11 COOL FACTS about the Rings of Power Costumes

[@creaturefeaturecosplay]

Always love a good Rings of Power roast! Half their "cool facts" were just how costumes and movies work - make sure things are the color you want, make sure the camera doesn't pick up weird noises, make extra clothes for use in action scenes. They want to be congratulated for basic competence. Thank you so much for pointing out that the Second Age Elves were at a much higher point in their history than they were in the Third Age! You can tell that the showrunners project the "newer is better" mindset that led them to dismiss so many of Tolkien's themes into his setting as well, when the whole history of Middle Earth is the long defeat.

[@shamrockdragon7634]

I'm sorry, but a "cool fact" was making sure the camera didn't pick up fabric sounds??? I'm pretty sure all movies have to do this, in fact, I'm pretty sure film crews and costume design departments have been working on this since they switched to making movies with sound!

[@MasterIceyy]

The thing for me is the people working on the show, seemed to treated it like it was just another TV show, when it should have been treated as a movie. Props, costumes and the like look like TV quality materials, where as the films from 20 years ago still have incredible costumes and props. Even GoT which had an astronomically smaller budget per episode, still put out better production in terms of props, and costumes. Rings of Power reportedly had a budget of $100M per episode

[@jaceyking5015]

The article should have been "11 Ways the Costume Department Had to Beg for Forgiveness for the Terrible Designs They Created." Sure, there were a couple of costumes that looked all right, but it's amazing how awful most of them were. In addition to the forgettable music, uninspired acting, terrible script, etc., etc. It's amazing how just _nothing_ came out right with this show. I dislike the Star Wars Sequels, but at least there's _some_ good things, like some of the costumes/effects. Rings of Power has nothing.

[@stephaniem6482]

So true... I watched it hoping for at least good costumes or good music - nope. The characters were annoying and forgettable. The acting was horrid. The writing was laughable. The only thing I actually liked was the intro song/sequence, and that music was composed by Howard Shore (go figure!).

[@chuggermagic]

It has some good cgi visuals, that's it and that's being generous.

[@TristouMTL]

Ooooh, it's been a while since I've heard some nice burns about Rings of Power. And with such puff piece writing, it's almost as though they're fishing for them! Good job, once again, thank you :)

[@christaylor7079]

I can’t at all figure out how the cost of this show was so insanely high. Everything from the CGI to the costumes look cheap. The writers are absolutely atrocious. And the actors ping pong between being waaaaay too overdramatic and being bored-looking. How the hell did they spend so much money on this?

[@matthewmosier8439]

Well. Go glance at the leaked photos of Disney's now-in-limbo 'Snow White' film. They had spent something like 200 million dollars on it by 2022. There's no way. It's possibly money laundering

[@christaylor7079]

@@matthewmosier8439 has major “middle school play” vibes

[@stephaniem6482]

Most of the money was spent on securing the rights of the few pages (half a page?) of source material. So most of that money didn't even go to the production. It explains a lot!

[@stephaniem6482]

You're so right about the actors... they all seemed like they were working on different shows because none of their acting seemed to match each other.

[@lalaLAX219]

9:00 another possibility is that they had people dedicated specifically to working on the shoes, armor, etc but those people had no particular expertise in those areas. Who knows, it’s so bad 😒

[@samhui9517]

“Give me the meat, and give it to me raw.” 😂 Everything about this show feels “raw”, in a sense that nothing was refined or polished. I have seen cosplay costumes better than what was presented in the show… I have watched the documentary on Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy many times, and I think the segments on their costume design remain the gold standard for how to do justice to the source material. The only interesting “fact” is how Amazon managed to make a “billion dollar show” look amateurish.

[@somni2246]

I shared a similar sentiment on one of your previous videos where it concerned a screenshot of Isilidur wearing (what looks like) rags: but seeing Galadriel-- who is among the greatest and wisest of the Noldor, a member of the house of Finarfin who was born in Valinor in the Years of the Trees and thus witnessed the purest light of Arda-marred with her own eyes-- seeing her in what essentially looks like a soiled and see-through shift/nightgown is even worse than the aforementioned shot of Isildur. I get that its not supposed to be sexual or anything, and I get that it's supposed to represent the Eldar shedding their earthly pursuits and attachments before entering the Blessed Realm...but I just don't think this idea was well executed. It makes one who should represent the highest ideals of both aesthetic and spiritual beauty seem banal-- they turned what should seem ethereal into something that seems base and corporeal. Humans with pointy ears, indeed (and not even humans with the high nobility and grace of the Edain). And this is all in just the costuming and not even touching on how her characterization in the show also debases Tolkien's vision of her-- yanno, *this* Galadriel: "Yet deeper still there dwelt in her the noble and generous spirit of the Vanyar, and a reverence for the Valar that she could not forget. From her earliest years she had a marvelous gift of insight into the minds of others, but judged them with mercy and understanding, and she withheld her goodwill from none save only Fëanor." And I have no issue with the writers attempting to show a younger, less wise and more prideful Galadriel than the one who passes the ultimate test of her humility and wisdom with the close of the Third Age-- but, again, it's a matter of execution. Galadriel Warrior Princess-- Galadriel the derivative Byronic hero(ine)-- ain't it.

[@MoonWerewolfAir]

I'm pretty sure that giant budget either went to marketing or else somewhere that the creative team never saw any of it, because what we got is absolutely amateurish and could have been accomplished with a very small fraction of the budget it had, considering each of the Jackson LOTR movies is 20+ years old now and were 93-94M USD at the time, but when adjusted for inflation, each movie was around $151M USD in present. They still look so much better than a 2022 big-budget show and are also so much better in writing and acting terms. Amazon wanted cash but turned Tolkiens world into a joke and it's really sad.

[@101ineke]

😂 most of the time it looks like a high school production.

[@stephaniem6482]

@5:07 this is what bugged me about Disa's costume (the female drawf)... she lives in a cave, yet her arms and legs are always exposed, she's got no furs... and how practical is that gold dust in her hair? None of it really made sense. There was no story or logic behind any of it. And I still don't understand why she had gold eyes (unless I missed it). Edit: I just found a podcast where they explain the slits in her dress are because she's like "the water flowing through the rocks", and the gold eyes are because she's so connected to the metals that she "reflects them" with her eyes. It still doesn't make any sense! Even if the slit thing made sense, almost every woman in the series has a slit in her skirt so it loses its significance. And the light thing feels like they tried to mimic the "Galadrielight" from the original LOTR (since Galadriel had the light of Valinor in her eyes) but they failed. Poor choices all around.

[@APOLLOPATRIOT]

Only thing I like is white elf women 🤣🗿 and I'm a huge fan of the Peter Jackson trilogy .

[@YouTubeShillApologist]

Another COOL fact Only 37% of viewers finished Rings Of Power

[@aidanhart9871]

More like "specialist designed" but made by Shein 😂😂

[@TallisKeeton]

my first question about Harfoots costumes was this - how on Middle-Earth they are able to make their own clothes if they are not farming people - so, no chance for flax and linen - and they dont buy anything from others becouse they avoid others ? :D

[@stephaniem6482]

And why were they always wearing twigs in their hair? I know they were doing it for camouflage, but from what? Who is the natural predator of the harfoots?

[@TallisKeeton]

@@stephaniem6482 IKR :) they avoid any big person so why the twigs? :D

[@cyberpunkdarren]

I agree 100%. Good video!

[@Ongaliman]

Let's be honest. Harfoots are not nomads, but just homeless people in RoP. They looked like they never washed themselves and rolled in mud all the time. Mud and sweat makes the clothes last less, so it's essential to wash them regularly, when you're poor. It's such a snobbish and "town people" outlook to think that "rural folk" is less cultured and dirty.

[@danielliu22]

Okay, I just had to pause the video and comment that with regard to fact 2 "The elves were not as perfect in this age as they were 6 thousand years later" this is clearly a lore inaccuracy. The third age saw the waning of the elves and Tolkien was quite explicit in his intent that as man grew in power, the elves diminished.

[@bebbization]

I don't think they specialize in armor, they specialize in styrofoam with paint

[@Syaniiti]

I had forgotten how terrible the costumes were in RoP.

[@AW-uv3cb]

"We had a special person to design the lace..." - what lace? Where was lace in that series? Basically it all (with the exception of visible art influences) sounds like an ideal situation they wanted to have and should have had, only they didn't have it.

[@fionnaitsradag5152]

The elves at the height of their glory were "less perfect" style-wise than when they diminished and went into the west?😅

[@tirednoodle]

I was flabbergasted when I heard that 😭

[@zamiwas]

Great video! nice point at the end, how hypocritical it all is

[@pilroberts6185]

I'm glad you're aware of @europeanlore, you two make a good content pairing.

[@bobnoggets5114]

The harfolk were migratory: Migrational cultures: Are we a joke to you ... Seriously almost none of what they said in this article was reflected in the costumes. By the way, please make more character costume improvement videos, I really enjoy them.

[@myfriendisaac]

ROP was abysmal 😂🚮🚫 The costumes weren’t interesting enough to warrant a Top 11 list.

[@lalaLAX219]

No surprise that the costume department lacks depth and attention to detail considering the production doesn’t either

[@docstockandbarrel]

👍🏻

[@Will_Parker]

Imagine thinking anything about those costumes was "cool"

[@bebbization]

That's a poorly written article. Especially the buzzfeedy title and the vague text.

[@xenomorph6599]

They really said "we took inspirations" as a fun fact 🫥

[@FreyjaRKim]

Right off the bat, they mentioned "70+ times", saying that they tried a lot to get to perfection but only about one thing and one character. It seems like it's the formula these days to make it seem like it's better than it is. Just because you go through a lot of work to get to the end result, it doesn't always mean the end result is good. It's the same way Barbie's PR team tried their best to push America Ferrera's 30-50 take monologue that made the staffs cry apparently. They try to make this big number a huge deal to push the delusion of perfectionism creates quality result. Even the first point didn't make any sense because when they said it, it made you think "that took them 70 trials?" The biggest red flag from all these points is that they did not show any of these in the behind-the-scene video and they had to make an article like this. The fact that they couldn't even pay people to act and blab passionately on camera about these right where they were doing the work is just sad.