aggiebonzo said:

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As someone who has read the books and was a big fan of LOTR and thought the hobbit trilogy was just okay is this worth a watch. I don't know much of anything about the Tolkien lore stuff but enjoy the middle earth setting and characters.

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Yes. Significantly better than The Hobbit. Most of the quibbling is about deep lore timelines (which are admittedly getting jacked with). If you don't know/care about deep lore timelines, it is extremely enjoyable.

aggiebonzo said:

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As someone who has read the books and was a big fan of LOTR and thought the hobbit trilogy was just okay is this worth a watch. I don't know much of anything about the Tolkien lore stuff but enjoy the middle earth setting and characters.

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It's been worth the watch, so far, despite its many flaws. It's still Middle-earth, so there are certain scenes that will completely pull from the LotR mythology to get at your emotions. For me, the big LotR things that I loved seeing were:

• Initial description of the elves coming to middle earth to fight Morgoth
• First reveal of the orcs.
• First arriving in Numenor
• Getting to see Khazad Dum

The characters are 'meh', but like my last post said, I think Arondir and Elendil are by far the ones that actually feel right for who or what they are portraying. The Elves look like random people with pointy ears. The Numenoreans don't look or feel any different from everyone else. Seeing a random miss-match of races makes the whole world seem just random with no basis in geography, so it's easy to get confused on where the story is without them telling you.

Not LOTR movie level but has been solid and significantly better than the hobbit movies so far.

I thought what they've done with the Orcs is fantastic. That second episode with the single Orc was shot very much in a horror fashion and they did a good job showing how truly powerful an orc is and why they are feared.

It can get lost cause in the movies they were shown kind of as cannon fodder. It reminded me of the Doctor Who episode 'Dalek' where they truly showed how powerful a single dalek can be.

DallasTeleAg said:

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The Elves look like random people with pointy ears.

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Ya the orc lineage is much more fleshed out in the literature than the movies and it shows plainly.

This is taking them back to what, I believe Tolkien wanted them to be. Even in LOTR, the common orcs were more like book goblins and the hurika were like book orcs. Sure the movies have them distinct differences in all manners but the differences based on the texts were even more so apparent.

Legal Custodian said:

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I thought what they've done with the Orcs is fantastic. That second episode with the single Orc was shot very much in a horror fashion and they did a good job showing how truly powerful an orc is and why they are feared.

It can get lost cause in the movies they were shown kind of as cannon fodder. It reminded me of the Doctor Who episode 'Dalek' where they truly showed how powerful a single dalek can be.

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Orcs follow the Inverse Ninja Law.

TCTTS said:

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aggiebonzo said:

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As someone who has read the books and was a big fan of LOTR and thought the hobbit trilogy was just okay is this worth a watch. I don't know much of anything about the Tolkien lore stuff but enjoy the middle earth setting and characters.

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- Never read The Hobbit and know nothing about the Tolkien lore stuff either.

- Read the first 100 pages or so of The Fellowship of the Ring back in '99, but never finished it.

- Absolutely loved the first three movies, and love the extended editions even more.

- Walked out of The Hobbit 40 minutes in and never saw another frame of the rest of it, or the other two movies.

All that said, I'm super into the first three episodes of the series, think it's incredibly well done, and can't wait to see where it all goes. It walks a fine line of feeling enough like the original trilogy, yet despite being a prequel, also does something fresh and exciting. It's absolutely worth the watch.

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you should read the LOTR books imo. plow through the bombadil stuff, i never really liked that section much... but the books are so rich.

i wish someone would make a mashup of the best 2-3 hours out of the hobbit trilogy - if you take the best parts, alone and throw out the trash they could be worth watching. the hobbit was much more of a childrends book,

cbr said:

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TCTTS said:

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aggiebonzo said:

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As someone who has read the books and was a big fan of LOTR and thought the hobbit trilogy was just okay is this worth a watch. I don't know much of anything about the Tolkien lore stuff but enjoy the middle earth setting and characters.

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- Never read The Hobbit and know nothing about the Tolkien lore stuff either.

- Read the first 100 pages or so of The Fellowship of the Ring back in '99, but never finished it.

- Absolutely loved the first three movies, and love the extended editions even more.

- Walked out of The Hobbit 40 minutes in and never saw another frame of the rest of it, or the other two movies.

All that said, I'm super into the first three episodes of the series, think it's incredibly well done, and can't wait to see where it all goes. It walks a fine line of feeling enough like the original trilogy, yet despite being a prequel, also does something fresh and exciting. It's absolutely worth the watch.

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you should read the LOTR books imo. plow through the bombadil stuff, i never really liked that section much... but the books are so rich.

i wish someone would make a mashup of the best 2-3 hours out of the hobbit trilogy - if you take the best parts, alone and throw out the trash they could be worth watching. the hobbit was much more of a childrends book,

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boo this man

Agree, but love his chapters in the book

PatAg said:

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cbr said:

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TCTTS said:

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aggiebonzo said:

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As someone who has read the books and was a big fan of LOTR and thought the hobbit trilogy was just okay is this worth a watch. I don't know much of anything about the Tolkien lore stuff but enjoy the middle earth setting and characters.

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- Never read The Hobbit and know nothing about the Tolkien lore stuff either.

- Read the first 100 pages or so of The Fellowship of the Ring back in '99, but never finished it.

- Absolutely loved the first three movies, and love the extended editions even more.

- Walked out of The Hobbit 40 minutes in and never saw another frame of the rest of it, or the other two movies.

All that said, I'm super into the first three episodes of the series, think it's incredibly well done, and can't wait to see where it all goes. It walks a fine line of feeling enough like the original trilogy, yet despite being a prequel, also does something fresh and exciting. It's absolutely worth the watch.

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you should read the LOTR books imo. plow through the bombadil stuff, i never really liked that section much... but the books are so rich.

i wish someone would make a mashup of the best 2-3 hours out of the hobbit trilogy - if you take the best parts, alone and throw out the trash they could be worth watching. the hobbit was much more of a childrends book,

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boo this man

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Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!

Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!


Yeah, movie watchers would be "wtf is this?"

Beat me to the punch!

redline248 said:

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Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!


Yeah, movie watchers would be "wtf is this?"

Beat me to the punch!

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Not much worse than that Harfoot scene...

chase128 said:

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PatAg said:

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cbr said:

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TCTTS said:

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aggiebonzo said:

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As someone who has read the books and was a big fan of LOTR and thought the hobbit trilogy was just okay is this worth a watch. I don't know much of anything about the Tolkien lore stuff but enjoy the middle earth setting and characters.

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- Never read The Hobbit and know nothing about the Tolkien lore stuff either.

- Read the first 100 pages or so of The Fellowship of the Ring back in '99, but never finished it.

- Absolutely loved the first three movies, and love the extended editions even more.

- Walked out of The Hobbit 40 minutes in and never saw another frame of the rest of it, or the other two movies.

All that said, I'm super into the first three episodes of the series, think it's incredibly well done, and can't wait to see where it all goes. It walks a fine line of feeling enough like the original trilogy, yet despite being a prequel, also does something fresh and exciting. It's absolutely worth the watch.

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you should read the LOTR books imo. plow through the bombadil stuff, i never really liked that section much... but the books are so rich.

i wish someone would make a mashup of the best 2-3 hours out of the hobbit trilogy - if you take the best parts, alone and throw out the trash they could be worth watching. the hobbit was much more of a childrends book,

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boo this man

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Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!

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Ring a dong! hop along! Fal lal the willow!

Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!

So what you'll are basically saying is that Tolkien did psychedelics?

FL_Ag1998 said:

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redline248 said:

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The only thing I have to add right now is I wish a new episode of this show would drop every day.

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No, no, no. Shows are much better when we have to wait week by week for each episode to slowly roll out.

Or so says Texags.

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It may be worse for us but it makes the Entertainment board way more entertaining and lively. The discussions/threads for all in one releases are pretty lame by comparison. A small consolation.

javajaws said:

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So what you'll are basically saying is that Tolkien did psychedelics?

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Some people say that Tom Bombadil represented the English countryside. I like to think that he represented to Tolkien an innate, incorruptible source of goodness that evil, whether the Ring in Middle-earth or the Great War that Tolkien lived through, cannot corrupt. That source of goodness could ultimately be destroyed, I.e., if Tom was the last thing left after Sauron won or if the War came to the English countryside, but it wouldn't be corrupted.

He was really goofy, though.

cbr said:

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The Porkchop Express said:

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Tom Bombadill just doesn't translate to a general audience on screen. Limitlessly powerful, can hold the ring like it's from a vending machine, but doesn't do **** to help out. The nuances of who he is and how he perceives the rest of Middle Earth would take many many scenes to basically not really move the story forward.

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If you have thoughts on that love to hear them. Cause i was pretty much

'This corny ass tree hugger isnt gonna help the world against the dude turning the whole place into a barren wasteland!?'

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Now look the first time I read LOTR I was probably 10 years old which is getting to me a helluva long time ago, but those first impressions sure sit with us, don't they?

I always viewed him as a God-like creature, a world-creator if you will, but someone whose powers waned as others came into his paradise - the Elves, etc. A rough metaphor of the Garden of Eden getting corrupted as man sins and decides he wants to run the show. The other powers in the forest start craving more and while they are no match for Tom, his power weakens, almost out of sadness more than anything else.

In later re-reads, I think of two other literary references in conjunction with Tom. The first being Prof. Tolkien's friend CS Lewis and the chapter in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where Aslan bests the witch with "Old magic from before the dawn of time". I'd like to think Tom has access to something similar. Almost like everyone else is in the Matrix thinking that's all there is, but Tom knows you can take off the goggles and unhook and there's a larger world hiding behind it. That's what I envision when he is so casual about the One RIng - it's super powerful in its world, but Tom knows a world beyond that.

I also think of a much more contemporary, although unfortunately demised, English writer - Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhiker's Guide. In the first book, Ford and Arthur meet Slartibarfast, who helped designed the Earth before the Vogons blew it up, and was proud of his work on the fjords, and hoped to revisit them.

I can envision Tom as the kind of being who designed Middle Earth either alone or as some sort of team effort of higher-beings and fell in love with the Old Forest and decided to call it his home, staying out of the way of the affairs of the world, no matter how dastardly they might get, only intervening when he thinks that it's not going to really change anything. LIke he could have moved on and kept creating worlds, but he thought this one was so beautiful that he'd stay.

Going way out in left field, it's a theme similar to my favorite episode of the X-Files that's set in the past where they realize the really incredible minor-league baseball player is an alien who visited earth, fell in love with the game, and stayed so he could keep playing it.

I am fully aware this rambling rant is as clear as mud.