The challenges facing Amazon’s daring and seriously expensive Lord of the Rings prequel series The rings of power are numerous. Since the project was announced in 2020, many have predicted its demise, which is understandable given the trials and tribulations it faces.
For starters, it must target a broad and general audience if it is to stand any chance of recouping the staggering cost invested in production. Second, it will be constantly compared to the much-loved Peter Jackson trilogy and finally, to avoid any backlash for fans of the source material, it must respect the literature of arguably the greatest fantasy writer of all time, JRR Tolkien. No pressure. Now that the first two episodes have been released, we take a look at some of the best and worst aspects of the new series so far.
10 BEST: Cinematography and Attention to Detail
The first thing you start The rings of power is the amazing production value. The cinematography is simply stunning; the faithfulness of the characters rich. The details of the costumes are exquisite and the lighting effects are breathtaking from the first minute.
Everything is made with care and visually it immediately resembles the amazing world that Peter Jackson created in the original trilogy, all against the background of a beautiful music score composed by Bear McCreary.
9 WORST: Snow Troll Battle Series
When our nine heroes encountered a cave troll Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the RingIt was indeed bad news. The battle to take it down was gritty and difficult, requiring the collective effort and combined fighting styles of the fellowship to defeat it.
In The rings of power, the series of snow troll battles bears none of this group dynamic; there is no sense of individuals working together against overwhelming odds. First, the troll effortlessly knocks the elf soldiers away like flies. Then Galadriel draws her sword and easily sends the snow troll away after several stylish excesses, more reminiscent of the hobbit the extraordinarily imaginative battle scenes of the trilogy. Why should there be such a gap in combat skills between Galadriel and her fellow elves?
8 BEST: the scale of the world
‘s first job The rings of power is to introduce the viewer to the vastly different parts of the realm, including the Undying Lands beyond The Sundering Sea (or Belegaer for fans of the books), and the scale at which this is done is awe-inspiring.
Using beautifully crafted map sequences that wonderfully fade into real-life landscapes, the viewer is transported around the world, revealing never-before-seen angles and boundaries. The backdrops are vast and stunning, and the epic battle sequence between the elves and Morgoth’s troops at the start of Episode 1 is nothing short of breathtaking cinema.
7 WORST: Unnecessary Lore Tweaking
The source material for The rings of power is taken from Lord of the Rings and its attachments and as such Amazon has been given a degree of freedom to host its own events. But the writers must be very careful not to interfere with already established knowledge.
Unfortunately, the series has already shown signs of that. In the books, Galadriel had already turned down the chance to travel back to Valinor at the end of the First Age, when Morgoth’s forces were defeated. As a result, Gil-Galad could not have sent her back during the Second Age, rendering the entire plotline of the golden ship obsolete.
A beloved aspect of Tolkien’s works were the hobbits, a simple people who lead modest lives and are happily ignorant of world events. Opposite are the halflings who share the bloodline of the somewhat more adventurous, Belladonna Took (Mother of Bilbo Baggins).
This element is very well reflected by the introduction of the Harfoots, a traveling people and distant ancestors of the hobbits. Harfoot’s protagonist, Nori, represents the strongest link between morality and ethics, which have been a central pillar of Tolkien’s work, and this latest cinematic interpretation.
5 WORST: awkward pacing
Perhaps a necessary consequence of introducing characters and the world they inhabit; the pace of The rings of power seems a bit random at times.
Certain scenes are over in a flash, leaving the viewer wanting a whole lot more (like during the battle with Morgoth, when a Fellbeast sets fire to a giant eagle before throwing its fiery carcass into a crowd of battling Elves and Orcs, wow!), while other sequences feel a bit over-embellished and drag on longer than they should.
4 BEST: The Dwarves & Khazad-dûm
The homeland of the Dwarves is perfectly executed and has captured the scale of Khazad-dûm, as stated in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring when the community enters the mines of Moriah, and bring it to life with a bustling dwarf community.
The subterranean kingdom is beautifully created with thoughtful details such as plants growing under beams of light and huge mechanical lenses that project sunlight where needed. Durin and his fellow dwarves are made with love and care, and the rock break scene with Elrond is a lot of fun.
3 WORST: Key aspects seem distinctly un-Tolkien
This may be the aspect for which The rings of power gets the most criticism. Under the spell of the Ring was about morality. The gap between good and evil was significant, with relatively clear boundaries between the two, and the characters’ primary motivations were derived from this.
In The rings of power, the ethical scale is more nuanced and many of the characters are somewhere closer to the middle of the spectrum. This was something that worked incredibly well for George RR Martin in his A song of ice and fire series, which has room for huge twists and surprising character-redeeming arcs, but is something likely to bump into Tolkien’s literature.
2 BEST: Galadriel (The Warrior)
Morfydd Clark’s interpretation of Galadriel as an elf warrior is fantastic. She looks like her elf armor, sword slung across her back and blond hair braided over her shoulder, and she is utterly convincing in her iron determination, as she crosses an icy cliff in search of Sauron, her bitter enemy.
We know from the source material that Galadriel spent much of the Second Age fighting Sauron and so this depiction of her fits well. Despite criticism from some quarters about the authenticity of female warriors in Tolkien’s works, the author was very capable of writing strong female characters (see Eowyn).
1 WORST: Galadriel (the protagonist)
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While the depiction of Galadriel as a warrior is brilliantly executed, using her as the protagonist is problematic when viewed through the lens of established knowledge, and raises some tricky questions. Where is her husband Celeborn and their daughter Celebrían, who is said to have been born in the first centuries of the Second Age?
Likewise, the relationship between her and the Elven High King, Gil-Galad, sounds untrue. Galadriel is thousands of years older than Gil-Galad and as the only surviving member of the Noldorin leaders who left Valinor for Middle Earth, she would have been treated like an elder and probably would have been stern and commanding, not a brave and rebellious young one. low status, as depicted in the show.
The discrepancy between Galadriel in the series and those from Tolkien’s works is so great that the question arises whether the main character of the show should be Galadriel? Given Amazon’s free rein with the project, wouldn’t they have been better advised to choose another elven warrior princess (or create one) and avoid the inevitable clashes with the source material?
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