John Coben

Big Tolkien fan since I read the books in 2001. I don't think I am going to watch any more after Ep. 3. Everything looks amazing. Dialogue is pretty strange. Especially the exchange between Galadriel and the leadership in Numenor. Numenor is sooo great, do we need to tell you again how great it is? Let's tell you a few more times how really, really, really, really great it is. Obvious pandering to inclusivity, which is fine except for the black dwarf, those scenes felt so forced/obtuse. The Harfoots are a little annoying, an obvious appeal to children that feels out of place in Middle Earth. But the biggest problem is that it's dull. The characters feel one-dimensional. A lot of the exchanges are kind of dumb. A lot of it feels forced to make some bonus point that has nothing to do with Tolkien or the story. I didn't like Game of Thrones that much, RoP feels like someone shoved characters from Tolkien into an episode of GoT, mixed in a bunch of inclusivity, pushed play, and is waiting for cash to be dispensed. This is just not the same world that gave us the death of Boromir, where long dead kings whose souls had been bound to evil hissed in the night, "shire, Baggins!" It is not the world where the hero, standing in the ancient forge atop the Mountain of Doom, succumbed at the last moment to a lust for power. Instead, it's "Girl power!" and "The sea is always right" and the main characters all know unstoppable kung-fu.