Monthly Archives: February 2023

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power S1E5 150 Word Review “Partings” #AmazonReview #LOTR #RingsofPower #150WordReview

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I only spent half the time distracted [this episode] … hardly a ringing endorsement

Episode 5, “Partings”, sees the Southlanders split between two factions — those who are going over to the dark side and those who will stand and fight. We also witness the Queen of Númenor having to make a fateful decision.

Definitely stronger than the previous episode. I only spent half the time distracted, and I remained conscious. Yet hardly a ringing endorsement.

The big problem continues to be the characters — and that really is a fatal flaw. What actually motivates them? The Queen of Númenor’s fateful decision is incomprehensible. Galadriel continues to resemble a teenage fan fiction version; petulant, stupid, arrogant, essentially angsty and definitely not a good guy.

However, on a plus point, black-guy-who-is-the-friend-of-the-guy-who-is-supposed-to-be-Isildur shows signs of potentially maybe having the possibility of becoming an okay character, eventually.

Let’s see if this season has the exit velocity to launch us into a hopefully much improved season two. That’s the best we can hope for at this stage.

3/5

© 2022 Bryan A. J. Parry
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Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power S1E4 “The Great Wave” #AmazonReview #LOTR #RingsofPower #300WordReview

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The Rings of Power: a cure for insomnia

Rings of Power Episode 4, “The Great Wave”, involves more Númenor-based Elven hijinks, the big reveal of the mysterious Orc man-God “Arda”, and a Dwarven secret.

There were some good bits. Gimli 2 shows signs of being a genuinely interesting character. The visuals continue to be pretty. The role of the Zummerzet-by-way-of-Kingston-Jamaica-cum-Dublin sort-of hobbits was mercifully minimised. Sadly, the bad is starting to outweigh the good in LotR: RoP.

Galadriel sounds exactly like Kate/Bob from Blackadder II; Female Sam: Dawn French; Celebrimbor: Monty Python‘s Michael Palin. Constantly being reminded of British comedians probably isn’t what Amazon was hoping for with its casting decisions and its investment of one billion dollars.

The writers fulfil the age-old writing adage of “tell not show”… They also mistake a swell of music for a character arc. Poor writing, no characterisation, exposition dumps. This is shaping up to be the anti-Tolkien. Things also just happen because they have to in order to move the plot along. When Legolas 2 (as I’m calling him) copies Gimli 2’s (as I’m calling him) kids’ knocking game and opens up a secret chamber containing a priceless ore, my jaw-dropped — at the absurdity of it all. Also, why is Galadriel a two thousand year teenager? I know actual teenagers who have out-matured Our Lady. Pay-offs happen before we’re made to care about characters, for example, a big meant-to-be-dramatic falling out between Isildur and his mates, two guys we barely remember and don’t at all know.

We just don’t care about these shallow, barely thought-out characters, and there are no clear stakes. I fell asleep twice while trying to watch this. A cure for insomnia is probably not what Amazon was hoping for when they ploughed a billion dollars into this series.

Bored of the Rings? Yes.

2/5

© 2023 Bryan A. J. Parry

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Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power S1E1&2 “A Shadow of the Past” and “Adrift” 150 Word Review #AmazonReview #LOTR #RingsofPower #150WordReview

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Carefully constructed from the appendices, footnotes and old bits of crumpled-up post-it notes

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power tells the tale of the second age of Middle Earth, some thousands of years before the events portrayed in the Lord of the Rings. Carefully constructed from the appendices, footnotes and old bits of crumpled-up post-it notes from Tolkien’s rubbish bin, LOTR:ROP will take us back to experience the world of J. R. R. Tolkien once more, a world of good versus evil, dragons and treasure, duty and honour, and prosthetic ears.

What has one billion dollars got Amazon? A lot of memberberries, apparently. It’s a soft reboot of LOTR: Galdriel, Legolas 2, Hobbits Harfeet Harfoots, a dark lord, juicy maps, Probably-Gandalf. But it’s all in a 2022 stylee: black hobbits and elves, Female Frodo and Female Sam, lots of powahful women who don’t need no man.

Episode one and two were enjoyable. Not what we feared, but not what we hoped for. Let’s see how the series develops.

3/5

© 2023 Bryan A. J. Parry

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