The Rings of Power: Forging an Epic

The Rings of Power is based on the novel The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien and its appendices and is set during the Second Age of Middle Earth and focusing on its history and the rise of the evil Sauron.  The story is set thousands of years before The Hobbit and the main story of The Lord of the Rings. The timeline has been condensed for the television series but in reality, the events took place over thousands of years.

The rights to the story were bought by Amazon in 2017 and is forecasted to be five seasons long with the first season consisting of eight episodes.  The first two episodes were released simultaneously and mainly introduce the characters focusing on Galadriel’s (Morfydd Clark) quest to find and destroy Sauron, taking up her brother’s quest after his demise. Her path crosses with Isildur (Maxim Baldry), a sailor escaping the destruction of his home. We also meet Elrond (Robert Aramayo), an elven architect and politician, who is enlisted, along with the Dwarves, by a famous elven smith who is wanting to build a massive forge to craft items of power to help Middle Earth, as his legacy.  In the Southlands, Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova) an Elf and Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi) share a forbidden love, but soon learn that the orcs have returned signaling the evil is growing.  Nori (Markella Kavenagh), a young Harfoot who longs for adventure, and soon gets more than she was bargaining for.  Within the first two episodes, these characters stories are all independent of each other, but with the basic thread that the evil that most thought had been banished, has returned to Middle Earth.

The production value on the series is stunning with some gorgeous sets and some wonderful special effects.  The story is compelling and intriguing and draws you in. Knowing the characters from the six previous movies, it is interesting seeing the history of Galadriel and Elrond and how they interact. The dialogue is beautiful and has a very lyrical poetic nature.  There are profound meanings in many of the lines with some poignant life lessons taught.  All that being the good.  There are some issues, that may be resolved as the series progresses.  Tolkien described Galadriel in her youth as being a strong fighter of “Amazon disposition”, and Morfydd does a great job as showing that side of her, but what she is missing, and it is missing from all the elves, is a certain ethereal quality. They all seem a bit too human.  All the main characters seem a bit angry, which makes it difficult to connect with them.  In addition, the story jumps around a lot, and if you are not familiar with all the different races and locations of Middle Earth, it can feel a bit confusing.

Overall, I enjoyed the first two episodes, and the story drew me in, but I didn’t feel connected to any of the characters yet, and the over all product lacked a bit of subtlety and finesse that made the original movies Oscar worthy. I know that the plan is to show the character progression from who they were to the ones we know in the films, but unless they make some of their characters a bit more relatable, they may lose some audience members along way.