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There are some really good actors on Rings of Power working with incredibly inadequate writing! There's not much more to say about that because both facts are so glaringly true.
Byzantine-inspired costuming on Rings of Power and shockingly bad bras under costume gowns on Rings of Power and House of the Dragon
This week the writing got even more annoying, but I continued to admire the costumes. The Byzantine influence on Galadriel's and Elrond's and Celebrimbor's clothes was obvious. Also on the apprentice in Númenor who was sketching the dying king, although there were some INCREDIBLY stupid undergarments under her gown, which was filmy and draped from a round gathered neck and then belted around the ribcage, with her boobs sticking up like those of a (nippleless) molded plastic mannequin. Nothing but magic can do that, man. Or, like, modern smoothing and sculpting undergarments with injection-molded foam. You can't do it with cut and sewn or knitted fabric or with corsetry.
Breast support under the costumes is a big issue on House of the Dragon as well as Rings of Power, but the apprentice's filmy pre raphaelite dress is definitely the worst one I've seen so far. The likelihood that a costume team with the level of technical expertise and historical research I'm seeing on both of these shows are unaware of the effect that undergarments have on silhouette, or of what silhouettes should accompany these garments, is vanishingly small, so these choices are almost certainly about sexiness, and perhaps slightly also about the comfort of actresses, who are likely happier with modern undergarments in most cases. But that's no excuse, because it's inexcusable.
Terrible and good hair on House of the Dragon
The last episode of House of the Dragon made some cheap, eyeroll-inducing moves in the visual design - their attempts to indicate Alicent's purported religious obsession felt half-baked, which is probably appropriate because the script's attempts at showing that were just as bad. Alicent's costumes and particularly hair continued to look worse and worse, but the costumers and special effects and makeup outdid themselves with the king's dramatic aging and wasting illness. Paddy Considine's performance was flawless there too. It's pretty funny that some of his younger wigs that showed a full head of blond hair were so terrible, but now that he's old enough for his head to look like the Crypt Keeper's, the hair looks convincing and real.
Set design on Rings of Power
The sets around Celebrimbor's workshop are elaborate and probably looked fantastic in the illustrations and renderings they made before they were constructed, but the execution isn't all there. The set is clearly built in large part, because it has physical presence to interact with. Unfortunately, it also has less than perfect finishes that make it look not-quite-real in the other way: rather than looking like the colors don't match up to the ambient lighting or whatever because they weren't photographed with a camera, which is how CGI can fail, you have colors and surfaces that ARE reflecting light from the proper sources but not in the way they should. Which is to say, it's kind of like a theatrical set - it looks good from a distance, but in HD you can see that some of the stone things aren't stone (probably styrofoam and other plastics) and some of the metal things aren't metal, or aren't the correct metal, because they're painted. Most damningly, there's a semi-close, like, 3/4 shot of Celebrimbor standing in front of an archway that should be elaborately carved stone and you can see a horribly obvious horizontal seam in the "stone" behind him with the edges of the pieces failing to match up - and not in the way that actual seams in stonework do in reality. They probably could've fixed that shot in post, with enough time and attention, but... they didn't!
Ultimately, it all looks cheaper - because it all looks more hasty and careless - than the comparable parts of the LOTR trilogy, which is funny, because again: BILLION dollars.
And on another subject about Rings of Power's visual design: Halbeard and Elendil both look like they're working from a café in Portland. They definitely are both using modern haircare products. The styling there completely fails. Obviously, I have a low opinion of the hair design here in general, and I remain annoyed by Elrond's and Celebrimbor's fluffy 90s college professor hair. Galadriel's always looks great, but she's pretty alone there. Oh, the dwarves have good hair and wigs in general, I guess, although Disa's also comes with a half-caveat about modern haircare products. SIDENOTE: It's very funny to me that a big chunk of Tolkien dwarf names are just straight up Scandinavian names, not even with one or two letters swapped out like Tolkien seemed to do with a lot of his language construction. There's a Disa I've met who volunteers in my chapter of the Red Cross; it's not even archaic.
This week the writing got even more annoying, but I continued to admire the costumes. The Byzantine influence on Galadriel's and Elrond's and Celebrimbor's clothes was obvious. Also on the apprentice in Númenor who was sketching the dying king, although there were some INCREDIBLY stupid undergarments under her gown, which was filmy and draped from a round gathered neck and then belted around the ribcage, with her boobs sticking up like those of a (nippleless) molded plastic mannequin. Nothing but magic can do that, man. Or, like, modern smoothing and sculpting undergarments with injection-molded foam. You can't do it with cut and sewn or knitted fabric or with corsetry.
Breast support under the costumes is a big issue on House of the Dragon as well as Rings of Power, but the apprentice's filmy pre raphaelite dress is definitely the worst one I've seen so far. The likelihood that a costume team with the level of technical expertise and historical research I'm seeing on both of these shows are unaware of the effect that undergarments have on silhouette, or of what silhouettes should accompany these garments, is vanishingly small, so these choices are almost certainly about sexiness, and perhaps slightly also about the comfort of actresses, who are likely happier with modern undergarments in most cases. But that's no excuse, because it's inexcusable.
The last episode of House of the Dragon made some cheap, eyeroll-inducing moves in the visual design - their attempts to indicate Alicent's purported religious obsession felt half-baked, which is probably appropriate because the script's attempts at showing that were just as bad. Alicent's costumes and particularly hair continued to look worse and worse, but the costumers and special effects and makeup outdid themselves with the king's dramatic aging and wasting illness. Paddy Considine's performance was flawless there too. It's pretty funny that some of his younger wigs that showed a full head of blond hair were so terrible, but now that he's old enough for his head to look like the Crypt Keeper's, the hair looks convincing and real.
The sets around Celebrimbor's workshop are elaborate and probably looked fantastic in the illustrations and renderings they made before they were constructed, but the execution isn't all there. The set is clearly built in large part, because it has physical presence to interact with. Unfortunately, it also has less than perfect finishes that make it look not-quite-real in the other way: rather than looking like the colors don't match up to the ambient lighting or whatever because they weren't photographed with a camera, which is how CGI can fail, you have colors and surfaces that ARE reflecting light from the proper sources but not in the way they should. Which is to say, it's kind of like a theatrical set - it looks good from a distance, but in HD you can see that some of the stone things aren't stone (probably styrofoam and other plastics) and some of the metal things aren't metal, or aren't the correct metal, because they're painted. Most damningly, there's a semi-close, like, 3/4 shot of Celebrimbor standing in front of an archway that should be elaborately carved stone and you can see a horribly obvious horizontal seam in the "stone" behind him with the edges of the pieces failing to match up - and not in the way that actual seams in stonework do in reality. They probably could've fixed that shot in post, with enough time and attention, but... they didn't!
Ultimately, it all looks cheaper - because it all looks more hasty and careless - than the comparable parts of the LOTR trilogy, which is funny, because again: BILLION dollars.
And on another subject about Rings of Power's visual design: Halbeard and Elendil both look like they're working from a café in Portland. They definitely are both using modern haircare products. The styling there completely fails. Obviously, I have a low opinion of the hair design here in general, and I remain annoyed by Elrond's and Celebrimbor's fluffy 90s college professor hair. Galadriel's always looks great, but she's pretty alone there. Oh, the dwarves have good hair and wigs in general, I guess, although Disa's also comes with a half-caveat about modern haircare products. SIDENOTE: It's very funny to me that a big chunk of Tolkien dwarf names are just straight up Scandinavian names, not even with one or two letters swapped out like Tolkien seemed to do with a lot of his language construction. There's a Disa I've met who volunteers in my chapter of the Red Cross; it's not even archaic.
