The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the review

Having reached the eighth and final episode of this first season, we can say that The Rings of Power was undoubtedly a divisive production. Just take a tour of the network to read the most varied comments: there are those who adored it, those who hated it without reserve, those who found themselves in the middle, and the reasons are the most disparate because when we talk about Il Lord of the Rings, every fan of Tolkien books, films or works in general reacts differently. In this case, the matter is even more delicate because the showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay they took a lot of liberties in adapting the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings, while compressing millennia of stories to tell the background of the well-known trilogy.

Over the weeks, we have learned to put ourselves in the shoes of someone who has never explored the subject, and perhaps has not even seen the Peter Jackson films: believe it or not, these mythological creatures really exist. In doing so, however, we appreciated what it was Amazon Prime video brought to the screen by spending a billion dollars, but we can’t deny that some things have made us turn up our noses.

In our review of the season finale of The Rings of Power we explain why the conclusion was not one of these … but beware: there will be inevitable spoilers in the next lines, so stop here and come back only after watching the episode!

The season finale

Predictably, the season ended with the forging of the top three Ringsbut the way it got there was not entirely straightforward, and it also gave us some surprises that the six-handed script played well enough.

Before dwelling on them, it is worth pointing out that the ending has completely put aside the characters of Durin and Arondir, reserving the subplot of Numenore only a very small space in the middle of the episode, in which we saw the queen regent Miriel and a mourning Elendil arrive in the city to find that the king has passed away.

For the rest, however, the episode, which lasts an hour and a quarter, focused on the two subplots still standing – that of Galadriel and the Elves, and that of the Stranger and the our expectations to the last. That of the Pelopiedi was the most eventful, as it showed us a clash between the mysterious cultists and the Foreigner.

The TV series has juggled for its entire duration two mysteries in particular that have puzzled fans of the Tolkien Legendarium, namely the true identities of Halbrand and the Stranger. Cultists in the latter have recognized no less than that Sauronrevealing to be on his trail to help him come to his senses.

Meanwhile, Galandriel reached Lindon in slow motionbecause apparently every time he gets on his horse he manages to slow down time, and has brought Halbrand to safety, who immediately joined forces with Celebrimbor: between blacksmiths we understand each other, understandable. And the intervention of the King of the South allowed the Elf to find a solution to the unfortunate fate of his species, untying the knot on the forging of Mithril. What a good boy, this Halbrand!

It turns out, however, that the Stranger is not Sauron at all when the cultists endanger Nori and the Pelopiedi who rushed to look for him: we must say that the clash between these forces of nature was spectacular, thanks to a good scenography, a healthy dose of special effects. and some references to Peter Jackson’s films and the battle between Gandalf and Saruman in the Orthanc tower. The reason is simple: the Stranger is a Wish – just as we predicted – and in this case, from the way he talks, and from what he says, it would seem to be Gandalf in person.

In short, it practically repeats the same lines as in Peter Jackson’s films, some of which are taken directly from Tolkien’s books, and in a sense this solution also seemed a bit cloying to us (especially when he invites Nori to “always follow his nose” ) but we can’t deny that he got us a big smile. Now it is necessary to understand only if the actor Daniel Wayman will he be able to live up to Sir Ian McKellen (spoiler: no) and if he will be able to deliver us a satisfying interpretation of a “young” Gandalf (from what we have seen, it is already more probable).

Once the knot on the Stranger has been untied, the knot on Sauron remains. And the rest of the episode plays cards face up when Galadriel, who had begun to suspect the interest of Halbrand towards Celembribor and his works, he puts his back against the wall. And in short, Halbrand is really Sauron. Let’s say it was a bit of Pulcinella’s secret, but until the end we wanted to believe that he was, say, the Sorcerer King of Angmar or one of the other Nazgûl, and instead it was the Dark Lord himself. We must admit that we feared that the mental “duel” with Galadriel was about to result in a kind of anti-heroic reinterpretation of one of the greatest villains in the history of fantasy literature, but luckily the showrunners stopped at the right time.

If nothing else, this confrontation stretched the shadows the series cast on Galadriel from the start, presenting her as a character plagued by an inner conflict that she would seem to have left behind by handing over her brother’s dagger. Now that Elrond has put together the pieces of the puzzle, and that Celebrimbor is already evidently in check, we will have to wait until next season to find out the consequences that Galadriel’s choice will have in the long term: we remind you that there is still a missing husband to be exhumed, between other things.

The season ended with a pressing and even moving ending. The highly anticipated forging scene, artfully assembled and accompanied by one soundtrack which just cannot be criticized, it was only a small part of the gloss.

We have to give credit to the actors who play the Pelopiedi, and in particular to Markella Kavenagh and Megan Richards, for tearing us a few tears in the moment of saying goodbye. A moving and meaningful scene that reassured us that we will meet again Me neither in the next season: the young Pelopiedi has become one of our favorite characters in the space of a few episodes and we are glad that it was not a definitive goodbye. Too bad only for those references a little too direct to Jackson’s films, which we talked about before: the season literally ends with Halbrand looking to the Mount Doomevident reference to the final scenes of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers.

Reflections on the season

Director Wayne Che Yip he hadn’t particularly impressed us in the previous weeks, but at the end of the season he certainly worked better. It’s kind of the main problem of the whole series: gigantic potential in inappropriate hands.

The Rings of Power is a straightforward series, with no incredible twists, intrigues or conspiracies, and perhaps it was refreshing to see a fantasy on TV that does not rely on sex and violence to capture the attention of viewers (any reference to the extraordinary House of the Dragon is purely coincidental), but it is also a series clumsily written by authors who do not have who knows what curricula behind them. In this sense, it is incredible that Amazon Prime Video has entrusted a multimillion-dollar production, inspired by an imagery that is practically a religion, to two essentially anonymous showrunners. If we compare the staff with that of Star Wars: Andor, where the most loser has won at least one Emmy, the comparison is merciless.

On the other hand, telling this story must not have been easy at all, because you had to find the right square too – and above all! – for those who have never seen or read The Lord of the Ringsexploiting a material, that of the Appendices, which is not exactly easy to transform into a screenplay. In this sense, The Rings of Power works. It is a clear and didactic work – perhaps too much? – which does not confuse Tolkien’s fasting spectators and relies on an absolutely extraordinary technical achievement, both on the visual front – which includes not only the special effects, but also the make-up and costumes – and on the musical one, also because Bear McCreary is the usual guarantee of quality.

We also want to put the Italian dubbingwhich embellishes some of the most inspired dialogues thanks to the talent of our voice actors and the properties of our language, which gives even greater solemnity to the best lines of the series, usually entrusted to Galadriel, Elrond and Durin.

As we said, however, not everything worked out the right way, and a better writing would certainly have raised some subplots that, either for the editing, or for the interpretation of a cast not always up to parthey have taken on more mundane and … televised traits, so to speak. Despite the majesty of photography, often due more to computer graphics than to human talent, The Rings of Power is a series that does not have specific distinctive characteristics, that does not run risks and that does not risk shooting or particularly creative or authorial technical solutions. IS anonymousin this sense, and it also refers a little too much to the cinematographic creations of Peter Jackson, like a shy pupil who has not yet chosen which path to take.

There’s a potential huge in this TV series, regardless of whether or not its faithfulness to the sources, and our hope is that the showrunners have learned from their mistakes and are more ready to face the challenge of the next shoot, also thanks to a seemingly more relaxed pandemic situation. compared to the processing of this first season.