What Rings of Power Does Right...and Wrong! 

Welcome to TJM, the show where reviewing a movie Riley likes just never ever happens

In terms of timeline, as far as I can tell the main storyline is condensing at around ~1700 years or more to be happening at once. From the perspective of Celebrimbor and the Rings, the elves/dwarves/men rings were made ~SA 1500 and the One around ~SA 1600. In the show they've not even begun the tower where they're going to forge them. Then in Numenor Isildur was born ~SA 3200. So that's at least 1700 years right there. Finally, if the Stranger is Gandalf, and that's a very big if, he arrives in Middle Earth around TA 1000. So that would bring it up to events from 2700 years apart happening at the same time potentially.

It _has_ been a while since I saw annihilation, but I don't remember _any_ of this. Was Galadriel the screaming lady bear?

Thank the algorithm for recommending this channel. Had no idea this podcast with these dues from LTT existed. Going through the backlog during my commutes is going to be a treat.

The bad dialogue from Galadriel and Elrond felt weird cause it basically the same line from dune when Ledo told Paul he would still be his son. Also the synced head turn in 26:43 is spot on LOL

Galadriel is a super powerful elf because she is an incredible mage not some rambo with a sword. This is one of the biggest differences with her character between the books/movies and the show, it's also probably the root of a lot of the other differences you guys noticed in her character (lack of mystic etc).

40:00 I will say there is actually something quite clever done here that justifies it somewhat. This being the swarm of fleeing rats, since rats WILL dive into submerged bodies of water like that however they only tend to do so when they know that its a swimmable distance or if there are air pockets.

I like when chaotic linus (the guy in the center) is in the podcast. He usually has good ideas but his chaotic vibes make you look the other way.

Will you guys announce if you decide to release the audio for annihilation on floatplane? Was really looking forward to it (and c'mon, we gotta see the o.g. take of james' slogan, pure gold)

I guess there’s now three unreleased episodes in the TJM canon: 1. American Psycho 2. Joker 3. Annihilation Unless I’m forgetting any?

A note on the 'Prequel issue'. Better Call Saul just ended as a prequel to one of the most beloved TV shows ever, with largely the same issue of stakes in that you know what happens to most of the main characters by the time of Breaking Bad, although not always the details. But it was fantastic surpassing even BB for some, including myself. So prequels to beloved stories can be done very well, but it's a high degree of difficulty, with the main difference being that RoP has an established cannon for its own story even if they can't actually follow all of it due to rights

1:04:25 Now in fairness, its more that "All the ones we see are aligned with the bad guy" for all intents and purposes they seem more just like a mercenary group that happens to be from the east that is working for the bad guy, Akin to the village of human in this Rings of Power series. It doesn't by extension mean (nor does Tolkien seem to EVER assert) that all the peoples of those lands are evil.

1:37:50 I'd subscribe to Floatplane once and for all to get to see that episode, shitty audio or not!! Was really looking forward to your conversations, as I'd heard Riley be pumped for it!

Nitpick, you guys confuse Sauron vs Saruman a lot especially in the beginning.

1:05:20 I love the swears that just come out of no where 😂

The prologue was really cool, because they managed to speak about the first age, for example, the kids with red hair, melkor and the trees, etc.

The Galadriel problem is that she's already thousands of years old (even have an initial scene with her), married, had a daughter, spend years ruling different parts of middle earth So she's like not at all young You have Elrond half flirting with her, while he's going to marry her daughter eventually Speaking off, Elrond literally loses her to Orcs and of course all the wars of the 2nd era and Isuldur not destroying the ring which then again I think indirectly leads to his wife dying so yeah plenty of reason to be darker Celeborn is completely missing also, while he's been Galadriels husband for forever so eehh Celebrimbor made the 7 and the 9 kinda together with Anatar/Sauron and Sauron made the 1 alone and that means the 1 introduces 7 and 9, Celebrimbor later completely seperate of Sauron made the 3 elven rings

it totally has disney star wars vibes I'm so glad someone else finally said it!

As someone who's seem the movies a few times and read LotR and Hobbit, but not the appendices, I didn't really have a prequel problem, there's just too many things I don't know that there's enough unknown. (Of course there's some stuff that I already know, but there's a few 1000 years in between I don't know)

I LOVE ANNIHILATION AND HAVE BEEN HOPING FOR IT FOR THIS ENTIRE TIME, BIG SADGE

What if the hobbits and Sauron story just happened before all other arcs? What if the show is not exactly linear?

1:35:20 if lighting hits a tree or something, it explodes. Had bits of fiberglass from a water tower hit my car once after it got struck by lighting right in front of me. Was nuts

It's like see a dog, hear a dog. See a cat, hear a cat. You'd be hard pressed to get sound out of either of those every single time you look at them.... thank god.

Very subtle screw driver plug there. Like it

Yall doing the rest as well? Would love to hear your thoughts!

I took at that the rats going in the water is signalling that the pool will go somewhere

I understand that you want to ride the hype-wave but wouldn't it make more sense to review after the first season? These were the first episodes of the first season (of 5). So it is no surprise that there's a lot of stage-setting and story-building. Episode 3 was already a lot more active and moving forward. Hopefully you'll give it a fair review at the end of the season, too! Up to now I'll give it 8 and I'm eager to keep watching, despite its flaws.

33:40 To offer a counter argument a character CAN fail and still be a "Mary Sue" rather it is that CAUSE of said failure that matters. Often in fact a "Mary Sue" character WILL fail, however its always NOT because the "Mary Sue" wasn't correct but rather because EVERYONE ELSE fails to see the same issue and thus doesn't support the Mary Sue, and so her failing is not truly her own but rather that of all those who held her back. However in the end the "Mary sue" always ends up justified.

I'm here for it. Also now that I listened to this all the way through..I enjoyed the chat on the show AND I really enjoyed the takes about diversity in this show and similar shows and works. Great podcast!

Maybe revisit the series once more episodes are out, the depiction of Numenor is sick !

Very pretty show. I’m a little bit iffed that they don’t show none of the first age epic battles or any of the cool silmarillion parts. Not a bad watch

Yall make a lot of comparisons to Galadriel in the trilogy, but I will say that is some 6000 years later, much of which is spent concealing her ring of power from Sauron and keeping what remains of her people safe. It's the same for Elrond. This does change people. I know Thranduil in Mirkwood is deeply affected by the war of the last alliance and the destruction it brought his people.

First time watching TJM! That was fun!

RIP annihilation, real shame that turned out the way it did, but what can you do

I loved this ep but you guys have goooot to actually do Annihilation at some point. That's one of a few genuine 10/10 movies for me

I think Morfydd Clark is pretty awesome. Your points about the "my friend" dialogue and the fight against the troll are totally fair though. That's bad writing/directing. I don't need to see her flip off a sword to sell me.

I know that we are in the generation of fast content, but reviewing a show with two episodes is next level

please please please do a recap video at the end of the season

Over at the Discworld fandom, we were very disappointed that female dwarfs don't rock a beard in this show. Terry Pratchett started his Discworld dwarfs as a parody of Tolkien's (that is, everyone is bearded), and in later books he developed this idea by having some female dwarfs wanting to "come out" and fighting for the rights to be recognised as women, and the cultural revolution this started in the largely conservative dwarf society. We were quite ready to cheer for the depiction of Tolkien's bearded female dwarfs, but alas... Another thing is, in a world where ents, elves, humans, wizards, dwarfs, and orcs live together in imperfect harmony, why should there be racism? Speciesism would be more rampant, no? Black and white unite against blue, that kind of stuff.

I dont care about the color of the skin of the actors but in every single case they did a big pause for 5-10 seconds (I didnt actually count) with a zoom-in on the actor's face. essentially going:" Look we have representation, we are such good people am i right??" It took me out of the first episode but after that I didnt mind.

just shy of 27 mins for Riley to mention Star Wars

I'm a very casual LotR fan but even I know Celembribor made the rings

This is not lotr, this is not Tolkien....All that glitters is not gold

I talked about this in my video but it felt like they didn’t want to show more than 30 seconds of action at a time. Could’ve given us 2-3 min of that sick looking opening battle. Too much exposition and story to set up I guess. I’m not feeling the fallen man story at all

1:09:39 acknowledgement of why this was written and this is why it should not be changed, it isn't the us or canada

If Halbrand and Galadriel so get involved, it'd be quite odd seeing she and Celeborn have been married for thousands of years at this point. Seems he's been written out though. Ok after 3 comments I think I need to be done

1:10:18 exactly

Looking forward to Galaxy Quest podcast!

Why not on Floatplane ?!

isnt the shape of the constellation that F type symbol that represents gandalf

I would be surprised if the stranger is Gandalf. I think it's well established that Gandalf, Saruman, and Radagast came in the Third Age, however the 2 Blue Wizards are less well known. I think we know they were the first to come to Middle Earth, so I would expect him to be one of the Blue Wizards. Id be upset if it was Gandalf, because it's completely unnecessary since they have free reign to create a story for the Blue Wizards. I don't think it's Saurom because why would he be so pathetic? What purpose would he have to take on such an old form and meteor to the ground in the middle of nowhere. Surely Sauron is already on Middle Earth, and surely he prefers the form of an elf. Lastly, we know he influences Celebrimbor, surely he is already spreading that influence as Anatar. Im down for a plot twist, but he feels like a Wizard, and the Blue Wizards seems like the perfect opportunity to create their own story using cannon, but undeveloped characters

Loved the episode. Please review the rest of the episodes/complete season as well. We need more LOTR lore lessons from Riley. Maybe a review for the next 3 episodes and then the final 3ish? Sounds good. Thanks y'all.

Hm, no Asian dwarfs and elves? Guess they don't want that very profitable Chinese market...

The have been tricking Linus to just watch movies on work hours

The only character I like in this is Sauron. Stupid, sexy Sauron...

sweet galaxy quest next!

1:01:22 J. R. R. Tolkien was a Christian and wrote this to give an epic fantasy histroy for where he came from.. The Shire, for instance, is Tolkien's home of England. The idyllic gardens, plentiful taverns and farming lifestyle denote the stereotypical picture of rural England, particularly in the 1930s

Yeah, if The Witcher had left out the dead baby stuff it would have been better.

the hobbits bit is bad IMO,from the rule to leave behind everyone who cant move its stupid af, the civizilation wont survive like that.ffs he was hurt because he was helping them. he will heal in no time..

House of dragon when??

If the stranger turns out to be Gandalf that's not correct at all. Gandalf only came about at the beginning of the third age.

I also think he broke the guys feet, someone validate me

This was a great episode, but man is what Riley is saying at 1:09:20 just so completely wrong. The Arthurian legends are literally the basis of modern storytelling and there is no "European mythology". Every European country has a tonne of unique folklore drawing from Germanic, Celtic, Gallaecian, (...) mythologies. You could also count Nordic and Greek mythologies as European.

i like it for what it is

1:10:48 what opinion on race? Go eat some avocado toast

You can't RANK IT. Amazon have banned all reviews and also banned IMDB reviews if they're below a 6 :D

Riley's discussion on the race issue was atrocious and showed a complete failure to understand what representation means to people, verbatim reducing their motivations to capitalism and an appeal to woke-culture. As a biracial person, let me tell you that you know shit-all about the experience of being non-white. Not even a shred of it. Not even an intellectual understanding of it. Not even a hunch. In light of your ignorance, it would be appreciated if you tempered your urge to share your unfounded opinions. If that is intolerable to you, maybe consider qualifying your opinions with some modesty. Even better, invite a Black LTT employee to the discussion. No issues with James or David

Speaking of Wheel of Time, it had a tiny tiny budget compared to Rings of Power. Roughly 80m compared to the estimated 1b for RoP. Unfortunate, but likely won't be picked up for a second season because of this. It was also way darker than the books indicate.

I knew how I was going to feel about the show from the prologue, the Fellowship prologue was amazing and this one was just meh...and that's exactly how I feel about the show lol I even went back to watch the OG prologue after finishing the first episode and it just cemented how much better it is. That original prologue is so good that I don't even mind that no action happens for the next like 30minutes

Amazon took the established theatre approach to race. Our society looks a certain way and it reflects in the cast. Yes, I really think that if they added new lore and different skin color groups come from this and that, that would be actually stupid. We don't care that the characters have full sets of snow white teath, because that's how the actors look. The same thing goes for skin color. We have actors that have different skin colors so they're in the show.

I had the same thought as David about Galadriel! She does the stoic acting well but it's kinda over done and 1 dimensional.

IT'S BORRRRRRINGGGG!

Stranger is totally gandalf, Riley, you know a crapload about those Lord of the rings. I learned a lot. Thanks.

If this wasn't LoTR people would be fine with it. Maybe it's time to check in your baggage before going on the flight.

Please do release the shitty audio version for Anihilation on Floatplane 🙃

The perfect example of the mis-casting is the fact that the villages that are being tunnelled under by orcs, in which the majority of the population is white as a ghost are SOUTH of Mordor. North African or Mediterranean people would be exactly who you would expect to see in these places!

I agree with Riley on the diversity thing. The thing is that some people like Riley (and myself) care more about artistic integrity and artistic/lore consistency than about maximum profit. This whole diversity thing is a marketing talking point being reframed as a benevolent progressive thing. It basically boils down to marketing knowing that Black people, Asian people, Gay people, etc all have money and the companies want that money. They think they can only get that money by having "representation" which results in a token Black foot to get in the Black door, etc, so to speak. It's not about art or lore. These people will happily kill the artist and butcher the art to profit off of it. Like David said, "I don't think we should listen to the views of old dead British guy...BUT let's exploit his work for our profit anyway, THAT'S FINE!"

the one instance they can do something pc which also adheres to canon (all dwarves have beards) and they don't do it

Read the books, watched the films, and starts to watch this but it isn't right

What happened to Annihilation?

The dullness of the characters is what bothers me the most. Some (or most) of them are flat as a pancake. Also, why do the male elves' hair look like they're from the 60s?

I respect the idea that this may have been a new take on LoTRs, RoP was nothing more than political propaganda. The fact that none of you would be honest about it or that you honestly enjoyed it, makes me more concerned. RoP was a terrible series, and was evident in the reviews from honest reviewers.

1:37:13 Annihilation

I've always loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy, amazing movies and definitely is a big part for my love of the fantasy genre. Now with the Rings of Power series out, I've never been more invested in the whole universe. Listening to various lore and theory videos, and now listening to the Silmarils. While there's alot of complaining about various things regarding the show, I still really enjoy it. There might be inconsistencies with the movies, books and silmariils but because of the rights they do and don't have that makes sense. Very much enjoying it :D

I found it funny how Riley clearly knows a lot about LOTR lore and cares for it, but never read Silmarillion. He knows the little details of how the word was created and it's different mystical beings and his Numenoreans stuff was on point, but then doesn't know about Feanor, who's arguably most well known character outside of the triology 😂 And the suggestion that dwarves could have Silmarils in the box was also hilarious (it's Mithril btw, in case anyone wonders). Not trying to diss him or anything, his input on the podcast was great, just found the juxtaposition between his deep knowledge and then completely missing on one of the most well known storylines a bit funny. Go read the book goddamit, if you enjoy Tolkien lore that much, you will like it 😁

Just here to say it's not fucking Gandalf. Maybe I'm just optimistic but I think the writers have more sense than to do that. Otherwise really enjoying the show especially after the third episode

another tv show episode, another reason why you guys shouldn't have changed the name from carpool critics.

a billion dollar laundering scheme is was this show is. house of the dragons has half budget but has actual characters, and doesnt waste my time.

If you're doing star trek like things - do Orville

where is annihilation? It’s one of my favorite movies and that episode hasn’t come out yet. :(

What happened to covering Annihilation this week?

That one Rings of Power subreddit is laughable (I think it’s called Lotr_on_prime). You’d think the show runners are literally Jesus returned based on the comments there haha. Mods deleting things left and right. Kinda nuts. A real echo chamber.

Lol 1:02:39, it's people was based upon europeans... sooo Caucasians

our top indian webseries to watch Delhi Crime s1, Sacred Games, Paatal Lok, Mirzapur, Family Man

For the first time in all of history I completely agree with everything Riley has said in the podcast.

1:09:13 so you can't like a tv program or movie unless ypu have someone of your own race in it, again weired american takes on things

The show just looks so American, the elves talk in bad modern Shakespeare & Morfydd Clark is welsh and in the show not using a welsh accent. Elvish is based on welsh, this was a real chance for the welsh accent to get a shown to the world & amazon made her do bad modern Shakespeare. It just feels like a show pandering to an American audience & scared to take a risk with any of the accents that may be hard for Americans to understand. Lenny Henry has a good middle England accent yet he's doing a bad Irish one, he has a good range of middle English accent's he can do well. The hobbits are based on the culture not to far from where Lenny Henry was born. PS Game of Thrones was a new IP that did fairly well, the idea that new IP cant get views is wrong. Look at most romance films as a simple example.

So when you have those characters and tell your audience that they have been traveling for centuries then you really should not depict them as adolescent brats. Also racially diverse groups are created from travel or due to racist segregation. If you are not living in the border lands and not in a big travel center but you are still diverse, then you are implying that those people are extremely racist and do not allow different ethnicity to mingle, otherwise they would not be diverse for very long.

As many reasons to like it? Well this should be interesting

Thank you James, after years of speculation you finally came out and admitted that Dune is better than LOTR.