The Mixed Emotions of The Rings of Power
When I think of Amazon Prime Video’s The Rings of Power (which just concluded its first season today), I can’t help but conjure up a scene from 2014’s Whiplash, where J.K. Simmons’s tyrannical jazz instructor torments the eager, good-natured Miles Teller by questioning his ability to keep rhythm.
“Not quite my tempo,” Simmons says. To get to his tempo, he has the students, Teller’s character being singled out, go over the same note time and time again. “You’re rushing,” he says. “Dragging just a hair…rushing again.” Having not gotten to the pacing he likes, Simmons hurls a chair across the room, demanding to know, “Were you rushing or were you dragging?”
To which a bewildered Teller responds, “I don’t know.”
For me, this scene encapsulates the crux of the problem facing The Rings of Power.
The show had an uphill battle no matter the end result. J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series has sold over 150 million copies, and has regularly been hailed as one of the greatest works of the 20th century. Then there are the Peter Jackson trilogy of films, which grossed close to $3 billion at the worldwide box office and received 17 Academy Awards. Yes, other efforts have been lackluster (see Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy), but no adaptation has been the focus of as much controversy and scrutiny as The Rings of Power has. While a sizable portion of the initial criticism has been racist and sexist, completely disregarding the quality and content of the show itself, there are still genuine criticisms that don’t dive into the hateful mire which plagues so many other shows and movies these days.
I consider myself a massive Tolkien fan. I grew up watching the movies and reading the books. Just this year I re-read the bulk of Tolkien’s legendarium, from The Silmarillion to Unfinished Tales to The Great Tales of Middle-Earth, even dabbing my toes into his 12-volume The History of Middle Earth. I regularly watch YouTube channels that mine into Tolkien’s work, such as Nerd of the Rings, In Deep Geek and Rings and Realms to stay on top of the many details, characters, and events throughout the history of Tolkien’s creation. Because of all this, I went into The Rings of Power with high hopes.
However, the problem The Rings of Power faces more than anything else is finding the notes of creating a show: the rhythm, the writing, the structure, and the flow. These four notes serve as the core of any good story, song, or narrative piece of work. They are skills which, like the students in Whiplash grapple with, simply need to be learned and practiced.
Prior to The Rings of Power, showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay had only a single writing credit to their resume. (This itself is a stretch given it was for uncredited writing for 2016’s Star Trek Beyond). They are self-professed novices in the entertainment business and while it seems they did their research to win over the trust of the Tolkien Estate — from their pitch which stood out from other major studios like Netflix and HBO to learning a bit of Elvish — creating a television show cannot be as easily learned.
This inexperience in the medium would explain some of the critiques about the show’s pacing and dialogue. Tolkien, being a gifted linguist and writer, is not easy to adapt, but is even more challenging when doing so with next to no adaption experience. As a longtime Tolkien admirer, I am alright with adaptions taking artistic liberties (Jackson’s film trilogy did plenty). And I am eager, even excited, to see new mysteries laid out that even the most educated Tolkien fans and scholars won’t immediately know how they will unfold, such as the identity of the primary villain, Sauron. But, these changes and the overall story itself must still be told well. The showrunners hearts are in the right place, but the experience is simply not there.
That is not to say The Rings of Power is not worth watching. The show has produced some of my favorite Tolkien inspired moments and can shine as bright as a Silmaril. I’ve loved Bear McCreary’s captivating and emotional score, the breathtaking cinematography, and the acting from all the cast has been top notch with particular standouts being Morfydd Clark (Galadriel), Ismael Cruz Cordova (Arondir), Robert Armayo (Elrond), Owain Arthur (Prince Durin), and Sophia Nomvete (Princess Disa). However, all these wonderful elements can feel only so momentous and engaging if they are not supported by a stronger narrative.
I do have hope, though. “Hope is never mere,” after all, “even when it is meager,” as High King Gil-galad would say. “When all other senses sleep, the eye of hope is first to awaken, last to shut.”
My greatest qualms with this show have been the apparent lack of writing and television experience from Payne and McKay. But they have done this now. They have overseen the production and completion of an epic first season of a major television series. I hope they will learn from this experience, heed valid criticism to grow, change, and improve some of the weaker elements of the first season, and bring a more refined and sophisticated sophomore outing. The obstacles faced by the showrunners and The Rings of Power itself can be overcome, while character arcs and plot beats (which have felt at some points dragging while others rushed) can be smoothened.
This experience watching The Rings of Power (which I have spent a lot of time doing, having now watched each episode at least twice), and the exhausting online rhetoric associated with it have shown me that it is alright to have mixed emotions about a finished piece of art. Art is not meant to be binary — love it or hate it. Mixed emotions are alright, and hopefully with greater experience after its first season, The Rings of Power can prove itself to be a Tolkien adaptation I love.
As it stands, it’s just not quite my tempo.
