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2021 TV


Stefan Fredriksson

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3 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

Damn right. We need Turkish-German, Mediterranean-German, Russo-German, Afro-German and Polish-German soldiers ...

... hm, there is actually a Polish-German soldier ... 🤔

... anyway, I'm all for Unteroffizier Himmelstoß being a black trans person. 😁

Makes think of the story of the Korean soldier who supposedly served in the Japanese army, was captured by the USSR during the pre World War II border conflict and latter served in their army. Then was captured by the Germans and served in their army. So a Korean-Japanese- Soviet- German soldier?

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8 hours ago, sunday said:

"Based in real events"? Sajer himself stated something in that direction.

That being said Sajer's writing, like Pierre Clostermann's, is some of the best war memoirs I've ever read

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  • 2 weeks later...

5 episodes in, and Rings of power is more boring than ever. Amazing how you can fail on such a grand scale. And oh, remember the scene where Faramir rides out and people throw flowers. Yeah, let's copy that one TOO, but make our best to make it look cheesy, silly and cringeworthy.

All that money, and they consiously choose to make the armor look like plastic and fabric. Didn't even bother to spray-paint it to look metal. Stupid beyond belief.

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30 minutes ago, Stefan Fredriksson said:

5 episodes in, and Rings of power is more boring than ever. Amazing how you can fail on such a grand scale. And oh, remember the scene where Faramir rides out and people throw flowers. Yeah, let's copy that one TOO, but make our best to make it look cheesy, silly and cringeworthy.

All that money, and they consiously choose to make the armor look like plastic and fabric. Didn't even bother to spray-paint it to look metal. Stupid beyond belief.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2022/09/18/the-rings-of-power-has-inexplicably-terrible-writing/

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On 9/15/2022 at 9:43 AM, BansheeOne said:

Damn right. We need Turkish-German, Mediterranean-German, Russo-German, Afro-German and Polish-German soldiers ...

... hm, there is actually a Polish-German soldier ... 🤔

... anyway, I'm all for Unteroffizier Himmelstoß being a black trans person. 😁

Dont forget Chinese. The British employed lots as labourers.

Just sayin...

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15 hours ago, Stefan Fredriksson said:

5 episodes in, and Rings of power is more boring than ever. Amazing how you can fail on such a grand scale. And oh, remember the scene where Faramir rides out and people throw flowers. Yeah, let's copy that one TOO, but make our best to make it look cheesy, silly and cringeworthy.

All that money, and they consiously choose to make the armor look like plastic and fabric. Didn't even bother to spray-paint it to look metal. Stupid beyond belief.

For as much money as Amazon reportedly spent you'd think it would look better. It feels like it was made using the old backlot sets and budget from Star Trek the original series.

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2 hours ago, Harold Jones said:

For as much money as Amazon reportedly spent you'd think it would look better. It feels like it was made using the old backlot sets and budget from Star Trek the original series.

Ships from Amazon

Sold by Golan Globus

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I managed to partially quell my annoyance at the way established lore was being eviscerated and after the third episode, I felt more or less, okay, it is not going to be faithful to Tolkien, but there are some promising elements here and maybe it will pick up as we go along.

Nope.

The fifth episode was horrible. Not only did they materially molest the lore*, but essentially nothing happened during the episode, the dialogue is getting even worse, nearly all non-original characters are unlikeable or morons or both, and the original characters are not engaging.

Super power Numenor decides to send an army to Middle Earth along with Strong Woman, so they will send five ships. Oops, apparently Numenoreans like to drink wildfire, so make that three ships. Yes, three ships will allow discount Aragorn to reclaim his throne. 

And Strong Woman, having somehow managed to improbably bully everyone into all this, steps on to the ship in new armor proudly wearing the Star of Fëanor on her chest. You know, the same Fëanor who she despised.

The hobbits are only entertaining inasmuch as one hopes the psychotic little bastards all get eaten by wargs. Their  MO is to leave their own people behind at the drop of a hat, then writing the names down of the ones who don't make it, so they can laugh about it afterwards if someone died in an amusing manner. Bees, anyone? LOL.

Even the orcs seem to show more feeling towards their fallen. 

And Elrond is apparently a complete tosspot.

Gil Galad: "Then you admit that the dwarves did find it? The ore containing the light of the lost silmaril?"

Elrond (who has sworn never to reveal this):  "I admit only this: I promised Durin never to reveal his people's secrets."

uh, dude, you just told the king that he was right. Since you weren't told anything about why you were sent to see the dwarves, your response completely confirms the king's suspicion. Maybe if you had replied along the lines of Gary Coleman, you would have been able to keep your word.

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But happily Gil Galad is also a total moron, so he continues to pester Elrond to break his vow.

Who is writing this dialogue?

 

But I have to admit, it is like watching a train wreck. I can't look away. It is too horrible.

 

Soren

 

 

*I know its pointless to bitch about this, but this new origin of mithril was *completely* absurd. A lost silmaril? And for some reason the elves are all dying unless they get exposed to the light from mithril?!

FFS!

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It is no more woke than a 70s sitcom. Vast majority of male characters bumbling fools who are routinely saved by hyper competent women, check. A sprinkling of ethnic characters, check. Cringeworthy After School Special level of writing and 'Very Special Episodes', check.

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6 hours ago, sunday said:

The thing that matters: Is that series a diverse, inclusive, stunning, and brave attack on the Patriarchy?

Hetero-normative patriarchy. Try to keep up.

 

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6 hours ago, Soren Ras said:

And for some reason the elves are all dying unless they get exposed to the light from mithril?!

Elves are apparently powered by renewable energy. Isn't that a good thing? 

 

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3 hours ago, Harold Jones said:

It is no more woke than a 70s sitcom. Vast majority of male characters bumbling fools who are routinely saved by hyper competent women, check. A sprinkling of ethnic characters, check. Cringeworthy After School Special level of writing and 'Very Special Episodes', check.

I was going to say "No, you are wrong, you can not compare sitcoms to Tolkien", but then remembered you are not. 😀

I am waiting to see which of the actors will come out this with some sort of dignity. Disa and Durin come to mind, they seem to partly have grasped that Rings is actually poorly made satire/comedy.

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4 hours ago, Stefan Fredriksson said:

I was going to say "No, you are wrong, you can not compare sitcoms to Tolkien", but then remembered you are not. 😀

I am waiting to see which of the actors will come out this with some sort of dignity. Disa and Durin come to mind, they seem to partly have grasped that Rings is actually poorly made satire/comedy.

So tired of the dwarves as Scotts trope though.  They do a fine job with what they are given, but what they are given is mighty thin. As far as Tolkien goes, I've read the hobbit and LOTR trilogy and seen the LOTR trilogy movies but otherwise don't have any grounding in the lore.  I tried to read the Silmarillion back in high school but didn't really get intob it. I think I gave up a couple chapters in.  So I'm mostly looking for a decent story, which sadly so far hasn't really been delivered.  I could probably live with the story as bad as it is if the world or characters grabbed me, but neither has so far.  

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16 hours ago, Stefan Fredriksson said:

 

Yes the sadistic Harfoots... "if they dont die before catching up with the group, we'll take the wheels from their carts". Seriously? Are not hobbits to be liked, not loathed?

 

It's really strange. I have a hard time believing that the writers are deliberately trying to make the hobbits unsympathetic, so I can only conclude that the writers are incredibly inept and tone-deaf.

--

Soren

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Well, episode 6 is actually not totally bad. A more focused story, some armor looks semi-good, a fight-scene that felt somewhat visceral (?), people reacting properly, no Harfoots. Galadriel is still annoying, I meen if you root for Adar something should be written differently. But still. Giant leaps forward compared to previous 5 episodes.

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3 hours ago, Stefan Fredriksson said:

Well, episode 6 is actually not totally bad. A more focused story, some armor looks semi-good, a fight-scene that felt somewhat visceral (?), people reacting properly, no Harfoots. Galadriel is still annoying, I meen if you root for Adar something should be written differently. But still. Giant leaps forward compared to previous 5 episodes.

I agree. It certainly helps that they cut down on the separate story lines and allowed the story to focus on only two, which are then brought together. That allows them to actually build some momentum not immediately broken by a scene switching to one of the other storylines.  Also, no murder hobos harfoots immediately makes things better, IMO.

Again, some strong visuals, although Galadriel is still irritatingly bad. Strong Woman needs no helmet, and the Legolas-style acrobatics on horseback were just dumb. Also, the writers have a real inability to understand how oaths are actually a serious thing in Tolkien's world.  (They sort of alluded to it in the previous (horrible) episode when Elrond pretended to take his oath seriously, while simultaneously revealing everything to his moron king, who kept pretending he didn't realize this and wereinsistant that he should break his oath). Here Galadriel explicitly states that she vows to keep Adar alive until she has eradicated every orc, and one line of dialogue from Adar and she has to be called out by discount Aragorn as she is about to skewer him in defiance of the vow she just made. 

The Numenorean cavalry rescue was pretty much a direct recreation of Stannis Baratheon's north-of-the-Wall saving of the Night's Watch in GoT, right down to the rather unbelievable timing. 

This time there wasn't really any serious lore breaking, and the ultimate purpose of the Orcs' tunnelling project was a pretty good reveal. I liked that.

Aside back to Episode 5:  I was thinking about the bonkers made up crap about the origin of mithril and how it supposedly will cure the elves, and I do see a kind of way out for the writers, that would redeem that bit somewhat.

[speculation follows]If the story about the origin of mithril and its healing power turns out to be a bullshit bit of propaganda orchestrated by Sauron to fool the elves into collecting tons of mithril and build the forges, it might actually make a kind of sense.  This would mean that Sauron is necessarily already somewhere close to Gil Galad, disguised in a fair form and having managed to convince him and Celebrimbor of this lie.

The elves were actually (according to Tolkien) fated to gradually dwindle in Middle Earth and give way to Men. This was built into them by their creator and for my hypothesis to make any sense, it would mean that the elves aren't actually aware of this feature of their existence. In that case, it might make sense that Gil Galad has noticed something is off, and Sauron has poisoned his ear with a bunch of exaggerated drivel about how elvish souls are in danger (they are not - only their physical bodies are affected) and that the fading is very fast (it is not, as elves are still going to be quite formidable for several thousands of years into the future) and then - to stoke the king's fear - he managed to poison the king's favorite tree. And then he has misled Celebrimbor into thinking that mithril is actually a cure for this problem.

And the idea that the light of the undying lands as represented by mithril would be a cure (which is total BS), would then be similar to the lie Sauron tells the Numenoreans later on, that they can all become immortal if they invade the Undying Lands, which of course is also a lie (but one specifically part of Tolkien's story).

So, in this interpretation, the lore is mostly restored and the only deviations from Tolkien would be 1) mithril glows,  2)the fake myth about a silmaril in a tree and a balrog and an elf on top of the Misty Mountains, unless it turns out that Sauron also created that myth and ensured that it would spread far and wide to lend eventual future support for his plan, and 3) it makes Gil Galad into a total moron and tool.

But those changes are on the whole quite minor in the grand scheme of things.

I am halfway expecting Celebrimbor to actually be Sauron, and the real Celebrimbor is locked in a basement, like Mad-Eye Moody somewhere.  [/speculation ends]

Not sure I am confident that the writers would be that creative, but let's see. It would make some of the criticism a bit hasty.

--

Soren

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Doc Martin is something of a guilty pleasure, assuming it's the same one think it is. Although I haven't kept up with it in recent years due to not watching terrestrial TV forever.

My recent interactions with village life make me realise that the caricatures presented, aren't. There really are people like those out there.

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