The Rings of Power Post-watch Discussion (Spoilers)

Alright, so we're still back in episode 1. Best get a move on I suppose.

We cut from Elrond and Galadriel being crazy-eyed to an aerial shot of a stone village. It has wheat fields, poorly-dressed villagers, an old African lady. Yes, quite the place!

The first thing we see of Arondir or whatever, the dark-skinned elf we've seen so much of, is him commenting on a board game as he walks past it. He gives directions to one of the players on how to win. I really don't know what to make of it. Is he very clever? Is he fun? The character is so wooden in general that this small burst of congeniality, or game-spoiling, is out of sorts.

The locals in the tavern (in the middle of the day? Lazy slobs) are talking about poisoned grass. Of all the things to have poisoned, grass seems like the last thing. Grass just isn't poisoned, you know? A poisonous herb, poisoned water, whatever. Not grass. The locals are being dodgy and don't want Arondir to know about it. He does. Some young whippersnapper is mad at him.
They all seem to resent him really. Except the indecently-dressed "healer" lady. She's showing more skin than everyone but the half-naked barkeep!
Some "seeds" of romance are planted when she gives the elf a bottle of seeds. I heard elsewhere that these are the same flower that Theoden talks about in The Two Towers, by another name.

For some reason Arondir doesn't tell his companion about the "poisoned grass". In fact, there is more and more tension being created between Arondir and his fellow elves. A second Galadriel situation!

Arondir insults his companion's smell, jokingly, but still. Everyone else is glad to be going home, he is not. His commander tells him something that he should already know: that they are there to watch over the human threat, not guard the humans. But this is presented as some kind of reveal to Arondir: a thing he did not know.


A brief positive note:
I don't dislike all the elf casting. Some of them have interesting faces. And while they are too old to my eyes, they would not be half bad with proper-length hair and less pointless drama.

Anyway, a last farewell between Arondir and his healer-lady-friend. And a sick cow is brought for healing! The cow has dark blood coming out of its teat. I guess that's a thing, idk. I'm familiar with mastitis, but this is different.

It's not done very well. Arondir and the healer lady up and decide to go east to figure out the source of the cow-disease, and this dramatic music starts playing. It's not deserved, you know? The drama is not there.

Meanwhile the healer's boy-child is messing around with an old sword-hilt that someone in the village is keeping in his barn in a box. The sword has the mark of Sauron on it, and it flares up into flame for a second while the kid is looking at it. I can't tell whether this actually happens, or whether it's a visual to hammer the  audience over the head.


Next is the bloody elf-rapture scene.

Oops, not the rapture scene yet. First a weird interaction between Elrond and Gil-galad where the latter admits that Galadriel is right about Sauron still existing out there. So getting rid of her was just a political ploy. It's absolutely damning against Gil-galad and terrible for the cohesion of the elves. I just don't get it.

Celebrimbor slowly walks up looking weird when he's introduced to Elrond, and then gives a smile like the granny who drank the cat's cream.


The elves are too fucking old.

There's a brief scene back in midget-ville: a little interaction between the chief-midget and Nori-midget. It's kinda cute actually. Nori is annoying, but I think she can be unintentionally funny sometimes.

Alright, the rapture scene is here. It was definitely the weirdest part of episode 1.
The gray wall of cloud that blasts apart, the fake-looking birds, the distant choir, the cult-like manner in which all the elves onboard the ship join in except for Galadriel.
I really don't like it, and I don't think I'm alone. It's not lore-accurate, and it's not "faithful to Tolkien's themes". The elves returning to Aman is supposed to be beautiful, surely, and not like this weird passing into the light. The scene is even interrupted by an eerie musical cue on oboe or something as a red meteor appears in the sky and Gil-galad watches it with consternation.

Is Galadriel's departure and the comet's arrival linked somehow? Why does it happen this way?

The other elves are dematerializing or being swallowed by the light, as though they are dying, and Galadriel has a flashback to the we didn't hear her brother say when he was answering her questions about how to find your way. He says that sometimes we don't know until we've touched the darkness.
This isn't terribly deep, I must say. I'm pretty sure you know that a comfortable home is good for you, even without spending a month in a dank cave with heroin needles for a bed.

But whatever. The camera holds on Galadriel for like five seconds as she breaks the fourth wall and comes to an... interesting decision...


She grabs hold of her brother's dagger. And she leaps off the stern of the ship into the middle of the ocean.

Valinor's cloud-gate closes with a sound like a beast that has just had its fill, and the light fades on her as she treads water.

Gil-galad picks up a fallen leaf and it's all gross looking. NO idea what this is meant to represent, except "Sauron is coming for you!"


And Nori-midget finds the Meteor Man.

Fin.

I'm gonna watch episode 3 now.

Ah geez, it's not getting better. That's for sure.

Absolutely adore the warg though, hahahaha

From the lack of continuation I take it you had the same reaction I did: so jam-packed with wrongness that there's no way to even begin. I found the crap density to be impenetrable.

crap density is a good description. Every scene is wrong. Wrong casting, wrong dialogue, wrong plot, wrong hair, a few nice shots doesn't make up for the sheer weight of mind boggling amount of bullcrap.

Unfortunately I think most of us will watch episode 4, just to confirm if it's really possible it can continue to be this bad. Amazon will get the wrong message. After that I hope I have the fortitude to pull the plug.

Well I have yet to watch even episode 1, nor do I plan to.

It's like getting locked into eating a box of cheap candy. You know it's bad, but you just can't stop.

{{ Oh I could have stopped after the first two (minutes) I do this now out of a sense of crabbit duty to Forumshire to report on just how bad it is to save others the error of watching it, or worse giving Amazon any money for it and so encouraging more of this sort of thing. Its a sacrifice I have to make for crabbit!

Forest- I rather like this format- you give a detailed breakdown so folk dont have to actually see it, and I give a more general impression of just how crabbit you can expect to be if you do decide to watch it. Very complimentary }}

That warg was done better 30 years ago in The Neverending Story.

Glancing through Forest's tripe report, I'm reminded of how the actors keep praising the show runners and writing.  I have to feel they know better.   Only a few of these actors could find such steady work if cut off - I'm thinking they are singing for their 5 year high digits meal ticket.

Then again the critics keep giving it high marks (note the audiences do not - check out Rotten Tomatos ), I wonder what is going on there?

{{ Same thing is going on has been for several years now- critics will praise and champion anything that promotes itself on its diversity, as for them to say its rubbish is the same as saying diversity is rubbish, so they cant. And anyone who does complain is not complainng legitimetly they are just racists or mysoginsits for not liking it- forget the appalling dialogue, wooden performances, abuses of Tolkiens narrative and characters, horrendous pacing, broken world building ect, those are not fair game if the show is diverse then it must be good - how could it be bad when it has a worthy message to tell about how everyone is the same? The message triumphs over all else.
It is same with Chibnal Who- it has a critics rating of a whopping 90% and an audience score of an abysmal 20% Why the disparity? Because the audience are judging it on content, entertainment value, and if it feels like the genuine thing, the critics only see first woman and most diverse cast of characters ever so must say its the best ever.}}

Was Chibnall Who really as low as 20%? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but wow.

I think if these things were written and executed well, most of the complaints about focus on diversity would fade away. Unfortunately the bad writing only accentuates the focus on diversity.

{{ His second series was even worse }}

The Guardian are plugging ROP like mad, and a lot of negative post are getting deleted. Like mine for example.  They are also plugging the 'racist' fan if you don't like it codswallop.

I'm trying to figure out if objectively the dialogue for Lord of the Rings was any better, or were we just happier with it because it was close to Tolkien? I remember seeing the script once and thinking it was actually pretty bad.

Watching shows like Killing Eve, Game of Thrones, or currently Sarah Connor Chronicles I'm struck by the subtlety that's missing from both LotR films and RoP. The only good writing I remember in LotR is extended monologues taken straight from Tolkien; most of the interpolated lines were rubbish.

What the hell are you talking about?
Are you deep in your cups and your wits addled by too many pro-Amazon editorials?

{{ There is lots of terrible dialogue in PJ's version, I dislike a large part of Smeagols dialogue for example that they make up, it's so, basic and childish, for example- "Smeagol hates nasty Hobbitses! Smeagol wants to see: them - dead!" or Gimli's -"What do trees have to talk about, except the constistency of squirrel dung?" I mean those are actual lines that made it into the finished film, somehow. And theres loads of that quality, or lack of. }}

Yes, yes, well and good. But the Rings of Power is not bad because it has bad dialogue. It is bad because it has bad casting, bad dialogue, bad writing, and ill-intentioned producers.

The LotR movies are not bad, despite some poor dialogue.

{{ They are bad adaptations that completely miss the whole point in my view, but that does not necessarily mean they are bad as films, it depends from where you come at them from. But they do have some terrible dialogue. }}

I thought the gollum scenes were good. And the lines lifted from Tolkien were good. But lines like "a shortcut to....Mushrooms!" were eye-rolling, and many lines like convincing Treebeard to drop the hobbits near Orthanc were saved by good acting and directing.

Part of the reason the acting was good was because most (definitely not all) of the characters matched up with books. The poor actors in RoP are cast adrift - Elrond is in a rock crushing competition with Durin; Galadriel has more testosterone than any of the male elves, etc etc. They've got nothing to fall back on to find their characters.

{{ I really dislike Pj's version of Gollum and apart from the few genuine lines of Tolkien dialogue the rest of his dialogue makes me alternate between cringing at it and outright anger. I dont like the characterisation of Gollum or its oversimplification and I'm even not a huge fan of Serkis's Gollum voice, I dont think he does a bad job, but I think it lacks a certain note of humanity that lends him pity. }}