Television The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power - Season 2 (Amazon Prime | August 29) - update (08/14): Official Trailer

[Spork3245]

BTW, just to be clear, I’m not saying the movies are bad or poor adaptations or whatever. I just don’t feel some of the changes added anything and felt they took more away than they added. Other changes I thought were for the best, others I’m neutral on. Pretending every change Jackson made was a good one is weird to me, though  

[Fizzzzle]

2 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

Nah, changing the Ents made them seem like idiots. Treebeard roaring and all of the other Ents magically appearing made zero sense. The Ents deciding to go on what they thought was a march to their deaths, but “at least we’d die fighting”, was all of the character depth and development they needed. Faramir’s changes were lame: he was just another Boromir. Both changes felt like changes for the sake of changes which was reminiscent of adaptations for the era, it added nothing and in terms of Faramir drug out that scene.

I agree about the Ents. And I agree Faramir's was dragged out too long, but having Faramir be this paragon of virtue as soon as you meet him would have been boring. And I wholly disagree that Faramir is just another Boromir. Obviously the movie doesn't have time to go too far into Faramir's backstory, but without his momentary temptation to take the Ring (which he only wants to win his father's approval, not for himself) his ultimate sacrifice at Osgiliath wouldn't be as earned. He gave up the "easy" way to win Denethor's approval, so I guess it's suicide charge.

[Fizzzzle]

1 hour ago, Spork3245 said:

BTW, just to be clear, I’m not saying the movies are bad or poor adaptations or whatever. I just don’t feel some of the changes added anything and felt they took more away than they added. Other changes I thought were for the best, others I’m neutral on. Pretending every change Jackson made was a good one is weird to me, though  

I didn't say EVERY change. Just the vast majority of them I feel like fit the medium of film better.

 

(not talking about things like skateboarding Legolas or whatever, that's a different story. But those are more superficial additions rather than "changes")

[Spork3245]

38 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

I agree about the Ents. And I agree Faramir's was dragged out too long, but having Faramir be this paragon of virtue as soon as you meet him would have been boring. And I wholly disagree that Faramir is just another Boromir. Obviously the movie doesn't have time to go too far into Faramir's backstory, but without his momentary temptation to take the Ring (which he only wants to win his father's approval, not for himself) his ultimate sacrifice at Osgiliath wouldn't be as earned. He gave up the "easy" way to win Denethor's approval, so I guess it's suicide charge.

 

 

In TTT movie Faramir very much was basically just Boromir lite. Same motivations to take the ring: he just realized “oh, maybe it’s bad” at sheer random; “Oh, hey, this lil halfling fella looks sick, better just let them go off then”. Incredibly dumb. Showing that there are humans in the world besides Aragorn who recognize the ring as evil is a better story to display. Osgiliath didn’t need to be earned, it was a tactical post that he was ordered to hold.

[Spork3245]

42 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

I didn't say EVERY change. Just the vast majority of them I feel like fit the medium of film better.

 

(not talking about things like skateboarding Legolas or whatever, that's a different story. But those are more superficial additions rather than "changes")

Not necessarily talking about you. There’s a group of people who claim the books are “perfect” yet they fiercely defend the movies and act like they’re also perfect, despite that being a major contradiction  

[SuperSpreader]

I hated the first movie. I was like.. this a story about people just walking!?!

 

 

 

[Spork3245]

10 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

I hated the first movie. I was like.. this a story about people just walking!?!

 

 

Hideo Kojima got his inspiration from it.

[CitizenVectron]

Okay finally caught up! My thoughts, condensed:

• I thought Season 1 was fantastic. Would give it a 9/10
  • I particularly loved how slow it was, which I know was a complaint that others had
• The weakest parts of Season 2 have been the Southland stuff, mainly because it's trying to put some action and fast-paced stuff in to pad episodes
• The best parts of Season 2 have been the Elvish and Dwarfish stuff. They've done a great job of making Sauron a schemer
• Harfoot stuff seems a bit weaker this season (I loved their stuff in S1)
• Numenor stuff seems good
  • Isildur was badly cast, I think, especially considering the role he's going to play. He's too much of a punk kid

Overall I'd rate this season 7/10 so far, but only because the most-recent episode (5) was so great. Episodes 3 and 4 in particular were quite weak, imo. 2 and 5 have been the best.

 

I think with this season I've also noticed the visual quality go down. Things seem to be "cleaner," if that makes sense, and the sets (especially for the Southland and Harfoot stuff) seem to be very obviously on a soundstage for much of the time. You can just tell when there are exactly 20-30 extras and the physical set stretches 50-60 feet and then it's just dead expanse of whatever they are in (forest, desert, etc). Season 1 had a bit of this, but was better. 

 

Overall I am hopeful for this season, especially after the most-recent episode, but I do think they could have cut basically the entire Southland plot and shaved an episode. Could have solved it with a single 15-minute scene of Arondir finding Isildur on his way north, and explaining how he left the Southlanders safe in a village. We didn't need to see Theo again, especially after Bronwyn's actress left.

 

Oh, also, Adar's new actor isn't nearly as good as the previous one. I feel for him as Adar was a standout in S1, but it's not even close to the same level.

 

[CitizenVectron]

 

 

Nice.

[Spork3245]