Costumes, sets and other visuals of TROP

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Well, at least Bronwyn got to cover her naked shoulders in episode 6! Still uncomfortable to have those straps cutting into her skin though...

[Bêthberry]

I'm going to post this comment on Lommy's thread even though the topic does not include music. But I think this comment nonetheless fits with the qualities that Lommy was finding valuable.

It comes from a friend who is deeply read in Tolkien and who has spent time studying with loremasters to learn more about his writing. In other words, she is not a casual fan or fangirl and Tolkien's writing is very important to her. She knows chapter and verse and the biographies and Letters quite well.

I think it speaks to what can be valuable in the Rings of Power series. Warts and all, the series can produce new appreciations of Tolkien's orginal texts.

Originally Posted by knowledgeable Tolkien reader

I can't believe that, after 57 years of reading it, only when I heard the Ring Poem sung at the end of Ep. 8 did it strike me there are two meanings to "In the land of Mordor, where the shadows LIE."

Full disclosure: That song, and its singing, brought tingles to my spine. The music of course is not part of the original work.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I am really very unimpresed- dare I say disappointed? - with the costuming, given the budget this thing had. Not just Jackson's trilogy but also the much less costly House of the Dragon knocks it into a cocked hat- and that's even if we forgive RoP the ghastly armor, since almost no Hollywood production does that decently.

Nor can I join the chorus of approval for the Harfoots' (Harfeet's?) "camouflage"- anyone who hunts or grows up in deer-hunting country realizes that using antlers to hide with is a really, really, really bad idea.

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

I am really very unimpresed- dare I say disappointed? - with the costuming, given the budget this thing had. Not just Jackson's trilogy but also the much less costly House of the Dragon knocks it into a cocked hat- and that's even if we forgive RoP the ghastly armor, since almost no Hollywood production does that decently.

That seems to be the trend in the business these days. A friend shared something written in a Facebook post by Nolan Yost. He's a hairstylist (I don't think he's ever been involved in film production) but I think makes insightful comments on what he called the "Shein era of mass media." He makes accurate comparison to Jackson's costume department in Lord of the Rings, Amazon's Rings of Power, and HBO's House of the Dragon. Yes, we're seeing ludicrous budgets, but these streaming services are cutting costs in their costume departments and cutting the pre-production time to get out these shows and movies as quickly as possible.

(Editing the language that goes against forum policies):

In case anyone else is super annoyed by every single new show ending up being “mid” and wondering why it’s basically because of the New Studio System™ of streaming services and the constant push for content at all cost as fast as possible, and here’s what you’re not noticing (that you actually do notice every time) that’s making it worse.

Basically because of the extreme push to make the ✨New Best Thing✨ that executives believe can grab a huge dedicated fan base, the pre-production time for creating MASSIVE new visual feasts is fractured into mere months alongside a severely lessened budget because of the huge extra costs of rushing each department to meet the proposed deadline. I can’t speak professionally for set design or VFX and cinemomatography, but I can say that the toll it takes on costuming and hair/makeup has made almost every new release from Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu have a B movie visual quality that’s becoming harder and harder to ignore the more we’re flooded with it.

For instance, with the upcoming Rings of Power by Amazon, the reason Peter Jackson’s original trilogy stands so strongly 20+ years later is partly because the production spent years hand making every single piece of armor with real metal, hand dyeing all natural fiber fabrics and designing distinct embroidery and hairstyles specific to each race in middle earth that had continuity through the story. The natural dyes and dedicated layers of fabrics for elves/weaves for hobbit wool/dyes for Men had a much more muted medieval look, yet ethereal because of the slight detail you don’t REALLY notice but the depth draws your eye to every inch of the costume regardless. In figure 1 you can see they barely scrapped together an unnaturally gilded scale mail breastplate and just screenprinted a stretch long sleeve shirt to match underneath, all over a skirt in a single layer of a warped poly skirt. In figure 4 they just saved money on an elven wig altogether for a 2022 pompadour, with a velvet pleated priest smock (with crushed parts not even steamed out) and a neckline that isn’t tailored to fit like weve seen previously with Elrond or Celeborn.

Bridgerton (figure 2)I’ve ******* about enough already and it’s obviously not meant to be historically accurate which is totally fine, but the extreme RIT dye colorways on the multitudes on synthetic fabrics, the lack of topstitching on any of the mens tailoring and complete lack of any embellishment like beadwork or embroidery or proper undergarments to make the costuming fit correctly just make them look like a “regency gentleman” pattern from a McCall’s catalogue someone made really well for a Halloween party.

With the new house of the dragon show there’s already articles written about the wigs, and one of the main reasons they look so terrible is because they had to use synthetic hair for the Targaryen wigs. I’m 100% sure it’s due to budget, Daenerys’ wigs for season 8 were in the tens of thousands in cost. Because long white blonde human hair that has to be custom made into multiple wigs for a single character is a HUGE ask for a studio to approve budget-wise, there’s was most likely someone that decided to go with synthetic because of how many white bLondres they have in the show. The problem is that synthetic hair reflects light throughout the whole hair shaft, and it tangles extremely easily. With any shot where a character isn’t actively moving or is performing dialogue and the hair isnt being actively smoothed down every couple of second between shots, each flyaway is going to show up on camera if there’s any indirect lighting and look messy. Not only that, synthetic hair is also twice as thick per strand than human hair, so regardless of that the wigs are going to look bulky in an uncanny valley sort of way.

It’s been noticeable af with marvel the last few years, and it’s been super noticeable recently with every new show that gets rushed through to filming in order to get a release date within 1-2 years of a green light, but it’s going to be so ******* awful in 15-20 years looking back at all the potentially great but cheaply made media from this time period, the Shein era of Mass Media.