I will probably keep watching just out of curiosity. I knew the writing and world building would be a huge challenge but thought it would at least be shot in a competent way. There were some very strange choices in last episode. Probably a result of having 2 showrunners who don't have any experience. The postmortem when this is all over and its safe to actually discuss will be interesting.

Yeah, that was weird.

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I think the biggest wonder for me is that based on timeline of events, the rings are already made. which maybe they've already implied that its taken place but I figured the forging would be central to the show.

i thought the tower and forge that Celebrimbor mentioned wanting to build in the last ep was going to be used to make the three rings for the elves and Sauron hasnt created Mordor yet where the One is made

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'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

I'm having trouble keeping up with the real characters and the made-up ones. Is Aragorn-lite a real character? The captain's kid is a weasel right? I remember his name from trilogy. The captain's daughter is going to do something empowering as she was accepted into builders guild.

I'm wondering what the plan is for these hobbits. They got off to such a bad start I wonder if they're just going to admit defeat and have Gandalf walk away and join the elves or something.

I would have rather they used a different model for the worgs. I don't really like the post-apocalyptic hyena look. They're supposed to be giant wolves aren't they?

aragorn lite is going to end up being the guy that screws over the last king of gondor and becomes the ghost army leader. Captains kid is isildur who refuses to toss the ring in the Fellowship prologue and eats it in the river where Deagol finds it and gets merc'd by Smeagol. Captains daughter was created specifically for this show for more womyn empowermynt

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'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

Wasn't Isildur the one who chopped of Sauron's finger in FOTR?

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yep. then elrond led him to the crack of doom and he refused to destroy it. then the ring abandoned him in the ambush

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'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

Ok...that's actually pretty good. Its a shame they couldn't do a better job in bringing him and Galadriel together. Meeting in the middle of the ocean was ridiculous.

I mean thats the implication.

but "canon" if you will is Galadriel and Celeborn go to lothlorien (where she lives in LOTR)

like 200 years later the rings are forged by the elves, then the one ring is made in mordor.

all good right?

but Tar Palantir doesn't become kind and Elendil (the captain) isn't born for another 1500 years.

so the timeline is all sorts of screwed up. and Galadriels hand in all of it is wonky. \

whatever, i'm still watching and enjoying but a little confused.

Elendil escapes numenor with his son and establishes the kindom of Gondor. Elendil is killed by sauron and Isildur cuts the ring from saurons hand and gets the ring.

that may be a spoiler, it may not be! who knows.

I'm kind of starting to enjoy show but not for right reasons. At least there weren't any hobbits in this one.

The friendship with Elrond and Durin is pretty interesting for most part. They've already revealed a Balrog is going to show up but I guess Elrond and Durin are leaving so maybe they won't be there when it does. It was strange for a billion dollar show not to show them help with the cave in so I'm guessing it was a time decision which was a bad choice considering the quality of some of the later scenes.

The music and sound are good but the mix isn't great all the time and sometimes its hard to hear what they are saying so I run with captions on. It was funny when orc is dying by the tree stump and the bad leader guy is talking to him because the caption for orc was "groaning with respect".

The angry mob scene was hilarious. They're blacksmiths and they seem to think an elf princess is going to steal their jobs. Then the advisor comes out and says see I have callouses too now everybody drink up (because nothing disperses an angry mob like alcohol).

Galadriel tells queen there is a "tempest inside me" and I won't be stopped followed immediately by a hard cut of Galadriel sittting in jail. Aragorn-lite makes point that she's in jail because she's an asshole. She seems to consider this and come to realization that maybe she has been acting like an asshole then overpowers 4 guards and breaks out of jail.

The well scene was terrible. The formerly inept elf shows up. Then mom. Then the orcs can't kill them because of sun even though we've already seen them kill elves when sun was out.

The scene at end was done so badly I couldn't figure out what happened. They wanted to do a surprise reveal when Galadriel takes her hood off and it just made scene look like it wasn't edited right.

If I had to guess the 20 producers they credit at start are in name only and don't actually work on show.

I'm liking this show but the Game Of Thrones show is just so much more interesting. Obviously, the LotR stuff is not only heavily influencing the source material of GoT but it's also adding in elements that wouldn't even work for the time period that LotR was created. It's like comparing a classical music song to Michael Jackson or whoever your favorite artist is from the last 30 years.

GoT: Death. Dragons. Intense politics.
LotR: Look at that tree. It's losing leaves!

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Rings of Power had a much more difficult job...the writing table really needed to be on point and its not. The showrunners got the gig because one of them speaks elf. If I'm Bezos cutting a billion dollar check I'm going to need more than that. He owns IMDB and apparently didn't bother to look these guys up...

The main character wrecks every scene she is in...that's a problem for a show when main character is biggest weakness.

I don't know who these people are that are following Gandalf but they look ridiculous. Are they supposed to represent the no gender community? The one looks like a blonde version of person in Billions.

Is the kid with the sword an elf? They seem to be hiding his ears.

At least Gandalf is talking and starting to do some things.

This army seems pretty lame so not sure what they think they're going to do. Maybe if they showed they can actually fight instead of being humiliated by Galadriel...

I'm seeing pretty much the opposite. I like the character development of the Rings better than the Dragons. I also like the humor present in the Rings. While I really loved the Game of Thrones series, I'm not nearly liking most of the characters thus far in Dragons.

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An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

How do we know that the tall weird guy who landed on the munchkins(I don't know what else to call them?) is Gandolph? I guessed that it might be but there wasn't any clue was there that he was the guy?

Also, who is that leader of the Orcs? And is he some kind of fallen elf? He's got the pointed ears.

I guess that to me, anything that follows Game of Thrones is going to be hard pressed to develop the characters like GOT did.Many like me, read the Martin Books also before we watched the series. If i were to talk to LOTR or The Dragon series developers, i might suggest that they should have had a sort fo episode zero in which the characters and their lineage might be explained a bit.

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An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

This is growing on me a bit. They've settled in to the number of subplots and are giving the lesser characters some depth.

I never watched GOT. If you need to hit me over the head with sex and violence, I'm not interested.

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"I give you my word as a Biden"

Its easier to watch this show like its an episode of Seconds from Disaster. The starboard engine caught fire and the pilots shut off the port engine by mistake and the plane is nosing into the ground. Will they be able to pull out in time? Very doubtful.

There were complaints that Asians weren't represented and last episode had a large number of Asians in the crowd shots. It would be amazing if they added these in CGI responding to complaints. They're using CGI for crowds they've already been busted for crowd scenes with 5-6 models so people are standing next to themselves.

A billion dollars you'd think they could find helmets that fit. Every helmet looks like its 2 sizes too big.

Sauron is a non-binary with tits and a buzz cut so check that box. People thought Aragorn-lite was Sauron for some reason but I think SNES might be on point with him being the ghost king. I haven't seen anyone else say that.

The boats blowing up scene was total bullshit for a lot of reasons.

These hobbits tried to kill the main hobbit family for 3rd time...that bitch telling the leader to steal their wheels...

W_Z has to be losing his mind watching this mystery box bullshit. There is a technical problem in literally every scene usually writing but also directing, acting, and/or editing,

The show is practically unwatchable but I’m in it ‘til the end. A failure on almost every level.

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Yeah the choices they make are amazing. This is inept film making with a billion dollar budget so they have nobody to blame but themselves.

Galadriel gets on boat and they slo-mo with the most triumphant music ever. Then they pan around to everyone's faces and they have these ridiculous expressions on their faces like "OMG...she's so amazing!!!" Words can't describe how stupid that scene looked.

Then sword kid is talking to his elf dad and says he found a sword. Elf dad says oh I've seen that before then turns around and peels back some vines to reveal a mural of the sword on the wall???

I'm really hoping my theory about sword kid is right...this show is stupid enough to do it. He could be hiding some pointy ears under that helmet of hair. In episode 8 we'll see single mom say to elf I've been keeping something from you then lift sword kids hair exposing the elf ears. Then elf dad will say but how that was only one time and it was a few days ago! Then she will say a few days to you because you are an elf but that was 14 years to a human. Elf dad and sword kid embrace then on to Season 2.

It would have been more interesting if Isuldur was like a Boromir then was corrupted by the ring. They're making Isuldur such an ass when he puts on the ring it will be an improvement.

yeah i'm happy we get tolkein but i'm still like wtf are they doing. whatever

i'm a little backed up on this show because we're trying to cram for a LOTR trivia thing at miskatonic on thursday. personally i'm against bar trivia because it's just a racket. there's always some group who knows the answer to every single question including bonuses somehow. but we're humoring our friends who really think they have a chance...you know to win that coveted $20 gift card that can only be used at the bar and only used on trivia nights.

we are watching "return of the king" tonight and tomorrow, splitting it up. but honestly, after seeing what mongo said about the asian representation, i realized there is *none* represented in the first 2 movies so i had to wash it down with a healthy dose of good representation, like "crazy rich asians".

This show is kind of ok. I do enjoy how they seemingly hit a "Galadriel destroys everything" button every so often where she acts like Neo in the Matrix just doing whatever she wants to anyone that even walks by her.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Galadriel is the 5th highest paid actor on show. Even Isildur is making more. That is not very empowering.

Amazon said 25 million watched at least part of episode 1. It looks like viewership was down 13% from previous week. Who knows how much they've lost total. If they're shedding around 10% a week that's a big number. This should be the top story but it doesn't even come up in news search unless you add "viewership" to search. At some point the reviewers are going to have to do their jobs and talk about how flawed this show is. All they're talking about now is how beautiful show is and it might be a little slow.

Amazon has to be in a panic right now because it looks like their viewership is about equal to She-Hulk. House of Dragon is actually increasing in viewership 4% last week and 3% more after last episode and are close to 30 million per episode. I guess we will see if Amazon looks inward or tries to blame some conspiracy. If they look inward they might be able to save Season 2.

I'm watching this but it is not a must watch for me. It's a, hmm nothing else on my list to watch, so might as well see if this improves.

None of the stories are compelling. The characters are shallow and the plot is so simple, it is confusing.

Watched the first two episodes of Andor last night and looking forward to seeing that story develop. ROP, R.I.P

Maybe if they threw in a hobbit orgy they could get House of Dragon numbers.

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"I give you my word as a Biden"

That was the original plan but people complained. The first casting call was for actors comfortable with nudity any shape or size gay or straight. They also put out a call for "intimacy coaches". Amazon tries to deny this but numerous people have posted the casting call online.