Support NeoGAF

[NecrosaroIII]

So what does his "true" form look like? Does Galadriel even know?

He doesn't really have a "true" form. He's divine being. Tolkien describes Valar and Maiar as changing their appearance like how we change clothes. Tolkien never really gave specific descriptions. Just vague terms like "terrible" or "fair" depending in what Sauron is trying to do at any given moment

He pours a lot of his own energy into the creation of the ring. That, coupled with a big event that will happen, reduces his ability to shapeshifting. From that point on he can only assume "evil" forms. His Dark Lord form so to speak. But I dunno. I don't think that's the only form he keeps. Like, I get the feeling he didn't look the same when he was under the guise of the Necromancer in the Hobbit.

Also in case you didn't know, he wasn't a big giant eye in the LotR books. It was quite clear he had a physical body in the book.

 

[TaylorSwiftFan]

Even if Halbrand tells Galadriel "I'm Sauron", how does he prove it?

Same way he proved he was the king of that small village - by just saying it.

 

[BadBurger]

Everyone wondering if Halbrand really is who he says he is, while I'm really interested in how things are going with Isildur's sister in the Builder's Guild.

 

[jason10mm]

So what does his "true" form look like? Does Galadriel even know?

At this rate I expect his true form has purple hair shaved on one side, a nose ring, and the sleek physique of a dump truck.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

The haters in this thread need to consider something. Amazon purchased this IP because they knew die hard fans were going to have trouble resisting. "We'll capture MODERN AUDIENCES as well as the super fans."

Stop watching the show. It's not LotR. It's just badly written TV with cheap (expensive) CGI dangled in front of your faces seeded with references to a story you love.

Seek out well written shows created by talented people.

 

[Batiman]

The haters in this thread need to consider something. Amazon purchased this IP because they knew die hard fans were going to have trouble resisting. "We'll capture MODERN AUDIENCES as well as the super fans."

Stop watching the show. It's not LotR. It's just badly written TV with cheap (expensive) CGI dangled in front of your faces seeded with references to a story you love.

Seek out well written shows created by talented people.

I’m not gonna argue your opinion but Is there really any better fantasy shows out there? Besides GOT? What’s the standard for fantasy on TV. What am I missing?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I’m not gonna argue your opinion but I’d there really any better fantasy shows out there? Besides GOT? What’s the standard for fantasy on TV. What am I missing?

I don't take any issue with people who are enjoying the show. If they like it, good for them.

I just don't get hate watching it for the entirety of s1. The idea of mediocre writers putting this (crap) on screen, while making bank, really rustles my jimmies. Granted...I did hate watch it for 4 episodes so I'm a bit of a hypocrite.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I don't take any issue with people who are enjoying the show. If they like it, good for them.

I just don't get hate watching it for the entirety of s1. The idea of mediocre writers putting this (crap) on screen, while making bank, really rustles my jimmies. Granted...I did hate watch it for 4 episodes so I'm a bit of a hypocrite.

It's definitely not worth hate watching. We can all do something more constructive with our time... like console/brand warring on gaf.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

It's definitely not worth hate watching. We can all do something more constructive with our time... like console/brand warring on gaf.

 

[BadBurger]

I think I'll watch the extended 4K edition on disc today of The Two Towers, my favorite of the trilogy, just to cleanse my palette from this.

You know for all the things the trilogy changed it was never too bad. Like leaving out characters for brevity, using different characters for some events, compressing events for the sake of pacing, etc. Meanwhile this show is changing some stuff that just can't be reconciled with the source.

Well my rewatch bled into The Return of the King - and I noticed something I missed the first time around. When Aragorn begs the dead men of the South to join him they retreat into the walls and cackle, then bring down their city and send a sea of skulls like a river down on Aragorn. That was their way of saying "Look, we fought Melkor and Sauron for thousands of years before your kind (Numenoreans) set foot on our land. Look at the tens of thousands of our dead. We didn't deceive you, we rather said 'Enough'".

I think I got it right. And if not oh well, it's my headcanon now.

 

[Kimahri]

The haters in this thread need to consider something. Amazon purchased this IP because they knew die hard fans were going to have trouble resisting. "We'll capture MODERN AUDIENCES as well as the super fans."

Stop watching the show. It's not LotR. It's just badly written TV with cheap (expensive) CGI dangled in front of your faces seeded with references to a story you love.

Seek out well written shows created by talented people.

I like how you're giving life advice to what is most likely a group of 30-40+ year old people who know very well how time works, and are perfectly capable of managing it themselves.

Jokes aside. It's been explained many times by now. It's based on Tolkien it's a big deal, we wanna see what they do with it. Also, I haven't had this much engagement in various circles around a show since... I dunno, 90s? It's pretty special in that regard, and the biggest difference from the great water cooler moments of yesteryear is that the converstaion was more along the lines of "wow, last night's episode was awesome", while now it's "wow, last night's episode was even worse". The conversation around it is worth it for me.

It's a trainwreck. Can't help it. It's also just an hour, while enjoying some wine. I manage my time pretty well so I have plenty of it for hobbies, movies, whatever. This won't break the bank my friend.

 

[jason10mm]

The haters in this thread need to consider something. Amazon purchased this IP because they knew die hard fans were going to have trouble resisting. "We'll capture MODERN AUDIENCES as well as the super fans."

Stop watching the show. It's not LotR. It's just badly written TV with cheap (expensive) CGI dangled in front of your faces seeded with references to a story you love.

Seek out well written shows created by talented people.

That only works if we cancel prime. Which, if they keep putting out Reacher, Terminal List, etc, I wont do.

The point of vocally providing constructive criticism is to A. drive Amazon to change up the show runners and put the show on a better keel and B. Dissuade folks on the fence from signing up to prime to watch what is right now a mediocre show not really in the spirit of Tolkien. THAT hits their bottom line directly.

We (well, I at least) want the show to be BETTER , not cease to exist.

 

[V1LÆM]

I’m not gonna argue your opinion but Is there really any better fantasy shows out there? Besides GOT? What’s the standard for fantasy on TV. What am I missing?

Wheel of Time fans hate this comment wtf is happening with that show? Could've been a huge hit (and still could be I guess) but S1 was not all that good. I hope Amazon get their shit together for S2 if it ever happens.

edit: oh and I forgot about The Witcher. I quite liked S2 but it seems a lot of people didn't.

 

[Alex11]

Wheel of Time fans hate this comment wtf is happening with that show? Could've been a huge hit (and still could be I guess) but S1 was not all that good. I hope Amazon get their shit together for S2 if it ever happens.

edit: oh and I forgot about The Witcher. I quite liked S2 but it seems a lot of people didn't.

I liked Witcher too, both seasons, but at least, IMO it had a more concise story an better acting, in fact I was rather surprised, as I rewatched season 2 with somebody, of the acting.

This Wheel of Time thing, I often see it popping up, is it really that bad, deviates heavily from the source or what's the deal?

 

[Batiman]

I liked Witcher too, both seasons, but at least, IMO it had a more concise story an better acting, in fact I was rather surprised, as I rewatched season 2 with somebody, of the acting.

This Wheel of Time thing, I often see it popping up, is it really that bad, deviates heavily from the source or what's the deal?

I didn’t like the Witcher at all. Story is all over the place. I love the wheel of time books but the show is not very good. I like to think it can be redeemed though. Some stuff was alright but overall it felt so rushed with. Decent to bad acting and looked really low budget compared to even the Witcher.

When it comes to fantasy shows there’s just slim pickings. I guess that’s why I don’t mind rings of power. Still find it better than anything fantasy besides GOT

 

[Cyberpunkd]

edit: oh and I forgot about The Witcher. I quite liked S2 but it seems a lot of people didn't.

Nah, S2 was legit, much more coherent than S1, where the final battle was like HUH???? Also, I find all the actors extremely good. This is nothing like Galadriel ‘there is a storm in me’ BS.

 

[pramod]

That only works if we cancel prime. Which, if they keep putting out Reacher, Terminal List, etc, I wont do.

The point of vocally providing constructive criticism is to A. drive Amazon to change up the show runners and put the show on a better keel and B. Dissuade folks on the fence from signing up to prime to watch what is right now a mediocre show not really in the spirit of Tolkien. THAT hits their bottom line directly.

We (well, I at least) want the show to be BETTER , not cease to exist.

A is very unlikely to happen. I think it's too late to save this train wreck. Most of the problems are too late to fix, and I'm sure the overall plot has already been set and impossible to change.

At this point the most likely scenario is the show continues on its shitty course. The last 2 episodes fail to generate much future hope or excitement. Ratings crater for Season 2 as even the "hate watchers" lose interest and stop watching the show. It gets cancelled and Amazon saves a couple hundred million bucks instead of wasting it on a failure.

 

[SirKicksalot]

Also in case you didn't know, he wasn't a big giant eye in the LotR books. It was quite clear he had a physical body in the book.

His appearance in all three Hobbits was spectacular.
Especially BOTFA, it's so weird and uncanny.

 

[Ulysses 31]

I’ll predict Drinker’s next video right here:

How do you get a hundred horses on three boats?

Don’t Know.

How do they know which village to go right to?

Don‘t know.

How did the old guy know to use the sword to activate Mt Doom?

Don’t know.

How does Bronwyn know how to fight so well?

Don’t know.

Why didn’t Galadriel look at the sword hilt?

Don’t know.

Why was Halbrand on that raft in the first place?

Don’t know.

Why is the entire population of the Southlands just this one village?

Don’t know.

 

[SirKicksalot]

 

[Alex11]

Nah, S2 was legit, much more coherent than S1, where the final battle was like HUH???? Also, I find all the actors extremely good. This is nothing like Galadriel ‘there is a storm in me’ BS.

That's what I think, the acting is really good, and that is a huge deal for me. Though there are some redeemable ones here too, the ones for Elendil, Ar-Pharazon, Durin.

 

[FunkMiller]

Sadly, he’s not wrong about a lot of it.

 

[Fbh]

I really agree with his bit about how unnatural it feels that everyone is multicultural at all times now. Game of Thrones had diversity in having characters from different parts of the Westeros looking differently. You had the Valyrians with very pale skin and white hair, people from Dorne had a more Mediterranean look, the people from Naath are dark skinned, the people from the north are white, etc. But in Amazon shows (both this and wheel of time) everyone has to be multicultural at all times no matter where, there can no longer be nations or groups characterized by different ethnicities.

Which is another reason why I think a better way to add diversity to fantasy in TV would be to actually adapt cool books like the Fifth Season rather than forcing deversity into established worlds. But that would requiere actually caring about diversity instead of the easy way out of pushing twitter trends into established franchises which are easier to sell.

 

[Trazyn the Infinite]

I really agree with his bit about how unnatural it feels that everyone is multicultural at all times now. Game of Thrones had diversity in having characters from different parts of the Westeros looking differently. You had the Valyrians with very pale skin and white hair, people from Dorne had a more Mediterranean look, the people from Naath are dark skinned, the people from the north are white, etc. But in Amazon shows (both this and wheel of time) everyone has to be multicultural at all times no matter where, there can no longer be nations or groups characterized by different ethnicities.

Which is another reason why I think a better way to add diversity to fantasy in TV would be to actually adapt cool books like the Fifth Season rather than forcing deversity into established worlds. But that would requiere actually caring about diversity instead of the easy way out of pushing twitter trends into established franchises which are easier to sell.

Stop questioning the gospel. If you don’t think shoehorning diversity in all facets of a story is acceptable, then you are a bigoted racist! /s

 

[jason10mm]

I really agree with his bit about how unnatural it feels that everyone is multicultural at all times now. Game of Thrones had diversity in having characters from different parts of the Westeros looking differently. You had the Valyrians with very pale skin and white hair, people from Dorne had a more Mediterranean look, the people from Naath are dark skinned, the people from the north are white, etc. But in Amazon shows (both this and wheel of time) everyone has to be multicultural at all times no matter where, there can no longer be nations or groups characterized by different ethnicities.

Which is another reason why I think a better way to add diversity to fantasy in TV would be to actually adapt cool books like the Fifth Season rather than forcing deversity into established worlds. But that would requiere actually caring about diversity instead of the easy way out of pushing twitter trends into established franchises which are easier to sell.

Never fear, Wakanda Forever is about to show you that two completely made up fantasy societies ON EARTH can still be monoethnic.

 

[PhaseJump]

We have 2 episodes left to see if the writers will dust off their deeply profound character building skills, and finally give the maiar bum that fell from the sky some dialog that offers up a sense of wisdom or fucking purpose to the plot; or whether we will get some more horrible musical shit from the dickhead proto hobbits.

Maybe he'll smoke weed out of a long pipe and suddenly stop being too retarded to communicate, then teach them irish ewoks the concept of agriculture. A plot twist that the wizard inadvertently creates the Shire and he is actually Curumo could work. I mean, Fuck it. Why not? I have no expectations that this show will redeem itself. Let's have a cheeky dialog reference to him criticizing Gandalf for smoking weed in LOTR, and maybe a reference to the future scouring that nobody watching the Jackson movies would ever pick up on.

I'd buy that for a dollar!

This series is making me feel lobotomized every time I lend it my attention. It's like The Dark Tower movie all over again, only that was a one and done brutal experience, with no subtle threat to keep up the inflicted suffering for 5 seasons.

And, holy shit... I am just now thinking about all the fickle childish nonsense dialog and plot driving going on here already. Imagining the need to rewatch and remember various macguffins between seasons, delivered to us years apart.

 

[Hardensoul]

We have 2 episodes left to see if the writers will dust off their deeply profound character building skills, and finally give the maiar bum that fell from the sky some dialog that offers up a sense of wisdom or fucking purpose to the plot; or whether we will get some more horrible musical shit from the dickhead proto hobbits.

Maybe he'll smoke weed out of a long pipe and suddenly stop being too retarded to communicate, then teach them irish ewoks the concept of agriculture. A plot twist that the wizard inadvertently creates the Shire and he is actually Curumo could work. I mean, Fuck it. Why not? I have no expectations that this show will redeem itself. Let's have a cheeky dialog reference to him criticizing Gandalf for smoking weed in LOTR, and maybe a reference to the future scouring that nobody watching the Jackson movies would ever pick up on.

I'd buy that for a dollar!

This series is making me feel lobotomized every time I lend it my attention. It's like The Dark Tower movie all over again, only that was a one and done brutal experience, with no subtle threat to keep up the inflicted suffering for 5 seasons.

And, holy shit... I am just now thinking about all the fickle childish nonsense dialog and plot driving going on here already. Imagining the need to rewatch and remember various macguffins between seasons, delivered to us years apart.

Next episode we supposed to find out who that meteor man is! Ahem..cough… Gand….cough!leaks been right so far!

 

[EviLore]

Gandcough and Saurmoan, next time on Lord of the Groans.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

No blue wizards?

 

[PhaseJump]

No blue wizards?

Only blue balls.

 

[Alex11]

Why do I get the feeling it's gonna be almost a full episode about the hobbits?

Can't wait for them not to tell us who the meteor man is.

 

[phaedrus]

it's gonna be almost a full episode about the hobbits?

 

[Lord Panda]

It's like The Dark Tower movie all over again

There is no ‘The Dark Tower’ movie.

 

[DeafTourette]

Never fear, Wakanda Forever is about to show you that two completely made up fantasy societies ON EARTH can still be monoethnic.

Most of Africa is mono-racial... ethnicity tho, they're multi-ethnic (made up of 5 different tribes/cultures)... my race is black, my ethnicity AND nationality is American, though . Those words aren't always interchangeable. Although, I guess you CAN say they're mono-ethnic since they're all Wakandan but with different cultural practices (sub-ethnicity)? I think you can have an argument for both.

But ethnicity isn't the same as race. Two different definitions and meanings.

Edit: OH! I get what you're saying now. My bad! smh...

 

[Kimahri]

Most of Africa is mono-racial...

So what? It's okay when it's Africa, but not elsewhere?

Ever been to northern Europe?

 

[DeafTourette]

So what? It's okay when it's Africa, but not elsewhere?

Ever been to northern Europe?

You misunderstood me. Did you read my edit? I have no problem with something being mono-racial... The LOTR trilogy is my favorite fantasy movie series. Didn't matter that it's an all white movie... Makes sense because of the mythology... Germanic, Nordic, British influences... Tolkien wanted a grand mythology for Britain... I get it.

But this is history ... BEFORE Frodo carried the one ring. Maybe the darker skinned peoples moved further South... Maybe the Asians moved elsewhere... Who knows? I just know the show has A LOT to live up to as LOTR was a PERFECT movie series, in my eyes.

Wouldn't have been a thing, IMO, if they just kept the show largely white... Maybe introduce the Haradrim, a darker skinned peoples, in the show ... Just not show them as evil and aligned with Sauron. I know... They were fooled by the enemy... But they'd still be the bad guys. Just like they were in LOTR. Fooled or not, they were aligned with Sauron/Saruman. Maybe show that most of them weren't aligned with Mordor... I dunno.

Get me?

 

[Kimahri]

You misunderstood me. Did you read my edit? I have no problem with something being mono-racial... The LOTR trilogy is my favorite fantasy movie series. Didn't matter that it's an all white movie... Makes sense because of the mythology... Germanic, Nordic, British influences... Tolkien wanted a grand mythology for Britain... I get it.

But this is history ... BEFORE Frodo carried the one ring. Maybe the darker skinned peoples moved further South... Maybe the Asians moved elsewhere... Who knows? I just know the show has A LOT to live up to as LOTR was a PERFECT movie series, in my eyes.

Wouldn't have been a thing, IMO, if they just kept the show largely white... Maybe introduce the Haradrim, a darker skinned peoples, in the show ... Just not show them as evil and aligned with Sauron. I know... They were fooled by the enemy... But they'd still be the bad guys. Just like they were in LOTR. Fooled or not, they were aligned with Sauron/Saruman. Maybe show that most of them weren't aligned with Mordor... I dunno.

Get me?

I get you, didn't see the edit.

Yeah there are many ways they could have done it better. Even the hobbits are a prime target with them being nomads. Could easily be explained.

But yeah, this show doesn't really bother with explaining or building the world. It's a pity. They just plop elements in and expect everyone to just gulp it down.

 

[Alex11]

Made the mistake of watching the video, and discovered a whole new set of WTF moments.

 

[Konnor]

Sadly, he’s not wrong about a lot of it.

I burst out laughing when he was enumerating the "mystery boxes" and there was a actual goddamn mystery box in the list. Gotta love JJ Abrams, I will celebrate the day this absolute hack can no longer find work in Hollywood.

 

[GymWolf]

I’ll predict Drinker’s next video right here:

How do you get a hundred horses on three boats?

Don’t Know.

How do they know which village to go right to?

Don‘t know.

How did the old guy know to use the sword to activate Mt Doom?

Don’t know.

How does Bronwyn know how to fight so well?

Don’t know.

Why didn’t Galadriel look at the sword hilt?

Don’t know.

Why was Halbrand on that raft in the first place?

Don’t know.

Why is the entire population of the Southlands just this one village?

Don’t know.

Don't forget sam neil scream after galadriel and not-sauron flirting scene.

 

[captainnapalm]

It blows my mind that there are any men who still watch these shows. I can kind of understand women, because as bad as it is, it strokes their egos to ridiculous and unrealistic degrees. But men? Where's your self-respect?

 

[jason10mm]

It blows my mind that there are any men who still watch these shows. I can kind of understand women, because as bad as it is, it strokes their egos to ridiculous and unrealistic degrees. But men? Where's your self-respect?

 

[SirKicksalot]

“It was never about the critics, it’s all about consumers,” the insider says. “All Jeff cares about is consumer obsession. If you look at the history of Amazon, every division lived and died based on that … Dragon matters because all of a sudden there is a benchmark. It is their closest comp to success. When they saw Dragon grew in its second episode and brought in 20 million viewers, they were shitting their pants.”

‘The Rings of Power’ Showrunners Break Silence on Backlash, Sauron and Season 2

Two first-time showrunners who landed TV’s biggest series give THR a behind-the-scenes tour as they navigate challenges even scarier than Mordor — from "patently evil" online trolling to massive industry expectations.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

However, the same article includes bullshit like:

One way the show has exceeded Jackson’s films is that moments where characters of different sizes interact are executed so well that you don’t even notice (which is, of course, the whole idea). What can look like a simple shot of two characters sitting and talking can require a dizzying array of camera tricks, different size props, actor doubles and a headache-inducing amount of math that consumes everybody in the scene. The most difficult visual effects scene in Payne and McKay’s original season one scripts, Smith says, was a dwarf and elf walking down a hallway (the scene’s setting was switched to a mine-shaft elevator, yet was still a pain to figure out).

Fellowship alone has more impressive different size scenes, with Gandalf handing objects over to Bilbo or interacting in the kitchen being more complex than a static elevator shot. Then The Hobbit did it with dozens of characters in 3D.

“It’s another Tolkien thing where when a shadow spreads — which is part of what is happening in our show — it affects everyone’s relationships,” Payne says. “Even Frodo and Sam. They’re the best friends in all of Middle-earth, yet they started to mistrust each other because that’s a manifestation of that shadow

dude what

 

[jason10mm]

That whole article felt like extreme damage control

Bet they aint gonna ignore any of Bezos' notes in s2

 

[jason10mm]

Not to mention that if you dislike the show, you are not only a racist and misogynist, now you are also a fascist.

Way to win the crowd Amazon.

 

[Alex11]

Not to mention that if you dislike the show, you are not only a racist and misogynist, now you are also a fascist.

Way to win the crowd Amazon.

So we're to blame if we find something we might think is wrong. We either stop watching it or start liking it, it's clearly us the problem, we are imagining it has problems or hate it.

Something like this?

 

[TaylorSwiftFan]

Made the mistake of watching the video, and discovered a whole new set of WTF moments.

And I think he skimmed on a lot of things as well. The video can easily be thrice as long.

 

[BadBurger]

Re. the article: if this show really is as important to Amazon as they repeatedly said it was I can't imagine Bezos not getting more involved and possibly bringing in more talented and experienced creators to punch up the current show runners' scripts. It feels inevitable, but who knows. Maybe viewership, and not ratings, is all Amazon cares about at the end of the day.

 

[jason10mm]

So we're to blame if we find something we might think is wrong. We either stop watching it or start liking it, it's clearly us the problem, we are imagining it has problems or hate it.

Something like this?

Seems so.

Most of this is just genre blowing up so huge. Makes sense that women and minorities want in on the action of what, up till about 15 years ago, was fantasy/comic book/sci-fi stuff sold to, and mostly consumed by, an audience that was like 90% white males.

But mining the traditional IPs and slapping rainbow paint on it isn't the answer, it's literally a cosmetic band-aid. Get authentic stories (no one bemoaned Blade), new IP (no one bemoaned the Matrix' representation of people), or dig up the wealth of stuff out there that already has what you want and get the ad team to sell it.

But if you tweak the IP to the point it is barely recognizable, be prepared to take legit heat. It's hard to knock folks when what they are asking for is just following the words on the page. Hell, I complain about the casting of The Expanse, not because of race, but because the belters weren't tall enough to be easily distinguishable from inners.

Casting can do a lot to inform story "for free" just by how they look. This fad of mixing it up willy nilly is destroying story integrity and visual language.

 

[Kacho]

up till about 15 years ago, was fantasy/comic book/sci-fi stuff sold to, and mostly consumed by, an audience that was like 90% white males.

Go to any hobby shop and it’s still 90% white dudes. That’s the primary audience that cares about and consumes this stuff, no matter how hard companies try to repurpose it to appeal to other groups.