‘The Rings of Power’ Premiere – A Stalled Start
Review
By YOSEF IBITAYO/Staff Writer
“Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” is Amazon Studios’ controversial attempt to graft a branch onto the decades-old redwood that is the cumulative adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth stories.
Led by nascent showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, “Rings of Power” seeks to portray the Second Age of Middle-earth using only the text of “The Lord of the Rings” and its appendices – a collection of vague and imprecise pieces of lore that serves as the bones on which the meat of Tolkien’s primary trilogy rest.
Unfortunately, the bones of “A Shadow of the Past” and “Adrift,” the first two episodes of “Rings of Power,” which premiered Sept. 1, lack substance, rendering the promised experience less like a hearty meal and more like table scraps.
The duology, while doused in imagery and dialogue meant to imitate the enrapturing architecture and storytelling of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” film trilogy, comes off more as expensively-made, poorly-written fanfiction rather than anything with even a sliver of the heart of Tolkien or Jackson.
Characters like Galadriel or Elrond spout hollow platitudes and worse dialogue ad nauseum, while possessing little in the way of likeable characteristics and even less in progressing their storylines. The only palatable aspects of the production may be the visuals and the music – difficult things to screw up in this day and age.
Our story opens not in the expected continent of Middle-earth, but instead in the heavenly realm of Valinor, homeland of elves like Galadriel, Elrond and Gil-galad (their leader and king). In this paradise, a young Galadriel must somehow deal with bullies the only way she knows how – through physical violence. Never mind the fact that the prior versions of her character would never do such a thing, say the showrunners – she’ll grow out of the violent phase.
Several centuries, a quick war and one dead brother later, the truth comes out: she hasn’t. In fact, she has grown into a warrior-princess rather than the ethereal noble lady from Jackson’s films and Tolkien’s texts. She is more than willing to leave her company of fellow elves behind to die, or to disregard the orders and chastisements of her king rather than act with an ounce of rationality. This lack of rationality, by the end of “Adrift,” leaves her stranded on a raft in the middle of the ocean with a random man named Halbrand.
Elrond, her friend, ping-pongs from ruler to ruler and realm to realm so fast that his character development – not to mention his plot – is left in the dust. Bizarrely, the show also introduces made-for-the-show characters such as the dark-skinned elf ranger Arondir and the “not-a-Hobbit” Harfoot Nori Brandyfoot, with their own “mysterious” – and meaningless – storylines around what turns out to be orcs and a mystery meteor man who’s probably a wizard.
The characters in “Rings of Power” come off as cheap knockoffs from “Lord of the Rings” more than either original creations or proper adaptations of their original depictions in the text. Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel seems to be an inverted Éowyn, quick both to anger and action and lacking in grace and wisdom, while Ismael Cruz Córdova’s portrayal of Arondir and Markella Kavenagh’s character Nori come across as off-brand versions of Aragorn and Frodo, respectively.
The show even has its own Arwen, Sam and Gandalf in Nazanin Boniadi’s Bronwyn, Megan Richards’ Poppy Proudfellow, and Daniel Weyman’s Stranger, respectively. The only character with substance is Richard Aramayo’s Elrond, whose scenes with Gil-galad, the renowned elven smith Celebrimbor and the dwarven prince Durin IV are full of the expected deference, reverence, and sorrow one would expect from an immortal being.
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The characters in “Rings of Power” come off as cheap knockoffs from “Lord of the Rings” more than either original creations or proper adaptations of their original depictions in the text.
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Thus far in “Rings of Power,” the viewer has received little in the way of character development or interesting plotlines. Instead, everything seems to be a series of set-ups to a season finale that, given the premiere, is sure to be underwhelming. The new characters, as poor imitations of members of the Fellowship, either do next-to-nothing to advance their seemingly pointless story thread or are perhaps inadvertently tokenized, as in the case of Arondir. Indeed, both episodes feel stagnant and rudderless, bobbing along in a shallow pool to the whims of childish scriptwriters.
These early outings into Middle-Earth cast into doubt the likelihood of “Rings of Power” continuing past its first season. It is impossible to say whether it should continue based solely on these first two episodes; however, if it does, it only will be by the slimmest of margins, and the producers and writers will have to work incredibly hard to salvage the jalopy they have built for themselves.
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