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Lord of the Rings tv show

@CaptainWacky I thought much the same. I'm glad I'm not alone thinking they're trying too hard to evoke the movies / sound like Tolkien.

The horse ride was out of left field. Goodness, so much grandeur. Epic galloping. Galadriel suddenly grinning like a Cheshire. It reminds me a little of those unearned scenes of melodrama in Discovery. You haven't made me care yet. Stop making everything such a Big Deal.

And as for peculiar sounding Tolkien-y dialogue of the week:

We shall sweep them away like <takes dramatic breath> . . .SALT FROM A TABLE.

You could quadruple the budget and it would still have the same issues.
 
I'm just waiting for them to portray pipe weed as if it's marijauna and not tobacco like it actually is..
 
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How did the salt get on the table? Did someone have a mishap with the salt shaker? Do salt shakers even exist in the Middle Earth? Perhaps they simply have a mound of salt in the middle of the table and people grab pinches of it for seasoning. Or maybe, Elves are pretentious seasoners and hold the salt a few feet above their plate like chefs - more even coverage, but. . . you're going to get salt on the table.
 
We're at the halfway mark and I'm still waiting for something to happen that I care about.

I had some reservations going in - though I wasn't particularly invested (big fan of the film trilogy; haven't read the books). I never imagined it would be this boring.
 
Fourth episode was pretty dull. The Numenor stuff is dumb. In the books they turn against the elves because they're jealous of Elven immortality and resentful of how the Elves get to enter Valinor and they don't. In the show they're...worried elves are going to take their jobs? I've tried to give them the benefit of the doubt with Galadriel but she's still acting dumb and impuslive four episodes in and they haven't given us much reason to care about her beyond just "she grows up to be Cate Blanchett!"

The orc stuff was quite good at least, I do like how evil they are and "Father" (already forgotten his name) could be an interesting character. Why did they let Arondir take his weapons with him when they released him? Also they CAN move in sunlight, they just don't like it. They're not vampires.

Dwarf stuff felt like a repeat of episoe two. What was the point of the cave in? Durin's wife's Scottish accent is pretty bad.
 
"I'm not in the habit of going off with strange young men."
"Very wide - if I see any I'll let you know!!"
- J.R.R. Tolkien, apparently
 
Yeah, that was kinda boring. I don't know what's going on half the time because the scenes are so dark. I still like the dwarf stuff.
 
CaptainWacky said:
Fourth episode was pretty dull. The Numenor stuff is dumb. In the books they turn against the elves because they're jealous of Elven immortality and resentful of how the Elves get to enter Valinor and they don't. In the show they're...worried elves are going to take their jobs?
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Oh. Right.

Because... They've done diddily squat so far as expanding on why the Numenorians are so snippy with Elf-Kind. Did I miss something? Apparently not.

All these story threads are poorly tied together. Take Isildur and his sister. Who are these people?

What the hell is this even about?
 
Sorry, I should have clarified. I know full well who he is from the films, but ROP has given me no reason to invest in anything going on with him. Also, your casual viewer isn't likely to remember who he is even if they've seen the films.
 
Yeah, definitely Hermione. It didn't register straight away.

So, the politician dude Al-Pharazon is apparently a Big Deal. Seems like there are concerns some of his greatest exploits won't be touched on with the time compression.

And apparently the fall of Numenor wasn't foreseen in a vision. As a casual viewer I knew it fell but didn't know the details.

Probably the only thing that's genuinely of interest is The Stranger's identity. Gandalf? It would be a nice tie-in to his affinity for The Hobbits. Would that be a step too far, or have they already muddled with the canon so much that it doesn't really matter?
 
The dream of Numenor's flooding is a recurring dream Tolkine himself had (and later his son Michael had it too!) He gave it to Faramir in the books and the movie gave it to Eowyn (which didn't make much sense as she wasn't a descendant of Numenor.)

The Stranger being Gandalf would be a pretty huge change as he isn't supposed to arrive until the Third Age, after Sauron has already been defeated in the War of the Last Alliance. If he's there in the second age we have to question why he doesn't fight against Sauron in the war (unless he does in this version?) and why he doesn't ensure that Isildur destroys the one Ring But yeah they've already changed the timeline so much that it wouldn't surprise me if they did make him Gandalf.
 
"Give me the meat and give it to me raw!" - Durin, steak tartar enthusiast.

Contemporary swearing also makes its debut (almost) in Tolkien.

"Typically takes you people weeks just to decide to take a sh-"​
"Durin - not in front of the Elf-King!"​
"Sorry!"​
♫ Hakuna Matata ... ♫​

----

This really is not a very good show. My goodness, what an expensive misfire.
 
I was thinking this one was a bit better, at the start at least. There was nice scenery. The Balrog flashback looked cool (but more on that in a minute!) Elrond and Durin's actors are good at playing buddies. The evil elf guy is kind of creepy. But then the Numenor stuff mostly bored me again. Isildur's annoying. Halbrand is literally just Aragorn (UNLESS HE'S LITERALLY SAURON, MYSTERY BOX TWIST.) I can't get excited by the episode ending with the ships leaving Numenor when last week's ended with them deciding to leave Numenor.

So this whole made-up Mithril thing is really stupid, but it seems LIKELY that it's all a lie invented by Sauron to fool the elves into going to war with the dwarves, and eventually result in the elves accepting magic rings from Sauron to keep from "fading" or whatever. But really someone should have pointed out that loads of elves have NEVER seen the light of the two trees of Valinor (they stayed in Middle Earth instead of travelling there) and they haven't faded away yet.
 
CaptainWacky said:
So this whole made-up Mithril thing is really stupid, but it seems LIKELY that it's all a lie invented by Sauron to fool the elves into going to war with the dwarves, and eventually result in the elves accepting magic rings from Sauron to keep from "fading" or whatever. But really someone should have pointed out that loads of elves have NEVER seen the light of the two trees of Valinor (they stayed in Middle Earth instead of travelling there) and they haven't faded away yet.
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What about Celebrimbor's tests? Haven't they already determined Mithril is infused with the Light of the Eldar and "does not diminish"? I don't know enough to judge - is Sauron capable of that sort of deception?
 
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