And Galadriel’s troop fought a snow troll. We have Gil-Galad sending a troublesome commander to Valinor. Elrond used a contest with a dwarf prince as a start on an alliance between elves and dwarves. Orcs are tunneling below human villages to kidnap the inhabitants and Proto-hobbits are helping a man who fell from the sky.
Galadriel dispatches a snow troll isnt story, its just a random 1min action scene that has no impact on anything.
Also that was a really dumb scene in so many ways.
Gil-Galad shouldnt really have the power to just send people away. The just invented some lore to get characters where they want them.
Even outside that, a character that shows up for 2 scenes and make one vagly interedting incredibly cryptic remark isn't exactly a barn burner.
Ok, Orcs still exists, amazing who would have thought. And a random person fell from the sky that is a total mystery and unconnected to anything so far.
So yeah its not much for 2h+ of runtime. Not sure wht you added ' /s'.
That seems like plenty for 2 episodes in spite of your dismissal of each event. This is a series not a movie. I wouldn’t want it to follow the frantic pacing of a movie where they have to compact and discard so much to fit into a short runtime.
Compare it to the first to episodes of Game of Thrones, House of Dragon, Breaking Bad, Firefly or any number other good shows.
Its also not really a good slow burn either. If you want to see that done expertly check out True Detective Season 1. That story draws you in.
And this episodes were very long and all the story lines are slow.
- A Story: Galadriel wanders around without doing much in the first episodes and swims around not doing much in the second episode. She has basically 1 expression, her motivation is the most basic revenge story plot ever and its totally clear that she is right and everybody else is dumb. The scene of going to Valinor standing on boat in full armor looked dumb and it was totally clear she would not go, but I guess show runners wanted to drop a couple million on special effect.
- B Story: Hartfoots mostly slice of life and some interaction with a mysterious wizard that amount to nothing so far. Kind of cute but not interesting and totally different tone then everything else. Including with slap stick humor.
- C Story: Basic Elf-Human love story with neither of the characters being very interesting and they have little chemistry. Also evil is rising, but I don't really care about those characters so I don't really care, for now its just random orcs. Nothing to connect to, no large conflict or the other characters. This is even worse then the love-story the added to the hobbit.
- D Story: Elron goes to the dwarfs and we get lots of exposition about (mostly nonsensical) backstory that is required for the current plot to make sense and some character setups for the dwarfs. Honestly maybe the most interesting part of the first 2 episodes, but not actually that interesting.
The tournament/birth sequence in the first episode of House of Dragon had more interesting character moments, character development, story progression then all of the Rings of Power had in the first 2h.
Or compare it with the story that happen in the first 2h of Lord of the Rings (~10h) total vs Rings of Power (10h).
In hindsight, it is amazing how much happens in the first episode of Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad. I recently rewatched both, and it felt like watching half a season.
Galadriel is searching for Sauron, whom she believes is still hiding and plotting. Her entire plot is about everyone telling her the threat is gone but she (and the viewers) clearly see that’s not the case.
Elrond is trying to recruit the dwarves to help build the forge to create the rings.
The comet guy I’ll grant you is the show’s one mystery, granted, but I have a feeling he’s going to have something to do with the reemergence of Sauron and the creation of the rings.
Yeah, I interpreted most of the symbolism as being pretty ominous too. I know Gandalf is something of a fire wizard, but crashing to earth in a red comet as signs of evil are popping up everywhere? Controlling and then killing a bunch of fireflies?
His fire power comes from his great ring, but it’s not a stretch for the writers to say he had some nascent fire powers which the later ring just enhanced. They are already breaking from canon if this is Gandalf. The death of the fireflies could be an accident. He doesn’t control his power well yet.
I don’t want to over analyze though as they are obviously trying to be ambiguous for suspense.
Breaks continuity with the official timeline, as Gandalf doesn't come to middle earth until thousands of years later. But with the hints they dropped (e.g. the names he mutters and the speaking to insects), I don't see who else it could be. And bringing Gandalf in early for this series would be a good change imho. It would balance out the cast of characters and be an interesting plot development.
Per Tolkien's later writing, the blue wizards arrived during the 2nd age to oppose Sauron in the East, but as far as I know they aren't mentioned directly in the material Amazon has the rights to. Having that role filled by Gandalf might be an acceptable compromise...
