Lord of the Rings on Prime

[Radhruin_EU]

Heres some pictures from Empire shared by reddit user https://www.reddit.com/r/LOTR_on_Pri...ire_via_apple/

A bit of a mixed bag...

- Elanor is evidently the sort of hobbit who's Interested In Things. Not convinced that ancient hobbits would be literate though, if we were being realistic.
- Bronwyn, Arondir & Co. looking worried about That Thing Over There - this looks super generic
- the dinner scene looks really rather nice although I'm still not sold on the short hair for Elves thing. Plus marks for making Durin look the right height
- more hobbitses - again the rougher, more homespun look fits the bill
- Gil-galad, Galadriel & Co. - what's with Gil-galad and trees all the time? He's High King of the Noldor, they went in for fancy architecture rather than being woodsy
- Arondir again - so not buying his look, it could be any high fantasy ever
- even more Arondir (noticing a pattern here?)
- Disa and Durin IV - different costumes this time, looks okay in itself
- some bloke (not sure which character that is), looks okay
- hobbit harvest festival? Again, they could be either farmers or nomads and having them apparently being both is weird. (As an aside, if they turn out to be vegan as well as improbably diverse I'm going to laugh my socks off)

[Radhruin_EU]

An interesting snippet about casting someone pointed out and which I then went and looked into myself: Celebrimbor and Galadriel were both meant to have been born during the Years of the Trees (if Celebrimbor was the son of Curufin, he would have to have been born in Valinor as Curufin's wife refused to join the rebellion of the Noldor and stayed behind)*. If anything, Galadriel would be older than Celebrimbor. Meanwhile in RoP, Morfydd Clark (Galadriel) is 33 years old whereas Charles Edwards (Celebrimbor) is 52 and looks it (so he's arguably too old to play any Elf other than perhaps Cirdan).

Just what. Why?


* (See note 7 to 'Of Dwarves and Men' in vol. 12 of HoME)

[Kaeneth]

An interesting snippet about casting someone pointed out and which I then went and looked into myself: Celebrimbor and Galadriel were both meant to have been born during the Years of the Trees (if Celebrimbor was the son of Curufin, he would have to have been born in Valinor as Curufin's wife refused to join the rebellion of the Noldor and stayed behind)*. If anything, Galadriel would be older than Celebrimbor. Meanwhile in RoP, Morfydd Clark (Galadriel) is 33 years old whereas Charles Edwards (Celebrimbor) is 52 and looks it (so he's arguably too old to play any Elf other than perhaps Cirdan).

Just what. Why?


* (See note 7 to 'Of Dwarves and Men' in vol. 12 of HoME)

This was one of the first things I thought about when I saw how Celebrimbor had been cast.

I don't think they have the rights to where it's touched on, but imagine if they tried to do any allusions to Celebrimbor loving Galadriel with this casting set in stone...we haven't seen Celeborn (to my knowledge) after all, and since she's got to end up with a ring we know they'll have some kind of interaction in the show.

The elves in general are my biggest gripe so far with what we've been shown. From the casting, to some of the costumes, to the short hair, none of them look very elvish to me. Even if they wanted to do short hair on some of them, they could have done better than they have. Jenny Dolfen has some wonderful art work that depicts certain elves with shorter hair than we'd normally be used to from time to time. Though I wish they'd have just stuck with longer hair. It's one of those things that really helps sell the "other worldly" feel that they should have.

Not to mention how it seems they're going to be portraying Galadriel as an adventuring warrior and Elrond as "politically ambitious".

The only real positive thing I can say so far is that I do think some of the sets look quite nice. Aside from that though it's nearly unrecognizable as anything Tolkien the way I see it.

[TesalionLortus]

Just what. Why?

This may not be a satisfying answer but still, let's take a dive into a perverted mindset of the showrunners, their cronies and sjw advisors... They know their Tolkien so of course they knew all about it and wanted to respect it, however... the narrative "required" them to have an "older, wiser" image of Celebrimbor, perhaps. Being too fabulous and too elven wouldn't be enough, since he wouldn't stand apart from the others and they wouldn't know how to do it otherwise, and this will also help to show he is actually way older and he's seen much... but heck, you wouldn't want the same done with Galadriel because then you might as well cast Cate Blanchett in the role but you actually intended to do the younger version of her! Because the show is designed around the fact Amazon might/might not sneakily buy rights to LOTR trilogy so the show might/might not be an "official" part of it in the future, gotta prepare for both outcomes hence your casting was primarily about that, not characters at all. Oh well, it's not important anyway, just details... let's have her younger looking then... the sexy Amazon maiden "as Tolkien described" her after all, we're just doing him a favor here, he got the ages/looks all convoluted anyway... Doesn't he know how these things work? What was he thinking? You can't treat a very young looking female or male for that matter too seriously, like they're this walking book of wisdom and then have your cake and eat it too, doesn't appear realistic enough besides audience "wouldn't get it" (see, so maybe it's like they're completely misunderstanding "how elves work" here, but I dunno). In the end it's for "the better" because turns out it's yet another thing Tolkien got completely wrong being just a victim of traditionalism and his times... how can you have an older (just as old as Celebrimbor, or even older!), more mature Galadriel anyway? And talk about her like she is this fighting maiden? But at the same time it's Celebrimbor who actually is a ruler and of prominence amongst others? OH NO! IT CAN'T BE! Screams male supremacy. In any case, TV can't have that, we love you T but can't have it, it's weird. It's only young attractive "free-spirited" women who engage in the trope anyway and having Galadriel be an actual ruler over many fiefdoms (under a male! with a husband once she gets her own kingdom!) is too "convoluted" besides we're doing time merge, so no harm here, the narrative/looks definitely "need" adjustments. The younger female warrior is both amazing representation for other women (she's got no time for running kingdoms and being a wife, she is a free-roaming independent fighter, the many males are supposed to roll before her feet before she even decides to settle with one of them) and that's also attractive for your typical popcorn viewer (no, they absolutely don't take into account they're creating a Tolkien epic here, which justifies viewership on its own, without all of that pointless mental gymnastics and adaptation tactics applied, how could they! - these strategies aren't viewed per individual basis, they're learnt, mechanical, tired rulesets applied to everything in equal measure, no room for nuance or "unnecessary" risks!).

Don't worry. Showrunners are fluent in Tolkien and they love Tolkien. We're in good hands... because they're "good" showrunners. Good part indicating they're good at perversion thinking according to weird industry "standards" and , not necessarily... being just good writers with sane underlying logic.

[Radhruin_EU]

This may not be a satisfying answer but still, let's take a dive into a perverted mindset of the showrunners, their cronies and sjw advisors... They know their Tolkien so of course they knew all about it and wanted to respect it, however... the narrative "required" them to have an "older, wiser" image of Celebrimbor, perhaps.

It does look to me like they might be spinning it as an older (in their version) male 'establishment' figure who won't listen to the 'young' female protagonist (with obvious subtext there, if so). And that's despite how as Tolkien wrote it Celebrimbor displays the classically male failing of being too wrapped up in his work, making cool stuff rather than asking himself whether he should be. Of course, in the original it wasn't just Galadriel who thought Annatar was dodgy, Gil-galad did as well whereas here I imagine they'll be more likely to write it as none of the silly men listening to her until it's too late. (I stand to be corrected if I'm off the mark there but since that's what we get so often nowadays, I would be wearily unsurprised if that's what we get).

[Pontin_Finnberry]

For those interested in listening this a podcast talking about the showrunners and the Series and Tolkien family involvement from the London event fans got invited too, as today the NDA has been lifted and they finally can talk more about it. there more you find in places but this a good one.

Podcast Apple - The Rings of Power Wrap Up

[TesalionLortus]

Someone else shared this on reddit:

"We didn’t want the show to be political. When you watch it years from now you shouldn’t be able to pinpoint when it was filmed.”

Sounds like they've already lost... with the casting alone... Unless they'll surprise me and it'll all make perfect sense justified in the narrative/lore/by places on the map, not just slapped for diversity's sake without logic underneath.

Oh yes, and there is Galadriel, the guys from podcast linked lost me when they started to talk about that Tolkien's letter about the Amazon and how the showrunners are so amazing for quoting it, and they proceeded to talk as if "angry, impulsive" Galadriel meant Amazonian maiden Galadriel from the letter and I'm just like... what? What is wrong with all these people? So even if we want to go through with a fighter "Amazonian" Galadriel... it's not immediately an equivalent of "angry, impulsive" independent female... and yet so many people act like it is. Maybe they're already too far gone, I wouldn't be surprised.

Galadriel going solo on a mission and hunting down beats like a Witcher is still a stupid idea, but anyway, I guess I would actually warm up to the idea of the "Amazon" - IF they made her a mature Galadriel, a wise Amazon and already established politician, someone who knows how to maneuver these things. But they outright stated in that podcast that Galadriel IS supposed to be "angry" and "too impulsive" which is the usual "independent female" trope we've seen so much of late.

[TesalionLortus]

One other thing that strikes me is how they supposedly mentioned "shades of good" and "even our villain is the hero in their own story" almost inevitably about... Sauron. And hey, I did kind of hoped the show set in Second Age *may* gently dive into the "Middle-earth abandoned by the Valar, left to rot, so I'll restore some order" behind Sauron's character to flesh him out a bit but the greatest what I had in mind would be something like that Saruman's monologue from LOTR where he reveals his true colors, albeit ultimately you're aware you're a bad guy who wanna rule, basically, so NOT a "hero in your own story." UGH. No, sorry, it doesn't work that way, unless they really just make Sauron into a p*ss*... with a tormented soul... So curious

Also, "you can't have same villain for 5 season" Oh really??? Sure you can. It's called plot development, intrigue. Besides, a villain such as Sauron could and should have underlings, even high-ranking ones, who take care of his domain and fiefdoms (but... eh... apparently he won't have any on this show). Ar-Pharazôn is obviously another villain candidate and even a rival, who wouldn't be just a pawn of Sauron for the majority of the first portion of the show. So why even more villains needed? Something tells me they only came up with the Adar idea because they messed up so bad that they wanted an actual "military" rival to Sauron, since their Ar-Pharazôn maybe won't even be that... this is meh because probably it'll be just more of the tired "orcs, orcs, orcs, hordes of orcs come out of nowhere and serve the bad guy" rather than "orcs, corrupted men and other fiefdoms, less directly but still influenced, that all serve the bad guy and maybe don't even care about the fact that he has some orcs" in a more "historical" military/political setting (so basically something like the Witch-king has done with Rhudaur only on a MUCH larger scale, more diverse). Without Gondor in the picture - I always imagined in that part of Middle-earth like there could have been even more of that sort of thing with Sauron's growing influence. But even though they have whole 5 seasons and no "not enough time" excuse like PJ's movies did (hence just uruk-hai, get rid of Dunlendings, Sauron only with orc cannon fodder, lots of simplifications there) seems like RoP will go the exact same route mostly. Meh.

[Radhruin_EU]

For those interested in listening this a podcast talking about the showrunners and the Series and Tolkien family involvement from the London event fans got invited too, as today the NDA has been lifted and they finally can talk more about it. there more you find in places but this a good one.

Podcast Apple - The Rings of Power Wrap Up

Well, they can talk some more about it, at least.

I'm not buying the thing about how much the show-runners know and love Tolkien and can quote from his letters etc. or know what's meant by the legendarium or whatever else if we can't see some concrete evidence of that in the show itself.

[Radhruin_EU]

Someone else shared this on reddit:

"We didn’t want the show to be political. When you watch it years from now you shouldn’t be able to pinpoint when it was filmed.”

Sounds like they've already lost... with the casting alone... Unless they'll surprise me and it'll all make perfect sense justified in the narrative/lore/by places on the map, not just slapped for diversity's sake without logic underneath.

I think by that they meant unsubtle references to American politics at a particular point in time (as some shows have done), rather than more general identity politics and the like.

Oh yes, and there is Galadriel, the guys from podcast linked lost me when they started to talk about that Tolkien's letter about the Amazon and how the showrunners are so amazing for quoting it, and they proceeded to talk as if "angry, impulsive" Galadriel meant Amazonian maiden Galadriel from the letter and I'm just like... what? What is wrong with all these people? So even if we want to go through with a fighter "Amazonian" Galadriel... it's not immediately an equivalent of "angry, impulsive" independent female... and yet so many people act like it is. Maybe they're already too far gone, I wouldn't be surprised.

If Galadriel was an Amazonian maiden, when Tolkien says 'maiden' he means that exactly, a young unmarried woman. To quote from letter #348:

Galadriel, like all the other names of elvish persons in The Lord of the Rings, is an invention of
my own. It is in Sindarin form (see Appendices E and F) and means 'Maiden crowned with
gleaming hair'. It is a secondary name given to her in her youth in the far past because she had long
hair which glistened like gold but was also shot with silver. She was then of Amazon disposition
and bound up her hair as a crown when taking part in athletic feats.

...and she'd not been a maiden since early in the First Age, when she married Celeborn. And by rights by the Second Age she should have a young daughter as well, and whatever else Tolkien didn't imagine settled, married Elf-women (much less a Lady of her standing) going off to war. Just look at LOTR, Celeborn acts as the war-leader in the field. Also that quote shows she put her hair up when she' was doing something active (so she didn't wear it loose, or in a single long braid). We know from LOTR that she wore her hair braided (likely something quite elaborate, with a number of braids, because if you had hair as nice as hers you absolutely would as it'd look stunning).

[TesalionLortus]

...and she'd not been a maiden since early in the First Age, when she married Celeborn. And by rights by the Second Age she should have a young daughter as well, and whatever else Tolkien didn't imagine settled, married Elf-women (much less a Lady of her standing) going off to war. Just look at LOTR, Celeborn acts as the war-leader in the field. Also that quote shows she put her hair up when she' was doing something active (so she didn't wear it loose, or in a single long braid). We know from LOTR that she wore her hair braided (likely something quite elaborate, with a number of braids, because if you had hair as nice as hers you absolutely would as it'd look stunning).

That's true. But all I'm saying here is... ugh, even if they wanted an Amazonian Galadriel in Second Age (interpreted as this bad girl fighter of athletic feats) it doesn't mean they needed to make her dumb, impulsive piece of "elsewhere" inexperienced blockhead devoid of a court lady prestige (or with some kind of "feministic woman" aversion to it, perhaps?). Which she will probably become, in some capacity, as all these other independent women tropes end up being. Amazon trope doesn't need to equal "angry, impulsive" - why can't she be wise?

They've actually also mentioned they *do* have a plan for everyone including Celeborn and the daughter... Makes me wonder what plan exactly. Celeborn is attracted to her being an Amazon, perhaps he is "the brain" of that marriage and a wise patient one, while she is still a bit impulsive or whatever, then Celeborn stays at home and protects their child while Galadriel is off to war, probably :P

[Pontin_Finnberry]

As far as we know the writers want a young Galadriel thats still learning more and grows overtime into character you read about in The Lord of the Rings, so she won't always like what we heard so far, and learning is fine, Galadriel had to become wise she didn't start out that way, I personally like how they want to do Galadriel so far, I rather see her learn and grow overtime.

[miriadel]

As far as we know the writers want a young Galadriel thats still learning more and grows overtime into character you read about in The Lord of the Rings, so she won't always like what we heard so far, and learning is fine, Galadriel had to become wise she didn't start out that way, I personally like how they want to do Galadriel so far, I rather see her learn and grow overtime.

Galadriel was taught by Melian herself in Doriath, she was already wiser and more learned in all the things way before the 2nd age or whatever the showrunners want us to believe.... the rash "young" Galadriel is simply dumb.

[Radhruin_EU]

That's true. But all I'm saying here is... ugh, even if they wanted an Amazonian Galadriel in Second Age (interpreted as this bad girl fighter of athletic feats) it doesn't mean they needed to make her dumb, impulsive piece of "elsewhere" inexperienced blockhead devoid of a court lady prestige (or with some kind of "feministic woman" aversion to it, perhaps?). Which she will probably become, in some capacity, as all these other independent women tropes end up being. Amazon trope doesn't need to equal "angry, impulsive" - why can't she be wise?

They've actually also mentioned they *do* have a plan for everyone including Celeborn and the daughter... Makes me wonder what plan exactly. Celeborn is attracted to her being an Amazon, perhaps he is "the brain" of that marriage and a wise patient one, while she is still a bit impulsive or whatever, then Celeborn stays at home and protects their child while Galadriel is off to war, probably :P

I've given up trying to make sense of it, as it's plainly not the same character. If you look at what she was actually meant to have done during the First Age, it can't be squared with the idea of her being brash, impulsive and angry in the Second as if she was still wet behind the ears Nor with commanding an army (not something she ever did); as that'd be Celeborn's job if anything (he was no slouch, he was kin to Thingol) or else Elrond's. Nor going around hunting monsters like Trolls by herself (nobody in their right mind would be doing that, Trolls were just too dangerous).

[TesalionLortus]

As far as we know the writers want a young Galadriel thats still learning more and grows overtime into character you read about in The Lord of the Rings, so she won't always like what we heard so far, and learning is fine, Galadriel had to become wise she didn't start out that way, I personally like how they want to do Galadriel so far, I rather see her learn and grow overtime.

Except there could be new layers of wisdom to gain and even the wise aren't 100% perfect and unflawed. No need to turn her into a generic "angry fighter" trope that may turn out to be not much different than Witcher's Ciri of S2 at best or... worse, much worse (not to say Ciri's character is badly written and the portrayal worked with that particular character/was faithful, but just a good comparison to show that it would feel too "generic" and like that entire aspect of Galadriel being ageless and one of the oldest completely lost, as if she spent the last centuries just running around with sword and being angry and dumb).

[wispsong]

Maybe we should see this as just another generic fantasy series that happens in Tolkien's world with Tolkien character names and races but modernized with made-up stories and ideas.

[Bauglin]

Maybe we should see this as just another generic fantasy series that happens in Tolkien's world with Tolkien character names and races but modernized with made-up stories and ideas.

Do that with any work, and it stops being the original work. At that point, the more honest move would be to give it a new name and throw in the phrase "inspired by" somewhere. Granted, the production would lose the draw of the original author, but if the made-up stories can't stand on their own, co-opting the original name won't make them better.

[Radhruin_EU]

Galadriel was taught by Melian herself in Doriath, she was already wiser and more learned in all the things way before the 2nd age or whatever the showrunners want us to believe.... the rash "young" Galadriel is simply dumb.

Something that occurred to me about that: with the conceit of compressing the entire Second Age into no time flat, relatively speaking, then they may have extended that line of thinking to the First Age as well. If so all that stuff happened 'recently' as it were and Galadriel has neither had time to come to terms with the death of her brothers, nor would have spent all that much time studying with Melian, and so on. Hence her still being 'young', having lots to learn and so on. Makes a sort of twisted sense. (Except it wouldn't be internally consistent because of the apparent ages of other characters, so they'd only be applying it when it suits them, but I think it's one possible explanation for this malarkey).

I said a while back that I thought compressing the timescale was bad as it would distort things...

[TesalionLortus]

I said a while back that I thought compressing the timescale was bad as it would distort things...

They could have done uncompressed First Age timeline "in the background of their mind" though... and write accordingly and faithfully, without needless hoops and leaning too extremely into the trope... while still having some amount of personal baggage for less angry Second Age Galadriel, one that's still capable of some cool combat shown on screen for our pleasure, even with the compression of Second Age... I mean, they could have... if they only wanted........

[Radhruin_EU]

Do that with any work, and it stops being the original work.

And it can lose what people liked about it, too, as we've seen happen elsewhere.

e.g. treating Star Trek like it's a generic sci-fi action romp (the 'Kelvin timeline' movies) or making it glum, dark and pessimistic rather than hopeful (Picard)

You can ruin almost anything by making it generic because by implication you're suppressing any originality it had and with it whatever made it stick out in the first place. If you take Tolkien and make it generic then it becomes indistinguishable from all its countless imitators and forgettable. What can work though is taking something and creatively reimagining it, like the Battlestar Galactica remake did - but that was taking a direly generic and cheesy sci-fi series made on the cheap (a long-dead franchise) and taking the scenario seriously in a compelling way, so that was the opposite of taking an original and genericising it.

[Radhruin_EU]

They could have done uncompressed First Age timeline "in the background of their mind" though... and write accordingly and faithfully, without needless hoops and leaning too extremely into the trope... while still having some amount of personal baggage for less angry Second Age Galadriel, one that's still capable of some cool combat shown on screen for our pleasure, even with the compression of Second Age... I mean, they could have... if they only wanted........

If the First Age wasn't glossed over then they'd have had to deal with the 'real' grown-up Lady Galadriel rather than just giving us 'Galadriel: Warrior Princess', and they'd have needed someone else to be the action hero. As it is they obviously wanted a name to conjure with and weren't above using the tired old revenge motif as motivation and as a reason for her to be angry. These guys can't write for toffee.

[Polymachos]

Nerdrotic is absolutely sure that it will be a dumpster fire. (YouTube video -h8eAidTvTM)

The reason: Warrior Pricess Galadriel, short haired Jor-El Celebrimbor, and way-too-early Harfoots in the west.


Greetings, Polymachos

[TesalionLortus]

Nerdrotic is absolutely sure that it will be a dumpster fire. (YouTube video -h8eAidTvTM)

The reason: Warrior Pricess Galadriel, short haired Jor-El Celebrimbor, and way-too-early Harfoots in the west.


Greetings, Polymachos

Nerdrotic isn't really super deep about lore stuff (and not always right about other franchises), but he isn't dumb and easily swayed either, and gotta love the style of videos, I laugh so hard sometimes at the irony presented (even though all of this is also super sad, with the golden opportunity for truly great Second Age adaptation going down the drain). Also, he is spot on when he reviews Amazon's marketing "tactics" and toxicity towards fans

[Radhruin_EU]

Nerdrotic is absolutely sure that it will be a dumpster fire. (YouTube video -h8eAidTvTM)

The reason: Warrior Pricess Galadriel, short haired Jor-El Celebrimbor, and way-too-early Harfoots in the west.

Yeah, I'd seen that. I don't always agree with that guy, he lays it on a bit thick sometimes (don't like his choice of guests on his streams sometimes either) but I'd say he's right on the money here.

Alas, poor Celeborn ("Have you seen this Elf?" lol) - no surprise there, could see that one coming.

Some bits and pieces from elsewhere:

- A lot of people picked up on Celebrimbor looking like a Kryptonian. Now I'm wryly imagining Sauron as General Zod.
- Celebrimbor dresses like there's now a tunic-shaped hole in the curtains (cannot unsee, it's that green fabric)
- fun being poked at Lenny Henry's comments in that Empire article for him just 'taking up space' - yeah, he's not been funny for decades

[DavidmeetHal]

Yeah, I'd seen that. I don't always agree with that guy, he lays it on a bit thick sometimes (don't like his choice of guests on his streams sometimes either) but I'd say he's right on the money here.

Alas, poor Celeborn ("Have you seen this Elf?" lol) - no surprise there, could see that one coming.

Some bits and pieces from elsewhere:

- A lot of people picked up on Celebrimbor looking like a Kryptonian. Now I'm wryly imagining Sauron as General Zod.
- Celebrimbor dresses like there's now a tunic-shaped hole in the curtains (cannot unsee, it's that green fabric)
- fun being poked at Lenny Henry's comments in that Empire article for him just 'taking up space' - yeah, he's not been funny for decades

Omg, he does look like a Kryptonian. I’ll never be able to look at him the same away again!