What's *your* favorite/least favorite outfit from the Rings of Power? Don't forget to check out Eat Garbage: kzfaq.info/love/708jiBI0OaqhahK8MDASQQ

I remember watching some behind the scenes material from LOTR and Jackson mentions that he made all the elf actors wear elven underwear that they had specially made. Even knowing that the undergarments would never be shown on film, he thought it was important as part of their immersion in the roles that they go through the process of putting on these elf underpants. The contrast in care and attention to detail when comparing the two productions couldn't be more stark.

for me as a cosplayer the main problem with costumes and especially armor is the fact that I've seen like a ton of dresses and armor made by amateurs AND looking much better

Galadriel’s green dress is gorgeous, but you could wear it to an event today - it looks too modern. I’m absolutely certain those sleeves are spandex, so it looks REALLY out of place here. The blue two-toned dress looks more appropriate for the setting, but women didn’t wear sashes of fabric that look like an uncomfortable chest binder. The way it visually cuts her and her bust in half is not flattering - it should be a sash just across her waist, or covering her entire front torso. And that armor looks like old hammered sheets of tin!

The Elven armors at their "reward ceremony" look so comically cheap and out of place. I mean, Gil-galad gives them the ultimate honor of being allowed to sail to Valinor at this point. The armor/costume of the characters should highlight the rarity of this honor, not distract from it.

Another element that is definitely missing from ROP that was used so well in the Peter Jackson film’s, is the overall color grading of the film. It’s in the Extended versions appendices, they used a newer technique at the time, where you could highlight specific parts and track, so just brighten the face a little in a darker scene, etc. I think they used it to make the CGI blend better, or if the light caught part of a costume wrong that made it look fake, they could adjust it, etc. In ROP, the color grade a lot of times looks like freaking Marvel, bright everything, cranked up to 10, in high definition. Then in the digging a trench scene, it’s desaturated like a Zach Snyder film, nearly to the point of Black & White, when interrogating Adar, it’s 5 minutes of Dutch Angles. There’s a complete lack of consistency in costumes, grading, framing, etc. My point being, at least Zach Snyder had a vision, which helps the Costumer, because they know they need to make Superman’s suit extra vibrant and shiny, because Snyder’s going to desaturate it to within an inch of it’s life. I wonder if they did a single screen test with any fabric or costumes on ROP, to see how any of it would look on camera after being color graded?

The movie armour looked so believable because it basically real armour with a fantasy twist - the design for all of the specific races worked into it. But it was made of metal by armoursmiths. In your closeup of the Elven Eregion armour, it almost looked as if you can still make out the printlines from the printer laying the filament. This is something every cosplayer would never do. My Mandalorian helmets are both 3d printed, as is my Boba Fett armour, but I guarantee you that you cannot see even a single layer line. And my budget is slightly smaller. I invested mine in a sanding mouse and a lot of sanding paper though. Maybe the showrunners should have put a little of their budget - and elbow grease into removing layer lines? Anyways, that was a very interesting and insightful video.

The hanging beads over the green dress remind me of the beading I made for a t-shirt when I was 15. It looks very arts-and-crafts and definitely not like the work of 2000-year-old elves.

I watched the first Hobbit movie this weekend and it's a terrible movie, but when Cate Blanchett was on screen I was just so enamored with her after seeing this travesty of a show. Her Galadriel is tall, regal, elegant, otherworldly....everything Galadriel is SUPPOSED to be.

I think the peasants in the southlands look like they came from a Monty Python skit.

Oh am so glad for this collab! ROP has done one good thing and that's introduce me to some nice new channels on KZfaq

Bronwyn's dress reminds me of the movie Catwoman. What I mean is they described that they wanted to use Halle Berry's body form to their advantage. Her muscles, her shoulders, her back, all was used to be more flexible and cat-like. The shots with her looking down at the people and her back to the camera felt like a power move. Which it was

It is refreshing to see a discussion and analysis of this specific aspect of the show. I have watched Part one as well, Both are fun and insightful, an excellent collaboration. Thank you! For me, several observations regarding this season (viewing it as a generic fantasy genre show because it is definitely not Tolkien) : 1. The Elves’ ceremonial armor reminded me of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. Arondir’s armor would have been be much more suitable in this occasion. 2. The Elven servants’ outfit reminded me of certain cultures where women had to keep their faces covered. Are there no male Elve servants?Good question as too whether the Elves had a servant class. 3. The Dwarven guards’ helmets seemed cumbersome and impractical, how do they even see out of them? 4. Being a migrating group or peasants (or an amnesiac wizard) does not mean they have to be dirty and filthy all the time. 5. Overall design and material of the costumes (especially Numenorean armor) felt like cheap cosplay, and do not provide insights to the specifics of each unique culture or enhance the story. 6. Seems like the bulk of the budget went into elaborate CGI scenery, in which case they should have just made a National Geographic style travelogue, like “Top Ten Places To Visit In Middle Earth”. I have watched and rewatched bonus documentaries of the PJ trilogy, always amazed at how much effort and thought went into designing each outfit, and the effort to make each of them “lived in”, functional, believable, and unique to each race. To me, that is the gold standard in a fantasy show, or any show for that matter.

There is no difference in styling from race to race or from region to region, it kind of looks they have made two Sales Orders for the entire show and didn't spend any time in design department.

What i noticed is that most costumes are mono-color. It seems that most costumes needs to pass a green screen check. Therefore you will not see many green costumes. I am also not a fan of blue costumes for medieval settings, because blue is a rare color in nature.

It looks like the costume designer (and we can all look up who they are) just wanted to make statements on each culture but didn’t take into consideration HOW the cultures would use their clothes. Great point about Celebrimbor’s clothes. Elves just strolling on a hundred mile journey one afternoon without provisions while dragging their capes in the dirt. So sad.

My two favorite channels are doing a collaboration, what a treat! Thank you ❤️

For sure, Galadriel got her blue outfit from a tailor in Numenor, or from a thrift store there. So why doesn't it look at all Numenorian? Why isn't she wearing a toga like the people who dressed her?And then in the Southlands... new outfit, and again, it looks nothing like what the locals are wearing. So who made that? Who stitched on all those ornaments? Apparently it was good work - volcano blast proof.

Good analysis as usual. No matter how you look at RoP, of the 1000 ways to slice the onion, regardless which angle the knife cuts, the Show is revealed as rank amateurism at best, but mostly sheer incompetence. To call it 'fan fiction' is an insult to fans who actually love the show and made good productions at a cost of one ten-thousandth of RoP. There are countless examples but let's use one to illustrate; Galadriel's life-raft nightgown. Certainly not clothing that would be worn under armor. Thick cotton is required to cushion the armor, even if its ceremonial armor. Its also not representative of what they would need in Valinor because the Show's opening scenes showed us what elves (including Galadriel herself) wore in Valinor, This life-raft garment is simply what you get when thoughtless unimaginative mediocrities care nothing about their work, just getting a paycheck.

Oh I love Eat Garbage! So nice to see them.

It bothered me that the female elves' faces were veiled (don't remember if it was some of them or all of them, but regardless)... That costume choice looked weird.

I think Galadriel's final outfit has some Thai influences, like the accessory draped across her diagonally.

The crossover I never expected...

As a medieval enthusiast, I’m going to have to go with the stupid armor. Not the ugly stuff particularly, but the stupid, like-that makes no sense.

The ridiculousness of RoP costumes makes me appreciate costumes in Andor even more. Every detail there is thought out and means something; and the actors in their outfits look like real people, not like trick-o-treaters.

Fantastic video and good collaboration! Thank you Lana!

Jayden see's Galadriel and goes into teen crush mode hehe

45:05 the face on Disa’s boots looks like the face on Arondir’s armor 🙄

One good thing about RoP is that it helped me discover channels like these 😊 I think weathering these costumes would have gone a long way in making them feel more lived in and realistic. You can make even cheap materials like foam look better than whatever they made this armor from.

I was waiting for this a long time 😃👍👍

the face covered elf servants is very ... dehumanizing ... striping a person of their identity.

OMG...finally! That green dress of Galadriel's! Gorgeous, maybe, but the knit jersey look is so out of place for this character in this fictional setting. Thank you, Lana, for pointing this out. I've been waiting for someone to take the initiative. I just don't understand the costume designer's choice here at all! I would love to see a long-ish behind-the-scenes special from the actual costumer(s) in which they explain some of their rationales, much as the ones done for PJs LOTR. Surely *someone* had a plan?

Going off a comment below, I agree that blue cloth isn't my favorite for the apparent time period. It would've been a rare dye to begin with because of the sources of blue coloring, and it was used nigh exclusively by royalty or high nobility. Sure, Galadriel is a Lady, but in the context in which she wears this blue dress, she's the prisoner/unwelcome guest. Why would they give her expensive colors to wear? And since no one else in Numenor appears to be wearing that style of dress, they either had to have had it lying around somewhere... or they made it specially for her. The latter doesn't make sense in context. Freak. That blue color goes DOUBLE for Bronwyn's dress. It has no reason to be blue at ALL. Regarding the asymmetricity of the green dress (and other ones in the series), I'm not very studied in medieval dress, but I think for the apparent time period of England, it would've been more common to have more centered or symmetrical line. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. About the ceremonial armor, it would've been nice if they used symbols or crests to liven up the boring textureless opaque surface.

Great stuff as always soldier!

The neck gorget is terrible, and the spaulders not only restrict range of motion, but there’s a slit at the shoulder where a sword can be jabbed in.

Where did she get Elven armor in Numinor? Did Amazon deliver it?

35:42 *Grubby* townsfolk 🤣

So cool to see this colab :)

Lana can I thank you and your co presenters for a video that is different and enjoyable. If the people producing the show had people like yourselves on board at least the costumes would be more in keeping what people expect.

I would like to point out that, historically speaking, nightgowns/pyjamas are a very recent thing. For a long time, people would go to sleep in their undergarments - in case of women, a chemise/underdress. Which is also what the phrase "undressing for bed" refers to. The chemise was usually made from a soft, light fabric that protected the body from rougher materials such as wool, and the upper layers of the dress from getting soiled. Chemises were much easier to wash and dry than the upper layers. It does make sense, in this context, that they wear something like that underneath their clothing. Although I don't quite understand why the men are also wearing chemises. But my point is that, if you don't bother to create specific Elven underwear, having something like this is fine. On that note, I really dislike the outfits the servants are wearing. Why do they all wear the same outfits? Why do all of them have those veils draped over their heads and arms? I could understand it if a noble wore a drapey veil, but not a servant. That must be so impractical.

You really have some interesting and insightful thoughts. Great channel

Even though there are parts of the designs I like, none of them are flattering on the actors who wear them. So many are just squares on the actors. I’m not advocating for sexy or more skin. But people now days dont realize that people in the past wanted to look and feel good too

I still cannot believe each episode supposedly had a budget of $60 million dollars.

33:27 just me playing Where's Waldo by seeing how many duplicate crowd members I can pick out...

When I saw the promo shot for the dwarves right now, my first thought was: I wish Disa's legs were hairy. Okay, so they didn't go for beards with dwarven women, fine, but c'mon, it's a hairy race and they live in caves where some hair on her legs would definitely keep her warmer, especially if she's walking around with an exposed thigh. I think it would be pretty cool and definitely would help dwarves stand out. As for the golden fingers - damn, I was sure until now that these were sort of gold nail/finger protectors like you'd see in ancient China - which I also thought would be a great design choice. Just painting her fingers gold looks lazier. And she could have diamond accessories in her hair (how regal would that look in her splendid dark hair in the firelight of Moria) and clothes - they're a mining kingdom, they have great access to all kinds of jewels. I do like her hair and her honey-coloured eyes, though.

How about a crown that comes down to cover her eyes?

for a show as expensive as this, it's amazing how *cheap* the costumes look :/

In the tiny chain mail defense, 1. Chain and mail are the same word, so chain. 2. While chain can protect from arrowheads and jabs, the main function of chain is for defeating slashes and cuts, where the plate adds much more protection against pokey. My complaint is her chain looks ragged and cheap, not something you’d expect from an elf, and especially a royal.

Right on. Thanks all.

ROP labours under the misunderstanding that "gold means classy". Gold print, gold flecks, gold leaves and berries, gold cloth, gold jewelry etc. I would contrast this with PJ's films, which I think capture the feel of how wealth is displayed in Middle-Earth: not many ornaments, but the ones they do have are exceptional or very very beautiful. Galadriel isn't bedecked in gold here (nor is she described as such: just an Elf-woman in simple white, with one single ring), nor are any of the other Elves of similar status (Elrond, also, just a ring and a circlet). I think this goes to show how little Amazon understand the source material. This isn't GoT with Elves and Dwarves and Hobbits, which they seem to think. Edit: they like one-piece dresses too much. No layering, it's just one wrap and it usually just: it's not tailored or form-fitted.

there are quite a few natural pigments for creating the colour blue; a very expensive and intense pigment uses Lapis lazuli, indigo and woad are less intense and the blue use here looks like woad.... a peasants pigment.

Fantastic to see two of the best smaller channels growing and collaborating! Hope everyone Likes, Subscribes and Shares both channels. Support the community gang! ;)

Tolkien did mention the elves have servants and lords and other responsibilities.

I agree with your comments on the blue dress, absolutely. On the green dress, I don't like the sleeves, they are too tight, especially compared with the rest of that dress. There should be more fabric there, maybe make them like floppy, hanging. At least wider or tapered. The elvish armor is indeed horrible. Lol @ "i can save her", so it's not just women thinking they can "fix" pretty bad guys haha! That first orc looks like a leper. The wavy lines in Blackadar's and elvis stuff reminds me of something Japanese, it looks ok. Bronwyn's dress annoys me for all the reasons you guys mentioned. It looks very much out of place. Disa's dwarf-head boots look kinda fun but the fake bare toes look stupid. The female dwarves should definetly have beards. The harfoots would look better if they cleaned up, had some braids or something, you could put some leaves or flowers in there as accessoires if the whole thing didn't look so messy and filthy. The elf servants are weird I agree, seeing the women row and the men just standing there..idk..seems the men would probably row faster. Don't they have male servants for that kind of labor? Celebrimbor looks awful overall in his grandma dresses. And I hate the haircuts all the male elves have. As you said, they brought them down to human level, took all the magic out.

The harfoots are nomads that don’t hunt. They should be naked.

the golden dress looks like a potato sack to me. Missing shape

Dwarves were very proud of their beards and would have taken care of them, as seen in Peter Jackson's films, braids had meaning, small braids, big braids, notice that Gimli always took care of his beard, along every step of the journey. Yet the dwarves in. RoP, even though they're living in Moria, in the height of Dwarfish power, their beards are a bit messy.

The elf ceremonial armor just looks so uncomfortable, and they looks uncomfortable in it. Actually, they look like they're wearing pieces from their older brothers' armor.

Both dresses have historical influence. The Galadriel blue dress is asian, Chinese for the lowly button and Japanese for the no waist dark blue part, the green one looks Arabic especially with the oriental jewelry placement. The problem aside from the materials and the construction is how it relates to Numenor or to Eregion as regions or to numenorian or elven culture? These look like random designs dropped out of nowhere.

I think that maybe Galadriel's numenor dress wasn't intended to look elven as she is not in an elven realm and is also down on her luck. To me it comes across as something that's borrowed and it reminds me quite a bit of some of Eoywen's dresses. And considering the fact that she probably doesn't have access to her personal , elvish wardrobe it makes sense she would wear something that's less elvish looking. So plot wise it makes sense. But I do wish they put a little more effort to make her look taller as she's mentioned to be particularly tall even among the other elvish women.

Late to the video... But the use of precious and semi-precious gems/beads for the dwarves would have helped. Weren't they supposed to love any products of the earth? So many cultures to choose from for inspiration as well! Would not have been tragically costly either. I'm confused by the overuse of "gold" coloring in all the costumes.

So I'm with regular armor comment Their ceremonial armor is just not functional. They wouldn't have any hip mobility since it goes below the rib cage (notice how upright everybody is during the ceremony). The pauldrons being over the shoulders of the breastplate would not allow you to move your arms upwards or forwards to a degree normal armour would. Henry's ceremonial armour dated 1608 is a great example of ceremonial armor that is still functional. And then the numenorean Galadreiel's armour is better, it accentuates her feminine features (and armour was accentuating things that were considered attractive in classical period and during Renaissance excluding the middle ages when the armour of a knight was supposed to present him as a martyr and emissary of Archangel Michael). I do not like the tassets without the faulds as it does not protect the inner hip and waist areas, absent gorget creates a weakpoint and this layered monstrocity that she has limits neck mobility with sharpened edges and I doubt it would fold like segmented armor does. Absent gauntlets are another weakpoints on it and the chainmali is just horrible. When you put armor on, you put the gambeson or jupon, the arming dublet, under it or over it to pad up the blunt impact force of strikes. This paper thin mail, even if it does stop the cvuts, will never ever stop a blunt impact force so while the arrow might not pierce your armor, it could break a bone, nevermind leave a bruise. The elbow guards, called couters btw, are fine from functional standpoint, they are supposed to allow arm mobility and have a bit of girth to them Also the dwarven beard armor would not allow you to turn your head which is a bad choice in terms of design

I prefer ancient Greek women 😂 they had style back then .

The ceremonial elven armor reminds me of Tin-Man from Wizard of Oz uggghhh… it’s so bad and embarassing. And still… not as horrendous as the numenorean armors.

24:19 Definitely veil > blindfold going forward. Especially if she wore a veil with an Eastern European/Central Asian inspired headress (think Kokoshnik) or blind mask/crown headpiece that would match the aesthetic of her earlier headwear, and she could outright claim or have rumors spread that she wears a veil to "hide her disfigured face" when in actuality, she's only hiding her eyes (if she wants to buy time to hide that she's blind)

This show didn't sink Numenor... but it came pretty fucking close.

21:18 I hate the fabric of the gold dress. The silhouette makes her look pregnant. She shouldn’t be wearing such a flowy dress with a flowy draped coat. Too much fabric, no shape.

45:08 I love that we measuring design choices using Zelda 😂 but HOW DARE you speak of it in comparison with rop what an insult to the gorons and hylians 😖

There's no distinct style anywhere here, no distinguishing features that go toward world building and a feeling of authenticity. Other than the wannabe Hobbits running about with dung in their hair or something lol...They have went overboard, taking them beyond the logical limit of "Earthiness", whilst all the humans and elves (Though I like the suggestion of a Green Man on Arondir's leather(?) armour) are given generic, stage medieval looks. Related to this, it is controversial, but I feel it goes for the choices in ethnography too. When all the different groups are depicted as a melting pot of ethnicities, even among a small, isolated and presumably homogenous nomadic group like the so called "harfoots", I think this also, in the context of superficial costuming of a sort, works against the world building aspect. Perhaps later in the 4th age, when you'd expect the start of a gradual diffusion of people, fashions and cultural tropes, but not thousands of years before. When the Numenoreans are not just culturally, but physically indistinguishable from any other human culture, that's a big problem. All of the diversity of Tolkien's world is muted or non-existent in this show. But that's just my opinion. Cheers.

The whole show looks horribly cheap. 'Mistreating Elves' - this is so true, it started with the longeared Witcher-humans and it got into RoP, too. How come that those writers can't grasp the meaning of the word 'etherial', that is the whole point of being an elf in european folklore?

the costumes like pretty much everything in the show lack direction. there is no real consistency in the approach to cultures and themes, no discernible core vision. it's the same with the music, the sets, the visuals, the dialogue...

The costume in rop is terrible