I agree with your sentiment. I’m a history professor focused mostly on pre-colonial and colonial America. I get the same reaction from many self proclaimed history buffs not knowing the details and context leading up to the American Revolution, such as the Tea Tax and the Boston Tea Party. Another one is Thanksgiving. It’s amazing how so many people learn the popularized patriotic version of American history through movies, TV and other media.
I think that (unlike Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, and others), Tolkien's readers are encouraged in their Secondary Belief that Tolkien's writings are a true history, and so a drama based on the Second Age should portray the known events of that age faithfully, as one would expect in a historical drama. Now, we know that even the best films based on history take liberties-merging events or historic people, introducing new people or events, and overlooking anachronisms in language, weaponry, and many other things-in the interests of creating interesting drama. Because real life doesn't conform to a three-act story structure. But Rings of Power goes far beyond the usual practices of historical drama! I have said this elsewhere, but this show seems to me analogous to a Revolutionary War film in which the Plymouth Pilgrims take part-because a historical _has_ to have Pilgrims, and besides, nothing much happened between 1630 and 1776 anyway; a major plot thread is an illicit affair between Abigail Adams and Benedict Arnold; young and swashbuckling Andrew Jackson saves George Washington's life with his spectacular martial-arts skills [actually, teenage Jackson's adventures during this period would make for an interesting drama, even knowing what an awful person he was]; Abraham Lincoln's parents meet just after the Boston Tea Party; and Betsy Ross ghost-writes the Declaration of Independence because Jefferson is too busy with Sally Hemmings. Each time I use that analogy, I write the description from scratch because it's so much fun to come up with that stuff…
Absolutely sir; and as I'm sure you can imagine, it's just as true of other countries & their public conceptions of their own history (speaking as a UK history tutor). It's rather frightening, or depressing. And so, many of Joe Public will think that this series gives them a "real" insight into Tolkien's Middle Earth. Better to think of it as just a bit of fan fiction that happens to be set in Middle Earth.
It's not just that Gandalf feared Sauron - he feared the *third age* Sauron, after he'd "died" twice and lost the majority of his power. The guy in the show is supposed to be Sauron pretty much at his peak, many times stronger than in Lord of the Rings. It's not that the orcs had no way to kill him, they physically could not even have tried
My favourite plot point so far is that Sauron intentionally revealed himself as Sauron only to flee and then immediately go back to the elves and try to convince them he's not Suaron again. Why didn't he just use the "I was sent by the valar" shtick to Galadriel at the end of season 1 instead of admitting who he is when he still had more rings to make
there's an interview with charlie vickers, sauron's actor, where he says that they weren't originally intending to "do the annatar thing", so.... yea. lmao. this might actually be a change as a result of the backlash, that they're doing annatar at all. the show is a complete dumpster fire
@@MDK384imagine making something and thinking it's good. Then find out it is bad because it doesn't follow the source material and lore. Then read up on it (I guess) because some people informed you about it. And then do some crowd service which backfires too 😂😂😂
Sauron was the most powerful of all creatures in Middle Earth in the Second Age. But beyond that, and I see how the constantly missed in all the details. For example even in casting they don't get Tolkien. Elves don't age. They reach a young-maturity appearance and then stop aging. Yet we have all these late middle-age and older elves.
Technically the elves do age, they have "cycles of life" and in the 3rd cycle they show marks of age such as male elves growing a beard. Cirdan in the 3rd age is always portrayed as looking older than the other elves However none of the elves in RoP are old enough, Cirdan is the oldest and even he is "only" around 7-10000 years old (depending on how early in the 2nd age the show is supposed to take place). So all the elves should look young. In general all the elves look distinctly non-elvish which is bizarre considering the budget of the show, they definitely should have been able to do better. Lack of artistic vision I suppose
For all the flaws of HotD s2 i never found myself thinking 'a fourteen could have written this on wattpad'. With RoP, that thought crosses my mind every second scene
When one of the elves told Gil-Galad that one of their spies saw Halbrand/Sauron on Mordor how do they know that place was now called like that instead of The Southlands!?? Did Adar send mails all over Middle Earth to let them know the change of name of that land?? 😅
@@AnthonyBerkshireI'm repeating what a youtuber said sorry I didn't mentioned, was an Spanish channel named Idiocracia (Idiocracy in spanish like that movie) 👍
A big difference between reinventing something like Dracula or Sherlock Holmes, when compared to Tolkien’s expanded work, is that the expanded works has never been adapted before and aren’t well known stories. The latter’s adaptations tend to reinventions of tired stories that have become ingrained in modern culture. Even then a lot of people prefer the more faithful adaptations. The writers of the Rings of Power aren’t bringing a fresh take to the second age, they can’t since it’s never been done before. Instead they’re disregarding the source material and what they want to write (whether that’s from vanity, ineptitude or both who can say).
Yeah, this is the top lieutenant of Morgoth we're talking about. His right hand. Ancient even in the Second Age. Orcs would be slaying themselves and each other if they even thought they are offending him. He's a demi-God.
Great point. Remember too Sauron wouldn't have needed to convince or politic with any orcs. He would have driven them to subservience through a show of strength and power. The only things in it for them would be to be on the winning side. Morgoth also created the orcs. And since Sauron was Morgoth's right hand wouldn't the orcs have remembered that? RoP portrayal of orcs raises so many questions. It sucks so bad.
I wouldn’t even consider him Saurons top Lieutenant in the first age. I’d Give that to Gothmog who at least got some decent wins. Sauron was kind of a big old pussy outside beating Finrod at Karaoke. He got Ragdolled so hard by Huan he hid in the woods until the first age was over like a bitch 😂
@critter1388 The orcs do not love or respect Sauron or Morgoth for creating their species, in fact they bitterly hate both of them and dream of abandoning them (as seen e.g. in the Lord of the Rings chapter "The Tower of Cirith Ungol"). However, they can't ever do that, they are completely enthralled by the dark lord, Morgoth and then Sauron. He doesn't need to intimidate them, to show force or strength, least of all bargain with them. He wills something and the orcs obey, they literally cannot disobey as they don't have a will of their own as long as there is a dark lord reigning over them (which isn't to say they would be all good and benevolent without him, they still would do bad and selfish things, just not Sauron/Morgoth's brand of evil)
Now think of all the children that think this is Tolkien. Now think of all the no-taste parents who claim to be Tolkien fans that allow their kids to watch this. The point is this garbage show is ruining the legacy of Tolkien moving forward. The "Tolkien fans" you're referring to are irrelevant when this is a fight for the future.
They had the rights to the appendices. Appendix B gives a timeline of key events. They were basically handed the blueprints and order of the important events to cover, and still managed to botch it.
I'm not a copyright lawyer so I can't say for sure, but it is possible that they are explicitly forbidden from including the details from the Silmarillion in the show. They might literally be forced to make stuff up instead of relying on the existing lore. Of course that isn't really an excuse, if they don't have the rights to the full story they shouldn't tell the story, tell a different story instead
@exantiuse497 Now that you mentioned it, I would not be shocked if they stuck themselves in a bad deal. Got access to Appendix B, but can't use anything mentioned in the Silmarillion... which I think would be basically all of the stuff in Appendix B. Maybe they just got the names? They did manage to get some Silmarillion access, considering they could name drop Annatar, the Lord of Gifts.
@@exantiuse497 With the material in the appendices, they have access to all the major events in the timeline in the form of an outline. The Silmarillion mostly contains a far more elaborate version of the story that they can't use. But many of the choices they have made had nothing to do with rights. They made the decision for example to compress the story of the second age into one human lifetime rather than thousands of years. They decided to create an "origin of mordor" story themselves. They made the decision to create an entirely new backstory for Galadriel discarding things they had the rights to. They invented a new story about a balrog merging with a Silmaril to form a magic metal used to make rings. They decided to have Gandalf arrive in middle earth in the second age. They were going to have to make small changes due to rights issues with the Silmarillion. But the changes they are making went way beyond anything to do with rights.
@@Jim-Tunerexactly! All they to do was just follow what was laid out in LOTR and appendices. The 3 rings being forged last and without Sauron's presence was key to why they could be used in the 3rd Age without their wearers becoming wraiths or submissive to Sauron as the Nazgul were despite him not having his ring. ROP changed things that didn't need to be changed and those changes make no sense.
what about the discrepancy of age in the elf cast... why do some elves look 60 year old and others 30. Zero logic, unlike in the PJ trilogies. Just that fact shows that the showrunners don't care, they're just pretending to.
@@dbapto6994 I don't wanna be mean, so I'll calmly explain it to you. Elves are immortal in Tolkien's world, they can live for thousands of years. Like, Galadriel is 2000 yo and Gil Galaad 4000 yo. So unless you make up rules on-the-go, they should all look the same age (a good mature 30-35 human years old is fine, as in the LOTR trilogy. The point is, you have to figure out consistent rules for your world when making a show such as this one, which the showrunners of ROP clearly aren't doing. Instead, they don't care and are just casting actors of random apparent ages. It's a stupid change from the canon that serves no purpose other than complexifying things uselessly. but since 90% of these guys ideas are terrible, bad ideas, it's no surprise really. In conclusion, we are looking at the bottom of the barrel in terms of creativity here.
@@pdjinne65 I wasn't aware of all the facts. Thank you for explaining the situation to me. I find it laughable that the writers or casting department overlooked this or the fact that they didn't care enough. But I still find the show watchable. But you're not wrong at all and I respect your position on this matter.
You also don't need to be elitist with Tolkien to enjoy it with someone who has never heard it much less understood it, i use this opportunity to tell people what the books are and get them to read the novels. This "fake outrage" is what gets me about the CCreators who just jump on a band wagon to get views.
It's a bad story, bad direction, and marketing that I'm convinced was money laundering. I won't say the acting was bad, because those folks were trying to act despite bad direction.
"Commodified fantasy takes no risks: it invents nothing, but imitates and trivializes. It proceeds by depriving the old stories of their intellectual and ethical complexity, turning their action to violence, their actors to dolls, and their truth-telling to sentimental platitude. Heroes brandish their swords, lasers, wands, as mechanically as combine harvesters, reaping profits. Profoundly disturbing moral choices are sanitized, made cute, made safe. The passionately conceived idea of the great storytellers are copied, stereotyped, reduced to toys, molded in bright-colored plastic, advertised, sold, broken, junked, replaceable, interchangeable." -Ursula K. LeGuin
agreed, the primary thing wrong with the opening "Sauron" scene is that he would not be standing there trying to "persuade" the orcs. He is a powerful being that simply instills fear in others, especially orcs who hate him because of the fear he instills in them. They have no choice confronted with his will. Everything is small in this show, Maiar, Elves, Numenoreans, and Men smallest and grubbiest of all (the male half at least).
@@TurinStark5 I was thinking this, also, in the LOTR don't Frodo and Samwise travel through the workshops built on the side of Mount Doom where Sauron created the rings? It's been a while since I read them but I have a strong image in my memory of that happening. That would have been so easy to implement, and so cool to see in RoP - but they've already gone and blown it by creating the 3 Elven rings first - WITH the help of Sauron? Did none of the writers read any source material?
The idea of Sauron campaigning to get the orcs’ support could have been interesting if the show was mainly about that. Imagine an entire season of Sauron’s rise from Morgoth’s chief lieutenant to the second Dark Lord of Middle-earth and his campaign to unite all of Morgoth’s followers under his banner. That would have been dope. Instead we’re getting a muddled mess that is trying to tell too many stories at once when the most interesting story, the one about Sauron, isn’t getting the attention it deserves.
It may have made sense if the season 1 had focused on Elros and Elrond and early 2nd age. Sauron was mainly absent by the end of the first age and early 2nd age. He was probably at the “lowest” in terms of power but still he wouldn’t be challenged like that
It still would have been lore-inaccurate. Sauron doesn't need to campaign to win orcs over. The orcs are pretty much genetically engineered to follow the orders of someone with a great will, such as Sauron. He commands and they obey, they physically can't resist someone with power like that Sauron campaigning in the East and South amongst the humans living there would have been more accurate. The humans following him would need to be won over somehow, they aren't as weak willed as orcs, so Sauron would have needed to deceive, bribe, intimidate and manipulate them to get their loyalty. That might be an interesting story, although based on how Sauron deceiving the elves played out in the show I don't think the writers have the skills to write something like that well
The idea of Sauron campaigning for support among bands of orcs is ok. But the problem comes when Sauron is portrayed as a weakling who can be physically overpowered by a handful of orcs.
It takes away from the menace and mystery of Sauron. He is an otherworldly being not limited like Gandalf. He should be nigh incomprehensible to mortal beings even most elves.
I think there's stuff in Tolkein's letters to the effect that orcs get reduced to an ant-like life when under Sauron's direct authority. His presence is the variable between orcs being fractious raiders organised in nothing larger than a warband and vast, semi-industrialised empires (Mordor's orcs had *serial numbers*). He's the setting's equivalent of a fallen angel who entered Arda from Outside at the dawn of time. They killed him with a hat.
Yes--exactly. Sauron can characterized as "Lawful Evil" He desires to bring "order" to Middle-Earth. Of course, since he's malicious and cruel, that "order" would reflect this. This makes his character interesting--just as Melkor/Morgoth is interesting because of his pride and his desire to create, but his inability to do so at the level of Eru twists him into envy and hatred.
@@westbethkid IIRC Tolkien even went so far as to say that Sauron's original objectives probably did have some twisted concept of the common good, at least narrowly defined as "economic wellbeing". Obviously there's none of that left by the time of his complete corruption, but it adds a lot of depth to how he and Mordor are portrayed: as an exaggerated and Satanic version of 20th-century totalitarianism. (An often-missed detail which I think says a lot about Mordor is that when Frodo and Sam are caught posing as orcs, they are asked for their names *and numbers*. Orcs are issued serial numbers!)
I don't understand people not "reading the books" because now you can just listen to audiobooks. I'm old (52), so I remember library books. But now you can listen to books when you're doing boring tasks (like the dishes,driving,or exercise ). If you're too lazy to listen, you deserve Rings of power!
It's sad to watch people consuming this garbage without bothering to actually read Tolkien and find the nerve to defend the show. I've seen so much idiocy online but this one certainly is top stupidity. Thanks for being honest and not compromise your credibility, it's a rare trait these days.
imagine being given an opportunity as a writer to do something that, if you work really hard, respect the ip, and get a little lucky might be considered lord of the rings lore forever and ever. you come up with this series.
Great video as always Erik. In the interest of trying to be as honest and fair as I possibly can about this season so far I will say one positive thing it seems to me is they are at least making some effort to make Galadriel not as abrasive and insufferable as she was in season 1. I think the relationship between her and Elrond shows some promise for the rest of the season. I could not give a single shit about Gandalf and the hobbits. I barely care for the dwarves. There has been a few moments with Sauron/Halbrand that have been intriguing to me. Oh and credit to them for casting the great Ben Daniels in this show he is an incredible actor though will likely be wasted here. That’s about all the nice things I have to say. The brutal reality of it all is that this show is downright offensive and is an affront to Tolkien and his work. That opening scene of Sauron getting Caesar’d was laughable. I really have zero hope for most of this story but especially the Gandalf and hobbits part of it. I swear to god if the speculations of them shipping Galadriel and Sauron are true I will just be utterly speechless. That would probably be a bridge too far idk if I could continue watching if they really do that shit.
"Why not just make your own thing if you're going to change pretty much everything?" Is becoming more relevant with each passing day with the modern writers of these franchises. Seriously...Make. Your. Own. Damn. Thing.
Man, 1st season gave us Galadriel jumping in the middle of the ocean ready to swim the equivalent from the U.S to France...at that moment I knew this was bad beyond any hope.
I just saw that scene where this character who is a great leader etc in the books, let a whole heap of her soldiers get cancelled by a troll she herself easily one shot. Are they actively trying to make her come of as a horrible incompetent person? A show wanting to show a good commander would have shown her LEAD them and show how amazingly well trained and confident in her leadership they where. even if they doubt the mission..
Elrond could've done the same. Like take the rings, swim a little bit further out to the ocean, drop them and swim back. But no he needs someone with a boat.
Well said. Heard someone joke about the series being written by AI as an explanation for how wildly it deviates from Tolkien’s Legendarium. Actually I think that might have made it better. The one thing that seems so obvious in every episode and almost every scene is that every character is really just a human in essence . The psychology and motivation of every character and group is so human. With rare exception, it’s a series populated with human characters saying and doing human things. That only scratches the surface in terms of the deviations from canon but it is so pervasive in all the other aspects of the series. Sometimes I think that the highly ridiculed 1991 Russian film version of LOTR was more faithful to Tolkien than the ROP series. Even Ralph Bakshi’s 1977 Wizards film or even the Willow film seem more like Tolkien in some ways.
@KleinKore "Enough people" is a high ask considering the show costs literally a billion dollars per season. I think it's hard to see the show making enough money to justify the cost. I won't be surprised if the show is cancelled after this season
Probably. But each year the budget will be substantially reduced. Season 2 already reflects that with the elimination of the location shooting done in season one and other obvious downgrades in spending.
That Galadriel is a soldier, orcs have families, dont bother me, per se. I am aware of the passages Tolkien wrote on those things and since it is vague those things are open to interpretation. The issues are how it is executed. Galadriel we know has to survive, so the stakes are already lowered, but at the same time she is a petulant and unaccountable person who has left men behind to die, single-handedly takes down a troll, swims across an ocean, takes a pyroclastic flow to the face, breaks herself out of jail. Female characters don't always have to be maidens in distress but they dont also have to be OP. Arwen and Eowyn both swung a sword at one point, it is not beyon dthe realm of imagination she could have been in combat, but make her at least believable and likeable. And Orcs? My first reaction was a chuckle. Do you remember the dinosaur baby on that show that said "Not the Mama"? Looks like they kidnapped it and threw it in dirt and oil because their billion dollar show ran out of money for Celebrimbors pompadour man dresses and Galadriels acting classes. Anyway, combine that with them also trying to humanize orcs in this manner, that's just tacky to me. That's like trying to humanize Ted Bundy. 30 kills in. Likewise I dont sympathize with, and its hard to humanize, Cruella de Ville because in the end she still kills dogs. The morality of orcs may be something interesting to flesh out, but the execution here was just poorly done. LotR isn't the Boys or GoT, it is ok to have shows about good and evil. Escapism is important, which is why subtle themes are important too. If you're going to humanize it though at least do it better. This is Middle Earth and name, they get names and locations right, but it's connection to middle earth is just superficial.
I really don't care about Galadriel killing a troll, that isn't a big feat. She is a Noldo who has been to Valinor in the Years of the Trees, she's _supposed_ to be overpowered. The Noldor elves in the first age do way more impressive things: Glorfindel solos a Balrog; Earendil kills Ancalioth the black (the largest dragon in history); Fingolfin 1v1's *Morgoth himself* (he dies but permanently wounds Morgoth in rhe process). One troll isn't a major feat
@@exantiuse497 It's not just the troll. In isolation, sure I guess thats believable. It's all those other things on top of the troll. We know she can't die, the stakes are already lowered. But add swimming an ocean, breaking herself out of jail, a pyroclastic flow to the face she is just an OP girlboss. Dramatic tension couldn't be less.
Yes, all good points. It's Tolkien 'written' by people brought up on Marvel characters rather than the old tales, and it very quickly becomes blindly obvious they haven't encountered Beowulf, Wayland the Smith, the Exeter book of Riddles, the poem The Wanderer etc etc... Once they stray off both John and also Christopher's work they have no understanding of the foundations it was all built on on and everything collapses very quickly.
Great video, always. But to the point about Holmes… the difference is that most Holmes adaptions have shown more respect to the source material than ROP, which is borderline antagonistic towards it’s source. Same with “Dracula”, which in many ways was an influence on Tolkien and specifically the Sauron character. Like Dracula, Sauron can shapeshifter in a bat, a wolf and has means of taking psychic control of our heroes. When you plot out Middle Earth on a modern map using the few locations that Tolkien pinpointed, Mordor generally aligns with the Carpathian Mountains. Not to get off topic, but consider how even in the Coppola Dracula, where he introduces a romantic/sympathetic elements to his portrayal, still gives us a terrifying take on the character. His nightmare and uncanny nature is still fully on display, feeding of humans to regain his youth, turning into wolves, bats, a host of rats & a deadly mist. Point being, ROP fails not only because it wants to make Sauron sympathetic… but because they also realizing him with zero imagination & creativity. I’ve only seen the stabbing scene, but Sauron doesn’t even look notable as an “elf”. He should, like Coppola’s Dracula, be a an uncanny & unsettling being. Or as an extreme example, the way Christopher Lee elevated the often cheap Hammer Dracula films through his performance, physical presence and personal fidelity to the Stoker novel. ROP could elevate the actors cast as Sauron through creativity & effects or by casting a masterful actor… they’ve done neither.
Great points about how you can make-up stories around material (like Dracula/Sherlock Holmes) that is not part of an intricate, interlocking, and comprehensive mythology without creating a lot of problems, but if you are going to use a well-established mythology, you can't just do whatever you want, especially when you are using specific characters from the mythology. This is a massive and avoidable blunder made by TROP.
I've posted this elsewhere and I could be wrong as I usually am. The orcs messing up Sauron, transforming from goo and then him meeting up with the old dude giving him life advice reminded me of Brienne of Tarth messing up The Hound and then Brother Ray giving him life advice minus the goo?
Erik! You didn't love floomp-monster Sauron? As it floomped out of the cavern on the mountainside to slide down the snowy slopes to land on its tum-tum in the road to be run over by a rickety cart? That was pure cinema! 😁
4:50 I made this point too. Gil-Galad should be worshipping the ground that Galadriel walks on, but no Amazon made her this way, belittling her and having Gil-Galad talk down to her, making her abrasive and accepting no accountability for her actions. Then the Showrunners and even the actors now call *US* the misogynists.
I just cannot believe Guyladreal murdered all those Orcs in ep4, so many poor orphan Qrcs got no daddy and all they wanted is a quiet life in a home of their own
One of the many odd parts of Sauron being made (Goodfellas), where is the menacing 10-foot guy in the black armor with the crown-like helmet the Orcs were backing away from in the opening of season one episode one?
I'm starting to think that was Morgoth, not Sauron. The idea that Morgoth's spiky iron crown is being carried in for Sauron's coronation? As per the spiky armour and crown we see that figure wearing? The difference between the first season opening and the second season opening with Sauron and the Orcs is so contradictory, that commanding figure can't be "politician Sauron running for President of Middle-earth and seeking the Orc votes" as in the second season.
@@maryokeeffe3528 True, what the set designers and CGI artists created for the brief scene and the voice-over description we get are probably out of sync. Also, it might be that they were given license to mention Morgoth but not depict him??
"For nothing is evil in the beginning" says Gandalf in the LotR "even Sauron was not so." Just watched Season 2 Ep2. I take all my earlier scepticism back. It's brilliant. What the scriptwriters are trying to do is take Tolkien's theme, and explore the origin and nature of the Evil Gandalf spoke of. Not an easy task, but a noble one, and thus far it succeeds. The way they actually made the image of Sauron almost resemble Christ is especially impressive, and frankly I think without precedent in literature. It is of course "wokeness" which can seem good when it's nothing of the kind. Thus, what is presented in _Rings of Power_ Season 2 is in fact a highly conservative perspective, and for obvious reasons it's the Woke Left who will dislike this stuff. Brilliant.
I have read an article from someone who claims to be a Tolkien Fan (in german). He wrote only about racist critics. This is so disappointing. We are just like the smaller younger group of Percy Jacksons Fans who hated with reason the films. I still cant stand how they portraid Hades (and dont like it in the series either) and with Tolkien all these problems are on a much larger scale. What the... do they do with Sauron. Well it was to be expected after the first season but wow i have problems accepting this. Among other problems. And Galadriel just wears her name. She is someone different. Thats a strange parallel middle earth world. Enjoy it whoever wants to, but if you want to read Tolkien after that be warned. This will be very different. Sigh Sorry for the rant. I just read that article and got emotional.
Imagine if Denis Villeneuve had been given the opportunity to make this show. The show is stupid because the creators of the show are possibly the dumbest people to have ever lived.
Not sure about that, he´s done some great movies but the Dune movies are lacking imo, visual spectacles that reduces the story to action sequences. And the sets look stupid, do the harkonen sit in black empty stone rooms all day and stare at each others bald heads? Interesting movies to watch but IMO nowhere near close to what is in the books, the second one is even worse. Blade runner 2049 was a masterpiece though.
Also, Galadriel is not the second oldest. She was third generation, the granddaughter of Finwe. There are lots of Sindarian, Nandorian and Moriquendi elves that are older as they were among the first created but were not part of the War against Morgoth and are not mentioned. She is probably the oldest of the Noldor that returned. But Cirdan was among the first created as were many of Thingol's people. Celeborn may have been older as he was the grandson of Elmo one of Thingol's brothers and who is only mentioned in passing in Unfinished Tales but it's pretty murky.
One of the many things that grinds my gears with this show, is the humanizing of the elves and especially Sauron. The writers are doing that because humanizing villians and heiarchy heros is the thing nowadays. We see this in Marvel movies for example. Strippong away the mystery and anything special.
I’m sure no one goes into creating a show on this scale without passion. What amazes me is the lack of understanding,nuance or skill in the execution so often.
Not without passion, but in this case without any experience as credited writers to speak of. They handed the show off to a pair of showrunners who really had no experience in doing anything.
Thanks for going more into detail, the opening scene was so weirdly wrong, among many, many other things... I do not know how many people think this somehow really accurate lore, but there are definitly those usual "Eastereggs & WTF-moments" videos out there, and they do not dare to criticize anything too much of course. And if the people who are watching those have superficial quality standards, of course they will believe that stuff... Gen z got trained to consume trivial products like the MCU & star wars universe, so this goes hand in hand with that.
6:35 I have never seen the Dunning-Krueger effect in action more dramatically than in talking with people about the rings of power. It's the people with only the barest passing knowledge of the lore who get so exciting thinking they're getting what they love on the screen because they don't know the difference, and in their arrogance and desperation to preserve their enjoyment of the show, they assume everyone who doesn't like it must not know what they're talking about rather than actually doing their own research.
Amazon bought the rights to only have the name and then produce a show with known characters that would attract the followers of the lore of professor Tolkien. What makes me angry is to hear the show runners say they went back to the books when it is obvious they did not go back to the books, they went back to the book they said professor Tolkien could never write. Of course, he could not have written a distorted story as they did. They have everything wrong, the forging of the three rings were the last rings to be made and Anatar the giver of gifts, aka Sauron was not even there in Eregion when Celebrimbor made the elven rings. Galadriel in the second age was already married and a mother and she was never a general, she never fought in wars. Amazon has changed her into an impulsive brat with childish reactions. To say that the lady of Lothlorien was enthralled by a made up character aka Halbrand is ridiculous. In the lore of the Silmarillion there were no two Durin the third and Durin the fourth at the same time. One Durin died and it said the new heir was a rebirth of the old one. It was not Cirdan that gave the rings to Galadriel and Gil Galad, it was Celebrimbor that gifted the rings to Cirdan, Galadriel and Gil Galad. Mount Doom was not created by a flow of water, how stupid that was to see a current of water going up a mountain, how they defied gravity with water climbing up to the tip of a mountain and not to say how the blast of the lava and fire hitting Galadriel was totally logic, oh my god!!! It is a fan fiction invented with the name of a creation from a man that gave his lifetime to write and his son Christopher to finish his father's works. I could go on and on with all the changes and the transformation of canon characters into buffoons. I have read fan fiction stories that have changed the stories, but stayed true to the characters, not alternating them into strangers. Amazon do not know how to do fantasy, just look at what they have done to wheel of time. The best thing that cold happen, is that the series is cancelled.
They just want some strong women in the series. That's why they change the whole backstory 😅 even Celebrimbor listens to his dumb assistant like she's all knowing. "Bring him a scarf!!!😂😂😂😂"
The fact that watching three consecutive episodes of this show is like punishment speaks volumes. I could never imagine someone saying the same thing about the Sopranos, or Mad Men, or Breaking Bad.
I’ll add to my previous comment that it’s a shame that being the most expensive tv show ever made, it will be forgotten as soon as it will be done or cancelled. Like the LOTR movie trilogy, it could’ve been one of best tv series in American history but like The Witcher, they’ve decided to crap on it, to tell “their” story instead (the novel Tolkien never wrote remember), disregarding the source material, to include modern sensibilities with flat, lifeless and really dumb writing. I’m not sure if we’ll ever see another show on that scale in terms of budget in Tolkien’s world.
At this point, considering how they're massacring the original story, I think an alien invasion or a zombie plague are more likely to come next in this thing than anything resembling what Tolkien wrote.
That intro music was amazing! It was fantastic! "give me the meat and give it to me raw" all in a lilting Irish accent, very funny, very clever. 10/10 you have already surpassed the rings of power for creativity.
Even all the modern adaptations of Macbeth don't make it so that Macbeth changes his mind about killing Duncan and instead runs off with Banquo to set up an organic free-range dairy, while Lady Macbeth decides to open orphanages for the children of war veterans, and the witches are all homeopathic healers and make their living selling essential oils to the Scottish court. Directors may set it in the 1920s or Fascist Germany or have Macbeth be a Mafia don, but they stick to the plot and the language instead of deciding "We need to update Shakespeare for a modern audience".
Alternative versions of a literary properties still need to connect to and reflect the original material, even if it is radically different. Each change needs to be purposeful. That’s either not the case in Rings of Power or where there is a purpose it shines a light on the unsettling mindset and intent of the show runners.
You pointed out the biggest problem of RoP that I have: EVEN IF I put aside that it’s based on Tolkien’s work…it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a badly written, directed and acted show. It’s really surface level and dumb writing. If we were in 2001, this show would’ve been cancelled after season 1. Adapting the source material for tv or movies is one thing, having to ability to make it good is another. For me, RoP is just a glorified, super high budget boring soap opera/CW show. That’s it. (Side note: I love Supernatural alright? Haha At least the show knew what it was. They didn’t have a bug budget so at least they focused on developing great characters).
There are a huge number of different stories they could have told. Even with the timeline they have now, Galadriel could have been as you said, with a husband, and a rebellious daughter that goes out on adventures and meets Elrond. That was a perfect opportunity to tie all those specific relationships together.
When you recount Sauron's powers, I always remember his epic song battle with Finrod Felagund. He beat an Elf King and his entourage, with the Tolkien equivalent of a Rap Battle. Not to mention the fact he was perhaps the Most powerful sorcerer of all time, besides Melkor himself. I mean he literally returned from death multiple times. But no, beaten into submission by Yrch
Also about the point "why is it OK to make these adaptations of Dracula and Sherlock Holmes that are vastly different from the original?", keep in mind that it's often the settings that are different, but the characters and the relations between them are generally faithful to the original. No matter the adaptation, Sherlock Holmes is always a brilliant detective, Dracula is always an age old vampire, and so on. I have never seen an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes that contradicted the original character on a fundamental level, in the same way that Rings of Power's Galadriel contradicts Tolkien's Galadriel.
Another thing on your point about stories like Dracula, Hamlet, and Sherlock Holmes is that there have been so many faithful or mostly faithful film and TV versions of these stories, that they've become almost formulaic. Now if a storyteller wants to make something with those stories, they have to put their own twist on it or add some gimmick. This version of Sherlock Holms is reincarnated in the 22nd century and has a robot companion named Watson, this version of Hamlet is animated with a bunch of singing African animals, this version of Dracula is played by Nicholas Cage, etc. While Lord of the Rings has become iconic, it's story (especially the story told outside of the film versions) isn't so ingrained in the public zeitgeist that audiences are looking for something to "revamp" Tolkien's original work. There are so many great stories and characters from Middle Earth that have never been seen outside of the Legendarium and it's sad that Jeff Bezos' fan fic is our first exposure to them on film.
I'll be honest: I would have accepted a decent fantasy to have some fun, but the show is so bad I can't. The characters are ridicoulous and don't make sense, the plot doesn't work, at the end I am Just pissed and bored.
When you watch the three episodes again see if you can work out why Galadriel, Gil-Galad, Elrond etc. don’t think, at any point, to tell Celembrimbor that Halbrand is Sauron. They give him some vague warning like “that guy is a dick” but don’t you think it’s paramount to their survival that the guy with the ability to make rings of power knows that his best mate is fucking SAURON? This show is so stupid. Oh, btw. I reckon Ciaran Hinds wizard character is the witch king of Angmar. Pretty sure he was mentioned in the lore as an Easterling. Dunno if anybody else has this theory.
@impiousdesign4915 I did watch the show. At no point do they tell Celembrimbor Halbrand is Sauron. They warn him that “he isn’t who he says he is”. Not exactly the same thing is is?
I suspect the majority of people who are still watching the Rings of Power don't give a rip about Tolkien lore. They are folks who having been numbed by decades of mediocre to bad CW productions are perfectly happy with bad story lines, dialog and directing .
Your point about the importance of fidelity to the lore vs just making a good story is very true. If Rings of Power broke the lore just as much as it does, but told a good story anyway that would be a very different thing. You could forget the lore, and just watch a good fantasy series. Historically Hollywood rarely adapts books to film/TV with any degree of fidelity, but they still made great films. I remember watching Humphrey Bogart playing Philip Marlow in 'The Big Sleep' or Merle Oberon in 'Wuthering Heights'. Both are fantastic films, but nothing like the books they are based on - and that didn't matter in the slightest because they still were compelling stories in their own rights. The trouble is, Rings of Power is just a very badly written show all round, which shouldn't really be compared to Tolkien's work at all, as it's nothing to do with Tolkien, whatever the show runners say. It just has a few characters and places that have names Tolkien gave to his book characters and places.
There is an actual, but now out of print, game sitting similar to the alt-universe you described, it's called Midnight and it's basically "What if Sauron won?"
I guess I’m a Normie because although I grew up on the books I just couldn’t follow the Silmarillion (it was too dry). I really like the show and think the changes improve the pacing. And otherworldly beings can get caught off guard.
@ErikKain there is a great dnd campaign setting called Midnight, where the concept is essentially “What if the Dark Lord won?” It came out during dnd 3.5 era. Not a fan of the mechanics but the setting, lore, and game concepts weretop tier.
Thanks for your comments. You are clear, informed and to the point. Keep at it please. The point that this series is a mockery of the deep, philosophical Tolkien is very valid. Practically no-one has read the bulk of Tolkien, and think they are getting it from this shallow, incompetent show. Sad.
Regarding when and when to not strictly adhere to source material, in the case of figures like Sherlock Holmes and Dracula, I feel like there's a wider cultural understanding that these stories and characters DO have an original, definitive source, but that most of the time, an adaptation is going to be taking great creative liberties. That understanding doesn't apply to LotR because the only widely-known film adaptations (the Peter Jackson trilogy) WERE faithful adaptations made by people who wanted to stick as close to the source material as possible. LotR hasn't really been fanfiction-ized yet, for lack of a better term. And with Amazon going to almost comical extremes to convince the public that they're "TOTALLY sticking close to the books, guys, pinky promise," it's no wonder normies don't realize Rings of Power is more reinvention than adaptation. For me, the most ironic thing about all of this is that I think Amazon could have avoided most of the bad rap if they'd just been honest about what the show is. If they'd just said from the get-go, "yeah we're kind of playing it loose with the lore, we will probably be deviating from canon a bit, but we're hoping to do so in a way that still makes a good show." I mean, obviously that wouldn't have saved the show, since it seems to be garbage in its own right, but I think most people would be a lot more forgiving of a bad fanfic than an outright lie.
You mentioned your LOTR RPG you made as a kid. That does sound cool, but not something that should be made into a show. It wouldn't have the mass appeal. I think that is how RoP, The Acolyte and other shows have been feeling lately. Like we are watching someone's D&D sessions from their youth put to screen. Characters act with all the consistency of teenagers roleplaying for the 1st time. There are things happening but no cohesive plot or themes. And they are not afraid to bend or break lore for the sake of "rule of cool".
Don't forget to note the infantile idiocy of the Galadriel-Elrond horse chase at the start,.. like two bratty siblings fighting over the xbox remote. This show really is written for (and by) dimwitted "Young Adults". And lets not forget that Elrond had absolutely no reason to have taken the rings and run off to the king,.. he does not know WHO Halbrand is, just that he is "no who he says he is". And Cirdan, the greatest shipwright in history, with his shabby little dingy, sailing out to the greatest ocean depth, which it turns out is about 500 yards offshore, not even beyond the mouth of the Grey Havens!
@impiousdesign4915 They (She) did NOT tell him before he took them. The admission Halbrand was Sauron was pulled from her by the king and Elrond was clearly shocked at the revelation at that moment. So, he took them, from Galadriel and Celebrimbor, without knowing anything other than Halbrand ""was not who he claimed to be". Thet's a pretty big step to take against close friends and powewrful allies. But lets be honest, he didn't make such a decision,.. the writers wanted an infantile chase and they didn't think for one moment about what necessarily came before. That's exactly how every scene in this atrocitiy is written, without any consitent critical thinking applied.
@impiousdesign4915 re: dingy,.. the circumstance is a problem. you do not get "the deepest ocean trench" a couple of hundred yards offshore,.. which is what they showed! That's not how ocean deeps and continents work. Also, rather than it being small, the point was it was a plain and shabby little boat. This is Cirdan,.. he would have an exquisite little personal skiff. Even the swan boats in Lothlorian in FotR put this dingy to shame. Again, everything in this show is small and grubby. This is the Grey Havens in the prime of Elvendom. And they portray it as a rustic little bay with a few dingies and small boat houses. Hobbiton is a bustling metropolis compared to RoP's Grey Havens! They simply put zero thought into their worldbuilding, which is a high crime in the fantasy genre.
@impiousdesign4915 You clearly don't understand "inherent bias". I provided statements of objective fact, backed up by clear explanations. inherent bias would avoid fact and explanation,.. somewhat like your fatuous little response, an accusation devoid of any proof or discussion. How's about you put up or shut up.
The only way I've been able to stomach season 2 of The Rings of Prime is by reminding myself that this isn't Tolkien. Still, if I try to empty my brain and treat it just as a generic fantasy, it struggles to reach the pinnacle of mediocrity, at best. The writers and showrunners are confused and undecided as to whether they want to create a new fantasy show, or want to do an adaptation of Tolkien. Instead, they end up with neither. They constantly reference and appeal to Lore in throw-away lines and easter eggs out of nowhere. If I didn't know anything about Tolkien, I would be confused as heck as to what is going on in the show with its logic, its weird and inconsistent character motives and personalities (these characters all have multiple personality disorder and make decisions that no one would make). But, then they throw in lip service material from the sources but have completely opposite things occur from in the source material. It's not just adding new material, it's at times having the opposite thing happen from what was in the books. The only conclusion I can reach is that it is a talentless corporate commercial money grab using the Tolkien name and being too lazy to either write a new story or do a faithful adaptation. Instead, we get a very weird limbo because they have no plan for a story or its execution. Other than exploiting the Tolkien name to make money, because it definitely isn't about the artistic pursuit of the craft.
‘Our spies last saw Sauron entering Mordor.’ Erm. Nobody knew Sauron was Halbrand until like, yesterday and nobody outside of about 4 elves knows what Halbrand looked like.
I've only played the Lego games and even _I_ know this show screwed the lore. And even if you ignore that, the characters still all say and do stupid, nonsensical things. They're too infuriating to watch.
I wanted it to be good so much, I really did. But within the first 5 minutes I knew that no lessons had been learned, no criticisms were heeded, and it was going to be a whole lot of more of the same. I haven't got around to watching episodes 2 and 3 yet. I'm not sure how I'm going to get through them, let alone the rest of the series, unless I buy a bottle of wine, but then I'd likely forget them all by the next morning so it completely defeats the point lol.
"Upon that ship which was cast highest and stood dry upon a hill there was a man, but greater than any even of the race of Númenor in stature...And it seemed to men that Sauron was great, though they feared the light of his eyes. To many he appeared fair, to others terrible; but to some evil. A man of more than human stature, but not gigantic, an image of malice and hatred made visible." And then some random orc stabbed him with a crown and he turned to goo. The End.
What I wouldn't give to hear a scene by scene roasting of the abysmal writing of this show by Jackson, Boyens and Walsh! From the deep intelligence and mastercraftsmanship displayed by them in the films (evidenced in the movie appendices) they must have been weeping at the sight of almost every choice in this travesty. I know they won't, even though being billionaires now they dont have to give a toss what Amazon thinks. They're probably too classy,... but it would be a hoot to hear it!
I would argue that even modern "reinterpretations" of the likes of Sherlock Holmes or Dracula stories still work (where they do) because they remain consistent to the original material. Other interpretations might be entertaining or fun, but they are less convincing if they deviate too much from the original - and can be downright dismal or disappointing if they go too far.
I am not sure she is anything like the oldest elf. Galadriel's claim to fame and power is that she was born in Valinor itself. The first born elves all awakened under the stars by Cuivienen. I feel sure that many members of Cirdan's people were of a similar age, though simply unnamed. Had Cirdan been to the Undying Lands, and returned to Middle Earth? Or had he remained behind with the Sindar? Many elves never sailed West when Orome' summoned them. But I am certain no elf ever swam either to or from Valinor...
Re-watch all 3 episodes? Please give us detailed reviews! And thank you in advance for putting yourself through that ordeal. On a more serious note, I am also troubled that people enjoying the show think that Tolkien wrote this garbage. On the rare occasions I come across someone who says they like ROP (and who assume I must like it because I like Tolkien) I make clear just how misguided and misled they are. Politely, but firmly!
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
I agree with your sentiment. I’m a history professor focused mostly on pre-colonial and colonial America. I get the same reaction from many self proclaimed history buffs not knowing the details and context leading up to the American Revolution, such as the Tea Tax and the Boston Tea Party. Another one is Thanksgiving. It’s amazing how so many people learn the popularized patriotic version of American history through movies, TV and other media.
You mean... that... "The Patriot" isn't factually correct? 🙃
I wouldn't exactly say the understanding of history in any western nation is generally patriotic.
I think that (unlike Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, and others), Tolkien's readers are encouraged in their Secondary Belief that Tolkien's writings are a true history, and so a drama based on the Second Age should portray the known events of that age faithfully, as one would expect in a historical drama. Now, we know that even the best films based on history take liberties-merging events or historic people, introducing new people or events, and overlooking anachronisms in language, weaponry, and many other things-in the interests of creating interesting drama. Because real life doesn't conform to a three-act story structure.
But Rings of Power goes far beyond the usual practices of historical drama! I have said this elsewhere, but this show seems to me analogous to a Revolutionary War film in which the Plymouth Pilgrims take part-because a historical _has_ to have Pilgrims, and besides, nothing much happened between 1630 and 1776 anyway; a major plot thread is an illicit affair between Abigail Adams and Benedict Arnold; young and swashbuckling Andrew Jackson saves George Washington's life with his spectacular martial-arts skills [actually, teenage Jackson's adventures during this period would make for an interesting drama, even knowing what an awful person he was]; Abraham Lincoln's parents meet just after the Boston Tea Party; and Betsy Ross ghost-writes the Declaration of Independence because Jefferson is too busy with Sally Hemmings.
Each time I use that analogy, I write the description from scratch because it's so much fun to come up with that stuff…
You're amazing
Absolutely sir; and as I'm sure you can imagine, it's just as true of other countries & their public conceptions of their own history (speaking as a UK history tutor). It's rather frightening, or depressing. And so, many of Joe Public will think that this series gives them a "real" insight into Tolkien's Middle Earth. Better to think of it as just a bit of fan fiction that happens to be set in Middle Earth.
Sauron was more powerful than Gandalf - Gandalf feared him greatly.. Yet 40 orcs overpower and kill him in a dank cave.. Go figure
It's not just that Gandalf feared Sauron - he feared the *third age* Sauron, after he'd "died" twice and lost the majority of his power.
The guy in the show is supposed to be Sauron pretty much at his peak, many times stronger than in Lord of the Rings. It's not that the orcs had no way to kill him, they physically could not even have tried
My favourite plot point so far is that Sauron intentionally revealed himself as Sauron only to flee and then immediately go back to the elves and try to convince them he's not Suaron again. Why didn't he just use the "I was sent by the valar" shtick to Galadriel at the end of season 1 instead of admitting who he is when he still had more rings to make
@@adammoynihan2589 this is baffling to me
Nothing makes sense in this show, it's appalling.
No thought went into the writing of this show, and it shows.
there's an interview with charlie vickers, sauron's actor, where he says that they weren't originally intending to "do the annatar thing", so.... yea. lmao. this might actually be a change as a result of the backlash, that they're doing annatar at all. the show is a complete dumpster fire
@@MDK384imagine making something and thinking it's good. Then find out it is bad because it doesn't follow the source material and lore. Then read up on it (I guess) because some people informed you about it. And then do some crowd service which backfires too 😂😂😂
Sauron was the most powerful of all creatures in Middle Earth in the Second Age. But beyond that, and I see how the constantly missed in all the details. For example even in casting they don't get Tolkien. Elves don't age. They reach a young-maturity appearance and then stop aging. Yet we have all these late middle-age and older elves.
Get over it. People need work.🤣.....focus on your mortgage and car payments.
Technically the elves do age, they have "cycles of life" and in the 3rd cycle they show marks of age such as male elves growing a beard. Cirdan in the 3rd age is always portrayed as looking older than the other elves
However none of the elves in RoP are old enough, Cirdan is the oldest and even he is "only" around 7-10000 years old (depending on how early in the 2nd age the show is supposed to take place). So all the elves should look young. In general all the elves look distinctly non-elvish which is bizarre considering the budget of the show, they definitely should have been able to do better. Lack of artistic vision I suppose
Even normies can not believe that this show is based on Tolkien's writing.
I can confirm this since I'm only a trilogy movie fan. 😭 Doesn't feel like something the author would do
Tolkien is long dead and he ain't worried about it, so YOU needn't be concerned
For all the flaws of HotD s2 i never found myself thinking 'a fourteen could have written this on wattpad'. With RoP, that thought crosses my mind every second scene
HOTD is ppl sitting in rooms asking "what would you have me do" constantly with drab and flat cinematography.
@@travisspazz1624 legit sounds like a world changing masterpiece compared to the dribble that is ROP
When one of the elves told Gil-Galad that one of their spies saw Halbrand/Sauron on Mordor how do they know that place was now called like that instead of The Southlands!??
Did Adar send mails all over Middle Earth to let them know the change of name of that land?? 😅
@@romelmunoz7957 ha!
@@ErikKain😅😅😅
Oh my … this is so stupid. Good catch
@@AnthonyBerkshireI'm repeating what a youtuber said sorry I didn't mentioned, was an Spanish channel named Idiocracia (Idiocracy in spanish like that movie) 👍
Was thinking the same thing. It's just so sloppy.
And I continue to fall farther into the depths of apathy...
A big difference between reinventing something like Dracula or Sherlock Holmes, when compared to Tolkien’s expanded work, is that the expanded works has never been adapted before and aren’t well known stories. The latter’s adaptations tend to reinventions of tired stories that have become ingrained in modern culture. Even then a lot of people prefer the more faithful adaptations. The writers of the Rings of Power aren’t bringing a fresh take to the second age, they can’t since it’s never been done before. Instead they’re disregarding the source material and what they want to write (whether that’s from vanity, ineptitude or both who can say).
It’s intentional cultural desecration, and another humiliation ritual perpetrated against the white man.
@@waylander9265 they are enjoyable little stories for the whole family...❤️
Yeah, this is the top lieutenant of Morgoth we're talking about. His right hand. Ancient even in the Second Age. Orcs would be slaying themselves and each other if they even thought they are offending him. He's a demi-God.
No sir. He is a morally conflicted black blob of goo that occasionally changes shapes to manipulate braindead elves. Rings of Power has shown us.
Great point. Remember too Sauron wouldn't have needed to convince or politic with any orcs. He would have driven them to subservience through a show of strength and power. The only things in it for them would be to be on the winning side. Morgoth also created the orcs. And since Sauron was Morgoth's right hand wouldn't the orcs have remembered that? RoP portrayal of orcs raises so many questions. It sucks so bad.
I wouldn’t even consider him Saurons top Lieutenant in the first age. I’d Give that to Gothmog who at least got some decent wins. Sauron was kind of a big old pussy outside beating Finrod at Karaoke. He got Ragdolled so hard by Huan he hid in the woods until the first age was over like a bitch 😂
@critter1388 The orcs do not love or respect Sauron or Morgoth for creating their species, in fact they bitterly hate both of them and dream of abandoning them (as seen e.g. in the Lord of the Rings chapter "The Tower of Cirith Ungol").
However, they can't ever do that, they are completely enthralled by the dark lord, Morgoth and then Sauron. He doesn't need to intimidate them, to show force or strength, least of all bargain with them. He wills something and the orcs obey, they literally cannot disobey as they don't have a will of their own as long as there is a dark lord reigning over them (which isn't to say they would be all good and benevolent without him, they still would do bad and selfish things, just not Sauron/Morgoth's brand of evil)
No Tolkien fan thinks this is what Tolkien wrote. Normies can think that but no Tolkien fan.
Now think of all the children that think this is Tolkien. Now think of all the no-taste parents who claim to be Tolkien fans that allow their kids to watch this. The point is this garbage show is ruining the legacy of Tolkien moving forward.
The "Tolkien fans" you're referring to are irrelevant when this is a fight for the future.
I think it is, except this time Sauron is an actual character.
@travisspazz1624 If you think this Sauron is an actual character, I pray nothing you write is given the time of day
@@travisspazz1624 So you think that Tolkien wrote that the three elven rings were the first forged?
@travisspazz1624 so do you think Tolkien wrote Galadriel as an insufferable bitch with an IQ of low 20s?
They had the rights to the appendices. Appendix B gives a timeline of key events. They were basically handed the blueprints and order of the important events to cover, and still managed to botch it.
I'm not a copyright lawyer so I can't say for sure, but it is possible that they are explicitly forbidden from including the details from the Silmarillion in the show. They might literally be forced to make stuff up instead of relying on the existing lore. Of course that isn't really an excuse, if they don't have the rights to the full story they shouldn't tell the story, tell a different story instead
@exantiuse497 Now that you mentioned it, I would not be shocked if they stuck themselves in a bad deal. Got access to Appendix B, but can't use anything mentioned in the Silmarillion... which I think would be basically all of the stuff in Appendix B. Maybe they just got the names?
They did manage to get some Silmarillion access, considering they could name drop Annatar, the Lord of Gifts.
@@exantiuse497 With the material in the appendices, they have access to all the major events in the timeline in the form of an outline. The Silmarillion mostly contains a far more elaborate version of the story that they can't use.
But many of the choices they have made had nothing to do with rights. They made the decision for example to compress the story of the second age into one human lifetime rather than thousands of years. They decided to create an "origin of mordor" story themselves. They made the decision to create an entirely new backstory for Galadriel discarding things they had the rights to. They invented a new story about a balrog merging with a Silmaril to form a magic metal used to make rings. They decided to have Gandalf arrive in middle earth in the second age.
They were going to have to make small changes due to rights issues with the Silmarillion. But the changes they are making went way beyond anything to do with rights.
@@Jim-Tunerexactly! All they to do was just follow what was laid out in LOTR and appendices. The 3 rings being forged last and without Sauron's presence was key to why they could be used in the 3rd Age without their wearers becoming wraiths or submissive to Sauron as the Nazgul were despite him not having his ring. ROP changed things that didn't need to be changed and those changes make no sense.
what about the discrepancy of age in the elf cast... why do some elves look 60 year old and others 30. Zero logic, unlike in the PJ trilogies.
Just that fact shows that the showrunners don't care, they're just pretending to.
How come some ppl look 30 and some look 60.??? Maybe they all weren't born at the same time, maybe???
@@dbapto6994 I don't wanna be mean, so I'll calmly explain it to you. Elves are immortal in Tolkien's world, they can live for thousands of years. Like, Galadriel is 2000 yo and Gil Galaad 4000 yo.
So unless you make up rules on-the-go, they should all look the same age (a good mature 30-35 human years old is fine, as in the LOTR trilogy.
The point is, you have to figure out consistent rules for your world when making a show such as this one, which the showrunners of ROP clearly aren't doing. Instead, they don't care and are just casting actors of random apparent ages. It's a stupid change from the canon that serves no purpose other than complexifying things uselessly. but since 90% of these guys ideas are terrible, bad ideas, it's no surprise really.
In conclusion, we are looking at the bottom of the barrel in terms of creativity here.
@@pdjinne65 I wasn't aware of all the facts. Thank you for explaining the situation to me. I find it laughable that the writers or casting department overlooked this or the fact that they didn't care enough. But I still find the show watchable. But you're not wrong at all and I respect your position on this matter.
@@dbapto6994 no problem! Try reading the books if you have the time, they are worth it. It might change your opinion on the show though!
@@pdjinne65 unfortunately, I never learned to read so I stick to TV & movies😉
You don’t have to be a Tolkien lore master to realize this show is terrible. You just need two functioning brain cells.
😆👍
You also don't need to be elitist with Tolkien to enjoy it with someone who has never heard it much less understood it, i use this opportunity to tell people what the books are and get them to read the novels. This "fake outrage" is what gets me about the CCreators who just jump on a band wagon to get views.
It's a bad story, bad direction, and marketing that I'm convinced was money laundering. I won't say the acting was bad, because those folks were trying to act despite bad direction.
Mr. Kain you are a scholar and gentleman for toughing out this season, ep 1 of season 2 was too much for me!
"Commodified fantasy takes no risks: it invents nothing, but imitates and trivializes. It proceeds by depriving the old stories of their intellectual and ethical complexity, turning their action to violence, their actors to dolls, and their truth-telling to sentimental platitude. Heroes brandish their swords, lasers, wands, as mechanically as combine harvesters, reaping profits. Profoundly disturbing moral choices are sanitized, made cute, made safe. The passionately conceived idea of the great storytellers are copied, stereotyped, reduced to toys, molded in bright-colored plastic, advertised, sold, broken, junked, replaceable, interchangeable." -Ursula K. LeGuin
Now that is a spot on definition of most entertainment that passes itself off as culture today.
agreed, the primary thing wrong with the opening "Sauron" scene is that he would not be standing there trying to "persuade" the orcs. He is a powerful being that simply instills fear in others, especially orcs who hate him because of the fear he instills in them. They have no choice confronted with his will.
Everything is small in this show, Maiar, Elves, Numenoreans, and Men smallest and grubbiest of all (the male half at least).
By the time the Elven Rings of Power were crafted, Barad-Dur was almost already completed - he was already so powerful enough to challenge the Elves
@@TurinStark5 I was thinking this, also, in the LOTR don't Frodo and Samwise travel through the workshops built on the side of Mount Doom where Sauron created the rings? It's been a while since I read them but I have a strong image in my memory of that happening. That would have been so easy to implement, and so cool to see in RoP - but they've already gone and blown it by creating the 3 Elven rings first - WITH the help of Sauron? Did none of the writers read any source material?
My bad. I just looked it up, it was only the One Ring created "in the Fires of Mount Doom", so that may still happen.
The idea of Sauron campaigning to get the orcs’ support could have been interesting if the show was mainly about that. Imagine an entire season of Sauron’s rise from Morgoth’s chief lieutenant to the second Dark Lord of Middle-earth and his campaign to unite all of Morgoth’s followers under his banner. That would have been dope. Instead we’re getting a muddled mess that is trying to tell too many stories at once when the most interesting story, the one about Sauron, isn’t getting the attention it deserves.
It may have made sense if the season 1 had focused on Elros and Elrond and early 2nd age. Sauron was mainly absent by the end of the first age and early 2nd age. He was probably at the “lowest” in terms of power but still he wouldn’t be challenged like that
Exactly. Why are they inventing F tier storylines when there's already so many S tier storylines in the Tolkien lore.
It still would have been lore-inaccurate. Sauron doesn't need to campaign to win orcs over. The orcs are pretty much genetically engineered to follow the orders of someone with a great will, such as Sauron. He commands and they obey, they physically can't resist someone with power like that
Sauron campaigning in the East and South amongst the humans living there would have been more accurate. The humans following him would need to be won over somehow, they aren't as weak willed as orcs, so Sauron would have needed to deceive, bribe, intimidate and manipulate them to get their loyalty. That might be an interesting story, although based on how Sauron deceiving the elves played out in the show I don't think the writers have the skills to write something like that well
The idea of Sauron campaigning for support among bands of orcs is ok. But the problem comes when Sauron is portrayed as a weakling who can be physically overpowered by a handful of orcs.
It takes away from the menace and mystery of Sauron. He is an otherworldly being not limited like Gandalf. He should be nigh incomprehensible to mortal beings even most elves.
"The medium is the message" Marshall McLuhan. So many people who are fans of LotR have never read the books. They don't know what they are missing.
I think there's stuff in Tolkein's letters to the effect that orcs get reduced to an ant-like life when under Sauron's direct authority.
His presence is the variable between orcs being fractious raiders organised in nothing larger than a warband and vast, semi-industrialised empires (Mordor's orcs had *serial numbers*).
He's the setting's equivalent of a fallen angel who entered Arda from Outside at the dawn of time.
They killed him with a hat.
Yes--exactly. Sauron can characterized as "Lawful Evil" He desires to bring "order" to Middle-Earth. Of course, since he's malicious and cruel, that "order" would reflect this. This makes his character interesting--just as Melkor/Morgoth is interesting because of his pride and his desire to create, but his inability to do so at the level of Eru twists him into envy and hatred.
@@westbethkid IIRC Tolkien even went so far as to say that Sauron's original objectives probably did have some twisted concept of the common good, at least narrowly defined as "economic wellbeing".
Obviously there's none of that left by the time of his complete corruption, but it adds a lot of depth to how he and Mordor are portrayed: as an exaggerated and Satanic version of 20th-century totalitarianism.
(An often-missed detail which I think says a lot about Mordor is that when Frodo and Sam are caught posing as orcs, they are asked for their names *and numbers*. Orcs are issued serial numbers!)
I don't understand people not "reading the books" because now you can just listen to audiobooks.
I'm old (52), so I remember library books.
But now you can listen to books when you're doing boring tasks (like the dishes,driving,or exercise ).
If you're too lazy to listen, you deserve Rings of power!
It's sad to watch people consuming this garbage without bothering to actually read Tolkien and find the nerve to defend the show.
I've seen so much idiocy online but this one certainly is top stupidity. Thanks for being honest and not compromise your credibility, it's a rare trait these days.
imagine being given an opportunity as a writer to do something that, if you work really hard, respect the ip, and get a little lucky might be considered lord of the rings lore forever and ever. you come up with this series.
Great video as always Erik. In the interest of trying to be as honest and fair as I possibly can about this season so far I will say one positive thing it seems to me is they are at least making some effort to make Galadriel not as abrasive and insufferable as she was in season 1. I think the relationship between her and Elrond shows some promise for the rest of the season. I could not give a single shit about Gandalf and the hobbits. I barely care for the dwarves. There has been a few moments with Sauron/Halbrand that have been intriguing to me. Oh and credit to them for casting the great Ben Daniels in this show he is an incredible actor though will likely be wasted here. That’s about all the nice things I have to say. The brutal reality of it all is that this show is downright offensive and is an affront to Tolkien and his work. That opening scene of Sauron getting Caesar’d was laughable. I really have zero hope for most of this story but especially the Gandalf and hobbits part of it. I swear to god if the speculations of them shipping Galadriel and Sauron are true I will just be utterly speechless. That would probably be a bridge too far idk if I could continue watching if they really do that shit.
"Why not just make your own thing if you're going to change pretty much everything?" Is becoming more relevant with each passing day with the modern writers of these franchises.
Seriously...Make. Your. Own. Damn. Thing.
Agree. Remove the "Lord of the Rings" from the title and about 60% would drop it in an instance.
Man, 1st season gave us Galadriel jumping in the middle of the ocean ready to swim the equivalent from the U.S to France...at that moment I knew this was bad beyond any hope.
I just saw that scene where this character who is a great leader etc in the books, let a whole heap of her soldiers get cancelled by a troll she herself easily one shot.
Are they actively trying to make her come of as a horrible incompetent person?
A show wanting to show a good commander would have shown her LEAD them and show how amazingly well trained and confident in her leadership they where.
even if they doubt the mission..
Elrond could've done the same. Like take the rings, swim a little bit further out to the ocean, drop them and swim back. But no he needs someone with a boat.
Well said. Heard someone joke about the series being written by AI as an explanation for how wildly it deviates from Tolkien’s Legendarium. Actually I think that might have made it better. The one thing that seems so obvious in every episode and almost every scene is that every character is really just a human in essence . The psychology and motivation of every character and group is so human. With rare exception, it’s a series populated with human characters saying and doing human things. That only scratches the surface in terms of the deviations from canon but it is so pervasive in all the other aspects of the series. Sometimes I think that the highly ridiculed 1991 Russian film version of LOTR was more faithful to Tolkien than the ROP series. Even Ralph Bakshi’s 1977 Wizards film or even the Willow film seem more like Tolkien in some ways.
AI would do a much better job
I'm really wondering Amazon is going to let this disaster roll for 5 seasons as planned.
Why not?.....some ppl like it.
If enough people watch it.
If it comes only to the entertainment factor: there are worse series out there.
@@KleinKoreespesh in starwars
@KleinKore "Enough people" is a high ask considering the show costs literally a billion dollars per season. I think it's hard to see the show making enough money to justify the cost. I won't be surprised if the show is cancelled after this season
Probably. But each year the budget will be substantially reduced. Season 2 already reflects that with the elimination of the location shooting done in season one and other obvious downgrades in spending.
That Galadriel is a soldier, orcs have families, dont bother me, per se. I am aware of the passages Tolkien wrote on those things and since it is vague those things are open to interpretation. The issues are how it is executed. Galadriel we know has to survive, so the stakes are already lowered, but at the same time she is a petulant and unaccountable person who has left men behind to die, single-handedly takes down a troll, swims across an ocean, takes a pyroclastic flow to the face, breaks herself out of jail. Female characters don't always have to be maidens in distress but they dont also have to be OP. Arwen and Eowyn both swung a sword at one point, it is not beyon dthe realm of imagination she could have been in combat, but make her at least believable and likeable.
And Orcs? My first reaction was a chuckle. Do you remember the dinosaur baby on that show that said "Not the Mama"? Looks like they kidnapped it and threw it in dirt and oil because their billion dollar show ran out of money for Celebrimbors pompadour man dresses and Galadriels acting classes. Anyway, combine that with them also trying to humanize orcs in this manner, that's just tacky to me. That's like trying to humanize Ted Bundy. 30 kills in. Likewise I dont sympathize with, and its hard to humanize, Cruella de Ville because in the end she still kills dogs. The morality of orcs may be something interesting to flesh out, but the execution here was just poorly done. LotR isn't the Boys or GoT, it is ok to have shows about good and evil. Escapism is important, which is why subtle themes are important too. If you're going to humanize it though at least do it better.
This is Middle Earth and name, they get names and locations right, but it's connection to middle earth is just superficial.
I really don't care about Galadriel killing a troll, that isn't a big feat. She is a Noldo who has been to Valinor in the Years of the Trees, she's _supposed_ to be overpowered. The Noldor elves in the first age do way more impressive things: Glorfindel solos a Balrog; Earendil kills Ancalioth the black (the largest dragon in history); Fingolfin 1v1's *Morgoth himself* (he dies but permanently wounds Morgoth in rhe process). One troll isn't a major feat
@@exantiuse497 It's not just the troll. In isolation, sure I guess thats believable. It's all those other things on top of the troll. We know she can't die, the stakes are already lowered. But add swimming an ocean, breaking herself out of jail, a pyroclastic flow to the face she is just an OP girlboss. Dramatic tension couldn't be less.
Yes, all good points. It's Tolkien 'written' by people brought up on Marvel characters rather than the old tales, and it very quickly becomes blindly obvious they haven't encountered Beowulf, Wayland the Smith, the Exeter book of Riddles, the poem The Wanderer etc etc... Once they stray off both John and also Christopher's work they have no understanding of the foundations it was all built on on and everything collapses very quickly.
Great video, always. But to the point about Holmes… the difference is that most Holmes adaptions have shown more respect to the source material than ROP, which is borderline antagonistic towards it’s source.
Same with “Dracula”, which in many ways was an influence on Tolkien and specifically the Sauron character. Like Dracula, Sauron can shapeshifter in a bat, a wolf and has means of taking psychic control of our heroes. When you plot out Middle Earth on a modern map using the few locations that Tolkien pinpointed, Mordor generally aligns with the Carpathian Mountains. Not to get off topic, but consider how even in the Coppola Dracula, where he introduces a romantic/sympathetic elements to his portrayal, still gives us a terrifying take on the character. His nightmare and uncanny nature is still fully on display, feeding of humans to regain his youth, turning into wolves, bats, a host of rats & a deadly mist.
Point being, ROP fails not only because it wants to make Sauron sympathetic… but because they also realizing him with zero imagination & creativity. I’ve only seen the stabbing scene, but Sauron doesn’t even look notable as an “elf”. He should, like Coppola’s Dracula, be a an uncanny & unsettling being. Or as an extreme example, the way Christopher Lee elevated the often cheap Hammer Dracula films through his performance, physical presence and personal fidelity to the Stoker novel.
ROP could elevate the actors cast as Sauron through creativity & effects or by casting a masterful actor… they’ve done neither.
Great points about how you can make-up stories around material (like Dracula/Sherlock Holmes) that is not part of an intricate, interlocking, and comprehensive mythology without creating a lot of problems, but if you are going to use a well-established mythology, you can't just do whatever you want, especially when you are using specific characters from the mythology. This is a massive and avoidable blunder made by TROP.
I've posted this elsewhere and I could be wrong as I usually am. The orcs messing up Sauron, transforming from goo and then him meeting up with the old dude giving him life advice reminded me of Brienne of Tarth messing up The Hound and then Brother Ray giving him life advice minus the goo?
The goo is that creature in life, the Jake Gyllenhaal film
Erik! You didn't love floomp-monster Sauron? As it floomped out of the cavern on the mountainside to slide down the snowy slopes to land on its tum-tum in the road to be run over by a rickety cart? That was pure cinema! 😁
4:50 I made this point too. Gil-Galad should be worshipping the ground that Galadriel walks on, but no Amazon made her this way, belittling her and having Gil-Galad talk down to her, making her abrasive and accepting no accountability for her actions. Then the Showrunners and even the actors now call *US* the misogynists.
I just cannot believe Guyladreal murdered all those Orcs in ep4, so many poor orphan Qrcs got no daddy and all they wanted is a quiet life in a home of their own
One of the many odd parts of Sauron being made (Goodfellas), where is the menacing 10-foot guy in the black armor with the crown-like helmet the Orcs were backing away from in the opening of season one episode one?
I'm starting to think that was Morgoth, not Sauron. The idea that Morgoth's spiky iron crown is being carried in for Sauron's coronation? As per the spiky armour and crown we see that figure wearing? The difference between the first season opening and the second season opening with Sauron and the Orcs is so contradictory, that commanding figure can't be "politician Sauron running for President of Middle-earth and seeking the Orc votes" as in the second season.
@@maryokeeffe3528 True, what the set designers and CGI artists created for the brief scene and the voice-over description we get are probably out of sync.
Also, it might be that they were given license to mention Morgoth but not depict him??
"For nothing is evil in the beginning" says Gandalf in the LotR "even Sauron was not so."
Just watched Season 2 Ep2. I take all my earlier scepticism back. It's brilliant. What the scriptwriters are trying to do is take Tolkien's theme, and explore the origin and nature of the Evil Gandalf spoke of.
Not an easy task, but a noble one, and thus far it succeeds. The way they actually made the image of Sauron almost resemble Christ is especially impressive, and frankly I think without precedent in literature.
It is of course "wokeness" which can seem good when it's nothing of the kind.
Thus, what is presented in _Rings of Power_ Season 2 is in fact a highly conservative perspective, and for obvious reasons it's the Woke Left who will dislike this stuff. Brilliant.
Benjamin Cumberbunch's Sherlock Holmes was great!
I have read an article from someone who claims to be a Tolkien Fan (in german).
He wrote only about racist critics.
This is so disappointing.
We are just like the smaller younger group of Percy Jacksons Fans who hated with reason the films.
I still cant stand how they portraid Hades (and dont like it in the series either) and with Tolkien all these problems are on a much larger scale.
What the... do they do with Sauron. Well it was to be expected after the first season but wow i have problems accepting this.
Among other problems.
And Galadriel just wears her name. She is someone different.
Thats a strange parallel middle earth world.
Enjoy it whoever wants to, but if you want to read Tolkien after that be warned.
This will be very different.
Sigh
Sorry for the rant. I just read that article and got emotional.
Imagine if Denis Villeneuve had been given the opportunity to make this show. The show is stupid because the creators of the show are possibly the dumbest people to have ever lived.
Not sure about that, he´s done some great movies but the Dune movies are lacking imo, visual spectacles that reduces the story to action sequences.
And the sets look stupid, do the harkonen sit in black empty stone rooms all day and stare at each others bald heads?
Interesting movies to watch but IMO nowhere near close to what is in the books, the second one is even worse.
Blade runner 2049 was a masterpiece though.
@@LP-mh6ri at least Dune 1 is patient and adult. Anything would be better than the rings of garbage.
Also, Galadriel is not the second oldest. She was third generation, the granddaughter of Finwe. There are lots of Sindarian, Nandorian and Moriquendi elves that are older as they were among the first created but were not part of the War against Morgoth and are not mentioned. She is probably the oldest of the Noldor that returned. But Cirdan was among the first created as were many of Thingol's people. Celeborn may have been older as he was the grandson of Elmo one of Thingol's brothers and who is only mentioned in passing in Unfinished Tales but it's pretty murky.
@@Draconisrex1 I think she is the second oldest that we know of or who is named at least.
Great intro.
One of the many things that grinds my gears with this show, is the humanizing of the elves and especially Sauron. The writers are doing that because humanizing villians and heiarchy heros is the thing nowadays. We see this in Marvel movies for example. Strippong away the mystery and anything special.
...Stripping' away! Forgive the typo
I’m sure no one goes into creating a show on this scale without passion. What amazes me is the lack of understanding,nuance or skill in the execution so often.
Not without passion, but in this case without any experience as credited writers to speak of. They handed the show off to a pair of showrunners who really had no experience in doing anything.
Thanks for going more into detail, the opening scene was so weirdly wrong, among many, many other things... I do not know how many people think this somehow really accurate lore, but there are definitly those usual "Eastereggs & WTF-moments" videos out there, and they do not dare to criticize anything too much of course. And if the people who are watching those have superficial quality standards, of course they will believe that stuff... Gen z got trained to consume trivial products like the MCU & star wars universe, so this goes hand in hand with that.
6:35 I have never seen the Dunning-Krueger effect in action more dramatically than in talking with people about the rings of power. It's the people with only the barest passing knowledge of the lore who get so exciting thinking they're getting what they love on the screen because they don't know the difference, and in their arrogance and desperation to preserve their enjoyment of the show, they assume everyone who doesn't like it must not know what they're talking about rather than actually doing their own research.
Amazon bought the rights to only have the name and then produce a show with known characters that would attract the followers of the lore of professor Tolkien. What makes me angry is to hear the show runners say they went back to the books when it is obvious they did not go back to the books, they went back to the book they said professor Tolkien could never write. Of course, he could not have written a distorted story as they did. They have everything wrong, the forging of the three rings were the last rings to be made and Anatar the giver of gifts, aka Sauron was not even there in Eregion when Celebrimbor made the elven rings. Galadriel in the second age was already married and a mother and she was never a general, she never fought in wars. Amazon has changed her into an impulsive brat with childish reactions. To say that the lady of Lothlorien was enthralled by a made up character aka Halbrand is ridiculous. In the lore of the Silmarillion there were no two Durin the third and Durin the fourth at the same time. One Durin died and it said the new heir was a rebirth of the old one. It was not Cirdan that gave the rings to Galadriel and Gil Galad, it was Celebrimbor that gifted the rings to Cirdan, Galadriel and Gil Galad. Mount Doom was not created by a flow of water, how stupid that was to see a current of water going up a mountain, how they defied gravity with water climbing up to the tip of a mountain and not to say how the blast of the lava and fire hitting Galadriel was totally logic, oh my god!!! It is a fan fiction invented with the name of a creation from a man that gave his lifetime to write and his son Christopher to finish his father's works. I could go on and on with all the changes and the transformation of canon characters into buffoons. I have read fan fiction stories that have changed the stories, but stayed true to the characters, not alternating them into strangers. Amazon do not know how to do fantasy, just look at what they have done to wheel of time. The best thing that cold happen, is that the series is cancelled.
They just want some strong women in the series. That's why they change the whole backstory 😅 even Celebrimbor listens to his dumb assistant like she's all knowing. "Bring him a scarf!!!😂😂😂😂"
The fact that watching three consecutive episodes of this show is like punishment speaks volumes. I could never imagine someone saying the same thing about the Sopranos, or Mad Men, or Breaking Bad.
I’ll add to my previous comment that it’s a shame that being the most expensive tv show ever made, it will be forgotten as soon as it will be done or cancelled. Like the LOTR movie trilogy, it could’ve been one of best tv series in American history but like The Witcher, they’ve decided to crap on it, to tell “their” story instead (the novel Tolkien never wrote remember), disregarding the source material, to include modern sensibilities with flat, lifeless and really dumb writing. I’m not sure if we’ll ever see another show on that scale in terms of budget in Tolkien’s world.
A DOA shit show. The damage of the first season destroyed the series.
At this point, considering how they're massacring the original story, I think an alien invasion or a zombie plague are more likely to come next in this thing than anything resembling what Tolkien wrote.
That intro music was amazing! It was fantastic! "give me the meat and give it to me raw" all in a lilting Irish accent, very funny, very clever. 10/10 you have already surpassed the rings of power for creativity.
Even all the modern adaptations of Macbeth don't make it so that Macbeth changes his mind about killing Duncan and instead runs off with Banquo to set up an organic free-range dairy, while Lady Macbeth decides to open orphanages for the children of war veterans, and the witches are all homeopathic healers and make their living selling essential oils to the Scottish court. Directors may set it in the 1920s or Fascist Germany or have Macbeth be a Mafia don, but they stick to the plot and the language instead of deciding "We need to update Shakespeare for a modern audience".
Tolkien is the books published during his life.
Alternative versions of a literary properties still need to connect to and reflect the original material, even if it is radically different. Each change needs to be purposeful. That’s either not the case in Rings of Power or where there is a purpose it shines a light on the unsettling mindset and intent of the show runners.
You pointed out the biggest problem of RoP that I have: EVEN IF I put aside that it’s based on Tolkien’s work…it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a badly written, directed and acted show. It’s really surface level and dumb writing. If we were in 2001, this show would’ve been cancelled after season 1.
Adapting the source material for tv or movies is one thing, having to ability to make it good is another. For me, RoP is just a glorified, super high budget boring soap opera/CW show. That’s it. (Side note: I love Supernatural alright? Haha At least the show knew what it was. They didn’t have a bug budget so at least they focused on developing great characters).
There are a huge number of different stories they could have told. Even with the timeline they have now, Galadriel could have been as you said, with a husband, and a rebellious daughter that goes out on adventures and meets Elrond. That was a perfect opportunity to tie all those specific relationships together.
When you recount Sauron's powers, I always remember his epic song battle with Finrod Felagund. He beat an Elf King and his entourage, with the Tolkien equivalent of a Rap Battle. Not to mention the fact he was perhaps the Most powerful sorcerer of all time, besides Melkor himself. I mean he literally returned from death multiple times.
But no, beaten into submission by Yrch
Thanks for wading through this tripe for all of us. Myself I am heading to the Prancing Pony to see Torkien and the seven Durins.
Also about the point "why is it OK to make these adaptations of Dracula and Sherlock Holmes that are vastly different from the original?", keep in mind that it's often the settings that are different, but the characters and the relations between them are generally faithful to the original. No matter the adaptation, Sherlock Holmes is always a brilliant detective, Dracula is always an age old vampire, and so on. I have never seen an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes that contradicted the original character on a fundamental level, in the same way that Rings of Power's Galadriel contradicts Tolkien's Galadriel.
Good point
I'm convinced it's written by Ai still. It's so incompetent it's unbelievable.
I reread The Silmarillion this summer. I think I much prefer that, and picturing the events in my own mind certainly beats this show hands down.
Another thing on your point about stories like Dracula, Hamlet, and Sherlock Holmes is that there have been so many faithful or mostly faithful film and TV versions of these stories, that they've become almost formulaic. Now if a storyteller wants to make something with those stories, they have to put their own twist on it or add some gimmick. This version of Sherlock Holms is reincarnated in the 22nd century and has a robot companion named Watson, this version of Hamlet is animated with a bunch of singing African animals, this version of Dracula is played by Nicholas Cage, etc.
While Lord of the Rings has become iconic, it's story (especially the story told outside of the film versions) isn't so ingrained in the public zeitgeist that audiences are looking for something to "revamp" Tolkien's original work. There are so many great stories and characters from Middle Earth that have never been seen outside of the Legendarium and it's sad that Jeff Bezos' fan fic is our first exposure to them on film.
I'll be honest: I would have accepted a decent fantasy to have some fun, but the show is so bad I can't. The characters are ridicoulous and don't make sense, the plot doesn't work, at the end I am Just pissed and bored.
When you watch the three episodes again see if you can work out why Galadriel, Gil-Galad, Elrond etc. don’t think, at any point, to tell Celembrimbor that Halbrand is Sauron.
They give him some vague warning like “that guy is a dick” but don’t you think it’s paramount to their survival that the guy with the ability to make rings of power knows that his best mate is fucking SAURON?
This show is so stupid.
Oh, btw. I reckon Ciaran Hinds wizard character is the witch king of Angmar. Pretty sure he was mentioned in the lore as an Easterling. Dunno if anybody else has this theory.
@impiousdesign4915 I did watch the show. At no point do they tell Celembrimbor Halbrand is Sauron. They warn him that “he isn’t who he says he is”. Not exactly the same thing is is?
I suspect the majority of people who are still watching the Rings of Power don't give a rip about Tolkien lore. They are folks who having been numbed by decades of mediocre to bad CW productions are perfectly happy with bad story lines, dialog and directing .
They're reduced to - "hurr! Man chop up baddie with sword! I likey! Hurr! Hurr!"
Your point about the importance of fidelity to the lore vs just making a good story is very true. If Rings of Power broke the lore just as much as it does, but told a good story anyway that would be a very different thing. You could forget the lore, and just watch a good fantasy series. Historically Hollywood rarely adapts books to film/TV with any degree of fidelity, but they still made great films. I remember watching Humphrey Bogart playing Philip Marlow in 'The Big Sleep' or Merle Oberon in 'Wuthering Heights'. Both are fantastic films, but nothing like the books they are based on - and that didn't matter in the slightest because they still were compelling stories in their own rights.
The trouble is, Rings of Power is just a very badly written show all round, which shouldn't really be compared to Tolkien's work at all, as it's nothing to do with Tolkien, whatever the show runners say. It just has a few characters and places that have names Tolkien gave to his book characters and places.
There is an actual, but now out of print, game sitting similar to the alt-universe you described, it's called Midnight and it's basically "What if Sauron won?"
I guess I’m a Normie because although I grew up on the books I just couldn’t follow the Silmarillion (it was too dry). I really like the show and think the changes improve the pacing.
And otherworldly beings can get caught off guard.
Sauron is a Maiar. He was around before the creation of Arda. But yeah, some orcs can stab him to death… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@ErikKain there is a great dnd campaign setting called Midnight, where the concept is essentially “What if the Dark Lord won?” It came out during dnd 3.5 era. Not a fan of the mechanics but the setting, lore, and game concepts weretop tier.
Is there a full version of that opening song?
Thanks for your comments. You are clear, informed and to the point. Keep at it please. The point that this series is a mockery of the deep, philosophical Tolkien is very valid. Practically no-one has read the bulk of Tolkien, and think they are getting it from this shallow, incompetent show. Sad.
Regarding when and when to not strictly adhere to source material, in the case of figures like Sherlock Holmes and Dracula, I feel like there's a wider cultural understanding that these stories and characters DO have an original, definitive source, but that most of the time, an adaptation is going to be taking great creative liberties. That understanding doesn't apply to LotR because the only widely-known film adaptations (the Peter Jackson trilogy) WERE faithful adaptations made by people who wanted to stick as close to the source material as possible. LotR hasn't really been fanfiction-ized yet, for lack of a better term. And with Amazon going to almost comical extremes to convince the public that they're "TOTALLY sticking close to the books, guys, pinky promise," it's no wonder normies don't realize Rings of Power is more reinvention than adaptation.
For me, the most ironic thing about all of this is that I think Amazon could have avoided most of the bad rap if they'd just been honest about what the show is. If they'd just said from the get-go, "yeah we're kind of playing it loose with the lore, we will probably be deviating from canon a bit, but we're hoping to do so in a way that still makes a good show." I mean, obviously that wouldn't have saved the show, since it seems to be garbage in its own right, but I think most people would be a lot more forgiving of a bad fanfic than an outright lie.
What's the song in the intro? Its lit!
Did you ever see a d20 RPG called Midnight? Similar concept to what your game idea was, very cool.
@@paulianhodgson I haven't but I'll look it up!
5:41 thats a good point.
Well done Erik, love your channels and Forbes writing
Anyone accusing you of "not reading the source material", has not read the source material.
You mentioned your LOTR RPG you made as a kid. That does sound cool, but not something that should be made into a show. It wouldn't have the mass appeal. I think that is how RoP, The Acolyte and other shows have been feeling lately. Like we are watching someone's D&D sessions from their youth put to screen.
Characters act with all the consistency of teenagers roleplaying for the 1st time. There are things happening but no cohesive plot or themes. And they are not afraid to bend or break lore for the sake of "rule of cool".
Read Unfinished Tales. There is a great essay on Eregion, Celebrimbor, the rings and Saurons war, it’s in the section on Galadriel and Celeborn.
Don't forget to note the infantile idiocy of the Galadriel-Elrond horse chase at the start,.. like two bratty siblings fighting over the xbox remote. This show really is written for (and by) dimwitted "Young Adults".
And lets not forget that Elrond had absolutely no reason to have taken the rings and run off to the king,.. he does not know WHO Halbrand is, just that he is "no who he says he is".
And Cirdan, the greatest shipwright in history, with his shabby little dingy, sailing out to the greatest ocean depth, which it turns out is about 500 yards offshore, not even beyond the mouth of the Grey Havens!
@impiousdesign4915 They (She) did NOT tell him before he took them. The admission Halbrand was Sauron was pulled from her by the king and Elrond was clearly shocked at the revelation at that moment. So, he took them, from Galadriel and Celebrimbor, without knowing anything other than Halbrand ""was not who he claimed to be". Thet's a pretty big step to take against close friends and powewrful allies. But lets be honest, he didn't make such a decision,.. the writers wanted an infantile chase and they didn't think for one moment about what necessarily came before. That's exactly how every scene in this atrocitiy is written, without any consitent critical thinking applied.
@impiousdesign4915 re: dingy,..
the circumstance is a problem. you do not get "the deepest ocean trench" a couple of hundred yards offshore,.. which is what they showed! That's not how ocean deeps and continents work.
Also, rather than it being small, the point was it was a plain and shabby little boat. This is Cirdan,.. he would have an exquisite little personal skiff. Even the swan boats in Lothlorian in FotR put this dingy to shame.
Again, everything in this show is small and grubby. This is the Grey Havens in the prime of Elvendom. And they portray it as a rustic little bay with a few dingies and small boat houses. Hobbiton is a bustling metropolis compared to RoP's Grey Havens! They simply put zero thought into their worldbuilding, which is a high crime in the fantasy genre.
@impiousdesign4915 You clearly don't understand "inherent bias". I provided statements of objective fact, backed up by clear explanations. inherent bias would avoid fact and explanation,.. somewhat like your fatuous little response, an accusation devoid of any proof or discussion. How's about you put up or shut up.
@impiousdesign4915 and you're a troll. bye
I think AI wrote it. Must be.
Just one word: thanks
The only way I've been able to stomach season 2 of The Rings of Prime is by reminding myself that this isn't Tolkien.
Still, if I try to empty my brain and treat it just as a generic fantasy, it struggles to reach the pinnacle of mediocrity, at best.
The writers and showrunners are confused and undecided as to whether they want to create a new fantasy show, or want to do an adaptation of Tolkien.
Instead, they end up with neither. They constantly reference and appeal to Lore in throw-away lines and easter eggs out of nowhere.
If I didn't know anything about Tolkien, I would be confused as heck as to what is going on in the show with its logic, its weird and inconsistent character motives and personalities (these characters all have multiple personality disorder and make decisions that no one would make). But, then they throw in lip service material from the sources but have completely opposite things occur from in the source material. It's not just adding new material, it's at times having the opposite thing happen from what was in the books.
The only conclusion I can reach is that it is a talentless corporate commercial money grab using the Tolkien name and being too lazy to either write a new story or do a faithful adaptation.
Instead, we get a very weird limbo because they have no plan for a story or its execution. Other than exploiting the Tolkien name to make money, because it definitely isn't about the artistic pursuit of the craft.
‘Our spies last saw Sauron entering Mordor.’
Erm. Nobody knew Sauron was Halbrand until like, yesterday and nobody outside of about 4 elves knows what Halbrand looked like.
I've only played the Lego games and even _I_ know this show screwed the lore.
And even if you ignore that, the characters still all say and do stupid, nonsensical things. They're too infuriating to watch.
I wanted it to be good so much, I really did. But within the first 5 minutes I knew that no lessons had been learned, no criticisms were heeded, and it was going to be a whole lot of more of the same. I haven't got around to watching episodes 2 and 3 yet. I'm not sure how I'm going to get through them, let alone the rest of the series, unless I buy a bottle of wine, but then I'd likely forget them all by the next morning so it completely defeats the point lol.
This show is a terrible Tolkien “adaption,” but I enjoy it on its own. I enjoyed these three episodes far more than any of the last season. 🤷🏻♂️
"Upon that ship which was cast highest and stood dry upon a hill there was a man, but greater than any even of the race of Númenor in stature...And it seemed to men that Sauron was great, though they feared the light of his eyes. To many he appeared fair, to others terrible; but to some evil. A man of more than human stature, but not gigantic, an image of malice and hatred made visible."
And then some random orc stabbed him with a crown and he turned to goo. The End.
I compared it to Marvels treament of Kang
Kangs of Power
What I wouldn't give to hear a scene by scene roasting of the abysmal writing of this show by Jackson, Boyens and Walsh!
From the deep intelligence and mastercraftsmanship displayed by them in the films (evidenced in the movie appendices) they must have been weeping at the sight of almost every choice in this travesty. I know they won't, even though being billionaires now they dont have to give a toss what Amazon thinks. They're probably too classy,... but it would be a hoot to hear it!
I can only watch these videos on the show, not the show itself. It’s such a fascinating trainwreck
I would argue that even modern "reinterpretations" of the likes of Sherlock Holmes or Dracula stories still work (where they do) because they remain consistent to the original material. Other interpretations might be entertaining or fun, but they are less convincing if they deviate too much from the original - and can be downright dismal or disappointing if they go too far.
Did you create the songs you use?
I am not sure she is anything like the oldest elf. Galadriel's claim to fame and power is that she was born in Valinor itself. The first born elves all awakened under the stars by Cuivienen. I feel sure that many members of Cirdan's people were of a similar age, though simply unnamed.
Had Cirdan been to the Undying Lands, and returned to Middle Earth? Or had he remained behind with the Sindar? Many elves never sailed West when Orome' summoned them.
But I am certain no elf ever swam either to or from Valinor...
Re-watch all 3 episodes? Please give us detailed reviews! And thank you in advance for putting yourself through that ordeal. On a more serious note, I am also troubled that people enjoying the show think that Tolkien wrote this garbage. On the rare occasions I come across someone who says they like ROP (and who assume I must like it because I like Tolkien) I make clear just how misguided and misled they are. Politely, but firmly!
Love the the elven meat song
Is that a large version of Amos’s pin behind you? 😊
Doesn't it all just feel so... small.