re: The Rings of Power Season 2 - first 3 episodes release August 29th, 2:00 AM Central

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This show kinda drives me crazy. Skme stuff they are doing very well. Others, not so much.

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This latest episode fits that perfectly. The orcs, Durins speech (we actually got a Baruk Khazâd!, which was cool) and even Adar were good. I know Adar is not in Tolkien’s works but the show could have done something cool like introducing him as a Cuiviénen Elf in season 1 who was captured and corrupted by Melkor. I mean like actually show the awakening and the capture of some of the elves and how that all began. So many possibilities.

But then we get shite like the kiss, diversity elves for the sake of diversity elves, and other crap that feels like just bad fan fiction. If there’s anything I’ve learned from watching these two seasons, it’s that a show based on the second or even first age of middle earth could be awesome. It’s just not the Amazon folks who are able to do it.

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Hastily posting on my phone and brain fart.

I guess I don't remember the movie as well as I thought even though I've seen them probably 10 times. In the books Merry strikes him down with the blade Tom gave him and Eowyn just does kind of a finishing blow to the face. Does Merry take him to his knees in the movie? God this is frustrating that my memory is that bad.

Though in the movies Merry doesn't have the blade with the powers needed to kill the Witch King so it probably wouldn't carry as much weight in the movies since they don't know about his blade.

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Merry stabs him in the leg or back in the movie.
Eowyn stabs him in the face to finish him off when he falls.
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Merry obviously does not have a barrow-blade from Tom. Since Tom was cut from the film.

The blade he has in the movie is unclear. It could be the one Aragon gave him at weathertop (in place of Tom), the elvish dagger Galadriel gave him or just a regular dagger he had during that fight.

So yea, the movie just left out why the weapon was special and did play more into the no man prophecy. But it still took place the same way.

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The Sauron/Celebrimbor scenes were once again the best part.

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I don't know. Prince Durin had me about ready to run through a brick wall after his speech.

lol they have twisted the token lore so bad that now the audience has to rationalize Elrond kissing his mother in law. It is so embarrassing. I honestly don’t get it. It is too far.

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The battle was good with the exception of some questionable editing in the middle.

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I can handle a little bit of corny stuff but I straight up laughed out loud when Elrond reared his horse to charge and then the horse jumped in the air like a ninja a kicked an orc 20 feet backwards. At the 10 second mark

I was defending it saying how there weren't going to be any Mary Sue moments but it was kind of funny that Elrond introduces a character to us in the middle of the biggest battle of the series, and tells the female elf "RIAN!! YOU CAN BE THE PERSON THAT CHANGES THE TIDE OF THE BATTLE IF YOU TAKE THIS SHOT!" I kind of roll my eyes, like here we go, someone we have no idea who they are, is coming to save the day and we get a slow emotional death like she's Boromir getting shot with 20 arrows and still able to get the shot off. The orcs literally stopped what they were doing to watch her arrow fly into the barrel filled with oil. Rian, it was nice to meet you and thanks for such a crucial moment and hate that we lost you so soon!

It was nice to finally see Gil-Galad not just be a giant prick and kind of show that he's a badass.

But this was definitely not a battle of Helm's Deep scale battle. The guys using the tool to yank apart the wall, were there for like an hour pulling apart the wall. It was maybe 5 orcs the entire time and the elves never shot at them once they got to the wall. And seeing as you have these massive trebuchets that will literally collapse the side of a mountain, why not just aim them at the wall instead of having 5 guys use some dumb tool that barely work that takes an hour to do.

Nothing to do with Adar does it for me. So almost the entire premise of the battle just doesn't do it for me. I don't care one bit about orcs going against Sauron/orcs having a place to raise a family and not being slaves of Sauron. THEY ARE ORCS< NO ONE CARES ABOUT ORCS. Sorry, but it is ok for some characters to just be bad. There doesn't have to be a good or bad moral dilemma.

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The Sauron/Celebrimbor scenes were once again the best part.

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with every single character or race.

Without a doubt. The past two episodes even the dwarves have fallen off a bit for me, but the Sauron/Celebrimbor scenes are very very good.

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I don't know. Prince Durin had me about ready to run through a brick wall after his speech.

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Eh. Durin has by far been my favorite part of the show. And it's really not even close. But starting a rebellion to go against your father and king just because you don't like what the ring is doing to him is just kind of lame. I mean his father's greed is obviously not a good thing, but so far, to 99% of the dwarves it's been something that is bringing them utold wealth and they don't even know he is going a bit crazy. We're just an episode or two away from dad Durin saving them by going down and telling them where to dig and bringing light back to the mountain. Now son Durin makes a little one minute speech that probably 20 of them can hear and all of a sudden the entire mountain is shouting in unison ready to rebel. Come on. Like I say, Durin has for sure been my favorite part of the show, but this is too much and just out of character for him and the dwarves in general,

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the horse jumped in the air like a ninja a kicked an orc 20 feet backwards.

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This was the part that made me say WTF. How many people in the editing bay saw that and said “looks good to me.” Did they expect that to be a powerful scene that got people hyped up for the battle?

My problem with the orcs is how human they made them seem. Especially when Elrond and company were riding up in the beginning. It reminded me of the scene when the Scots were taunting the British in Braveheart.

Agree on the battle as it was missing something. It had moments and the troll I liked but just no flow with the battle.

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My problem with the orcs is how human they made them seem. Especially when Elrond and company were riding up in the beginning. It reminded me of the scene when the Scots were taunting the British in Braveheart.

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Season one I thought the orcs was one of the best things they did. They had a good look to them, non cgi and a scary look to them. When you give them families and a storyline where they are wanting a homeland and not wanting to fight, they lose any cool factor and aren't scary at all.

Peter Jackson actually cut back on their talking. They talked a little more in the books than in the movies but it worked. He was clearly going for a scary, evil, and intimidating orc. These orcs are just chatting it up trying to live their best life.

Season finale next week. Curious about how they do things with Celebrimbor.

It is terrible. A billion dollar turd.