Neon Demon

Been reading the vast array of Tolkiens works for over 20 years now. Can say that despite the visuals and production design, this show is just a mess, and there's more "tokenism" going on than anything "Tolkien." Pros - show looks great. Clearly great effort was taken to visually craft a world that looks stunning. Musical score and sound design is also top notch. I could probably listen to some of the more calmer ambient music as background noise easily. Cons - ambiguity about who this show is actually made for. If they're trying to attract actual, well read Tolkien fans then they made numerous visual and narrative mistakes that contradict the lore or are just plain wrong and misleading. If it's for casual audiences, then why go to lengths to show or mention things like Valinor, Forodwaith, Angmar without expository dialogue to explain more? Tokenism. It's obvious. If you want to cast POC into roles, fine, but make their roles lore friendly and noteworthy instead of being placed and cast simply because of the skin color. Middle-Earth was meant to be a magical mythology for England, and whether you like it or not, the English Isles were pretty white until recent history.