Things are not looking good for the future of Prime Video judging by fan reaction to the first two episodes of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power which debuted Thursday on the streaming service.
It has been said the series will end up costing billions of dollars with an insider offering the series has to succeed (via Insider):
“The reason why it’s going to succeed is because the executives at Amazon need it to succeed. If it doesn’t succeed, there’s going to be a big question from Andy Jassy and the board. If we can’t take this piece of IP and make it successful, why is Amazon Studios even here?” It has to succeed. There’s no option.”
Regarding the fan reaction to Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score is only at 45%, much lower than any of the Peter Jackson films including The Hobbit trilogy.
Update: The score has dropped to 34%, and on IMDb earlier it was around a 7.1 but now is a 6.1, with it also reported Amazon has suspended ratings.
Worth a mention is the score is also a lot lower than HBO’s new Game of Thrones series, House of the Dragon (which released the first episode for free at the same time as the Rings of Power premiere), that after its own first two episodes has a much higher Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score of 85% (Critics Score of 84%).
Related: Rings of Power scores record ratings.
What went wrong with Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power?
What went wrong with the show? Well, I found it to be really boring and I didn’t really find myself caring about any of the characters, though The Stranger (Daniel Weyman) does have me intrigued.
Nothing much happens in the first episode until the last five minutes and to be honest, I really don’t even know what is going on other than apparently, some dark force has returned or is returning (after hundreds of years?).
Other than the cow and the leaf turning black which is teasing something, they really don’t offer much of anything or where it’s going (I wasn’t even sure if those were Hobbits at first).
Arondir seems pretty cool and badass but he gets taken pretty quick and completely off guard while he was able to stop that fight. I was like what?
Galadriel, who seems to be the main character? So she has been tracking down Sauron for hundreds of years? Is that right? So she never finds him until all the bad stuff starts to return? What a coincidence (assuming she finds him, and she is going to be able to kill him while her brother couldn’t? Okay.).
Hopefully, the series picks up because I find the show to be a snoozefest so far.
The special effects and locations are of course top-notch because of how much money they put into it. Maybe, they should have put as much into the writing.
Check out Rotten Tomatoes reactions below.
Rotten Tomatoes reactions:
“It’s just miserable. There’s visual spectacle – but only achieved through copious amounts of high-quality CGI. The rest of what makes cinematography is, well – that’s the problem, it’s just not there. The dialogue is atrocious. The acting unbelievably amateurish (where did the casting budget go? Did it exist at all?). The pacing is a slog. The storytelling disjointed and pointless. It’s like someone took four separate stories that couldn’t stand on their own feet and hoped that mashing them together would make them feasible somehow. It doesn’t. They’re still just random pictures stringed into random sequences, with little to none actual plot.”
“How can people be giving this a good review?! This was so bland, it reminded me of a cheesy 80’s fantasy flick. Obviously the visuals were nice, but that doesn’t make up for the terrible plot and acting. And what happened to elves being ageless? Just decide to throw canon out the window?”
“This is not Tolkiens world and it’s not even based on our real world it’s solely a Hollywood activists diatribe. Crash and burn.”
“Most of the cast is very bad, like very bad, it’s overall badly written dialogue (such a shame when the source content is so good…) the slow rythme is not a problem for me, good visuals but far too many CGI, visuals are good but you can feel it’s not real and it ruin everything… Overall a very bad surprise…”
“Even as a generic fantasy series without the Lord of the Rings title, it’s not so good. Music is very Star Wars but in a bad way. Too much against the books like Elrond calling Galadriel his “friend”? They are kin – second cousins twice removed and Galadriel will eventually become his mother in law. So strange.”
“Not sure if it was intended to be funny but my husband and I found ourselves laughing at the inept dialogue so many times. The naked chef wearing only an apron was totally hilarious too. Considering this is the most expensive TV show of all time it’s difficult to tell beyond the flashy projected backdrops.”
“Yes, visuals are music are often stunning, but everything else is an epic fail. Galadrial worst character- nothing more to say. If your main character is broken, your show is broken. You can’t even distinguish the elves anymore, except from ears. They look, speak and behave like normal man. Elrond bad acting – is he a kid now? Hobbits just weird and not in a the old good way. Middle earth just does not feel as a whole anymore. No awe or sense of mystery, e.g. around the elves.”
“What an awful and disrespectful disaster. Bad acting, horrible script and even the design work is outright amateurish. Do yourself a favor and watch the real LotR instead.”
