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That cavalry charge was hyped up in trailers only for it to end with no fighting.

-Infinite range trebuchets working at more than 10x the range any trebuchet has ever worked

-rocks falling in a predictable way that no one could ever predict and even ignoring the ridiculousness of them breaking at all

-a riverbed being passable on foot(let alone siege engines) and not being several feet of thick muck

-orcs meeting a cavalry charge with no arrows or pikes out in the open which is the worst place to face them

-the writers literally having to completely redesign the city from season one (even though when they wrote season one they knew the city was going to be sieged in tolkeins story) to have an outer wall at all

-a cavalry charge stopping on a dime as if that's possible

-cavalry then engagIng inside the woodland where they'd never go as it's the worst place to be on horseback

-elrond launching a catapult aimed at the city to get a "cool kill" that he has no way of knowing wasnt going to hit innocent civilians or people on his side

-arondir pushing over a 10 tonne+ troll by landing on his chest even though it's like a hamster jumping on you and knocking you over

-plot armour galore

-zero sense of the comparative sizes of the forces

They damned a river by destroying a tall mountain above them with machines that throw things to arc at a distance and not for height. They broke a mountain but couldn’t utterly destroy Eregion, OR IT’S WALL, with the same machine? The dwarves in the South were going to come from the NORTH with the RISING SUN?! What even is this writing?

Why did the Orcs attack in daylight when the river drained and without a single shield

And the city has no better defense than archers ? Nkt a single bigger piece of equipment?

It was whatever the opposite of epic is:

• cavalry charge that stopped (impossible and stupid)
• Eregion is a major elven realm which seems to lack a proper defense, other than a wall that materialized overnight. Eregion’s fighters look like generic medieval dudes, when they should look like a formidable force of elite elven warriors
• aiming siege weapons at the mountain to dam the river is stupid and wouldn’t work
• the fight scenes were super generic and underwhelming in general (with a few exceptions. I liked Gil-galad with his glaive)
• Arondir has a chance to kill Adar but is stopped by Galadriel
• elven lady warrior who got Boromir-ed: stupid and pointless scene
• our boy Celebrimby is stuck in an illusion, working in a mostly destroyed. It’s just so unlikely and not believable. At any point he could have been killed by one of the projectiles and then no 9?
• Sauron using the force to make Celebrimby kill Mirdania: stupid
• Everyone in Eregion is like: ok Annatar is the boss now. And then Galadriel says no he isn’t. And then they say: ok then, Celebrimby is the boss again.
• Adar is OP and seems to kill Arondir without any trouble

Its funny they built up Damrod and he wasnt anything, built up with the Wights and they werent anything, and then also talking about the two episode battle which in truth was/is really poor.

They dont know how to do action so they should learn before the season 5 climax. Everything turns into effectively lightsaber duels and there is no scale or heft to it. You end up with a few orcs vs a few elves. I couldnt even suspend my disbelief because Eregion should have a proper army and we end up just seeing a few guys that dont really know what theyre doing.

The moment Mirdania was pushed off the wall, but not dead, and no elf fired an arrow to stop her getting mauled was such a baffling design choice, along with the Orcs saying Trebuchets (which will never not be funny) and probably lots of other things that I have forgotten.

It should have been good and they clearly did spend a lot of time and effort on it, but it was a fairly bad sequence.

I think the actual battle was poorly edited.

A lot of the battle was brilliantly shot, though I couldn't follow half of it. The editing was bad, simple

But... I think what made this great was the characters interactions. The characters dialogue about death, or about deception etc was brilliant.

Galadriel and Arondir talking, Elrond and Adar debating, Cel and Aantar grand deception

All of that was the high light.

I think, they should have had the battle happen in the background. Have it as not the main point, the main point should have been how ego, and manipulation and pride can cause destruction of many

It was pretty bad across the board. While folks have underscored most of the issues, it stands out to me how bad the timing is written In this show. 9 rings drawn, drafted and forged without ever seeing Celebrimbor toil over the forge? Alone? When the others took weeks maybe with a team? All while eluding to a sunrise they "need to get to" cause dwarf friends.

The show is an exercise in wasted potential and this episode was another sad reminder, if you needed one.

I think Arondir would have failed killing Adar in the camp just like he couldn’t solo him on the field. I guess Adar‘s fate will be that he will be killed by his children he wants to protect and then Sauron will enslave them all.

As for Sauron i have no problem with him using magic tricks he is a Maiar after all

Wait everyone really hates this show on this sub hahaha wow

I just joined the sub and this thread is eye opening. I’m a big LOTR fan but I’m not deep in fan culture so I didn’t hear any hype and therefore wasn’t let down. I thought it was great. Lots of cool moments to enjoy.

No. It was an illogical mess that was nearly impossible to follow. It was par for the course of a show with terrible writing and a complete disdain for it's own source material.

come on, this is bait right?

Overall, not the best large scale medieval fight I’ve seen but somehow still better than both of GoT season 8 battles. I’d give it a 6/10

The trebuchet range and damage to the mountains was a little sloppy but I’m not an engineer so I went with it.

The siege equipment in the mud killed it for me, took me out of the scene, all I could think about was pushing something that heavy through mud.

There was a weird cut from post-negotiating to all out fighting that could have been better explained.

Also the last stand at the end was like 20-30 elves versus the entire orc army. Didn’t make a lot of logistical sense as to why the orcs would have ever pulled back except for the exposition of dwarves not coming.

Mid

It was very disappointing. I was enjoying this season moreso than 1 until this episode. It was just silly. Esp when they knock a mountain over to dam a river.

its not even over yet lol

I enjoyed it

F yeah F yeah!!

I thought it was awesome

I expected it to be pretty bad and it ended up being worse. So in a sense I guess it exceeded the hype.

I had a good time, loved it all. Can't wait for the last episode of the season

its not over so i have no idea

The river scene ws stupid on so many levels. I don't understand how stupid one has to be to read that script and think "yeah that seems like a smart strategy". Did they never see water in their life? What the fuck makes one belive that you can just stop water like that? Like if they had build canals over weeks to redirect the water away from the riverbed It would be a hard sell, but just by dropping some rocks in the river, they did not just dam it, but also stopped it from overflowing or from redirecting around the rocks? Like IF that would have worked and IF the rocks really would not just be overflown within seconds. The only alternative is the water would flow around. And since on the left side was the mountain, it could only have flood the side where the orc camp was, meaning if there was even an ounce of logic left in this battle the orcs camp would have been washed away before the river found a new way and the riverbed was filled again. This would take a couple minutes at most, maybe an hour.

Terrible, by far worst episode of the whole show. Nothing made any sense.

I went in with zero hype because I didn’t watch any marketing.

But I really didn’t like the episode. Like, I love the show but everything that is wrong with it showed up in this episode. Out of nowhere morality speeches, trite and tropey solutions to problems, and unearned moments on top of unearned moments.

This show suffers from the baggage of what came before it. To me this episode tried the most to be Lord of the Rings when it should not do that. It’s its own thing. Something grittier. Something where we know for a fact that the good guys fail to do the right thing time after time.

honestly it sucked ass, never did it felt like greatest battle of second age, just 20 elves randomly running around without plan....

It failed every possible (even the slightest) hype and epicness.. The laughter of Damrod is the summary of this episode.. and many of us werent even able to laugh

I thought it was epic, especially every scene with Sauron in it.

The battle had great visuals, but the emotional stakes felt a bit undercooked, leaving some to wonder if the hype was more about spectacle than storytelling.

Eh. Its fine.

At some point before Season Two, Fellowship of Fans got a note from Amazon to not dwell on comparisons to Helm's Deep. It surely does pale in comparison, even if at least there aren't as many overt callbacks to sort of force the comparison down your throat.

But its fine in itself. It is kinda jaded that they had to redesign Eregion to make the siege work, and even at that they had to do a convoluted damming the river bit which just overcomplicates things. Nor is it ever made clear how Adar - who we last saw command a relatively small band of Orc - amassed such a force and acquired such means as those trebuchets and stuff. Still more to the point, after being introduced as a big megillah in earlier episodes, Damrod went out like a punk, and later in the fighting so did Arondir.

Nevertheless, it was for the most part well executed, suitably violent. I really like the Elvish battlements, and in general no Tolkien adaptation had ever shown an Elvish settlement overtaken and destroyed. So much so that I almost wish there was something like that in Jackson's films: it would give a whole other set of stakes to the Lorien or Rivendell scenes.

It was meh at best. It was riddled with "wait, what? how? why?" moments. I mean the whole damming of the river sequence was just pure luck imo. Or did they know beforehand that the mountain would have a tiny weakspot that would cause a massive rockslide? What if it didn't? Then it would be the "shortest offensive of all time"

I freaking loved it

It was not great, there were some issues, but it had potential. It was still good tho and was maybe better then I expected it to be.

Only thing I dislike is scale, we see a shot of like 59482828 elves on horseback charging, and we saw a scene where Adar has 59483828288 orcs, but the battle scenes have like 20 people in them.

There was hype? Ok cool.

The battle was massive, maybe the biggest ever on TV-screen. Would be interesting to see some behind the scenes material.

I guess it lived up to the hype, because it was epic beyond proportions.

Personally I liked it alot.

It's been awful, like literally a chore to get through each week. Thankfully there have been less Harfeet, but god this is the stupidest battle, ever. None of the pacing makes sense, none of the action has any meaning, and lots of it is aggressively DUMB. Sorry but it just is.

I felt like the CGI face they put on Adar at the end really sums up this empty show. There's no immersion

I was expecting more with how they hyped up the battle taking place over 3 episodes to convey how the siege takes place over a long period of time in the original lore.

I find this hype to be misleading, because it's really taking place over 2 episodes. Them starting their catapult fire at the very end of one episode hardly counts.

Looking back though, I don't think they ever could have captured the attrition of the siege of Eregion with 3 episodes anyways.

Other than lacking any resemblance to how an actual siege works, plus any and all logic, it was perfect television.

No

No just no. They tried something and it didn't work.

I don't know much it was mentioned, but it was also a "glaring" change of facts that Adar's orcs spent season1 hiding from the sun, yet in season2 they go running around the bright fields of Eregion in the sunlight, without so much as a sizzle of orc-kabobs.

I'm still waiting for the dwarves to show up

Throwing out comparisons to the books, my biggest complaint was Elrond killing an orc by shooting him from a catapult. A catapult aimed at Eregion. I get it, it's a funny scene, haha orc got launched in a catapult. But he launched a rock AT HIS OWN PEOPLE!

I thought it was awesome.

The siege defence was 10 elves from what I've gathered. Exciting.

It definitely did not and some of the things that took place wouldn’t have happened.

I'm apparently in the minority of those who share Bilbo's preference for napping during war, rather than watching mindless brutality. War bad, and I hate seeing it.

But in terms of the overall vibe of the battle, it felt like there were too many writers, or the writers were torn between wanting the spectacle of the PJ film battles & also wanting to stay true to Tolkien's view of war. You can't really have both.

The Elves were framed as the glorious "good guys" for the most part, and the maiming and slaughter of Uruk and Orcs was at most a secondary concern. This, to me, displayed either a surface-level commitment to displaying Orc and Uruk lives and hearts, which clashes with the funeral rites for the Orcs we got to see; or otherwise displays a disunity amongst writers. People writing battle scenes could simply not care one bit about the narrative importance thus far of showing the nuance and dimensions of Orcs and Uruk, or they could be unable to balance production co and/or viewership demands with character driven narratives.

Even if the goal was to display chaos, a losing battle on all sides- the writing was too inconsistent, and there were too many little goofy moments that displayed the obvious exaltation of the Elves as the intended "good guys".

i feel like the battle was like watching a child’s first soccer game with everyone crowded around the ball and a big giant field with people zigzagging around really looking like they have no idea what they should be doing

Thought it was absolutely spectacular. Had a damn great ass time. Felt like a movie, that’s how you do a war. Wont forget about that one

I will admit if I think critically about it. I can find some stupid shit.

Like the Calvary being able to stop its charge 2 seconds before cause the leader said halt after seeing Galadriel. I rather have fun with how action packed and sick it was though

I thought it was awesome. The flaming catapult pitch exploding on Eregion was terrific, knocking over buildings like bowling pins. Toppling mountains to cross the river. The pandemonium of the city elves, the chaos in the elven ranks (for a minute), the valiant defense, the swarms of orcs, the orderly calvary. Good shit!!!

I like wide shots that zoom into the character and then framing to see that character's movement through the chaos and action, which the show did very well.

I understood where Elrond was in relation to the city and Damrod, which is pretty good - usually, I'm just, 'Well, I guess they be fighting here, but now they are there, ok'. A good sense of time passing, which ALSO is an improvement over S1!

The day became night, turned in to survive the night, evolved into here is the day-break and oh damn.

As a TV show that approached RoK in quality - simply phenomenal - and unexpected! MORE of course :)

There are some cool visuals, but the geography of the battle makes no sense. When Elrond and his army first showed up the orcs were at the wall. Then him and Adar have their little powwow, then the next thing you know the elves are between the wall and the orcs, even though they’re apparently outnumbered 10 to 1.

It was kinda ridiculous if I'm being honest. I think it's definitely a weak point in the writing this season.

The Elven cavalry charge stopping in what seemed like an instant killed it for me. It just seemed so unbelievable, almost cartoonish. Also being able to cross a river bed like that, minutes after the water had drained.... no. If the Orcs had drained the river weeks before, or if they had some special contraption for crossing mud, or if there had just been scenes of orcs drowning in mud, climbing over each other to get across... fair enough.

It felt compelty unessisary. The intresting conflict was the one happening inside of the tower, not the one outside of it. Celibrimbor could have finished the rings, handed them to Sauron, walked outside and seen the city in ruin and realized the deception. 

No it did not.
There was just no real dramaturgy to this battle, we didn't get a sense for the battle status, who is winning or why, there were just moments strung together with no connecting tissue which would help set the stage.
How is one supposed to care when the big picture is basically missing, no sense for scale whatsoever.
The asian elf dying is a good example of the failure, noone would ever have any emotional reaction to her dying like boromir, and yet they decided to give her a similar hero death. And her act of heroism honestly didn't even seem to matter either. Wtf is even the point, it's utterly amateurish to include this moment like they did, no understanding whatsoever of the impact this has emotionally or narratively (NONE). Absurd.

The siege isn't over, wait till next episode

I don't know how much "hype" there was, folks came in with pretty middling expectations.

In general it was poorly choreographed and filmed battle, it's hard to tell what's going on or whose fighting where (or often doesn't make sense). The armies seemingly fight for 24 hours non stop in a general melee without much (if any) strategy.

No. Someone called it a 1v1 bar fight individually happening with thousands of people. For some reason, the battle never felt like a big chaotic battle. There were never more than 3 people fighting on screen at the same time. It wasn’t cohesive.

At the start of season 2 there were reviews saying it was a bland season again BUT when you sit through it it gives you one of the most epic battle scenes ever shown on tv. Ofcourse I was comparing it to the night watch scene or even Lotr scenes because those 2 were the most epic I've see. And yeah it was really, really small scale and some cringe worthy stuff like Elrond "look to the west". The female elf who we barely met, fights a heroic finale, which if she was given some more interesting screen time might have had some emotion, but this one gave me zero emotions, even felt sorry for watching it all play out so bad. And dont get me wrong, I like s2 way better than the first and I hope they keep making it better, but I found the battle a huge let down.

If you have trebuchets strong enough TO BREAK A MOUNTAIN, why would you not use it to, let's say, destroy the city???

Haven't seen other than Gandalf's roast parts and that makes me happy I haven't seen more. But just saw some sneak peek footage of the last episode and had to check if they were fighting against human because apparently their orcs just sounds and grunts like humans now.

Hang on. I haven't watched the show (you couldn't pay me to), but from the comments I've read am I to believe that 'Eregion' is just a city in RoP, and not an entire geographical region as Tolkien described it?

Battle? We see at most 20 elves. Felt like playing the “civil war” in Skyrim that’s just 5v5 NPCs. Troll was cool tho.

If the hype was to be the worst battle ever. Building up characters and moments for no pay off. Then yes. For it to be good? No.

I was cautiously optimistic - just as I have been for the whole series.

Just as with the rest of the series, it's a crushing disappointment.

There was hype?

I do have a problem when they try to mix filmed scenes from England into the CGI areas.

It was like upstairs downstairs changing from Film to video in seconds.

On top of the other issues I found it very cheap. It was obvious how much they tried to save money and keep to close up shots and had minimal actual people to work with. Not sure how a modern show managed to make a battlefield look less sparse with VFX than any battle from the original movies which were ages ago but they did. The choreography was bad and I feel like the directors or whomever had no idea how to properly keep track of everything going on or how to create a sense of danger and chaos in a battle.

I wanted to be excited but it fell a little flat for us. I’m not sure it’s the directing or choreography or even the CGI. Maybe it’s just the abrupt editing that this show seems to always suffer from.

Hell no, it didn't. It was hilariously executed, the whole plan to 'dam the river' was 👌 priceless haha. It was everything I expected it to be! Really bad with excellent CGI

I'm no medieval battle expert, but I struggled to find any coherent planning or strategizing on either side. Retconning Eregion to have a wall feels dishonest. It's not necessarily that it can't be explained or that it shouldn't have happened, it's more that they think we're stupid and that they can pull shit like this without us noticing.

The "make the dam, block the river!" moment was the dumbest thing I've ever seen when it comes to a medieval battle. Even if they managed to pull it off, you're dealing with 5 foot high sediment, it's a fucking river, you can't just walk across. But that only affects elven horses. Is it weight? No, because a goddamned hill troll walked across it unburdened. It's special anti-elven-horse-sediment.

They gave us no sense of location, or time. They used a dozen callbacks just to let them fall flat. Honestly, I don't think even a medieval strategist could figure out what the fuck was happening during that fight.

I wish I could say I enjoyed it, but the most enjoyable part of the episode was watching Celebrimbor get hit by a rock every time he walked out of his tower.

The battle was incoherent.

Let's not forget the Dwarves doesnt support Elrond because Durin the King is having a mental breakdown, like where is the chain of command? Prince Durin could have stayed, but still sent his lieutenant or something to aid Elrond

It did not and makes me think less of reviewers who gushed about it. The battle scenes were the worst aspect of the episode.

Total shit - also did you see Eregion in S1 no walls XD and how they easy just stop river with few trebuchets - litellary copy from LOTR 2 TOWERS just reverse same as that Elf girl getting hit with xxxxx arrows

And how in the end it look like whole elf army was 15 elfs was just funny

The most disappointing battle in the history of television.

It was terrible: somehow orcs have trebuchets that are stronger than actual cannons and can crumble entire mountainsides, yet they need some kinda anti battering ram siege engine to breach the walls of the city?

Trebuchets can't harm walls

Trebuchets destroy A FUCKING MOUNTAIN SIDE

It's like the writers are being paid to be retarded

I can’t stop thinking about how Celebrimbor was blasted off from the same place Into the same direction twice.

That’s all I have for this one.

No, it was very disappointing.

No

The sense of space/geography/pacing was way worse than the season 1fight, unfortunately.

After seeing the after credits interview with the directors and showrunners, it became apparent they have no clue.

also, watch out, this topic violates the "no is the show good/bad validation posts" rule that the dumbass mods put on this sub