The Rings of Powers Season Three press release is out now. I’d like to comment on just one passage from it.
(more…)Tag: the lord of the rings
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Here’s another installment about some of the things I learned about Tolkien and The Silmarillion by writing a book about it. This one is about how the vast spans of time in The Silmarillion are easy to overlook (and lead to assumptions), and about how no group in Tolkien’s legendarium is truly homogeneous.
read about things “uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome” -
Go not to me for true film criticism, for I will say both “It was great!” and “It wasn’t that great” about almost anything. Almost.
But! It’s 2024, and I got to take my family to see a Lord of the Rings film in December just as it premiered. That felt . . . good, and a tiny bit nostalgic. I still have more enthusiasm in me than disappointment, and as always, more Tolkien is better than less Tolkien. Even poorly made Tolkien adaptations (which this wasn’t) is an excuse to talk about Tolkien . . .
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Here is an admittedly long bullet list of some of my thoughts and opinions concerning the first episode of the Rings of Power season 2 episode 1, “Elven Kings Under the Sky.” I say “some” because I simply cannot contain them all! Spoilers, of course, abound.
An important disclaimer: I do not hate The Rings of Power. I’m still watching and I am very entertained. I do wish I was more than entertained by it, because it’s inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien. The show is still far and away the best fantasy television series around.
But here I would like to record many of my opinions. And they are only opinions.
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What did Sauron look like, really? What’s his deal? Was he ever a flaming eyeball on top of a tower? Probably not. Was he a creepy-as-hell humanoid with nine black fingers when he tortured Gollum? Yes. Was he a big guy in spiky black armor when he fought Gil-galad and Elendil on the slopes of Mt. Doom? Possibly. Was he a friendly Elvish-looking mentor when he was “cozening” the Elf-smiths of Eregion? Almost certainly.
He can, in theory, be all of the above. How about a handsome actor like Charlie Vickers? Or a, ummm, Jack Lowden? Apparently!
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A musing on the Lord of the Nazgûl and his misunderstanding of the “no living man” prophecy that made him fatally smug. I think about this every time the topic of the Witch-King comes up, and I don’t see anyone talking about it, so now I have to. It goes something like this. . . .
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Foreshadowed and Foresung 