Elwin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elwinfortuna) wrote2022-09-03 01:13 pm
elwinfortuna) wrote2022-09-03 01:13 pm
Entry tags:
The Rings of uh, okay, whatever.
Brief, non-spoilery review of the first two eps: Don't get Amazon Prime just for this. If you're curious, then the high seas will no doubt provide, but trust me, you're not missing out on much.
I didn't hate it entirely, but I don't love it entirely either. It's a long way from perfect. At best it has possibility, if you're willing to pretend that you've never read The Silmarillion.
From henceforth, there be spoilers!
I watched the first two eps with a dogged determination to try and pick out stuff I enjoyed, and there was some stuff to like. For the performances, I tried to focus on the acting rather than people's looks, and I think that helped in finding the good stuff.
First of all, Elrond! I liked him. He's basically a cute fluffy puppy, comes off as very young and very nice. He's a Good Boy(tm). He gets to show off some cleverness, he's a bit of a diplomat, a bit of a writer, he's a little starry-eyed in general.
Second, the dwarves. I think I honestly liked Elrond interacting with Prince Durin and Princess Disa the most out of the two eps so far. Khazad-dum looked AMAZING, I hope we get to see more. The rock-breaking contest was a bit silly, but it felt like it was intended to be.
Third, the Harfoots and The Stranger. I liked the Harfoots. It's not an unqualified like, but they were sweet, and I think Nori and Poppy are adorable (and I ship it). I really liked The Stranger, who is obviously Gandalf (to me, others disagree and that's fine). He feels like one of the few storylines in this series that might be genuinely fun to follow.
Fourth, and a very tenuous fourth it is, Celebrimbor. The looks are all kinds of Not Right, but the acting is good, and the way he's being written seems promising. I liked his little spiel about wanting to make Middle-earth better. He clearly has good intentions and is being written as a good guy, which gets thumbs up from me.
The prologue was completely unnecessary. It didn't help my husband, who is not a Tolkien fan, understand anything that was going on, and it felt extremely truncated and watered-down for me as a Silmarillion fan. It would have been far better to drop the history by bits and pieces throughout the series rather than info-dump at the start.
Pretty nearly everything involving Galadriel was bad, ranging from cringy as fuck to merely poor writing and direction. She's literally older than both Gil-galad and Elrond by centuries, why is she bothering to let them order her around? Her "revenge quest" for Finrod is ludicrous as a motivating factor, and in general she comes off as a petulant child rebelling against orders when in actual fact she should be portrayed as holding a similar amount of power as Celebrimbor at the very least.
(On a tangent, the eerie light of Valinor and her noping the fuck out of there to swim back to Middle-earth was equal parts hilarious and understandable, I would've jumped overboard too, what I can't understand is why she got on the boat in the first place.)
Gil-galad. Probably the one character whose portrayal I hated most. Wrong in every way, from his stupid dictats to his stupid laurel crown thingy.
Fëanor's hammer, okay, nice, it's pretty..."with which he made the Silmarils"...WHUT. Fëanor did not fucking make the Silmarils with a hammer! I'm not exactly the king of researching everything for my fic, but I've researched jewel-making enough to know that you don't MAKE jewels with a hammer. And Fëanor created the Silmarils, he didn't find them, he made them from scratch, which means there was probably some amount of growing the gems involved, because that's how you make gems. Anyway, subtle wisdom and lore and secret knowledge is out the window, hammers are in, boy, that feels like a metaphor for how they went about making this show.
Everything involving humans in this show so far has been boring and awful, including the spiritless "romance" between Arondir and Bronwyn. They don't really have much in the way of actual chemistry. (Arondir himself is okay, looking forward to seeing more of him.)
The Traveller-esque feel of the Harfoots. I missed this at first because I'm not very acquainted with the stereotypes, but according to my husband, they are a very pointed portrayal of Irish Travellers, complete with accent.
The scene at the very beginning that takes place in Valinor, which involves child Galadriel making a little swan sailboat, and some stereotypical British public schoolboys sinking it. Urgh.
The fantasy racism. "Knife-ear," really? And Arondir being the ONLY elf of colour that we've seen, and he's the target of the fantasy racism? (Okay, Galadriel gets a tiny bit of it too, but she's not called a slur.)
The Neo-classical Greco-Roman motifs all over the portrayal of Gil-galad and the court at Lindon.
And here's the part where I focus on people's looks: the short hair on Elves looks awful, the elves in general just look like humans with pointy ears and have very little ethereality to them as they should, Gil-galad and Celebrimbor look too old while Galadriel looks too young. And the Noldor don't have light in their eyes, and they don't move like Elves should move, they move like humans in fight scenes. For all Peter Jackson wasn't perfect, at least he did a good job of making Elves feel otherworldly when they fought.
Speaking of Peter Jackson, it really does feel like they stole a lot of set and clothing design from the LOTR movies, but did it in a half-assed way.
I'm going to keep watching, obviously, but my expectations were not high to start with and they remain very low. I want to enjoy what I can, ship some ships, and always remember that the book is still there, this is just Bezos' billion dollar fanfiction, nothing more. At best it'll inspire me to write more Silmarillion fanfic, out of spite if nothing else.
I didn't hate it entirely, but I don't love it entirely either. It's a long way from perfect. At best it has possibility, if you're willing to pretend that you've never read The Silmarillion.
From henceforth, there be spoilers!
I watched the first two eps with a dogged determination to try and pick out stuff I enjoyed, and there was some stuff to like. For the performances, I tried to focus on the acting rather than people's looks, and I think that helped in finding the good stuff.
First of all, Elrond! I liked him. He's basically a cute fluffy puppy, comes off as very young and very nice. He's a Good Boy(tm). He gets to show off some cleverness, he's a bit of a diplomat, a bit of a writer, he's a little starry-eyed in general.
Second, the dwarves. I think I honestly liked Elrond interacting with Prince Durin and Princess Disa the most out of the two eps so far. Khazad-dum looked AMAZING, I hope we get to see more. The rock-breaking contest was a bit silly, but it felt like it was intended to be.
Third, the Harfoots and The Stranger. I liked the Harfoots. It's not an unqualified like, but they were sweet, and I think Nori and Poppy are adorable (and I ship it). I really liked The Stranger, who is obviously Gandalf (to me, others disagree and that's fine). He feels like one of the few storylines in this series that might be genuinely fun to follow.
Fourth, and a very tenuous fourth it is, Celebrimbor. The looks are all kinds of Not Right, but the acting is good, and the way he's being written seems promising. I liked his little spiel about wanting to make Middle-earth better. He clearly has good intentions and is being written as a good guy, which gets thumbs up from me.
The prologue was completely unnecessary. It didn't help my husband, who is not a Tolkien fan, understand anything that was going on, and it felt extremely truncated and watered-down for me as a Silmarillion fan. It would have been far better to drop the history by bits and pieces throughout the series rather than info-dump at the start.
Pretty nearly everything involving Galadriel was bad, ranging from cringy as fuck to merely poor writing and direction. She's literally older than both Gil-galad and Elrond by centuries, why is she bothering to let them order her around? Her "revenge quest" for Finrod is ludicrous as a motivating factor, and in general she comes off as a petulant child rebelling against orders when in actual fact she should be portrayed as holding a similar amount of power as Celebrimbor at the very least.
(On a tangent, the eerie light of Valinor and her noping the fuck out of there to swim back to Middle-earth was equal parts hilarious and understandable, I would've jumped overboard too, what I can't understand is why she got on the boat in the first place.)
Gil-galad. Probably the one character whose portrayal I hated most. Wrong in every way, from his stupid dictats to his stupid laurel crown thingy.
Fëanor's hammer, okay, nice, it's pretty..."with which he made the Silmarils"...WHUT. Fëanor did not fucking make the Silmarils with a hammer! I'm not exactly the king of researching everything for my fic, but I've researched jewel-making enough to know that you don't MAKE jewels with a hammer. And Fëanor created the Silmarils, he didn't find them, he made them from scratch, which means there was probably some amount of growing the gems involved, because that's how you make gems. Anyway, subtle wisdom and lore and secret knowledge is out the window, hammers are in, boy, that feels like a metaphor for how they went about making this show.
Everything involving humans in this show so far has been boring and awful, including the spiritless "romance" between Arondir and Bronwyn. They don't really have much in the way of actual chemistry. (Arondir himself is okay, looking forward to seeing more of him.)
The Traveller-esque feel of the Harfoots. I missed this at first because I'm not very acquainted with the stereotypes, but according to my husband, they are a very pointed portrayal of Irish Travellers, complete with accent.
The scene at the very beginning that takes place in Valinor, which involves child Galadriel making a little swan sailboat, and some stereotypical British public schoolboys sinking it. Urgh.
The fantasy racism. "Knife-ear," really? And Arondir being the ONLY elf of colour that we've seen, and he's the target of the fantasy racism? (Okay, Galadriel gets a tiny bit of it too, but she's not called a slur.)
The Neo-classical Greco-Roman motifs all over the portrayal of Gil-galad and the court at Lindon.
And here's the part where I focus on people's looks: the short hair on Elves looks awful, the elves in general just look like humans with pointy ears and have very little ethereality to them as they should, Gil-galad and Celebrimbor look too old while Galadriel looks too young. And the Noldor don't have light in their eyes, and they don't move like Elves should move, they move like humans in fight scenes. For all Peter Jackson wasn't perfect, at least he did a good job of making Elves feel otherworldly when they fought.
Speaking of Peter Jackson, it really does feel like they stole a lot of set and clothing design from the LOTR movies, but did it in a half-assed way.
I'm going to keep watching, obviously, but my expectations were not high to start with and they remain very low. I want to enjoy what I can, ship some ships, and always remember that the book is still there, this is just Bezos' billion dollar fanfiction, nothing more. At best it'll inspire me to write more Silmarillion fanfic, out of spite if nothing else.
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Yes, all this. I’ll no doubt watch it (rewatch at home because I’m on holiday) but I’m less invested than before it came out (and I wasn’t, then)
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I know I’m biased when it comes to elves. They were described by Tolkien as a race fair of face to look upon. And likely not particularly meaning light skinned. Arondir is actually the only elf in this production who I found fair of face in the old fashioned meaning. Even the actor playing Galadriel, struggles on that count, for her lack of expression - beyond petulant anyway.
And, Oh heck! Elrond.
So sad that thus far ROP lacks some elven ethereal power.
Hail Gil-Galad! Now let’s all go kick Sauron’s ass!
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I think I like brief glimpses of LORE STUFF might be my favorite thing -- giantass eagles fighting Balrogs, ENTS, so on. And Elrond! Elrond's a peach.
I think I am mostly OK with the Galadriel, as I don't have many strong headcanons on what she was up to in the Second Age, but man, not being able to use the Silmarillion really hurt them with regard to her motivation and Finrod's death.
On the other hand, Tolkien's constant revision of Galadriel's backstory to make her more and more awesome (Participates in the Flight of the Noldor! No, actually, she sailed to Middle-Earth with Teleporno! etc) makes me think the show's Action Girl Galadriel's not too novel of a take.
I am going to watch for the (hopefully) sexy Sauron content and backtrack to write suspect Finrod/Sauron.
The rings of what
That's what I like about getting feedback from non-Tolkien fans, since they watch the show with a virgin/raw (not exactly the qualificatives I have in mind, but that'll do) vision, they notice things a Silm fan would or wouldn't, depending.
Fëanor did not fucking make the Silmarils with a hammer!
I bet he banged the poor Trees until fragments came from the trunks.
"Knife-ear," really?
That's the slur used in the Dragon Age universe. Sounds like somebody was a DA fan in Jeff Pesos' team.
Speaking of Peter Jackson, it really does feel like they stole a lot of set and clothing design from the LOTR movies, but did it in a half-assed way.
For such a high budget, costumes look cheap. Even Vikings, despite being low-budget and historically inaccurate, has nice costumes. They're immersive.
Excuse the ignorance, but what are Irish Travellers?
I don't watch the show, nor do I intend to, I just like to comment on reviews.