Aight update, I have now seen episode 1 and 2 of rings of power and they were.... totally fine. I know that's boring but that was always going to be the outcome. The show looks great, and the production, writing and acting are all excellent, but I am struggling a bit with the pacing as it does feel quite slow. Makes me kind of wish they stuck to 1 or 2 character storelines rather than the 5 or so they have. Whatever people say though they definitely hit that middle earth feel, and Clark is great as galadriel, and her performance genuinely gives me serious Cate Blanchette vibes at times. Big highlights for me so far have to be the Hobbits and dwarves as they all feel real heartfilled and genuine, and I particularly love the dynamics with Durin and Disa. But as I've always said, whether the whole show is good or bad has nothing to do with how "lore accurate" stuff is but on the storytelling and I'm definitely sold on the story, world, and characters... just need them to speed it up a bit!
I just wrote a blog article yesterday saying how I was looking forward to seeing what Rings of Power inspired SBG projects people would come up with and you certainly haven't disappointed. The Numenorians look great, well done.
Damn man these are incredible all the kits work perfecly together, nailed the look. I'm annoyed I converted up 100 odd numenorians just before the show released their astetic -_- lol.
As a person who wasn't planning on watching it if it was good or bad, I can say my biggest issue is that I see no reason why it is Tolkien. If they are going to reimagine the whole work, call it an original and make it stand on its own merits. The story may be amazing, but it's always going to be a terrible mangling of the story of the second age. World spanning events don't occur or occur in completely different ways are not an adaptation of a work. When I have seen such adaptations happen previously it was mostly caused by the original work being unfinished at the time of the anime/tv series' production. Not because the writing team hated the work and wanted to change it all.
I think saying they "hate" the original text is a bit of a stretch, as I think coporate ambivalence is more likely. As for the new world stuff, I think your issue may be more with Capitalism than anything else (which I'm right there with you on!) As that's the real reason they're making more "lord of the rings stuff" rather than the new ip "Lands of Mandera" (copyright/trademarked by me right now :P )
Go for it! And they're from wargames atlantic but you could probably find more with other kits (or helmets that already have them on them) Probably could even use the tails off of horse minis if you had any of those lying around :P
I feel like negative group is always really loud so I’m throwing my positive take out there! I like the show so far! Yeah there has been a few odd choices so far but overall it’s good. Love you videos :) and positive outlook!
Yah, they're just so combative and Dominant that it's really hard to see past them sometimes. I'm all for valide criticism, it's just when that cristicism starts coming from nastier and less sincère places that it looses me
I really love the figures :) Honestly I don't think official miniatures would look better. Only problem now is I want to start a Numenorean force... :D I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to it or not, I don't agree with a lot of the stuff they're doing, basically bringing their own politics into Tolkien, but it could be an entertaining fantasy series, or it could be awful. Odds are it'll probably be middle of the road, most things these days seem to be. Oddly for all the unTolkien things they're doing, the soldiers of Numenor seem to be more lore accurate than the LotR armour, which is nice.
I do like these. One of the reasons Rings of Power is going to be very odd is that they don't have the rights to the Silmarillion or the Unfinished Tales, nor can they infringe on the copyright of the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films. From J.D. Payne in Vanity Fair "We have the rights solely to The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, the appendices, and The Hobbit,.... We do not have the rights to The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-earth, or any of those other books.”
Man that is weird... I think Game workshop has similar rights in terms of the books (plus the movies obviously) so it's always interesting to see what they go with
@@AndurzTalksHobbies As I understand it, GW’s rights are to produce miniatures for a battle game based on the films produced by New Line Cinema, not the books themselves. Therefore they can’t deviate from the “look” of the films, although they are able to create miniatures for characters that don’t appear in the films, and they’ve been quite creative with what they can do.
@@rorythomas9469 yah exactly, so they can do cannon characters that aren't in the movie like eol the young and such if they're mentioned in the books or appendices, but anything else they're out of luck unless it's totally their own invention
Agreed on the Silmarillion, and Tolkien in general. As much as I love the Jackson films, there's a lot of beats they're missing on what Tolkien actually intended. Love your vids. Big fan.
Yah, I think people struggle with what an "adaptation" means, and have some real rose tinted glasses for the accuracy of the LOTR trilogy, when what they're actually remembering is the quality of the film making. That's why, if the Rings of Power turns out to be good or not won't be because there's new characters or the timeline is different, it will be because the writing, acting, and production is good and or bad... so we'll see about that!
The issue with Rings of Power is that the only reason it is LOTR/Tolkien is corporate advertisment. They could have made their own stories and the only change would have been a couple names. There is no reason for it to be Tolkien and it isn't. So it's a terrible adaptation, no matter how good or bad it is. It's a reimagining (not an adaptation), which just means that they didn't have confidence for it to stand on its own and stole the recognition of Tolkien's name. Now the Silmarillion sounds perfect for a TV series, as long as it is produced as a collection of loosely connected short stories. I would love to see the singing of the world! Imagine the effects they could make today. Edit: I had no plan to watch it no matter if it was good or bad.
@@dragonwyrmdracodracul8361 totally get that, it falls into thr same category as something like the "shadow of mordor" games, where they're using the setting as a place to explore and tell their own story lossely based on the narrative, and I'm totally cool with that, but get that it's not everyone's thing. Speaking of the video games, there's no way Rings of Power can do anything as wild as making both helm hammerhand and Isildur into ringsraiths like the game did :P
@@AndurzTalksHobbies True, but Shadow of Mordor was straight with its expectations. This is not a Tolkien story. Meanwhile the Rings started off by going "this is totally a Tolkien story, just updated to modern values" shifting to :"this is an adaptation" then again to: "reimagining of his world, so we chose what he didn't write lots about: the second age" to "yeah we changed everything, but it still Tolkien! And you are sexist and racist if you don't agree" Which.... Is not something that I can respect.
@@dragonwyrmdracodracul8361 the singing of the world is something if love to see as a Fantasia like sequence. Though that might be too close to Disney, which Tolkien was dead set against allowing anywhere near his work.
Those kit bashes are sublime, fantastic work! They have an Arthurian quality to them and feel in keeping with Middle earth! I know what you mean with your 1st point! I was initially excited with the announcement then my TH-cam feed was full of negative videos on the then unreleased series after 1 autoplayed I felt I was then being spammed by them. It took the edge off. I thought I may as well see what it's like and take it for what it is. 2 episodes in and very much enjoying it, beautiful to watch and looking forward to the next one. From the few negative videos that came on they make it sound like some kind of conspiracy, I'm not sure why they can't see the most simple explanation that, they are just not the target market. Keep up the great work!
Absolutely, its real weirdly conspiritori! And the insane idea of Amazon is making the show specifically to push some kind of "leftisit propoganda is insane" as there ain't anything "left" about such a huge heirarchical captialist company like that.
@@AndurzTalksHobbies it's gold medal level Olympic mental gymnastics but I suppose it's more of a comfort than the cold reality! I was thinking of treating myself to some Arthurians from Newline Designs and just use them as-is for middle earth.... It's just hard to justify when my citadel stuff is in a state of shame 🙈
@@TonyEmeryPG20mm oooh, never heard of newline but after a quick Google I like their stuff! Good selection of 10mm too which is awesome as I'm getting more and more tempted by that stuff
@@AndurzTalksHobbies ah you can't go too wrong with Newline, my main project is 20mm ancients so far all Newline however I've been looking for an excuse to buy some late Rome/dark age stuff and thought they may slip nicely into middle earth against the citadel Easterlings which I love! I like the idea of smaller scales, certainly allows a bit more scope to use miniatures as is without too much tinkering.
Thats cool it's not meant to be a blanket judgment, as I'm referring to a very particular type of criticism that is just... very loud. There is tons of legit stuff to criticize with the show and it's certainly not for everyone. I like it well enough but definitely have my own issues with it, and one of my biggest problem with the type or criticism I'm... we'll criticizing is that it drowns out any genuine discussion of actually merits and quality. Basically, the fact that ben Shapiro and the quartering have been doing weekly reviews of each episode encapsulates my whole point as they're basically the definition of bad faith actors.
Having watched all of season one I have to say that the show is very mediocre overall, and despite being a lefty myself I dislike the forced "representation" in the choice of cast. To me it does detract to the whole experience, though it is less horrifying in a fantasy context rather than, say, just replace kings or queens in Medieval history with actors with zero resemblance taken from different ethnic groups occupying different regions at the time. What bothers me the most, though, is poor Galadriel. Not only have they decided to make her a sword-toting tomboy (or tom-elf?), she is also supposed to be the one that knows who Sauron is when he befriends the Elves (or at least suspect it, Tolkien referred to her as the "Elven equivalent of Cassandra" in the war of Troy). IT looks like the screenwriters decided for the opposite approach: rather than the elves being deceived by Sauron/Annatar DESPITE Galadriel's warnings, she is the one that actually brings Sauron to the Elves. So yes, it is weird. Other than that, decent visual appeal and...not much more, really.
Lovely project and can’t wait to see more of them painted up. As for the show I’m not a fan of some of the dialogue and characterisation choices. Ultimately it exists as it’s own thing and that’s fine. People need to chill, the original trilogy still exists, the books still exist, the audiobooks are amazing. There is so much content out there for lotr. People just need to choose the one they enjoy!
Absolutely! And the PJ movies have been THE prevailing image of Tolkien for so long, that I'm just happy to have something new! And thanks! Had a lot of fun throwing them together, and working through the painting now!
Asking for an “accurate” Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales adaptation, is like asking for an adaption of the entire Bible. Not only is it impossible due to its sheer scale, but the story is told in a semi-non linear fashion that rushes through so many insane ideas that scholars of both books still can’t even agree on what happened in them.
Exactly! It's a mythology, not a story. So the idea of condenscing some of the highlights and stringing together a story out of it makes complete sense to me! The only possible way I see them doing a true "silmarilion" adaptions is if they did some kind of mid budget anthology animated thing, but the idea of a full production live action one is insane imo
Exactly! It's a mythology, not a story. So the idea of condenscing some of the highlights and stringing together a story out of it makes complete sense to me! The only possible way I see them doing a true "silmarilion" adaptions is if they did some kind of mid budget anthology animated thing, but the idea of a full production live action one is insane imo
@@MrMintyfreshsmell to each their own, but the amount of people coming out as "experts" on good and bad writing in cases like this is also pretty interesting, and one of those sides is yelling a lot more about it :P
I've seen episode 1 and I found it a bit boring to be honest so far, house of dragons I'm 2 episodes in has gripped me more so far . But middle earth will always be my favourite fantasy setting.
Yah I found the first 2 episodes a bit rough with kinda iffy pacing and a lot of jumping around getting all the characters and world set up. Much perfered episode 3 as it felt like it actually gave you a chance to get to know some of the characters and start to care :P Haven't seen HOTD yet as I don't have hbo, but planning on getting it once it's all out so I can binge it as I do like me some Song of Ice and fire (oh and dragons... love me some dragons)
Any one here remember how Ralph Bakshi trashed the LOTR like 4 decades ago.. Honestly people. Great build Andurz, I think this has to be one of the best kit bashes to date.
Puddle bases, everyone recently has been saying pudding, but think about it its a puddle like a puddle off water there standing in the armour design from the artwork has weird scale on the arms, the actual cuts off armour are pretty weird and clearly are made for the actors to move, but because youve used historicals, youve taken the best ideas that come from the show, and they naturally have way way more realism then the costumes we have seen so far, i personally would have kept the torsos and used the sea shell helmet, because the saxon helmet just screams rohan, and i dont see how its from numenor, like where does that connection from, idk, but like thats nit picking and loads off countries over the centries used it so its not exclusive, keen to see a small force painted up!
That makes.... a lot of sense :P And yah, there's definitely some shortcuts in the execution of the costumes, guess that's what you get when you have a 2 year production instead of the years and years of prep the og movies had. I do wish they'd just stuck to like fabric sleeves underneath rather than more "platemail" as that would have solved the issue. And there's definitely a Rohan similarity there... lore wise I can see the idea of numenor/gondor and Rohan having some design similarites as maybe they taught them some production stuff when helping them get established.... cynical wise though, both Rohan and gondor design in the movie are really iconic, so referencing both at once for the one human faction makes sense marketing wise :P
Internet Comment Etiquette (one of the screenshots you showed) is a comedy channel who said that the show might be good and that most of the people criticizing it are bad faith. Also he had a little tiff with Sargon about it, so he is a pretty positive voice all things concerned. Not saying you need to vet every frame of material you show (those were pretty obviously just search results) I just wanted to point this out, since his commentary on the whole situation is pretty funny.
Good to know! And yah I just searched "rings of power woke" and that's what turned up :P Honestly, my point still stands as my biggest problem is how the loud and bad faith people are that they drown out any genuine conversation.
@@AndurzTalksHobbies That happens with anything that is controversial. It didn't help that the Rings of Power team started giving responses about how it's good because strong women and black children will be able to say they are elves now (What terrible people did they grow up with that would go up to a playing child and tell them they can't be elves because they are a different colour? I was a dragon when I was a child and I don't have scales nor is my skin red/green/purple). That just convinced me they don't want an actual discussion, which doesn't fill me with confidence.
@@AndurzTalksHobbies I 100% agree. Especially since most of the critics never mentioned Tolkien once, but are not super-experts on the topic, since there is something "woke" to whine about. This one dude (Quartering) made over 20 videos about ROP before it ever aired.
Nice kitbash. I am not really convinced by the show visuals for the Numenorians (not to mention many other choices like for example condensing thousands of years of history into what looks like a single generation, but that's another discussion entirely). Their visuals just lack something that would actually make them Numenorian to me in comparison to movie's Last Alliance take. Instead they are reminiscent of what I would expect more of a Hercules and Xena tv series remakes to look like (I liked those shows, but they were for me in a completely different register). However, I think you did a good job with these conversions.
Thanks man! And yah that's cool, all personal preference! I think I perfer these to the last alliance look honestly, but that be mainly cause I always found the old numenorean helmets a bit flimsy and silly looking
@@AndurzTalksHobbies sure, for me some fantasy, tolkienesque element with the helmets would go a long way. Either wings or maybe that fish crest helmet as drawn by Tolkien and further built upon by some artists would be more fitting (in our wargaming field Andrew Medbury made suitable adaptation of these for his corsairs, which I am sure you have seen).
@@Keseleth absolutely, love Medbury's take. One of my original ideas for numenoreans (which I may go back to some day) was using some kind of Macedonian or similar looking bodies with his Medbury helmets and some kind of more fantastical shields.
god, I wish I had your creativity, to kitbash and stuff. All my elves are as basic as can be, though I'm just now investing in my first batch (? don't know what word to use) of green stuff to fix some stuff. And capes, a lot of capes, capes for everyone
I hated the show but despite the trailers and my misgivings I still watched it hoping for the best! I thought they did the numenorians really dirty. The armour and weapons looked more Rohan to me and also stupid and impractical, a sea nation that by the time of Ar-pharazon had ships bigger and better than the elves! I would have gone for more of an archer heavy idea with either a more re Roman or fully Greek look! Take a look at some of the artwork. But aside from that cool kitbashes that definitely look like the show!
Im not watching it because I want original storyline s with original settings and original characters. So all the negative comments, and all the positive comments are meaningless to me.
Don't really like the show for multiple reasons, although I gladly watched it before developing an opinion (and ofc, it's personal taste: if other people like it, great for them). Having said that, great job with this kitbash. I have to say: I am not a fan of the design you referenced: it reminds me of the Rohan armors of the movies, except with practical and stylistic choices that don't seem to make a lot of sense. Despite all of that, it came out really good in miniature form. I'm sure it'll end up being great as an army on the tabletop
Absolutely! I'm all caught up and it's definitely not perfect, and the pacing is really all over the place which makes it a bit of a slog at times. But I do like the story and characters they're going for so far so it's working well enough for me. As for the design I get the Rohan comparison but outside of the scale mail I don't think it's that similar tbh, atleast no more than tons of different civilisations armour in real life. Also, it's funny that so far this armour hasn't actually been in the show :P and the one design we have seen has been WAY closer to the PJ minas tirith look (particularly the fountain court guard)
Love your conversions as always. As far as the show and the world we currently live in, I find it sad how polarized everything is. It's like there's this line in the sand that's been drawn and you have to choose which side you stand on and then condemn everyone on the other side as well as everything they stand for. Considering Amazon spent over a quarter of a billion on this show, it's pretty underwhelming. As a standalone fantasy show, I'd say it's adequate and at least visually stimulating. I do think it thoroughly fails from the adaptation standpoint. We're not talking about some creative changes to better fit into modern media here, but a general failure in portraying the theme and tone of the source material. I don't have an issue with the inclusiveness. That is a mainstay of modern media and is not going anywhere regardless of how many people complain about it. Where I take issue is the portrayal of the elves and completely changing all the characters that already exist in the lore. Considering this is just Amazon milking a beloved IP though, noone should be surprised.
I have to disagree about your bad faith argument. None of those youtubers had a problem with The Expanse. The difference is, The Expanse is a well written show with a diverse cast. Rings of Power is a woke show first, with a layer of plot smeared over the top afterwards.
I think that's a pretty generous take on the situation, and kind of falls down a bit considering people have been making these arguments for months before the show was out so any "plot" arguments are kind of impossible. Also, the unironic use of the term "woke" as a criticism pretty much disqualifies any arguments being made. But sure, you guys do you... just tired of how loud it's all been
@@AndurzTalksHobbies woke is clearly being used as a pejorative: politics first, telling a good story second. The first episode isn't as bad as other recent productions, but when these things are done for reasons other than supporting the story being told, it stands out like a sore thumb.
To me the whole thing smacks of unnecessary money grubbing. What they did to The Hobbit was a disgrace, and this looks to be even more of a travesty. On the other hand, no one is making anyone watch it, so live and let live.
I didn't really like the show. I feel it's tone in dialogue feels too modern, it loses the charm that the books and the PJ movies had and the art direction was all over the place, with some really good stuff like the númenoreans, and absolute garbage like the Mordor people having modern glass windows; to me, this shows that they lacked a strong vision for world building, something Peter Jackson did tremendously well. That said, most of the critics of the show come from a place of simple and plain racism, anyone complaining about "modern politics" injected into the show is simply angry that dark skinned actors were included, as the sown doesn't really touch any modern political themes at all. Tolkien left a lot of wiggle room for the physical appearance of his characters, anyone who has read the books can attest to it; when it comes to the harfoots, he explicitly said that they had darker skin than other hobbits, and the skin color of the númenoreans (and by extension, dunedain) was never explicitly stated. He did however compare Númenor to ancient Egypt and Gondor to the Byzantines, so there is, again, a lot of wiggle room here; same goes for the dwarves, we mostly saw dwarves from Durin's line in the books, so we simply don't know how did the other six houses of the dwarves look like. The main problem with this people criticizing the show for being "woke" is that they hide behind Tolkien to expand their racist views, and by extension they make Tolkien into a figure associated with their bigotry and resentment when in reality he was very much not a racist. He did had racial views proper of his time that evolved with time (see, for example, how the portrayal of dwarves changed from the goofy, slightly jewish-coded caricatures of The Hobbit to the more nuanced, cultured and polite warrior-poet Gimli in Lord of the Rings), and he opposed nazism vehemently. In his letters he even opposed apartheid. I hate that people with abhorrent views soil the figure of Tolkien so much.
Really well worded! I know I focused on the shitheads but as I was saying it's really not all fans, just a horrible subset that are using the space to voice some really horrible stuff. Thanks for this one, really appreciated the time and thought in this response
The ppint where galabriel jumps into the water to justt swim a couple hundred miles back home, well knowing that she wouldnt be able to swim the distance, is just pure stuppidity and ruins the show for me. You mention the female dwarf skin color, when the outrage from fans where about the missing beard on dwaren woman, and i can understand them, why have the lord of the rings name if you are just gonna make up stupid shit anyway. Episode 1 was okay Episdoe 2 was so dumb i almost couldnt watch it Episode 3 was just bad thinking about we are almost halfway into the first season, they really need to step up on the last episodes
I think that's a pretty generous and generalized interpretation of the arguments, which required the criticism to be being made in good faith, which I am not included to assume based on the shit I've seen out there. As for the show, I really liked episode 3, thought it was by far the best one yet. Also, alot of the criticism I've been seeing has been seriously "cinéma sins" level stuff which I just, don't care about. There's some genuine issues to be talk about regarding pacing, worldbuilding, and storytelling, but it's all drowned out by the "thing bad" stuff which is exhausting.... sigh...
![ประสบการณ์ จ้าง Developer ที่ผมจะไม่มีวันลืม [ภาค2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pZbsSDRrmXA/mqdefault.jpg)
Aight update, I have now seen episode 1 and 2 of rings of power and they were.... totally fine.
I know that's boring but that was always going to be the outcome. The show looks great, and the production, writing and acting are all excellent, but I am struggling a bit with the pacing as it does feel quite slow. Makes me kind of wish they stuck to 1 or 2 character storelines rather than the 5 or so they have. Whatever people say though they definitely hit that middle earth feel, and Clark is great as galadriel, and her performance genuinely gives me serious Cate Blanchette vibes at times.
Big highlights for me so far have to be the Hobbits and dwarves as they all feel real heartfilled and genuine, and I particularly love the dynamics with Durin and Disa.
But as I've always said, whether the whole show is good or bad has nothing to do with how "lore accurate" stuff is but on the storytelling and I'm definitely sold on the story, world, and characters... just need them to speed it up a bit!
"writing and acting are all excellent" lol
I just wrote a blog article yesterday saying how I was looking forward to seeing what Rings of Power inspired SBG projects people would come up with and you certainly haven't disappointed. The Numenorians look great, well done.
Thanks! And yah I feel like, regardless of how the show turns out there's lords of inspiration that!
Damn man these are incredible all the kits work perfecly together, nailed the look. I'm annoyed I converted up 100 odd numenorians just before the show released their astetic -_- lol.
Just means you got more variety :P
Yours look incredible though.
I liked your take more than show's look, even though I appreciate Andurz's kitbash here ;).
@@AndurzTalksHobbies Damn it don't tempt me
@@Keseleth Something about that shiny white scale mail I just need it in my life
As a person who wasn't planning on watching it if it was good or bad, I can say my biggest issue is that I see no reason why it is Tolkien. If they are going to reimagine the whole work, call it an original and make it stand on its own merits.
The story may be amazing, but it's always going to be a terrible mangling of the story of the second age. World spanning events don't occur or occur in completely different ways are not an adaptation of a work. When I have seen such adaptations happen previously it was mostly caused by the original work being unfinished at the time of the anime/tv series' production. Not because the writing team hated the work and wanted to change it all.
I think saying they "hate" the original text is a bit of a stretch, as I think coporate ambivalence is more likely.
As for the new world stuff, I think your issue may be more with Capitalism than anything else (which I'm right there with you on!) As that's the real reason they're making more "lord of the rings stuff" rather than the new ip "Lands of Mandera" (copyright/trademarked by me right now :P )
@@AndurzTalksHobbies I can't wait for Lands of Mandera. When is it coming out? :)
These are ace and I'm looking to copy them :)
Where did you get the helmet plumes from?
Go for it! And they're from wargames atlantic but you could probably find more with other kits (or helmets that already have them on them)
Probably could even use the tails off of horse minis if you had any of those lying around :P
@@AndurzTalksHobbies thanks! I'd never noticed those bits on the legionaire kit.
@@MrZakalwe Lol! Yah I honestly didn't know what they were for ages until I looked at more photos :P
I feel like negative group is always really loud so I’m throwing my positive take out there! I like the show so far! Yeah there has been a few odd choices so far but overall it’s good. Love you videos :) and positive outlook!
Yah, they're just so combative and Dominant that it's really hard to see past them sometimes.
I'm all for valide criticism, it's just when that cristicism starts coming from nastier and less sincère places that it looses me
These are beautiful mate! Well done.
Thanks!
They look awesome, saw them before on your insta but cool to see the process !
Love your conversion and they look so cool. Realy inspiering. Thank you. Looking foreward to your next video.
Thanks! And I'm getting there on the paintjobs for these guys so should be soon!
@@AndurzTalksHobbies Awesome. I realy love the numenorian concept i RoP so I will tune in when you are done :)
I really love the figures :) Honestly I don't think official miniatures would look better. Only problem now is I want to start a Numenorean force... :D I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to it or not, I don't agree with a lot of the stuff they're doing, basically bringing their own politics into Tolkien, but it could be an entertaining fantasy series, or it could be awful. Odds are it'll probably be middle of the road, most things these days seem to be. Oddly for all the unTolkien things they're doing, the soldiers of Numenor seem to be more lore accurate than the LotR armour, which is nice.
Yah, having scale mail rather than the plate is a big one (though I do like a bit of plate Armour!)
I do like these. One of the reasons Rings of Power is going to be very odd is that they don't have the rights to the Silmarillion or the Unfinished Tales, nor can they infringe on the copyright of the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films. From J.D. Payne in Vanity Fair "We have the rights solely to The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, the appendices, and The Hobbit,.... We do not have the rights to The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-earth, or any of those other books.”
Man that is weird... I think Game workshop has similar rights in terms of the books (plus the movies obviously) so it's always interesting to see what they go with
@@AndurzTalksHobbies As I understand it, GW’s rights are to produce miniatures for a battle game based on the films produced by New Line Cinema, not the books themselves. Therefore they can’t deviate from the “look” of the films, although they are able to create miniatures for characters that don’t appear in the films, and they’ve been quite creative with what they can do.
@@rorythomas9469 yah exactly, so they can do cannon characters that aren't in the movie like eol the young and such if they're mentioned in the books or appendices, but anything else they're out of luck unless it's totally their own invention
Agreed on the Silmarillion, and Tolkien in general. As much as I love the Jackson films, there's a lot of beats they're missing on what Tolkien actually intended.
Love your vids. Big fan.
Yah, I think people struggle with what an "adaptation" means, and have some real rose tinted glasses for the accuracy of the LOTR trilogy, when what they're actually remembering is the quality of the film making.
That's why, if the Rings of Power turns out to be good or not won't be because there's new characters or the timeline is different, it will be because the writing, acting, and production is good and or bad... so we'll see about that!
The issue with Rings of Power is that the only reason it is LOTR/Tolkien is corporate advertisment. They could have made their own stories and the only change would have been a couple names. There is no reason for it to be Tolkien and it isn't. So it's a terrible adaptation, no matter how good or bad it is. It's a reimagining (not an adaptation), which just means that they didn't have confidence for it to stand on its own and stole the recognition of Tolkien's name.
Now the Silmarillion sounds perfect for a TV series, as long as it is produced as a collection of loosely connected short stories. I would love to see the singing of the world! Imagine the effects they could make today.
Edit: I had no plan to watch it no matter if it was good or bad.
@@dragonwyrmdracodracul8361 totally get that, it falls into thr same category as something like the "shadow of mordor" games, where they're using the setting as a place to explore and tell their own story lossely based on the narrative, and I'm totally cool with that, but get that it's not everyone's thing.
Speaking of the video games, there's no way Rings of Power can do anything as wild as making both helm hammerhand and Isildur into ringsraiths like the game did :P
@@AndurzTalksHobbies True, but Shadow of Mordor was straight with its expectations. This is not a Tolkien story.
Meanwhile the Rings started off by going "this is totally a Tolkien story, just updated to modern values" shifting to :"this is an adaptation" then again to: "reimagining of his world, so we chose what he didn't write lots about: the second age" to "yeah we changed everything, but it still Tolkien! And you are sexist and racist if you don't agree"
Which.... Is not something that I can respect.
@@dragonwyrmdracodracul8361 the singing of the world is something if love to see as a Fantasia like sequence.
Though that might be too close to Disney, which Tolkien was dead set against allowing anywhere near his work.
Those kit bashes are sublime, fantastic work! They have an Arthurian quality to them and feel in keeping with Middle earth!
I know what you mean with your 1st point! I was initially excited with the announcement then my TH-cam feed was full of negative videos on the then unreleased series after 1 autoplayed I felt I was then being spammed by them. It took the edge off.
I thought I may as well see what it's like and take it for what it is. 2 episodes in and very much enjoying it, beautiful to watch and looking forward to the next one.
From the few negative videos that came on they make it sound like some kind of conspiracy, I'm not sure why they can't see the most simple explanation that, they are just not the target market.
Keep up the great work!
Absolutely, its real weirdly conspiritori! And the insane idea of Amazon is making the show specifically to push some kind of "leftisit propoganda is insane" as there ain't anything "left" about such a huge heirarchical captialist company like that.
@@AndurzTalksHobbies it's gold medal level Olympic mental gymnastics but I suppose it's more of a comfort than the cold reality!
I was thinking of treating myself to some Arthurians from Newline Designs and just use them as-is for middle earth.... It's just hard to justify when my citadel stuff is in a state of shame 🙈
@@TonyEmeryPG20mm oooh, never heard of newline but after a quick Google I like their stuff!
Good selection of 10mm too which is awesome as I'm getting more and more tempted by that stuff
@@AndurzTalksHobbies ah you can't go too wrong with Newline, my main project is 20mm ancients so far all Newline however I've been looking for an excuse to buy some late Rome/dark age stuff and thought they may slip nicely into middle earth against the citadel Easterlings which I love!
I like the idea of smaller scales, certainly allows a bit more scope to use miniatures as is without too much tinkering.
Hard disagree on your take on the negative reviews of the show.
Cool conversions though
Thats cool it's not meant to be a blanket judgment, as I'm referring to a very particular type of criticism that is just... very loud. There is tons of legit stuff to criticize with the show and it's certainly not for everyone. I like it well enough but definitely have my own issues with it, and one of my biggest problem with the type or criticism I'm... we'll criticizing is that it drowns out any genuine discussion of actually merits and quality.
Basically, the fact that ben Shapiro and the quartering have been doing weekly reviews of each episode encapsulates my whole point as they're basically the definition of bad faith actors.
Boy this didn’t age well
How do you mean?
Having watched all of season one I have to say that the show is very mediocre overall, and despite being a lefty myself I dislike the forced "representation" in the choice of cast. To me it does detract to the whole experience, though it is less horrifying in a fantasy context rather than, say, just replace kings or queens in Medieval history with actors with zero resemblance taken from different ethnic groups occupying different regions at the time. What bothers me the most, though, is poor Galadriel. Not only have they decided to make her a sword-toting tomboy (or tom-elf?), she is also supposed to be the one that knows who Sauron is when he befriends the Elves (or at least suspect it, Tolkien referred to her as the "Elven equivalent of Cassandra" in the war of Troy). IT looks like the screenwriters decided for the opposite approach: rather than the elves being deceived by Sauron/Annatar DESPITE Galadriel's warnings, she is the one that actually brings Sauron to the Elves. So yes, it is weird. Other than that, decent visual appeal and...not much more, really.
Lovely project and can’t wait to see more of them painted up. As for the show I’m not a fan of some of the dialogue and characterisation choices. Ultimately it exists as it’s own thing and that’s fine. People need to chill, the original trilogy still exists, the books still exist, the audiobooks are amazing. There is so much content out there for lotr. People just need to choose the one they enjoy!
Absolutely! And the PJ movies have been THE prevailing image of Tolkien for so long, that I'm just happy to have something new!
And thanks! Had a lot of fun throwing them together, and working through the painting now!
Fantastic minis, and a very good intro! Look forward to seeing them all painted
Thanks! And yah hoping to get them done soon!
Asking for an “accurate” Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales adaptation, is like asking for an adaption of the entire Bible. Not only is it impossible due to its sheer scale, but the story is told in a semi-non linear fashion that rushes through so many insane ideas that scholars of both books still can’t even agree on what happened in them.
Exactly! It's a mythology, not a story. So the idea of condenscing some of the highlights and stringing together a story out of it makes complete sense to me!
The only possible way I see them doing a true "silmarilion" adaptions is if they did some kind of mid budget anthology animated thing, but the idea of a full production live action one is insane imo
Exactly! It's a mythology, not a story. So the idea of condenscing some of the highlights and stringing together a story out of it makes complete sense to me!
The only possible way I see them doing a true "silmarilion" adaptions is if they did some kind of mid budget anthology animated thing, but the idea of a full production live action one is insane imo
@@AndurzTalksHobbies the fact so many of the shows defenders completely over look the shows terrible writing is hilarious. RoP blows goat.
@@MrMintyfreshsmell to each their own, but the amount of people coming out as "experts" on good and bad writing in cases like this is also pretty interesting, and one of those sides is yelling a lot more about it :P
I've seen episode 1 and I found it a bit boring to be honest so far, house of dragons I'm 2 episodes in has gripped me more so far .
But middle earth will always be my favourite fantasy setting.
Yah I found the first 2 episodes a bit rough with kinda iffy pacing and a lot of jumping around getting all the characters and world set up. Much perfered episode 3 as it felt like it actually gave you a chance to get to know some of the characters and start to care :P
Haven't seen HOTD yet as I don't have hbo, but planning on getting it once it's all out so I can binge it as I do like me some Song of Ice and fire (oh and dragons... love me some dragons)
Any one here remember how Ralph Bakshi trashed the LOTR like 4 decades ago.. Honestly people. Great build Andurz, I think this has to be one of the best kit bashes to date.
Thanks! And yah the bakshi stuff is so weird... especially since 1 to 1 story wise it's more accurate than the pj movies :P
nice work ! tx for the video, they are nice :) let' see the painting video, best :)
Thought hey maybe this comment section will be reasonable... No. The world is garbage.
Great video though. Love the kitbashes.
It's pretty goof all things considered, at least nobody's said anything too nasty yet :P
I've now seen the first 2 episodes... They... Are...
Alright. 😱
Seriously early doors yet. But so far so good.
Puddle bases, everyone recently has been saying pudding, but think about it its a puddle like a puddle off water there standing in
the armour design from the artwork has weird scale on the arms, the actual cuts off armour are pretty weird and clearly are made for the actors to move, but because youve used historicals, youve taken the best ideas that come from the show, and they naturally have way way more realism then the costumes we have seen so far, i personally would have kept the torsos and used the sea shell helmet, because the saxon helmet just screams rohan, and i dont see how its from numenor, like where does that connection from, idk, but like thats nit picking and loads off countries over the centries used it so its not exclusive, keen to see a small force painted up!
That makes.... a lot of sense :P
And yah, there's definitely some shortcuts in the execution of the costumes, guess that's what you get when you have a 2 year production instead of the years and years of prep the og movies had. I do wish they'd just stuck to like fabric sleeves underneath rather than more "platemail" as that would have solved the issue.
And there's definitely a Rohan similarity there... lore wise I can see the idea of numenor/gondor and Rohan having some design similarites as maybe they taught them some production stuff when helping them get established.... cynical wise though, both Rohan and gondor design in the movie are really iconic, so referencing both at once for the one human faction makes sense marketing wise :P
Internet Comment Etiquette (one of the screenshots you showed) is a comedy channel who said that the show might be good and that most of the people criticizing it are bad faith. Also he had a little tiff with Sargon about it, so he is a pretty positive voice all things concerned.
Not saying you need to vet every frame of material you show (those were pretty obviously just search results) I just wanted to point this out, since his commentary on the whole situation is pretty funny.
Good to know! And yah I just searched "rings of power woke" and that's what turned up :P
Honestly, my point still stands as my biggest problem is how the loud and bad faith people are that they drown out any genuine conversation.
@@AndurzTalksHobbies That happens with anything that is controversial.
It didn't help that the Rings of Power team started giving responses about how it's good because strong women and black children will be able to say they are elves now (What terrible people did they grow up with that would go up to a playing child and tell them they can't be elves because they are a different colour? I was a dragon when I was a child and I don't have scales nor is my skin red/green/purple). That just convinced me they don't want an actual discussion, which doesn't fill me with confidence.
@@AndurzTalksHobbies I 100% agree. Especially since most of the critics never mentioned Tolkien once, but are not super-experts on the topic, since there is something "woke" to whine about.
This one dude (Quartering) made over 20 videos about ROP before it ever aired.
@@HowToPnP omg the Quartering... I know them well... *barfs*
@@dragonwyrmdracodracul8361 I see you never met a 40K lore-dude going "but the lore says..." each time they see a Space Marine who isn't a white man.
inspiring kitbash!
Thank you so much!
Nice kitbash. I am not really convinced by the show visuals for the Numenorians (not to mention many other choices like for example condensing thousands of years of history into what looks like a single generation, but that's another discussion entirely). Their visuals just lack something that would actually make them Numenorian to me in comparison to movie's Last Alliance take. Instead they are reminiscent of what I would expect more of a Hercules and Xena tv series remakes to look like (I liked those shows, but they were for me in a completely different register). However, I think you did a good job with these conversions.
Thanks man! And yah that's cool, all personal preference! I think I perfer these to the last alliance look honestly, but that be mainly cause I always found the old numenorean helmets a bit flimsy and silly looking
@@AndurzTalksHobbies sure, for me some fantasy, tolkienesque element with the helmets would go a long way. Either wings or maybe that fish crest helmet as drawn by Tolkien and further built upon by some artists would be more fitting (in our wargaming field Andrew Medbury made suitable adaptation of these for his corsairs, which I am sure you have seen).
@@Keseleth absolutely, love Medbury's take. One of my original ideas for numenoreans (which I may go back to some day) was using some kind of Macedonian or similar looking bodies with his Medbury helmets and some kind of more fantastical shields.
Gonna... yoink this idea.. got some late 2nd age numenor.. want some ealry 2nd age too 🙂🙂🙂
Do it! The byzantine look just fits so we'll visually and thematically!
So Numenoreans in the show looking now like rohan riders only in white :D
There's definitely a similar vibe going on
Yes. This take.
Yip yip!
Great kitbash and very fair commentary on the people being upset about the series. Subscribed!
Thanks! And welcome aboard :P
god, I wish I had your creativity, to kitbash and stuff. All my elves are as basic as can be, though I'm just now investing in my first batch (? don't know what word to use) of green stuff to fix some stuff. And capes, a lot of capes, capes for everyone
Thanks! And I think I just spend too long thinking about what bits would look nice with other bits :P
I hated the show but despite the trailers and my misgivings I still watched it hoping for the best! I thought they did the numenorians really dirty. The armour and weapons looked more Rohan to me and also stupid and impractical, a sea nation that by the time of Ar-pharazon had ships bigger and better than the elves! I would have gone for more of an archer heavy idea with either a more re Roman or fully Greek look! Take a look at some of the artwork. But aside from that cool kitbashes that definitely look like the show!
I really do not like the show at all so far, but your guys look very good!
That's totally cool it's definitely not for everyone. But thanks, I'm real happy with the models
Im not watching it because I want original storyline s with original settings and original characters.
So all the negative comments, and all the positive comments are meaningless to me.
Cool
Don't really like the show for multiple reasons, although I gladly watched it before developing an opinion (and ofc, it's personal taste: if other people like it, great for them). Having said that, great job with this kitbash. I have to say: I am not a fan of the design you referenced: it reminds me of the Rohan armors of the movies, except with practical and stylistic choices that don't seem to make a lot of sense. Despite all of that, it came out really good in miniature form. I'm sure it'll end up being great as an army on the tabletop
Absolutely! I'm all caught up and it's definitely not perfect, and the pacing is really all over the place which makes it a bit of a slog at times. But I do like the story and characters they're going for so far so it's working well enough for me.
As for the design I get the Rohan comparison but outside of the scale mail I don't think it's that similar tbh, atleast no more than tons of different civilisations armour in real life.
Also, it's funny that so far this armour hasn't actually been in the show :P and the one design we have seen has been WAY closer to the PJ minas tirith look (particularly the fountain court guard)
OMG at first I was frightened of your video then I realized you were responding to the wankery of the reviews.
Oh no way, I still haven't even seen the show, but the absolutely insane response leading up to it has been bugging the shit out of me
I just watched it... its totally epic.
Love your conversions as always. As far as the show and the world we currently live in, I find it sad how polarized everything is. It's like there's this line in the sand that's been drawn and you have to choose which side you stand on and then condemn everyone on the other side as well as everything they stand for. Considering Amazon spent over a quarter of a billion on this show, it's pretty underwhelming. As a standalone fantasy show, I'd say it's adequate and at least visually stimulating. I do think it thoroughly fails from the adaptation standpoint. We're not talking about some creative changes to better fit into modern media here, but a general failure in portraying the theme and tone of the source material. I don't have an issue with the inclusiveness. That is a mainstay of modern media and is not going anywhere regardless of how many people complain about it. Where I take issue is the portrayal of the elves and completely changing all the characters that already exist in the lore. Considering this is just Amazon milking a beloved IP though, noone should be surprised.
I have to disagree about your bad faith argument. None of those youtubers had a problem with The Expanse. The difference is, The Expanse is a well written show with a diverse cast. Rings of Power is a woke show first, with a layer of plot smeared over the top afterwards.
I think that's a pretty generous take on the situation, and kind of falls down a bit considering people have been making these arguments for months before the show was out so any "plot" arguments are kind of impossible.
Also, the unironic use of the term "woke" as a criticism pretty much disqualifies any arguments being made.
But sure, you guys do you... just tired of how loud it's all been
@@AndurzTalksHobbies woke is clearly being used as a pejorative: politics first, telling a good story second. The first episode isn't as bad as other recent productions, but when these things are done for reasons other than supporting the story being told, it stands out like a sore thumb.
@@Gumlass1 sure
It looks great but they need to stop trying to write like Tolkien, faux-literaryness is grating a bit
To me the whole thing smacks of unnecessary money grubbing. What they did to The Hobbit was a disgrace, and this looks to be even more of a travesty. On the other hand, no one is making anyone watch it, so live and let live.
That's capitalism for yah!
@@AndurzTalksHobbies are you jewish?
I didn't really like the show. I feel it's tone in dialogue feels too modern, it loses the charm that the books and the PJ movies had and the art direction was all over the place, with some really good stuff like the númenoreans, and absolute garbage like the Mordor people having modern glass windows; to me, this shows that they lacked a strong vision for world building, something Peter Jackson did tremendously well. That said, most of the critics of the show come from a place of simple and plain racism, anyone complaining about "modern politics" injected into the show is simply angry that dark skinned actors were included, as the sown doesn't really touch any modern political themes at all. Tolkien left a lot of wiggle room for the physical appearance of his characters, anyone who has read the books can attest to it; when it comes to the harfoots, he explicitly said that they had darker skin than other hobbits, and the skin color of the númenoreans (and by extension, dunedain) was never explicitly stated. He did however compare Númenor to ancient Egypt and Gondor to the Byzantines, so there is, again, a lot of wiggle room here; same goes for the dwarves, we mostly saw dwarves from Durin's line in the books, so we simply don't know how did the other six houses of the dwarves look like. The main problem with this people criticizing the show for being "woke" is that they hide behind Tolkien to expand their racist views, and by extension they make Tolkien into a figure associated with their bigotry and resentment when in reality he was very much not a racist. He did had racial views proper of his time that evolved with time (see, for example, how the portrayal of dwarves changed from the goofy, slightly jewish-coded caricatures of The Hobbit to the more nuanced, cultured and polite warrior-poet Gimli in Lord of the Rings), and he opposed nazism vehemently. In his letters he even opposed apartheid. I hate that people with abhorrent views soil the figure of Tolkien so much.
Really well worded! I know I focused on the shitheads but as I was saying it's really not all fans, just a horrible subset that are using the space to voice some really horrible stuff. Thanks for this one, really appreciated the time and thought in this response
The ppint where galabriel jumps into the water to justt swim a couple hundred miles back home, well knowing that she wouldnt be able to swim the distance, is just pure stuppidity and ruins the show for me.
You mention the female dwarf skin color, when the outrage from fans where about the missing beard on dwaren woman, and i can understand them, why have the lord of the rings name if you are just gonna make up stupid shit anyway.
Episode 1 was okay
Episdoe 2 was so dumb i almost couldnt watch it
Episode 3 was just bad
thinking about we are almost halfway into the first season, they really need to step up on the last episodes
I think that's a pretty generous and generalized interpretation of the arguments, which required the criticism to be being made in good faith, which I am not included to assume based on the shit I've seen out there.
As for the show, I really liked episode 3, thought it was by far the best one yet. Also, alot of the criticism I've been seeing has been seriously "cinéma sins" level stuff which I just, don't care about. There's some genuine issues to be talk about regarding pacing, worldbuilding, and storytelling, but it's all drowned out by the "thing bad" stuff which is exhausting.... sigh...
Nice kitbash as always. Thanks for the video. Can't agree about the show though, it is terrible in every aspect, but I realise that tastes differ