Adrift

Actually found quite a bit of enjoyment out of it. Prince Durin and his wife were great additions and I loved the dialogue between them and Elrond. Nori continues to be my favorite character so far, and the scenes she had with that strange man from the fireball were fascinating. Arondir and Bronwyn grew on me this episode, and I even found Bronwyn's son to be entertaining. Some really good suspense moments throughout as well. Low point for me is Galadriel's story line. I don't find her likeable at all, and have no idea how she is gonna turn out to be the Galadriel we all love from Jackson's films.

I was so surprised by the difference in quality from the first and second episode, that I checked the writer for the 2nd, and low and behold, she was previously a BCS and BB writer. Doesn't surprise me that I found this episode to be much stronger.

It was a very good idea for Amazon to drop both episodes because if they dropped that 1st episode only, then I probably would've let this go by the wayside.

Adrift is a better episode than the choppy first, it is paced better, acted a little better and sets up the story going forwards. Like episode one, Nori is still the highlight so far, and I though the scenes with Elrond and Durin were pretty funny and well done. The scenes in Khazad-dûm were the best part of this episode, and they very much felt like they belonged in the Hobbit Trilogy. The sets and quality of the visuals during these scenes were fantastic, so props to the guys responsible for carrying these few episodes.

That being said, Galadriel is still boring, as is the elf warrior guy - Arondir and his weird relationship with Bronwyn.

We got an opening title, with was ok, but getting to hear Howard Shore do some more LotR music was a joy, and it's glad to see he hasn't lost his touch. The rest of the music, done by Bear McCreary is also very good, but this should be expected by the guy who composed the music to a much better Amazon show, The Outlander and the video game God of War.

Adrift was just fine, not great, not bad. I do hope the episodes get better going forwards, but I think Amazon should have released 3 episodes instead of 2, because I'm still not invested in these characters or the story.

They've alienated the fans by their statements and created something they wanted to create, instead of making a faithful adaptation to the lore. The characters are not in situations authentic to the lore, and modern sensitivities have crept into the work. One can clearly see the difference between the great deal of respect that Peter Jackson had for Tolkien's work versus these showrunners who disregarded what made this fictional world so endearing to generations of fans from all over the world.

This is why the trailers are getting ratioed and the response to this show has been overwhelmingly negative by actual fans.

The heart of the philosophy of Tolkien is missing from this show, and the people who made it would literally hate Tolkien were he alive today.

This is such a boring episode!

The visuals were decent. The writing and dialogue is cringy and not praiseworthy. The characters themselves are bland! Not a single character to like or support here! The slowest fantasy show ever.

I do not know how people can like this show right now. I have dropped the show after 2 episodes.

I would highly recommend to skip or drop this show, studios cannot keep getting away with these money grabs. This show is clearly not made for Tolkien fans or LOTR movie's fans.

This show is made for people with low expectations. And for some of the general audience that have no idea what Lord of the Rings is.

This doesn't exist for me, LOTD Trilogy is my lord of the rings!

First, I understand that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. This same goes for any adaptation or 'based on'. While the Lord of the Rings films remained mostly (Jackson and his fellows made some serious mistakes, but in twenty years when it's remade, it'll be even less of a good adaptation), true to the books, they took such a U turn on the Hobbit to make it unwatchable. Go read my reviews of each film. Here, everything is bad and feels off. You can't put the.3,441 years of the second age into one human lifespan. It's an insult to the books. Second, who did this casting? Morfydd Clark should be names Morbid Clark for all her lack of emoting. Does she have any range? Elrond is already a thousand years old, yet he seems like a dunce. Again, the Harfoots. Did they do any research at all? There are three ancestors of hobbits, Fallohides, Stoors (Gollum descended from Stoors) and Harfoots. Why are hobbits in this at all? They played NO PART in the second age. NONE. And again, Galadriel isn't only a warrior (which she isn't), shes an olympic class swimmer! This part was ridiculous too. Galadriel chose to remain in middle earth at the end of the first age. She didn't jump overboard and swim back five hundred miles to middle earth. Certainly not without drowning in her gown. And she callously abandons those people to die. A lot of people on here and Amazon complained about their being black elves, dwarves, hobbits etc. I don't give a damn about that. But getting people who could act would be a huge boon to this show. As a Tolkien fan since 1976 and who, like Christopher Lee, re-reads the books every year. EVERY YEAR, I'm disgusted at how bad this show really is. I'm going to spare myself any more annoyance and simply not watch.