It’s no secret that I am not a fan of Amazon’s “Rings of Power” series, but not for the reasons you may think. 

I’m the first to say a film adaptation of a book doesn’t have to be a perfect copy in order to be a great movie or show. But at the same time, changes have to make sense for the medium and not completely divert from the source material in an offensive way. I think what makes this so interesting is that the “Rings of Power” series seems to be made for fans of Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” movie trilogies, rather than fans of the books of the same name by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Personally, I love Jackson’s interpretations and categorize them as alright adaptations and great movies, and many fans love these films. These adaptations are great for introducing die-hard movie fans to Tolkien’s wider world within the books. However, catering to these fans can severely hinder what the “Rings of Power” team is trying to accomplish. 

“The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” trilogies take place over a few decades, while “Rings of Power” attempts to include exposition and storylines from part of the First Age and all of the Second Age, which span over thousands of years. Attempting to jam this all together for a first-time viewer is a struggle in itself, but trying to adapt all of these storylines in a short amount of time makes Tolkien’s world seem smaller and its history less grand. This series also suffered a bit from what many fans call fast travel.’ Fast travel is a common trope in fantasy that refers to when the time characters take to travel across the world to various locations as either inconsistent with earlier journeys, or too fast to make sense with the size of the world itself. 

I also wanted to address some of the storylines the creative team added on their own. I won’t mention anything specific, as to avoid spoilers, but I do believe the series suffered from their diversion from the source material. Most of the information we have on the First and Second Age comes from Tolkien’s lesser known works, such as “The Silmarillion” and “Unfinished Tales”, and contains thousands of years worth of history for all the races and kingdoms of Middle-Earth. 

The creative team leaned on these works like an outline, but made changes in order to prevent books fans from being one step ahead of the casual viewers. Personally, I think they could have stuck to Tolkien’s lore and still found a way to surprise all types of viewers by how these events came to pass, rather than relying on cheap shots used for shock value or lore that they created that doesn’t make sense in Tolkien’s larger mythology. That being said, I think some of the changes, added characters or invented storylines worked really well for the adaptation. It’s a mixed bag for sure in terms of story, you’ll just have to decide for yourself what you think works and what doesn’t. 

That being said, there was a lot about this adaptation that I really enjoyed, such as the score and the casting. Many fans originally complained that people of color (POC) actors would be portraying members of all the races of Middle-Earth. Some claimed that since Tolkien based his world off of English, Welsh and Celtic mythologies, that POC actors had no place portraying these characters. 

This is an odd take for me, since there were POC background characters in both of Jackson’s trilogies. Not to mention the fact that casting POC actors does not affect the story in any negative way. Some Hobbits, Elves, Men and Dwarves were not white; get over it. This is one reason why I hesitate to say that I dislike “Rings of Power” or that I think it is a poor adaptation and an average series at best, since I do not want to be lumped in with these types of  “fans.”

I would rate the “Rings of Power” series as a 5/10 overall, but with four more seasons on the way, there is plenty of room to improve.