The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power review: this is high fantasy done right - The Verge

Amazon’s big, expensive take on the Lord of the Rings is the Rings of Power, which explores a new period and starts streaming on Amazon Prime on September 2nd.

It almost never bodes well when a studio leads with its desire for a new project to become the Next Big Thing™ the way Amazon has with its ultra-expensive Lord of the Rings prequel series, The Rings of Power, from co-showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay. But despite its being a product of the ultimate hype machine and the way it banks on you being fondly familiar with New Line Cinema’s movies based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s books, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is an absolute knockout that brings a vibrant, new energy to the franchise.

Set during the tumultuous days of Middle-earth’s Second Age, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power dives deep into and expands upon the historical events outlined in Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. After countless years of brutal bloodshed to rid the world of orcs and their creator — the first Dark Lord Morgoth — the elves, humans, and dwarves who call Middle-earth home believe that a new era of peace is upon them and that it’s finally safe enough to let their guards down. Though most everyone lost something in the war, The Rings of Power puts particular focus on the elves as it opens to emphasize how much they gave up to defeat Morgoth and because some of them are the show’s most immediately recognizable characters.

Galadriel and one of her soldiers searching for orcs

    Image: Amazon Studios
  

Before she ruled as the Lady of Lothlórien, Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) was one of the many elves leading a carefree, picturesque, and near-immortal life in the land Valinor — a magical place that The Rings of Power takes a surprising amount of time to explore. Like all elves, Galadriel’s as fleet of foot as she is fond of nature’s beauty. Her understanding of the world is far more nuanced than that of beings — humans especially — who simply haven’t lived long enough to see the kinds of things she has. But because so much of The Rings of Power is told from the elves’ perspectives, and at a time when neither Galadriel nor her good friend Elrond (Robert Aramayo) had become Middle-earth legends, the show takes care to present them as complicated, flawed people rather than otherworldly waifs shrouded in mystery.

Galadriel’s warrior spirit and ingenuity are evident from the moment she’s introduced, but it isn’t until her immediate family is touched by death personally that she’s given the freedom to take up arms herself and join the fight against Morgoth’s well-known successor, Sauron. As it’s condensing significant chunks of Tolkien’s lore into a compact montage in its first episode, The Rings of Power initially feels like it might be the sort of show that isn’t quite sure where it wants to focus or what ideas it wants you to keep at the forefront of your mind. But the pace the show moves with as it’s setting its stage actually works as a very effective way of illustrating how elves experience and perceive time very differently than other races who aren’t as long-lived.

By the time The Rings of Power properly kicks into gear, so much time has passed since both Morgoth and Sauron were defeated (for the first time, in Sauron’s case) that the friction between elves and men is more about the elves’ continued presence in Middle-earth and less about the orcs that have seemingly been hunted to extinction. With their mission appearing to be completed, High King Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) wants nothing more than to send Galadriel and her fellow warriors home to Valinor, if only to have her out of his luxuriously silky hair. But deep down in their heart of hearts, Gil-galad, Galadriel, and a number of The Rings of Power’s other core characters all know that there’s something profoundly evil lurking out there in the world just waiting for the right time to make itself known.

https://www.theverge.com/23329415/the-lord-of-the-rings-of-power-review-amazon-prime

---