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Roronoa Zoro
Gold Member
Trainwreck shows are entertaining for a time. I enjoyed laughing at arrow for a couple seasons past 4 but eventually it does lose its luster. For now RoP is still cringe funny to me. The latest episode had some truly hilarious parts especially how the battle is the most unepic and sloppiest choreography and can be directly compared to helms deep to show just how crap it is as they clearly wanted to emulate that.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Amazon is paying a lot and they said the magic words “these changes, believe you me, are necessary to appeal to MODERN AUDIENCES!”… and they are paying a lot of money.
That's the key. It's that they made these silly changes because they THOUGHT there was an audience for it, when clearly there is not.
Of these folks had just kept their traps shut and foregoed the need to virtue signal then I coykd have just chalked it up to incompetence, but what they are doing is outright malicious (to the words of Tolkein).
Melon Husk
Member
One third sad self-sorry Bilbo, one third Denethor, one third Theoden under Saruman's spell
What's sad is that none of his underlings have any agency. Numenorians are at least capable of independent thought unlike the brainless goons of Eregion.
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brownfedora
Member
I know it’s from the books. But the books didn’t go into this level of detail on how Sauron the deceiver pulled it off.
Celebrimbor is a FOOL! My favorite part of watching this show is remarking on Celebrimbor’s stupidity and imagining what would happen if the fat wife dwarf met Galadriel.
Melon Husk
Member
Celebrimbor put all his stat points into HP. He can take more damage than Mustafa
Lukaku's First Touch
Member
Last episode was terrible:
- "Gandalf...that's what they will call me" reveal. Like we didn't know from season 1 already acting like it's grand reveal loool.
- Dwarfs suddenly show up from everywhere, even on the walls like they were teleported. Nobody saw them beforehand?
- The orcs just fucking off after killing their 'dad' leaving galadriel and sauron.
- Sauron fighting galadriel and pretty much killing her and still asking for the ring instead of just taking it... fucking stupid
- Galadriel surviving a 500meter fall...
- The end scene with the king, cringe.
- And probably a bunch more that I already forgot.
Fbh
Member
Yup, pretty much agree on everything.
At least the Balrog scene was sort of visually nice, though I found it funny how towards the end there's a scene of the Dwarfs talking about the upcoming problems they have and no one bothers to mention the massive fire demon living under their city lol.
Also this is getting into new Star Wars territory of getting stabbed not being a big deal. The black Elve dude got stabbed at end of the last episode and this episode he is running around as if nothing happened. Galadriel gets stabbed and jumps off a cliff and the only dangerous part about that was apparently some magical wound lol
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
The writing, acting and overall direction is so amature and downright bad it's just
Also you forgot the hilarious scene with Elendil hiding behind the wall from the guards who just let it go for no solid reason.
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Ammogeddon
Member
I’ll credit them that I managed to make myself watch the whole of season 2. All in all it was marginally better than season 1 but it was still horrendous.
The endless aping of the PJ trilogy is just unbearable. It runs through even the littlest scenes like when Elendil draws Narsil. Does anyone really like it when shows do this. It’s cheap and desperate. Just fucking stop.
Also, I read a bit of an interview with the show runners and they denied setting out for the wizard to be Gandalf, it just evolved that way. What an absolute load of bollocks.
The endless aping of the PJ trilogy is just unbearable. It runs through even the littlest scenes like when Elendil draws Narsil. Does anyone really like it when shows do this. It’s cheap and desperate. Just fucking stop.
Also, I read a bit of an interview with the show runners and they denied setting out for the wizard to be Gandalf, it just evolved that way. What an absolute load of bollocks.
DragoonKain
Neighbours from Hell
I honestly thought this season was worse than season 1. It was more boring to me, aside from the battle in episode 7. Everything feels anticlimactic. At least season 1 had a modicum of world building.
I was cracking up at how they tried to make you think Arondir died in episode 7, Adar delivers the final blow, and then he falls to the ground and then in the finale he just shows up like nothing ever happened. Not injured, nothing. I started laughing it was funny.
You pick up on a habit with this show, they love cutting away from parts of the story and then cutting back later and some major plot development happened off screen, they just want an excuse not to show it to save budget or time or from having to write it in.
They cut away from the dwarves... later cut back to them and they arrive at Eregion.
They cut away from the Orc confronting Sauron. Cut back later and they have turned on Adar and been flipped by Sauron.
Cut away from Celebrimbor in episode 7. Cut back in episode 8 and he's already in the middle of being tortured.
Cut away from Arondir in episode 7. Cut back to him in episode 8 and he's just magically alive. Not even as some epic reveal either, he just strolls in casually with the rest of the army.
I was cracking up at how they tried to make you think Arondir died in episode 7, Adar delivers the final blow, and then he falls to the ground and then in the finale he just shows up like nothing ever happened. Not injured, nothing. I started laughing it was funny.
You pick up on a habit with this show, they love cutting away from parts of the story and then cutting back later and some major plot development happened off screen, they just want an excuse not to show it to save budget or time or from having to write it in.
They cut away from the dwarves... later cut back to them and they arrive at Eregion.
They cut away from the Orc confronting Sauron. Cut back later and they have turned on Adar and been flipped by Sauron.
Cut away from Celebrimbor in episode 7. Cut back in episode 8 and he's already in the middle of being tortured.
Cut away from Arondir in episode 7. Cut back to him in episode 8 and he's just magically alive. Not even as some epic reveal either, he just strolls in casually with the rest of the army.
nightmare-slain
Gold Member
.
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GymWolf
Gold Member
Arrow was already much worse after season 2.
FinalBossWithTheMostPower
Member
Y'all are snobby as fuck.
From the first time I watched the original animated films, I always wondered who Sauron was and how he managed to do what he did.
We got that, and there's no substitute for it.
Is it perfect? Nah. But the liberties they've taken with Tolkein's material are the kind that are expected with adaptations. Crying foul over things like Gandalf's arrival in the wrong age is weird.
Was it satisfying to see it play out? Yes.
As a father, the standout moment was the death of King Durin, and it wouldn't have landed without two seasons of build up.
Can't wait for season 3.
From the first time I watched the original animated films, I always wondered who Sauron was and how he managed to do what he did.
We got that, and there's no substitute for it.
Is it perfect? Nah. But the liberties they've taken with Tolkein's material are the kind that are expected with adaptations. Crying foul over things like Gandalf's arrival in the wrong age is weird.
Was it satisfying to see it play out? Yes.
As a father, the standout moment was the death of King Durin, and it wouldn't have landed without two seasons of build up.
Can't wait for season 3.
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
The worst seasons of of GoT which everyone complained about I enjoyed and didn't complain, expect for the final few eps.
Heck even the Hobbit I thought had some merits.
But RoP I genuinely think is a real mess on so many levels. Even the music sucks.
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ManaByte
Banned
Just wait for Gandalf meeting Galadriel in a future season.
Which is something Tolkien wrote in the Unfinished Tales when he was retconning when the Wizards arrived.
Reizo Ryuu
Member
Enjoyed it quite a bit more than season 1.
There was this ominous sense of dread lingering around for the first 5/6 episodes that I liked, something that's just out of reach, like you can see it in the corner of your eye, but when you look there's nothing there, kind of feeling.
Production values were on point, the balrog's fluid dynamics were super crispy.
Also neat they actually did the tom bombadil song for one of the endings.
There were definitely some super weird moments though, like arondir just being alive for no reason, no setup, no fake out, almost like entire scene was just cut.
Edit:
Also annatar revealing himself to celebrimbor like
Was both hilarious and awesome.
There was this ominous sense of dread lingering around for the first 5/6 episodes that I liked, something that's just out of reach, like you can see it in the corner of your eye, but when you look there's nothing there, kind of feeling.
Production values were on point, the balrog's fluid dynamics were super crispy.
Also neat they actually did the tom bombadil song for one of the endings.
There were definitely some super weird moments though, like arondir just being alive for no reason, no setup, no fake out, almost like entire scene was just cut.
Edit:
Also annatar revealing himself to celebrimbor like
Was both hilarious and awesome.
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FinalBossWithTheMostPower
Member
The worst seasons of of GoT which everyone complained about I enjoyed and didn't complain, expect for the final few eps.
Heck even the Hobbit I thought had some merits.
But RoP I genuinely think is a real mess on so many levels. Even the music sucks.
Wow. Complete opposite on my side.
I hated the Hobbit and the bastardization of it into 3 films, but everything has its merits.
Similarly, I love the RoP theme.
Perspectives. Cheers.
Tams
Member
Well then, I just have to say that you have incredibly shit taste and very low standards.
The show is an utter joke. It's utterly poorly written, produced, acted, and designed. There is pretty much nothing redeeming about it.
FinalBossWithTheMostPower
Member
Well look at you...
You’ve unlocked the ‘harshest critic’ perk!
Don’t worry, though — one person’s trash TV is another's guilty pleasure.
I can't stand House of the Dragon.
Roronoa Zoro
Gold Member
Oh yeah I was just in the "maybe it will be good again" for a couple seasons before I went full laugh at it mode.
AJUMP23
Parody of actual AJUMP23
I finished the second season and will say it was better. I like the dwarves and the appearance of the Balrog.
Isildur still hadn’t done much. And I did laugh when they called Sauron the “lord of the rings”. I guess next season he will make the one ring. Or that is how it will end.
Isildur still hadn’t done much. And I did laugh when they called Sauron the “lord of the rings”. I guess next season he will make the one ring. Or that is how it will end.
Melon Husk
Member
Grand elf
Grandelf
Gandalf
Werewolf Jones
Member
The fact you can ebitch slap someone like this in 2024 and get away with it is so amazing. Props GAF.
Saw Patton Oswald's takes on Orcs and I'm not a LotR fan but even I was like bruh... If this show decanonized itself and was an elseworlds tale would y'all still be as pissed at it?
Cracked me up when Celebrimbor got impaled through the stomach on a pike and proceeded to natter away with Sauron as though nothing was wrong. On the whole I though the Celebrimbor storyline was one of the better ones at the end of the season but that moment, and the scene in general, showed how little care or comprehension those making the show have over maintaining tone or prioritising coherent storytelling over a dramatic or 'cool' visual. Sauron torturing Celebrimbor to death, revealing the depths of his cruelty while Celebrimbor suffers the consequences of his hubris, should have been a moment of intense, intimate sadness and foreboding at the victory of evil and one man's folly representing the blindness of all the ringbearers, and Middle Earth generally, to the darkness their complacency, avarice and ego were allowing to be reborn. Instead, we got the comedy of Celebrimbor with these lengthy arrows stuck in him and rattling around, him being all chatty after being stabbed in the stomach with a pike and hoist up a pillar, then his nonsensical guff about Sauron being controlled by the rings before, to top it off, Sauron getting all weepy. And then the dwarves appeared out of nowhere just because.
As I've previously said, I enjoyed and have enormous respect for the books but am not a Tolkien uber-fan so not the sort who notices when the details of the lore aren't on-point, but there are moments in the show when it hints at something much better or at least taps into relatable emotion: Durin struggling to find the strength to confront his corrupted father, for instance, or Celebrimbor's ego blinding him to the madness of what he was doing. Unfortunately those storylines are often drowned out by a glut of disposable or outright crappy others (especially everything to do with Numenor, which is dire and exhausting on every possible level, or whatever the fuck Isildur is supposed to be doing, or Diversity Elf pracing about for no other purpose than to be a Diversity Elf, or turning Tom Bombadil of all, uh, people into a mission-giving NPC), or sabotage themselves at key moments such as the above, that any potential that might have existed is killed off and taking any hope or goodwill with it. I genuinely believe the show could have been at least decent with competent people running it and focusing on, say, three key storylines, but as it is it just never stops falling over its own feet.
As I've previously said, I enjoyed and have enormous respect for the books but am not a Tolkien uber-fan so not the sort who notices when the details of the lore aren't on-point, but there are moments in the show when it hints at something much better or at least taps into relatable emotion: Durin struggling to find the strength to confront his corrupted father, for instance, or Celebrimbor's ego blinding him to the madness of what he was doing. Unfortunately those storylines are often drowned out by a glut of disposable or outright crappy others (especially everything to do with Numenor, which is dire and exhausting on every possible level, or whatever the fuck Isildur is supposed to be doing, or Diversity Elf pracing about for no other purpose than to be a Diversity Elf, or turning Tom Bombadil of all, uh, people into a mission-giving NPC), or sabotage themselves at key moments such as the above, that any potential that might have existed is killed off and taking any hope or goodwill with it. I genuinely believe the show could have been at least decent with competent people running it and focusing on, say, three key storylines, but as it is it just never stops falling over its own feet.
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Guiding Moonlight
Neo Member
Reevaulate your tastes.
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
Exactly. Amen to that.
Laptop1991
Member
Judging by the reviews i'm glad i didn't watch any of them, it was the same bad writing i saw in the 1st few episodes of the 1st season and it isn't going to change for how many they do, what a waste of an opportunity to make something great with Tolkien's work.
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FunkMiller
Gold Member
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Hold up. Retconning?
Tolkien wasn't writing Unfinished Tales as standalone book. It's not a novel. It's a collection of stories and essays that his son edited after Tolkien's death.
NecrosaroIII
Ultimate DQ Fan
I wonder if next season Celebrimbanner
BearNecessity
Banned
The storyline actually started coming together in the last 3 episodes. If the tolkien estate was given the cliff notes of what the story was going to be like I can definitely see how they would be impressed. The show did a good job with sauron the gaslighter, numenour politics werent terrible.. but its too late, I just didnt care for the characters so the scenes just didnt have any weight to them.
It sucks because if seasons 3/4/5 suddenly got amazing writers, the terrible first seasons will still hold it back.
It sucks because if seasons 3/4/5 suddenly got amazing writers, the terrible first seasons will still hold it back.
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DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
I'm confused... Folks on here saying second season is doing horribly but then I see elsewhere watch time is doing big numbers
FinalBossWithTheMostPower
Member
A few purist Tolkein crybabies not stopping shit.
Alex11
Member
Yeah, that's the only thing that's wrong with this show, the lore.
The show has a ton of problems, from which there are logic inaccuracies, plot holes and nonsensical character motivations, that were explained here time and again, with valid points, but sure, we're idiots because we can't recognize that greatness that this show is.
And really can't wrap my head around this picking on someone if they don't like something, you like the show, good, say it, explain it if you want and move on. I don't say shit things about someone if they like the show or any other show or movie for that matter.
The show has a ton of problems, from which there are logic inaccuracies, plot holes and nonsensical character motivations, that were explained here time and again, with valid points, but sure, we're idiots because we can't recognize that greatness that this show is.
And really can't wrap my head around this picking on someone if they don't like something, you like the show, good, say it, explain it if you want and move on. I don't say shit things about someone if they like the show or any other show or movie for that matter.
FinalBossWithTheMostPower
Member
Cyberpunkd
Member
People like thrash, news at 11.
Also, always check how these numbers are counted. AFAIK Netflix counts 3 minutes of viewing as seeing a whole episode.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Well at least you acknowledge the level of quality of the show
.Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Well written!
ManaByte
Banned
Tolkien was always changing things. He was George Lucas before George Lucas. There are multiple different versions of events in The Silmarillion, for example. In The Unfinished Tales, Tolkien was toying with changing when the Wizards arrived in Middle-Earth. He was writing stuff where they arrived in the Second Age and specifically wrote a thing where Gandalf met and talked with Galadriel in the Second Age.
Because they were unfinished works in progress. An author figures things out by writing. What is this comparison?!
ManaByte
Banned
The Galadriel/Gandalf Second Age stuff was written after LOTR was published. They're in essays Tolkien wrote up to the time of his death.
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IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
What
EviLore
said isn't incorrect. While the scene of Galadriel meeting Gandalf in the Second Age was added after the publication of The Lord of the Rings, (correct me if I'm wrong, but you're referring to "Galadriel and Celeborn" in Unfinished Tales) it's important to remember that Unfinished Tales is a collection of incomplete works. Tolkien may have been exploring different possibilities and ideas related to Middle-earth's history without necessarily intending to contradict or alter his established timeline.
It's possible that Tolkien saw this scene as a potential addition to his mythology, but he never fully integrated it into the main narrative. Therefore, while the scene might seem like a retcon, it's more likely that it was an exploration of a potential storyline that he didn't fully develop.
This isn't the same as what George Lucas did with Star Wars.
ManaByte
Banned
What
While the scene of Galadriel meeting Gandalf in the Second Age was added after the publication of The Lord of the Rings, (correct me if I'm wrong, but you're referring to "Galadriel and Celeborn" in Unfinished Tales) it's important to remember that Unfinished Tales is a collection of incomplete works. Tolkien may have been exploring different possibilities and ideas related to Middle-earth's history without necessarily intending to contradict or alter his established timeline.
It's possible that Tolkien saw this scene as a potential addition to his mythology, but he never fully integrated it into the main narrative. Therefore, while the scene might seem like a retcon, it's more likely that it was an exploration of a potential storyline that he didn't fully develop.
This isn't the same as what George Lucas did with Star Wars.
It’s a four page document written after the publication of the 1960 edition of LOTR detailing the origin of Elessar in the Second Age mostly via a conversation between Gandalf and Galadriel.
Tolkien also wrote other essays, including one in the year he died, about the Wizards coming to Middle-Earth in the Second Age.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
My previous point still stands. We cannot confuse this with retconning.
ManaByte
Banned
He changed his mind after the publication of LOTR, so it is a retcon. In 1959 he put the five wizards in Middle-Earth during the First Age helping with The Great March that the elves took to reach Valinor, then in 1960 he wrote the Elessar document that puts Olórin with Galadriel in the Second Age, and finally in 1973 he wrote the Glorfindel essay where he talked about Olórin in the Second Age.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
it's important to note that this was done in a way that generally aligns with the existing mythology and doesn't contradict the established timeline. Tolkien was exploring new ideas and expanding on existing concepts, rather than completely overwriting his previous work.
While Tolkien did add new details to the history of Middle-earth after the publication of The Lord of the Rings, these additions were generally consistent with the overall mythology and can be seen as a natural evolution of his world-building.
We also need to remember that Tolkien began developing the mythology of Middle-earth long before he started writing The Lord of the Rings. This early work was initially a personal project and a hobby not intended for publication. As a result, the lore evolved over time, and Tolkien was free to explore different ideas and possibilities without worrying about consistency or continuity.
When Tolkien decided to publish his Middle-earth stories, he faced the challenge of weaving together a complex mythology that had been developed over decades. This inevitably led to some inconsistencies and contradictions. However, Tolkien's approach to these inconsistencies was often to embrace them as part of the rich tapestry of his world, rather than trying to iron them out completely.
Therefore, when considering the "retconning" of Middle-earth lore, it's essential to keep in mind that Tolkien's original intentions were much different. The evolution of his mythology over time, combined with the challenges of adapting it for publication, naturally led to some changes and additions.
All of this doesn't excuse the writers of RoP taking serious liberties with Tolkien's work. Tolkien was ultimately the creator of Middle-earth. The writers of RoP are adapting his work and should strive to maintain the spirit and integrity of his original vision.
While some creative liberties may be necessary to adapt the material for television and film, it's essential that these changes are made thoughtfully and with a deep understanding of Tolkien's mythology, which is something I haven't seen any evidence of so far with what I've seen.
ManaByte
Banned
Except a huge complaint is that people said Gandalf coming to ME in the second age DESTROYS canon, when Tolkien wrote that he was in ME as early as the First Age.
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