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+Sigh+ Okay, let’s do this.

00:33 Galadriel sounds like an easily flustered English nanny. Cate Blanchett sounded powerful, she was an established actress, with real credentials. Morfydd Clark, not so much.

02:14 Not that this is necessarily a problem, but craftsmanship and sailing have almost zero associations with Galadriel or any of her immediate family. They didn’t even come to Middle Earth on ships (yes, I know her mom is Teleri, but that hardly passes on to the kids aside from Angrod or Aegnor whining to Great-uncle Thingol)

02:20 Speaking of whom, is that one of them, or Finrod? Or Orodreth? And why use a dagger? That’s awfully…martial… for the House of Finarfin in the Time of the Trees, which this is stated to be by not-Cate’s opening narration.

03:02 Why is he looking up when speaking of a “light that guides”? It has already been established this is pre-Sun & Moon.

03:19 Sailing metaphors should not be the go-to thing for kids who have grown up in Tirion!

03:27 Per the captions, that’s Finrod. I am a bit annoyed that we are getting the Second Age where he is not a part of the story but they tease him anyway. Non-book fans are not going to care who he is, and book fans are going to want him instead of fat black dwarf lady.

03:47 An immortal elf, currently in Valinor, says he won’t always be here to speak important truths to Galadriel (who, BTW, was Artanis – Galadriel is a nickname her future husband gave her when she went to Middle-Earth). Where is he going? Even if he dies, it’s just a change of address, and at this point, no elf either has ever met has died, nor should it be something he sees as inevitable. This MIGHT make some sense if he said it in Middle-Earth, when she was an adult, and in fact, they do have a similar conversation, where he alludes to a chain of events that will lead to his death … and almost immediate resurrection in Valinor. Where this conversation is taking place. If he has some sort of foresight, he should be saying, “you won’t always be here for me to tell these things to you.” Which is basically their status of the entirety of the Second and Third Ages.

04:09 I honestly like Artanis’ voice better than Not-Cate’s. At least she’s supposed to sound childish.

04:26 Compliment sandwich time! I really like that shot of the Trees. Laurelin and Telperion are their names, IIRC, and it would probably be nice for the non-readers to have some explanation.

04:56 Ooookay. That’s a version of the truth.

05:06 For the record, Galadriel was not on any of those ships. She walked to Middle Earth across the polar ice cap. I guess that’s not cool enough?

05:42 Eagles fighting dragons suggests the War of Wrath, which was well after Finrod was dead. Which also goes for the Ninaeth Arnodad Unnumbered Tears battle. It could be Dagor Bragollach. And it is also possible that’s not Finrod. I am bad at faces.

05:55 “They said it would be over quickly,” like Galadriel is just another well-meaning person deceived by dishonest politicians, instead of a member of the royal family. The only real leadership making a case for war was her uncle, Feanor, whom she already distrusted and knew was not a reliable authority, while her own father was noping out as soon as the actual “they” (the Valar, if we are talking about the actual authority figures and powers that be) said it would not be over quickly, and that the elves were doomed if they pursued this course. Artanis/Galadriel did not listen, because she wanted to be a queen, and the elves in the Undying Lands were content and didn’t want to be ruled by her.

07:07 I suppose it’s not important (but why are they saying this, if so) but Galadriel’s brother did not vow to seek out Sauron and destroy him, because Sauron was an immortal god-like being who existed before the world was made, and, in fact, helped shape the world before being corrupted. If anyone would have been wise enough to not pick a fight with him, it would have been Finrod. He actually set out on a quest to fulfil a debt to the descendant of a Man who saved his life, and was captured by Sauron and killed by a werewolf.

08:08 If she’s looking for Sauron in “the Northernmost Waste” she could not be farther from the actual trail. And this vow to hunt down and slay Sauron strongly suggests Galadriel has utterly failed to learn anything from her family’s folly. A rash vow to take down an immortal being who is well beyond the power of Elves is exactly what caused all the misery and death and destruction of the First Age.

So they are trying to buff Galadriel and inflate her into a girlpower heroine, but actually making her dumb and violent. Basically, they’re giving her the Sansa/Daenerys/Brienne/Nynaeve treatment.

09:56 This guy is being framed as a doubting Thomas, but going home would bring them a lot closer to wherever Sauron currently is than “the Northernmost Waste”.

13:56 It’s “farther north,” not “further north.”

15:00 Galadriel says that she yearns for home more than anyone, because she can still feel the light of the Trees on her face, but until she knows Sauron is vanquished, she can never return. A. she can never return because the Trees were destroyed, so she will never recover that feeling she associates with home (in this case, Valinor, not Eriador as her subordinate was referring). And I don’t think the writers understand that this sentiment of hers, being unable to return to Valinor until Sauron is vanquished is a Bad Thing! This is the Tolkien version of trying to finish the Tower of Babel or eat the last bite from the apple in the Garden of Eden. She insists on pursuing the ends which led her people to destruction and for which they were banished from paradise. It’s one thing to portray this as a starting point for the character, something she must grow out of, as she does (and I would have said she already had, by this point) in the books. It’s not too late to retrieve this…

16:37 That whole scene existed solely to show off Galadriel’s martial chops and establish her as the best. And why did she not hear the Elf shouting “Snow-troll!” and actually hear the crunch of a chunk of ice being thrown?

16:37 Not-Cate is prettier but can’t touch Blanchett’s presence and power.

19:37 So, proto-Hobbits have Dwarf names. Nori was an actual Dwarf in The Hobbit. If you are going to be faithful to Tolkien in any way, it should be keeping the languages straight, in names, if nothing else. Hobbits are a race of Men, not remotely related to Dwarves.

20:56 So the women in this show have universally been portrayed as the ones who are concerned about real dangers, while the men are oblivious, disbelieving or content, and at the same time, the ones with adventurous spirits and curiosity.

23:31 Elrond is here.

23:49 If Elrond, grandson of a princess of Gondolin, so of Earendil the Mariner, who saved Middle-Earth, is not an Elf-lord, who is?

I don’t like this rules and ranks and bureaucracy implied in both the dialogue in Galadriel’s scene, and this. I never got the impression the Elves were all about institutions and paper-pushing. It might have been a pretty big mistake to focus this story on them, instead of Numenor. These supernaturally advanced people who are good at everything and plugged into how the world works are better left in the background, rather than as protagonists. Especially if you can’t think of any story or character ideas but the tired old ‘rebel bucking the establishment’ tropes.

24:35 As the last of the House of Finwe, Galadriel should have a rep in her own right, not just be known as Elrond’s friend.

25:20 Would it have been so hard to stick with the book version, where Sauron was intimidated by the forces of the Lords of the West, and sought pardon from Eonwe, and was told to return to Valinor to make his plea to the Valar, and might have even been sincere in his repentance, only to change his mind? They could have had Galadriel poking about doing other stuff (the world has been recently reshaped after all) and then this conversation could be her bringing up the possibility that Sauron is still running around, that he did not go to the Valar like the Elves might generally have assumed. There was a lot of stuff going on, where Elrond’s foster-father and -uncle and Galadriel’s cousins, committing great crimes, and his brother being given a kingdom and his father becoming a star that all this stuff might have distracted them. Rather than Galadriel’s quixotic obsession that can’t help but draw one’s mind to those same crimes, it could be played as an old foe come back, but those left in Middle-Earth are not the great heroes of the First Age, and how are they going to face this threat?

It might be the same beats as the War of the Ring, but at least that’s the point of the story, rather than attempts at being original, while just falling back into the same clichés.

25:39 “I will ask the King for a fresh company” “official matters” this is what I mean. Elves should not be all about bureaucracy. Elf warriors are not given at the order of the king, they willingly go because they respect the leader and the job needs doing.

And, I have to point out, Galadriel was already revered as a ruling lady in her own right, and helped make Gil-Galad (son of her brother or cousin, depending on whom you ask), she was not a mere officer in his army. And why do they have standing armies and commanders if they believe orcs are eradicated and Sauron is long gone?

25:44 “Why Elrond, you really have become a politician.” She starts out sounding like she is ask a question “Why, Elrond?” (in response to his statement that he wants to hear about her journey) Then, after a pause, we get the rest of her statement, which sounds pejorative, from someone who came to Middle Earth to found a kingdom!

And nothing about wanting to hear about her harrowing journey sounds like a politician!

25:48 Elrond does not DO idle flattery! He legit wants to know about her journey! Who is this, and what has she done with Galadriel, who is very wise and understands people well? Or else, who is this mewling courtier and what has he done with Elrond? Elrond, who basically ran a waystation for weary travelers and did want to know all about their harrowing journeys and help them out!

26:43 Elrond can be excluded from council meetings, but he can also arrange for you to get an audience with the High King?

And since when are Elvish kings so inaccessible? When does anyone ever have a problem getting to see the king, once they have made it into his secret city or fort or whatever? He might be an asshole to you, but it’s always to your face.

27:53 Okay, “Nori” is short for Elanor. A name Sam introduced to Hobbit nomenclature, like 4,000 years after this, at Frodo’s suggestion, based on a flower they saw in Lothlorien. But whatever. Her last name is Brandyfoot, which sounds like someone mixing and matching prefixes and suffixes from known Hobbit names. Except the Brandy in Brandybuck comes from the Brandywine River, whose name is a corruption of Branduin or some similar important Elvish name. There is no reason why primitive tribal Hobbits would have that prefix in one of their surnames.

30:16 Elrond is Gil-Galad’s speechwriter. This is a thing. Gil-Galad, of whom the harpers sadly sing, the last king whose realm was fair and free, is now just an empty suit, a short-sighted fool keeping Galadriel down and propped up by Elrond.

31:18 Passage across the Sea to the Undying Lands is NOT in the giving of the High King! It was offered by all the Valar to the Elves after the fall of Morgoth and Earendil’s successful pleading on their behalf. It is not an honor unrivaled in their lore, it is what they are supposed to be doing, except Galadriel either refused in her pride or else was included in the ban of the Valar, because of her rebellion and only permitted to go after the War of the Ring, I guess for passing the test and refusing to accept the One Ring from Frodo. At least that’s what’s implied in her dialogue then. In any event, she either does not need Gil-Galad’s permission or he has no authority to gainsay the Valar and grant it.

32:17 Finrod handed out jewelry like party favors. It just seems wrong for a dagger to be the symbol of Galadriel’s devotion to his memory.

32:39 “Are you just going to stand there, breathing like an Orc?” The TV thing where people just insult each other casually, or give backhanded compliments, or ask rhetorical questions instead of a simple acknowledgement. This is totes classic Tolkien speech.

32:46 “It is said the wine of victory is sweetest for those in whose bitter trials it has fermented.” Yeah, no. Go back to anachronistic blather if that’s your attempt at smart-people talk.

Awful writing aside, the sentiment, as best I can parse it, is completely at odds with the books, where the people who suffer often do not get to enjoy the fruits of their labors, such as Frodo having to leave the Shire and Middle Earth, after saving it for everyone else. Or how for Elrond, all paths in the War of the Ring were fraught with peril, how even the best case scenario would see him parted from his beloved daughter for the lifetime of the world, if not eternity.

33:18 Elves don’t rest in the place where they die or have their memorials. They know what happens! They have met dead Elves or know those who have. Her grandfather’s first wife came back from the underworld to give permission for him to marry her grandmother! Galadriel should never have believed “her rest” would be among the dead of Lindon. And, for the record, Finrod died in Tol-am-Gauroth, in Beleriand, not Lindon.

Galadriel is looking at a bunch of carvings of dead Elves, whining that she is to leave “them” because she is being sent to the Undying Lands where their spirits currently are! Who wants to stay by a gravesite instead of meeting the dead person or their reincarnated self? Her father, Finarfin led those of her people who had remained in Valinor in the War of Wrath that overthrew Morgoth. He almost certainly encountered Galadriel at some point in the War or passed along a message that Finrod is returned to life and married to his old girlfriend and they walk together in Valinor! She knows all this!

33:36 Your brother gave his life fulfilling a vow to help recover a treasure from Morgoth, Sauron just mugged him along the way.

34:20 “I am grateful you have not known evil as I have,” spits Galadriel in a vicious tone of voice at Elrond. Elrond was born in a refugee camp where his parents met after his mother’s parents and brothers were slain by the Sons of Feanor in one of the greatest acts of intra-racial treachery in Elvish history, and his father’s hometown was destroyed by Balrogs. His father sailed off and never returned, and his mother was driven to jump into the sea by the same Elves who killed her family. He and his twin brother were raised by the destroyers of their family, who lived with massive trauma, depression and guilt for their actions. His foster-father and -uncle committed a grievous crime driven by an accursed oath, and suffered for it, the uncle becoming the only Elf on record to commit suicide, by diving into a fiery chasm. His never saw his parents again, and his brother chose to share the fate of humans, which means he has died and moved beyond the world, and so Elrond will not see him again so long as the world endures, and might not afterward, because not even the Valar knows what happens to the souls of Men.

Meanwhile, Galadriel was raised among the royalty in Valinor, until the lights went out during a party and she forsook the Blessed Realm out of pride and ambition, persisted in her actions after witnessing their originator murder her mother’s relatives, came to Middle Earth, spent most of her time as a guest and apprentice to an immortal god-like queen, while the king gave the side-eye to the rest of her family and forbade their language in his realm. Then she met a Grey Elf prince and scarpered off to Lindon, skipping over the wars and downfall of Beleriand.

Even if what she claims is true in any sense, Elrond is one of the last people she should be saying it to!

35:13 “No one in history as every refused The Call.” You are, every single person in this community, all actively refusing The Call.

36:00 Everything Elrond is saying is true. Either the show is portraying him as somehow wrong, and Galadriel right to ignore or defy his counsel, or else they have gravely erred by having Elrond Elf-splain the folly of pursuing evil and getting others killed doing so, and the healing available in the Undying Lands to someone who has lived there, who studied under a Maia of Lorien and who partook in the rebellion of the Noldor.

36:17 “…Galadriel. Put up your sword.” “Without it, what am I to be?” Umm, one of the greatest figures in Tolkien’s legendarium, revered for any number of things, none of which have anything to do with swords? Elrond’s lame-ass answer is “What you have always been. My friend.” Such a satisfactory answer to someone suffering a crisis of purpose and vocation.

36:39 Awesome to be panning over a map covered with Third Age names in a show set very early in the Second Age.

39:28 Men have never had a king. Either this guy somehow knows about Numenor or else he’s worshipping Morgoth. And he complains that the elves are lumping his people in with wrongdoers who died a thousand years ago, that is, the Men whom Morgoth brought in to fight the Elves and Edain. Those are the only people who would have had a king, if Morgoth permitted one to so name himself. Our malcontent is either complaining about being judged a servant of Morgoth while also awaiting the return of Morgoth’s servants, or he is a Numenorean adherent, in which case he should know that the Edain served the Elves, there was no Edain king in opposition to them.

I don’t have a problem if he’s supposed to be a confused and clueless idiot, but this show has dug itself too much of a hole to deserve any trust.

41:25 It was established that the Elf soldier has sharper hearing, that he could hear the talk of poison before entering the… bar? butcher shop? Yet, he is taken just as much by surprise at the proprietor coming out as the human woman?

43:50 Okay, how long has it actually been since Morgoth was defeated? The malcontent Man said a thousand years, but the Second Age is only about 3000 years and change, IIRC. The coming of the Men of Numenor is a bit behind schedule, if they’re that far along.

45:55 I kind of feel like this particular elf has been cast with a black actor to give racial overtones to the resentments of the Men and those speaking against his relationship with this rather under-dressed woman. In a society where the men where those odd hoods, and the climate is appropriate for pants and boots for her, why is she so uncovered up top?

47:38 And a human female doctor is going to keep up on foot with an Elf soldier in a hurry. Rules are what we say they are. A trained Dwarf warrior struggles to keep up with a Sylvan Elf and a Man of Numenorean descent, but a regular, no special blessings, civilian human is a whole other thing.

47:45 Why do all these fantasy buildings have massive gaps between the planks of their walls? What is the point of a shelter that doesn’t shelter you from wind and cold and rain? If they are too “primitive” to cut boards to a roughly uniform shape so as to fit closely, how do they manage such straight pillars and rafters and singled roofs?

48:15 Crappy editing there. The doctor’s kid was bent over the hole, in one shot, then sat up straight and lowered his feet in then when they cut back to the prior angle, he was still above the hole bending over and then drops into the hole.

48:46 A “king’s bounty” is a gift from a king. I think they mean “king’s ransom.” Which would be a fortune. A king’s bounty, not necessarily.

49:31 Why are they sailing to the West in armor?

50:29 So the elves are lying sneaky politicians who manipulate people instead of offering good counsel.

51:27 Given the title of the show, I have to assume that Celebrimbor’s big project is not something new, but the forging of the Rings. Which means Sauron has been right among the Elves all this time. If he is talking about the Elf Rings, then Sauron is on his way out, or is already gone, to forge the One Ring. In fact, Sauron went to Celebrimbor and the smiths of Eregion saying “Hey, Gil-galad and Elrond are supposed to be so smart, but they won’t help me. Maybe they don’t want other realms becoming as awesome as Lindon?” because Gil-Galad and Elrond had been sending warnings to the other elves about this Lord of Gifts who was going around trying to sway them. But, nah. Those guys are chumps who doubted Galadriel and are somehow accessories to the forging of the Rings.

Or this project is going to be a total ass-pull on the part of the show. As I have said before, the problem is that I can’t trust them to make good original content.

51:54 Primitive Hobbit tribes use the word cartwheels in aphorisms even though there is no evidence of them possessing carts.

54:38 This all has the creepy vibes of a dystopian sci-fi show where the people are being ceremonially brought to the promised special thing or place and they are really just being harvested for organs or chopped up into soylent green or plugged into a life-draining machine.

57:31 So all that blather about stones and ships in the beginning was a very out of character conversation to set up this moment at the end. What good writing! /sarcasm

57:39 And it turns out the whispered bit we were not privileged to hear in the beginning was “Sometimes we cannot know (which lights to follow) until we have touched the darkness.” This makes no sense for an Elf, born in Tirion, to say in the time of the Trees! Darkness is beyond his experience, and they are full of shit, Tolkien-wise. Knowledge of evil is never necessary to avoid it. All you need to know is what is good and right and stick to that. That’s why the Hobbits are the heroes, while the Men of Gondor who speak of knowing the Enemy best, like Boromir and Denethor succumb. Elrond and Galadriel and Gil-Galad did not need to be immersed in the corruption and betrayals of the conflicts over the Silmarils in order to withstand the blandishments of Sauron.

59:48 Tune in next week to find out what is the deal with the naked space man. I have read The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and the Silmarilion many times, and even some of those weird collections of notes in the History of Middle Earth. I cannot begin to imagine what that is.

Wild-ass guess? Sauron, and Nori is an ancestor of the Bagginses so her encountering this darkness is what gives her family heritage the strength to beat him in the future.

Okay, not everything is an utter turd. There are nice visuals, if you care about that sort of thing (I don't, so I could be 100% wrong). here is potential here. However. The acting is ... not impressive nor is the casting all that good. Elrond and Celebrimbor look like comedians. The Elves have been butchered beyond recognition. I just don't care about the Harfoots. The most interesting story to me is the idea of the rise of human followers of Sauron, but I suspect that's largely the novelty and it's not going to be executed well, either. Largely, the story of the Second Age is the downfall of Numenor, which has no appearances or references. In fact, the forging of the Rings of Power was told in one of the smallest parts of the Silmarillion, lumped in with the events of the Third Age, and a rehash of LotR. Because there just isn't that much story going on. They've deviated from Tolkien's material to write tropey, cliched stories you can see anywhere that go against the established character traits and the values of the stories. Basically, they are doing nothing truly original, so why not stick close to the source material, like the actually successful films did?

Because TV writers think they are smarter than everyone, and that they have genuine insight to offer on moral and philosophical issues and are competent to offer commentary on current social issues.