I kept cranking up the screen brightness despite being in a dark room to see what happened.
One bothersome element of the stalling plotting of this show is that people keep going back and forth between places making the world really small. Remember, both Bilbo and LOTR is about how bothersome and slow it is to get from point A to point B in a pre-industrial world. This lesson is totally lost on these writers. It would actually still work if time passed in the show, after all it is portraying things that happened over a thousand years. But for some reason they decided that the elven lands were dying within the timespan of a few months. I simply don't get why TV and movie writers are so afraid of time passing.
If I had to guess, I'd say it's because they think reducing the passage of time will create a sense of urgency, which is hilarious given how profoundly un-urgent the events of this show have been.
Seems kind of like the same problem GoT had where distances that took whole seasons to travel in the first couple seasons were consistently being traversed between scenes by the final season, which just kind of adds to the sense that anyone can be anywhere at any time it's narratively convenient and nothing really matters
Time can pass, sure, but not on the scales of millennia like it does in the books. Otherwise the show would only be about the Elves and other immortal beings, and that just feels like a bad fit from both a storytelling and a commercial perspective. Some of my Tolkien scholar friends are still up in arms over the condensing of the timeline, but I understand the impulse behind speeding things up to keep mortals more in play. Which isn't to say I don't *miss* those extra decades/centuries that are being condensed here (I still miss the 17 year gap between Frodo inheriting the One Ring and him setting out with Sam, Merry, and Pippin on the quest while also getting why that makes for bad theatrical storytelling), but I get why it happened.
I suppose the other option would have been an anthology style story where some immortal characters recur across seasons and human characters change with each new installment, with each season telling a relatively self-contained story (which is probably the only way to make a hypothetical Silmarillion adaptation work). Or to do it all in one season the way that House of the Dragon handled its decades of time in season 1, but seeing how that played out it's best that they avoided that too. But self contained stories seem to be on the outs when it comes to epic fantasy adapted to TV. The Wheel of Time is kind of doing it, but that's about the only positive thing I have to say about The Wheel of Time.
Well, unlike you, I had forgotten a lot and got confused multiple times. Thanks for the info on the Elven rings because I also thought Sauron had a hand in their making.
So, see, your reviews are invaluable for those of us who can't suss out all these details.
I find the "prequels are pointless because we know where things land" critique a little overblown; if it were true nothing would ever have rewatch value once we've seen the ending. But fair to say many (most) prequels suck because they whiff the story and execution. And they do THAT because they're shameless IP exploits made on the assumption that any connective tissue will get butts in seats (or eyes on screens).
That said, this show isn't nearly so much of a cash grab as people like to say. I overall liked season 1. Where it succeeded, it was in creating characters and relationships to care about (all the dwarf stuff), or otherwise letting its hair down a bit and being fun (the OTT Mordor reveal). Or even a bit of Numenorean political intrigue. We also forget that most casual watchers are not gonna remember what were essentially footnotes from the movies like Galadriel's ring.
As you point out though, it's kind of a vehicle in search of a story here. Or maybe more accurately, since there is a story, it's a vehicle in search of 5 season' worth of reasons to exist. If we know where this is all headed I wish they'd lean more, not less, into the dramatic irony. Ok, don't have just 3 elves bicker for 1 episode about the ring. What's the rest of the Elvish community like? Could we get a better feel for the Elves' decline than just a tree dying?
Hopefully this is what the Numenor and Dwarves' stories will do, idk. It could be that those characters and settings just lend themselves better to it. Or maybe I'm just too dazzled by the visuals - I did watch season 1 around the time I got my first OLED TV, so...
I agree with you on the critiques of prequels and the cash-grabby nature of Rings of Power both being overblown. Prequels can absolutely be successful and have value, but I’ve found they’re more likely to succeed on that front if they are less concerned with simply connecting story points and more focused on showing how characters we are familiar with grew and changed into the more familiar versions of themselves. I don’t know if I would call that Rings of Power’s greatest strength, but I have enjoyed how Galadriel and Elrond (and presumably Gandalf) are clearly proto-versions of the more familiar versions of themselves from Lord of the Rings but at times have moments where something recognizable shines through.
As far as the show as a cash grab, yeah, of course, it’s a piece of well known, successful, exploitable IP. But setting it in the Second Age and dropping references to Finrod and Feanor and Silmarils and such is far from the easiest way to get eyeballs on your Lord of the Rings TV show. That alone tells me that there is at least *some* creative drive behind the series and the storytelling decisions those involved are making, otherwise it wouldn’t even be bothering to cater to the fans who know every word of the Legendarium chapter and verse and would be making the easiest choice to cater to casual fans at every turn.
Glad to know I wasn't the only one left staring at my blurry reflection for abvout half this episode's runtime... all that money and they can't afford to light their scenes? That was one thing I greatly appreciated about the original trilogy--when stuff was happening at night you could still see it! Now I just have to listen carefully to try and figure out what's happening.
My spouse and I started rewatching the LotR movies between episodes and oooof the contrast is NOT doing Rings of Power any favors. Really makes me nostalgic for the days when night scenes were actually lit for film and not radio.
Couldn't disagree more strongly, but that's perhaps because I rewatched the first season (which I was much stronger on rewatch than the first time watching it) and found this to be a seamless transition. I guess to me all "padding" and slowness are nuanced character moments.
I found myself very much into the Elf side of things for a couple of reasons. One was it ended up moving far faster than I expected. Galadriel hiding the truth of Sauron could have dragged and dragged, but instead they dealt with it almost immediately and moved onto the consequences of her decision. Elrond on the run could have been several episodes worth of story, and instead it's introduced and resolved just within in this one. For a show that gets flack for its lackadaisical plotting, there was some pretty efficient storytelling on display in that storyline.
But the second reason, and the one that really grabbed my attention, was the way the show portrayed the divide between the potential corruption of the three rings and their potential to stave off the fading of the Elves. The direction, writing, and performances were clearly drawing parallels between the seductive nature of the One Ring as seen in the Jackson films and the effect that the three rings had on Galadriel, Gil-Galad, Celebrimbor, and Cirdan, as if to hint at a supernaturally alluring nature to them along the lines of something a viewer would be familiar with. The show was doing more than just having Elrond say "Sauron might have corrupted these rings!" but was rather using a familiar visual language to convince the audience that he might be right.
And even though it might have gone unnoticed, the episode strove for similar effect for those who might be more familiar with the appendices and The Silmarillion. Celebrimbor is the grandson of Feanor (the creator of the Silmarils) and those things DEFINITELY had a supernaturally alluring quality to them. Maybe this was Sauron's influence reaching out to a willing target, but maybe it was the brilliance of Feanor's craftsmanship fully showing itself in his descendent. Cirdan didn't look at the rings and fall under their sway until his boat was bumped. Maybe that was the underwater beastie that Sauron encountered after his ship was destroyed in the flashback working to corrupt Cirdan, but maybe it was the god of the sea nudging Cirdan in the direction that would help preserve the Elves and their works. There's a lot of nuanced, thoughtful storytelling going on under the hood of The Rings of Power, and it is those moments which serve to give me faith in the story its creatives are telling.
I kept cranking up the screen brightness despite being in a dark room to see what happened.
One bothersome element of the stalling plotting of this show is that people keep going back and forth between places making the world really small. Remember, both Bilbo and LOTR is about how bothersome and slow it is to get from point A to point B in a pre-industrial world. This lesson is totally lost on these writers. It would actually still work if time passed in the show, after all it is portraying things that happened over a thousand years. But for some reason they decided that the elven lands were dying within the timespan of a few months. I simply don't get why TV and movie writers are so afraid of time passing.
If I had to guess, I'd say it's because they think reducing the passage of time will create a sense of urgency, which is hilarious given how profoundly un-urgent the events of this show have been.
Seems kind of like the same problem GoT had where distances that took whole seasons to travel in the first couple seasons were consistently being traversed between scenes by the final season, which just kind of adds to the sense that anyone can be anywhere at any time it's narratively convenient and nothing really matters
Exactly. Star Wars also have this problem.
Time can pass, sure, but not on the scales of millennia like it does in the books. Otherwise the show would only be about the Elves and other immortal beings, and that just feels like a bad fit from both a storytelling and a commercial perspective. Some of my Tolkien scholar friends are still up in arms over the condensing of the timeline, but I understand the impulse behind speeding things up to keep mortals more in play. Which isn't to say I don't *miss* those extra decades/centuries that are being condensed here (I still miss the 17 year gap between Frodo inheriting the One Ring and him setting out with Sam, Merry, and Pippin on the quest while also getting why that makes for bad theatrical storytelling), but I get why it happened.
I suppose the other option would have been an anthology style story where some immortal characters recur across seasons and human characters change with each new installment, with each season telling a relatively self-contained story (which is probably the only way to make a hypothetical Silmarillion adaptation work). Or to do it all in one season the way that House of the Dragon handled its decades of time in season 1, but seeing how that played out it's best that they avoided that too. But self contained stories seem to be on the outs when it comes to epic fantasy adapted to TV. The Wheel of Time is kind of doing it, but that's about the only positive thing I have to say about The Wheel of Time.
Well, unlike you, I had forgotten a lot and got confused multiple times. Thanks for the info on the Elven rings because I also thought Sauron had a hand in their making.
So, see, your reviews are invaluable for those of us who can't suss out all these details.
Please keep this in mind when I inevitably muck those details up. :)
I call him Totally Not Gandalf LOL but same difference
Schrödnger’s Gandalf?
Ha! "Certainly Not Gandalf" for me!
I find the "prequels are pointless because we know where things land" critique a little overblown; if it were true nothing would ever have rewatch value once we've seen the ending. But fair to say many (most) prequels suck because they whiff the story and execution. And they do THAT because they're shameless IP exploits made on the assumption that any connective tissue will get butts in seats (or eyes on screens).
That said, this show isn't nearly so much of a cash grab as people like to say. I overall liked season 1. Where it succeeded, it was in creating characters and relationships to care about (all the dwarf stuff), or otherwise letting its hair down a bit and being fun (the OTT Mordor reveal). Or even a bit of Numenorean political intrigue. We also forget that most casual watchers are not gonna remember what were essentially footnotes from the movies like Galadriel's ring.
As you point out though, it's kind of a vehicle in search of a story here. Or maybe more accurately, since there is a story, it's a vehicle in search of 5 season' worth of reasons to exist. If we know where this is all headed I wish they'd lean more, not less, into the dramatic irony. Ok, don't have just 3 elves bicker for 1 episode about the ring. What's the rest of the Elvish community like? Could we get a better feel for the Elves' decline than just a tree dying?
Hopefully this is what the Numenor and Dwarves' stories will do, idk. It could be that those characters and settings just lend themselves better to it. Or maybe I'm just too dazzled by the visuals - I did watch season 1 around the time I got my first OLED TV, so...
I agree with you on the critiques of prequels and the cash-grabby nature of Rings of Power both being overblown. Prequels can absolutely be successful and have value, but I’ve found they’re more likely to succeed on that front if they are less concerned with simply connecting story points and more focused on showing how characters we are familiar with grew and changed into the more familiar versions of themselves. I don’t know if I would call that Rings of Power’s greatest strength, but I have enjoyed how Galadriel and Elrond (and presumably Gandalf) are clearly proto-versions of the more familiar versions of themselves from Lord of the Rings but at times have moments where something recognizable shines through.
As far as the show as a cash grab, yeah, of course, it’s a piece of well known, successful, exploitable IP. But setting it in the Second Age and dropping references to Finrod and Feanor and Silmarils and such is far from the easiest way to get eyeballs on your Lord of the Rings TV show. That alone tells me that there is at least *some* creative drive behind the series and the storytelling decisions those involved are making, otherwise it wouldn’t even be bothering to cater to the fans who know every word of the Legendarium chapter and verse and would be making the easiest choice to cater to casual fans at every turn.
Agree. I feel a prequel like Better Call Saul worked so well is that it was a spinoff as well, not just earlier Walt.
This show is another B/B+ type show. It will be very good and occasionally great or terrible.
Glad to know I wasn't the only one left staring at my blurry reflection for abvout half this episode's runtime... all that money and they can't afford to light their scenes? That was one thing I greatly appreciated about the original trilogy--when stuff was happening at night you could still see it! Now I just have to listen carefully to try and figure out what's happening.
My spouse and I started rewatching the LotR movies between episodes and oooof the contrast is NOT doing Rings of Power any favors. Really makes me nostalgic for the days when night scenes were actually lit for film and not radio.
Couldn't disagree more strongly, but that's perhaps because I rewatched the first season (which I was much stronger on rewatch than the first time watching it) and found this to be a seamless transition. I guess to me all "padding" and slowness are nuanced character moments.
I found myself very much into the Elf side of things for a couple of reasons. One was it ended up moving far faster than I expected. Galadriel hiding the truth of Sauron could have dragged and dragged, but instead they dealt with it almost immediately and moved onto the consequences of her decision. Elrond on the run could have been several episodes worth of story, and instead it's introduced and resolved just within in this one. For a show that gets flack for its lackadaisical plotting, there was some pretty efficient storytelling on display in that storyline.
But the second reason, and the one that really grabbed my attention, was the way the show portrayed the divide between the potential corruption of the three rings and their potential to stave off the fading of the Elves. The direction, writing, and performances were clearly drawing parallels between the seductive nature of the One Ring as seen in the Jackson films and the effect that the three rings had on Galadriel, Gil-Galad, Celebrimbor, and Cirdan, as if to hint at a supernaturally alluring nature to them along the lines of something a viewer would be familiar with. The show was doing more than just having Elrond say "Sauron might have corrupted these rings!" but was rather using a familiar visual language to convince the audience that he might be right.
And even though it might have gone unnoticed, the episode strove for similar effect for those who might be more familiar with the appendices and The Silmarillion. Celebrimbor is the grandson of Feanor (the creator of the Silmarils) and those things DEFINITELY had a supernaturally alluring quality to them. Maybe this was Sauron's influence reaching out to a willing target, but maybe it was the brilliance of Feanor's craftsmanship fully showing itself in his descendent. Cirdan didn't look at the rings and fall under their sway until his boat was bumped. Maybe that was the underwater beastie that Sauron encountered after his ship was destroyed in the flashback working to corrupt Cirdan, but maybe it was the god of the sea nudging Cirdan in the direction that would help preserve the Elves and their works. There's a lot of nuanced, thoughtful storytelling going on under the hood of The Rings of Power, and it is those moments which serve to give me faith in the story its creatives are telling.