Duncan Idaho said:
Watched the first 2 light night. Random thoughts
It was ok. You can tell the spent some money to make it but it still felt like a TV show not a movie.
The cave scene was well done.
The chick playing Galadriel is not hard on the eyes
I don't like the clearly female dwarves but then I am sure if they made them closer to the books a certain group of people would be complaining about how that would be grooming.
The sailing to the west part was good but man the implications were dark. It stuck me as closer to Leif's sacrifice in Vikings than the happily riding off into the sunset that I always imagined. Basically the elfs are a giant death cult and by getting on the boat to cross the sea, they are effectively committing suicide
I would have like to have seen more of the mines.
Yeah, I don't know if people here are being intentionally dense or if they're just too close to the source material, but I definitely had similar thoughts as you. I think the previous poster was far too hung up on the Valhalla comparison. I knew that Valinor was supposed to be akin to the afterlife (and one akin to christian mythology, at that). That said, I had never imagined it as a completely distinct plane of existence, such that elves would literally have to shed their physical forms to enter. It definitely gives the whole idea of "sailing west" at the end of ROTK a different feel. I don't think your characterization of it being a suicide cult of sorts are far off. If you willingly get on a boat that you know will lead to the end of your corporeal form, that's pretty much the definition of a death cult - even if you are 100% certain that it will lead to your resurrection in some better place.
Like you, I read the books long ago and have only really seen the movies in recent history. And anything in the extended anthologies is beyond my scope - as I suspect it is with the vast majority of the show's audience.