Last night, Prime Video’s most expensive show ever, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, finally premiered its first two episodes. Amongst fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books and the Peter Jackson movies, everything about this show has been controversial – from the casting choices to the fact that the production team essentially ghosted Jackson. I think it’s safe to say that folks were – wary. But Amazon turned around a lot of the bad buzz once they premiered a kick-ass trailer at Comic-Con, and the early reviews have been mostly raves. Many say that every penny of the show’s half-a-billion dollar budget is up there on the screen, and some of the performers, including Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, are getting raves.
However, it also can’t be denied that a lot of folks believe that the critics are overly enthusiastic, with many pointing towards recent Disney Plus shows, such as Obi-Wan Kenobi, that got great early reviews but were largely disliked by fans. Now that the show has aired its first two episodes, the time has come to turn the forum over to the fans themselves. Is the show as good as critics say, or is it another case of too much hype? How does the Prime Video vision of Middle Earth stack up against Peter Jackson’s? And is the cast as good in their roles as critics are saying? Speaking for myself, I thought the first two episodes were promising, with the cast pretty note-perfect. However, it can’t be denied that there’s a lot of set-up/ exposition going on, so we’ll have to wait until a little later in the season before fully deciding whether or not the show is a triumph, but to me, it’s off to a good start.
Do you agree? Let us know in the comments!