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Okay, I'm a pretty big Tolkien zealot. I've read LOTR, the Hobbit, and the Silmarillion more times than I can count, plus a bunch of the background stuff. Just watched the first half of the first episode - paused there because of a phone call and then couldn't get it to restart. I think my mouth was hanging open kind of stunned the entire time. Forgetting all the complaints about casting,etc.., I'm almost at a loss for words about how shockingly off the whole thing felt. The amount of stuff they got flat-out wrong in just that amount of time was incredible. It honestly felt very much like the Star Wars sequels -- like they took the framework of the world, then told the stories all wrong.
I'll put most of my comments in spoilers, but I will say that I think their decision to compress the timeline in which they were going to tell the story of the Second Age was horrible. It looks to be more or less fatal error because it undercuts the whole theme of the Second Age. Anyway....
Galadriel:
I felt like Galadriel was absolutely trashed. In Tolkien's world, with one exception who apparently was not cast and does not appear in this series, Galadriel is the oldest and most "senior" elf in Middle-Earth. She's elf royalty. Yet in this show, she comes across as kind of an aggressive younger elf, "Commander Galadriel" ("Commander" doesn't exactly sound High Elven to me....) clearly inferior in status, bearing, lore, etc. to the High King, who in fact is her younger cousin. We meet her leading a small squad that apparently has been hunting for Sauron for hundreds of years, which again is something completely invented. When she later arrives in Linden for a meeting, another elf tells Elrond very casually that "your friend is here". As if Galadriel is just some "friend". Then at that meeting, she's clearly in a very subservient position to her younger cousin. Now granted, he's the High King, but she should be almost apart from that. There's really no mention, at all, of what her position in High Elven society truly is. IAnd Elrond, who is incredibly young at this time, speaks to her as if she is his junior, or at least noore than a peer. It's just a horrible diminution of who she is.
For anyone who ever watched Supernatural, the actress is a dead ringer in voice, bearing, and mannerisms to a certain female British Man of Letters, including often speaking without moving her lips.
Look at this clip, starting at 1:13.
Butchering of the Lore
I really couldn't believe how much of this they butchered in such a short period of time. We start off seeing a young girl Galadriel being bullied by another elf child. WTF? I didn't know Cuivienen (okay, it was Valinor) had discipline issues with kids. We then go to a voice over of how Morgoth "darkened the light of the Two Trees", with the trees being shown, then their light fading out. Huh? If you're going to tell that and show that story -- and it certainly could have been skipped -- then you have to show or mention Ungoliant. But nope -- Morgoth apparently just flipped the switch. We are then told and shown how all of the Elves got pissed and sailed over the ocean to fight Morgoth (no mention of Silmarils), with this noble elf fleet of which Galadriel was a part, sailing over. No mention of the Kinslaying, and no mention of the fact that most of the elves (including Galadriel) didn't go in ships at all, but rather had to head north and cross into ME over the ice. So after sailing over to fight Morgoth, they show a bit of a big battle in which Morgoth is eventually defeated. No mention, at all, of the Valar, or -- and this is really the more important part for what the Second Age is supposed to be centered around -- that some men fought alongside the elves.
Oh, we're also told/shown that her brother Finrod was killed by Sauron, who left this unique mark on his body that she later uses to confirm that Sauron is still alive. But Finrod wasn't killed by Sauron at all. Finrod was actually killed by a super wolf, and died defending his human friend Sauron didn't have shit to do with it. That is something the showrunners just invented, along with this mysterious mark Sauron allegedly left on Finrod's body. And they apparently invented that whole story because it fit with making warrior, wandering Galadriel hunting for Sauron the centerpiece of the entire story. Which, again, is crap.
Oh, and after saying that Morgoth was defeated, there's no mention at all of Beleriand sinking into the ocean -- half or whatever of ME being literally destroyed. Oops.
Oh, we're also told/shown that her brother Finrod was killed by Sauron, who left this unique mark on his body that she later uses to confirm that Sauron is still alive. But Finrod wasn't killed by Sauron at all. Finrod was actually killed by a super wolf, and died defending his human friend Sauron didn't have shit to do with it. That is something the showrunners just invented, along with this mysterious mark Sauron allegedly left on Finrod's body. And they apparently invented that whole story because it fit with making warrior, wandering Galadriel hunting for Sauron the centerpiece of the entire story. Which, again, is crap.
Oh, and after saying that Morgoth was defeated, there's no mention at all of Beleriand sinking into the ocean -- half or whatever of ME being literally destroyed. Oops.
I understand that they didn't have the rights to all the First Age stuff. Fine. But they had the rights to enough of it to give background that was contradicted by the lore. If you're limited in what you can tell, then it is better to just be more general/brief as opposed to leaving implications -- or making outright statements -- that contradict the lore.
There was also this whole weird thing about how Gil-Galad apparently is the only one who decides when someone can go to Valinor, and that Galadriel doesn't have the right to refuse that summons when he tells/invites her to go. But that's just crap - the defiance occured at the very beginning of the Second Age among those elves who refused to return, not some hundreds of years later after some hintonfor Sauron.
It felt like fanfiction.
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