Oh boy, I am conflicted.
The trailer for The Rings of Power dropped a few days ago, and I am still uncertain about how I feel about it. Let’s get the obvious statement out of the way as it looks stunning. The visuals are gorgeous, The costumes are exquisite, and the sets are impressive. That is not up for debate, from what I can see. Those aerial shots are living in my head rent-free. In terms of capturing the feel of The Lord of The Rings via the aesthetics, they nailed it in my humble opinion.
Now, as for the rest of the show, that’s where things get a bit complicated.
I understand that we are seemingly living in a new golden era for nerdy stuff, with D&D becoming more mainstream than ever before, new SciFi and fantasy writers breathing new life into the genre and overall a more accepting environment for people to embrace their nerdy side. All of that is good, but corporations are looking to cash in by releasing remakes, remasters and reboots. It is a well-known fact that after the success of Game of Thrones, everyone is looking for the next big high fantasy sensation. Namely, Netflix with The Witcher and now Amazon with The Rings of Power.
Maybe I am just being defensive after being burned by the trainwreck that was The Hobbit adaptations, but I don’t want to see Tolkien’s work get butchered again. I know at this stage we don’t know much but I am scared to get my hopes up again only to be disappointed.
There has already been a second season confirmed, and if my source is to be believed there will be five seasons in total. That sounds like a decent amount of time for proper worldbuilding and all that good stuff, but it sounds rather optimistic on their part.
The first episode is due to be released on Friday the 2nd of September. Will you be watching it?
Nerd Rambles 
Oh, it’s going to be butchered all right. Tremendously. As in, they’re already insulting all the fans who don’t want them to maul the continuity of Tolkien’s work.
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I’m rather conflicted too. There’s little doubt that no expense has been spared in making it look impressive. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed a lot of red flags while reading about this. The writers apparently don’t have the rights to ‘The History of Middle Earth’ and other lore materials outside the main series, which is where most of the material on the Second Age is. So, they’ve had to divert from the canon and annoy hardcore Tolkien fans by necessity. The writers are also very inexperienced. I think the only other thing they’ve ever done is uncredited work on a Star Trek film. I’ve watched enough ‘Wha Happun’ episodes to know that big beloved franchises and inexperienced creators don’t mix.
Even if the show turns out to be brilliant, their choice of release date may be fatal. Choosing to release it just two weeks after the debut of ‘House of the Dragon’ means comparisons and competition for viewers will be inevitable. At a time when people are cutting back on their streaming services, there just isn’t room for two big fantasy heavyweights showing at the same time. I have a bad feeling that it’ll be ‘Rings of Power’ that loses out.
Apologies for the long comment. It’s just been on my mind quite a lot recently.
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