Rings of Power season 1 explained some secrets, but didn’t tell a story

George Lucas, the saucy mox decided, in April 1981, to make just a few tweaks to his hit film. Star WarsInadvertently, he lit a match that would become a culture war. Add the subtitle Episode IV: A New Hope immediately recontextualized everything that had come and would come in the future, suggesting a grand plan that even a cursory skim of the original trilogy’s production history would reveal to be largely bluster. 18 years on, Lucas has finally succeeded. We would A plan that he followed mostly to a T. The prequel trilogy was an example of a plan that the author had, and it has been defined by its failures to live upto its predecessor for most of its life. Here’s a lesson. Great art doesn’t pretend to have a strategy. Many plans lead to lousy art.

The creators of these shows are like a lot other big ones with high stakes. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of PowerThe plan would have to be reassured that the plans were in place. Good art can often assert it doesn’t have a plan, while poor art may insist that its plan works.

The Rings of Power showrunners J.D. Patrick McKay, and Payne, are openly revealing their plans. They are adapting J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth legendarium and how long it would take to do it. As of this moment, the plan is roughly to show the lead-up to the prologue of Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the RingTo end the new opus exactly where it began. This plan has become less interesting in execution.

The Rings of PowerIt has been built around mystery that neither Tolkien nor any of his famous adaptors have ever tried to solve. All the driving forces of season one revolved around characters’ identities, and not their deepest desires. The show’s biggest questions to its audience are: “Who is the Stranger?” Or Sauron? Oder Adar?

Photo: Ben Rothstein/Prime Video

The Lord of the RingsIt and the related books were not concerned with mystery; characters appeared as they were and had little to hide. There were some who weren’t. Others Characters expected them to be, but the audience is always clued in — Aragorn, for example, is not who many in the story expect him to be, but from the moment the audience finds out about his broken sword, the implication is clear: He is Isildur’s heir, the king of Gondor who does the titular returning in The Return of the King.

This is the strength of Tolkien’s brand of high fantasy, and ironically the same reason it is rejected by more modern takes on the genre. It’s why Rings of PowerBoth can coexist comfortably together House of the Dragon and still feel like an entirely different experience — because it is. It’s a world where archetypal characters wrestle with abstractions that represent good and evil in the purest of terms, where the darkness is abyssal and the light that burns to beat it back is faint but burns hot. It’s never really a question if people like the elven king Gil-galad or renowned genius Celebrimbor are good or evil, it’s just whether or not they’re misguided in their noble ideals. Middle-earth’s characters embark on adventures that lead to either the increasing ranks of people who are fighting for the light or those that succumb to despair.

Because of this, so much of Tolkien’s work is about incredible journeys, of great distances crossed and struggles endured to an impossible destination. The biggest reason is perhaps The Rings of Power falls short in its first season is also the simplest: It’s not headed anywhere.

Image: Prime Video

Image: Prime Video

People do indeed travel. Bronwyn, along with the Southlands’ denizens, are forced to flee for their safety from the Adar-led orcs. Galadriel begins her tale on the way to Valinor, an elf paradise. She decides to abandon her quest for Sauron in Middle-earth at the end of her journey. Elrond goes back and forth to Khazad-dûm. The island kingdom of Númenor, long isolated under a policy of noninterventionism, finally sends soldiers out into Middle-earth proper, an act that will be the beginning of its downfall.

These trips are however not included in the package. journeyIt is not the Campbellian meaning of s. This is, in my opinion, a large part of why The Rings of PowerThis may make it feel hollow. So many of the characters in this series are not growing. It’s a shame because the relationships in this series are worth watching. The best episodes are those when these relationships are allowed to develop, namely Durin, the dwarven Prince, his father and Elrond. This is why it’s so deflating that most other characters are reduced to simply learning the hidden roles dealt out in the secret game of Werewolf the writers have been playing. Galadriel’s history with her husband, Bronwyn’s plight in the Southlands with her son Theo, absolutely everything about the harfoots — all of it reduced to parlor room debate over who might be holding the card that says they’re the Dark Lord.

Galadriel is still the protagonist in the series. The only noticeable difference between season 1 and season 2 is that Galadriel shares a lot with the major players. The Rings of PowerOne group of characters who projected their competence look now like massive dopes. The finale’s revelation of Sauron’s identity is depicted in a way that mostly unfolds for the viewer’s benefit, as those who learn the truth are fooled because they are made to be less observant, less active, and more trusting of a character that is essentially dropped into their story at a climactic moment without good reason to be there.

Photo: Ben Rothstein/Prime Video

Preamble is always more important than character The Rings of Power. The distance between where characters must be in the showrunners’ endgame plans and where they are now serves as justification for their present decisions, not character development. Why are Bronwyn and Arondir attracted to one another, and pulled into each other’s orbit? Why do Elendil and Queen Regent Míriel suddenly have a connection? Why do the elves, after learning of Sauron’s identity, Still, you can use his ideas?

There’s an easy answer for this: It’s all part of the plan, and it’ll make sense if we stick along. However, good TV and plans don’t always work out. Because a rewarding journey is the only thing that ultimately ensures we get there, it’s important to remember how much you are enjoying the present.

Ironically, The Rings of PowerWe have so much to see. Dwarven halls, human navies, elven woods. Beautiful. The almost limitless budget of the series means that it has always succeeded in terms of texture and visuals. It is a Middle-earth where people live, and that viewers would love to see. If it were to be destroyed, this would make the series a disaster. However, it’s constructed with the architecture of a video game, with prominent sightlines that draw attention to what lies on the horizon, dramatic establishing shots so the viewer does not forget the majesty of the fantasy cities they visit, and thoughtful costuming that tells you where every person is from. Perhaps it is no mistake that it is more interesting to imagine oneself in this version of Middle-earth’s Second Age than it is to conjure the inner lives of any of the characters The Rings of Power It is then filled with.

Image: Prime Video

Image: Prime Video

Image: Prime Video

The Rings of PowerMapmakers are the ones who create maps, and not storytellers. Maps can be seen as hubris. They are only possible if the world is already known. But the best moments of Middle-earth’s epic story are found in the “is”. It is not shown in the map that precedes Tolkien’s work. What are they? It happensMirkwood is home to the haunted halls and fields of Moria. Which stories are divergent or ending there and what happens to them afterwards. Something is MoveThey are drawn to adventure and treasure.

The best thing could possibly happen The Rings of PowerIt would be as if the world stopped being so meticulously mapped and instead traveled with us.

Season 1 The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of PowerAmazon Prime Video now streams it.