Why the fuck couldn’t wheel of Time look that good.

sigh.

im getting my hopes up now. Starting to get excited.

 

God damn, those look amazing

 

Fuck yes.

 

The exchange between Elrond and Galadriel is my favourite part of the trailer: "You have not seen what I have seen."

With the budget the show has, there was never really any doubt (except among trolls) that it was going to be visually stunning. It's always been the writing which is the question mark.

It's a beautiful trailer, yes (as was the previous teaser). But it's the fact that the character interactions are getting me excited and intrigued is the most promising thing.

And yes, I am preparing to fully simp for Galadriel.

 

The infinity money gave them a chance to do it, but there was always a chance that they simply wouldn't give it to the correct people.

Anyway, it's nice though can't say that any character, even Galadriel, speaks to me. Sure, it's short, but you can sometimes tell that someone will steal all the scenes after just few seconds in a trailer.

 

Looks beautiful. Just nervous about if I’ll be able to connect with any of the characters. I’m concerned with them making elves the protagonists something will be lost. Elves are meant to be distinctly otherworldly and I worry that in order to make them compelling protags that element will be lost.

we will see.

 

Can that be anything other than Oath of Feanor?

 

I think you're right. Also, I think the bit immediately prior to that is the discovery of mithril.

 

Don't mind me, just posting the most important screencaps from the trailer.

 

Plots? I think we saw parts of:

The founding of the Shire.
Beren and the quest for the Silmaril
The rings of power
The darkening of Valinor

It’s going to be interesting to see how they tie all together. I am going to guess it a hobbit being read a story again. “Gather round and listen to these ancient tales”

 

Looks great so far, it might be good enough to quench my nerd rage

 

The harfoots walking toward those green pastures could be the Shire sure, but what's made you think of Beren and Luthien?

 

Wasn’t there a scene of a man jumping over a giant wolf?

 

A conspiracy theory time.

Officially Amazon has rights to only LotR/Hobbit, but they can use other elements if they ask the Tolkien Estate and they agree. It's pretty weird to not buy rights to all works you need for the TV show you plan to make, even if the Estate doesn't want to sell them because of Christopher Tolkien's wish. My guess is that Amazon paid enough to basically get them unofficially. They can basically use whatever they want, if anyone asks they "asked" for these things, but they don't want because it gives them a perfect excuse to invent whatever they want for their show by saying they didn't have rights and needed to do it differently.

 

Almost 100% sure that's Arondir fighting a warg. He's chained up by the leg, just like in the first trailer, and you can sort of make out his buzzcut, ears, and ent-face armor.

Further I just don't think the Estate (specifically Priscilla) would have let Amazon touch Beren and Luthien. Basically their most treasured story, and it isn't needed at all for backstory other than as a vehicle to tell where one of the Silmarils ended up (literally as a star in the sky).

 

Too late. Beren and Luthien is part of the main LotR rights, because the poem (or a part of it) is within the text of LotR. There's a deleted scene in Peter Jackson's trilogy where Aragorn signs a part of it and tells Frodo the tale.

 

It's been both fascinating and depressing to watch the reaction to the most recent teaser. Immediately after release, the reception was pretty positive. A lot of comments along the lines of 'well this looks much better' which... well maybe. I didn't have any significant issues with the first teaser, to be honest. Regardless, for a day or so, a lot of the comments were positive, and people seemed interested in what the teaser showed.

Until the Weaponised Negativity Gang rolled in, anyway. All the same old commenters released videos whinging once more (often incorrectly) about either inconsequential details, or, more amusingly, saying 'well sure, it looks pretty, but all writers are hacks so it still has to be shit yanno!'

To be clear, I remain to be convinced by Rings of Power. Nothing in the visuals so far stands out to me as a major cause for concern, but they seem to be biting off a lot if the trailer is anything to go by. Assuming they do know their Tolkien, it will still be no small task to balance the, what, 4 or 5 different plot threads, along with the seemingly significant effort to fill the audience in on the important events of the Years of the Trees and the First Age.

Against my better judgement, I actually watched one of the so-called 'critiques' of the new teaser, and holy balls, batman. It's impressive how wrong and self-contradictory they can be. In one breath they poo-poo the notion of 'Tolkien Scholars' because 'it's just a fantasy book', then in the next they start to complain about minor elements of canon. For half their video. A particular favourite is when they bemoan the fact that the trailer shows Miriel when 'Numenor only had Kings'. I guess we just ignore the three ruling Queens before her whom Tolkien actually describes, two of whom were among the five longest-ruling monarchs. Oh, and we should also probably forget that Miriel is completely fucking canon. Can't be seen to be positive about a female character, after all. These people are going to be up in arms about 'muh feminism bad' when they see what's going to happen with Miriel and Pharazon. They're already complaining that Galadriel is shown as more knowledgeable than Elrond in the trailer, I shit you fucking not.

It's also fascinating that these people whinge and moan when a trailer gives away plot-important elements, but then turn around and bitch about the show being empty visuals with no substance when one keeps things close to its chest.

What is the end result of all this? The YouTube sentiment has turned against the trailer again. Because of course it has. Hope is, after all, nothing but childish naivety. Quick, let's go and post out-of-context Tolkien quotes (or just anything really. Lifehack, you can put a -- Tolkien at the end of any old thing and no one will know any better) on the trailer. That'll show them how cultured we are!

 

I'm not entirely sure what critique videos you watched, because I watched a couple to see what the fuss was about, and literally none of the things you mentioned were in them save a sense of exasperation at the never-ending shoehorning of modern irl social sensibilities and messaging into pre-existing fiction.

For example, the primary complaints that I saw about Miriel were not her canonicity or gender (because the guys doing the videos I watched actually know Tolkien well enough to know who she is), but rather her skin tone not making sense (partially because it doesn't fit the description of Numenoreans in the first place, but also because she's being played by a very dark-skinned black woman while the character's first cousin is played by a very white man - not an impossible situation by any stretch, but a relatively unlikely one that raises a question or two) and the cheapness of her costume in the stills the studio released (using cloth painted with mail patterns instead of actual or prop armor).

There's also some issues with the characterization of Elrond in this time period, and one of the videos I watched mentioned that canonically Galadriel was not present for some of the things she seems to be mentioning to Elrond that she's seen while he hasn't (especially since in at least one case Elrond apparently was present for what Galadriel says he wasn't, while Galadriel herself was supposed to be on the other end of the continent at the time). I'll admit my knowledge of Tolkien isn't deep enough to know whether the video was correct on that point or not, but they were definitely making a canonical argument that came off as much more reasonable than the plainly spurious ones you describe.

There were complaints in both about the lack of any plot in the trailers, but it came off to me as pretty genuine, because having watched the teasers put out so far, I still have no fucking clue what the show is actually about, except that one of it's myriad hinted plotlines probably has to do with the rise of Sauron and the forging of the Rings of Power. It would be kind of nice to actually have some idea what any of the rest is about before the show premiers, especially since they would appear to be using Tolkien's canon and timeline as loose guidelines rather than actual roadmaps for the show.

And yes, there's an underlying frustration in most of these with the feminist influences that are plainly obvious. Most of that is because it always seems to come at the expense of characterization, and of male characters (like with Elrond being shown to be so hilariously wrong in the trailer that he just looks stupid, while it's implied that Galadriel is, of course, right about everything). If feminist writers could find a way to promote strong females without altering established characters in obvious ways, and without actively excluding or denigrating men, there would be a lot less resistance and annoyance when they incessantly insert their messaging into entertainment.

 

There are both kinds of YouTube video creators that @Steelbadger and @Othalan describe: those at whom fingers are rightly pointed when someone wants an example of toxic fans (people who dislike Rey just because she's a woman) and those who have worthy arguments, who are denounced as "toxic" when the studio tries to deflect valid criticism. The first kind typically make unscripted rants, the second kind produce scripted, thought-out video essays. Seek out the second kind. Ignore the first.

 

The Critical Drinker, whose video has more views than any of the other recent commentary videos. Hardly a niche voice. Perhaps you inhabit a significantly more wholesome part of YouTube, though I kind of doubt it.

Amusingly, he didn't even mention Miriel's skin colour. Just a stupid quip about it being 'called the Line of Kings for a reason' which is so stupid that it kinda boggled my mind for the reasons I mentioned above. The choice to have a black actor play her is certainly at odds with my personal mental image of the character, but at the same time, I have to ask, does it matter to me? The answer to that question is a definite no. The next question is, does it matter to the character? Also, no. Hers is a story of a stolen throne, and a forced marriage, brought about by pseudo-religious differences and endemic cultural schisms. Her skin colour, white or black, neither adds to nor detracts from that core story.

When it comes to Elrond and Galadriel, what events, exactly, are we talking about? None are mentioned by name, so this sounds like a case of assuming the worst (they added Galadriel to the Dagor Bragollach when she was meant to be on the other side of the mountains!) in order to wheel out the outrage card. 'You have not seen', cut with some ambiguous red-lit stuff (which is probably some kind of vision) is not the damning proof of canon assassination these people are claiming it to be.

Now, my reading of this is that most Elves, even Galadriel, believed that the world had been saved from evil when Morgoth was vanquished. Probably because they really wanted that to be true after the horrors of the first age. Then, as Sauron's influence started to seep back into the world, Galadriel was among the very first to realise the danger (potentially hundreds of years prior to Sauron revealing even the form of Annatar). I would honestly not be surprised if Elrond's story is him investigating Galadriel's claims, and coming to the conclusion that she is correct. It seems entirely reasonable given what we know. He would then, presumably, work to convince Gil-Galad and any other Elven nobility of the fact as well, in the hope of readying them for what is to come. With Gil-Galad he would be successful, and with Celebrimbor he would perhaps not be.

Again, Elrond being beaten to the punch to realise the threat of Sauron by Galadriel of all people is not part of some sinister plot by wokeist Hollywood executives to shove 'The Message' down the viewing public's throat. Not unless Tolkien himself was the father of the woke movement, which seems unlikely to me. Galadriel being right about shit is kinda a running thing with her. All the way from realising the folly of the Kinslaying (but still exiling herself because she still felt bound by the oath), to her mistrust of Saruman. But maybe Tolkien is the wokiest of wokeists. After all, 'weak Man Beren failed to get the Silmaril from Morgoth and needed the help of #strongwoman Luthien to do it #yassqueeeen'. That's a direct quote from Letter 69.

So no, 'these feminist influences' (whatever it is that is meant to mean) in the show's direction are not 'plainly obvious', given that the things being complained about are firmly rooted in Tolkien's own writings. Attempts to turn what is, in all likelihood, the episode 1 conversation which puts Elrond onto his narrative pathway to discovering Sauron do not amount to showing him to be an idiot, no matter how much YouTubers repeat them, or you try to pretend that it's some kind of objective fact.

Characters are allowed to be wrong about things. Especially in Tolkien's works. See: The entire Silmarillion. They are also allowed to become aware that they were wrong, and still be good characters by growing past it. See: The entire Legendarium.

As to the rest, I have no idea what people are expecting to be told regarding the actual plot. Seems to me that keeping it to a vague 'evil is stirring, our heroes need to find out what is going on' is perfectly serviceable as a teaser trailer. The plot would appear to revolve around a central mystery of who's behind the bad stuff. We as watchers know it's Sauron, but the characters do not. So we will be watching the characters solve the mystery of who is behind the bad stuff, while watchers will, hopefully anyway, be presented with a similar mystery: where is Sauron hiding?

I assume your complaints about the armour are in relation to:



I'll admit, it doesn't look fantastic to my eye. I can see what they were going for with the scale-mail look which is actually closer to what Tolkien likely imagined than most of what we saw in Jackson's movies. It is fairly featureless though. It's a bit like they knew that chain/scale was probably more 'accurate', but that fans would expect shiny plate armour, and tried to find a style that's somewhere between the two.

I'm not sure I'd call it cheap, though. The pteruges on the leftmost rider seem to have individually attached scales, the arms too. It's more that it's just a bit plain and lacking in clear lines. It's a pity considering that the one bit of armour design Tolkien gave us for Numenoreans is pretty flamboyant. On the other hand, Gil-Galad and Aeglos look pretty cool.

At the end of the day, it still may be good or bad. 'We don't know X' is not proof either way. The one really concrete thing I do know, however, is that I am sick of seeing even 'the good ones' complain about the depiction of Galadriel and making it out to be some kind of betrayal of Tolkien. If you don't like the elements of Mary Sue Galadriel, then take it up with Tolkien.