The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
The Lord of the Rings: The Power of the Rings is streaming on Amazon Prime at the time of writing. Rated TV-14. Common Sense says 12.
Television programs are typically reviewed after the first two or three episodes. This report card does not cover the entire season. It may contain MINOR spoilers for the first few episodes.
STORY: B
A diverse cast of fantastic characters unite to battle against the return of a profound and menacing evil to Middle Earth.
I am admittedly not a member of The Lord of the Rings fan club. Neither am I a hater. I’ve enjoyed the books and films, but the series simply has never captured my imagination the way other works do. Needing a quick refresher of Tolkein’s saga, I moseyed over to The Ringer and started to read this article. Well … there is nothing quick about reading 3,000 words. It would take forever and a day just to read the word “fish” over and over again. 3,000 words stuffed with confusing names, fictional realms and imagined wars is a puzzling step beyond. I appreciate the massively intricate universe Tolkien has created and/or spawned, but I think that density is also a reason why I’ve never been able to fully bond with it.
This is all to say that the first two episodes guide us through centuries of mystifying history with very little pain and discomfort. The show runners sprinkle enough peril and action into this mountain of exposition to keep us interested. It’s an impressive act of storytelling.
PEOPLE: B+
Steph Curry is the NBA’s all-time leading free throw shooter. He’s hit just shy of 91% of his shots during his career. That’s 3,197 shots made. I think that’s how many characters The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has. The cast is ginormous. And they’ve got a higher percentage of characters who give good performances. While there may be certain characters I’m not fully into, I can’t think of one actor whose performance isn’t at least very good.
Curry’s got two MVP awards. The MVP so far of this series has got to be Morfydd Clark, who plays the Elfin warrior Galadriel. The way she carries the fire of revenge within her pulls us in and drives the story forward.
CRAFT: A
I’m going to blindfold myself while I watch this show. I’m going to mute it. I’m going to pause the show twenty times at random moments and screenshot it. I’d bet at least 18 of them could be framed and hung on my walls. People will flock from every corner of the globe, monocles in hand eyes, poised in awe in front of my prints of orcs rampaging forests, crashed meteors, and Elfin kingdoms. Every moment of this show is an enchanting (and expensive) work of art. I’ve seen plenty of beautiful things on screen, but its perpetual, unceasing, round-the-clock beauty is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
RACE RELATIONS (Elective Class): A
I for one am happy beyond measure at the variety of skin tones we see in this show. Many people have loudly objected to it. Nearly all of those people are White. Full disclosure: I am a White dude.
They will claim Tolkien described every character in his books as having white skin color. They will claim it’s an aggravating result of “introducing modern political sentiments.” And they will indirectly claim The Lord of the Rings: The Power of the Rings as their own - as if it literally belongs to them. I find this criticism not only ridiculous, but shameful.
Calling to remove POC from a film is different than demanding the removal of a major plot point. It’s dangerous. You can’t separate the exclusion of fictional characters from the exclusion of real, breathing human beings. You can claim to only complain about a fictional world - a world that has no impact on the real one. But you’d be wrong, no matter how much you believe you’re right.
Loud protests aren’t going to make alternate plot points notice they haven’t been included. However, loud protests will (and do) make actual human beings notice that they are being excluded. To the protesting White people, if you can’t imagine POC having a place in fictional stories, how can you imagine a place for them in the real world?
I get it if you think I’m being dramatic. A snowflake, maybe? But here’s why I find this such a slippery and perilous slope. We don’t properly recognize the power story has over us. Our very identities are completely wrapped up in the stories we hear about ourselves and the stories we tell ourselves. No one is born knowing they’re a nerd, an athlete, a shy kid, or a flirt. But exhibit the behaviors of those stereotypes and you’ll soon start hearing people refer to you by them. Another way of saying it is, people will start telling you stories about yourself. Your brain will start repeating them in your own head. That’s how identity is created. No one is born knowing they are rich, poor, Black, White, American, Australian, etc. either. We so often believe we’re simply born all of these things. We’re not.
We don’t just enjoy stories. We are literally forged by them.
So to the White people protesting the inclusion of darker skinned elves and dwarves, I have a reminder. You may treasure it, but you don’t own The Lord of the Rings. If you’re not willing to make space for POC in your fictional stories, it’s likely you’re not willing to do it for them in whatever story of our country you carry with you in your head. You may treasure it, but you don’t own America, either. The first step to transforming our world into a place where anyone can be anything is to begin forging those places in our fictional stories. I’m happy the people behind The Lord of the Rings are doing their part.
FINAL COMMENTS:
Amazon attempts to cash in on a proven, profitable property. They did not come messing around either. They’ve elevated and sustained the things which made the original books and film series successful. It’s got epic scope. It’s got lavish visuals. It’s got scores of narrative threads, ready to be weaved together. If you like the movies or the books, I find it hard to see why you wouldn’t love this show.
FINAL GRADE: A-
*** If you wish to learn more about where I’m coming from in the Race Relations (Elective Class) section, I recommend either watching Raoul Peck’s film I Am Not Your Negro or reading this fantastic essay by my main man, tt stern-enzi.