The Rings of Power

[terminal7]

With a budget that could have delivered the 40 'new' hospitals somehow mislaid by Johnson, the Lord of the Rings prequel has arrived. Just watched the first 2 episodes and was somewhat underwhelmed by Episode 1 but have to say the series started to hit its stride in Episode 2. It does help having more than a passing knowledge of either the books/films even though it is set I think several millennia before. One thing that is noticeable is the almost complete absence of 'stars' - the (vast) cast are very variable and at times mediocre acting does adversely affect some scenes. What I do like is the use of accents from all over the UK - no spoilers - worth while noting as they occur. As pointed out by one critic - this is a programme to view on the biggest tv screen available. Even a large ipad is a no no.

Interested to compare further notes in due course.

T7

[scotview]

With a budget that could have delivered the 40 'new' hospitals somehow mislaid by Johnson, the Lord of the Rings prequel has arrived. Just watched the first 2 episodes and was somewhat underwhelmed by Episode 1 but have to say the series started to hit its stride in Episode 2. It does help having more than a passing knowledge of either the books/films even though it is set I think several millennia before. One thing that is noticeable is the almost complete absence of 'stars' - the (vast) cast are very variable and at times mediocre acting does adversely affect some scenes. What I do like is the use of accents from all over the UK - no spoilers - worth while noting as they occur. As pointed out by one critic - this is a programme to view on the biggest tv screen available. Even a large ipad is a no no.

Interested to compare further notes in due course.

T7

Watching episode 1 tonight. I gave up but my wife is still watching it. A poor substitute for the original but I've still to see more.

Here's the thing for me. The original Lord of the rings was big enough visually to deserve 4K, but sadly was in 1080p. Watched Rings of Power on our 65" OLED and for me it sadly didnt match Peter Jackson's amazing visual impact. Pity, but maybe it'll get better.

Watched the first episode of the Dragon thingy also tonight and it was visually quite good and better acting than Rings of Power.

[GrahamPlatt]

Il paraît que c’est trop.

[Gerry557]

With a budget that could have delivered the 40 'new' hospitals somehow mislaid by Johnson, the Lord of the Rings prequel has arrived. Just watched the first 2 episodes and was somewhat underwhelmed by Episode 1 but have to say the series started to hit its stride in Episode 2. It does help having more than a passing knowledge of either the books/films even though it is set I think several millennia before

As pointed out by one critic - this is a programme to view on the biggest tv screen available. Even a large ipad is a no no.

Interested to compare further notes in due course.

T7

I'd seen some good reviews and the trailer looked impressive. So I fired up the projector screen, being the biggest, to give episode 1 a go. I'm glad you say it's gets better and hopefully I will be wowed going forward. The misses wasn't that impressed but she wasn't really into the films.

I'm getting into house of the dragon but that has had a few episodes going for it. I think a series needs a few to get the feel. The misses raved about game of thrones so there is solid ground there anyway.

I'm not sure if episode two will get an airing tonight, it might be some below deck, her current go to that I can share.

My list of me only watch things is growing

[terminal7]

Episode 3 last night and it was again pretty mixed. Some scenes very exciting others again completed ruined by the poor acting. The spectacular is always lost to some extent on TV, but no excuse for poor casting at this type of budget. Lenny Henry stands out by being so good compared with many around him.

T7

[scotview]

Lenny Henry stands out by being so good compared with many around him.

T7

The problem with me watching Lenny is that I'm always expecting him to do that high pitched, double scream thing. I also find I'm scanning the film set to see if I can spot Pudsey bear.

[terminal7]

Episode 4 - oh dear me - time to bail out and just wonder just how such a motley crew of poor to mediocre acting talent was cast in this poorly scripted mega budget series. Has become a real turkey. Yes, the CGI is pretty special and the Orcs somewhat gruesome, but rest is shockingly bad. You get the feeling that some of the minor parts have been given out to relatives of the crew. When bad acting hits poor script - the pits of Mordor awfulness.

T7

[todthedog]

Episode 1 setting the scene, introducing the players slow but gave it a chance.
Episode 2 Lasted about 20 mins, gave up, style over substance, shame it lacked actors, a script, a reason to keep watching!

[Gerry557]

I've still only done episode 1, the comments here don't give me much hope. I was expecting it to get better and grow on people.

[GrahamPlatt]

Il paraît que c’est trop.

OK, perhaps that was a bit cryptic. I’ll explain. TROP ; The Rings Of Power.

[baldchap]

Il paraît que c’est trop.

OK, perhaps that was a bit cryptic. I’ll explain. TROP ; The Rings Of Power.

Pearls before swine mon ami.

[SalvorHardin]

All six members of our weekly Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 (aka Pathfinder) group have now seen every episode to date. We're big Tolkien fans (I’m by far the least well versed in Tolkien’s work of the group, having only read The Lord of the Rings a dozen times and The Silmarillion once).

Our consensus is that Rings of Power is pretty good, not up to the Lord of the Rings films but much better than most other fantasy adaptations that we’ve seen this century (okay, that’s a pretty low bar) except for “The Witcher”. Rings of Power suffers badly because Amazon didn’t buy the rights to use anything from The Silmarillion. Amazon bought the sizzle, but not the steak.

The writers have to rely on the footnotes and appendices to Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit, and making stuff up. They’re adapting the book that Tolkien never wrote about the Second Age. Sure the show's writing isn’t top notch, but then they didn’t hire the writers for “Justified”

The storm of criticism in large part is because of the well documented tendency of many fantasy and science-fiction fans to go over the top in their criticism of adaptations which don’t conform exactly to their vision. Combine this with accusations of “woke” being whipped up by people, often to fire up people for the American elections later this year, and it has set the internet alight. There's a bit of Amazon bashing there as well.

The portrayal of Galadriel is accurate. Tolkien's Elves are not hippy humans with pointy ears. Elves, particularly those like Galadriel who were born before the Sun existed, are haughty, aloof and much smarter, stronger, tougher and faster than humans (Second Age Elves are arrogant pricks with plenty to be arrogant about). Galadriel doesn’t just think that she might be able to swim across an ocean; she knows that she can do it.

Galadriel in the Second Age isn’t the one in the films, hiding in the woods, doing a bit of magic and making a few gifts. Second Age Galadriel is on par with the top heroes of Greek mythology. She’s a commander of armies who’d take out half a dozen Xenas and a Balrog at the same time, on her own without too much difficulty.

She’s not a low-level D&D elf, we reckon that she’s more like a 15th level character with five Pathfinder mythic tiers (for those who don’t know the gaming references, that’s a character who is a borderline demi-god / Marvel Superhero). If anything Rings of Power has seriously downgraded her abilities.

Some other complaints that we disagree with. The black actor playing an elf is playing a Wood Elf isn’t woke casting (and he’s arguably the best male actor). Wood Elves are described in various sources as being much darker in complexion than other Elves (with one source mentioning coppery skin). It's a bit laughable to get angry about black Hobbits in a world where there are Orcs, Goblins and Trolls.

Irish Hobbits and Scottish Dwarves aren’t an issue for us. In the film the Hobbits all have different accents (Gloucestershire, Zummerset, Manchester and intelligible Glaswegian) whilst Bilbo Baggins is slightly posh English. In the films Gimli was Welsh, whilst the Dwarves in “The Hobbit” vary between Scottish and Irish, sometimes in the same sentence. But Elves always speak posh, like.