you know when I see things like this(series and the controversy that seems to circle them like albatross), I cant help but wonder how much of it is because of too many cooks from the sidelines. Eg: those more shall we say toxic "fans" who take issue with strange things, and the execs who fear losing the money those "fans" "might" bring? Do you ever wonder that?
The whole thing is confusing to me. Like, this series actually is generating the kinds of tensions you are talking about, audaciously.
They marketed this as a "Tolkien" series yet without anything that is even trying to make the show seem like an actual adaptation. it literally is only a loose lift of Tolkien and seems to be more like, "Oh wow, we're free to just take random elements of Tolkien and create the world AND the plot wholesale!" Like, they don't give a shit about doing Tolkien, they just wanted to use elements of Middle-Earth and brand it as Middle-Earth to get viewers and LotR fans, IMO.
I think it would have been more respectable if they had been really up front about what the show actually was and/or even just created their own world with rip-offs of Tolkien elements (without breaking copyright -- kind of like Bright did), and then they could just be taken at face value. Instead, creating a show that insists it is based in Tolkien is going to create all these expectations that are not going to be met, because they didn't even really bother to try to meet them in the first place.
Either that, or they could have actually bothered to make it more better emulate the actual characters and places being used. I think this is a legitimate criticism regarding approach.
Meanwhile, It's been kind of an average show, with some amusing gaffs / idiosyncrasies so far.
I don't know how Amazon signed off on this, aside from signing off on Wheel of Time which I assume was worse. Like, they spent a LOT of money on this but it sounds like they didn't know what they were getting (which I have trouble believing) or just marketed it however they wanted without caring if it was honest.
The racists and misogynists are just another separate issue, it's all creating a bunch of noise deflecting from actual responsible criticism of the show. This is just becoming more and more common. This, She-Hulk, Ms Marvel, other shows nowadays. Everyone is trying to get in on things, and meanwhile they need more content creators and many seem relatively untested but handed large properties. Many of them also seem to view this as a change to "adjust" the homogenous nature of many franchises (which I don't have a problem with) -- but they seem to be lacking in writing skills and real imagination, even when the acting talent and the technical elements of the shows are decent. Literally every time it's the writers and showrunners who are the weakest links.
I finished watching The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies today with my kid, and I said after, "You know, the one good thing about Rings of Power is that it makes Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy look a lot better." Which is hilarious. At least Jackson TRIED to adapt the actual book. We might argue about how much of it was extraneous and didn't need to be there, or any alterations he made, but the third film actually adheres more or less to the book aside from all the added/changed things in the final battle and that moron Alfred as well. It hits many of the emotional beats, even though it tries too hard to wed itself to LotR.
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