Television Raiders

Hey everyone!

Happy Monday and I hope you have a great week! The teaser/title reveal for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series was released last week. It’s cool that they have a name for the series now: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. I wouldn’t say it’s hands down the best title in the world, but it’s simple and serviceable. Based on what I’m aware of the series as Amazon is keeping their cards close to their chest, I have a few titles that I would offer as alternatives such as: The Lord of the Rings: The Second Age, or even just The Second Age, The Rise of Mordor, The Gifts of Sauron. I won’t claim that these titles are great either as I came up with them in the span of five minutes, so I’m going leave that judgement up to you. Shifting focus back to the title clip, it’s okay I suppose. I like the idea in concept, showing the title being forged much like the rings of power are forged is a cool move. However, I’m not sure if it’s the camera work or how they chose to edit it but it’s reminiscent of CGI that falls into uncanny valley territory. It looks like it’s trying to be real. I’ve watched the behind the scenes and I’m impressed with what they showed. I know this is just a title announcement and all that we have currently are rumors and some threads of news, but I hope this show doesn’t go the way of Wheel of Time. Keeping on the topic of shows today let’s jump into the topic for today!

Have any of you watched Vikings? Honestly, it was the only reason I ever put on the History Channel. It’s a great show that adapts history and the Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok. I should emphasize the word adapt. There are some big inaccuracies that stem from the creative decisions that they made. For instance, Rollo being Ragnar’s brother is a glaring departure from history. However, it makes for good drama and Rollo still ends up where he does in history. I won’t specify where that is as that would spoil the story for anyone who hasn’t watched the show or is aware of what happened in history. While Ragnar is the main focus of the show for roughly four seasons the show is called Vikings and it does shift to focus on his sons and their exploits. The shift was a difficult one for me to adjust to. In fact, I dropped the series for a while, and I’ve only recently picked it back up.

I really enjoyed the acting in the series. Travis Fimmel portrays Ragnar, a charismatic, ambitious, and cunning Viking. Please excuse the use of the term but he brings a certain “swagger” to the character. Clive Standen plays Rollo who in the series is the older brother of Ragnar. Rollo, despite his own ambitions was always trapped in his little brother’s shadow and Clive Standen does a great job showing this conflict that Rollo goes through. Does he support his brother, his family, or does he live for himself? The chemistry between the two actors works wonderfully and anytime Rollo and Ragnar come into conflict it hurts to watch. Katheryn Winnick as Largetha also deserves to be mentioned. Largetha is a shieldmaiden who comes to prominence over the course of the show in an overwhelmingly male dominated period in time. I can only really think of one other female character who takes power. Finally, one of my favorite actors from the show is Alexander Ludwig who portrays the first son of Ragnar, Bjorn Ironside. It’s interesting to watch the character grow and develop over the various stages of his life from young and inexperienced into someone older and wiser. Alexander Ludwig did a great job showing the growth of Bjorn. There are many, many more actors and actresses that deserve praise for their work on the show and I wish I could list them all. I would love to see all of them in more projects.

The music in the series also deserves praise. Trevor Morris created some beautiful songs for Vikings. "The Mind of a Viking" and "Entrance to Kattegat/Northern Lights" are two of my favorites. They also have several songs from the band Wardruna. My favorite song from Wardruna has to be "Helvegen" which I believe plays in one of the earlier seasons and appears again in one of the later seasons I have yet to watch. I only know this because I watched a clip to see how the series had been doing. I can’t talk about the music in the series without talking about the song in the intro. I’m not sure if any other song could make the intro as epic as it is as Fever Ray’s “If I had a heart.” I have these songs and many others on my phone, I fully recommend you give them a listen.

Netflix will be making a sequel series called Vikings: Valhalla. I believe it is supposed to be set a century after the original series ended. I will say that after viewing the trailer I’m optimistic in that it will be a solid series. I understand that it is a sequel to the first series, but I hope that they keep the spirit of the original. While I couldn’t get into it, I have only heard good things about Netflix’s other series, The Last Kingdom, lets hope they take the lessons of both series to make Vikings: Valhalla amazing. Before I can get into the new Vikings series, I’ll have to be sure to finish the first one. I doubt that there will be any big connections between the two, but it feels wrong to jump into a sequel without finishing the first.

Alright, time to wrap this one up. If you haven’t seen Vikings yet, check it out. If you have watched the series, what are your thoughts on it? Calling back to a previous post, what do you think about the prominence of Vikings in various media. Do you think they’ll last as long as zombies or not? Hope you enjoyed the read. Have a great one!

Best,

Aaron Kirby