Angela Schutzman

There were positives and negatives to the first two episodes. First, the scenery and visual effects are stunning and create a beautiful representation of the landscape and mysteries of this age of Middle Earth. Some of the characters felt authentic and were portrayed by good actors, namely Durin and Gil-Galad. They continued the true characteristics of their races that Peter Jackson brilliantly portrayed in LOTR and their accents and representations felt spot on. Another positive was the orcs and new creatures introduced in the first two episodes. I can appreciate the ROP had to give a fresh different twist on orcs and I feel like the were able to stay true to the "orcish" nature but also give us something new and different. The snow troll and the "tunneling orc" were great intros to new creatures that could have populated the earth during this age. The music was pleasant but not as good as LOTR. The score in LOTR seemed to be more true to the "Medieval" setting while ROP had some odd introductions of new styles of music like the tribal themes in the hartfoot culture. One of the BEST things about ROP were the incredible representations of the different cultures in architecture. Khazad-Dum, Lindon, Valinor and Southlands were breathtaking and really fill in the gaps of LOTR when you wondered what those old civilizations looked like at the height of their prosperity. Stunning!! The first negative has to be the clunky storyline as it didn't seem to have the smooth flow that LOTR had with seemingly seamless transitions between different storylines of different characters. Along with that, the dialoge left alot to be desired. Galadriel and Elrond's conversations could have been cut in half and struck hollow with their desire to imitate the lofty and substantive dialogue of Tolkien and Jackson. I'd say the other conversations of other characters had similar issues. There was also hardly any action or battle scenes in the first two episodes which was incredibly disappointing in contract to Jackson's LOTR which had a great blend of adventure drama, humor and action. Next negative would be the blatant Diversity and Inclusion casting that was forced upon this series. It tragically jams a square peg into a round hole with trying to recreate the culturally diverse reality of our global modern society into Tolkien's fantasy that's based on European myths and legends. Nothing wrong with African-American or Asian-American acting but inserting it into Tolkien's European fantasy was a tragic mistake, just like taking African or Asian legends and myths and inserting white actors and actresses would be a huge mistake. Same applies here. Black elf?? Seriously?? Black dwarves?? Really? Galadriel's emotion-driven and egotistical leadership was appalling and doesn't exemplify the wisdom that she should have after centuries of experience. Its also incredibly obvious how focused this series is on strong female lead characters while downplaying male characters. LOTR was able to successfully present Eowyn and Arwen as beautiful, strong feminine characters while also giving great examples of masculine, heroic men. Ultimately, I can't believe that they had a billion dollars for a budget and didn't have better dialogue, characters, action sequences and music score. I'm honestly disappointed, however I might continue watching to see if there's any redemption as the series continues....