After rewatching first three episodes...

[Ilana Mushin]

not wholly conviced here - we are evaluating the series as any product - on the basis of what we have been promised in advance...

I’m not entirely sure what you felt you were promised then. The only thing I feel was promised by the very early promotion of the Second Age map with Numenor on it was that the story would be set in the 2nd Age. They’ve delivered on that.

 

[Ilana Mushin]

I guess I'm arguing for it as a story in its own right. For me, marketing and trailers aren't handled by the same creative team and are products in themselves. There have been astonishing trailers for lackluster products and I can still appreciate the trailer as its own piece of art for example. That's maybe slightly by-the-by though

I don’t experience shows as products and so I can’t evaluate the show as a product - it is a massively complex artistic imagining of some of Tolkien’s world and as such operates on many levels (Visual, musical, thematic, acting as well as narrative structure - and that’s not even touching the engagement with source material.

 

[Rob Harding]

I don’t experience shows as products and so I can’t evaluate the show as a product - it is a massively complex artistic imagining of some of Tolkien’s world and as such operates on many levels (Visual, musical, thematic, acting as well as narrative structure - and that’s not even touching the engagement with source material.

Sorry, when I said product that is because I'm currently in work mode lol. I should've said a piece of art. I mean, they are products but that's not the point of analysis we are using here.

 

[Odola]

I guess I'm arguing for it as a story in its own right. For me, marketing and trailers aren't handled by the same creative team and are products in themselves. There have been astonishing trailers for lackluster products and I can still appreciate the trailer as its own piece of art for example. That's maybe slightly by-the-by though

You mean - lets imagine all the characters renamed to some random names and see it it works then - tried that actually from the very beginning - still the dialogue did kill me... that was I believe what made it in the end unwatchable for me...

 

[Odola]

Sorry, when I said product that is because I'm currently in work mode lol. I should've said a piece of art. I mean, they are products but that's not the point of analysis we are using here.

I have said product before you and I stand by it. A piece of art is still a product when it is being sold, taxed or advertised for.

 

[Ilana Mushin]

I have said product before you and I stand by it. A piece of art is still a product when it is being sold, taxed or advertised for.

But is that how you experience art? Isn’t the main thing about how we as audience experience art? Tolkien himself was very strong on this point (Fwd to 2nd ed of LotR for example, and letter to Milton Waldman)

 

[Odola]

But is that how you experience art? Isn’t the main thing about how we as audience experience art? Tolkien himself was very strong on this point (Fwd to 2nd ed of LotR for example, and letter to Milton Waldman)

Actually LOTR is a comission - the most product-like of art forms. It started out as a product that the publisher asked him to write - a sequel to the Hobbit. Tolkien highjacked the project to make art within. But it started out not as a free artistic expression. So what Tolkien wanted to make art - but even in his time he was forced to package it into a marketable product. Nowaday he could simply self-publish and that would be very interesting to see - would the end-result be even readable?
I experience art more as a form of communication. Still when it is sold an bought then it is a product.

 

[Haerangil]

Would anyone here be interested in trading ideas for a 2nd Age story based on JRRTs notes? Would there be a place for such a discussion here? A creative room? I thinkmtrop could be an excellent foil... as i can hardly think or discuss about it without imagining "well, how would i have done it?"

 

[Ilana Mushin]

Actually LOTR is a comission - the most product-like of art forms. It started out as a product that the publisher asked him to write - a sequel to the Hobbit. Tolkien highjacked the project to make art within. But it started out not as a free artistic expression. So what Tolkien wanted to make art - but even in his time he was forced to packege it into a marketable product. Nowaday he could simply self-publish and that would be very interesting to see - would the end-result be even readable?

It really doesn’t matter to me what prompted and influenced the Lord of the Rings. The result is magnificent. My joy comes from my moment by moment engagement and immersion. From the perspective of a receiver/experience of art (and I’m talking about any art here) isn’t that how art is supposed to work?

 

[Odola]

It really doesn’t matter to me what prompted and influenced the Lord of the Rings. The result is magnificent. My joy comes from my moment by moment engagement and immersion. From the perspective of a receiver/experience of art (and I’m talking about any art here) isn’t that how art is supposed to work?

One can feel this way even about the form of a car or an airplane - or a horse - is it a piece of art then?
Art is a kind of human expression - something artificial - intended by a human mind - the border between artifact and artwork is thin. Still boths can be products the very moment they are sold or bought or stolen or access resticted...

Actually artworks might have become products when people started to sign or attach author's names to them. Then the whole "ownership" and copyright questions started to occur. Before it was just: "pretty - lets admire it..."

 

[Rob Harding]

It's certainly both. But I think we're critiquing its artistic merit here as opposed to it's functionality or commercial value.

Would anyone here be interested in trading ideas for a 2nd Age story based on JRRTs notes? Would there be a place for such a discussion here? A creative room? I thinkmtrop could be an excellent foil... as i can hardly think or discuss about it without imagining "well, how would i have done it?"

If we're gonna talk about Blue Wizards, then yes lol. I've shared before a pitch I had for a ttrpg story set in the Third Age (2759 specifically) so always interested to explore other pockets of the world outside the main narratives

 

[Ragnelle]

Was it an adaption or an "inspired by" story then? RoP is being marketed as Tolkien. As such we do not go in for the story itself but for Tolkien. Otherwise they would have teased the story in the teaser. And they did not.

But RoP is very clearly marked as "based on", not as "Tolkien". It's right there in the opening sequence. That is the main reason that I have much less heated reactions to RoP than to Jackson's movies. It has been very clear for me from the beginning that we are not getting a story that Tolkien wrote, but a gap-filler.

My main problem with RoP feeling or not feeling like Tolkien, is the mystery box kind of storytelling that I think was too much of a feature, especially in the first episodes. And I don't mean the big mysteries - like who is Sauron, and who the Stranger is. But the smaller, to me completely unnecessary ones. Like Elendil not introducing himself to Galadriel and Halbrand on the ship. Or telling them where they are going. That feels so opposite to how most of Tolkien's characters acts. Even when we meet Aragorn the first time at Bree, he gives Frodo a name as almost the first thing, even if it is an alias. Besides, with how every story is spoiled up front in the Silmarillion, the secrecy feels rather off to me.

As to how well the first season sets up the next - it is clearly not meant to resolve any mayor plots. I guess time will tell whether it works as an introduction to the rest or not, whether that means plot-wise or in manageing to capture their audience. They need to leave their viewers wanting to see more, or they won't come back to see the rest.

 

[Rob Harding]

On the note of the Stranger and Halbrand, these didn’t bother me as the characters didn’t know. Watching the show, I didn’t feel like I ought to know more about Halbrand. And nobody knew who the Stranger was. I wanted to know but that was just me having prior knowledge. I got that it didn’t make sense in that story for the Harfoots to identify him. It was only when I stuck my head out and saw the internet theorising that it felt like a mystery box thing. In its own silo, it worked I felt.

 

[Odola]

But RoP is very clearly marked as "based on", not as "Tolkien".

At the end after the backlash to the trailers. But this not how the series has been described before.

All the mistery boxing just added to the general sense of randomnes. And randomes bores me, as here is nothing really to follow, nothing to root for - as anything and nothing can happen at anytime out of nowhere. So there was little setup actually - all it set up in the end was that anything can happen if the authors fancy it, whether it makes sense or not.

 

[Ilana Mushin]

On the note of the Stranger and Halbrand, these didn’t bother me as the characters didn’t know. Watching the show, I didn’t feel like I ought to know more about Halbrand. And nobody knew who the Stranger was. I wanted to know but that was just me having prior knowledge. I got that it didn’t make sense in that story for the Harfoots to identify him. It was only when I stuck my head out and saw the internet theorising that it felt like a mystery box thing. In its own silo, it worked I felt.

I felt similar - I’d never heard of mystery box storytelling before this season and felt it was amplified by the discourse surrounding the show. It didn’t bother me but I can see why it might bother people.

 

[Rob Harding]

I felt similar - I’d never heard of mystery box storytelling before this season and felt it was amplified by the discourse surrounding the show. It didn’t bother me but I can see why it might bother people.

It’s very much a JJ Abrams style and became popular with Lost where it was the very intentional thrust of the show. Lots of mysteries and each time you think something is answered, it just asks more questions

 

[Haerangil]

Mystery box is a slogan... sadly to me the who is Adar/Stranger/Halbrand/Sauron thing didn't really thrill me or make the show more interesting.It didn't bother me though.The battle for Tirharad DID bother me as bad written and illogical as it was.Not a mystery...

 

[Ilana Mushin]

But RoP is very clearly marked as "based on", not as "Tolkien". It's right there in the opening sequence. That is the main reason that I have much less heated reactions to RoP than to Jackson's movies. It has been very clear for me from the beginning that we are not getting a story that Tolkien wrote, but a gap-filler.

My main problem with RoP feeling or not feeling like Tolkien, is the mystery box kind of storytelling that I think was too much of a feature, especially in the first episodes. And I don't mean the big mysteries - like who is Sauron, and who the Stranger is. But the smaller, to me completely unnecessary ones. Like Elendil not introducing himself to Galadriel and Halbrand on the ship. Or telling them where they are going. That feels so opposite to how most of Tolkien's characters acts. Even when we meet Aragorn the first time at Bree, he gives Frodo a name as almost the first thing, even if it is an alias. Besides, with how every story is spoiled up front in the Silmarillion, the secrecy feels rather off to me.

As to how well the first season sets up the next - it is clearly not meant to resolve any mayor plots. I guess time will tell whether it works as an introduction to the rest or not, whether that means plot-wise or in manageing to capture their audience. They need to leave their viewers wanting to see more, or they won't come back to see the rest.

Tolkien introduces characters mysteriously several times in LoTR. Aragorn is a case in point - when we meet him in Bree both we and the Hobbits have no idea whether to trust him or not. Faramir is introduced in the same way. Gandalf when he returns to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli is disguised as Saruman and we readers don’t know that it isn’t Saruman either. Gandalf enters the War of the Five Armies in disguise so that Bilbo and the readers don’t know who he is.

The Silmarillion is a different kind of storytelling - written more like history where we learn the story from the perspective of the historian (Pengolodh?) than a story where we experience the story from the perspective of the characters (various in LoTR). RoP is being more like LoTR in this respect.

So with Elendil, we viewers have been told there are corsairs in that region so forget that you know anything about Numenor as a reader of Tolkien - I‘ve seen many stories where the person rescuing the people adrift at sea turn out to be pirates. I liked the way that Elendil was gradually introduced to us as a loyal captain of Numenor with some backstory given by Pharazon in dialogue. I much prefer that dramatisation to Elendil introducing him straight up to Galadriel and Halbrand.

 

[Odola]

I liked the way that Elendil was gradually introduced to us as a loyal captain of Numenor with some backstory given by Pharazon in dialogue. I

He just comes off as rude, insensitive and overbearing by unreasonably not introducing himself to vulnerable people in his power... Aragorn had an excuse - he was afraid of a trap. Elendil has all the power on his own ship.

That one of the problems. The plot it driven forward without regard how much it does impair the integrity and likeability of the characters.

 

[Ilana Mushin]

He just comes off as rude, insensitive and overbearing by unreasonably not introducing himself to vulnerable people in his power... Aragorn had an excuse - he was afraid of a trap. Elendil has all the power on his own ship.

That one of the problems. The plot it driven forward without regard how much it does impair the integrity and likeability of the characters.

As we learn as the season progresses, it was not straightforward decision for Elendil to rescue Galadriel. He is an underground member of The Faithful, and conflicted because this is clashing against the status quo and he is in real danger in how he is seen to be interacting with Galadriel. His decision to take an elf on board when no elf has been allowed in Numenor for generations is not straightforward and puts him at risk. His solution is to 'pass the buck' to the higher authority of the Queen Regent and the Chancellor and to try and appear aloof. To me this is sophisticated storytelling - the character's actions and motivations are consistent with what we find out later about him, at the same time giving us a lot of information about what is going on in Numenor politically and culturally.[/QUOTE]