I consider myself a pretty big Tolkien fan. I first read his stuff about 50 years ago. I have absolutely no interest in this show. Not even slightly tempted to watch a minute of it.
It occurs to me that this is a no-win scenario. They are facing a backlash. But, if they stayed faithful to Tolkien, the Wokesters would freak out.
“Attracts fascist-adjacent fans?!”
What BS
I tried to watch the first episode but found myself fast-forwarding through this disaster. This series has as much to do with Tolkien, as gluing a Ferrari badge to a Ford fiesta has to do with exotic sports cars. The dialog is pretentious, the acting is weak, none of the characters are relatable, and the set and costumes are are nothing like what Tolkien described. The sad thing is, when I heard Amazon was creating this series, my conversations with friends was from the idea of how bad this was going to be. They didn’t disappoint.
I watched the first 3 episodes. It sucked, woke, female dominated, minorities in out of place roles, and just bad. Too many characters that have no bonding to the show and mostly women in the lead everywhere a minority isn’t. The few sting males were just serving stronger female or minority character. I found myself wanting to fast forward through some story lines they were just of no value but if the did have value it still wasn’t known or made to care.
Not my billions.
I’ve tried watching the first few episodes, but it is just soooooo terribly written. The production values of sets and suchlike are outstanding, but the characters are just blah.
The show sucks bad.
Solution is to blame the fans and position themselves as victims.
When Galadriel was sailing (in effect) from France to New York, saw the Statue of Liberty and decided to jump back into the ocean and swim to France rather than ask to borrow one of the lifeboats...well, I gave up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEnSXqQqvRI
Based on YouTube summaries, she has since then had superheated poisonous gases and a lava flow roll over her without even get a sunburn. So skipping the rest seems to have been a good decision.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxlqm1-oV_k
The worst problem with this is the first three episodes put me to sleep. Now, maybe this thing has potential as an insomnia treatment, that’s a valuable thing.
My wife and I are long time Tolkien fans but wow, what a pile.
Couldn’t make it through the first episode it was so sappy.
Went to give it 0 stars but was not allowed unless you finish at least one episode.....
Then. We went on vacation and the house sitter brought her special needs son who apparently watched 5 episodes. Poor kid.
Now season 2 ? What a waste.
The Babylon Bee version is 5 stars !
It needed better editing for certain and better writing. Most of the actors are very good. It's very uneven, the woke multi-culti elements in the first episodes are intrusive. I expect most such series to start off slow as characters are introduced, but this is really turgid at times. Some scenes however are very very good. Some are cliched to the point that when a character does something, you know he's going to be toast.
The writers do quietly poke a little fun at the woke-stuff, as when Galadriel uses "orcs" in front of the bad elf who is father of the orcs and he says, "We prefer Uruk." I did LOL at that.
Most important to me is that they do keep a core part of Tolkien that absent from most comic book or action movies: the fight against evil is not easy and involves almost unbearable loss, including the risk of letting evil become your own motivation in seeking revenge. A good lesson from a man who survived the Somme.
How long before claims that Tolkien was a racist and a sexist and his works must be purified by being reimagined by our Woke betters?
Naturally they're complaining that their critics are racist for their attempts to make a mythical past reflect a politically-correct present, but in fact they've torn out Tolkien's deep messages on interracial comity and replaced them with superficial skin-color tokenism. That is, sadly, the very least of their problems. The thing is boring. And that Tolkien never was.
Amazon says if you do not like “The Rings of Power” then you are a racist. Hollywood ruined Star wars and Star Trek and Lord of the Rings and later Marvel films with “girl power”.
The “The Rings of Power” actors look like high school actors. They do not fit the part. I have seen reviews on youtube and the excerpts show the acting and dialog are real bad along with the special effects.
Laughably Bad Copy & Paste Crowd in Rings of Power
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt1vdPEOr1M
God that is a long article. It isn’t internet trolls that are killing the show it’s that it is woke garbage which has no appeal to actual Tolkien fans. The people that like fantasy programming are the people they are calling trolls for expressing opinions contrary to what Amazon is trying to accomplish which is to make their money back. It doesn’t derive from any actual Tolkien works it is entirely made up by the show runners in a committee. There is no unifying creative force it is a bunch of people trying not to offend any of the protected groups. Fans are not welcome.
"highest-rated yet on IMDb"
Correct me if I’m wrong, didn’t 12.6 million viewers used to get you cancelled?
So there you go, a how many thousand word article to try to convince you that any criticism is basically just a bunch or racists….
This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to humanity and if you don’t like it YOU are the problem.
He sounds like Michael Scott or David Brent from The Office.
People talk that way about places where nothing actually happens.
Better shows have been cancelled after 1 or 2 season & made for much less money.
So far its been pretty boring, with the dead pan lead actress mumbling incomprehensibility at times about something.
A two hour, two episode battle scene is just over the top and skipable. as is most of this over long essay about a fictional story already butchered.