[Formendacil]

So, I have seen Episode 1 and deliberately held off on Episode 2, so as to allow my thoughts to percolate. I made a running list of notes as I was watching, which I present lightly edited and even more lightly expanded. I warn that it's quite stream-of-thought.

• Musical cue = very movie. Did they get Howard Shore?

• Elven children throwing rocks = this does not feel right. The Fall of the Elves is at the end of Valinor; this is too much in its noon.

• Darkness of the Ocean should not bother the Elves--and "up" should mean Stars, not Lights.

• ears seem less pointed

• "they said it would be over quickly" = clearly a "home by Christmas WWI reference, but why? The War of the Jewels was not WWI sublimated, but Tolkien's ANSWER to WWI--his escape. Odd.

• Forodwaith is too tall: should not be uber-Rockies

• "Commander Galadriel" "other commanders"--too Latinate! Tolkien never uses the word, does he? Certainly not as an address.

• zero tension: if this is your Galadriel, she SHOULD not find anything** Okay, expanding here: I think what I meant is that since we KNOW that Sauron is out there, we, as the audience, should either be allowed to cut to the chase OR it needs to be more clear that Galadriel is really chasing after nothing--instead, we have plenty evidence in a single episode that she's right. So what was the point of this? There's no tension.

• Is reflection-Galadriel here to help make you think "wow, she really looks like Kate Blanchette?"

• "a trail for orks to follow--were they supposed to follow Finrod's shoulder?

• Troll: replaying Moria sequence? Or trying to show that Elves are so much cooler?

• WHY the giant antlers? A Thranduil-call sideways?

• I like the round door "etymology."

• Nori is actually linguistically appropriate, but still stupid.** My meaning was that Dwarves take outer names from the human peoples around them, and the Mannish tongues of Rhovannion in the 2nd Age are a not-implausible source for the names Dori, Nori, and Ori--it's just still stupid when the audience is going to think immediately of a Dwarf. How was that the point?

• Elrond is Bilbo/Frodo-writing?

• "Elf-Lords only" is too 21st century

• First impression: I LIKE young-Elrond but cannot picture him as the same being as Hugo Weaving.

• Graeco-Roman is far better for Elves than Celto-Nipponese

• Galadriel being junior in any way to Gil-galad distorts the family tree so much!

• Downfall of New Zealand: not enough flat! (Quoth the prairie lad)

• Why "Harfoot"? What was wrong with "holbytla"?

• Why is the ceremony in nature? This is the High King of the Noldor--"only the stones remembered them" in Eregion. These are the builders of Gondolin and Nargothrond! Why is this a proto-Lorien?

• I do like Gil-galad as a presence.

• Why is he talking about "granting" passage--the Exiles TOOK passage? But potentially complicated and interesting to explore the tension around accepting the Pardon of the Valar.

• Did not expect fireworks!

• He literally just walking in, Nerwen!

• How would Elrond know what Finrod would think? Because your great-grandfather was there at his death?

• It's weird, but the in-between dynamic of Gil-galad's man and Galadriel's friend does seem right.

• "No one in history has ever refused the call"--what are you talking about, Elrond? Though Galadriel's refusal is very true to character.

• Why the ears (other than Hugo, of course)? Can't you make more clear that he's half-man?

• Tired of the map already. A strength of the Jackson movies was living IN the geography and capturing the book's labourious movement through it. Not so here!

• Harad looks no further south than Lindon or Rhovanion--because all of them are New Zealand.

• Bree with funny hats.

• Why British accents in Harad? Okay, I know why: all fantasy beings speak British--so no American accents--and you must avoid Evil Stereotypes, so real world English-as-a-Second-Language accents are out, but I don't like it.

• Is that a Return of the King motif for Sauron? A twist I'd not expected, but he did portray himself as an heir of Morgoth, I suppose.

• This Harad-woman seems too much "modern woman." Do I think this because of visuals or because she seems to be straight of a Netflix romance?

• Should have said "leaf-mould" instead of "rotten leaves." Missed opportunity!

• Where is this Elven outpost? The High King is Noldor--who acknowledges him so far out? And the design is all Silvan!

• Does the cow have the Black Death?

• Are we going to get a Sauronic "shards of Narsil"--Narsil itself barely got the shards of Narsil!--Nevermind, it's a proto-Morgul blade.

• The standing on the ship has to be Elrond's stupid dream, right?

• Ugh, Gil-galad is not so good this scene... regretting my earlier approval. Why is he PRO-Celebrimbor?

• Well, at least Celebrimbor LOOKS like a mad scientist Elf.

• Are the good people in your bad village SUPPOSED to make me think of Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah?

• That ship looks so CGI.

• Are they in a trance?

• What happens to the Elven-servants taking their armour off? Why the two tiers of shipmates?

• Is trip to Valinor actually an artistic depiction of ritual suicide?

• Okay, the ship climbing the straight road is cool imagery, even if the dumbly-standing Elves are still ridiculous.

• Is Sauron a meteor? Is this a dinosaur extinction metaphor?

• Flashback-Finrod has made me decide he cannot be Finrod. Looks, sounds, and talks nothing like my mental image. Could be Aegnor.

• This feels more 1st Age Doom of the Noldor but it'd make a cool setpiece in an Eärendil retelling

• Kind of a Stardust ending.