Newly created prequel. Enjoy!

Probably ends with the battle that happened at the beginning of Lord of the Rings. With Sauron getting his ring cut off his finger and his armies defeated.

To me this show is visually stunning but the story is just not compelling. Sort of reminds me of JJP GnR pinball lol

I'll stick with it but I hope it becomes more coherent in the upcoming episodes.

They don't have the LOTR rights so it's a concept show based on the appendices.

None of this is from anything Tolkein PUBLISHED. As I understand it, Tolkein had a crap ton of notes on things that wanted to write later on. His kids have been publishing this stuff in book form lately with various artists filling in the blanks. This is some of the prequel and origin story stuff that was unpublished as I understand it.

Also, the Tolkein estate is really stingy with rights. As I understand it, Amazon spent more money on the rights to this than anything else in History. They paid more to the rights to this than they spent even making most of Game of Thrones. Something like 200 million... just for the rights. Supposedly a they are spending more on a single episode of this that HBO was spending on an entire season of Game of Thrones.

This is some of the best special effects I have ever seen. I just finished the first episode with my wife, but the world building in this is top notch. I don't know if the story will be any good, but I'd be entertained watching this in Korean just to see the special effects and world building going on. I'm excited. I don't know that this will be a hit for Amazon, but you can't say that they didn't try with this.

I think the show is ok so far. It's building the characters up

I keep trying to watch it…. But I find myself not caring enough for it to keep my interest. The Hobbit Trilogy was kind of like that… it seemed like it took forever to actually start.

The original LOTR seemed crisp but familiar… this new series kinda reminds me of the later season of “the walking dead” - I just have a hard time engaging.

They are absolutely suppressing reviews. No more so than in their Thursday night football. I was watching Chiefs vs Chargers streaming on Amazon prime, halfway through the first quarter it crashed. The problem in my city has always been when too many people try to stream at once, the internet crashes. It crashed. I talked to several friends who experienced the same thing. I googled Amazon nfl crash chiefs and chargers and there was not one story. I call billshit. The search results got flooded out. Luckily I’m in la where I was able to watch it locally due to the San Diego team invading the rams market. Still, they had the audacity to force us to watch a minute of commissioner roger Goodell banter with bezos and his whore local news girl trophy. Please, can some mark david Chapman type handle the bEzos situation by politely asking him to revoke the ridiculously lengthy Amazon contract. This will be the death of the nfl. Similar to how the restrictive cable contract with the pac 12 was the death of that conference. No one can watch pac 12 games. Fuck Amazon, and fuck the nfl for their exclusive multi billion dollar a year deal with the devil.

It’s all about the money these days….you can’t stop these big machines until the masses decide they have had enough….

NFL has become about a brand/money for almost 30 years now…game has changed and the on field product sucks…they have manipulated the game by changing rules into a passing game primarily…they still can’t get calls right and it’s just become a big mess. It’s just not fun to watch anymore.

I need to catch up now that there are a couple more episodes out….not sure what to make of this show yet.

I thought the first episode was way too much exposition, but the 2nd was a huge improvement and the 3rd I genuinely enjoyed. Hopefully the showrunners understand the balance between spectacle and the human connection needed to draw a viewer in. Based on the 3rd episode, it seems they are working that in.

So many things can go wrong when making a series or a film, it’s a miracle when one comes out that’s even halfway decent! Someone mentioned the Wheel of Time - man I wanted to like that a LOT more than I ended up doing so.

Anyway; I’m a huge fan of the Tolkien books, and while I know they are making some changes to both story and timeline, I just hope the show ends up being compelling. Some fans are treating it like it’s some kind of insane religion, and I’ve had enough of that thank you very much.

Yeah, so far I find it missing charisma from the cast. It suffers from the shadow of LOTR having a near-perfect cast. McKellen, Wood, Astin, and company had great chemistry on the screen. It really helped to set the tone for the series. I felt that was one the things "wrong" with the Hobbit (That and making a 200 pages kids book a trilogy). I need to watch more of the Amazon series.... but so far it seems like the investment isn't worth the payoff.

It's decent show, the first episode though was rough cause it had to do so much setting up of so many new things and characters

Based on the the second age fromn notes and the Silmarillion. Basically a prequil.
If you think Pinside wars are bad then dont read the fan pages on social media. ugh.
Mixed review so far. Very not Tolkein in dialogue and acting. Hope it picks up. allegedly going to be 40 hours content.

We’ll, I doubt we’re looking at a “Rings of Power” pinball anytime soon - I’ll say that much.

What a bummer. The show is just so boring; I was really hoping to get into it, but after 5 episodes.. just wow. It’s like in modern tv there’s no middle ground between crazy insane ADD pacing, and slooooow… as… molasses….

Nori and Durin (and his wife) are by far the most interesting characters. The jumping around between so many different storylines only works if they are interesting. Galadriel hanging out in Numenor should have been ONE episode, since -nothing- has happened there at all. Isildur is just a boring teenager, and Elendil who they barely spend any time on, is FAR more interesting a character and actor. The elves - are boring! They kind of always are, it would have been better to keep them more distant.

I think it’s possible if they spent a whole episode with a single storyline it may have been better, but this entire show just has a “Star Wars Prequels” level of dullness to it, which makes me very sad.

They hired very inexperienced show runners to handle this massively expensive series, and boy does it show. I don’t think it’s a train wreck, it’s just boring. The “big mystery” is that the Stranger guy is Sauron, while the show wants you to think it’s Gandalf. OMG who cares... Big deal.

Compared to She-Hulk, which I am loving, this is just a waste of time.

Wheel of Time was very good IMO, not quite great. There were still some scenes with lifeless acting (even Rosamund Pike, so I have to assume this was due to the compressed shooting schedule). I agree they probably suffered due to the pandemic, but season 2 of that show should turn out to be pretty damn amazing.

I'm hoping Rings turns out to be good in season 2.. but I'm not sure I will be sticking around. It's just a slog. Neither interesting nor fun. How about we introduce some RINGS in this "Rings of Power" show!?

Similarly, I just watched 1 1/2 episodes of the new Quantum Leap series. I adore the original series, and still watch it on occasion, and ... well, you can guess how that went since I didn't even finish the 2nd episode. Same thing - boring, not fun. Even the big dramatic scenes were just... utterly uninteresting.

So I don't come off as completely negative: the new SW series Andor has almost THREE full episodes where basically nothing happens, and it's interesting as hell. Phenomenal set design, interesting actors, solid, not over-the-top direction and editing. Highly recommended.

The Galadriel actress is very pleasant to look at, and I love Tolkien, so I'm sticking around. They're definitely not getting anywhere though. Are they trying to stretch this "rings of power" plot out for 5 seasons? At this rate they won't make it to season 2....

Never seen less buzz about what should have been such a major show.

Absolutely agree; there are a couple of YouTube review channels I watch which do recaps/Easter eggs, etc. Even on those I’m finding myself thinking hard about whether or not I should bother, and this is stuff I just put on when I’m writing code!

Hopefully they pick up the pace dramatically with the next few episodes, otherwise it’s not a stretch to say this was a dud.

That said, it’s important to remember that before the age of streaming, shows got re-tooled in later seasons ALL the time. So there’s hope. No way Amazon is ditching the show after one season, but they could ditch the showrunners who will Never Work In This Town Again!

On second thought, I guess they could pull a Bat Woman and just write it all off as costs against season 1…

Big plug for Andor, I am way enjoying that show.

The show is actually getting really good now, that first episode was just so boring and exposition heavy, they had to do a lot of world building but the show is really going nicely.

Also the thing to remember about viewership, the show is not just for the US audiences, we still have to wonder about viewership overseas as LOTR has often had huge following in EU territories as well. But launching LOTR show right up against a new Game of Thrones show I think was a bad idea as the current gen really adores Game of Thrones blood and sex over the cleaner high fantasy aesthetic

Actually he's clearly an Istari. Part of the LOTR lore, angelic like beings who fall to earth and become the wizards. The big guy can be many different potential characters, like Saruman who would make sense as he was one of the first Wizards to appear in Middle Earth.

As for the rings, well they don't exist, the point of the whole show is these are the events leading up to the eventual creation of the rings of power

Ok! Finally a good discussion.

Gandalf and (I think?) Saruman don’t arrive in ME until 1000 years from the point we are in in the story, so I’m gonna stick with my hypothesis - they definitely are trying to subvert expectations with the costume and his big ass beard and hair, but then they show the site where he landed and the Eye of Sauron flashes. I don’t know, hey maybe he’s Saruman! Haha

The rings (or some of them) HAVE to be created at the end of the season - they’ve had Celebrimbor and his hammer in a bunch of scenes, and there is literally nothing else he does in the story. At least the elves should have their rings. Damn it, I want this show to be good! I do agree the most recent episode was pretty good, it just still feels like they are in 1st gear

I've seen it said that the big guy could be what eventually becomes Saruman or Gandalf, or a new Istari we don't know yet who we lose before the original trilogy perhaps. Not sure they would go with him turning Sauron at this point, but they clearly are playing with "who is it?!" for the show.

With a 5 season plan, I think it's going to be a while before the rings become a real thing because they kind of were the trump to everything so they got to hold it back, but they are setting the groundwork for them clearly. Theres alot of events they need to lead up and build to before the rings can come in and whoop evil.

Ep6 looks to be the first real action we are getting, and the composer of the show has been teasing some very long action compositions he's done, so we are gonna start seeing some actual war too it sounds.

Still with so much they have to do, season 1 I think is going to overall be a bit slower and mostly world building at this point.

It's painful to watch.

Show runner has been around for awhile. It is common for all shows, but especially epics (like Walking Dead and other types) where they are mapping out episodes and the story arc. Individual episodes usually have different directors - but the show runner keeps everything moving together.

Producer has many different meanings- especially between tv and movies. On tv shows a producer usually runs a segment and lines everything up.

In movies… they are the people that operate at 20,000 feet. They line up the money, distribution, hire the directors, and handle all of the big picture details.

A show runner is more in the weeds than a movie producer, but way higher than a typical producer for a tv show.

A show runner is in charge of the directors, writers, actors, effects - they have huge influence on the production.

LONG ago. at least 20+ years. The producer mainly handled these jobs in the early days, then the head writer, then with the advent of more serial storytelling and the fact that directors don't stay on a show very long - the work needed to be distributed across multiple people. Enter the showrunner, who handles overall story arcs, dealing with the actors, any details that have to cross over between directors, etc.

Nicely done! First time I have ever seen any accurately describe a producer's job. Not EP, mind you LOL

Gandalf The Grey for sure, guessing here but this is where his long line of friendships with the Hobbits started. Although I must admit out of all the races slowly being introduced with their story lines the Hobbits is the most boring and wish I can fast forward through them.

Fascinating! I'm most bored by the Numenor scenes - I REALLY loved the song they threw in on the last episode in the hobbit sequence. Let's get to the battles, please! LOL

True, 5 hours in and we seen one Orc get headed, we need some Judge Mills Lane here: "Let's Get It On!!!"

Seriously? They spend that much on a series and they were unable to secure the word, "Hobbit" - that might tell us all we need to know about the series.