its like 99.999% gandalf

omg, this mysterious wizard who is friends with hobbits!! i wonder who it could be!

But is Gandalf too obvious??!!

It's hard for the revelation of his identity to not be anticlimactic. Either it's Gandalf, which everyone predicted, or it's someone the casual fan doesn't know, in which case who gives a ****. Saruman would be at least somewhat surprising while being impactful. No one cares about Radagast, do they?

If its Gandalf show is ****.

They haven't written it to be some big reveal to the audience.

The character has been through some ordeal and can barely grunt out a word. He's not gonna be like, "hey guys, it's me Gandalf obv" or whip out a staff and start conjuring. The mystery is to the Hobbits and that's fine.

Would be so much cooler if it was some dark mage and the Harfoots unwittingly brought a darkness down over the lands.

It seems like it might have been a pretty big mistake for Amazon to pay $250 million for the rights to a Lord of the Rings TV show which isn't actually Lord of the Rings. What I mean is that the show doesn't cover the books. That's already been covered by the movies. Of course Tolkien created a great world and all, but isn't there something to be said for the Lord of the Rings story? Lord of the Rings sold 150+ million copies and Hobbit sold 100+ million copies. By comparison, the Silmarillion sold like a million copies (and of that, how many people actually got through it?).

Essentially this show is based on Tolkein's less popular work, much of which was disjointed and/or unfinished and so much of the story has had to be written by Amazon show writers. Wouldn't Amazon have been better off just paying pennies on the dollars for a bunch of lesser known fantasy shows and just hoped one of them would become a hit (then ramp up expenditures in subsequent seasons similar to Game of Thrones or Stranger Things)?

Did they not try something like this with Wheel of Time?

I much prefer Wheel of Time (albeit I never read those books), but yeah for the same price of Lord of the Rings they could have come out with multiple fantasy shows.

Major studios paying for an existing franchise rather than starting something from scratch isn't exactly a new thing and I'd assume they know what they're doing, financially anyway. If creating the next original, low-budget, pop culture phenomenon was easy, everyone would be doing it. The LotR name alone is going attract a ton of people who arent even big fantasy or Tolkien fans, but loved those movies. Even if much of the content isn't directly from LotR, being able to narratively connect with one of the biggest film franchises in history is going to keep a lot of casual fans invested in a way they'd never be with just any fantasy show.

I suppose if it ends up being more than one series, then it could be well worth it. However, as it stands we're look at a billion dollar commitment for a single TV show, whether it is well received or totally bombs.

ep 4 was boring af

i liked the first 3. but that was a struggle to get through

no hobbits in the episode! lol

Yea that was the TV equivalent of gruel.

Four episodes is enough to be concerned about the quality of this show. The story continues to move at a glacial pace without sufficient character development. It's hard to care about even characters who we know will be important, like Isildur.

Galadriel is really poorly written. Depicting her as haughty and demanding was a reasonable enough starting point, but it's got to the point where she's either an idiot or a sociopath. So far her attitude has led her subordinate elves to abandon her, her near imprisonment or worse by the Numenor Queen, actual imprisonment, and failing to persuade anyone to do what she wanted. Yet she hasn't learned a thing from all these failures, remaining remarkably undiplomatic and with a massive sense of entitlement. Morfydd Clark's performance isn't helping. I think she's normally a good actor, but her Galadriel's facial expression has barely ever shifted from impassive.

It was 10 times better than episode 4 of House of Dragon. Still it's handicapped by being too family friendly. For instance, if I see some kid running from orcs I know the kid isn't going to get killed. Maybe just 1 time have the kid trip, and then get beaten by the orcs and skinned alive. That would be great television.

Five seasons were approved right from the beginning of production. Things could change, but it seems unimaginable that there won't be at least a second considering how much money Amazon has invested in this. Shooting of S2 is meant to start this month.

Was thinking this is its core problem.

If you look at FF disney equivalents, then they avoid teh dark edges but stuff every moment with LAZERS etc so there is actually something happening.

As an adult this can sometimes produce TV you still want to watch, in my case the Mandolorian etc.

On the other hand I like complex stories slowly teased out that require attention, I can really enjoy drama like that.

However it has to have adult themes and ideas.

However this show strips out the dark but has no stuffing, its a kids show paced for adults.

Its taken out the salt but added no sugar.

It's not just the comments sections: There are many dozens - if not hundreds - of incels that spend their days recording crappy YouTube videos in their mom's basements. And to a man, they all started months ago putting out videos absolutely ripping the show to threads - just after the very first 2-minute trailer dropped, which <gasp!> actually depicted a character whose face wasn't lily-white. This was apparently a cardinal sin for all the pearl-clutching snowflakes who like to try to disguise their racism behind cries of "It's woke culture run amok!"

Anyway, for me the show is - just OK.
- Getting to see Moria depicted in all its Second Age glory was, by itself, almost worth the price of admission.
- Yes, dwarf women should have beards - it's canon. Kind of cowardly on their part to not go there - but it's such a minor detail, hard to see why anyone would get too upset about it.
- I find Galadriel too strident, and pretty one-dimensional. She's a ****ing 6,000-year old elf, yet they seem insistent on depicting her character as predominantly driver her baser emotions. It's true, elves are known to hold a grudge. But an unquenchable lust for revenge? Yea, that seems more like a very human failing.
- I seem to enjoy the Harfoots more than most.

Overall, I find it modestly enjoyable. 1st 3 episodes get a somewhat unenthusiastic thumbs-up, 4th Ep. was pretty bad. I have this rated somewhere between the original LOTR Trilogy
(which was mostly excellent) and the Hobbit Trilogy (which was largely crap). Admittedly, that's a very large range. More later.

Sorry, I didn't phrase that well. I understand in the UK and other places in the world a new series would just be another iteration of the same show (in the US, this is always referred to as a new season). However, what I meant is that the $250 million price tag could be worth it because this gives them worldwide TV rights to create other Lord of the Rings shows, not just this one.

My understanding is that they have committed to 5 seasons of this show. I suppose they have an out-clause of some sort but it's safe to assume that they have committed a billion dollars plus for this show even if it were declared a failure from the outset.

I thought episode 4 was fine but the show is suffering from all the things pg-13 ratings tend to suffer

Heh, I getcha. Yeah, this show would have to be regarded as an expensive failure if once it's done, there's little demand for a new LoTR show.

I dunno if keeping things family friendly is the root of the problem. The scene where Southlands king guy beats those guys up was quite graphically violent.

I haven't read the LotR appendices or the Silmarillon, but I understand the appendices are more of a chronology and the Silmarillon is incomplete. The problem could be similar to the Hobbit films ,where the writers are trying to stretch a thin amount of material over a really long time.

No it wasnt.

You didn't find the arm break and smashing someone's head into a wall graphic?

I certainly view family friendly as a negative, but I don't think there was really an alternative. In order to reach a mass audience, they must appeal to families and kids. IMO, the kid demographic is critically important when it comes to roping families into subscriptions (just as they are in roping families into eating at McDonalds).

In recent times, we've been spoiled by a large amount of adult-oriented programming, but I know back in the day I would have applauded the decision to go for a PG-13 rating rather than just PG.