bkag9824 said:

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CondensedFoggyAggie said:

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cbr said:

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So do you disagree? Do you find this actress to look in the ballpark of a 4000 year old most beautiful elf queen that ever lived? Or this actor (any of these dudes) really fitting the heroic immortal elf lords?

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Oh God dude seriously can you just stop with this gotta cast the most spectacularly beautiful elf queen in the whole galaxy for a billion years thing that is getting stranger and stranger?

That or just text me the address of that supermarket that has 10 hotter women than Galadriel at any time of the day.

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I guess Kate Beckinsale is too much to ask?

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That type of beauty, yes, but she doesn't as the golden-haired Galadriel, unless you could make her a super-convincing blonde. From what I watched, I didn't have a problem with the actress herself. She's not a otherworldly beauty, but immortal elf-queens are tough to find, even in Hollywood.

Galadriel's casting is fine. It's not an easy part to cast. On the one hand she's like the oldest woman in Middle Earth. On the other hand, she's also the most beautiful women and one of the greatest warriors. That puts the casting director in an impossible position. Audiences expect a beautiful woman on tv to be young and very thin, but a great warrior would be butch.

Morfydd Clark's is doing as well as could be expected.

Chipotlemonger said:

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ABATTBQ11 said:

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The thing is, Galadriel is supposed to be terrifyingly beautiful. An 8 or 9 off the street is frumpy in comparison. This girl is a solid 7-8

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Man, get over it. It's fantasy, and it's not like they scraped the bottom of the barrel by ANY means.

"She is SUPPOSED to be a 10. I don't think she's a 10. Show sucks." is basically what you sound like.

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"Oh no! Someone has a different opinion and isn't woke enough for me! Time to be an ***hat!" is basically what you sound like. Many think she's frumpy for the role. For a character defined by her imposing beauty and incidence they cast the girl next door, among other mistakes. Yes, the casting leaves much to be desired. Get over it and yourself. Sorry not sorry.

I mentioned this already, but my favorite elf is Arondir. I still think his mere existence is goofy, due to my already mentioned opinion on races in Middle-earth. However, he very much seems like an elf scout, guarding an outpost at a far frontier. I guess, he just feels the least like a human with pointy ears.

I liked the intro in the first episode, and wished they had given us more.

I liked the portrayal of the orc. Genuinely added a horror element to these creatures. They are not just ugly weapon fodder, but big brutes. In the books, the orcs are much harder to dispatch, aside from certain of our heroes who are said to have such a high martial prowess.

Nazanin Boniadi is the hottest person in the show, and she plays a frumpy human.

A lot of this show, I like the idea they are going for, but don't care much for the execution. For example, the Southlands outpost. Here was an opportunity to show us a remote land we've never seen before. If you wanted different races, here was your chance. Give us an entire race of people who live out there. I love the idea that the Elves do not trust these people because of what their ancestors did. It is just like the Elves to be slow to trust a people they themselves spent centuries fighting.

I don't like making the human/elf relationships such a thing in every LotR story, but if you were going to use that as an explanation for Arondir being a darker skin color, then making his backstory one where his father was posted out here and fell in love with a woman from the southlands would at least explain it.

I'm sure the reason everyone in the Southlands isn't brown or black is because the writers didn't want to imply that all the darkskin peoples aligned with our big evil guy. But you can easily write a story where they are coerced or are driven into forced service to Sauron.

Again, I'm looking for immersion in Middle-Earth based media. Tolkien is the godfather of modern fantasy, and was a pioneer when it came to creating a fully realized world. To take that world and *******ize it simply for stupid reasons will make anyone who truly appreciates world-building agitated.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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I just hope they don't delve too greedily and too deep...

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I was hoping the Balrog would just be hanging out, like he had been there all along and then they had a bad breakup and he turned bad.

The Porkchop Express said:

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DallasTeleAg said:

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So when so much money is thrown at this IP, we want quality. We don't want woke agendas, or any other agenda other than bringing a world we love to life, in the most faithful way possible.

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Then you're probably not going to like the breaking news that Kevin Hart has been cast as Glorfindel for Season 2.

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I would, for more reasons than you'd think. I can't stand Kevin Hart.

NVM.

So, onto show discussion - what are the current betting odds on the ID of the stranger? Is this our Sauron?

DallasTeleAg said:

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Also, some of you could use a little empathy. Maybe think that some of us are highly critical because it is such a beloved IP. Some of you have watched the movies a lot. Some of us have spent hours and hours of our lives reading the stories, delving deeper in the other works, and it built our foundation on what we love about storytelling and fantasy.

It just means so much.

So when so much money is thrown at this IP, we want quality. We don't want woke agendas, or any other agenda other than bringing a world we love to life, in the most faithful way possible.

I think the show has been fine. It's good enough that I will continue to watch it with hopes it gets really good. This is more than I can say for shows like She-Hulk, which I abandoned after episode 1.

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I get the reasons you're critical.

You say this in a previous post: "I'm sure the reason everyone in the Southlands isn't brown or black is because the writers didn't want to imply that all the darkskin peoples aligned with our big evil guy. But you can easily write a story where they are coerced or are driven into forced service to Sauron."

In the Third Age, the south most regions are Gondor and Mordor. Gondor isn't very dark. So, in the Second Age, why do the Southlanders have to be something different?

My point is this: I can buy into things not being the same as they were in the Third Age because it's literally thousands of years between ages. People have conquered peoples. Lands have changed hands.

nm

The Porkchop Express said:

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So, onto show discussion - what are the current betting odds on the ID of the stranger? Is this our Sauron?

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My predictions would be:

1. A blue wizard
2. Balrog
3. New character
4. Gandalf
5. Sauron (But this one just doesn't make much sense to me as Sauron should still physically exist.)

Brian, since I just caught up yesterday, who are your favorite 2-3 characters so far?

I did edit out my post because I thought my post was a distraction and it's not my place to tell someone else what to think.

Would you mind editing it out so we can stay on track?

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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The Porkchop Express said:

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So, onto show discussion - what are the current betting odds on the ID of the stranger? Is this our Sauron?

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My predictions would be:

1. A blue wizard
2. Balrog
3. New character
4. Gandalf
5. Sauron (But this one just doesn't make much sense to me as Sauron should still physically exist.)

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Likely one of the wizards. Hopefully one of the blue wizards, as that wouldn't contradict canon and their stories were only lightly told leaving room to flesh them out.

Sauron left his mark in the ice cave/castle, and was shown in the beginning of episode one (gathering Orcs after the fall of Morgoth) in essentially the same form he was in the flashback in the beginning of Fellowship. I agree that it would be odd for him to come crashing down in a meteor, and it would make Galadriel's critics correct that she had them on a wild goose chase all over middle earth all that time.

The Stranger's interactions with the Harfoot girl also don't speak of evil pretense, but rather confusion after being incorporated. Nor do I think the writers would set up our innocent heroine's instincts to help to inadvertently aid evil.

The Porkchop Express said:

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Brian, since I just caught up yesterday, who are your favorite 2-3 characters so far?

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Galadriel (Her being a warrior just didn't bug me all that much.)
Elrond
Durin's wife

I really hope for a new character, but there isn't much to pull from. Falling from the sky like that means forces outside of Middle Earth. That leaves one of the Valar (definite no), Maiar, or something I've never heard of.

The Balrogs were already in Middle-Earth, at this point. This guy doesn't look elvish, so probably not Glorfindel or some other elf sent back. I also don't think Sauron returned to Valinor.

Maybe a "proto-istari"? If so, then whoever sent him purposefully sent him to the Harfoots, and didn't want the Elves to know about him. We know the 5 Istari were what they were. However, that doesn't mean another one of the Maia was never sent to Middle Earth before, I guess.

DallasTeleAg said:

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Beat40 said:

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DallasTeleAg said:

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Also, some of you could use a little empathy. Maybe think that some of us are highly critical because it is such a beloved IP. Some of you have watched the movies a lot. Some of us have spent hours and hours of our lives reading the stories, delving deeper in the other works, and it built our foundation on what we love about storytelling and fantasy.

It just means so much.

So when so much money is thrown at this IP, we want quality. We don't want woke agendas, or any other agenda other than bringing a world we love to life, in the most faithful way possible.

I think the show has been fine. It's good enough that I will continue to watch it with hopes it gets really good. This is more than I can say for shows like She-Hulk, which I abandoned after episode 1.

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I get the reasons you're critical.

You say this in a previous post: "I'm sure the reason everyone in the Southlands isn't brown or black is because the writers didn't want to imply that all the darkskin peoples aligned with our big evil guy. But you can easily write a story where they are coerced or are driven into forced service to Sauron."

In the Third Age, the south most regions are Gondor and Mordor. Gondor isn't very dark. So, in the Second Age, why do the Southlanders have to be something different?

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My point was more so around building a geographical story around a different race if you want to introduce one. I have absolutely nothing against putting other races in the world. It is a natural part of our human anthropology. At the end of the day, I also can live with how they did it, but it ruins any immersion the story held for me.

I've already said Arondir is probably my favorite character and best portrayal of an elf. I just expect storytellers to tell me a story around the visuals they present. I understand Hollywood is just pushing representation for the sake of representation, and causing story and world-building to suffer. That's fine, go for it. I'm going to call it lazy and claim the world they built is crap.

Hell, in my recommendation in introducing an entire region you'd not seen yet, as a different race, you would have EVEN MORE people of color in the series.

I just hate lazy storytelling. Take Into the Spiderverse, for example. I think that is the best Spiderman story we have been given by Hollywood. Did they destroy the Spiderman mythology we had spent the last many decades consuming and loving? No. They built a new story that fit within the narrative, and came out with an exceptional piece of cinema. That's all I'm asking for.

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My edit is to just explain that I am not really wanting an argument, just that I'm explaining why I'm more ok with not having as much historical background on the people groups. I'll not post on it anymore so we can move on to better discussion.

I apologize. I am not being clear in what my point is and in turn it my be misrepresenting your point as well. I understand your point about wanting a reason for people being where they are.

I feel as if were just jumping into the middle of a story with people already doing things. History has already occurred when we're jumping into the story and I guess I feel it's kind of hard to give a quick rundown of that history before each new group of people with which we're introduced and why they are where they are. Much easier to do in a book.

I guess I'm saying I don't really need a reason why people are where they are because of the thousands years time difference between the Second and Third Ages. It's fun to know the people of Rohan were from the north and given their land for helping Gondor. That certainly establishes a stronger bond between the two people groups. But honestly, if we never got that they were originally from the north and were only told they were once strong allies of Gondor, it wouldn't have changed the story at all for me being dropped into it at the point and time we were.