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tifosi77
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Postby tifosi77 » Sat Sep 17, 2022 3:00 pm

But your complaint about the recent live action incarnations of the characters from the cartoons is that you need to have seen the cartoons to get full depth of their involvement, which is independent of the films. (Ahsoka, for example, is a creation of the animated world, she is not a live action adaptation; her entire story pre-Rosario Dawson was contained within the Clone Wars and Rebels shows)

In the context of this thread, it begs questions like: When Galadriel handed Frodo the phial and said it contained "the light of Earendil, our most beloved star", the backstory is "hey, that Earendil guy is Hugo Weaving's dad!" (*travis-hamonic_huh.gif*); did you feel shortchanged for not having read that in the text? I'm gonna guess no, you probably didn't, because you were working within the four walls of the story on the screen and maybe (probably) didn't even know that detail. They omitted it because it wasn't important to the story they were telling (at least not to slow things down in that moment with 30 seconds of Elf expo), and still captured the spirit of the thing.

Basically, it boils down to one very simple concept: I no longer recall what we were talking about in the first place. So there.

tifosi77
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Postby tifosi77 » Sat Sep 17, 2022 3:10 pm

Also, a few quibbles aside I liked Se1 Ep4 just fine.
They are waaaaay overusing slo-mo for action in this series. Arondir catching and returning the arrow should've been full Elf-speed, that would've been amaze. Instead it was..... languid? Bleh. I got a kick out of the Make Armenelos Great Again/take our jerbs stuff at the beginning, and also when Galadriel engaged Karen Mode and told Mirien she wanted to talk to her manager.

At the risk of chortling in the face of those who don't have familiarity with the source material, when Guns Out says that every village from here to Orodruin was coming to the tower, take note that Orodruin is Mount Doom. (If there were any lingering doubts that the evil sigil was actually a map of the Southlands/Mordor) I'm having a memory lapse at the moment, but there was a reference to someone or something in the episode that I recalled from the legendarium, but that I did not recall was exclusively in The Silmarillion until I saw it highlighted in a recap show yesterday (probably Nerd of the Rings). That's noteworthy as it was believed Amazon's license only covered things mentioned in the appendices of LOTR.

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Postby nocera » Sat Sep 17, 2022 3:14 pm

But your complaint about the recent live action incarnations of the characters from the cartoons is that you need to have seen the cartoons to get full depth of their involvement, which is independent of the films. (Ahsoka, for example, is a creation of the animated world, she is not a live action adaptation; her entire story pre-Rosario Dawson was contained within the Clone Wars and Rebels shows)

In the context of this thread, it begs questions like: When Galadriel handed Frodo the phial and said it contained "the light of Earendil, our most beloved star", the backstory is "hey, that Earendil guy is Hugo Weaving's dad!" (*travis-hamonic_huh.gif*); did you feel shortchanged for not having read that in the text? I'm gonna guess no, you probably didn't, because you were working within the four walls of the story on the screen and maybe (probably) didn't even know that detail. They omitted it because it wasn't important to the story they were telling (at least not to slow things down in that moment with 30 seconds of Elf expo), and still captured the spirit of the thing.

Basically, it boils down to one very simple concept: I no longer recall what we were talking about in the first place. So there.
You’re correct in that I didn’t know that detail and also that I didn’t feel shortchanged. That’s a testament to Jackson, Walsh, and Boyens. They were smart enough to include that detail to get the hardcore peeps excited while also building a satisfying character and story apart from the source material to satisfy the non-readers. That’s where the SW series have failed. They haven’t built strong characters unless you’ve seen the animated series (happy?).

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Postby LeopardLetang » Sat Sep 17, 2022 3:56 pm


And LOTR reads like a text book. Sorry nerds
textbook example of how to write battle scenes?

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Postby nocera » Sat Sep 17, 2022 4:00 pm


And LOTR reads like a text book. Sorry nerds
textbook example of how to write battle scenes?
:lol: I bet I’d enjoy the audio book, actually. I’m gonna look into that. Didn’t Andy Serkis just record a version?

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Postby DigitalGypsy66 » Sat Sep 17, 2022 5:00 pm

Yes, he did. I listened to it a few months ago. It was excellent!

tifosi77
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Postby tifosi77 » Sat Sep 17, 2022 6:35 pm

Yeah, there are YouTube clips of him reading passages, and watching him go from character to character, voice to voice, and then back to narration in the same 3-minute stretch is bananas.

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Postby eddy » Thu Sep 22, 2022 10:26 am

Bottleneck gallery has a bunch of rings prints today at noon. They are pretty awesome

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Postby tifosi77 » Fri Sep 23, 2022 1:15 pm

Se1, Ep 5
The episode began with what I thought was the most beguiling montage of Poppy singing a song with the line "not all who wander are lost"; this is how Gandalf described Strider/Aragorn in poem, but is attributed to Bilbo in the movies iirc. So that settles it: The Stranger is Gandalf! Right? Oh, we don't find out yet still? I'm growing weary of the who-is-he game with The Stranger. The plot has run its course; either he's Gandalf/some other maiar, or he isn't, but it's time to s**t or get off the pot. I have stuff to do.

When I first saw the glinty-eyed albino type person in the trailers I suspected that it might be Sauron as Annatar; certainly fits the bill from an appearance pov, androgynously fair and vaguely menacing. A producer confirmed them and their two cohorts (the Nomad and the Ascetic) as being from Rhûn in the east. The claim of eastern origin somewhat supports this, as Sauron was believed to have risen anew from somewhere east, as the first adherents he subdued were the Easterlings. And the quasi-religious naming is befitting someone who regards themselves as a deity. But why they'd be hot on the trail of Meteor Man I'm not sure.

I am 100% convinced someone we've already met is going to become a Nazgûl, if not the Witch King himself. I just waver back and forth as to who. They're compressing 3400 years of Middle-earth history into one human generation, so it's hard to guess.

The Durin-Elrond bromance is still my favorite part of the show.

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Postby meow » Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:56 pm

Image
Eject eject eject

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Postby eddy » Sun Sep 25, 2022 5:31 pm

Se1, Ep 5
The episode began with what I thought was the most beguiling montage of Poppy singing a song with the line "not all who wander are lost"; this is how Gandalf described Strider/Aragorn in poem, but is attributed to Bilbo in the movies iirc. So that settles it: The Stranger is Gandalf! Right? Oh, we don't find out yet still? I'm growing weary of the who-is-he game with The Stranger. The plot has run its course; either he's Gandalf/some other maiar, or he isn't, but it's time to s**t or get off the pot. I have stuff to do.

When I first saw the glinty-eyed albino type person in the trailers I suspected that it might be Sauron as Annatar; certainly fits the bill from an appearance pov, androgynously fair and vaguely menacing. A producer confirmed them and their two cohorts (the Nomad and the Ascetic) as being from Rhûn in the east. The claim of eastern origin somewhat supports this, as Sauron was believed to have risen anew from somewhere east, as the first adherents he subdued were the Easterlings. And the quasi-religious naming is befitting someone who regards themselves as a deity. But why they'd be hot on the trail of Meteor Man I'm not sure.

I am 100% convinced someone we've already met is going to become a Nazgûl, if not the Witch King himself. I just waver back and forth as to who. They're compressing 3400 years of Middle-earth history into one human generation, so it's hard to guess.

The Durin-Elrond bromance is still my favorite part of the show.
I too am growing weary over the guess who semantics of this show. The Halbrand fakeout pouch grab was ridiculous. I liked the episode a lot though. I like Hobbit noree or whatever her name is.

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Postby DigitalGypsy66 » Sun Sep 25, 2022 9:56 pm

A lot more jump scares in this last episode (pouch grab included).

tifosi77
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Postby tifosi77 » Wed Sep 28, 2022 2:22 pm

More nerding out YouTube content:

Rings & Realms

This is super hardcore stuff. Where Nerd Of The Rings is like college-level Tolkien, R&R is absolute grad school. For example, the weekly breakdowns for Rings Of Power are often twice as long as the episodes themselves.

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Postby eddy » Wed Sep 28, 2022 2:24 pm

Oh ****, thanks tif

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Postby tifosi77 » Wed Sep 28, 2022 2:26 pm

And to be clear, the guy doesn't obsess over fidelity to Tolkien. He will certainly point out discrepancies, sure. But he understands the meaning of the word 'adaptation'.

(That said, "Elrond's skeptical face" is a welcome addition to the critical canon of the show)

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Postby eddy » Wed Sep 28, 2022 2:47 pm

Wife couldn't get past Elronds dumb face, she's out. I'm only one left watching the show in my house.

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Postby meow » Wed Sep 28, 2022 7:36 pm

You are a fool

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Postby eddy » Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:25 am

You are a fool
Only a fool believes meow, only a fool believes.

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Postby tifosi77 » Fri Sep 30, 2022 4:10 pm

Ep 6 was a good encapsulation of what I have liked about the show to date, and what has driven me nuts about the show to date.
Some of the scenes - Galadriel with Isildur on the boat; Elendil and Isildur with the horse; Galadriel and Adar - were the most Tolkien-y exchanges so far, and they were mostly pretty great imo. It honestly gave me a bit of hope, like "See, they can get it right."

Then there was the scene with Guns Out and Theo...... "What did you say when I was scared, mummy?" "Well, I said, "In the end, this shadow is but a small and passing thing. There is light and high beauty forever beyond its reach. Find the light... and the shadow will not find you." This is almost a direct quote from Return Of The King, Sam's thoughts when they stalled on Mt Doom and he saw a single star-rise in the sky. But it was an example of the overdone-ness and under-goodness of the show so far; just say "Find the light, and the shadow will not find you". That's enough, that gets the point across and sounds motherly.

And I don't want to sound callous, but....... Guns Out should've died. I'm glad she didn't, because moar Guns Out, if you follow me. But from a story perspective, I can't imagine what useful purpose she serves any longer. They worked to save her and give Theo a reason to betray the location of the sword hilt, but by morning she should've expired. It would've given more weight to Theo's arc, especially now that we know Halbrand and Guns Out were not, er, 'known' to each other prior to this Ep.

I haven't seen anyone else comment on it, but......... did this episode show the sun rising in the west? The action intercut between shots of the villagers with the orcs and Adar in the tavern, the Númenóreans riding to their aid, and back to the village. It seemed like it cut from nighttime in the village, to sunrise (with the sun in the west) with the Númenórean riders, and then back to dawn in the village. Maybe I'm just crazy and not remembering it correctly, but in the moment I was like "hang on a second........"
I have a meeting coming up, more thoughts to follow.

EDIT
As previously discussed, I'm over the guessing games about who's who in this show; I'm like 85% certain we have not met Sauron/Annatar yet, so the constant online dithering about it is just adding to the toil rather than engaging fun fan banter. (I believe Annatar has already revealed himself to Gil-galad and Celebrimbor in Lindon) Basically it's the Achilles heel of the show imo: Everything is taking at least 50% too long to play out. They have 3500 years of history to play with, but the way they're crafting their story they're ending up having to actually pad episodes.

But Adar is turning into an interesting character, and the interrogation scene in the barn was good stuff. It looks like Karenriel is finally morphing into someone that's sort of recognizable as the Elf queen we know to exist in the future of this world, very few instances of her asking to speak with the manager. (Which is good, cos as of now she kind of sucks)

The tunnel network the orcs were digging being a channel to funnel water to Orodruin/Mt Doom and kick off the eruption with a steam explosion was pretty cool. What I said earlier about not meeting Sauron/Annatar yet? Adar could be The Big Bad, and his line about gutting Sauron could be akin to Vader saying he 'killed' Anakin. He destroyed his former physical form because being contrite didn't get him anywhere with the Valar, so here he is back in Middle-earth doing evil. He's a bit too Elven for that imo, but who can say.

I'm glad they left the Harfoots and Dwarves out of this episode; to my first point about padding, they don't need to touch on every story line in every episode.

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Postby eddy » Mon Oct 03, 2022 9:05 pm

Ep 6: Orodruin origins was a doozy, my kids are back on the rings train. That was pretty dang cool.

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Postby eddy » Tue Oct 04, 2022 9:00 am

Ep 6 was a good encapsulation of what I have liked about the show to date, and what has driven me nuts about the show to date.
Some of the scenes - Galadriel with Isildur on the boat; Elendil and Isildur with the horse; Galadriel and Adar - were the most Tolkien-y exchanges so far, and they were mostly pretty great imo. It honestly gave me a bit of hope, like "See, they can get it right."

Then there was the scene with Guns Out and Theo...... "What did you say when I was scared, mummy?" "Well, I said, "In the end, this shadow is but a small and passing thing. There is light and high beauty forever beyond its reach. Find the light... and the shadow will not find you." This is almost a direct quote from Return Of The King, Sam's thoughts when they stalled on Mt Doom and he saw a single star-rise in the sky. But it was an example of the overdone-ness and under-goodness of the show so far; just say "Find the light, and the shadow will not find you". That's enough, that gets the point across and sounds motherly.

And I don't want to sound callous, but....... Guns Out should've died. I'm glad she didn't, because moar Guns Out, if you follow me. But from a story perspective, I can't imagine what useful purpose she serves any longer. They worked to save her and give Theo a reason to betray the location of the sword hilt, but by morning she should've expired. It would've given more weight to Theo's arc, especially now that we know Halbrand and Guns Out were not, er, 'known' to each other prior to this Ep.

I haven't seen anyone else comment on it, but......... did this episode show the sun rising in the west? The action intercut between shots of the villagers with the orcs and Adar in the tavern, the Númenóreans riding to their aid, and back to the village. It seemed like it cut from nighttime in the village, to sunrise (with the sun in the west) with the Númenórean riders, and then back to dawn in the village. Maybe I'm just crazy and not remembering it correctly, but in the moment I was like "hang on a second........"
I have a meeting coming up, more thoughts to follow.

EDIT
As previously discussed, I'm over the guessing games about who's who in this show; I'm like 85% certain we have not met Sauron/Annatar yet, so the constant online dithering about it is just adding to the toil rather than engaging fun fan banter. (I believe Annatar has already revealed himself to Gil-galad and Celebrimbor in Lindon) Basically it's the Achilles heel of the show imo: Everything is taking at least 50% too long to play out. They have 3500 years of history to play with, but the way they're crafting their story they're ending up having to actually pad episodes.

But Adar is turning into an interesting character, and the interrogation scene in the barn was good stuff. It looks like Karenriel is finally morphing into someone that's sort of recognizable as the Elf queen we know to exist in the future of this world, very few instances of her asking to speak with the manager. (Which is good, cos as of now she kind of sucks)

The tunnel network the orcs were digging being a channel to funnel water to Orodruin/Mt Doom and kick off the eruption with a steam explosion was pretty cool. What I said earlier about not meeting Sauron/Annatar yet? Adar could be The Big Bad, and his line about gutting Sauron could be akin to Vader saying he 'killed' Anakin. He destroyed his former physical form because being contrite didn't get him anywhere with the Valar, so here he is back in Middle-earth doing evil. He's a bit too Elven for that imo, but who can say.

I'm glad they left the Harfoots and Dwarves out of this episode; to my first point about padding, they don't need to touch on every story line in every episode.
Adar and Halbrand confrontation is handled pretty well if not still making me crazy with their decision to milk out who everyone is. I liked when Halbrand asked if he remembered him and Adar said no, who are you. I immediately wondered what they were going for here and contemplated if they are purposely throwing that line in to make us wonder if it's Sauron talking to Adar. Adar says he killed Sauron and Halbrand is definitely not a fan of Adar. In that scene alone, I suppose it makes sense, but I'm still against that idea from all the other interactions with Halbrand. I think the show would be pretty bad to make him Sauron and I think he'll end up being one of The Nine or the King of the Dead.

I thought the same thing as you when he said he killed Sauron and that makes more sense to me than Halbrand being him. It also shows that Halbrand would remember Adar, but if Adar is Sauron now, he may not remember Halbrand before he assumed the body.

The mt doom eruption was very cool, actually all the action in this episode was very cool. Big fan of how they are handling battles and action making it feel fresh and new.

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Postby tifosi77 » Tue Oct 04, 2022 12:02 pm

I still think they show the sun rising in the west..................

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Postby tifosi77 » Tue Oct 04, 2022 12:14 pm

Playing the guessing game of "is this person Sauron" is an artifact of fandom imo. But with The Stranger they are openly inviting the speculation with their storytelling (he himself doesn't know who he is). So the former remains engaging to discuss and theorize; the latter has grown tedious.

I maintain no character we've me yet is Sauron/Annatar, although (as evidenced by the elaborate Rube Goldberg volcano machine) his plans are already well underway, so they are 'in' Middle-earth and evildoing.

However, I'm no longer certain that the forge Celebrimbor is making is for the rings. Maybe I'm not clearly remembering Ep5 and this was stated outright, but I think the forge now has more to do with Gil-galad's plans for mithril, and may eventually be repurposed for crafting the rings.

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Postby eddy » Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:18 pm

Ep 6 keeping it steady with the same characters storyline throughout the episode also appears to be a better way to watch this show. Hopefully that continues rather than jumping all around.

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Postby eddy » Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:19 pm

I still think they show the sun rising in the west..................
That was definitely weird

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