Stream 02: "Rings of What Could Have Been"

[@violetrogers3755]

Sorry I missed the stream! Like one of the people in the chat said, I’ve had far more entertainment from people reacting to Rings of Power (and WoT, etc) than I ever would have from watching it. Thank you for your sacrifice 😁

[@bidossessi]

Warmly seconded, for WoT and RoP both

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@@violetrogers3755 Haha! You are very welcome. 😋

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@@bidossessi thank you 😊

[@glyyytch]

To fix RoP with changing as little is possible is difficult. First, cut the Harfoot storylines entirely. It does nothing to progress the story, other than trying to shoehorn Gandalf into the story faaaaar too early (the wizards aren't sent until the third age). Second, instead of having Galadriel be a warrior in the beginning, switch her role and Elrond's initially. Have Elrond tell her what he had found out searching for the remnants of Morgoth's armies. Have Galadriel troubled over something that Elrond casually dismisses that sparks concerns of Sauron, so she sets out on her own to investigate. Have her run across Sauron in Nuemenor and is distrustful of him, which causes him to flee after planting the seeds for the fall of the Nuemenorians. Instead of having Galadriel be part of the fighting force, have her be in a support role and using subtle (i.e. not flashy) magics while helping the Nuemenorians. Remove her training the Nuemenorians how to fight because they were some of the most exceptional warriors of all Middle Earth at the time. Keep Mt. Doom as Mt. Doom initially, but the land is healing after the fall of Morgoth. Then have the orcish Rube Goldberg machine cause the volcano to erupt, despoiling the land and reverting it back to how it was before Morgoth's fall. When she returns, she finds Sauron helping with the creation of the rings, but she is too late to stop anything. Have her then confront Sauron, where he reveals who he really is. This removes the stupid love interest storyline because she should already be married and queen of her own people by this point in time. While that isn't a perfect fix, it does bring what we got a bit closer to the lore and would keep Galadriel's character relatively intact considering canon.

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@glyyytch Haha! You are not the first in my comments to suggest possibly showing Sauron's story a little more. I like the idea of Elrond starting as the warrior, too. He was there, after all, at the fall of Isildur.

[@richardkern112]

I hope I'm not the only one who feels bad hearing people say the showrunners "aren't fans". Being a Fan doesn't magically imbue anyone with the ability to make a competent show, and idk why people have such a hard time accepting that :\ There's no big conspiracy to ruin your favorite thing, sometimes people are just bad at their jobs! Lotta amateur mistakes in RoP regarding structure, pacing, and dialogue that a more veteran writer wouldn't have let slip by, but that doesn't mean this wasn't a labor of love by the showrunners. There are so many problems with this show but there are also so many aspects that simply would never have made it into the script or the music or the production design if there weren't fans behind the camera.

[@richardkern112]

I think an entire video could be devoted to explaining the development timeline and the copyright situation. Most of the theories/stories people come up with to explain why the show went wrong ("the Estate didn't trust Amazon to sell them the Sil") would vanish if more people knew how the show came to be. Here's what I mean: The things people say Amazon "should have done" are either First Age stories the Tolkien Estate was never going to sell to anyone, or are approaches that the Estate explicitly rejected during their vetting. In 2017 the Estate announced they would take proposals for TV show using the LotR/Hobbit books (not just the LotR Appendixes). Amazon won w/o a specific pitch bc they offered the Estate a creative seat at the table and bc the Estate was completely freaked out by the other proposals. HBO wanted a LotR retread and Netflix wanted a Marvel-style Expanded Universe prequel shows about Aragorn or Gandalf, etc. As much as I love the cozy Hobbit horror, or Laketown spinoff ideas, it sounds like that entire concept was dead on arrival for the Estate.

[@richardkern112]

Showrunners Patrick McKay and JD Payne only came after Amazon secured the rights. Once Amazon won over the Estate with the promise of that close working relationship, they opened the door to proposals for what can be done with the TV rights to LotR/Hobbit. McKay and Payne were chosen after 6 months and 7 rounds of pitches. Some of their competition included the Russo Bros (Aragorn story), and Anthony McCarten (Shakespearean take). Amazon chose McKay and Payne because they had the most fleshed out pitch (50 hours of television roughly sketched out), the most passion and knowledge about Tolkien's legendarium, and because their pitch was to explore the unseen parts of "Tolkien's map".

[@richardkern112]

Speaking of maps, the earliest marketing material was a map of Numenor with a name on it that does not exist in LotR/Hobbit, so we know that the Estate is flexible. A recent Empire magazine article revealed that RoP will use the name Annatar in season 2. More proof that the Estate is at the table, and playing ball. So, as much as people like to complain that the show "disrespects Tolkien", I can hardly imagine something more disrespectful to Tolkien's legacy than trying to cheat an already permissive Estate by stealing First Age stories and just changing 10%. Unfortunately they also gave themselves the impossible task of adapting the Second Age without having the necessary rights to do so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Throw in all the mistakes they made as inexperienced showrunners, COVID, late recasting of Celebrimbor forcing a bunch of reshoots, and you get....whatever it is we got.

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@richardkern112 Sounds like a complicated situation. I wonder why they changed so much, though, when they knew they would be heavily scrutinized by the rest of the fandom.

[@richardkern112]

@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS I think their hands are prettied tied by copyright, but it was bold decision to put themselves in that position in the first place. Especially considering the showrunners have no other writing/producing credits to their names.

[@ljubomirvidic7981]

👍

[@jeremyvanneman8112]

Still watching through, but I think the argument that "modern politics" ruined it is legitimate. I agree with your point that there's a huge number of problems with the storytelling, but I think they mostly and/or all stem from a desire to insert "modern politics" into the story where they fundamentally don't work.

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

Oh no. I agree with that. I didn't say it as well as I could, I just think it's overestimated how much of that responsibility falls on the writers and the people directly involved in creating the storytelling at the written level. Folks who know nothing about storytelling are in positions of authority where they can make demands that will literally derail a whole character. This does stem from pressure to be politically correct.... but it's coming from folks who don't understand the consequences of these sort of changes when they don't seamlessly fit into the themes and character arcs already in place.

[@jeremyvanneman8112]

@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS that totally makes sense. I did get to that part just after I made the comment

[@skeats]

Unfortunately the Isildur in RoP is the same Isildur who will cut the ring from Sauron's hand. Elendil is his father, and the the other Numenorian players such as Ar Pharazon, Tar-Míriel, and Tar-Palantir (as well as a hint to Isildur's brother Anárion) are all present. So the show has combined the two timelines of the forging of the rings, which took place in the middle of the second age, and the fall of Numenor, which took place near the end of the second age some 1700 years later.

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@@skeats Awww....man! I was holding out for some sense.

[@skeats]

@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS well, I wouldn't go looking for sense from that show 😅

[@richardkern112]

I'm excited for people to get to know Isildur bc Jackson's films only show him as a failure. This is the guy who saved That Tree no less than 3x!

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@@richardkern112 👀🌳 ???

[@benhagstrom2185]

12:45 stream start.

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@@benhagstrom2185 Gah! Thank you for that! I'm gonna add the chapter heading as soon as I get home.

[@lamontre]

Enjoyable stream. ROP was so disappointing for so many reasons. The Shadow of Mordor video games did a better job of adapting the material and staying true to the feel of Tolkien even if it's all fan fiction. Same with the Isildur e-book that covered the Last Alliance. The Silmarillion is epic and takes you deeper into the Tolkien rabbit hole, but would also be hard to adapt in any live action format.

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@@lamontre Thank you. And yeah. I keep hearing about these games. I gotta check them out.

[@Mr_Bacaza]

30:40

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@@Mr_Bacaza ???? Uh... yes? Is there a question? 😋

[@Mr_Bacaza]

@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS oh no, lol. I've been making my through the video in chunks and using timestamps as bookmarks

[@brianstocks8049]

Blue glasses, orange blouse...bold of you! well done

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@brianstocks8049 Haha. Bold colors look good on my camera. Hence the color combo choice. 😋

[@MrBenaire]

I feel this went well very freeform. The time seemed to fly by.

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@MrBenaire Yeah! I am surprised that the end comes up so quickly. But, honestly, my voice is done. Maybe I'll build up some endurance, eventually, but 2 hours is the max for now.

[@caleba5748]

Excellent content, excellent professionalism, excellent mind. An overall solid live stream for a newbie despite a few technical hiccups. Keep the faith. On a side note: the fact that you decided to downplay your physical appeal was a welcome choice despite the easy copout afforded you. Best of luck to you in the future.

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@caleba5748 Thank you! Hopefully I get better and better at ironing out the hiccups. And... huh? I spent 45 minutes on my hair and makeup 🤪 believe me, the foundation and eyeliner are loaded on as heavily as any clown's facepaint. 🤡

[@caleba5748]

Oh, wasn't saying you looked unattractive...You kept the camera focused on your face and only your face. I'll leave it at that. Ha!

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@caleba5748 Oh... lol. I read my comments so quickly that I sometimes miss the subtleties. Haha! I got it now 🤪

[@richardkern112]

Sad to have missed the stream, but looking forward to catching up now!!

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@@richardkern112 It's all good. I'll be doing more.

[@richardkern112]

​@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONSI'd be very interested in your thoughts on Shogun if it's not too far beyond the scope of your channel. FXs adaptation was excellent, I simply had to get the book. Then I saw the 1980 miniseries. It's been really rewarding thinking about the differences in the adaptations.

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@richardkern112 I have watched the first few episodes (that's all that was available when I binged them). Loved it. But did not like the protagonist. Haha. Totally personal, though.

[@richardkern112]

@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS tbh I didn't care for him at first and I couldn't get over his B Grade Tom Hardy voice but I really came around on the show. Mercifully this adaptation doesn't focus as much on him as the 1980 version

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@richardkern112 I think, out of all the stories, this was the one that set up a friendship I could actually care about. The tension of an injured friendship was well played out. In comparison to the tension they attempted to create between forbidden lovers with Arondir and Bronwyn, it was refreshing. And there was nothing in the Galadriel relationships that was pleasant.

[@tay-dor7147]

Good stream, sorry I missed it. :)

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@tay-dor7147 Gaaaahh. Sorry you missed it, too. But no worried. I'll do it again in two weeks.

[@tay-dor7147]

@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS No worries. I look forward to your videos. :)

[@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS]

@@tay-dor7147 It'll be fun!

[@tay-dor7147]

@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS yup. Going to try to make it for the monday stream if I can. I kept wanting to make comments while watching the last replay. LOL. "But actually..." hehehe.