The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
Take a Shot: whenever a character gives a dramatic speech to an awestruck crowd of onlookers.
Do NOT Take a Shot: each time the location switches to another plotline.
Pour one Out: for Ian Holm and Christopher Lee.
Finish your Drink: once the titular rings are finally introduced during the last twenty minutes of the season finale.
By: Christian Harding (Two Beers) –
Announced a whopping four and a half years ago and generating enough online debates and discourses to fill the Mines of Moria, Amazon Prime’s hotly contested original series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has officially concluded its first season. Whether or not Amazon was the right home for the legacy of JRR Tolkien’s world of Middle Earth was a moot point, because the series was happening whether fans wanted it or not. Therefore, before a single frame from the series was released to the public, a significant number of people had already made up their minds about whether or not they were going to give the show their time.
Given the longstanding history of Tolkien’s library of works, some level of skepticism was not only understandable but necessary, especially with the involvement of one of the largest corporations in the entire world. Even this writer had their fair share of worries and reservations going into this series, but all that can be done now is to express my honest opinion; having watched the entire first season, and with all that in mind, here is your super duper hot take for the day… It was good! Pretty good, actually, but certainly not without some reservations.
A Toast
First and foremost, the one aspect that just about everyone can agree on about The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is the quality of its production values. Amazon reportedly spent somewhere around a billion dollars on this series, although how much of that was just to secure the rights to Tolkien’s works is believed to be somewhere around $250 million. But regardless of how overinflated those numbers are, the fact of the matter is that all of the money really is up there on the screen. Without hyperbole, this is likely the most “cinematic” – for lack of a more fitting term – and well-polished television and/or streaming series this writer has ever watched, at least in terms of something of this production size and scale. Everything seen and heard within each episode, from the visual effects, to the sets/costumes, makeup, and especially Bear McCreary’s lush, varied musical score, is absolutely first rate. Even the most furious Reddit trolls cannot deny that, although of course we all know that some pretty images and nice music can only make up for the narrative side of things for so long.
Production value aside, one element that was a real source of uncertainty beforehand is the established tone of everything. There were plenty of worthwhile discussions and articles in the time leading up to the show’s premiere that articulated some of the fears right from the moment this series was first announced in early 2018 – specifically about how the hallmarks of modern “prestige” television are greatly at odds with the works of JRR Tolkien. To sum up my own thoughts on the matter, I didn’t want this series to just be Game of Thrones set in Middle Earth, dripping with heaps of nihilism and pathos at each possible turn, and with little of the emotional sincerity that made Peter Jackson’s film trilogy soar to such emotional heights.
Fortunately this wasn’t quite as much of a problem as was anticipated, and there are plenty of extended scenes and moments that would fit right in with the original trilogy. Sequences like the introduction to the Island kingdom of Númenor in episode three, the Dwarves’ “Plea to the Rocks” from episode four, and the Harfoots migration montage that opens episode five would fit like a glove in Jackson’s trilogy. Of course, there is the conundrum of a series that features very strong environmentalist themes being made and released by one of the largest megacorporations in the entire world (to say nothing of The Boys and its overt anti-capitalist messaging premiering on the same streaming platform), but that’s an entirely different discussion.
One of the most common complaints made about this series (at least from honest viewers who didn’t make up their minds about it once the casting of non-white actors was announced) is about the pacing, and how everything moves along too slowly or each plot point is too drawn out. While this writer certainly can’t argue with any of that, it was only after watching the concurrently airing HBO fantasy epic series House of the Dragon sprint ahead at full speed to get to the supposed meat of the story that there’s now a greater appreciation for how much The Rings of Power took its time to let its story unfold and give enough room for each major character and crucial plot point to leave an impact.
Less easy to defend is the seemingly disconnected nature of the main plot lines throughout the show. Many of the stories feel separate from one another, or don’t really come together until the last minute, if at all. With the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, both in book and movie form, every character in each major plot thread was working together towards a unifying end goal, but that isn’t quite the case here. The individual stories all work and are entertaining in their own rights, but it wouldn’t be entirely truthful to say there wasn’t at least one of them that could’ve been trimmed down or removed entirely and it wouldn’t have impacted the overall flow of the series much. Surely in future seasons, the creators intend to bring everyone together, but until that point, every story just feels a bit separate from one another.
As for the ensemble cast of characters, there are simply too many to name, so I’ll just highlight a few here. Returning characters from the Lord of the Rings trilogy include Elven royalty Galadriel, as portrayed by Morfydd Clark (more on her in the next section), and Robert Aramayo as the half-Elven Elrond, the latter of who’s connection with the Dwarven Prince Durin IV (portrayed by Owain Arthur) provides the best character dynamic of the entire series, and by a pretty solid margin at that, with the relationship between Elrond and Durin not merely being a rehash of the odd couple quibbling between Legolas and Gimli.
The entire plotline involving the Elves of Lindon and their dealings with the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm provides the real heart of the series, and is the lone major storyline from The Rings of Power that is truly worthy of JRR Tolkien’s creation. Also worth praising is Game of Thrones alumni Joseph Mawle’s turn as arguably the central antagonist of the series, Adar, leader of the Orcs and Uruks. Mawle’s role in the series has largely been absent from all the marketing and promotional materials, so watching his introduction and increasingly pivotal role in the story play out was a very pleasant surprise, given that he lends a real sense of depth and personality to the otherwise monolithic boogeymen that have populated both previous film trilogies set in Middle Earth.
Listening to Bear McCreary’s score on repeat for the rest of the year.
Beer Two
While on the subject of the ensemble cast of characters, that brings us to arguably the central flaw of the series. While there’s no denying flaws of varying sizes involving the show’s writing, there is one central flaw that persists throughout the majority of this first run of the series, and unfortunately it concerns the nominal protagonist of the show, i.e. the portrayal of Galadriel, the character whom the entire main plot of the series is structured around.
To be clear, Morfydd Clark’s performance is not the issue, since she has a very strong presence and lends a lot of gravitas to the role. Rather, it’s the way the character is written that falls short. For a decent chunk of the season, Galadriel is portrayed as very one-note, driven only by her single-minded goal of vengeance and a quest to vanquish her foes, thought to have been defeated centuries before the series takes place. It’s only through her blossoming friendship with the show’s Aragorn stand-in Halbrand (played well by Charlie Vickers) that Galadriel’s journey is called into question and the toll it’s taking on her is examined, with the eventual endpoint of the main storyline highlighting just how ill-advised her course of action was. It’s a commendable lesson to teach the protagonist of a mega-budget fantasy action series, but the flimsy, inconsistent writing for Galadriel up to that point can’t help but cheapen the impact a bit.
Verdict
On the whole, while it doesn’t quite manage to strike that perfect balance between faithfulness to the source material and being able to stand alone as its own piece of pulp entertainment quite as well as Peter Jackson’s film trilogy did, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power still manages to be a satisfactory show in its own right. Despite occasionally falling into the conventions of modern “prestige” television from the streaming era, it manages to pay proper respect to the established tone of JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth, even if the plotting falls short of the production value and takes some time to play catch-up. Nobody currently knows how this series will play out during the rest of its proposed five season long run, but as far as starting points go, this is a pretty solid one.
