The thing of it is, the story doesn't need to be told. Just like The Hobbit really wasn't necessary, as it only serves as an appetizer to the main course.
I mean, we're being fed little wiener dog horderves when we already had the prime rib dinner in early 2000.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
The dialogue is intensely un-Tolkien. The guy kiboshed a 1950's attempt at adaptation of LotR and among his many criticism of the screenplay was how they altered the style of speech he gave his characters:
"I do earnestly hope that in the assignment of actual speeches to the characters they will be represented as I have presented them: in style and sentiment. I should resent perversion of the characters (and do resent it, so far as it appears in this sketch) even more than the spoiling of the plot and scenery.”
It's a very pretty looking piece of garbage this show.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
I just binged half the season on 1.5x speed. It's like all the worst lines of dialogue from GoT were compounded and multiplied and shoved into an expensive looking house with LotR paint coating the outside. There is zero consideration for the source material, its timeline, its sequence of events, its feel, its prose. Nothing. The show is a shit Tolkien adaptation, and it's a shit fantasy show in general.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
Galadriel is f*cking ancient at this point, and is high royalty, not some "commander" or wandering vigilante. She and Celeborn have been married for 2,000 years and he's nowhere to be seen in the show. Or mentioned. They ruled over Eregion first, and travelled to Lothlorien when Celebrimbor took charge of Eregion. She's supposed to be freakishly insightful into people's souls and has godlike kindness and compassion, not some Karen c*nt b*tchiness. Her brother Finrod was killed by one of Sauron's werewolves (which he killed in turn), not Sauron himself. And that was over 100 years before Morgoth's defeat, not after and during a hunt for Sauron.
Lazy callbacks to the previous movies. Elrond said malt beer outside Moria, just like Gimli did! Remember that???? I clapped so hard because I remember that!
The Numenorean cavalry armor looks suspiiiiiiciously like the Rohirrim armor. The ~5,000 years separating the two distinct cultures means nothing apparently.
Mordor and Mount Doom already existed at least in the First Age. They weren't created by Sauron, he just took up residence there.
Elves are supposed to have long flowing hair, but most of the male elves in this are all short-haired. $750 million budget. They couldn't afford wigs?
The timeline covers ~1,600 years of the Second Age all condensed into like a couple of weeks. Elendil and Ar-Pharazon around at the same time as the Rings' forging... f*ck off.
"The Blessed Realm" isn't a portal to heaven, it's a literal landmass that you can sail to and fro. Numenor just ruins it for everyone at some point.
The Dwarves are too tall, the Elves are too short, and the Numenoreans are waaaay too short. Harfoots are Irish and need to be destroyed by season's end.
It's not a show for Tolkien fans, it's a show for casuals who don't know/care about the Legendarium, and smoothbrains with no standards for media who just like literally anything with a recognizable brand name attached to it.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
Honestly, aside from what they've done to Galadriel and the timeline compression, most of those changes are fairly small and rather unimportant. But there are plenty of changes that are huge fundamental ones. And basically they've completely ****ed up the Elves.
I've already bitched about Gil-galad handing out trips to Valinor like a prizes. Then there is the issue with the Elves fading. Instead of being a lengthy process that will take thousands and thousands of years like in the books, it's incredibly fast and if they don't stop it by spring they are ****ed. And their initial plan to stop it? Mithril.
In another massive change, Mithril has been infused with the light of the Silmarils and if the Elves "saturate" themselves with Mithril (pretty sure that's the exact word Celebrimbor used) this will halt the fading. It's just all ridiculous nonsense. On the level of sexy Shelob from SoW. First, there is the whole problem with Mithril getting infused with the light of the Silmaril. The whole story about how it happened was ridiculous and can't fit in at all with what happened to the Silmarils. Secondly, there is the issue of them combing two very different concepts dealing with the Elves those being the fading of the Elves and the light Elves. Light elves refer to elves who have seen the light of the Two Trees and this light has somehow empowered them; it has nothing to do with fading, and only a very small number of Elves in ME are light Elves. By contrast fading, means pretty much exactly what it means. The Elves would weaken and fade until even their bodies were gone and they were left as nothing more than impotent spirits. So, yeah, the light has nothing to do with fading. The light Elves aren't fading and slower than the rest (if anything it's quicker for them) and saturating themselves with the light would do nothing.
Now despite all that, even these fundamental changes wouldn't be a huge problem if the show was good. But even taken on it's own, it's not. It's boring, plodding, full of stupid writing, and painfully generic. Almost nothing important has happened this season. The only important thing was that Mordor was created but even that isn't really that relevant to the story they will be telling. Having Mordor already exist for thousands of years (as it did in Tolkien's lore) wouldn't change the story that is coming. You could probably skip this entire season and miss nothing important beyond some character introductions. And it's not like these character have any depth to them yet anyway.
Last edited by ares834 on Oct 9th, 2022 at 07:37 AM
I can't get over what they've done to the Elves. They don't even look or feel like Elves anymore. They're just normal looking shmucks with pointy ears. Nothing magical to them anymore.
I saw something where one of the writers spoke about why they condensed the timeline of the entire Second Age into a few weeks to be essentially for convenience. "Because you'd have your mortal human characters die off every few episodes if it was covering the full time." Or something to that effect. Like they know they're incapable of writing a series with that as a plot element built into it so they took the lazy, stock approach to the characters.
This could have all been done as a short series of 6x 60-minute episodes, each episode covering different stages of the Second Age with a rotating cast of mortals and a central cast of immortals. Kind of like an anthology series all set in the same universe, offering up world exploration amidst a greater, growing conflict. That probably would have negated the lazy fantasy-drama tropes though, like the insipid interplay between randos that mean nothing, come from nothing, and contribute less.
Ep. I: Destruction of Beleriand, rise of Numenor.
Ep. II: Rise of Gil-galad, Lindon, Eregion. Establishment of the new world order. Arrival of Sauron into Mordor.
Ep. III: Emergence of Annatar and the Rings' forging. Betrayal of the Elves.
Ep. IV: War of the Elves and Sauron. Expansion of Numenorean power. Sauron retreats for a millenium.
Ep. V: Sauron returns, surrenders to Ar-Pharazon, downfall of Numenor, flight of the Faithful, death of Sauron.
Ep. VI: Establishment of the Two Kingdoms, resurrection of Sauron, lead-in to the Last Alliance.
A clear upward trend of emerging conflict and tension, like some kind of... story structure or something. Some embellishments and personal stories here and there to pad out the runtime, but they can all involve established characters, not new and terrible ones. The episodes would need to jump forward in time even during each episode, but you can write and shoot a show to accommodate that kind of framing. Bonus it would cut down on the need for extended dialogue scenes, as these writers can't seem to emulate Tolkien's style of speech and prose. Essentially what you'd have is something akin to multiple extrapolated opening scenes to LotR, with Galadriel's voiceover (or whoevers) providing context to the visuals.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
Lol @ the finale. Sauron and Galadriel should just ****
__________________ "Happiness is a lie. Life is horror. The light is always dying all across the universe. The last star will flicker out someday, when it does, all that remains is shadow. And I will be its king!"'-Amahl Farouk
They waste 7 episodes on bland and repetitive plotlines that have nothing to do with anything Tolkien wrote. But then they rush through the entire Annatar and ring forging plotline in half an episode... **** these hacks. This had the potential to be one of the most interesting parts of the series with lots of intrigue between the various elven lords but then they just ruined it. This was, along with the fall of Numenor, one of the things I was looking forward to most. I was expecting it to last an entire season. But nope, done already. They spent more time on the Hobbit girl saying goodbye. ****ing Shadow of Mordor did the ring forging better... And what? Galadriel doesn't tell anyone that Halbrand is Sauron? And not only does she not tell or chase after him, but she pushes for the creation of the rings anyways?! Ridiculous.
Oh, and the "twist" was obvious since as soon as they introduced Halbrand. Like I said previously, his first line pretty much gave the whole game away.
KMC Community Forums
Sep 10th, 2022 03:50 AM
