rationalskepticism.org

Thanks for watching all the ROP and HOTD stuff. Some of you may be curious as to my actual thoughts on Rings of power.
I enjoyed some of it, but overall thought it was pretty mediocre.

Pros: A few performances (The stranger, Arondir, Dwarves), 2nd age was a great time chosen, I actually thought the shortened timeline was a good idea, some of it looked great, I’m a bit of a sucker for a mystery box.

Cons: The accents (mainly Bronwyn and Halbrand), plotholes and some generally weak writing, comedic blows didn’t hit, generally felt like some of the actors were let down by the dialogue (Elendil, Galadriel).

The rest was just fine. I was surprised how apathetic I was to watching it each week, which I think demonstrates how I didn’t feel like I needed to know what happened to the characters.
In the context of the cost of production and the fact that it could have been much better, it feels like an opportunity missed, as the second age is now not going to be revisited on screen probably in my lifetime.

I have never wanted to be part of a social media pile on and have tried to vary the jokes in terms of their target throughout, I didn’t want to go in on the show in gratuitous fashion. But at the same time If something is there to be made fun of I wasn’t going to pull away from it.