The Rings of Power returns — big, expensive, and static as ever.
A better headline: TV series written by committee trying to make money feels like a TV series written by a committee.
It’s a perfect example of how copyright is horribly broken. The people who own the copyright have no interest in preserving the source material and no relationship with the original author, but they must churn out crap now before the copyright expires at which point they have nothing.
This copyright is especially messy because of the limited amount it actually includes. They have to dance around parts they don’t have the rights to and are plowing through more iconic Middle Earth material to try and keep the audience interested. But I agree it is so clearly a matter of too many cooks in the kitchen and not the work of a single or few passionate people with a meaningful vision to bring to life.
So they decided to base the show’s pacing on The Silmarillion it seems.
I genuinely wanted to love this. I find myself returning to the other LoTR media throughout my life. The books, movies, soundtracks, and audio recordings all have a place in my heart. Now I am sitting home on maternity leave, genuinely hoping to give season 2 a shot and hope they heard the criticism from season 1. And the pacing is just absurd. Who did they make this show for? Not old fans certainly, but it also seems unattainable for new fans.
I feel a bit of pity for all of you who can’t find it in yourselves to enjoy this show even a little bit. The visual quality is exquisite, the performances are marvelous, and the score is rousing and exciting. The dwarves are entertaining as hell, the harfoots and Totally-Not-Gandalf are charming, the orcs are suitably disgusting and terrifying even as this season attempts to make some of them just sympathetic enough to understand Adar’s angle, and even the growing strife amongst the elves is dripping with pulpy drama worthy of any good tragedy.
It’ll never be Tolkien, and I empathize with those who wanted nothing else from it but a straight-faced dramatization of the tale of years. But taken as a high fantasy with rich characters and lavish production values, I can’t find much to complain about. But I’m a simple man.
The rule of the rings: The greater one is invested in Tolkien, the lesser one likes works that stray away from Tolkien.
That explains every review of every Tolkien adaptation. It’s quite logical if you think about it.
season 2 is unwatchable, didn’t make it past halfway of the first episode. total loss. i was very up on the first season, which i found draggy, right up until the sprint across all of middle earth, to a battle, to the mountain exploding into a volcano in the span of 10 minutes (HotD pulled this same bullshit with a 5 minute montage in the finale which had more movement of forces than the entire rest of the shortened 8 episode season). that sprint. fight, mordor, bit ruined what was already teetering on a bad experienced. found myself about 30 minutes into the first episode of the second season thinking, this is all shit, the acting, the writting, the direction, all of this is just straight garbage, i don’t like any of this, it’s pretty, but that’s all that it has going for it, i guess i fixated on the stupid acorns still green in the proto hobbit’s hair in the desert, and the rock try sprouting bugs, that did it for me, i was like, nope, i’m noping the fuck out of this bullshit right fucking now, nope nope nope, i’m done
The pacing cheapens the entire experience. The greatest part of Tolkeins worlbuilding was his willingness to dwell on the little things and let the greater world and conflict fall into the background so it could build into something terrifying. The action packed pacing doesn’t feel earned, and I don’t care about any of the minor characters or locations because they feel hamfisted in and not genuine.
Although she’s mainly focusing on Picard, this person has the same complaint about what’s going on in the Star Trek genre. It’s really long, but it’s essentially the same complaint - with which I sympathize.
Enshittification afflicts everything.
This is not a correct usage of that term.
Damn it, the word “enshittification” has itself been enshittified!
(I am aware this is also an incorrect use of the word. That’s the joke I’m making. It is a bad joke.)
It’s a good term, but idiots like to using it incorrectly are making it become irrelevant quickly.
I’ve watched the first 3 episodes of season 2 with my wife, despite not liking season 1, but hey, it’s a Tolkien show so I will watch it regardless.
Half the time we were on our phones, reading articles or playing some game, because this show is slow and the dialogue is pretty pointless half the time. There are no characters we are really invested in. I guess Durin the younger comes closest, but man, the character building sucks in this show.
I will still watch it, because I’m a Tolkien nerd and I will watch it if only to bash it. I just wish there were fewer reasons to do so.
I read this to my partner; we both said, “that’s us!”
I tried watching the first 10 minutes on my phone, it’s all black, I can’t see a thing. Presuming some fighting is happening from the squelching noises.
