The Rings of Power: A Review
So this is my Rings of Power review. A touchy subject.
There will also be no spoilers for those who have not seen the show. But there may be spoilers in the comments. So beware.
TL;DR - This season of RoP was a beautiful mess of a story that could have been so much more than what the writers gave us. I feel let down by the end because I don’t think I received what was promised to me. I think this goes to show that no matter how much money you throw at a project, you can’t buy a great story.
Review
Let’s get a few things out of the way first. I am not a Tolkien “Superfan.” I’m not a Middle Earth lore scholar. In 2001, I went into see my first viewing of The Fellowship of the Ring without knowing what Lord of the Rings even was, and it blew my mind. It was the movies that changed my life.
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Later, I read the books and loved them. I haven’t read the Silmarillion. I tried and failed because it was like reading the Old Testament (which I still haven’t done either).
That doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of the wealth of worldbuilding that Tolkien has done, and the storytelling trove he left behind. There’s literally SO much that can be adapted, and I don’t think Amazon’s Prime studio can use limited rights as an excuse for poor storytelling.
Coming in to this show, I didn’t care about how true to the lore they would be. All I wanted was a good story.
And with that out of the way. Let’s talk about what I loved.
Accolades
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The visual and special effects were fantastic. Amazing. 10/10. The artists in the background are the true Samwise Gamgees of this show. They deserve all the money they’re getting paid and more. Give them all the accolades, because heaven knows these people don’t get recognized enough for the sacrifices they make to entertain us, the audience.
I loved the Orcs. I’ve never felt so bad to see an Orc die on screen until this show. Well-done practical effects will *always* trump CGI. Always.
Along that note, I loved the costume design. Give the people who worked on these a raise. And then another raise. I loved the settings as well. (Give these people a raise, too.) The locations were really cool windows into this version of Middle Earth. Visually, RoP was a 10/10 for me. Bar none.
I love the music score. Oh, how I love Bear McCreary. He has come pretty close to what Howard Shore did for the original trilogy. If anything, I’ll be listening to this score for a long time to come. His scores for each season of Battlestar Galactica are available on Apple Music (and probably elsewhere as well). I highly recommend you listen to those, too.
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I liked the casting choices. You could tell that every actor was giving it their all with what they were given. I think that gone are the days where audiences ridiculed actors for terrible movies/shows. Honestly, I think the the casting director made inspired choices. As I said, I don’t care whether Tolkien’s world had all white characters or whether there weren’t any female soldiers in Numenor. Don’t care. These actors did fine jobs.
Of the main characters, here are my favorite in order from most to least:
Prince Durin
Arondir
Elendil
Elrond
Miriel
Theo
Halbrand
Nori
Galadriel
For honorable mentions, I really liked Joseph Mawle as Adar and I liked Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor. I feel like both of them could have been focused on a bit more.
Criticisms
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Okay, before I get into the things I didn’t like, I’d first like to say that this show absolutely did NOT deserve all the crap the fanbase gave it before it even came out. There were so many voices trying to cancel this show, and it was really pathetic. So I think that the first thing I didn’t like was how the fanbase reacted. It was embarrassing.
This show isn’t terrible. It’s just not that great, and not what I believed we were promised.
I did not like Galadriel’s character in the beginning episodes. And since she’s really our principal protagonist, that’s a big problem.
I started off by defending her behavior, but it got really hard to do that over time. They didn’t start to make her a likable protagonist until episode 5 or 6. Even if she’s supposed to be some battle-hardened military commander, we need to see her in a more sympathetic light. The writers didn’t do enough to take her out of Pissed-Off mode. Most of the episodes she was in, Galadriel ended up being annoying at best and unbearable at worst. Just my opinion there. I know a few disagree with me, and that’s fine.
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I think they did most characters a disservice by jumping around too much in most episodes. I know they have 70 minutes of run time, but with a combination of editing and writing, we weren’t given enough time to care in some scenes. I think they should have done two POVs per episode at most. I also think they should have based the show in and around Numenor. There’s a wealth of storytelling gold just waiting for someone to unlock there.
I also disagree with the choices the writers made in structuring this season. I didn’t like the slow burn they were going with right up until the very last episode where everything was rushed and wrapped up with a bow in the last 20 minutes. I did not enjoy those last 20 minutes. No spoilers, but some of my worst fears came true, and it’s very unfortunate.
In hindsight, the misdirection they used with some of the characters seems hammy to me now. I can’t explain without spoiling, but let’s just say that when two of the main characters were revealed, all I could say was “Ugh.” There was no “Oh, WOW!” moment. The show had failed to effectively surprise me on that regard. If I was surprised, it was because I really DID NOT want one of the characters to be who I feared they’d be.
“Ugh.”
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I didn’t have a *huge* problem with the Harfoots, but their storyline is only important BECAUSE of that reveal in the last 20 minutes of the last episode. From a storytelling standpoint, their importance to the overall conflict needs to be introduced much earlier and in the first episodes. Otherwise, you run the risk of evoking apathy in your readers, which is what happened for a lot of people I follow. Having them as the token Hobbits in the show just isn’t good enough.
The writers need to answer this question early on: “Why are we following these people around?” And the answer should relate to the overarching conflict of the story.
Lastly, I’ll address the “Tolkien-ness” criticism of the show. Many will say it’s un-Tolkien because of all the liberties the writers took with the story. Other say it’s true to Tolkien’s themes. I sort of agree with both criticism at once. I do believe that the writers had a social agenda while making this show, as if Tolkien’s stories were outdated, and they needed to show them under a more modern light.
Social Agenda Is Not Story
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Someone tell the people in Hollywood this. Shout it from the rooftops. Please.
This is as far as I’ll go with that. But I do agree there were moments of “Tolkien-ness” where they hit on the usual beats like “Trees are good,” and “Hope is good,” and “Mercy is good.” But it’s almost as if the writers have a surface-level understanding of those themes. The only attempt at illustrating the Mercy theme is Nori’s arc with The Stranger, and how that pays off in the end. If Nori hadn’t done what she did, would the ending have even happened? What might have happened differently?
I don’t know the answer.
With Peter Jackson’s trilogy, on the other hand, Tolkien’s themes were woven into their very fabric—and to the point where sometimes I catch glimpses of payoffs I hadn’t noticed in the 1,724,698 times I’ve watched those movies. There’s a clear difference here.
Conclusion
Time to wrap up.
Overall, visually and musically masterful…that is, until you pay attention underneath the hood. Because the writing isn’t good, the soul of the show isn’t doing it for me.
If the things I’ve been hearing about next season are true, then I probably won’t continue after season two. As a movie/streaming fan, I watch shows to be entertained, but I’m also a writer, and I also watch shows to learn from them. I’m not getting much of either from Rings of Power. I don’t know what limitations the writers have to work with, but something’s not working with the story—even with the $1 billion they were given to produce this show.
My score:
