Rings of Power
May. 20th, 2023 01:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessA while after everyone else, otherwise known as last Saturday night, as I’ve now got Amazon Prime, I sat down to watch The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. (Background, I’ve read The Silmarillion once, many, many years ago. I knew it was the most expensive TV show made, it got positive reviews, three of the lead actors were Welsh-speaking Welsh people (one of whom is Morfydd Clark, so she could probably concentrate on learning other skills rather than pronunciation) and I should treat it like expensive fanfiction.
1.1 A Shadow of the Past
I mostly enjoyed this. I was more interested in Elves’ business, partly because I totally took to Galadriel the ‘young’ warrior, who kept being told she should ignore her convictions and give it up by male elves. (Granted, with the authority of her king backing them.) Of course, everyone watching the show knew she was right that Sauron hadn’t just…gone away. I thought she and (future son in law) young Elrond were well cast with an eye to screen continuity. Ditto kid!Galadriel. The look is pretty much in the same mould as the movies, with more primitive versions of most non-Elvish beings and artefacts, and oh, New Zealand, you carry on being Middle Earth, you gorgeous place, you.
I took to Nori Brandyfoot too, as the Belladonna we never got to see. TBH, I was dubious about why they went for the proto Hobbits having Oirish accents. Furthermore, if the humans were from the Southlands, why give them Northern English (Manc) accents? It feels like no more thought went into it than ‘ooh, variety’ or ‘ooh, it’s a bit like Sean Bean’. I also felt that the colour-blind casting was not as cogent as it could have been.
Elven soldier Arondir’s romance with the human healer had a lot of pining going on, which I have a weakness for, although I couldn’t forget they tried this on in the The Hobbit adaptation, and having the Watch Warden reference the two tragic human-Elf liaisons in the past just reminded me tha there were no others until Aragorn/Arwen so I expect they’re doomed. Also, her son seems to have got possessed now, after hanging out with that angry boy. It’s a good job their idiot teenage boyness was diluted by other types of people.
I felt the music was a little pastichey, and when the Elves spoke Quenya (or was it Sindarin?) to each other, I kept being reminded that they were speaking the common tongue with each other for our benefit most of the time. But those ‘travellers’ were striking, even if I’m not sure I buy that the Harfoots would have dusty old books about lore, really.
I’m not sure how much depth it all has, because it’s a step removed from Tolkien’s riffing off the myths he was so versed in, with the added fact that it’s purporting to be a prequel to a story we all know. It is taking evil seriously. Is the Lord Celebrsomething Elrond has been promoted to work with Sauron in disguise? Don’t tell me, I can wait to find out, but that was my initial take
Yet this idea of the Elves as soldiers who had left their beloved homeland (and immortality) to wage war at great cost for many centuries being offered a chance/bribe to return, and the particular tension of the humans calling them pointy ears and resenting them, while some of the soldiers resented them right back because they or their ancestors had sided with Morgoth made me think of invading armies – mainly the Romans - although the metaphor only works up to a point.
Anyway, it was totally predictable that we’d only get to hear Galadriel’s big brother’s whispered words at a crisis point. Her Sight pushed her into deciding to swim the Sundering Seas (!) to do the right thing. I’m not sure how the Elves and Nori were in the same place (I still have some difficulty following the literally darker scenes – perhaps I should start watching later at night) but a comet seemed to have dropped a body as well as flames, and it wasn’t foresight as I’d first thought. Or was it?
1.1 A Shadow of the Past
I mostly enjoyed this. I was more interested in Elves’ business, partly because I totally took to Galadriel the ‘young’ warrior, who kept being told she should ignore her convictions and give it up by male elves. (Granted, with the authority of her king backing them.) Of course, everyone watching the show knew she was right that Sauron hadn’t just…gone away. I thought she and (future son in law) young Elrond were well cast with an eye to screen continuity. Ditto kid!Galadriel. The look is pretty much in the same mould as the movies, with more primitive versions of most non-Elvish beings and artefacts, and oh, New Zealand, you carry on being Middle Earth, you gorgeous place, you.
I took to Nori Brandyfoot too, as the Belladonna we never got to see. TBH, I was dubious about why they went for the proto Hobbits having Oirish accents. Furthermore, if the humans were from the Southlands, why give them Northern English (Manc) accents? It feels like no more thought went into it than ‘ooh, variety’ or ‘ooh, it’s a bit like Sean Bean’. I also felt that the colour-blind casting was not as cogent as it could have been.
Elven soldier Arondir’s romance with the human healer had a lot of pining going on, which I have a weakness for, although I couldn’t forget they tried this on in the The Hobbit adaptation, and having the Watch Warden reference the two tragic human-Elf liaisons in the past just reminded me tha there were no others until Aragorn/Arwen so I expect they’re doomed. Also, her son seems to have got possessed now, after hanging out with that angry boy. It’s a good job their idiot teenage boyness was diluted by other types of people.
I felt the music was a little pastichey, and when the Elves spoke Quenya (or was it Sindarin?) to each other, I kept being reminded that they were speaking the common tongue with each other for our benefit most of the time. But those ‘travellers’ were striking, even if I’m not sure I buy that the Harfoots would have dusty old books about lore, really.
I’m not sure how much depth it all has, because it’s a step removed from Tolkien’s riffing off the myths he was so versed in, with the added fact that it’s purporting to be a prequel to a story we all know. It is taking evil seriously. Is the Lord Celebrsomething Elrond has been promoted to work with Sauron in disguise? Don’t tell me, I can wait to find out, but that was my initial take
Yet this idea of the Elves as soldiers who had left their beloved homeland (and immortality) to wage war at great cost for many centuries being offered a chance/bribe to return, and the particular tension of the humans calling them pointy ears and resenting them, while some of the soldiers resented them right back because they or their ancestors had sided with Morgoth made me think of invading armies – mainly the Romans - although the metaphor only works up to a point.
Anyway, it was totally predictable that we’d only get to hear Galadriel’s big brother’s whispered words at a crisis point. Her Sight pushed her into deciding to swim the Sundering Seas (!) to do the right thing. I’m not sure how the Elves and Nori were in the same place (I still have some difficulty following the literally darker scenes – perhaps I should start watching later at night) but a comet seemed to have dropped a body as well as flames, and it wasn’t foresight as I’d first thought. Or was it?
