flightcommander
Level 6 Magician
"I become drunk as circumstances dictate."
Posts: 370
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Post by flightcommander on Sept 22, 2022 18:26:23 GMT -6
Wild! Aragorn has a d20 in front of him on the table.
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Post by Mushgnome on Sept 24, 2022 14:23:43 GMT -6
I'm hooked! This week's episode was the best yet in my opinion. It was fun watching Galadriel show off her moves.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2022 14:51:45 GMT -6
I'm just glad we got more of Nori and her mysterious meteorite friend this time around. Plus, related to that, we have another mysterious character tracking him down. This person seems supernatural but it's hard to say if they're evil or good yet. They are doing this "who is Sauron" game with these characters. He could be one of several characters shown so far. Adar is the obvious choice but for me it's too obvious. Halbrand makes sense but I think he will be a Nazgul instead.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2022 10:02:29 GMT -6
I think I'm in agreement with Akrasia on his Akratic Wizardry blog, where I know the House of Dragons is better executed but I have zero investment in the characters compared to Rings of Power, because of what we know ultimately happens to some characters, Isildur for example.
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Post by Falconer on Sept 28, 2022 12:18:35 GMT -6
That’s part of why I like gaming in Middle-earth; there is a gut reaction because I care about the people and cultures, and therefore the outcome of the game is felt in a unique way.
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Post by tkdco2 on Sept 28, 2022 15:29:13 GMT -6
Perhaps the main problem with gaming in Middle-earth is that the group members may have different visions of what Middle-earth is, and what a game set there would look like. It's not too bad if there's open discussion in the game, and folks are willing to make a few compromises. That's not possible with the show, hence a lot of negativity from some fans.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2022 15:35:09 GMT -6
I still want to know what happens next. Since it's an adaptation and they're taking some liberties with the timeline, lore and characters, I don't necessarily know how things are going to end. I kind of like not knowing how things are going to end. The mystery of where or who Sauron is in this show is fascinating to me. It turns him into the same kind of persistent background threat he is in the PJ films, but in a different and possibly more sinister way. What if he's a friendly face we've already seen? Someone like Halbrand or The Stranger? Anything is possible at this point.
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Post by Finarvyn on Sept 29, 2022 2:19:24 GMT -6
I still want to know what happens next. Since it's an adaptation and they're taking some liberties with the timeline, lore and characters, I don't necessarily know how things are going to end. I kind of like not knowing how things are going to end. I think this is an important thought. If an adaptation is exactly word-for-word from a source, wouldn't folks be disappointed that there was no surprise or mystery? Seems like folks might say, "why watch the thing, since I can just read the book" and we're exactly where we started. I think the creators of any good adaptation should be looking at the source material and finding some sort of variant approach, but not too much of a variant approach or it becomes totally different. The secret would be, I suppose, to find some sort of balance. Take the Lord of the Rings movies, for example. Peter Jackson might have had Sauron capture the Ring and rule the universe, which would have been quite the surprise but ruin the ending. That would have been too much of a change and the movies would have been a disaster. He did scrap the character of Glorfindel because he isn't critical to the movies, and replaced that character with Arwen (who already existed in the canon) because that Arwen character is likable and becomes important later. That's a change that makes sense because, honestly, Glorfindel could have been pretty much anyone and it ties the movies together more. Had Tolkien thought to make that change he might have done so, which I think helps make the adaptation workable. So Rings of Power has a similar issue. They might have gone directly to timeline canon, but then we might have new characters and new actors every week. More "realistic" but not a selling point for most viewers. They compress the timeline somewhat and that way the same characters are present throughout and perhaps tell a story that is "better" for a TV series, even though it's not strictly canon. Good idea? Dunno, but I'm enjoying watching so far.
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Post by geoffrey on Sept 29, 2022 9:41:54 GMT -6
I've always been very glad indeed that Peter Jackson dropped both Tom Bombadil and the scouring of the Shire from his movies. The former would have been simply too silly to sit through, and the latter (a dust-up of hobbits vs. bumpkin-bandits) would have been the cinematic anticlimax of all time.
Nevertheless, I have seen plenty of comments along the lines of, "Jackson doesn't understand the book at all. Tom Bombadil/the scouring is the single most important part of the story, but he cut it!"
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Post by Falconer on Sept 29, 2022 11:29:46 GMT -6
To me, an adaptation is exactly an adaptation, neither more nor less. It is not a work of its own, and as such it carries no intrinsic meaning or value. I judge a Lord of the Rings movie on the basis of, does it misrepresent Tolkien’s characters or themes? I don’t judge it on whether it adequately depicts all the characters and themes of the book, let alone all the plot points. It is never going to replace the book.
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Post by Falconer on Sept 29, 2022 12:24:58 GMT -6
Tom Bombadil in general, and “Fog on the Barrow-downs” in particular, is one of the highlights of the whole novel, for me. Rich with beauty and symbol and power. The song of creation and the harrowing of hell. No, Jackson could never have pulled it off.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2022 14:37:01 GMT -6
I've always been very glad indeed that Peter Jackson dropped both Tom Bombadil and the scouring of the Shire from his movies. The former would have been simply too silly to sit through, and the latter (a dust-up of hobbits vs. bumpkin-bandits) would have been the cinematic anticlimax of all time. Nevertheless, I have seen plenty of comments along the lines of, "Jackson doesn't understand the book at all. Tom Bombadil/the scouring is the single most important part of the story, but he cut it!" I'm with you on this. What works well in a film is sometimes quite distinct from what works well in a book. I look at the various movie adaptations of LOTR as their own unique things. The books are unassailable and evergreen so no changes in any adaptation can take anything away from them. In fact, seeing the PJ movies inspired me to read through everything Tolkien wrote. They also inspired a new generation of film makers and game designers. They were a huge cultural event! Really the Star Wars of the early 2000's in a lot of ways.
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Post by geoffrey on Sept 29, 2022 15:12:51 GMT -6
What works well in a film is sometimes quite distinct from what works well in a book. In book I of The Lord of the Rings, the following chapters have a distinctly enchanting, woodland charm: VI: "The Old Forest" VII: "In the House of Tom Bombadil" VIII: "Fog on the Barrow-downs" But I can't imagine these chapters done in a movie and done well.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2022 15:47:30 GMT -6
What works well in a film is sometimes quite distinct from what works well in a book. In book I of The Lord of the Rings, the following chapters have a distinctly enchanting, woodland charm: VI: "The Old Forest" VII: "In the House of Tom Bombadil" VIII: "Fog on the Barrow-downs" But I can't imagine these chapters done in a movie and done well. It's often been said that the version of LOTR we know and love would have never made it through a modern editor, simply because of abrupt pace changes like those three chapters. I think they're great and they fully belong in the story, since they contain elements Tolkien found important and meaningful to him. The movies are 100% fine without them, of course. All you really need from that adventure to complete the bigger story are the magical blades that can harm Nazgul, and they're simply given out in a different context later, so that you can get that big stab in the Witch King's leg when you need to. That's perfectly fine for the movies. They're action movies so you really want to keep building that pace towards a climax each time. Movies are a lot like songs in that way.
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Post by samvandenberg on Dec 24, 2022 12:01:18 GMT -6
Hopefully, they get Kevin Sorbo and/or Lucy Lawless for season 2. That would be a good fit for fans of this show.
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Post by Bastet1002 on Jan 7, 2023 2:31:48 GMT -6
I still think the 1978 unfinished LoTR animation was probably the best attempt at trying to adapt Tolkien's Middle Earth to film. There are parts of it that have some wild experiment of combining film and animation. No I don't mean how they did it in the ridiculous but somehow wonderful early TV adaptations of Narnia by the BBC, but I mean it is a weird blend of real and cartooning over it. I think it was called "rotoscope?" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(1978_film)But seriously we all know the best artistic adaptation is of the LoTR and the Hobbit is got to be hands down the audio dramas produced by Mind's Eye circa 1979 and 1980. (These are apparently fully uploaded on Youtube if you want to listen!) They are pretty cool - all 10 hours of them!!. youtu.be/I0-zbPuhoZ0You can also find Spock's "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" up there on Youtube somewhere too.... youtu.be/V3fZhJN4TdcBut seriously, yeah the Netflix series was fun. But I agree with others - not something to wrangle yourself up doing scholarly research about. It is fun to see the origins of some familiar characters and how they tie in (according to the fan fiction) to the LoTR.
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Post by geoffrey on Jan 7, 2023 10:52:03 GMT -6
You can also find Spock's "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" up there on Youtube somewhere too.... youtu.be/V3fZhJN4TdcWithout that, life is not worth living.
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Post by tkdco2 on May 3, 2023 4:55:10 GMT -6
Amazon is getting sued by an author who claims the Rings of Power show stole ideas from his book. Here's the video. Warning: This may cause your brain to hurt!
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Post by rredmond on May 7, 2023 5:18:26 GMT -6
Only watched the first few minutes (the embedded video not working so well - I’ll try again on YT proper) but it certainly sounds very silly.
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rayotus
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 122
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Post by rayotus on May 7, 2023 8:28:33 GMT -6
Some stats were released around a month ago that said only 37% of the people who started the series persisted to the end. A "great" rate would be around 65%. A "good" rate gets close to 50%. So, 37% is not good. I'll not comment on the ramifications. I have no idea what, if anything, that does to future budgets, plotting, or backing. I'll just say I enjoyed the series BECAUSE I persisted. I wanted to quit at the point mithril was explained as magic elf juice. Luckily, for me, that was really the only low point in the series.
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Post by rredmond on May 7, 2023 9:28:19 GMT -6
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Post by tkdco2 on May 17, 2023 12:31:33 GMT -6
While Middle-earth has brand recognition that Amazon was hoping to capitalize on, I wonder if using another setting would have been much better in the long run. I just had the wild idea of making a series based on Earthdawn. It has a few elements based on Tolkien's works, but it has more than enough differences to make it distinctive. And nobody would have complained about the lore, assuming the producers got the basics mostly right.
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