Off Topic The Official:TV-Show-Movie-Games Thread

Stranger Things has really hit the big time as far as shows go.... I see they're naming storms after Stranger Things characters now....

 

Got season 4 of Yellowstone started where it finished off in third season,explosive start....great stuff.

 

Andor - radically better this week. Moved from dull to things happening and looking like a proper ****ing star wars show. Rogue one was good as it was a mult world thing with complexity to establish the story. Now we have the action.

She hulk. - wow, thought it couldn't get worse and then ot did lol. It's got a small "story" that's barely there and all about well how hard it is to be she hulk.

House of dragons - could have done the first 5 episodes in 2. Mostly designed to establish 2 characters and then episode 6 is 10 years later and 2 actresses are changed. Ffs.... has to start going soon or the entire series is a bust.

Star trek lower decks. Only star trek show accessible at the min. Not really star trek but a bit of a laugh.

Finally... rings of power. That's next to watch. Fingers crossed it starts some action. The issue is the story is known so they have to fill in the gaps with good stuff not filler.

 

Last episode of LOTR by far the best of the season so far...

... Even if it did have a cheesy LOTR trope of

Spoiler

random army riding in at the very least second to save the day

I guarantee they will play that trope at least once a season. It's LOTR version of the spy-genre's ticking time bomb stopped in the last few seconds.

But that aside... Really good episode.

 

I'll only get to see it after the game.

 

New Quantum Leap series doesn't seem very good. At least not after episode one, but I guess a lot of shows aren't good in their first episode.

Showing what's happening from both sides (the leap side and the present day side) was a big mistake, takes away all the mystery... And makes the show feel more campy.

 

How can they make quantum leap again??? It was a really cheap way to make a scfi show and have lots of stories about body swapping but it wasn't actually that good in the first place.

 

Blasphemy!!!!!

 

The Old Man

TV series on a Disney, cracking stuff.

 

Spoiler: Spoiler

so...

A) less working of multiple storyline helps. We don't have 4 or 5 at the same time.

B) I might view this as just a bit pedantic but 3 ships under single main sails (maybe 2) cannot carry 500 horse. Sorry but they can't. The size of ship is further established by gladreil and isildur meeting on the prow of one.

C) riding in. Meh. The whole thing gets the blade shard into the hands of the evil elf. Which sets up the next bit

D) again there's in consistency. The orcs run about in daylight once the final bit starts with no concern of burning. They are not hooded at times etc. Another minor concern. As gladreil then threatens to bring the orcs into the sunlight.

E) more consistency issue with isildur somehow as a stable hand sat in horse beside the Queen regent and is sent to ride in and save his father. This breaks the entire punishment and working his way up arc

Overall however it is an enjoyable action romp with a few twists that advances the story to the point that the sword shard is put in the hands of halbrand and the tease of the question from the twisted elf "who are you" however then the elf hands the ****ing thing back to the kid. That's like... wtf it's not it.... but somehow the guy who turned and left the humans in the last episode has it without dying anywhere and boom!!!! We get the giant reveal of the big plan and the birth of Mount doom!!

My understanding is amazon have created this halbrand character who is not in Tolkien lore so HD is not sauron unless this guy eventually.meets the elf with the giant forge.

After that really the focus on joining the two threads together (southland folk and the numinous forces) helped the story a great deal. Less jumping about and a massive plot advancement

 

Spoiler

Yes, this made it better. Felt like an actual plot and formulated chapter in the story this way..

Spoiler

Not just that, but filmography made it look like they galloped all the way from the river to the battle. Horses can gallop at full speed that far... It's like that man vs horse marathon they have in Wales each year, over hilly difficult terrain, horses can't really run much more distance in a day than we can... You wouldn't run the entire army at a gallop over a long distance, they had no clue an actual battle was taking place and time was of the essence and wouldn't have been wearing their horses out.

... Unless there were scenes cut, which could also have explained where all the extra horses came.from.

Spoiler

They have a few times when it's not been direct sunlight, cloudy, etc. It was dawn, light just changed. So sun wouldn't be overhead.
.

Finally... About Habrand...

Spoiler

Always thought the whole "we have no king or ruler" thing a bit weird. Someone will always fill a power vacuum. And why welcome someone as king you've never met with no hesitation.

... Oh yeah, and he's probably Sauron in disguise and manipulating everyone.

 

Spoiler: Spoiler

the thing is we are all aware of the lore of the rings. Sauron in disguise will fool the elves of eregion and Celebrimbor in particular to forge the ring and that person was named annatar. We have had the storyline where the elves get the dwarves to build the forge and now we are really waiting to find how the elves and humans get out of now mordor up to mirkwood etc.

How this character parachuted in by amazon who has a name and is now known by all.and sundry as halbrand can now fool the elves into making the rings.... who knows.

we do know now however that the grand plan of the fallen elf was to move that water into the mountain and make a giant volcano explode.... apparently. All the channels dug, tunnels etc were to do this.

 

Spoiler

and the dark elf claims to have killed Sauron (which we know he couldn't) and we know Sauron can take human form... And we know Habrand said to him "do you remember me, what you did to me" indicating something personal. I think he tried to kill Sauron and failed. And Halbrand is his new human form. Not sure why he saved Galadrial though, unless it was he knew she would recognize the king symbol he was carrying and he's been using her all along.

 

Spoiler: Spoiler

IMO we can't forget the Tolkien family influence in this story telling lark. they are extremely nerdy and protective and there's no way they'd sign off on a central tenant of the lore being totally edited by amazon.

we have the twisted elf Adar having a clear scheme in mind and there were several twists in it.

Arondir is seen trying to break the hilt with a forge but cannot. it is then wrapped and "hidden"

We start with the southlanders having a "win" by knocking to tower and killing orcs. this is then reversed by Adar sending in the traitors in dsiguise as orcs and then ambushing the humans

adar then starting killing folk until Arondir the elf hands over the hilt. In its wrapping.

In rides the cavalry like a classic us western and we see Adar flee only to be chased by Halbrand and Galadriel.

At no point do we actually see the hilt

So what actually happened in this episode, well there is a scene with the old crusty is given a task by adar just prior to the arrival of said cavalry.

The creation of mount doom is actually ADAR'S plan and Halbrand seemed utterly disinterested in the hilt. As such all the talk between the two i feel is distraction and subterfuge. halbrand is an ideal early front runner to distract folk IMO. Amazon may well have created the character from nowhere (he doesn't exist in the lore) specifically to give this who is it? story arc.

We have to think about the lore again here. there are the following rings to be made:

"Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."

3 elven rings - never corrupted by sauron as made in secret. We see this with gandalf, Galadriel and Elrond in the movies.

7 rings go to dwarfs for the 7 clans of dwarves Durin, Firebeards, Broadbeams, Ironfists, Stiffbeards, Blacklocks, and Stonefoots. those are the tribes. again theres stuff in other stores about these and what happens to these particular rings.

the 9 rings are those of interest for me. 9 rings will be given to men who become "Kings, Sorcerers and warriros of old" these 9 are KEY to this whole show IMO. the one ring will corrupt each in turn and make them into saurons nazgul. Now we get to the point where LORE and AMAZON can come together.

"the witch king of angmar" is names and his second is "kamul, form the east". the others are complete unknown. For me halbrand is now already named as a Ruler of middle earth, the southlands. Its more likley IMO he has been added to be an eventual nazgul than suaron himself.

I can only resume the fate of these rings is key to this how show. as its named after them.

Again the lore places suaron in middle eath and he can sway men to his power and will control mordor. To entrap the elves he has to scheme however and this is where the name Annatar comes in who is lord of girts and is only described as ""a commanding figure of great strength of body and supremely royal demeanour and countenance."

This is where however the lore and the story telling on TV have to diverge. Annatr should be spenidng centuries in eregion with the elves teaching this ring making and corrupting the rings over time, the then had to leave eregion to forge the one ring in mordor in mount doom and this is the time period where the 3 elven rings are made.

Season 1 makes mount doom.

what happens next is in question as if you think on a tolkien timeline there should be hundreds of years before the rings are made and the great battle eventually happens so all the humans including halbrand we see now ought to be dead as doornails before we ever see rings. the elves and dwarves shoudl live longer.

 

Blonde 8.8/10

The Old Man episode 2 still really good, Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow adding the star quality.

 

One thing when comparing to Tolkien. Amazon already said they were compressing centuries into much shorter time-frames. The whole production will run to completion within the same human genetation.

 

Well that would seem fair as they've already set us up with durin III in the dwarves and he gets a ring so the "upskilling" of the elves at eregion has to be done relatively quickly and of course we know isildur as a young man is here already and he must cut the one ring from the hand of sauron.

So it makes sense to be a single generation thing.

It leaves a **** ton of things to happen though, this may make sense that the hobbits have met gandalf after all given that he's sent to fight sauron after the rings emerge. Compressing the timeframe may make his placement a requirement. Or at least establish why he is a friend to the hobbits.

hmmmm...

Galadriel has a lot to do to get placed in mirkwood.

 

Finished latest season of Yellowstone,will have to wait for next season to be released.Kelly Reilly's character is brilliant and she plays it really well.
Love this programme really excellent stuff.

 

Episode 7 of house of dragons. Pretty clear trope at this point. Story has moved on there a bit though as we approach the end of series.

 

Seen episode 1.

What a start!

I mean no such thing as a slow burner here. It goes right in two footed and clears everyone out right away. the set up is excellent, the switch up is dramatic and then the punch line at the end is stonking.

This could be a top top show.