Bill Nance

Well, it's diverse. It's poorly written with lame dialogue, the acting is wooden and the plot is incomprehensible. But hey, there's diversity elves and dwarves and hobbits -I mean harfoots. There's no mention of the ban of the Valar, nor of the elven kin-slaying, nor even a nod to the fact that the elves, against the orders of the Valar, declared war on a GOD and had their butts handed to them for 1000 years or so, nor that they were very nearly exterminated, saved only by the mercy of the Valar. There is no point in the two episodes yet released in which the viewer remotely cares about the characters. Galadriel, one of the wisest and most powerful beings in Middle Earth is portrayed as a petulant teenager with anger management issues. The casting was terrible across the board. Elrond looks like Doogie Houser with pointy ears and Celebrimbor, greatest elven craftsman since Feanor looks equally not elvish at all. None of the great wisdom of the elves is portrayed at all. They're all just humans with pointy ears. This is a paint-by-numbers wokefest, with scant attention paid to writing, story-telling or the slightest respect for the source material. It presents as though the writers went through a checklist. Diversity ELVES! Diversity HOBBITS Diversity DWARVES! And of course, let's throw in some inter-species forbidden love that's ALSO inter-racial! My head hurts after spending 2 hours, 12 minutes being pounded upside the head with the wokebat, which is the only thing that I can see the series does well. Writing, plot, acting, casting? Pretty much a disaster. But it does have nice CGI. For a billion bucks, one would hope so. Chalk this up as one more example of "Get woke, go broke." Unless you're already an amazon subscriber, save yourself some money and give this one a miss.