Amazon’s billion-dollar attempt to buy its way to the top of the streaming services market hasn’t got off to the best start. Rings of Power was released to clamorous praise from the critics for its “visual splendour.” But as the first of five projected seasons comes to a close, a chaotic and poorly-paced plot has left audiences and critics alike scratching their heads as to what they just watched.
The story, as the title suggests, recounts the forging of the great rings and the rise and first fall of the Dark Lord Sauron.
First among equals in this war against evil is Galadriel, played by Morfydd Clark, not the wise and noble leader fans of the books and film trilogy will know, but a hot-headed super soldier complete with arms, armour and army, seeking vengeance upon her brother’s killer, the aforementioned Dark Lord.
Sitting uncomfortably alongside this main plot are about half a dozen exposition- and character-dense subplots, including a diplomatic set-to between elves and dwarves squabbling over resources, a human village beset by orcs and falling into darkness and a group of migrating hobbits, which for legal reasons are labelled harfoots, who encounter a magical stranger dressed in grey rags, among others.
Each is introduced at a startling, if unsurprising, speed.
Unsurprising because the pitch that the two first-time show runners, JD Payne and Patrick McKay, proposed to Amazon condenses roughly 2,000 years of canonical history into just five seasons. What would be a challenge for the most prolific of writers is all the harder for a writing pair who in 13 years in Hollywood have, before Rings of Power, no official writing credits to their name.
Subsequently, much of the first half of the season is burdened with laborious exposition, leaving very little time for the plot, which nevertheless continues to unfold at a rapid pace.
As a for instance, over the course of three episodes, at most an hour of screen time, Galadriel goes from being castaway at sea to leading the cavalry charge of a conquering army on the other side of the world via the royal court and prison of a hitherto unmentioned island kingdom.
The series may have no sense of the laws of time and space, but the plot works wonders with punctuality.
The heroic charge that the elven terminator leads is in aid of a beleaguered settlement of humans under siege by a force of orcs and led by another strong woman, single mother and pharmacist (sorry, healer) turned military strategist Bronwyn. This band of brothers (and sisters) needn’t have troubled themselves. They had the opportunity to escape but they chose to stand and fight against an overwhelming band of Tolkien’s evil beasties. Admittedly, the battle was a welcome break from the plot, but it made very little sense. The pharmacist had no way of knowing that help was on its way, not unless she had snuck a peak at the script.
This isn’t the only time that foreknowledge of the plot comes in handy.
The central storyline – Galadriel’s single-minded pursuit of Sauron – suffers from the same affliction. She is absolutely certain that he is out there but rarely feels the need to share her working. Much like the Royals, she never apologises and never explains, she just expects everyone around her to follow her orders. This in spite of the fact that everyone she comes into contact with doubts her claim that the forces of evil are still extant. The audience knows she’s right because otherwise there’d be no point in the show, but it’s a hollow victory, as the protagonist becomes utterly detestable.
Foreknowledge of the plot aside, the writers do have a number of other tricks up their sleeves to unburden the audience of the mental exertion required to understand the plot.
The diversity-first casting and character rewrites, for example, remove any need for character development – when in doubt, one gets the sense, non-white or woman, good; stale or pale male, bad… or daft. Both also provide ample opportunity for on the nose political messaging.
Early on in the series, in an explosive presumably booze-fuelled encounter at a tavern, a man, who happens to be white, shouts at an elf, who happens to be black: “When are you people going to let the past go?”
Good. Subtle.
In what I can only assume is an attempt to justify the import of “real-world” racism into Middle Earth, Rings of Power fabricates some of its own.
Whether this has anything to do with Amazon Studios Executive, Lindsay Weber’s insistence that: “It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien’s work would reflect what the world actually looks like;” is questionable. But it does tally with JD Payne’s explanation of his interpretation of Tolkien.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, published since the show’s release, JD Payne explained, saying: “The spirit of Tolkien is about disparate peoples who don’t trust one another and look different from one another finding common ground in friendship and accomplishing big things.”
Because how else can different races unite if they don’t have to overcome mutual -isms.
As an afterthought, when Galadriel arrives on the human island-kingdom of Numenor with her fellow castaway Halbrand, it isn’t long before town squares are filled with shouty men, claiming that their jobs are under threat from immigrants. A bold claim, seeing as there are only two of them.
While the poor viewer gets little respite from political activism, Rings of Power does do an impressive job of constructing compelling and identifiable environments for the peoples of Middle Earth to occupy.
The golden leafy kingdom of the elves and architectural intricacy of the homes of the mountain-dwelling dwarves are complimented by distinctive ethereal or booming bass choirs, which solidify a sense of people and place.
One of the first things one notices while reading Tolkien is the time he takes to build a scene. His patient wandering prose, particularly those dedicated to all things that grow, allow his characters to linger and rest in a living, breathing world. It is a credit to Amazon that they at least got that right.
Jeff Bezos may have thought he could buy his way to cultural relevance, but replacing the historical depth and moral complexity of Tolkien with an intellectually neutered and morally empty wild goose chase led by an arrogant and unlikeable heroine is no way to do it.
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