Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power wrapped its second season last week, but there’s still plenty more to talk about and debate—including whether there is “no real canon” in Tolkien’s work—and more discussion to be had about whether this show succeeds or fails, both as an adaptation of Tolkien and on its own merits, or lack thereof.
I have made my opinions plain on the matter. My recap/review of the finale was rather scathing, and I have a full Season 2 review in the works. I believe that the show, for all its massive budget and overwhelming cultural presence and marketing efforts, fails both as an adaptation of Middle-earth’s Second Age and as a fantasy epic. I will go into more concrete reasons in my Season 2 review, though you can read my Season 1 post-mortem which sums up many of my thoughts from back in 2022.
In any case, for the purposes of this post I just wanted to poke a little fun. Not only that, but I think this is a very useful way to see how the tricks of filmmaking can fundamentally alter how a scene makes us feel. In the YouTube video below, the music has been stripped out of the final scene of the Rings Of Power Season 2 finale entirely, leaving just the sound effects of Gil-Galad and Galadriel moving about, and then the rather lackluster cheers of the elves below.
Without the sweeping score from Bear McCreary, the scene feels extraordinarily small and empty. On the one hand, it’s a little unfair to critique it thus. After all, it was filmed with a sweeping score in mind. On the other hand, it makes us focus on just how silly this whole bit was. The elves below are looking up at their leaders before they even become visible. And why are our heroes standing way up there in the first place? And is this really the assembled might of the Second Age’s elves? In any case, give it a watch and have a little chuckle with me:
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