The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Prime)

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

the second season of hotd will also ramp up the stakes and drama immensely if the book is an indication of what's to come

I don't like half of the rop characters .. there's nothing unique or interesting about most of them and they haven't shown much complexity . their roles and motivations are so clear that there is really nothing else to guess at . it doesn't provide much for intrigue .. but hopefully the second season is a step up and learns from what it did best in season 1

[#-3]

There was a pretty big IP showdown this Fall, She-Hulk vs Rings vs H of Dragon vs Andor, and i think in general all 4 preformed pretty well.

ROP with clearly the best film making. visualization.

HotD with the best acting and screen writing...

Andor far and away was the best story, with the best plot and narrative structure.

She-Hulk wasn't really the big franchise building effort or best at anything but just another consistent marvel effort to put out something fun and entertaining.

Lots of people are going to have one or two that they don't like for whatever nuanced reason, and all of them had their flaws, really I'd say without a little bit of investment in the wider text all of them could have been pretty confusing at times. But if you want serialized fantasy fiction, it was a hell of a season to enjoy.

[Flames0910]

Andor greatly outperformed expectations but hasn't found an audience which is unfortunate but probably has a good chance of succeeding over the longer term -- would be great if it gets a word of mouth / holiday bump.

ROP was a must-see for the first couple of episodes thanks to the huge advertising campaign but didn't fully deliver on expectations for most fans, and I expect many casual viewers probably dropped off with the slow start. I'll keep watching but it seems to be mostly eye candy without enough story to tell.

I'm mostly done with GoT and might have been intrigued but I heard about the shock scene in the first episode and decided that wasn't really something I was interested in. I have no idea what She-Hulk is and no interest in Marvel stories at this point lol. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

yes . andor was by far the best show released this fall and it's still ongoing

I would never have pegged that in august

I'd highly recommend checking it out . it takes 3 episodes for things to get going though . even if you are on the fence about Star Wars the show is everything the new trilogy of movies were missing . its the most mature sw content ever released and doesn't rely heavily on references or mythology

[Dentoman]

Rings of Power inspired me to read The Silmarillion. I have had it in my posession for probably 10 years, started it twice and didn't make it through the first 10 pages. Picked it up again in February and made it through. Now, I fully admit, some of the family relationships and intertwinings of groups, I will not remember for long, but all in all, I really enjoyed the read. Definitely some scenes from ROP show up. Can see how the writers of ROP had to dance around some themes/stories without being able to use the Silmarillion as a direct source.
Only suggestion for a future reader, you need to have a block of time to read it. It is not a book you can put down for a week and pick it up again, at least in my opinion. Also, the edition I read has a glossary at the back. Made good use of that throughout reading to help me remember characters and locations.
And the location of the third elven ring is revealed!!

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Dentoman

Rings of Power inspired me to read The Silmarillion. I have had it in my posession for probably 10 years, started it twice and didn't make it through the first 10 pages. Picked it up again in February and made it through. Now, I fully admit, some of the family relationships and intertwinings of groups, I will not remember for long, but all in all, I really enjoyed the read. Definitely some scenes from ROP show up. Can see how the writers of ROP had to dance around some themes/stories without being able to use the Silmarillion as a direct source.
Only suggestion for a future reader, you need to have a block of time to read it. It is not a book you can put down for a week and pick it up again, at least in my opinion. Also, the edition I read has a glossary at the back. Made good use of that throughout reading to help me remember characters and locations.
And the location of the third elven ring is revealed!!

Its an absolute slog, so congratulations on the accomplishment. It reads like the old testament almost.

I'm starting to get pretty annoyed that the Estate wouldn't sell the rights to Silmarillion, but yes to the Appendices of LOTR. Like, let it go people. The Professor has been dead for 50 years. No one is going back to edit his books, they just want to adapt it to screenplay.

ROP had some big whiffs IMO, and it's because they couldn't use the proper source material. Had to dance around it, like you said.

[d_phaneuf]

Only 37% of people who watched 1st episode finished the series

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/bu...ws-1235364913/

[Flabbibulin]

I don't get the hate for this show. I love both the books and the movies, although certainly not obsessed to the point where I would take issue with them straying away or changing certain things. Anyway, I would probably rank Rings of Power as my favorite show of 2022.

[Dentoman]

Also now read the appendices to LOTR. Some interesting tidbits of info in those as well.
Is there any other Tolkien stuff I should read?

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Dentoman

Also now read the appendices to LOTR. Some interesting tidbits of info in those as well.
Is there any other Tolkien stuff I should read?

Not if you want to read it though the lens of the Rings of Power adaptaion.

[GreenLantern]

As a Tolkien fan I appreciated the show and enjoyed it.

I think it took itself a bit serious, and could have used some more Gimli style humour. But it had its moments still.

It doesn't hold a candle to the movies obviously, and it is a fair comparison. It's Tolkien media, it will be compared. So I struggle with that... how great the movies are and what we got with the show.. but that being said I did enjoy it. Geez am I trying to convince myself I enjoyed it now?

It was fine. It was worth the watch. I am not exactly waiting on the edge of my seat for season 2 like I am with House of Dragons.. but I'll still watch it when it comes.

[Dentoman]

Originally Posted by Yeah_Baby

Not if you want to read it though the lens of the Rings of Power adaptaion.

Lol, I can separate the two.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Dentoman

Also now read the appendices to LOTR. Some interesting tidbits of info in those as well.
Is there any other Tolkien stuff I should read?

Unfinished Tales is worth the read if you enjoyed the appendices. Basically a collection of stories and concepts that were somewhat fleshed out... like more detail on the Istari or Palantir, some interesting stuff about the early days of the third age, and the battle of the Gladden fields (where Isuldir died), and detail about Eorl and the founding of Rohan. Also has some more extended versions of the stories of both Tuor and the children of Hurin. However, it's all written from the perspective of Christopher Tolkien examining his father's material, and sometimes a story will just stop at an odd place, there will be an explanation that nothing was written about the intervening time, and then picked up later. There's a chapter on the backstories of Celeborn and Galadriel, and just how much their story had different versions, with no clear indication of which one Tolkien intended as canon. To me nothing is more emblematic of just how hard a second-age Tolkien adaptation is than that chapter.

Once you get beyond Unfinished Tales, everything becomes increasingly a literary analysis exercise, IMO. If you find yourself skipping ahead on the chapters that get deep into all the different versions, you've probably reached as far as you want to go; if you find it really interesting to learn all the details of Tolkien's writing process and conflicting versions and such, then you might try the History of Middle Earth.

I also enjoyed the recent Fall of Gondolin, at least as far as the main story. It's a great tale and is better-collected in that volume than anywhere else. But the main story is maybe half the book, and then the rest of it is notes and different versions. Cynically, I think that the Tolkien estate's reason for having retellings of three of the main first-age stories from the Silmarillion as standalone books is so that they can more easily chunk up the rights for them for licensing and have more control over how those stories are told. I never actually read the other two (about Children of Hurin and about Beren and Luthien) because I thought the versions of those stories told elsewhere already felt pretty complete.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern

It doesn't hold a candle to the movies obviously, and it is a fair comparison. It's Tolkien media, it will be compared. So I struggle with that... how great the movies are and what we got with the show.. but that being said I did enjoy it. Geez am I trying to convince myself I enjoyed it now?

To be fair, Peter Jackson had the complete and detailed books to adapt from and only covers a relatively short period of time. Even if Amazon had gotten rights to the Silmarillion, the Second Age is still the least developed of the eras. It needs a lot of new material to fill in the gaps between the major events (that in the writings stretches over thousands of years) in a way that works for a TV series.

[Ashasx]

[Matata]

Only 37% of viewers managed to finish watching the series. https://www.indiewire.com/2023/04/lo...te-1234825392/

According to the Hollywood Reporter story, insiders at Amazon claimed a 50 percent completion rate would be viewed as a “solid but not spectacular result” for an original.

[ah123]

I have just started watching Rings of Power, and I find it painfully slow. In comparison, I literally devoured the LOTR books

[Erick Estrada]

Unfortunately I'm not surprised. I'm a fan of LOTR but I can't dismiss that it was a bit of a chore to watch the first season to the end. I don't mind so much if they deviate from the lore but for the love of god don't make it boring and maybe do a better job of casting as outside of the Prince Durin and Elrond I didn't think they did a great job of finding actors that really nailed their roles.

[pseudoreality]

Originally Posted by Matata

Only 37% of viewers managed to finish watching the series. https://www.indiewire.com/2023/04/lo...te-1234825392/

I probably only finish about 15-20% of the shows I start watching.

[Nyah]

I love LOTR, but I'm in the camp that couldn't finish the Rings of Power. Just so boring and (with a few exceptions) the main characters were terribly written and utterly unlikable. The dialogue was garbage. Very disappointing.

On a positive LOTR note: The Return of the King will be coming back to theaters later this month for the 20th anniversary! And it looks like they're going with the extended edition.

https://www.cineplex.com/movie/the-l...th-anniversary