The Rings of Power: A Review

I recently finished watching The Rings of Power television show produced by Amazon Prime. There has been a lot of controversy and discussion over this television series, and I’ve been looking forward to writing my own review on it for a while now.

In this review I’ll try to be fair. I don’t want to be too judgemental and I don’t want to be too biassed for or against it. I’m going to take into account factors that the television series could not have helped, but be fair about the things they could have. If you haven’t watched this show yet, no worries: this article won’t have any spoilers.

The Lord of the Rings movies are, arguably, (or is it even arguable?) one of the best cinematic productions of all time, which is reasonable since The Lord of the Rings books are the best epic fantasy books to ever be written. So of course, for anything that’s linked to The Lord of the Rings there will be very high expectations. This is understandable, but not completely fair; it would be insanely difficult to create something as good as The Lord of the Rings was. But then, Amazon had a huge budget: a billion dollars. This was certainly enough money to hire very talented actors, brilliant writers, a skilled director, and create insane sets. Nonetheless, what we got were mostly mediocre actors, poor writing, and a few of the sets looked cheap and fake.

The Story

In the end, it doesn’t matter whether you have awesome sets, a good soundtrack, or a cool world-setting. What matters is your story.

The writer’s jobs would have been made somewhat easier by the histories of Middle-Earth that Amazon bought the rights to. That gave the writers for the show stories and a foundation to go off of. Nonetheless, even though I have not personally read these histories, from what I know of the world of Middle-Earth and its characters Amazon did not consistently stay true to. This I would have found pretty easy to forgive if they had produced an amazing show in return; but I can’t say they did.

The Rings of Power story wasn’t great. I wouldn’t say it was necessarily terrible, but it wasn’t gripping. There were several main characters, and though Galadriel is the central character, there are several other stories you’re trying to follow at the same time. Sometimes you would go an entire episode without visiting one of the different points of view. It was hard to follow them all, and some of the stories didn’t even come into the show until the season was halfway over. Basically, I’d say that while things were technically “happening” in the story, nothing was really happening. They didn’t raise the stakes high enough really until the end of the season. Raising the stakes is what will pull a person into the story.

I will say that they had some good twists that really surprised me and caught me off guard. Still, the big twists at the end of the season were executed in a way that confused me. In one of their final grand reveals they added a scene that, instead of causing me to be blown away by the new realisation, left me trying to figure out what exactly was happening and what it had to do with what I had just found out.

Not all of the story was bad, and I think that some of the things they did have had a lot of great potential but just didn’t end up being executed well. I find this frustrating because I can think of ways they could have made some of these things so much more exciting and astounding, and they just…didn’t.

The Characters

Even if a film or book has a good story, if the character’s aren’t sympathetic and likeable, many people are not going to enjoy it. We want to root for the characters. We want to love and care about them. The reason we keep reading or watching is because we care about their stories and want them to be okay. The main characters in The Rings of Power were unimpressive. By the end of the season they could have killed off any of the main characters and I wouldn’t have cared.

Galadriel: Galadriel was proud, ungrateful to those who helped her, and bitter. Some of these things were understandable because of what has happened in her past. You want your characters to have faults so they’re relatable. Still, you want them to be likeable and sympathetic. These are sometimes called “save the cat” moments. Even though your character is at their worst they still will do something kind, like saving a cat from a tree. Having a “save the cat” moment makes the reader or watcher sympathise with your character and like them even though they aren’t perfect. Galadriel did not have a “save the cat” moment, and her character had almost no development throughout the entire season. Towards the end her character did have a small arc, which I was glad of. But still, she was nothing like the Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings movies. I know that people change, but to some degree they’re still the same person. The Rings of Power Galadriel did not have a single quality that The Lord of the Rings Galadriel did.

Halbrand: Halbrand is a human who is angry about things that took place in his past. By the end of the season I was really confused over his character and what was true and what was not about him.

Elrond: I really wanted to like Elrond. But he was the same person in every single scene, in every single situation, and reacted the same way every time. Like Galadriel, he had no qualities like the Elrond in The Lord of the Rings movies, and he was pretty two dimensional.

I’m not going to go through every single main character because that would take too long, but it’s about the same with them all. Of all the characters the only one I liked by the end of the season was Prince Durin IV, the dwarf prince. The actor for him did really well.

The Messages

The messages and morals often came out sounding wooden and pretend, like the actors themselves didn’t believe what they were saying. I think that’s because they didn’t. There was nothing especially deep or profound, and nothing that made you want to cry like you do in The Lord of the Rings when Frodo gives a small smile to his best friend and simply says, “I’m glad you’re with me, Sam.”

Other Thoughts

I think the show was very politically driven, which was sad to me. Although Amazon said they were going to try to stay uncontroversial politically, there were definitely some things I picked up on that I disliked and disagreed with.

There were basic and simple things that are easy to get right that Amazon got wrong. For example, one of the characters had a black mother and white father, but she was completely white. Another character had a white dad and white sister but was Indian. A queen regent had a white father, but she was black. In one scene, Elrond is following someone and all the sudden he has a cloak draped over his shoulder when a moment ago he was wearing only a tunic. In that time we were given to believe that he hadn't stopped following the person, which he would have had to if all the sudden he was to procure a cloak from somewhere. Some of the armour that the people of Numenor wore looked like the plastic breastplates you can get from the Dollar Tree.

These aren’t big or important things, but I was just left asking “why?” They aren’t big and they aren’t important, so why not get them right?

Many scenes were unnecessarily long. I don’t know why, but Amazon seemed to think that if they had long silent scenes with epic choirs singing and the characters moving slowly with tragic expressions on their faces that it would make the scene epic. Not all the scenes like this came off slow, boring, and cheesy, but a lot of them did. I got really sick of watching scenes that should have been resolved in half the time that they were, especially when it was at an important part.

The violence was very graphic and super overdone. I would cringe and wince while watching several of the episodes because they were so unnecessarily gory. Amazon said that they were making this show family friendly, but a lot of these fighting scenes are things I would definitely not be comfortable with some of my younger family members watching. We aren’t watching Game of Thrones. We’re watching The Lord of the Rings. Again, like the slow-choir-filled scenes, it was just too dramatic.

What If This Show Hadn’t Been Tied To The Lord of the Rings?

If this show hadn’t been tied to The Lord of the Rings it would still have a lot of the same problems I’ve listed. Of course, since it is tied to The Lord of the Rings there are a lot more faults that it has in regards to accuracy and the like, but honestly I think the characters would still be bland and the storytelling would still be mediocre if The Rings of Power was completely its own thing. It might have better ratings if it wasn’t tied to The Lord of the Rings, but it would still have a lot of the same mistakes.

Would Tolkien Like This Show?

I don’t think he would. Of course, I can’t know for certain, but I don’t think Tolkien would like the way they have portrayed his world. I don’t think he would like some of the things they promoted in it, either.

What Needs To Happen

I’m definitely not opposed to Amazon turning this show around, though it would be difficult with the beginning they have created. Obviously they can’t get all new actors, but in the end I think the show needs new writers. It needs to be quick-paced and convincing with compelling characters, and it needs writers who will do that.

Will I Like The Rings of Power?

Some people are really enjoying this show, and I’m glad that they are! If you have not watched it yet and are wondering if you will like it, I think it comes down to a matter of expectation.

If you are looking for a deep, allegorical, true story with intriguing characters and an accurate depiction of the land of Middle-Earth then I think you’re going to be disappointed.

If you are looking for just a clean entertaining fantasy show with an interesting world and set, then you’ll probably enjoy it.

To close this article, just let me say that I did have some fun watching the show. It was cool to see some of their depictions of a Second Age Middle-Earth. But this series has not resonated with me. I’m not deeply touched like I was after watching The Lord of the Rings. In regards to Amazon’s budget and some of the things they could have done, I’m not impressed. If I had to sum this television series up in one word it would be “meh”. It could have been a lot worse, and it could have been so much better.

If you are a big Tolkien fan and really care about accuracy, then I don’t think you will like The Rings of Power. But I encourage you to form your own opinion.