Alex Coleman

Having been a Tolkien fan from a young age, I can say without a doubt that this is among the worst media regarding Middle-Earth. At least the animated films had an element of charm to them and an element of genuine ambition to tell a good story. This entire series, however, feels disingenuous and mal-contrived. There was much talk from the showrunners prior to the release of the show about staying true to Tolkien. In this, Amazon's Rings of Power is an abject failure. I understand that there will naturally be some difficulty in producing true-to-Tolkien media without extensive rights to more of his original material; however, once designated as fanfiction, I decided to peruse the fanfiction on the internet that does not masquerade as a world-class, genre-breaking masterpiece. 'Lo and behold, much of it has been of infinitely better quality than this mudslide of a show. The reality is, that despite all the shiny, pretty landscapes (displayed for all of 5 seconds before hard cuts) this work is devoid of a soul. If I didn't know better, I would accuse them of being corrupted by Morgoth himself, considering the vast corruption of Tolkien's work on display here.