The Dark Herald reviews Season One of THE RINGS OF POWER.
Avoid Like the Plague is my lowest rating, I’ve only given it two other times, and it takes a lot to get it. A production really has to work for it before I’m willing to put my ultimate seal of disapproval on it. I mean you got to dig deep and put your back to the wheel before I stamp that label on something. A show must do everything it can to earn it.
And this one did just that.
Throughout ten hours of runtime this travesty never let up in its determination to win my abject hatred for every aspect of its very existence.
It consistently fails on so many levels that you can’t help but be fascinated by its relentless incompetence.
This show is absolutely, and in all ways, the exact opposite of what J.R.R. Tolkien achieved with his life’s work.
There have been other attempts to subvert Tolkien. Writers who at the core of their work were trying to write an editorial reply that would somehow disprove Truth to be found in the works of men like J.R.R. Tolkien.
George RR Martin set out to invert the tropes that were established in the Lord of Rings, and it ended in the most hilarious series of failures of all time. At this point Martin is undoubtedly hoping he can run out the clock before he has to display the completeness of his artistic bankruptcy.
A better example is His Dark Materials. Phillip Pullman set out to create an atheist Chronicles of Narnia. The Golden Compass has been frequently remade in films and TV. It ends in debacle every time. Read John C. Wright’s review if you want a complete evisceration by a writer who leaves me in the dust.
But none of them come close to equaling the magnitude of the disaster that is, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. These attempts to present the Lie as the Truth always fail like this.
Convergence always destroys an organization’s ability to perform its primary function. And while many an organization has been converged, Amazon Studios was born in convergence. It was never going to be capable of providing entertainment, or of transforming any literature into the video medium in a way that would appeal to the book’s fans.