LOTR: Rings of Power - New Teaser

[Peelee]

If the movies integrated all the coll stuff from the books they'd be easily twice as long.

They were twice as long, it was called the Extended Edition. HEYO!

[Fyraltari]

They were twice as long, it was called the Extended Edition. HEYO!

Yeah, when I say "the movies" just assume I mean the extended cut unless explicitly not.

They cut Saruman's death out of the theatrical cut!

EDIT: Like, we don't need to learn that Rivendell was founded as a war-time refuge from Sauron or that the Witch-King is very likely related to Aragorn, in the movies even in the extended cut. And the extended cut also completely left out my bois Prince Imrahil and Loyal Beregond, the Gondorrhim everyman.

[Peelee]

Yeah, when I say "the movies" just assume I mean the extended cut unless explicitly not.

They cut Saruman's death out of the theatrical cut!

Yeah, but here's the thing, I think I'm funny.

[Corvus]

That makes 3 female leads that it would make sense to be Queens oddly demoted to something else. Miriel moves from Queen to Queen-Regent, Galadriel is 'Commander of the Northern Armies' and Disa is a Princess. Why no Queens?

Miriel is being promoted compared to her position in the book. Here she is ruling in the place of her invalided father. In the book she never ruled. She should have been Queen after her father died (and who was not an invalid), but her cousin usurped the position and forced her into an illegal marriage.

[Grim Portent]

The Book of Mazarbul doesn't mention the Balrog directly at all, but what we read of it is very fragmented. It does mention the drums in the deep, which are associated with the Balrog in some way, but do not seem to be beaten by the Balrog; they continue after the Balrog falls.

The whole Moria sequence is slightly opaque in the book. Pippen drops a stone down a well, the sound of a hammer echoes up the well, then later the Balrog attacks the chamber of Mazarbul, but only after the fellowship drives the orcs back. What exactly was hammering, and what that hammering was doing is never explained, leaving the whole thing delightfully mysterious.

The simplest explanation for the drumming is that it's how the orcs of Moria signalled that there were intruders, primarily to one another, but also to the Balrog who would likely be eager to have new victims that aren't orcs.

It might have also had a ritualistic purpose, and/or been an intimidation tactic. Orcs were no strangers to the ritual worship of Morgoth common in the East, and accutely aware and fond of tactics designed to demoralise their enemies.

It could have been some other nameless horror from ages past, but orc sentries and war drummers feels the most likely option to me.

[Dargaron]

See that's neat! And the kind of thing that would have been cool to find out in the dang movie!

Also, now that I've been thinking about it, I have another question. The dwarves that the Fellowship finds in the room are decomposed, looks like naturally so, not eaten or anything. So that must have been some time ago. But they recorded the goblins who presumably killed them, and then the goblins are still there when the Fellowship comes in. We're the goblins just more successful at reclaiming Moria? They were also terrified of the Balrog, so it seems like Moria was still a perfectly fine place to live even with the Balrog so long as you hid when it came around, or so.

Or is it just a plot coincidence that goblins happened to be present when the Fellowship went in?

At least in some of the art books surrounding the movies, (like The Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare), there's comments that the Goblins in Moria in part based their armor and shields off the Balrog's appearance. The shields were intentionally modeled to look like dark wings, and the distinctive full-face helmets were supposed to have flame-like elements. Most of the supplemental material I've seen runs with this and supposes that the goblins in Moria actively worshiped the Balrog and stayed out of its way.

[Kornaki]

I actually thought Gandalf came off looking terrible with the Moria scene in the movie - he obviously knew Gimli's family was dead, but just kept it a secret.

[KorvinStarmast]

Barney Harris, cast as Mat, left the production mid season one. No announcement was made as to why, so we don't know if he quit, was fired, or was forced out by some other circumstances. There are a bunch of conflicting rumours, but nothing that sounds based on anyone having actual knowledge.

It's been a long time since I read the books, but I found some of the presentation of Mat to not fit very well with my mental picture of him. That's not on the actor, though, more in the writing and directing. (Sorry for the thread drift)

[runeghost]

Well, I do think consolidating control took a lot of time too, possibly multiple generations.

Sauron spends a considerable amount of time, possibly centuries, masquerading as Annatar and residing in the west. During that time his active control over the men of the east and south will have degraded. Sure, his social engineering is still going strong, those kingdoms are extremely aggressive, they worship Melkor, and they hate the west, but their specific awareness of Sauron, the individual, as their lord and master will have faded because no one alive has ever seen him. That means when it is time to muster his armies Sauron has to go to all the various kings and tyrants of Harad, Khand, and Rhun and affirm their loyalties. And this is a huge area. Harad basically proxies Africa, complete with a proxy version of the Sahara. Khand is the Middle East, and Rhun represents Eastern Russia+some of Central Asia. Note, a useful bit about the geographic correspondence between our world and Middle-Earth is that Mordor more or less directly overlaps the geographic position of modern Turkey (there are historical parallels for the overall nature of the prolonged conflict based on this geography, but forum rules prohibit their discussion).

Exerting his authority over such a massive region would take Sauron considerable time. He probably has to visit hundreds of individual rulers in order to impose his will, and he has to do so sufficiently such that when the time does come to march in a couple decades everyone remains sufficiently terrified of him that they don't say anything in response to his otherwise absurd command - for some of the guys down in Far Harad they are being asked to do the equivalent, in distance, of marching overland from Sudan to France - other than 'Yes master.' Those purges must have been nearly unimaginable in their cruelty. Even when he did put out the call it probably took some forces years to just get to Mordor, and then they spent years more on campaign. Some of Sauron's troops, fighting in Eregion, are as far from home as Alexander the Great's army in India, and probably for about as long too.

You've hit the nail on the head, at least according to The Nature of Middle-earth, a relatively new deep dive into the Legendarium by noted Tolkien scholar (who disguises himself as a NASA computer scientist during the day) Carl Hostetter, based off a bunch of obscure linguistic notes Christoper Tolkien sent to him.

Spoiler: Spoilers, from a certain point of view

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Sauron wasn't able to switch in and out of his Annatar guise at will. He was effectively trapped in it - Annatar wasn't a wig and a mask he put on when meeting his Nolodor pawn, it was who he was, full time, until he completely abandoned the role. While he was pursuing the "feed the Elves ring-lore" scheme, he was not able to do any significant Dark Lord-ing. When did try, dabbling with recruiting new orcs and evil Men... he got laughed at. So once the Ring-scheme fell to pieces, he switched to Dark Lord mode and had to start putting together his Evil forces from scratch. On the flip side, that same lack of support organization left the Elves with no idea who he really was, where he was based, or what might be coming for them. All they new was that Annatar had been a deceiver and would-be evil tyrant, and that he was done with fair words and subtle schemes, and that he would be coming for them.

[Sapphire Guard]

Clarification re 'Queen Regent'

So confirmed

Spoiler

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she's ruling on behalf of her ailing father. Probably should have expected that. So that makes our three female leads essentially princesses instead of Queens, then?

Miriel is being promoted compared to her position in the book. Here she is ruling in the place of her invalided father. In the book she never ruled. She should have been Queen after her father died (and who was not an invalid), but her cousin usurped the position and forced her into an illegal marriage.

Arguable, is ruling in someone else's name a promotion from ruling in your own name but being usurped?

[Kornaki]

If I had to pick one for myself I think the choice is pretty easy....

[Zevox]

Arguable, is ruling in someone else's name a promotion from ruling in your own name but being usurped?

I mean, it's not like the usurpation isn't going to happen. Ar-Pharazôn is in the show, after all. And it was Tar-Palantir's death that lead to him being able to usurp the throne to begin with, so, yeah, stage is set there if he's ailing at the start of the show. I guess this gives her something to do besides just be forced into a marriage she doesn't want, though, which is basically all she does in the actual story.

Actually, based on how that event is described in Akallabêth, I don't think she ever actually ruled in her own name - she was supposed to, but because of Ar-Pharazôn forcing her into marriage, she never actually did:

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 Elven-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. 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.

If Míriel ever actually ruled in her own name, it must have been brief indeed, to not warrant mentioning in between her father's death and her forced marriage. And the only mention of this in the Second-Age timeline in the appendices of LotR is the marking of the year that Ar-Pharazôn usurped the throne, no mention of Míriel.

Edit: and in the "Númenorean Kings" section of the appendices, it's only mentioned that "[Tar-Palantir's] daughter should have been the fourth Queen, Tar-Míriel, but the King's nephew usurped the sceptre and became Ar-Pharazôn the Golden, last King of the Númenoreans." So, yeah, sounds like she never ruled on her own, even briefly.

[pendell]

CriticalDrinker has a first impressions video; Apparently it's quite a visual masterpiece.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[runeghost]

I gave it a try during my lunch break just now.

Had to turn it off after about two minutes.

Spoiler: Because,

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While their young Galadriel was excellent, they have young Elves, in the Blessed Realm, acting like Orcs - throwing stones at Galadriel's toy boat to sink it - in order to generate some drama. It feels like such a fundamental misread, and such a discordant note right at the opening that it threw me completely. Perhaps they have some excuse for it beyond "we needed this and were unable to think of anything better", and if not, there will doubtless be fan-canon explanations. But in the moment, it was so wrenchingly off that I had to go do something else. Such behavior is almost exactly what Borlas describes as "orc work" in The New Shadow (a short and incomplete abandoned Lord of the Rings sequel published in The People of Middle Earth). It does not seem how the children of the Eldar at the dawn of the world would behave.

I'll probably try it again later, and just ignore or head-canon away the bit that threw me out of the story. But it was an inauspicious opening for me.

[pendell]

Spoiler: Because,

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While their young Galadriel was excellent, they have young Elves, in the Blessed Realm, acting like Orcs - throwing stones at Galadriel's toy boat to sink it - in order to generate some drama. It feels like such a fundamental misread, and such a discordant note right at the opening that it threw me completely. Perhaps they have some excuse for it beyond "we needed this and were unable to think of anything better", and if not, there will doubtless be fan-canon explanations. But in the moment, it was so wrenchingly off that I had to go do something else. Such behavior is almost exactly what Borlas describes as "orc work" in The New Shadow (a short and incomplete abandoned Lord of the Rings sequel published in The People of Middle Earth). It does not seem how the children of the Eldar at the dawn of the world would behave.

Spoiler

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Haven't seen the episode, but in fairness young children frequently do stupid things before they grow up into decent adults. And as we've seen in the Silmarillion, we've seen a number of incidents of treachery , betrayal, murder etc. by full-grown adults. They're not outsiders; they are children of Illuvatar, slightly better than humans but still having a share of human flaws. So I find badly behaving children believable, especially if it's the sons of Feanor.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Mechalich]

I've seen a number of reviews by this point, they seem to converge on two things: it's visually gorgeous and that it's very clear Amazon didn't spend all that money in vain; and that it's boring and the visuals aren't enough to save it.

[oudeis]

Rather than bury actual reviews 14 pages deep in a pre-release thread, I think that someone who has watched the first (two?) episode(s) should create a new topic so that we can post our impressions in. I'd do it if I'd seen the show, but for now I can't.

[warty goblin]

Watched the first episode last night. Overall impressions are better than I had been afraid it would be, not sure if it's good yet.

Without spoilers I can confirm that it looks fantastic, both technically and artistically. A couple of early shots gave me chills. The music was also good.

Spoiler

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So there's three main plot threads in the first episode; Galadriel hunting Sauron, the proto-hobbits, and an elf-human romance/investigation plot.

Of these, the Galadriel plot works by far the best. The actress is excellent, it gets the most time, is the most motivated, and leans hardest into the visuals.

The Hobbit plot is fun and charming, but seems to boil down to the shadow is returning, and isn't super interesting. Yet, it could get there.

The romance plot between an elf sentry and a human woman, with a side order of investigating the returning shadow is, well,not good. The writing is sloppy, and its the most bargain level stock fantasy stuff. Ot isn't fun, or lively, or particularly dramatic. It's just there.

There's also a reasonable amount of what I was afraid of, dumb drama to fill out time. The worst example of thus is Galadriel getting on a ship to Valinor, then when all the other elves are getting ruptured, changes her mind and jumps out of the ship in the middle of the ocean. The scene is beautifully shot, but it's rather awful from a character point of view, and just the sort of soggy, meaningless but overwrought plot dead end I was afraid of. If I'm being generous, it's a reference to Nimrodel, but it doesn't work and sucks .

I thought the scene with the children in Valinor worked alright. It established Galadriel as slightly apart, set up conflict in the Noldor, and was a clever way to do the Kinslaying and the theft of the ships, without doing that.

Overall the show feels like a decent fantasy story. It doesn't feel very Tolkienesque though, much less so than the Jackson films.

[runeghost]

I essayed the first episode a second time this evening, starting just after when I'd left off a few minutes in. (I fear that first scene is going to still give me some disonnance.)

Overall I was quite pleased. They set up a good backstory for Galadriel (that does justice to the character, while neither precisely aligning with nor contradicting Tolkien's various differing writings on her). The world feels more like Middle-Earth than I'd expected. A number of characters are nicely introduced (I'm feeling more for the characters characters in this one episode than in the two episodes of House of the Dragon, and I'm liking that as well). I like the depiction of the early days of the Second Age. There a lot of referencing to the Legendarium in ways that make sense, without being gratuitous, or preventing people who haven't dived deep into Tolkien from enjoying the show. I'm looking forward to more episodes. (I understand there's a second one streaming already, but I'll savor this one a little longer before watching it.)

Spoiler: For the first episode, and Tolkien lore in general

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The inital scenes have some *very* heavy lifting to do, and I think they accomplished it very well. We need Valinor and the War of Wrath to make sense of what Galadriel's history is, and they delivered it beautifully. Her rejection of returning to Aman is a part of her character arc as written by Tolkien. Seeking out Sauron (once it was known that he was neither captured nor returned to Aman on his own) is a choice that nicely links the defeat and death of Finrod by Sauron to Galadriel's position in the Second Age as Sauron's greatest foe.

Utumno/Udun was amazing. Gave me chills.

The personalities and actions of Gil-galad and Elrond in the early Second Age are ciphers, I find where they're going with them interesting so far.

I like the Harfoots more than I expected. They work onscreen as not-Hobbit Hobbits, which was probably the single thing I was most skeptical about.

The idea that, in the early years of the Second Age, the elves of Lindon would "keep watch" over Middle-Earth isn't anything I'm aware of from canon, but still works for me. At that time, the Eldar would be *relative to the rest of Middle-Earth* at the pinnacle of their strength, so it make a degree of sense. They've just watched a long, agonizing defeat that ended with a ruinous victory.

As for Gil-galad's rejection of Galadriel's worries of Sauron... I'll quote Elrond,

"I remember well the splendour of their banners. It recalled to me the glory of the Elder Days and the hosts of Beleriand, so many great princes and captains were assembled. And yet not so many, nor so fair, as when Thrangorodrim was broken, and the Elves deemed that evil was ended for ever, and it was not so."

Finally, with Meteor Man... I'm actually thinking Wizard, even though its non-canonical (for arrival method - Blue Wizard(s) in the Second Age is mentioned in the later Legendarium, I believe). It seems pretty obvious that Sauron is *already* at work behind the scenes in Harad... in which case, I don't see why he needs to do a dramatic appearance... unless it's part of his Annatar guise. Of course, the whole idea with Annatar is that he comes across as an emissary or near-peer of the Valar... much like a wizard would.

[Aedilred]

I have also seen the first episode and am also cautiously impressed. I'm trying to bury my Tolkien history-pedant side for the duration of watching it, knowing that they won't be following the story exactly, although I'll doubtless come back to that once the season's over, and I haven't noticed any major, problematic divergences yet. It looks fantastic*. The dialogue feels, for the most part, appropriate. I'll say this for it at least: the people who made this did actually care.



*One caveat. The elven realms appear with a lot of yellow, autumn-ish foliage. Given that this is the elves at the height of their power in Middle-Earth I might prefer a slightly greener look - the elves in summertime, rather than the autumn that we saw in the movies. But I'm not going to die on that hill.

[KorvinStarmast]

Rather than bury actual reviews 14 pages deep in a pre-release thread, I think that someone who has watched the first (two?) episode(s) should create a new topic so that we can post our impressions in. I'd do it if I'd seen the show, but for now I can't.

I just started one, per your request.