I only recently watched season 2 and was surprised about much of the criticism.
IMHO, it is a flawed show, but mostly in terms of pacing; earlier episodes particularly in season 1 really dragged and felt like they were struggling to fill an hour. Many characters aren’t great at emoting and some bits that are meant to be serious seem almost slapstick.
However, one thing I’ve enjoyed has been the divergences from the books. Yes I know; this seems to put me in a small minority. But I am very familiar with the books, so the differences allowed me to enjoy a somewhat new story even if the threads need to arrive at a known destination. Most of them made sense to me…it’s strange to me to hear so many people complaining that the forging of the rings should have taken centuries, for example.
And I think the series found it’s feet towards the end of season 2. So I have high hopes for the third.
Once i realized the actual story of this era would basically just be “and then Sauron goes over here and gets dunked on” over and over again i accepted this fan fiction as the best we are going to get.
I forgot about Bombadil it was that bad. I guess it’s hard to dramatize a god-like figure who doesn’t give a crap. I personally would have included his wife though; I could imagine dynamics between them where bombadil’s carefree thing would look cute, rather than smug.
I hear that the Harfoots will get zero screen time, which is amazing considering how much they got in the first two seasons. [Note I bailed a couple of eps before the end of S1, and the wisdom of my choice was confirmed when I came upon the infamous Sauron Shag Carpet scene early in S2]
That death illustrates what I was saying; I like the idea of Adar and adding depth to the orcs. Sauron is killable in the books so seeing him killed and resurrect isn’t a bad thing to happen in the show.
However the execution (excuse the pun) was very sloppy. He’s just banking on convincing this room full of people who are obviously not on his side? And then the means of death would be comical in a video game, let alone for TV.
None of ROP should exist in their current forms, disrespectful in terms of Tolkien source accuracy, and terminally crippled by bad writing and melodramatic acting. Anyone who knows the legendarium (LOTR, The Silmarillion & Unfinished Tales) knows exactly what I mean.
As mentioned, I personally don’t care too much about the faithfulness, given that 1) They didn’t actually have the rights to the silmarillion and 2) It would be a pretty hard thing to adapt.
And many of the changes made sense to me. For example, stirring the balrog under Khazad dum…pretty much just bad luck in the book. IIRC it says something about the dwarves greedily digging…but that’s what they do. In the series, having it tied to the dwarven rings made good narrative sense.
And I totally respect you & others w/a different POV on the ROP. We’re just coming @ it from different directions on how much to stay in concordance with Tolkien’s mythos. Kudos on your ability to enjoy what ROP has to offer
