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Victariongreyjoy
Rohan
Oct 7, 7:50am
Post #1 of 36
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If the Siege of Eregion is the best Amazon can do, then I'm worried...
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All though the episode was solid and it way a few steps up from that skirmish village battle they had in S1, it's still not close to any LOTR battles. Hell, even the smallest battle in GOT, Battle of Blackwater looks bigger. Amazon will all their money needs to step up if they want to deliver. I expect nothing than a massive scale battle that rivals the Pelennor Fields and 4x the Battle of Morannon.
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OldestDaughter
Rohan
Oct 7, 3:20pm
Post #2 of 36
(2209 views)
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I honestly thought it was pretty good for what it was
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No, definitely not like the Battle of Pelennor or Battle of Helm's Deep, but for what it was, it definitely gave me Silmarillion feelings. Mainly cuz of the horrors and blood lust of the orcs towards the elves. Mirdania's death and Celebrimbor's death didn't sit well with me, and I'm glad. They weren't meant to make you feel a little sad, they were meant to make you feel horrible inside, which they did well. I think I was more overcome with horror at their deaths, then I was over the battle itself. But I don't know if you can ever reach the same scale of Pelennor or Helm's Deep. But I do understand what you mean. In GoT I loved the Battle of Bastards and the Battle of Blackwater, and thought they were amazing for the Silver Screen. Maybe RoP will up their game.
"Keen, heart-piercing was her song as the song of the lark that rises from the gates of night and pours its voice among the dying stars, seeing the sun behind the walls of the world; and the song of Lúthien released the bonds of winter, and the frozen waters spoke, and flowers sprang from the cold earth where her feet had passed."
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Victariongreyjoy
Rohan
Oct 7, 3:54pm
Post #3 of 36
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At least it's better than the Witcher and WOT
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The bar is low, but it's Eregion siege looks bigger than what Tv Witcher and Amazon other fantasy show Wheel of Time delivered. But yes, they need to up their game and hopefully they do.
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OldestDaughter
Rohan
Oct 7, 3:56pm
Post #4 of 36
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As someone who loved the Witcher Games and book
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I'm disappointed with how the Witcher is handling things. (firing Henry Cavil was a huge blow) which I don't know if I will watch it since he is gone. I think Amazon will learn, this season was already better than season one.
"Keen, heart-piercing was her song as the song of the lark that rises from the gates of night and pours its voice among the dying stars, seeing the sun behind the walls of the world; and the song of Lúthien released the bonds of winter, and the frozen waters spoke, and flowers sprang from the cold earth where her feet had passed."
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DGHCaretaker
Rohan
Oct 7, 4:17pm
Post #5 of 36
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I'm disappointed with how the Witcher is handling things. (firing Henry Cavil was a huge blow) which I don't know if I will watch it since he is gone. I think Amazon will learn, this season was already better than season one.
Henry Cavill, a huge fan of The Witcher game, chose to leave due to the poor writing direction the show is taking. He was not fired.
Few productions today are willing to listen and learn. The only one I can immediately think of is "Sonic the Hedgehog," which admirably and sincerely listened to its fans and made the expense to correct issues before release of the film.
(This post was edited by DGHCaretaker on Oct 7, 4:18pm)
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OldestDaughter
Rohan
Oct 7, 4:20pm
Post #6 of 36
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My bad, you are correct about Cavill
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"Keen, heart-piercing was her song as the song of the lark that rises from the gates of night and pours its voice among the dying stars, seeing the sun behind the walls of the world; and the song of Lúthien released the bonds of winter, and the frozen waters spoke, and flowers sprang from the cold earth where her feet had passed."
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Hopefull Harfoot
Rivendell
Oct 7, 7:27pm
Post #7 of 36
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I thought the fighting scenes actually very well choreographed and on a par with the best the LOTR films had. By that I mean the individual combats and group fighting scenes. For me the best of those in the LOTR films was the orc boat assault on Osgilliath. Very fluid and with a gritty realism.
Where I think they fell short was in what Peter Jackson called the Geography of the battle. That being showing the audience the layout and where you are in the battle at any given time. I remember from the behind the scenes documentaries he spent a full two weeks plotting the seige of Helm's deep using thousands of toy soldiers on a scale mockup of the castle, walls and envorinment.
Eregion looked like a well defended fortress with multiple lines of walls and they only really showed how the orcs got thru the first wall. After that orcs, elves and dwarves were showing up on scene in the citadel area like they were just waiting off stage.
One small other pet peeve was the crowd acting. When the orcs first started tossing catapult projectiles in the elven populace totally lost there minds, running hither and thither in abject panic and never seemed to regain them. I can see that in a warfare rookie townsfolk but these elves are hundreds if not thousands of years old and been fighting orcs and worse already for an age an more. The Lotr films did better with the crowds inside Helm's deep and Minas Tirath.
That said, I am ok with it. LOTR was in essence a War Film, according to Peter Jackson. ROP, whatever it's intent works quite well in total for me. The episodes are truly captivating, like a book you can't put down.
51 years since I first read The Lord of the Rings
(This post was edited by Hopefull Harfoot on Oct 7, 7:30pm)
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Felagund
Rohan
Oct 7, 10:20pm
Post #8 of 36
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Great analysis of the geography of the battle and the comparison with Jackson's approach. Geographic composition wasn't the strongest suit of the Battle of Ost-in-Edhil although, as you say, the individual scrambling and scrapping was largely done well. And I agree with you on all those panicking Elves!
Welcome to the Mordorfone network, where we put the 'hai' back into Uruk
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Hopefull Harfoot
Rivendell
Oct 7, 11:57pm
Post #9 of 36
(2088 views)
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51 years since I first read The Lord of the Rings
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sharku
Lorien
Oct 9, 9:56am
Post #10 of 36
(1965 views)
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Reason #237 why the Sil would be hard to film in live action - the Nírnaeth Arnoediad. 10,000 on Maedros' side, and at least 100,000 on team Morgoth, playing with the home field advantage at Thangorodrim stadium.
Or before that, the Dagor Bragollach, with countless forces of Morgoth against hundreds of thousands of elves & men, fought over the north and into Beleriand over more than 2 years. Film that. I dare them.
(This post was edited by sharku on Oct 9, 9:57am)
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TFP
Lorien
Oct 9, 12:08pm
Post #11 of 36
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Yeah, I don't know. The numbers involved in some of Tolkien's battles can be a little bit iffy. Certainly in the PJ movies we don't really get any hints at a civilisation with the kind of scale and infrastructure that'd be needed to support an army of 6k prime aged male cavalry riders.
Generally there's a big realism issue with the depiction of 'castles' in a lot of films & TV shows in the sense that they're often depicted as standing alone or with very limited settlement around them, farmlands and villages especially. Eregion in tRoP suffers quite a bit from from that, with a focus on grandeur/storytelling, nothing at all on practicalities/the more mundane aspects of city life, like housing, farming, or trade... the population really is quite difficult to guess at...
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sharku
Lorien
Oct 10, 3:16am
Post #12 of 36
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Yeah, I don't know. The numbers involved in some of Tolkien's battles can be a little bit iffy
You'd also love to see the War of Wrath on screen.
"uncountable" [host of Morgoth] vs hundreds of thousands of the host of the Valar, spanning over 40 years. Try fitting that into a couple of episodes, or even feature films.
https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/War_of_Wrath
(This post was edited by sharku on Oct 10, 3:17am)
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Noria
Grey Havens
Oct 11, 6:43pm
Post #14 of 36
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I’m not sure that every battle has to be bigger than the last.
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Surely it depends on what the story requires. Are people really watching only for the warfare?
I don’t watch anything for the battles and am not a connoisseur of special effects or fighting. So I'll defer to those who are, but the battle of Ost-in-Edhil looked fine to my ignorant eyes, pretty epic for television, in fact. However I admit that I was more interested in Celebrimbor and Sauron.
If RoP makes it to the Last Alliance, surely that battle will be huge.
Another thing: maybe Elves are supposed to be almost fearless and such but they’re not Vulcans. If a significant number of the residents of Ost-in-Edhil were born in the Second Age, would they have a lot of experience of having fireballs rained down upon them? Nobody would like that.
As for beautiful cities sitting in beautiful isolation with no supporting farmlands and such around them - Jackson was guilty of this also, but Tolkien was not. Movie Edoras and Minas Tirith should have had farms and maybe farming hamlets surrounding them. That’s how it works.
Who knows how Elves support themselves, though Arondir said he was formerly a grower.
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Michelle Johnston
Gondor
Oct 12, 8:39am
Post #15 of 36
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Cary Joji Fukunaga has it right every piece of action should have story telling consequences.
At the end of an action scene the story should have advanced.
I do not recall getting fatigue in E7 or not understanding the development of the plot. The orcs were dirty, foul and felt real. The march across the mud of the river bed echoed WW1.
There was one or two nicely choreographed long shots in E8.
The coming of the Dwarves was good pertinent story telling.
Did it match Lawrence of Arabia, Sparticus, Gladiator and
the Last Samurai no.
I much preferred the smaller gritty realism to the last battle in the LOTR and the Hobbit which relied heavily on CGI.
Helms Deep which was built in one place with the long shots in Canterbury will probably never be surpassed from the Tolkien adaptions.
I prefer the showrunners to find there own solutions rather than out do Sir Peter who failed in the Hobbit movies to out do himself.
And let's not forget the financial dynamics of these battle scenes which is why the aforementioned will not be surpassed.
My Dear Bilbo something is the matter with you! you are not the same hobbit that you were.
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fantasywind
Rivendell
Oct 13, 3:12pm
Post #16 of 36
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Unfortunately it's not very solid, the plot of the episodes was ufff so ridiculous in places...like the whole damming the river by shooting from catapults milies and miles away into the mountain peaks to cause an avalanche to block the riverbed....hah so they can march through all that mud on the bottom of the river with the war machines....come on who wrote this?! :) As for the battle itself....it's turning out to be similar level of ridiculousness like in the hobbit films except it's not overloaded with the CGI :), the scale is very small, we see rather skirmishes than battles...the siege itself is nonsensical.....(if they had siege engines that can destroy the sheer mountain sides,....maybe they just needed to use that against the retconed walls of the Eregion chief city hahah...retconed because there were not walls in the first season shots of the city hahah)
Battle in quesition as is usually the case with the 'hollywood tactics'. We get cavalry fighting in the forest when before that they had met the army in the open but stopped because of the hostage in Galadriel.....ehhh...there is lack of common sense and logic in all the actions during that battle!. That wall breaking siege engine or whatever the hell it was...unbelievably stupid thing (but apparently it takes only an arrow shot into that barrel of explodium :)...whatever was the stuff in it it went up like explosive :)...again maybe use that substance to blow the wall, can you think orcs?)
The battle and the forces involved we never get a sense of place, never get a sense of clear battle goal or stages of the battle, things just happen randomly. There is no clear plan or strategy to be gleaned from this! In general the show also lacks consistency in how strong those armies and forces are....Adar somehow became a huge power...after in the first season he was left with handful of orcs that were easily beaten by the bunch of amateur Numenoreans...and now they pose super big threat to the ELVES!? Obviously the show makes the elves into idiots and total morons incapable of any sane logical thought...so the dumbing down of the the wise Elves is the only reason why the 'bad guys' are allowed to succeed.
Also....why the hell is Gil-galad there...if Elrond is commander...and if king is there why doesn't HE command directly? The battle and the seige itself is so badly done that it cannot even stand in the presence of the best battle scenes of the movies....
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DGHCaretaker
Rohan
Oct 13, 4:10pm
Post #17 of 36
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Also....why the hell is Gil-galad there...if Elrond is commander...and if king is there why doesn't HE command directly? The battle and the seige itself is so badly done that it cannot even stand in the presence of the best battle scenes of the movies....
Agreed for most of this, but for the last point. Would you say the same in Gladiator about Emperor Marcus Aurelius and General Maximus?
I'm not equating the two productions. Gladiator far exceeds Rings of Power. Just that a King can be present and delegate authority to the experienced generals.
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Junesong
Rohan
Oct 14, 12:27pm
Post #18 of 36
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This all reminds me of the big truck chase in The Dark Knight.
I loved that scene, I was totally into it - ooing and awing with everyone else in the cinema.
I saw the movie about a thousand times. LOVED.
A few months ago I saw a video on a youtube channel for movie nerds that breaks down action sequences. It used The Dark Knight to illustrate how, despite his MANY strengths, action sequences are not one of Nolan's strongest skills. The video was excellent and showed that The Dark Knight had very little use for "when and where are we" type details, and instead relied mostly on spectacle. I was convinced. But I still love the scene. Had it not been pointed out I would likely never have noticed the weakness.
I feel the same here. I've watched S2 twice already and am on to my third time. I didn't notice these details about the battle until reading them on this thread. I totally agree - I think the battle was a mess. But not until someone brought my attention to it.
I found it compelling enough in the narrative. It ticked all the boxes for me.
Hopefully as this show goes through the five seasons, subsequent directors will join in or current directors will find their feet a bit more and we'll see some truly spectacular stuff by the end.
"So which story do you prefer?"
"The one with the tiger. That's the better story."
"Thank you. And so it goes with God."
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Archestratie
Rohan
Oct 14, 2:59pm
Post #19 of 36
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This all reminds me of the big truck chase in The Dark Knight.
I loved that scene, I was totally into it - ooing and awing with everyone else in the cinema.
I saw the movie about a thousand times. LOVED.
A few months ago I saw a video on a youtube channel for movie nerds that breaks down action sequences. It used The Dark Knight to illustrate how, despite his MANY strengths, action sequences are not one of Nolan's strongest skills. The video was excellent and showed that The Dark Knight had very little use for "when and where are we" type details, and instead relied mostly on spectacle. I was convinced. But I still love the scene. Had it not been pointed out I would likely never have noticed the weakness.
I feel the same here. I've watched S2 twice already and am on to my third time. I didn't notice these details about the battle until reading them on this thread. I totally agree - I think the battle was a mess. But not until someone brought my attention to it.
I found it compelling enough in the narrative. It ticked all the boxes for me.
Hopefully as this show goes through the five seasons, subsequent directors will join in or current directors will find their feet a bit more and we'll see some truly spectacular stuff by the end.
That's a very good point. And for the average Prime Video viewer, I think the battle works just fine. We here, on these boards, are the most enfranchised audience members. Few of the popcorn munching streamers in the world will analyze the show in as minute detail as we will.
My Low-Magic Fantasy Novel on eBook/hardback: The Huntsman and the She-Wolf
The Huntsman and the She-Wolf on audio Book.
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DGHCaretaker
Rohan
Oct 14, 4:04pm
Post #20 of 36
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Hopefully as this show goes through the five seasons, subsequent directors will join in or current directors will find their feet a bit more and we'll see some truly spectacular stuff by the end.
All the directors this season were women. Maybe it's just their perspective on what men find exhilarating and what women find boring. It's just a bunch of meaningless violence; who cares otherwise? Wake me up when the battle is done. ;)
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Junesong
Rohan
Oct 14, 4:47pm
Post #21 of 36
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I don't think the gender of the filmmakers is relevant. Some of the best and most intense action sequences I've ever seen have been directed by women. Not to mention some of the most iconic (Point Break comes to mind) Some of the worst ones have been directed by men. (Cliffhanger anyone?)
(Not to mention that Charlotte Brändström directed the best and most exciting episode of last season with some truly jaw-dropping action sequences. Arondir's fight with the big orc, the archery massacre, and the Mt. Doom sequence come to mind right away!)
I think some directors handle action better than others.
Not sure what's wrong with just leaving it there.
"So which story do you prefer?"
"The one with the tiger. That's the better story."
"Thank you. And so it goes with God."
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Noria
Grey Havens
Oct 15, 4:59am
Post #22 of 36
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This series, like the LotR trilogy, is being made for the average viewers who make up the largest portion of the potential audience, people who may or may not have read the books but liked the movies enough to watch RoP. They would judge the series by what’s on the screen, not what's in the books. I have no idea how the Battle of Eregion works for them. But RoP is not being made for Tolkien scholars and passionate book fans.
It seems to me that this saga might have worked out better if the Tolkien Estate had sold Amazon more rights to use The Silmarillion and Akallabeth as references for characters and events that are relevant to the Second Age stories. I don’t mean the right to film The Silmarillion. Through LotR, Amazon already has the right to use some names and events from the First Age, but little of the context or history behind them. So they have to make things up, more than might otherwise have been necessary.
For example, the writers could have referenced Finrod's duel of songs of power with Sauron, before the latter's werewolf killed him, potentially a more powerful impetus for Galadriel's obsessive hatred of Sauron. What we got worked fine and maybe the writers wouldn't have gone there anyway, but I would have liked it.
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Victariongreyjoy
Rohan
Oct 15, 5:04am
Post #23 of 36
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At least it's not as bad as last season's ''battle'' or the WOT treatment
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Few of the popcorn munching streamers in the world will analyze the show in as minute detail as we will.
I agree on that. For the casual viewers, this is battle is more than good enough for them. Especially the newer generations. This is a low-bar to compare the Siege of Eregion to, but it's better than the so-called battles from their sister fantasy show Wheel of Time and The Witcher.
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DGHCaretaker
Rohan
Oct 15, 5:18am
Post #24 of 36
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Few of the popcorn munching streamers in the world will analyze the show in as minute detail as we will. I agree on that. For the casual viewers, this is battle is more than good enough for them. Especially the newer generations. This is a low-bar to compare the Siege of Eregion to, but it's better than the so-called battles from their sister fantasy show Wheel of Time and The Witcher.
Heh, there's always something relatively worse to an optimist. ("Could be raining"). But let's not forget Game of Thrones Season 7 and 8, Mr. Greyjoy.
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Victariongreyjoy
Rohan
Oct 15, 8:00am
Post #25 of 36
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GOT battles are still better, even the worst
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Few of the popcorn munching streamers in the world will analyze the show in as minute detail as we will. I agree on that. For the casual viewers, this is battle is more than good enough for them. Especially the newer generations. This is a low-bar to compare the Siege of Eregion to, but it's better than the so-called battles from their sister fantasy show Wheel of Time and The Witcher. Heh, there's always something relatively worse to an optimist. ("Could be raining"). But let's not forget Game of Thrones Season 7 and 8, Mr. Greyjoy.
Siege of Eregion in night time at least you can see what's going on,so it beats the Battle of Winterfell. But not close to Blackwater, Battle of Bastards and Hardhome. It's a tie to invasion of Kings Landing.
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