we have elf bloke and bird, their story is elves are stopping the police work as they think peace is here forever for some reason, but he and girlfriend discover a neighbouring town has been destroyed from underground via tunnels, no one believes her until a hole opens in her house rather conveniently and an orc, I assume its an orc, but it takes a hell of a beating for an orc and shouldn't be so hard to kill if it is, pops out the tunnel. She takes its head eventually and everyone decides to believe her after all so they all leave for the place the elves just abandoned. Meanwhile elf boyfriend is under the tunnels in the first ruined place to see what's there and what's there are lots of shadows of things with claws, and eventually claws grabbing him.

And that's kind of the problem with their tale, its as dully told as that paragraph was to read. You just don't have any reason to care about these people, there is no establishing, or build up to their relationship we are just presented with it as a thing that's happening. Similar she has a son, he's obviously going to be important, but as we see no time of them together we have no reason to care about them as family either, he's just there and so is she but rarely in the same scene. If they were two unrelated people in the same village it wouldn't feel any different.
There whole story feels like a means to just move the plot along.

So yeah from a Tolkien perspective it is a mess. Everything is wrong 99% is pure invention of their own and what is based on Tolkien is so loosely based that its unrecognisable for the most part outside of references.

As a Tolkien viewer I'd give it 2 out of 10. And 1 is for the visual work and the 2nd is for it being competently directed and edited- basically two technical merit points and nothing more.


So that's the Tolkien perspective, trying to view it as a normal non Tolkien fan viewer its fairs somewhat better.
It looks very good for the most part, far better than the stills gave it credit for certainly, though there are an odd few compositing shots that look very obvious, for the most part this is cinema quality on your tv.

The soundtrack is largely good, where its not memorable it's functional and supports the action but even where its at its best, probably the Moria theme for me, I still couldn't hum you the tune half an hour after watching it.

The performances are likewise decent if a bit bland and some of the dialogue is very clunky or has an annoying habit of references to the films with slight word changes or wholesale reuse of a phrase, but it again functions in moving the plot on though fairs less well I feel at developing characters you are attached to in any way.

Ignoring the reasons for why every race being multicultural is wrong the actual actors, such as Lenny Henry or the women who plays Disa put in decent performances Henry is particularly likeable as the Chief of the Harfoots.

If I were a fresh viewer with no knowledge I'd find the way they use the map odd. You see when it shifts scene and location across a large distance it goes to a map the camera swoops over from where you were to where you're going, then fades into the actual location with text saying where you are and who lives there. Fine to help new viewers out and show where everything is in relation to everything else- except that one function it has it fails at, as the camera being so close swooping over the map means you cant ever see the wider map so you still don't know where everything is in relation to everything else, rendering it totally pointless and actually more confusing than if they hadn't bothered.

There's also a fair bit of padding in this, fighting the ice troll, sea serpent, Galadriel drowning, Elrond smashing rocks that just feel sort of there and don't really further anything, or where they do overstay their welcome in doing it.

But if I knew nothing the expensive look, the few mysteries they have set up- like meteor man, would probably make me come back to see more, but on the other-hand I wouldn't be over enthused about it and would be hoping it gets better quickly. It would at best be firmly in the 'meh' category.

My good friend and occasional traveller to Forumshire Nagual, who read LotR's in his teens , enjoyed it and never gave it much thought afterward and knows nothing of the wider lore remarked upon seeing it ( I should note long and good friends as we are we often do not share the same tastes in tv and film, at all, and naturally we are both crabbit about it)-

Watched 1st ep of RoP. I enjoyed it. Which surprised me. Of course I'm not an anally retentive Tolkien fanatic...Watched 2nd ep. Still decent... my view of it is based on not really caring a monkeys ass about Tolkien lore. It's entertaining enough for the most part.'

I think given my own tastes Id still disagree with him in that it'd not say it was decent, it's clunky, padded, and doesn't make you engage with or care much about most of the main characters and relies more often on setting up mysterious to puzzle over and intrigue to keep the viewer engaged than characters. But I would probably agree trying to view it from the perspective of a non-Tolkien viewer that it is 'entertaining enough for the most part.'
Its not the disaster some are saying from that perspective.
In that regard it'd probably sit around a middling 5 out of 10 for me.

But I cant watch it with that regard, I am an anally retentive Tolkien fanatic so don't be fooled either into thinking its not a disaster from a Tolkien perspective, because its an utter disaster if you bring Tolkien knowledge or expectations to the table whilst watching, an utter shit show in that regard. }}

A whole 5 out 10? That's a higher score than I was expecting Petty!

It's ironic ..I think I've actually read (and own) more of Tolkien's writings than you have (all 12 volumes of The HOMe, The History of The Hobbit, The Annotated Hobbit, the various Art books...even most of his non Middle-earth related writings, not to mention several biographies etc) but I'd still describe myself as less of a fanatic purist/lore hound than you (merely someone who just really likes Tolkien's writing and studying it) so wasn't really thinking about comparing this to the books had i decided to watch, it's basically high budget fan fiction in my eyes and will very much suceed or fail on its own merits.

So to hear you say you actually kinda enjoyed some of it as a stand alone narrative is surprising, and almost makes me intrigued enough to watch it...on the other hand 'middling and entertaining enough' isn't a huge selling point (as I said above I barely watch TV anyway)...certainly curious to see how your thoughts change as thr story progresses so keep us posted.

Would you say this feels like the same universe/style of the Jackson films? Or more of its own thing?

One other Tolkien lore complaint...aren't Gil-galad/Celebrimbor younger than Galadriel? so why cast older actors?

{ Well 5 out of 10 is me trying to judge it without bringing any Tolkien to the table, which is hard to do, my personal score was 2 given my Tolkien liking.

Its competently made, Ive seen worse tv and fantasy shows inparticular that have been popular enough, in a world where the MCU is a thing and massively popular I cant put my hand on my heart and say its worse than those. Even if they are not my thing. Its not worse, it snot any better but no worse. Taken as completely its own thing, you could change out all the Tolkien names and places and it would be its own thing for the most part- its bog standard, not good, not bad tv. Its just as anything Tolkien it fails at every turn.

'Would you say this feels like the same universe/style of the Jackson films?'

Yes and no- there are stuff that is straight out of PJ's- the Lee elvish cities inparticualr are similar to Rivendell just scaled up, the glimpse of the fell beasts we see are identical to PJ's version and if not identical then the silhoutte of Sauron we get in his armour is also straight out of Pj. It often mimicks PJ's swoopeing helecopter shots over landscapes and it reuses bits of dialogue or rewords bits from the films.

But the characters, the narrative, the presentation of stuff like orcs, wargs, and other things, the genral direction and editing they have done their own way, even small to big differences in how races are portrayed differ visually from PJ's.

But it occupies this wierd middle ground where so far at least it lacks a strong enough identity of its own and still falls back on invoking PJs films for it instead.

'aren't Gil-galad/Celebrimbor younger than Galadriel? so why cast older actors? '

If you bring such questions or any Tolkien material to this it will lead only to frustration and misery and crabbit. }}

Hell yeah, the Petty review is in.

Speaking of the hobbits and learning Common and writing from men, in the prologue Tolkien also mentions that the Harfoots in particular were friendly with the dwarves, living long in the foothills east of the mountains in their beloved holes in the ground.

Alright, back to it. Although I shall strive to be briefer in my thoughts.

Well we're still in midget-ville. The first actress whose casting was released, Markella Kavanagh, is playing a midget named Nori.


Ironically I had assumed that this actress was to play Galadriel. Far from it! She and a fat midget who is introduced as being too rotund to fit through a gap in a gate and so falls into a muddy puddle when helped are raiding an old blackberry patch with midgets who are even more midgety than they are (younger, I assume).
Frodo and Sam anyone?

(apologies for the low-quality on the screen-grabs. My connection is rather poor.)
The scene has the feel of Beatrix Potter: the young rabbits raiding Mr. McGregor's garden.

The stumpier midgets are cute, and the blackberries are nicely scaled to suit the size of the actors and reinforce the illusion of their size. A nice touch!


But these cute midgets are immediately followed by the ogre, who may have just eaten one of the smaller ones.


There's a warg stalking around the old blackberry patch, but it does nothing. Just sniffs the ground while it watches the midgets trot away. Not much in the way of stakes here. You know? There's a shot earlier where the chief midget sees some wargs in his pictograph book next to the antlered hunters. So I guess the wargs are going to be some coming threat. I mean we all saw them in the latest trailer threatening not-Gandalf. It's just kind of lame how they're used here. As a threat, but not really a threat, because they don't gobble up the stumpiest and cutest midgets when they have the chance.

TRANSITION IT IS NOW ELROND TIME

Elrond, and we're gonna need to come up with a good nickname for this guy, because he is not the elf we know and love, is working on a bit of writing. At first I thought it was prose or poetry, but as we learn later in the episode he is actually penning a speech for Gil-galad to give at a "Ticket to Valinor Award Ceremony". Some rather poor actress in a veil, who I assume is veiled to hide her lack of talent, comes and announces that he won't be allowed to attend the next council meeting because he's not an elf-lord. This is meant to set him up as having aspirations to attain such a status. Ironically, this is book-Galadriel's desire: to rule over a kingdom of her own, the reason for her departure from Valinor! So this is Elrond's arc: he is a lowly speech-writer and wishes to achieve lordship status.
The whole concept of writing speeches is giving me a headache. What utter banality.
I will not complain about Elrond writing in Elvish, reading in Elvish, and then translating it for himself into English. A necessary conceit unless all the dialogue is to be spoken in the appropriate tongue, which is quite impossible.

You've all seen Lindon in the trailers. It is like a golden version of Rivendell. The same sort of architecture. Alan Lee's doing, no doubt.
Galadriel and Elrond are friends, apparently. They greet each other nicely, and I believe this is the last nice thing that Galadriel says to him.
Galadriel wishes for more troops from Gil-galad so she can keep hunting. Elrond dislikes this for no apparent reason.
Galadriel is looking at a tapestry of a ship sailing toward Aman. She has a concerned look on her face, as though she does not like the subject. It is strange. And she also says that she has returned "without an army". But her company made it back, we see them later. Did she forge on alone for a time? Did she leave with an army, and this handful is all that survived?

There is such a poutiness from her. Such an angsty frustration. Elrond asks her about her journey, and she brushes off the question as manipulative politician-speak. Are we to think that Galadriel is a bitch. Or that Elrond is manipulative? For only one can be true.
Oh and Elrond say, "You've only just arrived!"  

Cut to the midgets. I kinda like the relationship between Nori-midget and her dad-midget. He's pretty likeable.
Her step-mom (for so she must be, if genetics still work in this world) is the one who does the chastising for the unsanctioned blackberry raid. It's kind of boring to be honest. The mom is squishing snails in a bowl or something, and this is where Nori does her "haven't you ever wondered?" spiel that we heard in the first teaser. The midgets have the same problem that the hobbits in the LotR movies had: they're fucking boring. At least in the LotR book there is some excitement in their lives. The hobbits of Buckland venture into the Old Forest from time to time, or go boating. And Farmer Maggot is not a safe fellow either.  
But thanks to the Jackson movies, in this any teeth they could have had have been removed and they're all just kinda dumb and fat and gluttonous and ugly and nice.
And this is the version we get here! Nori's midget-dad even comments to another midget: "The wheel's meant to be round" while inspecting a wagon wheel. Unless it was in jest, this surely indicates a paltry intelligence.

And now on to the speech-giving. Some manner of ceremony to reward Galadriel's company with a Valinor Visa. She's miserable-looking the whole time of course, and I guess we're meant to dislike Gil-galad and Elrond as scheming politicians. We do! This was successful! Unfortunately, Galadriel is still an ass. And comparing an ass to a bunch of dicks does not make the ass any less of an ass.


Elrond is even mouthing the speech as Gil-galad delivers it. Ugh.
And everyone claps at the end of the speech about the elves going home. This implies that all elves wish to go home and the only thing keeping them in Middle-earth is Gil-galad telling them they're not allowed to leave.
What absolute toss.

Elves do fireworks now? Elves do fireworks now.


There's a scene in a woods of carven memorials for the fallen. Galadriel says that Elrond breathes like an orc (in jest). And there is blah-blah-blah This is the scene we saw those "You have not seen what I have seen" lines from. Galadriel can't go home or give up her sword because then she'll lose her purpose and she worries that Sauron is gonna come back and etc. etc. IT FOLLOWS THE RULES OF SCREENWRITING, BUT IT SUCKS.
Galadriel, looking at her only "friend" in the entire world.


There is one moment where Elrond shows some spirit, rebuking her slightly and pointing out that her quest is leading to the deaths of her own kind. But then right after he says, "No one in history has ever refused the call. Do so now, it may never come again."  So it's not like the writing is improving much.

Crazy Eyes Galadriel  


Next up: The Southlands plot!

I actually liked Galadriel's older brother. The actor anyway, in the brief scenes we saw him in before he cries in the battle and then dies off-screen. I mean his hair sucks, but he's alright.

The more I read the less interest I have in watching it.

{{ Amazon are boasting of their highest ever ratings for this with a global audience of 25 million. Now at a glance that sounds a lot, but when you consider a big Who episode can get 10 mllion or more in the UK alone it starts to look somewhat dodgy, and when you look at Who's estimated global audience its around 100 million. And when Top Gear was at its peak its global audience was a whoping 350 million. 25 doesnt seem so good in that light.
So how exactly do streaming services make money on these numbers? Theres no adverts. How can they afford to make tv at this cost with such low numbers of viewers? }}

I guess it's all just a tax write-off.

This guy seems pretty clued-up

{{ More like he's pretty good at making excuses for them

My views on the first two episodes have only gotten worse longer I have had to think about them. Like Chibnall Who its full of on the nose pointed dialogue that tells but doesnt show- so we get told about how much Galadriel cared for her brother, but we never see it. We are told elf bloke is in love but we never see it. We are told Elrond and Durin are old friends, we neer saw any of it and so on. The end result is scene after scene of exposition.

Even stuff I liked visually is highly questionable, probably for me the best visual scene is going to Valinor- but its doesnt make any sense- why is there a magic portal to Valinor? This is before the changing of the world Valinor is just another continent at this point, when Ar-Pharazon takes his fleet to conquer it he just sails there and lands- if there was a big magic portal to cross to get there the Valar could just have closed it and not let them in. Is that not going to be an issue for how this tale ends when the Numenoreons sail there now theyve established a magical entrance?
Now as a visual for how you go the straight road after the bending of the world it would be an interesting way to represent it, but before? Doesn't make any sense at all. And who are the elves that take all their armour and seemto be preparing them? They are like Valinor flight attendants? do they just go back and forth on that boat and collect all the armour and givesafety instructionson what to do in the event of capsizing? Why do they need to take all their armour and weapons off to go to Valinor, both exists there already? None of it makes sense let alone Galdriel diving overboard and deciding to swim an ocean about the size of the Atlantic and why do the humans she meets on the raft hate elves? Why are they worried that Corsairs will get them- what would Corsairs be doing 3/4 of the way to Valinor? At this point in history how is Corsair ship craft that good anyway? My head is full of crabbit! }}

I've only read the first few lines of each review, but it's clear I'll have to fortify myself against the long watch tonight. Some calming meditation with a stiff drink staged to that I can clutch at it swiftly when needed.

I get the impression that there are a few nice shots of the landscape, but that's about it.

Its made by hacks for people who don't give a shit about Tolkien.

And the hair...THE HAIR...is an abomination.

I will stick with HoD, its way better.

{{ Welcome to the war Halfy! }}

On Twitter this evening:

If you're mad that there are Black Elves and Black Dwarves in Middle-earth, I have news for you. Middle-earth isn't real, but you *are* really racist.

From:

Senior Editor/Film Critic for http://Nerdist.com, co-host
@FiveYearsRapid
,
@DWTWR
, and
@TheMemoryCheats
. He/Him Black Lives Matter Wear a Mask

What is wrong with people? They really can't accept there could be criticism of something that is actually based in something other than racism or something!

{{ And sadly that sort of thing is why there is a war

Also on the point 'Middle-earth isn't real' one of the big draws to Tolkiens work is his conceit the world of ME is real, and as such it is intricate, detailed and has history so as to give the feel of a real believable world. If you adapt Tolkien therefore and your version of ME does not feel real or beleivable, you have failed in a core part of adapting his work. }}

yeah but everything is racist these days. I blame the moronic CRT infecting every part of society.

Petty, you do them a great disservice. The things they got right were character names, Locations, AND where the characters fall in good/evil columns.

Everything else is worse than made up, it downright violates what Tolkien wrote. I struggle mightily to see more than 5% of this is Tolkien plot.

As pure braindead television level fantasy it's okay in a stupid sort of way. If you ignore all the internal inconsistencies. I may watch a little bit more to enjoy the landscapes and play the guessing game of whether the next 5 minutes will have ANYTHING Tolkien related or not. New drinking game: drink whenever something Tolkien actually wrote pops up. You'll end up stone cold sober.

{{ There is no way I can watch any of this stone cold sober! No chance!  

Also theres been something nagging at me about black elf's performance since I watched and it only just clicked what about it was so off for me. He is not playing it like any sort of Tolkien elf but like a ST Vulcan trying to deal with an emotion. It'd be fine as a Vulcan performance in an episode of something mediocore like Vogayer. What it isnt is a Tolkien elf.   }}

You couldn't imagine him breaking out in song, that's for sure. Or even smiling now that I think about it... Does he smile?

{{ One of the exciting things to look forward to his when (or if) he breaks out a new expression. His armour is less wooden! }}