{"id":466,"date":"2022-09-24T17:40:27","date_gmt":"2022-09-24T17:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/john-shirley.com\/blog\/?p=466"},"modified":"2022-09-24T17:49:35","modified_gmt":"2022-09-24T17:49:35","slug":"my-feeling-about-the-rings-of-power-series-five-episodes-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/john-shirley.com\/blog\/my-feeling-about-the-rings-of-power-series-five-episodes-in\/","title":{"rendered":"My feeling about the Rings of Power series, five episodes in"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u2026I find it to be, er, enjoyab<\/em>le, with its good actors, charming proto-hobbits, vivid landscapes (though some are perhaps a bit too much like images from Bible movies, a little cheesy\u2026) but it stalls for me in exactly the marshes I anticipated when I heard about the show: the dire, fearsome marsh of American television writing. When the writers attempt what they suppose to be Tolkienesque dialogue, they often manage something serviceable, but they also fill in with dialogue that clunks, and that doesn’t even make sense when you look at what’s said closely. This, you would never find in Tolkien or the Jackson films. Indeed–you won’t find those clunky bits in a more effective television fantasy world, Game of Thrones: House of Dragons. I’m not that big a fan of Game of Thrones but I think this new iteration is pretty strong and at least the dialogue usually holds up. That’s probably because George RR Martin goes over it before filming. . . I was quite annoyed when, in Rings of Power, Galadriel translated a scrap of parchment in the Black Tongue and it (ham-handedly) mentioned the agenda of Sauron, and said something about bringing “evil back” to a dominance in the world. As if villains think they’re evil. Or that they serve evil per se. That bit was very clumsy simple minded television writing\u2026 I don’t think orcs in Tolkien burn in the sunlight, like vampires, but perhaps that’ll be justified later–perhaps later orcs are a different version, as with Saruman’s special breeding program. It seems like a weak “let’s throw in some vampire-story logic to make this work” sort of writing ploy. The Lord Halbrand business feels like Strider\/Aragorn redux\u2026Other story points are weak rubbings on the movies\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are some exciting moments in this series. When it works it’s like a high quality B movie in the fantasy vein, like an old Sinbad movie, or one of George Pal’s lesser efforts\u2026Enjoyable. Apart from the occasional wince\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026I find it to be, er, enjoyable, with its good actors, charming proto-hobbits, vivid landscapes (though some are perhaps a bit too much like images from Bible movies, a little cheesy\u2026) but it stalls for me in exactly the marshes I anticipated when I heard about the show: the dire, fearsome marsh of American television…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMy feeling about the Rings of Power series, five episodes in - John Shirley Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/john-shirley.com\/blog\/my-feeling-about-the-rings-of-power-series-five-episodes-in\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My feeling about the Rings of Power series, five episodes in - 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