My Take on Amazon’s New Series “Lord of The Rings: Rings of Power”

Okay…. so I know everyone has had their say or “hot take” on this but here is my viewpoint…

Let me start off by saying, it has nothing to do with the diverse casting I am HERE for it☺️ and loved to see it when I first saw the trailer drop for the series. In fact, the Southlanders in the Tolkien works were actually of darker complexion (Amazon cast mainly white actors in this series - if you went by the descriptions of Southlanders in the books, the casting would have been way more diverse). Additionally, when there are BIPOC characters on screen they don’t give their characters a significant purpose within the plot compared to the white characters within this series (albeit the plot overall in this series is stagnant), which is downright insulting to the BIPOC actor and the character they are portraying.

I am a huge Lord of The Rings fan, having read the books and watched the movies; but with Rings of Power, they tried too hard with the characters, especially Galadriel. Galadriel was already a strong female presence within J.R.R. Tolkien’s works. (J.R.R. Tolkien in fact was a huge supporter/activist for feminism and encouraged his wife and other women in his life to pursue their biggest passions). In fact, all the female characters in Lord of The Rings were empowered (many based on qualities of his wife Edith) not because they also knew how to use a sword, but because of their kindness, compassion, and the power held in their words, and sheer presence.

So the fact that they put a sword in her hand and changed Galadriel’s normal disposition (in the books and previous films) from caring and compassionate, but also intimidating just by being in her sheer presence….to this callous, unfeeling and manipulative person and defining that as being an empowered feminist is a joke. You don’t need to wield a physical weapon to be an empowered feminist. They gave her (traditionally viewed as) masculine qualities, and made her grungy even though the power was in her inner beauty, confidence, and self-assurance as an elf. This showcasing through her compassion, kindness, confidence, and self-assurance in her powers and words towards herself and others.

But yet the dwarvish women (in the books and previous movies) had beards because ALL DWARVES HAVE BEARDS, but yet did not give them beards in The Rings of Power!!! So they can give ONE strong female character a “traditionally” masculine trait -such as fighting (which in terms of “traditional gender roles” is a whole other rant I can go on forever about…), but giving a woman a beard (Because the type of characters they are (Dwarves), they all have beards REGARDLESS of gender) is seen as bad because they don’t look “conventionally attractive” or “womanly”. It’s a load of crap!!! If you are going to empower women, actually empower them, regardless of how they present themselves and how they identify, etc.

Lastly, another issue I had/still have is with the costume design, cinematography, and writing. Even though The Rings of Power had an EVEN BIGGER budget than GAME OF THRONES it does not look it in the slightest; based on the quality of the costumes that look very, VERY cheap. In multiple scenes, if you pay attention closely enough they have fabric that looks exactly like the armor underneath the actual armor because they were too lazy to put the effort into the costume design of this beautiful and expansive work Tolkien created.

Additionally, the cinematography is absolutely stagnant, contributing to the cheap appearance of the overall show the lighting in multiple scenes looked like they were on a set even when they were IN NATURE (they didn’t bother to even edit the footage!!!) Granted, some scenes have good lighting, but that’s one or two scenes out of the entirety of each episode that averages about an hour long.

Now we arrive at the writing…The writing for this series is downright awful and completely inaccurate, especially with Galadriel and Elrond’s characters (compared to how well they were written in past movie projects) having depth in their personalities and dimension to their characters). Galadriel at this point (in the Second Age where the series is supposed to be taking place) was married to her true love Celebor and at this time had already had their daughter Celebrían, who married Elrond of Rivendell. So even those who have not read the books can see the problem (LITERALLY OMITTING CRITICAL DETAILS OUT OF THE SOURCE WORK!!!!!) But Amazon being Amazon run by Bezos😒😤🤬 wrote these characters so flat that you don’t really care about them or can even relate in the slightest to them. This show barely resembles any aspect of Tolkien’s work where the original source material is from. There are NO character arcs or world-building. It takes six episodes to build up to a major event when literally twice to three times as many things have already happened in the span of one hour-long episode of Game of Thrones’s “House of Dragons” (which premiered around the same time). If I was viewing this show as an outsider and didn’t know what it was, I still wouldn’t watch it, due to the poor overall quality of the show itself.

So overall, having a diverse cast is totally fine, not every character has to be cast how they were described in the books; because representation FOR EVERYONE is VERY important. But if you plan to have BIPOC characters, don’t just have them do nothing and be stagnant; especially if you have cast them in an important role, as stated at the beginning by context clues. Because that would be a downright insult to the actor and their character making them think that all they are is filler space in episodes. On the same token, if you are going to empower women, ACTUALLY EMPOWER ALL WOMEN AND FEMALE PRESENTING CHARACTERS, regardless of how they present themselves and how they identify, etc. And if you are going to write for a fantasy show, especially within the realm of Lord of The Rings write the characters with some depth in their personalities having another dimension to their characters.

Bezos absolutely butchered this along with the writers hired to do the series. I feel that if HBO or any other streaming service for that matter had picked up Lord of The Rings: Rings of Power it would have been much better in quality of both the writing, accurate portrayal of these characters based on their personalities in the books, and the cinematography and wardrobe.

Thank you for listening to my rant….I’ll be here all week 😂