The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

[viper37]

the show is good, overall, but man, there is some lazy writing with the plot.

[Solmyr]

So, season finale definitely plays with and bends the lore... but I liked it.

(spoilers below)










The Stranger is pretty much confirmed to be Gandalf, and Halbrand is a more morally complex Sauron. This season's highlight was certainly the scenes between Elrond and Durin, hopefully more to come in the following seasons. I am wondering if they will move up the fall of Khazad-Dum to happen earlier than it did in Tolkien's chronology - Durin's greed for mithril certainly seems to point that way.

Anyway, it'll be a while before season 2. I think there was talk of 2024 at the earliest.

[FunkMonk]

Just finished the finale and I quite liked it. The series is a bit of a slow burn and they play with the lore, of course, but so did the movies. And so far it feels true to Tolkien.

I liked it a lot. Very different from HotD but it should be. I'm eager for season 2.

[celedhring]

I'm not a fan (and no, not because of the shit most online haters spew about the show, I just think the writing has been very mediocre), but this episode was probably the best of the bunch. Pity they rushed so much stuff after beating around the bush for most of the season. Sauron getting caught because of a verbal faux-pas was pretty dumb - but I do dig the idea of a more complex Sauron, although remains to be seen how much of it it's just a façade (although I think it's probably fine if it's one).

Fiona Apple reciting the verse of the rings might be my favorite thing in the world this October, though.

[FunkMonk]

Yeah, Where the Shadows Lie was great.

My favorite bits of the show was them showing the Orc side of things. I'm guessing Adar is not in the books but I found his scenes really cool.

As always, the evil bits are the best parts of a show while the good side is kinda boring.

[Solmyr]

I liked a comment on Reddit that this week two major fantasy series had a dying king mistake someone for his daughter and speak of an apocalyptic prophecy.

[celedhring]

I liked a comment on Reddit that this week two major fantasy series had a dying king mistake someone for his daughter and speak of an apocalyptic prophecy.

Yeah, I giggled at that bit when it happened 

Regarding your comment of the show maybe bringing forward the fall of Moria, I don't think they can avoid it after showing the Balrog onscreen.

[Threviel]

I thought all in all it was a 3/5. Liked the scenery and the cast but the show was dragged down by lazy writing. Best exemplified by the hobbits in one episode being stone cold realists living in a harsh world and abandoning those that cannot keep up for the common good and in the next episode dropping all that, accompanied by speeches about never abandoning anyone, to go save some dude that they just sent away.

Sauron was done in a good way, but I don't really understand how they'll explain the 7 and 9 rings since the magic was apparently the metal mithril itself and not some magic crafting.

[Richard Hakluyt]

A lot of very trite dialogue which elicited cynical laughing in the Hakluyt household. There was also much rejoicing when, sure enough, the Orcs had working class southern accents 

I will refine my previous 7/10 down to 6/10.

Every friday my wife would surprise me by saying "shall we watch the Rings of Power tonight?"...because I had always forgotten about it over the preceding 6 days.

[Solmyr]

I maintain my 8/10.

[celedhring]

5/10 here, and probably before this last episode it would have been a 4/10, but the show redeemed itself somewhat with a decent last episode. Although it's quite unforgivable that they dispense with the whole "Annatar tricks Celebrimbor to forge the rings" arc in like 15 minutes.

[Richard Hakluyt]

One good thing was the seamless use of actors of colour. I think one would have to be pretty bigotted to take exception to their casting. Hopefully it will now be absolutely routine for televised fantasy to have diverse casts.

[celedhring]

One good thing was the seamless use of actors of colour. I think one would have to be pretty bigotted to take exception to their casting. Hopefully it will now be absolutely routine for televised fantasy to have diverse casts.

I always keep thinking that if a milennia-old society like, say, Numenor or the Dwarves had dark-skinned ethnicities among them and they intermingled freely, the end result would be mixed race societies rather that ones where you have white people and then black people. But it's a very minor peeve, since trying poke at the plausibility of societies in fantasy worlds is generally a dumb idea.

Bringing Lenny Henry into this was a great casting idea, he's really engaging in that role.

[Richard Hakluyt]

India is a millenia-old society and has people with all sorts of colours 

[mongers]

One good thing was the seamless use of actors of colour. I think one would have to be pretty bigotted to take exception to their casting. Hopefully it will now be absolutely routine for televised fantasy to have diverse casts.

Well said.