Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Lady Atia]

Yeah, but we're almost 2.000 years away from the King of the Dead being damned. The Rings were forged ~1500 in the second age, while the War of the Last Alliance took place 3429-41. Which would make him over 2000 years old at the time he was cursed, outliving Numernoreans by roughly 1600 years. I since Isildur is in this story now as well, even though he was born 1700 years after the rings were made, obviously, the show doesn't give a shit.

The show uses a condensed timeline though so you can't really go with the dates from the books. PJ's trilogy also did the same btw, they literally cut off like 50 years from the first book or so where Frodo just chills in the shire.

[InfiniteCharger]

So can you point me to the book(s) that have the entire story explicitly written? The entire reason why Amazon can invent characters and stories is because Tolkien didn't write about the Second Age in depth. I highly doubt you'd be praising a encyclopedia show that just did random scenes of the different Tolkien entries lol. The "gaps" as you call the is not simply not getting into finer detail. There is no need to keep exaggerating to try and prove your point.

Learn how to read. I explicitly said he did not write things at the level of individual novels, but that doesn't mean that the didn't give an overview of the events in the second age. And Amazon is going against almost everything he wrote in every way. So this isn't an issue of lacking a novel, because the stuff they are making up doesn't make any sense even in its own made up universe.

This different story they are telling has nothing to do with Tolkien and whether he wrote multiple novels or not about the second age. It is a different story because they didn't want to actually stick within the outlines of the 2nd age based on what Tolkien actually wrote. So it is a falsehood to claim they made these changes due to lack of source material.

And none of that has anything to do with this nonsense mystery box story telling that is silly and stupid because even with these changes the mystery is only how far they are ultimately going to deviate with Tolkien. And at that point the justification for that mystery ceases to exist because whatever the result, it has no bearing on Tolkien and what he wrote in LOTR because it is not canon.

[Skulltaker]

The show uses a condensed timeline though so you can't really go with the dates from the books. PJ's trilogy also did the same btw, they literally cut off like 50 years from the first book or so where Frodo just chills in the shire.

'Someone else stole from the Bank as well, officer, so you can't really charge me for it, see?' is a pretty poor excuse in defense of a product that claims to stick to the source. Also, equating skipping over 50 years where nothing happens to several hundred years that include the forging of the rings and the war of Sauron and the Elves feels rather dishonest, don't you think?

Shame the timeline isn't the only thing the show condensed. If they hadn't condensed the time they took for prop making, maybe the elves could have armor that doesn't look like it is made from recycled tin cans.

[Lady Atia]

I'm not sure if that poster even played the game or is just repeating the same buzzwords to be a contrarian, because Shadows of War literally had an entire expansion about a protagonist of colour, yet that poster randomly claimed Shadows of War didn't have representation:

And? Doesn't change the fact that people mostly complain about the series because it has a black dwarf and elf in it. And indeed, I didn't even know this DLC existed, also I tend to not follow incels on youtube so I wouldn't know if people complained about that either.

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Anyways, can we go back discussing the actual show now? For the Halbrand = King of the Dead theory, here is his symbol they used in the last episode:



And here is the crown they used in the PJ movies, featuring the vultures:



The other possible theories are Halbrand=Sauron or Halbrand=Witchking, both would be a bit of a bummer compared to the KotD though imo.

[Skulltaker]

And? Doesn't change the fact that people mostly complain about the series because it has a black dwarf and elf in it. And indeed, I didn't even know this DLC existed, also I tend to not follow incels on youtube so I wouldn't know if people complained about that either.

Well, then, maybe you should put in an effort for a change. But that conflicts with your world view, doesn't it?

People complain about the series because it looks cheap, isn't faithful to the source material, has poor dialogue, invents conflict and drama where none has any place to be, but you all boil it down to bigotry and racism, because it's easy and convenient, and because putting an inclusive show on a pedestal makes you feel good, because you showed the bigots. You're exactly the same as the morons that voted for Trump and the like, crying socialist wolf at every corner.

You're dishonest and pretentious. "I don't tend to follow incels so I don't know what they complain about." Well, then maybe don't make a condescending post about
what people complained about' if you don't know what the fuck you're talking about and haven't followed the discussion? You know, like a reasonable smart person, and not like some loudmouthed internet troll?

[Soikona]

And? Doesn't change the fact that people mostly complain about the series because it has a black dwarf and elf in it. And indeed, I didn't even know this DLC existed, also I tend to not follow incels on youtube so I wouldn't know if people complained about that either.

Do they? I complain because the acting is meh, and the script is not really inspiring. Maybe you are just looking for the feedback that backs up your agenda that everyone is a racist and ignoring the majority of complaints, which is that the show is not all it’s hyped to be?

Or am I a racist because I think the dialogue and general story so far leaves a lot to be desired

[hulkgor]

Hardly an excuse. House of the Dragon looks much better, has better dialogue, superior acting (and actors), costumes etc. while costing a fraction of Rings of Power.

House of the Dragon dragon riding cgi\vfx close-ups on the riders mid flight were probably the worst\cheapest cgi shots i've seen, on par with Sharknado or the likes.

So i don't get how you can say this.

[Varodoc]

And? Doesn't change the fact that people mostly complain about the series because it has a black dwarf and elf in it. And indeed, I didn't even know this DLC existed, also I tend to not follow incels on youtube so I wouldn't know if people complained about that either.

It's a good thing then that literally the main trailer shows a person of colour at the minute 1:30:




Just admit that you don't know anything about this game.

By the way, I know you are trying to use as many buzzwords as possible to pretend you have a point to make, but what does "Incel" has to do with any of this? Incel is used when referring to the hate against women, we're not talking about this. It's another subject entirely.

[Skulltaker]

The other possible theories are Halbrand=Sauron or Halbrand=Witchking, both would be a bit of a bummer compared to the KotD though imo.

Neither have any business being there, as it's several hundred years too early for them to be born. Seeing how the writers don't give a shit, might well be one of them, but since we don't care about Tolkien's actual continuity, who cares who they turn out to be, or not to be?

Fuck it. Let the guy in the meteor be Gandalf. Who cares that he's 3000 years early, and supposed to arrive by boat? Condensed timeline and creative liberty. Wasn't that a cool fireball?

[Kumorii]

Well, then, maybe you should put in an effort for a change. But that conflicts with your world view, doesn't it?

People complain about the series because it looks cheap, isn't faithful to the source material, has poor dialogue, invents conflict and drama where none has any place to be, but you all boil it down to bigotry and racism, because it's easy and convenient, and because putting an inclusive show on a pedestal makes you feel good, because you showed the bigots. You're exactly the same as the morons that voted for Trump and the like, crying socialist wolf at every corner.

You're dishonest and pretentious. "I don't tend to follow incels so I don't know what they complain about." Well, then maybe don't make a condescending post about
what people complained about' if you don't know what the fuck you're talking about and haven't followed the discussion? You know, like a reasonable smart person, and not like some loudmouthed internet troll?

It's always the same isn't...

Fuck me, this behavior is so weird.
Focus on the things you don't want to focus on then complain the focus is on thing you focus on... It's even worse when they actively shift the focus to thing they then complain the focus is on.

[Lady Atia]

Neither have any business being there, as it's several hundred years too early for them to be born. Seeing how the writers don't give a shit, might well be one of them, but since we don't care about Tolkien's actual continuity, who cares who they turn out to be, or not to be?

But this thread is not about "tolkien's actual continuity", it's about the show. And we already know that the last season will show the Last Alliance.

[Skulltaker]

But this thread is not about "tolkien's actual continuity", it's about the show. And we already know that the last season will show the Last Alliance.

If they wanted to make a show that doesn't care about the source material, why not create their own then? Oh, yeah, because they couldn't create an interesting universe and characters to save their lives. Because they need brand recognition to get people excited. That's why they create Red Herrings about tie-ins to other famous events and characters in the movies at literally every corner of the show.

Heck, at this point I'd take a reimagining of the actual LotR story as a space opera over this series. Because this schizophrenic reinterpretation of Tolkien's work is just painful to watch. If they wanted to make an original story around existing characters, fine. Do that. But with a series centered around the forging around the Rings of power, one of the decisive points in the history of Tolkiens work, and the series named 'the Rings of Power', you know, I'd expect them to actually use what little is know about that period in Middle-Earths history and build around that, not changing events and characters by 2000 years because they need as many recognizable names and events as possible to draw people in.

[Lady Atia]

Fuck it. Let the guy in the meteor be Gandalf. Who cares that he's 3000 years early, and supposed to arrive by boat? Condensed timeline and creative liberty. Wasn't that a cool fireball?

I actually hope he turns out the be a blue wizard - Tolkien actually did write a version where they did arrive in the 2nd age around the time of the forging of the rings, so that could work. Wouldn't want it to be Gandalf, or Saruman though.

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If they wanted to make a show that doesn't care about the source material, why not create their own then? Oh, yeah, because they couldn't create an interesting universe and characters to save their lives. Because they need brand recognition to get people excited. That's why they create Red Herrings about tie-ins to other famous events and characters in the movies at literally every corner of the show

Because it's an adaption? And from the first three episodes it looks like they do care a lot about the source material, judging by their many Silmarillion easter eggs so far.

[Skulltaker]

Because it's an adaption? And from the first three episodes it looks like they do care a lot about the source material, judging by their many Silmarillion easter eggs so far.

Really? With the bullying elven kids and Galadriel being completely out of place, you're telling me they care about the source material? With Elendil and Isildur being almost 2000 years too early? Really? You're valuing easter eggs over actual deviations from the source material? Really?

You need to sort out your priorities, dude. Calling this show and adaptation is making incredibly liberal use of the term. Loosely based on, maybe.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Really? With the bullying elven kids and Galadriel being completely out of place, you're telling me they care about the source material? With Elendil and Isildur being almost 2000 years too early? Really? You're valuing easter eggs over actual deviations from the source material? Really?

You need to sort out your priorities, dude. Calling this show and adaptation is making incredibly liberal use of the term. Loosely based on, maybe.

The issues with the timeline sure but the elven bullies really? The Jackson movies completely butcher characters like Gimli and to a lesser extent Aragorn and they didn’t even have the excuse of being based off on a mostly unwritten time period.

[Myradin]

Wouldn't want it to be Gandalf, or Saruman though.

Actually think being Saruman could be interesting. He's a character who's already evil by the time we meet him in the trilogy. Seeing an earlier, nicer side of him with a hint of what lead him down the dark path would be interesting.

TBH while i don't like the harfoots being some psychotic cult, I feel like meteor man is the one part of the show I'm actually intrigued about.

[Mace]

Right. You've already acknowledged that it is dumb for them to have compressed time. What point is there complaining about each individual count where time is compressed? They haven't hidden the fact that they are diverging from Canon in order to keep the same non-elf actors through out the series. It is also silly to say it has to do with "agenda pushing" when again it is only so they could keep the same non-elf actors through out the series.

I don’t like that they condensed time either. Unnecessary and it casts the show firmly out of being based in LotR Tolkien world. Especially when they don’t have rights to a lot of the books. They should have stuck scrupulously to canon.

Cast your best actors as elves - famous names and as you moved through time you have other really famous actors play the roles of humans and other races that don’t endure.

Or make up something interesting if you are sticking to a time frame.

You just end up pissing more people off by such drastic changes and then ask them to accept this is the same world.

I hate it when show runners needlessly change established lore. Vast majority of the time it’s unnecessary and the changes are bad very few times are the changes good and even fewer times (especially on well written and know. Works) are the changes actually necessary.


For LotR films for example, on a film setting I understand why Arwen rescued Frodo, but if this was a series and planned pet of a greater set of series, spin-offs, movies and mini series, then you’d have put Glor-findel in there for sure and used him in other stuff.


That substitution didn’t detract from the work, but enhanced it, I don’t feel it was absolutely essential, but it worked well negating the need to add more scenes to make Arwen/Aragorn feel like a relationship most people would connect and engage with

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McKay says: “As long as we’re painting within those lines and not egregiously contradicting something we don’t have the rights to, there’s a lot of leeway and room to dramatize and tell some of the best stories that [Tolkien] ever came up with.”

and yet at every turn so far they have EGREGIOUSLY and BLATANTLY contradicted all established lore, and not only that but flagrantly done so to push the stupid agenda they are trying to push and self insert to every character, so how does that work?


edit: if that's the justification then it just shows how bad the writers are and how unprepared they are for a project of this magnitude, out of their depth is being kind.

This imo is why people hate the show.

And rhlore doesn’t understand this. The show isn’t that bad on its own, it’s above average either as it’s own work.

But for LotR - you can’t claim that title and make that level of changes and expected a 70+year generation spanning well loved piece of fiction to be liked.

People see that they are intentionally changing things to push their point of views and they hate that.

It’s actually turning people off a lot of things regardless of their content - they go “not LotR too! Is nothing safe from this cult”

And hate it more because of that than anything - and they have a right too. To add insult to injury to call everyone that hates this racist and bigoted is further confounding their problem because they are polarising then condemning a large portion of their customer base they should be trying to appease.

Why do that? Because they are religious ideologies, not business people (while others are trying to use things like that to make excuses to their bosses as to why their work failed).


All WB needs to do is commission it’s own LotR Tolkien world based series and do a Peter Jackson grade job for half the amount and it would destroy this completely.

Except Amazon is trying to buy WB’s rights now to save their calamity.

[tikcol]

From Tolkien himself, about adaptations. Letter 210. His response to a movie script

I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author, who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about. [...] The canons of narrative an in any medium cannot be wholly different ; and the failure of poor films is often precisely in exaggeration, and in the intrusion of unwarranted matter owing to not perceiving where the core of the original lies.

Regarding time passage

Here I may say that I fail to see why the time-scheme should be deliberately contracted. It is
already rather packed in the original, the main action occurring between Sept. 22 and March 25 of
the following year. The many impossibilities and absurdities which further hurrying produces
might, I suppose, be unobserved by an uncritical viewer; but I do not see why they should be
unnecessarily introduced. Time must naturally be left vaguer in a picture than in a book; but I
cannot see why definite time-statements, contrary to the book and to probability, should be made.
....
Seasons are carefully regarded in the original. They are pictorial, and should be, and easily
could be, made the main means by which the artists indicate time-passage. The main action begins
in autumn and passes through winter to a brilliant spring: this is basic to the purport and tone of the
tale. The contraction of time and space in 2 destroys that. His arrangements would, for instance,
land us in a snowstorm while summer was still in. The Lord of the Rings may be a 'fairy-story', but
it takes place in the Northern hemisphere of this earth: miles are miles, days are days, and weather
is weather.
Contraction of this kind is not the same thing as the necessary reduction or selection of the
scenes and events that are to be visually represented.

The latest episode not only is below average entertainment, it also is murdering the lore. Murder you say? Isn't that too strong a word?

Let the man answer that himself

Z .... has intruded a 'fairy castle' and a great many Eagles, not to mention incantations, blue
lights, and some irrelevant magic (such as the floating body of Faramir). He has cut the parts of the
story upon which its characteristic and peculiar tone principally depends, showing a preference for
fights; and he has made no serious attempt to represent the heart of the tale adequately: the journey
of the Ringbearers. The last and most important pan of this has, and it is not too strong a word,
simply been murdered.

That's how he felt about adaptations that disregard completely his legendarium.

[Dhrizzle]

From Tolkien himself, about adaptations. Letter 210. His response to a movie script

Regarding time passage

What parts do you think actually apply to RoP?

[tikcol]

What parts do you think actually apply to RoP?

Considering the show isn't respecting the lore in anything at all besides names, everything. Also, read the first quote and try not to be too dishonest about that.