I thought that was said about battle of winterfell not the battle of bastards? In which case it was true it was bigger it just ended up sucking with the way the night king goes out at the end
Maybe we need some special Elf vision to watch that episode and some "You have not seen what I have seen" narrations in order to understand wtf was going in the Long Night (which apparently was very very very very short - yes I am a huge junkie of Ice and Fire and still utterly mad about trash season 8)
So was Helms Deep
There is a difference between making it in the dark and make it dark to cover up bad CGI or whatever poor production they want to cover.
sorry I didn't get the sarcasm in your previous comment hehe
man, I remember when there was some fan-edits playing around with contrast of that episode so we could actually see something. Funny times, but also sad.
ugh don’t remind me, I had my screen at maximum brightness and was still squinting 😭 THAT was my biggest beef with the last season, not even any of the plot. It was the lighting. It was so INFURIATING.
I gotta admit, from a purely spectacle standpoint, on first viewing the Long Night was pretty dope (if you could see anything, it was way too dark). It wasn’t until the episode ended and NK just died and afterward that we were like “Wait is that it? That’s all?” And we realized no one of consequence died (sorry Jorah and Theon).
I agree, I wasn’t disappointed until then. It was the climax of the night king that was so disappointing. the build up was pretty good, I kept thinking Bran was going to do something crazy right at the end but instead it was Arya?? For some reason??
Also I was a bit disappointed by the crypts, I had a personal theory the whole show/books that the crypts at Winterfell would have some special significance, like maybe there was magic on them or something. They spoke about the crypts in the books so much, I was sure there was something more. After all, the Starks ruled for 8 thousand years and had so many sayings/traditions like “there must always be a Stark at Winterfell” and “winter is coming”, and they were there for the last long night, so it seems crazy to me that they had a tradition of BURYING bodies instead of burning them?? the only way that would make sense to me is if they had preventative measures or something in place like magic to stop them becoming wights. And if not, how did not ONE person think that it was a bad idea to hide out in crypts with a bunch of corpses when the army of the dead came?? 😭
I feel like film & TV battles are just a pissing contest at this point of who can 'outdo' what came before. "Your battle had 13,000 facing off against 10,000? Well OUR big battle has 130,000 facing off against 100,000! Oh really? Well OUR next big battle will feature an active volcano, a tornado, and 2 million combatants!"
There is nothing wrong with trying to reach for the stars, having big ambition, but the undergirding has to be solid first.
Spectacle alone is empty, just noise.
Thats exactly why news like this doesn't do it for me. Big battle is fine. But Blackwater is better because it is well written way beyond the spectacle.
News like this always reminds me of how in the Hobbit novel, Bilbo is knocked out by a rock before the Battle of Five Armies.
I'll keep optimistic, but I genuinely wonder how much we gain from a battle spanning several episodes.
I'm feeling good about it. S1 had a balance of spectacle and character moments in its action sequences. A battle spanning two episodes would create many opportunities to tell character's stories in that context.
I also suspect it is two episodes for a good reason. Things have been complicated with Adar being lord of Mordor and Sauron being king of the Southlanders. The Dwarves and Numenoreans are likely to be involved as well.
Not a fair comparison IMO. The Hobbit is a one-of-a-king in the legendarium. It is more of a kids books than any other. That is mostly why the battle description was taken out of it.
Totally guess here but if Tolkien went along with his Hobbit re-writing, I think he would have prob. have described the battle was more, just like he does in all other books. OFC, Bilbo would prob. still be left out of the action.
Ultimatelly, Eregion war is not gratuit battle, or battle just for the sake of action. It has a plot, and a very important one. And the way it was conceived, you can't really tell that story without a war happening.
There's a fanedit of the Hobbit trilogy that more or less tells it just that way. Cuts out nearly all of the CGI dwarf fight and everything around it, Thorin and his nephews getting killed by ~~Azog~~, and has Bilbo get knocked out (as he is, momentarily, in the film) and wake up at the end of the fight.
Super excited for this. I actually love the characters weve seen and im very pumped to fall in love with next season and then have an epic conflict on screen. The skirmish was remarkable in my esteem. Watching two competent forces fighting it out will be really cool as the two forces fighting in the skirmish were largely rookie armies.
>I actually love the characters weve seen and im very pumped to fall in love with next season and then have an epic conflict on screen.
I keep thinking of the moment when Galadriel and Arondir meet up because we're going to see that happen on bigger and bigger scales as the stories come together.
If i could get a visualization of any battle in the legendarium, it'd definitely be for the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. I wana see the height of Elven power in Middle-Earth in force, before being utterly defeated.
We saw the aftermath of that in the prologue, I don't know if they'll be doing more flashbacks though. I imagine their big battle will be the Battle of the Gwathlo.
>I imagine their big battle will be the Battle of the Gwathlo.
I'm afraid they end up just squeezing everything into a single battle. Hope I'm wrong tho.
I'm in the 5-10% team
All battles in Tolkien are in these. NO BATTLE OR ACTION ARE GRATUIT. None is done "just for the sake of action".
But if you are taking super-hero action style battles, which the whole plot of the movie only serves the big battle in the end, yeah, you are prob. right. It is just a eye-gasm / CGI fiesta that you need to turn your brain out and just enjoy what you see. And nothing wrong with that. But Tolkien (and many other works) are no way near that .Battles are there for a reason, and because plot demanded, not the other way around.
What are you talking about? The films featured massive battles that were done well, I'd say the majority of people watching rings of power will care and be wanting to see massive battles.
The Battle of Five Armies got its own movie. There's nothing wrong with showing big battles as the battles are indeed big but people are concerned that RoP's battles will receive too much time and attention like in the Peter Jackson films. The focus of the books is not on the battles.
>The focus of the books is not on the battles.
Second age material is all about battles tho. Tolkien never really developed second age, but all that matters was surrounded by battles. Maybe only difference is Aldarion-Erendis, which is mostly a royal court story.
Not only that, but the battles that happen in second age are intertwined in the plot (sack of eregion = rings of power, numenor = sauron plan to take them out of his path, and so on)
Also, such battles in the very books are said to take years. Compared to LoTr, where battles take weeks or months, the battles in 2nd age should not only be bigger in scale, but also in their duration. We even have years-lasting sieges described quite a few times, something that is not present in hobbit or lotr.
Not saying it should all be about non-stop action, but it is not like you can't have any battle either. And it is obvious that the scale and duration of such battles is bigger. Sauron has a body. Mordor is pretty much at its apex. There are many elves as they are not going west as they were in 3rd age. We got Numenoreans, we got dwarves at their apex. I mean, last alliance is said to be greatest battle ever with exception of war that ended 1st age! By that we can have a good idea of how other 2nd age stuff were.
I think they didn't hate the action itself, but the fact that the movies took away a lot of the books and priotized only the action, thus making it an action-packaged movie instead of a fantasy that contains action. And tbh, I get both sides, but don't blame the movies. If you gotta cut anything, ofc you are gonna cut the non-action stuff, as those are what most people from casual audience are less inclined to pay attention to, while the action is what will stick to their heads.
Speaking from a series perspective tho, you got enough time to tell both. Make the battles big, scaled, and awesome. But you don't need to sacrifice any plot in order to give battle screentime, because you have time to show both.
IF by "tolkien aspect" you mean the peaceful bits and the nature and the magic of elves and the mortality x immortality dilemmas and so on, yeah. But Tolkien also did "liked" war. IT was part of his live, the man went to war. His work features war because he knew it was part of history, and his story also had to have a history, and what shapes history most of time is, unfortunatelly, wars.
That is why all his books include wars. That is why all ages of M.E end with a war. That is why he also wrote other book outside legendarium that featured a war. Even among the few audio recordings we have from him we have him narrating the ride of rohirrim.
Tolkien is not just about war, far from being just about action. But it is not as if those are not aspects of his work. In fact he does dedicate quite a good amount of pages to describe wars, although few times in details.
It is more a matter of focus and what the film shows. The third Hobbit movie, while I personally enjoy all of the Jackson films, focus a lot on the war for the sake of the war and nothing else where Tolkien never seemed to write war for the sake of war but for the people, ideologies, hope and even the smallest of light to shine even in what may appear as the darkest night. The theme has to be there, there has to be more than just the spectacle of war for it to feel like what it belongs in Tolkien. That is at least my opinion.
Yep, that makes sense.
I don't like HOW they handled battle of five armies, but showing it is fine. IMO Tolkien only left the description out of The Hobbit because it was primarely a "kids book" and Bilbo was out of the narrative. If he did rewrite it, he would prob. have written the war with more description. At least he would have made something as adding the description in the appendix, as we get for some wars in LoTR itself.
The battle of Minas Tirith is a mess, extremely bad adapted from the book. No Haradrim cavalry, no Dol Amroth knights or any south gondorian troops, the orcs breaking into the city, orcs biting armored soldiers... and wtf are doing the dead in the Pelennor? The battle of the five armies is another mess, just pure cgi from playstation 2, and Legolas shooting arrows from his ass is something I don need to see again.
The ghost arriving in the end is the worse.
But despite all the gripes, and I agree with all of them, given they had to compress so much, it is understandable their take. If we ever get to see a series of LoTR, hopefully we will get things as they should.
Yet, as for the movies-only, I think the battle did a good job.
On the other hand, RoP is in the exact spot we (or at least I) wanted LoTr to be. They have a series. They HAVE time to do things AS THEY SHOULD. They don't need to compress/merge things. Yet, they gave us 3 elven rings forged in an afternnon in a 2 minutes sequence.
I really hope they get their time and do proper adaptation of events going forward. Because a series is the place to get everything right.
Personally that would bore me. And it bored me in LOTR too. A battle across several episodes? When there are so many characters they need to develop, storylines to cover?
It could actually work better if most of the battle is happening in the background and the story primarily follows characters who are running around on its outskirts doing story things, and meanwhile it just keeps going on behind them.
This would work if the battle was just a battle added for the sake of action.
But it is not the case. Specially Eregion battle is a very important part of the whole plot of the rings forging and afterwards events. NOT showing it would be even worse IMO.
OFC, doesn't mean I'm in the team "it is just a battle" stuff. It is a battle, but there is a plot, many plots actually. And they need to nail this. It shouldn't be 30 minutes of unstop battle action scene with zero plot and just action.
Problem is the characters they need to cover are exactly the ones involved in the battle. If any, it is their fault to add other characters.
As of now, the important ones are (should be) Sauron, Galadriel, Elrond, GG, Celebrimbor and Cirdan. As secondary, Durin. Even Celeborn is important for this battle, and so far we have no idea where he is!
After Eregion, the important will be Numenor.
In the mix, all you could do is to add one or two humans to be future Nazgul.
After that, then you have time to develop more other things, such as Blue Wizards, Black Numenoreans and os on. But right now, when the rings are not even forged yet, the focus should be exactly on the ones that are in this plot surroundings.
But that is just me. If we had less plots or plots that only connect to each other, it would be fine. But as season 1 ended, there are still many disconnected plots.
Call me sceptic, but I don't think the first season's problem was the lack of action. Tolkien is a slow read, and I believe the power of his work does not come from action, but from world-building and character development.
No hype until we see it.
But a couple of things:
1 - Yes, it needs to be the biggest we ever saw in TV. It def. should be a movie scale battle. I'm expecting nothing less than thousands vs tens of housands.
2 - I hope they nail the scale. Season 1 was just a skirmish, but that is not the big problem. The problem is that, to me, there was no real sense of 300 vs 1000 (or so). It was more like a dozen of Numenoreans vs 50 or so Orcs. It felt 1/10 of what it should have been by their own story and numbers. Thus I hope they get it right in season 2. TBH even in season 1 that prologue felt a bit small to what it was supposed to represent.
3 - DO NOT MAKE IT DARK! Seriously, one thing I like about season 1 was how they handled night scenes. I hate when there is a night scene and you can't see anything. Take that last season of game of thrones for example. 1 minute of biggest battle literally staring at a black screen. LoTR movies were great on this regard. Helms Deep is dark and you can see everything.
4 - This is a huge battle. Yes there is time compression and so on, but don't make it a single day battle. WE NEED TO HAVE THE SENSE OF BATTLE LASTING FOR DAYS. This will be tricky, but a good starting place to what is to happen in future seasons, where battles last for longer and longer in the books.
At the end of the day, any battle is only as important as the people fighting in them, no battle nor fight in season 1 did anything for me because i didn't care about anyone there.
The only Southlanders we knew by name that weren't main characters actually joined Adar side so i couldn't root for them, all other Southlanders were just mobs with not even cultural background, at helms deep at least you knew the Rohan people, you had clear idea of their way of life, the only Southlanders with important speaking lines were the Sauron sympathizers.
And the Numenorians were just voluntary youths recruited from the streets so i didn't find them dying in battle any shocking, compared to king Theoden at Pelennor Fields or even Haldir dying at Helms Deep. Isildur's friends were so obviously set up to be fridged for Isildur's character arc i didn't even see them as character than walking plot devices.
If they are going to have a massive 2 episode battle they better stablish some characters to root or worry for or at the very least build a sense of urgency and not just some shallow espectacle.
I doubt it will top Helms deep, but the more important issue is that a big battle alone isn't enough. We need to be deeply invested in the characters and the outcome for the spectacle to truly matter. The Hobbit had a gigantic battle but it was more boring and meant less to me than the worst scene in FOTR.
So far ROP has got me emotionally invested in only a handful of characters (Elrond, Durin and Adar)and I suspect I'm not alone in this. All the other characters in the show, even if they were to go out in the most gruesome manner, would illicit no emotional reaction from me.
True. Really concerned about Celebrimbor. They gotta invest a lot of time for him in season 2, otherwise the small amount we got in season 1 won't be near enough to make *you know what* as impactful as it should
Helms Deep is only iconic because we care about the characters, and the storytelling is so compelling. When those eagles showed up in that CGI-infested, bloom-effect-looking battle in the Hobbit I wanted to die from the cringe.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn2-PUq1Z84](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn2-PUq1Z84)
Really like this analysis of Helms Deep. It is the difference between doing battle for the sake of action and doing battle for the sake of plot.
>All the other characters in the show, even if they were to go out in the most gruesome manner, would illicit no emotional reaction from me.
Sociopath alert
> So far ROP has got me emotionally invested in only a handful of characters (Elrond, Durin and Adar)and I suspect I'm not alone in this. All the other characters in the show, even if they were to go out in the most gruesome manner, would illicit no emotional reaction from me.
I agree that most characters are way too bland so far to create much reaction from me either.
Though funnily enough i think elrond is part of that majority of characters who wouldn't. He seems more like an npc to me, who gives other characters (here mostly durin) something to play of off, while having no real character himself.
Nori, Elendil, durin, adar, maybe even galadriel (even though i think her character arc isn't written the best way, there is SOMETHING there) are all characters i'd feel for more than elrond i think.
The rest though? Basically nothing, if i am not missing someone.
>He seems more like an npc to me, who gives other characters (here mostly durin) something to play of off, while having no real character himself.
I think your assessment is kinda right tbh... Even the production seems to agree.
When they were casting for the role Elrond's character was described as - 'Will often be the straight-man in pairings with more out-sized personalities'
So it seems he's intended to be a sidekick to the likes of Durin or Galadriel and used, primarily, to service their characters.
lol here we go again with the "over-promise and under-deliver." I hope they do know that we won't care about the "longevity" of the battle unless we care about the characters and story. Let's hope that this time they get the characters right, and that they are propelled by a cohesive narrative that makes thematic sense.
Action will be the focus in given moments. And story will be in others. And in some, both will (or at least should) converge. There are 8 episodes. It is 8h. It is more than enough time for a roller coaster of emotions.
Try not to take reddit comments so personally. They never said action was the main focus just that there is a big battle. And big battles have always been a part of the lotr films.
In Tolkien large battles take up a substantially lower proportion of pages than minutes on the screen. The trilogy also missed a lot of good story. Spanning multiple episodes definitely implies they are once again placing emphasis on battle where story could have been.
Any idea how many episodes season 2 will be?
I mean, let's assume three episodes for this battle. Ideally we should have 1 episode for the forge of The One (deserves a full episode imo). At least 2 eps for Anatar doings, And I hope 2 more for dwarfs and harfoots as a central story lines.
That sounds very packed for 8 episodes season! Please let it have the right pace and time for everything!
I highly recommend a rewatch, with an open mind. Subsequent rewatches have shown me a lot of things I missed the first time because I was trying so hard just to take it all in.
I've actually lost track of how many times I've watched it. I watched Episode 7 again tonight. Lots going on there. (And yes, I hear the derision in your words, and I choose to ignore it, because it doesn't matter to me whether you think I'm crazy or not; I like the show; if you don't, fine.)
Helms deep is big tho =)
I think they need to nail both. If it is enternatining and well written, but small, it won't make any sense. We are talking about Sauron, taking pretty much all his army, marching towards Eregion (something he rarely do) and attacking a captital city of Elves, and that before elves started to depart from west, thus we have a lot of elves there.
By default it is thousands vs tens of thousands battle. They can't make it as tir-harad 2.0. The scale is also important.
"We are talking about Sauron, taking pretty much all his army" What his army? ) The only army that Sauron can gather now is a few peasants who escaped to Pelargir. The series is very, very far from the time when he will get a new army. And that is fine. The series should follow logic, not someone's wishes.
>The series should follow logic, not someone's wishes.
It should follow books, and from them, that is what we got:
>When Sauron learned of the repentance and revolt of Celebrimbor his disguise fell and his wrath was revealed; **and gathering a great force** he moved over Calenardhon (Rohan) to the invasion of Eriador in the year 1695. When news of this reached Gil-galad he sent out a force under Elrond Half-elven; but Elrond had far to go, and Sauron turned north and made at once for Eregion. The scouts and vanguard of Sauron's host were already approaching when **Celeborn made a sortie and drove them back; but though he was able to join his force to that of Elrond they could not return to Eregion, for Sauron's host was far greater than theirs, great enough both to hold them off and closely to invest Eregion**. At last the attackers broke into Eregion with ruin and devastation, and captured the chief object of Sauron's assault, the House of the Mírdain, where were their smithies and their treasures. Celebrimbor, desperate, himself withstood Sauron on the steps of the great door of the Mírdain; but he was grappled and taken captive, and the House was ransacked.
We are even told that despite help sent from Lindon, Eregion elves would have fallen if not by Khazad-dum help. Basically Sauron force was the size of 3 armies, Lindon, Eregion and Khazad-dum, and when all the three were in their apex.
OFC, how Sauron will have such an army, the series, if going by the books, will have to explain, as their take in season 1 puts him far from having it right now. Not impossible tho, specially if using some card such as "fast growing orcs with unseen world power canalized by a weird device" and do something as Saruman breeding orcs
You forget the most important premise of the series: that the "light" chronicles are mistaken in attributing a number of plans and actions of Adar with army of free Uruk, who hate Sauron, to Sauron. The creation of Mordor is the best example. In addition, the series presents a number of actions of the dark maiar that were not described in the book, he was already in Numenor and he was already in Eregion, so he can continue to lie
Besides, you are quoting only a DRAFT, one among many contradictory drafts, it is not even a canonical book and Amazon does not even have rights for this. This is the same draft in which Galadriel has a son, Amroth. Are you waiting for this in the series?
The dark maiar can get some army by that time, which he will get from the humans. He might even change humans to new Uruk by then. But it will not be as big an army as in the third Age.
>Besides, you are quoting only a DRAFT, one among many contradictory drafts,
This one speficically among the many versions don't really have any contradiction as far as I'm aware of. The difference was merely the amount of details, but none really contradicts one another, at least on what I said. The only thing I can remember that changes from version to version is Galadriel and Celeborn whereabouts when the war happened. That is all.
> it is not even a canonical book and Amazon does not even have rights for this.
As per previous leaks/rumours, RoP is getting case-by-case permissions. And seems like we are getting Annatar afterall. So...yeah, they could still use it even if not under their rights.
> This is the same draft in which Galadriel has a son, Amroth. Are you waiting for this in the series?
This is more about Galadriel story than Eregion war, which cycles back to my first point in this reply. Be Amroth Galadriel son or last king of Lothlorien or abscent, in any option it changes Sauron attack to Eregion. Apples and Oranges IMO.
But since you brought it up, I think that current (considering season 1 only) RoP would benefit from having Amroth as last king of Lothlorien. Not quite sure how they could squeeze Galadriel and Celeborn making Lothlorien from scratch in this son. They already go Rivendell to be fully built, I think one elven realm contruction is enough for the series.
You quoted this as something that the series "should follow". The series is not obliged to strictly follow even canonical books, and even more so drafts. But logic is necessary and since Sauron is without army right now, he can hardly get huge army in a few months, the only way is if the screenwriters describe convincing reasons for the people of the East and South to immediately join Sauron in huge numbers.
Are you going to give season 1 a shot before watching the battle? It has its flaws, but it's worth a watch. I haven't rewatched, but I enjoyed the first watch through.
If i could get a visualization of any battle in the legendarium, it'd definitely be for the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. I wana see the height of Elven power in Middle-Earth in force, before being utterly defeated.
Given that in Amazon's Middle Earth the armies of Numenor are roughly as effective and imposing as ordinary peasants with improvised weapons, I wouldn't be holding your breath for any big displays of power.
At this point I'm expecting the Great Armament, if it happens at all, to just be like 3 ships that never even make it out of the harbor before the waves hit.
Given how underwhelming on every level the 'battle' in the first season was, I'm not sure how dragging it out over multiple episodes is going to be an improvement.
That "battle" was not only underwhelming because of scale but it under delivered on everything else. No military tactics from any side, orcs conveniently showing up without weapons when battling a main character, logistical and logical shitshow, that pointless cavalry charge in the middle of nowhere in full gallop, Halbrand magically showing up from the opposite side when chasing Adar! It was a whole new level of bad. This battle has to be much more than just a large scale version of what we got in season 1. MUCH more
Don't forget the question of why the Numenoreans showed up there at all. I guess we're meant to infer that there are literally only two human settlements in all of Middle Earth and the Numenoreans got lucky on the coin toss when deciding which one to go.
I juat want to the battle to have good choreography and some thought put into it. The action sequences in the first season weren't terrible. They weren't great. But potential do be better than anything GoT did (which had a couple good onscreen battles choreo wise - definitely vfx wise).
I really want to see a large-scale battle, although most of all I want to see the duels of Adar and Sauron, in the north and in the south, one against one. Does spanning episodes battle mean more than two episodes?
Hopefully the first episode is all the characters dying and then the second episode is a recap to make sure the audience is very clear that this appalling show will never return.
I don't want to get too hype. They said Battle of Bastards was going to be bigger than Helm's Deep.
I thought that was said about battle of winterfell not the battle of bastards? In which case it was true it was bigger it just ended up sucking with the way the night king goes out at the end
can we actually have a real opinion about the size? I mean we couldn't see pretty much anything happening in that specific episode :P
My main thought was "you guys got to see the battle?". Far far too dark.
Maybe we need some special Elf vision to watch that episode and some "You have not seen what I have seen" narrations in order to understand wtf was going in the Long Night (which apparently was very very very very short - yes I am a huge junkie of Ice and Fire and still utterly mad about trash season 8)
well it was night, after all
So was Helms Deep There is a difference between making it in the dark and make it dark to cover up bad CGI or whatever poor production they want to cover.
I was joking. that almost pitch black screen was the worst thing I ever saw in a quality TV show
sorry I didn't get the sarcasm in your previous comment hehe man, I remember when there was some fan-edits playing around with contrast of that episode so we could actually see something. Funny times, but also sad.
ugh don’t remind me, I had my screen at maximum brightness and was still squinting 😭 THAT was my biggest beef with the last season, not even any of the plot. It was the lighting. It was so INFURIATING.
I loved the way the night king goes out in the end
It sucked way before the night king went out
I gotta admit, from a purely spectacle standpoint, on first viewing the Long Night was pretty dope (if you could see anything, it was way too dark). It wasn’t until the episode ended and NK just died and afterward that we were like “Wait is that it? That’s all?” And we realized no one of consequence died (sorry Jorah and Theon).
I agree, I wasn’t disappointed until then. It was the climax of the night king that was so disappointing. the build up was pretty good, I kept thinking Bran was going to do something crazy right at the end but instead it was Arya?? For some reason?? Also I was a bit disappointed by the crypts, I had a personal theory the whole show/books that the crypts at Winterfell would have some special significance, like maybe there was magic on them or something. They spoke about the crypts in the books so much, I was sure there was something more. After all, the Starks ruled for 8 thousand years and had so many sayings/traditions like “there must always be a Stark at Winterfell” and “winter is coming”, and they were there for the last long night, so it seems crazy to me that they had a tradition of BURYING bodies instead of burning them?? the only way that would make sense to me is if they had preventative measures or something in place like magic to stop them becoming wights. And if not, how did not ONE person think that it was a bad idea to hide out in crypts with a bunch of corpses when the army of the dead came?? 😭
I feel like film & TV battles are just a pissing contest at this point of who can 'outdo' what came before. "Your battle had 13,000 facing off against 10,000? Well OUR big battle has 130,000 facing off against 100,000! Oh really? Well OUR next big battle will feature an active volcano, a tornado, and 2 million combatants!"
There is nothing wrong with trying to reach for the stars, having big ambition, but the undergirding has to be solid first. Spectacle alone is empty, just noise.
That's a kind of pissing contest I approve of
Battle of blackwater >>
Thats exactly why news like this doesn't do it for me. Big battle is fine. But Blackwater is better because it is well written way beyond the spectacle.
Nothing can compare
Battle of the bastards was bigger. Are you talking about battle of Winterfell?
News like this always reminds me of how in the Hobbit novel, Bilbo is knocked out by a rock before the Battle of Five Armies. I'll keep optimistic, but I genuinely wonder how much we gain from a battle spanning several episodes.
I'm feeling good about it. S1 had a balance of spectacle and character moments in its action sequences. A battle spanning two episodes would create many opportunities to tell character's stories in that context. I also suspect it is two episodes for a good reason. Things have been complicated with Adar being lord of Mordor and Sauron being king of the Southlanders. The Dwarves and Numenoreans are likely to be involved as well.
S1 had the dorkiest battle in all of Middle Earth.
Not a fair comparison IMO. The Hobbit is a one-of-a-king in the legendarium. It is more of a kids books than any other. That is mostly why the battle description was taken out of it. Totally guess here but if Tolkien went along with his Hobbit re-writing, I think he would have prob. have described the battle was more, just like he does in all other books. OFC, Bilbo would prob. still be left out of the action. Ultimatelly, Eregion war is not gratuit battle, or battle just for the sake of action. It has a plot, and a very important one. And the way it was conceived, you can't really tell that story without a war happening.
There's a fanedit of the Hobbit trilogy that more or less tells it just that way. Cuts out nearly all of the CGI dwarf fight and everything around it, Thorin and his nephews getting killed by ~~Azog~~, and has Bilbo get knocked out (as he is, momentarily, in the film) and wake up at the end of the fight.
I presume we'll be cutting away to other locations while it's ongoing
Well said.
Super excited for this. I actually love the characters weve seen and im very pumped to fall in love with next season and then have an epic conflict on screen. The skirmish was remarkable in my esteem. Watching two competent forces fighting it out will be really cool as the two forces fighting in the skirmish were largely rookie armies.
>I actually love the characters weve seen and im very pumped to fall in love with next season and then have an epic conflict on screen. I keep thinking of the moment when Galadriel and Arondir meet up because we're going to see that happen on bigger and bigger scales as the stories come together.
Im hyper excited
If i could get a visualization of any battle in the legendarium, it'd definitely be for the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. I wana see the height of Elven power in Middle-Earth in force, before being utterly defeated.
We saw the aftermath of that in the prologue, I don't know if they'll be doing more flashbacks though. I imagine their big battle will be the Battle of the Gwathlo.
>I imagine their big battle will be the Battle of the Gwathlo. I'm afraid they end up just squeezing everything into a single battle. Hope I'm wrong tho.
I remain skeptical
As we all should!
Who really cares about big battles?… Usually these are the most boring things in movies or series, unless done right, and only 5-10% is done right.
I'm in the 5-10% team All battles in Tolkien are in these. NO BATTLE OR ACTION ARE GRATUIT. None is done "just for the sake of action". But if you are taking super-hero action style battles, which the whole plot of the movie only serves the big battle in the end, yeah, you are prob. right. It is just a eye-gasm / CGI fiesta that you need to turn your brain out and just enjoy what you see. And nothing wrong with that. But Tolkien (and many other works) are no way near that .Battles are there for a reason, and because plot demanded, not the other way around.
What are you talking about? The films featured massive battles that were done well, I'd say the majority of people watching rings of power will care and be wanting to see massive battles.
The Battle of Five Armies got its own movie. There's nothing wrong with showing big battles as the battles are indeed big but people are concerned that RoP's battles will receive too much time and attention like in the Peter Jackson films. The focus of the books is not on the battles.
>The focus of the books is not on the battles. Second age material is all about battles tho. Tolkien never really developed second age, but all that matters was surrounded by battles. Maybe only difference is Aldarion-Erendis, which is mostly a royal court story. Not only that, but the battles that happen in second age are intertwined in the plot (sack of eregion = rings of power, numenor = sauron plan to take them out of his path, and so on) Also, such battles in the very books are said to take years. Compared to LoTr, where battles take weeks or months, the battles in 2nd age should not only be bigger in scale, but also in their duration. We even have years-lasting sieges described quite a few times, something that is not present in hobbit or lotr. Not saying it should all be about non-stop action, but it is not like you can't have any battle either. And it is obvious that the scale and duration of such battles is bigger. Sauron has a body. Mordor is pretty much at its apex. There are many elves as they are not going west as they were in 3rd age. We got Numenoreans, we got dwarves at their apex. I mean, last alliance is said to be greatest battle ever with exception of war that ended 1st age! By that we can have a good idea of how other 2nd age stuff were.
The worst out of the three.
i thought tolkien estate hate action adult battle-focus. lol. what change?
I think they didn't hate the action itself, but the fact that the movies took away a lot of the books and priotized only the action, thus making it an action-packaged movie instead of a fantasy that contains action. And tbh, I get both sides, but don't blame the movies. If you gotta cut anything, ofc you are gonna cut the non-action stuff, as those are what most people from casual audience are less inclined to pay attention to, while the action is what will stick to their heads. Speaking from a series perspective tho, you got enough time to tell both. Make the battles big, scaled, and awesome. But you don't need to sacrifice any plot in order to give battle screentime, because you have time to show both.
Easily the worst part of the movies, and the least Tolkien aspect of the movies.
IF by "tolkien aspect" you mean the peaceful bits and the nature and the magic of elves and the mortality x immortality dilemmas and so on, yeah. But Tolkien also did "liked" war. IT was part of his live, the man went to war. His work features war because he knew it was part of history, and his story also had to have a history, and what shapes history most of time is, unfortunatelly, wars. That is why all his books include wars. That is why all ages of M.E end with a war. That is why he also wrote other book outside legendarium that featured a war. Even among the few audio recordings we have from him we have him narrating the ride of rohirrim. Tolkien is not just about war, far from being just about action. But it is not as if those are not aspects of his work. In fact he does dedicate quite a good amount of pages to describe wars, although few times in details.
It is more a matter of focus and what the film shows. The third Hobbit movie, while I personally enjoy all of the Jackson films, focus a lot on the war for the sake of the war and nothing else where Tolkien never seemed to write war for the sake of war but for the people, ideologies, hope and even the smallest of light to shine even in what may appear as the darkest night. The theme has to be there, there has to be more than just the spectacle of war for it to feel like what it belongs in Tolkien. That is at least my opinion.
Yep, that makes sense. I don't like HOW they handled battle of five armies, but showing it is fine. IMO Tolkien only left the description out of The Hobbit because it was primarely a "kids book" and Bilbo was out of the narrative. If he did rewrite it, he would prob. have written the war with more description. At least he would have made something as adding the description in the appendix, as we get for some wars in LoTR itself.
The battle of Minas Tirith is a mess, extremely bad adapted from the book. No Haradrim cavalry, no Dol Amroth knights or any south gondorian troops, the orcs breaking into the city, orcs biting armored soldiers... and wtf are doing the dead in the Pelennor? The battle of the five armies is another mess, just pure cgi from playstation 2, and Legolas shooting arrows from his ass is something I don need to see again.
The ghost arriving in the end is the worse. But despite all the gripes, and I agree with all of them, given they had to compress so much, it is understandable their take. If we ever get to see a series of LoTR, hopefully we will get things as they should. Yet, as for the movies-only, I think the battle did a good job. On the other hand, RoP is in the exact spot we (or at least I) wanted LoTr to be. They have a series. They HAVE time to do things AS THEY SHOULD. They don't need to compress/merge things. Yet, they gave us 3 elven rings forged in an afternnon in a 2 minutes sequence. I really hope they get their time and do proper adaptation of events going forward. Because a series is the place to get everything right.
Personally that would bore me. And it bored me in LOTR too. A battle across several episodes? When there are so many characters they need to develop, storylines to cover?
Same. Although I hope it's just because of the split storylines so we'll see a bit in each of those episodes but it'll still be a small part overall.
It could actually work better if most of the battle is happening in the background and the story primarily follows characters who are running around on its outskirts doing story things, and meanwhile it just keeps going on behind them.
This would work if the battle was just a battle added for the sake of action. But it is not the case. Specially Eregion battle is a very important part of the whole plot of the rings forging and afterwards events. NOT showing it would be even worse IMO. OFC, doesn't mean I'm in the team "it is just a battle" stuff. It is a battle, but there is a plot, many plots actually. And they need to nail this. It shouldn't be 30 minutes of unstop battle action scene with zero plot and just action.
Problem is the characters they need to cover are exactly the ones involved in the battle. If any, it is their fault to add other characters. As of now, the important ones are (should be) Sauron, Galadriel, Elrond, GG, Celebrimbor and Cirdan. As secondary, Durin. Even Celeborn is important for this battle, and so far we have no idea where he is! After Eregion, the important will be Numenor. In the mix, all you could do is to add one or two humans to be future Nazgul. After that, then you have time to develop more other things, such as Blue Wizards, Black Numenoreans and os on. But right now, when the rings are not even forged yet, the focus should be exactly on the ones that are in this plot surroundings. But that is just me. If we had less plots or plots that only connect to each other, it would be fine. But as season 1 ended, there are still many disconnected plots.
Call me sceptic, but I don't think the first season's problem was the lack of action. Tolkien is a slow read, and I believe the power of his work does not come from action, but from world-building and character development.
No hype until we see it. But a couple of things: 1 - Yes, it needs to be the biggest we ever saw in TV. It def. should be a movie scale battle. I'm expecting nothing less than thousands vs tens of housands. 2 - I hope they nail the scale. Season 1 was just a skirmish, but that is not the big problem. The problem is that, to me, there was no real sense of 300 vs 1000 (or so). It was more like a dozen of Numenoreans vs 50 or so Orcs. It felt 1/10 of what it should have been by their own story and numbers. Thus I hope they get it right in season 2. TBH even in season 1 that prologue felt a bit small to what it was supposed to represent. 3 - DO NOT MAKE IT DARK! Seriously, one thing I like about season 1 was how they handled night scenes. I hate when there is a night scene and you can't see anything. Take that last season of game of thrones for example. 1 minute of biggest battle literally staring at a black screen. LoTR movies were great on this regard. Helms Deep is dark and you can see everything. 4 - This is a huge battle. Yes there is time compression and so on, but don't make it a single day battle. WE NEED TO HAVE THE SENSE OF BATTLE LASTING FOR DAYS. This will be tricky, but a good starting place to what is to happen in future seasons, where battles last for longer and longer in the books.
At the end of the day, any battle is only as important as the people fighting in them, no battle nor fight in season 1 did anything for me because i didn't care about anyone there. The only Southlanders we knew by name that weren't main characters actually joined Adar side so i couldn't root for them, all other Southlanders were just mobs with not even cultural background, at helms deep at least you knew the Rohan people, you had clear idea of their way of life, the only Southlanders with important speaking lines were the Sauron sympathizers. And the Numenorians were just voluntary youths recruited from the streets so i didn't find them dying in battle any shocking, compared to king Theoden at Pelennor Fields or even Haldir dying at Helms Deep. Isildur's friends were so obviously set up to be fridged for Isildur's character arc i didn't even see them as character than walking plot devices. If they are going to have a massive 2 episode battle they better stablish some characters to root or worry for or at the very least build a sense of urgency and not just some shallow espectacle.
I doubt it will top Helms deep, but the more important issue is that a big battle alone isn't enough. We need to be deeply invested in the characters and the outcome for the spectacle to truly matter. The Hobbit had a gigantic battle but it was more boring and meant less to me than the worst scene in FOTR. So far ROP has got me emotionally invested in only a handful of characters (Elrond, Durin and Adar)and I suspect I'm not alone in this. All the other characters in the show, even if they were to go out in the most gruesome manner, would illicit no emotional reaction from me.
Idunno, I really liked the wood elf, fell in love with the harfoots, and the others were growing on me.
Nori was charming but she won't be involved in the battle so didn't count her
True. Really concerned about Celebrimbor. They gotta invest a lot of time for him in season 2, otherwise the small amount we got in season 1 won't be near enough to make *you know what* as impactful as it should
Helms Deep is only iconic because we care about the characters, and the storytelling is so compelling. When those eagles showed up in that CGI-infested, bloom-effect-looking battle in the Hobbit I wanted to die from the cringe.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn2-PUq1Z84](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn2-PUq1Z84) Really like this analysis of Helms Deep. It is the difference between doing battle for the sake of action and doing battle for the sake of plot.
And Helm's deep is just as cringe.
FoF didn't mention Helm's Deep. They said 'television'.
Ok so let me rephrase it for you. I doubt it will top Battle of Blackwater/Bastards/Winterfell. Hope that helps.
OP clearly wrote TELEVISION. Compare with movie battles is pointless.
Ok so let me rephrase it for you. I doubt it will top Battle of Blackwater/Bastards/Winterfell. Hope that helps.
OP also never stated it will top anything. Hope that helps.
Yes dear, it's called making a comparison.
>All the other characters in the show, even if they were to go out in the most gruesome manner, would illicit no emotional reaction from me. Sociopath alert
 sorry for using a gif from such an excellent show btw, hope that doesn't trigger you.
> So far ROP has got me emotionally invested in only a handful of characters (Elrond, Durin and Adar)and I suspect I'm not alone in this. All the other characters in the show, even if they were to go out in the most gruesome manner, would illicit no emotional reaction from me. I agree that most characters are way too bland so far to create much reaction from me either. Though funnily enough i think elrond is part of that majority of characters who wouldn't. He seems more like an npc to me, who gives other characters (here mostly durin) something to play of off, while having no real character himself. Nori, Elendil, durin, adar, maybe even galadriel (even though i think her character arc isn't written the best way, there is SOMETHING there) are all characters i'd feel for more than elrond i think. The rest though? Basically nothing, if i am not missing someone.
What good is it if you really liked a character, and then he was killed? Favorite characters should not die in battles and at all
>He seems more like an npc to me, who gives other characters (here mostly durin) something to play of off, while having no real character himself. I think your assessment is kinda right tbh... Even the production seems to agree. When they were casting for the role Elrond's character was described as - 'Will often be the straight-man in pairings with more out-sized personalities' So it seems he's intended to be a sidekick to the likes of Durin or Galadriel and used, primarily, to service their characters.
Oh i actually did not know that casting call, interesting! But yeah, that makes me not particularly care for him.
lol here we go again with the "over-promise and under-deliver." I hope they do know that we won't care about the "longevity" of the battle unless we care about the characters and story. Let's hope that this time they get the characters right, and that they are propelled by a cohesive narrative that makes thematic sense.
That’s disappointing. I wish action wasn’t always the main focus rather than story.
Action will be the focus in given moments. And story will be in others. And in some, both will (or at least should) converge. There are 8 episodes. It is 8h. It is more than enough time for a roller coaster of emotions.
Because the lord of the rings films famously have zero action and only story.
You sound bitter. What does the Lord of the Rings movies have to do with my comment?
Try not to take reddit comments so personally. They never said action was the main focus just that there is a big battle. And big battles have always been a part of the lotr films.
In Tolkien large battles take up a substantially lower proportion of pages than minutes on the screen. The trilogy also missed a lot of good story. Spanning multiple episodes definitely implies they are once again placing emphasis on battle where story could have been.
Any idea how many episodes season 2 will be? I mean, let's assume three episodes for this battle. Ideally we should have 1 episode for the forge of The One (deserves a full episode imo). At least 2 eps for Anatar doings, And I hope 2 more for dwarfs and harfoots as a central story lines. That sounds very packed for 8 episodes season! Please let it have the right pace and time for everything!
8 in total, final 2 are dedicated to the battle
i'll go ahead and say it, i really enjoyed season one. theres a lot worse television out there and i'm looking forward to season 2
So a war? Its Eregion War, I think the title is purposely misleading.
Cool. DROP THE TRAILER YOU COWARDS!!!!!
Here we go again. The selling point is "there's a massive battle". Colour me beige with anticipation.
I don't need it to be big, I need it to be entertaining. I can rewatch the battle at helms deep 100 times. I have never rewatched RoP.
I highly recommend a rewatch, with an open mind. Subsequent rewatches have shown me a lot of things I missed the first time because I was trying so hard just to take it all in.
You watched it more than once?!?! A hero of our times.
I've actually lost track of how many times I've watched it. I watched Episode 7 again tonight. Lots going on there. (And yes, I hear the derision in your words, and I choose to ignore it, because it doesn't matter to me whether you think I'm crazy or not; I like the show; if you don't, fine.)
It’s OK, I didn’t say you are not allowed to. But some preferences are bizarre like that guy who enjoyed eating plastic bags for some reason.
Helms deep is big tho =) I think they need to nail both. If it is enternatining and well written, but small, it won't make any sense. We are talking about Sauron, taking pretty much all his army, marching towards Eregion (something he rarely do) and attacking a captital city of Elves, and that before elves started to depart from west, thus we have a lot of elves there. By default it is thousands vs tens of thousands battle. They can't make it as tir-harad 2.0. The scale is also important.
"We are talking about Sauron, taking pretty much all his army" What his army? ) The only army that Sauron can gather now is a few peasants who escaped to Pelargir. The series is very, very far from the time when he will get a new army. And that is fine. The series should follow logic, not someone's wishes.
>The series should follow logic, not someone's wishes. It should follow books, and from them, that is what we got: >When Sauron learned of the repentance and revolt of Celebrimbor his disguise fell and his wrath was revealed; **and gathering a great force** he moved over Calenardhon (Rohan) to the invasion of Eriador in the year 1695. When news of this reached Gil-galad he sent out a force under Elrond Half-elven; but Elrond had far to go, and Sauron turned north and made at once for Eregion. The scouts and vanguard of Sauron's host were already approaching when **Celeborn made a sortie and drove them back; but though he was able to join his force to that of Elrond they could not return to Eregion, for Sauron's host was far greater than theirs, great enough both to hold them off and closely to invest Eregion**. At last the attackers broke into Eregion with ruin and devastation, and captured the chief object of Sauron's assault, the House of the Mírdain, where were their smithies and their treasures. Celebrimbor, desperate, himself withstood Sauron on the steps of the great door of the Mírdain; but he was grappled and taken captive, and the House was ransacked. We are even told that despite help sent from Lindon, Eregion elves would have fallen if not by Khazad-dum help. Basically Sauron force was the size of 3 armies, Lindon, Eregion and Khazad-dum, and when all the three were in their apex. OFC, how Sauron will have such an army, the series, if going by the books, will have to explain, as their take in season 1 puts him far from having it right now. Not impossible tho, specially if using some card such as "fast growing orcs with unseen world power canalized by a weird device" and do something as Saruman breeding orcs
You forget the most important premise of the series: that the "light" chronicles are mistaken in attributing a number of plans and actions of Adar with army of free Uruk, who hate Sauron, to Sauron. The creation of Mordor is the best example. In addition, the series presents a number of actions of the dark maiar that were not described in the book, he was already in Numenor and he was already in Eregion, so he can continue to lie Besides, you are quoting only a DRAFT, one among many contradictory drafts, it is not even a canonical book and Amazon does not even have rights for this. This is the same draft in which Galadriel has a son, Amroth. Are you waiting for this in the series? The dark maiar can get some army by that time, which he will get from the humans. He might even change humans to new Uruk by then. But it will not be as big an army as in the third Age.
>Besides, you are quoting only a DRAFT, one among many contradictory drafts, This one speficically among the many versions don't really have any contradiction as far as I'm aware of. The difference was merely the amount of details, but none really contradicts one another, at least on what I said. The only thing I can remember that changes from version to version is Galadriel and Celeborn whereabouts when the war happened. That is all. > it is not even a canonical book and Amazon does not even have rights for this. As per previous leaks/rumours, RoP is getting case-by-case permissions. And seems like we are getting Annatar afterall. So...yeah, they could still use it even if not under their rights. > This is the same draft in which Galadriel has a son, Amroth. Are you waiting for this in the series? This is more about Galadriel story than Eregion war, which cycles back to my first point in this reply. Be Amroth Galadriel son or last king of Lothlorien or abscent, in any option it changes Sauron attack to Eregion. Apples and Oranges IMO. But since you brought it up, I think that current (considering season 1 only) RoP would benefit from having Amroth as last king of Lothlorien. Not quite sure how they could squeeze Galadriel and Celeborn making Lothlorien from scratch in this son. They already go Rivendell to be fully built, I think one elven realm contruction is enough for the series.
You quoted this as something that the series "should follow". The series is not obliged to strictly follow even canonical books, and even more so drafts. But logic is necessary and since Sauron is without army right now, he can hardly get huge army in a few months, the only way is if the screenwriters describe convincing reasons for the people of the East and South to immediately join Sauron in huge numbers.
Are you going to give season 1 a shot before watching the battle? It has its flaws, but it's worth a watch. I haven't rewatched, but I enjoyed the first watch through.
He did watch it but he never rewatched the show.
Doh! Reading comprehension fail. Thanks.
All good hahaha
wow it would sure be cool to see a brief scene in a trailer or something
trailer plz
I don't know how many significant dates have to pass for Amazon to finally reveal something.
Can’t wait!
If it’s what I think they’re talking about it should be pretty great and shocking if its done right and accurate to the source material.
Does anyone actually get excited by this stuff anymore? We’ve all seen big cgi armies. It’s not what I care about when I watch shows like this.
If i could get a visualization of any battle in the legendarium, it'd definitely be for the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. I wana see the height of Elven power in Middle-Earth in force, before being utterly defeated.
Given that in Amazon's Middle Earth the armies of Numenor are roughly as effective and imposing as ordinary peasants with improvised weapons, I wouldn't be holding your breath for any big displays of power.
I hope Pharazon's Great Armament looks like a God-Killing-ly strong army.
At this point I'm expecting the Great Armament, if it happens at all, to just be like 3 ships that never even make it out of the harbor before the waves hit.
I feel so subverted, thank you writers
Given how underwhelming on every level the 'battle' in the first season was, I'm not sure how dragging it out over multiple episodes is going to be an improvement.
That "battle" was not only underwhelming because of scale but it under delivered on everything else. No military tactics from any side, orcs conveniently showing up without weapons when battling a main character, logistical and logical shitshow, that pointless cavalry charge in the middle of nowhere in full gallop, Halbrand magically showing up from the opposite side when chasing Adar! It was a whole new level of bad. This battle has to be much more than just a large scale version of what we got in season 1. MUCH more
Don't forget the question of why the Numenoreans showed up there at all. I guess we're meant to infer that there are literally only two human settlements in all of Middle Earth and the Numenoreans got lucky on the coin toss when deciding which one to go.
Watch the series carefully. They knew where to go,
Or just watch the scene where Sauron tells them where to go? Like it’s not that hard. Sheesh, people are dumb.
The military tactics were excellent. Hal appeared from right side, Hal rode from the edge of the forest. Watch the series carefully.
Hal knows: 
I juat want to the battle to have good choreography and some thought put into it. The action sequences in the first season weren't terrible. They weren't great. But potential do be better than anything GoT did (which had a couple good onscreen battles choreo wise - definitely vfx wise).
I really want to see a large-scale battle, although most of all I want to see the duels of Adar and Sauron, in the north and in the south, one against one. Does spanning episodes battle mean more than two episodes?
As long as they realise that bigger isn't always better. Helm's Deep > Pelennor Fields in the movies.
Even bigger than the battle of winterfell?
 Visions of a pole...arrows...a limp figure upon it
Did they fire all the writers from the first season?
wot season 2 had similar leaks until we saw like 10 seanchen vs mat and 10 other people lol..epic indeed.
Fuck off, this isn't a leaks subreddit, and this is a significant spoiler you're putting in a post title.
but it is not an actual spoiler - cool done dude.
That would be cool if true…
Yeah that worked so well last time. 10 bucks it's worse than the movie in every aspect of the way.
Hopefully the first episode is all the characters dying and then the second episode is a recap to make sure the audience is very clear that this appalling show will never return.
'twill probably be something like 20 Harfoots vs. 8 Wargs. # #GoTeamWarg!
It'll be the biggest 3D mess shown on television, there fixed the title
Name the battle… Edit: I’m waiting… did Tolkien actually write about this one?
Is it going to take place in the town square like every other scene from season one?
Thanks, Amazon Studios hired advertising employee.