THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

I know I could have put this on the 'movies you've seen' thread but there is a possibility of this running and running.
Straight up I'll say I'm a massive LOTR geek and thought the films PJ did 20 years ago excellent. Loved 'em. Not going to witter on about IMHO tiny plot amendments.

The Hobbit? Not in the same league and rather 'dragged out' but still essentially 'true to the book'. No real beef there.

Now myself and one of the Junior Ramones who (without prompting I might add) has always been 'into' LOTR have watched the first two.
I'm liking some of it; cinematography is really good. Elrond sounds pretty much like Hugo Weaving in LOTR. Celebrimbor (who never appears in LOTR - as he's dead) is credible. The dwarves as a race 'work' as before.

Galadriel, I'll reserve judgement on. Casting her as a warrior....? Hmmmm I can see why they have done it but it was never really her 'bag'. Lenny Henry and co....well yes ok.

Much remains to be revealed - and at the end of the day my view is that if it stimulates interest in one of the great works of literature (yes I know but I really do rate the book) that's a good thing.

The way things were (at that time...2000 years before the events of LOTR) are only dealt with in various appendices of LOTR/Silmarillion IIRC so there is scope for 'interpretation'.

Pretty pleased so far .

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Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

Ali, look up The Rest Is History podcast. Very recently they did episodes on both JRR Tolkien himself and on LOTR (episodes 225 & 226). Both historians are massive LOTR fans. I'm not but I found both episodes informative and very interesting.

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I don't need your ill-informed, half-baked, idiotic opinions. I have plenty of those myself.

Great stuff. Thanks.

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Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

I’m watching it, and the first two episodes were good, but I’m reserving judgement far more than I am with House of the Dragon.

Mainly because the show doesn’t have the rights to adapt the vast majority of things it needs to for this time period. They can’t use the Silmarillion, only what’s in the appendices of other books I believe?

It was a decent start, I liked parts (the dwarves, the Southlands) but others I’m not so sure about. It looks visually stunning though.

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Cuboid of bum fluff

Looking forward to seeing Annatar i.e. Sauron in 'fair form'.....

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Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

Still not making much sense to me but it's nice to see the spectacular landscapes etc.

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Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

They missed a trick not calling it "Better Call Sauron".

More doors will have to open before anything like that.

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Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

I've watched all episodes of both that have been released so far. Have to say that the jury's out here.

The Lord Of The Rings thing certainly looks fantastic, but I could do without the Harfoots. They are unbelievably annoying. As for the Game Of Thrones, just a bit slow really, and Matt Smith is woefully miscast. He's extremely poor in this.

I'm guessing that my view is skewed by the previous shows, Thrones especially. But I'll keep watching.

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For those that like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.

That's definitely an interesting take. Matt Smith is encapsulating the character from the page perfectly.

As for it being slow... it is, but the first 7 episodes are effectively an extended prologue that is pushing us through the years to get to the juicy part of the story. It's covering 20 years (30 if you include the first scene) in about 7 episodes so that we understand the story and the relationships by the time that shit really does start to hit the fan.

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Cuboid of bum fluff