Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was a teenager when The Fellowship of the Rings came out. I’d never read the books, but fell, almost instantly, in love with the characters and the story. It immediately pulls you in and gives you something (a plot) and people to care about. Now on to Rings of Power: Disclaimer: I am not a lore expert and am mostly coming at this from a film and story perspective, although the lore issues greatly bothered me as this series went along. I wanted to like it. I felt skeptical before the show aired (for reasons I won’t go into) but my husband and I were really excited to give it a try. We watched the first two episodes in one evening and, I have to be honest, really liked it. It seemed like a lot was being set up, we were introduced to a lot of characters who seemed like they had a lot of potential for a great story. We have watched all seven episodes so far and I am so sad, and perhaps even frustrated, at the amazing potential they had that was lost. Here are my main issues: Inconsistency: The pacing is really strange and leaves huge plot holes. We are forced to press the ‘I believe button’ so many times that your connection to the story becomes like butter scraped over too much bread. I could list examples but there are so so many. One example would be that Adar has been captured and tied or locked up by Galadriel. Next Mount Doom explodes and the next time you see him he’s in the forest with a bunch of his orcs. This sort of thing happens a lot. Unlikeable characters: Characters with poor personal character and/or bad character development and believability. Not everyone, but even the good ones, like Elendil and Durin IV have their moments. There is often not enough back story on the characters themselves, or their relationship to other characters to really care much about who they are and what they’re about. Galadriel is full of anger and drive and pushes other people to bend to her demands, yet when other’s have doubts, fears or hesitation she almost insults them for it. She is ‘perfect’ at everything, annoyingly so, and shows off a lot. She drives on despite the suffering around her because she is on a mission at all costs. Almost all of the townspeople, either in Numenor or the Southlands are just mindless sheep. One minute the Numenorians think the elf that is begging to be taken away from their island is going to start a flood of elves coming to take their jobs, and then next they’re raising their hands to go to war for Galadriel and the queen. The characters are so contradictory...the Harfoots leave people behind that need help, even to the point of wanting to take their wheels away so they can’t come and will die, and then in another scene talking about how big their hearts are because they’re the type that stick together. I’m not out to bash for the sake of it. It truly pains me to see so much potential for rich story telling to go to waste. The positives: As many before me have said, the visuals are generally beautiful and very well done. There are some characters/actors that have done a good job. Elendil seems like a human with a real range of feeling and authenticity. Durin adds humor to the story. I wish Amazon would pull us in with rich story telling and characters that don’t have all the answers laid out for them.