There's so much going on behind the scenes of "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" that I'm tempted to write a whole separate post just breaking down all the different sources of drama. However, that would be doing the show a disservice, which deserves to to be evaluated on its own merits. "The Rings of Power" is an ongoing series that acts as a prequel to Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy. For those familiar with Tolkien lore, it condenses multiple events from the Second Age of Middle Earth, using the last days of Numenor and the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron as focal points.
We have several interweaving stories. The most prominent one involves Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), an elven warrior who is zealously devoted to finding and defeating the evil Sauron. After becoming lost at sea, she travels with the Aragon-like Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), to the isolated human kingdom of Numenor. Meanwhile, Elrond (Robert Aramayo), at the behest of the High King Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker), tries to convince his friend Durin (Owain Arthur), a dwarven prince, to help the elves beat back a mysterious blight. A young hobbit-like harfoot, Nori (Markella Kavenagh) discovers and befriends a gigantic, voiceless, Stranger (Daniel Weyman), who fell from the night sky, just before the harfoot migration is set to begin. Finally, in the Southlands, there's forbidden love brewing between an elven soldier, Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova), and a human healer, Browyn (Nazanin Boniadi), as they come under attack by invading orcs, lead by the mysterious Adar (Joseph Mawle).
Then we have familiar names like Isildur (Maxim Baldry) and Elendil (Lloyd Owen), heroes who were namechecked heavily in the films, along with more obscure characters like the great smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) and Numenor's Queen Miriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson). Whatever you want to say about "The Rings of Power," it was put together by creators who clearly knew and loved Tokien's work. Many major characters were created specifically for the show, like all the harfoots, but they exist in what is recognizably Middle Earth. The storytelling is designed to be epic and scope and the production is very ambitious. Multiple seasons have been planned, and the press has been hyping up the show's unusually large budget. The money definitely shows up onscreen, as "The Rings of Power" is one of the most gorgeous series ever made, with visuals that absolutely rival anything from the Peter Jackson trilogy.
And speaking of Peter Jackson, he wasn't involved in "The Rings of Power," but the series takes all of its visual cues from his movies. In some cases, it feels like it's evoking specific scenes and settings, especially when it comes to the communities built by the elves. There are some updates to the aesthetics, notably casting non-Caucasian actors in roles across all the different races of Middle Earth, and increasing the number of female characters - Durin gets a strong-willed wife named Disa (Sophia Nomvete) - but it's nothing that ever feels incongruous with Tolkien's stories. All the actors are very good, and I appreciate that the show's creators favored relative unknowns to make sure the audience stays firmly immersed in the fantasy.
However, despite all the good intentions and all the resources at its disposal, "The Rings of Power" is merely promising at this stage, rather than great. Two of the four storylines work well, and have compelling, interesting characters. The other two - really anything that has to do with the bland human beings - frequently struggle. It's obvious that the writers didn't have much to work with, trying their best to expand on fairly scant information from the "Lord of the Rings" appendices. While they don't lean on the prequel aspect as much as "The Hobbit," far too much of this year feels like it's setting up the pieces for future events. They also tend to fall back on very old storytelling tropes and stale formulas.
I think that one of the major issues is that "Rings of Power" is trying to do too much too fast. The more successful parts of the show are the smaller stories, focusing on specific relationships and showing how people of different cultures interact on a more intimate level. It's at its worst any time it tries to do anything too epic, with characters we barely know. I had high hopes for Arondir and Bronwyn's romance, for instance, but the two scarcely have any time together before they're obliged to start fighting orcs and giving inspirational speeches. I'm especially worried about Galadriel - I like Morfydd Clark, but the future Lady of Lothlorien clearly needs to get a few things out of her system.
Fortunately, the show has a lot of good talent on its side, and at least another season or two to course correct. I'm glad the wait is over and this series exists in the form that it does. Its brand of fantasy may no longer be en vogue, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have an audience, or a story worth telling.
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