In The Media: What Say You?

[rmontro]

Regarding those posters:

Apparently no one washes their hands in Middle-Earth.

[AnimeMania]

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will have a panel at Comic-Con featuring showrunners J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay and some of the stars taking the stage at the convention’s Hall H. San Diego Comic-Con starts on Thursday, July 20 and will run through Sunday, July 24, the events are still in the early planning stage.

[AnimeMania]

Commercial?

[Anduin]

44 minutes ago, AnimeMania said:

Commercial?

It's a decent enough ad. However, elves? I'm not so sure. As time goes on, I have a hard time relating to the immortal and ethereal elves. The dwarves are more down to earth working class, you know?

[AnimeMania]

Exclusive First Look at the Orcs From Prime Video's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Orcs, Who goes there?

[Haleth]

They look scarier than in the movie. 

[Anduin]

4 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

Exclusive First Look at the Orcs From Prime Video's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Orcs, Who goes there?

Costumes! Prosthetics! As opposed to the dodgy CG ones in the Hobbit movies. Yes, I do like these ones.

[AnimeMania]

The Rings of Power Exclusive: Everything You Need to Know About Celebrimbor

Celebrimbor, played by Charles Edwards

Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) with Elrond (Robert Aramayo)

[Anduin]

What gets me, people are saying how old Edwards looks. He's not even 60, people! I know elves are generally depicted as ageless, eternally young and pretty. But I'm not offended by someone who looks like he's lived a bit. Am I supposed to recoil every time I see a person over 35? I'm over 35! What the hell is wrong with some people?

[AnimeMania]

MEET HIGH KING GIL-GALAD FROM THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER

“Gil-galad was an Elven-king… the last whose realm was fair and free.”

[Anduin]

Sixty days! We can do this. Everyone keeping their excitement and hype factor in check? I'm... managing. Somewhat.

[Anduin]

New teaser!

[Anduin]

So a longer trailer is exclusive to Prime. Or a 720p rip with Turkish subtitles that'll do until a better version emerges.

[Haleth]

Well, it sure is pretty, if nothing else.  I'm excited.  😊

[Anduin]

Hah! Good old internet. Sometimes it comes through. 1080, no subtitles.

Once again, I demonstrate why fan is short for fanatic. Don't worry, I do know I have a problem.

[Haleth]

I don’t think you have a problem. Not at all. 😄

[Anduin]

6 minutes ago, Haleth said:

I don’t think you have a problem. Not at all. 😄

Well, you seem like an unbiased observer. I trust your judgement completely!

[Welshman in Ca]

In the same way that I could never get used to Hugh Laurie being anything other than a comedian I'm not sure I can get over Lenny Henry being anything else either as I grew older watching both in the UK.

[JustHereForFood]

5 hours ago, Anduin said:

Hah! Good old internet. Sometimes it comes through. 1080, no subtitles.

Once again, I demonstrate why fan is short for fanatic. Don't worry, I do know I have a problem.

Thank you. I've read about that teaser for just Prime users and I'm not a fan of that behavior. I plan to get it for LOTR (I was debating getting it earlier, but I want them to know it's because of LOTR for their statistics, even if I want to watch other stuff too), but I'm not a fan of such blackmail with "exclusive" content.

Looks good though.

And I'll take fans eagerly anticipating something any day over "fans" dissing it preemptively.

[Anduin]

We have ents in that trailer. Look at the 37 second moment. They look to be in the same environment as Nori. So how does Treebeard not know hobbits later?

All right. First, they might not be in the same place. They may never encounter hobbits. Second, they didn't tell Treebeard, or anyone who told Treebeard. Besides, Sadoc and Nori are calling themselves Harfoots at this point. Third, in three thousand years, Treebeard might have forgotten. Any other theories?

[Haleth]

Saw this on tv this afternoon. 

[Anduin]

7 minutes ago, Haleth said:

Saw this on tv this afternoon. 

Not a bad little promo. Except for the shocking photo cover. And how old is that kid anyway? I'm not sure I would have the stamina for a book the size of LOTR at that age.

That's the appeal of the three, you know? You look at FOTR. Manageable. Then you see that TTT is shorter! By the time you start on ROTK, you're hooked. It's longer, but you don't really need to read the appendices.

[Haleth]

9 hours ago, Anduin said:

but you don't really need to read the appendices.

I beg to differ.  By the time you get to "I'm home" and get your bawling under control you find you cannot let it go yet.  You must read every word of the appendices. 

Of course that's just theoretical. 😊

[Anduin]

1 hour ago, Haleth said:

I beg to differ.  By the time you get to "I'm home" and get your bawling under control you find you cannot let it go yet.  You must read every word of the appendices. 

Of course that's just theoretical. 😊

Some of us have never cried while reading or watching LOTR. And after a thousand or so pages, I'm generally pretty happy not to continue straight away. There's good stuff in the appendices, but it can wait.

[rmontro]

22 hours ago, Anduin said:

We have ents in that trailer. Look at the 37 second moment. They look to be in the same environment as Nori. So how does Treebeard not know hobbits later?

Because Nori is made up Amazon nonsense.

[Anduin]

So I noticed something I can't remember seeing. However, I don't have the movies memorised. Galadriel has a freckle beneath her left collar bone, and another one on her neck. Do any elves have freckles in the movies? Does anyone? I'm not complaining, mind you. I'm pretty freckly myself. Just curious.

[Haleth]

47 minutes ago, Anduin said:

So I noticed something I can't remember seeing. However, I don't have the movies memorised. Galadriel has a freckle beneath her left collar bone, and another one on her neck. Do any elves have freckles in the movies? Does anyone? I'm not complaining, mind you. I'm pretty freckly myself. Just curious.

Oh, I thought for sure you were going to say if Galadriel doesn’t have a freckle beneath her left collar bone in the show you were going to refuse to watch. 🤣

[rmontro]

9 hours ago, Haleth said:

Oh, I thought for sure you were going to say if Galadriel doesn’t have a freckle beneath her left collar bone in the show you were going to refuse to watch. 🤣

I'll say it if he won't!  🙂

[tv echo]

Comic-Con 2022 Panel Schedule For Film & TV: Saturday Serves Up ‘Black Adam’, ‘Shazam! Fury Of The Gods’, ‘House Of The Dragon’, MCU & More
By Anthony D'Alessandro, Patrick Hipes   July 9, 2022
https://deadline.com/2022/07/comic-con-2022-scheduled-film-tv-panels-1235059088/ 

Quote

FRIDAY, JULY 22
....
10:30 a.m. – The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
Panelists: Castmembers Morfydd Clark, Charles Edwards, Rob Aramayo, Ben Walker, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Charlie Vickers, Nazanin Boniadi, Tyroe Muhafindin, Daniel Weyman, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Trystan Gravelle, Maxin Baldry, Ema Horvath, Lloyd Owen, Leon Wadham, Markella Kavenagh, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Sara Zwangobani, Sophia Nomvete, and Owain Arthur and showrunners J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay, and TBA. Prime Video. Hall H

Edited July 11, 2022 by tv echo

[Anduin]

Article focussing on Numenor! Once again, we see I have no predictive skills. I think I had Maxim Baldry and Ema Horvath as elves, and someone different as Ar-Pharazon. Ah well.

[AnimeMania]

Entertainment Weekly has articles with a lot of nice pictures, visit the TV portion of the website, here are articles:

Step into Middle-earth with EW's exclusive The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power photos

Welcome to Númenor: Get an exclusive look at The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Cynthia Addai-Robinson as the queen regent Míriel.

Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) leads the Númenórean army into battle, with Isildur (Maxim Baldry, third from left) by her side.

[Haleth]

It certainly looks right.  I have a soft spot for stories of Numenor.  Can't wait!

[Anduin]

[Haleth]

WOW!

[Anduin]

It's a funny thing. I was waiting on twitter for news, then I got wondering if Amazon had already uploaded it without telling me. Hey, I was right for once!

[Haleth]

I saw an abbreviated version of this on tv this morning. Fantastic!  It looks movie quality. 

[DearEvette]

Ok, now, this makes me excited.  It looks very pretty. (shallow, I know...)

[supposebly]

They certainly throw a lot of money at this. I liked the actress they have for Galadriel. In that close up of her eyes, I had a moment where I thought it was Cate Blanchett.

Edited July 15, 2022 by supposebly

[Grimnar]

I don't know but there is too much CGI. I know this isn't movie so budget is different but in LotR movies the places looked as there live people. Here is everything too clean, too bright, etc. I don't know if I'm explaining my point right but everything screams CGI.

I am little worried that it is supposed to start on 2nd September but in teasers(I know they are just teasers) is not too much story revelead yet. It is presenting landscape, some sentences which are supposed to have deep meaning and that's all. I worry that story will be mess as they will try to condense most of the Second Age into this show.

[Welshman in Ca]

10 minutes ago, Grimnar said:

I don't know but there is too much CGI. I know this isn't movie so budget is different but in LotR movies the places looked as there live people. Here is everything too clean, too bright, etc. I don't know if I'm explaining my point right but everything screams CGI.

I am little worried that it is supposed to start on 2nd September but in teasers(I know they are just teasers) is not too much story revelead yet. It is presenting landscape, some sentences which are supposed to have deep meaning and that's all. I worry that story will be mess as they will try to condense most of the Second Age into this show.

Why would they reveal the story, the word teaser means just that, it's to tease not to tell the story in 2 minutes or less. As for the CGI I thought it looked good but we'll have to wait for the whole thing before judging it too much either way.

[tessaray]

On 7/15/2022 at 9:44 AM, Grimnar said:

but in LotR movies the places looked as there live people. Here is everything too clean, too bright, etc. I don't know if I'm explaining my point right but everything screams CGI.

I do know what you mean. It's the same feeling I've had over the years when watching shows filmed in Canada. The streets were too clean and the extras were too. Gritty meant 2 dabs of ash smudged on the face. 🙂

In this case, I'm hoping the story and performances pull us in quickly enough so that it isn't an issue. 

[Camera One]

I like the visual look of the trailer.  However, the clips/lines felt disconnected (probably because they were trying to show so many different characters) so the end result did not feel cohesive.  Hopefully, the series itself will weave together the various threads and communities together in an organic way.

[rmontro]

On 7/15/2022 at 10:44 AM, Grimnar said:

I don't know but there is too much CGI. I know this isn't movie so budget is different but in LotR movies the places looked as there live people. Here is everything too clean, too bright, etc. I don't know if I'm explaining my point right but everything screams CGI.

Well, the feet look dirty.  And fake, when it comes to the "harfoots".  But the bigger issue for me is the "Based on" the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.  I don't know why they had to add in all these new characters and condense the story.  It's not like there is a shortage of real Tolkien tales to tell. 

[Camera One]

4 hours ago, rmontro said:

But the bigger issue for me is the "Based on" the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.  I don't know why they had to add in all these new characters and condense the story.  It's not like there is a shortage of real Tolkien tales to tell. 

They only have rights to the Appendices to the Lord of the Rings (along with Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit), so they pretty much need to write around the major events mentioned there.   They can't directly tell the stories from the Silmarillion or Tolkein's other writings without permission.

I'm assuming they are condensing the story so they can keep the same actors for the length of the series, rather than introduce a new cast with each new generation of men or dwarves, etc.

[rmontro]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

They only have rights to the Appendices to the Lord of the Rings (along with Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit), so they pretty much need to write around the major events mentioned there.   They can't directly tell the stories from the Silmarillion or Tolkein's other writings without permission.

Maybe they should have taken some of that big money they're spending on this series and gotten the rights to The Silmarillion.  Then they could tell the stories properly.

[AnimeMania]

How The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power crafted a new (old) Middle-earth

How Simon Tolkien helped guide The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Edited July 19, 2022 by AnimeMania

[Anduin]

For those who haven't heard the latest news, Howard Shore has recorded the theme music! While Bear McCreary is doing to regular music. Two tracks have been released, Galadriel and Sauron.  And they're pretty good! I won't be listening over and over, we're reaching the time where I'm not sure I want to know more. Maybe I'll take a break after the SDCC news.

There's no need to read the comments on those videos. Of course they're riddled with the usual killjoys.

I know, many of us associate McCreary with the drums of BSG. But he didn't create that sound, it was used in the two-part pilot, done by someone else. He just continued with the theme. He's also done other projects with completely different styles. So he goes with what's available. In this case, similar but not identical to Shore.

[Aulty]

8 hours ago, Anduin said:

For those who haven't heard the latest news, Howard Shore has recorded the theme music! While Bear McCreary is doing to regular music. Two tracks have been released, Galadriel and Sauron.  And they're pretty good!

Great news. Those two tracks are pretty decent, I agree. A bit more melodic than the movie stuff, very video game score. Looking forward to listen to them 'in situ'.

Edited July 22, 2022 by Aulty

[Haleth]

Man, I listened to the soundtrack cds (in my car) as much as I watched the dvds.  The music was brilliant.

[Anduin]

1 hour ago, Haleth said:

Man, I listened to the soundtrack cds (in my car) as much as I watched the dvds.  The music was brilliant.

For some time, LOTR was my hangover music of choice. Many greasy mornings were spent with that in the background. But I eventually decided to go with a couple of video game soundtracks instead. You can kill a piece of music through overlistening, nowdays LOTR is only for special occasions.