Finished Rings of Power S1 and I gotta say I am tired of 'mystery box' storytelling with lots of misdirection, especially in prequels where we already know how the story ends.
Stop trying to 'outsmart' Reddit and instead make me care about these characters.
Stop trying to 'outsmart' Reddit and instead make me care about these characters.
The only storyline that got any emotional investment in my household was the Dwarves. Not Dwarves-and-Elves, just Durin, his son Durin and his wife Disa and maybe Elrond but only when he interacted with one of those characters.
Other than that, man, I did not care.
Other than that, man, I did not care.
I also have a bevy of worldbuilding complaints, as you may well imagine - ships and farms and armor, oh my.
That'll be something I write up for the blog, probably in December when we come off hiatus.
That'll be something I write up for the blog, probably in December when we come off hiatus.
Also it really feels like the show was written for 5-minute YouTube clips that would look cool? A lot of the connective tissue between moments either wasn't there or didn't carry the emotional weight it needed to.
Just compare the intense emotional high you get from the Ride of the Rohirrim to the flat, blankness of the Numenorians riding in to the rescue. What's missing is character drama (no Theoden) but also the right kind of build up for that moment of release.
And normally you could say that TV operates under more constraints than film, but RoP S1 is 8+ hours long and lavishly funded; you are legit approaching the size of canvas the theater-cut LotR trilogy had.
Surely you can deliver a 'cavalry saves the day' moment!?
Surely you can deliver a 'cavalry saves the day' moment!?
Anyway, were it me, I'd have written this thing like a super-sized Colombo plot: we know who Sauron is from the beginning, but the characters don't and the tension comes from that dramatic irony as Sauron tricks them.
They certainly wouldn't figure it out this early either.
They certainly wouldn't figure it out this early either.
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