I've seen stuff in the trailer they were showing that I haven't seen in the show yet. Either the last episode is going to be longer than normal or some of it doesn't happen during this season.

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"I give you my word as a Biden"

If they have stuff in the trailer that is being saved for the next season, that's just another layer of shit they've fed the fans.

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Even though the Mithril story is basically fan fiction it’s at least a true macguffin for the show. I don’t mind that, and the durin/Elrond relationship is one of the strongest.

But the Isildur thing is more egregious to me. We know he isn’t dead, why are they pulling this weak shit?

There’s a theory I have that storytelling has been replaced with algorithm writing. Every one of these streaming shows follows this pattern, I think it’s actually being taught in film schools. Rather than learning Joseph Campbell like they should be, they’re learning the Netflix Bible of show building. And Dialog classes must follow Michael Bay movies as a resource.

I also think this is building to a bloated finale, something like 90-100 mins.

Every one of these writers should be fired and build a new staff who know how to write fantasy, for real. But that isn’t going to happen.

They've already started shooting season 2. I was hoping there would be enough bad news that changes would be made but it doesn't seem so. They did a victory lap last week with the showrunners, producers, and head of Amazon Studios all doing puff pieces in Variety and Hollywood Reporter. The only interesting bit was in Hollywood Reporter that had an inside source with Amazon that said they were "shitting in their pants" about numbers House of Dragon is bringing in. There might be some bad viewership numbers incoming.

There's a cameraman on youtube who is doing videos of how inept the cinematography is. These idiots can't even get that right. There was a scene in last episode where the hobbit gives his bullshit speech about how they stick together and it looked like he broke the 4th wall so it looked like a very strange directorial choice. They didn't even intend that they just had their long lens camera in the wrong place.

I'm going to be pissed if sword kid is an elf. That was my theory early on and they hid his ears until last episode. They finally had one of his ears visible when he was standing with Galadriel and it was windy and it was human. That would be real lazy on their part if they reveal he is in fact an elf in episode 8 and they didn't have him wearing the fake ears all the time.

I finally did a review on Amazon. I gave it 2 stars. Some of the wide VFX look nice so I gave it a star for that. The technical issues with writing, acting, directing, and editing are not acceptable. The CGI that involves a person or creature is terrible too.

Abrams probably gave Bezos the worst people he had. He was going to lay them off anyway but he found a nice landing spot for them.

I liked the scene no matter what they did or didn't do to shoot it.

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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

I didn't read the tolkien canon but I do like this as a story line for the series because it cements the relationship of the dwarf prince and his wife with saving the Elves and becoming more of a power in the world. When the dwarf prince has the blow-up with his father, it shows him as a visionary and one who values friendship while his old man doesn't trust anyone but himself to know what is safe to maintain his kingdom.

_________________
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

I think that the Elves are much more athletic than the dwarves. That was pretty much shown in the trilogy with the dwarf member of Gandorfs little band always needing to be lifted up by his Elf antagonist friend. And i don't think that the captain is Aragorn's ancestor. Aragorn was from the beginning of the Trilogy was known as the rightful King of Middle Earth and that is what they are referring to Handril as. Somehow I see Handril and the Elf Princess hooking up. Don't know what the procreation outcome between an elf and a human is by Aragorn had some powers that mere humans didn't possess I think, right?

_________________
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

I am interested to know about how many watchers of this series read the Tolkien book(s)? To those that didn't, such as myself I guess it is easier to go along with whatever the writers put in front of us than it is for those who read Tolkien? I can understand therefore why some of you guys who read it are frustrated by what the series is doing with the characters.

I read all of the Martin Books for Game of Thrones and ran into similar frustration with how the series GOT varied from the books and I guess in LOR's case, the series varies more than the GOTs did.

_________________
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

Mithriol was the metal that Froto's mail armor was made of, right? Maybe in addition to providing protection from blades and arrows, it emitted energy to the wearer? That, then would maybe fit into the narrative that the writers are spinning about rejuvenating the elves?

_________________
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

what are the Tolkien books called? I am an avid reader and would like to know what books I should buy tht form the basis for the LOR and this preceding fantasy history.

_________________
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

Not sure that the series is based on Tolkien canon or any specific books. I think they are pulling from bits and pieces that Tolkien didn't flesh out himself. But, using some of the Tolkien stuff as they see fit. That's why people assume Isildur is fine because he is an important part of the canon as it relates to Sauron and the One ring. I get that they are making the show for Tolkien fans, casual fans and non fans alike so they feel like they have the flexibility to make changes as they see fit or create entire new stories that Tolkien never got to. Simon Tolkien is an advisor and the grandson of J.R.R., so maybe he's signing off on some of these changes.

I'm fine with it all as I never was a fan of the LOR movies anyway. They didn't match up to the books for me after reading them.

That said, I think MANY people loved the movies and their expectations for this series are based on them.

YMMV.

_________________
"I give you my word as a Biden"

I think you're giving them too much credit Augie. Nobody who works on this show cares about the source material. They fired their Tolkien scholar or whatever they call themselves and the grandson is pretty shady from what people say. The son was the guy that was trying to protect Tolkien's legacy and he died a couple of years ago. After he was out of the way the rest of the family decided to cash in. There is a deep rabbit hole with this show. I'm not even going to get involved in that though.

It seems like this show is trying to follow the movies more than the books based on the number of times they rip-off Jackson every episode. In last episode they had Galadriel and sword kid hiding from orcs like the hobbits were hiding from the riders in 1st movie. In next episode we're going to see a horse rescue Isuldur like the horse saved Aragorn when he went over cliff. They use slow motion like Jackson but they have no idea how or why he did it so they don't do it right.

To be fair though they aren't following anything. They're just making a bunch of shit up as they go because they're incompetent. They wanted Galadriel to have her freedom so they just kill off her husband and don't mention daughter. So no Liv Tyler. They don't just kill off the husband she says he was so inept he couldn't even put on his armor properly. He was an elf lord and one of the elves greatest warriors. They are always doing this stupid shit. There's a reason for the ridiculous empowerment in this show. That's coming from the studio head or the executive producer.

The captain is the 1st king of Gondor. He's definitely Aragorn's ancestor. He was killed by Sauron in open of trilogy. He's also supposed to be the greatest warrior in the story but he can't handle a few orcs and he cries for no reason. The Numenoreans are supposed to be the greatest warriors in the books. They have some of the elf magic and they're all over 7' tall. I don't know why they are all so pathetic in this show. Imagine that crappy army going up against orcs from the trilogy.

Also I'm picking all this stuff up from reviews and some youtube clips I've watched. I haven't read the books I just liked the trilogy.

I hope the Isildur/horse rescue scene pays off. I want to see the horse clearing the burned out debris off Isildur and dragging him away. They better not bitch out and have Isildur stumbling down a road then the horse comes up to him after this build up. If they couldn't train the horse to pick up debris they better of got an animatronic...they have a billion dollars...no excuses.

There's something pretty funny on youtube. Its Gandalf, Boromir, and Elrond watching Rings of Power. I can't figure out how they do it.
https://youtu.be/xgbSgWn-7kE

Watched part of it during cardio then finished at home. There is a scene where they do extreme closeups of Galadriel and Halbrand and it looks ridiculous on a big screen. I don't understand these directorial choices unless they assume most will watch on their phones.

"I am good." I don't understand how this stuff keeps making it to the screen.

The whole Sauron reveal would have paid off somewhat if it was earned. For this show it was mostly pretty decent...but nobody likes Galadriel so nobody cares.

The blind queen is right up there for dumbest things in this show which is saying something. I don't think they understand how blindness works. Why does she still have eyebrows if flames made her blind?

When everyone else gets shot there's a healer nearby. When the black guy gets it no healer for him? Gandalf doesn't have some kind of spell for that?

To be fair they also said he'd be like Tony Soprano and The Joker. These 2 hacks that couldn't get a credit for anything also compare what they're doing with Milton and Shakespeare.

He’s going to start a meth empire? “Showrunners”. They’re senior jackasses!

The finale was decent but the ring scene was really padded out. The last 20 minutes felt like every scene was the last one.

I think the let down was also that everything was so telegraphed that the reveals felt drawn out rather than exciting.

RIP Cosby Baggins.

Was kind of surprised the three Elven rings looked identical to the ones shown in the opening of the first LOTR movie, since it seems Rings of Power has a lot of contractual limits regarding what they can show.

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I was surprised 2 of them were gold and one was silver when they made them at same time...

The real story here is RoP declined 18% from episode 3 to episode 4. Maybe this explains the "shitting in their pants" comment in that Hollywood Reporter article as the ratings are almost a month behind. When I was watching Friday a popup ad came up for some show...Periphery or something. I had to close and restart but didn't think anything of it. People are saying they did that to increase the viewer count because when it restarts they get credit for another view. The ratings are in minutes but Amazon has been using views in their comments about viewership.

These psychopath hobbits are garbage but the one thing I kind of enjoyed was the way his eyes would almost pop out of his head when a hobbit would come to him with a plan to kill off the main hobbit family. He may have faked his own death to get away from these morons.

This damn show...why was he blowing that whistle when he's hiding in the bushes? Every scene has some kind of stupid shit going on.

I thought they’d explain the three witches at least but I guess we have to wait on that one…

Well, you nailed Handril not being Aragorn's ancestor. I am amazed that they made him Sauron. I did like the finale over-all though with Gandorf and the hard foot going on their merry way at the end. Question. Why are there three rings and who gets them? I guess one for the Elf King but who gets the other two? One for the Dwarves? But after the Dwarf king killed off sharing the new metal with the elves to save them, I kind of doubt that, right? ANd weren't there something like 20 rings in total by the time LOR happened?

_________________
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

That whole scene was terrible. He turns them into those ring wraith guys even though rings not even made yet then a giant moth shows up. Do these idiots think Gandalf is some kind of moth wizard because he used one to send a message to Radagast???

People are mad because they didn't do rings right. In books Sauron tricked the elves into making the rings for humans and dwarves. Then they realized what he was doing and made their 3 in secret so he couldn't control them. In the show he just showed up and told them to coax the metals together instead of forcing them and thru powers of bad writing it worked.

Its unfortunate they couldn't use Gandalf as inspiration for their Gandalf since they don't have the rights. ET probably didn't work as well as intended. When kids are hiding ET its cute. When kids are hiding a homeless psychopath in the woods its horrifying.

Chronologically the 5 books to read are :

Silmarillion - this is the creation of the world and basically a history book comprised of various stories of the 1st age of Tolkiens world. at the back of the book is a smaller section that describes the 2nd age (where this story resides) called the Akallabeth.

and of course you can read the hobbit and the 3 lord of the rings books to get a guage of where the story eventually takes us.

The Silmarillion while long, I think is a fantastic book with fantastic short stories sprinkled in. Its definitely worth a read.

The issue that Tolkien's son had was that there were many manuscripts written and rewritten. many changes constantly but his father.

The show takes place in the 2nd age. tolkien had barely fleshed out the 2nd age before his death. Its in the Sillmarillion briefly and expanded upon a little bit int he Histories of Middle Earth book set. but in truth its basicallly a synopsis and timeline.

So the show creators feel they can take some liberties and at least a portion of the tolkien family have allowed them to do so.

that said, the frustrating part for me is that the istar don't come until after sauron is defeated. this is a major gaff I believe used to draw in gandalf fans.

there are other spirits (maiar) and stuff out there. I have no idea if they were already "wraiths" or just became wraiths, or if they were destroyed or what.