Dylan Yip-Chuck

Where to begin? Maybe with the good… the orcs have been portrayed excellently. The choice to use practical over vfx is paying off massively, and the composer hits his stride with the dark musical themes. I like the portrayal of the dwarves. Though maybe too over the top whimsical without enough balance of sincerity, the dwarves have been great. Elrond is my favourite other character - I think the casting was spot on and actor is doing about as well as possible… even despite a painful script. The overall cinematography has been exceptional… but it kinda had to be with the big billion+ price tag. Though I'd say it leans a bit too "video game" and clean/saturated for my tastes. I'd prefer it were a bit more dark and rustic. My disappointment with the show has nothing to do with the choice to inject diversity in Tolkein’s world where there wasn’t to the same degree in the books. Though I much prefer Peter Jackson’s approach to check politics at the door… i understand 2022 is very different culturally than 1999. So that’s not where this 1 star comes from in the slightest. The show fails in my opinion with story, acting and script. 5 episodes in and I am fighting to care about these characters. I am more annoyed with most of them than anything. Their dialogue largely feels like it was written in order to be used as a sound bite for a trailer - not like genuine speech (in most cases.) Galadriel is wildly overpowered, and as a result: un-relatable as our hero. (what was more cringy… the ice troll or the guards in the dungeon?). Remember when it took the entire fellowship 5+min to kill a cave troll? The harfoots are so cheesy it’s hard to watch. I feel like I’m watching a child’s Disney movie, like the jungle book. The music, the acting, the story - just too far lighthearted to the point that it doesn't feel like they share the same middle earth as the others. Harfoots and hobbits can be joyous, fun, and represent “good” without being unreasonably childlike. The force fed love story between the elf and bronwyne. Her annoying son lol. The Numinorians are… cowards… weaklings.. why did they make them all so weak and whimsical all the time? Aren’t they supposed to be the strongest and most ethereal form of humans? Galadriel made them look like absolute weaklings in the “challenge” to draw flesh? Lol. And she somehow convinced them to sail to middle earth … with 0 knowledge of genuine enemy force ??? She just “feels” it … “in here” *puts hand on heart* lol. Reasoning for her motivation: "I cannot stop". *Face palm*. The Numinorian Queen is such a predictable boring character. In fact, she's is an example of perhaps the biggest problem with the show: predicatbility. I could go on and I am just venting across too many different aspects at this point in too shallow depth (kinda like the show lol). But hopefully I get my point across to justify why my rating is a 1/5. The material they have to work with in the coming episodes presents an incredible opportunity for great TV - I truly hope they recover. Yes - my passion for this is deeply influenced by my love for Tolkien and Peter Jackson’s trilogy and I get it’s unfair to hold that bar against this… but that’s the arena Amazon stepped into.