Sometimes it might seem like they prefer content to be terrible so they can bitch about it.
But generally speaking, I come down on their side.
(Patriots and Red Sox fan here.
I can relate.)
So it is with perhaps my favorite work of fiction of all time JRR Tolkien’sLord of the Rings.
I devoured the books when I was in middle school and have been going back to them ever since.
Nothing less than the best movie trilogy of all time.
Then, for a variety of reasons, he dropped the ball onThe Hobbitfilms.
An unnecessary trilogy I never finished and never will.
ButThe Hobbits wereThe GodfatherSaga compared toRings of Power.
Even if the critics didn’t:
And now that Season 2 is underway, the public has spoken.
In the loudest way for an audience to speak.
In fact, its half the audience that the first episode of Season 1 drew in less time.
Samba says that, within three days of viewing, 1.8M U.S. households had watched the first episode.
By contrast, Samba TVs panel is nearly 100x larger than Nielsens household footprint of 45K homes.
Why that is exactly, your guess is better than mine.
Because I checked out long before the rest of that 50%.
A nice nuclear Orc family.
I mean, Professor Tolkien just portrayed their species as the embodiment of evil.
The gang in the writer’s room over at Prime HQ have turned them into the Seavers fromGrowing Pains.
There are other reasons.
But from the trailer of S2, they just made him drab and boring.
There’s a scene of Sauron pleading with his Orc army to follow him.
And the guy who is clearly supposed to be Gandalf but who isn’t called Gandalf.
And with all the subtle complexities of his supernatural being removed.
And Galadriel seems to remain a petulant child who is constantly in a snit.
I’ll just include here what I said during Season 1:
This isn’t Tolkien.
It’s a Tolkien tribute band.
… [P]eople who are trying to imitate the author’s style.
And they are not up to the task.
Like not at all.
That sick burn applies to these showrunners.
I can still pick upLOTRs, go to any random chapter, and lose myself in Tolkien’s prose.
Rings of Power has none of that.
Even more than an incomparable storyteller, JRRT was a linguist.
A student of ancient languages who at one time worked as a lexicographer, translating dictionaries.
In school his class was assignment was to give speeches in Latin.
He did his in Gothic, which is a dead language.
And as you readLOTRs, he uses this talent in his world building.
The Elves are the oldest characters, so they speak in an ancient tongue.
The Dwarves language is borrowed from Norse culture.
Men speak in English of the Middle Ages.
The Hobbits, who are more or less are stand-ins for us, speak modern English.
All while going on quests and adventures, facing peril and fighting major battles.
By comparison, the TV show sounds like mediocre FanFic.
And since 900,000 former viewers can’t be wrong, I’ll argue I wasn’t wrong.
This is a disaster for Prime Video.
And no doubt they’ll blame the toxic, Tolkien fandom.
But this is entirely on them doing such a garbage job adapting the world that literary genius created.
Again, I want to like things.
This is not one of those things.
