The Rings of Power (season 1), a new blow for the representation of Middle-Earth?

 

The series was released at the beginning of September 2022 and was produced by Ron Ames and Chris Newman.

Amazon bought the TV rights of the universe created by J.R.R. Tolkien from Tolkien Estate in November 2017 to make a 5 seasons series.

This series takes place during the Second Age of Middle-Earth and is based on a two-pages description of it from the Lord of the Rings and is not even close to all of the events which were written by the author. The people who watch this series have to see this series more as a fanfiction than based on Tolkien's writings. One can compare this series as the Lord of the Rings movies of Peter Jackson who did this due to the complexity of the universe.

Except this the series is awesome from a point of view of acting and cinematography. I, personally, see any issues with having black actors in it because there wasn't any precision about the skin colors so it was up to the creativity of the readers of the books.

Peter Jackson wasn't even contacted for this project, and I think it is a bad idea because he was the one who dared to try to represent this universe on the silver screen even without the word of Christopher Tolkien. But it is also a double-edged situation because on the one hand one sees how someone else imagined this universe but on the other hand he would have kept a certain continuity.

The friendship between Prince Durin (Owain Arthur) and Elrond (Robert Aramayo) was an enjoyable surprise; it made me change my point of view about Lord Elrond because he wasn't much developed in the movies of Peter Jackson.

In this series one also discovers the Numenorian culture when Galadriel was saved by Elendil (Isildur's father), Aragorn's ancestor. And it introduces why Numenorians came to Middle-Earth.

4/5 Due to the fact it is not close to the real story I cannot give more but the acting and the images increased my notation.

 

 

See you next week for the next article.