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

My partner is a massive fan of the Jackson trilogy (less so The Hobbit) but not obsessed with the books. I'm less of a fan but still enjoyed the first films a lot. So we like the world, but aren't obsessed with the lore.

We didn't find the first season engaging at all. It looked great at times, but also sometimes "empty" and compared to HOTD (which we watched at similar time) not very epic. The story was a either dull or confusing, it lacked fleshed out characters (with solid motivations and arcs) and had some dubious acting.

Of course it's horses for courses, but when there is so much good TV out there, I'm not going to waste my time on something which is just, frankly, poorly made with a shonky script and a muddled story, no matter how good it looks (which is debatable).

I'm still enjoying it but it has just lost my wife's interest by S2E2. She didn't like the way the characters were being written, for example the Galadrial and Elrond feud seeming too contrived and out of character for them.

For what its worth and for balance I'm really enjoying season 2 and much prefer it to season 1 already.
Solid 7.5/10 in a world I really enjoy with a massive battle due this season - what's not to like

However I do agree that the hobbits can do one

Episode 5 was definitely better than the previous ones. There might be hope yet.

Yeah... no it wasn't. Fair play to people who are into this show, but I'm out!

Watched all 5 back to back and I am enjoying it. Am I weird?

Galadriel's diplomacy skills might just be the worst I've ever seen.

It's like they took that bit in LotR where she gets angry and said "hey so what if that was her whole character at all times".

Asked the boy last night if he fancied watching episode 2.

"Hmmmm no I don't think so. Can we watch a film instead?"

Couldn't argue with him. Don't think we're going to get beyond ep1 of this season. There just doesn't seem to be any reason to watch it. The more I think about ep1, the more I can't believe how stupid it all is again. The whole Elrond "Im nicking the rings now bye" series of events was mind numbingly stupid. I still don't know why anything is happening.

You know what? Fuck this show. I'm done. I think I'll just try and purge it from my memory. Fucking hell, Shadow of Mordor / War did LotR better and they're not exactly a high bar either.

- Anything with the proto-Hobbits is unwatchable
- Isildur is grossly misused, even though this is supposed to be his story pretty much
- Numenor's intrigue almost makes up for it, but they need to tone down the obvious evilness of the new king and his posse, at this rate they will have them eat puppies just to show how evil they are
- I'm still not sure what the elf guy from last season is supposed to contribute to the plot
- Aren't Galadriel and Elrond supposed to be just an itty bit wiser and less gullible than they have shown so far...?
- Adar isn't fooling anybody with his "you are also the bad guys here, you know" spiel (funny how they are trying to inject morals into the orcs situation, which doesn't work, whereas the Numenor plot is apparently heading straight to cartoon villains, which also doesn't work)
- I fully expect the dwarf couple to go all Home Alone on the miners next week

In short, it's a mess. it has its good moments, sometimes enough of them to make up a good episode, but those are too few and far between.

Glutton for punishment that I am, I kept watching.

The latest episode has a cool battle in it! But it unfortunately still suffers from everyone being dumb as rocks.

I think part of the problem is the accelerated timeline. Books can skip ahead a few decades. The show probably to avoid skipping ahead a dozen years all the time and recasting anyone who isn't an elf, but it's making for some weird storytelling.

Here Sauron rocks up for a few weeks, and everyone starts trusting him more than the boss they've known for probably hundreds of years. Elrond greets the Durian as an "old friend", except that they met for the first time last season, and not for very long.

The coup thing in the other storyline happens... over a few days? Weeks? Evil Jack Black was scheming, then he took over, then it's a police state, then the queen takes a test and it's all cool again with her idiot subjects.

I don't know what the solution really is. Maybe trying to tell a smaller story, rather than having all these things awkwardly clanging together?

The latest episode was better than usual. Probably because it didn't have much of a story and there was lots of action.

I do find it weird how the battle looks grittier than the ones in the movies. Some almost looked like trench warfare. I know Tolkien was inspired by his WW1 experience so it wouldn't be all that out of place, but it didn't feel very high fantasy.

Mind, what story was there, was pretty stupid. Sauron gaslighting Elrond in front of everyone must have taken the cake for me. And if he can mind control others apparently, why does he even need trickery and deceipt?

I also have some issues with their attempts to make orcs sympathetic, because every single minute they are on screen, they aren't exactly doing much other than being totally evil. Hell, these orcs might be even more evil than the ones in the movies, since they seem a bit smarter and a bit more sadistic.

As some people have said, the good guys are pretty much out to exterminate Morgoth's creations, so it's not even clear what they would do if some orcs did surrender peacefully. Which probably would never happen since orcs seem very willing to either fight to the death, or run to hide and fight another day (whereas armies of men on Sauron's side can and do surrender at times, and are treated as well as can be by the heroes).

Given the setting of the story, it's not really something that needs to be explored, because any attempt to explain it would fall flat. I mean, even Tolkien couldn't really find any excuse for it, so it's probably better to just avoid the issue and accept that this is a black-and-white morality universe. Besides, given how orcs act in this show and anywhere else (but especially in this show), they are not exactly making themselves deserving of being treated sympathetically or anything.

What a strangely shaped head (?) Shippey has.