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.

This series has met all my expectations. All this millionaire investment resulted in the largest TV production ever made. The photography of this series is beautiful, the soundtrack is magnificent and the mix of CGI with practical effects went really well here. Juan Antonio Bayona was a great choice to direct these first 2 episodes. He used a lot of those aerial images, which had already been established in this universe by Peter Jackson, but it looked really good here. The direction also left a movie atmosphere, especially in the first episode, the feeling is that I was watching a Blockbuster! In the second episode there's a sequel involving Galadriel that is breathtaking! I'm really looking forward to the next episodes!

I haven't read the books however I fell in love with the Lord of the rings movies. The characters were likable even lovable and pulled you in. In this series I cannot say that at the least. It is really hard to feel for these characters because there is something lacking. Galadriel amongst the many others are just not likable! These characters needs more depth to them. They need to be more relatable. Also, I feel that this series lost the essence of the elves being mystical and mysterious. On another note, what's going on with the halffoots?!? Why not just have the regular hobbits?!? I feel that some of these changes were unnecessary. I hope for next season the writers make the characters more relatable and likable. I honestly think they should bring In new characters to follow to help out with this issue. Moving forward because of all the changes I will stop comparing the movies to the show because it's evident they are totally different. Yea.

The trailers were drawing attention to all the wrong aspects. Like it's gonna be good b/c of you know, representation. This doesn't make a story good or bad. People are deeper than their gender and skin color.

Galadriel is a by the book Girl Boss, so you know already that she's going to be right about everything and she's like super righteous and unlikable. Her predictable arc will entail a moment when everyone has to say "Galadriel, we should have listened to you. We should have recognized your Girl Bossness from the start." etc So righteous. Eyes bulging. Shaking with girl boss righteousness.

But now, despite that, two episodes in and I like where it is going. I like most of the characters and there's some interesting things happening. The hobbits are done so well. The Dwarf city and king and queen were great. I like Arondir and Bronwyn's subplot. The look and feel of the world is quite good. I like using the maps to show us the different parts of the world. The music is pretty good too.

Let's see if it keeps moving and doesn't get weighed down by too many characters. But I'm feeling optimistic. So far, good job.

I'm not going to compare it to LOTR anymore. It's something different and should be judged according to it's own merits.

Did I mention that Galadriel was like really righteous?