Babar Stelzer

I’m giving this show a good review simply because I follow many LOTR groups and have watched the phenomenon of people downgrading it simply because they used some non-white actors. There has been a large group of very vocal opponents of the show as soon as it was discovered that not all of the actors would be white. Many of those same people are giving poor reviews now without even watching the show. Do I think it deserves a 5 star review? Probably not. I would probably rate it 3-4 stars. Honest review: If you’re an LOTR fan, you’ll enjoy seeing familiar races and places. Elves, dwarfs, the ancient relatives of hobbits (harfoots), and some legendary places like Numenor. Also some intriguing storylines. But also some storylines which seem overdrawn and honestly, boring. Galadriel’s quest to destroy Sauron gets a lot of air time and fails to draw you in or make you really care. The worst offender is the “bro-mance” between Elrond and Durin IV. These scenes really drag on and read more like Middle-Earth soap opera, than fantasy. On the other hand, you have the harfoots and their discovery of a “wizard-like” being, along with their adventures with “wolves”, migration, and other hyjinks. Also interesting are the Southlands scenes, and the rise of Hadar and the orcs. The awakening of Mount Doom and Mordor as well. I think it’s worthwhile to at least watch once for any LOTR fan, but it’s a bit slower moving and not the “adventure” type of story we’re used to with the LOTR films.