New Rotten Tomato Metrics Reveal Rings of Power's Disastrous Decline 

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That is what baffles me. I can´t understand how critics defend this as a good show, when it´s just not. Forget the Tolkien disrespect, on its own it is just not a good show.

“Fake soap opera fan fiction with a middle earth spin.” That’s great!

In 1980 I was a teen and loved The Hobbit and TLOTR books. Then I was excited to sit by the radio at lunchtime in the UK for 26 straight weeks to listen to the TLOTR radio play. Then the animated movie had a rerelease in cinemas and I went to see that and loved it. Then the Jackson movies came out 20 years later and I loved them. I love TLOTR. But this show oozes hatred for the IP and it oozes hatred for the audience. I actually feel icky after watching even a few minutes of it.

Nobody relates to Galadriels 3000 yr old teenage angst? Thats odd

The very moment they started to ship Galadriel with Sauron was when I stopped watching this show entirely. Amazon wants me to feel sorry for the literal devil, and "shipping" him with Galadriel, the whole Haladriel thing is disgusting and extremely hateful towards Tolkien who we all know was a devout Christian. I heard of a story that Tolkien once got a silver cup from a fan with the black speech of the One Ring on it and he refused to drink out of it because to him his characters were literal day and night, shipping a good character with an evil one, well that would rightfully piss me off if I was The Professor as well.

The writers and show runners are creating the story for themselves, not the audience. They want to take Tolkien's basic framework for fantasy and use it to flesh out their own ideas. They're riding his coat tails, so to speak, while trying to redesign the coat itself. I still feel this could have been a popular show if they had just stayed true to the lore, since that is what people want to see: the real Middle Earth. Not a politically corrected version. Both the fans and those that haven't read the books.

Tolkien has one elf with a beard, Cirdan the Shipwright. Rangs of Prime had to have him shave on screen. They hate Tolkien and his lore.

Rings of Power is what would happen of LOTR aired on CW.

Recipe for disaster: 1. Offend readers of Tolkien's works. 2. Fail to engage casual viewers. 3. Repeat.

Zero respect for the source material and the lore. They have just treated JRRT’s works like generic “IP”. Basically a brand to be milked. They assumed that as long as they could slap Tolkien on a pile of crap the nerds would buy it. EFF these guys!

Are there not any writers these days talented enough to come up with their own original IPs?

One of the best things about Sauron was that he was basically an enigmatic character. But modern day writers want to explore (poorly) characters to the point the interest is diluted.

The writers keep writing an insufferable disgusting villain and calling it Galadriel.

I'm a little surprised at Grace Randolph... She's usually a champion of anything with even a remote hint of DEI about it. Perhaps Amazon's cheque got lost in the post?

THE AUDIENCE IS ALWAYS RIGHT !!!

It isn't fan fiction. It is a hate crime against Tolkien.

I totally agree that it's almost impossible to watch unless you like watching paint dry. Very disappointing and definitely not Tolkien.

"At every moment it repels immersion," so true.

The show is a wank-stained selfie, full of preening self-regard of the bloated writers, cast, and most of all, the show-runners. Turgid writing, meandering directionless plots, girl bosses galore, men downgraded and made to look like supine fools. Self-regarding junk; it looks like Tolkien but has nothing to do with Tolkien and everything to do with the social politics of millionaires who feel themselves to be oppressed.

Do you know why the ship floats, but the Rings of Power's Ratings sink like a stone?

There is a reason they don't follow Tolkien's work. The Second Age is best described in The Silmarillion and that is what people expected. But Amazon doesn't own the rights to it. They own the rights to The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and the Appendices at the end of Lord of the Rings. The Second Age is described in the Appendices in about 20 lines. So they had to concoct their story from those few lines. Had they straight up filmed it as written in The Silmarillion, they'd open themselves up to a huge lawsuit. They should have seen this coming and named it something else entirely. And yes, the three Elven Rings were made last before Sauran created the one ring, not first.

Amazon should take the L and sell the IP. It's pretty garbage.

I am black and i read all Tolkiens work growing up including the silmarilion and this show is straight trash they have completed re-wrote Tolkiens work for modern audience's, we just want faithful adaptations not just throw LGBT and black people in it for no apparently reason make this show make sense 😂😂😂😂 worse show ever makes acolyte look good 😮 no one likes the rings of power absolute 0 out of 10 😢

Alas. Girl Boss Feminism is the reason we have to have a sister for Isildur. Sigh. (I was for many years a fervent self-identified feminist.)

I knew this project was doomed when it came out that they were condensing events that took place over millenia into less than a Numenorean lifetime. People wouldn't be as mad if this wasn't called part of the "Lord of the Rings", it wouldn't be doing any better, but there wouldn't be the vitriol. It's because of Rings of Power that I don't have any faith in the upcoming "War of the Rohirrim".

It makes the Shannara Chronicles look like Citizen Kane.

I think they've tried to create a show to rival the size and popularity of Got. Now, apart from the obvious differences in writing ability, world-building and general respect for source material, they've forgotten one fundamental difference, everyone already knows how THIS story ends!

It's amazing that it's called Rings of Power, but the people that will be wearing them are generally not introduced and characterized. The one elf should've been in season one instead of the whole Harfoot nonsense and 6 of the dwarves should've been introduced somewhere as well. They're all just set dressing...

When the biggest shill refuses to watch and review your garbage you know you messed up.

This is what I don't understand. The competition for viewing eye balls etc, is so fierce why produce something that is repelling viewership at such a high cost? There is zero sense producing a product that instead of changing to be "bought" by an audience, you blame the consumer. It's bonkers.

After episode 3 I just refuse to even hate watch it

Comes down to Jeff and his ego on if they will cancel this money pit disaster. If he renews this, it is on the same delusional level of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard coming down the stairs, " I am ready for my close up Mr. Deville."

its the Anti fargo - Fargo is a well written drama with strange twists and turns that actually make sense because of the developed characters and the only thing they have changed from the source is the names. RoP is a non sensical mystery box /drama with inane twists and events that happen solely for plot and against all reason, and the only thing not changed from the source is the names.

I feel like I'm watching the middle earth version of Days of Our Lives

The Rings of Power...A Barbara Cartland Terry Brooks fever dream.

The best part of this show is the great vids making fun of its utter failure! The Woke Critic, Let’s Review Crap Writing, and Silver Screen Psychopathy are killing it with their hilariously brilliant parodies. Random Film Talk is great too with meticulous breakdowns of its tremendous flaws😂

Anytime you dislike it or criticize it, someone says "You're just overthinking it." Ugh

They made such a mistake not asking Gwyndolin Christie to play Galadriel. It's such an obvious choice. Tall, beautiful, a deeper voice and imposing and powerful looking. I mean, they also made a blunder not getting better writers, but hey, what can you do.

"The Modern Audience" just isn't there.

250 million dollar, they cannot say "Hobbit, Gandalf." omg what bull shit.

When audiences watched LOTR, they emotionally connected with the story and its characters. RoP is detached and incohesive. Every other scene seems to involve Galadriel sulking and lecturing clunky characters.

The simple thing is - WHY did they try to rewrite Tolkien's work - That is the problem with this trash heap - Just FOLLOW and respect the lore the creator placed in HIS world = Millions of people praising your show and making $$$? It makes utterly zero sense at all!!

What baffles me is, how do you pay THAT much money and get so few rights that basically handcuffs your creativity. That being said, they still could have done a much (understatement) better job of just adapting what Tolkien actually wrote.

New show title: rings of boring everybody.

I'm currently watching Shogun and am astonished by how well it's written and it makes me wish we had that level of writing for Rings of Power.

When NC mentioned fighting not to sleep while watching ROP, I had the scene from "Tom & Jerry" in my head immediately, when Tom keeps his eyelids open with matchsticks.

I tell you... it's all AI generated writing. They fed it with marketing keywords, with generic successful plots and with Tolkien characters and that's what the AI made of it. And they simply printed this stuff and handed it over on set.

Art needs money to reach its audience. But money only needs money to get more money...

Why is everybody scared of Sauron ? Sauron is a lone (were)wolf who is dangerous for nobody - he has no allies, no servants, no armies. The Orcs have already killed him, hate him and want to live peaceful lives in Mordor. The Elves , especially Galadriel hate him too. So why would anybody want to attack Eregion ? Galadriel goes there , arrests Sauron and kills him. End of show !

It's almost like ... the people they are targeting with this show ... never wanted to watch this type of show in the first place? Nobody is going to rewrite Greys Anatomy or Bridget Jones' Diary for boys who like warhammer 40k ... like ... they wouldn't watch it anyway?

I think it Ep 4 or 5 where I was thinking the ep was nearly over - but I clocked it at 22 minutes. 22 minutes felt like an hour. And not for breadth and depth but how booooooring it was. Re: Rotten Tomatoes. I had a squiz the other day and it was curious that there were lots of 4/5 🌟 reviews and lots 1/2 🌟 but less middle zone ones.

Thus did the fears of all true fans come to pass...for another show was made...in the cesspit of Amazon Studios...two unqualified men wrote the Rings of Power, and in it they poured the sum of their ignorance, arrogance and ineptitude...to the sorrow of all mankind

37% of viewers finished season 1, season 2 is following the trend and is looking to only have 37% of the 37% from season 1 finish season 2. this is not LotR, it's a terribly written tween fanfic and should be treated as such.

That’s crazy to think about. The most expensive TV show ever, is it worth someone’s time to even review. What a failure

Even my Wife who knows nothing of the Lore of LoTR hates this show and has stopped watching. The Acting, the Script...all of it is horrible. She especially HATES Galadriel, she thinks she acts like a immature little girl. Thanks and Sorry you have to watch this for us. Love the reviews!

Rich people own traditional broadcast media in order to buy influence. Story, character development, etc., are all irrelevant. It is the ability to indoctrinate audiences with "The Message" (whatever that is) which is of the most interest, even if it loses money.

Between the two seasons we have reached about the 14 hour mark, which is comparable to the running time of the Peter Jackson trilogy, and in comparison so very little has happened despite condensing a much longer time span. I'm honestly not sure if anyone there knows what they're doing.

This show is quite literally designed to make people waste the upwards of 10 hours of their lives that they will never get back. such a shame for something i've loved since i could first read.

Audiences are fractured. There are just too many entertainment options, and people tend to gravitate towards entertainment that reinforce the fans' personal-belief system. As a man, I'm bored by overpowered-female characters in female centric shows, where the men are depicted as weak. These shows aren't made for me.

They made an origin story for Mount doom…. a volcano…and the super boss Guyladrial took a volcano eruption blast full on to the face and didn’t even get her hair messed up

They tried to create the next game of thrones and botched it completely, it is not even worth reviewing at this point

I hope they make all 5 seasons. Will not watch a single episode but will watch these reviews.

Tomato reviews: have they done that thing where 1- or 2-star reviews are deleted "because they're obvious review bombs", which might lead to the 58% rating...? No, wait, I can see a half-star review in there. So, what I see here now is a reason to fear and despise a substantial chunk of humanity. There's a reviewer Alex R who wrote "Season two is great. It is even better then season one. THey have heard some of the criticism and that is good. I think this show will improve even more next seasons. But I think it is already very good. It feels like the LOTR movies." AND GAVE IT FIVE STARS. Didn't they explicitly say they hadn't heard the criticism before doing season 2?

If shill bottom of the barrel thoughts and logic grace doesn’t want to watch your show or review it…the only person to give a good rating to borderlands you know you fucked up

Y'know, as bad as the Hobbit trilogy was, it was made with clear passion and love for the Middle-earth. Meanwhile, Rings of Power is a souless, corporate, propaganda infested "product" and it will be remembered only as the trash it was.

I tried watching season 1. I tried to keep an open mind. It was just…so….boring. My wife and I would be constantly picking up our phones every time somebody launched into ANOTHER monologue of tortured metaphors for 5 minutes as the plot scraped along at a snails pace. It actually made me angry how dull it was. I then cancelled my Prime subscription. No money of mine is going towards this farce, no matter how minuscule

What sucks is this honestly could have been so bad. The issue with adaptation isn't necessarily bastardization. That's independent of it and a product of conceited and bad writing. But yea, imagine if instead of the story they told, they chose to show the decline and fall of Numenor. A political drama in the setting of middle earth with a fleshed out pharazon as the main character who goes from glory to madness. Could have been an excellent show with good writing. Trying to write elf focal point stories as is just doesn't work because the timelines across which things happen are just too long

Something I find interesting is for the first few seasons of GoT it's mostly people just talking. People loved it. But RoP people find boring. I think a big part of the problem is the wording and the constant cuts. They almost always cut away right before interesting things are said. Then the time line is all screwy, so there is no urgency. If people just teleport it makes it hard to care if someone makes it on time. The messages are an example. Why did Celebrimbor's make it seemingly instantly but Gil-galad's didn't? How long did Gil-galad wait before deciding his message didn't make it? A day? A month? Six months? So after some amount of time he decides his message didn't make it. So he sends 5 people on foot 520 miles (150 leagues) with an urgent message? Logically it has been a long time. Mordor is like 800ish miles from Eregion (and they have to cross a huge river). It should take a considerable amount of time to move a army that far. But we get no sense it has been months. The not Gandalf/not hobbit story line doesn't feel like it has been more than a few days. Same with the Numenorian plot line. The people doing this show clearly can not handle doing a story like this.

Honest question: Why don’t they hire better writers and value good writing? Why? I really don’t get it. They are throwing so much money on it, which it deserves as one of the most famous IPs. Same issue as with Star Wars recently.

Take one of the most powerful women in Middle Earth and turn her into a toxic, one-dimensional comic book action hero named Guyladriel: Warrior Princess who has all the emotional maturity of a petulant 6 yr old. Yay feminism?

The show runners and writers are arrogant and immature, and those characteristics permeate the entire show.

Grace Randolf, who usually shills quite ably, got a smack down from her own fans when she tried to shill for the Acolyte and was told 'don't bother'. So a LESS popular show...let's just say she likes her clicks.

Exactly. Ewch. What a disaster for this ip. The Tolkien Estate should be ashamed.

This chick has a cool voice..its like she has had a cold her whole life and never tried to treat it lol . But still dose have great points..i was definitely with her on the struggling to stay awake statement..i had exactly the same problem!

I think in some respects this show has exactly the same issue as The Acolyte, in that it is not only badly written but it has also sucked all of the joy out of the story. Even bad Star Wars usually has a sense of fun to it. It usually has some comradery and banter between characters. It usually has some action and spectacle and typically a decent soundtrack. Even bad Star Wars often allows you to turn your brain off and enjoy it on a superficial level. Even The Hobbit trilogy had this, despite being far weaker than Jackson's LoTR movies. The Hobbit was not especially good but it was kind of senseless fun at times. And whilst it shamelessly padded out the run time, it did also manage to keep most of the familiar events relatively intact. But these shows have characters who's relationships mostly range from indifference to hatred. Elrond goes surprisingly easy on Galadriel during the first season, even though her character flaws are on full display and she shows no respect for him or their alleged friendship. In season 2 it looks like this has blown up into open war, with constant sniping and bickering since he is finally done with her bs and she is unrepentant for very real and serious errors in judgement. Few other characters have any real relationships at all. Elrond and Durin's in the first season was mostly nonsensical but at least it had heart. At least you had two characters who appeared to give a damn about each other. But I gather that they don't interact in this season? To a possibly lesser extent the same can be said about faux-Gandalf and the not-hobbits. He has no business being there and him being so cheapens the character with just about every scene. But a few aspects of his interactions with the not-hobbits are superficially quite nice. There is not even that much action, though season 2 wants us to believe that it is building to something. Season 1 took a long, long time working up to a poor attempt to recreate the charge of the Rohirrim and sprinkled in a few bits of Gladriel's physics defying nonsense along the way. I can barely remember the soundtrack.

Its not Tolkien. Its actually so far removed. But, i am enjoying it more than the first season. Marginally.

In addition to the sister, they invented Halbrand, they invented Deisa (sp?), and they invented Guyladriel. I think the core problem with Rings of Poop is hubris. Pain and Decay think they are competent to write Tolkien LMFAO.

I really want to like this, I’m a huge LOTR fan, and I keep forcing myself to power through… but I swear, I always fall asleep during every episode. It is literally not exciting enough to keep me awake.

Thanks Elaine

This is a shame, because you know what? I can't believe I'm saying it but this show could have been good. Same actors and everything, don't change a thing, except ... you guessed it, competent writers.

My plan was to review every episode of ROP. I managed to get out 1 video for the first episode. It was so hard to get through, that I stopped watching 1/2 way through episode 2. I’m not a big channel, so I don’t have the time to waste, unfortunately.

If they just were true to the lore,they would be KILLING IT!! Billion dollar disaster!

real question is do people still believe rotten tomatoes?

I like how she ended her show...'uugh'.

You know it is bad when the normie critics refuse to waste their time on it

ChatGPT could write a better series. The Screenwriters Guild was right to fear AI given the talentless hacks who pervade Hollywood at present.

They didn't or couldn't buy the material they needed. So they're STUCK with inventing things, because that's all they have. And they don't know the material, they can't take time to read it if they don't own it, so they can't even come close. I have no doubt in my mind that the Elven Rings were made first because all the showrunners knew was the famous poem "Three rings for the Elven-Kings under the sky..." and chose the order from that. The end result is beyond irritating to Tolkien fans. That said, as you say, it's not even good fantasy, or good TV. It's amazing that they could be handed such a possibility and squander it so completely. That said, how much do you want to wager that Ar-Pharazon is going to be the Witch-King of Angmar by the end of this thing?

The show does everything wrong you can do wrong. And there are few discussion, very little fan reaction on boards, no cosplay, people claim liking it and it was great but... even hatewatching has declined.

The comment about struggling to remember parts and characters I kinda feel the same. The previously part of the new episode helps a lot as I'm not torturing myself going back to watch an episode to remind myself. Its torture to watch and they throw in remember moments as if it will bring nostalgia but all it is, is cringe. They even try to hype up those that know the lore with things like sauron controlling the wolf which doesn't work as well as they hoped since the rest of the lore is trashed

You just verbalized how I felt about the series. I made it to the orc-family scene ... then went back to playing BG3.

I only watch the show so i can critique it and make fun of it. However by S2E3 i just can’t anymore. It’s just so unwatchable, so unbearable. It’s so infuriating

The best we can hope for from this show is that inspires someone else to do it right.

Poorly written “fantasy” fanfic, this looks like a script from wattapad

While I'd love to eat some nerd cookies, you make such good points to where I'll refrain from devouring you~ Also to note : Writers of 'shows' meowdays dramatically alter the universe that's already fleshed out...and very rarely if ever for the better...The Witcher is another great example of terrible writing. So many easy homeruns being ruined by egotistical dipsticks...and these are novels that deserve to be top tier adapted...not what these people do to them.

How was Galadriel in her 20's ?

My too. I have too fight to see it. Maybe it’s because it’s Tolkien’s world that keeps me hopping for more that will never come.

Acolyte and RoP: Turns out that crapping all over the fans of some source material is not, in fact, a good strategy for a successful show! (That in addition to all the critiques you make, with which I agree 100%.) A

You could make a political drama out of Númenor alone, given how interesting it is. I maintain though that if you had a talented crew, the best way to adapt Tolkien would be through the Silmarillion with each season being a single story from the book. So the creation of Arda and the betrayal of Melkor end with the Battle of the Powers and so on. You have everything from love stories to wars to political intrigue across its 24 stories. But it needs talent, and above all it needs respect, and both of those are lacking in Hollywood so with that in mind, somethings are best left not being adapted.

One season is enough of this crap.