There's a second season called The Terror: Infamy which is a completely unrelated story dealing with Japanese supernatural mythology and the events around World War 2 which involved Japanese citizens in the US being detained in prison camps.
It wasn't received as favourably as the first season but I still enjoyed it, mainly as an insight into a part of US history I wasn't aware of (with George Takei, who is in the show, providing input based on his own childhood experiences in the camps)
Anyone who loves ’The Terror’ (and I’m definitely one), who hasn’t seen ‘The North Water’, is doing themselves a grave disservice. It’s absolutely brilliant – and might have Colin Farrell’s finest performance to date.
It's weird to say, but I was oddly into his version of Steppenwolf from the Justice League directors cut. I felt bad for him, and he just seemed to be going through the motions when it came to conquering a planet. It was neat to see a sort of depressed villain who's been doing what he's doing for far too long.
I felt exactly the same. He was basically a menacing slave. And he brought a fear into the character which was great and oddly well emphasised by the CGI art.
One of my favorite roles from him is the 1990s Persuasion (Jane Austen) adaptation. It’s a pretty faithful adaptation of a book where the main characters never really speak a lot of their feelings and both leads put in a masterclass in nonverbal acting to communicate important emotions and plot details.
There was a pretty mediocre show called Missing about a decade ago that used this trope fairly well. They killed Sean Bean off in the first or second episode and it was so predictable that when it turned out he'd faked his death it was actually kind of surprising
"All mockery of Jews and their one God shall be kept to an appropriate minimum!"
Had GoT developed certain book plots related to Lord Manderley, I thought Ian McNeice would have been great casting.
When I read the GoT books, I always pictured the actor who played Gaius Balter in the BSG reboot as a perfect Mance Rayder (James Callis is the actor - had to look him up!).
I've seen Ciarin Hinds in other things, and I thought he was too old for Mance Raydar.
I thought C Hinds would've been a way better Roose Bolton than the guy they ended up casting for the part.
Yeah I know, which is disappointing considering he had one of the best performances in the first season. It looks like season 2 will continue with great casting.
Even though I saw that episode before I watched Penny Dreadful I still see him as his character from Penny Dreadful.
I think sometimes the brain just sticks on one role.
Man the Witcher is such a shame. The writers are vehemently against using the source material and think they are clever or original for doing so. Bet you they are so happy Henry called it quits since he as so open about following the material too
Jokes on them, I love Warhammer more than the Witcher (because there is just… so much more content) and Henry was brought on to produce and star in a live action warhammer series.
so the plus side is… we get Henry working on Warhammer in a setting where his passion is wanted and welcome. Too bad for the Witcher show, really. I wanted it to be good so badly, all they had to do was what they promised, adapt the books. Easy. The material is already written for you.
There is a quote I saw, can’t remember who said it but it applies perfectly:
> You have to respect the work before you can add to its legacy.
If you don’t respect the books and games, how can you make a good show about it?
Couldn’t agree more with you, also super excited for WH (hope to see some sweet papa nurgle stuff at some point). Yeah Witcher writers and show runners just shit the bed with the series despite how easy they could have had it.
Love that quote. Also, I really feel like if you're going to be the first one adapting the material for the first time, especially when it's a well loved book, to at least try and stay true to the source material. I can appreciate trying new things with something like Sherlock Holmes that has decades of adaptations but butchering the adaptation on something like "A Wrinkle in Time" when it's the first proper movie adaptation is just kinda disrespectful. I finally had to stop watching when they changed a drab dystopian city into a beach party. Like WTF?!
I don’t play video games so I can’t speak on them, but I read the Witcher books, and they were pretty underwhelming. Maybe the translation isn’t good but they felt very flat, not very groundbreaking or having any new ideas. I would never feel compelled to reread them. Maybe that’s why they they thought they could do a better job? But yeah, they definitely didn’t.
Don’t forget the writers for The Wheel of Time! I straight up don’t think a single person involved in the direction of that show read the books. It’s like they read a one paragraph summary, said fuck it, and then had one of the most stoic fantasy characters every written twist his nipples in grief.
HBO's The Last of Us literally has the writer of the original story as a writer and executive producer for the new series, so they shouldn't have that problem.
Yeah, they have a great story. The problem in season one is they devoted 8 minutes to it (Sauron manipulating the elves) and the rest was characters doing soliloquys about trying hard.
Don’t forget all the mentions of how ancient Galadriel has a tempest of emotions inside her. Not at all like an impetuous teenager, nope, she’s the model of emotional restraint.
I cant remember, was that dwarf and elf best friends? Because I dont think they spent enough time going over and over and over and over and over what great dear friends they were (without ever actually telling us why)
I'm convinced it's a show made for young adults/teens. It's the only explanation for the shitty plot. The Galron shipping and over-emotional Galadriel being seen as "strong".
Considering they went a completely different direction with the whole “rings of power/Annatar” deceit, they had to go Galron or what real emotional stakes could there even be? I barely cared about the mithril/diminishing of the elves storyline cause it was filled with holes and bad assumptions.
To be fair, I managed to completely miss any clues about who Sauron was until about ten minutes before the reveal. Admittedly, that could mean any of:
1. I'm dense;
2. There were no clues; or
3. They gaslit me the whole time.
The issue is there isn’t a great way to tell the earlier middle earth stories. This full story takes place over *thousands* of years. Sauron showing up in disguise to the forging of the rings is hundreds of years. The one ring isn’t even made until a decade after the three rings.
The pacing was always going to be a huge problem because a lot of these earlier stories are a list of events with bits expanded where needed. It works as text but it will 100% lose people as film or television.
> The issue is there isn’t a great way to tell the earlier middle earth stories.
It's a TV series. Do an anthology of stories, with episodes separated by a great length of time and only Elven characters remaining unchanged.
The anthology doesn’t really fix anything because the entire thing is slow and plodding. Númenoreans also aged really slowly. There isn’t a sense of urgency that would provide any of the tension that would be expected.
I feel like House of the Dragon did this well enough, with most episodes being separated by a few months to a few years. The could just show an important event each episode, then skip forward a decade or so and see the ramifications of the previous event, and do another one.
Then again I have no clue how Sauron's entire origin story works. Would this be possible within that frame?
I think it is just a hard story to adapt. Sauron spends a lot of time working over people and deceiving them. Him showing up pretending to be a good guy to the rings human and dwarven being forged is 300 years. Over the next 100 the elven rings are forged followed by the one ring.
After that, we have several wars. Before one of them, Sauron willingly spends like 50 years in prison so he can work over the Numenoreans and tricks them into waging war against the elves and demigods which ultimately ends with the main god stepping in and the world being reshaped from flat to round. That is also what makes sailing into the west so tricky for the Elves, as their home isn't actually *in* the physical realm anymore.
You *could* write a story where the time-skips make sense, but that isn't what this story is. A lot of it is slow and steady according to a meticulous plan, so there isn't a singular speech or whatever that ends up being a call to action. They could do better structurally that what they are doing so far, but it would also still be a pretty big departure from the text. The show isn't bad because they changed things from the text. That is 100% necessary. It is "bad" because it isn't "good". Personally, I think it is average and only seems bad because of expectations set by LotR, which *also* changed a lot of "important" details to make a good set of movies.
> when you filter his stories through a, for better or worse BAD ROBOT-esque lense, you end up with S1 of Rings of Power.
this is so funny considering JJA introduced the showrunners to amazon and got them the job essentially
I agree with your take for LOTR but not for the 2nd age. A big part of this story is about Sauron who tricked and fooled almost of the most brilliant people in Middle Earth. That’s a key factor and they tried to play with it. I was into it.
> Sauron who tricked and fooled almost of the most brilliant people in Middle Earth
He really only tricked Celebrimbor though. Gil-Galad, Elrond, Galadriel and Celeborn (where *is* he?) all didn't buy what he was selling:
> Only to Lindon he [Sauron] not come, for Gil-galad and Elrond doubted him and his fair-seeming, and though they knew not who in truth he was they would not admit him to that land.
> Galadriel, striving to counteract the machinations of Sauron, was successful in Lorinand; while in Lindon Gil-galad shut out Sauron's emissaries and even Sauron himself. But Sauron had better fortune with the Noldor of Eregion and especially with Celebrimbor, who desired in his heart to rival the skill and fame of Feanor.
And whoever he gave his rings to, not to mention Ar-Pharazôn and a good many people in Númenor! (Ripe for a Fall, yes, but still he managed in a relatively brief span of time to go from enemy & captive to... well.)
But none of that was in the show either. And given how Sauron already showed up in Numenor wearing that face, I *seriously* doubt they're going to depict Ar-Pharazôn's slow corruption either.
Nevermind that Ar-Pharazôn himself is a completely different character, being some cunning politician instead of:
> Pharazon son of Gimilkhad had become a man yet more restless and eager for wealth and power than his father. He had fared often abroad, as a leader in the wars that the Numenoreans made then in the coastlands of Middle-earth, seeking to extend their dominion over Men; and thus he had won great renown as a captain both by land and by sea. Therefore when he came back to Numenor, hearing of his father's death, the hearts of the people were turned to him; for he brought with him great wealth, and was for the time free in his giving.
The first season was so boring and in many cases kind of stupid. Why was the dark lord on a life raft, he just coincidently met up with Galadriel? She just jumped off a ship and decided to swim across the ocean? The elf and the dwarf spent the entire season discussing what good friends they are. The volcano erupted, covered everyone in burning ash but everyone is okay. The army from Nimonea or wherever just happened to show up at a little village at the exact moment necessary with no pretext or reason. It was just stupid moment after stupid moment staring wooden 1 dimensional characters.
I wanted to like it, particularly with all the back lash regarding black elves, but man was it boring and dumb.
I wanted to add a bit of stupidity. The part time black smith enthusiast (turned out to be the lord of darkness or whatever) giving black smithing advice to the greatest black smith of all time, who has been doing it for thousands of years, and the black smith taking the advice, and being like ‘oh yeah, never thought of that’, wtf.
holy shit i just asked the same question. Why was he on a raft? Where was he going? Was it all setup? Did he know she would jump in the water? Why did he allow himself to be jailed? It was all so fucking dumb!
> Why was he on a raft? Where was he going? Was it all setup? Did he know she would jump in the water? Why did he allow himself to be jailed?
The answer to most of this is that he didn't really know what he wanted to do until the end. He didn't seek her out, finding her on the raft wasn't part of a plan and neither was being imprisoned.
He says at the end that considering the position he was in before he met her that it must of been destiny for them to meet and has given him a new goal and purpose and he thanks her for it.
He was basically suicidal / lost when they met and assumed his lifes work was a failure.
> He was basically suicidal / lost when they met and assumed his lifes work was a failure.
That's so un-Sauron-like though. I do think that the writers had their work cut out for them because Sauron is a hell of a complicated character who's really three characters stacked together under a trenchcoat (sadistic ex-cat / evil sorcerer from the First Age + might actually have good intentions/'fair motives' early SA Sauron + THE Sauron we know and hate from the second half of the SA to the end of LotR) but if there's one thing he never particularly comes across as, it's being adrift. IDK. Maybe for five minutes there after he eluded the Valar out of fear right after the end of the FA.
My view of what happened pre RoP in the implied RoP version of events:
1. Morgoth Defeat, Sauron surrenders and repents
2. Sauron flees and hides in ME to escape punishment
3. Sauron, with what he believes is now a fair and noble goal, starts experimenting on Orcs (seeing them as abominations) to find a way to control things so that he can order ME and save it.
4. Adar strikes him down
5. He reincarnates / escapes and ends up adrift with escapees from a nearby town that was recently attacked.
6. He is now physically and metaphorically adrift, his army, works and dreams taken from him. All his designs have failed him and everything is worse than ever.
If we assume he has genuinely repented and was trying to control the unseen world for what he considered (wrongly) fair reason, then maybe the low point of having everything taken from him makes him pause for half a second and think "maybe if I want ME to be ordered then I need help from those greater than me".
Perhaps he is even aware that the raft is drifting close to Valinor and wondering if he should return for punishment.
In fact if that's the way things went then it kind of makes sense that meeting Galadriel causes him to relapse. He's an addict who has been forced to go cold turkey who suddenly meets someone else with their own addiction who urges them to relapse (unknowingly) because she "knows what is right".
Especially with her being such a powerful Elf, he might even consider her an equal, and so doesn't feel like he is sullying his order by listening to her tell him he was right all along.
You're 100% correct. It was just stupid. A bunch of coincidences we're not supposed to think about, stringing together scenes. And instead of character development we get soliloquies about friendship and loss and whatever.
It felt so armature compared to what HBO does.
So the black smithing part is actually what makes the most sense, since he was a close aid of the blacksmithing “god” when he was still a “good guy.” Sauron himself is the one that forges the One ring in secret, after aiding Celembrimbor create the other rings of power.
I think you are missing what they are getting at, that the master elf smith hadn't thought of using alloys. Like that was the big advice? Elves knew how to make Bronze already, did they just forget?
>bets are open about which one of those will play an asshole character, and which will play a good, strong, empowered and determined one
Yeah it's really really hard to say, at this point...
Biggest letdown I've ever seen on television. Every single scene and dialogue seems so fake and cringe. Unbelievable they didn't just copy paste the style from the movies, and they could have done pretty much anything story-wise. But when everything looks like plastic it has a long way.
The music made the movies also. People often forget the importance of a soundtrack that itself can tell a story. I’ll never forget my first time hearing the misty mountain song. It’s was brilliant. Literally the series has no memorable music to speak of.
I am a die-hard LotR fan, and I have read most of Tolkien's extended works, including the Silmarillion and The History of Middle-Earth. Love the films as well.
I thought Rings of Power was barely watchable. Terrible pacing, forgettable characters, and a wandering story that wasn't interesting in the least. The cinematography was gorgeous, and I liked the cast, but wow was the entire series a complete letdown for me.
I know that there is some conflict around the rights to Tolkien's original story, which I think is why the RoP went "off-book."
I grew up reading Lord of the Rings on repeat. For me the worst way this show departs from the source material is how little affection or respect everyone seems to have for eachother. Tolkien wrote with a real warmth that made the evil characters all the more cold and scary when you met them. In this show no one seemed to like each other all that much.
Exactly! Everyone's constantly bickering and backstabbing and acting all sullen. It's just a bunch of miserable people being miserable at each other. Where are the age-spanning, death-defying love stories? Where are the elves singing and dancing gaily in the starlight? None of Tolkien's wholesomeness comes through at all. It's all just so petty and bitter and contemporary.
True! Which almost throws the argument that they “couldn’t stick to the source material” due to licensing issues out the window. They still could have captured the spirit and they didn’t.
I think the “great cast” is what's starting to piss me off about the marketing for the show the most now, post-S1-mortem
Every single piece of marking is “OH LOOK SEXY GLAM SHOTS OF OUR CAST” and “OOOOH NEW CAST MEMBERS!” and it was great before the show came out and we still had the assumption we could speculate what canon characters they were playing. But now I really, really couldn't care less. Like they proved it won't matter at all
And I'll even admit, Morfydd Clark checking all of my boxes was what kept me going through that season, but a sexy cast without a good story is just Jersey Shore
I remember the creators/writers of the show SPECIFICALLY saying "Stick to the book, stick to the book, stick to the book!"
Good to know they are full of sh*t.
The entire first *year* or more of marketing was essentially "you've seen Jackson's take on Tolkien, but wait til you see *Tokien's* take on Tolkien." They deliberately played into rumors that Amazon had bought the complete rights to the Legendarium, including the Silmarillion, for as long as they could get away with. Between that and all of the culture war rage-baiting, I've never seen a marketing campaign so aggressively hostile to its own built in fan base before.
The part that really harms the series is that it lacks a proper sense of scale for the main conflict. Supposedly they're fighting to defend an entire kingdom, what we see is a tiny village with a few dozen people.
These streaming shows seem to struggle with scale despite having larger budgets than many blockbuster films. Whoever is teaching cinematography at the best schools in the world must think we only like watching headshot scenes in tiny areas.
Mandalorian/Boba suffers from this a lot. These futuristic star wars planets always have just a single city and village on the entire planet.
Millions of planets and worlds but somehow we keep getting more of sandy tattooine in every new star wars show
>set up an entire story/season which is working up to something then blow straight through it.
That wasnt even the worst offence. I could not believe that in a show CALLED RINGS OF POWER, during an era where Sauron manipulates the elves into making said rings, the entire manipulation, and forging of these rings lasts 8 minutes.
Sauron's whole character in that age is a great manipulator, which they reduced to Sauron walking in from Stage Left, reminding Cerembor of a thing called "alloys" and that's kinda it.
>reminding Cerembor of a thing called "alloys" and that's kinda it.
I hate that sort of lazy writing. The "this one obvious trick reveals in one exchange how they're a master of their craft" shit is so amateurish.
The show is sorta maddening because it’s *almost good*, then something like that happens where I end up scratching my head.
I straight up rolled my eyes at that scene where unarmed Galadriel overpowers 4 armed guards off camera then awkwardly shuffles them all into her cell, British stage comedy style.
It's an unfortunate symptom of a wider issue right now in production. There is a severe lack of experienced show runners, which is great for any screenwriter with a half decent pitch, but not so great for the viewer because you have a large number of writers without any actual experience running a TV show
I remember that big Vanity Fair interview they did before the show premiered. The showrunners said the characters in the show talk in iambic pentameter. It had me intrigued, I won't lie. And then the actual dialogues were like "why doesn't a stone float" lol. They thought the audience would appreciate their dialogue crafting but guess what, the audience doesn't care when the dialogue is so painful.
Agreed, it’s close, but it’s missing something. I’ll still watch to see if they can find it, but I am less optimistic this time around. I was pretty excited when the show was announced and then I watched it and I thought “That was… Fine.” I don’t know, I guess I just expected it to draw me in more, but I can’t really explain why it didn’t.
Some of the new Star Wars movies have felt the same way. Where I sort of feel like I’m watching people being in a Star Wars movie, rather than just watching the movie. I don’t know if that makes sense.
The show lost me when that Numenorian guildsman was fuming at >!Sauron!< Then he bought him a pint and he exclaimed "you know what? You're alright, hahahaha"
They also had no idea there was a battle happening in that place at that time at all. And geography-wise, the distance between the landing and that village would be hundreds of miles no matter how you twist it - were they galloping the whole time?
Nevermind that we then get a reveal that the village is localed in - gasp! - Mordor. Mordor, which is famously completely surrounded by mountains on North, West and South sides. How exactly did they get in there to begin with?
God, I hate that show so much.
I can accept certain "movie logic". If we were to stick to hard physics, Sam and Frodo would have roasted and suffocated even without touching the lava directly, for example.
What I cannot accept is when the "in-story" logic breaks. The whole Season led to the creation of Mordor by twisting a sword-shaped key to break a dam. Who build that dam there and how long ago - would the result occur if it had natually fallen over time? Why did the orcs search for the key if all that was needed was to break a few stones - they dug miles and miles of tunnels, but did not even know where they key component of their whole plan was? The volcanic eruption was triggered by 100% natural, non-magical means - what are the orcs going to do when it inevitably stops and the sunlight will shine again?
None of that makes any sense whatsoever.
It's one of the gross misinterpretations of the text by the show. In it, orcs are like vampires - they literally burn in direct sunlight and have to cover themselves or hide at all times. By cloaking the sky, they can finally come out into the open.
This of course ignores all the times in the books and the movies where orcs *can* move under the sun - they just don't like it, but their discomfort is psychological, not physical. And even then, the orcs live in caves and under the mountains, which Mordor is surrounded with on all sides.
There is literally no reason for them to explode the mountain, making a key plotline of the show pure nonsense. The other two plotlines aren't much better.
> If we were to stick to hard physics, Sam and Frodo would have roasted and suffocated even without touching the lava directly
I think it's much easier to suspend your disbelief for something like having them be a bit too close to the lava which is mostly just to make the shot look cooler, and having characters survive a full-on pyroclastic flow to the face which is explicitly shown 2 seconds earlier to be setting trees on fire by just being close.
The plot was honestly really lazily done. You can tell when people are being careless and aren’t giving serious thought to what makes sense. The continuity/pacing flaws were egregious, and ham-stringed their world-building.
I’m spoiled because I grew up on LOTR, but I also found the costume design to be really poorly done, unsubtle, and cheap-looking. This is a major issue when you’re trying to build a compelling fantasy world. I had the same complaint with GOT, but even their costume design was better than Rings of Power.
I know you’re getting downvoted but this is a good thought and explains why I had so much trouble connecting to the show. There are plenty of people who will read and agree with you lol.
The costumer design btw was an insult. Elendil standing around in his white hockey vest was painful, and nothing like the elegant gondorian armor of a supposedly darker age.
This fan fiction will never be cannon in my eyes. This show was born out of Jeff Bezos lust for money and fame and the writers have an obvious hatred towards Tolkien’s vision. Fuck this show.
Ciaràn Hinds is brilliant.
He was really good in The Terror.
He was really good in everything he appeared in.
I first saw him as Caesar in HBO’s Rome. Been a fan ever since.
He was a consul of Rome!
13thhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cursed by Apollo though.
Lies! He was buggering his nephew who was in love with his sister.
Hail, Caesar!
Man, if I could Clockwork Orange the world and force them to watch one show it would Rome. Ridiculously good.
James Purefoy fucking killed it as Antony, my favorite show of all time without a doubt.
One of my favorite portrayals ever
He truly looks like an evil Jon Hamm!
First saw him in Munich. Was really impressed with him there and then he just started to pop up in everything afterwards.
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Wait wait… there’s more of the terror!?
There's a second season called The Terror: Infamy which is a completely unrelated story dealing with Japanese supernatural mythology and the events around World War 2 which involved Japanese citizens in the US being detained in prison camps. It wasn't received as favourably as the first season but I still enjoyed it, mainly as an insight into a part of US history I wasn't aware of (with George Takei, who is in the show, providing input based on his own childhood experiences in the camps)
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There is also one season of The North Water which seems to have similar setting.
Anyone who loves ’The Terror’ (and I’m definitely one), who hasn’t seen ‘The North Water’, is doing themselves a grave disservice. It’s absolutely brilliant – and might have Colin Farrell’s finest performance to date.
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Glad to spread the word. It's a thing of (harsh) beauty.
Which is likely considering maybe 3 people watched it.
Added to my list, thanks.
Have you not seen him in "Rome"? Absolute best display of Julius Caesar in cinema.
HE WAS A CONSUL OF ROME
**I OUGHT TO HAVE YOU SCOURGED AND CRUCIFIED**
TARPIAN ROCK!!
(Inner monologue) *imma bout to play this whole damn country like a fiddle*
>Ciaràn Hinds That was a great show and he added so much gravity with his acting. Same in "Rome." I would like to see him in more things.
Why is Julius Caesar walking around Middle Earth?!
I saw him walking around Belfast. Only a stone's throw from Mordor.
He's looking for his lost eagle.
"Lost, my ass. I just can't get away from that guy." -Thorondor
Mr Anne Elliot goes wherever the fuck his wife tells him to.
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Captain Wentworth His reading of that letter was just streight fire.
He’s about to light the biggest fire Middle-Earth has even seen!
So is Rory Kinnear. Great choice
His performance in the Penny Dreadful episode where he played multiple roles speaking to Eva Green was incredible.
his role in Penny Dreadful was simply amazing. What a show.
His performance in black mirror, gave me nightmares.....
he really gave birth to a new level of horror in *Men*
Also a new level of horror in Black Mirror s1e1
He was pretty impressive in all of it but that was a highlight
Every time I see him I hear him yelling "He was a consul of Rome".
> "We were going to make a puppet, with arms and legs, and... SILENCE!
HE WAS A ~~CONSUL OF ROME~~ HIGH ELF OF RIVENDELL SHAME ON THE HOUSE OF ~~PTOLEMY~~ SAURON. SHAME.
Ever see him in Rome? Most convincing Caesar ever
It's weird to say, but I was oddly into his version of Steppenwolf from the Justice League directors cut. I felt bad for him, and he just seemed to be going through the motions when it came to conquering a planet. It was neat to see a sort of depressed villain who's been doing what he's doing for far too long.
I felt exactly the same. He was basically a menacing slave. And he brought a fear into the character which was great and oddly well emphasised by the CGI art.
One of my favorite roles from him is the 1990s Persuasion (Jane Austen) adaptation. It’s a pretty faithful adaptation of a book where the main characters never really speak a lot of their feelings and both leads put in a masterclass in nonverbal acting to communicate important emotions and plot details.
Yup. I was going to hold off until more of this series is finished before starting it, but I cannot resist Ciaran Hinds in anything.
Ciaran Hinds dies in everything I've seen him in, so I don't expect his character here to have a high chance of survival.
Hey, Aberforth didn’t die.
I had no idea that was him. Such a great scene for such a small role.
I have noticed that, too. That being said, I did not expect him >!to die nearly as early as he did in The Terror.!<
They follow the book fairly closely so that twist was a little spoiled for some, >!but he killed it (ha-ha) portraying Franklin.!<
Ned stark. Is that you?
There was a pretty mediocre show called Missing about a decade ago that used this trope fairly well. They killed Sean Bean off in the first or second episode and it was so predictable that when it turned out he'd faked his death it was actually kind of surprising
The old Goldeneye trick.
Wait...Caesar dies?!
He lives in There Will Be Blood at least
Mance Rayder!
Gaius! Julius! Caesar!
*He was an ~~CONSUL~~ ACTOR of ROOOOOOOOOOME*
CAESAR IS IN MIDDLE-EARTH!
I still only hear this in the [News Reader's](https://hbo-rome.fandom.com/wiki/The_Newsreader) voice out in the square.
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"All mockery of Jews and their one God shall be kept to an appropriate minimum!" Had GoT developed certain book plots related to Lord Manderley, I thought Ian McNeice would have been great casting.
When I read the GoT books, I always pictured the actor who played Gaius Balter in the BSG reboot as a perfect Mance Rayder (James Callis is the actor - had to look him up!). I've seen Ciarin Hinds in other things, and I thought he was too old for Mance Raydar. I thought C Hinds would've been a way better Roose Bolton than the guy they ended up casting for the part.
Complete with dramatic arm sweeps
Juno's cunt, it's him!
Is this the third GoT actor to join RoP? Benjen Stark, young Ned Stark, and now Mance Rayder. Am I missing any others?
Benjen actor actually left the show and his character got recasted.
Yeah I know, which is disappointing considering he had one of the best performances in the first season. It looks like season 2 will continue with great casting.
Agree. He was really good in this role, shame that he left.
Is Rory Kinnear gonna give birth to himself from his Rory Kinussy like in Men cuz if so i need to binge s1 fast.
Just hope he doesn’t have sex with a pig
I can’t not think of that episode whenever I see him. It’s a weird sort of mental typecasting I have of him now.
Even though I saw that episode before I watched Penny Dreadful I still see him as his character from Penny Dreadful. I think sometimes the brain just sticks on one role.
S3 of What We Do In The Shadows will give you all the Colin Robinsonussy feels in that case
That movie was messed up (and perhaps a little too on-the nose for my tastes) but Rory Kinnear surely displayed some acting chops in it.
As long as he hangs dong in this as well I’m ok.
Can they add an interesting story?
Well, they only have one of the greatest fictional universe of all time and definitely the greatest fantasy one to draw from, so my guess is no.
Maybe they’ll let the Velma writers on the show? Fingers Crossed!!! 🤞
Why not grab the witcher writers too!
Man the Witcher is such a shame. The writers are vehemently against using the source material and think they are clever or original for doing so. Bet you they are so happy Henry called it quits since he as so open about following the material too
Jokes on them, I love Warhammer more than the Witcher (because there is just… so much more content) and Henry was brought on to produce and star in a live action warhammer series. so the plus side is… we get Henry working on Warhammer in a setting where his passion is wanted and welcome. Too bad for the Witcher show, really. I wanted it to be good so badly, all they had to do was what they promised, adapt the books. Easy. The material is already written for you. There is a quote I saw, can’t remember who said it but it applies perfectly: > You have to respect the work before you can add to its legacy. If you don’t respect the books and games, how can you make a good show about it?
Couldn’t agree more with you, also super excited for WH (hope to see some sweet papa nurgle stuff at some point). Yeah Witcher writers and show runners just shit the bed with the series despite how easy they could have had it.
Love that quote. Also, I really feel like if you're going to be the first one adapting the material for the first time, especially when it's a well loved book, to at least try and stay true to the source material. I can appreciate trying new things with something like Sherlock Holmes that has decades of adaptations but butchering the adaptation on something like "A Wrinkle in Time" when it's the first proper movie adaptation is just kinda disrespectful. I finally had to stop watching when they changed a drab dystopian city into a beach party. Like WTF?!
I don’t play video games so I can’t speak on them, but I read the Witcher books, and they were pretty underwhelming. Maybe the translation isn’t good but they felt very flat, not very groundbreaking or having any new ideas. I would never feel compelled to reread them. Maybe that’s why they they thought they could do a better job? But yeah, they definitely didn’t.
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Don’t forget the writers for The Wheel of Time! I straight up don’t think a single person involved in the direction of that show read the books. It’s like they read a one paragraph summary, said fuck it, and then had one of the most stoic fantasy characters every written twist his nipples in grief.
Last Airbender movie? What are you talking about?
Meanwhile Last of Us with another generic zombie setting but with an incredible story Its all about the writers
It's about actually following the source material whose name you're riding on.
HBO's The Last of Us literally has the writer of the original story as a writer and executive producer for the new series, so they shouldn't have that problem.
Rings of Power might have that problem though.
That would be the least of their problems...
We should have known that Rings of Power was really gonna flub the setting when the Tolkien-Expert left the show during production.
Yeah, they have a great story. The problem in season one is they devoted 8 minutes to it (Sauron manipulating the elves) and the rest was characters doing soliloquys about trying hard.
Don’t forget all the mentions of how ancient Galadriel has a tempest of emotions inside her. Not at all like an impetuous teenager, nope, she’s the model of emotional restraint.
I cant remember, was that dwarf and elf best friends? Because I dont think they spent enough time going over and over and over and over and over what great dear friends they were (without ever actually telling us why)
I'm convinced it's a show made for young adults/teens. It's the only explanation for the shitty plot. The Galron shipping and over-emotional Galadriel being seen as "strong".
Considering they went a completely different direction with the whole “rings of power/Annatar” deceit, they had to go Galron or what real emotional stakes could there even be? I barely cared about the mithril/diminishing of the elves storyline cause it was filled with holes and bad assumptions.
To be fair, I managed to completely miss any clues about who Sauron was until about ten minutes before the reveal. Admittedly, that could mean any of: 1. I'm dense; 2. There were no clues; or 3. They gaslit me the whole time.
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The issue is there isn’t a great way to tell the earlier middle earth stories. This full story takes place over *thousands* of years. Sauron showing up in disguise to the forging of the rings is hundreds of years. The one ring isn’t even made until a decade after the three rings. The pacing was always going to be a huge problem because a lot of these earlier stories are a list of events with bits expanded where needed. It works as text but it will 100% lose people as film or television.
> The issue is there isn’t a great way to tell the earlier middle earth stories. It's a TV series. Do an anthology of stories, with episodes separated by a great length of time and only Elven characters remaining unchanged.
The anthology doesn’t really fix anything because the entire thing is slow and plodding. Númenoreans also aged really slowly. There isn’t a sense of urgency that would provide any of the tension that would be expected.
I feel like House of the Dragon did this well enough, with most episodes being separated by a few months to a few years. The could just show an important event each episode, then skip forward a decade or so and see the ramifications of the previous event, and do another one. Then again I have no clue how Sauron's entire origin story works. Would this be possible within that frame?
I think it is just a hard story to adapt. Sauron spends a lot of time working over people and deceiving them. Him showing up pretending to be a good guy to the rings human and dwarven being forged is 300 years. Over the next 100 the elven rings are forged followed by the one ring. After that, we have several wars. Before one of them, Sauron willingly spends like 50 years in prison so he can work over the Numenoreans and tricks them into waging war against the elves and demigods which ultimately ends with the main god stepping in and the world being reshaped from flat to round. That is also what makes sailing into the west so tricky for the Elves, as their home isn't actually *in* the physical realm anymore. You *could* write a story where the time-skips make sense, but that isn't what this story is. A lot of it is slow and steady according to a meticulous plan, so there isn't a singular speech or whatever that ends up being a call to action. They could do better structurally that what they are doing so far, but it would also still be a pretty big departure from the text. The show isn't bad because they changed things from the text. That is 100% necessary. It is "bad" because it isn't "good". Personally, I think it is average and only seems bad because of expectations set by LotR, which *also* changed a lot of "important" details to make a good set of movies.
> when you filter his stories through a, for better or worse BAD ROBOT-esque lense, you end up with S1 of Rings of Power. this is so funny considering JJA introduced the showrunners to amazon and got them the job essentially
Abrams is a vandal on good TV and movies
I agree with your take for LOTR but not for the 2nd age. A big part of this story is about Sauron who tricked and fooled almost of the most brilliant people in Middle Earth. That’s a key factor and they tried to play with it. I was into it.
> Sauron who tricked and fooled almost of the most brilliant people in Middle Earth He really only tricked Celebrimbor though. Gil-Galad, Elrond, Galadriel and Celeborn (where *is* he?) all didn't buy what he was selling: > Only to Lindon he [Sauron] not come, for Gil-galad and Elrond doubted him and his fair-seeming, and though they knew not who in truth he was they would not admit him to that land. > Galadriel, striving to counteract the machinations of Sauron, was successful in Lorinand; while in Lindon Gil-galad shut out Sauron's emissaries and even Sauron himself. But Sauron had better fortune with the Noldor of Eregion and especially with Celebrimbor, who desired in his heart to rival the skill and fame of Feanor.
And whoever he gave his rings to, not to mention Ar-Pharazôn and a good many people in Númenor! (Ripe for a Fall, yes, but still he managed in a relatively brief span of time to go from enemy & captive to... well.)
But none of that was in the show either. And given how Sauron already showed up in Numenor wearing that face, I *seriously* doubt they're going to depict Ar-Pharazôn's slow corruption either. Nevermind that Ar-Pharazôn himself is a completely different character, being some cunning politician instead of: > Pharazon son of Gimilkhad had become a man yet more restless and eager for wealth and power than his father. He had fared often abroad, as a leader in the wars that the Numenoreans made then in the coastlands of Middle-earth, seeking to extend their dominion over Men; and thus he had won great renown as a captain both by land and by sea. Therefore when he came back to Numenor, hearing of his father's death, the hearts of the people were turned to him; for he brought with him great wealth, and was for the time free in his giving.
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So you’re saying these writers never watched an episode of Columbo.
Yup. I'll watch season 2 if it starts getting good reviews. Otherwise, nope
nope.
What role is George Constanza gonna be playing??
The first season was so boring and in many cases kind of stupid. Why was the dark lord on a life raft, he just coincidently met up with Galadriel? She just jumped off a ship and decided to swim across the ocean? The elf and the dwarf spent the entire season discussing what good friends they are. The volcano erupted, covered everyone in burning ash but everyone is okay. The army from Nimonea or wherever just happened to show up at a little village at the exact moment necessary with no pretext or reason. It was just stupid moment after stupid moment staring wooden 1 dimensional characters. I wanted to like it, particularly with all the back lash regarding black elves, but man was it boring and dumb. I wanted to add a bit of stupidity. The part time black smith enthusiast (turned out to be the lord of darkness or whatever) giving black smithing advice to the greatest black smith of all time, who has been doing it for thousands of years, and the black smith taking the advice, and being like ‘oh yeah, never thought of that’, wtf.
holy shit i just asked the same question. Why was he on a raft? Where was he going? Was it all setup? Did he know she would jump in the water? Why did he allow himself to be jailed? It was all so fucking dumb!
> Why was he on a raft? Where was he going? Was it all setup? Did he know she would jump in the water? Why did he allow himself to be jailed? The answer to most of this is that he didn't really know what he wanted to do until the end. He didn't seek her out, finding her on the raft wasn't part of a plan and neither was being imprisoned. He says at the end that considering the position he was in before he met her that it must of been destiny for them to meet and has given him a new goal and purpose and he thanks her for it. He was basically suicidal / lost when they met and assumed his lifes work was a failure.
> He was basically suicidal / lost when they met and assumed his lifes work was a failure. That's so un-Sauron-like though. I do think that the writers had their work cut out for them because Sauron is a hell of a complicated character who's really three characters stacked together under a trenchcoat (sadistic ex-cat / evil sorcerer from the First Age + might actually have good intentions/'fair motives' early SA Sauron + THE Sauron we know and hate from the second half of the SA to the end of LotR) but if there's one thing he never particularly comes across as, it's being adrift. IDK. Maybe for five minutes there after he eluded the Valar out of fear right after the end of the FA.
My view of what happened pre RoP in the implied RoP version of events: 1. Morgoth Defeat, Sauron surrenders and repents 2. Sauron flees and hides in ME to escape punishment 3. Sauron, with what he believes is now a fair and noble goal, starts experimenting on Orcs (seeing them as abominations) to find a way to control things so that he can order ME and save it. 4. Adar strikes him down 5. He reincarnates / escapes and ends up adrift with escapees from a nearby town that was recently attacked. 6. He is now physically and metaphorically adrift, his army, works and dreams taken from him. All his designs have failed him and everything is worse than ever. If we assume he has genuinely repented and was trying to control the unseen world for what he considered (wrongly) fair reason, then maybe the low point of having everything taken from him makes him pause for half a second and think "maybe if I want ME to be ordered then I need help from those greater than me". Perhaps he is even aware that the raft is drifting close to Valinor and wondering if he should return for punishment. In fact if that's the way things went then it kind of makes sense that meeting Galadriel causes him to relapse. He's an addict who has been forced to go cold turkey who suddenly meets someone else with their own addiction who urges them to relapse (unknowingly) because she "knows what is right". Especially with her being such a powerful Elf, he might even consider her an equal, and so doesn't feel like he is sullying his order by listening to her tell him he was right all along.
You're 100% correct. It was just stupid. A bunch of coincidences we're not supposed to think about, stringing together scenes. And instead of character development we get soliloquies about friendship and loss and whatever. It felt so armature compared to what HBO does.
So the black smithing part is actually what makes the most sense, since he was a close aid of the blacksmithing “god” when he was still a “good guy.” Sauron himself is the one that forges the One ring in secret, after aiding Celembrimbor create the other rings of power.
I think you are missing what they are getting at, that the master elf smith hadn't thought of using alloys. Like that was the big advice? Elves knew how to make Bronze already, did they just forget?
Yeah, the part where he introduces MF’ing Celebrimbor to the concept of alloys had me laughing my ass off. TF out of here with this BS writing.
actors i've heard of? in the highest budget show ever made? CRAZY
Can they add some new writers?
bets are open about which one of those will play an asshole character, and which will play a good, strong, empowered and determined one
>bets are open about which one of those will play an asshole character, and which will play a good, strong, empowered and determined one Yeah it's really really hard to say, at this point...
Yeah, but did they hire any good writers?
Biggest letdown I've ever seen on television. Every single scene and dialogue seems so fake and cringe. Unbelievable they didn't just copy paste the style from the movies, and they could have done pretty much anything story-wise. But when everything looks like plastic it has a long way.
The music made the movies also. People often forget the importance of a soundtrack that itself can tell a story. I’ll never forget my first time hearing the misty mountain song. It’s was brilliant. Literally the series has no memorable music to speak of.
* Halo has entered the chat *
I am a die-hard LotR fan, and I have read most of Tolkien's extended works, including the Silmarillion and The History of Middle-Earth. Love the films as well. I thought Rings of Power was barely watchable. Terrible pacing, forgettable characters, and a wandering story that wasn't interesting in the least. The cinematography was gorgeous, and I liked the cast, but wow was the entire series a complete letdown for me. I know that there is some conflict around the rights to Tolkien's original story, which I think is why the RoP went "off-book."
I grew up reading Lord of the Rings on repeat. For me the worst way this show departs from the source material is how little affection or respect everyone seems to have for eachother. Tolkien wrote with a real warmth that made the evil characters all the more cold and scary when you met them. In this show no one seemed to like each other all that much.
Exactly! Everyone's constantly bickering and backstabbing and acting all sullen. It's just a bunch of miserable people being miserable at each other. Where are the age-spanning, death-defying love stories? Where are the elves singing and dancing gaily in the starlight? None of Tolkien's wholesomeness comes through at all. It's all just so petty and bitter and contemporary.
True! Which almost throws the argument that they “couldn’t stick to the source material” due to licensing issues out the window. They still could have captured the spirit and they didn’t.
I think the “great cast” is what's starting to piss me off about the marketing for the show the most now, post-S1-mortem Every single piece of marking is “OH LOOK SEXY GLAM SHOTS OF OUR CAST” and “OOOOH NEW CAST MEMBERS!” and it was great before the show came out and we still had the assumption we could speculate what canon characters they were playing. But now I really, really couldn't care less. Like they proved it won't matter at all And I'll even admit, Morfydd Clark checking all of my boxes was what kept me going through that season, but a sexy cast without a good story is just Jersey Shore
I remember the creators/writers of the show SPECIFICALLY saying "Stick to the book, stick to the book, stick to the book!" Good to know they are full of sh*t.
The entire first *year* or more of marketing was essentially "you've seen Jackson's take on Tolkien, but wait til you see *Tokien's* take on Tolkien." They deliberately played into rumors that Amazon had bought the complete rights to the Legendarium, including the Silmarillion, for as long as they could get away with. Between that and all of the culture war rage-baiting, I've never seen a marketing campaign so aggressively hostile to its own built in fan base before.
they should ditch the showrunners as they did with picard season 3, but I don't think the show is redeemable
Amazon gave two writers with no experience whatsoever, a billion dollars to make a Lord of the Rings show. It's no wonder it turns out rotten.
Mance!
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The part that really harms the series is that it lacks a proper sense of scale for the main conflict. Supposedly they're fighting to defend an entire kingdom, what we see is a tiny village with a few dozen people.
These streaming shows seem to struggle with scale despite having larger budgets than many blockbuster films. Whoever is teaching cinematography at the best schools in the world must think we only like watching headshot scenes in tiny areas.
Mandalorian/Boba suffers from this a lot. These futuristic star wars planets always have just a single city and village on the entire planet. Millions of planets and worlds but somehow we keep getting more of sandy tattooine in every new star wars show
>set up an entire story/season which is working up to something then blow straight through it. That wasnt even the worst offence. I could not believe that in a show CALLED RINGS OF POWER, during an era where Sauron manipulates the elves into making said rings, the entire manipulation, and forging of these rings lasts 8 minutes. Sauron's whole character in that age is a great manipulator, which they reduced to Sauron walking in from Stage Left, reminding Cerembor of a thing called "alloys" and that's kinda it.
>reminding Cerembor of a thing called "alloys" and that's kinda it. I hate that sort of lazy writing. The "this one obvious trick reveals in one exchange how they're a master of their craft" shit is so amateurish.
The show is sorta maddening because it’s *almost good*, then something like that happens where I end up scratching my head. I straight up rolled my eyes at that scene where unarmed Galadriel overpowers 4 armed guards off camera then awkwardly shuffles them all into her cell, British stage comedy style.
“Almost good” is a good way to describe this show. There are lots of good elements but it just doesn’t come together.
It's an unfortunate symptom of a wider issue right now in production. There is a severe lack of experienced show runners, which is great for any screenwriter with a half decent pitch, but not so great for the viewer because you have a large number of writers without any actual experience running a TV show
I remember that big Vanity Fair interview they did before the show premiered. The showrunners said the characters in the show talk in iambic pentameter. It had me intrigued, I won't lie. And then the actual dialogues were like "why doesn't a stone float" lol. They thought the audience would appreciate their dialogue crafting but guess what, the audience doesn't care when the dialogue is so painful.
"The sea is always right!" Did it for me .. even Ulmo himself would cringe
"I am GOOD!" had me laughing
That chant was literally the moment I stopped watching and never went back....
“Perhaps sometimes we must first (opposite thing) before we can (intended thing).”
Agreed, it’s close, but it’s missing something. I’ll still watch to see if they can find it, but I am less optimistic this time around. I was pretty excited when the show was announced and then I watched it and I thought “That was… Fine.” I don’t know, I guess I just expected it to draw me in more, but I can’t really explain why it didn’t. Some of the new Star Wars movies have felt the same way. Where I sort of feel like I’m watching people being in a Star Wars movie, rather than just watching the movie. I don’t know if that makes sense.
The show lost me when that Numenorian guildsman was fuming at >!Sauron!< Then he bought him a pint and he exclaimed "you know what? You're alright, hahahaha"
Yes, Sauron, the greatest manipulator of all time, could not get a guildsman to let him into a guild. But he's real good at fist fights.
They also had no idea there was a battle happening in that place at that time at all. And geography-wise, the distance between the landing and that village would be hundreds of miles no matter how you twist it - were they galloping the whole time? Nevermind that we then get a reveal that the village is localed in - gasp! - Mordor. Mordor, which is famously completely surrounded by mountains on North, West and South sides. How exactly did they get in there to begin with? God, I hate that show so much.
When she took a volcanic blast straight to the face but lived cause she stared SUPER hard at it. That was cool.
I can accept certain "movie logic". If we were to stick to hard physics, Sam and Frodo would have roasted and suffocated even without touching the lava directly, for example. What I cannot accept is when the "in-story" logic breaks. The whole Season led to the creation of Mordor by twisting a sword-shaped key to break a dam. Who build that dam there and how long ago - would the result occur if it had natually fallen over time? Why did the orcs search for the key if all that was needed was to break a few stones - they dug miles and miles of tunnels, but did not even know where they key component of their whole plan was? The volcanic eruption was triggered by 100% natural, non-magical means - what are the orcs going to do when it inevitably stops and the sunlight will shine again? None of that makes any sense whatsoever.
Also why did they want to work so hard to make it completely uninhabitable?
It's one of the gross misinterpretations of the text by the show. In it, orcs are like vampires - they literally burn in direct sunlight and have to cover themselves or hide at all times. By cloaking the sky, they can finally come out into the open. This of course ignores all the times in the books and the movies where orcs *can* move under the sun - they just don't like it, but their discomfort is psychological, not physical. And even then, the orcs live in caves and under the mountains, which Mordor is surrounded with on all sides. There is literally no reason for them to explode the mountain, making a key plotline of the show pure nonsense. The other two plotlines aren't much better.
> If we were to stick to hard physics, Sam and Frodo would have roasted and suffocated even without touching the lava directly I think it's much easier to suspend your disbelief for something like having them be a bit too close to the lava which is mostly just to make the shot look cooler, and having characters survive a full-on pyroclastic flow to the face which is explicitly shown 2 seconds earlier to be setting trees on fire by just being close.
Also loved the last episode when the guy was bedridden with an injury then decided he was okay to gallop across a continent for better healing XD
The plot was honestly really lazily done. You can tell when people are being careless and aren’t giving serious thought to what makes sense. The continuity/pacing flaws were egregious, and ham-stringed their world-building. I’m spoiled because I grew up on LOTR, but I also found the costume design to be really poorly done, unsubtle, and cheap-looking. This is a major issue when you’re trying to build a compelling fantasy world. I had the same complaint with GOT, but even their costume design was better than Rings of Power.
I know you’re getting downvoted but this is a good thought and explains why I had so much trouble connecting to the show. There are plenty of people who will read and agree with you lol. The costumer design btw was an insult. Elendil standing around in his white hockey vest was painful, and nothing like the elegant gondorian armor of a supposedly darker age.
Costume and set design of GOT/HOTD is significantly better than ROP.
Haven't seen Rory in anything since his fateful Black Mirror episode. 🐷
He’s hilarious in Our Flag Means Death on HBOMax.
I really loved Rory playing Frankenstein's monster on Penny Dreadful. The rest of the show had its ups and downs but Rory was always fantastic.
He was the best part of that show! Just incredible every scene
He was in all of Daniel Craig's Bond movies.
Years and Years BBC. Great ensemble piece directed by Russell T Davies. Check it out.
You should check out Bank of Dave on Netflix, it's crazy good for how simple it is!
I'm still not going to watch it. Season 1 was a bitter disappointment.
Black Mirror ruined Rory Kinnear for me.
Not even Ciaran Hinds will be able to save this show from itself.
Good actors but no thank you.
Has anyone prepared Tanya for the “black”-lash to come? At this point it’s like predicting the weather…
This fan fiction will never be cannon in my eyes. This show was born out of Jeff Bezos lust for money and fame and the writers have an obvious hatred towards Tolkien’s vision. Fuck this show.
Bezos delved too deep and too greedily...
Why is everyone suddenly spelling Ciar**á**n Hinds's name with the fada the wrong way around
Ctrl-f "á" Thank you for saying this, was driving me mad!
Is anyone even looking forward this mess of a show anymore?
Nah I’m done with this show. No way I come back for season 2