"Without a sword, what am I to be?"
Hello everyone!
I don't plan on going into too much detail, as I might just wait for the season to conclude before I do so, but I couldn't say nothing. It's not an actual review of the two episodes, and I'll do a breakdown of the season as a whole after we wrap up.
However, I did want to share some of my initial thoughts because ... well, I have thoughts.
Who doesn't?
Considering the fact Amazon has literally turned off the reviewing option because of the reactions, and you have to ask yourself: is it because they just can't stand so many positives? Or are they afraid the house of cards will come tumbling down with all the negatives?
Your call.
But Rings of Power is here, whether we like it or not.
As I said, this is a sort of standalone post and more or less a rambly one, so there won't be any links or anything down below. You can obviously search for Tolkien-related posts, as I do have them, but overall this is an introspection.
Rings of Power opens up with a half hour prologue giving us a brief rundown of what the Elves were up to before we ran into them in Middle-Earth, and that's brave considering Amazon didn't, in fact, get rights for the Silmarillion, only for the original trilogy and its Appendices.
But that in itself isn't a problem.
The problem is the would-be "rockstar" looks on the Elves with their short hair - did budgeting not include getting them long wigs? - and the incorrect map shown to us when we're told the Elves sailed to Middle-Earth to wage war on Morgoth, to start. The map we're shown is the map of Middle-Earth as we know and love it, but in fact, there's more to the land at that particular moment in time. Much more, to the North, where most battles were fought, and which got utterly destroyed when the big bad was vanquished.
Anyway, we switch to Galadriel fully then, our protagonist who's telling the story, and she explains how one rose out of Morgoth's ruin - Sauron - and how her brother Finrod Felagund swore he'd hunt the Maia down.
Tough luck as he dies before he can do that, but Galadriel takes up this "mission" and goes on the hunt herself, to avenge her fallen brother.
Thus far it all tracks, in a way, HOWEVER then Amazon does its first mighty woke thing in that they believe the only way Galadriel has any agency or agenda is if they turn her into his obsessed banshee who cares nothing about the people under her lead and will stop at nothing until she finds and mangles Sauron with her own bare hands.
A good physical representation of this is her brother's dagger which she clings to like a lifeline, but after some Wonder Woman-worthy stunts, her companions literally tell her to sod off. So home to Lindon they go, and I have to give credit where credit is due, the Elven capital is breathtaking, as is the city of Eregion later on when we see it.
But then we run into the Elves proper. And they're all very Greek.
Seriously, have a look at the Elven wardrobe in Lindon (outside of maybe Gil-Galad) and tell me you don't immediately think about the Greek era. Some will say 'but that's GOOD, classical Greek time was the high point for the Greeks, and this is the high point for the Elves!'
Yeah let me correct you right there.
The reason why Lord of the Rings (and to an extent The Hobbit) worked so well, and why fantasy settings work as well as they do, is because they DON'T visually remind you of any modern day culture. It breaks immersion if and when they do, and trust me, seeing all the Greek fits and golden laurel wreaths on the Elves does exactly that. We're not in Athens, people!
Anyway, to make the story short: the High King, who in books is someone incredibly intelligent, not quite prophetic but close to, and happens to be Galadriel's great-nephew, is here turned into nothing more than a politician moving figurines across the board. The show also conveniently seems to forget, or takes pains not to draw effort to the fact that ELROND is the one who's foresighted.
In this he's a glorified speech writer which is a modern concept. Why would a figure as legendary and inspiring as Gil-Galad, who fought at the tail end of the First Age against Morgoth, NEED a speech writer in the first place?
But we need to make Elves human to relate to them better, I guess, and pack Galadriel up to send her to Valinor, which supposedly is the first time in their history.
No, Amazon. That's the way home for every Elf. They could return as soon as the end of the First Age.
Naturally she ditches them on the high seas and swims back to Middle-Earth (I kid you not), getting picked up by a raft and almost eaten by a sea monster (Jormungandr, is that you?) before she and her mortal companion, this dude named Halbrad who's apparently from the "Southlands" (this is just Mordor on the map, mind) get picked up by a ship.
The other side-stories don't really draw too much attention outside of Elrond's visit to Khazad-Dum which I actually thoroughly enjoyed. The kingdom in its heyday is something to behold, but more than that I'm impressed by a scene between Elrond and Prince Durin, which emphasizes how little Elves pay attention to time - but to any mortal race, time is finite.
And Durin's got an axe to grind, or better yet a hammer, because his supposed best friend has ditched him for twenty years, is now looking for help (because Celebrimbor needs to build a forge) and hasn't even thought of asking a simple 'How are you?'. Durin's wife Disa is also pure delight, the most animated character of the whole two episodes for now.
There's one down in "Southlands" where Gil-Galad has posted watchtowers, though the why is a good question here. There WERE watches on the borders of Mordor, but this happened after the Last Alliance and they were mortal; here, they seem to only serve the purpose of fuelling an ill-fated love story between an Elf watchman and mortal healer, but something's brewing down there and Sauron's apparently prepping to go make his home base.
He's also apparently lousy about personal effects because for some reason, even though the battles were waged up North, he leaves the hilt of his sword there, which is found by the healer's son, as you do.
And finally, the Hobbits. Oh, I'm sorry, Harfoots, because apparently they aren't Hobbits (though joke's on the writers because Harfoots are one of the three branches of Hobbits overall). There isn't much to say about them other than there's an idiot named Nori who finds a man in the crater his meteor left when he fell to earth, and she then makes it her mission to help acclimate him, but it looks like he siphons energy from his surroundings, killing off what he siphons from.
Apparently he also needs to find a place with a specific constellation visible from it, or the constellation itself. This can't be Gandalf and I'm going to scream if it is, because Gandalf arrives AFTER the Rings are forged and does it with modern conveyance, aka a ship. Not an unreliable, GPS-challenged meteor!
But there you have it. That's the foundation for the full season that's about to unfold, and while I can agree the visuals are stunning - New Zealand remains as gorgeous as ever, obviously - the rest needs some serious work.
The writing is bland, from the very pale imitation of Galadriel's prologue out of Fellowship of the Ring to this one's, with some almost word-to-word shadowing, to Elrond copying Gimli's comments about Moria almost exactly.
Also on that topic: Celebrimbor is the Lord of all the Elves in Eregion. He's someone fairly important. Yet dude apparently takes Elrond for a leisurely stroll to the gates of the Dwarven kingdom, all on their lonesome, and then hikes back home after Elrond goes in! Seriously, did the budged not include horses, at least?!
Rings of Power tries its hardest, but as a fantasy show it feels mediocre at best and needs tighter writing, less wooden performances, and definitely less "humanizing" all around to make things "approachable": if your only clue an Elf is an Elf is their pointy ears, you missed a vital part of Tolkien's writing in that they are a different RACE and as alien to humans as Hobbits.
And as a Tolkien adaptation ... it fails. It compresses the timeline so much and tries to infuse our own human perception on things so much that it doesn't seem magical at all, and certainly doesn't give the warm and fuzzy feeling you get while reading any of the books - it gives whiplash.
The problems this show has are numerous and it's riddled with them; I'm going to see if I can hang on for the rest of the season and into season two, as there's promise that there MIGHT be something better on the horizon with characters that thus far haven't made their appearances even if they already exist.
But overall, Amazon takes plots away from perfectly acceptable characters and shoves them towards those who had their own, but were apparently not important enough. It messes up character dynamics and relationships right off the bat. And most insultingly, it continues the trend of needing to dumb down the male characters to make sure the female(s) look great and smart and brilliant.
Newsflash: group effort is a thing. Also, equality doesn't work like that.
No one reads Tolkien for that, or for "modernizing". We read it for the magic and to be transported elsewhere, and for the bonding.
And to everyone saying IT'S INSPIRED BY TOLKIEN! no assholes. It's BASED ON TOLKIEN, which isn't the same thing. Look it up in a dictionary.
3/10, for now.
xx
*images and video not mine
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