Rings of Power review

I really hate it when media that has been pilloried for "woke casting" turns out to be rubbish. Whether it was the female-led "Ghostbusters", the Star Wars sequels, or now "Rings of Power", there was a noisy segment of the internet (and supposed fandom) that reacted to the casting by condemning the whole thing. And since the internet doesn't allow for any sort of nuance, thereafter any and all criticism of the thing gets lumped in with the same racism and sexism that motivates that.

All of which is rather annoying.

Anyway, I finished "The Rings of Power" this week, and I'm afraid it sucks.

In fairness, there is an awful lot to like about the show: the look and feel of it is great, the casting is universally great, and they do a really good job with the material that they are given. Basically, if it wasn't that that material was just rubbish, the show would be great!

The most fundamental issue with the show is quite simply that they're trying to build an adaptation spanning multiple years of TV, but they're basing it on virtually no source material. Not only did Tolkien not actually write all that much on the Second Age, but Amazon only actually hold the rights to the even more miniscule amount in the appendices of "The Lord of the Rings" (plus one or two other specific things). I forget exactly who it was, but some wise person said something about "butter spread over too much bread"... somehow, that all comes to mind here. There's just not enough that happens to justify nine hours of TV, and the notion of many other seasons of this doesn't bode well.

The other fundamental problem concerns Galadriel. I should note that, as with everyone else, the casting here is perfect, and she does a good job with the portrayal she is asked to give. And that portrayal would also be absolutely spot-on... if this was the Dragonlance show and she was Laurana, the Golden General. But this isn't Galadriel, the noted and powerful sorceress. In short, they've turned her into the bog standard badass action woman. Good job, you guys!

The only other thing that really warrants discussion occurs in episode 6, which is the great big set-piece battle of the season. This was clearly their version of Helms Deep, where a small force faces off against much stronger forces, all while others race to their aid. Except that, unlike in Helms Deep, the defenders don't have extensive and impregnable walls around them. By rights, they should be slaughtered. And, unlike in Helms Deep, the reinforcements don't actually know that the battle is actually happening, nor where it is happening, or the need for urgency.

But the biggest issue with the battle is this: at various points the show cuts away from the battle (at night) to the Numenoreans racing to their aid (daytime), and then back to the battle (at night). Just one problem: the Numenoreans are coming from the West, which means that dawn should come to them later than at the battle. Unless, I suppose, they're riding so fast that they literally travel backwards in time.

I'm afraid the whole thing is just so spectacularly stupid as to undercut everything that's good about the episode. And since this was their big set piece... yeah, not good.

And despite that, I fully intend to watch the next season. Unlike "Wheel of Time", I'm sufficiently invested in the setting that I really want to give it a chance to improve. But it's the same as with the later Star Wars films - I'm now going in with increasingly desperate hope rather than expectation. Still, hope is never mere, even if it is meagre.