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Who claimed that they didn't like it but will continue to watch anyway? These episodes are plainly 90% setup. The potential for a solid show is there and while the first episode dragged I enjoyed most of episode two. It will thrive or it will crash and burn based on how it advances and balances...

There are black-skinned men in the lore. Tolkien refers to them as "swarthy" men in The Silmarillion. They mix with the whities and produce various lines of descent. Some are referred to as Easterlings (not the same Easterlings that show up in The LoTR). A contigent of these black / mixed men...

No. Can you imagine judging FoTR by its first 35 minutes, which is basically exposition and a birthday party and then more exposition and some camping? This was just 2 out of an 8 episode first season of a TV show, not a movie. It already got decently better by the second episode so it's on the...

The high king of the Noldor had just declared all wars and violence over, welcome to utopia. They had nothing to fear in their minds, certainly not assault from the Dwarves. At worst they'd just bounce them the fuck out and shut the gate, as they did at first. As far as food, a pocket full of...

I was expecting full levels of awfulness here but unless that's how "sassy black girl" works in the UK I do not agree with this at all. Other than HAY GUYS LOOK AT OUR BRAVE DIVERSITY HIRE (and lack of beard) she was fine. She could have been played by any number of fat ugly white actresses...

Shrug, the first episode had some highlights and some nonsense but mostly just bored me. The pacing is better in the second one and I enjoyed it. At this point, anyone who is either gushing over this or shitting all over it can safely be ignored. There's a ton of setup here and it'll all hinge...

They're really not overdone or distracting at all. They're used effectively and tastefully to establish locations and provide scale, similar to the movies. Honestly the aesthetic of the show looks better than it does in the trailers. The color timing and lightning is more in line with the...

Second episode was better for sure. The Orcs seem suitably terrifying in this, not just cartoon zerg fodder like in The Hobbit movies. I liked it overall. It's late and I'm too tired and still don't care enough to do a whole but does it respect the lore!? sperg session. I'll just say there's...

So far I dont like them any more than you but they're not Hobbits.

I guess swimming hundreds of miles is NBD if you're an Elf? Dumb. I admit I involuntarily chubbed up when showed up. Dirty pool, motherfuckers. I keep drifting off to my phone when anything is going on outside of the Elf stuff.

Yeah I'm about 2/3s in and honestly it's not terrible. Its biggest offense so far is that I'm bored. The pacing is pretty brutal. There's some good lore stuff and some bad lore stuff but I just can't be bothered to care either way much yet. The "men's" village area is obviously

This is what is truly insane about this entire endeavor. In my copy of The LoTR, Tolkien covers the entirety of the Second Age in less than seven pages. Two of those pages are taken from the Chronology of Years, which is nothing more than a very brief summary of some stuff that happened...

You read that article and your takeaway is that he's distancing himself from it? wat Also, this mess airs tonight, not weeks from now.

Whoops, I was one off...7 and 8 are where it shifts plotlines to the vortex stuff. Yeah 6 was good.

Heh, Bezos's own newspaper ripped it pretty hard. https://www.washingtonpost.com/tv/2022/08/31/lord-rings-tv-show-review/

6 and 7 were rough, and I never read the comics, but didn't they say in an earlier episode that millions never woke up from sleep and ultimately died while Dream was imprisoned? The great grandmother lady claimed she was the only "survivor". And yeah, I was about to throw something at my TV...

Yeah that's a dumb take. She's essentially the most powerful Elf in Middle Earth during her tenure there, bears one of the three Elven rings, becomes Sauron's key rival after she's the earliest of anyone to sniff out his treacheries, and demolishes Dol Guldor almost single-handedly. Oh, and...

Whenever a wyvern is mentioned anywhere, that is the exact image that pops into my head. Nintendo Power put together a bundle of the game and a strategy guide back in the late 80s and it was like Christmas morning when it showed up in the mail. Oh to be 10 again.

If anyone's bored and looking to bring about acute liver failure, just turn "how many times will someone incorrectly point out that the black guy is a Targaryen?" into a drinking game.

As far as I can remember, Tolkien keeps this somewhat vague, but the implication is that the further away Bilbo / Frodo are from Mordor (and Sauron), the more tenuous the connection. Also, at the time of Bilbo's party, Sauron's "spirit" hadn't yet refashioned itself into a form of strength. This...

I was enjoying 5 up until the realization that the diner was actually a clown car packed with gays for...reasons? My wife and I stayed a few nights in Provincetown on Cape Cod (big homo hotspot for those unfamiliar) right smack in the middle of pride month and it was virtually a beacon of...

No. If it sucks donkey dick it would be far more damning to Amazon to see a massive drop off from week one to two.

And? There are many examples as you move up the line. Someone else already mentioned Rhaegar and Leanna, too. I just keep seeing random dipshits going ape over the writers fucking up this evidently core tenant of the lore, when very nearly the first thing we see in GoT is an exception to it.

"Writer's room"...you mean George? The Targs are incestuous but not at all exclusively so. FFS one of the first scenes of GoT is Danny being married off to a barbarian.

All of that is exactly why it's bonkers to get wrapped up in cast / crew interviews, tweets, convention appearances, post-show blathering, etc like so many here do. Had this show magically dropped out of the sky and you viewed it in a vacuum, how hard would you have to work to draw any sort of...

I finished the first four and so far it's held my interest. The "fight" with Lucifer was bizarre and reminded me of some dumb shit I'd do with my friends at recess in second grade. "Yeah well I'm Superman and I just used my super speed to fly right through your brain so I win!" Eh... By far the...

Is it confirmed that there's no Celeborn in this or is that just speculation? Would that mean Elrond cucks Durin, bangs the black Dorf, and Arwen will be played by Rashida Jones in season 2?

Well considering this show is essentially GoT at the point when the writers ran out of source material to copy from, good luck with that.

My understanding is that the Tolkien Estate retains the rights to The Silmarillion, however, Amazon is permitted to reference and use it on a case-by-case basis, subject to review and approval by the estate. I think that's a largely a good thing. That means we could potentially see some material...

To be fair I don't think he's talking about their haircuts.

A former coworker / buddy of mine saw this at the NYC premier. He has absolutely dick-all to do with the show, but I guess his company does work with Amazon in some capacity and they were allowed to send a couple people. While not exactly a scholar on the source material I’d consider him at...

As I mentioned above, I expect it to be "good" in parts and surely some of the landscapes and visuals will be impressive. Unless they completely and utterly trash the backstories and go in fully different directions it would almost have to be. But I'm also anticipating a large amount of nonsense...

New trailer: So I guess they're using Finrod's death as a springboard into a Galadriel revenge story. Fair enough. Tolkien certainly made it clear that she was one of the most powerful Elves in all of Middle Earth and she became a key rival of Sauron, but then I certainly don't remember her...

I randomly saw the Howard Shore / Bear McCreary soundtrack pop up on Amazon Music this morning and I listened to most of it while working. Whatever pile of nonsense the show turns out to be, the music is really good. It's a nice tonal match to the LoTR films at points without ever sounding like...

Much of season 1 is largely slow as shit and above-average TV at best. Season 2 starts things going in a better direction and season 3 is where it hits legendary status. Unless you absolutely hate it, untwist your panties and keep going.

That's a clip from the SNL parody, yes?

Gary has the benefit of having died before cable news and the internet existed.

I don't disagree with that at all, but they won't stop because it generates traffic, and it's also just as stupid to concern yourself with the opinions of these people, because if you don't, lo and behold, you can then take whatever you're watching at face value and "allow your brain" to form...

Yeah but then that resulted in one of the most hilariously dumb lines in the whole series of movies / shows. "Only a sith speaks in absolutes!"

So what? Why such concern over the opinion of some dopey actor reading words on a page? It's a rebellion story. Anyone who's allowed their brain to devolve into framing everything into team politics can make that backdrop conform to whatever "side" they're on. Empire = fascist Trump could just...