Rings of Power: Positive vs Negative

[JackTorrance]

So many people, when ROP was released, that it contradicted many aspects of Tolkien lore (for example, Morgoth created Mount Doom in the First Age, but it was a dormant ice volcano in ROP's Second Age)
I wanna see every contradiction in Rings of Power.
Note: We will not be focusing on the race-swapping of the elves since that one is inherently political and will lead, inevitably as it often does, to pointless drama and flame war. Although I wish I could list it, It would still be inherently divisive.
I think its why the show is failing: unlike Peter Jackson's trilogy adaption of LOTR, which was faithful to the books, ROP was designed with numerous contradictions, despite the existence of many Tolkien encyclopedias, online and physical, I guess they were just too lazy to google it.
Feel free to add also timeline and geographical contradictions.

 

[Halasían]

...Peter Jackson's trilogy adaption of LOTR, which was faithful to the books...

Peter Jackson's trilogy adaption of LOTR, which was faithful to the books? Seriously?
😆🤣😂😅 Anybody who has read the Lord of the Rings books and understands the story knows this is pure fallacy.

Judging by the cosplaying and a renewed interest in Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and the other books published by Christopher Tolkien brought on by the series, I would say that Rings of Power hasn't "failed". But since you have framed this thread as a (yet another) 'Pro-PJ/anti-RoP' thread topic right out of the gate, have at it folks

 

[JackTorrance]

Anybody who has read the Lord of the Rings books and understands the story knows this is pure fallacy...I would say that Rings of Power hasn't "failed". But since you have framed this thread as a (yet another) 'Pro-PJ/anti-RoP' thread topic right out of the gate, have at it folks

Rings of Power hasn't failed? Literally, the entire Tolkien fandom has gone to war against this thing. Remember the PR event? It was a massive disaster as they didn't select some random LOTR fan, but instead selected social media influencers: everyone knows their intent was to dispel the rumors of contradictions, but they were so fake, that a plank of wood has more personality, anyways, it pretty much confirmed everyone's fears; this was not going to be a faithful adaption of the world created by one man, but rather they were going to "alter" it to suit their needs. There is a reason why "Evil cannot create, it can only corrupt and destroy what good has made" is getting posted a lot everywhere. Since you declare Peter Jackson's attempt to translate Tolkien's story into the trilogy to be a fallacy, tell me why you think ROP is better than PJ's version.

 

[Server Room Gremlin]

Literally, the entire Tolkien fandom has gone to war against this thing.

Not literally. I haven't seen it and I don't care one way or the other. I am slightly curious about how the whole thing will turn out in the end, story/plot-wise, but I'll probably learn that eventually from second-hand sources or in summary form. I prefer reading the books anyway.

 

[Halasían]

Rings of Power hasn't failed? Literally, the entire Tolkien fandom has gone to war against this thing. Remember the PR event? It was a massive disaster as they didn't select some random LOTR fan, but instead selected social media influencers: everyone knows their intent was to dispel the rumors of contradictions, but they were so fake, that a plank of wood has more personality, anyways, it pretty much confirmed everyone's fears; this was not going to be a faithful adaption of the world created by one man, but rather they were going to "alter" it to suit their needs. There is a reason why "Evil cannot create, it can only corrupt and destroy what good has made" is getting posted a lot everywhere. Since you declare Peter Jackson's attempt to translate Tolkien's story into the trilogy to be a fallacy, tell me why you think ROP is better than PJ's version.

The words of totality in your post crack me up. Nowhere did I say that Rings of Power was 'better' than PJ's movies. I just called out the BS in your opening post. To say that... " Literally, the entire Tolkien fandom has gone to war against this thing" is you limiting to a narrow scope what 'Tolkien fandom' is. You are literally saying that anyone who has come to know of Tolkien's book via Rings of Power are not 'fans'. You are saying that all the wonderful cosplayers putting work into Rings of Power characters are not 'fans'. Your reply to me is just more of the typical PJ fanboi 'gatekeeper' crap. Like I said in my earlier post, you started the thread and framed it such, so have at it. Start listing. Feel free to tell me again about your exclusive view of Tolkien fandom, and what I 'said', and what I 'believe'. I'll be around.

Edit Dec 6: Not caring to bump this trolling thread, I'll say The Ent has summed it up well with his post here. Sadly though, the self-proclaimed exclusive "Tolkien Fandom" will shovel more coal in their boilers as season 2 approaches. You wait.

As for as the revised thread title; I'll just drop my review here where I mention positives and negatives, etc.

• Visuals/Special effects - A-. I think they captured the look and feel of Middle Earth in general, with Numenor and Khazad Dum the stars of the presentation. I will put this in the 'visuals' .... Charles Edwards is a wonderful actor and he is doing a great job of presenting Celebrimbor, he does not have the look of the Celebrimbor that is in my head-canon. It is one of the big negatives I have with the visuals so I mention it here. It's is along the lines of Liv Tyler not appearing as the Arwen of my head canon.
• Costumes/Make-up - B. It is weighted on an 'overall' scale as some I thought was really good, and a few things I thought was not-so-good. First some of the not-so-good. In agreement with Melahny, the elf-ears are a weak-link especially coupled with the short hair. The only one that it really works with is Arondir. Also, some of the armour looked rather pedestrian. On the plus side, they portrayed the Dwarves really well, especially both Durins. I liked the guild emblems of Numenor, and I liked how Galadriel, Mariel, Elendil, and Farien were portrayed. A big plus for me is the Orcs... Uruks. Much more menacing than the PJ Orcs! They captured them well. Overall, they captured the essence with most of the costuming.
• Acting - B. There are some stellar scenes, and some are doing much better than others. I think a lot of the negatives I have pertain more to the script writing than the actor's themselves. The acting standouts for me are the characters Durin III, Durin IV, Arondir, Mariel, and Elendil. Honorable mentions are Pharazon, Adar, Theo, and Galadriel. I'm fairly neutral on the rest. The actors and the acting is good, but is hindered by the scripts they are handed. I look beyond the accents used just as I look beyond the heritage of the actors.
• Plot - C. I found the plot somewhat rudderless as if the showrunners were themselves floundering with what direction to take, especially in the first few episodes. The whole of the sea scenes where Galadriel gets on board to Valinor, then jumps off far to the west is a total cringeworthy 'WTH' moment for me. I 'get' what they were trying to set up, but that was just outright bad along the lines of Arwen catching Aragorn out in the wild at unawares. Add to that Halbarand and Co out floating on wreckage without much of any explanation as to 'why' they were out there, and the who/what/why/how the 'Corsairs' were out raiding ships in the Sundering Seas, really had me shaking my head. In the end it was used to bring Galadriel and 'Halbarand' to Numenor. Also, another cringeworthy 'WTH' moment for me was/is the whole 'Mithril' being needed to 'save' the elves. I will give credit to the whole good/evil battle of the tree creating mithril as a neat fan-ficcy tale, but that whole Elf-Mithril connection storyline was a bit rough to take. Also, with the Balrog scene in the depths of Khazad Dum, I'm really hoping that they don't bring it in too soon, which it is appearing they will do.
• Writing/Dialogue - D+. This is where a lot of it falls down for me. I could go into this rather deep, but will just say that lines like Galadriel saying to Elrond when he tells her to put up her sword 'Without it, what am I to be', and Bronwyn's whole offhanded 'I'll go with you' when Arondir says he is going off east. Another crappy portrayal was the whole "fight" with the Ice Troll. Galadriel's 'squad' looked pretty useless as they got kicked around much like Gondor's soldiers in the battle of Osgiliath in PJ's project. Galadriel comes and PJ Legolas-like, saves the day singlehandedly, complete with sword-spin when she is done, and oh look... it seems all the squad is back standing around again. I mention Peter Jackson's film projects here, because the writing of rings of Power seems to love giving hat-tips to those projects with their fancy Legoladriel footwork, dropping orc-heads in front of people, and finding a Viggo lookalike actor for Halbarand. I get they are trying to do fan service with all this, but it falls flat, and the fans of PJ will only point out that they are 'copying the master' or something. It is my hope that the showrunners give up on trying to incorporate so much fan-service and do their own thing (within the lore if not canon), for better or worse. One of the plusses is the usually-mentions of characters and moments in the Tolkien lore. Feanor and the Silmarils, Anarion (though they seem to allude that he is the 'older' brother to Isildur and Farien), and the visuals of the Two Trees of Valinor in the 1st episode.
• Music - A. I find no real flaws with it, and I did enjoy Fiona Apple's singing 'Where The Shadows Lie' at the end of the last episode very nice!
• Themes/Motifs - C-ish. Not sure which way to go with this. It sort of rolls into the whole 'visuals' thing. They done wonderfully with Numenor, though I would have liked to see it a bit 'grander' and the ships bigger and more plentiful. Since the timelines are all distorted, I would love to see their shipbuilding yards in Middle Earth (Lond Daer, etc.) and with the mention of Pelargir at the end of the last episode, there is a possibility they might allude more to this? The reason I think it would be good is to demonstrate the strengthening of Numenor, and the reason I think they won't is they seemed to have ingrained in the earlier episodes that going to Middle Earth was something Numenor didn't like doing.
• Overall - 6/10. I debated making it higher but so much of it was quite rough. The whole 'The Sea Is Always Right' lameness cost it a half-point. You may note that I have left out the whole Harfoot story in my summary. The reason is I thought it was to me it was a bit of a sideshow to the whole telling of the rest of the tale. The whole storyline would be a wonderful story on its own, but it is a bit rough at this point merging it in with the rest of what was presented. I know the whole 'meteor man' story is incorporated into it and they are alluding to it being Gandalf, but when he was using his powers in that last episode, he had an eerie 'Christopher Lee' look to him. It is my hope that it would be Radagast as they could do more with his backstory. Saruman would be a decent choice as they could portray that he was initially good. The whole 'watcher' bit I feel was a missed opportunity for the show to show some depth in the 'wizard' storyline, but I'll get more into that another time as I digress here. Overall, I thought the show was a reasonable effort in portrayal while adhering to the restraints put on them by the limitations of source material, the setting in the 2nd Age, and the individual approvals needed from the Tolkien Estate for stretching the boundaries. Oddly, but not surprisingly, my overall rating for Rings of Power is the same as my overall rating of the three PJ movies.

 

[d4rk3lf]

I am with Halasian that PJ movies are not faithful to the book.
They are just like Christopher Tolkien described it:
"... They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25"

However, ROP is so horrible, that you can't really compare it with anything. It's definitely the worst series I have ever watched. It's a random mess of disjointed half/plots, and worst dialogue in cinema history. I'd have more fun watching an empty wall.
It is so bad, that I think it will be remembered as an example for future generations, how not to create a series, because they practically failed in every single aspect.

Listing the "non lore" stuff would be too long for a simple forum post, and there's better way to do it. You simply ask opposite question: "What part of this series is respecting the lore"? And the answer is simple: Nothing.

 

[Ent]

Folks, folks... this is not a 'with or against' issue.
Mr. Torrance has made some comments some disagree with, and indeed some 'all inclusive' comments a little wide of the mark.

Some of the others, like the 'success' (or lack of it) of RoP, lies in how we view 'success' and 'failure'. As Obi-wan Kenobi said, this is derived 'from a certain point of view.' One views its success or failure as 'fidelity to the text' which is by nature difficult at best, while another views it as the Result, which for them is a good deal more renewed interest in Tolkien into the bargain. Then of course, there would be Amazon's view, which is limited to 'is it making us any money.'

That said, perhaps we can move beyond chewing on the content of the post itself, and consider addressing the points within it.

I'm sure a number of Tolkien fans would be benefitted by a decent listing of comparisons and contrasts with Tolkien's work. It is, after all, dealing with some of his texts few 'fans' rarely get to, and without clarification they will just absorb the presentation as 'near fact' without challenge.

Thus, though, rather than just focusing on the 'contradictions' to the text in RoP, it might be good to look at some of the positive side as well - though it may be a fairly short list, and many won't even bother to look into it to see what is accurate, or nearly so?

And I would recommend a certain caution. Just because something exists in RoP that 'wasn't written in Tolkien's work(s)', doesn't make it 'inaccurate'. Tolkien simply didn't write about it at all. They are free to 'fill in the gaps' however they see fitting as Tolkien simply made no stipulation about those issues.

The only legitimate comparisons able to be made, then, are those things Tolkien DID write about, but have been done differently than his writing, just as we do with PJ's works.

Have at it.

 

[JackTorrance]

Alright. I changed the title to accommodate Ent's recommendations.

Positives:
Uhhhhhhhhh, it looks very impressive.
The main characters made some smart decisions.
May expand on the lore of stuff Tolkien didn't spend much time on.

Negatives:
The dialogue sounds very forced. I'm sure that the screenwriters have never talked to another human being ever.
The characters are idiots so bad that they never saw the most obvious plot twist ever.
Galadriel trying to sound manly is one of the best examples of unintentional comedy of all time. The fact that she tries to be stoic only adds to the hilarity.
Regarding the most obvious plot twist of all time (only rivaled by disney twist villains), anyone who didn't immediately realize the stranger was Sauron in disguise is probably a character in ROP. Either that, or they just watch it and don't care.

 

[Aldarion]

Postives: MAY help expose some more people to Tolkien's work.

Negatives: Everything else.

 

[Ent]

Oh my.

 

[LaurelinBearsFruit]

My biggest problem with ROP is the way that the creators have dealt with the criticisms and their wanton lack of knowledge of the Tolkien universe. They boil any criticisms down to racism and sexism and have been quoted as calling the Tolkien fandom (the people they are supposed to be getting on board with their show) "patently evil." Yes they actually said that.

That says it all for me. No thank you, goodbye.

 

[Tyelkormo the Fair]

I agree with the point that Jackson was not loyal to the books by any means(Glorfindel,the I don't-want-to-be-king Aragorn and so on) but he ...how should I say it,kept the mold of the story intact? I watched the movies long before I read the books and even though there were lots of surprises awaiting me when I finally read them,I knew what was going on most of the time thanks to the movies. Fantasy books, especially Tolkien's works,are confusing in general so in that,the movies were great help.

And to me at least,they were aesthetically pleasing to with the sets, actors/actresses,the customes and makeup and everything else.

Even The Hobbit triolgy with all its faults,were aesthetically pleasing to watch and I still rewatch some clips of it on YouTube. (mostly Thranduil's scenes because come on! That guy is amazing!)

RoP on the other hand was...I don't even know how to describe it. Ngl,I was sort of prejudiced towards it at first but after a friend recommended me to watch it like it's an stand alone and something unrelated to the lore,I decided to give it a try. And I was excited for it too because we were finally getting some more ME content after years.

To say I was disappointed is not enough to describe it. I was familiar with the lore of the second age and I still struggled to understand what they were taking things to all the time. No offense to the actors or actresses but the casting (especially the elves) was just awful. Especially Celebrimbor and Gil-Galad who are both supposed to be younger than Galadriel yet I could pass them off as her father and grandfather. The wardrobe,the makeup and even the scenes were just not it. I just wonder where did they spend that half a million yet still managed to mess this up this badly. Some who are unaware of the lore might like it but once they decided to delve deeper into Tolkien's universe,the will come to dislike it like the book fans do. That comes from my own experience with The Hobbit. I used to like it even more than the LOTR but after reading the books,I came to dislike it to the point of not watching it anymore.

 

[JackTorrance]

My biggest problem with ROP is the way that the creators have dealt with the criticisms and their wanton lack of knowledge of the Tolkien universe. They boil any criticisms down to racism and sexism and have been quoted as calling the Tolkien fandom (the people they are supposed to be getting on board with their show) "patently evil." Yes they actually said that.

That says it all for me. No thank you, goodbye.

Yeah, calling fandoms 'evil' because they refuse their crap quality sludge-pipe content and labeling whatever -ist they want is a move that has only grown stale: it's no longer bad to be called a -ist, it's just another thing that happens every day. Plus, for a show that costs more than how much The Avengers grossed at the box office, the setpieces look cheap, not the CG locations, I think they did great on that.

Edit:
Expanding on my point, this is 2022, where there are (at least as far as I am aware of) 2 databases for Tolkien's work, and several books dealing every inch of Middle-earth: The One Wiki, and TolkienGateway. This is not 1977 when there was a lack of central information other than scattered notes and the books themselves, or even 2001 when many online resources were just starting to organize properly and collect the vast sums of Tolkien's work, this is 2022, where there are dozens of books and several online encyclopedias of Middle-earth, they should've been able to properly get it right, so this leaves me to two theories:
1. The screenwriters are clueless idiots who never bother to fact-check one thing about their lore.
2. Or even more likely, the screenwriters are aware of the various databases but choose to contradict Tolkien's world anyways because they can farm the resulting backlash and get in moneys...gotta get those moneys somehow, I guess,

 

[Ent]

Well. I guess it's good to re-hash all these same things said before in NUMEROUS other threads BEFORE RoP2 gets here.
That way, maybe we will have vented enough to leave the 'same old, same old' behind by then... and get on with the new tripe about the new 2nd season.
The only news in all the above: It was as it was said before, and still is, as it is being said now. "There is no new thing under the TTF sun."

However, it may be good to let the steam release valve open again for awhile, to rid ourselves of all the pressure we bear over the thing again, before new stuff is added in.

 

[JackTorrance]

I can't wait to see what new obvious plot twists we get. Will Galadriel still speak (rather stupidly) like a man? Find out on... Generic Fantasy Show based on beloved book #54...I mean... Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power!

 

[Radaghast]

Peter Jackson's trilogy adaption of LOTR, which was faithful to the books? Seriously?
😆🤣😂😅 Anybody who has read the Lord of the Rings books and understands the story knows this is pure fallacy.

Judging by the cosplaying and a renewed interest in Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and the other books published by Christopher Tolkien brought on by the series, I would say that Rings of Power hasn't "failed". But since you have framed this thread as a (yet another) 'Pro-PJ/anti-RoP' thread topic right out of the gate, have at it folks

The movies certainly have faults (I'm not a fan either and I think there aren't many who point out the flaws as much as I) but that doesn't mean ROP is a success.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I'll let Hal speak for himself, but his point is valid: ROP does seem to have renewed interest in Tolkien -- just as the movies did.

 

[Olorgando]

I'll let Hal speak for himself, but his point is valid: ROP does seem to have renewed interest in Tolkien -- just as the movies did.

The films certainly led to increased sales of the book (probably mainly in the three-volume versions, the one-volume one is a scary brick).
But the lamentations by educators about the decrease in reading, especially of books, must pre-date my high school graduation half a century ago. @Deimos , @Squint-eyed Southerner and @Ent may be able to provide information for earlier periods.

There is talk of telephone modems and similar stone-age Internet-access hardware in the early posts here on TTF. Steve Jobs introduced the first Apple iPhone in early 2007. There were "smart" phones (or their predecessors) produced by the (Canadian!) company BlackBerry as early as 1999, with actual keyboards in the lower half (or less) of the phone, but they were definitely aimed at the manager demographic. A buddy of mine had one several years ago.

Fast-forward 20 years. RotK's cinematic release is about to reach its 20th anniversary. When I first went online at home in late 2013 (and joined the UK's Tolkien Society as well as my first JRRT site, Council of Elrond, which was in the list of the UK Tolkien Society's recommendations at the time), TH's DoS was still about three weeks away from its cinematic release. I was still active on two other JRRT sites (CoE and Arwen-Undomiel) in August 2019 when I joined here, on the recommendation of grizzled site veteran @Halasían , who also is a veteran of the other two sites. By his accounts, there are hardly any such (non-commercial) sites left on the internet, while there may be ("smart"-phone targeted) sites like this one with a thread started by @Radaghast a bit more than a year ago:

https://thetolkien.forum/threads/se...e-bonkers-questions-and-answers-thread.30454/

Where are the people who have gotten "interested in Tolkien" nowadays going to go? Sure, some may decide to buy the book(s), but statistics show them to be a shrinking demographic. More may stay in their preferred medium the Internet, landing in sites like those linked in Radaghast's above-linked thread. Expanding the "film-only" demographic by the "Internet-only" demographic, as I see it another serious decline ...

 

[JackTorrance]

Rings of Power has renewed interest? The only interest I see is "Yeah that looks pretty cool I might watch it sometime" That's not utterly raging against the abomination. Other than that, the sad reality has set it: Most of the fandom (at least the corners I am around in) is apathetic, now the show did draw in 100 million households, but that was for the first episode. How many watched through to the end of the season?

 

[Ent]

Most of the fandom

One of the difficulties I always see in posts of this kind, is we talk apples and oranges without recognizing it.

The "Fandom" - i.e. those who know about and read Tolkien, not just the 'movie fans' are of course a bit apathetic about RoP.
We can't include them in the 'new people being drawn toward Tolkien' bracket.

I think many misunderstand what we mean when we see "bringing new people to Tolkien" because we only think there's "one kind of people coming."

Even some who are tangentially aware of Tolkien have gotten renewed interest.

I find it hard to watch when some decry what others see, but the comparisons exist on two different planets.
(Talk to Deimos. He's very familiar with planets.)