Streaming Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power

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Finished the first episode, it probably won't be HBO quality but it's engaging and probably a positive for them is the deprivation of a good fantasy series I'll keep watching. In saying that though the ending credit teaser on ep 1 goes and looks very promising.

One improvement I can already see in the series in developmrnt is the exploration of middle earth
 
The audience score for S2 is 65% on Rotten Tomatoes. But like I said, only the 37% of people who watched S1 to the end will be watching S2 and giving this artificially high score.
 

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The dialogue remains really really really bad. None of the charachters ever really talk to each other and there's no narrative tension resolved through dialogue.. stuff just happens.

In Episode 2 (i think) - Gil Galad tells Galadriel she can't confront Sauron because he's known her mind and can exploit her. She then effectively says, I feel like I need to defeat him because I know him. If it was a Comedy this is where Gil Galad would say "Did you not listen to a single thing I just said" instead the plot just calls for him to say - okay if you try really hard... and she runs off.

It's never been more evident that the people somehow running content on these shows are effectively children who spent too long reading losers shitty fan fiction on line to know anything about dialogue or narrative.
 
Vader said:
Putting all this aside... I really didn't enjoy TRoP season 1 - so I would need to hear "word of mouth" that S2 was a massive upgrade, before I would be willing to commit to giving it another chance.
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I'm in a slightly different bucket to you: I enjoyed S1 in that it was a so-bad-it's-good trainwreck. From Finrod's opening monologue where he demonstrates his knowledge of buoyancy by comparing a stone sinking to a ship floating, to the noble men of Numenor complaining about the elves "coming over here and taking our jerbs", I kept waiting for it to get worse, and it frequently did.

If there was an improvement in its quality such that it became merely boringly bad, I probably won't watch it.
 
FlowersByIrene said:
There seems to be very few fans of this show. Like there's one pro-RoP sub-reddit that I assume is largely bot fed, but there's almost universal distaste for it across platforms. And then look at this thread, very little engagement. I don't think anyone really cares.
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Lol, crock of shit.
 
Vader said:
Just because you happen to enjoy the show doesn't mean that you're not in a very small minority.

There are a LOT of people out there who thought Season 1 was a hot pile of steaming garbage.
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There is plenty of evidence people are enjoying it. Streaming numbers are solid. Plenty of engagement online and programs like Nerd Of The Rings and Rings And Realms getting big support via Kickstarter etc. frankly, most people don't engage in conversations online due to the heavy level of trolls who complain about lore breaches without actually knowing the lore themselves. What is the point of engaging?
 
Charlie Vickers is giving a phenomenal performance as Annatar/Sauron. He brings an unsettling yet captivating presence every time he appears on screen. I enjoyed Shadow of Mordor back in the day, but I still needed more. This is scratching that itch in the best possible way.
 

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Love this fanmade image of What Sauron actually looks like without his armor on.



GXRffhEXEAAanbV
 
Season 1 was poor overall.

Just binged season 2 episodes rhis weekend and I'm enjoying it much more. Albeit under the caveat my expectations were really low.

The numenor plot is the weakest alongside the harfoots.

Elvish and Dwarf plot is better. Especially the Celebrimbor/Annatar dynamic.
 
FlowersByIrene said:
There seems to be very few fans of this show. Like there's one pro-RoP sub-reddit that I assume is largely bot fed, but there's almost universal distaste for it across platforms. And then look at this thread, very little engagement. I don't think anyone really cares.
Click to expand...
Why would anyone who enjoys the show bother engaging with this thread?
 
Rumoured that season 3 has been green-lit by Amazon Prime (which wouldn't be a surprise, since they apparently committed to five seasons at the outset).

 
I watched all of season 1, and the first episode of season 2 and was monumentally bored by the first episode of the new season. I haven't been bothered to watch the later episodes that have been released by Amazon Prime. The pacing of the series was appalling. Kept finding myself scrolling on my phone instead of focusing on the story because the story simply went nowhere.

I agree that Vickers is doing an excellent job with Sauron, but he can't carry the show on his own. The rest of the actors needed to step up their game, and the actor portraying Galadriel is probably the worst of the lot (at least based on what I managed to sit through).
 
Dixie Flatline said:
I watched all of season 1, and the first episode of season 2 and was monumentally bored by the first episode of the new season. I haven't been bothered to watch the later episodes that have been released by Amazon Prime. The pacing of the series was appalling. Kept finding myself scrolling on my phone instead of focusing on the story because the story simply went nowhere.

I agree that Vickers is doing an excellent job with Sauron, but he can't carry the show on his own. The rest of the actors needed to step up their game, and the actor portraying Galadriel is probably the worst of the lot (at least based on what I managed to sit through).
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This is a common criticism and (i think) the only position to take from the show.

The issue is the story is just not what it should be. We know what happens with 'The Rings of Power'. Sauron influences their creation from the shadows, eventually forming the one ring to control them. The age of elves begins to fade, while the empire of Numenor rises as the geo-political power house in Middle Earth. But with Sauron in control of the One, Numenor and men alone cannot stand against him, so the Elves and Men team up, defeat Sauron, cutting the One from his finger and ending the Second Age.

Like any prequel (the Star Wars prequels being the most infamous) we have the key issue in that we know where the story is going. We can't be surprised by Sauron's rise and his eventual defeat. So how do you tell this story?

I think the best part of that story is to tell it as it was intended, a quasi-religious, historical epic with the rise of great men and their fall, a focus on the epic poetry of history, the magic of the world and the might of the people within it. Tell the story as a tragedy where we know what is to happen but the pain and excitement comes from seeing how it plays out and impacts our characters.

The other alternative is to focus rather than on the epic themes of the history as a spectrum, and instead on the interpersonal conflicts and issues that caused the key moments throughout the second age - the corruption of the rings, the rise and fall of numenor, the fading of the elves etc.

Amazon has done neither. Their story is not thematic or grand, it is founded in the minutiae of certain characters, including a focus (seemingly driven out of a desire to copy the format of the Lord of the Rings, a story set in a completely different age with different themes and influences) on the everyday person, the insignificant, the Harfoot children, the Southland single mothers, the Numenorean nepotistic interns etc. Why do we care about these characters in the overarching story that we are being told of Sauron's rise and fall and the efforts of elves and men against them? We don't because they're fake, designed to be something new but given absolutely nothing to do of worth or interest.

When they do take on the lives and times of the Age's key players, Galadriel, Gil Galad, Celembrimbor, Sauron, the Numenoreans etc, they fail at achieving any high-tense politicking, cause and effect or success and failure. The dialogue and motivations are written as if for a CW show, or worse. A far cry from early seasons Game of Thrones which is what they are trying to do with these charachters, the motivations are paper machete, they lack agency with their actions largely being driven by plot contrivances rather than realistic response or established desires.

The show's key focus appears to set up a bunch of mystery boxes. Amazon think, we know where the story ultimately goes, so we'll replace the twists and turns of the grander narrative with a bunch of mystery boxes. Who is the Stranger? Who is Halbrand? Will Celembrimbor know Halbrand is Sauron like we do? When will the Balrog destroy Khazad Dhum? Who is the Dark Wizard, etc etc. And these mystery boxes are done with barely any nuance or grace, plus Amazon has a habit of dropping red herrings which are intentionally misleading and designed to play on the viewer's knowledge of Lord of the Rings only to snap the reveal away from you as if to say "oh you thought you were so smart for knowing Tolkien didn't you, well that was just a lie".

To top it off, they are constantly sprinkling "memberberries" throughout the show with zero rhyme or reason. They think the lack of good narrative and the absence of meaningful dialogue can be rectified by harvesting lines from the Peter Jackson trilogy and dropping them into the show at random. "OH MY GOD SHE SAID GO BACK TO THE SHADOW". It's so asinine.

Overall, the show lacks to tell this story from either an epic, thematic perspective, nor from an interpersonal perspective. It lacks characters with interesting stories and relies on poor reflections of the Jackson trilogy both in characters and dialogue to paper over its failures. It is entirely without merit.
 
FlowersByIrene said:
This is a common criticism and (i think) the only position to take from the show.

The issue is the story is just not what it should be. We know what happens with 'The Rings of Power'. Sauron influences their creation from the shadows, eventually forming the one ring to control them. The age of elves begins to fade, while the empire of Numenor rises as the geo-political power house in Middle Earth. But with Sauron in control of the One, Numenor and men alone cannot stand against him, so the Elves and Men team up, defeat Sauron, cutting the One from his finger and ending the Second Age.

Like any prequel (the Star Wars prequels being the most infamous) we have the key issue in that we know where the story is going. We can't be surprised by Sauron's rise and his eventual defeat. So how do you tell this story?

I think the best part of that story is to tell it as it was intended, a quasi-religious, historical epic with the rise of great men and their fall, a focus on the epic poetry of history, the magic of the world and the might of the people within it. Tell the story as a tragedy where we know what is to happen but the pain and excitement comes from seeing how it plays out and impacts our characters.

The other alternative is to focus rather than on the epic themes of the history as a spectrum, and instead on the interpersonal conflicts and issues that caused the key moments throughout the second age - the corruption of the rings, the rise and fall of numenor, the fading of the elves etc.

Amazon has done neither. Their story is not thematic or grand, it is founded in the minutiae of certain characters, including a focus (seemingly driven out of a desire to copy the format of the Lord of the Rings, a story set in a completely different age with different themes and influences) on the everyday person, the insignificant, the Harfoot children, the Southland single mothers, the Numenorean nepotistic interns etc. Why do we care about these characters in the overarching story that we are being told of Sauron's rise and fall and the efforts of elves and men against them? We don't because they're fake, designed to be something new but given absolutely nothing to do of worth or interest.

When they do take on the lives and times of the Age's key players, Galadriel, Gil Galad, Celembrimbor, Sauron, the Numenoreans etc, they fail at achieving any high-tense politicking, cause and effect or success and failure. The dialogue and motivations are written as if for a CW show, or worse. A far cry from early seasons Game of Thrones which is what they are trying to do with these charachters, the motivations are paper machete, they lack agency with their actions largely being driven by plot contrivances rather than realistic response or established desires.

The show's key focus appears to set up a bunch of mystery boxes. Amazon think, we know where the story ultimately goes, so we'll replace the twists and turns of the grander narrative with a bunch of mystery boxes. Who is the Stranger? Who is Halbrand? Will Celembrimbor know Halbrand is Sauron like we do? When will the Balrog destroy Khazad Dhum? Who is the Dark Wizard, etc etc. And these mystery boxes are done with barely any nuance or grace, plus Amazon has a habit of dropping red herrings which are intentionally misleading and designed to play on the viewer's knowledge of Lord of the Rings only to snap the reveal away from you as if to say "oh you thought you were so smart for knowing Tolkien didn't you, well that was just a lie".

To top it off, they are constantly sprinkling "memberberries" throughout the show with zero rhyme or reason. They think the lack of good narrative and the absence of meaningful dialogue can be rectified by harvesting lines from the Peter Jackson trilogy and dropping them into the show at random. "OH MY GOD SHE SAID GO BACK TO THE SHADOW". It's so asinine.

Overall, the show lacks to tell this story from either an epic, thematic perspective, nor from an interpersonal perspective. It lacks characters with interesting stories and relies on poor reflections of the Jackson trilogy both in characters and dialogue to paper over its failures. It is entirely without merit.
Click to expand...
I'm glad I'm not the only one loving it!
 
That being said, I'm not actually loving it myself haha. I'm enjoying it enough to keep going and I think it's an improvement on the first season, but the issues from the first season are the same issues that are hurting the second season.

Everyone seems to hate the harfoots storyline and the scenes in Numenor, but I quite like them. Except for the new leader's son, who is hamming it up a bit too much for me as the evil brat.
 

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Streaming Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power

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