Captain G

I do understand the position about diverse casting of dwarves and elves, but please forgive me if I spend this first paragraph on the subject. It's lazy to call people who object as r**ists when Amazon is responsible for three seasons of the greatest show in recent years: The Expanse. Of which, the vast mojority of the same supposedly "toxic fans" would join me in hailing as superb television. And it contains - just off the top of my head - Thai, Filipino, Persian, Polynesian, Black British, African-American and First Nation main cast members! The difference is that in its "world", the casting makes perfect sense. It's not based on a work that explicitly describes races based on northern European mythology. Don't believe me? Check out Wikipedia's entry on the origin of the word "elf". But I'm here to talk about episode one of ROP. It looks lovely but, to paraphrase Douglas Adams: the writing is bad. Really bad. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly bad it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to Star Trek Discovery, but that's just peanuts to Rings of Power. The main character is the very definition of a Mary-Sue, and a typical modern-day boring "strong female character" who emerged from the womb perfect in every way, including being permanently right about everything. My wife and I agreed by the end that it had joined the ranks of so many recent television efforts in that it failed to make us like any of the charaters. The script is an endless effort to sound smart, but having just watched The Sandman on Netflix, you really do spot the lack of a world class author behind the scenes (which for something supposedly based in Tolkien is comically ironic), and it starts to sound like endless faux-meangingful bumper sticker slogans courtesy of the New Age Bullsh*t Generator (google it, it's brilliant). "It's not going to float, it's going to sail". Eh? Surely it can't do one without the other? And what's that bunkum about rocks looking down and ships looking up? That's something a 12 year old might come up with in creative writing class. And what in the name of all that's good and true is going on on that ship near the end of episode 1? It's a sailing ship zipping over the waves with absolutely no wind (the sail is flapping gently), and they're all lined up on the deck which is obviously not moving. There's no crew, unless you count the "servant" types who appear and vanish with the will of the director, and whose purpose is unclear. Then they all start singing like poor imitations of Enya, and suddenly holding hands is really important, then the whole ship vanishes?!!? I can only conclude I must have missed something. Like an hour of my life.