Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power has the potential to fully live up to Tolkien’s reputation. It comprise of intriguing characters, compelling plot, and stunning visuals.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is a 50-hour television series, Amazon’s biggest investment yet with a budget of USD 1 billion. With relatively fresh faces headlining the show, it might seem like a risky bet, and predicting its fate based on two episodes that were made available for preview is probably not wise. But the tone seems to have been set just right, and it seems that a thrilling ride awaits the fans of Tolkien.
In Peter Jackson‘s films, Cate Blanchett played Galadriel, who is played by Morfydd Clark in the television series. This Galadriel is a young elf who has a burning desire to track out the evil that killed her brother and finally rid the world of it. She trusts her instinct more than her friend’s advise, and Clark does a fantastic job of capturing that trait on film. Well done to the writers for this time around for putting a woman at the head of the series, which seems to weigh heavily on her shoulders.
Elrond, a close friend of Galadriel, appears to be yet another significant figure. We should be on the lookout for Robert Aramayo’s portrayal of the part of Elrond, who is a skilled politician who can also smash big rocks, quite literally.
Elrond’s journey to visit his old friend Durin IV (Owain Arthur) introduces us to the world of the dwarfs, who have built the beautiful, thriving city of Khazad-dûm inside of a mountain. The series lacks the usual light-hearted moments we have seen in Jackson’s movies, but the exchanges between Durin and Elrond lightens up the mood a little.
Right from the first visuals of the tree of light to the scenes of Galadriel fighting the waves in the Sundering Seas, every frame is breathtaking. The series also doesn’t have the constant sense of foreboding that we are so used to in Game of Thrones and the like, but maintains enough suspense for you to want to come back for more.
The show does have the usual tropes of a fantasy adventure. There is an evil to be fought, some are in denial, some are trying to run away from it and some are willing to face it head on. Tolkien never wrote extensively about the Second Age in his novels, so the writers and showrunners had to rely heavily on their own imagination and take creative liberties, which puts them up for criticism from the fandom. Here’s hoping that by the end of this season, we’d already be looking forward to season 2.
