Fate23
Added 2024-04-01 04:44:19 +0000 UTCHowdy everyone. This has now been extra edited
Comments
saw this in my notifications, used the reply button there to try to reply. Hit enter. Disapeared. Am now annoyed. Agree with most. Writing/tactics/coreagraphy all sucked. I would not say it's woke propaganda, just... very bad writing where someone felt that virtue signaling was more important than anything else. I would also say that Disa's PR did not do it any favors, or those cring-ass 'super fans'. Since we've talked about this before, I won't say more (again). Just had to vent a bit in my sfterward since I saw RIP news this past weekend. UGHHH
vimesenthusiast
2024-04-01 20:13:49 +0000 UTCRings of Power was a cash grab, anyway, brilliant as always
RedOuroboros
2024-04-01 18:08:45 +0000 UTCGreat job! There were a few issues with the chapter, mostly near the end. You started to call Tauriel Tracy again, and there were nine rings for man, not seven. Three Rings of the Elves, Seven Rings for the Dwarves, and Nine for Men. Also, what were Harry's suggestions for the map? You never actually state what they are. Sorry for the long rant ahead. As for Rings of Power, the main issue is that while Bezos did buy the rights to some of Tolkien's works, he didn't buy the Silmarillion or many of the other works that actually cover that period of history. As such, the writers basically only had a few paragraphs to work off of that they had the rights to. Additionally, some of Tolkien's later works do describe Galadriel as having led armies and acted as a commander during her youth. Granted, she was still unlikely to have been on the front lines or wielding a sword. A bigger problem with RoP is the writing in general. The pacing is all over the place with four different storylines, some of which feel like they should take days (Southlands) and other that should take weeks or months (Galadriel). Yet somehow, they all start on the same day because of the comet. Additionally, the dialog switches between stuff that sounds like it was written by JRRT, cringey metaphors that sound like bad attempts at imitating JRRT (why do boats float?), and modern marvel-esque casual speech. We also get very little screen time for each of the main characters compared to what we got in both the original trilogy and the Hobbit, so we care about them less. Plus a lot of them are just annoying assholes. I'm pretty sure we were supposed to empathize with many of the characters but it's very hard. Galadriel, the heroine, starts her first scene by viciously beating another child. It would be fine if she just punched him once in the face or kicked him in the balls, but no, she beats him bloody, to the point where he would need to see a doctor. Not great. Then let's look at the Numenoreans and the Southlanders. Both are portrayed as bigots against elves, frequently insulting elves and foreigners, with very few redeeming features. This undercuts the Numenoreans, especially that stupid speech about elves stealing their jobs when there is only one elf in the entire kingdom. The ignorant, vile, and dirty portrayal of the southlanders makes it hard to feel anything but relief when their kingdom is destroyed and turned into Mordor. I think they wanted us to feel sad about that, and if so they failed. Not to mention the soft-core genocide of the hobbits abandoning anyone who steps out of line or can't keep up. These are the characters we're supposed to empathize with, REALLY???!!! Finally for the casting, well, you're not wrong. It wasn't even close to the main problem with the show, but ethnography mattered in Tolkien's works. The Harfoots, were weird and the Numenoreans made absolutely no sense. If they wanted to explore the lore and diversity of the Numenoreans, they could have delved into their colonization of the coasts, including the lands of the Haradrim. The Haradrim would have given them a darker skinned race of people, and would have been arguably much more interesting than the southlanders. Diversity and representation are good things, but put some thought into it at least. The way they did it in RoP was just lazy and probably a result of lacking the rights to most of the relevant material. The cultists from Rhun probably should have been asiatic for example. The Blue Wizards also would have been a great inclusion, they don't have any clear descriptions, so they can look like anything. They are supposed to have spent most of their time travelling through Rhun and Harad though, so they probably look like the locals. The southlanders were fine as the south lands are basically the Caucasus of Middle Earth. It's worth noting that several other characters were miscast as well. Ar-Pharazon is supposed to be an intimidating warrior, not the sleazy diplomat that was onscreen. The actor who played Celebrimbor was good, but the writers clearly didn't understand that old elves are not a thing. I actually kind of liked Disa. The actress did a good job; if only she had a beard. My opinion on her changed after her interview, which was indisputably virtue signalling. That being said, Arondir (the black elf) is probably my favourite character in the series. This is mostly because he actually faces some conflict and does something interesting, where he's captured by orcs and cuts down a tree. It would have been nice if they maybe explained him as being a descendant of the Avari, a group of elves we know nothing about, but I guess they didn't have the rights again. It would have made so much sense to as he's in the right area. I also like Adar (orc father), Elrond, and Durin. Their portrayals and arcs were great (Elrond is a lot less stern in the books), but they didn't make up for the rest of the series. The show definitely wasn't the stunning masterpiece of groundbreaking glass-ceiling shattering art that the staff tried to portray it as in the media, but it also definitely wasn't the woke propaganda that many right-wing critics claimed it was. If anything, it's just another poorly made corporate attempt to imitate Game of Thrones for the money.
Beleriond
2024-04-01 17:09:54 +0000 UTC
