This is a heinous abomination, a desecration of Tolkien's vision, and an insult to his work. Even if one ignores the fact that this show is supposed to be based on Tolkien's Legendarium and judges it as a stand-alone show, it is mediocre at best.

What is this supposed to be? Superficially, it looks like Tolkien's work but for me, that's where the similarities end. Visually this is an impressive series.There are some genuinely talented actors in the cast, too. That said, Tolkien's work is, in every respect that truly matter's, absent. Really that's because this isn't Tolkien. Its a pretty but ultimately hollow,facsimile. Largely absent is the underlying message about courage,the battle between good and evil and the endless horror of war. What we have instead, to my mind, is a rudderless, unsurprisingly slow show, that seems intent on pushing messages of social justice. All of which, is, of course, no substitute for a compelling story of the kind found in Tolkien's heartfelt epic work.

I think so far the show is wonderful. visually the is clearly the best look Tv show ever created, from the crisp resolution to the colorful, elaborate and beautiful scenery, and the great HDR colors. Man I love watching this show so far. Story so far. There is a lot of world building. Im not a Tolkien nerd so I'm not sure where this story is going, but I'm enjoying it so far.

Woke and horrible. When the woke crowd steals ideas from those they profess to hate, as they did here, they are in essence admitting that they have no good ideas of their own.

If you loved the final season of Game of Thrones, you'll probably love this trash. It has some impressive environmental scenery, but the story is terrible and the characters are rubbish. It's a soulless money-grab with Tolkien's name pasted on it to try to give it some legitimacy. At best, it's a forgetable waste of time. At worst, it's a disgusting slap in the face to Tolkien, his fans, and his legacy.

This show is terribly written dreck. Even if this was called something else and didn't reference Lord of the Rings at all it still wouldn't be watchable. This feels like it was written by a group of 5th graders. The CG doesn't look real at all and doesn't match with the live action scenes. The field of view is way to wide and the lack of distance blur which gives the show a cartoonish effect. None of the characters are interesting or engaging and I can't find any reason to care about any of them or the story itself. Anyone who "honestly" gives this 10 stars must have a childlike mentality.

This is an abomination of Lords of the Rings. Elves are supposed to be white, it was always like that, but Amazon changed it ruined this TV show with its stupid woke agenda. Basically they used Tolkien's masterpiece world for their political purposes. They even went so far that the IMDb which is owned by Amazon and which is supposed to be a neutral (not anymore) website for reviews and ratings is clearly deleting any reviews that have less than 6/10 ratings. They simply delete or won't publish those reviews. They don't even hide how biased & corrupted they became. It's horrible how we, humanity allow big vile corporations like Amazon control everything and censor everything. If it goes like that, soon humankind will lose freedom and we all will be living in an Orwelian world where censoring & propaganda rule the earth...

Unbelievably bad.

This should be ashamed to use the Tolkien name and Lord Of The Rings title to market this pile of crud. Occasional pretty visuals cannot hide the terrible acting, stilted and cheesy dialogue and the slooooooow plot that has nothing to do with the source material. Read the books, watch the films but avoid this abomination.

Love it. No, that's not my opinion on, it's an order. You have to love it. It is mandated by the people in charge. They changed the race of the Hobbits and then stopped calling them hobbits. LOVE IT Please, Love it, before they work camps in the Dakotas, herd us into them and start forcing us to watch the Rings of Power on repeat every night while working us to death in the day for the betterment of an equitable society. And they made the clear message, which is the only message that you need to know, that all white people are absolute evil because of the color of their skin. LOVE IT Seriously, you have to, it's an order from big tech. Unless they are white women. If they are white women than they can be the meh Strong Female Lead and that makes them the bestiest of the bestest and no one can be bestier than they are because bestest and Strong Female Lead so she can't have a character arch because that she wasn't absolutely perfect from the start, which she was. LOVE IT Or else And they changed the races of the Dwarfs and took the beards off of the women. I mean that was like freeing the slaves, wasn't it? It was such a monumental move that one can only say that it was more groundbreaking than freeing the slaves, stopping apartheid. It was sort of like bringing benevolent overlords like Idi Amin, Foday Sankoh, and Jonas Savimbi into power and asking them to push the right message. LOVE IT Because you have to. And then they took the modern era and shoehorned it into a Tolkien show, because you are supposed to do that now, and fired the Tolkien scholars that objected to it. LOVE IT. Seriously love it or they will call the Cheka and report you for having the wrong views. Anyway, none of that makes it good. It really doesn't, but all of those changes mean that you do have to love it. Because you have to conform, and that is the most important thing. You don't have to think this is a good film, you just have to praise it and verbally and maybe physically if its a riot attack the people that haven't conformed to the right view. Because we don't have Gulags and camps to reprogram people yet, so you have to just conform, for the greater good.

Galadriel is a monster. At least in this mini series. For those unacquainted with the world of hobbits and elves and evil orcs in the works of Tolkien, Galadriel is a super talented elf of the highest order with mystic abilities in the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion. She is a very charming and thoughtful character in Tolkien's books. Here, she is a monster. Obviously, the intent is to goad people into thinking a monster can turn into a non monster. But only the most naive fools buy into it. There is no motivation for Galadriel in her efforts here, but there isn't any motivation for most of the characters. The only way Galadriel's evil makes sense is if she was captured by the evil super being (a sort of second to the Devil) Sauron, and Sauron, a shape changer, took her place. However, that didn't happen. It would have possibly saved this series to give some credible motivation. Instead, we get the most contrived events possible. That's why this is called a "horribly written piece".

"And as I always say, since it sent most of J.R.R. Tolkien fans back to the legendary The Lord of the Rings books, the arrival of The Rings of Power can only be seen as a good thing". Read more (Greek content): https://www.depart.gr/lord-of-rings-rings-of-power-season-1-review/

I have loved to see the imperfection, the weaknesses of characters like Galadriel and Sauron himself who are almost in their beginnings and it is logical that they have many weaknesses. I think the fandom that thinks negatively is wrong because they see Galadriel omnipotent and she is not at all, if something has shown both, Galadriel and Sauron, is that they have suffered many defeats and from there they grow and are forged as characters almost Gods to whom we have so much respect and admiration. Many negative criticisms are subjective and lack of vision but we know what will happen, Sauron will win and achieve his goal by walking in the face of all, how it happens is what could be criticized but that Tolkien was basically what he wrote and I see it well executed in the series.

**Bad Fan-Fiction - could have been a mediocre fantasy show, but as a Middle Earth show it is a failure.** I will just share some of my impressions and come to a conclusion. The show is boring and does not pull you in. After watching the first 3 episodes, I am still not interested at all in what's going on. Galadriel as an or maybe as THE main character of the show is miscast and badly written. She is supposed to be one of the most beautiful and graceful women of all Middle Earth and its history - but she comes across as bland and average in terms of charisma. And she is written as a very unlikable annoying arrogant person. The casting in general: let's just say that a lot of casting choices do not represent Tolkien's vision of Middle Earth well. The writers and producers seem to not understand the idea of a fully independent fantasy world that is based on its own history and evolution and not the history and evolution of our world. It has to be coherent in itself and not represent our modern day world - that's why it's called "Fantasy". Especially when it comes to the fantasy world of Tolkien's "Middle Earth"! And by inserting the modern day society conditions and ideology into the world of "Middle Earth" the makers of this show make this show look less like "Middle Earth" and more like our modern day world, which Tolkien Fans certainly don't want to be inserted and represented in a show about "Middle Earth". Elves appear more like kind of Romans, they do not look and feel like Tolkien elves. Giving them short haircuts is a bad decision and an example for how the makers of this show made the Elves more like humans with pointy ears than real Elves that are a different people. Bad casting choices (see explanation above) there, too. Also, for some reason there are aged-looking elves in the show, though elves are not supposed to be aging to the point that they look like old people. The dialogues (and monologues) are often cringe and stupid - they often try hard to sound poetic, but lack substance and talent on the side of the writers. In some regard the show is more like "Dungeons & Dragons" meets "Middle Earth" than actual "Middle Earth". Visually, the show is often just a cheap uninspired copy of the aesthetics of the Peter Jackson movies. You can see the money they put in, but you can't see true inspiration or authentic artistic vision there. It doesn't do the show any good that it is not based on any stories actually written by Tolkien, but only on some references from the "Appendices" and it just uses some characters from "The Hobbit" and the Ring Trilogy. So this show tells a story with which the (seemingly rather talentless) writers came up themselves which feels like bad fan-fiction (which is essentially truly is). Bottom Line/Conclusion: It could have worked as some fantasy TV show that is not based on Tolkien's works - for people who get along with this vision (inspired a lot by certain ideology and modern day conditions) of a fantasy world. I personally would have perceived such a show somewhat polished, but essentially mediocre and accordingly would have been my rating; and then I would have ignored the show for the rest of its lifetime. But as this show is supposed to represent "Middle Earth" from the according works of Tolkien, one simply has to acknowledge and point out that it is a big failure. The majority of Tolkien fans reject this bastardization of Tolkien's source material, and they do this for good reasons.