Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Rings of power looks fantastic, the sweeping shots and different locations show a sprawling world that captures the imagination much like the books. This however, seems to have come at the cost of most else. The sound track while appropriately grandiose for such a title, is often overbearing and lacks the finesse in sound editing to be lowered appropriately or removed entirely to give emphasis. The many locations that while looking good are introduced at a break neck pace as the story jack-knifes between wholly separate story elements spread out in the world. This results in a disjointed story where we jump to and from multiple places over inconstant periods of time to get a snippet of story before jumping someplace else. As for that story, so far, we have a vengeance plot, a Romeo and Juliet plot, a coming of age call to adventure with the hobbits, an interspecies politics plot, and potentially an over arching dark lord looming in the wings. However the story threads end up together is unclear as of yet, but the major problem is that they all fought for screen time in the first 2 episodes. As for the characters, Galadriel is portrayed as a type-A personality with skills well above her peers, on a quest for... vengeance? She only follows orders when its convenient, to her personal quest, becoming a danger to not only herself but to those she commands. she knows things others don't know or cant believe. she is selfish, extremely high strung, and unlikeable to the point that all the other characters have to dance around her, including the high king, in order to not set her off. If only she wasn't the main character. The hobbits, meet a wizard, that's about it for them at this point. one is move adventurous and one is more skittish. they don't have much of a personality beyond that. as for the wizard, he is so far a stranger in a strange land. all we know so far is he has the workings of the beginnings of a plan and can be mildly frightening, but is not physically violent. Romeo and Juliet , are an elf and a human in love. she is a bit of an outcast from the small village she lives in, which is good because they don't approve of her relationship with an elf. on the other hand, the elf doesn't seem to have much if any backlash on his end for loving her. Neither show much of a personality. Also, she has a younger brother or son, its not very clear, but he there too. Finally there is Elrond, in the first 2 episodes, he mostly acts as a sounding board for other characters, giving little to none of himself in the exchanges. Galadriel talks at him and doesn't listen to his advice, the king talks at him not wanting advice, and the last elf only listens because he wanted Elrond to be the one to suggest the solution. We finally get some good character interactions when he gets before the dwarves. we get to see some of Elrond's flaws and weakness, and how he turns that into a strength. This has to be the best part of the show so far, but it was still cut up into multiple pieces of fast pace jumps to other events that even the best is significantly weakened. This gets 2 out of 5 stars, it looks great, but the writing and editing leave much to desired.