The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Prime

And we’ve done the timeline thing before, but the whole real world timeline for LotR is messy. Hobbit came first, but wasn’t part of the Legendarium. LotR was next as a published work, then Hobbit retconned back into it. Silmarillion was collated from various notes and stories that were written at various different times, so whether it came before or after LotR was written is pretty impossible to pin down.

My Denon AVR can't handle DD+ (just standard DD) but tells devices it can.... so the LG Amazon Prime app outputs DD+ to the receiver and theres no way of changing it. I tried that yesterday and was so fucking depressed when I saw the silky smooth video but garbled sound. My best best right now seems to be to try and work out why my Skq Q Prime app isn't outputting HDR, when apparently it should. Anyway, enough of my trials and tribulations clogging up the thread!!

The budget’s incredible, it’s almost like a company that can ping space rockets at the moon for a laugh made it. But I’m really struggling to care about any of the flat dull characters. It lacks warmth and humour, just people melodramatically swooshing in and out of scenes with spock ears.

I’m really enjoying the slower pace. We’re just getting to live in the world for awhile and breathe it all in. Its partly the reason the extended version of the Fellowship is my favourite of the six (12?) films

I also think they went a bit too overboard with all the internal conflicts. Do I really need to care that the proto-hobbit wants to see the world, or that the elf guy has a Romeo and Juliet relationship with some human woman, or that Isildur doubts about his future?

In LOTR nobody cared that Merry and Pippin were just along for the ride, or that Legolas and Gimli basically just went with them for manpower. Sure, conflict arrived for them too eventually, but at least it was introduced slowly and over time. Fellowship wouldn't have been as fun if it had to waste time focusing on everyone. And it would have been way gloomier.

Does absolutely everyone in a TV series need to have their own heart-breaking reasons for doing anything at all? I don't usually watch TV series, so I don't know if this is a common thing. Maybe they need to pad for time or something, and conflict is the best way to have characters sitting around, spending time talking their hearts out to each other.

I’m really enjoying it too but also to malek’s point above, I don’t know if any Legendarium stuff specifically needs the cliffhanger intrigue and personal subplots. Who is the stranger? Which one is Sauron? What’s with the (apparently) Morgul blade the kid has? There’s virtually nothing in Tolkien’s world building that was like that really, everything was explained in great detail (arguably too much sometimes) and that which wasn’t was mostly irrelevant.

I get it makes it more fun to talk about and keeps the blogs and recaps more interesting but it’s also the part that feels less Tolkien-esque. It’ll be nice to rewatch it with a complete story.

It still needs to be compelling television. Visualise the LOTR appendices, the Silmarillion and the Lost Tales all you like, it's meaningless without a narrative

Yeah, it's fine, I don't really have much to moan about. I never really liked the books that much, but the films were fun, and this is similarly fun.

Is it doing the annoying thing that the Disney Star Wars shows do of spending far too much energy introducing a new 'lore mystery for youtubers to overanalyse' each episode, to the detriment of its main storyline and characters?

No more than the films did I’d say

On the Harfoots, I think we need a bit more from the supporting characters.

Frodo was similarly dull and generic but that doesn’t matter when you’ve got Sam/Merry/Pippin providing the character.

I’m really enjoying it; although the slo-mo horse riding was something else. The Harfoots I’m enjoying too, but if Lenny doesn’t get some sort of secret dj show via a palantir I’ll be a mite disappointed. What are the chances he did a bit of David Bellamy between filming scenes just to confuse the younger actors ?! Always loved LH since I was a small Harfoot, so he gets a free pass for me.

Elves have always been a bit…haughty. Lighten up drama queens!

Just got around to watching the third one, I think it's pretty great personally. Such a weird reaction to it from the internet.

Also only just realised Galadriel was Saint Maude. That's made things weird.

At one end you've got the people decrying it's lack of strict adherence to Tolkien because it's ruining their entitled rememberence of their childhoods just like the Last Jedi did and at the other, people who quite like it (so far).

Somewhere inbetween are the discussions about what's going on and the pacing and who they think is whom and suchlike.