How We Read Rings of Power

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by alatar

Hey Bb, good to see you over here!


Part of me feels for the constricted writers. But they still need to tell a good story with interesting characters.


I'm not beholden to canon; my wife's never read the Books. Her opinion is that 'ROP is all over the place.' Don't think that she was referring to the map.

Son says something similar but with less confusion. He thinks they are setting up several/multiple narrative streams which will ultimately meet in confluence. And he's already making a few guesses about that. So, not enthusiastic but intrigued by possibilities.

And, hey, I'm not saying I am wildly enthusiastic about the series. I am more interested in finding a place (posts) where new members can feel their enjoyment will not be slammed by oh so officially hounding loremasters of the Silm. One can make criticisms without making it seem there is no home for alternate or happy opinions.

[Mithadan]

I am more interested in finding a place (posts) where new members can feel their enjoyment will not be slammed by oh so officially hounding loremasters of the Silm. One can make criticisms without making it seem there is no home for alternate or happy opinions.

Agreed. We have active and enthusiastic members that were first attracted to JRRT by Jackson's movies. Let's allow the same to happen here.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Son says something similar but with less confusion. He thinks they are setting up several/multiple narrative streams which will ultimately meet in confluence. And he's already making a few guesses about that. So, not enthusiastic but intrigued by possibilities.

And, hey, I'm not saying I am wildly enthusiastic about the series. I am more interested in finding a place (posts) where new members can feel their enjoyment will not be slammed by oh so officially hounding loremasters of the Silm. One can make criticisms without making it seem there is no home for alternate or happy opinions.

I'd decided let science reign, and judge the show on the evidence and not by what I was seeing/hearing/reading from others.


And have I ever had a happy opinion?

[Mithadan]

Alatar, good to see you. The sentiment is appreciated.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

Alatar, good to see you. The sentiment is appreciated.

Good to be back.


I'd learned much when discussing PJ's LotR with others, like just when you think that your POV is the only logical/reasonable POV, you see otherwise.

[Formendacil]

More so than in the more spoilery Episode thread, this seems the best place to put my overall impressions after watching the first episode, not least because my "review" as such probably does work out to an untangling of hermeneutic as much as anything else.

I didn't hate it. That might have been something noteworthy, circa 2002, when I was willing to be the fiercest defender of canon and was willing to write off The Fellowship over Arwen's curved sword, but I was able to watch the middle Hobbit movie and enjoy myself, so the ship has sailed on my need to hate anything that I can demolish with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the source material.

That said, I'm not sure my enjoyment was at all the sort of enjoyment Rings of Power was made to provoke: the whole thing is a puzzle and I want nothing more than to pull on the loose threads and unravel it: why differ from the canon here? Why portray that there? Why, why, why? It is entertaining me, to filter the Tolkien from the not-Tolkien, the gap-filling from the rewriting, and the extremely amateur part of me that has tried to be a writer is enjoying calling things nonsense in a way analogous to the fun of finding a typo in a professionally-published book.

It is somewhat illuminating too: the changes to the plot really don't bother me at all. Changes to nomenclature, mood, word-use, setting--these DO bother me. And, looking back, that's kind of how it was in the beginning: I hated Arwen's curved sword ever so much more than her turning up on Asfaloth, stealing Glorfindel's existence.

[Missed opportunity there! Just think if PJ had given us Glorfindel: he'd be so useful in this story! We're overworking Galadriel just to give us a familiar character.]

The real big takeaway for me, though, is that--besides gently enjoying myself and being ready to go on tomorrow to doing it again--is just how forgettable I think it's going to be. Nothing here is going to change the landscape of Tolkien studies or Tolkien fandom or Tolkien culture the way the Jackson movies did. I don't think it's even going to affect 16 year old fangeeks with a Tumblr the way Jackson's Hobbit movies did. We'll see if I feel that way after another episode or after the whole series, but this far in its... eh, it's not really that worth getting worked over. If you think you're a serious Tolkien scholar, this shouldn't make you mad. That'd be like Shakespeare having to worry about Colley Cibber's pantomime.

[Boromir88]

Great idea for a thread, Bethberry.

I had read Book I of Fellowship of the Ring, before seeing it in theaters (my dad told me I should start the book to have an idea about the movie). I went to theaters, loved the movie. Then proceeded to finish reading Lord of the Rings before The Two Towers came out next year. To this day I credit the movies (and my dad) for my Tolkien passion taking off. I think Fellowship of the Ring is the best movie Jackson did. Since it was a great film, it made me want to finish reading the books. After finishing them prior to The Two Towers coming out in theaters, I found I liked the books better than the movies. The rest is history.

With the Rings of Power series I stopped paying attention to the news and rumors of it around the time the teaser posters came out. I had very low expectations this is (or will be) "the story Tolkien never wrote." My feelings have always been if I wanted a Tolkien story I would just read the books. So, I'm not bothered by the liberties, and lack of lore in the series. I've been watching the series with a group of 5 others, they're all baby LOTR nerds. Some of them have read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and they all know I've read the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales..etc etc. So, it's kind of neat watching it with people who are so far enjoying it and building up their interest to read the books.

I've had an Amazon Prime account for years (the free shipping for having a prime account pays for itself). I'm going to keep my account regardless of whether I continue watching the series or not (again, the free shipping more than makes up the account fees). So, in my head, the series is like a free bonus. I'm not paying anything extra for it. Maybe that's why I've been more open to the series?

[Lalwendë]

It's a very, very long time since I expected book adaptations to be pitch perfect copies of the text. Even if they are, they're often a little bit staid - looking here at Watchmen and Dune, which don't really excite me to watch again. Sometimes, an adaptation takes the source material, screws it up into a ball, throws it in the bin and gold is found - Children Of Men.

So I never had that expectation. And the makers of this said *from the start* they only had access to limited source material. I was therefore sceptical right from the start. I knew it was going to be like very expensive fan fiction.

That's what I went in to expect. My main objection was paying Jeff Bezos, who could spend £28m a day and never run dry, any money. But davem paid for it, so ..😂

I will admittedly hoover up any fantasy TV - but it gets switched off if it leaves me cold (Barbarians, Outlander after it stopped being Scottish, that thing about Crusaders). This didn't. I even enjoyed the bits that annoyed me, feeling self righteous grumps at Finrod being wronged (his real death is so much more...), and laughing at Galadriel's Michael Phelps stint.

During this scene Alfie started going "durrr-der, durrr-der" like the Jaws theme. Me: "If you don't be quiet you can go to your bedroom!" while secretly laughing.

Having a diverse cast? Meh, it's no problem. Lenny Henry is *superb*, he's notoriously Brummie in a TV series based on a Brummie's appendices, absolutely spot on. You can't go wrong with him. All shows swap or change things up - GoT did this in the extreme and it was absolutely fine to change Daenerys from a bald 13 year old into a woman who inspired hair goals, and to not have Peter Dinklage without a nose, or have an old Eddard which meant we got Sean Bean. It's fine in Sandman too, Death was cool, goths don't all have white Manic Panic on their faces.

A slashy Galadriel? Let's see. It looked good, a bit weird and Wagnerian, but I tend to think she got her power from her ring anyway going by what the Osanwe Kenta says. She's a bit po faced just now, but it may change. She plays 'sad' very well.

Let's see how it pans out.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Nothing here is going to change the landscape of Tolkien studies or Tolkien fandom or Tolkien culture the way the Jackson movies did.

Or did it?


Haven't posted here in forever (at least an age or two). Suddenly I get the urge, feel the 'call' as it were, and when I get here, seems like everyone is popping back in as well.


As we sure that The Barrow-Wight isn't Bezos? And RoP isn't just an elaborate scheme to get us all back?


Just saying...

[mark12_30]

I liked it.
Okay, I Loved it.
We got over squashed timelines before. And wympy Treebeard, and waffling Strider. So I can forgive Squashed timeline… and mangled Faramir-I-mean-Finrod. And short-haired elves. It’s a fanfic, streaming once a week.

Looking back over PJ’s movies, I have favorite sections and I have scenes I skip. (Same with the soundtrack.) This will be no different. I just get to take several years to decide what parts are keepers and what parts are skippers.

Did you know they are offering the soundtrack for each episode?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by alatar

I'd decided let science reign, and judge the show on the evidence and not by what I was seeing/hearing/reading from others.


And have I ever had a happy opinion?

Science? We could use your DNA expertise to tell us something about orcs or half-elven.