(Some spoilers for episodes 1 & 2)
My opinion, when I first heard that Amazon was going to create a Tolkien based Lord of the Rings sequel was very similar to that of Jeff Bezo’s son, who was reported to have told his dad, to not “eff up” this show. After watching the first two episodes of the show, I think it’s too soon to tell if it’s going to be effed up, but I can already tell this is not going to be your father’s JRR Tolkien.
Amazon Prime isn’t adapting some other Tolkien book, they are literally making up their own story within the notes and histories of The Silmarillion. However, they are making up a story as 21st century Hollywood TV and Movie producers, not as a 20th Century English professor haunted by World War I. So, it’s inevitable that there are going to be wildly different takes on Middle Earth. Taking place thousands of years earlier than the time of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the only real character connective tissue are the two elves, Elrond and Galadriel.
At least so far Galadriel is a far more prominent character than Elrond. But Galadriel’s portrayal is in stark contrast to her Lord of the Rings ethereal Elven Princess, this Galadriel is a hard charging girl boss, on a military mission of vengeance. Her brother, killed by the dark lord Morgoth, puts Galadriel on her path. Frankly I was a bit surprised they didn’t go in for the crane shot over her brother’s body and her holding a sword up vowing her revenge. The scene was more NCIS than Schwarzenegger, but this leads Galadriel on a centuries long military mission to hunt down the forces of evil with zero success.
It’s quite a contrast between the steely eyed Galadriel and her mewing male elf soldiers, always complaining about how cold it was or the mission is worthless. If she had called them a bunch of girls it wouldn’t look out of place. When they finally run into a “snow troll” in an abandoned fortress, the male soldiers get wacked by the troll, while Galadriel does a couple of acrobatic “Bring it On” moves including facing away from the creature while dispatching it with a sword.
Girl Power.
Of course, Galadriel gets promoted upwards to get rid of her, so the King sends her to the West, which is sort of elven heaven. While sailing out to sea with other chosen elves, she has a change of heart and instead of getting taken up by the white light, she jumps over board, in the middle of the ocean, and decided to swim back to Middle Earth. It’s hard to describe how ridiculous this scene seemed to me. I realize this is a fantasy and there is magic in this world, but even elves can’t swim across the ocean.
There are other subplots of course, such as the multi-racial tribe of Harfoots (pre-Hobbits) discovering a man who fell to earth and a Puerto Rican Black Elf having some sort of will-they-or-won’t-they relationship with a human single mom (Hey Elf, she’s a single mom, run away). This of course brings us to the issue that sent deep Tolkien fans on high alert when some of the early images of the show came out
Hmm that’s not how Tolkien described dwarves, particularly female ones (where’s the beard?).
Hmm and that’s not how Tolkien described Elves! What’s going on?
What’s going on of course, is the 21st Century. The Vanity Fair look at the show back in February made clear what the goal was:
“It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien’s work would reflect what the world actually looks like,” says Lindsey Weber, executive producer of the series. “Tolkien is for everyone. His stories are about his fictional races doing their best work when they leave the isolation of their own cultures and come together.”
Of course, this is about reflecting what the world of today is like! Why didn’t that occur to me?
Naturally this sent Tolkien fans on high alert. To be clear, that doesn’t describe me. I enjoyed reading The Hobbit and the Lord of The Rings books when younger, and enjoyed the Peter Jackson movies, but I’m not deeply invested in this world in the way that some fans are. I’ve never read, or had the inclination to read, The Silmarillion, which is the world building volume that the scenario of The Rings of Power is taken. So how was I supposed to know that Tolkien described his elves as “fair?” I mean it makes sense. Tolkien was writing a mythos based on Britain and Northern Europe, not describing a Tuesday shopping crowd at the Mall of America.
But in the current year, did the TV producers have much choice?
Answer: They did not.
Amazon Studios has an inclusion policy unlike any I’ve heard of. I imagine some variation of this will become standard across all studios because…diversity, which of course is any studio’s strength. Let’s take a look:
Point 2 almost seems like a get out of jail free card until you realize what they mean. They want a gay actor to play a gay character, no straights allowed. An Indian character needs to be played by an Indian (sorry Ben Kingsley!) and so on. John Leguizamo would be favored to play Fidel Castro over James Franco, even though Franco actually looks like Castro and Leguizamo isn’t even close. So, I’m curious who is going to turn out to be the LGBTQIA+ character in this series, but it’s sure to have one.
We might never really know how good this series is because there won’t be any honest reviews of the show (except by nobodies like me). Amazon has suspended reviews on this show because, in a bit of irony, they are worried about trolls.
Sometimes the comedy just writes itself.
Will Amazon’s “inclusion” policy be enough to wreck the show? Again, I can’t speak for the hardcore Tolkien fans, although a trans hobbit might be too much for me to take, but the real danger is from the TV producers and showrunners themselves. Game of Thrones is instructive. The show was phenomenal while it was still running on GRR Martin fumes, but when the show ran out of material for the last two seasons and the TV people steered the ship; the differences were stark (no pun intended). With Rings of Power, it’s all TV people all the way through. They’re not adapting anything; they are doing their own thing. So, if you liked the last two seasons of Game of Thrones, this show should be just fine. However, if you are a die-hard Tolkien fan, be warned, this show is not for you.
Mike Street Station 