Amazon have apparently suspended reviews for a few days due to negative trolling.
I think this echoes my thoughts that it was a visual treat on a big screen - note potential mild spoilers in the text if you’ve not seen the episodes (I’ve not seen Ep 2 yet).
Maybe Jeff Bezos is nervous after spending a billion dollars on this turkey. (Although, again, if people here like it, more power to them.)
But can you honestly say you either enjoyed or understood The Silmarilion? I started it God knows how many times and then a day later when I picked ot up again I couldn’t for the life of me remember what had happened and had to start again. I never did get it read.
I might be thick but I don’t think so.
Same here most incomprehensible book I have read. Ahead of umberto eco even
Edit to add I have not actually ever read all of it! Bounced off it every time.
Read the books voraciously when I was younger (12-14). Not much interest since then, though I did see the trilogy films. Couldn’t make it through the first ten minutes due to the super cheesy aphorisms (though that’s often the downfall of most fantasy based entertainment imo). Amazon certainly didn’t spend much of that half a billion on writers, at least as far as I could tell…
I you want something mind blowing with exceptional photography, acting and pacing, check out the Korean Netflix crime thriller “A Model Family.” Truly astounding.
For many years I took Foucault’s pendulum on holiday but never quite finished it.
I’m not sure if it was the translation using somewhat obscure words or my lexical ignorance, but I felt I needed a dictionary on almost every page - at least once if not more frequently!
Yes, when I realised that I had to read it very differently. If LOTR is a quest tale (as well as many more things), the Silmarillion is like looking at the Eddas and similar fragmentary myth cycles. Reading it through that lens it has grandeur, depth, tempting glimpses into the world where demigods and angels walked the world, yet with the focus on the newer races and their struggles. Great epic tales of very flawed heroes, I love it.
The History of Middle Earth books are different again. Although you do get the powerful writing of great tragedies and triumphs, they are for me fascinating as we see JRRT work through different possible versions of his history.
I carried it around the world when we went back packing. Eventually read it 5 years later😂
It’s not about whether 50% of the audience were expecting a load of exciting battles in the first half hour or whether anyone has read the book. The acting was wooden and totally lacked character. Special effects were great, but not to the standard of Jackson quality.
I’m really not clear which books/appendices it is supposed to be based on - that may be a good thing.
Visually it was stunning, others mention slow pace but that’s not necessarily a bad thing in my view, except that if it’s a fail for the average viewer the chances of further series or adaptations may be slim from a commercial viewpoint.
Some of the elvish male prosthetics (mostly male) seemed a bit odd and chunky visually buy I have no idea what an elf is really supposed to look like!
Perhaps some dialogue was wooden, I still enjoyed the 1st episode. At least most of the characters had a British/Irish sounding accent, we could easily have ended up with a commercial offering full of US accents which never seems to work well with historical or fantasy movies.
It’s hard to tell after just two episodes but so far I thought Morfydd Clark was excellent as the young Galadriel I read one reviewer describe her as a fantasy Carrie Mathison which she is much more than Cate Blanchett’s wispy, ethereal version of Galadriel.
Nazanin Boniadi will grow into the character Bronwyn she is an exceptional actor and will no doubt be excellent in this too but apart from Lenny Henry who must decide if his Sadoc Burrows is from Galway or Bristol and Benjamin Walker who plays Gil-galad these are the only actors I’ve previously seen or heard of. So it’s a clean slate for most of the actors as it should be with material and characters as beloved as this. I thought Elijah Wood wasn’t great as Frodo nor was Martin Freeman as Bilbo but the story and the films carried them along with it.
As far as the special effects go so far the Orc in episode two made Peter Jackson’s Cockney Orcs look like creatures from Jason and Argonauts back in the 1970’s and the Snow Troll again was brilliant.
Yes, I’m afraid Elijah Wood never did anything for me in the trilogy and the other fawning (Sam) or ‘Ant and Dec’ characters really didn’t help.
I never managed to get through the 1st Hobbit movie, let alone the rest.
I enjoyed it, don’t get the criticism of slow pace it a TV show telling a story arc over 5 years doesn’t need to rush and it had plenty going on I thought. But they did rush the Galadriel intro and think this could have been paced better over two episodes. That aside nothing stood out as awful at all, some of the acting was a bit stiff but so is Tolkiens dialogue. I only ever read the TLOTR books so have no idea where this is going other than what I got from the footnotes etc. I’ll be watching more.
Morfydd Clark is a fine actor. There’s a lot going on in the first two episodes, perhaps too much? I wonder if the epic landscape and special effects would work better on a cinema screen? It is easy to see where the money was spent on a big screen, preferably wide screen. Waterloo and Napoleon are my touchstones.
Because the directors and writers have had a more or less clean sheet, basing the narratives sketched in the appendices to LOTR vol 3 we don’t always know who the characters are or where the plot is going. It is obvious that Galadriel has a quest, but we didn’t get much of a sense of an overall story line in the first two episodes, aside from Lord Celebrimbor preparing to forge the Rings of Power. Bronwyn is a strong character with more of an inner life.
I’ll watch the next episodes, I like the look of the thing, the Peter Jackson landscapes. I’m trying to disregard the fact that it cost so much, because this doesn’t always translate to the screen. I’m not really involved with the Dwarves or Elrond. The mysterious man rescued by Nori and Poppy is an interstellar traveler, I guess we will see how he fits into the epic later.
My daughter thought the elves looked too human, but I’m not sure what elves look like in imagination. Pointy ears are not enough, they need to look more uncanny?
Ah, the Silmarillion! I got the 1977 George Allen & Unwin 1st edition hardback as a present from my parents when I finished middle school (junior high). After practically spending the whole summer reading it with the help of several dictionaries, I was left with very comprehensive but oddly twisted English vocabulary… Still have the book, read it occasionally to refresh those mixed etymological and mythological roots.
Yes, I thought several of the male elves had exaggerated Sean Bean type facial features - maybe not prosthetics at all and actors chosen partly for their appearance, but typically I expect elves to have more gracile faces/features.
Tilda Swinton perhaps? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilda_Swinton#/media/File:Tilda_Swinton_Viennale_2018.jpg
I think Cate Blanchett did that wispy elf already.
Watched Ep 1 last night. Thought the dialogue was decidedly ropy and overall as a story it didn’t grab me, but visually it was stunning and I loved the scenery.
Our telly is really too big for the room it’s in but it came into its own watching this. I think I’ll try to forget about the LOTR connection and stick with it for at least another episode or two.
Roger
