This season alone cost $250M to make, yet little to none of this investment of time and money was spent in the writer’s room.

– Peter Hortensius, Head Writer @ Crude-Mirror.com

Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is widely regarded as one of the greatest fantasy works of all time. The same too is said about director Peter Jackson’s film trilogy of the same name. This has naturally led to a franchise that has been kept alive for the past 20 years across all forms of media, from video games to audiobooks and the (unfortunately handled) Hobbit prequels. Regardless of quality, they were products that made money hand over fist.

Now, after years of complicated business deals, rights disputes, and a pandemic, the long-awaited Rings of Power series has reintroduced Middle Earth to the screen.

However, the online community’s chaos and viciousness stiffened much of the momentum the show was aiming for. This criticism came from several parties, from online trolls to legitimate Tolkien fans, most of which were geared towards the race-swapping of the cast and deviation from Tolkien’s novels.

Related Article: “How to Incorporate Diversity into Fantasy Works”

– Crude-Mirror.com

Our Review

Setting and Scope

The biggest challenge with this series is working with the source material they had no legal film rights to the Lord of the Rings literature. Amazon only has the film rights to the appendices that read more like a historical account (similar to HBO’s House of the Dragon). The period this show covers is what’s known as the “Second Age”, which encompasses a period of over 3000 years. However, the filmmakers have decided to condense all the events spanning millennia into a rather dense period of several years. It is somewhat apparent that the filmmakers believed telling the entire story of the Second Age is impossible without constantly recasting their non-elven characters, especially the human characters.

Well, we call B***S***!

A majority of the characters we care about in this season are either immortal (the elves) or have long lifespans (the Dwarves and Numenorians), so making a series that spans over a century is completely plausible. The first season of The Witcher had their stories told through many years, and they can do this here.

An Unrecognizable Galadriel

One of the more contested parts of ROP is its portrayal of Galadriel.

In short, this character is not the Galadriel from the wise divine figure from the films (and I don’t mean this in a good way). It’s clear that the writers believe the only way to make a strong female character is to give them a sword and chop enemies left and right. Galadriel didn’t need such martial prowess to be an independent and compelling character. It was her divine presence and shining wisdom, a character that can humble you just by staring.  

Unfortunately, and it’s a hard thing to say, Galadriel is a complete Mary Sue. That is, a character that is inexplicably good at everything. Even when taking a volcano eruption to the face, she just shrugs it off. 

At least Eowin had moments of fear before the big battle and had a broken arm when fighting the witch king. Here Galadriel effortlessly took out a troll that took the entire Fellowship forever to kill.

Being so plot-protected wouldn’t be so bad if she had good qualities to connect with, but that’s another problem, she has no personality traits other than being a hothead. Throughout the series, she deliberately antagonizes everyone around her, even talking down to her friend Elrond. There are no moments of Galadriel being wise or a genuine mentor. The closest thing she had to a mentoring role was trying to help one of the survivors after the eruption; even then, it was quickly forgotten.

The one argument I can see around this is this was Galadriel before bearing one of the three elf rings. But if it is because of just wearing the elven ring That she becomes the Wise elf sage, we know that is a cop-out. If Galadriel does become more of a wise figure, it has to be learned on her own through failure because that’s how character development works.

The Southlands

The other main plotline follows The Southlands, the future domain of Mordor (as if the map location wasn’t obvious enough). 

The orcs are led by Adar, who was among the first elves to be mutated on that would later turn into orcs. Despite not being fully transformed, he does develop a kinship with his more advanced brethren seeking to establish the Southlands as a homeland for his fellow orcs. Adar is one of the more interesting characters introduced as he gives a side to the orcs we haven’t seen before. 

Other characters however are lacking in any real depth. Bronwyn at first started out alright as a single mom and a healer who not so secretly has a fling with the elf Arondir. However, her character began to miss some pieces when she starts leading her village. Being a village healer to leading your people is a good concept but no context. After warning her village about intruding orcs, she suddenly gives a rallying speech about fighting the enemy.  

Nothing in this show convinced me she is a leader worth following if anything, she’s incompetent from abandoning a perfectly defendable fortress to making a speech that ever cliched “fight with me” so much that half the villagers just fled; nothing has convinced me she a worthy leader and she’s supposed to be this inspiring figure. 

Bronwyn’s “relationship” with Arondir is also very poorly executed, as they have nothing but awkward conversations and speak in poetry that has nothing to do with anything.

As for Arondir himself, while it’s clear they were trying to emulate the stoicism of the elves, without the right direction, his performances come across as very bland. His purpose doesn’t seem to provide any purpose other than as a generic DnD party leader and to personally experience the humans’ hatred of elves.

The Numenorians

One of the parts I was interested going in was the appearance of the lost kingdom of Numenor – the civilization that would seed kingdoms like Gondor in their wake.

Visually, the city looks great – resembling more of a Greco-Roman look. As great as Numenor looks, it’s a setting that has sadly gotten old fast. Mostly it’s because it delves into subplots that feel very tacked on. The chancellor’s xenophobic colonial plot, Isildur’s sister romancing the chancellor’s son, and Isildur’s sailing trials do nothing but stall the plot.

I don’t care about these politics because the character is so one-dimensional. It stalls the plot for no other reason but to preach of seeing it’s what’s happening now. They literally pulled off a South Park “taking our jobs” moment.

Furthermore, none of these new characters we care about. The only Numenorian character I particularly liked was Elendil, the future king of Gondor. Even then, his inclusion gets sidelined by other poorly developed plots that add nothing, such as Isildur’s failed bid to be a sailor.

However, Elendil and Isildur raise another problem about telling the entire first age saga, a period of several thousand years into just a handful of years. I understand the challenges since the human characters would need to be created, but this could be done as Elves are immortal, and Dwarves live for centuries. Even the Numenorians live longer than normal humans (unless the writers “just kind of forgot” about that). There were always methods to telling this story faithfully. It may have been a challenge for the writing room, but seeing how much production value they were willing to put on screen, this could have been done.

Furthermore, if ROP started at the beginning of the Second Age, it would make a lot more sense for  Elendil and Isildur to be introduced much later – closer to the end of that age when things escalate, and The Last Alliance would be formed.

So Many Stories to See, But No Plot to be Found

This may be a subject for another article, but the biggest problem with ROP is that it is tackling way too many stories at once. Even for a large-scale epic, if you are going to tell multiple stories at once, you need to have a focus that nails them together. In ROP, nothing connects any of these stories the only thing that ties this story is the emerging Sauron (again).

The issue is at least until halfway through, there is no plot driving the story. Instead, most characters have their own storylines that don’t connect. When following multiple-character stories, you must begin small and gradually build your cast. 

In the LOTR it starts with a prologue and Frodo in the shire then the fellowship is formed. So when the fellowship parts way, we know them well enough to carry their stories alone. In ROP, the characters are introduced randomly and are far apart.

The Harfoots discovering the Stranger has nothing to do with Numenor politics Or Galadrials vengeance quest. You must start with a narrow focus to build your story, even in a TV series. You can throw in 4 different plots in your first episode not. Such choices kill the pacing and character arcs.

The Action

I appreciate the gorier tone when fighting the orcs. However, they over-stylized the fighting, especially when it came to the elves. The most mocked example is directed at Galadriel from being tossed into the air by a sword or single-handedly overpowering guards offscreen. Not to mention the sword training scene ever put to screen.

I understand that elves have precise fighters compared to the brute force of men and dwarves, but they are always quick to kill. They weren’t dancing around half the time, just the camera. There’s a limit to how far you make a style look unique without it becoming silly.

The rest of the fighting is heavily edited or added in CGI jumps that look too fake. 60 million an episode, and they couldn’t find any real stunt coordinators.

The Overly Modern Themes

One of the core themes of LOTR is setting aside one prejudice to fight a greater evil. It is a take on racism, but the movie does this in a way that conflicts with its own internal universe and a stab at the modern world.

To get what I mean, the “taking ur Jobs” scene makes no sense in an Isolationist society like Numenor with no contact with the Elven world. Maybe if they depicted Numenor as “Truly Diverse” with a sizable population of Elves and Dwarves, those grievances would have more weight. But one Elf enters and suddenly, the plebs of Numenor begin trike torch Rally. I don’t go Lord of the Rings to be lectured about socioeconomics.

Yes, the Lord of the Rings has a very strong anti-prejudice message, but they consist of a shared history of betrayal and reconciliation. Shows like this can have IRL socioeconomic commentary to make, but certainly not as sloppily handled as this.

Conclusion

I can’t act like no effort was put into it. The effects and costumes look incredible, and some character relationships, like Elrond and Durin, are genuine. As an objective series, I would rank it as “Okay, ” which is the problem.

When you are making a Prequel to Lord of the Rings, one of the greatest fantasies of all time, it presents a very high standard to follow. The best way to summarize the quality Is just the title alone. “The Rings of Power” is not only repetitive but sounds like a mockbuster of a much better title. And that’s what this series is in a nutshell, a mockbuster with a lot of money.

When you allocate a billion dollars for this supposed 5 season saga in your show, you can’t put pretty images and say it’s a masterpiece. Pretty images do not define the greatest fantasies, characters and stories define them, and ROP lacks nearly every quality.

Instead of a unified story, we have a loose association of plots that don’t connect. Instead of developed characters, we have self-inserts by writers more interested in projecting their own personal politics instead of making it fit in this universe.

Nearly all the characters are bland or unlikable, the story takes too long to get its plot going and the worst thing is that there is nothing original about this show. So much of the story beat is plainly recycled from the films, without the charm or heart that came with it.

The Lord of the Rings is timeless, The Rings of Power will fade from memory in a decade.