Spoilers Rings of Power is back!

[Micah Sweet]

Really? Barely noticeable for most of us. And those we do notice, don’t really matter.

It’s not Lord of the Rings. It’s not supposed to be. It’s a set of stories written by others because the original was sold for cold hard sweaty cash. Whether it cleaves to a portion of Tolkien’s notes or not has no bearing on whether I enjoy the show or not.

It’s what we have. I’m glad they’re making a fantasy series with elves and such and it’s cool to imagine how Sauron might have made the rings. If you want to tell a different story then feel free. I see many folks very good at saying what they don’t like about the series but not very good at articulating an alternative.

How about instead of saying, "for most of us", you use the more accurate, "for me"?

 

[ART!]

Just pretend the movies and the series are different versions in the LOTR multiverse. Or if you prefer they are the Kelvin (Star Trek) timeline of LOTR. Maybe it's Middle-Earth 2, as in the DC multiverse. You'll feel better and sleep at night instead of waking up hating the directors, writers and producers.

Or the movies, shows, etc are a version of the stories told by X character to Y audience in location Z in year QQQQ of the Nth Age.

 

[TheSword]

How about instead of saying, "for most of us", you use the more accurate, "for me"?

How about I use “for most of us who feel this way”… we are Legion.

 

[Micah Sweet]

How about I use “for most of us who feel this way”… we are Legion.

Since you don't speak for anyone else, and aren't providing data, any use of "we" is an inappropriate attempt to support your position by claiming its popularity.

 

[TheSword]

It's only barely noticeable for folks who don't know Middle Earth. For anyone who had read the Silmarillion and other stories, it's glaring.

Nah. Not glaring errors, just minor technicalities easily explained by unreliable narrators and the ridiculously huge timescales we’re talking about. Plus the habit of Tolkeinistas to interpret waaaaaaay more into a couple of lines of text than is good for them and then claim it’s incontrovertible fact.

Unless you have a humdinger of an example which is going to blow us all away with its clear and obvious merit?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Nah. Not glaring errors, just minor technicalities easily explained by unreliable narrators and the ridiculously huge timescales we’re talking about. Plus the habit of Tolkeinistas to interpret waaaaaaay more into a couple of lines of text than is good for them and then claim it’s incontrovertible fact.

Unless you have a humdinger of an example which is going to blow us all away with its clear and obvious merit?

I'm very much not a fan of the idea that the fate of the Elves is somehow linked to mithral, or the presence of the Istari in Middle-Earth in the Second Age, or awakening the Balrog very early, or Barrow Wights when there shouldn't be any, or pretty much everything they've done with Tom Bombadill. Do any of those count?

All that being said, adaptions will make choices I don't like, and there are many things about the show I do like. Most of Numenor, how the Dwarves are portrayed, how Sauron is portrayed, the idea of Adar. The visuals are also very nice.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think a very excellent TV show could be made of the Great Tales of the First Age...but those what don't like Rings of Power would not enjoy what making a good TV show would entail.

All there is is a story outline. There is no characterisation, no dialogue, sparse descriptions, no incidental occurrences, so the writer would have to create all that stuff from scratch. So you would get the same whining that it’s “not Tolkien”, which is absolutely true.

 

[Micah Sweet]

All there is is a story outline. There is no characterisation, no dialogue, sparse descriptions, no incidental occurrences, so the writer would have to create all that stuff from scratch. So you would get the same whining that it’s “not Tolkien”, which is absolutely true.

That doesn't mean they didn't make big departures nonetheless.

 

[Parmandur]

All there is is a story outline. There is no characterisation, no dialogue, sparse descriptions, no incidental occurrences, so the writer would have to create all that stuff from scratch. So you would get the same whining that it’s “not Tolkien”, which is absolutely true.

The three big stories do have a rather lot of dialogue and detail...but. yes, making something fillable would require creative license.

In about 19 years, it's all going to be in the public domain and then things will get for-real for-real, and go beyond merely Tolkien by a long shot.

 

[Stalker0]

This. There are a whole lot of us who want more fidelity to Tolkien's vision. It's very relevant to us.

My issue with that is…there is no Tolkien vision. Tolkien didn’t write the Silmarillion, it’s just an edited collaboration of notes and drafts that he had no oversight over. It’s not a book, and certainly not a book Tolkien wrote.

people are trying to pin Rings of Power to a story that doesn’t exist.