The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power - Season 2 Premiere Review - 3 Hours of Soulless Drudgery

what is happening everybody James Hancock here I'm back to review the season two premiere of The Lord of the Rings the rings of power and the only spoiler-free comment I'll make is that whatever your feelings were about season 1 these three new episodes will only confirm what you already feel and it's almost as if they kept these episodes in a vault for the last two years because I'm seeing absolutely zero evidence of any course correction of any kind and to some extent I have to say I admire watching the world's most Shameless hacks JD Payne and Patrick pay 100% sticking to their guns and their vision for the show on the other hand in a year that's already given us Madame web the director's cut of Rebel moon and the crow it's almost like watching Amazon say hey man hold my beer because we have one giant turd blossom to rule them all three hours of Total soulless drudgery and we have five more episodes to go before it's all over when hopefully Amazon will finally put the most expensive show in history out of its misery and in that only a third of viewers even bothered to finish season 1 it's tough to imagine that this season's going to Faire any better but for the time being for those of you out there who enjoy listening to me piss and moan by throwing myself on top of a hand grenade to spare my fellow fantasy fans the same experience I'm happy to share my grievances against the show but let's start on a positive note over the last few days I reread what limited material there is on the second age and as always it is an absolutely drool inducing pleasure reading Jr tolkin pros and I've got my reading copies of The Lord of the Rings and The Similan right here and if you're asking why I have reading copies of these books because if you've got nice hard-bound editions you don't want to take those like in the bathtub or make notes in the margins and that sort of thing but my my current copies or my reading copies of these books they are absolutely Turning Brown from overuse but they have been well- loved and well thumbed over the years so as always I'm just going to recommend that people skip the show entirely and focus on Jr holkins books and I know there's some people out there who will say things like well I don't want to read the source material behind a particular show because it might ruin my experience watching the show and I always feel like you should have the reverse attitude you should be more concerned about a show ruining your reading experience as opposed to the reverse but I'm not totally opposed to adaptations of talkling I recently did about o an over hour long video celebrating some of my favorite adaptations in the past in animation live action video games paintings you name it and I'll leave a link to that video down in the description below if you prefer to have an hourlong jro tolken video that's positive as opposed to negative that's what I'm going to direct you toward but what's interesting to see is how some of the mainstream critics are starting to turn on the show variety posted an absolutely withering review of this show yesterday and I feel like uh like the grace period where people are willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt that grace period is drawing to a close like at a certain point you have to either [ __ ] or get off the pot and the show has to deliver something exciting or emotional or just some sort of stimulation of some kind to the intellect to the imagination and as I was watching these three hours I was like this is just mind-numbing boring like we can talk all day about how it runs kind of rough shot over anything and everything that Jal hulkin wrote about the second age but that's the least of the show's concerns like these like the the writers and directors behind the show I don't I don't think they should be working on any show much less a show devoted to uh adapting The Works of Jr tolken and of course there are always those ride or die fans out there who will like anything if you slap the Lord of the Rings logo on it's like you know the Lord of the Rings is more than just a brand it's actually a story with depth and detail and complexity but those people always say well if you don't like it don't watch it it's like well how did that work out for you with the Star Wars the acolyte like that's not coming back for a second season like at a certain point IP and Brands and franchises need to watch these are expensive shows so maybe rather than like trying to deflect all criticism from the show maybe uh accept the fact that people have some legitimate grievances toward this show but I guess the best rort to people who say if you don't like it don't watch it comes from a little scene from The Two Towers where samai says there's some good in this world Mr fle and it's worth fighting for I feel like of all the filmmakers and writers and storytellers that have ever lived if there's one I'm going to go back to for in terms of like trying to articulate what's great about his work that would be Jr tolken I've been watching cartoons based on his work reading his books and watching live action movies based on his work my entire life and that's not going to change anytime soon so it's like I'm here I'm here to stay and anytime someone does anything related to talkking I'm going to talk about it but as I was rewatching Peter Jackson's original trilogy for the Lord of the Rings a couple weeks ago what I realized is that the writers and directors behind the show it seems like they only understand or remember or appreciate the most superficial ingredients of Peter Jackson's approach but none of the depth of like like where those stories come from like they like the Aesthetics of the way some Elves dress with like their hair like anyway we'll get to we'll get to the uh the Elven fashion in a bit but it's almost like they look at this in like this giant Saga and they can understand like 1% of it and that's what they're using to inform their entire approach to this show but like what they don't seem to understand is that all that Dwarven architecture and all the uh all those wonderful languages and that sort of thing they are based on something they come from tolken but like there's this weird disconnect where they only understand like it's a little bit like they're cosplayers who have like read a synopsis of the Lord of the Rings and The Similan but don't really have a like a full understanding of it and often times when the characters are speaking in this that come across like cosplayers or larpers who are kind of making up token s dialogue as they go but it doesn't quite work or come together and I know there's a small fan base out there where they don't care about the books they don't even really care about the show all they want to know is if and when Sauron and gadriel are going to get it on and a couple weeks ago be like just go watch some porn parodies of The Lord of the Rings they got you covered and speaking of porn parodies that's often what the dialogue sounds like in this show but I have to say hav't now seen the the first three uneventful episodes for season two I might be ready to join those weirdos where all they care about is watching gadri on Sauron get it on because that at least would be something happening it wouldn't be true to tolken because in tolken nobody has sex ever like if and when a baby emerges people like how did that happen like where do babies come from like he is he is not interested in the physical act of love at all I love him me he's an incredible writer but let's just say if you're looking for sex look elsewhere but if like but when you're watching this show and you're just like you know being subjected to one aimless scene after another with all these weird Cliff like there these scenes they'll end on these big in theory big dramatic notes that are supposed to have all this like importance and weight but like I don't care about any of these characters or what they're talking about and it's almost like they're keeping secrets from the audience about what they're talking about why it might be important anyway there all these weird pregnant pauses that seem to signify nothing so long story short I would take this show turning into a porn parody where gadri on saaron right off into the sunset and just do practice black magic while making love like at least that would be give us something to talk about the big problem with this show is that it's just so God damn boring and uneventful so if you're still with me and you're concerned about spoilers this is my last spoiler warning bailout now but when trying to diagnose all the different problems of The Lord of the Rings the rings of power I always describe it as like imagine being in the back of an ambulance and you're trying to save somebody's life but they've got like 10 different life-threatening illnesses and injuries all at the same time you know like oh my God like I don't even know where to start sometimes it's easier to try to figure out like what did the show get right and the honest answer is like nothing like this is the definition of the dark side of like intellectual property mining franchise extensions and as I always say like all the hundreds of millions that were spent and securing the rights basically just to the appendices of The Lord of the Rings all that money would have been better spent just hiring like an army of a hundred different writers and like basically give them all the chance say look try to invent your own fantasy series from scratch and the best one will adapt into a show but the rest because we're Amazon will publish as books like that would have been a better use of all that money and who knows there might have been some brilliant new idea that could have emerged from that process but that's not what they did to put up JD Payne and Patrick McCay they don't have an original bone in their body and their staff of writers and directors they're not much better and I don't want to spend this whole video calling out people by name but if you want to look up the writers and directors of the show their names are all out there and you avoid their work like the plague in the future because it's tough not to feel embarrassed on their behalf while watching the show I mean you've got this enormous cast of interchangeably bland characters many characters whom I just outright despise but they're all spouting this kind of stiff wooden dialogue and which get and what gets a humiliating about the approach to the show it's how they're always like straining for this like this what what they think sounds like the Poetry of jro token's Pros but they can't quite recreate it so what they'll do they'll take a line of dialogue from Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and they'll change like one or two words and they'll repurpose it put it in another character's mouth and like no those lines belong to another story you decided to adapt the second age live with it and the truth is there's not a lot written about the second age however what we do have is pretty incredible like like like what tolken wrote about the second age concerns the rise and the inevitable fall of numor the forging of the Rings of power and the subsequent war in oron as a result and then ultimately the last Alliance of elves and men as they decide to take down Sauron once and for all leading to what we see at the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring Peter Jackson's film where you see the end of the second age when a seor cuts the ring from sauron's hand but that's enough material where you could have like one or two cool feature films or maybe one or two cool seasons of Television but you don't but there's not enough material for is like five bloated seasons of Television where they invent all these new subplots and all these new characters and that's where these writers consistently get into quicksand trying to think of things for these characters to say and or do just to fill the time and that's what so much of the show just feels like padding like filler like everything involving the stranger and Nori and Poppy like you can just ignore all that like it's all made up from nothing like it's all complete and total [ __ ] and so anytime those scenes begin I'm like well like Nori and Poppy shouldn't even be in this [ __ ] show so take those stupid fruits and vegetables out of your hair go take a bath and go act in another show or the stranger AKA Gandalf who they can't call Gandalf because I don't think they even have the rights to the name of that character but he's [ __ ] Gandalf but that character didn't even arrive in Middle Earth until about halfway through the third age and the reason he arrived along with his four other fellow Wizards was when Sauron was beginning to rise again in the third age and it was just like a shadow in merkwood these five wizards came from Over the Sea they're basically like the last little bit of help that the Valar were willing to offer to Middle Earth for the the dark times ahead and so anytime I'm watching any of these scenes featuring that character it's tough for me not to just completely be dismissive or just just guard them entirely because I know wherever those stories lead they're leading to nowhere because this character doesn't even belong in the story but it's what what I've what I've come to realize is that like JD Payne and Patrick McKay the way they look at this uh at this show they think well every story set in Middle Earth needs to have the same tropes to the same ingredient so you like you can't have a story without a wizard and a hobbit sidekick and so that's why they put characters and it's like no like that's a story for the third age from the war of the ring and I'll confess to having some morbid curiosity as to which wizard Kieran Hines might be playing I suspect they're going to say that he's an early version of sarmon which makes absolutely no sense because in the context of this show he's got those three M&M Slim Shady like Sauron worshippers working for him and there was a time where sarum on the white was a good guy he if anything he was the most powerful good wizard in Middle Earth so the idea of him being in Middle Earth in the second age basically operating on the same side as some of the the villains of the story makes absolutely no sense but asking this show to make sense or asking the plot to be kind of like reconciled with what's to come from the text that's just an exercise and frustration and it will absolutely get you nowhere I get I get the sense that the writers are absolutely in panic mode which is why they're doing things like saying all right any recognizable character from anywhere in tolken let's just grab them and drop them in even if it makes no sense like we have not seen Tom Bombadil yet in the season but it makes no sense pulling him into this season because he is a character he only makes sense in the context of that scene where he bumps into uh Frodo and Sam and Mary and Pippen and The Fellowship of the Ring and he doesn't necessarily further the plot but he is a beloved character but he makes sense in that scene leave him in that scene he does he doesn't need to be kind of a guide for The Stranger or Gandalf in the second age it makes no sense but once again it's like you can tell the writer like well he's a recognizable figure people have always wanted to see him you know if you don't count the the Soviet adaptation of The Lord of the Rings from the the early 90s where Tom Bombadil did show up and you know spoil alert they drop in uh ins into the season the ins don't show up at all in the second age not reference once like let the ins just be Mary and Pippen with their own little private war against sarmon and ecard and orank and that sort of thing in the war of the ring in the third age but once again they they're in desperation mode so they will pull in any character if they think it'll help more people watch this piece of [ __ ] just like in season one when they premat surely introduced the ballog in Kaza doom and if you want to be a total nerd about the history and that sort of thing it wasn't until the Year 1980 in the third age where he was Disturbed and awakened and he went on his big Rampage so we're talking about thousands of years in the future in terms of the story but these writers do not care they know that people like the ball Rog and they know that the great majority of people watching this show or potentially the great majority of people watching the show don't care about the text don't care about the stories as they're originally written so they're just going to grabb anything they can to try to make this show popular in the short term so I think I've gotten my initial temper tantrum out of my system now I'm going to go line by line through my notes and try to call attention to all the little details that jumped out at me like the idiotic flashback to Sauron being betrayed by the Orcs And crawling away as a little pile of goo first and foremost sain so goddamn powerful the idea of Orcs being able to stab him and make him Slither off it just shows how the the writers of the show of fundamental lack of understanding of any of like the legendarium or the mythology of token's lore but I guess they're trying to depict him as a a figure of pity who can who we can kind of get behind and root for sauron's evil like he want total complete domination over everything that's ever walked or crawled we don't need to depict him as a figure of pity you can make him you know charismatic or powerful or seductive but we don't need to feel pity for him ever but also uh they seem to be trying to do the similar thing with elron where everybody's always like talking down to Elon in the show and talking about how he's just like a mere Herald and like oh you're not you're not high enough in our rankings or our society to like hear this news or make these decisions Elon is the son of aend and I don't want to get too nerdy about the the lore but if you're the son of arendel that's like being the son of Superman and Jesus Christ and Elvis all rolled into one because at the end of the first age when all was lost arendel sailed into the West to ask for help from the Valar the Valar came back kicked the [ __ ] out of morgoth and when the dust had settled they invited all the elves to eventually sail to the undying lands once they had grown we are of Middle Earth and for the men that had fought in their side they created numor and the numenorians were given long life wisdom Etc and so forth but without arendel all of Middle Earth would have been dominated and destroyed by more Goths so his son is a big deal and that is Elon and elron and his brother Elis were given a choice you can either be kind of like true to your Elven Heritage or your human Heritage they both were half Elven elron decided to have long life like an elf and Elis decided to be the first num manorian King he was given like a longer life span of a couple hundred years in any event I don't want to get too distracted by something like the actual text written by the original author of this world but long story short elron should always be on equal footing as gadriel or Gil gallad or Kell bmbo or any of the major Elven characters but one of the strangest creative decisions of season two is how they've depicted the three Elven rings and how like they're basically trying to turn each and every single one of them into something that's like people are greedy for or avaricious about the same way the people will eventually be about the the one ring but I've got a little paragraph here from the simmer Alan which tells you all you need to know about the three oven Rings now these were the three that had last been made and they possessed the greatest Powers naria Nya and vilia they were named the Rings of Fire and Water and Air set with Ruby and adamant Sapphire and of all the Elven Rings saon most desired to possess them for those who had them in their keeping could ward off the decays of time and postpone the weariness of the world but saon could not discover them for they were given into the hands of the wise who concealed them and never again used them openly while Sauron kept the the ruing ring therefore the three remained unsullied for they were forged by Kell bmore alone in the hand of Sauron and never touched them yet they were also subject to the one so the only real downside to the three Elven Rings is that while sauron's wearing the One Ring which he has not yet made in the show you're kind of subservient to his influence and his whim so they just take the Rings off they have a big giant war in Regan and that's all going to be covered U later in the season but one of the reasons in the third age which we saw in The Lord of the Rings that gadriel Elon and Gandalf all all are all able to wear those three rings in the open it's because Sauron doesn't have his ring during the war of the ring so they're able to use those rings in any event they're trying to turn each of the Elven rings in the show into like symbols of malice and greed and that sort of thing and it's just not true at all to uh to what tolken wrote but getting back to the things that I despised about the show there is an epidemic of shitty music littered throughout all three of these episodes whether it's Elven singing Dwarven singing Human singing it's awful like you can tell like the the writers of the music for the show clearly think that it's like uh like really inspirational and moving it's about as moving as that power of one power of two [ __ ] from Star Wars the acolyte but it's cringe inducing I mean I was humiliated on the writer's behalf that they actually had cooked up that Melody and put it into the show assuming they even used a composer at all as opposed to like some sort of like you know AI to crank out the the music but the music is soulless and Hollow like both the music and the dialogue have a similar problem where they're always trying to suggest that there's so much like depth and like Grandeur to what they're doing and it comes across as like so superficial and so Hollow like like with the dialogue you have all these like these greeting card moments where somebody will share some like some proverb that's supposed to communicate some sort of advice or wisdom and it's like oh my God like that sounds like it was made up by a [ __ ] 5-year-old I'm sorry if you try to dress up your greeting card observations and then like masquerade them as wisdom people are going to call you out on it or at least people who like to do things like read books and that sort of thing but getting back to my notes from the show uh oh well here's one of one of my main grievances it's completely bewildering to me as to why this show invents so many meaningless subplots and so many meaningless Side characters while ignoring major characters that are already there like right for the taking as I said before the second age is concerned with the rise and the fall of numor the construction of the Rings of power in the subsequent War then the last Alliance of elves and Men all good stuff all which involves really interesting characters but like characters like Ellen deal get totally s like Ellen deal is a major character from the tolken low and there's actually even though there's very little written about the second age quite a lot written about him and his father and his sons a seal doer and a narian but all he does is basically mope around wearing that same shitty armor from season one with the the man boobs me that armor looks like you could buy it off a rack in a [ __ ] like drugstore like in spite of it being the most expensive show ever made why does all all the armor look like complete [ __ ] but I guess Ellendale has a better than his son anaran who has not yet shown up in the show in spite of being a major character in the uh the story like at the end of the second age there's this giant battle where uh Ellendale anaran and gilgalad all die while fighting Sauron Andor is the one who cuts the ring from his hand but anaran is a major character who helps co-found Gondor at some point they're GNA have to uh to introduce the character but they keep rolling out this madeup character Aryan the sister toor who does not exist in the text whatsoever but she's given a lot of uh stupid [ __ ] scenes throughout the uh the first three episodes but as I go through my notes there's one less detail related to The Stranger and Nori and Poppy which I have to mention even though I said I wasn't basic I'm just going to disregard all those subplots but they're all these villains all these bad guys who running around these silly looking masks but they look like rejects from a bad Star Wars show like take a show like Boba Fett or Oban Kenobi or the Acolyte and take the most ridiculous characters from those crummy shows and then basically just like cut and paste out of that into Lord of the Rings that's what these bad guys look like but once again anytime these writers or directors make up anything for this show that from their own imagination the results are always totally [ __ ] disastrous perhaps not as disastrous as the the depiction of anatar the Lord of gifts and his collaboration with Kell bmore but at least that is something from token's Lord that they're trying in their own clumsy way to adapt like if you go back to the The Source material like the Rings are made over many many many decades and at the end of all those labors and after all these rings have been distributed that's when Sauron finally made the one ring so he could dominate everybody that he' been handing out all these gifts to but they're basically trying to take like three and a half thousand years of history and compress it into a single weekend so that all these characters from the events of the second age can all be more or less in the same storyline but a strange thing happens where if time and distance don't exist in the show where the only thing that only thing that matters is convenience what makes the whole world feel smaller and less epic like ellenel in this in this show one point just basically teleports back to numor numor is like way the [ __ ] out in the ocean they'd be like I'm I'm going to sail to Africa like how long will that take I don't know but a pretty goddamn long time but the teleportation problem in the show is a big is an ongoing issue like imagine if when Peter Jackson had adapted the the Lord of the Rings when uh Gandalf told froo like you know this ring is bad we got to do something with the ring imagine if he' just gone into his backyard teleported to Mount Doom dropped it in the lava and teleported back been back in time for a for happy hour it would have made the story feel less consequential part of what makes the Lord of the Rings so Grand and epic they got of walk that [ __ ] ring all the way to Mordor and takes months and months and months it takes the entire story but in the context of this show the equivalent of the distance traveled by froto and the Lord of the Rings people like travel across that distance and the blink of an eye repeatedly anytime just willy-nilly but I'm just having a quick glance on my notes for episode three to see what else jumped out at me oh um we've got some more stuff being stolen from uh pet Peter Jackson's Trilogy we see isor being found by a horse much like how Aragorn was found by a horse in The Two Towers they bring bring in some baby shobs like from Return of the King just so isor can fight some spiders and there's this ridiculous scene where his horse is fighting off Orcs And kicks an orc when she gets impaled on a tree and then the horse is stomping on spiders completely totally moronic this is a show for uh for three-year-old children but nothing was quite as bad as a moment which actually had me ging and laughing out loud I mean that's when you know his Show's in trouble when people starting to laugh at the show's expense but when Aaron Deere makes his return he does about 700 flips like he does so many flips in this like in this very brief fight scene it's like did he actually remember to fire any arrows or actually like fight anybody but like meaningless superflous flips and that sort like all that stupid spinny [ __ ] it does not make him seem like more of a badass it just makes him seem like a spaz or a total [ __ ] like but I guess that's where all the money for the show went is pro providing the special effects budget so they can do 100 to like you know walk through a door and aend deer Supply goes from bad to worse when we're expected to feel this deep swell of pity for him as he attends the funeral of bronwin like I wish this show would kill off more characters that don't come from the book because they're all totally worthless and meaningless and bring nothing to the story but this show is constantly giving us scenes that are supposed to have all this emotional weight and all this drama and sadness but like I guarantee you nine out of 10 people watching the show have no memory of bronwin from season one like you need a little refresher just to understand like the oh this is is a character from the character who had the great idea of leaving a secured position like in a keep with towers and walls and going to a wooden Village to fight a battle like that's the person who we're supposed to feel sad about after she's died and her son Theo has these uh Stupid emotional exchanges with uh with aend Deere and I wish an orc would just come along and just tear out Theo spine he is my least favorite character in the show but in that Theo gets rescued by an ant at the end of this episode he's probably going to play a similar role to that of Mary and Pippen from The Two Towers where he's going to get the the the tree people to do something special once again there's not a single an that appears in the second age in any of tolken text they don't belong in the story but easily the weakest stuff from the season so far is all the palace Intrigue we're seeing back in numor where AR farzan is basically making his move to try to take control over numor and there's this absolutely bewildering scene where this giant eagle flies and lands in the middle of this big dramatic confrontation where they're screaming about the Palante tier and elf friends and all this nonsense and then somehow far AR farzan like uses the Eagle's appearance as like as like basically some sort of symbol that he is the rightful Heir or as the better claim to the throne of numor but it almost feels like a scene is missing explaining where this Eagle comes from what it might signify and why AR farzan feels like he can use it to his Advantage like we all love the Eagles from The Hobbit we all love the Eagles from The Lord of the Rings and there we understand why they're helping out but here it's like they could have said said like oh well this is uh you know an emissary from the Valar from the undying lands come to basically like you know like give it seal of approval for this for this direction that we might be taking but they offer none of that they just they allow the audience to kind of fill in the gaps but I'm sorry with when you have a show where you have like where you're not giving it the benefit of the doubt for anything they're going to need to explain the appearance of the Eagle at least like a little bit but before I get any more demoralized or bitter or cynical just by thinking about or talking about the show maybe it's time to wrap up this video and I'll close with a philosophical question which franchise is in the worst shape right now that was once great like Star Wars would be a strong Contender Star Trek would be a strong Contender the Lord of the Rings hurts me most deeply because there is so much great material out there like once again you could spend like half a day reading all the material that that there is out there on the second age and have a much better time than watching this show and we all know how great the Lord of the Rings can be like the animated version of The Hobbit or Peter Jackson's liveaction trilogy or all the various paintings out there once again I I'll plug shamelessly plug again my video about all my fa favorite adaptations but no matter how great an adaptation might be there ain't nothing like the real thing baby go back and read some jrl Tolkien and I think a common through line through all these various franchises that are struggling is you have a situation where charlatans and fakers and imposters or just outright casual fans are basically given a lot of leeway and a lot of freedom to destroy things that once were very important to us and I feel feel like it's always really tough to find people who are the right storytellers to bring a particular book or franchise back to life because it's not enough just to be in love with the material there are a lot of people out there who love tolken books who would not necessarily be good writers or directors on a show like the pool is very limited and I feel like if you can't find the right people to bring a show to the screen well then don't make that show I guess that would be my advice for Amazon moving forward stop making the Lord of the Rings and rings of power try to develop your own material like in that this show has so many new characters and so many many so many new story lines clearly the writers are desperate to create their own material let them like go let them go off and make their own shows from scratch and there'll be a natural aristocracy of talent where those people who are capable of creating good stories and good shows they will naturally Prevail over time but we need to bring this cultural vandalism to an end where absolute fakers and frauds are allowed to try to contribute anything new to the stories of jro tolken jro tolken is not a shared Universe it's not a Sandbox make up your own books make up your own shows and if the shows are great and if the books are great well then you will find an audience over time the same way that jro token did but I think at this point I've said enough I don't know if I'm going to continue to uh tackle each and every single episode as they get unveiled at a minimum I'll do a season two finale review but we'll have to wait and see next week just how bad the episode is if I feel like I have anything new to offer or new to say like if the show gets much worse or much better you never know might get better then I probably will come back and review episode 4 this time next week but for the time being you have my thanks and gratitude for being uh patient with me as I basically just like whine and piss and moan my way through this video but you know I find the the books of Jared hulken to be absolutely sacred and when people [ __ ] them up then we have to uh we have to say something like like like Sam said there's some good in this world and it's worth fighting for so on that note I'm going to wrap this sucker up hope you enjoyed it please consider liking the video subscribing to the channel hitting that notification Bell but more importantly as always onwards and upwards