The actor is irrelevant, the point is that Sauron in Shadow of War matches all the societal criteria of male beauty, including brushed hair and clean-shaved face.
That's why Halbrand logically doesn't work as Sauron. Outliers and contrarians always exist, but typically the common folk isn't attracted to a guy with messy hair and unkempt stubble.
Anyone who wishes to play Annatar should at least check those things first.
You're obviously just being a contrarian, but Yes, if I wanted to rank how attractive someone is, I would probably look at several photos of them, to see if different camera angles or poses can change my opinion of said person.
Weird. All that he's supposed to do is persuade people that he's trustworthy, and you won't convince anyone that you're trustworthy if you can't even look after your face.Imo, Annatar should be able to turn straight man into gays, just from the looks alone. And he should be eye candy for us girls too.
Oh for sure, if Halbrand ends up being Sauron he should change forms once he becomes Annatar. But that's the beauty of Sauron - he can switch to many forms, including that of a wolf and a ... vampire (for .... some reason I guess?^^ did Tolkien ever write about other vampires in middle-earth?).
I'm like 20 pages behind but I think the stranger is either gandalf or saurman.
Probably gandalf because connection to hobbits, whispering to fireflies.
But the part of me that clings to continuity says (while screaming that they're still a few thousand years too early) it would be saurman because "voice-magic" and because he was the first of them to arrive on middle earth.
But it's probably gandalf because "HEY GUYS LOOK GANDALF!"
As for halbrand, yeah I think he's either the witch king or at least one of the 9. I don't think saurons been there yet, though I haven't seen todays episode. I do think "Adar" is a red herring though.
they went, THEY TEWK MAH JAWB!!! I wonder what great contribution to the writing craft, the next episode will bring?
Things are picking up in pace, good... still a tad slow. I think it's due to them jumping around so much to everyone. So the scenes happen quickly, feeling it goes fast, but they are short so it develops slowly.
The beginning protest I feel they could skip. It went from them supporting the protest kind of heavily and then some guy comes and basically says "Are you men or children?" and then they switch sides. All for the purpose of introducing this good guy for the next scene.
It was funny that apparently there are servants just waiting for him to yell "Drinks all around" and they come out like a military squad getting the GO signal.
I think I need to watch something else with Morfydd Clark to see if she actually can act. Because it certainly feels like a director problem since most main characters are just supposed to look stone faced concerned constantly. Stone face, move lips...acting achieved. So far the side characters are the best ones.
Kinda funny to see Halbrand is a hater as well, he was listing the same problems lots of others have pointed out about Galadriel. Even if they showed some character growth there, it never got used though. Figured she would use it to convince Miriel but the fact she changed her mind was because of her vision and she realized the vision would become true if she denied the Elf. Pointed out by it starting to fall when she was about to leave, not when she arrived as she suspected.
The "fight scene" was kind of ridiculous again... she pushes one guard and the other 2 just fell into the cell and then she pushed the last one.
They could've just used 2 guards and it would be fine, but they went with 4 for some reason.
Side note: When she gets put into the cell she has 2 big circle lines under her eyes. Curious what that was, gone in the next clip of her so I guess an error, but curious of what kind.
Princess Disa tells Durin "I made sure to have him escorted out".
yet he wasn't? What was up with that? Did she lie to Durin? Elrond was just sitting there, looking at them. At first I thought he gave an excuse like wanting to take a look of the view or whatever. But when the guards came they apparently had nothing to do with the escorting of him. Feels like something got cut out in the edit here.
A question, why is princess Disa's eyes the way they are? Does it have anything to do with her ability to sing to the mountain?
Also, did the Mithril get smoother throughout the scene? At first it was very detailed but when Elrond got it it looked smoother, but I think even the glow looked worse, so my guess is a VFX blunder. No big deal, just a note.
Theon is still the more interesting bit of the story even though that still develops very slow.
Bit of a WTF moment with Arondir showed up. I get that Adar wanted to send a message to the people, but why not send some weaker old slave. Instead it's an elf in his prime and even gave him weapons to boot. I guess he didn't tell his orcs that he released him...but then the message would be null if he got killed on the way.
I hope they explain this more and give a good reason... otherwise I just find it contrived.
The sneaking sequence felt a bit gamey due to Theon being able to see what the camera sees quite a lot of times.
They learned how to use slow-motion this time though. Much better use than last time.
Still think Halbrand will be Sauron, but I don't deny the possibility of a Nazgul/Witch King role.
Theon will definitely become a Nazgul though.
5.5/10 I would say. Still don't enjoy the dialogues that much. And yeah the "TEMPEST IN ME" was excruciatingly bad with those flared up eyes but still a stone face somehow.
Environments looks good, I still have a problem with the greenscreen though, it still feels like they are cut in quite blatantly.
Last edited by Kumorii; 2022-09-16 at 06:59 PM.
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Last edited by Triceron; 2022-09-16 at 07:09 PM.
Thats a good point, he's supposed to be the rightful king of the southlands, so yeah indeed not angmar. I missed that.
Well shoot but then there's this. =\
Could go either way I suppose. We're supposed to see them all created in this show though no?
Ringswiki just says he's "likely one of three kings of numenor" so now I'm leaning more toward it not being him
About the Witch King:
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Witch-kingSome time after Sauron seized the Rings of Power in the Sack of Eregion, S.A. 1697 he gave nine of them to Mannish kings, sorcerers and other warriors.[1] With the power of their rings, the Nine achieved glory and grew wealthy, but they eventually started hating life as they were slowly drawn under Sauron’s dominion. In the end, they all became the dreadful Ringwraiths.
The one later known as the Witch-king was one of these, probably[2] one of the unnamed three lords of Númenor to take the rings.[3] He first appeared in the histories as a Ringwraith in S.A. 2251. Being the most powerful of the Nazgûl, he became their chief and the most feared servant of his master Sauron.
It should be one of the Kings who receives a ring. Given that there are no Kings in Numenor at this point in the series and only Miriel, not sure what kings will be introduced to become the Nazghul in this series. Maybe it will just be some rando person.
True. Just pointing out there aren't any more Kings in Numenor after Pharazon/Miriel so it remains to be seen what Numenorean kings there could be in this series to become Nazghul.
Halbrand could become a wraith but he isn't a King of Numenor.
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The rings were created 1500 years before the fall of Numenor, with plenty of time for them to be given to 3 Numenorean kings.
So part of the 'mystery' here is how this new timeline in the series is going to accomplish all of that and when.
Not only do I have questions of the timeline, I have questions on the passing of time.
There's an assumption that chunks of time are being passed, but it's all inconsistent. Galadriel and Halbrand's story is supposed to be in Numenor for a matter of 2-3 days per Halbrand's request, and that makes sense. They'd be a few days lost at sea, with a quick rescue, and a swift travel to Numenor where they've been at for less-than-a-week's time. And that's where the story is so far with them.
But then we see Elrond's story with huge progress on the Tower. And now that old strange dude talking to Theo implies it's been weeks since the Meteor was seen. So how exactly is time progressing here? Just trying to make sense of it, because I was under the assumption that all the arcs were following a similar progression of time, and I'm not sure it's meant to be condensed in some areas and spread out in others.
Last edited by Triceron; 2022-09-16 at 08:14 PM.
I'm aware of the proper timeline. That's kind of what I was talking about.
We're apparently supposed to see all of the wraiths created as well as the rings get created all within the confines of this compressed timeline. So we're musing on who might be who =\
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I'm starting to think each of the perspectives has its own continuity as opposed to each of them progressing along side of each other, at least thats how I've been able to make sense of it.
Like the Elrond perspective is progressing much faster than say, the Halbrand/Galadriel perspective though if thats the case I wonder at what point they'll merge?
I would have preferred them to make use of cuts and pacing to imply time passage if that's the case. Like if the Harfoots got a time skip by next episode, I'd be perfectly fine since we didn't see them now. But I feel like Galadriel's arc in Numenor should have been contained and resolved before they jump back to Elrond and show the progress of the Tower. Their arcs are tied together because we know when Galadriel and Elrond meet each other, and the passage of time between the two should be relative. The way it is right now, it's so jarring to me that we have timelapses being cross-cut between each other.