Amazon’s Tolkien Adaptation - Coming 2nd September 2022 Discussion

[Ranaldo Bairn]

The three Elven rings went to Galadriel Gil-Galad and Cirdan didn't they? And Gandalf ended up with one, possibly Cirdan's one.

I thought the Elendil and Isildur here were not the same ones in the Prologue: those were many centuries later. I know Amazon were compressing time though...

[FairWeatherFan]

3 minutes ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:

The three Elven rings went to Galadriel Gil-Galad and Cirdan didn't they? And Gandalf ended up with one, possibly Cirdan's one.

I thought the Elendil and Isildur here were not the same ones in the Prologue: those were many centuries later. I know Amazon were compressing time though...

The show's only lasting 5 seasons apparently. Timeline has been well and truly compressed. Otherwise it would be almost nothing but House of the Dragon time jumps with just the elves for continuity.

[FairWeatherFan]

2 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Amusing that the Southlands haven't had a king in over 1000 years but Galadriel didn't know this

That's one of the few easily explained bits. She'd been in the North for over a thousand years. Then the only confirmation she got on his identity was on Numenor who had been cut off from the mainland for who knows how long considering the timing of the show.

By the time she got to the Southlands and potentially had a conversation with someone. If it was mentioned how long they'd gone without a King it wouldn't be that out of the norm. Look at Gondor.

The greater reveal was that the line of the Southlands King was broken.

[DA Baracus]

26 minutes ago, Day of the Lords said:

Not sure how Sauron ended up at sea, but I'm assuming it was somehow planned as he intended to trick Galadriel into harnessing their powers to control Middle Earth. I'm sure the intro in the Fellowship of the Ring was narrated by Galadriel, who said "But they were all of them deceived, for another ring was made. Deep in the land of Mordor in the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged a master ring, and into this ring he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life" . There's no mention of the other rings being forged in Mount Doom. 

Also in that intro, you see Galadriel putting on one of the rings. Sauron needs these rings to be worn by the other races so that he can use the One Ring to manipulate the others. 

Isildur eventually becomes a king (i think) - again in the Fellowship prologue - his father is killed by Sauron but Isildur kills him with the remnants of his father's sword, then takes the One Ring for himself after Elrond tries, and fails to persuade him to lob it into the fires of Mount Doom. 

In short, until Isildur cuts his fingers off, Sauron's long game plan to dominate all of Middle Earth was pretty much coming together by the looks of it. 

 

Aye I've seen the films and read the books (the LoTR trilogy; not attempted the Silmarillion!). Isildur becomes king of Gondor does he not? Think he and his old man (and loads of other folk) flee Numenor when it is 'drowned'. 

They aren't leaving much time for things to happen!

[Raidernation]

Muriel basically ends up in an alliance with Pharazon who despises the “old elven loving” Numenor, and slides towards “evil”
To the extent they invade ME and take Sauron prisoner. He eventually corrupted them fully leading to the destruction of Numenor and our friendly dark lord being unable to look human again.

Also Gandalf got his ring from Cirdan when he arrived at the Grey Havens, Cirdan spotted his future trials and great need.

IIRC

I’m really not too bothered by them messing with the timelines and some of the “history”, I’m enjoying it as good fantasy tv

[GiGi]

The stranger is Olorin. The power over fire and the LOTR line about following your nose. Not going to be one of the blue wizards I'm sure. It fucks with the canon timeline but whatever.

The last episode was pretty good imo but they did really jump the gun with Halbrand early in the episode before the big reveal. Comically obvious.

[Raidernation]

What I want to see.

The balrog rises, Galadriel (from Valinor hence full of light) absolutely destroys it physically, but not enough to kill it outright (hence it reappears in Moria).
Rings.
Dwarves and elves kinda find peace. (I know I’m screwing the timeline here) Elves withdraw [emoji848] everything is “better” and quietly try to find Sauron, but mad Numenor gets there first.
Pharazon goes power mad and thinks he has Sauron in chains.
Shit happens in Numenor, Elendil jumps before he’s killed, Numenor sinks. Nomenoreans overwhelm southlanders, just by outliving them by centuries.
Gil-galad gets his arse kicked into action by Elrond and Durin and Elendil, as being to efete otherwise.
Dwarves too busy with reappeared balrog to help.
“Southlanders” become Rohan, hence the chip on the shoulder.
Hobbits, who cares?
Gandalf? Not present (because he canonically wasn’t) is conveniently in Rhun.

[mishtergrolsch]

I'd like to see most of the Harfoots wiped out by killer bees or crushed by a Troll or something. They're horrible, hypocritical beings.

The Elves to be slightly smarter than they are please. Celebrimbor in particular is a bit of a dunce. 

More of Durin and co. It's the only storyline that is consistently well written and well acted bar the odd jarring Scottish accent. Hope the Balrog just goes to sleep for a few seasons and the scene was just a reminder of what's to come since we've fixed the Mithril issue now I guess.

I'd like to see some more of Mordor, we hear of the Southlands but all we see is two ramshackle hamlets with copy and paste villagers. And more Adar, one of the best characters in the show imo.

I hope its not Gandalf, Olorin would be fine (it's a technically really, I know, but at least it would be more in keeping with the story) but id like to see the story of a Blue Wizard heading east, being corrupted and turned / killed. Could be a big bad boss for Sauron to fight in season 2 or 3.

And I was disappointed with how rubbish the Numenorians were compared to the books. 72 soldiers on horses from 3 boats when really they're a race of 8 foot, long lived and wise superhumans with a huge army and loads of ships. They fought against Morgoth and were gifted their island by the Valar for doing so ffs, not dudes who don't know how to stab Orcs.

[Ranaldo Bairn]

Was the idea not that they had lost their way a bit already, and settled into a sort of Brexity self isolation?

Either way, the Police Academy rookie hand to hand combat training scene was appalling. 

[mishtergrolsch]

19 minutes ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:

Was the idea not that they had lost their way a bit already, and settled into a sort of Brexity self isolation?

Either way, the Police Academy rookie hand to hand combat training scene was appalling. 

It was a terrible scene. Genuinely terrible.

[RandomGuy.]

I just felt like they rushed the final episode.

Like 7 episodes of humming and hawing over whos Sauron and a build up to the rings being forged, and its all done and dusted in about 5 minutes over a couple of scenes. Felt like they spent longer on the hobbits saying goodbye to each other.

Kind of feels like they bottled their plan to space things out and wedged everything into the final episode as people had been complaining the story wasnt moving forwards tbh.

The Numenor storyline could be absolutely amazing but ive a nagging feeling theyll f**k it up somehow.

[Bairnardo]

Have to agree that was rushed. I guess this will be explained, but why did Sauron encourage the elves to make magic rings? Did he think that he would be able to manipulate the elves, then it worked out he couldn't so he moved onto men?

[Boo Khaki]

IIRC in the books Sauron as Annatar and Celebrimbor have been farting about with ring prototypes for centuries, producing countless numbers of lesser magic rings (Gandalf alludes to this when he's lecturing Bilbo (iirc) about magic rings), and they are near the pinnacle of ring-making when they finally craft the nine, and seven, and innocently (as far as the elves are aware) present those as 'gifts' to their respective races as tokens of friendship from the Elves.  Celebrimbor (and I think the other major character elves) decide to forge the three in secret from Annatar for themselves, but it's only once they put them on that they sense Sauron's control over them and finally realise who exactly Annatar is, and they immediately remove their rings and do not use them again until Sauron is defeated at the end of the Second Age.

Although Sauron has no direct input into the forging of the Elven three, they are still forged using his techniques, and therefore they are in thrall to his own 'one' ring he forges for himself. The only reason the Elves are later able to use the rings as they were intended is because Sauron is diminished and does not possess his 'one' ring, and so can not control or influence the wearers of the Elven three.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Boo Khaki

[DA Baracus]

I think it's clear that The Rings of Power is widely rewriting things and that this series is more of an adaptation of the lore rather than a TV version of it.

I know that the films changed some stuff around and omitted some stuff from the books, but not to this extent. Although the Hobbit films took things a bit far, that's still considered 'canon' in terms of the LoTR films.

Surely though this series won't be considered canon to those films? Indeed, might they be a way for Amazon to eventually remake the LoTR trilogy? They don't have the rights to much, but money could eventually talk and you never know.

[FairWeatherFan]

46 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

Surely though this series won't be considered canon to those films? 

It's not. They've had to avoid replicating some of the designs to make sure they don't infringe copyright. 

One of the reasons we're getting the Rohan animated movie is in part to make sure the film studio retains their copyright. In a kind of Sony/Spiderman kind of way. 

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

53 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

I think it's clear that The Rings of Power is widely rewriting things and that this series is more of an adaptation of the lore rather than a TV version of it.

I know that the films changed some stuff around and omitted some stuff from the books, but not to this extent. Although the Hobbit films took things a bit far, that's still considered 'canon' in terms of the LoTR films.

Surely though this series won't be considered canon to those films? Indeed, might they be a way for Amazon to eventually remake the LoTR trilogy? They don't have the rights to much, but money could eventually talk and you never know.

In what ways is this show not in line with the movies? I think the show is relying on the assumption you have seen the movies

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

2 hours ago, Boo Khaki said:

IIRC in the books Sauron as Annatar and Celebrimbor have been farting about with ring prototypes for centuries, producing countless numbers of lesser magic rings (Gandalf alludes to this when he's lecturing Bilbo (iirc) about magic rings), and they are near the pinnacle of ring-making when they finally craft the nine, and seven, and innocently (as far as the elves are aware) present those as 'gifts' to their respective races as tokens of friendship from the Elves.  Celebrimbor (and I think the other major character elves) decide to forge the three in secret from Annatar for themselves, but it's only once they put them on that they sense Sauron's control over them and finally realise who exactly Annatar is, and they immediately remove their rings and do not use them again until Sauron is defeated at the end of the Second Age.

Although Sauron has no direct input into the forging of the Elven three, they are still forged using his techniques, and therefore they are in thrall to his own 'one' ring he forges for himself. The only reason the Elves are later able to use the rings as they were intended is because Sauron is diminished and does not possess his 'one' ring, and so can not control or influence the wearers of the Elven three.

Isn't it dumber than that.

The original 16 rings are forged and given to elves. Then they forge their 3 without Annatar/Sauron. Then Sauron forges the One Ring to corrupt the ring wearers.

The elves who were wearing the 16 sense this corruption and remove the rings. Then Annatar is like "hey my mind altering corrupting rings, if you aren't going to wear them and be in thrall to me then I need them back" and the Elves rather than destroying or disposing of them are like, "cool here are your rings, don't be evil again". Then Annatar gifts the 16 rings to powerful dwarves and men...

 

[FairWeatherFan]

9 minutes ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

Isn't it dumber than that.

The original 16 rings are forged and given to elves. Then they forge their 3 without Annatar/Sauron. Then Sauron forges the One Ring to corrupt the ring wearers.

The elves who were wearing the 16 sense this corruption and remove the rings. Then Annatar is like "hey my mind altering corrupting rings, if you aren't going to wear them and be in thrall to me then I need them back" and the Elves rather than destroying or disposing of them are like, "cool here are your rings, don't be evil again". Then Annatar gifts the 16 rings to powerful dwarves and men...

 

Instead of "hey, can i have my stuff back?". Wasn't it more wage a war, destroy Eregion and steal them back? 

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

10 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

Instead of "hey, can i have my stuff back?". Wasn't it more wage a war, destroy Eregion and steal them back? 

Maybe I am being too harsh on the elves by saying they gave them back but they know they were corrupted objects and did not destroy them. Dwarves managed to destroy several of their corrupted rings when Sauron realised they held little sway over them.

 

[DA Baracus]