Lord of the Rings

[Mister Gold]

One question...

I thought it was already established that the dwarves had been mining mitheril (sp?) for many many years before they finally dug deep enough to awaken the Balrog.   Now this is saying they awakened it right away...so when do they get the time to mine the mass quantities that are out there by the third age?

The Balrog was "awake," but he's buried deeeeeeeeeeeeeeep into the mountain so we're at least still a few good years away from seeing him be freed and bring the ruin of Khazad-Dum IMO. That said, if we see it happen in the show at all, that's still significantly earlier in the timeline than in Tolkien's books.

But that sort of thing is inevitable with this show considering how much time compression is happening in general in order for the show to have a consistent cast of human characters that all grow and develop from the start of Season 1 to the end of Season 5. In the books, the events that we'll be seeing in the show all took place over the course of hundreds/thousands of years.

[Polarbear]

One question...

I thought it was already established that the dwarves had been mining mitheril (sp?) for many many years before they finally dug deep enough to awaken the Balrog.   Now this is saying they awakened it right away...so when do they get the time to mine the mass quantities that are out there by the third age?

The Balrog was "awake," but he's buried deeeeeeeeeeeeeeep into the mountain so we're at least still a few good years away from seeing him be freed and bring the ruin of Khazad-Dum IMO. That said, if we see it happen in the show at all, that's still significantly earlier in the timeline than in Tolkien's books.

But that sort of thing is inevitable with this show considering how much time compression is happening in general in order for the show to have a consistent cast of human characters that all grow and develop from the start of Season 1 to the end of Season 5. In the books, the events that we'll be seeing in the show all took place over the course of hundreds/thousands of years.

Yeah, I'm thinking right now that this is just a cameo. Balrog sees the leaf fall down, roar and wink wink to the audience.
I'll be surprised if the Balrog destroys Khazad-Dum in this show, although anything is possible considering how many liberties they are taking over the source material.

[MirrorMask]

Well, one storyline is about the dwarves, so I'll be surprised if by the end we don't see the Balrog laying waste to Khazad-Dum.

Another major change they did was having Galadriel mentioning Celeborn as if he had died - I guess they set up a love interest to have him eventually come back, surprise surprise, he wasn't dead? how else is Elrond gonna get laid if Galadriel and Celeborn don't eventually bear his future wife? 

[lonestar]

I can totally see them compressing a few thousand years of Tolkien's lore into this, and I have zero problems with it. Create the rings, destroy Khazad-Dum, drown Numeneor, bring out Gandalf. So far storytelling and production have been brilliant, seems they're more than capable of that level of multi-tasking.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

I can totally see them compressing a few thousand years of Tolkien's lore into this, and I have zero problems with it. Create the rings, destroy Khazad-Dum, drown Numeneor, bring out Gandalf. So far storytelling and production have been brilliant, seems they're more than capable of that level of multi-tasking.

I could also see them skipping forward in time between seasons. Unless the non-elf actors signed multi-season contracts....

[lonestar]

I can totally see them compressing a few thousand years of Tolkien's lore into this, and I have zero problems with it. Create the rings, destroy Khazad-Dum, drown Numeneor, bring out Gandalf. So far storytelling and production have been brilliant, seems they're more than capable of that level of multi-tasking.

I could also see them skipping forward in time between seasons. Unless the non-elf actors signed multi-season contracts....

I'd agree, except I think the main arc of the rings has to stay attached to Isildur, so the series has to stay attached to that timeframe.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

I can totally see them compressing a few thousand years of Tolkien's lore into this, and I have zero problems with it. Create the rings, destroy Khazad-Dum, drown Numeneor, bring out Gandalf. So far storytelling and production have been brilliant, seems they're more than capable of that level of multi-tasking.

I could also see them skipping forward in time between seasons. Unless the non-elf actors signed multi-season contracts....

I'd agree, except I think the main arc of the rings has to stay attached to Isildur, so the series has to stay attached to that timeframe.

Ah, good point. I totally forgot about that.

[lonestar]

I can totally see them compressing a few thousand years of Tolkien's lore into this, and I have zero problems with it. Create the rings, destroy Khazad-Dum, drown Numeneor, bring out Gandalf. So far storytelling and production have been brilliant, seems they're more than capable of that level of multi-tasking.

I could also see them skipping forward in time between seasons. Unless the non-elf actors signed multi-season contracts....

I'd agree, except I think the main arc of the rings has to stay attached to Isildur, so the series has to stay attached to that timeframe.

Ah, good point. I totally forgot about that.

Still at this stage he's really young, and I'd gather he's much older when he actually cuts the ring off Sauron's finger, so they got a good 20 years to play with at least.

[jammindude]

I can totally see them compressing a few thousand years of Tolkien's lore into this, and I have zero problems with it. Create the rings, destroy Khazad-Dum, drown Numeneor, bring out Gandalf. So far storytelling and production have been brilliant, seems they're more than capable of that level of multi-tasking.

I could also see them skipping forward in time between seasons. Unless the non-elf actors signed multi-season contracts....

I'd agree, except I think the main arc of the rings has to stay attached to Isildur, so the series has to stay attached to that timeframe.

Ah, good point. I totally forgot about that.

Still at this stage he's really young, and I'd gather he's much older when he actually cuts the ring off Sauron's finger, so they got a good 20 years to play with at least.

I can’t remember whether it was here or somewhere else online, but someone pointed out that men in this world can live a bit longer and still live pretty hearty lives. I mean, Aragorn was from a race that lived into their hundreds. Isildur may not be from that same race but is still plausible. At the very least, I don’t think men in this story are locked into the 70 or 80 year range like we are

[HOF]

I can totally see them compressing a few thousand years of Tolkien's lore into this, and I have zero problems with it. Create the rings, destroy Khazad-Dum, drown Numeneor, bring out Gandalf. So far storytelling and production have been brilliant, seems they're more than capable of that level of multi-tasking.

I could also see them skipping forward in time between seasons. Unless the non-elf actors signed multi-season contracts....

We’ll see if Isildur is actually dead or not, but if so that’s a pretty big deviation from Tolkien’s stories. I’m guessing he’s not dead (they spent too much time on his milktoast character to just kill him off already), but if he is dead I’d guess Theo somehow takes on his role going forward (this was my wife’s theory, credit where due).

[MirrorMask]

I can totally see them compressing a few thousand years of Tolkien's lore into this, and I have zero problems with it. Create the rings, destroy Khazad-Dum, drown Numeneor, bring out Gandalf. So far storytelling and production have been brilliant, seems they're more than capable of that level of multi-tasking.

I could also see them skipping forward in time between seasons. Unless the non-elf actors signed multi-season contracts....

I'd agree, except I think the main arc of the rings has to stay attached to Isildur, so the series has to stay attached to that timeframe.

Ah, good point. I totally forgot about that.

Still at this stage he's really young, and I'd gather he's much older when he actually cuts the ring off Sauron's finger, so they got a good 20 years to play with at least.

I can’t remember whether it was here or somewhere else online, but someone pointed out that men in this world can live a bit longer and still live pretty hearty lives. I mean, Aragorn was from a race that lived into their hundreds. Isildur may not be from that same race but is still plausible. At the very least, I don’t think men in this story are locked into the 70 or 80 year range like we are

By canon Aragorn is 87 in the book, and he's Isildur's heir and descendant, so yeah, they could have Isildur live quite long.

[jammindude]

 

Of course! I brain farted. So that just means all the more so, Isildore could have a very long life and this series could cover 100 years before we get to him cutting off the ring…well, maybe 60-80…but still.

[MirrorMask]

Anyway, I'm too on board with accepting a drastic compression of the timeline, as long as they don't make up stuff (or make up too much stuff that contradicts later events, such as Galadriel and Celeborn)....

[Mister Gold]

Well, one storyline is about the dwarves, so I'll be surprised if by the end we don't see the Balrog laying waste to Khazad-Dum.

Another major change they did was having Galadriel mentioning Celeborn as if he had died - I guess they set up a love interest to have him eventually come back, surprise surprise, he wasn't dead? how else is Elrond gonna get laid if Galadriel and Celeborn don't eventually bear his future wife? 

Yeah, it's pretty obvious to me that Celeborn is actually alive and will eventually reunite with Galadriel in the next season or two.

[lordxizor]

One of the huge problems with prequels is that you already know the future of characters. We know Isildur has to be alive because we know his future. We know Celeborn is also alive for the same reasons. I generally hate the whole "oh no, so-and-so is dead... wait no he's not afterall" trope, but when you know the result beforehand it's especially dumb.

[Mister Gold]

One of the huge problems with prequels is that you already know the future of characters. We know Isildur has to be alive because we know his future. We know Celeborn is also alive for the same reasons. I generally hate the whole "oh no, so-and-so is dead... wait no he's not afterall" trope, but when you know the result beforehand it's especially dumb.

I don't mind it here, because so far it's framed not as a "Oh my god, this person died" plot point, but more in how the in-the-moment illusion of this character's "death" is impacting other characters. It's not about Isildur "dying," but how this managed to shake Elendil's faith and is developing his character for the time being. On a similar note, Celeborn isn't meant to be a shocker death, especially given the format of how that information is communicated to us in the episode, but rather it's presented as further context for Galadriel's harsher attitude in this season being the result of PTSD.

[Polarbear]

Just watched the season finale, and it was good IMO!

Season 1 as a whole was pretty enjoyable I think. You have to disconnect yourself from the source material and accept the changes, but at least for me, once I did that I enjoyed this quite a bit! I'm pretty excited to see where this goes from here, and how we get from here to the War of the Last Alliance.

I saw the twist with the stranger from miles away, I suspect others did too. The other big twist at the end of the finale, I suspected a few episodes back. Good to see it come to pass, and it makes sense too looking back to previous episodes.

Won't say more, until more people have watched it.

[Pettor]

First season gets a 4/10 for me. Wanted to like it but the storytelling is amateurish to say the least. Unlikable characters, insanely bad pacing and editing, constantly cringe dialogue and it never builds up to anything emotional (except one scene), entertaining or exciting.

The visuals are fantastic and many areas and cities are a pleasure to watch, from distance. But everything feels empty. Is the southland just two villages? Why did Numenor send like 5 ships. Elven cities feels empty with about 4 elves seemingly doing everything. Dwarves seems to dig out Khazad-düm with the strength of ehrmmm Durin and Elderon? But the visuals are the only time where the series shine imo.

Durin has been by far the best part of the show and even managed to act out the only scene where I actually felt anything; the argument with his father, ofc destroyed by the crappy jump to the harfoots seconds efter. This is a consistent problem; the editing. It's like they hate flow or feel that whenever the viewer is about to enjoy the show it's time to cut.

I don't like how consistently it's been avoiding the Tolkien lore at every turn, like Neo dodging lore bullets, but could have lived with it if only the show was good and entertaining. The timeline is fine, it was necessary to change at least.

I guess it mostly comes down to what characters am I supposed to like? Feels like it's a directional choice to keep it kind of sterile. Check out when Gandalf and Frodo are introduced in Fellowship. There's NO moment even close to that here. And somehow it's partly the way it's shot and acted out.

Also the fake outs, gaaaah. It feels like slow motion and fake outs keep the series from being just 4 hours long. At every turn I am supposed to believe that characters die when clearly they are alive. Since I really feel nothing for the characters the fake outs also become frustrating moments that drag out an already empty story.

Honestly feels unbelievable that they can spend so much money on something that turned out like this. It just shouldn't be possible. Disappointed to say the least and season 2 needs to make a full 180 for me to continue watching.

[jammindude]

Honestly 8/10.

What a fantastic show. We were all crying when Nori said goodbye at the end. I just thought it was a brilliantly well executed show. Every sing character nailed their parts to the hilt.  If anything, this show just points out the glaring faults in The Hobbit trilogy. The writing was better, the pacing was better, the editing was better. At least this *felt* more like the slower pacing of the OT. I love the longer set-ups. They allow you to bond with the characters and be more emotionally involved when the reveal happens.

The HUGE reveal with the stranger and Halebrand caught me COMPLETELY off guard. But it made total sense and was absolutely brilliant. In fact, I was about to be disappointed in the the stranger being Sauron angle because it seemed too obvious, and the relationship with Nori would have undermined how evil he is. So I was shocked and relieved when that went another direction.

I can’t think of a single criticism so far…so I’m not sure why I gave it an 8. Maybe because it just feels unfinished yet?  I think it’s too soon to give it “perfection” status.

One thing is for sure, it rekindled my faith into the story. It feels like a proper LOTR prequel. The Hobbit felt nothing like either one.  I have a feeling that ROP being this close to LOTR in tone, storytelling, and pacing is going to make the Hobbit Trilogy that much worse because everything about it is so different from the other two. And not in a good way.

[Pettor]

Honestly 8/10.

What a fantastic show. We were all crying when Nori said goodbye at the end. I just thought it was a brilliantly well executed show. Every sing character nailed their parts to the hilt.  If anything, this show just points out the glaring faults in The Hobbit trilogy. The writing was better, the pacing was better, the editing was better. At least this *felt* more like the slower pacing of the OT. I love the longer set-ups. They allow you to bond with the characters and be more emotionally involved when the reveal happens.

The HUGE reveal with the stranger and Halebrand caught me COMPLETELY off guard. But it made total sense and was absolutely brilliant. In fact, I was about to be disappointed in the the stranger being Sauron angle because it seemed too obvious, and the relationship with Nori would have undermined how evil he is. So I was shocked and relieved when that went another direction.

I can’t think of a single criticism so far…so I’m not sure why I gave it an 8. Maybe because it just feels unfinished yet?  I think it’s too soon to give it “perfection” status.

One thing is for sure, it rekindled my faith into the story. It feels like a proper LOTR prequel. The Hobbit felt nothing like either one.  I have a feeling that ROP being this close to LOTR in tone, storytelling, and pacing is going to make the Hobbit Trilogy that much worse because everything about it is so different from the other two. And not in a good way.

In a way I love your comment because we are the opposite from each other. Just for curiousity, did you read the source material i.e., Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales etc? Just curious to see how much of an impact that potentially have.

I felt nothing when Nori says goodbye but can easily sob when Sam comes with Frodo in fellowship. Nori and Poppin just became a cheap copy of Frodo and Sam, but without the story to make me feel for them. I never connected with Nori and feel I barely know her even 8 hours in. I felt barely any character nailed their parts, except Durin who was consistently great. Also, the new character Adar och Elrond to a large degree. Theo, Galadriel, Helbrant etc. never connected at all with me.

I will say I dislike Hobbit a lot. This has a much better feeling overall but sadly lacks the story instead. The reveals were quite easily spotted if you read the source material (even if the show takes a lot of liberties with the source material) so maybe that shocker never landed for me either, but I guess I can like parts of that. Actually, I think a lot of people missed the pretty big hint in episode 3 where Halbrand gets attacked by Numenorians and there's a very evil dark music being played in the background as Halbrand hits them. That's the point I was pretty certain of his real identity.

[jammindude]

I have read none of the source material. I’ve read The Hobbit and LOTR several times, but never dug any deeper.

My older stepson (who lives with us and has been enjoying it) is VERY familiar with all the source material…but he very much takes a DM’s approach (he’s a very good DM and that tends to be his outlook) He thinks that people get too married to the minutiae of the source material, and he views those books more as DM manuals than stories. From that POV, he thinks they are doing a really good job.

[Pettor]

I have read none of the source material. I’ve read The Hobbit and LOTR several times, but never dug any deeper.

My older stepson (who lives with us and has been enjoying it) is VERY familiar with all the source material…but he very much takes a DM’s approach (he’s a very good DM and that tends to be his outlook) He thinks that people get too married to the minutiae of the source material, and he views those books more as DM manuals than stories. From that POV, he thinks they are doing a really good job.

I kind of agree with the argument about the source material. TBh I never thought they would make it that true to it since the source material is in a form that's hard to translate. However, the parts they easily could be translated is weirdly ignored in the show. Anyway, I think overall if it's a good story loosely based on a cool fiction that would still be fine, but that's where ROP loose me. It feels like most of the storytelling is based on cheap writing where I just never managed to feel connected to anything. The characters are largely unlikable to me. There's so many "fakeouts" where someone supposedly is dead but then later appears to be alive. Usually, these moments reveal a deeper problem for me with the show; I wouldn't care if they actually were dead. When Gandalf "dies" in fellowship I was devastated and actually felt emotions connected to the event. When Isildur, Goodwin or anyone else gets a fakeout death it's a shrug and I wouldn't really care if they ever came back.

Harfoots have none of the charm and love that the Hobbits in LOTR have. They are actually kind of assholes so when I am supposed to care I just can't. The constant jumping between the stories often takes me out of moments that could start to build some relationship with the characters. I honestly feel they should have cut the episodes in a way where we follow the Harfoots for almost the entire episode, instead of cutting it into pieces sprinkled throughout the show.

So overall my problem is just that the story is (imo) quite badly written and doesn't seem to understand how movies like LOTR made me care for the characters and events happening on the screen.

[jammindude]

The jumping around from story a story argument is just baffling to me. To me that is exactly what they did in the movies. And the books are the worst offender in this department.

I’ve always maintained that Tolkien was the greatest world builder our generation has ever known, but the dude couldn’t write a properly edited novel to save his life! The movies were largely an improvement on the original writings. Almost all the changes they made were improvements. (Especially what they did for Arwen). Even the massive break from character of Farmir I thought was a huge improvement over the book and ended up making the one ring even more threatening (in the books, it seemed like certain people were almost immune…the movie created the atmosphere of “no one is safe”).

But back to the shifting. I see absolutely zero difference between the OT movies and ROP in changing from one story to another. In fact, it was one of the things that helped me feel that it was most like the films.

[Pettor]

The jumping around from story a story argument is just baffling to me. To me that is exactly what they did in the movies. And the books are the worst offender in this department.

I’ve always maintained that token was the greatest world builder our generation has ever known, but the dude couldn’t write a properly edited novel to save his life! The movies were largely an improvement on talking to original writings. Almost all the changes they made were improvements. (Especially what they did for Arwen). Even the massive break from character of Farmir I thought was a huge improvement over the book and ended up making the one ring even more threatening (in the books, it seemed like certain people were almost immune…the movie created the atmosphere of “no one is safe”).

But back to the shifting. I see absolutely zero difference between the OT movies and ROP in changing from one story to another. In fact, it was one of the things that helped me feel that it was most like the films.

Well, it's a skill, right? First of all, ROP jumps between four stories most of the time; Numenor (Galadriel, Halbrand), Southland (Theo, Goodwin), Elves & Dwarves (Durin, Elrond), Harfoots (Poppin, Stranger). LOTR mainly jumps between two most of the time and sometimes three. Ofc it's hard to just compare like that but in general that's the parallell stories. But all in all, you can have 20 and still make it work. It's how you do it.

What I am trying to say is that in ROP it doesn't work for me. The pacing and flow are off because of how they did it. In Jackson's trilogy it's in general working really well. Jumping between Fellowship and Frodo & Sam is seldom an issue and because of the editing I care for both. But when Durin screams at his father for being unfair and I actually feel something and then suddenly they edit in the Harfoot without the scene even coming to a close, that's just amateurish. It's the directors and writers job to make me as a viewer follow and care for what's on the screen, and that's not an easy job. Imo ROP fails most of the time at this job.

I think Tolkien's writing can be discussed to length, but he was an unbelievable world builder. That's what most people gets drawn to. Hobbit was a bad trilogy, but the parts where it did follow the book somewhat sometimes turned out ok. The made up parts are usually something that never felt right because they simply break the world building and are silly.

ROP is mostly made up content, i.e. doesn't use the amazing world building at hand from Tolkien. Ofc it will never have the same quality even if you make changes to make the story more easy and entertaining, because at heart it doesn't feel or work in the way Tolkien wrote his work.

[MirrorMask]

Saw it too. I was thinking it was 10 episodes, surprised it was the seasons finale!

It's been a while since I've read the "other" books beside LOTR and The Hobbit, so I'm not remembering well how the forging of the Rings of Power actually went - they definitively were faithful in depicting the elven ones, but I don't remember how they started making them for dwarves and men as well. It must have been only when the Rings were forged and already used that Sauron went and forged the One Ring behind their backs, with men keeping on with their use (and eventually being consumed by it, turning into Nazguls) and elves taking them off immediately.

Fun fact: two of the three elven ringbearers were already present in the room when they were forged, Elrond and Galadriel. The third one is Gandalf, which is 99% the stranger, right? there were five Istari: Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast who was mostly interested in nature and animals, and two others who fucked off to the far east and were never heard of again. He's definitively no Saruman and he might be either Gandalf or Radagast, but he's showing some "Gandalf traits" so I assume it's him. At least they didn't spell it out completely, which is nice.

I guess on an eventual rewatch I'd have to see if the clues for the Halbard twist were all there, or if it was made for shock value. A good twist holds in restrospect, like the Sixth Sense one... this should better hold up.

Overall.... yeah, I enjoyed it and I accept time compression and some minor changes here and there, but often I missed the "wow" factor. When Breaking Bad came to a close, I had a big smile on my face, completely satisfied with the ending. That moment of complete satisfaction, of "yeah, this is really good, nailed it!" I probably felt it most when there was that lovely Hobbit song, This Wandering Day. A song should not be the most emotional moment of a series big as this. The visuals were stunning, Galadriel was great overall, and I loved her in the moment Halbrand was tempting her, probably they did some editing to make her eyes appear even more of a deep blue? she was one of those who saw the light of the Trees in Valinor, and Feanor was actually inspired by her beauty (her golden hair like the Sun, especially) to create the Silmarils, and that scene really made me remember "wow, she's one of the oldest elves, one who truly lived through all the events of the first era", and I think the "stronger than the foundations of the earth" callback was a good enough touch and didn't sound too forced.

But "something" is still missing, and I'm not talking about a maniacal following of Tolkien's writings. I didn't even suffer that much the dialogue but yeah, pacing and characterization could have been better. Let's hope for a better second season!

...anyway, in retrospect, isn't it a bit unintentionally hilarous that those three white sorceresses or whatever were acting so mysterious and badass and then they just went "oh shit we thought he was Sauron but he's not"? geez, how can you even make that mistake? ok, they're both Maias, but still, get a grip you androgynous white sorceress or whatever you were supposed to be. You had one job.

[Lethean]

Spoilers below.

Overall, I liked the series a lot and really like the last episode.  But then, I also liked The Hobbit trilogy.  Yeah, some of the changes were egregious, but the characters were great.  I thought Martin Freeman was incredible as Bilbo, loved the dwarves, etc. 

For Rings of Power, I'd agree that I don't have the same level of emotional investment in most of the characters as in the books/movies.  But I do care - I'm not disinterested in them.  A few more episodes with a little more time on some of the characters would have been nice, but I very much enjoyed it all anyway.  I should have seen the twist coming before I did, and I considered it when they captured Adar, but I think I would have preferred to see how things would play out with Halbrand and Galadriel so I didn't think about it too much.

[ZirconBlue]

In a way I love your comment because we are the opposite from each other. Just for curiousity, did you read the source material i.e., Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales etc? Just curious to see how much of an impact that potentially have.

For the record the "Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales etc" are not the source material of this show.  In fact, they do not have the tv rights to any of those works, so they can only include what's in The Lord of the Rings proper, and it's Appendices.

[Pettor]

In a way I love your comment because we are the opposite from each other. Just for curiousity, did you read the source material i.e., Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales etc? Just curious to see how much of an impact that potentially have.

For the record the "Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales etc" are not the source material of this show.  In fact, they do not have the tv rights to any of those works, so they can only include what's in The Lord of the Rings proper, and it's Appendices.

Yes I know this. 1970 Tolkien sold the only rights that can be used for movies /series. In a way they have used Unfinished Tales however. The appendices only contain one small line about Galadriel, basically saying she is the wife of Celeborn. Unfinished Tales is where she got a meaty backstory. Having Galadriel as main character and having one line basically saying nothing, well you must use other sources as well then, as evident from the finale, where Silmarillion at least partly comes into play.

I guess if true, that this is the reason they can't use the original story, and therefor had to make a new one themselves, what's the point? Tolkien has insane world building where events, locations etc. all make sense. This story was average at best and never felt Tolkien to me. Jackson got all those cool things in the movie where you can explain most of it, because Tolkien had explanations for it, and therefor created a world that is interesting to dig deeper into. Why not make stories from the books they have the rights to? There's stuff that was never told from LOTR etc.

Anyway not that important. I will quote someone who basically said what I feel:

"They added too much and cut too much when they had a perfectly good story to flesh out that Amazon spent hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase. Why not tell that expensive tale? Why make this other one up? I don’t understand."

[MirrorMask]

Well, if told in the right way, all the events they have the right for are truly some stories worth told... the whole forging of the Rings of Power (AKA the name of the darn series), the rise and fall of Numenor, the eventual wars with Sauron and the Last Alliance that brought to his defeat can be awesome to see. It needed more tight writing and better dialogues but they definitively had something worth to build on even on the little things they had the rights for.

[HOF]

I was surprised to see them jump straight to the elves forging their rings without Sauron having the elves help him craft the other rings. It’s just a weird rushed half-version of the story.

[MirrorMask]

I was surprised to see them jump straight to the elves forging their rings without Sauron having the elves help him craft the other rings. It’s just a weird rushed half-version of the story.

They probably favored the twist over the storytelling.

Once you see a character helping the elves to forge the ring, everyone who has read the book and has an even faint knowledge of the lore can realize who that guy is. But the actual story of Sauron helping the elves out, deceiving them and showing his cunning and ability could have been good. The whole "it's the journey that matters, not the destination".

Now that I think of it's, nothing of it is uncharted territory anyway. Yeah, tons of people will watch this not knowing every single detail of Lord of the Rings lore, and they might not be aware that Numenor will drown and that Sauron helped to forge the rings (the lesser ones actually, he didn't have a hand in crafting the three elven rings proper - but his methods and his arts were anyway used so when he created the One Ring, the elves took them off anyway just to be safe). It still would be an interesting story for them if told right and with a clever writing.

[HOF]

I was surprised to see them jump straight to the elves forging their rings without Sauron having the elves help him craft the other rings. It’s just a weird rushed half-version of the story.

They probably favored the twist over the storytelling.

Once you see a character helping the elves to forge the ring, everyone who has read the book and has an even faint knowledge of the lore can realize who that guy is. But the actual story of Sauron helping the elves out, deceiving them and showing his cunning and ability could have been good. The whole "it's the journey that matters, not the destination".

Now that I think of it's, nothing of it is uncharted territory anyway. Yeah, tons of people will watch this not knowing every single detail of Lord of the Rings lore, and they might not be aware that Numenor will drown and that Sauron helped to forge the rings (the lesser ones actually, he didn't have a hand in crafting the three elven rings proper - but his methods and his arts were anyway used so when he created the One Ring, the elves took them off anyway just to be safe). It still would be an interesting story for them if told right and with a clever writing.

Yeah, I guess there was some element of surprise just because you weren’t sure if one of the current characters was Sauron or not. But once Halbrant starts giving advice on metallurgy there wasn’t any mystery left. Still, I wonder how they will handle the forging of the other rings now. It’s going to be a little less interesting if Sauron just goes and makes them himself. It’s too bad they couldn’t have at least saved the reveal until after the One Ring is forged.

[MirrorMask]

Sometimes it's nice to watch a trainwreck. It was highly entertaining watching Ned Stark trying to be a noble and just guy in a den of vipers, and look at how turned out well for him. Yeah, maybe not everyone going into the series were aware of his fate, Sean Bean casting aside, but still it was fun rooting for a guy seemingly doomed to lose.

In the same vein, if they wanted a twist, they could have have framed it in a completely different way, and have the surprise reveal in a totally unrelated context. Then, once we as the audience knew who Sauron was, we could have enjoyed him deceiving the elves and helping to forge the various rings. We could have also have wondered how the character themselves would have eventually found out who the "helping hand" really was.

[bosk1]

I was surprised to see them jump straight to the elves forging their rings without Sauron having the elves help him craft the other rings. It’s just a weird rushed half-version of the story.

They probably favored the twist over the storytelling.

Once you see a character helping the elves to forge the ring, everyone who has read the book and has an even faint knowledge of the lore can realize who that guy is. But the actual story of Sauron helping the elves out, deceiving them and showing his cunning and ability could have been good. The whole "it's the journey that matters, not the destination".

Now that I think of it's, nothing of it is uncharted territory anyway. Yeah, tons of people will watch this not knowing every single detail of Lord of the Rings lore, and they might not be aware that Numenor will drown and that Sauron helped to forge the rings (the lesser ones actually, he didn't have a hand in crafting the three elven rings proper - but his methods and his arts were anyway used so when he created the One Ring, the elves took them off anyway just to be safe). It still would be an interesting story for them if told right and with a clever writing.

I need to rewatch the last episode again because this  plot point was confusing to me.  He was helping to forge the rings, so once Galadriel realized who he was, why did she suddenly support the forging of the rings instead of realizing they needed to stop?  And didn't Elrond figure something was up too when he found the scroll in the river?  I wasn't really sure what was going on at the end there once we got to the forging of the rings, but it didn't seem to add up.

[MirrorMask]

Yeah, that was a bit confusing as well.

The actual lore goes that Sauron, disguised as "Annatar", the bringer of gifts, helped Celebrimbor and other elves to forge the Rings of Power. They forged a lot of lesser rings, and eventually created the Nine for men, and the Seven for dwarves.

The elves alone, without direct help from Sauron / Annatar, created the Three; Sauron eventually pissed off to Mordor, forged the One Ring revealing himself, and the elves sensing his influence took off their rings and never used them until Sauron were defeated. Then Galadriel, Elrond and eventually Gandalf bore those rings.

In the show, however, they framed the situation as the elves desperately needing "something" to keep their power, hence all the season-long diplomatic mission of Elrond with the dwarves, and eventually Celebrimbor having the generic idea of creating a crown. They had do come up with an object of power to continue living in their lands, and that was not something that could be postponed any longer, so they just had to go along with it.

Also, Galadriel knows that Halbrand is Sauron, but she can't imagine he would find a way to subjugate all the rings to his will. So at the moment she doesn't know he intends to forge a master ring to rule them all - and in turn, she doesn't know that using the rings would expose them to the direct influence of Sauron.