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I agree Leo, just because a story takes place in a fantasy world, doesn't mean that the laws of nature and physics should be thrown out the window. Quite the opposite really. When you're trying to tell a story with fantastical elements it's imperative that everything in your story feel real, or the audience is going to have a hard time accepting the fantastical elements inserted into that story. That was one of the aspects that made the PJ films so good. Yes there were fantasy creatures but their design was approached with a scientific basis, ex the wingspan of a fellbeast needing to be a certain length to lift a creature that size, or the saddle placement on the wargs due to the spin on a warg and how it flexes while running. These aren't things the audience really notices while watching, but they all contribute to the world feeling real. So that when you see fantasy creatures they don't feel like they are fake and they don't pull you out of the story. So when a show like RoP takes a shortcut and doesn't put the effort into making the world feel real and to obey the laws of nature and physics it's is noticeable and contributes to pulling the audience out of the story. And using the lame argument of "oh it's fantasy, just suspend your sense of reality" instead of doing it properly.
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You can nitpick fantasy vs reality vs this vs that. That's the whole idea beyond suspending disbelief. If everything were down to 100% realism, you'd never have an explosion in Star Wars/Star Trek, the universal translators in Star Trek would work, but a Klingon's lips wouldn't magically start moving/syncing in English. Maybe I'm ignorant to physics and smelting, but melting down a knife into gold and silver is a much more realistic to me than a lot of things that have happened in fantasy series.

I might be misremembering but I think a lot of the weapon designs, especially the dwarven weapons couldnt exist in reality or at least be functional.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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BladeCollector wrote: Tue Oct 25, 2022 7:38 am You can nitpick fantasy vs reality vs this vs that. That's the whole idea beyond suspending disbelief. If everything were down to 100% realism, you'd never have an explosion in Star Wars/Star Trek, the universal translators in Star Trek would work, but a Klingon's lips wouldn't magically start moving/syncing in English. Maybe I'm ignorant to physics and smelting, but melting down a knife into gold and silver is a much more realistic to me than a lot of things that have happened in fantasy series.

I might be misremembering but I think a lot of the weapon designs, especially the dwarven weapons couldnt exist in reality or at least be functional.

You're right, we can all have different tolerances to what we need for something to be believable. I wouldn't compare this series to others, much less sci-fi. I think they're fundamentally different types of fantasy. What I do compare this series to, which I think is inevitable, is the LOTR and Hobbit trilogies, which primarily established what Middle-Earth looks and feels like (more LOTR than The Hobbit). And as Tyler said, they went great ways to design and build armour, weapons, cities, monuments, and beasts that would look and feel believable - so you can more easily relate to what you're seeing. Sure, they're not perfect but rather 'flawed masterpieces', as Kit put it.

This "molten dagger to gold and silver" thing is just an example. Don't forget Galadriel swimming an entire ocean or Brownwyn's casually surviving an open-surgery operation after being trespassed by an arrow, followed by a volcanic eruption (to which everyone survived too). I really don't like to be criticizing the show just for the sake of it, but there were (lots of) moments when I just felt disconnected; that's all :|
Last edited by Levidas on Wed Oct 26, 2022 9:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Well, to paraphrase Sigmund Freud, "Sometimes a crap show is just a crap show".

This article below makes clear these are only rumours at this point, but so much of it rings true to what I've heard, read, seen, and experienced, that I find it hard to not believe that most of that will come to pass. It's just that when I read things like Amazon deliberately censoring unfavourable reviews that it sets my teeth on edge, and yes, they have admitted to doing it. The communist Chinese government would be proud of such tactics.

https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/10/ ... ticipated/
This Space for Rent

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It’s quite alarming that the showrunner state that this was their dream to work on Middle Earth. Imagine how much worse it could have been if they were only half arsed in their efforts?!

That being said, I’m glad people who enjoy it are able to enjoy it. It just went off the rails for me and never really recovered.
"All those moments will be lost, in time... like tears, in the rain..."

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I think the issue about the casting separating the metals from the dagger is not one of the biggest issues with the series... It seems that they tried to give an explanation of the process. If you look at the series they have done some sort of centrifuge style spin casting and the molten metal has been separated into strips as separated by the different masses of the metals... and then they have collected them with a "spoon" in the style of the needle of a vinyl record player... Although that same explanation, if it really worked, it should also repair the mithril of the other metals, spoiling the alloy... :P

For the record, I am not defending the series, which has seemed visually spectacular, but a real disaster in everything else, a real offense to Tolkien and in some scenes it seemed to me a real insult to my intelligence (for example, It will be that assomeone who lives in the land of volcanoes, that he had an eruption just a year ago, that he always has a little worry in mind that something like this could happen and is aware of how destructive and dangerous volcanoes are, without the need to reach the explosiveness shown in ROP ...seeing that pyroclastic flow that does not harm anyone, seemed really stupid to me... a stupidity of gigantic proportions).

Valkrist wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 11:38 pm Well, to paraphrase Sigmund Freud, "Sometimes a crap show is just a crap show".

This article below makes clear these are only rumours at this point, but so much of it rings true to what I've heard, read, seen, and experienced, that I find it hard to not believe that most of that will come to pass. It's just that when I read things like Amazon deliberately censoring unfavourable reviews that it sets my teeth on edge, and yes, they have admitted to doing it. The communist Chinese government would be proud of such tactics.

https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/10/ ... ticipated/
Honestly, I hope that article you've put is right, that they're not just rumors, and they throw the showrunners far far away from the show... with a trebuchet if it were up to me.

I hope that if they don't want to fire them, even if they deserve it, to avoid controversy, they'll at least sit them in a corner of the writers' room with a box of coloring pencils and completely ignore them.
BladeCollector wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:35 am I mean, we are also talking about a world that was flat and then was magically around, dragons and balrogs exist, along with immortal elves, taking the essence of the trees of valinor and making jewels out of them... not that far fetched that someone could melt down a dagger and separate the gold and silver.
The excuse of "whatever can happen no matter, there are Dragons..." I think is not valid to justify all the mistakes of this show, much less in Tolkien's world, because as Levidas has commented, Tolkien created very credible foundations and detailed and an logic explanation (within their world and rules) for everything... like the magic, for example, it's not like in other fantasy worlds, where anyone by saying a few words out loud can cast a spell, but In Eä it's something deeper where only supernatural beings can do, and for what they are, not for what they say.

LOTR it's not Harry Potter, D&D or Willow... only to give some examples.

There is a logical construction behind everything that gives it a realism that other stories do not have and that it is obvious that the showrunners cannot understand. Like breaking physical laws, like fire or magma not hurts and many other things, are things definitely doesn't fit in that world.

It is true that a certain point of suspension of belief is necessary to enjoy any fantasy story, but in every fantasy world, some basic rules are established, some laws that you must then respect in order to be consistent and not destroy the immersion you have created. And ROP not only does not respect the history created by Tolkien, it does not even respect those most basic rules of the world.

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XerachCruz wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 3:13 am ....
For the record, I am not defending the series, which has seemed visually spectacular, but a real disaster in everything else, a real offense to Tolkien and in some scenes it seemed to me a real insult to my intelligence ......

Honestly, I hope that article you've put is right, that they're not just rumors, and they throw the showrunners far far away from the show... with a trebuchet if it were up to me.
That is great... I have a picture of it now in my head. :D
XerachCruz wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 3:13 am I hope that if they don't want to fire them, even if they deserve it, to avoid controversy, they'll at least sit them in a corner of the writers' room with a box of coloring pencils and completely ignore them.
Colored pencils is beyond their cognitive capacity....try finger paints
XerachCruz wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 3:13 am
The excuse of "whatever can happen no matter, there are Dragons..." I think is not valid to justify all the mistakes of this show, much less in Tolkien's world, because as Levidas has commented, Tolkien created very credible foundations and detailed and an logic explanation (within their world and rules) for everything... like the magic, for example, it's not like in other fantasy worlds, where anyone by saying a few words out loud can cast a spell, but In Eä it's something deeper where only supernatural beings can do, and for what they are, not for what they say.

LOTR it's not Harry Potter, D&D or Willow... only to give some examples.
Bingo.

XerachCruz wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 3:13 am There is a logical construction behind everything that gives it a realism that other stories do not have and that it is obvious that the showrunners cannot understand. Like breaking physical laws, like fire or magma not hurts and many other things, are things definitely doesn't fit in that world.

It is true that a certain point of suspension of belief is necessary to enjoy any fantasy story, but in every fantasy world, some basic rules are established, some laws that you must then respect in order to be consistent and not destroy the immersion you have created. And ROP not only does not respect the history created by Tolkien, it does not even respect those most basic rules of the world.
What he said, squared and cubed.

"Eternity is an awful long time, especially towards the end."

"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.
It also depends on what sort of person you are.” -- CSL

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@Valkritst.... 'way back before the RoP trainwreck....umm... wrecked; that is, when the teasers were the only thing out there we could go by, you wondered why Gil-galad looked like Caesar.

So I've seen a few shots of him in the various articles recently mentioned/linked, and I swear it's a young Bill Murray dressed like Caesar playing at being Gil-galad.
Gil-galad.jpg
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"Eternity is an awful long time, especially towards the end."

"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.
It also depends on what sort of person you are.” -- CSL

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Valkrist wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 3:49 pm Was Bill Murray in Animal House? Because that would explain a lot...
HAHA... you are thinking of the Toga parties ...but no, it was John Belushi

So here is the young Bill Murray
Not a lookalike by any stretch, but it that Gil-galad pic still reminds me of Murray
Bill Murray _1.jpg
Bill Murray.jpg
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"Eternity is an awful long time, especially towards the end."

"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.
It also depends on what sort of person you are.” -- CSL

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I have no interest in this, but I received an email from BudK about this and found it interesting. I know they do all sorts of knock-offs and this isn't officially licensed but still peculiar.

Makes me wonder if they will produce other Middle-Earth items that UC may not want to?

https://www.budk.com/Elfish-Black-Sword ... tail-51913
elfish.jpg
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