The first two episodes of the new fantasy series The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power have been released on Amazon Prime. The most anticipated premiere of the fall claims the place of “Game of Thrones”, and also causes a lot of controversy and criticism among fans of J. R. R. Tolkien’s work. We have already watched the first episodes and are ready to share our impressions.
The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power takes place in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The series tells about the creation of rings of power, the great kingdom of Numenor and the union of elves and people against the forces of Evil. There is also a young Galadriel (Morved Clark). She wants to take revenge on the orcs and Morgoth’s minion Sauron, so she is looking for the hidden Darkness throughout Middle-earth in order to destroy it completely.
The creators of The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power are J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay are obscure showrunners who previously served as assistant writers on Star Trek: Infinity. But the director of the first two episodes was the experienced Spaniard Juan Antonio Bayona (“Voice of the Monster”, “Jurassic World 2”).
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The title theme was asked to be composed by Howard Shore himself, while the remaining nine hours of soundtracks were given to acclaimed composer Bear McReary (The Walking Dead, Foundation, Snowpiercer, Cloverfield Paradox). Therefore, the music for the series is somewhat reminiscent of familiar motifs from Peter Jackson’s adaptations, but also introduces new sound elements, while remaining epic and majestic, beautiful and making you listen to yourself outside the series.
Amazon is said to have spent $465 million on the first season of The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power. There is no exact confirmation of this, but judging by the schedule, costumes and scale of filming, a lot of money was allocated for the series. The novelty is not inferior in terms of the picture to The Hobbit and is many times superior to the graphics of the first trilogy by Peter Jackson. General plans, maps, battles, cities, house decorations, costumes, etc. are worked out to the smallest detail and are no less impressive than the films of the New Zealand director.
But the script and acting here is noticeably weaker. So far, history is making broad strokes, scattering many new characters and places from Middle-earth across the “map” of events. In this variety of names and plot twists, it is easy to get confused and lose the thread of the story. But there are also familiar heroes: the young Galadriel and Elrond, the creator of the rings of power Celebrimbor and the dwarf king Durin.
With the exception of a few actors, everyone else is dull and boring, including the Welsh actress Morved Clark, who plays the role of Galadriel. The situation is complicated by sluggish formulaic dialogues about Good and Evil, destiny and duty.
Not benefiting the series and modern trends in the selection of actors. Neither the author nor the editors of the site oppose blacks, any other races, sexual minorities, and so on, but there should not be black elves, dwarves and hobbits in the Tolkien legendarium project. And they are here.
In addition, the gnomes are shown without a beard, and according to the canon, they must have facial hair. And if Jackson carefully avoided this topic, not showing, but talking about this feature of the mountain people in his films, then the creators of the “Rings of Power” showed dwarf women and not only did not add beards to them, but also changed some skin color.
If suddenly in future episodes there is at least a hint of bisexuality and other love preferences of the characters, then perhaps this will finally bring down the already low user ratings of the series on various services. Once again, we will clarify that no one is against racial and sexual diversity in real life, but this should not be in canonical fantasy, simply because its creator never mentioned all this in his works.
“The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power” is both an epic and intimate series with formulaic dialogues, which is definitely not inferior to “House of the Dragon” in terms of entertainment and graphics, surpasses its competitor in epicness, but loses in intrigue and drama. And if the Game of Thrones prequel follows the beaten track, borrowing almost everything from the original project, then Rings of Power is trying to go its own independent way.
Such a scheme is risky and will definitely not appeal to fans of Tolkien’s work, especially admirers of his books, because modern trends in tolerance and racial equality completely destroy the canons of Middle-earth. At the same time, we have before us an excellent spectacular series that will easily take its rightful place among the best fantasy projects of the last decade. Expect the final review with an assessment of the entire season after the end of the series.
