Rings of Power S2 Review
Oct. 4th, 2024 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiThe verdict: This story is written like fan fic by a high schooler. It’s amazing the production team let this get through. That said, it has some elements I really like and wish had a better show to breathe in. (Note: I’m skipping all accent marks out of fatigue.)
Overall Production:
The Good
Visual effects, music, costumes. Acting! These are good actors, and they deserve better material. In some cases, they are even very well cast, and they are acting the heck out of what little they’ve been given. In terms of story, the fleshing out of Sauron is generally good in my book.
The Bad
The writing overall. Especially toward the end, it’s paint-by-the-numbers. It’s full of lines like “I am the light.” “No, you are the darkness.” That’s not a quote, but it’s indicative of the basic pattern of stock lines and responses. It also does set-up and pay-off poorly, like introducing a nameless Elf who gets pep-talked along the lines of “I know you’ll do your best” and then dies doing their best one minute later.
The Hit and Miss
Directing and editing. Sometimes, it’s really good: good shots, creative angles, well paced, nice variety. Sometimes, it feels borderline amateur—like there’s a scene where Elendil’s daughter tells a soldier (paraphrased), “There’s nothing to see here. Move along,” and a second later follows up with (paraphrased), “Do I have to report you for insubordination?” The only insubordinate thing I saw was that, for a second, he slightly moved his head; there was no camera work or direction that indicated he was disobeying her. That sort of flub in basic craft, while rare overall, is surprisingly common in this most expensive show ever.
Note: some bits that seem like editing problems may be script problems, like lots of late-Game-of-Thrones “teleportation.” The show has a tendency to do something like, “So-and-So is coming,” and the very next cut, So-and-So is there. If you want to express either distance or tension, you could at least intercut with another scene between announcing someone is on the move and having them suddenly arrive.
Spoilers for plot stuff follow.
I want to focus on what I thought I had potential because the dumb stuff is dumb.
The winner this season (artistically speaking) is Sauron. I like their take on Annatar (as well as bits of Halbrand) as seductive Sauron. I even kind of want to like him as a person, knowing full well what his trajectory is and despite the fact that his manipulations are not super subtle. The actor is very good: well cast and gives a good performance that adds visual/tonal nuance where the script paints in pretty broad strokes. And, yes, good directing too.
I have mixed feelings about having Sauron represent our current pop culture discourse of an emotional abuser/gas-lighter who has been a “hurt person who hurts people.” On the one hand, it feels very 2020s. On the other hand, these are patterns that real people show, and I could see Annatar engaging in all of this. I guess it would land better for me if the writing overall were more skillful, if it felt more like naturally occurring conversation and less like “This is the line where we’re going to show the audience that Sauron is a gas-lighter.”
Last season, Adar was my fav. This season he’s dropped to Number 2, behind Sauron. Overall, I still like him. The recast was good, and the new actor slips into the character seamlessly. He’s still an interesting concept as a “father” of the Orcs, but, alas, they don’t explore this. We learn nothing we didn’t know in S1, and most of his scenes are, thus, fairly pointless, except for delivering plot beats. I did like that he voluntarily gave Nenya back to Galadriel. That showed a tension between good and evil more interesting than what we’d yet seen... and then he was instantly dead, so, yeah, they decided not to do anything with his character, which was disappointing because the core concept is excellent.
Taking it as read that the writing overall is simplistic, Celebrimbor was well realized as a character. The actor is excellent. He just doesn’t read as Elvish, which he has in common with all the Elves except Arondir and possibly Cirdan, whom I wish we’d seen more of.
Disa and Durin also continue to be fairly well written, though the Dwarf plot suffers as the season goes on from the writers’ weird inability to distinguish the effects of the Seven from the One Ring. Again, very good acting.
Random Observations
Nori and Gandalf parting ways took me by surprise. Their story had no arc to speak of, so her suddenly leaving felt narratively unprepared (though realistic as a life choice).
RoP’s Balrog is so nearly identical to Jackson’s that I’m a bit surprised they aren’t being sued. I don’t like it for the same reason I don’t like Jackson’s: it’s not scary because 1) they show too much detail and 2) it moves too fast. The former robs it of the terror of the unknown, and the latter makes it feel small, even when shown to be big. On the other hand, I loved the sea creature that tests Miriel. That looked huge, still, deadly, and menacing, some of the best creature CGI I’ve seen.
I liked Tom Bombadil. As with the rest, I wish he’d been given a more interesting script.
Overall Production:
The Good
Visual effects, music, costumes. Acting! These are good actors, and they deserve better material. In some cases, they are even very well cast, and they are acting the heck out of what little they’ve been given. In terms of story, the fleshing out of Sauron is generally good in my book.
The Bad
The writing overall. Especially toward the end, it’s paint-by-the-numbers. It’s full of lines like “I am the light.” “No, you are the darkness.” That’s not a quote, but it’s indicative of the basic pattern of stock lines and responses. It also does set-up and pay-off poorly, like introducing a nameless Elf who gets pep-talked along the lines of “I know you’ll do your best” and then dies doing their best one minute later.
The Hit and Miss
Directing and editing. Sometimes, it’s really good: good shots, creative angles, well paced, nice variety. Sometimes, it feels borderline amateur—like there’s a scene where Elendil’s daughter tells a soldier (paraphrased), “There’s nothing to see here. Move along,” and a second later follows up with (paraphrased), “Do I have to report you for insubordination?” The only insubordinate thing I saw was that, for a second, he slightly moved his head; there was no camera work or direction that indicated he was disobeying her. That sort of flub in basic craft, while rare overall, is surprisingly common in this most expensive show ever.
Note: some bits that seem like editing problems may be script problems, like lots of late-Game-of-Thrones “teleportation.” The show has a tendency to do something like, “So-and-So is coming,” and the very next cut, So-and-So is there. If you want to express either distance or tension, you could at least intercut with another scene between announcing someone is on the move and having them suddenly arrive.
Spoilers for plot stuff follow.
I want to focus on what I thought I had potential because the dumb stuff is dumb.
The winner this season (artistically speaking) is Sauron. I like their take on Annatar (as well as bits of Halbrand) as seductive Sauron. I even kind of want to like him as a person, knowing full well what his trajectory is and despite the fact that his manipulations are not super subtle. The actor is very good: well cast and gives a good performance that adds visual/tonal nuance where the script paints in pretty broad strokes. And, yes, good directing too.
I have mixed feelings about having Sauron represent our current pop culture discourse of an emotional abuser/gas-lighter who has been a “hurt person who hurts people.” On the one hand, it feels very 2020s. On the other hand, these are patterns that real people show, and I could see Annatar engaging in all of this. I guess it would land better for me if the writing overall were more skillful, if it felt more like naturally occurring conversation and less like “This is the line where we’re going to show the audience that Sauron is a gas-lighter.”
Last season, Adar was my fav. This season he’s dropped to Number 2, behind Sauron. Overall, I still like him. The recast was good, and the new actor slips into the character seamlessly. He’s still an interesting concept as a “father” of the Orcs, but, alas, they don’t explore this. We learn nothing we didn’t know in S1, and most of his scenes are, thus, fairly pointless, except for delivering plot beats. I did like that he voluntarily gave Nenya back to Galadriel. That showed a tension between good and evil more interesting than what we’d yet seen... and then he was instantly dead, so, yeah, they decided not to do anything with his character, which was disappointing because the core concept is excellent.
Taking it as read that the writing overall is simplistic, Celebrimbor was well realized as a character. The actor is excellent. He just doesn’t read as Elvish, which he has in common with all the Elves except Arondir and possibly Cirdan, whom I wish we’d seen more of.
Disa and Durin also continue to be fairly well written, though the Dwarf plot suffers as the season goes on from the writers’ weird inability to distinguish the effects of the Seven from the One Ring. Again, very good acting.
Random Observations
Nori and Gandalf parting ways took me by surprise. Their story had no arc to speak of, so her suddenly leaving felt narratively unprepared (though realistic as a life choice).
RoP’s Balrog is so nearly identical to Jackson’s that I’m a bit surprised they aren’t being sued. I don’t like it for the same reason I don’t like Jackson’s: it’s not scary because 1) they show too much detail and 2) it moves too fast. The former robs it of the terror of the unknown, and the latter makes it feel small, even when shown to be big. On the other hand, I loved the sea creature that tests Miriel. That looked huge, still, deadly, and menacing, some of the best creature CGI I’ve seen.
I liked Tom Bombadil. As with the rest, I wish he’d been given a more interesting script.
