Lore Isn't Useful If You Don't Explain It

This one might be the post that I'm most wrong about, and if I am, feel free to correct me in the comments.  

There are a few cases where I will concede Rings on Prime was fairly accurate to the lore, but in those cases, they presented it the same way Peter Jackson's trilogy has Eowyn present Numenorean lore. The major difference between these two productions is that Peter Jackson relegated Numenorean lore to the extended editions, where the initiated would be happy to see it but it wasn't essential to the plot or front and center in the story. Rings on Prime really struggled with that. 

There are two scenes in the Jackson trilogy that I'm thinking of--the first is that "stew" scene, when Eowyn tries to guess how old Aragorn is, and when he tells her, she suddenly says, "You are one of the Dunedain, a descendant of Numenor..." and so on. The second time (it's in Return of the King), right before Pippin snatches the palantir, Eowyn tells Aragorn about her nightmare of a great wave, which I'm pretty sure is a reference to the destruction of Numenor. (Or... was that the dream that Boromir and Faramir both had, and they gave it to Eowyn for some reason? Either way, a great wave sounds very like the destruction of Numenor.)

Incidentally, that first scene with Eowyn was one of the first scenes I saw of Lord of the Rings, when I was eight or nine years old, and I didn't have a clue what it meant. I think a lot of people probably don't know what it means, but that's fine, because it's not important for the story. It was clearly there out of respect for the story and respect for the people who already knew the story. 

I guess there's a third time, when Arwen whispers to Aragorn, "May the grace of the Valar protect you." Who are the Valar? But that doesn't really affect any of the story. It's just a nice scene reminding us that Arwen exists.

The problem with Rings on Prime is that most of their lore is presented in the same way that those three tidbits of lore are presented in the trilogy: without proper explanation. For example, and this is the biggest example, does the show ever explain what a Silmaril is? Or, for that matter, who Feanor is? Why the dwarves and the elves don't get along, but some of them get along, but it's odd that they get along? What an Istar is? 

There's a scene where Miriel says something like, "The Faithful believe that this tree signifies that the eyes of the Valar are still upon us--and their judgment." Cool. Who are the Faithful? Who are the Valar? And unlike the scene when Arwen whispers that, this actually is plot-relevant: this is presumably why Miriel suddenly changes her mind when the petals start falling from the White Tree and decides she will go against the beliefs of most of her people, when she was too afraid to do so just earlier. So... the judgment of the Valar is clearly more important than the beliefs of the people, so they're clearly very important... who are they? 

And yes, I'm going entirely off of a memory that is months old, but I'm not double-checking it because I'm not giving Amazon more views. I might be wrong about this one. But until I can buy these on DVD from a used bookstore, I'm not rewatching them. And I probably won't even rewatch them then.