The TV Thread redux

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One of the two co-showrunners has just announced heā€™s left House of the Dragon. Presumably everything for S1 is already done and he has left because of issues over the just announced S2. Amazingly, they have ushered in the guy who directed the final episode as his replacement

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OTOH, the Elven short hair is hot garbage.

I fully expect that this show will be a dumpster fire, and the first 2 episodes are already not promising, but I do hope they will be better.

To each his own but I thought the two episodes were excellent setup for whatā€™s to come. Pleased with the casting

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Just saw the first two episodes. Hope the story gets better but not a fan.

Watched the first two episodes this morning. It was ok I thought. Had pretty low expectations, but I was mildly entertained. Not sure about some of the dialogues and quality of actors, but at least competently directed imo.

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Iā€™m going back and re-reading the Silmarillion just to remember the stories

See you in a monthā€™s time.

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Is it actually based on that? I thought this was original stories based on the Middle Earth mythology.

Iā€™ve never read that one TBH. I think I was put off it from the reviews when it came out.

Iā€™m just geeking out.

Itā€™s hard to get through as itā€™s written in a archaic style and the stories are rather depressing. Tragedy after Tragedy (thanks Melkor/Morgoth).

If youā€™re interested this is a very good series Iā€™ve found on YouTube that goes through it all:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGjqQlInod2VF2Gmdgv4Nmsk63HBvTk7z

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I think it would be impossible to introduce a story of this magnitude within 2 episodes, I can wait patiently, first two were fine. The wee little Irish people were amusing.

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I liked it. There are huge challenges telling this story, but so far I think the decisions they look like they have taken seem smart. I think the big challenge is this is NOT GoT and I know Bezos personally authorized this with a brief to be their version of it. Telling Tolkeinā€™s story with his tone will not capture a lot of the GoT audience and I think over time that might cause pressures on them to martin it up, which is not what this needs.

The Silmarilion has two sections at the end that very briefly cover sections of this story, but most of the book is about stuff that predates this show. There are other sources that add some colour, and the timeline of the era is in included as an appendix of LotR, but it means there is no single source that can be adapted to tell the story of the second age the way Jacksonā€™s films were. This is about the period of the second age, the period between the final defeat of Morgoth to the end of the war of the last alliance shown at the beginning of Jacksonā€™s films. They have a good outline to use, but have to create new narratives (with new characters) to connect those.

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So a couple of questions on Rings of Power asked as spoilersā€¦

Summary
  • theories on who the Stranger is? The timeline is wrong for it to be Gandalf (the Istari didnt arrive in middle earth until the third age), but itā€™s definitely a wizzardly character. Sauron? Thoughts?

  • What do we think the dwarves have? Based on where we are in the plot it is seemingly too early for it to be one of the Dwarf rings. Given the thread of them being suspicious of Elrond showing up it is presumably something that would be desired by the Elves so I really hope it isnt a Silmaril.

I assumed it was the first you mentioned, but seeing what happened to the fireflies made me wonder if it was the latter?

Watched first two episodes of rings of power and liked it.

Currently watching Sandman. Enjoying that too.

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Yeah, I could accept it being the former despite it being inconsistent with the timeline. The bigger reservation is that it would be such an obvious answer especially for those only partially familiar with the universe that the mystery of not naming him (seemingly they wont for the entire season) seems a bit silly.

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Definitely a Maiar and looks a dead ringer for the one you mentioned.

Spoiler

Also who kidnapped the good-looking elf soldier who was investigating the tunnels? Looked like Ents

Summary

I thought all the rings were crafted at the same time. BTW, where do you see that they have something? I must have missed that part.

I assumed the guy was a wizard, no idea of the timeline.

Oh, maybe the

Summary

Arken stone?

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Summary

Orcs or goblins, thinking goblins. And heā€™s not that good looking.