The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

As a Lord of the Rings fan, I was eagerly awaiting the origin stories of Middle-earth. Of course, I have high expectations after Lord of the Rings, which is close to perfection in terms of time and fiction. Because they have a considerable budget and opportunities, that's why I gave my points by watching the first episode right away. Although it is the beginning part, I can say that I liked the first part very much. The character of Galadriel could have been more strong, but she is still successful. We will warm up to the characters better over time.

Characters: 8 Story: 10 Decor and venue: 10 Costume: 10 Music: 10.

We all know liberties were taken with this series so my review is not based on faithfulness to the source material.

A lot of the marketing for this show led people to fear it would be woke. I didn't see anything like that. I wasn't rolling my eyes or cringing at any virtue signalling.

The pace is a little rough in parts but since it's the beginning of the series I almost expect a little dawdling. There's a lot going on, things to be set up and introduced etc...

The characters and the story is engaging though, the cinematography was well done, and the score seemed to fit... so I'm honestly excited to see where this series goes.

Definitely give this a shot and decide for yourself.

A pleasant surprise, the cinematography is impeccable, the characters quite well done, the plot looks like a link between the stories of the First Age, the Silmarillion and the stories of the Lord of the Rings of the Third Age, the rhythm of narration is pleasant albeit a bit slow. If the outcome of the series will be to narrate how Sauron forged the Rings of Power, it will definitely be something to watch. Until this moment, I think that in general terms, at least the first chapter delivers. I think enough to be cautiously optimistic about what the next 7 episodes might turn out to be. I must add, again that I am pleasantly surprised.

This is, unfortunately, pretty awful. It just doesn't "feel right", whether it's the non-stop, constantly almighty music, the awful dialogue, the over-the-top acting, the uninteresting plot, or the ridiculous set-up for some of the scenes.

It's extremely dramatic, to the point where it's laughable, also at times where it really doesn't need to be. The biggest issue is that is that it never "sucked me in", and I didn't feel like I was observing a story unfold. It felt like I was watching TV.

There were maybe two or three times during the first two episodes, where it started to draw me in a little bit. Then I was utterly thrown out of it because of the next scene, every time. It's boring and uninteresting, so why should we watch?

Although I liked some of the landscapes/cities (in my opinion most of that was done much better than in those Hobbit movies), some others seemed to be very cheap greenscreen settings. Don't really get this... there was so much money available to do better.

Most of the behaving of nearly all main characters doesn't make sense at all. Galadriel is worst. Just count how many times and how fast she changes her mind about what to do with Adar (!?). That woman should be one of the most powerful beings at the time with hundereds years of age. Instead she acts like a 13 year old Teenager.

Biggest disappointment is storytelling. There are so many things that do not make sense at all. Watch some videos of people explaning them in detail, that would take too much time.

I'm not even talking about points that differ from Tolkien's books. It's things like: you see Harfoots travelling through landscapes for what has to last weeks or months (considering they are small, walking and carrying all of their stuff without the support of horses) but at the same time you see other characters for only some (2 or 3) days on the island of Numenor?!

Last but not least: if you do points I mentioned above that badly, minorities/genders (and whatever else should be shown here) won't be seen equal and can't be taken serious. I'm so disapointed in this desperate try to present different strong "unusual" characters throughout all storylines but letting them act like total fools most of the time. That should have been done better...