Amazon's Rings of Power - General Discussion Thread (SPOILERS)

[Iceman]

‘The Rings of Power’ Season 2 Has Started Filming – The Hollywood Reporter

I’ve really been enjoying the show for the most part, aside from some issues balancing storylines, preferring certain arcs such as Adar and the Orcs, Durin and Elrond, too much slow motion,

The cinematography, the VFX, the makeup and Prosthetics, most of the actors are pretty good, and the battles are epic, especially Episode 6!

Glad to hear. I think a season 2 won’t have to spend so much time on long setup and introduction of so many different characters in different places, and so should have better pacing.

 

[Iceman]

So how are we all going to react if they DON'T reveal Sauron this season?

I don’t need anything specific to happen. Just want whatever is shown to be good.

 

[Mjolnir Reborn]

So how are we all going to react if they DON'T reveal Sauron this season?

I'd find the name of the show to be very questionable then since if he doesn't show up in one of his known guises then the rings won't play a part either. You shouldn't name a show Rings of Power if the rings will take more than a season to become a thing.

 

[Deck Rickard]

So how are we all going to react if they DON'T reveal Sauron this season?

I predict that the usual people will declare it to be a monumental failure.

But hey, they’ll do the same thing if they do reveal Sauron’s identity.

 

[Weather Witch]

So how are we all going to react if they DON'T reveal Sauron this season?

Spoiler

They already said he wouldn't be in this season before the first episode even aired, right? I remember seeing it in an interview ages ago.

 

[Boom]

Spoiler

They already said he wouldn't be in this season before the first episode even aired, right? I remember seeing it in an interview ages ago.

 

[Weather Witch]

Found the earliest mention, but I believe it was reiterated after this as well:

Spy Report: 20 new details emerge from Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: Characters, Sexless Nudity and Halflings!

Spoiler

• Sauron/Annatar will not be revealed in Season One [going with the oldest axiom of show business “Always leave them wanting more.”]

I genuinely didn't know there were still people who expected this to be in season 1. That article was a few months ago and the rest checked out. Sorry!

 

[Deck Rickard]

Found the earliest mention, but I believe it was reiterated after this as well:

Spy Report: 20 new details emerge from Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: Characters, Sexless Nudity and Halflings!

Spoiler

• Sauron/Annatar will not be revealed in Season One [going with the oldest axiom of show business “Always leave them wanting more.”]

I genuinely didn't know there were still people who expected this to be in season 1. That article was a few months ago and the rest checked out. Sorry!

Hmmm. Well, I’ll admit I’ll be disappointed if he isn’t revealed but I guess we’ll see how it all plays out.

 

[Weather Witch]

Hmmm. Well, I’ll admit I’ll be disappointed if he isn’t revealed but I guess we’ll see how it all plays out.

I guess with all the Amazon money there is always a chance they could've changed it last minute.

 

[Deck Rickard]

I guess with all the Amazon money there is always a chance they could've changed it last minute.

Possibly. Or that bit of news might be wrong. Most of the stuff in that article is right but you never know. They could also have been playing coy with that statement; it’s possible that the characters won’t learn who Sauron is in season one but we will. We’ll know soon enough.

 

[Weather Witch]

Possibly. Or that bit of news might be wrong. Most of the stuff in that article is right but you never know. They could also have been playing coy with that statement; it’s possible that the characters won’t learn who Sauron is in season one but we will. We’ll know soon enough.

I'm happy I saw it back then though. Set my expectations accordingly.

 

[Boom]

The Rings of Power Showrunners Break Silence on Fandom Backlash and Season 2 – The Hollywood Reporter

Sources say HBO pitched the estate on retelling Middle-earth’s “Third Age” — essentially remaking Peter Jackson’s beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy, which grossed $3 billion and won 11 Oscars. The estate has its gripes with Jackson’s adaptations (the late Christopher Tolkien, the author’s son, said they “eviscerated” the books) but wasn’t interested in treading the same ground.

I was this close to getting my wish.

 

[Elayis]

You wanted a remake of the trilogy?

 

[Boom]

You wanted a remake of the trilogy?

Sure did. Still do, in fact. Maybe someday.

There is a ton of material from the book that couldn't be adapted in the films for the sake of time and relevance. A television adaptation would allow for a more immersive, lived-in and deeper interpretation of the text.

 

[Deck Rickard]

I’m glad that didn’t happen. I’m sure it will eventually, but I don’t need a 50-hour version of that story. LOTR is my favorite book of all time, but my unpopular opinion of it is that Tolkien needed a better editor. There’s stuff in there that adds little to the story (sorry, Bombadil stans) while things that SHOULD have been included, even if only in flashbacks, are unfortunately left to the appendices (e.g., exploring the Aragorn/Arwen love story so that Aragorn doesn’t look like a complete d*** for abruptly spurning Eowyn). I know some (maybe all) of you will disagree and I’m not going to pretend that I will ever be anything close to the writer Tolkien was. But as someone who edits for a living (and as someone who loves Tolkien even with my criticisms) I feel that LOTR could have been improved through better editing.

The PJ films aren’t perfect but they trimmed a lot of the fat while adding more material for characters who were lacking on the book. And they honestly still hold up. Even with modern special effects, I doubt you would get the same exhilarating feeling in a new show when Gandalf and Pippen arrive at Minas Tirith for the first time.

(I’m sorry if this came off like an attack on anyone who wants to see a new version of LOTR; I don’t mean it to be. This is just how I feel about it.)

 

[Iceman]

I’m glad that didn’t happen. I’m sure it will eventually, but I don’t need a 50-hour version of that story. LOTR is my favorite book of all time, but my unpopular opinion of it is that Tolkien needed a better editor. There’s stuff in there that adds little to the story (sorry, Bombadil stans) while things that SHOULD have been included, even if only in flashbacks, are unfortunately left to the appendices (e.g., exploring the Aragorn/Arwen love story so that Aragorn doesn’t look like a complete d*** for abruptly spurning Eowyn). I know some (maybe all) of you will disagree and I’m not going to pretend that I will ever be anything close to the writer Tolkien was. But as someone who edits for a living (and as someone who loves Tolkien even with my criticisms) I feel that LOTR could have been improved through better editing.

The PJ films aren’t perfect but they trimmed a lot of the fat while adding more material for characters who were lacking on the book. And they honestly still hold up. Even with modern special effects, I doubt you would get the same exhilarating feeling in a new show when Gandalf and Pippen arrive at Minas Tirith for the first time.

Don't forget Tolkien is from an era where there were no word processors for editing on the fly. If you want to change a word on a page from a typewriter you can type the whole page out again (ignoring what indents that creates for the rest of the chapter). As a wannabe writer I would not even have bothered trying without all the tools we have to hand now.

Tolkien was also inventing a lot of this stuff rather than basing it on or taking inspiration from the body of fantasy literature that he inspired, plus it was not intended to be such a sprawling epic when first conceived. So the final product does feel like it's dwelling way too long in the Shire and on tangential stuff like Bombadil. I have cut my first chapter to death (the only part of my book I originally envisioned before it expanded into something much longer) over years as certain characters need to be there for future chapters to make sense. On old school technology, even with a monster idea I would have just said F it when it came to mega edits that completely change early chapters.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Don't forget Tolkien is from an era where there were no word processors for editing on the fly. If you want to change a word on a page from a typewriter you can type the whole page out again (ignoring what indents that creates for the rest of the chapter). As a wannabe writer I would not even have bothered trying without all the tools we have to hand now.

Tolkien was also inventing a lot of this stuff rather than basing it on or taking inspiration from the body of fantasy literature that he inspired, plus it was not intended to be such a sprawling epic when first conceived. So the final product does feel like it's dwelling way too long in the Shire and on tangential stuff like Bombadil. I have cut my first chapter to death (the only part of my book I originally envisioned before it expanded into something much longer) over years as certain characters need to be there for future chapters to make sense. On old school technology, even with a monster idea I would have just said F it when it came to mega edits that completely change early chapters.

Good points! For sure, editors today (myself certainly included) have a lot more privilege than ones back then due to modern technology. And yes, given that he was creating a whole new world - the likes of which hadn’t really been seen before in fiction - I imagine his editors looked at some of this stuff, shrugged and thought, “I don’t know what any of this means but maybe we should just keep it in?” LOL.

 

[InCali]

So how are we all going to react if they DON'T reveal Sauron this season?

I really don't even care. They can do all the potential reveals they want that don't pan out and it won't bother me as long as they can tell a decent story and have some interesting characters. It's miles away from the events of the 2nd age so whatever they do or don't will be fine as long as it's not dull with characters that could bore a couch.

 

[Pennywise]

One major focus of the new episodes will be the show’s big, bad Sauron, who has been said to have returned to Middle-earth but seemingly has not showed up yet. The Second Age’s version of Sauron is not a flaming eye on a tower like in Rings movies but appearing in his “fair form” as a deceptive character.

“It would be very tempting to make the first season of this show The Sauron Show, very villain-centric,” McKay says. “But we wanted that level of evil and complexity of evil to emerge out of a world that you’re invested in — not because evil is threatening it immediately. We wanted you to fall in love again with Middle-earth. We wanted you to understand and relate to the struggles that each of these characters are having before we test them in a way they’ve never been tested before.”

Fans have eagerly speculated certain characters might be Sauron in disguise, which is precisely the sort of engagement the writers hoped to see.

“It’s another Tolkien thing where when a shadow spreads — which is part of what is happening in our show — it affects everyone’s relationships,” Payne says. “Even Frodo and Sam. They’re the best friends in all of Middle-earth, yet they started to mistrust each other because that’s a manifestation of that shadow. So having an audience suspect this person or that person could be Sauron is drawing them into that thing where the shadow is overcoming all of us and making us suspicious of each other.”

 

[Iceman]

The Rings of Power Showrunners Break Silence on Fandom Backlash and Season 2 – The Hollywood Reporter



I was this close to getting my wish.

Feels like there is still a decent chance of getting this in the next 20 years, especially if this show and the following LotR shows prove to be successful.

 

[InCali]

The Rings of Power Showrunners Break Silence on Fandom Backlash and Season 2 – The Hollywood Reporter



I was this close to getting my wish.

If this is their idea of "protecting Tolkien's legacy", I am at a loss for comment. If this is their idea of taking his writing and creating a very loose adaptation of it, that's fine.

 

[Mjolnir Reborn]

I don't see anything inherently bad with holding off on Sauron and wanting to show other things first. I haven't enjoyed the show that much but it's more the execution and choices below that large idea that isn't resonating with me.

I do still find it odd that they choose the name Rings of Power if that's not the focus of the show until later seasons though, as the name definitely creates specific expectations. That's like if House of the Dragon didn't deal with the Targaryens in the first season.

 

[Deck Rickard]

I saw a promo a week or two ago that had a bunch of short clips (some we’ve seen already, some we haven’t) and there was a quick shot of what looked like Celebrimbor holding one of the rings. So I guess the rings (one of them anyway) will be introduced this season.

I wish I could find it but I can’t remember where I saw it.

 

[Boom]

"The Gang Awakens a Balrog."

 

[Persona]

Really enjoyed that Hollywood Reporter article. Clearly the showrunners care deeply and are trying to take some lessons away from the 1st season (though I think they've done a decent job so far, and man I ate episode 6 right up).

Personally, I would MUCH rather have what RoP is so ambitiously trying to do--even despite the lack of Silmarillion rights--than what all these other parties were pitching as far as Third Age reboots or Young Aragorn shows. No thanks.