Ishmael Essuman

I must say, as a long time LOTR fan from Africa who was first introduced to the lore through the Peter Jackson trilogy, then went for the books and then the mildly disappointing Hobbits, the Rings of Powers is the worst adaptation of LOTR I have ever seen after sitting through the first five episodes. The only positive I can actually point to is the visual effects, which of course is to be expected for a billion dollar project. The dialogue feels like it was written by a 12 year old for a bunch of 5 year olds sitting by the campfire. The lead actress playing Galadriel has displayed one of the worst big screen acting I've seen in decades, basically incapable of displaying and other form of emotion than a scowling teenager. The writing is abysmal on all levels and the show itself would bore you to sleep and be dropped as quickly s burning coal if it didnt attach itself to the LOTR ip. Other positive is the actor who plays Durin in the series, he's a great actor whos made Durin the only character I've even remotely managed to care for after 5 episodes of an 8 episode season...a show which literally has Elrond, Gilgalad and Gandalf(?) in it. Now on the socio-political issues that has people in knots, I have absolutely no problem with striving to achieve a diverse casting in big screen entertainment, only if it makes sense in the contest of the plot and world in which your story is set. Lots of arguments were made about including Black Elves, Black Dwarves, beardless female dwarves and a suddenly non magical sword swinging Galadriel...fine I may agree or disagree with some of them on all sides, but my question to those who feel this was necessary in other to make LOTR fair representation of our actual world, why then is there no concerns raised when after 5 episodes of an 8 part season in an honest bid to made the LOTR world a fair representation of the real world, have we not seen more than ONE Elf of color? More Asian, Latino and Black Elves, Dwarves and Orcs? where is this equal representation that was deemed imperatively by the showrunners? for me this is lending more to the notion of it all being virtue signaling and tokenism and not the studio actually believing in their words. All in all, its been a disappointment So Far but I'll just make it through to the final episode and see if it can promise something much better in the next season than has been shown in this one.