Der Herr der Ringe: Die Ringe der Macht

A pleasant surprise, the cinematography is impeccable, the characters quite well done, the plot looks like a link between the stories of the First Age, the Silmarillion and the stories of the Lord of the Rings of the Third Age, the rhythm of narration is pleasant albeit a bit slow. If the outcome of the series will be to narrate how Sauron forged the Rings of Power, it will definitely be something to watch. Until this moment, I think that in general terms, at least the first chapter delivers. I think enough to be cautiously optimistic about what the next 7 episodes might turn out to be. I must add, again that I am pleasantly surprised.

I was floored with how boring the show is. It is lacking the soul of the Lord of the rings, and to a lesser extent the hobbit. There is no lightheartedness, no camaraderie, no one to even care about. I know who the characters are, but I am not given any reasons to like or care about any of them. This feels like a first draft of a show of this scale, written by someone who does not have experience with character interactions or making interesting characters. It feels like it was made from an outline.

The special effects are good, but then some of the force settings look so fake, I don't understand why so much time was spent on CGI, but not to make the forest floor look real. The forest floor look real.

What is there to say that hasn't been said? The acting is wooden. I blame the direction for that. The CGI is good, but so what, it's 2022.

The story of Galadriel is admittedly disjointed in the Tolkien books, but this series takes serious creative license with it to the point of utter absurdity. Anyone who's seen the first 2 episodes knows what I'm talking about.

And why invent a character from whole cloth? Peter Jackson did it with Liv Tyler's character and now we get a random Elf soldier and another stupid, uninteresting love story. I shall leave it to the viewers as to the reasoning behind this one. Suffice it to say, it's obvious.

What an utterly disappointing start to a highly hyped series. Apparently writers simply cannot be trusted to faithfully convey any source material anymore. At least GRRM had some involvement in the first several seasons of GoT and it shows. Same for the first few episodes of "The House of Dragons." Sadly, it's obvious that no knowledgeable (or faithful) representative for JRRT was available with a $1Bn budget, eh, Bezos?

This is like "Foundation" so far. Flat, lifeless, but pretty. Uninteresting, no characters I care about, nothing original at all. I think I'll wait for all eps to be out and then attempt to binge watch, because I'm not sitting around and waiting for them to be dropped week by week.