And I have to say that Rory Kinnear as Tom Bombadil look good as well. He’s built a fairly fine acting career on being the most non-standout looking / boring civil servant type, that he is a go-to guy for faceless evil, but with a suntan, a beard and probably his first decent hair in two decades he was quite unrecognisable. I was thinking ‘I know this tanned hairball actor but who …?’
The change sorta screws up the canon, though. Why was Bombadil not sent to carry the One Ring to Mt. Doom? Because he was so easily distractable and cared so little for current events–even in the midst of Sauron taking over Middle Earth–that he couldn’t be trusted not to forget about the quest an hour in and exchange the ring for some other shiny bauble. This Bombadil seems to know quite a lot about Sauron’s plans and doesn’t get distracted the instant some little melody enters his head.
I’m treating the whole thing the way I do non-canon Star Trek, and it’s mostly fine.
We’re talking several thousand years between the mid-Second and late-Third Ages. Did you think senile dementia was just for mortals? The Tom Bombadil of the Fellowship of the Ring wasn’t a blithe spirit, he was just an aging immortal who was sundowning and headed towards a permanent slot in an assisted living situation with memory care. Goldberry was obviously his personal nurse.
Pipeweed.
I’ll bet he grows the real dank shit, too.
Hell, he got the hobbits so lit that they could see Goldberry too.
We’ve attempted to watch three episodes, and both my wife and I have managed to zonk out on the La-Z-Boys each and every time. That’s how dull it is.
Yeah, i just finished the third episode, and my major issue with this season is that I’m bored.
An eagle, a herald of the valar who can’t speak, anointed al pharazon, Isildur was stabbed in the thigh by some rando, and Gandalf was eaten by a tree. Sigh.
And who the fuck is the dark wizard. Did they invent a new Maia? And weren’t the barrow downs made after these wars? We’re they from an earlier war?
The possibilities I’ve seen for the dark wizards identity are one of the blue wizards, Saruman, or Khamul. Personally I would like it to be Khamul but knowing this show it will probably end up being Saruman.
The barrows date to before the War of Wrath. First Age.
The wights, though, were sent by the Witch King of Angmar in the middle of the Third Age, and he doesn’t even exist yet.
Although maybe then he had to send his own homebrewed wights because the all-natural OG ones were all killed just now, and he just abhorred empty tombs. 
Unless he’s the dark wizard.
I don’t like any of the options for the dark wizard, but that one disappointed me the least.
No. I don’t mean whatever human becomes him exists. I mean the (not-yet-made-)Ring Wraith Witch King.
Oh, i didn’t realize that. Thanks. Which book is that in?
Also, the fourth episode was more engaging than the third. I was really bored during the third.
Appendix A of LOTR.
Lol. I just reread LotR, but didn’t reread the appendices. Maybe i should go back and do that. Or maybe that would just make me more frustrated with this series.
Thanks.
For my part, I love the series, and knowing all the minutiae of the canon that I do, doesn’t affect my enjoyment at all.
As far as I’m concerned, the series clearly just takes place in a different node of the multiverse, and I’m cool with just watching how it all shakes out.