Pleasing the immense fanbase of Lord of the Rings was always going to be a monstrous task, and one that The Rings of Power has unfortunately failed. A disjointed soundtrack, extreme plot armour protecting most of the characters from deadly volcanic pumice, and a shockingly written script - Amazon haven’t even tried to hide the fact that this was a money-making scheme. And yet, did I watch it all? Of course I did. I, like many viewers, fell for Amazon’s tantalising trap, hoping the series must, somehow, improve. It most definitely did not.
This series felt like a long sprint through random sections of the Lord of the Rings universe
This series had the potential to make Tolkien’s universe more accessible to the wider audience. But, just as one does not simply walk into Mordor, neither does one simply condense the depth of Tolkien’s lore into just 8 episodes. Even for those of us who have heard of the Maia and the Valar, the majority of watching time was spent on the One Wiki to Rule Them All, trying to understand what was happening and who the random women in white were (I still don’t know). Making Tolkien’s lore both accessible and enjoyable for all audiences was not achieved, resulting in a disjointed world that neither stuck to the canon nor made much sense. And Tolkien, above all, always made sure his world made sense.
All in all, this series felt like a long sprint through random sections of the Lord of the Rings universe, resulting in a jumbled and disorientating 8 hours of questionable writing and over-used CGI. Middle Earth appears to have become a constantly shifting identity where geographical constancy holds no power. As meteors from Mordor randomly crush Harfoot caravans, the vastness of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings is crumpled into a condensed ball of oddly isolated and disjointed storylines. The lack of geographic recognition or connection provided for the fans only served to create a discombobulating lack of congruency, utterly destroying the immersion within the fantasy world.
And yet, did I watch it all? Of course I did
All of this negativity has one cause: the script-writing - The Rings of Power’s biggest downfall. The script is overflowing with one-dimensional character development and nonsensical one-liners such as “the sea is always right” and “nobody walks alone”. Not to mention the racial stereotyping (do the Irish harfoots even need pointing out?). As the dialect coach explained in an interview with Inverse, “[the accents are] intended to have an otherness” - and indeed it does effectively ‘other’. The cast, though, are the one saving glory. Labouring under the writers’ complete inadequacy, actors such as Morffyd Clark (Galadriel), Robert Aramayo (Elrond), Charlie Vickers (Halbrand) and Owain Arthur (Durin IV) all actually managed to create emotional connections with the audience - making their characters bearable, if not likeable.
One cast to save the season, and one script to ruin it. And Amazon, ‘The Great Deceiver’, there to profit from the slim hope that season 2 could be redeemable.
