1606

Do you mean like how New Line financed 3 movies all at once without people knowing who any of the characters are.

Yes. That is true courage.

1607

You can search the podcasts by Tolkien’s faithfuls. Surely someone must have spent 25-30 minutes on this question, referencing J J Abrams, Mystery Box, TV show pacing and mechanics, directorial and cinematography techniques, stupid and obvious cliches, with a heartburn to match the heat of a thousand suns.

Personally, I think Tom Bombadil could be one of the hobbits. Then again, the show is very clearly leading us into thinking that by presenting that very mystery in almost every scene and expecting us to be talking about it.

1608

Yes, instead they should have presented the exact smelting techniques, giving the right proportion of alloys, and the chemical bonds formed (or not) between Mithril and other elements or compounds. In fact, I’d have preferred, if a season long arc of alloy-making and metallurgy was spread out through most of episodes (without absolutely any mystery and stupidity) that would make this final scene rewarding. Good writing would be very welcome too, with the correct chemical nomenclature and Tolkien lore.

Mithril and any process linked to it can’t be trivialized in this laughably stupid manner.

1609

Another very good point. The creation of rings should be uniformly spread across all the episodes. If not for the mystery boxes everywhere, we could have this singular achievement. We can even say that the ring creation should not be discrete events, but instead rings be built in a continuous manner, with a second order differential equation which absolutely makes sense. They could have run a ring-creation timer on a sidebar, which would continue to fill through the season.

These are all ideas that the show creators should have thought about, if they were not all implants by JJ Abrams.

1610

I don’t know, maybe they shouldn’t have built the whole season around the need to build a special forge to save the elven race if all it was going to come to was melting some gold and adding a cube of mithril like an ice cube.

1611

That’s… a good point. But it does mean those movies, like the show, were also targeted at viewers who never read the books.

1612

Right, but they are catering to people that saw PJ’s movies.

1613

Ah yes, also known as “every single person with even a passing interest in fantasy movies”.

1614

I know you’re trying to make a point by being facetious, but no here is saying any of that. What some of us are pointing out is that they way it’s presented in the show, the solution to working with Mithril is dead simple and Celebrimbor, the master smith of the elves for hundreds of years, looks like an idiot without Halbrand’s help.

As an aside, anyone else think the metal in the three rings doesn’t equal the amount of alloy we saw? That was a pretty big boat of alloy and all we got out of it was three piddling rings?

1615

The point is there’s dozens of references and allusions to PJ’s films in this thing instead of Tolkien’s books.

1616

List at least 24 of them.

1617

No 45

1618

I really liked the new, spooky song at the end but I wish Ms Apple had pronounced Mordor correctly instead of calling it “Morder.”

Did anyone else get auto-shown an interesting-looking trailer of an upcoming show/movie with Chloe Grace Moretz (sp?), based on a William Gibson novel?

Edit: Gaaa, freaking autocorrect had changed the word in quotes to Mother. And yet was leaving wor uncorrected to word just now.

1619

Yes, and it was the first I’d heard of it. Looking forward to checking that out.

1620

This thing really bugged me outside of all the other stuff which hasn’t been mentioned yet.

When Elrond talks to Galadriel about how they met, he mentioned he has no friends or kin. Elros, his twin brother, would be with him orphaned (both of them were raised by Maglor), and he was even mentioned in a prior episode. Wow!

1621

Oh, man, “The Peripheral”. I am so excited for that. The book was amazing. I hope the show doesn’t suck!

1622

While I have been critical of the writing I will say that I thought episode 8 was one of the better ones. Looking forward to the developing character of nameless Istari. And seeing Rhun if that is where he and Nori travel to.

The decision to compress the time was a very bad decision. The Tolkien Untangled proposal of managing the series as a trilogy would have produced a very good story and a more coherent one.

At a minimum why can’t the show runners and writers avoid contradicting them selves from one episode to the next?

1623

As someone who’s read those books, I’m pretty hyped for The Peripheral. The first book absolutely blew me away (one of my favorite Gibson books) and the second was quite good.

This thread has taught me that I probably don’t need to binge this show now that this season is over (?). “Not quite as good as wheel of time” is pretty brutal.

1624

I was impressed by Donkey Kong villain Billy Mitchell’s English accent this season in his Elendil role.

1625

I continue to feel RoP could have compressed the Tolkien outline into a single time line if they had given it proper thought and used a bit of exposition to fill in some back story. Here’s an example of what would have worked:

1)Season 1 - give us a brief recap of Morgoth being defeated at the end of the First Age, Sauron in hiding, some orcs and monsters unaccounted for, but thousands of years of mostly peace and quiet, with Elves, Dwarves and Men living in assorted kingdoms. Another brief exposition, perhaps in a later episode, to mention the Numenorians having had a large empire but having withdrawn to their island. Introduce Galadriel, Elrond, Celebrimbor, Gil-Galad, Elenil, Isildur, Durin & Disa. Celebrimbor is talking with Annatar, a shadowy figure who helps Celebrimbor conceive of forging some very powerful Rings. Over the course of the season we are introduced to various leaders of Men & Dwarves who will ultimately receive the Rings. There is a tension of those who want to live their lives vs. people like Galadriel who fear the return of Sauron and urge vigilance. We also get introduced to the politics of Numenor, and to the rivalries amongst Elves, Dwarves and Men in Middle Earth. The 9 & 7 Rings are forged with Annatar’s help but Celebrimbor becomes suspicious and forges the 3 Rings without Annatar. His suspicions are then confirmed as Annatar steals the 9 & 7 Rings, travels to the Southlands, reveals himself as Sauron, rekindles Mt. Doom in a vast display of sorcerous power (no fucking trick swords), and then forges the One Ring. The season ends as one more big fact is revealed: in hidden places in the Earth, such as under the Misty Mountains and in the remote parts of the Southlands, Orcs and other monsters have re-established themselves. We see Sauron giving the order for these vast forces to attack and scour the Elven kingdom of Eregion (Celebrimbor’s land). The season ends with vast armies of orcs etc. pouring forth to ravage Eregion.

Season 2 - Eregion fights for its life but over several episodes is scoured and the Elves retreat. Elrond goes north to found the fortress of Rivendell. The Elves entreat Numenor for help but for most of the season are refused. The elves call on Men & Dwarves for help and at first receive some but Sauron appears in a fair form to the Men & Dwarves bearing gifts of the 9 & 7 Rings. The 9 Rings begin corrupting the Kings of Men into Ringwraiths and they withdraw their support from the Elves. The 7 Rings make the Kings of Dwarves greedy and they withdraw to focus on their own kingdoms and riches. The season ends with the final defeat and retreat of the Elves of Eregion but a slim ray of hope in factions in Numenor trying to get Numenor to come help.

Season 3 shifts to a more Numenor-centric focus while we see separate stories of folks like Gil Galad, Galadriel and Elrond holding out in various parts of Middle Earth against the encroaching tide of Sauron’s forces. Politics in Numenor are heavily featured until ultimately the Numenorians decide to intervene and construct a vast fleet and army. Meanwhile, the corruption of the Human Kings continues. I could see an episode or two covering the impact of the Rings - corruption for humans, greed for Dwarves. The season ends with Numenor invading with a vast and mighty force and the surprise sudden surrender of Sauron who is carried off to Numenor in bondage.

Season 4 appears to be start out triumphantly as Galadriel et. al. are rebuilding after the retreat of Sauron’s forces, and Numenor is celebrating its mighty bloodless victory. But soon Sauron’s deceptive influence is felt and politics in Numenor becomes a big deal once again with Sauron corrupting factions in Numenor. We see some backstory on the immortality of the Elves, the “gift” of Men’s mortality, the envy of Al Pharazon and so forth. We see Gil Galad, Elrond, and perhaps Durin trying to rebuild alliances. Galadriel becomes convinced that Sauron’s maneuvers are yet another deception and tries to rally forces but does not stop the march of the Numenorians to eventually turn on the Valar and invade Valinor. The Numenorians gather their great armament and invade Valinor. The world is reshaped, Numenor is destroyed and the season ends with Elendil & Isildur leading a group of survivors to Middle Earth. Sauron is trapped in his own machinations and loses his physical form in the sinking of Numenor. We see a shadow of Sauron fleeing to Mordor as the season ends.

Season 5 starts with survivors on all sides. The weakened Sauron calls forth his armies (who retreated but were not destroyed) and the surviving Numenorians re-establish themselves in their old colonies. After all the rivalry and failed politics that have gone before, Elendil & Gil-Galad form the Last Alliance (perhaps with help from Elrond, Galadriel and Durin) and engage in a final fight with Sauron. Establishing the Alliance takes some time, there are battles and struggles and ultimately the final battle at which Sauron is defeated, for now. However, Elendil is killed and Isildur grabs the One Ring. The show ends with Isildur being killed and the One Ring drifting down into the Great River. The side of good has won, but the Ring is down there and the struggle goes on… but that’s a story for another Age.

And that’s 5 seasons of good stuff. The writers would have to flesh out 9 Kings of Men and 7 Kings of Dwarves and various kingdoms and factions but honestly that should not have been too hard.

And although I left out the Istar, the Harfoots, Bronwyn, and Arondir, you could add them back in if you want. There is space in the outline I provided to tell those stories, but as side plots or supplements to the main arc. What is definitely gone are the cheap drama tricks and Mystery Box crap which is both bad and also unnecessary.

Compressing the 2nd Age to one lifetime is hard, but could have been done. The issue with this show IMO is not the compression; it’s the bad and cheap writing, the addiction to teasing Mysteries to “excite” the viewers, inconsistent characterization, nonsensical battle sequences, etc.

There was an excellent story to tell here. They just chose not to tell it.