I really wanted to like this. After having read almost everything Tolkien wrote in my childhood and the promotional materials and the music, I was ready to dive back into Middle Earth. But on first watch, something seemed off.
Visually, the series has the same brightness of the Hobbit. It's pretty, but doesn't feel real. Even the things that are old feel new. Costume design is okay, nothing special but not terribly egregious.
The script and acting however, falls really flat. It's stiff, lifeless, and unimaginative in places and many conversations feel incredibly unnatural, both in text and delivery. It's frequently hard to watch.
But my biggest gripe is with the in-world consistency. The glory of Middle Earth is in the world building which Tolkien meticulously designed and revised. I accept that any adaptation has to take a certain amount of creative license; the LOTR movies certainly did. The difference between the two is that the LOTR movies approached the story from the same angle as the book and made minimal adaptations in order to tell the story effectively. They also were reasonably faithful to the ethos of the world. This however, does none of this, instead having the arrogance to claim better knowledge of Tolkien's creations better than the author himself. This is a show centred on Galadriel. A Galadriel that bears precious little resemblance to the one in the source material save her name. Creative license lets you create new events, delete events, merge events, or modify events slightly to tell the story better. The problem with the way it has been done is that the original plot points will no longer fit.
The thing is, as a stand-alone series, if Tolkien had never existed or the LOTR movies never made, this would actually be a half decent serial deserving 3-4 seasons to see the story through. But, in light of its origins, it really is a let down. For some reason, the only part with any life is the Harfoots.
