Peter Jackson, interview GreenCine (Dec. 2002) - "There are certainly themes Tolkien felt were important. We made a promise to ourselves at the beginning of the process that we weren't going to put any of our own politics, our own messages or our own themes into these movies. What we were trying to do was to analyze what was important to Tolkien and to try to honour that. In a way, were trying to make these films for him, not for ourselves."
That is part of why Jackson did great with LOTR.
This was not done for this show.
Elves with 2022 Instagram haircuts was sort of cringe. Elrond was played down so much it hurts. They did a great job with Galadriel but she was maybe overly emotional for someone as strong as a warrior as herself in the lore
I enjoyed the dialog throwbacks to the original etiology. The scenes and cinematography were stunning. I wish they took more time with the melkor story. I hope the rest of the show isn’t too rushed and I hope it stays true to Tolkien’s universe.
The cast has done an outstanding job.
I’m cautiously optimistic for what’s to come, but who’s against a return to middle earth