Expectations VS Reality with Rings Of Power
When I heard Amazon had acquired the rights to make a new Lord of the Rings show, I was overwhelmed with joy and excitment. When the first picture of the second age map, the excitment bar reached to a higher level. I always envisioned in my head the show tone and design would be similar to PJ Lotr movies.
When the show aired, I was completely immersed without thinking of any of my expectations, because I was happy to return to the show. Now that it has ended, thoughts of how I envisioned the show came back. ROP still has taken strong cues from Lotr trilogy. Mordor looks basicially the same as from the movies. Same things with the orcs, balrogs, landscapes, elvish structures, weapons, somewhat the armor etc. But I wished it could have been much more? Like I envisioned the elves would still retain long hair, so I was a bit taken aback when suddenly we see them as high-fantasy versions of Vulcans. Galadriel and Celebrimbor are characters I was surprised they took a completely u-turn with. Sauron disguising himself as a low-man and not a angelical being Annatar. I don't want to talk about so much the criticism surrounding the show, but I do think if some of the stuff I mentioned about the elves, Galadriel and Celebrimbor were closer to PJ films, like Galadriel being the wise and ethereal, Celebrimbor was much younger looking(Charles Edward did a good job though)and elves had long hair, the negativety against the show would be much lesser. Overall, I really enjoyed the show and just happy we get to return to the world of ME. |
The estimable Bret Devereaux weighs in on why ROP's rendition of Middle-earth feels - and falls - flat. Excerpt:
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We tend to seek consistency between RoP and Tolkien's writings. As I commented in other threads, such consistency may be difficult considering what rights Amazon has and does not have. This is not to say that I find RoP to be consistently in line with "canon." I do not and find many of the deviations to be jarring and distracting.
Perhaps a question that is fairer under the circumstances is whether RoP is, itself, sufficiently consistent internally to allow "the audience to engage their emotions with the characters and story." |
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If you throw that out, you get Alice in Wonderland... or William Burroughs. |
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Having witnessed the way the BBC, Netflix, and Hollywood retell old stories to and... hm... "update" them for "modern" audiences, I was already pessimistic about Amazon's Ring's series.
The first preview confirmed my fears and added even more. The clips of action scenes (i.e. Galadriel vs the troll, Galadriel vs prison guards) imprisoned me somewhere between hysterical laughter and a feeling of despair that this... this... was going to be entertainment until I'm dead; "If you want a picture of the future, imagine the worst of wire-fu and waifu stamping on a human face - forever," to rephrase Orwell. This Quora reply sums up my feelings on the series to the point that I don't have to rephrase anything: https://tolkienlegendarium.quora.com...et_type=answer |
I hadn't seen this screenshot before, but when I did, I had to post it, just to reinforce the question, How could the most expensive entertainment production in history put out costumes both so ill-designed and so cheap-looking?
https://i0.wp.com/acoup.blog/wp-cont...ng?w=738&ssl=1 This is worse than most sword-n-sorcery B-movies. And not on an extra, but a major character (both for the series and the legendarium). Shall we count the sins? That cuirass has no moulding at all in the y-axis, save where it curves over the shoulders. There isn't a hint of globular, peasecod, taper, whatever- it's basically a cylinder, making it a very, very poor defense, not really designed to deflect at all, and certainly not remotely up to historical standards; it's practically flat over his chest. And, while it correctly ends at the waist, not the hips- there is then no additional defense for the lower abdomen! What? Orcs don't go for the low thrust? Add to that arm cutouts which are too restricting, there is no way he could reach significantly across his body; and the complete absence of arm or shoulder defenses (don't tell me he just took them off for everyday wear- in that case he wouldn't be toting 20 pounds of bronze on his back). Dear Lord, didn't anyone on this project know anything about armor, or even do the most basic photographic research???? Oh, and then it is SO OBVIOUSLY plastic. Cheap cheap cheap cheap cheap. Aule help them! PS, here's a legit cuirass https://i.pinimg.com/736x/6f/e5/e1/6...88354537f9.jpg |
Prof. Devereaux weighs in again, to devastating effect:
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Read it all for a blow by blow fisking of the moronicity of Episode 6: https://acoup.blog/2023/01/27/collec...alling-towers/ The Rings of Power isn't simply bad Tolkien, it's bad television, period. It practically defines "hack work." |
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Unfortunately, while the plastic was quite haute couture early on for the decadent Elves, and de rigeur for feasts and parading about in prancing Noldorin fashion, it did not (as you can readily guess) suit them well in battle. Eventually, they had to acquiesce and deal with the grungey Dwarves to provide their metallic accoutrements. |
Guessing that the show lived up to my expectations, seeing the current state of entertainment. The Ms and I have watched RoP, WoT, and Willow, and haven't been excited about any of them. Add recent Marvel productions to the same m'eh list. We did start to care just a little about characters in WoT (that barely), but not in any of the other shows.
After the first few RoP episodes, viewing became a chore, as we decided to watch them all, but weren't excited to do so. It's not Tolkien, as obvious from the above. It's modern 'story telling.' Characters never seem to get challenged, they never pause for a moment and reflect, CG throws a lot of noise at the screen, and yet, by the end, I don't care if any or all of the characters die off, as I haven't been helped by the writing to connect with any of them. Don't care about physics (yes, I just typed that), or plastic props, etc, if the story and characters are compelling and relatable. We, and obviously others, are turning away. As y'all probably know, I've said much about Peter Jackson's take on LotR. And yet I would rewatch the one FotR scene (from the extended version) where Legolas and Gimli reflect on Galadriel's gift, than to rewatch any of RoP. Not sure what the solution is - I can complain about the writers and yet can barely write this post, so no help there. Surely the studio heads can find other writers that can fix these m'ehs. |
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