|
|
RINGS OF POWER (Season 1 Review)
December 28th, 2024
I just finished up the first season of Rings of Power....and I enjoyed it immensely! [Spoilers Ahead!]
Now, to get the "woke" stuff out of the way -- yes, it is very clear that Amazon made Tolkien's world "more diverse" by including many black people and a lot of important female characters -- there's a Frodo/Sam-ish duo of Harfoots who are girls ... there is about a 50/50 split of black and white Harfoot races -- the Numenor princess is black while her dad is white ... the main Legolas-like elf is black while his love interest is a white woman in a small village (who ends up being an important leader in town as the show progresses), the wife of the Drawf prince is an overweight black woman and then of course the main star is Galadriel. Now the "hater" crowd out there can get angry at these choices all they want, but I would say all of these characters are well presented+acted and outside of race/gender there's very little to complain about regarding them, overall.
If I had any complaints it would be that a bit of LOTR-lore (that normal/casual audiences already know of) is rehashed here: A Southlander heir is reluctant and aims to avoid his birthright, yet is propped up/encouraged totake what is his (ala Aragorn). A human/elf romance occurs, but is downplayed/hidden (ala LOTR and Hobbit films). A duo of Harfoots reluctantly go on adventure/otside comfort zone to help an old wizard (ala Sam/Frodo and Bilbo). I do wish those aspects would have been omitted or presented differently, only because it felt like the writers were worried that anything too unfamiliar would push viewers away.
My only other problems is that A) a couple times I had to rewatch/rewind certain parts because I didn't initially connect the dots on how Galadriel discovered the guy she was with was heir to the Southlands throne (and even after rewatch the realization by her/explanation to audience is paper-thin). I just thought he was some guy. The other thing that confused me was how at the very end Sauron reveals he was on the raft PURPOSELY to save Galadriel and then use her to his advantage. I guess he heard she was on the boat heading west and then went ahead, pretended to be a shipwrecked guy and then saved her (repeatedly) even using a large leviathan-like monster to make his plan convincing? That part still confuses me, so I may need to rewatch that reveal or hear others' breakdown of the reveal. B) Oh, and I didn't necessarily like seeing the Balrog deep within the mountain when the leaf that falls is burnt ... that felt a bit fanservicey to me, because it could have just caught fire and audiences would have guessed it was likely the Balrog ... but nope, they had to show him (despite showing him a couple episodes earlier).
As far as what I enjoyed, I loved:
- The soundtrack - so powerful and well-done!
- The little songs the Harfoots sing
- The high-production look of EVERY thing
- The closeness/banter of elf/dwarf
- The way elves were presented overall
- The neat reveal of Mount Doom's formation (shocking!)
- The fallen Elf leading the Orcs and his backstory
- The introduction+reveal of Gandalf over weeks
- The reveal+explanation of Mithril
- The great foundation for subsequent seasons
etc.
I am excited to start Season 2 and since all of the main characters have been established, from here on out the series can go in unexpected directions because there's not this hyper-fixation on trying to "win over" the LOTR-casual watchers or diehard fans -- at this point everyone watching knows what to expect and if they really can't get past the race/gender things there's no reason for them to continue hate-watching following seasons.
|
Sign Guestbook:
• Click Here To Leave Comment
Topics:
• Rings of Power (S1)
|
