I didn’t take it as mercy, on the raft Sauron saw an opportunity. He didn’t precisely know how it would benefit him, but he was adding cards to his hand that he could play to his advantage later. Scheming, devious, selfish not a shred of mercy

Please forgive me for coining a phrase from another franchise, but ‘you must unlearn what you have learned’.

Huan wrote:

Please forgive me for coining a phrase from another franchise, but ‘you must unlearn what you have learned’.

That seems to be philosophy of the whole RoP writing team! Or perhaps, not learn it in the first place.

Working through another edition of the Roving Ranger I noticed an interesting "missing data point"...

The line mentioned above:

"... was estimated the second series cost $700m (£533m), with three film units working independently around the country"

has essentially disappeared from the spaces it was mentioned.

[Yahoo Canada; AOL]

The only mention still available online is this BBC 3 Instagram post I am saving here for the moment as this is one of the items in the series' discussion that should have made more of a splash during season 2 - but I would assume for the time being that was a topic best not mentioned.

Another post with Stagerunner also links to posts made by the studio on the money spent - with them no longer being available online.

With the Internet Archive's downtimes I cannot look for additional items, unfortunately. It is really of paramount importance to have this archive survive...

I liked this approach to the wings issue.

How ‘The Rings of Power’ translated Tolkien’s Balrog to the screen

“I wanted this to be something that would have been hanging on my bedroom wall,” says senior visual effects supervisor Jason Smith about the heroic depiction of King Durin III (Peter Mullan) sacrificing himself to a fiery monster during the climactic Season 2 finale of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.” The immortalizing moment, which follows a tearful goodbye between father and son, drew inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien’s description of the Balrog as a being of “shadow and flame.” “We didn’t want to ruin the poetry of Tolkien’s writing by showing too much. He leaves space for your mind to help tell the story in a way that you will find compelling, so we tried to do that,” explains Smith. A mixture of milky blacks and crimson hues brought the photorealistic scene together, the contrast in color elevating the nightmarish image where every detail, down to the white-hot flames and lava-red horns, was designed to captivate the viewer. “The first thing we wanted is for people to feel the emotional journey of the story,” says Smith. “Then we leaned into the symbolism while maintaining realism. You’ll notice the creature is a creature of shadow and flame.”

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment- ... -of-power-balrog-one-shot

Haven't seen the show, but based in the picture in the linked article, kind of reminds me of the first view that we see of Radu Molasar in Michael Mann's 'The Keep, where all we see is smoke (all filmed in reverse) and glowing eyes and mouth, but don't really see the Molasar's form. Fantastic scene.

I love that movie, flawed as it is.