I'm so conflicted. I love it and dislike it. The quality is outstanding. I love the story of Elrond and Durin. They should have their own full show. That would be so fun. The story of Galadriel rides on her name and reputation. Having read all of Tolkien's works repeatedly my whole life, her story in this series is so weak tho. The hobbits are forced in there for the mystery man, it feels to me. The song was a beautiful ode to Tolkien's love for songs. But I don't know. The hobbits don't belong in this show in my honest opinion. I stay hopeful.
The visual beauty of this show is breathtaking. I really liked "The Song of the Roots of Hithaeglir" btw, it perfectly illustrates how myths and legends work on a meta level. Can't wait for the next episode, looks like shit will hit the fan in the Southlands.
Im not sure what it was in this episode but it was slow..... really slow. I have been liking this show so far but this episode not sure what it was.
I know it's cool to hate on this show so I waited a few episode to give them a fighting chance.
If LOTR was a cake your grandma made, then the Hobbit was a store bought cake. This show is a wedding cake: very expensive, looks amazing, but inside is the most boring generic cake.
If you are going to modernize it anyway, then why bother buying the rights to the best known fantasy franchise. Tolkien was already on the edge of political correct thinking when Peter Jackson made his movies. It's like buying a hippy van, stripping everything but the chassis and then installing an electrical engine when you could just have bought the new E van.
I'll probably end up watching the entire first season but at no point does it feel like the same universe. In fact as soon as I started to watch this show like I did with The Orville ( close to Star Trek but not it ) I could actually enjoy Durin, Elrond and Arondir.
Amazon if you are reading this, next season cut 25% of the gfx department and hire a few solid writers. I won't miss a few waterfalls in the background when I'm focused on the dialogue, or Valar forbid, some action.
Why! Why does this show go nowhere! I just spent over an hour of my life watching people talk around tables and way too much signing, like some high school musical lord of the rings addition. Seriously what is going on with this show. Too much talking and not enough action with a almost non existent and non cohesive plotline.
One hour of nothing.... 10 minutes good enough.
Lying, cheating, backstabbing, scheming - this sure has GoT traits doesn't it ?
But this was the first episode where I felt for the first time that the story is progressing. Things are happening and motives are laid out.
I found one thing particulary interesting and maybe I'm just reading too much into it. When Halbrand talked to Galadriel about the dark things he'd done they showed the Humans bowing to Adar. Are those two seperate timelines ? Also, could Adar really be Sauron ? Could the Stranger be Gandalf ?
And that song they used for the end credit is absolutely beautiful.
Another brilliant episode. Still in awe of the breathtaking visuals and the amazing score. The acting is really good as well and just overall very good storyline so far.
I could repeat my comments from last episode, but I won't do this. In a nutshell: it looks awesome, but the story and most characters are mediocre. I still enjoy it but it's certainly not great.
Let me talk about something else instead. Tolkien's work and Jackson's adaptation have always received their fair share of criticism regarding ethnic and racial stereotypes. One example is the problematic Wagner-ish portray of dwarfs. I won't go into this. Enough was said about this. In this show, they added Hobbit "ancestors". Hobbits were never funny and a a big fat Irish stereotype. Now they added this element of "migration". How could you not think that they are inspired by Irish Travellers? The Harfoots have other traits allegedly ascribed to their culture: they too love music, gather around campfires, organize themselves in families and live at the edge of society in relative poverty. It's like costume artists were fans of The Kelly Family. I'm not even saying that only negative stereotypes are reverberated: the Harfoots are too likable to immediately incite prejudice and discrimination against Travellers. But I wonder why they always do that in this franchise? Why do they often use a discriminated ethnic or racial group as a template and why do they choose to portray them in a very stereotypical way? They could have designed this people very differently very easily. Who's next? Gypsies? Pygmy peoples? Sámi? Eurasian nomads aka "horse people"? It doesn't really bother me though. (I'm not a snowflake and I realize that fiction is different from reality). This was mostly an academic remark. But I think, it was worth to be mentioned. Instead, very interestingly though, the show is (totally unfairly) criticized by some for including (as in: inclusion) black actors. Really? It makes you think whether "our" value system is well calibrated.
PS: I knew it. Yolandi Visser is one of these weird, otherworldly, pale elves. These guys are elves, right?
Pros
+Giving the Mystery guy the whole Iron Giant brainwashing is wonderful
+I think I've neglected to mention but the Orcs look fantastic and that is a huge accomplishment despite being easy to overlook
+ The Mystery man I am just assuming Olorin coming to the rescue against the Wargs
+I can see people calling the practice sword fight scene cringy but I thought it was pretty fun
+The color palette, set design, costume design, etc. is flawless
+General cinematography is magnificent
+Isildur's story is Tolkien level simple. However, this is the focus of the long term story and where most viewers will look to going on and I think the story is done well and dialogue is somewhat realistic rather than just pure snap
+Celabrimbor is fantastic, I hated that he looked elderly despite being an elf but he makes up for it in acting feats.
+Gotta love Halbrand but also we all want him to bang Galadriel (even though she's supposed to be taken at this point), he's the only thing that can penetrate Galadriel's shields and its more impactful than sex.
Neutral
*The song part was pretty well done but also seemed a bit out of place
*Ar Pharazon's colonialism is perfect and based although inappropriate for Tolkien
*Injection of the Silmarils felt cheap considering how big they are and how no one will understand they are far far more important than the Ring or mithril or anything of the sort (not to mention their lore is completely disconnected)
*Isildur's sister is so gorgeous I would also Kill a boat's worth or motherfuckers who meant nothing to me just to kiss her face
Cons
-Dumb awkward bit where Durin Jr cries about a table and gets acknowledged instead of laughed away
-Gil galad portrayed as a selfish scumbag bothers me
-Galadriel is still supposed to seem normal rather than Radical which is what her position should seem like
-Adar is a bitch and so is the entire Southlands story, can't wait for Halbrand to create Rohan hehehe
No one can deny the visual beauty of this show - it is perhaps the best looking show ever made. Absolutely stunning. But that doesn't make up for the fact that the show is soulless and often boring. None of the characters are overly interesting or likeable, and the action sequences are laughable.
Have we lowered the bar so low that all we care about now is the prettiness of a show and we careless about story, content and writing?
Yes it looks pretty, but so is the Venus Fly Trap that entices flys to venture into, and slowly wrap around the fly whilst numbing it so it can't fly away and eventually is consumed by it.
The Weta Workshop always do stunning backdrops, models and that was clearly where tons of cash was used but the swords and armour were deficient in budget. But that said you cannot rely just on 'pretty' to sell a story and keep an audience. You can have the best backdrop on a pantomime but if the acting and the writing is like eating stale cardboard you won't keep an audience long.
I have up watching last week's episode half way through as I was bored out of my skull and returned when I could stomach it. I watched this episode after saying I won't but decided to ensure till the end of the season but I can tell you there was nothing in this episode that have me satisfaction in starting that's for sure.
Honestly this episode felt like it was 3hrs long. It was hurting me to stay focused and try to keep the fragments of the whisp of any 'story line'. Dear lord the writing is abysmal in this thing.
It's like the 'pretty', is 'My Precious' of the original trilogy and is hypnotizing an audience into complete submission.
There was nothing in this episode that made me enjoy it and it even made me despise all the more. This is more targeted to schoolage children just coming home from school. And wasn't it Amazon themselves that wanted a show of equal calibre for their own 'Game of Thrones' type drawcard?
Compare just in terms of what is a strong presence on screen and a believable woman fighting, watch 'Anna' as a recent example. The writing of that movie is quite good too.
This waste of time show is like blowing up a balloon then releasing all the air and all you have left is a stretched soggy and flat but colourful piece of rubber that's no good for anyone.
Durin and Elrond have the greatest chemistry, the only characters achieving the same quality level as in the movies.
Several good dialogues and scenes but still not a great episode. But the potential certainly is there.
How I feel about this episode is how I feel about the show as a whole so far. There’s nothing I actively dislike, but nothing I’m in love with either. It just kind of exists. Like I’m interested enough to watch it and not be bored, but nothing is really gripping me or sticking with me.
The production value is so good in this show. People hating on the show for no reason. There are many garbage shows like the Walking Dead, this show is nothing like that.
Shits about to get real after this episode.
That was the most epic episode ending I've seen in years. It was like this is the season finale; or the ending of a fantasy film.
I also love the ending theme song for this episode. I hope to find it in streaming services, it's a beautiful song.
incredibly tense and filled with contention, this episode dials the intrigue up to 11. So far this season has to setting up an incredibly complex story, and while I'm still waiting for many of the plot's events to start demanding consequences, for now I'm eager to see how many plot threads they plan on stringing together in one season of television.
It's starting to get on my nerves how the warhawk-ish rhetoric of the elves is going on unchallenged by Elrond's and Halbrand's pathetic attempts to stop them. I'm not saying that they should've succeeded in stopping the war, but they should've at least presented some better arguments.
The story told in the show abandoned Tolkien's vision of Middle-Earth completely, so now I'm watching it to find out what the showrunners might concoct. It is getting more and more absurd though. I liked some of the visuals, Numenor is beautiful during day and night-time, Lindon also seemed pretty, the ships Numenoreans used are nice but the royal ship from "House of the Dragon" was much more meticulously made than that.
We still don't know who is Sauron since the strange guy Adar didn't actually confess to being Sauron, though there was some confessing made as Theo revealed his secret to Arondir and showed him the mysterious hilt, whereas the elf discovered some ancient sculpture with the sword but he doesn't know anything we haven't already knew, only that the enemy needs it very badly.
The hobbits are back and it seems that Nori and her family and her bestie were abandonded by the rest of the group (nice hobbbit-like solidarity it is, indeed!) and now only the meteor man helps him. They catch up with the group somehow, and when they get attacked by wolves that look more like wargs, he uses his magic and saves them, but later on his hand all turns to ice together with Nori's, who is trying to stop him, so it is not so sure whether he is the good guy. Also, the creepy people from the trailer inspect the site of his landing and sort of worship it, so maybe he is Sauron after all. The hobbit plotline contains a song which is kind of cute but not particularly Middle-Earthish.
Another Sauron candidate, Halbrand, fares rather well since he got the dreamed of job as a smith and makes pretty swords. Apart from that, he is now apparently a member of Tar-Miriels' privy council, which consists also of Pharazon, Galadriel and sometimes Elendil. First he doesn't want to go to war but Galadriel convinces him with some nonsense and there they both are, on a ship sailing towards Middle-Earth, together with Elendil and Isildur who finally gets the place on the ship having saved Kemal's life? The whole Numenor plot is so convoluted and has nothing to do with Tolkien. Someone supports Pharazon and guess who it is? Elendil's OC daughter! She wants to get Kemal to convince Pharazon to stop the war, but Pharazon speaks about conquering new lands in Middle-Earth and subjugating its people, showing his conniving nature for the first time. This is more like the books!Pharazon. Isildur feels left out as all his friends volunteer and take part in military training but he is rejected because apparently he doesn't belong to any guilds. His best friends are in the army now and in a silly scene Galadriel gets to teach the recruits sword-fighting, the winner in the "battle" with her would be promoted to lieutenant and Isildur's bestie Valandil wins. The whole idea of Galadriel teaching the Numenorean recruits sword-fighting is completely stupid, just like the fact that there are apparently young women as well as men among the recruits, it looks so woke.
The elven plotline looks silly as well. The Elves invited Durin jr. to Lindon, but not his lady wife, which seems too uncourteous for the Elves, and at the table they seem to share nasty words with each other, the lack of friendship and trust between the two races is all to clear, whereas in real Middle-Earth Celebrimbor was befriended with the Dwarves. I like Durin but it was terribly jarring with the solemn nature of Middle-Earth when he almost swore during the supper with the Elves, it was so cringy.
I do not like the story Glorfindel tells Elrond to make him break his oath to Durin, according to which mithril is the product of a tree which contained a Silmarill within and without having the opportunity to glance at its light, the Elves would perish. It doesn't fit what we know about the Silmarills (or mithrill) at all. And I was afraid that Elrond would turn out to be spineless after all and break his promise, however all turned out well in the end and he confessed everything to Durin, who promised to help him save the Elves.
Why is everyone resisting to blink? It is quite irritating and like I'm watching ultra realistic androids talking to each other.
Though I've found LOTR generally slow in getting to the point, perhaps why the franchise has never been a personal favourite, it's snail-slow storytelling in this one. However, I came for aesthetic and auditory goodness and I'm staying for aesthetic and auditory goodness. For the music (that Khazad-dûm chanting, Poppy's song, the score), for the art (Galadriel in flowing gowns, Galadriel in armour, Galadriel just standing around gazing into worlds unknown with those seldom blinking eyes... and of course the set design, the scenery, cinematography (that rack focus from the blight to the unfortunately named Elrond was splendid)
Art is subjective, some want more action in this show, some want more story, and some want both... I guess I could do with a better structured story, but otherwise, this is OK.
Felt the most like Tolkien with the maps shown of Middle Earth. As well as the singing.
In a nutshell - it's 5 episodes in, and I don't care about any of the characters. Not any on them has any kind of depth. Galadriel's deep, intense, dramatic voice grates on my nerves, as does Bronwyn's skimpy dress. Halbrand's a copy of Aragorn, and who cares about the hobbits? The plot's overly convoluted for a series of 8 episodes. Granted, it appears as though the pieces are moving closer together, but why are Galadriel and Halbrand leading the Numenor to the Southlands? I mean, shouldn't there be a leader of the Numenor leading the Numenor?
The only plotthread that's interesting is the one with Elrond and Durin. It's a simple one of loyalty and honor, so far, so maybe that's why it's appealing among all the pseudo grandeur and epic framing.
There is no action in these episodes. The story is terribly boring, No acting talent is required because there nothing to act out. This is just an exercise of script reading while wearing a costume. I feel foolish for giving this 5 episodes to entertain me. It fails miserably. There are plenty of characters. How many seasons will it take to help me get to know them? Give me a Lord of the Rings conflict. Give me a battle that must be fought and won. Give me insurmountable odds. Give me a hero. Give me a victory. Give me two characters who actually love each other. Give me something! Failure big time.
Again, good - not great. Really over the stuff with Earien, but still very interested by Adar and The Stranger. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the head priestess is Sauron at this stage. That mystery is carrying me through.
Huh, I too started believing that that giant is Gandalf but now it doesn't seem like it anymore (at least during the end he seemed quite different)? I still don't even know if he's good or bad but he does care and it seems like he tries to do the right thing so far.
Some strange priestesses(?) appeared as the spot where he landed - I guess we'll soon learn more about them and find out wether they're good or bad.
Isildur really messed things up but at least he managed to fix most of it in the end.
Galadriel was really showing off during the sword fight. I loved every moment of it! :) And I'm glad that she acknowledged that hit at the end with honesty (I'd expect nothing less of her but was a little bit scared that she would just keep going).
But I definitely want to see Galadriel training with Halbrand now! :D
The boat scene with Isildur and that chancellor's son was just idiotic. Isildur shouldn't've lied but then again he probably had no better option as they wouldn't've believed him. I expected more of that other guy though... (blowing up ships is definitely not a solution!)
Thee's even more to that new ore than I thought. I didn't expect that Elrond would break his oath... :o At least he didn't break it right away but I would've expected him to talk to Durin first (he had to tell him later anyway so why not do it first?!?). I expected that During would be quite mad and rightfully though. I guess their friendship is super strong now and Durin saw the need and good intend (they obviously both didn't consider this when they made the oath but IMO Elrond communicated things badly to Durin). Anyway, During is much more forgiving now than I though.
Edit: Oh dear, when I watched it for the second time I noticed that Elrond technically didn't say to Durin that he broke the oath. Durin should either assume that Elrond broke it or ask Elrond. I expect that Durin went with the first option but I'm not sure - he could also believe that Elrond wouldn't even break his oath for that (but then why wouldn't they tell the Elves at this point). Most likely Durin is fine with it since the Elves already knew about that secret and Elrond only confirmed it. If this isn't the case then there might yet be a reckoning... :o Anyway, Elrond could've and should've handled this situation better IMO.
I'm confused now since Halbrand said that he did bad thing in the past. Are the stories time shifted and was he part of that human group that left the watchtower? (I probably didn't pay enough attention... :o)
Speaking of that group: What a bunch of idiots! They should've known better... :o :D When do evil overlords ever treat you well?!? And that guy: "You are Sauron, are you not?" "I'll serve you then. Whoever you are." facepalm
At least halve stayed at the watchtower :)
Durin's made up story regarding that table was funny :D
This is what I expected the show to be from the begging. Not only has story picked up, it seems writing is much better too. Durin and Elrond scene was fantastic. In fact all the dialogues were interesting and made a point. Hope this level continues to the end of the season.
Sauron wouldn't destroy the Harfoots, he/they/them would take them in his/they/them service. They would be his most evil servants and he/they/them would call them the Hargûl.
I'm glad this show's storyline has finally come together and make some sense.
You guys got the timing wrong. Episode are released on friday not Saturday
Shout by SophiasoVIP 4BlockedParent2022-09-23T11:54:25Z
So they just forged the elf a standalone bespoke armor in a matter of days? Fancyyy