The first season of The Rings of Power concluded last night. I thought it was very bad. A few people I respect have said some positive things about it, though, so I've been trying to figure why. The visuals are nice and I've grown to appreciate some of the Pre-Raphaelite inspired stuff more. I liked the orange and blue in this scene with the Palantir.
Maybe if I didn't know Halbrand was going to be Sauron and the bearded stranger was going to be Gandalf I'd have enjoyed the finale more. It seemed like everyone on the internet knew by the third episode that this was the state of things. Gandalf looked like Gandalf so I don't even know how that was supposed to be a secret. But in any case, the driving force behind the final episode seems like it was meant to be the question, "Who's Sauron?" Generally, even if the secret is very well concealed and cleverly revealed, I don't think this is a good peg for a story to hang its hat on. Especially not something with a lavish production which should hopefully encourage people to rewatch it. It can be interesting if you're using the obscure identities to explore an idea. There does seem to be some attempt at that. Gandalf believes he's "peril" and Nori gives him a speech about how he decides, with his actions, what he truly is, not someone else putting a name to him. Which is true, and something everyone knows to be a right moral answer. The aim of a story in presenting an idea, though, should be to show it in action, not just have a character directly state it to us. Even a simple idea like this could be interesting if there had been some genuine ambiguity. But Gandalf's only cause for concern is that he killed some fireflies, he accidentally knocked down a tree, and some scary looking strangers called him Sauron. It's a bit of a softball to say the least.
Similarly, the show tries to introduce tension about Sauron by having him throw back at Galadriel her statement about how anyone can atone for their past evils. I saw a quote from a producer on the show who said that, going forward, Sauron will be modelled on the Tony Soprano or Walter White anti-hero type. I can't see that working going forward unless the writers make even more significant changes to Tolkien's lore than they already have. Tony Soprano and Walter White both have clear, tangible, complex motives for doing what they do. Sauron says he wants to unite Middle Earth, with Galadriel by his side, under their rule. But Middle Earth isn't at war. The only physical conflicts have been with the orcs that Sauron himself created. And what's Sauron's motivation for this rhetoric? At this point, it just seems like he's trying to get in Galadriel's pants.
This is where the writing falls below the level of the Star Wars prequels. In Attack of the Clones, when Anakin has that interesting, foreboding bit of dialogue about how he thinks the government should be run--how people should be made to do the right thing--makes perfect sense coming from him. He's spent a lot of time fighting Separatists and dealing with a sluggish Republic bureaucracy and out of touch Jedi Order (admittedly, fleshing out from The Clone Wars series buttresses this dialogue considerably). All we know from this show is that Sauron was Morgoth's apprentice and they were trying to conquer the world. Maybe season two will catch up and give us valuable character development but with over nine hours of expensively produced episodes in the bag, it seems like this is something the writers should have been on top of already.
So those are the weakly delivered big ideas. What of the small matters? Elrond refers to "all of elfdom" at some point, which sounded lame. Galadriel investigating Halbrand by looking at a family tree on an old scroll hardly seems like the final, damning proof both she and Sauron act like it is. All of the emotional partings among the Harfoots were really empty because the series never got around to developing the characters.
I don't know. I'm trying hard, really, but I still don't see how this show is any better than a Transformers movie, or why I shouldn't feel sick and sad that this will be the first impression of The Lord of the Rings for millions of people.
The Rings of Power is available on Amazon Prime.
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