The Rings of Power (Amazon)

Remove all ads!

Anybody here checked it out?

I haven't yet, and there's a specific reason why.

On some level, and I realize it's me, I just thoroughly dislike race lifting in any and either direction. Casting Benedict Cumberbatch as Noonian Singh Khan or Charlton Heston redfacing it as Chief Joseph or turning Liet Kynes into a Black woman, I dislike all of it equally.

So I'll be on the table about it, I couldn't bring myself to even start it hearing that Amazon was going to bring us Black Hobbits and Black Elves and Black Dwarves to bring Tolkien-verse into Woke times. I realize people will disagree with me. It's not the mere fact of Black characters and diversity that I object to. My attitude is, as the characters were in the source material, leave them be.

But I'm all for NEW characters in NEW stories that explore previously neglected walks of life. I have a certain appreciation for the animated movie, Encanta, because it explores the lives of everyday Colombians that have nothing to do with cocaine and drug cartels and all that. I myself am First Nations, and would love nothing more than for new stories and new characters grounded in Indigenous life and experience to really gain traction in mainstream media. And new stories about the continuing plight of Blacks in America, or in Africa (e.g. I liked the Beast movie btw), I'm down for that.

But there's more ...

I've had a chance to view a lot of the online reviews. Almost everyone is trashing it. And the most frequent objection is not what I just talked about, but Galadriel (one of my favorite characters of all time) has been turned into a Mary Sue and a Karen on steroids in one thoroughly dislikable package.

Ok, finished my rant.

What do you guys think? Any and all opinions welcome, as long as they remain within the rules.

 

The visuals were fantastic. That's about all I can say about it that was really any good.

Galadriel was ridiculous and full of hubris. Just a couple of scenes as examples: First episode I think, Galadriel and several fellow elven warriors spread out in a cave are attacked by a cave troll. All the other warriors are basically just standing around getting crushed and thrown about by the troll, but up comes Galadriel and she handily kills the troll single handedly within seconds. In another scene, Galadriel is imprisoned by the Numenorians; she is being let out of her cell by FOUR Numenorian guards; pan away from the action while you hear some scuffling, come back, and she is shoving all four guards to lock them into her cell somehow. They obviously couldn't come up with a plausible way to actually accomplish this, thus the pan away from the action.

The whole Harfoot (early nomadic Hobbits apparently) situation was stupid and a bore. They sing songs about "nobody goes off trail and nobody walks alone", yet any injured are just left behind to fend for themselves with no help offered.

Overall the episodes were slow and boring, but I did like the finale.

As to the racial issue you brought up, I tend to agree regarding specific characters, but I don't really care if they add color to a whole race that may not have been considered multi-colored originally. And I did like the Arondir character.