Rings of Power

A Review of Season 1

“Rings of Power” is easily one of the best seasons of fantasy based television in this era. On some level that's not saying much because Sci Fi has dominated the TV landscape for decades, with little fantasy offerings until Game of Thrones blew up. But right now there are multiple excellent fantasy shows for audiences to consume on streaming, and “Rings of Power” might currently be the best one.

That’s amazing when you consider how many things this show has going against it. Firstly, it’s not an adaptation of a specific story or work because Amazon only has the rights to the LOTR appendices at the moment, which while interesting don’t have a strict narrative. So the writers had to come up with their own story amidst the tangled and murky web of the background to LOTR. 

Then there’s the double edged sword of the fan base. LOTR is the best selling novel of all time, so its fan base is massive. That means the show has a built-in audience, which is great. But that also means the show has a built-in audience, which means those people will tear you to shreds if you abuse their favorite pop culture baby. Fan bases are extremely difficult to understand and speak to, especially at this level. Look at the response to both Star Wars trilogies that followed the original, the fans were divided to put it mildly. 

Unlike HBO’s “Game of Thrones”, or Netflix’s ”The Witcher”, there’s already a very established and financially lucrative media franchise built around this IP. The fans have built in ideas about how Middle Earth should look and feel. This show is set during a much different time and place than LOTR or the Hobbit trilogy but if it felt too different or too much the same it was going to get into trouble. Being original while meeting audience expectations is incredibly difficult. 

Another problem is that, with a few exceptions, the main characters of this show are not ones that the fan base celebrates or is super excited about in general. The favorite characters have essentially already been done, and in a relatively definitive manner.
These are large problems and the show has dealt with each magnificently. Rings of Power feels fresh and meaningful, but not as if it’s stepping on what came before in the two Peter Jackson trilogies. It weaves a surprising and compelling narrative with multiple disconnected story lines that aren’t really resolved into each other even at the end of the season. It’s wide in scope but never confusing or overwhelming. 

There was minor controversy over the racially diverse cast in the beginning, and as someone who loves the idea of the best actor for the role always being cast no matter their shade of melanin (I would put Idris Elba and Michael B Jordan into  literally every film and tv show if I could) I was surprised by how much the cast’s diversity was tonally off putting. These stories are essentially Scandinavian myths told through an English lens. It would be weird to see an adaptation of the Mahabharata with a bunch of white and Hispanic Americans in the cast, which is why films like Ridley Scott’s “Exodus” are so off putting. And the truth is that because the cast is diverse the world feels more like D&D or Fritz Leiber style fantasy, epitomized by the art work of Larry Elmore or the brothers hildebrandt. In other words it feels more like sword and sorcery than high fantasy, at least at first. High fantasy has been predominantly white in its imaginary zeitgeist, and this is most certainly high fantasy. The MCU Thor films don’t really touch any of this real estate because those are products of America, their connection to Scandinavian myth is slight to put it mildly. Also MORE IDRIS! Always more Idris.   

But the actors they chose all work very well. Two of the highlights being Ismael Cruz Cordova as the elf Arondir and Lenny Henry as harfoot (hobbit) Sadoc Burrows. In fact Cordova’s demeanor lent itself more to the emotional gravity befitting an elf than many of the other white actors playing elves. Elves are supposed to feel ancient, laden with mystic portent, he was one of the only cast members to pull that off. But the whole cast, skin color aside, is fantastic. 

But what really drives the show are the unexpected things. No spoilers but the way the writers thought through certain aspects of Tolkien’s legendarium that really no one, Tolkien included, has touched are what make this season more than just television. It’s not perfect, but things don’t have to be perfect to become magic. The wizard of oz isn’t perfect but it’s stone cold magic.

And what’s really infuriating about some of the show’s haters is that the original Jackson trilogy is far from perfect. Much of the effects work that was so revolutionary at the time is dated, and yet somehow that makes it better. It feels exactly like what it is: a singular epic work of passion that almost didn’t happen. But Jackson, along with his family and friends, drug that production through the New Zealand mud to completion. The imperfections are what make it their LOTR and not Tolkien’s or mine or the inane person in your Facebook feed who just wants to dump on something today. 

These things are works of imagination. There is no definitive middle earth because middle earth doesn’t exist. When I read Tolkien I see and experience something very different from everyone else. The fact that his imagination has inspired so many other imaginations is just breathtaking. Yes the show has changed things, yes it doesn’t get everything right. But the same can be said of Jackson’s LOTR. 

Rings of power is an epic work of high fantasy. It’s grand and tragic, but also humorous and heartwarming. It has many of the thematic qualities of Tolkien. And it’s still keeping us guessing. This show has turned out much better than it probably should have, or especially could have and most importantly Tolkien’s imagination is still breathing creative life into the world keeping the shadows of boredom at bay.