I thought it was worse than that. It was frenetic and boring, simultaneously. We got ridiculous action sequences with literal cartoon physics, and no stakes or emotional investment. It was just a bunch of stuff flashing around on screen.
From the trailer, it looks like the series will at least be more deliberate, and may actually take the time to establish characters and setting, and get us, the audience, emotionally invested in what’s going on.
Fingers crossed…
Yes, the Dol Gundur scenes. That was the plot behind the plot in The Hobbit and why Gandalf had to run off and leave them to get thru Mirkwood by themselves. Also we get to see Galadrial being a badass, which is a nice plus, and Saruman being a sorta good guy.
Most of the first film of the three was pretty good in fact, the dinner at Bag End was really well done. What ruined it was the studio insisting it be a trilogy, rather than a two parter as Jackson wanted. Bringing in a female elf- fine. Making her fall in love with one of the dwarves- not so much.
What we need is a “director’s cut” that’s shorter than the studio release (the opposite of how it usually works) by a couple of hours.
At least an hour. But some stuff added back in maybe. 5 minutes more in the Shire, for example.
Look for the ‘Tolkien Edit’ that’s out there. There’s a page where the editor explains the purpose and intent of the deletions and re-arragements he made but I am reluctant to link it here as it does directly point at a torrent link. But he’s cut all three movies down to one 4 hour film that removes most of what we agree was junk, especially the extra-novel material added.
I think if Tolkien could speak on this he wouldn’t be upset or angry, so much as perplexed by the business model
"You spent 250 million for the rights The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, the appendices, and The Hobbit and your show is in the Second Age?? Why not just tell the parts of the story Jackson didn’t? There’s enough material there. Hell if you want to do fan-fiction, tell the stories that happened in other theatres of war during the War of the Rings!
For 250 mill theres tons of other properties with great name recognition you could have bought and actually cast some actors with name recognition."
The only absolute laugh-out-loud moment (at least for the theater I saw Battle of Five Armies in) was the scene where Legolas runs up the pieces of a collapsing bridge and then gives Bolg a hurricanrana.
Ehh, he’s a Tolkien elf. In the actual books, Legolas can walk on top of snow without breaking the surface. The bit in the video you linked wasn’t actually in the original, of course, but it actually seems consistent with the source material to me.
Tolkien was not a businessman. And he loved the second age so much that he was never able to cut off some potential to write a single epic narrative. He died leaving lots of versions and drafts.
So i think he’d completely understand the interest in the second age.
He may find it odd to do the 2nd age before tackling the 1st age or the Years of the Trees.
New trailer is up:
Breakdown:
Brian
Thanks! Looks good, all in all, I’d say. The last shot is very reminiscent of Frodo and Sam setting off on their journey from the Shire.
I’m interested, for sure. Hope they release a chunk of episodes early for reviewers so I can see what people have to say.
I really want Wheel of Time season 2, to be honest. I liked that show a lot.
I want Invincible season 2 as well!
You are in a small club, my friend. 
It may help that I have read zero of the books. My wife read about half of the first one before realizing she just could not commit to a series that long if she only moderately enjoyed the first book.
I came in blind.
One good and one bad takeaway from the trailer: I’m glad that the port city from the trailer is apparently Numenorean, since I think telling the story of Numenor is absolutely critical to any treatment of the Second Age since they had their hands in everything in the second age and if you at least have them present you may as well tell their whole story. It remains to be seen, of course, how much of the story will indeed be told, but if they wanted to do a grimdark political GoT-like story in Middle Earth, Numenor would be the best place for it.
However, the trailer also implied that one of the plot points is an attempt to bring the world back into darkness, which seems out of place for the Second Age. Which is worse than the extraneous material that I had assumed would be introduced, since I had thought they were just going to add generic fantasy/romance/adventure elements that could fit just as well in any story.* I hope that the bringing the world back into darkness is just metaphorical or would come about via some unspecified mechanism rather than by introducing noncanonical powers.
*For instance, the rest of the extraneous material from the trailer seems like it fits and could potentially be well-told, but would have to be extraordinarily well-told if it means that the stories of Numenor, Hollin and the rings, and the Last Alliance get short shrift.
FWIW:
Premium’s description of the series, sent to me by a friend:
This series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings,” and takes viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared reemergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.