How We Read Rings of Power

[Michael Murry]

I finally found a way to watch and listen to this Amazon television thing without having to pay Jeff Bezos any of my few and hard-earned pennies. I tuned in to the DELETED BY ADMIN channel and found several uploaded episodes. The ones in English are marked "restricted," as expected. However, I discovered some dubbed in other languages, like Hindi. I took a few courses in Sanskrit in graduate school but I never followed up on that, and I don't speak Hindi, but "Galadriel" appears to sound the same in many languages. So I got the gist of the opening scene in Episode One without the need for any written subtitles which would have required of me an ability to read. Now a complete illiterate (like millions of television gawkers worldwide) I just look at moving visual images and listen to musical accompaniment and wait for something that makes sense to happen in my brain.

With the above in mind, I picked up on the following observation from our thread commentary:

Bêthberry: "I think there is a lot of room to show how a younger Galadriel behaved or misbehaved before she found some equanimity or serene wisdom."

The opening scene of Episode 1 showed a young blond girl having problems with other kids who threw rocks at, and eventually sank, her origami boat floating downstream, whereupon she attacked the responsible culprit and proceeded to punch him out until some apparently male figure with very short hair appeared on scene. "He" called her name -- the only word I could understand -- and interrupted the beating.

I hit the "pause" button and stopped viewing at this time because something recognizable happened in my brain. I found that the opening of this video:

[DELETED BY ADMIN]

Reminded me of the opening scene of another movie I have seen many times over the years:

[DELETED BY ADMIN]

I then skipped ahead to the end of this first episode because others had mentioned a streaking meteor flashing overhead, with a curly haired, furry footed (apparently) female character checking out the crash site and seeing a semi-naked figure curled up in the fetal position at the bottom of a flaming hole. Someone else said that this reminded them of "Starman," and I agree. However I also thought of "Superman," and "The Blob," among other movies that have exploited this trope.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for the "spoilers." These will help me to select scenes and put names to the figures I see "doing stuff" while the background music plays and they utter inchoate noises at each other. Whether that helps me make sense of these broadcasts remains presently unclear . . .