chevkoch

A disappointment. While season 1 was well-worth watching, with a couple of excellent episodes, season 2 suffers from awful writing and worse direction. There are some scenes (mostly additional, original material when compared to the game) that seemed interesting and plausible, but these are drowning in the rest of it being completely off in tone and character motivation. I do not care about this series going forward anymore.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

More so than with the games, I wonder how it smells, the world as it is depicted. Watching this second episode, I felt so there with the characters. It's intensely vibrant, I almost could not look away. In an interview, if I am remembering this right, Neal Druckmann has said that they intensively researched what changes to urban environments an apocalyptic event would bring. I recall the book The World Without Us by Alan Weisman was mentioned. The already very plausible environment I know from playing through The Last of Us titles feels closer in this live action format, a tremendous wonder to behold despite the harshness of its origin and story-current reality. Pacing was a bit slower in this episode compared to the first one, which I had hoped for. Benefitted the atmosphere. For me, I would wish they'd provide even more room in this context. Acting, particularly by Anna Torv and Bella Ramsey (playing Tess and Ellie, respectively) is quite good, while Pedro Pascal's performance seems a bit wooden sometimes. Looking forward to see what he can do as the show progresses. It just makes me appreciate the incredible character work Naughty Dog was able to create, with the in-game Joel. Druckmann directing the episode was a good choice. Yeah, I love this show so far. Waiting impatiently for Sunday.

Having played through the whole game series, my anticipation of the TV show was high. Now that I have watched episode one twice, it's a relief to me on how well this is done. The casting is very fitting overall, I particularly like Bella Ramsay as Ellie: different looks than the character in-game, but the portrayal seems quite right. Glad the producers didn't opt for a generic teenage beauty, which is often the go-to choice. Set pieces hit the tone of the world fine. Pacing is mostly OK, but I wished for more lengthy beats to aid the weight of the atmosphere in some places. Fantastic beginning scene that sets the stage. The plot deviates in a minor way from the game, in some moments where that happens, I felt that it added something to the telling of the events. Overall a well-constructed story arc. The episode is scary when it wants to be. Excited about this so far, really looking forward to next Sunday and how the series will progress.

The strategy by the makers of this bland drivel appears to be to go full dumb-down. Never go full dumb-down. Some TV trash of the past has at least offered the quality of being funny, even if it's unintentional. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power carries no value whatsoever. It's not visually coherent, there is a massive and yawning crater where a plot should be, plus the acting performances and dialogues are mostly awful. To think that there will be five seasons and the show will swallow $1 billion is the only thing that invokes any real emotion from this boring nothing: one can only be infuriated by the incredible waste of resources for something so meaningless.