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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2022-09-16, 22:36

I didn't think I'd care for the Lord of the Rings prequel spinoff, but I'm enjoying my weekly dose of Tolkienesque high fantasy. For the most part, Rings of Power does a great job of imparting that epic feel of Peter Jackson's LotR trilogy. They've released 4 hour-long episodes so far out of a planned 9 episodes… for this season. I love Peter Jackson's LotR trilogy, and I put on the extended edition about once a year. It's a shame they only made those three movies. cough Rings of Power is treading familiar ground and casts new actors into some roles we've seen or at least heard about before, but the new/borrowed material from things I've never read (like The Silmarillion) breathes a little fresh air into the franchise.

They're definitely dragging out their story for far longer than it ought to be, though. It feels… thin. Sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread. I've already found myself occasionally skipping forward a few seconds during some of the plodding parts. The hobbits err harfoots feel distinctly less hobbity than in LotR, but not in a good way. It's hard to describe exactly how. Though they've clearly put a lot of care into crafting sets and props, I suspect maybe this show lacks all those clever forced perspective and trick camera shots and body doubles that made Frodo and his pals feel so much smaller than Gandalf and the big folk. Of course, it's hard not to mention the outrage from racists online regarding non-white actors playing certain characters. For the most part, it makes absolutely no difference to the show or the story and feels perfectly natural to me. I do wish they'd chosen actors for some family members (parents and children) to at least look more like each other, but that issue aside, all the actors do a great job with their roles regardless of skin tone.

Unfortunately, I just discovered that they're working on a second season. I was hoping this would be just a one-off miniseries, not an unending journey. As much as I love LotR, this feels hugely disappointing with the already glacial pacing of the show. I seriously hope the creators are able to find some restraint and cap their show after just another season or two so, ending it properly somehow… but I'm sure they'll try to milk every possible dollar from their investment.

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