"Rings of Power" trailer analysis

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

I am more concerned about the writing- and what I have seen of it suggests that this thing will make the MCU look like Shakespeare.

Me too. I think the visuals are stunning. I'm happy with the casting and the characters - sure, short-haired elves look a bit funny, but I can see their Elrond as the young heir of Earendil who will eventually mature into the Master of Rivendell, just as I can believe Arondir as a Wood-elf of some stripe. I'm not super happy about the names in Tirharad and with the Harfeet, but I can cope with them.

Even on the writing side... the dialogue we've heard is decent enough, allowing for the fact that it's been clipped for trailer lines. The overarching plot is fundamentally time-compressed Tolkien - I can accept that for narrative reasons. But the show is going to stand or fall on the in-between stages of the writing - the plot beats, the character decisions, the coincidences and dei ex machina which need to be invoked to get it all to hang together.

And we've seen... basically nothing of that. Galadriel thinks there's baddies around; Elrond apparently doesn't. Galadriel goes on a boat, maybe to Valinor, maybe gets shipwrecked. The dwarves don't like Elrond. Orcs are bad. Miriel has an army, a Palantir, and apparently a baby.

We have no idea how all that hangs together. I feel like we've seen the most out of Galadriel, but I could still write a dozen plots that would fit with her known scenes. It could be terrible! It could be awesome! We could have the entire sequence of events backwards, and the trailers and interviews could have been carefully cut to make us believe the opposite of what's actually in the show!

It's not going to be Tolkien. It can't be - he's dead, and he didn't leave us a novel of the Fall of Numenor, just an array of very brief summaries and some very old drafts. What I, personally, am hoping for is something that feels like an adaptation of the novel Tolkien didn't write - something as close to the hypothetical Numenor book as, say, the Jackson films were to LotR. Yes, there will be Osgiliations and random Haldirs, and "By Elbereth and Luthien the fair" will be replaced by "If you want him, come and claim him" - but I hope it will feel like I can see the book behind it, and imagine that I could reach in and pull a copy out to read.

(The Fall of Numenor doesn't count, though I fully intend to give it a place on my shelf alongside the Great Tales.)

hS